What does language hacking mean to you? Is there a short cut to fluency?

Open Forum in English
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We discussed one “language hacker’s” views on speeding up language learning. Jeff has told us of his experience in learning a language by “hacking it”. Victor want to “hack” his way to piano expertise. What does “hacking” a language mean?

I am of the view that we can start to say a few things quite quickly in a new language. If the language is closely related to one we know, we can read and even understand quite quickly. However, it has been my experience in Romance languages, that even with related languages, it takes a lot of exposure and practice to become fluent. It is a long road.The more intensively we do it, the faster we learn. I also believe that we get a geometric progression kind of return on intensity. We learn better in 3 months than in two years if we can spend five hours a day rather than one hour a day.

Of course the road in unrelated languages which for some of us would mean Chinese etc., or less closely related languages like Russian, is much longer. Even there, in intensive study, mostly listening, reading, writing and speaking, within 3 months I was reading the newspaper and speaking, although not well, and still struggled to understand. It was not a lack of grammar knowledge,but a lack of words, and a lack of familiarity with the language that held me back.

If we have the luxury of being able to spend 5 or more hours a day, it is quite possible to achieve a comfortable level, reading, listening and even speaking, in three months in a number of languages. But I still feel that this is based on a lot of listening, reading, vocab study and eventually a lot of speaking and writing. The overview of the grammar etc, is a very small part of the picture.

It has been my experience that analyzing the grammar up front can help for related languages,like the Romance group, since we already know most of the grammar from the related languages, so that we can review the verb tables and say “I get it” . But in fact we may still not be able to produce the correct verb endings, or still get confused at the slightly different uses of the subjunctive or infinitive etc.

With unrelated languages, the description of the new types of structure just leave me confused and do not help a lot. I just bury myself in the language to experience it, spending however much time I have available, whether it be 5 hours a day or one hour a day. I do not “hack” the language. But that is just me.

I would like to hear the experience of others.

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Speaking of hacking, I apologize for all of the mistakes in the foregoing post, hastily put together on a Sunday morning.

Hacking used to mean doing a poor job of something. Perhaps my post was an example of language hacking.

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In my experience, mostly as a teacher, you can speak fluently in 75% of daily contexts you are in — as a tourist visiting a country (ordering meals, asking for directions, looking for lost property, asking for advice in an airport etc)— if you concentrate on about 100 phrases (about 15 short dialogs). This will take an intensive learner a few days to memorise and and about 2-3 weeks to “settle into” in the target country.

This would not be a satisfying endpoint for serious learners and involves only speaking/listening.

Parallel to the above, I would say one of the most important language features for both speaking and listening are sentence level adverbials. These are important because they facilitate the guessing that is required by new language learners when plunged into foreign contexts.These phrases or words act as placeholders or tone setters in dialog, and usually occur between more substantial content. Examples in English are “of course”, “as you know”, ‘in any case’, “whatever happens” and there are plenty more.

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I should add that the place holder words are worth memorising because they tend to be more formulaic both in form and usage than other features of spoken language.

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I don’t think there is a shortcut when it comes to language learning. I remember reading a blog that stated “there are no free lunches” with regards to language learning. It holds true because most individuals I’ve met that know two languages have studied them for extended periods of time, or have spent a year or more in the country of their target language. Most research on language acquisition trends towards quick methods of language learning, such as short study abroad stays, not resulting in an dynamic increase in language ability nor in language retention. As one would put it, language learning is a lifetime process.

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I don’t think there is a shortcut when it comes to language learning. I remember reading a blog that stated “there are no free lunches” with regards to language learning. It holds true because most individuals I’ve met that know two languages have studied them for extended periods of time, or have spent a year or more in the country of their target language. Most research on language acquisition trends towards quick methods of language learning, such as short study abroad stays, not resulting in an dynamic increase in language ability nor in language retention. As one would put it, language learning is a lifetime process.

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I personally don’t believe in a shortcut to learn a language effectively. In languages I’ve studied I find that if I don’t hear the same word from multiple sources (in this case, different LingQ lessons) it is difficult for me to recall it when I need it.

My goal of language learning is to be able to think in the language and with enough time, this does come to happen. When I find myself rushing through material/content to acquire vocabulary I find myself translating from English to the target language in my head which causes delays and in my opinion this is not a proper way to produce a language especially since my goal is to be able to think in the Target language.

I am always obtaining new vocabulary (words) which helps me in this process.

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In between my acquisition of Spanish, I tend to do a lot of reading about language learning philosophy and theory and from time to time I’ll try something new out and if I don’t like it or feel it isn’t helpful I’ll discard it. So in my short-lived experiences thus far, I have already tried many different things for language learning.

My own experiences, of course, may not necessarily reflect what other people have experienced and found helpful when learning. I do know that the fact is, of all the things I have tried, reading and listening has exponentially increased my understanding of my target language in all facets while always leaving me craving for more. The language in it’s pure, unaltered form. The ability to choose what I read about and listen to greatly influences my confidence and motivation factor which I agree is probably one of the most, if not the most, important aspects for learning.

I think we would all agree that if there is a way to “hack” a language in order to become proficient in it faster and achieve a deeper connection with the culture, we would all like to know about it. However, I am not convinced that such a shortcut exists, in reality.

In my personal case (and I could be an exception to the rule but what I have read suggests that this is not the case), I have found that listening to rapid speech at the level a native speaks it to be one of the more difficult aspects. Nothing I have seen suggests that I could become acquainted with native speech by anything except actually listening (and reading along where it is possible) to native speech. I can labor over a phrase book and commit to memory a hundred phrases in ANY language, but what good does it do to speak without understanding what the native is delivering back?

