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ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable of USA Government) defines "General Professional Proficiency" or SR3 language skill level as follows: "Able to speak accurately and with enough vocabulary to handle social representation and professional discussions within special fields of knowledge. Able to read most materials found in daily newspapers." SR3 level is goal of FSI (Foreign Service Institute of USA State Department) and roughly corresponds to B2 on CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Language Learning, Teaching, Assessment) scale: "Can interact with degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers possible without strain for either party. Can take active part discussion in familiar contexts, accounting for and sustaining views. Can understand extended speech and lectures and follow even complex lines of argument provided topic is reasonably familiar. Can understand most TV news and current affairs programmes. Can understand majority of films in standard dialect. Can read articles and reports concerned with contemporary problems in which writers adopt particular stances or viewpoints. Can understand contemporary literary prose."
[Writing skill no longer important because Google Translate and similar computer translation programs can produce rough draft of foreign text from English version, then reading skills allow noticing flaws in translation, which can either be fixed directly or English version can be modified to be more easily translated. Computer assisted writing usually faster and more accurate than writing directly in foreign language, since computer assistance eliminates difficulties with non-phonetic scripts (Chinese, Japanese), spelling, advanced vocabulary.]
For English native with no previous exposure to foreign language being learned, FSI estimates of typical hours of study required to reach SR3/B2 skill level are as follows: 1200 hours (1 hour/day for 3 years) for Spanish, 2200 hours (1 hour/day for 6 years) for Russian, 4400 hours (2 hours/day for 6 years) for Arabic, Chinese or Japanese. Note that "hour" means full hour of effective study, not partial hour of ineffectively fooling around. These estimates are based on highly motivated students who tested highly on language learning aptitude tests and who had significant previous language learning experience with other languages before admittance to FSI plus FSI learning environment is near optimally effective. Thus estimates above will likely be on low side for typical independent language learners. More realistic self-study estimates would be 1400 hours (1 hour/day for 4 years) for Spanish, 2500 hours (1 hour/day for 7 years) for Russian, 5000 hours (2 hours/day for 7 years) for Chinese. Pay careful note to these time estimates, because they will be referred to again several times in this document.
Lower skill levels than SR3/B2 can be very useful, even basic 100 word tourist vocabulary (assuming all 100 words pronounced and understood correctly). Just follow methods outlined in this document but stop short of SR3/B2 goal. Note that low levels of language skill tend to disappear quickly if not used, so probably best to wait until immediately before travel if planning to only reach low level of skill. Whereas if planning to reach SR3/B2 or higher level, better to start as far in advance as possible, preferably decades in advance, then maintain skills so that they become increasingly automatic.
Enormous time requirement for reaching SR3/B2 skill level means only methods which are sustainable will be successful. "Learning results = Hours of study * Effectiveness/hour". High motivation (as with ambitious FSI students, whose career progression depends on language learning success) is one way to generate high sustainability. Enjoyment of method is another, though often there is tradeoff between enjoyment and effectiveness/hour: listening to music sung in foreign language can be very enjoyable and sustainable, but effectiveness/hour might be near zero for many student (for others, listening to music lyrics very effective). At the other extreme, there might be law of diminishing returns such that unpleasantness (effort expended) strongly increases and thus sustainability strongly decreases as effectiveness/hour approaches maximum. So while methods with low effectiveness/hour need to be avoided, enjoyable and thus sustainable methods with good effectiveness/hour typically better than unpleasant methods with maximum effectiveness/hour.
Without ability to hear basic sounds of language, good listening comprehension is difficult or impossible. Without ability to generate sounds properly (pronunciation), speech will be difficult or impossible for natives to understand, regardless of quality of grammar and vocabulary. Input and output audio parts of brain are connected, such that bad pronunciation typically implies bad hearing, and vice-versa (other than in case of true speech defects). Since audio deficiencies will be reinforced every time language is heard or spoken, it is important to fix those deficiencies at start of language learning process. Thus methods which do not focus initially on stepping student slowly through hearing and generating basic sounds of language, as pronounced by native speakers, are bad methods which will not lead to language learning success. Note that hearing and pronunciation do not need to be native-like: they just need to be "acceptable", meaning good enough to achieve SR3/B2 skill goal.
