How Rapid Languages Got Started

Hi. My name is Brant Burgiss. The concept of Rapid Languages got its start in 1979 when I spent six months in Belgium as an exchange student during my junior and senior years in high school.

I was a straight-A student at Alleghany High School in Sparta, NC and had two years of Mrs. Maxwell's French class behind me... and believed I was well prepared for my exchange. Boy, was I wrong!

Upon landing in Brussels and spending less than 5 minutes with my new host family, I quickly realized that despite my good grades in French class, I knew practically no real French that I could use in every day casual conversation. I could say things like "the grass is green" and "my name is Brant" in French, but that wasn't much help when I suddenly needed to find a bathroom and couldn't make myself understood without some funny play acting!

Luckily I had a terrific host family (thanks Famille Havet!), who worked with me and had me speaking basic conversational French within 3-4 short weeks. As my exchange visit was winding down six months later, it was gratifying to realize how much French I had learned in a short amount of time. In fact, while on a train returning from a trip to Paris, a young French couple once accused me of being a native Belgian! That was quite a compliment for someone like me who couldn't put two French words together 5 months previously.

Looking back, I realized that I always had the capacity to learn French - it was just that the method used to teach French in the classroom wasn't working at all. Know what I found out?

The ONLY way to REALLY learn a foreign language
is to HEAR it and SPEAK it every day.

That's why I was so thrilled when I discovered an online course that taught French in the same manner, and why I so heavily recommend the Rocket French interactive course.

Of course, French isn't the only language taught by Rocket Languages, but the principle is the same. It's easier to learn a new language by doing as opposed to sitting and reading a textbook full of boring verb conjugations and long lists of vocabulary words.

I hope you'll join me in realizing the fun and practicality of speaking a language other than English. Try a free 6-day demo of any Rocket Language program... you'll be glad you did!