How to talk like a native speaker | Marc Green | TEDxHeidelberg

Marc talked about the process of learning a foreign language and the different levels of fluency. He will show that there is a higher realm of language proficiency and explain what it takes to reach this "native" point where the benefits far surpass mere communication skills. Marc’s passion is the study of languages, their manifestation in local dialects, as well as their expression in poetry and folklore songs. He has acquired a near-native proficiency in six languages and their sub-forms and has given various musical performances.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

My story starts in Moscow.

I was 15 years old.

My best friend and I, we were part
of a group of Westerners,

visiting the Soviet Union.

This was in 1987,

a few years before the fall
of the communist regime.

We were given an official tour guide
who was assigned to us.

And the tour would start in the morning,

and we were checked in
to our hotel rooms for the night.

My friend said to me,
''Let's go outside and look at the city.''

I thought it was a great idea.

Dumb idea.

So we grabbed our coats, and we snuck out
past security and into the street.

We found the entrance to the metro.

The Moscow underground transportation
system is the deepest one in the world.

The ride down the escalator
took a full minute.

Once we were down there,
my friend headed right to an open train,

and I pulled him back and said, "Wait!

Let's write down the name of the station
so we can find our way back."

So I had a notepad, and I took a notepad,

and I wrote down
the letters of the station,

and we hopped down the train
and went on train hopping.

And that was fun because -

Well, actually, it was weird.

There were a lot of people,
probably all coming home from work.

They were all dressed
in brown and gray clothes,

and it looked very, very different
from what we were used to at home.

But the stations were lovely.

There were stations with statues,
with paintings on the wall,

and glass displays.

It was really like museums.

We would never have expected that.

And everything was perfectly clean.

Well,

what was weird though is that the people -
nobody seemed to speak,

and everyone seemed to be looking at us
and it kind of weirded us out.

So after about 20-30 minutes,

we'd had enough
and we wanted to go home.

I showed my note to someone
and they directed me over there.

Then over there, I showed my note
to another person,

and they directed us to the other way.

And then a third person
directed us sideways.

That was a little confusing.

Aw, then I saw it.

Over the stairs, the sign.

It turned out I had written down
the Russian word for "Exit."

(Laughter)

So we headed upstairs and we found a taxi.

That was great.

And we told the driver,
you know, "Intourist Hotel,"

and then he was willing to take us.

And I remember sitting
next to the driver, handing him 50 rubles.

And he looked at me and he said,

(Russian) No, dollar!

(Laughter)

Fifty dollars?

That was like I don't know
20 times that amount or something.

That was not an option for us.

So we had to get out of the taxi,

and he drove away,
leaving us standing there.

It was a cold night,

and you know everything
was strange for us,

and we were teenagers,

and we were pretty nervous,
didn't know what to do.

Well, we started walking.

We walked to the end of the block.

We turned the corner.

And 200 yards in front of us,
the Intourist Hotel.

(Laughter)

Well, this experience
affected me in two ways.

The first is that anytime after this trip
that I would hear anyone speak Russian,

I was just cringe.

(Laughter)

And the second one is that
it taught me the importance

of understanding the local language
when you're traveling.

And it actually led to me learning
another four languages fluently

over the following years.

Now, before I go on,
I'd like to know in the audience -

Can we have a little bit of light
maybe in the audience?

I'd just like to know who's -

By a show of hands,
who is not a native English speaker?

It must be 99%.

(Laughter)

Anyone who doesn't speak
English, stand up!

(Laughter)

Alright, so I can assume

all of you have, you know, gone through
the process of learning a language.

Anybody who speaks
three or more languages?

Wow, that's maybe 70%.

Four or more languages, anyone?

That's still quite a bit.

Anyone speak five or more languages?

Wow, come see me during the break.

(Laughter)

To me, learning a language is...

For me, it's like a deck of playing cards
lying faced down on the table.

As you start learning and understanding,
the cards start opening up for you.

Now there's no standard way
of classifying this.

But as you learn,
you reach certain milestones.

And the first one would be
when about 25% of the cards are turned up,

you reach like a basic level.

At this level, you have a base
vocabulary, some grammar,

and you're able to have
maybe very simple conversations

and communicate a little bit.

And your study goes on until you reach
this magical point of fluency,

what we call being fluent in the language.

Now what does it mean,
being fluent in a language?

