SH53: Ultralearning: How to Learn Anything Deeply and Quickly
Do you feel like you're falling behind?
Have you ever thought: "I just can't draw/cook/speak that language/{Insert cool skill you're always impressed by when you see others do}"?
In this episode, the humans discuss Ultralearning: a proven framework to learn anything deeply and quickly, without teachers or budget-busting tuition costs. Including: how to pick a learning project, how to find the best learning methods, how to set a learning schedule, and what it takes to stick with it.
Standard Humans is hosted by Aidan Dennehy and Evan.
Shownotes:
Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott H. Young
How to Start Your Own Ultralearning Project
Pinyin - Writing Chinese words in Latin characters
List of Scott H. Young's Ultralearning Challenges
How to Learn a Language in Record Time
The Complete Guide To Chinese Tones
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Evan: For languages, that's the main place where I learned that spending more hours a day does not mean you're getting that much better at it. It's all about what you're doing. Like half hour of conversation with a native speaker, infinitely better than like two hours of flashcards.
[00:00:16] Aidan: That's I think what, Ultralearning is all about. Figuring out what actually works best.
[00:00:22] Evan: Hello, everyone.
[00:00:23] Aidan: Welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:26] Evan: Welcome to almost sneezing with Evan and Aidan.
[00:00:29] Aidan: Wow. My favourite.
[00:00:31] Evan: The best segment.
[00:00:33] Aidan: Yeah, it's pretty good.
[00:00:34] Evan: Yeah. So today we're talking about sneezing. No, we're not. Uh, wow this is rocky. Man. I wish I could eventually one day learn how to start a podcast not awkwardly.
[00:00:46] Aidan: Well, you know, Evan, there are actually techniques and tricks you can use to very quickly and very efficiently and very effectively learn a new skills and techniques. The way I use it, I do it is with Skillshare; today's sponsor!
[00:01:03] Evan: Uh, nooooo.
[00:01:06] Aidan: No, ad segway, uh.
[00:01:08] Evan: We're going to get arrested by Skillshare.
[00:01:10] Aidan: This podcast is not in fact sponsored by Skillshare. Though it should be.
[00:01:14] Evan: What do I want to do to Skillshare is I want to go on a raid of Skillshare's dungeon with a party of four to six champions. And then through multiplayer team-based combat strategy, just destroy it, just like I do in my favorite game, Raid Shadow Legends, the sponsor of this episode everyone.
[00:01:34] Aidan: Uh, no.
[00:01:36] Evan: It's not actually just to clarify, we have no sponsor. We should put all this in order it's currently in.
[00:01:43] Aidan: I don't know how many people will get the ad placement jokes. Because people hear ads, but like those ads are very much, I think our demographic, like we're the targets and other people get very differently ones
[00:01:55] Evan: Yeah, I guess it is our demographics who watched the creators who just randomly segway in Skillshare and Raid Shadow Legends. But uh, they'll get it. Everyone will get it. Every single listener of the podcast will get it. My guarantee.
[00:02:09] Aidan: But anyways, we want to talk about Ultralearning.
[00:02:13] Evan: Yes. If that wasn't clear.
[00:02:14] Aidan: That is actually what we're talking about. Not some kind of Skillshare something or other. Though, I don't know that could potentially be like a tactic or a strategy that would be your individual call depending on the individual, what you want to learn.
[00:02:28] Evan: Maybe Raid Shadow legends is also a strategy.
[00:02:31] Aidan: I have no idea, man. It entirely depends. This is real, I'll say like high level stuff or very broad things. Cause like we're talking about learning in general. So depending on the specifics, there are a lot of things that you could do to implement this.
[00:02:44] Evan: Yeah. We've been talking about Ultralearning for a bit. I don't know if we have on the podcast, but Aidan's just been like, telling me about it. And so what is like a brief overview?
[00:02:54] Aidan: So what ultra learning is essentially is a strategy for aggressive self-directed learning, or at least that's how the author of the book ultra learning describes it.
[00:03:06] Aidan: The author is Scott H. Young, and the title is Ultralearning: master hard skills, outsmart the competition and accelerate your career.
[00:03:15] Evan: That's the most, like I put this book on my coffee table when my coworkers come over to look like I've really got my shit together. Kind of book. Or like have that like on the corner of your desk, on your cubicle to really show people like, yeah, I know what's up.
[00:03:30] Aidan: But yeah, I think he was really leaning into the idea and I've read some of the book and some of his blog posts as well. And one of the ideas that he says when he talks about, I should actually get into what ultra learning is at some point, but one of the ideas he talks about is that, in the modern world, in our society, everything's changing so quickly and you need to be able to keep up with it all. So being able to learn stuff really quickly and really efficiently is a really important skill. So he's really leaning into how that can like improve your career. I would say at least in the title, though, that not all of the projects that he talks about are I'll say like career focused.
