How To Go From Basic Fluency To Mastery In A Foreign Language Using The Chunking Method
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- Make sure to check out the post on my blog, The Mezzofanti Guild: www.mezzoguild...
Here's a review I wrote of the book used in this video: www.mezzoguild...
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I use italki to learn languages: www.mezzoguild...
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Today I'm sharing some very practical advice with you on how to go about taking your language fluency to a higher level without memorizing rules and vocab lists. To learn more about my method for language learning make sure to visit and follow my blog.
This is a no BS way to move closer toward native-likeness which is grounded in research with proven results. Believe me when I say that you don't need to study grammar to learn to speak a foreign language.
the guy shocked me when he started talking arabic lol. the accent was on point... you have an amazing egyptian accent, thats egyptian dialect. I am looking for a good levantine arabic course, its my dads language and some of my mums family speak arabic also.. but ive always spoken english born and raised in the UK. that is genius... I need to get arabic audiobooks
I like it and summarize:
1) Isolate a small piece of language (a couple sentences or so) which have some new elements that you want to learn.
2) Listen and repeat (practice) it a lot. (by the way, you can use PotPlayer instead of Windows Media Player for MP3 files, as it has a way to repeat a section starting A ending B and is free of charge)
3) Change some of the order (if possible) and practice it again. e.g. "Yesterday I swam." -> "I swam yesterday"
4) Change some of the words (to make new ideas) and practice it again. Change the verb, the noun, etc. Some parts, while keeping the structure. (e.g. "This morning I swam." "Yesterday I exercised."
5) Learning small chunks is like learning music. (this is true, you can do 1-4 above with musical phrases too! And if you do, you will learn that piece of music and "make it your own". It will be the same with languages)
6) Memorizing conjugations and vocabulary lists are not efficient ways of learning. (This is generally true, but if you connect in your speaking conversation [or reading, writing or listening] some phrase / word you studied, then it becomes "real" and you will remember it)
7) Do the above instead of studying rules. (Here, I don't agree. I think learning some grammar on the side, when needed, or in small chunks, or even more, when you learn a new sentence, learn the structure, and that is your grammar lesson. Therefore, what you do above could work and could indeed include the grammar rules, but only for what you are learning).
8) 90% of what you study should be comprehensible. In other words, you are learning bit by bit. Only studying 10% new things. Don't studying things way above your level as it is tedious and inefficient.
9) Make sure you study what something you like, which would keep you interested and motivated.
Great advice here!! I love it!! Everything I think is useful, but definitely #1 and #8, I think we need more data (or perhaps a bit more research/explanation on it). It's a vital point but you went over it way too fast. And what I'm referring to is actually when you said "Just get yourself some material, even if you are at a lower level, elementary level, get yourself a children's book or something, and make sure that you understand most of what you are reading, or listening to..." If #1 and #8 are weak, all the other points made could be fruitless.
6) Not true. And there is research on this topic. But I understand that for a native speaker of only English learning conjungation or nouns with different genders and numbers can be more dfficult than chunking. 7) Not true too, but is merely logical consequence of conviction that 6 is true. ;-) 3) Not true for many languages like Dutch for example in which there is only one correct word order for each sentence. The best advice is to use Audicity for audio files.
