How to acquire any language NOT learn it!

Jeff Brown teaches Spanish using TPRS at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA.

Spring 2025 Schedule:
Advanced Span 285 M, W 11:10 am - 1:40 pm
Beginner Span 180 M, W 2.00 pm - 4.30 pm
Beginner Span 180 T. Th 4.45 - 7.15 pm

Stop learning languages and start acquiring them! Jeff Brown is a full-time language instructor and polyglot who guarantees anyone can acquire any language in one year!

00:41 PART 1: THE METHOD

04:09 Step 1: Acquire The Language
08:49 Step 2: Don’t Study Grammar
10:33 Step 3: Find The Right Class
15:23 Step 4: Find The Right Instructor
17:43 Step 5: How Long Will It Take You
23:03 Step 6: Find Language Parents
25:44 Step 7: The Magic
31:54 Step 8: TPR
33:52 Step 9: Read, Read, Read
35:20 Step 10: Input + 1
40:55 Step 11: Record Your Sessions
42:33 Step 12: Study Abroad

43:45 PART 2: ACQUISITION

49:44 PART 3: STUDY ABROAD

54:18 RESULTS

55:09 FINAL THOUGHTS

[wulvershon]

To be honest
This is the best video Ive seen on languages
Why did it take me so long to find it lol

[EdwardlubEdi]

If you are impatient like me, here's a summary:
6:20 Forget the grammar, don't study grammar, it will hinder you.


8:35 Learning - what happens in a classroom; acquiring - the subconscious way babies pick up a language.


10:36 The natural method (no grammar, no corrections, 90% target language in the classroom) and TPRS (hearing a story and then reading it) are the closest to the way we naturally acquire a language.


21:35 Focus on comprehensible input, listening and speaking. If you learn a language that doesn't use Roman alphabet forget about reading or writing until you are fluent.


So here's how you do it:
4. 23:03 Find a language partner (family, friends, trades, apps (HelloTalk), language exchange, craigslist)


5. 25: 44 Get yourself lots of magazines with lots of pictures and children's stories (any language).


6. 27:00 Your language partner will describe the pictures and will ask you simple yes or no questions about the pictures and you will ask simple questions too. The questions are: What is this? What's that? What is she doing? and the most important one: Why?


7. 29:32 Don't speak any English. Try to explain the thing with gestures or draw. If you get stuck just use the phrase "it's not important" and move on.


8. No grammar.


9. No corrections. It's a waste of time.


10. 31:54 TPR - ask your partner to give you commands or actions that you will act out.


11. 35:19 i+1 is input that you already know and +1 is going slightly beyond that level. So your partner will describe things with greater detail or using more sophisticated words.


12. 40:56 Record your sessions and listen back to them. It's important to repeatedly hear things.


13. 42:30 Study abroad and most importantly make friends through acquiring their language.
The rest of the video is a lovely documentation of Jeff Brown learning Arabic.

[waaagh]

Yes. By watching Star Wars, learned English I did. A problem, it was not.

[_tatm_]

Can we take a minute to appreciate that this is free? Information is sadly not free most of the time, so it's nice to know that you can get some good advice like this for free.

[lizzie]

if you dont want to sit and watch this then heres my notes. i watched the whole thing



-"story telling is *_THE MOST_* powerful way to acquire any language", "80% - 90% of your acquisition language program." he also talks about having someone with you to have so that they can ask simple questions in your target language about the story and such. same with magazines.

--he says the most important part of language learning is children's stories and magazines. he says 80% should be child stories and 20% magazines. start with magazines.

-students who read 100-150 pages in the language per week have best results

-learning style's goal is to *_LEARN LIKE A BABY DOES_*

-dont worry about grammar or writing. *_FOCUS ON LISTENING AND COMMUNICATING_*

-- *dont learn grammar* until you are fluent (babies dont focus on grammar when they learn their first language)

-with the person that is helping you learn your language (called your "language paren" ) which is a, teacher, friend, family etc. its important they speak *NO ENGLISH.* if you arent understanding something, they should to use gestures to help you comprehend. if that doesnt work, then have them draw it. whatever is needed but the point is avoid english at all costs. only use if very needed, at most, 5% of the time

-also do dont have your language parent teach you grammar. do not have them correct you at all. *_"CORRECTION IS A WASTE OF TIME"_* unless its a very simple correction that will benefit you a lot

-ask your language parent to give you lists of commands or actions. etc: eat, drink, jump, sleep, complain, turn around. try to get up to 50 to 100 actions a session. you dont have to actually do the action, or leave your seat, just use your hands

-learning a language, start with simple colors and clothes with your language parent

-record your learning sessions and relisten to them. *REPITITION IS IMPORTANT*

-*hand gestures* from language parent while talking is important

- *STUDY ABROAD* if possible

-online apps like duolingo is not good because its mainly just memorization. memorization is not comprehensible input. you could learn an entire dictionary and still would not learn the language.

