A Stanford Linguist’s Top 3 Tips for Learning a New Language

[@MotivAce_co]

Tony keeping it real love the videos!

[@japanese2811]

I always see these videos and find it's the same old advice recycled over and over again, but to my surprise, this is actually refreshingly different. The focus on practice is something you very rarely hear from the KZbin language "experts". Thank you, this was really appreciated and 100% spot on! 👏👏👏

[@TonyTheLinguist]

I'm glad you found this helpful! It's true-without practice, we'll only ever know, and never do.

[@Officialheatrecords]

Yes definitely the gentleman is correct whenever you're studying Spanish it's pretty cool because Spanish sounds like it looks on paper. So if you master the alphabet then you have a head start on the language. For example la Cena sounds differently whenever you say it pronouncing it like a person who speaks English. So many people get educated on the language but they forget to focus on the alphabet. I'm in year three now with Spanish and I'm focusing more on the alphabet once more, just as a way to sharpen the Spanish sword.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

It can be really helpful to refocus on sounds again!

[@matheusmatias2342]

I had a poor base on phonetics when I started to learn English - I was too young and not truly interested, the method was not too focused on phonetics, the professors didn’t explained me that English has sounds that don’t exist in Portuguese etc. All that changed when I started to learn French by myself. I saw some videos of a guy talking about the importance of the good pronunciation, mainly to make other people thinks that you know the language even if you have a poor vocabulary, and I deeply focused on learning pronunciation and the sounds of it. That helped me a lot! A solid base on pronunciation helps you to understand what people say, to guess how to write something that you heard, to read as the writer intended, and the list goes on. That was a good advice.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Absolutely-it can be a serious game-changer to find out that languages don't just use all the same sounds in different configurations, but that, at the level of the sounds themselves, they're actually different.

[@marshwetland3808]

I love that level - the pronunciation, sounds, and writing system. Sometimes in traveling, because of apparently really good pronunciation by me, I've had native speakers light up and assume I know their language and start babbling at me very quickly. To this day I dk Polish or German, only a few words, but it happened with those languages - lol. It's the bigger part that slows me down. I wish I could perfect my French, but no matter how much I play French CAnadian radio in the car, it's just way too fast to catch much of anything.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

I really enjoy the feeling when people say that sort of thing-it makes you feel like you’re really nailing it! Have you done that with many other languages?

[@KlebsonOliveiraSilva]

Well, that just makes a lot of sense to learn all the sounds first now that I think about it! Really useful advices there, very much appreciated!

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Glad you enjoyed it! It makes sense-but even a lot of language teachers and programs overlook it!

[@lorenzovonmatta8278]

Thanks. A very good video! I'm learning a few languages and you're totally right. Spanish sounds very similar to the written words. My level in French is higher and it took me less time to have good pronunciation in Spanish than French haha.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Yeah totally-it's a lot more straightforward!

[@lorenzovonmatta8278]

@@TonyTheLinguist Thanks for the reply! I'd love to see more language related videos. Videos about how to learn languages, tips etc. You have a new subscriber :)

[@TonyTheLinguist]

@lorenzovonmatta8278 thanks for the support! I hope that you’ve been finding the new videos helpful and interesting! Sorry I missed your reply here!

[@Reflekt0r]

There is actually a correspondence in Mandarin between characters and pronunciation. Many complex characters have pronunciation components. It's not as straightforward as in alphabetical systems, but it's still there. Look it up, it's quite interesting and as a linguist you should know that.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

That's a good point! It isn't accurate to say there's no correspondence-phonetic radicals do a lot of work in the writing system!

[@meropale]

Fascinating. I own a ton of language materials in multiples languages and have noticed that they often start with the alphabet (or corresponding writing system) and the "set of sounds". I have to admit that I generally ignore the "set of sounds", or spend minimal time on this. Have I been making things harder for myself? In any case I do feel now I might spend a little more time on this section.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

I think it's worth it! To help motivate you, just keep in mind that it will make the rest of the steps much easier.

