Revamp Your Language Learning | Transform Your Mindset Now

Good morning, Believe Nation. I'm Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe, and I believe that entrepreneurs are going to solve all of the world's major problems. I started the Believe Life Series to try to step outside just the world of entrepreneurship and learn from different areas to try to help us become better, more well-rounded individuals who can go out and have a big impact. So in today's episode, we're going to learn how you can learn a new language. Rule number 2 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you you guys like the best. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if someone says something that really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. And when you write it down for yourself, it's much more likely to stick for you as well. Enjoy!

People did not know about me. People see I learn English from tourists, but since there's no way to learn English at that time, there's no teachers in our city who can teach people to speak English. So I listen to the BBC and Voice of America, and there every evening, 9 o'clock, 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock, I open my video, you know, from the first Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I listen to the VOA. The first book I heard about is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. And sometimes if the signal is better, I can listen to the BBC English World News. So by listening to them, and there is English program for these two radios, so this struck me that today there are so many kids in the rural areas, the poor areas, there's no education. If we can use not only that time the radio, how about using the internet, your mobile phone and pad, and it's, it's much more fancier and modern and can give the kids a much better opportunity.

Odds are you have a favorite TV show, you have a favorite Netflix series, and the best part is you can probably find those equivalents in foreign languages, people.

We recommend like cooking shows, House Hunters, The Voice, these things that you don't really need to have a high level level of language, but you can still follow along.

Like smiles and expressions. Yeah, you always watch that French House Hunters show.

You know what I love more than House Hunters? House Hunters International. But you know what I love even more than House Hunters International?

House Hunters International in French.

Exactly.

So it's called Chaque Appartement, Maison.

It's weird, I never watch TV, but when I do, it's usually cartoons, and I watch different language versions of cartoons I already know. So I'll watch an episode of Hey Arnold! in French because I know what happened in English in that episode.

It's not like you're completely lost if you were to watch like a crime scandalous series. You're I don't even understand that in English.

I honestly don't.

The second thing which I find really important to learn a language is believe. Believe, believe, believe. Because if you do not have this base, it won't go anywhere, I tell you. So believe. Believe that in yourself, in your ability that you can learn it. Because if you don't believe from the start, you will not be successful in learning. If you're, let's say, starting up with Spanish and you're saying, "Oh my gosh, this is so difficult," like you're half, like, you're already failing because you're speaking the words already that you won't succeed. And this is so true because I see it when people start off like with, for example, German. German, okay, it's a difficult language, but if you are like, "Oh my gosh, it's so difficult, I'm never gonna learn it," I hear so many people saying that. Even if they're really interested into learning the language, but they're saying those words like, "I don't know why you even start." Because if you don't have self-belief that you can do it, even though it's difficult, then where's the point in starting? And there's even studies that prove the people, like polyglots for example, and people who have a hard time learning languages, the main difference between them is basically that The people who have the ability to learn many languages, they're motivated and also they believe. They believe in themselves and their ability that they can do it actually. So if I go on and for example, yeah, like my example with Portuguese, I started learning Portuguese by myself and I had the belief and like no moment I was like, "No, I'm never gonna learn this. I'm never gonna be fluent." From the beginning, I was like, "Okay, I want to learn this.

I'm gonna learn it and I will." Also ich glaube, was wirklich wichtig ist, ist immer dabei ein Ziel zu haben. Ob es ein professionelles Ziel ist, ob es daran liegt, dass du, sagen wir mal, für ein Jahr nach Spanien musst oder willst und aus dem Grund beschlossen hast, Spanisch zu lernen. Es kann, also es gibt so viele Ziele, wir haben halt so viele persönliche Ziele im Leben. Es kann zum Beispiel sein, ich will nach Wales, ich wollte immer da Urlaub ich wollte mal Urlaub machen, oder irgendwie ich wollte dann mal für ein paar Wochen dahinfahren, und dann beschließt man, okay, ich weiß, die können ja Englisch, aber ich habe beschlossen, naja, ich habe erfahren, die können auch Walisisch, und dann lerne ich dann dazu Walisisch.

It depends. There are people that have goals of learning Chinese because there are so many Mandarin speakers out there anyway. I always think it's nice to combine it, whether, like Matthew said, whether it's a personal goal whether you want to say maybe set up a business in the Far East, or even if it's just because it's something that interests you. Our parents have asked sometimes, like, why do you want to learn Breton? You know, why don't you learn Japanese? I don't want to learn Japanese because of a market. I'd like to learn all of these languages, but I don't learn them because of all the factors that other people are imposing on me. I like to learn a language because it interests me. Me, because the culture interests me, because even silly things like the way it's written, I find it fascinating.