- *PEOPLE SPENT TOO MUCH TIME WRITING THE LANGUAGE instead of the comprehensible input.- big mistake.*

- *LANGUAGE EXCHANGE* (find people that are trying to learn your language, that speak the language you want to learn. kind of teaching each other. one example where you can do this online like craigslist, app "HelloTalk" and "Tandem"

-he focuses on *COMPREHENSIBLE IMPUT* so again like listening and speaking. you should look up on youtube "comprehensible input spanish stories"" and such like that

- recommend watching movies and videos in your target language





43:58 he starts showing his journey on learning arabic from scratch.

[breee]

Him: Find a language partner.
My social anxiety: Maybe I DON'T need to learn another language

[pensadorilogico]

I did NOT watch the video, I ACQUIRED the video.

[halukonal]

Step 1: Be patient and enthusiastic enough to click on a 57 min video

[mindyourbusinessxoxo]

Sir....youve literally changed my life. I stumbled upon this video and im so glad i did. I studied German back in school and lived there for nearly 2 years and i still struggled with the language. I became so frustrated and resigned to probably neevr being proficient.

But when i changed my studying from routine memorization and focused on comprehensible input via movies, tv shows, songs etc. my comprehension has doubled. Im starting to understand simpler interviews and even quickly spoken German.

When im finally fluent, im gonna come back here. I feel so confident and happy that ill finally after all these years

[thesleepstealer]

I kept waiting for the sales pitch for a book or course, etc. And there was nothing, just excellent information that makes sense. Very impressive.

[johnwhite]

Part 1: Theory
1) 4:11 - Acquire the language, don't learn it
2) 8:48 - Don't study grammar. Acquire it.
3) 10:33 - Find the right class
4) 15:23 - Find the right instructor
5) 17:43 - Decide which language you want to acquire and how long it will take to acquire that language
6) 23:03 - Find Language Parents (as many as you can)
7) 25:44 - The Magic
8) 31:54 - TPR
9) 33:51 - Read, read, read
10) 35:20 - i+1


37:33 - Why no corrections?
38:45 - What about Rosetta Stone and apps


Part 2: Acquisition
1) 43:51 - The first day (week 1, 0 hours)
2) 44:38 - First trade (week 5, 24 hours)
3) 43:51 - A full-time Arabic tutor (week 6, 32 hours)
4) 45:10 - Meetups (week 11, 80 hours)
5) 45:35 - Actual visit to an ESL class + 4 trades (week 13, 96 hours)
6) 46:30 - Greetings, TPR, Magazines, Children's Stories, Repeat (week 18, 138 hours)

Totaly 9 month, 300 hours


Part 3: Study Abroad
49:56 - 500 hours of speaking in 12 weeks


54:19 - Results


P.S. Hey, leave a comment below if I missed something, thank you in advance!

[MohammadALObaidi]

So all this "one" hour of great advices wasn't for convincing people to buy or subscribe to a service !! Thank you professor I will start doing what you said

[giorgiogrlj]

I can well remember 89'. I was in London for a two week conference. As a Croatian speaker I learned at school English words and grammar, but was unable to speak. I was literally crying in my room, and than I decided to forget rules and simply start to speak, no matter how many mistakes I would do. What a relief. I was born in Italy and speak Italian, but if you ask me the grammar of Italian language I wont be able to explain, since I acquired this language as a child - no rules, no words.
Thanks professor.

[lordznum]

I'm studying english now, just 3 months I can understand this video and I'm learning in this way, acquire it.

[dbzlala]

Geniuses are able to *learn* as many languages as they want. The average person is able to *acquire* as many languages as he/she wants.

I think this will stay with me for the rest of my life. Thank you.

[phakanyiswadeklerk-fxfm]

I came back to this video, to thank everbody who made this video after watching this video in 2021 i aquired Spanish and French thanks to u guys, i didn't find natives to teach me so, i did this the different way, i search on youtube ( in 2021) spanish comprensible input and i watched all 567 videos, 3 hours a day, until i was able to understand natives, movies and interviews, after 1500 hours of input i can speak spanish so i did the same with french ( in 2022 december) i spent 1057 hours with French i can understand n speak without a problem, guys discipline is all u need ❤🎉 Am currently aquiring portugués ❤

[dragonofdomination]

randomly everyone was recommended this, time to acquire Japanese.

[davidc.]

The secret is you have to love what u want to learn, he said "I am a lover of languages "

[miyamotomusashi]

I'm a 16 years old native Arabic speaker from Algeria. I learnt English purely from YouTube videos, movies and reading. In about 2 years I was capable of understanding almost anything.
Tho I knew some basic grammar from school, and I believe knowing some grammar can be very helpful; it will clarify and simplify many things that you might find confusing in the beginning.

[mihalyjesse]

Hello world, currently I am undertaking the marvelous journey of learning Magyar (Hungarian) by myself. I started off with the Fluent Forever method and it has been invaluable in helping me produce a much closer sounding native accent than most beginners. However, I am now at the 3 month step ( of knowing the 625 most common words ) and haven't been making as much progress in the speaking full sentences and understanding them too.

Now having watched this video, I know where I need to go next. Thank you so much for this amazing and free video! I will update via edits to this comment after 3 months to see how I've progressed