Summary of Tim Ferriss' suggestions for quickly deconstructing and learning any language (more detailed information on Tim's site found here)
- Deconstruct the language -
- Are there new grammatical structures which will postpone fluency?
- Are there new sounds that will double or quadruple time to fluency?
- Is it similar to languages I already know?
- How difficult will it be and how long would it take to become functionally fluent?
- Translate these sentences to gain a simple understanding of how verbs are conjugated, fundamental sentence structure and will expose noun cases
- 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
- Is the apple red?
- The apples are red
- I'm going to know tomorrow
- I can't eat the apple
- Understand the different sounds of the new language and get examples of each exception. Also, try to get phoentic spellings in your native language if possible
- After these steps, you will better be able to determine if the target language is worth your investment and then you can put in more focused training