It means that you've turned up
more than 50% of the cards in the deck,

and that is the point where you have -

where the language
becomes part of your subconscious

so that even if you don't use it anymore
for 10 years or longer,

you will not forget it.

You can get back into it
within a very, very short time.

So this is a level where you're
comfortable thinking in a language,

and comfortable
communicating in a language.

Now, some people go on
and, you know, reach like a mastery level.

By that time, you know classic literature
in the other language

and have maybe in-depth knowledge
of specialized fields.

That's often the point taken in academia.

For me, when I learned
my first foreign language,

I had a head start

because I was born to a German-speaking
mother and an American father.

Now, when I was a baby,
I didn't really understand

that what my parents were speaking to me
were two separate languages.

But by the time I was two years old,
I had figured it all out.

Women speak only German.

(Laughter)

Men only speak English.

(Laughter)

Imagine the fun my parents had
when they introduced me to couples.

(Laughter)

Being a bilingual was actually pretty
helpful in learning my first language.

It definitely helped.

If you're -

But it also gave me something else.

It gave me two identities and the ability
to switch between them.

When you're a native speaker
of more than one language,

then your personality, your humor,
your value system,

they change as you switch languages.

This can have huge advantages.

I mean, some studies have shown
an increased problem-solving ability

or even a higher resistance
to Alzheimer's disease.

But what I'm almost interested in

is that it's actually given me
a lot of social benefits.

When you're a native speaker,

then you feel at home
among native speakers or in a culture,

and also native speakers
accept you as one of theirs.

Now is this only relevant
to native speakers?

And that's the big question.

But wouldn't it be cool

if a person learning a foreign language
could actually develop another identity

and actually enjoy the social benefits
of a native speaker

that go beyond communication skills?

Well, that's what happened to me.

I was able to do that,

and I want to show you from my experience
how I think this can be achieved.

So if we say this green area here
is the level of the native speaker,

the first thing to note is
that on your way to reaching fluency,

there is not really any shortcut.

There are some methods that you can use
such as the Burrito Principle

where you identify 20%
of the most effective materials to study.

There are some apps,
like stuff for time-spaced learning,

that increase vocabulary retention.

They save a little time,

but in the end, there's no way around
working with the material, practicing it,

until you reach the fluency level.

But the second thing to note

is that going from fluency to mastery
is a much slower process,

and it requires
proportionally more effort.

That's why most people -
they just stop at fluency.

They know how to speak
English, good enough,

and they don't even attempt to venture on,

and I can understand it.

But the good news is,

to get the benefits of a native speaker,
at a native-speaker level,

you don't have to go through mastery
in the academic sense.

In fact, you can skip
this step altogether.

So if you think about it,

there are many native speakers
do not have an in-depth knowledge

of specialized fields
or sophisticated vocabulary.

So, that's not really what is required.

So how do you do it? What is required?

Well,

I want to give you three areas to focus on

when you're learning
and interacting with native speakers.

The first is: work
on eliminating your accent.

I'm aware I said eliminating.

It should be at least minimizing it.

This is, in my opinion,
the most overlooked aspect

of language learning today,

but it's also the most important one

to reach what I call a native-speaker
level or a speaker-like level.

If you communicate without an accent
or almost without an accent,

this changes how natives behave
towards you unconsciously,

and it also gives you an ability
to adapt to a new self-image.

The best way that I've found -

the best exercise I've found
to improve your pronunciation

is what I call the
perfect-sentence technique.

What you do is you find
a native speaker to help you,

and you take a book
in the foreign language,

you open it at a random page,

and you read the first sentence.

Then, you ask a native speaker to rate you

on obvious accent,
slight accent, no accent.

Then the native speaker
will read this sentence back to you.

You have to listen carefully
and then you repeat.

And you repeat this process over and over
until the native speaker tells you

that he can no longer hear an accent
when you read the sentence.

Now, I realize it can take
a very long time

even just to get one sentence right.

But I promise you

if you are persistent,
and if you patiently work on this,

you'll be amazed
by what happens to your accent.

The second area to focus on is using verbs
and expressions that locals use.

Now, we all know the situation
that vocabulary can be region-specific.

Like, in the US, you use "stand in line."

In the UK, you "queue."

That's all good.

But sometimes,
the spoken word is so different,

the speech is so different
from what you get in textbooks,

that the books are almost useless
if you want to converse with natives.

