Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World

können:
to be able, can
ich/er/sie kann
I/he/she can
wir/sie können
we/you (polite) can
mögen:
would like to
*
ich/er/sie möchte
I/he/she would like to
wir/sie möchten
we/you (polite) would like to
müssen:
have to, must
ich/er/sie muss
I/he/she have/has to
wir/sie müssen
we/you (polite) has/have to
wollen:
to want
ich/er/sie will
I/he/she wants
wir/sie wollen
we/you (polite) want
Add -st to the first form of each of these to get the informal “you,” or just -
t if it already ends in s.
For many more tips on German, check out fi3m.com/german.
Slavic Languages
While I certainly can’t speak for mastering Slavic languages, I have
experience reaching the conversational level in Czech. I’ve also dabbled in
other Slavic languages, like Polish, and I understand rudimentary Russian.
Some of the tips in the following paragraphs may also apply to other Slavic
languages, including Slovakian, Ukrainian, and Serbo-Croatian.
The most intimidating aspect when you start to learn these languages tends
to be grammar. Each language features many grammatical cases, which makes
it seem as though you have to learn six or seven different versions of each
word—or twelve or fourteen, when you include plural forms.
These are, however, usually predictable changes to the ends of words.
Rather than learning the rules, you’ll get used to them with enough exposure. I

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actually got by quite well using the basic dictionary (nominative) forms of
words as a beginner and people continued to understand me, and I slowly
expanded on that. As with all languages, it’s okay to utter a few mistakes—
native speakers are very forgiving.
It’s common to overlook aspects of these languages that can make them
much easier to learn. They are almost always very phonetic, once again with
consistent spelling and pronunciation rules (compared to English’s mess of
words, like though, through, plough, dough, cough). When you see a word,
you know precisely how it should be pronounced, and vice versa, whether with
those that use Latin script or those that use Cyrillic, such as Russian.
Slavic languages may not offer the same similar-words advantage the
Romance or Germanic languages do when it comes to learning new
vocabulary, but they do tend to be very logically consistent in how they
construct words. This means that when you learn a manageable set of
prepositions and prefixes plus word roots, you can discover a lot of new
words.
For instance, let’s take the four prefixes in Czech: v, vy, od, and za. In their
prefix form, add them to a word root—the central part of a word—chod, for
instance, which is related to the verb chodit (“to go”). By itself, and as a prefix
in many verbs, v means “in,” so for “go in” you have vchod, which means
“entrance”! Vý/vy doesn’t exist by itself in this context, but it means the
opposite, and you have “exit”: východ. Od by itself means “from,” so what do
you think a “from-go” thing would be? A “departure”: odchod!
It isn’t always this logical, but you can create a small story in your head for
when it isn’t, to help you remember the meaning of a word. Záchod, for
instance, is “toilet” in Czech. The prefix-preposition za tends to mean
“behind” or “off,” so I imagined excusing myself and “leaving” where I was to
go to the bathroom.
Ultimately, if you understand even vaguely the meanings associated with
the prefixes do, na, nad(e), ne, o(b), od(e), pa, po, popo, pod, pro, pře, před,
při, roz, s(e), spolu, u, v(e), vy, vz, z, and za, then you have the building blocks
to form many words and understand what words mean the first time you see
them. While these examples are in Czech, you will find the methods can be
applied similarly to other Slavic languages.
This verb chtít (“to want”) can be among the more useful ones in forming
sentences while being able to use its dictionary form:
chtít:
to want

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chci
I want
chce
he/she/it wants
chceme
we want
You can also take this verb and use the conditional tense conjugation to
express “would like” by adding chtěl before the conditional mood, which is
simply: bych (“I would”), bys (“you would”), by (“he/she/it would”), bychom
(“we would”), byste (“you [plural] would”), by (“they would”). This
conditional can be added after any verb in its dictionary form, if making it
conditional would help you simplify your sentence in some way.
Other modal verbs worth learning the conjugation of include moct (to be
able, can), umět (to know how), muset (must, have to), smět (be allowed to),
and mít (to have to).
Arabic
Having reached a conversational (lower intermediate, B1) level in Egyptian
Arabic, I would recommend that those with a spoken focus choose a specific
Arabic dialect they have a preference for based on the country they would like
to visit most.
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which most courses tend to focus on, is
essential if you want to read newspapers and books or watch or listen to news
broadcasts. But dialects, in every country, tend to be much more useful for
conversing with people in the street or understanding most Arabic movies and
TV shows. Dialects are also much easier to learn.
While MSA is definitely useful, its grammar is much more complex than a
dialect’s, which can slow down a beginner’s progress. Grammar is easy to pick
up, however, once you’re familiar with the language.
For instance, the word “house” in “The house is there,” “I put it in the
house,” or “I like this house” is always going to be bayt in Egyptian dialect,
but it would be baytu, bayta, and bayti respectively in MSA because of how
the word operates in different “cases” in each sentence.
With all this in mind, you can get dialect-focused lessons or exchanges, as
I’ve mentioned in previous chapters, or find small phrase books tailored to the
dialect you want to learn, and study this material between spoken sessions.

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Once you are confident in your spoken abilities in your dialect, it’s much
easier to come back to the more complex MSA.
Now, as for using modal verbs, unlike the other languages listed so far, this
is not as easy a work-around in Arabic because the second verb is still altered
depending on who it refers to. Arabic verb conjugation is actually very
straightforward and logical, although it is a little different from what we are
used to in other languages.
After some practice using this with a native, it turns out to not be that bad
after all. Even the new script isn’t too bad, as I mention in the next section.
For some tips on Egyptian Arabic and other Arabic dialects, as well as
MSA, and which resources may help, see fi3m.com/arabic.