Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • For anyone who wants to learn a foreign language, this is the method that will finally make the words stick. “A brilliant and thoroughly modern guide to learning new languages.”—Gary Marcus, cognitive psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently. He didn’t learn them in school—who does? Rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources—and here he wants to show others what he’s discovered. Starting with pronunciation, you’ll learn how to rewire your ears and turn foreign sounds into familiar sounds. You’ll retrain your tongue to produce those sounds accurately, using tricks from opera singers and actors. Next, you’ll begin to tackle words, and connect sounds and spellings to imagery rather than translations, which will enable you to think in a foreign language. And with the help of sophisticated spaced-repetition techniques, you’ll be able to memorize hundreds of words a month in minutes every day. This is brain hacking at its most exciting, taking what we know about neuroscience and linguistics and using it to create the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn a foreign language in the spare minutes of your day.

On the one hand, this seems like a pretty helpful book for language learning. The combination of the author's anecdotal evidence and research in memory and learning science supports the strategies presented. And being a bit of a language nerd myself (native or foreign), I found the concepts interesting. And might utilize some of them as I try, yet again, to remember how to speak French and learn other languages.

However, there is very little in this book that tackles motivation. I might get excited to try some of these tools. But I also have a host of other things I'm trying to tackle on the reg - reading, writing, pretty intense running/training - in addition to the whole 9-5 thing. And regardless of how fun the author claims language learning can be (and I don't doubt it!), it's still gonna take a long, long time to become fluent, and with tons of effort.

Not that I was supposing it would be easy, so I suppose that's not a genuine complaint. Mostly, I found the book repetitive, and though interesting and probably helpful, far more effort than I'll realistically be able to put into language-learning at this stage in my life. I got a bit bored just reading this, and ending up skimming the sections that I found unrealistic/unhelpful/about learning tools I'll never use.

It would not be fair for me to assign a star rating to Fluent Forever without having honestly attempted to learn a language with its methods—I simply don't think that its methods would be particularly helpful to me given where I am in the language acquisition process.

Wyner is an engineer and an opera performer, not a linguist; in the Notes section he does a decent job of identifying the linguistic research upon which he bases his proposals, but his method should be taken with a grain of salt, in my opinion. The method is heavily flashcard-based and incorporates a spaced repetition system to work concepts into the learner's long-term memory. To his credit, Wyner does have a lot of very clever ideas about how to use flashcards to learn correct pronunciation, establish a basic vocabulary, and explore basic grammatical concepts, all while beginning to think in the target language. There is probably a great deal of merit to this approach for a language learner who is beginning from scratch.

Outside of his very detailed instructions regarding flashcards, most of Wyner's suggestions are a bit obvious. Yes, it's good to speak and write and get corrections from native speakers. Yes, watching familiar television programs in your target language can help with listening comprehension. Apart from the spaced repetition system, most intermediate–advanced learners won't glean much fresh insight. In one of the appendices, Wyner describes three “tracks” for flashcards, the lowest-intensity track (requiring the fewest cards) being the “Refresher” track for intermediate speakers. It is telling that he admits that many of his own card suggestions will be unnecessary for those who already speak at an intermediate level. His goal is evidently to help readers reach a baseline level of fluency, not an advanced or native-like level of fluency. (The book comes off as somewhat self-promotional too, as it frequently refers the reader to Wyner's website.)

If you are learning a language about which you have no prior knowledge, give Fluent Forever a shot. If you already have a good grasp on pronunciation, basic vocabulary, and basic grammatical constructions in your target language, then skip this book, download an SRS program like Anki, and get to work expanding your vocabulary. If you're still terribly curious about what Wyner has to say, borrow a library copy and skim. He does leave some specific suggestions for intermediate–advanced learners at the ends of some chapters, but those suggestions are not worth the price of the book.

Fluent Forever's greatest advantage is that it offers specific, actionable steps that language learners can take. If anyone is interested in a text that holds more scientific weight but lets the reader to decide how to apply the science to their learning, I would strongly recommend [b:Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language|26176934|Becoming Fluent How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language|Roger J. Kreuz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440704673l/26176934.SX50.jpg|46142142].

I wish this book had been released when I was in school. The author, Gabriel Wyner, explains how language is learned and how we can twist the things our brains are good at in our favor.

In every chapter he introduces tricks that have allowed him to learn so many languages and the shocking thing is: I have never heard of 90% of them. Never.

This book blew my fucking mind and I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone that's interested in learning another language.

Quite repetitive and boring at times. But one great insight: Create your own (digital) flashcards with images you search for yourself. That will significantly aid in memorizing new words.