[@tomwende5529]

"There's a limited array of sounds" was a bit of an epiphany. In my 20's, I rapidly acquired conversational fluency is Modern Standard Arabic through immersion training. I already spoke Spanish and German in addition to English, but MSA is WAY outside any language tree I knew and it changed alphabets as well. The alphabet change actually facilitated learning Arabic faster: knowing the sounds that a letter COULD make enables you to sound out any written word, even if you don't know what it means. I'm in my 50's now and struggling to acquire new languages. Your tip provides a useful positive constraint. A tip of my own, from having been around a lot of monolingual language learners. When we approach a second language, we want to use the language we already speak as a reference. We want to graft our grammar rules, word sounds, and meanings into or onto the one we're learning. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, we want to create a deep set of rules to explain the exceptions. This isn't effective. We have to start with a clean slate. "This new language does things in its own way." Similarities can help us to build a ladder, but a clean slate, learning it as it is, is MUCH easier and faster.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Yes! This is something a lot of people try-to take the slots in their native language and just fit material from their new language into those slots. But the secret is, the whole language is different, not just pieces. It's interesting to think about how an entirely new writing system forced you to really get clear on what the letters are doing-a challenge, but in the end a very beneficial one!

[@tomwende5529]

@@TonyTheLinguist I can't help but to see this as a "positive constraint" that leads to proper pronunciation, a way to focus my mind on the language that I'm bumbling through acquiring. 🙂

[@TonyTheLinguist]

It often feels like bumbling 😅 but I’m sure it’s going great! Keep working at it-it’s great to see it the way you do, with positive constraints.

[@fidschiwasser917]

Thank you for this video. I am currently studying Latin. Since it is not spoken anymore i cant speak or talk with someone or even immerse myself in this language by watching shows in this language or even visit a country and learn it by living there. Do you have any tips to learn a dead language?

[@TonyTheLinguist]

A dead language is a special beast! If your goal is to be able to read and write it, it’s best to practice doing that (but I would still suggest ‘speaking’ it in your head as you do both). On the other hand, if you truly want to speak Latin, the best thing is to find a group of people who want to do it too, and spend time doing it. There’s truly no replacement for practicing exactly the thing you want to be able to do well.

[@PrinceOfSlytherin]

There are Latin Shows wow didn't know that quiet interesting

[@seansaraf-kv6mc]

Find a tutor on Preply who exclusively speaks and teaches it. There are people who actually speak and teach it well. I am learning how to speak it by using Familia Romana and am following a course put out by satura lanx. She is an amazing teacher and it’s all in spoken Latin. Full immersion! I highly recommend her program and you can find her on KZbin: youtube.com/@saturalanx?si=JsVhzOJTqhXXMO65

[@omerciftci4673]

You might also find Luke Ranieri’s channel Polymathy helpful (if you’re not already following him).

[@MsTranthihai71]

Thanks ❤

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Thanks for watching!

[@LivrosdoGrego]

good

[@tomwende5529]

I would very much like to learn one of the Slavic languages and I wonder if you have any thoughts on which one to start with. Since this will once again take me outside my familiar Latin language family, I'd like to start with one that has broad applicability to learning more: broad phonetic compatibility, heavily borrowed from by other Slavic languages (cognates), and broad grammatical compatibility. In essence, a language that "unlocks" the others by permitting me to learn the deltas by ear. Any thoughts? I'm stuck in "analysis paralysis" at the moment because I hesitate to invest my 50 year old brain's more limited language learning capacity in what may turn out to be a linguistic "edge case." 🙂

[@seansaraf-kv6mc]

@@tomwende5529 Russian

[@TonyTheLinguist]

It's extremely rewarding to take on a new challenge like that! I'd agree with @seansaraf-kv6mc here-Russian, being the language in the family with the most native speakers, but on top of that also still a lingua franca in much of the region because of the influence of Russia and the USSR before it, is a great choice. Good luck!

[@zak8953]

Fantastic video! My end goal, and I know I'm in a teeny tiny minority, is to speak as close as humanly possible to a native speaker. Would it make sense to primarily focus on listening to a small group of people, with the same dialect, who are speaking naturally? For example, a podcast with video for native speakers. I've never heard of someone just listening to thousands and thousands of hours of video, with a select group of native speakers, the same dialect, and without captions or translations. My hunch is that this would be somewhat similar to how we have all learned our first language. I realize it sounds a bit insane. I've tried doing research into this type of a technique that almost entirely focuses on speaking and accent. It genuinely seems like NO ONE has the same interest in trying to speak "perfectly" while simultaneously learning the language "naturally" like I do. There is a lot of advice suggesting learning the International Phonetic Alphabet, mouth shapes, accent patterns, etc. That's not even remotely close to how we have all learned to speak our native language. We just hear it a ton and then recreate those sounds based on intuition and whether it not it "feels" correct... right? Are there any good books or resources (for a non-linguist) related to this sort of idea? There has to be other people laser focused on accent and natural speaking as well. Any help or guidance is greatly appreciated!

