Words alone will not get you speaking, unfortunately. And if you’ve been reading my blog, you know what I’m about to say: conversation is the single most important thing you can do when learning a language. However, speaking can be difficult if you have no idea how a sentence should be structured. Different languages have different structures. Most Indo-European languages e.g. English, Italian, French, German, Russian, Spanish, etc. mostly have a subject verb object structure (SVO for short). Non-Indo-European languages, such as Japanese, Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Basque, and Turkish typically use different a different structure, the subject object verb (SOV).
One of my early influences in language learning was Tim Ferris. I picked up his 4-hour-chef, a book that explains everything from cooking to bits of language learning. I recommend you check it out if you are into learning and constant self-improvement; that’s what language learning is, at the end of the day. Without further ado, I present to you the 8 sentences used to deconstruct any language, or as I like to call them, the Ferris 8.
The apple is red
It is John’s apple
I give john the apple
We give him the apple
He gives it to John
She gives it to him
I must give it to him
I want to give it to her
Go meet somebody that speaks your target language and politely ask them to translate these sentences. If you don’t know anyone then you can always ask online. You can check out my posts on conversation and on writing for platforms that let you do this. Last week I sat down with a Turkish girl, Zeynep, who kindly helped me start decoding the language:
Elma kırmız
O John’un elması
Ben elmayı John’a veririm
Biz elmayı ona veririz
O, elmayı John’a verir
O, onu ona verir
Ben onu ona vermeliyim
Ben onu ona vermek istierim
These sentences will give you a pretty good feeling for the language. For instance, I now know that, in Turkish, you can simply say, apple red to mean, the apple is red. I also know that the word for he and she (o) is the same and that the sentence structure is she it to him gives (she gives it to him). It’s a good idea to add continuous versions of these sentences as well as changing John to a female name since there are languages that make distinctions between these:
I am giving John the apple
We are giving him the apple
He is giving it to Anna
She is giving it to him
You can play around with these to fit your needs. Once you’ve translated it then you can put them into your favorite flashcard app (like Anki, my favorite; check out my blog post on flashcards). If you’re learning a semi-popular language, life will be very easy for you. What I mean is that you will easily find flashcard decks that focus on sentences rather than words. This is crucial. We seldom speak using single words! We need to build up phrases and sentences and the best way to go by it on your own time are flashcards. Just like I encouraged you to learn the 1000 most popular words in a language, I encourage you to learn the most popular sentences and phrases in a language. A lot of people use Duolingo, and I gotta say, I have mixed feelings about it. It makes language learning fun, but you can’t tell me that you are going to say the phrase: “there are animals in the zoo” on any given day (these are the kind of sentences that Duolingo teaches you). Rather, try stuff like “What’s your name?” Or “I just finished working at this company as an engineer.” Tailor the sentences to what you need if and make your own sentence decks. Not only will these stick better in your brain, but you will actually be able to use them in conversation. Best case scenario, you will download a deck that has sentences you can use every day. Realistically, you will have to put in a little more work than that and make your own custom flashcard decks.
And speaking of Duolingo, see you next week for a guide on how to effectively use it.
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