Fluent Forever - Book Review

Hi everyone; A while back, I encountered a few recommendations for the book Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyne. Since, I encountered a lot of opinions about it, both positive and negative, and decided to give it a shot myself. Background Format: I have listened to the audiobook over the span of 2 weeks (personally, I often prefer audio format for non-fiction books), and had an epub version supporting my reading, which was used especially to accompany “The Gallery” section and appendixes at the end. About Me: I have been studying languages for a while - started off as a kid with some Japanese, but grew to study also German and Korean, and currently focusing on Chinese for quite some time (about B2 at the moment). This shows that while my skills aren’t great, I have been in this loop for a while and am familiar with many theories regarding language learning. As a student, I love learning grammar and language “logic”, that said, vocabulary tends to be my constant Achilles heel. I know it's important, just don’t really enjoy studying it. I tried many different platforms, including repeated attempts at Anki, yet sadly, none stuck for the long run. The Book Book Introduction: Fluent Forever, written by the American author Gabriel Wyne (speaking 6 languages, mostly romance/germanic), published in 2014, is depicting his personal language learning process, what succeeded for him and what tools he used. It seems to have become one of the most popular general language-learning related books in the last few years. It tackles the concept of “fluency”, then takes us on a step-by-step process that is recommended for learning a new language. The Book Contents & Reasonings: The book covers an interesting range of topics related to language learning, anywhere from pronunciation to grammar and resources, it explains the actions in order and in a well-based manner. Much of the explanations on “why” to follow some practices or methods are thorough, accompanied by examples, and understandable to the reader. That said, I feel like these are the basis for a very specific method/flow, and very little alternatives or personification tools are provided. Much of the content is also accompanied by examples or mind drills, which is fun, but when looking at the core-to-add-ons ratio, it seems a bit off, so can feel slightly forcefully elongated at times. The Implementations: This is where the book really lacked for me. While the book has some interesting theories explained, it seems like 95% of its’ implementation methods are explained specifically for Anki (or any computerized SRS flashcards system). At some points, it delves into “foreign” territory: hand-made physical flashcards. But that’s pretty much it. Yes, he speaks of other resources and gives out addresses, but those too are often then transitioned into flashcards. Additionally, while having links (that are thankfully also available on the authors’ blog, therefore accessible to listeners such as me) is nice as a concept, these many links (many repeating, btw) make the book seem more like a blogpost and less like… well, a book. The Gallery/Appendixes: After the initial chapters reviewing the theoretical guidelines (with some implementation ideas and links for additional resources), The Gallery comes to show how to implement and combine all of it together in one… you guessed it, Anki deck. That said, having the image visualizations, walking through the process step-by-step in a clear format, including the use cases and usage instructions, is a good way to conclude the book. Since much of the previous parts too are referencing this format, The Gallery really helps bring the implementation all together in one combined summary. Conclusions Possible Effects On My Personal Process: Let’s start with the obvious- after this book, I re-started another Anki attempt (the previous one lasted for about half a year, so I’m optimistic here!), with slight changes to my card view (though not much). I did learn some more about the theory of language learning, but to be honest, very little of what was discussed in the book will be affecting my day-to-day language learning process. Overall: The book is nice and interesting. That said, if you are studying languages for 5+ years, I’d doubt it will add much on top of what many other resources already explained to us all. The main concept of the book is nice, but to be honest, it could have been reduced by a lot, and with the links and everything, it could easily been made into 3ish blog posts (eg. beginners, intermediates and The Gallery) and have a much bigger impact, at least for me. So, If you’re interested in the book format, great. If you’re looking for references list or for Anki deck instructions, also great. If you’re looking for anything more than that, might be skippable… [also posted on GoodReads: link ] submitted by /u/HadarN [link] [comments]

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