DAY 3: BUILDING A YOU-SPECIFIC VOCABULARY

After this video, you’ll:

• Build the foundation for your first conversation this week
• Learn to create a starter vocabulary without being constrained by courses or phrasebooks
• Speak like Tarzan (for now) to describe yourself in your target language

After today’s video, you can absolutely practice your new vocabulary by yourself at home.

But then make sure you make that script public! Share your with me, my team and other language learners by uploading that video of you speaking like Tarzan here!

REMEMBER: Language “hacking” is about taking shortcuts to reach your goals faster.

For you, that means preparing for your first conversation by thinking about exactly what you will need to know and say, and nothing more.

Most people start learning a language with a phrasebook or a course, but we’re skipping those because right now, you really don’t need to know how to say “pencil”… or to ask where the bathroom is… or how to buy a train ticket.

Later on, you can and should use phrasebooks and (free or cheap) online courses for your language learning. But now I want you to start without them so you can become a dynamic and adaptive learner, which is key to language hacking. So many people make the mistake of relying on courses alone to reach fluency, which in most cases dooms a project before it even starts.

This week, we’re focusing on using a variety resources to help us reach the language goals we set for ourselves, rather than expecting one resource to do all the work for us.

Here are the tools you’ll need to complete today’s mini-mission.

• Here’s that list of dictionaries to help you build YOU-dictionary.  
• Use the free website Forvo to hear how any word in nearly any language is pronounced!  
• Speak about yourself (like Tarzan) in your target language, and upload your video here for encouragement and feedback!

TOMORROW we’ll have the “Tarzan” phrases you develop yourself
today corrected by a native speaker…