Many people say that you should switch your mobile phone settings to a foreign language to get used to it, but I actually don't consider this good advice. At least not for starters. I mean, everything in your cell phone is pretty technical, and I think that you want to learn first how to talk to people before you learn that Bildschirmeinstellungen means display settings. Hallo, ich bin Trixi, wie heißt du? Bildschirmeinstellungen. Mua, schick! These long complicated words may discourage you, so my advice would be to do the same language switch thing with a game you play. This doesn't work for any kind of game, of course. If you switch, for example, Skyrim to German, you will learn words like Orkischer Zweihänder der Müdigkeit, which is the Orcish Greatsword of Weariness, and it is pretty awesome to know that, but when would you ever need this in a conversation? Hi Chelsea, du, ich hab's leider vergessen, Wie hieß nochmal dein Meerschweinchen? Orkischer Zweihänder der Müdigkeit. Oh, she's so cute. So if you choose a game, make sure it plays in our modern time, or it at least uses our modern language. A point-and-click adventure, for example. Maybe one that you like. Monkey Island. You cannot play Monkey Island often enough. Or for example, The Sims, to get into contact with normal life happenings. There you encounter daily life vocabulary in its natural context, which makes it easier to remember and also easier to guess what it could mean. Just make sure you don't end up speaking Simlish. Sool sool, komoonsnala! Again, write everything down that you consider helpful. To easily learn a first set of vocabulary that will come in handy for normal conversations, buy sticky notes. Write the German and English words for everything in your flat or house on them and pin each of them onto the item it refers to. Of course, not in a fashion that they will come off too easily or are always in the way. If you have a pet, that's not an appropriate item for this method, and also, for example, for the mouse of your computer, cups, or forks, this is just not possible. So find things that this trick actually works with. It helps you seeing the word over and over again and to learn it and memorize it without much effort. For the other everyday items, you can craft little flashcards with pictures like these I did, and whenever you have some free minutes, just grab one and learn with it. Talking about vocabulary, don't just write things down and try to hammer the words in your head. The better and funnier way is to invent little stories. For instance, the cow means die Kuh in German. Difficult to remember? Well, try that. How is the animal called in English? Eh, cow? And what sound does a cow make? Huh, moo? Exactly! And now just put these two together. Cool. Mind blown. Of course, this doesn't work for every single word, but just give your imagination a try.

Languages: material versus method. I, like many people, came to the conclusion that I was terrible at languages. I suffered through Spanish for junior high, first year of high school, and the sum total of my knowledge was pretty much "¿Dónde está el baño?" and I wouldn't even catch the response. Sad state of affairs. Then I transferred to a different school, sophomore year, and I had a choice of other languages. Most of my friends were taking Japanese, so I thought, "Why not punish myself? I'll do Japanese." 6 months later, I had the chance to go to Japan. And my teachers assured me, they said, "Don't worry, you'll have Japanese language classes every day to help you cope. It'll be an amazing experience." My first overseas experience. In fact. So my parents encouraged me to do it. I left. I arrived in Tokyo. Amazing. Couldn't believe I was on the other side of the world. Met my host family. Things went quite well, I think, all things considered. My first evening before my first day of school, I said to my mother very politely, "Please wake me up at 8 AM." So, "Hachijin ni okoshi kudasai." But I didn't say "okoshi kudasai." I said, "Hachijin ni okashi kudasai." Pretty close. But I said, "Please rape me at 8 AM." You've never seen a more confused Japanese woman. And I walked into school, and a teacher came up to me and handed me a piece of paper, and I couldn't read any of it. Hieroglyphics, it could have been, because it was kanji, so Chinese characters adapted into the Japanese language. I asked him what this said, And he goes, "Ah, okay, okay." "Warudo history, kaku kirasu, kobun kobun, traditional Japanese," and so on. And it came to me in waves. There had been something lost in translation. The Japanese classes were not Japanese instruction classes per se. They were the normal high school curriculum for Japanese students. The other 4,999 students in the school who were Japanese, besides these 3, American. And that's pretty much my response. And that set me on this panic-driven search for the perfect language method. I tried everything. I went to Kinokuniya. I tried every possible book, every possible CD. Nothing worked until I found this. This is the Joyo Kanjihyo. This is a tablet, rather, or a poster of the 1,945 common use characters as determined by the Ministry of Education in 1981. Many of the publications in Japan limit themselves to these characters to facilitate literacy, some are required to, and this became my holy grail, my Rosetta Stone. And as soon as I focused on this material, I took off. And I ended up being able to read Asahi Shimbun, Asahi newspaper, about 6 months later, so a total of 11 months later, and went from Japanese 1 to Japanese 6, ended up doing translation work at age 16 when I returned to the US. And have continued to apply this material-over-method approach to close to a dozen languages now, someone who was terrible at languages, and at any given time speak, read, and write 5 or 6. And this brings us to the point, which is, it's oftentimes what you do, not how you do it, that is the determining factor. This is the difference between being effective doing the right things, and being efficient, doing things well whether or not they're important. And you can also do this with grammar. I came up with these 6 sentences after much experimentation. Having a native speaker allow you to deconstruct their grammar by translating these sentences into past, present, future will show you subject, object, verb, placement of indirect, direct objects, gender, and so forth. From that point, you can then, if you want to acquire multiple languages, alternate them so there's no interference. We can talk about that if anyone's interested. And now, I love languages.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I'd love to know what did you think of this video? What was the biggest takeaway that you're going to immediately apply somehow in your life or maybe your business? Let me know, leave it down in the comments below, really curious to find out. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Bo Hawkins from 4minutemasters.com. Bo, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. And doing that fun interview together. I really appreciate the support, man, and I'm hoping that you are enjoying the read. So thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you have an amazing day. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love.

