The Book
Conquering Foreign Languages: An Uncommon Guide to Reaching Fluency In Any Language
My guide to foreign languages, based on over 15 years of language-learning experience and reaching fluency in 3 of them (Spanish, Japanese and German) is now available. Inside you’ll find tried-and-tested techniques to help you learn faster, gain more confidence, demistify scary grammar and retain more than ever.
See below for the table of contents and a free sample chapter.
What others are saying:
I’d recommend this to anyone as a great starting point for learning a new language. - Finchy, Amazon.com
Some lanugage books wax eloquent on the vagaries and semantics of language aquisition – those put me to sleep and are a chore to read. This is not one of those books. Tristan’s humorous writing style and funny anecdotes kept me laughing while i was learning. He has a similar writing style to Neil Strauss and Tim Ferriss – informal and entertaining. Also there are steps at the end of each chapter to help actually apply the tips you’ve just learned. – thllm01, Amazon.com
… really inspired me to get started learning a second language. It has great suggestions and anecdotes, with a healthy dose of reality thrown in. – Misty Stanley-jones, Amazon.com
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Before We Get Started: A Letter From The Author
Who This Guide Is For And Where It Can Take You
What This Guide Will Not Do
But Wait, Who Am I To Tell You All This? (In Case We Haven’t Met Yet)
A Fire Inside: My Inspiration For Rapid Learning
PART I. THE BEAUTY OF BEGINNING
Starting Out: Good Old-Fashioned Human Interaction
Choosing A Language School
Intensive, Or Non-Intensive?
Learning Verb Tables: Do I Haveeee To?
Light A Fire: Finding Your Inspiration
Embracing The Quirkiness Of Languages
Action Plan
PART II. MIND-BENDING: HOW TO SKYROCKET YOUR LANGUAGE SKILLS (AND OTHER INTERROGATIONS)
Super-Boosting Vocabulary (And How Robert De Niro Helped My Spanish)
Seek And You Shall Find: Interrogating Your Way To The Top
Searching For Opposites: A Fool-Proof Way To Elicit Words From Friends & Strangers
Using Downtime To Skyrocket Your Fluency
So, When Am I Going To Listen To All This?: Downtime Is Your Friend.
Beating The “Kill Me Now” Classroom Moment
Action Plan
PART III. TO BECOME FLUENT, SPEAK YOU MUST
The Best Strategy to Conquer Your Target Language
Creative, Free Methods To Make Learning Part Of Every Day
Finding Guinea Pigs: Practice Makes (Almost) Perfect
Action Plan
PART IV. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The Point Of No Return: When You Can Say You’re Conversationally Fluent
An Example Of How This Can Really Be Done
Now It’s Your Turn
BONUS MATERIALS, EXTRAS, AND CLOSING
Bonus: Tips For Getting Discounts On Language Courses
Extra Resources And An Invitation To Join Me
Superstars and rockers: Acknowledgements
About the author
→ See it on Amazon now
Sample Chapter
EMBRACING THE QUIRKINESS OF LANGUAGES:
Headbreakers, illicit enrichment, and electronic conversations
SPANISH CLASS, MELBOURNE, 2009
“It’s called WHAT?!”
Three of my eight students were looking at me with puzzled looks on their faces.
“A headbreaker. Don’t you love it?” I stated again, my happiness at this fact growing ever more obvious.
“Because it can break your head if you don’t understand it. Get it?!”
Gradually, they relented, accepted that I wasn’t making it up, and smiled all at the same time. ‘This is why I love teaching Spanish’, I thought to myself. ‘And why I leave every class with a grin on my face, even if it’s at 10pm’.
My students had learned a new word – ‘rompecabezas’, the ‘headbreaker’, meaning “Puzzle” in Spanish. A headbreaker, because it can break your head, you see? 
Before you write me off as a raving, repetitive madman, allow me to get to the point: embracing the quirkiness of languages not only makes them all the more loveable and fun, it helps you to learn faster. My students only needed to hear this word a couple of times to have it burned into their memory. It was so strangely funny and wonderful at the same time that I remembered it instantly too.
Words which don’t have the same structure or meaning in direct translation can throw us off or discourage us because they’re so different. Rather than seeing this as a setback, I suggest giving in to the fact that all languages are different, and embracing it 100% for your own amusement and speed of learning. The more you can differentiate between your target language and native language, the faster you will move from word-for-word translation to fluently speaking your new language.
Embracing fun and quirky examples is a fantastic part of the language learning process, and you can use it to your advantage by laughing about strange terms, and finding ways to remember them. Here are some of my other favourite examples, with the literal translation in italics and real meaning in brackets:
1. Enriquisimiento illicito: illicit enrichment of oneself (Fraud/embezzlement in Spanish)
2. ?? Denwa: electronic conversation (Telephone in Japanese)
3. Geflügelpfanne: winged animal dish (A meat-lover’s assortment of chicken, duck, potatoes and saukraut found in select German beer halls)
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Where to get the book
Option 1: Digital Version
Click here for instant download via Amazon (for iPad, computers, and Kindle)
Option 2: Printed Version (soft cover)
Clck here to order a printed version (from Blurb, a great book printer).
It’s intentionally low-priced, because I want it to help as many people as possible in line with goals #1 and #9 under Personal Development on my list of Big Ambitions.
Note: All payments are done through Amazon and Blurb; I never see any of your personal or payment information.
Not interested yet?
No problem. In any case, thank you for reading and I wish you well on your language learning journey. You can also check out some (very free) blog posts related to language learning:
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