The Steps of Flow-Training

The recipe for learning flow is actually quite simple:

• Articulate various phrases of real speech with perfect pronunciation
• REPEAT OVER AND OVER AGAIN

Just as it is with any complex motor skill, mastering the flow of a foreign language requires A LOT of repetition.

That’s why I do Flow Training with music.  If I tried to memorize and repeat random utterances of speech, I would get bored real quick and give up before I made any progress.

As a music lover, however, I’m willing to put in the time and mental energy needed to commit the phrases to memory, and once they are committed to memory, I’m very likely to sing them out loud all the time for fun and get my reps in.

So that’s what we do with Flow-Training – Learn to sing and rap songs with a perfect accent in order to develop our flow as quickly and painlessly as possible. 

Remember that guy from last lesson who was juggling, dancing and talking at the phone at the same time?  As we discussed then, the most efficient way to learn a complex task is to break it down into its component tasks and master each in turn.

The same way that street performer separately mastered the tasks of juggling, dancing and talking on the phone, we can separately master the tasks of articulating the rhythm, phonemes and intonation of a phrase.  

This is exactly what we do with song lyrics in Flow Training.  Here are the steps:

1. Master the articulation of each individual syllable
2. Learn the Rhythm
3. Reconstruct the lyrics piece-by-piece
4. Commit the lyrics to memory
5. Mimic the intonation of real speech

Step 1: Master the Articulation of Each Individual Syllable

The very first thing to do is review every single possible sound in the target language, paying close attention to the most difficult sounds.  For extra precision, we transcribe the sounds with IPA.

Remember, we don’t use IPA symbols to read – we use them to reference specific movements and placements in the speech organ. So with a knowledge of IPA and speech anatomy, you can hear the sounds while reviewing what exactly is going on physically to articulate them.

Step 2: Learn the Rhythm

To isolate and specifically train the rhythm of a lyric or phrase, I invented a simplified rhythmic language called Universal Rhythmic Binary (URB).  In URB, I boil down the hundreds of possible syllables to just two: “DA” and “di.”

• “DA” represents stressed syllables
• “di” represents unstressed syllables

Now that you have the syllables and rhythm mastered separately, your next task is to combine them to reconstruct the entire lyric. 

Step 4: Commit Lyrics to Memory

Once you are certain that you can articulate each phrase, your next task is commit the lyrics to memory.  It’s important to memorize these lyrics, because to get in the necessary number of repetitions, you will need to practice the lyrics all the time.  

To streamline the memorization process, we take the original lyrics and loop them at reduced speed for you to practice singing along with.  Once you memorized a single line loop, then you practice memorizing a two line loop, then a four-line loop, etc.

Once you have the lyrics committed to memory at reduced speed, it doesn’t take much for you to work your way up to full speed.

Step 5: Mimic the Intonation of Real Speech

Since song lyrics have melodies to them, the intonation patterns will always be completely different from how they are in normal speech.  Even if you’re working with non-melodic rap lyrics, there’s still a good chance that the intonation has been distorted for stylistic purposes.

That’s why it’s important to mimic native speaker recordings of the lyrics you just memorized.  Since you will have already wrapped your ear and mouth around the rhythm and phonemes, you will have plenty of attentional resources available to focus on mimicking the natural intonation patterns and pacing of the phrases.

But When Do I Learn the Language?

A lot of people hear about Flow-Training and think ” But when do I learn the language?”  The implication is that it can only be considered “language-learning” when you walk away with a new set of memorized vocabulary and grammar rules.

But remember that there are two elements to learning a language:

• Learning the sounds
• Learning the meanings associated with those sounds

Flow-Training is an extremely effective technique for “learning the sounds,” and by now you should understand that learning the sounds is the most crucial step in the language learning process.  If you try to skip right ahead to “Learning the Meanings” before developing any sort of mastery of the sounds, you will seriously stunt your language development.