There are things I do well in life and things that I don’t. Things that I do well in life all have one thing in common - I have practiced these activities extensively in the past. While some people may be born gifted or genetically predisposed to being good at something, the majority of us learn through real practice, trial and error. My past experiences, if they are any indicator, suggest that my language acquisition will be a journey that involves this same level of dedication and practice.

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“short cut” is an ambiguous term that can be interpreted different ways by different people. Whether a language can be “hacked” and act as a short cut to fluency is not a helpful question. First, we have to decide what should be considering “hacking” and if how much reduced time would constitute a “short cut?”

For a normal person I would think “hacking” is a misnomer – there’s simply no short way to fluency. However, there are definitely better ways to learn language that result in better retention and “quicker” fluency. Imagine if two people of exactly the same abilities began a new language for 4 hours a day for a year. Now, one uses lingQ for 2 hours a day and takes formal classes for the other 2 hours. The second person watches foreign TV from the target language for 3 hours and takes a class for 1 hour a day. I would think person one would be closer to fluency after that year than person two would be. In some way you might describe this as “hacking” the language? Theoretically, one could imagine certain quicker ways of acquiring the basics of a language such as not learning adjectives or something along those lines.

In the end though, the only truly quick way to fluency is if you possess an exceptional talent for memorization like Daniel Tammet who learned Icelandic in a week. - YouTube

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What does “hacking” a language means?

Well, for me, “hacking” a language would simply be defined as using the parts of our brain that are not mean to learn languages, like visual memory for example, to learn a language. I’m not sure, but I think that’s a bit like what Daniel Tammet do.
To give you a personal example, I am learning Mandarin Chinese and I have lots of trouble with the tones. To remember them, I invent stories like: the third tone is like a wave, the waves of the sea 海 (hai3) , the sea is a huge mass of water 水 (shui3), the water fall in the form of rain 雨 (yu3), the rain is cold 冷 (leng3), so cold, it becomes snow 雪 (xue3)… so I try to associate a few words to a concept that makes me think of a that tone. I may seems a bit stupid, but I no longer forget the tones of those 5 words.
Anyway, that’s what “hacking a language” would be for me, using as many part of you brain as possible to learn a language.

Sorry if it’s not clear, I’m very tired right now…

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Typo: It may seems a bit stupid, …

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“I invent stories like: the third tone is like a wave, the waves of the sea 海 (hai3) , the sea is a huge mass of water 水 (shui3), the water fall in the form of rain 雨 (yu3), the rain is cold 冷 (leng3), so cold, it becomes snow 雪 (xue3)… so I try to associate a few words to a concept that makes me think of a that tone. I may seems a bit stupid, but I no longer forget the tones of those 5 words.”

Your idea is not stupid at all; it’s excellent.

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@ Raqui2010

You can do the same with words. Imagine you wanna learn English and you have to learn the meaning of “to kill”, you could think of the hard sound of a “k” as a stab and think of the “-ill” as the dying person agonizing…
It’s not always easy to find something like that, but I try to relying on that when, no matter how many times I saw a word, I just can’t remember it.

It also works great for chinese characters. For example, a friend of mine told me: "the character for smart is 聪, and to look smart, you have to listen (the ear on the left), to look carefully (the two dots on the top right (eyes)), to say it in your words (the “mouth” (square) on the right). and to learn things by heart (the heart at the bottom right).

All this discussion reminds me of that book:

Again, it’s all about making associations and using as much of our brain as possible to learn a language.

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Sorry, here: http://tinyurl.com/29bqdx7

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Thanks! I had not heard of this book before. I liked your explanation for “smart” as well.

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I found something quite interesting for firefox users: http://tinyurl.com/3xp2t8h
It was develop by PopupChinese.com, and it’s based on the book I talked about earlier. Once installed, you just have to click on “tools” and then on “Tone and Color” when you’re browsing a page that contain chinese characters.

Wow! It’s having color-graphemic synesthesia!

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Sorry, I mean: It’s like having color-graphemic synesthesia!

Also typo: a page that contains chinese characters.

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I do not believe in language shortcuts either. Partly Steve and LingQ helped to convince myself. The truth is, years ago I probably was looking for the shortcuts. It may be that my education and occupations inclined me into doing so. May it is just the natural tendency of people to look for easy receipts.

And I think that people who, intuitively or consciously, market quick receipts in any form, will, inevitably have certain success. Especially if, like Benny, they do it with enthusiasm and skillfully. “Language hacking” - sounds indeed great. And Benny is a very successful learner. And he involves great topics of travel and life style (All read of him was on this forum).

May be the success of numerous advice books, full of secrets how to live long, make things done, cook testy, fast healthy and sleep with women is based on our natural tendency to look for receipts and shortcuts?

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To compare it to playing the piano:

Yes, you can learn to play simple pop songs in a few weeks. You can play chords with an easy melody in a short time. If you would call that ‘playing the piano’, then you can play the piano.

You can learn to speak some words and expressions in a few weeks. You can learn how to have simple conversations in 3 months. If you would call that ‘speaking a language’, then you can speak a language.

You really don’t just play a prelude and fuga by Bach in a few weeks, just like you don’t just have a deep discussion about e.g. politics with a native speaker.

There are no hacks to language learning. His knowledge is just extremely limited to the most frequent stuff.

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I don’t believe that “hacks” will make people fluent, but, to take the same analogy as Daniel Tammet during is interview in Icelandic when he said: “When I watch Icelanders speak Icelandic it seems so easy, just like breathing, but in this context I have asthma!”, these “hacks” would be like having a pump that forces air into one’s lungs when he can no longer breathe. If I have to produce the language right away, it would be kind of useful, but if I can just shut my mouth and have a lot of input and let my brain learn the language on its own, then I’ll do that.

That said, I guess I should consider coloured Chinese characters as both a “hack” and a form of input.

PS: Sorry Steve for highjacking your thread…