[00:04:06] Evan: I guess the ones we're thinking of doing could be, but not really. But like, that's not why we're doing them at all. We're kind of just doing them just to have these abilities that some might consider to be unnatural.
[00:04:19] Aidan: But yeah, to come back to the definition for a sec. So it's strategy for aggressive self directed learning. So it's strategy, meaning that like it's essentially a choice or it's a way to pursue, um, your learning to get better results. And he says it's aggressive. That means that it's all about doing whatever works, even if it's like a harder way to learn something or it's like more intense, it's just about getting results.
[00:04:43] Evan: Is it done by exploiting the dark side of force?
[00:04:46] Aidan: Man it depends on what you want to learn. Again, the devil's in the details here.
[00:04:51] Evan: Yeah, it could be,
[00:04:53] Aidan: If what you're looking to do is. Protect your loved ones from death then pursuing the dark side of the forest might be the most efficient way, even if it is a little bit more intense, a little harder to do.
[00:05:05] Evan: You got to take down some young ones, but you know, you just gotta do it.
[00:05:08] Aidan: Yeah, exactly. It's what you got to do.
[00:05:09] Aidan: And then the final part was that it's self-directed meaning like you're the one in control you decide like what you're learning and how you go about doing it. So it's not necessarily just turn up in a classroom and like you got the syllabus and then you have to do whatever somebody else says.
[00:05:23] Evan: Step one to alter learning isn't sign up for a university course. The hopefully stepped ultra learning, sign up for a university course in that subject and learn it. That is not the case.
[00:05:33] Aidan: Yeah, likely not. Traditional learning or that kind of thing can definitely be a part of it. And it could even be depending on what your ultimate goal is, that could be the way you go about it. But it's probably not the way to go. It's definitely not say the first thing you want to try or think about.
[00:05:48] Evan: So, what are the actual, what makes an ultra learning plan?
[00:05:52] Aidan: How he laid it out in a post that I will put into the show notes as well. So let's do, can explore this as well. I'll say three main steps to start or set up an ultra learning project, which one was to figure out what you actually want to learn. And the key there I think is to like be specific. To focus on what you want to learn and to figure out like very specifically what you want to learn. Because, I'll say the more like concrete or the more. Understandable your end goal is the easier it can be to plan out or figure out what you actually have to learn. And the better it can be for, figuring out what's actually going to help you. It's the idea of maybe say I want to learn how to draw versus I want to learn how to sketch portraits.
[00:06:44] Evan: So specificity is your friend.
[00:06:46] Aidan: Yeah, exactly.
[00:06:47] Evan: Like not just, I want to get smarter. I want to get fitter. Those are two broad.
[00:06:53] Aidan: Yeah, exactly. There's so many different ways to say, like get fit, right? Like there are a lot of strategies there, but if you get more specific and say like, I want to be able to complete an Olympic length triathlon Now you've got specific.
[00:07:12] Evan: Lofty goal, but okay.
[00:07:13] Aidan: Okay. Maybe like a sprint triathlon,
[00:07:17] Evan: Okay. Okay. Those are fun.
[00:07:18] Aidan: But yeah, if you say like a sprint triathlon, now you have exact distances and you could even, uh, he actually says not to set a date or to have. To finish the thought before I jump into asterisks, you then have very specific, I'll say like goals or things that you need to accomplish. So, you know, like, okay, now I need to be able to run this far, swim this far and bike this far. And I know that other activities that aren't going to help, those really aren't going to help me achieve this goal. So I need to focus on those skills. Being able to like, run that distance as quick as possible.
[00:07:52] Aidan: So a couple of examples he said was, instead of saying, like learn programming, you could say, learn how to make texts only games in Python.
[00:08:00] Evan: Like, instead of just saying, I want to get better at this broad skill or learn this broad skill. I guess it's like have a specific task that you cannot currently do and you want to be able to complete said task
[00:08:15] Aidan: Exactly. Yeah, that is it. It's a very simple idea, but also I'll say in some ways, I guess it's not counter-intuitive but people don't think about it. Cause you think, like you said, like I want to get fit or I want to like learn how to program. Those are like thoughts people have, but like when you actually turn them into more concrete things to become more achievable.
[00:08:34] Evan: Well, I think that's honestly the nature of problem solving in general. And like a more broad sense. Like I want to stop human climate change. It's like, okay how? But if instead you're like, I want to have my country, or even smaller, I want it to have my municipality, in the next five years lower its pollution by 25%.
[00:08:59] Evan: Then that's like a thing. You know what it is you can measure if it is done or if it's not done. And like it like is concrete.
[00:09:07] Aidan: Maybe a quick sidebar into more general like life planning. I think having both is good a lot of the time, just when you're like, thinking about your life more broadly. Because it's the more aspirational, like less concrete things that really I'll say resonate more oftentimes like stop climate change or like learn to program.
[00:09:26] Aidan: It's a little bit more inspiring, but those don't translate as easily into like daily actions or like how you actually do it.
