When central bankers start to play around with your nation's currency – QE this and QE that – often life becomes a game of sink-or-swim for entrepreneurs and business people. You desperately want to avoid drowning and need to expand your customer base. To do so, you're going to need to learn a new language quickly so that you can start making money as soon as possible.
The problem is that speaking well enough to sell your product or close a business deal means you need to at least be an intermediate level speaker in your new language. But learning a new language can be extremely difficult for those of us whose brains are so used to our native language that we even dream in our native language. Luckily, within every problem you can find the answer hiding in plain sight.
You can actually learn a new language and become good enough to talk and understand 70-80% of it in a few months IF you can practice one simple habit. All of us have the potential to learn as many languages as we need to expand our business and keep the cash coming in. You know this because we've all learned at least one language already.
The key to unlocking the gateway to learning a new language is to think in mental movie scenes.
This is the problem most people have when they try to learn a new language: They get turned off by the way most schools and language programs teach, which is a translation-based method. The brain of the typical person will always struggle to translate concept words/phrases, especially when you have already been describing concepts one way for most of your life.
However, like a leopard in a tree camouflaged by leaves and branches, you can probably already see the answer starting to wonder if it has been spotted as we look more closely at this problem.
The first thing you need to do is get out of the habit of describing concepts in words within your mind. Rather than thinking of the concept in a mental conversation, you need to abandon the use of words in your thoughts as often as possible and replace words with animations. The more complex the concept, the more moving pictures you use in your mind.
Think about this... what is the smell of ocean water? Did you rely on words? You probably had a short conversation in your mind made up of descriptive words like "gamey," "salty," "fresh," or something like that. You may see the letters or you may "hear" the words in your mind.
Now try this... Multiply two numbers in your head. Did you have another mental conversation in your native language? But what if you were to start making a conscious effort to organize images of these concepts you just thought about? Your brain will gradually return to the neutral position – the potential to imagine.
And from there, you can associate any sound in any language to the images you imagine simply because any image, by its very nature, can already speak a thousand words... in any language.
For example, trees exist all over the globe and are a concept known to people of all cultures. The image of a tree, therefore, is universally understood by nearly all people on earth even if they may have never seen that type of tree before. But the word "tree" spoken to a person who doesn't speak English instantly results in confusion as to what a "tree" is. Show them a picture of a tree and the confusion is just as instantly cleared up.
The five-month shortcut to learning a new language up to the intermediate level is to avoid translating. Put your brain in neutral before you shift into drive and you will not stall out. The only way to accelerate your language learning is to go back to childlike imagination where you are free to associate images with words, rather than developing the bad habit of replacing images with words as most adults tend to do.
Within months of practicing this new habit, we were able to envision concepts associated with the sounds of the language in order to communicate with the native speakers of that language. It was very tedious at first because the habit was so deep. But little by little, our brains reclaimed our youth and brought us closer to the place we all were in when we first learned to speak our first language.
It all starts with making yourself aware of when you are thinking in words, in which I am right now as I write this post. From there, your next step is to make an effort to imagine the movie scene that best acts out the concept. I envision the word "home" not as letters but a mental picture of my house with sun reflecting off the front window. I envision the phrase "We have an important meeting with a potential client" as five individuals sitting at a table with smiles on their faces.
Finally, to put it all together, sound out the word or phrase associated with the imagery, much like Chick Hearn gave his play-by-play in basketball games. Outwardly, you're talking what you imagine while inwardly allowing your imagination to do the mental drawing. You will quickly discover your talent for learning a new language, and you will be rewarded with more business relationships that will keep you afloat in this sea of economic uncertainty.
Free Resources
Free language tools used by the Red Cross, Foreign Services Institute, Peace Corps, and the Defense Language Institute and others:
Paid Resources
The most effective language tools used by millions worldwide:
