DO YOU ACTUALLY EVEN NEED TO?
But getting back to the question of “is fluency in 3 months possible?” – I know when it’s highly unlikely to ever be possible: when you don’t need it.
Really think about that: “Do I need to speak a language fluently in 3 months?” That’s “need” as in, your basic quality of life actually depends on it. Most people would be very quick to say that they want to speak a language as quickly as possible, as well as possible. But actually needing it, is a whole different world.
I get so much grief from people online, who really need to use their Internet time more efficiently than for complaining and nitpicking (I’d recommend 10 hours of the nyan cat as a comparatively more productive use of your time), that I’m misleading the Youth of Tomorrow with my snake-oil promises of fluency in 3 months. That’s not the point of the site, and if you bother to read past the URL, you’ll see that I never once in 3 years blogging made such a vague one-size-fits-all promise.
A few people have asked me why I am getting all this grief and trolling that I mentioned in earlier posts. I see it as boiling down to 3 things: 1. I’m a confident guy and a bold writer, and language learners “should be humble”, 2. I earn a living online (apparently, earning from your work or writing a book means you “deserve” aggro from people who will never even buy it) and the most important one: 3. Their goals are different to mine.
Let me say this clearly so there’s no confusion: Not everyone needs to speak a language fluently in 3 months, and if you don’t need to, then that goal is a terrible one for you.
Perhaps there is this presumption that I’m telling the entire world “You all need to learn your language in exactly 3 lunar rotations, or you’re a sucker!” – but nothing could be further from the truth. Most people DO NOT NEED to learn a language to a high level in a few months.
For people who enjoy the language learning process, and have taken their time to investigate ancient literature, understanding advanced topics that they may not even be able to follow in their native language, learning advanced vocabulary and the like, then the idea of reaching a useful level in just a few months sounds nothing short of absurd or arrogant. And that’s fine.
If you learn a language for passion, then there’s no hurry and you should take your time. If you’d like to visit the country “some day”, but have other priorities right now, then there’s nothing wrong with taking your time. Enjoy it!
But the truth is that this is NOT the situation for everyone. While some people can get angry at my audacity to urge some people to hurry up a little, I get equally angry with statements like “It takes years to speak this language”. It boils my blood! The reason is that I get to meet thousands of people abroad who have not learned the language at all because of this “take your time” philosophy. These people need a kick up the ass and some serious pressure to improve.
“Take your time” does work – it works if you are a language enthusiast, it works if you dream of moving to Italy when you retire, it works if you only plan to devote a couple of hours a week to the project. But it does NOT work if you are in the country right now, plan to move to it, or have any other sense of urgency in your language learning project.
I don’t care how many PhDs he has – if anyone makes a sweeping statement that “it takes years to reach a useful level in a language”, as if it applies to absolutely everyone, then he’s an idiot. The logical retort to this is that you would be right to think that I’m the idiot if I were to demand that people without the urgency I described are learning too slowly.
The speed at which you learn the language should depend on the urgency involved. This year, I’m travelling over 2,000 km (that’s about 1,250 miles in old money) from the Engrish filled cities of Shanghai and Beijing, trying to live my life, making friends, interviewing people on camera, possibly facing very dangerous situations and trying to stay safe, all with no tour guide or interpreter to take care of me. So how quickly do you think I shrugged off the incredibly useless “it takes years to learn Mandarin” discouragement I’d get online, when the fact of the matter is that I just have about three months to prepare?
I’m not interested in anyone imposing their limitations on me. I may not be a savant, or have a background that would lead to being a good language learner, but despite just being an engineer, I’m going to try my damndest to learn any language that I have to use as quickly as possible. My reality distortion field ignores all discouragement, and that’s why I can actually get something useful done.