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hearing a constant stream of noise or needing to look up every single word in a dictionary can be
terribly frustrating. It s also an inefficient learning experience. Then again, as I ve said elsewhere in
the book, there is no one way to learn a language, and many have told me that they have successfully
brought their level up through lots of pure input. The catch is that it definitely takes much more time
to interact with a language when you delay speaking with a pure-input approach. This is ultimately
why it takes years for so many people to reach a conversational level, when others do it in a few
months. The former are simply not practicing conversations enough for that aspect of their language
skills to improve.
Efficient input works only when you give it your full attention. I thought that simply having the
radio on in German for many hours every day would help me learn the language through some kind of
osmosis, that it would naturally seep in. But language doesn t work that way. Expecting to learn a
language while doing something else is lazy and counterproductive. Focus is the key.
If you are listening to audio, don t do something else at the same time; instead, take notes to make
sure you are following what you re hearing, or try to repeat it over to yourself, making sure you
understand each word. The less attention you give to it, the less efficiently you will learn. You could
spend ten hours listening to audio while you are jogging and thinking about something else, but you
would learn as much as if you had simply listened to a single hour while pausing and thinking about
what was being said with your full focus. Don t multitask language learning!
When I m jogging or driving, I review past audio I have already focused on while sitting down and
in study mode, or alternatively, I listen to audio I am going to go back over later, now that I ve heard
it all through a single time without pauses. I use the multitasking period as prep time rather than
counting it as study time.
Taking an Exam to Force Your Level up a Notch
In my opinion, the fastest path to reaching mastery in a language is the opposite of what many of us
typically do. We tend to have structured academic lessons at the start, followed by lots of exposure
later on when we feel  ready to naturally progress toward perfection.
If you follow the advice in the previous chapters, you will of course be getting all that exposure
and practice in your early stages and you won t make it about exams and completing chapters of
language learning books.
But this kind of structure can be precisely what we need in later stages. That s why I recommend
you consider aiming to take an officially accredited examination for your language that is one level
higher than where you feel you are now, which will force you to work up to that level. Find an exam
appropriate to your language and see if the exam date set for the level above your current one is within
a realistic time frame for you to attempt to take and pass it. Then you will typically find past examples
and study materials, and you can focus on becoming more familiar with how the exam works for your
next desired level.
People who enjoy the technical aspects of language learning may even get great benefits out of
taking exams in the earlier stages. I know many successful language learners who pace themselves by
taking each level A1, A2, B1, B2, and upward every few months. This can be a great way to be
absolutely sure of your level, but I find that due to the academic nature of the tests, I personally get
more benefit out of taking exams only in levels B2, C1, or C2, at the levels where a more academic
approach is more beneficial to my language learning strategy.
A looming deadline forces you to do things you may avoid in the earlier stages, such as sticking to
the kind of material you may not otherwise have the patience for.
I have prepared to take three C2 examinations one in Spanish, which I passed safely; one in
German, which I failed by a hair; and one in Italian, which I prepared for but didn t take due to travel
issues. In each case, my otherwise fluent level was forced up several notches. I have also met up with
teachers to review written exercises I ve done. We discuss complex themes so I can expand my
vocabulary and turns of phrase, and they assign me readings that I will be tested on in the next lesson.
There are people who are structured enough to do this themselves throughout their learning
experiences, but I think most people prefer to use the language in ways more immediately relevant to
them. They require a little guidance to get them to do exercises or read about and discuss topics they
might not otherwise. Without this extra nudge, most of us would only expand our language abilities in
topics we find interesting, but in the real world, we have to use our language for more than just this.
This exam structure helps us bring our levels up, and I think it definitely has its place. It should
just be applied less at the start and more near to the end, when we have the meat of a language and
require refining. It can give us the sophistication and command we require to use the language in as
many situations as possible.
Writing, Reading, and Listening?
Formal language education generally divides language learning into four aspects: writing, reading,
listening, and speaking. One controversial aspect of my advice is that I say we should focus much less
on writing and reading in the early stages, and even on listening (when it is done alone with
prerecorded audio, since we are going to improve our skills here by default in conversations). This is
not applicable to everyone, but I feel that for most of us a language is several times more relevant [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]