If I told you that you were 103 pages and less than 2 hours away from improving your
speaking skills, would you believe me?
Well, keep watching!
Today, we are going to talk about a short-but-excellent book that will immediately supercharge your
speaking skills in a foreign language.
Hey friends, welcome back to my channel.
For those who don't know me yet, I am Luca Lampariello, a language coach who speaks 14
languages.
On this channel, I help people learn foreign languages more efficiently, faster and in
a fun way Confess to it.
Ever since you decided to learn a foreign language, you’ve been looking for that quick
fix.
You know, the shortcut.
The thing that gets you fluent, faster.
It’s not just you.
Everybody’s looking for the same thing.
That’s why everywhere you look, you can find tips and methods to learn a language
in a year, a month, a week, a day, and even in a matter of hours and minutes.
51’’-56’’ ⇒ to be cut I hate to be the party pooper but let me tell
you straight away that these “magic pills” don’t exist.
If you start learning a language tomorrow, you’ll still be learning it by next weekend,
next February, and the next time Halley’s comet passes by — unless, of course, you
choose not to maintain it.
So, you can’t improve your knowledge of a language immediately.
That is out of our reach.
But, if you’re looking for ways to improve your foreign language skills immediately,
those, my friends, are quite easily available.
And you can put them to use in your life much faster than you think, thanks to a little
book called How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately, by Boris Shekhtman.
Before we dig into our review of the book, let me present a simple metaphor:
Clothes.
I have them.
You have them.
We all have them.
Right now, at this exact moment in time, you have a finite amount of clothing that is yours
to use as you wish.
Unless you want to wear all of your clothing at once, you need a place to store it all.
One option would be to keep it all in a pile.
You know—a big, tangled, mess of socks, sweaters, scarves, t-shirts, and tank tops
all gathered together in one corner of your bedroom.
Another option would be to separate and organize it all.
You can hang the shirts, scarves, and tank tops in your closet, and fold the scarves
and pair the socks for safekeeping deep in your dresser drawers.
You can even organize each individual item by color, or season in which you wear it.
Now, I’m sure you’ll agree that in both scenarios, you have the same amount of clothing.
Having a closet doesn’t make clothes magically appear, or disappear.
But let me ask you this: If I gave you ten seconds to find a specific
pair of socks, in which scenario would you be most likely to succeed?
The second, of course.
Having organizational tools like a closet or set of drawers will give you a higher chance
of being able to find and use the clothes you need, exactly when you need them.
This is exactly what How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately provides.
It doesn’t give you more language knowledge.
It doesn’t teach you nouns, adjectives, politeness forms, or how to better use the
subjunctive mood.
Instead, it gives you a set of seven intuitive tools that help you organize and make better
use of the knowledge you already have, no matter how minuscule — or expansive — that
knowledge may be.
The book, in short, teaches you to use language effectively.
Let’s dig in to our review.
How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately, by Boris Shekhtman is a print book, the most
current edition of which was released in 2013.
The book, a short read at 103 pages, is divided into 9 separate chapters — one introductory
chapter, seven body chapters, and an epilogue.
Each of the seven body chapters is devoted to a particular “communicative tool”.
In the author’s own words: “Communicative tools are the combination
of skills which allow a speaker to use most effectively the level of foreign language
in his or her command” The chapters dedicated to these effective
speaking strategies generally contain the following:
A description of the tool An example of the tool in practice (typically
through a hypothetical conversation between a foreign speaker and a native)
An analysis of the example(s) An exercise through which to practice the
tool In addition, sprinkled throughout the book
are a series of anecdotes — personal stories taken from Shekhtman’s experiences teaching
Russian to English speakers, either one-on-one or in a small-group, classroom setting.
Considering that 75% of this short, simple book is devoted solely to teaching you to
use those tools right away, you get a lot of value in a compact, inexpensive package.
Of course, none of that information would matter if the tools weren’t so useful and
intuitive.
Each tool can be immediately put to use in one of three specific areas:
Quantity/quality of communication (Show Your Stuff, Build Up Your Islands)
Communication in difficult scenarios (Shifting Gears, Simplify, Simplify; Breaking Away)
Increasing expressiveness of language (Embellish it, Say What?)
These areas are ones that all language learners seek to improve, regardless of target language
and target language proficiency.
As bizarre as it seems, as you read up on each of Shekhtman’s seven tools, you’ll
immediately understand how they’ll make you a better speaker of your target language.
How can that be?
Because, knowingly or not, you’ve already used these tools to communicate better in
your own native language.
You may even use several (or all) of them every day.
Think about it.
Have you ever told a joke so many times to so many people that, by the umpteenth telling,
you know exactly what words, what pauses, what intonation, and what facial expressions
to get the maximum number of laughs from your audience?
That joke, according to Shekhtman, is a well-practiced "island" that has been built-up and refined
according to Tool #2, Build Your Islands.
Have you ever been chatting with a new group of people when, all of a sudden, talk shifts
to a subject you know nothing about?
Instead of pretending you know about a field you clearly don’t, you use some conversational
kung-fu to coax the topic of conversation towards some common ground, so you can resume
speaking freely again.
The act of deftly changing the topic when we’re out of our conversational depth is
what Shekhtman would call Shifting Gears, and is the third tool that the book provides.
Have you ever tried to explain a difficult concept to a friend or family member and,
despite your efforts, been completely unsuccessful?
Instead of giving up however, you choose to simplify your words and phrasing, and try
again?
Simplifying complex language is an example of Shekhtman’s fourth tool, Simplify, Simplify,
and is just as useful amongst native speakers as it is between natives and foreigners.
See what I mean?
You don’t have to have tried out all of these tools in a language learning context
to know that they’ll help you communicate better.
Because, in the end, they’re not language learning tools.
They’re communication tools.
And no matter how old you are, if you’re reading this, you’ve done enough communication
already to have an intuitive feel for what works and doesn’t work.
All of Shekhtman’s seven tools have this intuitive quality.
As far as I am concerned,I have been using a lot the island part.
I normally build islands that I work and rework.
For each island, I built a set of 30 sentences, I practice with my tutor and then I write
everything into my notebook and review them.
Occasionally I practice them in real-life.
They come quite in-handy!
How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately's communicative tools shine as intuitive guidelines
for improving language fluency right now.
With the advice in the book, you have everything you need to communicate your “current”
level, navigate difficult conversations with natives, and speak in a more fluid, natural
way.
Given the book’s short, compact form, these tools are easy to practice and review on the
fly.
I highly recommend this book to any learner, of any language, at any level of skill.
In terms of actionable skills, this book provides most bang for its buck of any language learning
book on the market.
I only wish that the book were of higher quality, with more substantial references and background
material.
So here is my suggestion for you guys: Get the book (check link in the description
Box) Read it in a week (it is short, but you might
want to use it as a guide) Underline the parts that are relevant and
interesting for you Make a list of activities you want to try
Apply what you've learned!
The best way to learn is to do, not just read.
And last but not least, jot down in a nice lengthy comment below about your experience,
your thoughts about the book, what worked and what didn't.
Doing and sharing are the best ways to stay motivated and take things to the next level
Last but not least, if you liked this video, you'll love this other video I have made about
how long it takes to Learn a language to Fluency and you can click here.
As always, thanks for watching, and see you in the next video!