How I Use Textbooks to Learn Languages

I love using textbooks to study new languages. Here’s how I do it!
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The textbooks used as examples in this video are Teach Yourself Complete German, Teach Yourself Further German, and Colloquial Bulgarian.

[@internetandlifehacks]

This video is gold! It looks like everyone only trusts language apps and online language courses these days, but we believe that they should always be complemented with textbooks.

[@TheRedFoxMcCloud]

textbook doesnt work for everyone so no you shouldnt force something that wouldnt work out for some people lmao

[@AfroLinguo]

I totally agree with you. When learning a language, I use two main resources... a textbook and a language teacher and it has helped me get fluent in two languages already. I just think that it is a very good and easy to follow method, especially if you have never learned a language before.

[@PolyglotProgress]

Those are the 2 I always rely on in the start as well! It's nice to have that structure

[@sheeliekittie9298]

@Polyglot Progress yes, I find that irony maybe? Despite all the rapid technology, apps, so on. I find that still the best sources are indeed these 2 things! Textbook and a language tutor so we practice all 4 main skills for a language. :)

[@OpheliaVert]

I’m finding your videos just so inspiring!! They’ve given me a new excitement about language learning strategies. Thank you!!

[@PolyglotProgress]

I'm glad my target audience (you, of course) is enjoying the things I've been making!

[@mluzu96]

for korean, i condense the important info and sometimes add a few sample sentences in my digital notebook. also i’ll have a page for particles and put them together, other things like numbers/ days of the week, that kind of info have another section. this was super helpful! i need to start listening to the audio that comes with my textbook because i always forget!

[@AfroLinguo]

I really want to learn Korean but I feel like I wouldn't be able to use it a lot. Why did you learn Korean?

[@PolyglotProgress]

Do you use a particular app for your digital notes? This sounds like a great method! And I'm glad you found the video helpful :)

[@mluzu96]

@@PolyglotProgress i use goodnotes !

[@mluzu96]

@@AfroLinguo i just do it for fun. i love and appreciate cultures. (: if you want to learn it find a good reason why that it’s for YOU, it will keep you going even if it’s to understand dramas haha. mine started because i got into kpop.

[@AfroLinguo]

@@mluzu96 thanks 🙏

[@annap1871]

I love highlighters; however, I have some terrible experience. When I was fourteen, I collected all my german notes and rewrote them into one notebook. I used a lot of highlighters and started some review. That was in June, and in September, all verbs disappeared. I highlighted all verbs with a yellow highlighter... Fortunately, I didn't throw my old notes away. Since then, I don't use highlighters for important notes. I use colour pens instead. And yes, I always omit the chapter about pronunciation. When I don't know any grammar or sentence structure, I don't like to learn single words by heart.

[@PolyglotProgress]

Oh wow! I can see why you'd worry about using them now!

[@mchobbit2951]

Wow, that never happened to me. I highlight first and then write on top though, so that might be why. What did happen, however, is that sometimes the highlighter would fade into nothingness...which is not as big of a deal because at least the notes are still there. That was also with yellow specifically with me so maybe yellow is something to avoid or use in a planner you only need for a week or month or such.

[@candidakang4848]

I find your talks highly intelligent and insightful. Always interested to hear what you have to say.

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you so much :)

[@dyskr]

It’s like 1am here but I just know tomorrow’s gonna be a great day starting off with one of your videos 😭😭 Edit: It was

[@PolyglotProgress]

The update!! I love it 😭

[@esta3492]

Thank you so much. This for me is the perfect video on language learning. Really detailed with such brilliant advice/ different ways to learn a language! I would love it if you could go through in more detail how you memorise your vocabulary 💕

[@emsems3056]

Thank you Abigail! 💖

[@teresita.lozada]

I like this!. Thank you, Abigail!

[@PolyglotProgress]

I'm glad to hear it! Thank you for the comment!

[@user-su1rd1hm4m]

If you ever want to learn Russian after Bulgarian it will be very easy, as 70% of the vocabulary is almost the same. ;)

[@elliebakalova1239]

...except that Russian has case system and while we have some remnants of it in Bulgarian, it's not as... active and broadly used. For an English speaker I assume this is the part she will struggle the most with.

[@PolyglotProgress]

Omg yeah I can barely handle the 4 German cases I also don't have much of an interest in learning Russian, but it is already cool to recognise vocabulary and it's really interesting to hear that that will only continue!

