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

Memorizing Minute-Long Speeches for Smoother Intros

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We’ve seen how to memorize single words and now phrases, so I want to
end this chapter by going on to the next level and learning entire mini-
scripts.
Mini-scripts are incredibly useful because we all tend to have similar
conversations the first time we meet someone as beginning language
learners: Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do for a living?
Why are you learning this language? These phrases are used so frequently,
in fact, you might as well just memorize the script so you can get through it
more quickly and easily, as well as force yourself to move to the next stage
in language learning.
The person you are speaking to will also be impressed that you can say
these initial phrases so comfortably. Because of this, he or she is likely to
use slightly more complex words with you, which will force you to keep up
—an essential part of progressing through the different levels of fluency.
Another reason to do this is because recording a video in the language
and then sharing it with your friends online can be excellent motivation and
a great milestone to aim for in the early stages of your language learning
project.
So I would highly recommend that you write out a script that would
take perhaps one minute to recite, answering the four questions posed a few
paragraphs ago, which you will likely need to answer when you first meet
someone.
You can write out your script in English first, then talk to a native
speaker (see the next chapter) to translate your answers for you precisely, so
there are no mistakes (you should definitely not memorize phrases you get
from computer-generated translations or any that you made yourself from
piecing together dictionary translations), or you can use answers premade
by native speakers that work for you, which you can find online or in a
phrase book.
Now that you have your short script prepared, go ahead and start
speaking it using a combination of everything you’ve seen in this chapter:
create a flash card for each individual answer, then create a mnemonic for
the first word or syllable of each phrase, and a chime pattern or song to go
with that phrase, as we did previously.
Sometimes the story I have to tell about my travels and language
learning can in itself be a minute-long answer. In this case, I sequence the
story and attach each sequence to a mental image of something I can

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visualize as I’m speaking to that person. This can be a “memory palace”
represented by a place you’re familiar with, such as your childhood home or
school, and you go through the most important rooms in a particular
sequence and “peg” the relevant image in each room sequentially so you go
through it in the right order.
Another thing I’ve done is use my own body as the cue for what I need
to say. I might use the tip of my head to imagine a hat associated with the
very first word, and then use my brain linked with the second item, my eyes
with the third, my nose with the fourth, and so on, working my way down.
For instance, when someone asked me why I was in Germany, I started with
my backstory before telling that person about my improved language
learning method and my plans for my stay in Berlin. So I started with a
story about school, imagining a teacher whacking me across my head with
electric eels, because the German word for “when” is als, which to my ears
sounds close enough to “eels” for me to gain some confidence and
momentum before I speak. “Als ich sechzehn Jahre alt war . . .” (When I
was sixteen years old . . .) Now I knew where my story should begin (I was
hit on the head, starting from the top of my body, where many short stories
begin), the word to start the story with (als), and what I would actually talk
about (when I was sixteen years old and finishing school, I got bad grades
on my final German exam).
You obviously don’t need to do this for all possible answers you could
give. It’s way too much work, and you should be forming your sentences
naturally as soon as possible. But at the very beginning of this process, you
are likely to repeat particular sentences, and it’s perfectly fine—and
perfectly efficient—to use tricks like this if they help you. Record a video
of yourself going through the entire minute-long script of answers, without
reading anything, and be ready to recite that script whenever asked by
someone curious about why you are learning his or her language.
Starting a conversation off on the right foot can put you in a good mood
and give you the momentum as a beginner to spontaneously produce other
sentences much better. Learn what you need to say first and you will have
that boost.