[00:09:33] Evan: Yeah. You, your brain doesn't really vibe with that. If you're just like, okay brain, time to learn programming. It's like, okay, how do I just start learn programming?
[00:09:45] Aidan: Yeah, exactly. So that's definitely like at a high level okay. But you want to translate that into something that's more achievable or much more actionable on a day to day.
[00:09:54] Evan: Yeah. Breaking down big things into small achievable things.
[00:09:59] Aidan: And the other example of like breaking it down, he had on the blog post was instead of saying, learn Chinese, you could say learn pinyin and master a few set phrases in Mandarin.
[00:10:11] Evan: Now that seems like undershooting. Like, I feel like you could do that in one day.
[00:10:14] Aidan: Yeah, that was also in the section we was talking about like how like shorter projects need more constraints. Yeah, this also depends on like the timeframe you're kind of looking at. So if it's like a few weeks or months. Yeah, a very short amount of time then yeah, you need more constraints, but as you say, like increase the timeframe that you have. If you're like, okay, I'm going to do this for like a year or something, then you can get bigger or more aspirational. You still want something more concrete. I'll say then like learn programming. But the size or the scale can kind of change.
[00:10:42] Evan: Or for instance, with Chinese, you could maybe say, be able to speak and understand greetings and basic conversation.
[00:10:52] Aidan: And the other thing actually said when he was talking about figuring out what you want to learn is to avoid overly specific goals or deadlines for first-timers, at least at the beginning, which was interesting.
[00:11:04] Evan: That seems like the opposite of what we've been saying.
[00:11:07] Aidan: It is. But, I think this kind of comes back to that idea of the knowledge versus skill curve. That I think we've talked about before on the podcast You know how, as you practice or get better at a skill, your confidence goes up for a big while, especially like sharp, when you just start and then you hit a peak, you get good enough to realize how shit you are.
[00:11:28] Aidan: Cause you just didn't understand that before, and it starts going down. When you start out, you're really at that beginning of that curve where you don't understand what's possible so much. So Scott H Young was saying that it might even be better to just pick a direction to like head in. And then when you're about like a third of the way through the project, or like a half the way through the project, then start set, like, here's my specific end goal.
[00:11:50] Aidan: So maybe it can be like, you start out with okay, I'm going to master some greetings in Chinese, but then halfway through, you can kind set something more specific. Like maybe you say, I want to like talk to this person for this long. Figure out what your actual, like more, even more specific end goal is.
[00:12:07] Evan: Yeah, makes sense, that's interesting.
[00:12:09] Aidan: Yeah, I know, right? That, that one was very counter-intuitive. I think it makes sense. It's kind of like start going and then once you have that momentum, you know a lot more so you can better figure out where to end or what to do, or what's possible really, or realistic.
[00:12:25] Evan: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I guess then that's why it's for beginners. So if it's you know, zero coding and it's like, I want to learn to code, then it'd be better to do that. And just like, pick a language and just take an introductory course or something and then you could be like, okay, I want to learn to do this using this language.
[00:12:44] Evan: But if you were like already know a few languages and you just want to get a new one, you can say like, okay, I want to be able to, like you said, make specific games in Python because you have a rough idea of what that would look like.
[00:12:56] Aidan: Yeah. The more domain knowledge you have, the better, you'll probably be able to estimate how much time and effort this is actually going to take.
[00:13:04] Aidan: So that's the first step is to figure out what you want to learn. That is a very important part because like, if you don't, I guess do that well, then everything else doesn't really matter. Cause you haven't been specific enough in what you're going to learn.
[00:13:17] Aidan: I guess it's just the concept that like, it doesn't matter how far you go or how far you walk if you started out in the wrong direction.
[00:13:24] Evan: Wow. That was very wise.
[00:13:26] Aidan: Thank you. I am sitting in forest right now.
[00:13:30] Aidan: Yeah, that's figuring out what you want to learn. And then the second step was to choose the format, which is a lot more, I'll say concrete or easy to understand because that's just full-time fixed schedule or fixed hour. So it's basically just the schedule or lack thereof schedule. So how you're going to learn it is this like a full-time project where you're treating this like a full-time job. So that's like, if you're between jobs or classes or something, you have time and you need to pick up a skill.
[00:13:56] Evan: If you've got like a month in between starting your job and ending school or something, you know, like I want to do X.
[00:14:03] Aidan: Yeah. So that would be a great time for it. Or like, I think this guy's first ultra learning project was what he called the MIT challenge, which was to, I think it was complete an MIT computer science degree in six months.
[00:14:17] Evan: Which is crazy.
[00:14:19] Aidan: But yeah, that it is very like full time commitment just because he was done with school.
[00:14:24] Evan: That sounds like more than full-time commitment, to be honest,
[00:14:27] Aidan: Yeah. It might've been, it might've been.
[00:14:29] Evan: Because most MIT computer science students I'm pretty sure are making the full time commitment and it takes them four years.