[@yurishevchenko5177]

Однако в отличие от большинства славянских языков, для болгарского языка характерен ярко выраженный аналитизм: падежи почти исчезли (их функции на себя взяли предлоги и порядок слов). Учитывая что в русском языке у имён существительных и имён прилагательных есть шесть падежей. К любому правилу есть куча неожиданных исключений. Я не могу согласиться с твоим мнением. Кроме того, самая докучливая трудность русского языка заключается в том, что вообще нет грамматических правил куда поставить в словах ударения. Запоминание правильных ударений ваших миллионов слов затрудняет не только иностранцев, которые пытались или пытаются его выучить, но и вас самих насителей этого языка. Это ужасно надоедливо, если сравниваем его например с испанским языком.

[@bhutchin1996]

@R S123 Yes, but that's taking the long way. If you're interested in a language, it's best to start with it. With that said, Bulgarian is also a south Slavic language, so yes, it would help with Serbian or Croatian. If you know French, then I'd recommend Assimil's Croatian course (with audio). Otherwise, Teach Yourself or Colloquial would help you get started in the language.

[@Frenchie1116]

Interesting video, I like the way you see language learning

[@PolyglotProgress]

Thank you!

[@MarchingBandsFromHome]

This was really helpful, thank you. I’m not a big Textbook person, but these tips I may try. Nice video. 👍🏼

[@PolyglotProgress]

I'm glad you found it useful!!

[@akinwale8356]

This is solid information. I am from the era of textbooks. There were no cellphones, Internet, or language apps; yet we learned. I find textbooks have always been a great help to me. Thanks for this video!

[@PolyglotProgress]

I'm glad you found it helpful!

[@JonathanOlelo]

Usually, I don't use textbooks But, for some languages, it can be more useful For example, "Lingua Latīna Per Sē Illūstrāta" for Latin (it's much easier to learn Latin using this textbook)

[@PolyglotProgress]

I can imagine! Have you noticed that you've had to change any other habits as you work on learning Latin compared to modern languages?

[@JonathanOlelo]

@Polyglot Progress Yes. First, most language platforms don't support Latin (or have really short Latin courses), so you cannot really rely on them. Also, there is almost no modern content in Latin (music, series, books) so I focus more on ancient content and learn some history along the way.

[@bhutchin1996]

@@JonathanOlelo You should try Assimil's Latin course (with audio), but it's only available in French, German, and Italian. With that said, Luke Ranieri highly endorses "Lingua Latina".

[@deecee9479]

The first time I tried to learn Spanish was in 1989 by correspondence. There was no internet back then so I had cassette tapes, a textbook, and a dictionary. I had to call my instructor to complete my quizzes and exams. I live in western Canada so there were no additional resources anywhere near me. That’s all I had and yet I did learn. My 2nd time with beginner Spanish was in the mid 90s. I had videotapes and books and a tutor to call. Yes more distance learning! I’ve started again this spring at level 2 with online classes. I find it so much easier now. There are library books and tv shows and KZbin channels. I am really hoping to get to at least an intermediate level. But the only way I’ll get there is by reading and learning more vocabulary so I can’t practice speaking with others. Just taking the class isn’t enough IMO. And yet that is all some people are willing to do. Thank you for showing how you do it. I feel vindicated 👍🏼

[@bhutchin1996]

