reproducing speech with a one-second interval – with

sentences from other sources such as audio books or TV.

Language teachers are less important than most people
think. The thousands of words you need to learn are currently
MicroEdition outside your word brain and must get inside. Nobody, except
you, can do this job. Teachers won’t be helpful with speech
recognition exercises either – audio books, Internet news and
TV have supplanted teachers as prime speech sources. In
The Word Brain is about adults who want to speak and today’s environment, the best role for a language teacher is
understand another language and, in particular, be able to probably that of a coach who prepares individual time
 read essays and newspapers schedules; recommends books, audio books and podcasts;
 understand TV news and documentary programmes demonstrates pronunciation pitfalls; and teaches successive
 understand everyday conversation grammar rounds. Your coach should have an intimate
In order to achieve these goals, you have to fight two knowledge of language learning and must be a polyglot.
major battles: 1) learn up to 15,000 words and 2) listen Contrary to common belief, language teachers do not need to
attentively to human speech for 1,000 to 2,000 hours. be native speakers. Make sure that you receive grammar
Everything else comes essentially for free: writing as a bonus lessons in your native language – your native language is by
of reading, reading as a bonus of word learning, and good far the best tool for grasping and understanding new concepts.
pronunciation as a bonus of listening. To get the words you need, you will: 1) study one or two
The major battlefield is word learning and will absorb up language manuals; 2) learn a compilation of frequently used
to 80% of your total effort. For unrelated languages, for words; and 3) spend at least 100 hours looking up new words
example when Europeans learn Arabic, Hindi or Chinese, in a dictionary. First, learn the words of your manuals and
15,000 words need to be absorbed. In other circumstances – check your knowledge. The definition of knowing a word?
Italians learning Spanish – many words are similar between Successful recall after one month of non-exposure. Most
the two languages and the number of truly new words to be words need as many as 5 or 10 rehearsals. Compose two-
imported into your word brain is around 5,000. At 10 words column lists, putting your new and your native language face
per hour, adults should anticipate 500 hours to 1,500 hours of to face, and memorise the words again and again.
word learning. If you are young and your memory is at its Alternatively, use index cards or electronic word trainers. For
peak, you will need less time. difficult words, spaced repetitions can be useful: you
The second battlefield is comprehension of speech, discover a word on Day 0 and repeat it on Day 1, 3, 6, 10, 17,
which poses a triple challenge: 1) slicing speech into words and 31. Any ‘failure to recall’ relegates it to Day 0.
(where do single words begin? where do they end?); Once you have finished your language manuals, buy a
2) endowing these words with meaning by matching them compilation of the most frequently used words and study the
with tens of thousands of words stored in your word brain; book at least twice (all compilations should offer audio files
and 3) doing all this in real time and without giving it a with the pronunciation of the words). Learning thousands of
second thought. (In comparison, reading is a promenade words out of context is not an exciting prospect; however, the
because you can take all the time you need, lingering on alternative, extracting 10,000 words from dictionaries, isn’t
single words and going back and forth through a sentence.) In sexy either.
order to develop ultra-fast ‘speech sequencing abilities’, Finally, read essays, newspapers or novels. Reading is
prepare for 1,000 to 2,000 hours of listening. You have two full immersion par excellence – a paradise for word brains.
options: either you emigrate or, if you stay at home, you have Underline the new words, search for them in a 1-kg-
to listen to the audio files of language manuals, audio books, dictionary, write them down and learn them. (20 to 50 words
podcasts, etc. What is the secret of your success? Listening to per day is a feasible long-term goal.) Don’t forget to mark in
the audio files 50 or 100 times! Save precious time by your dictionary the words you have looked up – you may
listening in parallel to performing other activities such as decide one day to repeat the words that you are supposed to
commuting, doing sport, cooking, etc. In addition, stop know.
watching TV in your native language and start watching TV The major burden of language learning is word learning.
in your future language. The time needed for word learning is quantifiable. As a
For a start, don’t speak, just listen. Most languages consequence, language learning is a variable of time.
have unfamiliar sounds, and to reproduce them faithfully People can decide that they have no time to learn another
takes time. During the first few months, concentrate on language, but they can’t say anymore that they have no talent
absorbing words, sounds and sentences. Only when you are for it. These findings might motivate people to learn new
familiar with your audio files should you start repeating the languages.
words and sentences. Imitate the sounds, in particular the
length of the vowels and the melody of the sentences. Later, The Full Edition and the Short Edition of The Word Brain, as well as editions in
other languages, are available at TheWordBrain.com.
repeat the sentences in real time, with an interval of just one © 2010 by Flying Publisher & Kamps – Beyenburg, Cagliari, Paris
second. Use the same procedure – listening to and