I’ve found myself in a very similar situation last year. I had to go from nothing to fluent in Dutch in 7 weeks in order to be able to study there. Already knowing German as a similar language certainly played a role in making this possible.
Here’s what worked for me, in order of importance:
As you probably guessed, conversation is the key. I traveled to different people I knew in the Netherlands for several days each just to talk to them. They were very willing to help. I don’t know if you have this possibility, but it would be hugely beneficial. For most of the time I couldn’t do this and had to learn in other ways.
Starting with the most common 100 words. These account for 50% of all communication. Then move on to the most common 200 (75%). Work your way up to 500 or more. These lists can be found online. Learning vocabulary lists other than the most common words can be very inefficient.
Your most important phrase should be: “How do you say X?” (in Hebrew)
On reading: Reading can be quite effective. I borrowed some books, read them, and looked up every word that I didn’t know on my laptop. I put all the important ones into spaced repetition software.
On spaced repetition: If you have to learn stuff very quickly, you can get the software to ask you earlier than scheduled. I personally used Phase 6, which is a German program, but this should be possible in Anki too.
On grammar: I personally spent very little time with it. It just came by itself, although I did spend some time on dutchgrammar.com. Don’t necessarily take this as advice, since I may have had a big advantage—German and Dutch grammar are quite similar.
If your Hebrew is enough to write something, write texts about anything and get a native speaker to read it and correct it for you. This has been immensely beneficial for me, because this way I could see the specific errors I was repeatedly making.
As mentioned in another comment, listening to children’s music can help. I personally found listening to children’s audio books very useful (Disney stuff), which could be found online. Later I switched to science podcasts.
Basically, spend all of your time with the new language. Always think in Hebrew. When you get stuck thinking, because you miss a word, look it up in a smart phone app or pocket dictionary. After a long day your brain may feel like it has melted. Aim to get that feeling every day.
Starting with the most common 100 words. These account for 50% of all communication. Then move on to the most common 200 (75%). Work your way up to 500 or more. These lists can be found online. Learning vocabulary lists other than the most common words can be very inefficient.
Oooh, I forgot that one, right. When learning Chinese I spent a fair amount of time memorizing lists of most common characters and words.
Starting with the most common 100 words. These account for 50% of all communication.
This. I don’t get why so many language courses teach you (say) the names of a dozen different foodstuffs before teaching you how to say “one of those”. IMO that’s silly.
On spaced repetition: If you have to learn stuff very quickly, you can get the software to ask you earlier than scheduled. I personally used Phase 6, which is a German program, but this should be possible in Anki too.
I do have brought a copy of Phase 6 ten years ago and it’s basically crap that created without much thought into how learning works. I would recommend you to switch to Anki.
Phase 6 does not to good prediction of review dates because as far as I remember it doesn’t ask how well the user knows a card. The whole idea that something that has to be reviewed 6 times successfully is permanently in memory is also ridiculous. The whole 6 boxes thing doesn’t make any sense when you have a computer.
That said you don’t learn faster by reviewing things earlier than scheduled. You are just wasting valuable time that you could use to learn new words.
It’s true that the Anki developers have good reasons for selecting the time intervals the way they do. I’d also agree that for long term language learning Phase 6 is sub-optimal. But there’s two ways this particular situation is quite different from the usual situation: Having to learn stuff fast (basically cramming) and the fact that these words need to be in the active vocabulary, not the passive one. That is, being able to use them in conversation, rather than just remembering when asked for. I don’t know how strong these points are, but from my subjective impression it was quite useful to have shorter time intervals than usual.
The marginal benefit of learning more words diminishes, which is a reason in favour of learning the important words better.
One of the core principles of learning is that good learning is deliberate practice. If you review a card to early and it’s easy to remember the card you are not getting your full deliberate practice and if Wozniak is right, that leads to worse learning.
There no evidence that reviewing cards before they are due does anything useful. A carrot doesn’t grow faster when you pull on it. Cramming before an exam produces memories that are gone after the exam.
If you want stronger memories, mnemonics is a valid tool. It’s also possible to get strong memories by making connection between concepts and use emotion.