Most time consuming part of language learning: typically, 70% of total hours. Basics of grammar and vocabulary can be learned from textbook, but mastery requires extensive exposure to grammar and vocabulary in context. Listening practice includes reading practice: listen to audio recording of native speaker, read transcript and look up unknown words in dictionary, optionally consult grammar textbook, listen again. (For Chinese and Japanese, transcripts should be Pinyin or Hiragana initially, since native script not phonetic.) Listening practice also naturally improves pronunciation.
FSI uses term "conversational automaticity" to describe ability to carry on normal conversation without paying close attention to particular words and other language elements/patterns, thus freeing conscious mind to focus on underlying content of conversation: WHAT is being communicated versus HOW it is being communicated. Conversational automaticity can only be obtained by extensive practice. Conversation practice mostly focuses on speaking skill, but also develops slightly different type of listening skill than pure listening practice, because of need to formulate response while listening, versus simply receiving steady input.
FSI and similar DLI (Defense Language Institute of USA Department of Defense) are models for best possible language learning method. Both schools are unconstrained by budget limitations (government pays school costs and also pays normal salary to students) and have proper incentive structure: 1) some percentage of incapable or lazy students eliminated from program early on, and neither managers nor teachers punished for these early failures; 2) remaining students are all capable and motivated to succeed, thus willing to submit to occasional unpleasant learning methods (pushed out of their comfort zone); 3) managers and teachers are evaluated (and retained, promoted, dismissed) based on success of capable and motivated students, so no hesitation about pushing students hard.
Typically 5 hours/weekday of classes, plus 4 hours/weekday and 5 hours/Saturday of self-study (listening practice, vocabulary and grammar drills), for total of 50 hours/week. 24 weeks for Spanish, 44 for Russian, 88 for Chinese, hence the 1200, 2200 and 4400 hour estimates given previously. Classes are mix of small group (3-5 students) and individual tutoring, focusing initially on acceptable pronunciation, then on conversational listening skills, then on active conversation practice. Teachers are mostly native speakers, though FSI also recommends some teaching by fluent non-natives who learned foreign language as adult (at FSI preferably), since such non-native teachers often understand student difficulties better than native speakers.
Main problem with duplicating conversation part of FSI/DLI method is finding suitable tutor. To exactly duplicate method requires effectively full-time tutor (5 hours/day) but not everyone can take on full-time tutoring job with no certainty as to how long job will last. Even if tutoring only 1-2 hours/day, no guarantee suitable tutor can be found (several alternating tutors, available for more popular languages at FSI, even more difficult to arrange). Many private tutors are simply incompetent. Personality compatibility and reliability (showing up on time) might be issues that are only discovered after several weeks of study. Most importantly, private tutors are often reluctant to push students out of their language comfort zone, because this is unpleasant for student and may cause student to stop doing business with tutor. In other words, it is difficult to reproduce incentive structure of FSI/DLI. Finally, at 600, 1100, 2200 tutoring hours for Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and assuming hourly tutoring rate of $15/hour, cost of duplicating FSI/DLI method with private tutor would be $9000, $16500, $33000, which might be barrier for some students. FSI/DLI course materials are publicly available (links below in resources section). Teachers at FSI/DLI are experienced using these course materials, whereas private tutor would need time to adapt to them.
No problem duplicating FSI/DLI non-conversational listening practice or reading practice as part of self-study program, since these are mostly self-study even at FSI/DLI.