[00:14:35] Aidan: Yeah, I will say like this whole idea of ultra learning is that you're able to do it a lot faster. In part, because like we said, when you get specific about what you want to accomplish, you're able to be much more strategic about. And like only do like the bits that are really matter and will really get you the results you need.
[00:14:54] Aidan: So you're not doing all of the like random busy work that comes with school. A lot of the time you can pick what's important to you, so you can cut some of the fat out of it. But yeah, it still takes a long time. And that would, that is a very intense example.
[00:15:07] Evan: Or like, if you want to learn a new language, but you don't care if you can read it or not, then you could cut that out. So you could learn a lot. You could learn conversationally quicker than you would in a classroom where you'd also probably focus on reading it and writing.
[00:15:21] Aidan: Very true. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. It all depends on your goal. Yeah, that's full time. Or you can do a fixed schedule. So say like an hour in the morning or like three hours on weekends or something like that. And you have set hours. Like this is when I start, this is when I'm ending every week or every day, it's pretty concrete.
[00:15:39] Aidan: Or you can do fixed hour, which is apparently harder to do successfully. That's just saying like, okay, I'm gonna do five or say 10 hours a week, but you don't have a fixed schedule.
[00:15:50] Evan: That seems like it would have the potential to, uh, build up. So on Sunday you'd be ripping out five hours of something.
[00:15:58] Aidan: Yeah. And I think it's really hard to just do it without a routine, but apparently it's like the only option for some people. I assume if you're like working shifts or something like that. Where you just don't have a schedule and you need to figure it out. So yeah, that, one's harder. If you can, probably do like some kind of fixed schedule, that seems to be the best or most realistic, unless you're able to do full-time.
[00:16:20] Aidan: That would be intense.
[00:16:21] Evan: I think probably an hour a day. That sounds like something that would fit my sort of routine best. Maybe or maybe an hour a day, except Sundays.
[00:16:30] Aidan: Yeah. Should we talk about the project we were thinking about doing now? Or should we wait until the end?
[00:16:35] Evan: Well, I guess what else did he have to say about ultralearning?
[00:16:38] Aidan: One last step then in ultra learning was prepare to start learning, which was actually interesting and kind of, I think goes against what we're about to do, which was to not start right away. To take some time, to figure out and like do some research and plan the whole project.
[00:16:53] Evan: Oh, most effective learning methods for this skill.
[00:16:57] Aidan: And to his recommended, like how much time you should spend researching seemed a bit intense. You saying that his rule of thumb is that preparation should be no less than 50% of the length of the project itself. If the project was done with like full-time hours.
[00:17:11] Evan: Should be no less?
[00:17:13] Aidan: No less.
[00:17:14] Evan: Holy cow.
[00:17:15] Aidan: So if it's like a month of an hour, a day, That's like 28 hours.
[00:17:21] Aidan: It's like 30 hours. Just like, four days at full time. So you should spend like two days of, I think that's like part-time preparation, which actually, when I say that out loud, it's not too bad to just spend like a couple of hours for like two days.
[00:17:35] Evan: Yeah. I was thinking hour for hours.
[00:17:37] Aidan: No, no. So I think he translates that. If you were about to do a full-time project for a year, then you want like, apparently six months of like part-time preparation.
[00:17:48] Evan: But it doesn't have to actually be six months. It could be like, I don't know, one and a half months, but with four times as much.
[00:17:55] Aidan: Oh, potentially. Yeah. If you're just really intensive at the preparation. But yeah, just like spend some time, like planning it out. Cause apparently like the intensity of the kind of whole like learning process or ultra learning process makes it really easy to quit if you haven't planned it properly. So you're not like seeing the results in the progression.
[00:18:13] Aidan: But yeah, it's essentially take the time to like figure out what kind of learning works best for this subject. Gather any materialsyou need. Uh, and figure out like your first like, plan for how you're going to do it. And he also suggested doing like a pilot week of the schedule. So figure out like, do like a test week to see if the schedule works.
[00:18:31] Evan: That's interesting. Huh? I like that.
[00:18:34] Aidan: Yeah. Yeah. Just to see if you've over or under committed.
[00:18:37] Evan: And so for this I'm with all this, what I'm thinking is I'll probably. From now until when I move into my house, like my student house, that's prep time. And then as we've talked about before, when you're moving is actually a really good place to start a new habit. Living there, you've always done this at least an hour a day.
[00:18:57] Aidan: Yeah. I think that's a good idea. And yeah, so that's what I had on ultra learning. Would recommend the book. It was really good and had some really cool anecdotes. The guy's done some interesting things. Like I said, that like six months MIT challenge or the year without English was an interesting one as well.
[00:19:14] Evan: Usually, with these challenges they're like do 50 pushups a day or something. That shits an actual challenge. Do a full MIT undergrad in six months.
[00:19:27] Aidan: Yeah. That is intense.
[00:19:29] Evan: That is a challenge. These other challenges, they're not challenges. They're just things you have to spend 10 minutes a day doing. This is a challenge.
