Twin Brothers Compete to Learn Spanish Before 30th Birthday (Case Study)

I’m excited to announce our latest language learning case study!

John and Bryan Tublin are twin brothers from the United States. John lives in New York City, and Bryan lives in San Francisco.

They both have spoken only English their entire lives. So they recently committed to learning Spanish before their 30th birthday this summer.

I decided to take them on as our latest “learn by ear” case study, because I knew they were motivated.

When it comes to learning a language, the only thing that matters more than the method is the motivation.

And there are few things more motivating than a sibling rivalry…

Learning Spanish with a Twin Brother

I met Bryan last March while visiting friends in San Francisco. We hit it off pretty well, as we both share a passion for personal development.

We were hanging out at a bar one evening, and Bryan started to tell me about how he’s turning 30 soon and looking for some sort of personal development project to focus on before reaching that milestone.

He was debating between learning a musical instrument or learning a new foreign language, so I persuaded him to pursue the latter by offering my support whenever he needed.

That evening, after we both had a few beers, I did a Facebook live video with Bryan interviewing him about his desire to learn Spanish. He even showed off some freestyle rapping skills. 

A few weeks later, Bryan messaged me to ask for tips on learning Spanish. That’s when I had the idea for this challenge.

Learning Spanish in Competition

As I explained to Bryan, there are only two things that matter when it comes to succeeding at anything in life: The Method and The Motivation.

And I believe my method is the most effective way to learn a foreign language.

When you learn Spanish by ear, as I explained to Bryan, you learn faster, understand more, and speak with a better accent.

This means clearer communication and deeper connections with native Spanish speakers.

But no matter how good we make our Method, it doesn’t mean anything if the student doesn’t have the motivation.

So I’m constantly looking for new ways to motivate people to learn foreign languages. Recently, I’ve been looking into the motivational psychology of healthy competition.

Bryan and John’s lifelong rivalry in sports was the perfect setup for this.

Since they were kids, they’ve always challenged each other to improve in sports, school and life.

Now they can carry that competitive symbiosis into learning Spanish!

Rules of the Language-Learning Game

Each week, I give John and Bryan a learning mission. The mission can involve practicing certain materials, or finding native speakers to converse with.

Each activity has a certain number of points associated with it. The more impactful the activity is to their Spanish growth, the more points they get.

At the end of each mission, we tally up the points and declare a winner for the week. At the very end of the mission, when they turn 30, we will declare the final winner.

The idea is to use the week by week competition to motivate both Twins to give it their best.

What’s Coming Next

The first thing the Tublin twins will do is master the Elemental Sounds of Spanish. If you haven’t checked our our free guide on the Elemental sounds, I recommend you download it below to check it out for yourself.

This will also subscribe you to our mailing list – so you can stay updated with the latest progress on this challenge.

As you can see in the video, Bryan and John are really entertaining to watch. And it’s even more fun to watch them doing the challenges I forced them to do!

I hope that their progress will inspire you to be more proactive in your own language learning, and give you some ideas for accelerating your own personal growth.

So stay tuned!