"Immersion" alone often has near zero effectiveness/hour: think of immigrants living in USA for 20+ years and still unable to understand or speak even basic English. Native speaker boyfriend/girlfriend can be very effective initially, but progress typically halts at some low level of competency as partners mutually tire of correcting/being corrected, so lack of sustainability. Duolingo and similar apps often have excellent sustainability (designed to be addictive) but lack other essential features of effective language learning methods: minimal or no initial focus on acceptable pronunciation, minimal listening practice, no conversation practice. Result is that Duolingo students typically persist with app for years and are eventually even able to pass written grammar/vocabulary tests for foreign language, but they can't actually use foreign language for conversation. Most traditional classroom teaching has same defects as Duolingo: students can pass written tests but can't actually use language, because bad pronunciation, insufficient listening practice, insufficient conversation practice. Group classes have additional defect of much time wasted on socializing plus students are forced to listen to bad pronunciation of other students, which results in negative effectiveness. Conversation groups can be useful late in learning process, assuming students are paired with other advanced students and thus get adequate speaking practice. Otherwise, such groups tend to be colossal waste of time: beginning level students don't get much speaking practice because advanced students monopolize conversation; students exposed to bad pronunciation and other mistakes of other students; getting to/from group meeting is wasted time; usually some wasted time speaking English rather than foreign language at beginning and end of meeting.
All bad methods described above can be justified if they improve motivation and thus contribute to sustainability. Try to minimize time wasted on bad method itself while maximizing motivation boost.
Dictionary apps are vastly superior to paper dictionaries, assuming identical content: zero weight or bulk (beyond smartphone, which most people carry nowadays at all times); lexical distance pattern matching during lookups, so easy to lookup words without knowing exact spelling, including not knowing initial letters; integration with web browser, ereader and other apps to allow looking up words by simply pressing on them. Most people violate assumption of "identical content" by comparing high-quality curated paper dictionaries with low-quality free dictionaries, because they are too cheap to spend $15 or so for apps with high-quality curated dictionary content. Assuming language will be studied and then used average of 100 days/years over period of 15 years, this is extremely penny-wise pound-foolish thinking (literally, one penny per day of savings).
Lingvo Dictionaries Offline app (formerly named ABBYY app) integrates well with Moon+ ereader app (both apps for Android). Free Essentials dictionaries can be used to test app, but they are too small for serious use, so I strongly recommend buying add-on dictionaries:
Unfortunately, Lingvo Dictionaries Offline does not have add-on dictionaries for all languages. However, there are other apps.
Google Translate and crowd sourced dictionaries like Wiktionary are useful for slang, neologisms, and obscene words not contained in regular dictionaries, but otherwise they are inferior to high-quality curated dictionaries, so only rely on them as primary dictionary if no app available with high-quality curated dictionary content. Don't be penny-wise, pound-foolish where dictionaries are concerned.
Textbooks, with or without accompanying audio, typically do poor job of teaching foreign languages, because of insufficient listening practice and total lack of conversation practice. Nevertheless, some sort of textbook is essential to explain aspects of foreign language which are not obvious to native English speakers. Medium sized textbooks are best: all the grammar and other explanation necessary for SR3/B2 level conversation, without overwhelming student with excessive detail.
I recommend choosing textbooks available in both paper version and electronic version formatted for smartphone. Use paper version to learn language, then carry electronic version as reference. Epub is best electronic format, because usable with many different ereader apps, but epub format not always available.
For French and Spanish, I don't remember what textbook I used originally to learn these languages. Currently, I carry Kindle version of Spanish Verbs and Essentials of Grammar by Ina Ramboz (2008) on my smartphone, not because this is a particularly good Spanish textbook but because it was one of the few textbooks available in properly formatted electronic edition when I purchased it.
For Russian, I initially used paper version of New Penguin Russian Course by Nicholas J. Brown (1996), and now carry PDF version on my smartphone (see here).
Though textbook is listed as step 2, this is mainly to ensure student actually acquires both paper and electronic versions of suitable textbook at beginning of language learning process. Actual use of textbook can wait until partway through step 3 or end of step 3.
About 10% of total learning hours. Live tutoring with professional tutors, as at FSI/DLI, is normally optimal method for teaching/learning pronunciation and basic conversational skills, however live tutoring not always best choice for language learners without access to school like FSI/DLI, for reasons already cited: not easy to find suitable tutor; issues coordinating schedules with tutor; cost. Possible alternative, which I have used myself successfully for several languages, is Pimsleur self-study course, which provides best substitute for professional live tutoring of any commercial course I am aware of.
