Fluent Forever : How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It

number of speakers, but in the end, choose a language that you like. A reader on my website once
asked me whether he should learn Russian or French. His relatives spoke Russian, he loved the
culture, but he was worried about the difficulty. French seemed like a safe alternative.
Never settle for safe when you can have fun instead. Your language will become a constant
companion, living in your head. If you like your language, then you’ll have fun studying it, and when
you have fun, you learn faster.
You have many resources at your disposal.
Language Books
Get yourself some books. Someone sat down and spent months (or years, heaven forbid) organizing
the information you need, and you can have all of that effort in the palm of your hand for $15–$25.
Thank you, Herr Gutenberg. In 
Appendix 1
, I list my favorite picks for the top eleven languages
you’re most likely to be studying. If your language isn’t there, go to my website, 
Fluent-Forever.com
.
I aim to have book recommendations for as many languages as people want to learn.
GET THESE NOW
A good grammar book will walk you through your language’s grammar in a thoughtful, step-by-step
manner.
1
 On the way, it will introduce you to a thousand words or so, give you a bunch of examples
and exercises, and provide you with an answer key. You will skip 90 percent of the exercises in the
book, but having them around will save you a lot of time once we begin to learn grammar. If the book
gives you “Englishy” pronunciation for each word (Bonjour: bawn-JURE, Tschüss: chewss), I give
you permission to burn it and find a different one. Walking into a Parisian cafe and saying “bawn-
JURE” is a good way to get ignored indefinitely by the waiter. If your new book comes with a CD,
then so much the better.
There are two pitfalls here to avoid. First, avoid books systematically detailing every single
solitary rule and detail and exception, all at once, in an uncontrollable torrent of grammatical despair.
I used to love these books—until I tried learning from them. These are technical tomes that lay out the
entire grammatical system of a language in giant flowcharts. They’re lovely reference manuals but are
very difficult to use in a step-by-step manner.
Second, be wary of most classroom books, especially those without an answer key. Books
designed for classrooms are often sparse on explanations, because they expect that the teacher will be
able to handle any confusion. You’ll often have more luck with a self-study book.
A phrase book is a wonderful reference, as it’s difficult to find handy phrases like “Am I under
arrest?” and “Where are you taking me?” in a dictionary. Phrase books from the Lonely Planet
company are cheap and come with a tiny, extremely practical dictionary in the back. We’ll use this
dictionary when we learn our first words, because it’s a lot easier (and faster) to skim through than a
real dictionary. We’ll grudgingly allow “bawn-JURE” here but only because there are no phrase
books without it.

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