How to Learn English in 6 Months | Tips to Help You Master English Faster

hello guys and welcome back to my youtube channel  today i'm back with another interview with chris  

lonsdale chris is a psychologist linguist and  educator living in taiwan right now and he speaks  

mandarin chinese on a very very good level but  today we're gonna be talking all about english  

learning and he's gonna give you a lot of great  tips on how you can learn english in six months so  

if you liked today's interview make sure to give  this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel  

and now let's begin hi chris and welcome to  my youtube channel how are you doing today hi  

veronica i'm doing very good great yeah it's such  a pleasure having you on my channel and talking  

to you about language learning because almost  a year ago i watched your interview in chinese  

on the show show chinese youtube channel and it  gave me a lot of motivation to keep on learning  

chinese and now i'm so excited to talk to you  and help my audience learn english in six months  

okay great yeah so first of all could you please  introduce yourself and tell my audience who you  

are and what you do my name is chris lonsdale  um i sleep i i wake up i eat i i do work so  

just just like other people i i came to to asia  to china mainland china in 1981 i've been in china  

and hong kong for about 40 years i run my own  consulting business helping senior leaders and  

companies get their head straight and deal with  conflicts and strategic issues in the business and  

i'm also the creator of a product called kung fu  english which is an ios based device for chinese  

people mandarin speakers to learn english um so  it's it's a language in your pocket so that's sort  

of a quick summary of what i do yeah interesting  and how did you decide to start learning chinese  

okay um it happened when i got off the train in  beijing in 1981 i was 21 years old and it went  

from there i i didn't go to learn a language i  go i went to to be in the culture um and to to  

explore the world and learning a language was was  simply a part of that to get a into a different  

perspective of of things in life so so that was  why i went and language just naturally was part of  

that and back then there were probably like very  few resources to learn chinese right oh there are  

about 1.3 billion of them in china language is a  tool of communication and if you treat it that way  

then the world is full of opportunities  yeah yeah then the world is your oyster rate  

the world is your oyster exactly you know i i  learned something really interesting the chinese  

don't understand each other so i would take  train trips around china and they'd be talking to  

each other and they had different accents and they  wouldn't understand so they would hold up their  

hands and they would draw characters with their  finger on their hand to explain what they mean  

so it's a country united by common script more  than a common tongue i have some friends from  

fujo and they speak in this dialect instead of  like mandarin chinese obviously they understand  

mandarin chinese but still they prefer like  among themselves with their friends and family  

they prefer to use this dialect and i don't  understand it at all no no no the fujian dialect  

is really quite different you've got cantonese  you then have have have chow doll which is eastern  

guangdong province which is very different again  you have the hakka which is the kerjar which is  

the guest people who have their own dialect and  they sort of are inhabited all over southern china  

and pockets you have fujian you you have sichuan  dialect which is very strong and very different  

so there's quite a few really big differences  in in china mandarin of course you have a really  

really famous ted talk your tedx talks  video has over 27 million views nowadays  

there you say that everyone can learn a foreign  language in six months how how is it possible how  

is it possible okay well you have to spend more  than five minutes a day the reason for that title  

was the experience that we had i wrote a book  called the third year one two three years you can  

learn any language and many people from different  countries took that book read it and then they  

used it to go in country and learn a language  in country so an indian girl went went to chile  

and she was fluent in six months  an australian guy went to china  

he was fluent in mandarin in six months  a girl from australia went to to brazil  

she was fluent in six months and fluent  to the level that they could get hired  

in companies requiring bilingual skills to be a  sales manager or manager of diversity or something  

else so these were senior roles these were not  not sort of bottom of the of the heap so so what  

was coming back very clearly was when people  were using the the ideas that i talk about then  

if you're going to if you use the language then  you're going to be competent to fluent in six  

months basically it seems to be that it seems to  be the timeline some people can do it much faster  

because maybe they already have another  couple of languages that they've learned  

um people who are monolingual will be a little  bit slower because they have some issues in how  

they think about language which get in the way  they think that the sounds for things are the  

things and and it's really hard to break that  since you speak english i assume you also you  

speak russian as well right yeah yeah russian  is my native language so and your english accent  

is very very american and very clear so you would  understand that they're just labels for things  

words are labels for things but  monolingual people don't get that  

monolingual people think that the sound  is the thing and and to break that  

in their mind is a little bit tough so it can  be a little bit slower for them to start with  

but it but in general it was six months if you're  using it to communicate treating it as a tool if  

it's relevant to you then yeah that's that's a  sort of fairly average sort of time frame so yeah  

with the help of this book people can i guess  learn some principles right that they can use  

to learn a language in six months exactly and and  then the tedx talk after many years of experience  

and and seeing people using our product it was  very clear what some of the core messages had to  

be for people to understand so you know it's got  to be relevant to you if it's not relevant to you  

you're not going to do anything about it you have  to treat it as a tool you have to understand that  

it's a physiological process you're not sort of  learning concepts you're actually learning to use  

your body you're learning to use your face your  mouth your ears it's very interesting because  