[00:19:37] Aidan: Yeah. Very much so. And like that, that is a full-time commitment challenge right there.
[00:19:42] Evan: This guy trying to max out his character in this life.
[00:19:46] Aidan: I think so it's, I mean, honestly, fair enough.
[00:19:48] Evan: I mean, what else is there to do? I guess?
[00:19:50] Aidan: I think that brings us now to our ultra learning challenge and languages. And I actually took some notes on a article that he had on how to learn languages.
[00:20:01] Evan: I'm curious what I'll think of it because I've had, I'd say a decent amount of experience learning languages by myself, I mean, well, actually both in classroom and by myself. So I'm curious what he has to say.
[00:20:12] Aidan: Yeah, I would be very interested as well. Cause like you said, you've done this a lot. You have, I'll say much more experience with what probably actually works or doesn't than I do. So this will be interesting.
[00:20:23] Evan: Sorry, for languages, that's sort of the main place where I learned that spending more hours a day does not mean you're getting that much better at it. It's all about what you're doing. Like half hour of conversation with a native speaker, infinitely better than like two hours of like flashcards.
[00:20:42] Aidan: And that's good. That's I think what, like Ultralearning is all about is like figuring out what actually works best and what you said, really maps onto what he was saying.
[00:20:50] Evan: Yeah. So what does he have to say?
[00:20:51] Aidan: So the article started out by saying don't use Duolingo.
[00:20:55] Evan: That's fair.
[00:20:56] Aidan: Essentially it's just too easy and nothing really like actually speaking a language. Cause you don't have to like, recall the actual, like words you just like recognize them.
[00:21:05] Evan: I would say it can be a companion for learning vocabulary. That's I would say that's honestly, its main use is lending vocabulary. They teach you very random words very quickly. Like, I'm pretty sure, in Swedish, Duolingo the some of the first words you learn at like moose, apple, milk, island. You learn a ton of super random stuff like really, really early.
[00:21:28] Aidan: Interesting. Yeah, that would definitely be good for, like you said, learning vocabulary.
[00:21:33] Evan: Yeah, I would, I would agree. It shouldn't be your main form of learning the language. That would be, it would be inefficient, I would say, which is very anti Ultralearning. It could be a companion. But actually with, I dunno if he talks about this, but I found this language learning program that actually I think is pretty good.
[00:21:53] Evan: I only have used the free sample, but basically what it is is 30 hour long auditory lessons where it starts with a complete conversation by native speakers. That's maybe. Five minutes long and then it breaks it down in each part. And then at the end, plays it again multiple times a real speed. So that now they've broken it down and said the meaning you can actually understand what they're saying.
[00:22:17] Aidan: Uh, I need to look up the article again. Cause he mentioned one. That sounds, I think, Pimsleur, yeah. That's exactly it. Yeah. That was the one he recommended for like, I'll say like the first stage of language learning.
[00:22:28] Evan: Yeah. Like understanding a native speakers, speaking at a normal pace.
[00:22:32] Aidan: Yeah, that one sounds cool. Moving on from don't use Duolingo. He broke it down into three phases to language learning. Which was, one, getting the basics to early conversations and then three real life. So basics is just like getting like the minimum knowledge that you need in order to have that like struggle your way through like a 15 minute conversation, with the help of dictionaries or Google translate.
[00:22:59] Evan: Like, hello. My name is this. I am from here. I study this. And I work here.
[00:23:07] Aidan: Exactly. Yeah. Apparently that can happen in as little as like 30 minutes, if you're really ready to like be embarrassed and like struggle through a conversation.
[00:23:16] Evan: Which I would say it's the more, your capacity for embarrassment is probably a negative correlation with how much people expect you to know this language.
[00:23:27] Aidan: Hey, can you say that again?
[00:23:29] Evan: I would say you're going to be less embarrassed if nobody expects you to know the language and they're surprised that you know, any at all.
[00:23:35] Aidan: That's very true.
[00:23:36] Evan: If it's a language that like your grandparents speak and it's your heritage and stuff, so people expect you to speak at, you'll probably be a lot more embarrassed when native speakers speak to you and you can't do it that well.
[00:23:47] Aidan: Yeah. And like your tolerance for like embarrassment and for just like keep going through it. It's probably very important.
[00:23:54] Evan: If you try, if you're really trying to learn language, like as embarrassed as that you can. That's the best way to learn. See if I can even understand what you're trying to say.
[00:24:02] Aidan: Yeah. And once you're at that point, then you can move on to early conversations, which was also very interesting because he advocated this method of like really structured and easy conversations to have with people. And to, in combination with that start actually learning like the grammar and the vocabulary. So you can start to deepen your knowledge there.
[00:24:22] Aidan: I think. He talks about having like these conversations with people where like, it was like, no English you'd have to like, keep doing it in the language, but to have them, type out what they're saying as well, in this really like structured format.
[00:24:37] Aidan: So you can like, see what they're saying and I think, look it up.
