I Learned Filipino In 4 Days — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01stand by camera
2. 0:023 I've never been to the Philippines and
3. 0:05I only speak one word of Tagalog and
4. 0:07that is thank you Salat so you're
5. 0:09telling me you speak like a Filipino now
6. 0:12with language learning experts on my
7. 0:13side I will find out just how much
8. 0:15teolog I can cram in 4 days and this is
9. 0:18the Day of Reckoning for Tim Ferris are
10. 0:21you
11. 0:22ready I'm Tim Ferris everything going up
12. 0:25bestselling author and human guinea pig
13. 0:27I'll show you how to make the impossible
14. 0:29possible by bending the
15. 0:31rules together I'll find the world's
16. 0:33best teachers and push myself to the
17. 0:35edge to deconstruct decode and demystify
18. 0:40some of the world's toughest challenges
19. 0:42in record
20. 0:47time if I can do it so can
21. 0:54you Los Angeles California little Manila
22. 0:58home to 300,00 th000 Filipinos and the
23. 1:01location of my next challenge this
24. 1:03week's experiment is learning languages
25. 1:05even I've been terrified with this after
26. 1:07all in high school Spanish I couldn't
27. 1:09even strin the
28. 1:12together so this week I just have a few
29. 1:14days to prepare for a television
30. 1:16interview in tagalag otherwise known as
31. 1:19Filipino I'm scheduled to appear on The
32. 1:21Daily Talk Show kababayan today 20
33. 1:24seconds I'll be expected to answer
34. 1:26questions and Converse in a language I
35. 1:28know nothing about the interview will be
36. 1:30broadcast on live TV reaching
37. 1:31approximately 5.6 million
38. 1:34households it's very very difficult to
39. 1:37compress learning a language well into
40. 1:40really what is about 3 and 1 half days
41. 1:43all I have to fall back on are the
42. 1:45learning techniques I've been perfecting
43. 1:46over the last decade one of the
44. 1:48Frameworks I use to tackle new languages
45. 1:50is Cafe it's an acronym that helps me to
46. 1:53streamline the entire learning process
47. 1:55first I need to condense or compress
48. 1:57what I study given the time frame I then
49. 2:00devis the best schedule for studying
50. 2:02reviewing and resting and to maximize
51. 2:04retention I use memory tricks to make
52. 2:06tough material stick will I succeed or
53. 2:09will I fail we'll find
54. 2:14out
55. 2:16oh hi Tim Ferris oh
56. 2:21Tim very good I need to learn more to go
57. 2:25to get me started I've enlisted the help
58. 2:27of an expert Tia Domingo literally wrote
59. 2:30the book on learning to galag she's a
60. 2:32university Professor Filipino native and
61. 2:35she has taught countless people to learn
62. 2:37this language this week she's going to
63. 2:39have to get me up to speed in record
64. 2:41time Sim let's begin let's begin so what
65. 2:45are the most common English speaker
66. 2:47mistakes oh English speakers would like
67. 2:50to say I ate the chicken yeah but
68. 2:53normally what they are saying in Tagalog
69. 2:56they're saying the chicken ate me very
70. 3:00different tagal sentence structure is
71. 3:03different from English most
72. 3:05circumstances call for Passive
73. 3:06construction the handy acronym van
74. 3:09illustrates the order verb actor noun as
75. 3:13I'm digging into the basic graph of
76. 3:16grammar I realize that noun cases
77. 3:20modifiers conditions and whatnot are
78. 3:22really quite complex to pull off the
79. 3:25interview is really going to be a
80. 3:26stretch goal it's not going to be
81. 3:28easy I trans these 12 sentences into
82. 3:31every new language I study they help me
83. 3:33to understand verb tense word order
84. 3:35sentence structure and much more the
85. 3:38apple is red it is John's Apple I give
86. 3:41John the Apple we give him the apple he
87. 3:43gives it she gives it to
88. 3:45the to I can't eat the apple I keep it
89. 3:51very compressed on one page so whenever
90. 3:53I get overwhelmed I can refer back to