uh when i watch anything in english like  youtube videos or especially with tv shows  

and different actors especially those that i  really like i try to mimic their pronunciation  

you know sometimes not throughout the whole show  obviously and i feel like it helps me improve my  

accent a lot and like what do you think about  this approach um absolutely that's what you  

need to do that's what babies do when they're  learning their mother tongue if you try and  

and do do a language by keeping your old accent  it's it's not going to work so a great story was  

in africa this english person spoke to a black  person but she spoke in swahili using an english  

accent and the african guy goes i have no idea  what she's saying you've got to get into the  

physiology of of the language so for instance if  i start speaking the anatomy a little bit scott's  

accent you'll discover that my facial expressions  and everything else have changed it's not the same  

as i'm talking about that with my other accent  right so it's it's a whole body phenomenon um and  

when you understand that and you actually decide  to be like a child and play with it then then  

it becomes a lot of fun and you get the outcomes  you're looking for is it the only way that people  

can like is it the only approach people can  use to improve their accent or are there  

any other good ways one of the things is you  just have to listen a lot so so for instance  

did you practice your american accent yeah i mean  sometimes a little bit yeah but mostly i listened  

a lot that was the main thing i did exactly so  when you're listening your brain is actually  

picking it up unconsciously and then you start  to to use those sounds and you even notice when  

you're speaking it's not quite right so you make  a change yeah exactly that's exactly what i did  

sometimes yeah i would i always listen to podcasts  that's my favorite thing to do and every time i  

hear something interesting like maybe how they're  connecting words together i would sometimes repeat  

it because i would think wow that's fascinating  i should i should try to again copy them right  

mimic them their pronunciation exactly exactly  and and you know when i was a kid at school i  

i was terrible with actions i had a friend who  would mimic teachers and cartoon characters on tv  

and he was absolutely brilliant  and i was extremely jealous of him  

but then um there was this scottish comedian by  the name of billy connolly and he and i used to  

both listen to him very very very funny i realized  the only way to tell those jokes was to do it with  

a scottish accent because if you tried to do it  with an english accent it was like really weird  

so so i literally practiced that to just mimic  that accent and the result of that was i was in  

in beijing and i met a group of um people from  scotland and i was chatting with them and i tried  

for two hours to convince them i was not from  scotland and had never been to scotland in my life  

but i did that using the scottish accent right  and they would not believe me it was so funny  

i think yesterday i was listening to an episode  and the guy there he is from upstate new york but  

his whole childhood he watched british tv and  he has like the best british accent there is  

and like every single time he meets a new person  obviously he can speak with an american accent too  

but he always try to use his british accent to  just you know make fun of them he's like guess  

where i'm from all of them are like english he's  like no i'm from new york well the funny funniest  

thing with with the youtube video um very early on  people coming on and arguing about where my accent  

was from and some were saying i was irish someone  saying i was i was was american right there was a  

whole bunch of people with opinions so i came in  i said actually here is the origin of my accent  

being in hong kong you need to sort of roll your  r's a little bit so people can hear them you  

need to slow down a little bit there's a bunch of  things you do so non-native english speakers can  

understand you've also got a lot of americans  a lot of canadians uh some brits there so  

it's it's like a hodgepodge of different accents  from different places yeah yeah and even sometimes  

when again i watched like a british tv show i  never practiced the british accent before and i  

try to speak with an american accent like always  exclusively but sometimes i just realized that  

i do pick up certain patterns of the british  accent and yeah sometimes it's just a little  

bit confusing to me especially after i watch too  much of british tv and i also wanted to talk to  

you about like this concept of having a talent  towards foreign languages because a lot of people  

even like when i was a child it's very common  in russia for people to think that you have a  

talent for certain things but i really like your  opinion like again in your ted talk you said that  

like talent it doesn't matter and like immersion  you also talked about immersion in a country  

they're not important when we're trying to learn  a language why why they're not important how do  

we put this it's not that talent's not important  is that everyone born has a talent for learning a  

language just for learning for for anything  really i think it's just persistence right  

what's persistence but it's also um as babies we  go through we learn a language by ourselves with  

no one teaching us by the time we get to school  and they start teaching us we actually already  

know the language right that's that's sort of the  the bottom line um so so it's not so much about  

this person has this talent and this person  doesn't have this talent it's we you know if if a  

person didn't have a talent for language learning  they would not be speaking their mother tongue  

now there are some people who speak a mother  tongue really well and some people who don't speak  

it so well that will sort of define how well they  speak a foreign language you know how good you  

are at your mother tongue sort of gives you the  bounds of what you can do in a foreign language  

but i think it's also like human psychology  if we fail we don't wanna a lot of people  

don't wanna say that it's their fault you know  they wanna say oh i just don't have a talent  

you know you have the talent for foreign  languages but i don't yeah they just don't  

wanna admit that they don't i don't study hard  enough they haven't even failed they don't try  

because they feel that because they feel they  might fail the way to deal with that is say you  

make a sounder on what's the worst that can  happen is is the is it planet earth going to  

