My friend Josh recently wrote a blog post about learning Spanish — what has been working, and what hasn’t — and asked for strategies from his readers. When I sat down to write a comment, I realized I had too much to say for just a short paragraph, so here it is. These are strategies that have helped me (and people who I have recognized as effective second language learners) pick up a new language quicker than average — not because we are smarter, but simply because we focus on time-efficient and effective strategies.

When I studied for a year at a University in Kyushu, southern Japan, I used these three strategies to maximize my learning:

1) Study what you will use most: follow Tim Ferriss’s advice and study the top 500 most spoken words in your target language, as well as the most commonly spoken (not written) grammatical structures. In addition to all the (still important, but well-covered) phrases like “can you speak slower” and “I don’t understand”, one important aspect that is often overlooked is learning common phrases and questions that explain the language.

For example, when you first start learning a language, it is important to be able to ask “How do I say (English word) in Japanese?” — and to ask that in Japanese (or your target language). Other phrases like “How is (new word) spelled?” and “Can you give me an example of (new word) in a sentence?” are absolute musts and should be learned in your first day of study.

Other phrases that you will use daily:

“Is (word or phrase) commonly used?”
“Is there an easier/more common way to say that?”
“What does (word or phrase) mean?” (or  “I heard (word or phrase) today. What does it mean?” )
“Can I say (phrase)?”
“Is this polite/slang Japanese?”

(Marika and I playing a show at a small bar in Kyushu, Japan)

2) Have an unreasonable goal: I entered a large regional speech contest with the goal of winning the grand prize — a completely unreasonable goal, considering I was up against students who had been studying for 2 and 3 years more than me. I begged, borrowed and stole people to help me — and where they might normally have given up on helping with something as boring as perfecting my pronunciation of a few words, they now had an exciting goal to help me achieve and be a part of. In the end, I did lose out on the grand prize to the more experienced speakers, but for all my hard work I walked away with three prizes, including the Audience-Voted Best Speech, Most Effort Award, and Best Grammar.

Entering this contest gave me the inspirational push to study hard; the concentration to improve my pronunciation an enunciation; and the grammatical and structural knowledge to really push my Japanese further.

(The speech is here in Japanese: http://www.projecthitchhiker.com/?p=4 and here in English: http://www.projecthitchhiker.com/?p=3 )

3) Learn from pillow talk: Since I was single at the time, and dating alot is something I would do anyway, I thought I might as well try to learn something. I went on dates with Japanese girls who spoke little or no English and basically had free language partners that oftentimes weren’t even interested in learning English. The were two minor problems I found with this: One was that I sometimes found excellent language tutors who after one date I wasn’t interested in dating, and two, that after a few months on the single scene I had many Japanese female friends and only a few male friends to learn from, so I started getting comments on how my Japanese sounded very feminine. Ironic.

A few words on my current strategies with learning French:

1) Write and review: Every time you hear a new word or phrase, write it down in a notebook and review them each night before bed. Doing this nightly before sleep tells your brain that learning this language is important to you and will give your unconscious mind plenty of time to absorb the material.

2) Let people know your expectations: I am living with four Quebec francophones and I have asked them to speak French to me when possible. I have also asked them to correct my french and then have reinforced this by thanking them when they do correct me.

3) Arrange things in your favor: In my case, I am supervising 11 people from all across Canada for the next nine months. Because I have the influence to do so, I plan plenty of weekly activities that contribute to the group’s energy to study French while also increasing my exposure time to the language. This includes watching French movies, having the francophones plan language lessons or games twice a week, and having two completely French dinners a week (with penalties like loosing a utensil each time someone speaks in English).

Finally, there are a few must-read treatises on second language learning (all of which happen to be written by Tim Ferriss)

Why Language Classes Don’t Work

How To Learn But Not Master Any Language In One Hour

How To Resurrect Your High School Spanish