1. The Five Principles
Lonsdale’s five principles of rapid language acquisition are the following:
1. Focus on language content that is relevant to you. Why do you want
to learn to speak a second language? Look at the following:
 Do you want to learn Italian so that you can understand opera? If so, then
concentrate on words and phrases that you would hear in Puccini’s operas.
 Do you want to learn to speak Mandarin so that you can communicate with
your business partners in China? Then focus on learning words and phrases
in Mandarin that are related to business.
2. Use the new language as a tool to communicate. Instead of simply
learning the language in an academic setting, put yourself in situations which
force you to use the language in order to be able to communicate with others.
3. When you first understand the message, you will unconsciously
acquire the language. When you’re first trying to learn a new language,
instead of trying to understand the words that someone is using to talk to you, try
to understand what they’re trying to say through their gestures, body language,
and facial expressions.
That is, at first you don’t derive meaning from the language, but from the
interaction. This is something called comprehensional input, and it’s been well
documented.
4. Learning a language is not about acquiring knowledge. Instead, in
many ways it’s about physiological training.
First of all, we have filters in our brains that filter in sounds that we’re familiar
with, and that filter out sounds that we’re not familiar with. And if you can’t hear
it, you can’t learn it. Therefore, you have to continually listen to the sounds of the

2. language that you’re trying to learn in order to train your brain to let in the new
sounds.
In addition, talking requires using your facial muscles. You have 43 muscles in
your face. You have to coordinate those muscles in a way that makes sounds that
others can understand
5. Your psychological state matters.
If you’re sad, angry, worried, or upset, you’re not going to learn
the new language.
If you’re happy, relaxed, and curious, you’re going to learn the new language
quickly. In addition, you need to be tolerant of ambiguity. At first when people
speak to you in the language that you’re trying to learn, you’ll understand very
little. But that’s OK.
The Seven Actions
Based on the five principles that were explained above, there are seven actions
that you need to take in order to learn a new language quickly and efficiently. The
seven actions which Lonsdale recommends are the following:
1. Listen; a lot. Lonsdale calls this brain soaking. It doesn’t matter if at first you
don’t understand what you’re listening to. You’re listening to recognize patterns,
words that repeat, and things that stand out. In addition, you’re listening to the
rhythm of the language.
2. Focus on getting the meaning first, even before you get the words.
From body language you can understand a lot of communication. You’ll be
acquiring the language through comprehensional input.
3. Start mixing. If you know ten verbs, ten nouns, and ten adjectives in the new
language, you can say 1000 different things. Language is a creative process. Look
for ways to get your meaning across by using the words that you know.

3. 4. Focus on the core. With every language there’s high frequency content. As
an illustration, in English, one thousand words cover 85% of anything you’re
going to say in daily life. Three-thousand words give you 98% coverage. All the
other words in the English language are the icing on the cake.
5. Get a language parent. When you start learning a language your progress
will probably look like the following:
 Week 1: Continually ask “What is this?”, “How do you say . . .”, “Can you say
that again?”, “Can you repeat that?” Always ask these questions in the
language that you’re trying to learn.
 Week 2 and 3: You should be using very simple nouns, verbs, and pronouns
(“you”, “me”, “that”, “hot”, “give”, and so on).
 Week 4: You’re using glue words, such as “and”, “but”, “even though”,
“therefore”, and so on. These words tie bits of language together so that you
can make more complex meaning. At this point you’re talking in the new
language.
This is where you want to get a language parent. That is, someone who will treat
you like a parent treats their child when the child is learning to speak. This
language parent can recognize what you’re saying, even when others don’t
understand. They create a safe environment for you, which makes you more
confident in your ability to learn the new language.
The four rules for a language parent are the following:
 They will work hard to understand what you’re trying to say.
 They don’t correct your mistakes.
 They confirm understanding by using correct language.
 They use words that you know and also communicate with gestures and body
language.
6. Copy the face. In order to learn to make the sounds that will allow you to
speak the new language, you have to watch the face of people who speak that

4. language. How does their face move when they’re speaking? Mimic their facial
movements.
7. “Direct Connect” to mental images. Most people learning to speak
another language will make a list of words that they want to learn in their mother
tongue, and next to each word they’ll place the equivalent in the language that
they’re trying to learn. Then they just go over the list repeatedly in the hopes of
memorizing the words in the new language. This is very inefficient.
Everything that you know is an image inside your mind. For example, if you talk
about fire you can smell the smoke, feel the heat, hear the crackling, and see the
flames. What you want to do is to focus on the image that’s currently in your head
for “fire” and create a new pathway that leads from this image to the word “fire”
in the language that you’re trying to learn.