91. 3:55that as my guide as my
92. 3:57compass uh what makes olic easy oh and
93. 4:03the people are very friendly and they
94. 4:04will teach you how to speak it correctly
95. 4:06that's very
96. 4:08important over the course of 3 hours
97. 4:10Tida and I focus on my dozen sentences
98. 4:13then we get straight into practicing the
99. 4:14types of questions I might be asked on
100. 4:16live TV such as why did you want to
101. 4:19learn to Goa this will help me select
102. 4:21the few hundred most critical words from
103. 4:23tens of thousands I'm going to have to
104. 4:25learn this language through the lens of
105. 4:26the
106. 4:28interview TAA is has given me an overall
107. 4:30road map to build
108. 4:32upon the total immersion is the best way
109. 4:35to learn any language so she sets me up
110. 4:37with a host family some friends of hers
111. 4:39the
112. 4:45diamonds
113. 4:50yes now I'm out of vocab okay for the
114. 4:54next couple of days the diamonds have
115. 4:55generously agreed to take me in they
116. 4:57have many generations to answer my many
117. 4:59many questions why don't I um lead you
118. 5:01to your room wonderful perhaps more
119. 5:04important just by residing in a Filipino
120. 5:06household I'll be absorbing vocabulary
121. 5:09idiom better pronunciation useful
122. 5:12phrases everything I'll be eating
123. 5:14breathing and sleeping tala this is my
124. 5:17mom mama mama yyu mama
125. 5:21yyu it is tradition that you hold her
126. 5:25hand and put her hand on your forehead
127. 5:28okay and then bless you oh okay by
128. 5:32tomorrow you will not R
129. 5:34anyal I will make sure okay thank
130. 5:39you it's time to have
131. 5:43dinner another added benefit home-cooked
132. 5:46Filipino meals but I've got an interview
133. 5:48coming up so after dinner it's right
134. 5:50back to
135. 5:52studying when I first heard that Tim
136. 5:55wanted to do an interview in Tagalog the
137. 5:57first thing that came to my mind was oo
138. 6:00I'm going to have fun with this so
139. 6:02obviously this is a challenge which um
140. 6:04you may easily
141. 6:09fail 3 days left until I'm expected to
142. 6:11converse fluently into gag on live TV
143. 6:15the risk of spectacular failure is a
144. 6:17powerful
145. 6:20motivator I'm having trouble remembering
146. 6:22tough material so I'm going to consult
147. 6:23my friend Ed cook Grandmaster of memory
148. 6:26to gather a few more tools and tricks
149. 6:28there we go so you can hear me right Ed
150. 6:31I hear you very Ed cook is a memory
151. 6:34Grand Master he is the perfect friend to
152. 6:37lean on so obviously this is a challenge
153. 6:40which um you may easily fail at no
154. 6:43matter how Brut you do I would do a kind
155. 6:45of intensive series of hours with short
156. 6:49breaks in between them on memorization
157. 6:52so probably I do like a 4our stint in
158. 6:54the morning um probably 50 minutes of
159. 6:56memorization 10 minutes of stretching
160. 6:59and doing push-ups Ed is very smart and
161. 7:02very fun he keeps it light which I think
162. 7:05makes him a very good teacher you're
163. 7:07Master KN the phrases but like um this
164. 7:10is very disappointing and um to be
165. 7:14honest I don't like your to accent and
166. 7:17stuff like that could be quite handy
167. 7:19buying yourself some time right and one
168. 7:22thing I would definitely say is don't
169. 7:24learn anything new um within 24 hours of
170. 7:28the interview um I would put them into
171. 7:30practice or you risk embarrassing
172. 7:34yourself smart
173. 7:36man my first 4-Hour block should start
174. 7:42now frequency is the second part of my
175. 7:45Cafe framework Ed reminds me that
176. 7:47there's improved recall at the beginning
177. 7:49and end of lists or study sessions so if
178. 7:52you break hours of practice into shorter
179. 7:54periods in theory you remember more
180. 7:56because you're increasing the number of
181. 7:58beginnings and ends