I want to give you an example.

In the French language,
there are words like "le travail,"

which is "my work."

A French person talking to his friend
would probably say "mon boulot,"

which is a completely different word.

The same for "the clothes,"
"le vestments,"

but you'll hear "le fringues."

Or money is "l'argent,"

but people say "le fric," "le sou,"
or many other expressions for this.

So, obviously I'm only scratching
the surface here.

But here you actually have to learn all
of these words and expressions one by one.

And of course, you have to interact
with natives to do that.

But after you reach a critical mass
that you're comfortable with,

it'll actually be easier
when you encounter something new.

You'll just pick it up in one go,
like native speakers would,

who hear words or expressions
that they didn't know before.

The third area to work on
is adopting cultural traits.

What do I mean by that?

So let me ask you:

what does this gesture mean to you?

Any Italians here?

(Laughter)

OK, now, depending
on what culture you're from,

this could mean something rude,

or it could just mean
it's something incredulous,

like, "Why did you do that?"

Or, "How could you?"

Or it could just be
signaling food, "Give me food!"

Interesting!

In the Middle East,

this is just a standard way
of signaling "Please, wait!"

So these kind of traits
you have to internalize,

and sometimes, they're hard to spot,

and it takes a lot of active listening.

I want to give you a few more examples.

So imagine I am with three of my friends:
an American, a German, and a Frenchman.

And, like, we're walking and maybe
the American bumps his head,

and his initial reaction might be, "Ouch!"

That's how you say it in English.

But the German that, you know,
gets, I don't know, elbowed in the crowd,

he would say, "Ow-ah!"

(Laughter)

And the French person
might step on the nail and say, "Ay!"

(Laughter)

So this, of course,
in your target language,

this is something you
have to observe and also internalize,

and it has to become part of you.

If...

Again I'm with these three friends,
and I sit with them,

and let's say I serve them tea,

and I ask the American,
"Would you like a biscuit with your tea?"

And if he answers in the affirmative,
he might say, "Uh-huh!"

And I can ask the German,
"Do you know what tea this is?"

He'll say, ''Mm- hmm!''

And then I ask the Frenchman,
"Do you like this?"

He'll say, "Hmm!"

(Laughter)

So these difference,
they really require active listening.

So all of these three things
that I told you

which is pronunciation,

and colloquial speech
and adopting cultural traits,

they all require that you interact
with natives as much as possible.

Ideally, you should
fully immerse yourself in the culture.

Now if you have the chance to live abroad
for a while, that will be great.

Or maybe live among natives
in your hometown.

Perhaps just have a romantic relationship,

or even just spend time,
you know, with co-workers.

So, romantic relationships,
I could do a whole talk about that.

(Laughter)

That works really well for these things.

But yeah -

So this will be different
for everybody, of course.

But even when you're not around natives,
your learning must not stop.

Because what you can do
is you can watch TV shows and films,

you can mimic the characters,

you can write down anything
that you haven't heard of before,

and practice that.

I also want to encourage you
to learn the lyrics of songs.

Songs are really great
because they tell stories.

And they not only help your
pronunciation when you sing them,

but if they're emotional,

they can anchor these expressions
into your active vocabulary.

And it's like speaking all day and really
using the expressions unconsciously.

It's a great way.

So music, definitely.

The other thing you need
to move towards native-speaker status

is the right mindset,

and a belief that
if you sound like a native,

express yourself like a native,

talk like a native and act like a native,

you'll actually achieve
a native-like level.

So if I could only leave you
with one thing today,

it would be: work on your pronunciation.

Because pronunciation

helps any stage of the learning process,

even in the very beginning.

It'll speed up everything.

And it also is the key
to reaching a native-speaker level,

or almost-native-speaker status.

So before I go,

I'd like to tell you how I was able to
overcome my fear of the Russian language.

It was a very, very elegant solution.

I married a Russian girl.

(Laughter)

And I now have little kids in my home
that speak Russian to me every day.

(Laughter)

So I want to thank you.

(Applause)

And before I go, I just want to wish you

(Spanish) A lot of success
with your language studies.

(French) It was a pleasure
to present for you today.

(Hebrew) I wish you lots of success
with your studies.

(Yiddish) Thank you for listening.

Good luck to you all and...

(Russian) Thank you.

(Applause)