Based on my experience, best way to use Pimsleur course is as follows, which differs slightly from instructions that come with course: new 30 minute audio lesson each evening, followed by 15 minutes of exercises if using e-course version; followed by 15-45 minutes study of textbook from step 2; then repeat 30 minute audio lesson next morning while lying in bed. Total of about 1-2 hours study/day for as many days as there are Pimsleur lessons available for language being studied. Without repeating lessons next morning, many students fall behind (especially with harder languages) and become frustrated. Whereas if lesson repeated next evening (so new lesson every 2 days), students become impatient at slow progress.
First 15 or so lessons of all Pimsleur courses focus on pronunciation and are easy, thereafter difficulty increases substantially (assuming student is new to language). Common complaint by users is that Pimsleur is boring and repetitive. If student is able to skip ahead to final lesson and get 95% of responses correct, then they are too advanced for Pimsleur (probably because of previous study of language) and should move on to listening practice (step 4). Otherwise, "boring" probably means "difficult and frustrating".
Assuming each lesson done twice (initially in evening then repeated next morning), one 30 minute audio lesson roughly equivalent to one hour live tutoring. Unlike some tutors, Pimsleur does not hesitate to push student out of comfort zone and doesn't care if student is frustrated and unable to keep up: audio continues regardless and students who can't keep up simply have to back up and repeat difficult sections (or hope difficulty will disappear next morning, when repeating lesson in entirety).
As of 2022, Pimsleur has 150 lessons for very popular languages (French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese), 90 lessons for moderately popular languages (Eastern Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese), 30 lessons for less popular languages, and no lessons at all for many languages. I would advise doing as many lessons as are available, because Pimsleur really does work to give conversational automaticity, albeit with limited vocabulary, and probably works better than live tutoring for most students. Pimsleur introduces 6-10 new words plus maybe 1-2 new grammar concepts per lesson, then repeatedly uses, and requires students to use, these new words and grammar concepts during lesson, so that conversation skills are gradually and progressively improved. Few tutors are this systematic about gradually and progressively expanding active vocabulary and grammar skills.
My own personal experience with Pimsleur is as follows: 30 lesson Greek and Turkish audio courses; 90 lesson Russian audio course; 30 lesson Ukrainian e-course (smartphone app). After learning basic Greek, Turkish and Russian using Pimsleur method, I used those languages successfully while traveling in countries where those languages are spoken, back when English not widely spoken (mountain villages of Greece in 2007, Turkiye in 2007, Ukraine in 2015). For example, I used Russian in 2015 in Ukraine to negotiate prices with taxi drivers, ask directions on street, buy SIM card, ask directions using voice phone to find rental apartment, buy bus tickets, arrange emergency dental work, etc. Especially for dental work, I supplemented skills learned via Pimsleur with additional vocabulary from dictionary. For all of Greek, Turkish, and Russian, I had no problems with pronunciation or with understanding pronunciation of natives, provided they used simple sentences. (Note that I long ago forgot Greek and Turkish entirely: languages learned quickly and to low level are forgotten quickly unless used regularly.) Ukrainian course was offered for free by publisher in 2022 and studied after I had reached SR3/B2 level with similar Russian language, so very easy for me and mainly intended to improve my Ukrainian pronunciation, which differs from that of Russian, and to test new e-course app.
To verify correct pronunciation, be sure to record yourself doing Pimsleur reading lessons and then compare your recording to original native version. Because of sound transmission through jawbone to ear, we cannot hear ourselves properly when speaking, so recording then playing back recording is essential to verify pronunciation correct. For non Indo-European languages with sound system significantly different from that of English, it might additionally be good idea to hire tutor for weekly pronunciation lessons. 3 possible problems with such pronunciation tutors: too strict (expects native accent, which is difficult, especially for beginners); too lenient (allows unacceptable pronunciation); incompetent. Tell tutor that you want 5 lessons at most, so tutor is not given bad incentive to prolong pronunciation work indefinitely, but yet has good incentive to help enough that you return for second through fifth lessons. You can always arrange additional lessons beyond 5.
