The Fastest Way to Learn a New Language in 2025: The Road Trip Method

the road trip method this is the framework that took me from A1 beginner French to B1 intermediate in just 30 [Music] days I'll take you step by step through the entire process starting from stage zero I'll explain how this framework works and how I think about languages and by the end of this video you'll have a list of exercises and resources that you can use yourself so keep on watching but first let's talk about my background and set some Expectations first of all I am not a language learning expert I am not him him or

him I'm still very much a beginner when it comes to this entire space in fact 9 months ago was the first time that I ever seriously learned a language so to be clear you will not become natively fluent in just 30 days fluency is a destination that takes months or even years to reach and there are no shortcuts so if you're looking for a quick fix that'll take you to fluency in 30 days this video is not that however if you're a beginner at the start of your language learning journey and you like to achieve

an early intermediate level within a reasonable amount of time then this video might be able to help you out with that and lastly language learning is not a competition I am still a beginner in this space and I have so much to learn still I hope that what I've learned so far is able to help you out and get you closer to your own goals we're all here in this community to learn together anyways let's now talk about the road trip method there are three parts to the road trip method input output and maintenance if

you're a Normy like me then input is the gas if you're British then it's the petrol and if you're better than everyone next up output is actually pressing on the accelerator you can fill up your car with the most expensive most high quality gas in the world but if you're not actually pressing down on the accelerator then you're not going to get anywhere and lastly maintenance is expensive furthermore each of these three parts have their own underlying sub practices which we'll dive into now with input number one guided course if you're starting from zero the

fastest way off the ground is to have a guided course of some kind I'm not sponsored by any guided courses and neither do I have any guided courses to sell you so does doesn't really matter as long as it works for you for French and Spanish I use bu.com and pimsler and for talog I'm using this book right here of course links are going to be in the description eventually you'll get to a point where you're moving so fast that you won't need it anymore at which point you can just leave it to the side

after that the next input in the road trip framework is building your vocabulary this classic article by Paul Nation found that in English a much smaller vocabulary size is needed to read than is typically taught in the classroom he then goes on to s an earlier paper from 1994 and says the most frequent 2,000 words of English plus an academic word list provide coverage of about 87% of General academic text and 91% of an economics test these combined with proper nouns would provide close to 95% coverage so instead of just wasting our time trying to

learn words at random we're going to focus on learning the ones that give us the most mileage Nathaniel Drew made an amazing video about this and called it the Solar System Theory the inner circle is much muchar larger because that top 10% of words actually accounts for well over half of all language use and then the next Circle takes up a another large percentage of the solar system but much smaller than the first Circle and then smaller and smaller and smaller so with this principle in mind we're going to focus on learning that small percentage

of high frequency words that give us the most output usually that's anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 words now a big mistake that you do not want to make that a lot of people make is that they just go online look up most commonly used French words and then take whatever list they see but most of the time these lists are like super inaccurate archaic and reflect somebody else's speech patterns instead of your own for example why is environmental the 73rd word on this list huh one thing that really helped me was Nathaniel Drew's French resource

kit it's available on its website for free and includes spreadsheets audio recordings a whole bunch of resources for learning French and Italian and Portuguese and a whole bunch of other languages another thing that I did which I think is pretty cool is that I Enlisted the help of ai ai ai so I use this app otter.ai it basically transcribes all of your audio in real time and it's usually really accurate so basically all throughout the day I've recorded my conversations into otter and I went through them corrected some errors and copy pasted them into chat

GPT then asked chat GPT to take the transcriptions and add them for my most frequently used words I had to generate a list and then I translated it into French now obviously some of these aren't going to be direct you know translations you know hung out I'm sure there's a better way to say that but for the most part I feel like this is a really helpful framework for me to understand the way that I personally speak at least in English we'll see how it works [Music] out wherever you get your words from just plug

them into a flashcard deck of some sorts it can be anky it can be Quizlet they can even be physical it doesn't really matter just as long as you're reviewing them with spaced repetition but the important thing to remember is that these words are just the fuel in the car and while yes fuel is important you don't want to get stranded in the middle of the road fuel alone isn't enough you see you can have all of the input in the world know all of the grammar structures all the rules be able to understand fluently

