4 korrents from this piece · 1 of them a turn
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Their wordsThe main takeaway I made from all of this was: Asian languages are hard, and attempting full-immersion without sufficient preparation is usually not going to work.
Recalls holdingWhen Vat and I initially made plans, neither of us were confident that it would be possible to reach a conversational level in any of the languages.
Their words nowThe fact that I can confidently say I reached a conversational level in Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese, and a near-conversational level for Korean is far above what I originally thought was possible.
Their wordsThe no-English rule was largely what made the difference. Although there are many ways of learning a language, going for full immersion made it possible to learn what would have taken years in just a few months.
Their wordsJust because we attempted to learn with intensity, doesn’t denigrate learning languages through slow, patient habit.