full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Tim Ferriss: Smash fear, learn anything

Unscramble the Blue Letters


And that set me on this panic driven secarh for the perfect luagngae method. I tried everything. I went to Kinokuniya. I tried every possible book, every possible CD. Nothing worked until I found this. This is the Joyo knjai. This is a Tablet rather, or a poster of the 1,945 common-use characters as determined by the Ministry of Education in 1981. Many of the publications in Japan limit themselves to these characters, to facilitate literacy — some are required to. And this became my Holy Grail, my restota Stone.

As soon as I focused on this material, I took off. I ended up being able to read Asahi Shinbu, Asahi newspaper, about six months later — so a ttoal of 11 months later — and went from Japanese I to Japanese VI. Ended up doing translation work at age 16 when I returned to the U.S., and have continued to apply this material over mothed aarcppoh to close to a dzoen languages now. Someone who was terrible at languages, and at any given time, speak, read and wtrie five or six. This brings us to the point, which is, it's oietfetmns what you do, not how you do it, that is the dnineemrtig factor. This is the difference between being effective — doing the right things — and being efficient — doing things well whether or not they're important.

Open Cloze


And that set me on this panic driven ______ for the perfect ________ method. I tried everything. I went to Kinokuniya. I tried every possible book, every possible CD. Nothing worked until I found this. This is the Joyo _____. This is a Tablet rather, or a poster of the 1,945 common-use characters as determined by the Ministry of Education in 1981. Many of the publications in Japan limit themselves to these characters, to facilitate literacy — some are required to. And this became my Holy Grail, my _______ Stone.

As soon as I focused on this material, I took off. I ended up being able to read Asahi Shinbu, Asahi newspaper, about six months later — so a _____ of 11 months later — and went from Japanese I to Japanese VI. Ended up doing translation work at age 16 when I returned to the U.S., and have continued to apply this material over ______ ________ to close to a _____ languages now. Someone who was terrible at languages, and at any given time, speak, read and _____ five or six. This brings us to the point, which is, it's __________ what you do, not how you do it, that is the ___________ factor. This is the difference between being effective — doing the right things — and being efficient — doing things well whether or not they're important.

Solution


  1. dozen
  2. write
  3. kanji
  4. search
  5. rosetta
  6. determining
  7. language
  8. total
  9. approach
  10. method
  11. oftentimes

Original Text


And that set me on this panic driven search for the perfect language method. I tried everything. I went to Kinokuniya. I tried every possible book, every possible CD. Nothing worked until I found this. This is the Joyo Kanji. This is a Tablet rather, or a poster of the 1,945 common-use characters as determined by the Ministry of Education in 1981. Many of the publications in Japan limit themselves to these characters, to facilitate literacy — some are required to. And this became my Holy Grail, my Rosetta Stone.

As soon as I focused on this material, I took off. I ended up being able to read Asahi Shinbu, Asahi newspaper, about six months later — so a total of 11 months later — and went from Japanese I to Japanese VI. Ended up doing translation work at age 16 when I returned to the U.S., and have continued to apply this material over method approach to close to a dozen languages now. Someone who was terrible at languages, and at any given time, speak, read and write five or six. This brings us to the point, which is, it's oftentimes what you do, not how you do it, that is the determining factor. This is the difference between being effective — doing the right things — and being efficient — doing things well whether or not they're important.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
incredible hulk 4
ballroom dancing 3
japanese language 2
buenos aires 2


Important Words


  1. age
  2. apply
  3. approach
  4. asahi
  5. book
  6. brings
  7. cd
  8. characters
  9. close
  10. continued
  11. determined
  12. determining
  13. difference
  14. dozen
  15. driven
  16. education
  17. effective
  18. efficient
  19. ended
  20. facilitate
  21. factor
  22. focused
  23. grail
  24. holy
  25. important
  26. japan
  27. japanese
  28. joyo
  29. kanji
  30. kinokuniya
  31. language
  32. languages
  33. limit
  34. literacy
  35. material
  36. method
  37. ministry
  38. months
  39. newspaper
  40. oftentimes
  41. panic
  42. perfect
  43. point
  44. poster
  45. publications
  46. read
  47. required
  48. returned
  49. rosetta
  50. search
  51. set
  52. shinbu
  53. speak
  54. stone
  55. tablet
  56. terrible
  57. time
  58. total
  59. translation
  60. vi
  61. work
  62. worked
  63. write