Is it possible to become fluent in just three months? Yes. Will Benny pull it off in Germany? Probably not.

One of the points of contention in the ongoing back-and-forth between Steve Kaufmann and Benny the Irish Polyglot is whether Benny can truly pull off fluency in three months. Specifically, Benny is in Berlin studying German right now and will deem himself fluent if he can pass a really hard German test and if he can fool native speakers for 30 seconds that he is a Berliner.

Jelly donuts aside, Kennedy didn't fool anyone.

Here's what Steve thinks of Benny's plan:

Sounding like a native and amassing enough vocab to pass a difficult exam is impossible IMHO. Senseless hype.

I can confidently state that this is not impossible; I myself did with Portuguese exactly what Benny is trying to do with German. (And that's not even getting into wunderkinds like Daniel Tammet.) That said, I'm doubtful that Benny can pull this off in Berlin because there are some very important differences between his situation in Germany and mine in Brazil that will make it a harder task for him to accomplish than it was for me.

Read more... The tourist visa I got to go to Brazil was for exactly 90 days, and I stayed for the entire 90 days. I had never formally studied any Portuguese before arriving in Brazil, and in fact the only thing close to studying I had done at that point was reading some parts of a Portuguese grammar book more than a year before arriving in Brazil. And that book was for the Portuguese of Portugal, so it had a number of things that were useless for me in Brazil.

On the other hand, my Spanish was pretty good. I had studied Spanish throughout middle school and high school, and had previously spent a month in Mexico studying it more. Spanish is of course not Portuguese, but they are so close that the benefit of knowing one when studying the other shouldn't be downplayed; knowing Spanish was without a doubt a massive help in learning Portuguese.

On top of that, I had a great learning environment. I was living with a large Brazilian host family and there was almost always someone around to talk with. I also had a Brazilian girlfriend with whom I was constantly speaking. I didn't need to do anything but study Portuguese, so except for the occasional emails in other languages to my friends abroad (which was further limited by the hassle of a dial-up connection I had to use), it was all Portuguese all the time for me.

In terms of what I was doing to learn Portuguese, the first two weeks or so I focused on getting an understanding of the grammar. Then I moved onto exposure: music, comics (Spawn, in particular), books (a history of the Roman Empire was one I spent a lot of time on, but there were a number of others as well), television (which was always on when I was doing anything else), etc.

Naturally, I spent a lot of time getting the vocab down. I still have my digital Portuguese flashcards as they were when I left Brazil. The flashcards contained some 4,000 vocabulary words and phrases. Add to those a few thousand words that never made it to flashcards (because they were so much like English or Spanish that there was no need to do anything to memorize them, or that I just managed to pick up elsewhere) or that got deleted from the set once I knew them, and I'd estimate that I had at least 6,000 to 7,000 words in my head to some degree when I left Brazil.

Using Benny' standard for fluency—fooling native speakers for at least 30 seconds that you are a native speaker yourself and passing a really hard test—I seemed to have been fluent in Portuguese after my three months there.

When I was leaving Brazil, I managed to fool the lady at the airport check-in that I was Brazilian. I can't recall if it was precisely 30 seconds, but I'd venture that it was. I remember that I had said a few things to her, including something about having already weighed my bags and that they shouldn't be overweight, before giving her my passport. Once I gave it to her, she said, "You're not Brazilian?" When I told her I was there studying Portuguese, she was shocked to find out I had only been there for three months. I'm guessing somewhere in the course of our conversation I eventually said something non-Brazilian sounding, but, based on her reaction to my passport, I do think I had her fooled at the beginning.

Regarding the test, I came back from Brazil and took my university's Portuguese placement exam. I got placed out of all the language-learning classes and straight into the literature classes (i.e., the ones where you might be sitting next to a native Brazilian). I think that my experience shows that three months can prepare you quite well for difficult tests.