182. 8:00ganito
183. 8:01Ang this is how life is ganito Ango this
184. 8:05is the plan I couple Ed strategy with
185. 8:08one of my favorite techniques even
186. 8:10exercising for just 20 minutes improves
187. 8:13information processing and memory but
188. 8:15it's more profound than that exercise
189. 8:17can actually increase the number of
190. 8:19neural Connections in the brain and some
191. 8:21scientists believe this is due to a
192. 8:22chemical or molecule called bdnf all you
193. 8:26have to do to learn languages faster is
194. 8:28move your body it's it's that
195. 8:35simple Seafood City an everyday stop for
196. 8:38Filipinos in La time to go shopping with
197. 8:42Meen and Mama YuYu you might look at
198. 8:45grocery shopping and say
199. 8:49why sometimes the small things are the
200. 8:52big things so we're looking for por but
201. 8:56babou babou Babu holy cow that's a long
202. 9:00list we're picking up ingredients for
203. 9:02tonight's dinner a Filipino standard
204. 9:04called chicken and pork adobo here's
205. 9:07what we need chicken pork garlic soy
206. 9:12sauce vinegar ground pepper and bay
207. 9:17leaf how would you say what else how
208. 9:19would you say anopa anopa that's it
209. 9:21right yes anopa
210. 9:24anopa
211. 9:26dessert finished finished already
212. 9:28finished already
213. 9:34finished so we want to shoot you
214. 9:37shopping with him so maybe fish section
215. 9:40first Janelle s anchor and producer for
216. 9:44Caba Bayan today her Cruise arrived to
217. 9:47film a short piece with me and my host
218. 9:48family she's the one who will be
219. 9:50grilling me into gag on live TV when I
220. 9:54first heard that Tim wanted to do an
221. 9:56interview in Tagalog the first thing
222. 9:58that came to my mind was
223. 9:59ooh I'm going to have fun with this how
224. 10:02do you tell if a fish is uh
225. 10:04fresh well the eye you just learned that
226. 10:08I did I did they were telling me Clear
227. 10:10Eyes magaling magaling
228. 10:13magaling to pick Tagalog out of all the
229. 10:16languages that he can learn and to pick
230. 10:18kababayan today out of all the other
231. 10:20Filipino shows out there it's going to
232. 10:22be amazing nice to meet all of you
233. 10:24finally yes and I will see you in studio
234. 10:27better be ready and I will be
235. 10:30as I'm going to be all right thank you
236. 10:31guys
237. 10:34bye you lie you
238. 10:36lie back home for a couple of hours of
239. 10:39studying then it's time to stop and make
240. 10:42dinner a I knew you were going to ask me
241. 10:46that right no I know that's the vinegar
242. 10:50hold on don't tell
243. 10:51me starts with starts with T I chose to
244. 10:55live with native toolic speakers even on
245. 10:58this compress press time frame because
246. 11:01walking around in the house over hearing
247. 11:04talog being able to ask questions about
248. 11:07words that are relevant allows me to in
249. 11:09a very relaxed way and natural way
250. 11:11absorb more
251. 11:15[Music]
252. 11:17vocabulary we're ready to
253. 11:19eat could I use that in an interview
254. 11:22yeah I could if I'm smart about
255. 11:27it how do I feel there is a slim chance
256. 11:32that it will go off really well there's
257. 11:33also a very high probability that I'll
258. 11:35be a deer caught in
259. 11:38headlights it's a tough
260. 11:44challenge one day left tomorrow the
261. 11:48interview today first things first
262. 11:51breakfast M
263. 11:55oh man has been actually very good at
264. 11:59catching sloppy pronunciation of mine
265. 12:01and different teachers have different
266. 12:02ears different types of
267. 12:05emphasis that means eat some more how do
268. 12:08you say eggs itlog itlog i t l o g okay
269. 12:15what Ed cook who friend of mine might do
270. 12:17is make that it's a log of eggs oh my
271. 12:19God it's a log made of eggs right you
272. 12:20try to turn the whole thing into an
273. 12:22image last but not least we have
