1000 Hours to Understand

How to understand a foreign language

Welcome, aspiring polyglot! It was recently brought to my attention that, while I do talk about it, I don’t talk about it enough. That is, how do you actually get to the point where you are able to understand a new language fluidly? As with many things, there are several correct answers. However, every answer is dependent on one thing: 1000 hours of your time.

Reality check

I try not to undersell the commitment, but it bears reinforcing. In order to truly get to a point where you can understand 80%+ of everything a native speaker says to you, you have to spend 1000 hours exposed and listening to the language. That was a major reason I bothered putting together the Passive Input Guide in the first place. Not all 1000 hours need to be active consumption.

The other day, someone sent me their language learning plan. One thing that was on there that I do not include in the language programs I build was “level appropriate content”. In fact, I would say that people sticking to level specific content is one of the biggest contributors to long term stagnation that exists. If you take away anything from this, it should be that you underestimate your level.

Most people don’t want to spend hours every week banging their head against a wall trying to make sense of new letters in new combinations. However, doing so will drastically accelerate your language acquisition. For whatever reason (human condition) people want to feel good when they are bad at things. Duolingo is incredibly popular for a reason. But that is a feeling. Not a tangible reality.

Giving up “control” as it were, is a powerful step along your way to the bilingual summit. At the end of the day, you can spend 10000 hours with children’s books and songs and shows and you will, at the end of those 10000 hours, speak like a child. Alternatively, you can spend 1000 hours reading the classics, translating lyrics, and speaking broken language. That is how you speak like an adult.

A good rule of thumb is that you should never be able to understand more than 80% of what you are consuming. Anything less and you are only stroking your ego by avoiding all of the things you do not yet know. Yes, it is incredibly frustrating. So is learning any new skill, especially when you understand less than 80% of the skill. That is no reason to avoid doing difficult things.

Ultimately, you will never be able to control what other people say to you. Limiting yourself to studying only the things that you understand will all but guarantee a massive blow to the confidence the moment you are face to face with someone who doesn’t know, or care, about your self imposed limitations. It is a slog, but it doesn’t have to be miserable the entire time. It should be fun.

It Should be Fun to Learn a New Language

Make it fun

My favorite part of my job is building resource sheets. I am constantly amazed at how much high quality content there is available for free in just about every language you can think to learn. Of course, the more niche your language the more difficult it is to find resources, but the chances are, if you are into something, someone who speaks your target language is also into that thing.

But enjoyable material doesn’t mean much if you do not have a plan to deploy it. Building yourself a sustainable framework that operates as a plug and chug equation is by far the easiest way to fluency. Too many people spend too much time “planning” and not nearly enough time studying. Your planning should take no more than 1 hour per week. From there you should be able to sit down and rock and roll.

You need an exposure focus, though. I am big on creation. No matter what, the tendency is to consume more than you produce. That is normal. In fact, in any conversation you should be consuming twice as much as you are producing. Using your ears and mouth proportionally, as it were. This is also the perfect ration for when you are on your own. Every 1 hour of consumption should equate to 30 minutes of creation.

Passive consumption is fantastic for running up the clock while doing other things. I’ve had students learn to understand Spanish fluently by watching dubbed cartoons while they do cardio. However, if you are only ever passively consuming your target language you are going to struggle with natural conversation. Unfortunately, it cannot always be fun.

Times when it is NOT fun

Failing is not fun. When you are training your ear, you are going to be failing a lot. In fact, failure is going to be what you spend the most time doing for at least 1 month. For that reason alone you should be keeping a running log of all that you accomplish. During moments when the light at the end of the tunnel begins to fade, those accomplishments are reinvigorating.

This exercise is basically designed for the early stages of language acquisition. Early B1 should be seeing roughly 10%-40% comprehension, by B2 you should be seeing 40%-80% comprehension. It might sound crazy, but this is the best way to train your ear. Understanding too much of the content you are consuming can become a hinderance.

I learned this technique in Belgium when I was learning French, which is notoriously difficult on the ear, and I cannot adequately express how big of an impact it had. So here is what you need to do:

• Play an 8-10 minute audio all the way through. Do not try to write anything, this listen through is just to get used to the voice, speed, and content.

• Play it again, in increments of 10-15 seconds (less is okay if you need, but fight for that 10 seconds)

• Write down everything you hear. Try to keep adding with each subsequent playthrough. Stop after 3 and move on to a new audio.

• Compare against the transcript, write out your score, prepare for the next round.

• STOP after 30 minutes. Some people may stretch to 40, but this exercise is incredibly frustrating. There is no place to hide. You either get it or you don’t. After about 30 minutes, you hit a place of rapidly diminishing returns. For more on the power of transcription/dictation in language acquisition read this:

One thing that can and will help you when you are doing this exercise is listening for your high ROI words. What does that mean? Simple. You should be listening for 3 things initially. You need to know the subject (the person doing the verb), the verb (action taking place), and the objects (direct object being the thing and indirect being the person accepting the thing).

My brother gave me this beautiful book the other day.

In this sentence here is what matters to the pre B2 student: My brother (subject), gave (verb + timing), me (indirect object, the person receiving the thing), and book (direct object, the thing). Everything else is fluff. Yes, eventually you need to be able to understand everything, but if you get those 4 things correct, you understand 80% of every sentence.

Conclusion

1000 hours seems like a lot because, well, it is a lot. However, you are going to spend at least 10x that time speaking your target language fluidly and confidently. No one like being bad at things. But being bad and staying bad are different. You have a choice to make every day on which one you want. Personally, I’ll take being bad over staying bad every day of the week.

It is going to take you 1000 hours whether you started last year or you are planning to start next year. The sooner you hit “go” on that clock, the less time you have to spend stressed out about the number itself. It is difficult, but you can do difficult things and be great. So go out and do some difficult things today and become great. I am rooting for you.

Everything in this post is part of a larger system. If you want the full methodology in one place, 3 Months to Conversational is available now on Amazon. It’s the same framework my private students use, designed for independent learners.

If you want that framework customized to your target language, your goals, and your schedule. Check out the private course options.