However, I'm doubtful that Benny will be able to pull it off. If you compare my situation in Brazil to Benny's situation in Germany, there are a number of things that gave me a big advantage. First, my Spanish abilities made Portuguese so (so, so, so) much easier. Benny doesn't have anything comparable with respect to German. Second, the only thing I was doing was learning or using Portuguese, whereas Benny is working (presumably not in German) and blogging in English, and that is likely eating up a big chunk of his time. Third, my guess is that the test that Benny wants to take is a heckuva lot harder than the test I took, so I'm not so sure that he'll be able to pass it as easily as I was able to pass the one I took.

Indeed, the only advantage that Benny has over me is that he's studied some German previously, but, based on what Benny himself as said, that recollection is faint at best, although it will nevertheless provide some familiarity.

So while I'd love to see Benny do exactly what he's going for, if I were a gambling man, I'd definitely be betting against him pulling it off.

Getting to Grammar: If you want accurate grammar quickly, Steve Kaufmann's method is not for you

This is the best our graphics department could do.

The great language-learning blogosphere battle of the day has been Steve "The Inputter" Kaufmann v. Benny "The Haxor". The latest salvo in this battle comes from Steve:

In my view, there are three divergent approaches to language learning, divergent in terms of their emphasis or principal focus. This is true whether we learn in the classroom, online or on the street. One approach focuses on input, another on output, and a third on what I would call shortcuts and some people call language-hacking techniques. These techniques include grammar study, studying vocab lists and phrase books, heavy use of flash cards, "deconstructing the language", memory techniques, and so forth.

I don't think Steve's division has it right at all. As I noted in my last post, output is input. In other words, it's all just exposure. From there, the only thing you need to think about is what kind of exposure you need to get in order to burn the language into your brain as efficiently as possible.

And efficiency leads me to one of my main points of disagreement with Steve: grammar.

Read more... In a nutshell, here's my understanding of Steve's approach to grammar:

1. Spend lots of time getting input.
2. If you figure out the grammar rules, great. If not, don't worry about it.
3. When you feel like it, try to fill in those gaps in your knowledge by looking up the rules.

Steve's German is good enough to listen to and read fairly tough materials, and yet he still get criticized for screwing up the cases. That tells me that his method is not working as far as his ability to produce correct grammar. (Of course, I'm assuming those criticisms are correct, as I've never heard or read his German myself. If that's not right, I'm sure I'll be hearing about it in the comments soon enough.)

This is a close adult approximation of the inductive "learn like a child" method. Children get years of exposure to a language and still make lots of grammar mistakes, until years of schooling finally iron out the wrinkles. Without extra efforts beyond mere exposure, they end up being able to understand just about everything, even while they may still be speaking incorrectly. Steve's results seem to match that pattern.

And, after all, is it really surprising that a method that focuses on input results in you having a good understanding of input without being able to produce accurate output?

I think a different approach can get you much better results. Here's the rough outline of how I approach grammar:

1. Get the rule in your head.
2. Get exposure to the rule in use. Because the rule's in your head, you're seeing the rule in action rather than trying to puzzle out what the rule is.
3. If you forget the rule, or if you're exposed to something that doesn't fit into your understanding of the rule, go over the rule again.

During the bulk of my German studies, I actually followed a method that was much closer to Steve's, and it resulted in German being one of the weaker languages that I can actually communicate in with some degree of proficiency. (So, yes, I screw up the cases, and probably much worse than Steve.) I'd love to find the time to attack it again, using the approach that I laid out above.

As a final note, I'd also say that I think Steve's and my divergent approaches to grammar may stem in part from our divergent goals in language learning. Steve's goal seems to be enjoying literature and whatever else he feels like enjoying in the language. For me, that's a means to an end while my actual goal is being able to prepare business documents, contracts, etc. I need to obtain a higher degree of accuracy in a shorter amount of time that Steve's method will allow, while Steve can quickly reach his own goal of jumping into content he enjoys without worrying about whether he's producing correct grammar.