Fluent forever
by Gabriel Wyner · first published 2014
70% recommend30% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Research-based method for learning languages with Anki flashcards, from pronunciation ear training (minimal pairs) to the first 500 words, with sentences and speaking from day one; suits self-learners of any language.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently. He didn’t learn them in school—who does? Rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources—and here he wants to show others what he’s discovered. Starting with pronunciation, you’ll learn how to rewire your ears and turn foreign sounds into familiar sounds. You’ll retrain your tongue to produce those sounds accurately, using tricks from opera singers and actors. Next, you’ll begin to tackle words, and connect sounds and spellings
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So, this is one thing I like about Gabirel Wyner -- in his book, "Fluent Forever", he's got a section in the first chapter where he talks about how he defines fluency, and he fairly openly acknowledges that he personally sets a very low bar. It's basically just being able to engage…
on “The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages” ↗…Coursera's Learning How to Learn course would be an excellent place to start for the "how" of this, and your own interests will probably lead you to the "what". (For languages, I'd recommend the book Fluent Forever.) The only other major factor that seems to really contribute to long-term health is something that isn't entirely within your control, but you should still put a lot of effort into it: regular interactions…
on “How Aging Research Is Changing Our Lives” ↗I read Gabriel Wyner's book, _Fluent Forever_, which was pretty decent for giving ideas on how to effectively use SRS for language learning. That would probably be a good place to start. I disagree with his approach (which I haven't followed since…
on “How to Use Anki to Improve Your Memory” ↗I’ve been doing this for a couple years as directed by Fluent Forever[1] (highly recommended if this article vibes with you), and the results have been really good to say the least. Some great additional content here, I wouldn’t have thought of the stable diffusion trick—…
on “The Most Effective Way to Learn New Words” ↗Gabriel Wyner has some good strategies for speeding up flash card generation in his Fluent Forever book and website. The primary one for me being a simple AppleScript that took a word and opened up several safari tabs with google image search, pronunciation (forvo.com), a few online dictionairies,…
on “How we invented new ways to teach Japanese” ↗…great resources on language learning. I'm only familiar with those written for English-speaking audiences, but your English is good enough that you should find them helpful. I'd start with a book like Fluent Forever.
on “Ask HN: How to improved English communication?” ↗…survive. Being surrounded by people speaking English(French, German,Chinese) and feeling totally stupid as you can not even communicate the basic means you have to learn or have to learn. I recommend "fluent forever" book and Gabriel Wyner stuff in general to learn as fast as possible. ALWAYS START BY PRONUNTIATION,like kids do, or else you will have to unlearn what you learned badly. In order to polish it, I joined…
on “Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?” ↗I highly recommend the book "Fluent Forever" by Gabriel Wyner. He lays out a spaced repetition centered approach to language learning, and specifically around using Anki for learning language.
on “To Remember Everything You Learn, Surrender to This Algorithm (2008)” ↗Not OP, but I had great success with learning languages after reading Gabriel Wyner's "Fluent Forever". Don't pay attention to the way he advertises his new app, frankly it does a disservice to the quality of the book. I ended up thinking and gaining much more fluency in my chosen languages after reading…
on “Ask HN: What did you learn in 2018?” ↗…may be interested in Minimal Pair Testing [0]. The idea is to train you ear to decipher between similar sounds (for example if you wanted to recognize "lock" vs "rock"). I first encountered the idea in Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_pair
on “I used the internet to painlessly relearn a foreign language” ↗…above your actual weight. This does wonders for confidence and makes you less shy about trying to learn by speaking & listening, which is crucial. Gabriel Wyner does a good job explaining it in his book "Fluent Forever" (his method is pretty cool too but I have some critiques of it overall, "learn pronunciation first" is the best single lesson to transfer to other language learning methodologies).
on “Take the pedals off the bike” ↗This is a falde dichotomy. Focusing on grammar is not the opposite. If you follow the approach in "Fluent forever" by Gabriel Wyner you will focus on 1) sentences and 2) speech from day one. The idea is that you really don't want to focus on learning translation but learn the language. Ie. It is not important that…
on “LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo” ↗…and potentially dozens of different systems written in different languages. Memory is critical for this, even if it's just the memory of where to find the information and not the information itself. Fluent Forever, Gabriel Wyner [4]. This one is my current read. Goes back to Moonwalking with Einstein. While the book is itself about language acquisition, it's actually given me quite a bit to think about with respect…
on “Ask HN: Are there any books that inspire or highly influence the way you work?” ↗…taken a few lessons, they will be orders of magnitude faster at learning the rest of the language. [0]: For an introduction to this approach of learning a language, I can recommend Gabriel Wyner's book "Fluent Forever" and, also, his pronunciation trainers and his YouTube videos on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). They got me from speaking absolutely zero Spanish to being asked whether I'm a native speaker…
on “Nepalese student learns HTML, JavaScript, CSS using just a mobile phone” ↗I have spent the last 10 months learning italian, spending a total of 7 weeks in the country, 150 hours studying, and 85 hours speaking on iTalki. I have been using the method's described in Fluent Forever[1] and they have been working extremely well for me. I have a speaking partner that I speak with 3-5 times a week for 1 hour each time (If you want to learn italian email me, he is awesome), and I keep…
on “My Journey to a Better Language Learning System” ↗