Interesting points. Regarding 6&7) Maybe you could put a link to the research. I'd like to read about it. I think learning grammar and vocabulary and practicing them in real language can be very useful. On 3) well, as I said, "if possible", but I think for many languages it is possible. English is very flexible. Maybe others are not. But it is possible in Spanish, Korean, German, that I know. Dutch could have this example: "You can move a "subsentence" with an omdat-pattern to the front of the sentence, if the subsentence begins with one of these words:
omdat - because
nadat - after
als - if, when
wanneer - when
toen - when"
Here is the podcast about research into this filed. This one is mostly about why we should learn grammar: brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/144-friederici What the author of this video does ( I mena Mezzofanti) with his ofocus on audio is good for training of auditory cortex what helps with comprehension of aa spoken language due to training in so called " language fragmentation based on frequency" mentioned in the book "The Word Brain. A short guide to fast language learning". This book also contains info on research why and how we should learn vocabulary- most for speaking but also for reading which in fact is "high speed visual pattern recognition". There is plenty of such research out there in the field of cognitive sciences. Some of it also referes to how we recall details after learning them (some of this research is done on medical doctors) and it clearly shows that details shorty vanish from our memory and that human brain reproduces them mainly due to knowledge and good understanding of general rules from which details result. In case of language and words of course such rules involve grammar, rules of word formation, rules of phonetics etc. As for Dutch - there is out there a Dutch TH-camr making videos on Dutch and refering to books in Dutch grammar which clearly state how strict are the rules of word order in Dutch. Generally speaking- the rule of thumb is: the more conjungation matters and the more complex it is in a language, the more freedom we have using and changing word order in this language. In one of my 3 native languages, Polish, only one word alone , a conjugated verb can be used as a full sentence equivalent, since its conjugated ending carries enough meaning with regad to mode, tense, activity and the subject performing this activity that litlle or no additonal information is needed to pass on the meaning. I know Spanish pretty well, it's also rich in conjungation but it's not as precise as Polish, so changes in wordorder are possible but not always. and sometimes a verb must be accompanied but a personal pronoun since some conjungated verbs do have the same forms for two different possible subjects performing a particular activity. Plus some tenses like in English have a structure based on a proper word order using an auxiliary verb- complex tenses. No clue about Korean. In German word order is not as strict as in Dutch but also rather strict. Due to begin a begginer in German I cannot provide as menay details as with regard to Dutch or Spanish, but I can assure that no of grammar books I own mentions or suggests in any chapter that one could freely change word order as one pleases. Rather focus on the opposite is stressed. As for more details You mask the author of the channel "Get Germanized" or "Easy German" for example. But as far as I can tell what may seem like change of word order of the same sentence in German is in fact the case of two different sentences in which the same words do have in fact completely different grammatical function, what as the result leads to significant changes in meaning between those two sentences.
Regarding point 6, I think it's helpful to research when something doesn't make sense: example, in English you read "Sally said tomorrow" and it starts to make sense to you, but then another day you read, "She said tomorrow" and it confuses you because you know part of the sentence, then you find out "She" replaces "Sally." You are now learning grammar rules, specifically pronouns. I find this easier and stays in your memory longer than looking up a table of pronouns and trying to remember in your brain which pronoun is right and if you're using it properly, etc.
Looking up grammar rules as you come across them, slowly, over time, I find is better than learning grammar rules too quick. But that's just me. When self-teaching, it's always best to do what lets us feel progress.
That’s a good idea. It’s kind of what I do with the Duolingo stories in Japanese. I repeat a line all day of the story and each day add another line until I know the whole story by heart. By that time I’ve learned a ton of words. It’s more effective than flash cards
Talking to yourself over and over on a few sentences that stick in your head can be really helpful for developing speaking fluency, speed, and pronunciation. That's how I got really good at Mandarin pronunciation. Not the fastest/most efficient use of time in my opinion, but still a HUGELY underrated method.
what is the most efficient in your opinion? and what languages do you speak?
I also studied Theology. Had to do Hebrew and Greek....loved it...did 2 years Greek and 3 years Hebrew...and the professor asked me to consider Arabic. Which I did...for 1 year. I never knew i had a thing for languages! Did three classes of Mandarin....and then year and a half of French. Would love to learn Arabic properly....and also Spanish....i have great respect for people who can communicate through different languages. I am actually Afrikaans. (From South Africa). Your story touched me
What would You recommend to start with Hebrew? I live in the city with former Jewish district but majority of sings with info on landmarks is in Hebrew so no clue what they say. I would like to be able to read them some day. Would You recommend any book or other resource that could help me to at least learn to read in Hebrew for such purposes? And yes, we have events like Jewish festivals in here yet all guests talk mainly in Hebrew, not even in English so it would be nice to learn some basic phrases to get any chance of communication with them. Afrikaans sounds very nice to me. I like to listen to songs in Afrikaans here on YT. I know some Swedish, so I do get some of the lyrics. Nice language really. I know Spanish on B2 level. Very nice but not as easy to learn as people usually think. But worth the effort. Spanish culture is very interesting and Spanish literature is very good. Congrats on Greek probably the hardest of all of them. Language of my ancestors but I'm only familiar with ancient version. I should tackle modern version some day but even I dread to begin my adventure with this language. So I'm really impressed that You did make an effort to dive into Greek. Very few people with no Greek ancestry ever do so.