[00:24:39] Evan: Does he have a website for this?
[00:24:41] Aidan: I think he might've been talking about doing it online.
[00:24:43] Evan: Okay, because I'm like, I'm not, it's going to find I'm in the grocery store. I hear somebody speaking that language. I'm like, yo, can you type out everything you're saying?
[00:24:51] Aidan: Yeah, probably not. But this is very much like, a structured learning environment level of conversation, that he's thinking. So like from there, like there's no English and you're still like in the conversation the whole time. Eventually figuring out all of the basics that you need to know, and like all the like conversation, things that you need to know just through forcing yourself to learn it.
[00:25:10] Evan: I would say a couple of phrases that you should learn as early as possible in whatever language you're trying to learn are what does X mean? And how do I say X. That's I think those are honestly the most important, because then you can expand your competence on the fly. If you're like having a basic conversation with someone, they use a word or phrase, you don't know. Boom. You can just add that to your inventory right then with that, as long as you know, that phrase, what does that mean?
[00:25:37] Aidan: That is a very pro tip. Actually, I like that those would be very useful.
[00:25:41] Evan: Yeah. It's it's, how you can adapt at any moment and keep speaking that same language without resorting to English and being like wait what.
[00:25:50] Aidan: But I think what he was saying is that, with that like structure conversation is that you never resort to English. You just always stay in it. Like no matter what, which you can really I'll say only doing those, like real, like learning environment type things.
[00:26:04] Evan: Yeah. Otherwise would be like, bruh, I do not understand what you mean.
[00:26:08] Aidan: It's like, no, I can't speak English. You don't understand. I've forgotten it all
[00:26:13] Evan: Yeah, I actually only speak Welsh.
[00:26:16] Aidan: Yeah, those are the early conversations. And then from there, you move on to, I'll say it was like real life where you're not just where you're able to have like simple conversations without constantly using a dictionary. And from there, you just keep talking to people and interacting with people in the language and like maybe like reading or like watching media.
[00:26:35] Evan: Podcasts in that language.
[00:26:37] Evan: And so you were thinking that you or that we should both which language again?
[00:26:43] Aidan: I think we were talking about learning Chinese, specifically Mandarin.
[00:26:47] Evan: Yeah, I think that would be a pretty good one for this because neither of us know really any, besides like, hello, I am Evan.
[00:26:57] Aidan: I forget. You don't know any of the, I'll say more like Eastern languages, right? Maybe like other than a few phrases in like Korean.
[00:27:05] Evan: I guess I know a bit of Tamil, but that is completely unrelated to Chinese.
[00:27:09] Aidan: Yeah. That's what, I that's, what's my assumption. I have no real idea, but I would assume that's very different.
[00:27:14] Evan: Yeah. I don't think there's any relation there.
[00:27:17] Aidan: So yeah, we're kind of similar starting point. That would be a cool thing to do. And you're thinking like maybe go at it from. And then see if we can have like, say like a five or 10 minute conversation.
[00:27:27] Evan: I would say that would get us. I guess it depends how much we're dedicated. But, what, what I do when I'm studying new languages, like an empty notebook is your best friend ever. Because what I, what I usually do is I'll find these intro stock phrases like, hello, what is your name? This is my name, stuff like that. Write them out in, probably in Chinese. We would write it out in pinion, which is like Latin characters with just, like lines indicating the tone.
[00:27:57] Aidan: Yeah. It's a way for people to like, tell how to say a word. And especially for like English speakers, to be able to like, read and say the things it's like a phonetic spelling.
[00:28:07] Evan: I would, I would probably get an empty notebook, write down a whole bunch of these phrases like that in pinyin. And then I would translate them two different ways. Each of these phrases. Which, which I think is very useful. I would first translate the meaning like this phrase means my name is X, but literally it translates to like, if you translate each word in order, that mean.
[00:28:33] Aidan: I was looking at Chinese for like half an hour before this, just to like, get a general feel for the language a bit and like what I would need to know, talking about that like knowledge curve. I was trying to get a bit of an idea. What the hell I'm getting myself into right now. And so the, hello in Chinese is Nǐ hǎo and that the meaning translates to hello, but the literal translation is You good.
[00:28:57] Evan: Yeah, exactly. That's, I did that a lot from Mohawk because that's the most removed from English language that I've learned. Uh, you can say like, {Mohawk Words} Aidan. Sorry, The meaning of that is are you Aidan, but the literal translation would be You Question Marker Are Aidan Question Marker.
[00:29:20] Aidan: Interesting. Okay.
[00:29:22] Evan: Or you could even say question marker linkage word Aiden question marker.
[00:29:27] Aidan: Oh, fascinating. Okay.
[00:29:29] Evan: Yeah, but you might encounter a lot of stuff like that, where a lot, like it might not translate exactly literally.
[00:29:33] Aidan: Which is really interesting to always find out because I feel like that gives you like some insight into maybe the language of the culture and like how it's structured and how it's different.