274. 12:24encoding and encoding really shines with
275. 12:27languages for instance Ed learned the
276. 12:29word Tung about in Tagalog by imagining
277. 12:33a tongue made of coal being dragged
278. 12:35around a roundabout that is how you make
279. 12:37the slippery
280. 12:42stick and the reality is I've never done
281. 12:45something like this with a foreign
282. 12:46language on such a compressed timeline
283. 12:48so I'm kind of Flying Blind it feels
284. 12:50like I've been memorizing phrases and
285. 12:52tenses for a month straight so I head
286. 12:54out in the morning for a quick adventure
287. 12:56to lighten things
288. 12:57up
289. 13:01I need a haircut but I don't know how to
290. 13:03say it in talog how do you say number
291. 13:08one I can do
292. 13:10that so I do haircuts in every culture
293. 13:14that I visit especially when I'm trying
294. 13:15to learn a new language because I find
295. 13:17the experience is always unique uh okay
296. 13:20number
297. 13:21[Laughter]
298. 13:24one and Rando turns out to be a treasure
299. 13:27Trove of curs words in it sometimes easy
300. 13:31to learn one word one word
301. 13:35yes especially the bad words you know
302. 13:38the bad words like uh
303. 13:42uh how do you
304. 13:45say yeah that's how I get punched
305. 13:50you easy to learn right it is easy
306. 13:54Alando points out to me among other
307. 13:55things that if you want to get a liar to
308. 13:57stop lying calling him in talog is very
309. 14:08effective
310. 14:10yeah all
311. 14:13right that's
312. 14:16it I doubt I'll have the chance to use
313. 14:18that in my interview but I'm storing it
314. 14:20for future
315. 14:22[Music]
316. 14:25use one fundamental issue with trying to
317. 14:28do all of this in just a handful of days
318. 14:31you have to really create your own
319. 14:33curriculum at this point there's a lot
320. 14:35of tagol bouncing around in my head but
321. 14:38there's a whole lot more that I don't
322. 14:39know I could easily get tripped up in
323. 14:41the interview over something simple and
324. 14:43not know how to respond I want to make
325. 14:46sure my pronunciation is right so at
326. 14:47least Janel can understand me in the
327. 14:50early stages of learning any new
328. 14:52language it's important to focus on what
329. 14:53you know how to say and to learn how to
330. 14:56dodge or delay the things that you can't
331. 14:58I'm I've got one last session left with
332. 15:00Tida and I'm going to use it for what I
333. 15:02call recovery or emergency phrases how
334. 15:05do I stall how do I buy myself time how
335. 15:08do I exchange pleasantries to eat up 20
336. 15:1030 seconds here or there very practical
337. 15:13kind of politician type tactics to make
338. 15:16this thing go
339. 15:23smoothly
340. 15:25tan and then with s p
341. 15:33there was another way that you said I
342. 15:35could
343. 15:38say one more time
344. 15:42sry well my dear friend Ed cook told me
345. 15:46not to learn anything new in the last 24
346. 15:48hours so I'm going to continue studying
347. 15:50and then cross my
348. 15:56fingers this week I've attempted to
349. 15:58learn a new language in Just 4 days I
350. 16:01structured the learning process around
351. 16:03my Cafe framework a shortcut I compress
352. 16:06the amount of Tagalog I need to learn
353. 16:08into the Bare Essentials I adjusted the
354. 16:10frequency of my studying to compensate
355. 16:12for an abbreviated time frame I used
356. 16:14pneumonics and encoding techniques to
357. 16:17help memorize difficult vocab and then
358. 16:19fully immersed myself in Filipino
359. 16:21culture and now comes the test a live
360. 16:24television interview into gallog no
361. 16:27matter how many interviews I do I still
362. 16:29feel like I'm going to vomit before
363. 16:30every single one it's
364. 16:32unbelievable 20
365. 16:37seconds standby
366. 16:40animation five to
367. 16:43animation and animation up stand by