Man, your Arabic sounds as good as the native speakers. I guess Whatever method you using must be working.
Thanks a mill!
I find just now that you have a youtube channel? I've read your articles for years
Summary:
1. This is especially for people who have hit the plateau and want to move up a notch.
2. Choose a short fragment from your coursebook or authentic material
2a. --- > you should have recording and text for it
2b. --- > you should understand 99% of it (i.e. one word or phrase is permitted that you cannot get your head around or don't quite get it internalized)
2c. --- > you should find the fragment somehow appealing to you, enjoyable
3. Isolate the recording with Audacity for convenience of rewinding
4. Listen to the bit over and over, many times, pounding it into your brain-ear
5. Start reading the same passage aloud with growing fluency and ease, repeatedly, over and over again.
6. Take the passage with you for the duration of your day - to work, school, to the kitchen when cooking etc. Let it be your companion that day. Repeat it to yourself many times from memory.
7. Start to play around with the fragment - change a linker here or there, put in another word to make it more suitable to your context etc.
7a. --- > (that's why it is more useful for high intermediate students, who can safely play around and paraphrase simple utterances)
7b. --- > (that's why it gets you out of the plateau because you keep tailoring the language daily to make it YOURS & FLUENT)
7c. --- > (parroting native speakers whose 'music' you are trying to replicate by chiseling it into your brain and mouth DOES get you closer and closer to their level of competence)
7d. --- > (no need to study rules of the language, simply use your already advanced level as a foundation and the chunking method as a springboard to elevate yourself to native-like fluency)
Excellent advice brother. I have been studying Spanish for years but have been stuck at an intermediate level and have a stutter because of my nervousness and overthinking in terms of trying to perfect my grammar. Thanks for the inspiration. Really needed this!!!
I feel you, conmigo es lo mismo, but in Spanish.
Very practical advice.... when I first moved to Spain, knowing very little, I learned to ask the time. Then spent a couple of hours on m bike cycling around, asking people the time. It does work. Using your technique now to learn Russian. Thanks. Regards from sunny Spain.
You are so damn right buddy! That's how I learned English myself. I also wanted to say that I'd like you to continue run your channel but you actually have said enough in this one video on this particular topic. That's the method! I'd love to hear more from you though. And thank you for sharing your wise thoughts.
how did u learn ur english , what is the method and what is ur resources
This language learning method sounds very successful! I'm definitely going to try this with Hebrew. Thank you for sharing. :)
בהצלחה :) ברכות ממוסקבה
How'd it go? This is 6 years later what are your results?
@Rudy From Somewhere I'm not even going to lie I was too lazy to even start 9 months later unfortunately
wooow man ana min masr wi I just need to tell you that your Arabic is just stunning.. and thanks for the tip.
Brilliant .. I love this idea or methodology .. and you r amazing at pronouncing Arabic .. I wonder how r you doing now after 5 years .. I suppose no one can say you are a foreigner in Egypt 😅 .. bravooo .. keep it up
Audacity! Brilliant! Thanks.
my wife is from mexico and I've been learning with mixed results for a while now. The method talked about here, I can second, is the best way to learn. Think about a three year old will say curse words not knowing what they are saying. They mimic and the brain latter fills in the blanks. It works.
I was inspired by your video...and am 100 percent committed to speaking and understanding French....it's a bucket-list goal. And your approach makes lots of sense and reflects the kind of commitment one needs to make. Thanks, Sean
1. Have some spaced repetition method. Also, he probably remembers most of what he learns because as he says he does it piece by piece.
2. Just do it day by day. Incorporate it into other activities such as going on a run w/ an audio tape.
3. Learning a sentence does not just give you that one sentence. As you know more you can chunk things. For example, learning how to say "I want to eat", teaches you how to say I want to ____, if you know any other verb. Expressions you just need to pick up.
This is the way I have learned English successfully
Great explanation - I totally agree with the method! Carry on with these kind of videos - repetition is the key - just like babies learn naturally.
Your content is top notch 👌🏾 Gracias!
OMG your Arabic is perfect! Can I ask you why you've chosen Egyptian Arabic?