[00:29:43] Evan: Something like that, that I think right off the bat, that actually is a similarity between Chinese and Mohawk, is they both have a question marker. It's Ga in Mohawk and it's ma in Chinese.
[00:29:54] Aidan: I know that's fascinating.
[00:29:56] Evan: Yeah. It doesn't really translate to anything. It's just it makes it a question.
[00:30:00] Aidan: Which is really interesting because in English you just do that with the tone, right? You just raise up the end of the sentence. Like, are you good?
[00:30:06] Evan: You're Aidan? You're Aidan. You know about that? You know about that.
[00:30:10] Aidan: Yeah. And just from the tone, it's either like period or question mark. Whereas in Chinese you'd be like Nǐ hǎo, you good. Or it's like Nǐ hǎo ma, are you good?
[00:30:21] Evan: Yeah. The same with Mohawk: Akaónha ne Julia, she is Julia. Akaónha ken ne Julia, is she Julia?
[00:30:29] Aidan: What do you think are going to be some of the bigger challenges that we're going to have with this project?
[00:30:35] Evan: Tones.
[00:30:36] Aidan: Yeah, tones are a little terrifying.
[00:30:38] Evan: There are, two. No, there's three in Mohawk, but I don't think they're the same. And I definitely didn't master them in Mohawk either. Maybe one thing I think is like, I don't think either of us would have any trouble finding native speakers of Chinese practice with, but I think one problem would be like, figuring out how willing you are to just jump in with your not good Chinese, like with the like beginner level Chinese. That is the thing about like getting embarrassed. It's like, how ready are you to engage strangers?
[00:31:09] Aidan: That's a good point. Yeah.
[00:31:10] Evan: And his general accent. Yeah, one thing would that actually might be just finding an accent because the regional accents can be really different because it's such a big country. So it's like, which accent do we learn?
[00:31:24] Aidan: I have no idea.
[00:31:25] Evan: Well, I think they do have like a pretty standardized speech that would probably just be that.
[00:31:30] Aidan: I'll take your word on that one. That's interesting. Yeah, I had not thought about that.
[00:31:35] Evan: I think you'd start feeling rewards pretty quick, like the first time you just hear some people at like a restaurant or something and you're like, I understood a word, like one word they said,
[00:31:46] Aidan: So cool! That's true. That's true. That's exciting.
[00:31:49] Evan: Yeah, it might take a while to be more than like a few disjointed words, that you understand. Like, oh, they're talking about a fish.
[00:31:57] Aidan: I get it.
[00:31:58] Evan: I have no idea what's going on with said fish, but I heard the word fish.
[00:32:02] Aidan: Excellent. That's true, that's exciting.
[00:32:04] Aidan: Is there anything else we need to discuss for this plan or this project?
[00:32:08] Evan: Yeah. Well, I guess general timeline. Yeah, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, um, I'll take from now until maybe even when school starts on the eighth to do the planning for how like I'm going to learn this.
[00:32:22] Aidan: And when, when do we want to be done?
[00:32:23] Evan: I guess like you said, for being beginners like this, we would have to start to know specifically what we want to do. But I would say. Between one to two months for like very basic conversation. Like very basic, like intro, like introductions.
[00:32:39] Aidan: Yeah, that sounds reasonable. So we could even like take part of the next few planning sessions that we have and like practice or something and see like how far we're getting, we can touch in and figure out when exactly we want to stop then.
[00:32:53] Evan: Sounds like a plan.
[00:32:54] Aidan: It does. Yeah. This, this is going to be fun.
[00:32:57] Evan: Pretty good time.
[00:32:58] Aidan: Yeah. I have not done languages since like grade 12.
[00:33:01] Evan: And that I would say actually, I think the Ultralearning language layout is way way better. You start learning basic conversation and then move into more like sentence grammar structure, tenses, stuff like that. After you've learned basic phrases, I think learning basic phrases first, it's absolutely essential because otherwise it's like you spent a month learning, but you still can't say a single sentence to a native speaker like that would be real disheartening really quick. You'd be like, well, what's even the point of spending. If people are like, oh, say something, at least being able to say, Hey, what's up is like so much better than being like, well, I can't really say anything, but I can tell you that it's subject object verb.
[00:33:44] Aidan: Yeah. And in every conversation you have there are certain phrases that you'll use like every time. And that's like the foundation of a conversation or at least the start of one. So like, just knowing those, you can get those really quickly and then get through most conversations, at least at the beginning of them.
[00:34:01] Evan: Like very surface level, hey, where is that? I wouldn't learn that first because then it would be super cringy. Cause you'd be like, Hey, where is X? And they'd tell you, and you wouldn't know what they said.
[00:34:13] Aidan: That's true.
[00:34:14] Evan: They'd be like, Oh, it's down the hall to the left. You'd be like, okay, he looked over here.
[00:34:19] Aidan: What does down the hall mean? What does left mean?
