How not to learn a language – the anti-language learner’s manifesto

This is a guide to make sure that you will never learn any language.

There are several ways to never learn a language. For educational purposes, we have taken the liberty to group them broadly into three different approaches:

  1. Learning languages on your own and at home
  2. Learning languages in class
  3. Learning languages abroad

In reality, however, the individual sub-points can be freely mixed and matched to create your own, completely individualized failure to learn a language. Feel free to pick and choose the ones, which appeal most to you.

Learning languages on your own and at home

Never have fun while learning: this is absolutely important. The less fun you have learning the more you have a guarantee that hardly anything you learn will stick in your memory. After all, you put some efforts into (not) learning a language, so you also want to have appropriate results.

Punish yourself with boring and tedious exercises: The more boring and tedious you make your language learning exercises the more they will stick in your brain and the more you will be motivated to learn even more and stay on course with your language learning. Christian Monks all over the world practice daily whipping and hitting rituals, they pray on their knees on hard stone and wear itchy clothes – and hey, they are still doing it – after all those hundreds and even thousands of years. They know what they are doing – and so should you. Beating yourself up is good for you – you will learn that language in no time.

Never try to associate foreign words with anything you know already: learning aids and memory techniques are for idiots. You should know better. A foreign word is just that – foreign. Don’t commit the blasphemy and heresy of making fun of a word, trying to recognize words, which you know already either in the foreign language or which sound like some in your own mother tongue. Words in a foreign language must stay separate entities – never to be mixed up or related to your own language, or to similar sounding words, you have learned already.

Never repeat anything which you have learned: Why would you repeat anyway? – This is a total waste of time. You know that you can trust your brain and your memory. When you learn something you do it 100%. And then you know it. Period. Anyway you have never understood other people who whine about not being able to remember the stuff they supposedly learned – that just shows that they didn’t learn it in the first place. Wimps!

Have long learning sessions: The brain learns best in long learning sessions. Make it 8 or even 10 hours straight – with only short breaks to eat or drink. That way the brain should switch into learning mode. After such a session – give your brain a rest. The best would be to schedule another learning session only in 2-3 weeks time, or perhaps even later on. But the next time reserve again at least about 8 hours. Like that you will (s)train your brain enormously. Also make sure that you do not repeat the stuff from the last training session (see advice above: you have made sure that you really know, what you have learned) – since you would be wasting valuable time in which you could learn so much more new stuff.

Always learn as much as possible in one session: If you are learning a language because you want to be able to speak it during your stay in another country or if you are preparing for a test in school or university – the best way to be prepared is to learn as much as possible as close as possible before the trip or test respectively. Do heavy-weight learning sessions of 15 or 20 hours per day the last one or two days before you need it. That way you make sure that you have everything in your head and understand everything perfectly. You will attain total mental clarity. This method, also called cramming, is used by many, many students all over the world – so it can’t be wrong. You will see, you will be enormously successful when attempting to speak to the local people on your holiday trip.

The basis of learning a language is grammar books: The grammar book of the language you have chosen to learn must become your constant companion. Never go anywhere without it. After all – in a grammar book all essential rules of the language are compiled in the most succinct way possible. Learn to use the magic chants of grammar rules such as:

In an interrogative sentence with superlative and question particles like ‘dore’ the subject will be indicated with the joshi “ga”.

or even more elaborate:

When responding to a question by means of a comparative construction the keishiki-meishi, i.e. the pseudo-meishi “hou” is used. The identification of the subject will be indicated by the joshi “ga”, the use of “wa” is not permitted.

(Both quotes were taken from a Japanese language learning book).

You don’t need to understand what the natives say. You will, however, surely impress everybody, especially natives of the language you are trying to learn, by your depth of knowledge.

Don’t learn words or vocabulary: Learning words and improving and enlarging vocabulary is a complete waste of time. After all statistical studies have clearly shown that by learning only a few hundred words you can cover and understand 90 to 95% of all the texts and speech you will possibly encounter in your target language. (Read more about language statistics in Learning a language – The 10 most effective learning strategies).

Spend maximally 10 days learning a language: If you need more that 10 days to learn a language then you definitely do something wrong. Heck, even 10 days is way too much. Some people report that they are able to learn a language in 2 days only. So don’t be such a lamer and put more time in than it takes. (Read more about a realistic estimate how long it takes to learn a language in Can you learn a language in 10 days, 30 days or 90 days?).

Learn word lists: If you absolutely have to learn more that the first couple of hundred words then create yourself nonsensical out-of-context word lists in alphabetical order and learn them by heart. Once you know them – never repeat them again. Best, toss them away. You know that you have learned them, right? Surely, you know by now, that you can trust your memory to support you in your word learning efforts.

Learn only words – never learn sentences: If you are so masochistic and actually want to continue learning then buy yourself a dictionary and start learning beginning with A until you reach the letter Z. If it is a good dictionary that contains a lot of words this will keep you busy for some time. It is however absolutely important that you learn the words separately and out of context. Never ever learn words as a sentence. This will immediately reduce the word’s usefulness since you then cannot fully and freely recombine them anymore as you wish and see fit. Learning sentences in foreign languages will only impose restrictions onto you of what you can say and what not. Don’t let them take away your freedom – in particular the freedom of speech.