Interesting method btw :)
Great video! I think the same principle can be applied to song lyrics. I find myself repeating the chorus and changing the words around. If the lyrics say, "I've waited all week" I would say two weeks, a month etc.
Love this, Donovan: esp. "Language is music...a string of sounds." I'm trying to kind of do what Earworms does...accompanying a chunk of text (e.g., short sentence) with "beats"--even beating on my thighs as I walk around the house rhythmically chanting the chunk (my family thinks I'm a bit psychotic...). Language is music (has a natural flow of accents and nonstressed syllables), and can easily be converted into a rhythmic "rap."
Gday.
Sharing some feedback on how your methods have helped me. Your chunking method, is probably the most important technique I use. Why?
When I first started learning Mandarin, like 4.5 years ago, I just intuitively did exactly chunking method. I was forced to because I kept stumbling on the tones and odd pronunciation, so the only way to deal with it was to get the Assimil books and slowly go through the dialogues and repeat, repeat, repeat, small sentences. I found I was making decent progress. Then, I was influenced by the now popular "MIA, immersion" techniques of doing tons of listening and reading through sentences, but I found that my progress DECREASED. Why? I think because the input wasn't sticking well. There is more of a distance with the material.
Last week, I went back to the chunking. Just bit by bit, repeat, repeat, with audio and things are sinking in much more. So my experiment definitely taught me that your chunking approach is better for me. Especially for under solid C1 level.
Conclusion, for Chinese, I will make chunking the central method and then keep immersion going with listening to Comprehensive stuff for as many hours as I can for the input side of things.
I learn whole sentences saying them aloud. 5 days - 300 repetitions per day at least. Later I don't need to translate. I know the meaning of words straight away like in my native language. And also I remember the meaning longer than by learning separate words. It was a real game changer in my learning process and communication skills in English and other languages.😊
What is this method? How can i do this? What are the benefits? Can you please tell me this method sir?
@@3rd_eye326Method: chunking. Take ready sentence which is correct without mistakes. Best are short sentences 4-5 words. Repeat it thousands of times saying them aloud. You can repeat a sentence for one hour so you have arround 1000 repetitions. My way is 300 times a day for 5 days so I have 1500 reps. Repeat untill you stop making mistakes and it is effortless. Benefits: you train your pronunciation and clarity of speech. It helps with problems with speaking. No need for thinking about grammar as you have ready to use correct phrases. It also helps with understanding of fast speech.
Hello, after repeating the phrases for 5 days. Do you go over those phrases again later? Or do you just repeat those phrases for 5 days?
@@juangarcia-rh5zb Yes. It depends how difficult is the sentence or language. If you are a beginner you need more reps. Sometimes 7 days and I cannot remember. You need to feel confident saying something without hesitation aloud, slow speed, fast speed. It needs to be automatic like in your native language. Search the term "forgetting curve". You forget things you learn very easly at the beggining stages. Later you don't need many repetitions. For me the best are short sentences 4 words. Longer are getting very difficult for learning and repetitions. If it is very long I just split it into shorter pieces. You can repeat just two words, 3 words, 4 words pieces. And learn something every day and all the time especially when you are a begginer it is the most difficult.
@@FrankKimono744thanks 👍
YES!! Please...more videos like this!!
Great video. Valuable suggestions. Love it!
اولا اود ان اهنئك على هذا الفيديو الرائع..
الغريب (بالنسبة لي على الاقل) انني بدأت باستعمال هذه الطريقه قبل 3 اشهر (على الاقل بالمستوى الاساسي)
ولكنك طبعا اففت لي بعض النقاط الهامه جدا..
اود ان اضيف على ما ذكرت .ان التسارع سيزداد مع الوقت.. اقصد..انك لو في اليوم الاول درست 3 جمل خلال 10 دقائق .. بعد ثلالث شهور ستدرس 12 جملة خلال نفس المدة الزمينة (10 دقائق)
كان شرحك واضحا مع ذكر الامثلة ونوعية المواد التي استعملتها ..
شكرا لك وبصراحة انتظر المزيد
ابراهيم طه
I really belive that read and listen is the better way yo understando a new language. I'm praticing this method and I belive thst I'm improving my English. I don't speak very well, but the people can understand my thoughts
Fantastic video.
I intuitively started doing almost this exact same thing. Cool.