[00:34:22] Evan: Oh, nevermind. Actually, as long as you learn, what does that mean? Then you're set. I mean, that'd be pretty hard to explain, but
[00:34:28] Aidan: You just have to go through every thing and then I guess get the explanations from context. Because you can't understand their explanations yet.
[00:34:36] Evan: Yeah, not ideal.
[00:34:38] Aidan: No, but you know, that's good. You get there. You're jumping in, you're tolerating it.
[00:34:42] Evan: You're embarrassing yourself and being okay with it.
[00:34:45] Aidan: Exactly. And that's, I guess that's a good life lesson just in general when you're learning something to be able to be embarrassed. Like when you starting out.
[00:34:53] Evan: Yeah. I would say definitely work on the accent just to a level of being understood. I would say it's definitely important, but like don't expect in the first few years ever be like on the level of being mistaken for a native speaker or something. Like I would say, learn the accent just so that people can understand you. But, like, don't worry about like exact, exact, like native level.
[00:35:18] Aidan: Yeah, that's interesting. I had not considered the accent at all, but when you say it and when I think about English, some people, their English, like with the accent, it's really hard to understand them. So I can see why it would be important to like speak it. Not just like the language, but speak the language in the way that they speak it. Would be so useful.
[00:35:37] Evan: Because, yeah, like even if your vocabulary is perfect, if nobody can understand what you're saying. Like it doesn't do a lot.
[00:35:43] Aidan: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That is a good tip. Yeah. I had not thought of that.
[00:35:47] Evan: Yeah. And I guess the tones would have to be like, people would have to at least be able to tell what tone you're trying to say.
[00:35:53] Aidan: Yeah, the tones sound hilarious. How like the mistakes that you can make with them.
[00:35:58] Evan: Even in like Spanish, but that's not, it's not really tones, but just like emphasis. Or like, incorrectly, like mistaking the ñ like n with the tilde or n uh, like the n or the n with the swirly thing on top, just mistaking those can be like completely different words.
[00:36:16] Aidan: But yeah, that will be interesting. Okay. I think we have our challenge. We'll get back when we decide when we want to end it, but this should be good. So look forward everyone to hearing us speak Mandarin, and then talk about how this went in a little while.
[00:36:33] Evan: I predict, you know, in about one week native level, no big deal.
[00:36:37] Aidan: Yeah. A hundred percent.
[00:36:38] Evan: No, no big deal. Easy stuff.
[00:36:40] Aidan: You mentioned earlier maybe doing like an hour a day, except for like Sundays. Is that what you're thinking still?
[00:36:45] Evan: Yeah, an hour, a day of study except for Sundays. And then trying when you're just out and about if you hear somebody speaking the language and it wouldn't be completely rude to just but in. Or maybe you feel like a cashier at the store or something, and you're going to the cash and you hear them speak it and you could say something. Obviously if it's just somebody like talking to their family and you're like, hi, they might be like wow, okay, hello, what
[00:37:08] Aidan: Yeah, I don't, know if I'll commit an hour to it. Maybe I'll try and like a test pilot week, or maybe like half an hour on weekdays and like an hour or two on weekends or something. I can figure out the specifics, but yeah, that consistency is key.
[00:37:22] Evan: Yeah, consistency for languages like trying to do at least a little everyday so that you don't forget what you learned the day before. Because like, yeah. Languages is definitely like that. Like, no matter how long you've been speaking a language, I will say absolutely like no exceptions. If you don't speak it for a long time, you will get worse at it.
[00:37:42] Evan: Like, I think obviously if it's your native language, it would take a lot longer and you would get comparatively, not that bad. So even like, obviously people would be able to understand you. But like, I think if in the next, for the next 30 years, I didn't speak any English. It would be a bit worse.
[00:37:57] Aidan: I've heard that about, uh, Schwarzenegger. That he doesn't really speak German anymore because he's a little embarrassed after like speaking English for, I don't know, 20 or 30 years or whatever.
[00:38:07] Evan: He's embarrassed that it's like not native level anymore?
[00:38:09] Aidan: Yeah. That it's, I think probably like has an accent and like, not that great, just quality overall. So he doesn't really speak it anymore.
[00:38:17] Evan: I heard, that apparently he actually worked with an accent coach in order to keep his Austrian accent. So, because it was like such a distinctive trademark and living in the U.S. for so long, he was starting to just develop a like everyday American accent.
[00:38:30] Aidan: That's interesting.
[00:38:31] Evan: Yeah. So they're like, no, that's your trademark.
[00:38:33] Evan: But yeah, I guess, we'll keep everyone updated on how it's going. I don't know. Hopefully we'll be able to have a basic conversation with each other pretty soon.
[00:38:42] Aidan: Yeah, a hundred percent and we will have a little conversation on the show and we'll dissect how it went or how we think it went.
[00:38:51] Evan: Okay. So I guess, good luck ultra learning everyone. Hope you find some good subjects to educate yourself in and until next time.
[00:39:00]Aidan: Goodbye.