[@TonyTheLinguist]

That sounds like a worthwhile goal! I've felt the same way as I've learned Spanish-I want to be indistinguishable from a native speaker. And I think it's possible. Here are some thoughts on what you bring up. Keep in mind that there are three major differences between learning a first language and a non-first language. First, the input you'll get from video and audio won't quite be the same as a child gets because you won't have the same level of social pressure to continually improve (though you might supply some of this pressure yourself). Second, your language system has become accustomed to your native language, and because of this, when you learn another language, you aren't detailing a blank box. When learning your first language, the categories are created out of just input; when learning a second language, the categories (sounds, word meanings, sentence structure, etc.) of your first language tend to interfere. This leads to the third difference-while children don't have this level of thinking they can use to approach learning a language, you do! So learning, on the one hand, the IPA, mouth shapes, etc., and, on the other hand, applying them, will work wonders. But I'd say you're absolutely right that the goal is to get beyond just 'knowing' to something more like feeling. I personally haven't seen any resources relating just to this-it's a really overlooked area of language learning!

[@zak8953]

@@TonyTheLinguist Thank you so much for the help and thoughtful reply. It's greatly appreciated. Your channel is off to a fantastic start!

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Thank you @zak8953-I missed your reply but really appreciate the support!

[@LibraMakeup]

Dreaming Spanish? A lot of people use comprehensible input.

[@misionculturamx]

Awsome!

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Good luck with your language goals!

[@NoName-ty2us]

And Arabic

[@sam34315]

I started learning arabic 4 months ago ,and i reached elementary level so far

[@TonyTheLinguist]

That's great! What's been the hardest part of getting to this point?

[@sam34315]

@TonyTheLinguist all the words have 3 cases in arabic they change according to the situation and there are 14 pronouns and for these 14 pronouns we need to change the suffix and prefix of verbs i mean verbs are conjugated for each pronoun and noun,this is the difficult part to learn and keep all these rules in mind while speaking. I have learned tenses and grammar rules now I'm working on building vocabulary .and yes , pronunciation of the words should be correct otherwise it'll give a different meaning Example - qalb means heart Kalb means dog We need to pronounce them well

[@TonyTheLinguist]

@sam34315 sorry I missed this reply! That case system is incredible-sounds like it can be very interesting to work with, but hard. And that q in the back of the throat can be tough but important!

[@kimberlynorton]

Spanish, German, and Russian are phonetic.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Yes, some great examples!

[@joaquim4046]

Hey bro, hope you had a wonderful weekend. I don't mean any disrespect. But how come yet another linguist on KZbin comes to the same conclusions about language learning as Lindie Botes? In your video there was nothing related to language acquisition. Languages aren't just detached sounds you have to drill. Languages are way more complicated than that. What you said sounded just like behaviourism. Language acquisition isn't anywhere near like going to the gym. We acquire languages through well-delivered messages from the people we're listening to and hinted meanings. Language acquisition is an incremental subconscious process. We acquire languages through compelling comprehensible input. You can make stuff more comprehensible through several methods. Like through lookups, through translation, through drawings, through gestures, through universal symbols etc.. Please, consider reading Stephen Krashen's research and please challenge your biases. I don't mean to offend you or anything. I'm trying to be as polite as possible. Have a beautiful week!! 😉 I know it was well-meant. Yours sincerely, Joaquim. :))))

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Actually I think these are some great points Joaquim-and this is a huge part of why practice is so critical: the stakes are just different when you're interacting with someone, rather than using an app or reading a book, etc. Thanks for the comment!

[@joaquim4046]

@@TonyTheLinguist, you're welcome. 🤗😊 Yeah, like for interacting with someone we don't understand what they're saying, body language, gestures, drawings, pointing at things help a lot. And for say reading a book or a transcript or a text, the easier it is to look up or translate, the better. :))) Nice channel, bro! ☺️😊

[@popkinbobkin]

this guy really just put "stanford linguist" in the title and gave the most mediocre run of the mill advice that any slightly interested in language learning person has already heard a thousand times, like even luodingo starts you with phonetics what are you talking about, "you need to practice" wow no $hit tell me more professor

[@TonyTheLinguist]

I guess you'll have to subscribe to get all the good stuff you're interested in 👀 Feel free to let me know what you want to see!

[@cmyk8964]

I pronounce "beard" with a TENSE high front vowel [biə̯ɻd], though a lax realization is not very surprising given the general variation in how the NEAR diaphoneme is realized, as well as the mirror-clearer merger.

[@TonyTheLinguist]

Yes! I tend to think of my vowels as on the fairly advanced side of several changes underway in the US. The degree of variation is pretty incredible though!