but still not be able to speak I was like that for many many years with theog and so that's why the next and most important part of the road trip framework is output the purpose of language is communication after all languages don't exist in a vacuum they're Dynamic structures that evolve and morph as they're used by people and so the most important part of this framework is that we're interacting with real people in real time so if you have a friend that speaks your target language go give them a call if you don't have any

friends then go to iTalk and Beyond being the sponsors of this video they are an actual tool that I use and are a key part of the method so don't miss this on iie you can take affordable and I mean college student affordable personalized one-on-one lessons with qualified tutors you get undivided attention instant feedback and personalized content for your unique needs and goals to show you what I mean meet my French tutor lomber hey Sal lber long I first met lomber 9 months ago when I was looking for a qualified French shooter I specifically wanted

to find somebody from a similar background as me as a beginner it's important to find somebody who also speaks your native language so that you can Bridge those two languages luckily II's search filter makes it super easy and efficient to do just that italki allows you to connect with over 30,000 teachers all over the world so I'm not kidding when I say that there is a teacher for everyone I logged in and used their filter to search for a French teacher who also speaks English and is from Canada and would you look at that if

the the road trip method output is key specifically having real conversations with native speakers but when you're still learning a language you want to have safe low stakes interactions and I talk allows you to get just that conversation practice with Native [Music] teachers fake this kind of live interaction boosts your confidence and is also one of the fastest ways to improve your speaking and listening skills not to mention unlike an outdated book or course you can actually learn authentic Expressions that real people use on top of all that amazing stuff II is flexible convenient and

affordable I'm a college student you know what I mean I don't have money to be spending on language learning like that thankfully II isn't a subscription like some of these other platforms you pay per lesson and you can book them around your schedule so you can learn anytime anywhere furthermore each user gets three trial lessons which you can get refunded if you're not fully satisfied of course I want to help you all along and hook you up with a deal so the first 50 people who click the link below get a special offer bu $10

get $5 for free for your first lesson using my code I talk you a that's $5 for free using my code II Amir click the link below to start your language learning Journey another thing I like about studying with a tutor is that most of the time there're also polyglots who are passionate about language learning they've been there and done that so they have great advice to give [Music] [Music] I'll see you around okay byebye he is still the best he's still the best after my conversation with lamb I'll review the recording write down all

the words that I didn't know and sentences that I didn't know how to construct they go straight into the ever expanding Google sheet flashcard deck which we're going to supplement with input number three immersion immersion is crucial to learning any language luckily this part of the road trip method is all about creating your own French bubble to live in here are some of the things I did changed my phone and computer UI to French listened to French music and podcasts watched French films and YouTubers read French books find your own way to interact with the

language in a way that is fun so YouTube so Netflix so music podcast I don't care if you don't understand you just have to get out there and find ways to engage with the language that are you know ways that are going to give you envy to come back from work for me I'm a musician so I dove really deep into classic frankophone music and learn some [Music] [Music] songs all right you're getting more immersed you're speaking with your tutor you're feeling more confident let's now move on to the most powerful output exercise that I

have ever seen okay first of all this is not an original exercise of mine I actually found this on the YouTube channel language Lords he learned French in 30 days and was the inspiration for me to start my Challenge and he's absolutely insane when it comes to learning languages and his dedication is like so so inspiring so bro if you're seeing this what's up I'm a huge fan here's his exercise that I've modified a bit to make it work for me I call it story speaking so to start you'll need a way to record yourself

right now I'm just using the photo booth app on my Mac afterwards you'll pick a story from your life it can be something you did yesterday describing where you're from or your self introduction and then you'll just press record and try your best to tell that story for 5 minutes in your target language the first time you do this it's going to feel horrible wanted you're going to want to quit it'll be uncomfortable you're switching in and out of languages because you don't know how to construct things uh news uh new Maron macaroni but trust

me it'll be worth it so stick with it afterwards you'll pull up a spreadsheet with three columns in the First Column you're going to transcribe what you just said in the second column you're going to write what you wanted to say in your native language then afterwards you're going to take what you wanted to say and use a good a ey powered translator like DL or chat GPT and put that corrected version into the third column you'll then move keywords and phrases into your flashcards use an AI Voice or forvo.com to learn the pronunciation and

then learn that corrected version inside and out until you have it memorized rinse and repeat for a few hours until you have a repertoire of stories memorized now the beauty of this exercise is that it helps you develop a vocabulary of your own life you learn how to express things in your own unique way and learn the words and phrases that are most relevant to your life okay so the last few outputs that I just shared are both speaking oriented and while speaking practice is great it isn't [Music] everything the great thing about Writing Practice

though is that it's the exact same cognitive process as speaking except just slowed down and crystallized in text in front of you you can work with and correct your mistakes as you see them the other great benefit is that you can practice this at any time whereas it's difficult to practice story speaking in a library it's easy to write a story in French anywhere to be completely honest when I was doing the original French in 30 days challenge I did not do enough writing and like my French really suffered as a result of that if

