Learning Languages (WIP)

This article is a work in progress.

Last Updated: 27 Feb 2022

Several years back I made the commitment to learn some Mandarin Chinese as an 30-something year old adult while still living in the US. People sometimes say it's too hard to learn a language when you're that old, or that you have to be living in a country where the primary language is the one you are learning, but neither of those were options to me, and I still wanted to learn.

I ended up digging into the books and doing a lot of research, trial and error.... here's what I used to be come operable in Chinese in my spare time.

I suggest starting with these two books.

Foer's seemingly oddly named book is a fascinating exploration into how the adult mind remembers things.

Honorable mention: Tim Ferris, Benny Lewis

Gabe is way more scientific, and this is the shit that is sort of making something as crazy as Mandarin somewhat possible for me in a short period of time. His motivation for learning a lot of languages quickly was not entirely different from yours— he was originally an opera singer in Europe and needed a way to keep all of these songs in his head. Turns out his brain is geared toward breaking down big systems into consumable parts, and what came out of all that was a system described in his book “Fluent Forever” (all the formats). I don’t think this system is for everyone. If you like analyzing shit and trying to be as efficient with your time and blindingly fast as possible, it’s insane what you can accomplish. There’s also an online course he produced that you can buy into for $100. It gets way way in depth to the method and science, and it’s actually really fascinating and helpful, but it does cost money and takes some time to consume, while the book does cover everything basically that you need, so it’s optional. Watch the free preview online and if you get excited about the content, dive in.