No, it’s not a scam! 🙂
You often hear that phrase – 100% guaranteed, it will work. It cannot fail.
Usually that’s not what I want to hear either.
But when I saw that scene from the (fantastic) French movie Un Prophète (A Prophet), I realized there was one particular case of actual guaranteed success when learning a language.
Beware of spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie yet!
The movie
Tahar Rahim plays an Arab inmate (Malik El Djebena) who’s new to prison. He is torn apart between trying to survive on his own and needing to make ‘friends’ (other inmates) in order to survive.
In prison, he soon meets César Luciani (Niels Arestrup), the boss of a Corsican mafia.
*** SPOILER ***
He approaches him and strongly suggests to prove his loyalty to him by killing another inmate whom he didn’t quite like, in exchange for his protection in the tough world of prison.
Although the Corsicans are said to hate Arabs, César takes Malik under his wing because he trusts him. Malik is introduced to the Corsican ‘tribe’, who’s still skeptical of the Arab guy.
He is ok with being César’s maid and snitch for César, as he grants him protection and that allows him to live a somewhat normal life in prison: working (sewing jeans); learning how to read French (we are made aware that Malik is illiterate), as he slowly climbs the ladder within the group.
Malik isn’t aware of the conversations they are having but we the audience know through subtitles that the group still hates the Arab guy, no matter how submissive he is.
The scene
Still facing overt racism from César’s henchmen, Malik undertakes learning the language they speak when together: Corsican – roughly a mix of Italian and French.
He does so by using a Corsican-French dictionary he probably borrowed at the prison library.
Having learned how to read French in class before, he can now decipher the dictionary, and repeats to himself the words he will probably hear from César’s tribe mouths.
Rabia… Rabia… Rage… Rage…
He then repeats the word in a context, thinking: ‘This is how I would use this word’, ‘This is why I would use this word’.
What it means for you
Steal this technique from Malik: self role play.
Find some time alone and picture yourself in the situation, being ‘forced’ to use French – in order to survive.
Entering survival mode is probably the ONE best way to learn any language – our brains are wired to gather new information as quick as possible when being faced with a new environment, in order to adapt.
In my free ebook I explain that Malik’s observation technique is one of the three pillars of successful French learning: purpose, observation and confidence.
Get the full ebook for free here.