368. 16:46camera
369. 16:47three in five 4
370. 16:52three Tim Ferris of the Tim Ferris
371. 16:55experiment is joining us today on our
372. 16:57program because his latest experiment is
373. 17:00learning to speak to gag how's it been
374. 17:03uh Tim it's been fantastic so you're
375. 17:05telling me that you've never been to the
376. 17:07Philippines yet you speak like a
377. 17:09Filipino now and this is the Day of
378. 17:11Reckoning for Tim Ferris are you ready
379. 17:14was ready as I'm going to be all right
380. 17:15so I got him comfortable first speaking
381. 17:17English and now we're going to speak
382. 17:21tala how nervous are you right now very
383. 17:24nervous very nervous all right in
384. 17:27Tagalog
385. 17:33[Music]
386. 17:39okay the Tim Ferris
387. 17:44experiment many different
388. 17:47fears speaking
389. 17:57TV
390. 18:00or
391. 18:06Filipino uh at very
392. 18:12friendly okay
393. 18:18yeah thank you thank
394. 18:22you
395. 18:24days
396. 18:27stressful okay
397. 18:29so in English how has this experience
398. 18:32been like for you even in this short
399. 18:34period of time I think anyone can lay
400. 18:36the foundation to enjoy a language
401. 18:38forever just in one week but I think you
402. 18:40know if you take it Dahan and you
403. 18:43realize that you know even you
404. 18:48know right like a little bit goes a very
405. 18:50long way see oh my gosh you can respond
406. 18:53to me now in talog so you really learned
407. 18:56it I hope to be back with more tagalo
408. 18:59good luck on your show more power thank
409. 19:01you for joining us happy Friday once
410. 19:02again enjoy your weekend and I'll see
411. 19:04you on
412. 19:06Monday great
413. 19:10right 6 minutes seemed like an eternity
414. 19:13I did it he was nervous but I think it's
415. 19:17all part of the adrenaline but I just
416. 19:20think that he did better than he
417. 19:22expected to
418. 19:24do by the way worked here 6 years and
419. 19:27you know way more two days so wow thanks
420. 19:31so much what was your name Tim Tim oh
421. 19:33that makes it easy Tim thanks very much
422. 19:35I really appreciate
423. 19:36[Music]
424. 19:38it that makes my whole week that's
425. 19:44amazing hey guys Tim Ferris here one of
426. 19:48the things that kills me about TV is
427. 19:50that you have to take all of this
428. 19:51amazing footage in our case we had 5 to
429. 19:546 days of 12 to 16 hours typically per
430. 19:58day day and you have to chop it down to
431. 20:0021 or 22
432. 20:02minutes which is a 30-minute show with
433. 20:04the ads removed it just makes me want to
434. 20:07stab myself in the eyeballs with bicycle
435. 20:09spokes it's so agonizing the good news
436. 20:11is we have all that footage and so we've
437. 20:14taken huge extended scenes we've taken
438. 20:17interviews we've taken tutorials
439. 20:19everything imaginable that we could get
440. 20:20our hands on that we thought was really
441. 20:22world class that we wanted to put in and
442. 20:24you can find it at 4hourworkweek
443. 20:27tocom TV all spelled out fur Etc and we
444. 20:32really feel like we could have made the
445. 20:33best 2hour documentary imaginable on the
446. 20:36subject that you just saw or had five
447. 20:38different shows of equal quality all
448. 20:40different with the footage that we
449. 20:41captured so please check it out there's
450. 20:44some amazing stuff and you can also
451. 20:46check out the podcast where I do very
452. 20:47long in some cases two to three hour
453. 20:49interviews with a lot of the experts in
454. 20:51this show and that's the Tim Ferris show
455. 20:53which was nominated one of the best of
456. 20:56iTunes which I'm very very happy about
457. 20:58and you can check out both so find
458. 21:00everything at 4hourworkweek
459. 21:04docomo by the way you're right if
460. 21:07you want 4our work week do not work in
461. 21:10television thank you for
462. 21:22watching