As of 2022, Pimsleur e-course (smartphone app or computer program) is available for $20/month, though evidently there is some difficulty buying relatively inexpensive e-course version versus older and much more expensive version consisting of downloadable audio MP3 files. At $20/month and 30 lessons per month, with each lesson equivalent to at least 1 hour of professional tutoring, this is an incredible bargain (equivalent to professional tutoring at under $1/hour).
If less than 90 Pimsleur lessons available, and especially if no Pimsleur lessons available, it might be necessary to resort to tutoring to develop conversation skills. As noted, I did well with just 30 lessons of Pimsleur Greek and Turkish and 90 lessons of Pimsleur Russian, but I would definitely have preferred more lessons and would have willingly paid for more had more been available at the time.
For some reason, Pimsleur organization advertises that secret of Pimsleur method is spaced repetition, which is indeed a useful memory technique, but not much better than repetition without special algorithmic spacing. I would ascribe maybe 1% of effectiveness of Pimsleur method to spaced repetition and 99% to fact that method provides substitute to live professional tutoring for developing acceptable pronunciation and conversational automaticity.
There are other courses than Pimsleur with large amounts of audio resources, but these typically do not produce conversational automaticity, because they not force students to respond to prompts at normal conversational speed, and they do not repeatedly drill basic conversational elements/patterns.
Pimsleur or tutoring should be supplemented or followed by study of textbook from Step 2.
About 70% of total learning hours. Listen to audio recording of native speaker, read transcript and look up unknown words in dictionary, optionally consult textbook regarding grammar issues, listen again.
Audio can be podcasts with transcripts, ebooks with associated audio recording, self-study courses which include audio recordings (including free FSI/DLI courses linked to in resources section below), Anki sentence decks with audio (more on Anki below, for best listening practice results, modify Anki card format so front of card plays audio, back of card has foreign language transcript and button to optionally replay audio, plus English translation at bottom of card in small print). Videos with subtitles not optimal, at least initially: difficult to examine grammar of long sentences; can't press on unknown word and instantly bring up dictionary entry like with digital transcripts; possible to use video images rather than audio to understand content, thus practicing image interpretation rather than foreign language skills. Videos with separate transcripts address first two issues but not last.
Assimil company has self-study courses with significant amounts of audio with transcripts suitable for listening practice, along with textbook suitable for step 2. Older Assimil courses consisted of paper textbook plus MP3 audio files. Newer e-courses combine textbook with audio. E-course license allows offline use on multiple computers and smartphones. Size of entire package about 300MB. Most Assimil courses intended for French natives, but some have been translated to be usable by English natives.
For Russian listening practice, in addition to Assimil courses, I used ebooks with accompanying audio recordings from Language Practice Publishing and podcasts with transcripts from Texts in Slow Russian, RussianPodcast.eu, Very Much Russian, Anki sentence decks with audio (here and here), plus various other sources which have since disappeared from the internet.
About 10% of total learning hours. At some point during learning process, supplement listening practice with Anki flashcard practice, using English->Foreign deck, to gradually make passive vocabulary active. (Anki is free software program for personal computers, with associated smartphone apps: AnkiDroid for Android, AnkiMobile for iOS.) Deck should consist of 5000 or so words, all of which should be part of passive vocabulary because of previous listening practice and other study. Making vocabulary active is preparation for conversation practice in step 6.
For examples of Anki decks in format suitable for building active vocabulary skill, see my maintenance decks for: French, Spanish, Russian.
Another option is to start Anki practice from day 1 of learning process. For French, Spanish or Russian, use one of my decks listed above. For other languages, either create your own English->Foreign deck, or use shared deck from AnkiWeb (possibly converting Foreign->English to English->Foreign by editing card template). Import deck then suspend all cards. Unsuspend cards as words encountered during study. If using one of my decks, possibly modify existing cards (especially English definitions) or add new cards, but retain my format, which has been carefully thought out. Anki practice will initially take only a few minutes per day, then increase as words are gradually unsuspended/added.