Never listen to native speakers: Native speakers don’t speak always like they should according to your grammar book. They will only confuse your attempts to learn the language properly. And besides, since those holy rules are written in a book, and not a cheap one at that, it must be right. Those natives simply have no clue how to speak their own language.

Never imitate: Never repeat what native speakers tend to say. Never use their way of saying things. Never speak like them. You have a right of an individualistic and uninfluenced expression. Use it.

Never read any book, blog etc.: Books or blogs written in the language you are (not) trying to learn are most confusing. They are hardly understandable, although by statistics, having learned a couple of hundred words, you should be able to understand them. If you don’t, don’t despair. It’s their fault. They use rare and hardly ever used words, which no one in his/her right mind would ever learn. Even the natives most likely don’t know those words either. Just drop your well intentioned efforts and go back to your bible – the grammar book of the language.

Never make any mistakes: Before you even attempt to speak a language, make sure that you know everything perfectly. There is no margin for errors. Perfectionism is key. Unless you can say and express any sentence exactly the same way and with the same ease as in your mother tongue: Don’t speak! Shut your mouth. Never ever make a mistake. Don’t embarrass yourself by not being properly (i.e. perfectly) prepared. One day, and you know that for a fact, you will be speaking the language perfectly – only then it is time to show the world. Keep your mistakes for yourself.

Never communicate: Language learning is something holy, something so big and ethereal that you should never spoil it by actually communicating with others. Don’t spoil the quest for your holy language perfection with actually talking to natives, or god forbid, learning about their culture and customs. Make sure that you shield yourself from such earthly influences, as all the monks do, and devote yourself solely to the study of the holy scripture of the grammar book of your chosen language. Besides, as pointed out above, natives never will understand the true nature of the agglutinative composition in the instrumental case. Most likely they will say it even wrongly and make mistakes while they speak, or use exceptions to the rules more often than the rules. And if ever they write down something they use words nobody ever uses. Stay true to yourself and keep learning what really matters.

Never use any study tool: All study tools, especially the ones that involve computers of any sorts are completely and utterly useless and a waste of time. Software to improve your learning, such as spaced repetition, is pure evil. All those tools do is to detract you from (not) learning the language. They make you repeat things, which you have learned already. You know it better. Your brain is perfect. Once you learned something, you will never forget again. Ever. You truly have a mega-mind, and you know it. (For more real information on learning, repetition and knowing read this).

Additionally to learning a language on your own there are more social ways some people choose to learn, such as learning a language in class or school or traveling and staying abroad.

All those points listed above in the section of learning languages on your own and at home, of course, are equally valid for learning languages in different settings – they are listed here separately simply because it applies even more so for somebody who chooses to learn a language – or anything at all, really – on his / her own.

Learning languages in class

So you have enrolled in a class to learn the language of your choice. Great! Now you can fully enjoy the show – there is nothing you still have to do yourself, since you have paid for the expensive courses and tutoring. Let the language learning be the teacher’s headache. You can trust that they will magically put all you need to know to speak a language fluently in your head.
Don’t even pay attention in class, since the knowledge simply finds its way automagically into your brain. In fact, you should use the time you sit in class to daydream or to gaze out of the window and enjoy the beautiful view Hey, it’s included in the price, so take advantage of it.
Homework is for sissies! If a teacher has the impertinence to ask you to learn or review what you have covered or learned in class – just say no. As I said earlier – let language learning be your teacher’s problem. They got your money – so they should do something for it.
Learning at home is unnecessary – that’s what the classes are for. At home you should simply relax – enjoying the good feeling that the new language will come to you effortlessly.

Learning languages abroad

Go abroad and find people who speak your own, native language. Stick with them. Create a language bubble to shield you from the evil influences of the local language. It’s more fun and much easier to talk and comment on things. Never go alone to any place where you could have interaction with locals, always take a buddy with you so that you can comment on what you see in your mother tongue. If you go to a language learning class abroad, never try to talk to another study mate in the language you (don’t) want to learn – it’s so unnatural.

If you intend to learn a language, go to regions where they speak this language only partly or under certain circumstances. Go to Barcelona to learn Spanish (yes, they actually can speak Spanish too, but they prefer Catalan). Go to Switzerland to learn German (no, Swiss German is a different language, and yes, they speak German there too, if they absolutely have to, but you won’t be liked for it).

Conclusion

If you have come this far, you must really be wanting not to learn a language.

Just to be on the safe side and in case you haven’t noticed, read this:

Disclaimer: All the advice above is meant satirically.

More seriously, though, just following the opposite of the advice in the the anti-language learner’s manifesto will bring you ahead tremendously in your language learning endeavor: you will progress quite quickly like that. Hang in there. Learning another language is worth it.

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