The Language Mastery Show

Happy New Year! I hope your 2022 is off to a great start.

In this first episode of the year, I would like to experiment with a new format. I have some exciting interviews lined up in the coming weeks, but I’d like to kick things off with a new segment called The 3 Foundations of Mastery.

If you already subscribe to my Language Mastery Monday newsletter, you will already be familiar with this framework. If not, what are you waiting for? Head over to LanguageMastery.com/newsletter to get expert tips and tools in your inbox each week.

So what are the three foundations and why do they matter?

1. Foundation 1 is Mastering Your Mind, which means conquering fears and self-limiting beliefs that are blocking your path to fluency.
2. Foundation 2 is Mastering Your Day, which involves building better habits and learning more efficiently.
3. Foundation 3 is Mastering Your Environment, which means creating your own immersion wherever you happen to live.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned over the last 20 plus years of learning and teaching foreign languages is that you can't master a language unless you also master your mind, your day, and your environment.

Harnessing your psychology, wrangling your schedule, and designing your learning environment can each be extremely difficult, especially in our modern world of distraction and instant gratification.

But master these three foundations you must if you want to have any chance of getting fluent in a foreign tongue.

These factors are what really make learning languages difficult. The languages themselves are learned more or less automatically if you show up and give your brain the input it needs. (And yes, get tons of active practice, too, of course.)

But YOU have to constantly decide to show up and put in the time instead of choosing easier activities that provide a more immediate hit of dopamine and serotonin (Netflix + Cherry Garcia, anyone?).

Language learning can provide these “feel-good” hormones, too, but the rewards live on the other side of much more time and effort.

So to help you win this mental battle, I will be sharing powerful principles and short, actionable tips each week that will help you develop the mindset, habits, and environment you need to learn any language, anywhere.

Ready? Let's get started! Listen to today's episode to hear this week's tips for mastering your mind, day, and environment.

Despite doing well in other school subjects, Andrew Barr failed French in secondary school. Upon hearing this news, his supportive father assured him:

"The Barrs don't do languages. We do maths and sciences. You will never have to speak of a word of French again!"

It turns out that this prediction was a bit of the mark. Today, Andrew speaks multiple languages and has built a successful business teaching languages at Real Fast Spanish.

In this deep dive into Andrew's language learning journey and philosophy, you will learn:

• How a multilingual climb up Mount Kilimanjaro inspired him to learn languages (and led to befriending a French actress).
• The importance of high-quality language input (high-yield listening and reading content).
• The power of learning with other people (teachers, tutors, and exchange partners) and why you need to avoid the input-only trap.
• Why motivation, consistency, and discipline are the essential 3 essential ingredients of successful language learning.
• Why Andrew decided to start learning Polish (his first non-Romance language) and the surprising origins of his family name.
• The ideal order of operations for learning a new language from scratch and why you should master sounds first.
• The 24-hour rule for new vocabulary and the simple $5 language-learning tool you should carry with you everywhere you go.
• The language-learning advice Andrew would give to his younger self to break through his earlier stories and self-limiting beliefs.
• Why learning a language is akin to learning to play the guitar (you have to learn by doing, not watching).
• Why your feelings about a language-learning method are more important than the method itself.
• Why pursuing pleasure in language learning is not always the answer and why Andrew studies flashcards in Anki even though he doesn't enjoy it.
• The most common mistakes that native English speakers make in Spanish (and how to sound less like a "gringo" by changing just one sound).
• Why correctly pronouncing vowels is more important in Spanish than getting consonants right.
• The critical difference between "accent" and "pronunciation" and why the latter matter much more.
• Andrew's 2 essential language-learning principles: 1) readiness to learn, and 2) high-quality practice.
• How to build early confidence by setting the bar low and having specific goals in each conversation.

📧 Get expert language immersion tips in your inbox each week!

Join my FREE weekly newsletter to get the tips and tools you need to get fluent anywhere in the world.

👉🏼 ⁠LanguageMastery.com/newsletter

Stuart Jay Raj is an Australian polyglot, applied linguist, author, musician, and cross-cultural business consultant based in Thailand. He has presented at two TEDx events (once in English and once in Mandarin), and is the author of Cracking Thai Fundamentals: A Thai Operating System for the Mind.

In addition to teaching and writing extensively on effective language acquisition, he has also applied his impressive language skills as a multilingual facilitator in various specialized industries (including aerospace, oil and gas, hospitality, and cyber security) and as the co-host of a Thai travel show called Neua Chan Phan Plaek (เหนือชั้น 1000 แปลก) that explosured fascinating people, places, and things around the world via local languages. Stuart holds a degree in Cognitive and Applied Linguistics from Griffith University, and speaks over 15 languages, including Thai, Lao, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Indonesian / Malay, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Hindi, Vietnamese, Burmese, and various other Asian languages and dialects.

📧 Get expert language immersion tips in your inbox each week!

Join my FREE weekly newsletter to get the tips and tools you need to get fluent anywhere in the world.

👉🏼 ⁠⁠LanguageMastery.com/newsletter⁠

Mattias Ribbing is a Swedish author, lecturer, and Grandmaster of Memory. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the 2016 Bulletproof Conference and was blown away by his highly effective methods and positive attitude. Contrary to what most people would assume, Mattias isn't a savant and wasn’t born with extraordinary cognitive skills. He had average grades at school and struggled to remember what he had studied like almost everyone else. It wasn’t until he was 29 that he developed his impressive ability to remember. The secret, he discovered, was thinking in images. Listen to the conversation to find out more about how to make new words stick through the power of mental images.

📝 For show notes, visit LanguageMastery.com/show.

🇯🇵 Learn Japanese Anywhere!

Want to learn Japanese through at-home immersion instead of boring textbooks or expensive classes? MASTER JAPANESE, my detailed how-to manual and resource guide, will show you exactly how. Learn more at https://bit.ly/masterjapaneselms.

❓Ask Me a Question!

Got a question about language learning you'd like me to answer on the show? Leave me a voice recording and you might here my response on the next episode! Record your message here: https://anchor.fm/john-fotheringham/message

Sara Maria Hasbun, a.k.a. Miss Linguistic, is a polyglot, translator, linguist, and the Managing Director of Meridian Linguistics. She speaks Spanish, French, Mandarin, Korean, American Sign Language, Nicaraguan Sign Language, and Indonesian, and has also dabbled in Thai, Cantonese, and Malay.

📝 For show notes, visit LanguageMastery.com/show.

🇨🇳 Learn Mandarin Chinese Anywhere!

Want to learn Mandarin Chinese through at-home immersion instead of boring textbooks or expensive classes? Master Mandarin, my detailed how-to manual and resource guide, will show you exactly how. Learn more at: https://bit.ly/mastermandarinlms.

❓Ask Me a Question!

Got a question about language learning you'd like me to answer on the show? Leave me a voice recording and you might here my response on the next episode! Record your message here: https://anchor.fm/john-fotheringham/message