Foreign->English flashcard practice is superfluous, since listening practice (including reading transcript and looking up unknown words in dictionary) naturally builds passive vocabulary skill, and does so better than flashcards, because words seen in multiple contexts.
About 10% of total learning hours, so about 140 hours for Spanish (slightly more than 5 months of 3 meetings/week for 2 hours/meeting), 250 hours for Russian, 500 for Chinese or Arabic. After each meeting: add words to English->Foreign Anki deck that you needed but noticed missing from active vocabulary during conversation; possibly consult grammar textbook to clarify issues that arose during conversation. Continue listening practice and Anki reviewing on days without tutoring.
Tutor used for conversation practice should be native speaker who is also somewhat fluent in English, so they can answer language usage questions and supply occasional missing vocabulary. However, primary function is forcing student to speak. Tutor should ask questions, listen as student responds, then immediately ask another question, so that student does most of speaking. Thus more important for tutor to have interview than language teaching skills: trained as detective, journalist, psychologist, hiring specialist, etc.
Conversation practice, as just described, tends to create bond between student and tutor, so best to choose tutor with whom there is personality compatibility.
Unpaid conversation practice tends to be waste of time, for obvious reasons: tutor does most of speaking, to practice their English; tutor more interested in finding sex partner than improving language skills; tutor unreliable about showing up on time; people attracted to unpaid tutoring tend to be people whose time is literally worthless, so not interesting as conversation partners; etc.
Possible to skip intermediate conversation practice step and instead travel to country where foreign language is natively spoken and then naturally be forced to engage in conversation. This only works if English levels are low in foreign country, otherwise natives may switch to speaking English in all interactions.
Passive skills (listening, reading) degrade slowly, assuming starting point of SR3/B2. Degradation can be avoided entirely by simply occasionally watching videos, listening to podcasts and reading books, periodicals and websites in foreign language.
Active speaking skill degrades much more rapidly. To fully maintain active speaking skills, occasional conversation will be necessary. Anki deck created in step 5 is another way to maintain active skills. Set max review interval to 60 or 90 days and max reviews/day to approximately deck size / max review interval, so that entire deck reviewed every few months.
"Lessons learned from fifty years of theory and practice in government language teaching (at FSI)": here.
FSI/DLI and other free course materials: Yojik or LiveLingua.
Practice foreign language numbers at LangPractice.
Tatoeba English-Foreign sentence pairs in tab delimited format, suitable for importing into Anki at ManyThingsAnki.
Spanish single "r" and Russian "р" similar to American English pronunciation of "tt" in "butter". For Spanish rolled double "rr", try repeating phrase "put it on" over and over as rapidly as possible. This sometimes creates rolled "r" sound in people who can't produce this sound otherwise. If so, then practice until rolled "r" can be produced without using this trick.
Telc offers mock examinations (in their online store) for testing proficiency in various languages, with MP3 files to test listening comprehension.
St Petersburg University offers sample examinations for official ТРКИ (Test of Russian as Foreign Language). Some information at Malingenie regarding ТРКИ4 exam might also apply to lower level exams.
Most students of Russian do not need ability to handwrite Cyrillic cursive, since handwriting is mostly obsolete outside of teaching institutions and government offices, but they do need to be able to read neatly written Cyrillic cursive, which resembles printed Cyrillic italics. Video here describes how to neatly block print Cyrillic. Possible to further simplify by using single case, about 75% of line height. Practice writing "съешь же ещё этих мягких французских булок, да выпей чаю". Students should additionally decide on Cyrillic transliteration of their full name, which is sometimes required on official forms. Handwritten cursive signature can be same as in native language.
Basic knowledge of Modern Greek makes it fairly easy to read Biblical or Koine Greek. I recommend pronouncing Biblical Greek using slightly modified Modern Greek pronunciation (see here, search on "Alternative Pronunciation 1"), versus Erasmian pronunciation used by most scholars whose native language is English.