explode that's actually a very good question to  ask yourself and sometimes every single time that  

i have to do something a little bit uncomfortable  for me i always ask myself this question like  

what is the worst that's gonna happen if i do that  yeah i might just feel a little bit uncomfortable  

talking to this person or asking this question but  that's it that's the worst that's going to happen  

exactly and you know a few times of that and you  discover that nothing bad happens so you're going  

to be fine and what about the immersion uh in a  country where the language you want to learn is  

spoken so many people nowadays unfortunately we  can travel that freely right now it's overrated  

and misunderstood okay so you will see adults  going to another country and immersing and they  

are dealing with other adults who are speaking  adult to adult and they can't find a way in  

right so you'll see people who have moved overseas  they've lived there for 20 years they still don't  

speak the language that is very very common okay  so this idea of immersion you have to actually  

take it a lot deeper you need to find people  that you can talk with right so for you you're  

listening to podcasts right um some people might  watch football it could be anything you meet you  

meet a friend who doesn't speak your language  you you decide to learn theirs you have these  

really simple interactions that grows over time  right so it's not immersion in the culture per se  

it is immersion in the task of communicating that  is meaningful and relevant for you i completely  

agree with you especially with the part that it's  like meaningful and relevant to you because you  

will always come back to that if it's important  to you exactly exactly it has to be meaningful it  

has to be relevant if it's not you're wasting your  time and when i was watching your ted talk you say  

you said that people should find like a language  parent for themselves but you also said that  

like a spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend is not a  good language parent i just wanted to ask you why  

why are they not good at being a language parent  okay all right with a spouse or or a boyfriend or  

a girlfriend the relate the relationship is going  to be in one language right and so if you want to  

learn the other person's language it means that  you become a baby and they're still an adult so it  

changes the power distance between the two people  right and that can be quite disruptive in the  

relationship so that's why i say a spouse is not  particularly good a language parent is somebody  

who understands what you're meaning even if you're  way off in your pronunciation the the choice of  

words the degree of complexity that you're using  yeah now now i understand why you call this person  

a language parent because this dynamic is like a  parent and a child right yeah so my next question  

is about um being perfect in a foreign language  and i had this problem for a long time too i was  

struggling i mean it's also like more like of a  personal problem just being perfect in general  

so many people want to become like fluent  advanced perfect for them and a foreign language  

and what advice would you give to those people  who have anxiety of not being perfect in a  

foreign language okay so explain to me how  you can be perfect at using a screwdriver  

i mean using it how it's supposed to be used well  how about being perfect at driving yeah that's  

more complicated right so so what is perfect  have you listened to people speaking russian  

and how often do they stop midway stutter change  the words go back use the wrong word get lost in  

their head so the question is why do people give  themselves a target for a foreign language which  

is higher than the target they've accepted for  their mother tongue there's so much leeway when  

we're speaking our native language right we just  don't really care like it's my native language  

that's my mother tongue i know everything so  i can make as many mistakes as i want exactly  

exactly and and it's not even mistakes it's just  sometimes your your thinking is not keeping up  

with your mouth sometimes you really because what  you're doing when you're speaking a language is  

you're going internal you're trying to find  the internal representations of what you're  

talking about then find the words to to match  it and sometimes you can't quite find a word  

that really does the job for what you're trying  to do so there's all of these dynamics going on  

you might get a little drunk your tongue is not  operating the way that it normally operates i mean  

there's so many variables in terms of speaking  a language that this idea of perfection is just  

it's an irritant and a barrier to actually  becoming good at language yeah you're absolutely  

right yeah there's no such thing as being perfect  yeah that's what everyone has to realize and but  

you you can be you can be a six-month-old english  baby and speaking at a one-year level right so or  

you can be a six month old english baby and  speaking at a five month level and growing  

up in your mother tongue same thing you know some  kids are like at one year old some are like silent  

until they're two improvements should always be  gauged against where am i now and have i gone  

beyond that can what do i want to do next that's  better than where i am not having this idealized  

thing called perfection and being a million miles  away from it because that is soul destroying  

and not helpful yeah there's always room for  improvement yep exactly exactly thank you so much  

for all your wonderful ideas and advice i think my  audience is really gonna appreciate it thank you  

yeah so i think we can finish for now and before  we wrap up um you can just tell my audience where  

they can find you like maybe your website your app  right so the easiest place to find me it's all in  

chinese of course but it's www.kungfuenglish.com  that's k-u-n-g-f-u-e-n-g-l-i-sh.com

that's probably the easiest place to find  me yeah so thank you and maybe we'll talk to  

you again later yeah well i'd love to hear  how your audience does with the ideas and  

you know and see see some of the exciting  experiences that they may have by applying  

these ideas in real life guys this interview was  so much fun for me to film because chris shared so  

many great tips on how you can learn english  as fast as possible and how you shouldn't be  

worried or anxious about language learning at  all i really hope you liked this interview and  

you'll use all of these tips to study english  yourself if you like this video make sure  

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page and pick a membership there so thank you  guys for watching this video see you next time bye

you