I were to do it all over again I would focus way more on writing and I would also pay more attention to part three of the road trip method maintenance the last part of the road trip method is maintaining meaning your vehicle yourself when I originally did the French in 30 days challenge I was so burnt out by week three I wanted to quit I wanted to just leave the entire thing behind and it really affected my progress and when I did the the gallog challenge again same thing happened and I am anticipating the same

thing happening when I do the Spanish challenge if you don't pay attention to this you can have all the input and output in the world but if your car breaks down you ain't going nowhere for your English Learners that is a contraction of you all are not y'all all a't yank and so there are three simple steps to keeping yourself sharp one sleep this is a given the last few Decades of sleep research are so well documented that there's practically no debate that getting adequate amounts of sleep is crucial for proper brain function and effective

learning a lot of the changes in these brain structures occurs after learning during deep sleep in particular slow wave sleep Dr huberman is a professor of neurobiology and Opthalmology at Stanford school of medicine but it also occurs during periods of naps and shallow sleep or even just periods where people deliberately decompressed where they're not focusing on any one thing in particular Dr Daddy I mean Dr Lumberjack I mean Dr Andrew huberman also has some fantastic things to say about how deep rest and sleep relate to learning conversational French I don't speak a second language but

let's say I decided I was going to learn conversational French I would learn some nouns or some verbs I would focus on this and the greater degree of focus that I bring the greater amount of acetylcholine is released but the actual rewiring of the nervous system happens during states of deep sleep or sleep-like States he's also the person who introduced me to the concept of ultradian cycles and taking proper breaks we exist on these so-called 90-minute ultradian Cycles everything in sleep is a 90-minute cycle everything in waking is a 90-minute cycle anytime you're going to

sit down and try and focus you're going to try and do a focused bout of physical exercise or skill learning or musical learning the ideal duration is about 90 minutes not exactly 90 minutes but we can reliably say 90 minutes or less okay now this is where things start to get super practical using this concept of 90-minute ultradian Cycles we can take our input and our output and start creating a routine which I will share with you guys this is a sample practice plan in the road trip framework each one of these rectangles represents an

ultradian cycle at the top we have input which takes 30 minutes and then output which takes 60 minutes and then every 90 minutes you'll take a break or step away for the day you'll notice that we're putting a lot more enthesis on output instead of input because I find that in general language Learners already get plenty of input if they're doing a book if they're doing a course if they're doing an app with a bird that's going to attack your family but the hard stuff is the output is actually working and producing language because it's

two parts being able to understand and comprehend but then also being able to produce and to create the language yourself here's what a day of practicing might look like for cycle number one we'll do 30 minutes of our guided course French that can be busu pimsler or a book like aimil or you know whatever you find that helps you and then we'll do 60 Minutes of story speaking afterwards we'll take a 20 or 30 minute break for cycle number two we'll spend 30 minutes on our vocab flash cards and then we'll spend 60 Minutes writing

trying to implement the new vocab that we've learned and then perhaps later that night for our third cycle we'll spend 30 minutes reading a French book that sounds fun and then 60 Minutes having a conversation and then afterwards we'll rinse and repeat the next day now of course this routine is just a suggestion so take what works for you discard what doesn't and adapt it to your own life and finally the last step to maintain your car on this road trip is to remember your [Music] why why do you want to learn another language in

the first place is it for travel is it for family is it for the culture whatever your reason is it's important to keep it front and center because sure you can have the fastest car in the world but if you have no direction or intention you're still just lost so get a Clear Vision of what fluency looks like for you write that reason down and put it somewhere that you'll see it frequently there are no right or wrong reasons to learn a language just as long as it keeps you excited about this beautiful life-enriching and

World expanding [Music] perceptive and if you want to see how I apply the road trip method to learn my mother's native language and surprise her click right here