I'll see you soon. See, I always thought I had this thing that was a little bit of Sid craziness that I did, and then I realized how useful it was. I always did what I like to call shower conversations. And shower conversations are exactly what they sound like. When I was learning a new language, I would stay in the shower for a few minutes, and I remember having all these discussions. I remember when I was learning Chinese, and I would haggle and like try to get 2 yuan more to get that wonderful dumpling and getting the discount, Or I would go to Roma, and I would ask for directions to the best piazza. It was amazing. And the beautiful thing about a shower conversation is that it allows you to find wherever you have a gap in your knowledge, because you're having the conversation on both ends. For example, it's easy to ask for directions. How about receiving them? Or even better, giving directions? Well, the shower conversation forces you to have both sides of the conversation. And you don't need to have them in the shower. The wonderful thing about them as well is that you can have them anywhere. So you can have them in the shower, in your apartment, walking down the streets, in the subway. And seriously, if you're in the subway speaking to yourself in a foreign language in New York, you'll fit right in. You're fine. And it's great because it doesn't— you don't depend on anything or anyone to get your practice. And I did this for years, and later on I found out that professional athletes do it too. Michael Phelps is known to visualize every single one of his races several times over before jumping in the water. Worked great for him, and it works great for me too, so it would work for you as well.

Now, when it comes to learning a language, perhaps the most crucial element is time. And by time, I don't mean years upon years of endless learning, as some people still like to think. How long does it take to learn a language? How about if I were to tell you that 30 minutes per day are a great and effective start? Now, 30 minutes, these are minutes that we all have, be it 10 in the morning, 10 in the afternoon, 10 in the evening, or 30 minutes in simply one go, on the way to work, to university, to school, out in the evening meeting friends, whilst on the train or bus. We all have these minutes that we can commit to learn. Furthermore, by learning for smaller periods and at regular intervals, we won't feel so overwhelmed by the language. And even better, learning for regular periods means that it's more effective, because chances are that if you're learning for once a week, or once a fortnight, by the time you next come to learn, you'll already have forgotten what you initially learnt. The goal, therefore, is to fit language learning into our daily routines, and not the other way around. And by doing this, there's no reason why after simply one month, you can't get by in your new language.

The third action: start mixing. You probably have never thought of this, but if you've got 10 verbs, 10 nouns, and 10 adjectives, You can say 1,000 different things. Language is a creative process. What do babies do? Okay, "me ba now." Okay, that's how they communicate. So start mixing, get creative, have fun with it. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work. And when you're doing this, you focus on the core. What does that mean? Well, with every language there's high-frequency content. In English, 1,000 words covers 85% of anything you're ever going to say in daily communication. 3,000 words gives you 98% of anything you're going to say in daily conversation. You got 3,000 words, you're speaking the language. The rest is icing on the cake. And when you're just beginning with a new language, start with your toolbox. Week number 1. In your new language, you say things like, "how do you say that?" "I don't understand." "Repeat that, please." "What does that mean?" All in your target language. You're using it as a tool, making it useful to you. It's relevant to learn other things about the language. By week 2, you should be saying things like, "me," "this," "you," "that," "give," "hot." Simple pronouns, simple nouns, simple verbs, simple adjectives, communicating like a baby. And by the 3rd or 4th week, you're getting into what I call "glue words." Although, but, therefore, these are logical transformers that tie bits of a language together, allowing you to make more complex meaning. At that point, you're talking.