Your explanation was super duper clear.
Cheers
great work buddy
Loved the new insights. Thank you so much
Very useful. Merci.
This is so true
In Audacity SHIFT+SPACE repeats your selected portion until you stop it. Great for what your talking about or for transcription.
Second comment is a different method, the way I have been doing it.
A) Speak to a foreigner at the level you are up to. It's great to have someone to speak to regularly. This is because you will hear them use the same language. They will have some language habits. This is good for repetition.
B) Notice some new word or phrase, especially if they say something you might have heard a lot, hearing other people say it.
C) Ask them what it means.
D) Try to use it with them and others not only now, but next time you meet.
E) See if you understand it when you hear it again. If not, ask them again what it means.
F) Use it as part of your new level of vocabulary.
G) Repeat A-F.
I did this quite a lot and learned a lot of common phrases because I would hear a certain word or phrase and eventually noticed the sound, and asked, what does "blah blah" mean? A good example was The Korean word sounds a bit like "Gwen-jahng-ee" (say as one word). I heard it a lot and found it means "immensely". Less common than "nomu" which means "very" or even "too much", or "mahn-ee" which means "much, many, very".
Ur Arabic's skills r super cool ..i really thought it's ur native language.....
I'm a korean, and I am learning English. I had been learning exactly same way. It definitely works, but it needs to get some works. and sometimes, in my case, it's boring. I just wonder that you are still in korea :)
Wow, your channel is amazing. Congratulations and thank you so much for sharing these infos with us. One question for you, when using chunks etc, do you often learn a language for a period of time? In my case I'm kind of stuck because I want to improve my French and I'm learning the basics of German now. Should I focus on only one for a period or I can manage the chunking method while studying both? What should I do? Thank you again.
Yes, very helpful video. Thanks. Where can you find reading material that is 90-95% comprehensible for an elementary level speaker, but is not targeted for young children, in other words, mature content that's dumbed down in its vocabulary?
Use any material you would enjoy in your native tongue. Otherwise you might lose interest in it. If you do not understand it, then you need to translate it yourself or use pre translated text. The error his advice is the same as all who say I+1 material. It doesn't apply to an absolute beginner. So you have to make it apply to you by your own translation efforts. If you think translating is dull, pretend it is a long lost language and you are like the Frenchman who cracked the Egyptian hieroglyphics but you are cracking a book instead.
Very interesting video !
I'm using a similar method to learn Portuguese and Thai, and I'd like to ask you a question :
What about memorizing texts, instead of isolated sentences ?
In your opinion, if I memorize, say Assimil texts or paragraphs in a book, what would be the results ?
Thanks for your answers and for sharing interesting videos !
Ohhh wow thanks!
thank you. it is simply practical
That's a such great advice!
Thanks for the feedback. I'll be sure to upload more over the coming weeks.
I have used thos shadowing method with English, really worked for me! totally agree!
Great tips! Thank you.
Lucas Van Vyve explains this really well (chunking) in a bit more detail here: th-cam.com/video/T97WKcORxOI/w-d-xo.html, it makes sense.
This video really influenced me. I recently uploaded a video showing my version of it.
Thanks for the video. This theory is very much like the Pimsleur method?
interesting and definitely original advice
I have been doing this for a few years now and it kills me to see people trying to ask what is the difference between thought and though...It does not matter and I don't why they worry about it. It gets you no where.
If level 5 is native, you can certainly get to 4-1/2 or more! Manipulating the language like you are doing would “make it yours”. I also wonder if reading poetry would help at higher fluency levels, because poetry is often a more complicated use of the language because it is a creative and often abstract and figurative use of it. Reading classic literature and fiction would do that too, in a different way than non-fiction would.
Great! Thanks for the feedback :)
Best of luck with it.
What method or language kit example: Rosetta , assimil, etc... for an adult beginner to learn polish from english?
Fabulous!!!
Great work. Which Arabic dialect would you recommend a beginner to learn first?
I use that method. You should try profasar's shadowing method as well. Check out listenrepeater app. It's a very effective way to have it on you at all times. I do it as I'm driving. About 30 min a day. I download interviews from TH-cam within other things. Funny stuff like tv shows with celebrities. Appreciate you sharing this. Good stuff
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youtuberepeatfree
do you mean this apk?
cool! i'll try this method
يا دونوفان يا مولعها ^_^
Great stuff, thanks for that. I was surprised to see how how you rate those Egyptian course books, I thought they looked really dull but I think I might pop out and get one. do you think the 4 books in the series are as good?
