Gabriel Wyner
Harmony
31 December 2024
416
eBook - PDF
Non-Fiction
ARC via NetGalley
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 to imagery rather than translations, which will enable you to think in a foreign language. And with the help of sophisticated spaced-repetition techniques, you’ll be able to memorize hundreds of words a month in minutes every day.
This is brain hacking at its most exciting, taking what we know about neuroscience and linguistics and using it to create the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn a foreign language in the spare minutes of your day.
I am a keen learner of foreign languages and have read a few books about best practices for learning. I was therefore excited to see what Gabriel Wyner's Fluent Forever had to offer. To start with the positives, I loved that this book (unlike others I've read recently) did not try to say traditional grammar books etc. had no value. I appreciated Wyner's view that different resources could help in different ways and while modern technology offered a lot that didn't mean books were pointless. I enjoyed the science aspects of the book that explained how learning and memorisation occurred. I also liked that the book offered amended suggestions for those already at intermediate level. A couple of points where I wasn't as sold on Wyner's views were 1) the huge emphasis placed on flashcards and 2) the suggestion it was bad to learn more than one new language at a time. On the first point, this will depend on the student. I personally cannot work with flashcards. I have tried, but I find them so dull I lose all motivation and I would rather learn more slowly than give up through boredom. That point ties in with my thoughts on the second issue because I prefer to have fun studying what I want when I want, even if that means slower progress, than be told I am not allowed to try Chinese until I am an advanced-level Korean speaker. Overall, this book does have some good tips and recommends some good practices and resources, but I think it will be best suited to students who like to focus on flashcards and spaced repetition, as that was the primary area expounded. I am giving it four stars.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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