By a show of hands, how many of you have put in time and effort

into learning another language?

Maybe you took a high school Spanish class,

or maybe you took a lot of Rosetta Stone,

but you can't confidently speak that language right now.

Vat Jaiswal: OK. That's most of you here.

Some of you are raising both of your hands.

So, we've tried learning a few languages ourselves,

we're going to talk about it in a minute.

But let's talk about what is the problem,

what is the main issue that is holding everybody back

from learning languages.

Could it be that you're using the wrong program of study,

and if you were to use a perfect program or the application,

then you'd be able to learn the language?

SY: Well, here the track record isn't too good.

Out of the 1,000 Americans who responded to the General Social Survey,

only 7 claimed that they could speak another language very well,

and had actually learned it in school.

And if you consider self-study programs, like Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur,

well, they can work some of the time, but they have another problem:

huge drop out rates.

[NFLC], at the University of Maryland

did a study that took an enthusiastic group of volunteers

and found that only 6% put in more than 100 hours with the program,

which is far less than what you'd need using these programs

to become fluent in any language.

VJ: OK, well, maybe then the problem is

that you don't live in the country that uses this language,

and if you were to move there, you'd be able to learn it.

SY: Here I have to agree with you, Vat.

Living in the country that speaks the language, definitely helps.

It provides motivation and an opportunity for immersion.

But it's not the answer to all of your problems.

If you go to the country and you don't yet speak the language,

what are you going to do?

Are you going to rely on other expats and locals who speak English

to help you to get by?

And that's going to create a bubble of English,

it is going to isolate you from immersing yourself.

So, we know an extreme example.

We know of an American businessman who went to Korea,

married a Korean woman, had children in Korea,

lived in Korea for 20 years,

still couldn't have a decent conversation in Korean.

So, living in the other country helps, but it is not a silver bullet

that will answer all of your problems on its own.

VJ: OK, well, finally maybe the problem is that you're simply too old,

and you should've tried learning the language as a kid

because kids learn the languages faster, right?

SY:This is actually a pervasive myth.

Steven Brown of Einstein University

and Jennifer Larson-Hall of Qiushi University

reviewed the literature and found

adults actually learn languages faster than children in the short run.

It's only when we talk about

reaching native-like levels of pronunciation and grammar

where children start to show an upper hand over an adult.

So, definitely, if you want to just be able to communicate with people,

have conversations, there is no reason

you can't learn a second language at any age.

VJ: If those are not the core issues, what is the core issue?

We have a completely different hypothesis,

and to explain this concept

I want you to look at this image of the ocean.

Now, if you look at the water, you're going to see 2 distinct zones:

zone at the bottom where the waves are breaking,

an the zone at the top where the water is relatively calm.

Now, I want you to imagine you're standing on the shore,

and you want to swim out into the ocean.

When you first start swimming out into the ocean,

you ARE going to be in this first zone where the waves are breaking.

And swimming in this zone is incredibly difficult,

you feel this incredible resistance,

the waves come crushing down on you,

and they constantly try to push you back to the shore.

However, if you were to push through this zone and get to the second zone,

suddenly, swimming becomes a lot easier

and more importantly, the waves are not trying to push you back,

you're no longer feel this incredible resistance.

So, we believe that language learning works very similar to this.

When you first start learning a language,

you're going to be in this first zone

which we call 'the zone of fear' or 'the zone of frustration',

because this is where you fear using the language,

this is where you fear making mistakes,

this is where you fear embarrassing yourself.

And learning a language in this zone is very difficult:

the waves represent this negative feedback

and this constantly tries to push you back to the shore.

However, if you were to push past this zone

and get to the second zone where the waters are calmer,

suddenly language learning becomes a lot easier, and a lot more fun.

Mind you, I'm not saying that you're perfect

when you reach the second zone,

or maybe you only know a few words, but you're able to use them confidently,

maybe you're able to have some simple conversations.

And language only goes from being always frustrating

to now being rewarding, most of the time.

So, the core issue, we believe, that a lot of the people have

is that people get stuck in this zone of fear and frustration

for longer than they have to,

and for some people, forever.

And if all you see is negative feedback,

it's very hard to motivate yourself to learn further and improve yourself,

and learn the language that you really want to learn.

So, ideally, you'd use a different method,

a method that allows you to get past this zone very quickly

and very efficiently,

so you can get to the part where language learning

is fun and easy as quickly as you can.