Would it be a good idea to listen to the same song over and over again?
Do you read Arabic from words spelled in Latin letters? How do you do to read and to understand modern standard Arabic? Because you are definitely learning the Egyptian dialect.
these videos are really good
You had me excited until you said that before using this method, I must know around 90% of what I am reading or listening to. How can that be though, when you said that you used this same method to learn Irish from the ground up? Please clarify, as this method of yours has me very Intrigued. I’m so sick of learning languages the wrong way, and being inefficient. Your method sounds like it just might work.
If I can use this method from the very beginning stages, I would like to implement it to learn Hebrew and Spanish.
Dev Eagle He didn’t say that you need to know what you are listening to; instead, he said what you are listening to needs to be “comprehensible.” The way that I take what he’s saying is that the audio that you are using has to be clear and easy to understand. So don’t start off listening to a speaker who speaks too quickly or a recording with choppy sound; rather, listen to a person who speaks clearly, at a speed that your comfortable hearing, from a recording that is clear. Best of luck to you in your language learning journey!
How's your Spanish now?
that method will make you fluent in some words only
这个方法这可以帮你提高你的流畅，可是只到一些词汇。
, the next question is how to gain in short periods of time a lot of new vocabularies in your long term memory especially for writing skill
一个重要的问题就是我们怎么能有流畅明白很多词汇在一块的时候
谢谢你，我现在学阿拉伯文，阿拉伯文真的很漂亮的语言!.
i wanna master american accent , someone could help with it , I can help with Arabic , tell me I'm waiting you
How long would it take to be fluent
To learn a language? And also what other methods do u recommend for mastering a language other than using an app (I'm currently using busuu).
it is interesting ,but....firstly : 1 week passed 2 ,3 .so we tend to forget all yo have studied ...somehow we need to come back,Secondly: 2 sentences but in the book there are thousands of them ,so how can you deal with them .Language knowing requires to know many words and expressions...?Could you help me to understand how ?
What book series is that? Do you know if they produce in different languages?
how can you study kalimni without a teacher
What is the program you talked about
Thanks :)
you can be just like a native speaker
' sure you don't beleave me but look for this man his name is
(استيفان روستي)
Can you post a link
Is there a similar book series on Levantine/Syrian dialect? I want to learn Shami Arabi!
Arabic Student check out Lingualism.com
What surprises me is that you are saying you are trying to get more native like and yet you are quoting passages from a coursebook... Coursebooks are usually contrived, a bit artificial in order to focus on specific aspects of language. Wouldn't you rather focus on audio podcasts or something, where real conversation is taking place - especially that in other videos you're saying that READING is not that important... Thanks.
Yes. But I should add the reason why I used this particular book is that the dialogues are very naturally spoken. Could also use the exact same approach for audio cut from a natural conversation.
Thanks. The question that is still nagging me is what is the criteria of choosing this or that piece of language for practice. Is it only the fact that there is something you need to polish up SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND A BIT HERE OR THERE OR CAN'T SAY IT QUICKLY? Or rather - if I may be a bit daring - you have had enough 'passive' exposure to the language you are trying to master, and thanks to that NOW YOU RECOGNIZE what could come in handy FOR YOU. So you pick that bit and polish it. Am I far off the mark?
It really does not matter as long as your are learning something and repeating it. It is really about learning chunks of information and saying it. I do it from all sorts of materials. As long as you are listening and repeating it does not matter. Netflix. podcasts, books, whatever. I don't like doing poetry however.
That was a long 9+ minutes to learn nothing
I totally disagree with you - it was very informative!!
You teach too much and it's hampering your own development. You can teach without speaking. Even about language.
Im polyglot, what a shame you learn egyptia dialect lol, you should learn fousha (the Arabic language with capital A). egyptian is not written dialect
mourad huh fousha is useless for talking to real people. And who wants to read media arabic? Boring
Mateo It depends, unless you want to understand ancient Arabic like that of the Qur'an and the early Arabs you might learn modern conversational Arabic without grammar, that is via chunking.