A Method I’ve Used for 15 Years
This is a picture of me from 15 years ago back in 2007. I had just landed in France for a 3-month exchange trip. The person beside me was my French exchange student. I am still in touch with him and his family today :) As you can probably imagine, 2007 was one of the most important years in my life. Being away from your family in a tiny village of 500 people for 3 months as a teenager is unsurprisingly a transformative experience.
Personal development aside, 2007 was also when stumbled upon a language learning method which I still use to this day: intensive bursts. I mentioned these briefly in a previous newsletter, but I would like to expand upon this strategy further today.
What is an Intensive Burst?
An intensive burst as a period of time where you study or practice a language for multiple hours a day. I recommend dedicating at least 3 hours a day for a minimum of 2 weeks. The bulk of your efforts should be spent on consuming comprehensible input (i.e., listening and reading that is at your level). Speaking practice can also be very beneficial.
Do You Have to Travel Abroad to Do an Intensive Burst?
Being in France back in 2007 for 3 months definitely did wonders for my French. However, you do not need to travel abroad to benefit from an intensive burst. For example, in 2017 I decided to do a 3-week intensive burst from from the comfort of my home. I hired two private Mandarin tutors - one for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and the other for Tuesdays and Thursdays. I then took 3 hours of class a day and did about 1 hour of homework per day.
Another time when I was on a tighter budget I did an 8-week listening burst. I watched lots of YouTube videos in Mandarin. Everything I consumed was at my level, meaning that I understood the bulk of the content, but was still encountering plenty of new vocabulary. I looked up the new words I heard or read and wrote them down.
Most of the content I watched was made by the same person, thus allowing me to get used to her communication style. I found that spending most of my time consuming one person helped me organically review the new words I learned and boost my confidence. Everyone has their own idiolect (i.e., the speech habits peculiar to a particular person) and repeats certain words frequently. Therefore, the longer I consumed her content the more I understood her and the more I was able to solidify previously unfamiliar words in my brain.
Ready to Do an Intensive Burst?
I have done more intensive bursts since 2007 both abroad and at home than I could count. It is by far my favourite language learning method and I highly recommend you plan a time to do an intensive burst before the end of 2022.