SY: We believe we have this method, a method that cuts through the waves

and gets you to the easier part of language learning

as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It's very simple.

Don't speak in English.

And, that might sound a little obvious or simplistic,

but it's actually really powerful.

When you force yourself to speak the language you're trying to learn,

and you learn words and phrases by necessity,

not the order it comes up in the textbook

That means you automatically learn the most frequent vocabulary

and the most important words for your situation.

Next, because you don't know many words and phrases,

you're going to overuse what you do know.

This results in effects psychologists call overlearning

which allows you to access that information automatically.

You don't need to get your tongue tight or hesitating

when you're using basic words and phrases.

And finally, because you're not allowed to speak in English

you're going to easily develop conversational work-arounds

to handle situations that are above your level.

That is going to be from learning simple phrases like:

"What does this mean?" and "How do you say this?

in the language, relatively early on,

to being able to efficiently use things like Google Translator and dictionaries

to integrate new words and phrases into your conversations

while you're having them.

VJ: So how do we know that this method works?

Well, we know that this method works because we've tried it for ourselves.

So, last year Scott and I did an experiment.

But we tried to learn four different languages,

and we went to four different countries

to learn these languages over a year.

And we used the same no-English rule to learn the languages.

So, first we went to Spain to learn Spanish over 3 months,

then we went to Brazil to learn Portuguese over 3 months,

then over to mainland China to learn Mandarin over 3 months,

and finally over to Korea to learn Korean over 3 months.

And we found that this no-English rule worked incredibly well.

As a matter of fact, near the end of our travels in each country,

we were confidently able to have conversations with native speakers

pretty much about any subject,

and going by our daily lives,

using the language that we were trying to learn.

So we actually have a short video that we would like to show you

that captures the kind of progress that we were able to make

using this no English rule just under 3 months for each country.

So, take a look.

(Video)

SY: This might seem a little bit extreme.

After all, wouldn't it be a lot easier to speak some English

when you're trying to learn the language

even if it is not quite as fast as this no-English rule?

We actually believe that this is a misconception.

And to argue that why it is a misconception,

I'd like to reference an experience that I had.

You see, years before we did this challenge,

I had a different opportunity to learn a second language.

I was in the university and I had an opportunity

to study abroad for a year in France.

And like this trip, I was very eager to learn the local language.

I bought books, I downloaded podcasts,

I really wanted to become fluent in French.

The only difference that I had no specific rule

against speaking in English.

I figured, "I'll go there and I'll speak as much English as I need to,

and I'll just try to practice French whenever I can."

And after a year of living in France,

and pushing myself to study every single day,

I did get to a point where I could have a conversation,

but it was never easy, it always felt difficult,

it always felt like I was a little out of place.

And contrast that to that of my more recent experience in Spain.

Once again, we have the motivation and opportunity,

but this time we have the no-English rule.

>From the very first day we came to Spain,

we decided we were only going to speak in Spanish.

And, as you can probably imagine,

with limited Spanish skills it was very difficult in the beginning.

We had to communicate to each other

almost exclusively through our dictionaries for these first few days.

But after 2 weeks something changed,

it started to get a bit easier.

After a month even easier.

And by the third month we were in Spain, it'd become so easy,

that living our lives entirely in Spanish was automatic.

We didn't have to think about studying or practicing,

it was completely invisible in our lives.

And what's more, after just 3 months in Spain,

our Spanish, both of our Spanish, was much better than my French was

after a year of living in France and deliberately studying it.

And so, when you're evaluating the difficulty of a method,

particularly in learning languages,

it's not really fair to look at that initial sliver of difficulty

because you have to look at how much effort

you're going to be putting in not just in the beginning,

but day after day, month after month

in order to finally being able to learn this language.

And what we found is not even just that the no English rule is faster,

but that when you take it over this longer view,

it is actually easier than any other method we've tried

for learning a language.

VJ: And I'd like to speak about another misconception

that a lot of people have

is that you'd somehow be able to completely avoid making mistakes

when you first start learning a language.

And that's simply not true.

Actually making mistakes is very good because it means you're using the language

and eventually it helps you to gain the confidence

that you need to speak the language.

When Scott and I were doing this challenge,

we made mistakes every day especially in the beginning,

everything we said was wrong, but that's OK.