I recently started to have cards that ask for IPA pronunciation of words (in X-Sampa). That provides more added knowledge than reviewing a card 3 times before it’s due.
I’ve found myself in a very similar situation last year. I had to go from nothing to fluent in Dutch in 7 weeks in order to be able to study there. Already knowing German as a similar language certainly played a role in making this possible.
Here’s what worked for me, in order of importance:
As you probably guessed, conversation is the key. I traveled to different people I knew in the Netherlands for several days each just to talk to them. They were very willing to help. I don’t know if you have this possibility, but it would be hugely beneficial. For most of the time I couldn’t do this and had to learn in other ways.
Starting with the most common 100 words. These account for 50% of all communication. Then move on to the most common 200 (75%). Work your way up to 500 or more. These lists can be found online. Learning vocabulary lists other than the most common words can be very inefficient.
Your most important phrase should be: “How do you say X?” (in Hebrew)
On reading: Reading can be quite effective. I borrowed some books, read them, and looked up every word that I didn’t know on my laptop. I put all the important ones into spaced repetition software.
On spaced repetition: If you have to learn stuff very quickly, you can get the software to ask you earlier than scheduled. I personally used Phase 6, which is a German program, but this should be possible in Anki too.
On grammar: I personally spent very little time with it. It just came by itself, although I did spend some time on dutchgrammar.com. Don’t necessarily take this as advice, since I may have had a big advantage—German and Dutch grammar are quite similar.
If your Hebrew is enough to write something, write texts about anything and get a native speaker to read it and correct it for you. This has been immensely beneficial for me, because this way I could see the specific errors I was repeatedly making.
As mentioned in another comment, listening to children’s music can help. I personally found listening to children’s audio books very useful (Disney stuff), which could be found online. Later I switched to science podcasts.
Basically, spend all of your time with the new language. Always think in Hebrew. When you get stuck thinking, because you miss a word, look it up in a smart phone app or pocket dictionary. After a long day your brain may feel like it has melted. Aim to get that feeling every day.
Here’s is a pretty good article on learning a foreign language. It contains some of my tips: http://markmanson.net/foreign-language
Oooh, I forgot that one, right. When learning Chinese I spent a fair amount of time memorizing lists of most common characters and words.
This. I don’t get why so many language courses teach you (say) the names of a dozen different foodstuffs before teaching you how to say “one of those”. IMO that’s silly.
I do have brought a copy of Phase 6 ten years ago and it’s basically crap that created without much thought into how learning works. I would recommend you to switch to Anki.
Phase 6 does not to good prediction of review dates because as far as I remember it doesn’t ask how well the user knows a card. The whole idea that something that has to be reviewed 6 times successfully is permanently in memory is also ridiculous. The whole 6 boxes thing doesn’t make any sense when you have a computer.
That said you don’t learn faster by reviewing things earlier than scheduled. You are just wasting valuable time that you could use to learn new words.
It’s true that the Anki developers have good reasons for selecting the time intervals the way they do. I’d also agree that for long term language learning Phase 6 is sub-optimal. But there’s two ways this particular situation is quite different from the usual situation: Having to learn stuff fast (basically cramming) and the fact that these words need to be in the active vocabulary, not the passive one. That is, being able to use them in conversation, rather than just remembering when asked for. I don’t know how strong these points are, but from my subjective impression it was quite useful to have shorter time intervals than usual.
The marginal benefit of learning more words diminishes, which is a reason in favour of learning the important words better.
One of the core principles of learning is that good learning is deliberate practice. If you review a card to early and it’s easy to remember the card you are not getting your full deliberate practice and if Wozniak is right, that leads to worse learning.
There no evidence that reviewing cards before they are due does anything useful. A carrot doesn’t grow faster when you pull on it. Cramming before an exam produces memories that are gone after the exam.
If you want stronger memories, mnemonics is a valid tool. It’s also possible to get strong memories by making connection between concepts and use emotion.
I recently started to have cards that ask for IPA pronunciation of words (in X-Sampa). That provides more added knowledge than reviewing a card 3 times before it’s due.
Both Anki and Mnemosyne have cramming plugins.