How to become conversational in ANY language in 7 days.

Language Islands are the closest thing to a cheat code in language learning.

Together with Memorisation with Associations.

Combine those 2 with Massive Input and you'll be able to learn any language insanely fast.

So what are Language Islands?

Language Islands are groups of sentences.

About a specific topic or for a specific situation.

That you memorise and rehearse to do well in that specific conversation.

Do it for all common interactions & conversations you have.

That's basically using the 80/20 rule correctly in language learning.

Language Islands will immensely improve your speaking skills.

Language Islands will get you insane results very fast.

Example of a Language Island:

Do you like surfing?

I took surfing classes in Zurriola.

And I have a surfing board at home.

But I don't usually surf.

You need a lot of time to learn to surf well.

And I have so many things to do already...

I memorise that list of sentences in the target language.

Now I can talk about surfing.

Next question will probably be what's Zurriola, where it is or where I live.

I got a Language Island prepared for each one of those.

As well as other water related hobbies and activities.

So that I can chain them.

Jumping from island to island.

Never running out of things to say.

How should you memorise them?

Once you've written them, translate them into the language you're trying to learn.

Create a bilingual document in 2 columns.

Generate an audio file of the text.

Listen to the audio file daily.

Learn the sentences with these 3 exercises:

1. Reading the sentences aloud.

2. Active recall looking at the target language sentences and trying to remember the meaning.

3. Mentally translating into the target language, then self correction.

Each exercise adds an extra level of difficulty.

Do it over and over again.

Once you're able to do all 3 well you'll be able to use the sentences in conversation without any trouble.

So what should the topics of the Language Islands be?

I've broken it down into different categories:

1. Daily situations & activities

2. Travel situations

3. Social interactions: Friends, family & relationships

4. Common conversation topics

5. Storytelling

The first three will be enough to do well in most scenarios.

Conversation topics and storytelling are more advanced.

Prepare those 2 well and you'll be able to speak all day, using advanced language.

Native speakers will be impressed.

How many sentences do you need to prepare?

It depends on the level you want to achieve.

This is just a rough estimate:

1. Conversational 100-200 sentences

2. Fluent: 500-1,000 sentences

3. Proficient: 5,000-10,000 sentences

Keep track of what you do, who you talk to and what you talk about in your daily life.

Write it down somewhere and use the list to keep adding Language Islands to your list.

The more of them you prepare and learn.

The better you'll do in conversation.

But what if I have to talk about something I hadn't prepared?

If your LIs are good, that'll rarely happen.

And when it does it'll simply be a learning experience.

When you get home prepare a Language Islands for that topic.

Add it to your LI list.

So that the next time you speak about that you're ready.

Becoming a Polyglot

The best thing is that you can repurpose the LIs.

To learn a second foreign language and then a third one.

Simply by translating them.

The hardest part is writing down the list of Language Islands.

Making sure it's as practical and complete as possible.

That's quite a lot of work.

If you want to use my pre-made list of Language Islands, you should join Natural Language Learning.

Otherwise you can write them down on your own.

BTW you probably know people who are wasting their time trying to learn a language with Duolingo.

Help them by sharing this with them.

If you want to become an efficient language learning machine and learn 3-4 language in 2024, join the Natural Language Learning course.