My own language-learning methods have changed throughout the years. My school offered only Spanish. To learn French, I got a phrasebook, a dictionary, a verb tables book, and a French pen-pal. I pretty much copied everything from the phrasebook into a notebook. That took a year to do. During that time, I wrote to my French pen-pal in French. My current method is to listen to a lesson in my Assimil course without looking at the book. Assimil has many courses where they have individual MP3s for sentences and paragraphs. Thanks to pau's channel, I use Anki to have the target language (L2) on the "front" side and the language of instruction (L1) on the "back side" (I think pau does it both ways, but I don't); this is good for spaced repetition. While I use Assimil, I don't use the Assimil method which involves starting over from the first lesson after lesson 50 or so, and translating from the L1 to the L2. After inputting the text and audio into Anki, I'll listen to the entire lesson again while looking at the text. Then I'll read through the lesson's notes. Finally, I'll listen to the lesson's audio again without looking at the text. Most of Assimil's courses don't have vocabulary lists to learn. They do go over the grammar in the lesson notes and in every 7th lesson, but they don't overwhelm you with it. The goal is to "assimilate" the language, thus the name Assimil. I do it my own way based on the methods I've learned from others. They have C1 courses in French (English is an option for French only), German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. The audio is in the target language only. I'm almost done with their German B2 course. It has increased my confidence with producing the language in writing and speaking. It has also helped me with Duolingo, which I use for practicing grammar and acquiring new general vocabulary. Of course, I'm going to concentrate on the grammar per se, but I'm no longer starting off with it (unless absolutely necessary). I may try using Walter Coudewener's first 200 words to get a foothold in the vocabulary and grammar of a new language, maybe for Old English or Bulgarian (which still has aorist verb forms). We're always going to have more passive vocabulary than active vocabulary. There are words we're going to forget simply because we rarely use them. The more exposed we are to a word, the more likely we're going to remember it, and that might be why people use methods like the Gold List for remembering vocabulary. I tend to favor spaced repetition myself. Out of all the books about learning languages, Barry Farber's *How to Learn Any Language - Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and On Your Own* has influenced me the most, especially the "Multiple Track Attack" method he outlines. While I no longer use it, it shows one how to use more than one resource to learn a language. It is a grammar-first method, and he recommended going through 5 grammar lessons before even listening to audio, which I don't agree with anymore. While I do agree that writing things out helps one to memorize better, it does involve a lot of time. When I was learning Esperanto, I filled out an entire notebook with things I was learning in 3 textbooks. With the method I use now, it takes me less than an hour or two to complete, and that includes doing a daily lesson in both Duolingo and Memrise. In addition to what I already said about Duolingo, it also provides feedback with the daily streak. If you miss a day, Duolingo will let you know. And even if you don't do anything else language-related for a day or so, spending 5-10 minutes a day on Duolingo will help you keep your daily streak. And of course I recommend Netflix, but unfortunately here in the US they offer nothing in Bulgarian, at least not when I use their browse-language search engine. In the past it took me a long time to get through a textbook, especially if I wrote down vocabulary words and grammar tables in a notebook, and that slow growth can be very discouraging, so that's why I've looked at other methods, including Gabriel Wyner's, but I've found out I can acquire the same amount of vocabulary with a good course providing about 3,000 words. I was first exposed to spaced repetition by using Pimsleur. I learned about Pimsleur from the Barry Farber book I mentioned, and I agree with his assessment of the method. Pimsleur's great for a car commute (each lesson being 30 minutes long, audio only) and for pronunciation (it did wonders for my Russian pronunciation), but it doesn't teach a lot of vocabulary. And nowadays, you can no longer download the audio. With that said, their Ukrainian course is free up until the end of 2022.

[@deecee9479]

Thank you! This was helpful to me. I also learn mainly by reading and looking up new words and drilling it into my brain LOL. I am in my late 50s though so I have to work a little harder to remember the new words 😄

[@tullochgorum6323]

Refreshing to hear someone that isn't pushing their "one true way". There is so much negativity on KZbin for any kind of systematic study of grammar, but many people (like me) find it's the only way they can pick up the more complex patterns in a language. As you say, people vary greatly in their abilities and preferences.

[@daniellean5769]

I know this video is a year old bt if been self-taught (using solely KZbin and language apps) and been considering getting a textbook. This was extremely helpful.

[@asterin4675]

So interesting and calm video. You did really good work for making this video👀 I also make video about language and drawing ( I am learning English and Kazakh language)

[@alfonsobifulco-of6oc]

I use Assimil and Colloquial

[@robrobbins]

I create help files for the language I am studying. Most of the help file will be one page on a verb, adjective, adverb, or preposition. The rest is vocabulary lists and material on grammar often copied from a textbook. My method is great for learning how to read a language but it does fail to teach me how to speak the language or listen wel. Currently I am studying Spanish and I have 260 pages of notes.

[@ivetpetrova5362]

Thank for the video! Btw as a bulgarian in the notes you took for comfortable chair, that’snot right

[@PolyglotProgress]

Oh good to know! Thank you!

[@carlamercedesrivas4365]

Hii. 😄😄 I want to know if you have tutors for all the languages you're learning. 🙂☺️

[@PolyglotProgress]

Not yet! Still working on finding an Italian and a French tutor :)

[@brandylatriecereads4357]

i think my biggest problem is using the words i just learned in a diary entry. i'm always focused on how to form the sentences that i never actually form a sentence.

[@PolyglotProgress]

I'd suggest spending some time on sentence structure and grammar for the language you're learning! I've had that problem too and usually I find it's because I don't have a good grasp on word order or the tense or another grammatical aspect. Once I feel comfortable there it's much easier to just plug new words in!

[@tonia6953]

I have a question ..do you set for the exams also on your own ?

[@PolyglotProgress]

If you're asking about studying for language proficiency exams, I've only taken 2 official exams previously and they were speaking only (OPIc for both Spanish and Italian) so I prepared for them by practicing speaking. I will self-study for future exams I take, though I'll also definitely meet with tutors or friends to practice speaking.

[@sheeliekittie9298]

Your suggestions are so helpful here! Thanks Abigail! I'm just curious are you of Bulgarian descent or do u have personal interest mostly? Also not sure If you have made videos on this already but when we want to make progress in a language to really feel we have accomplished much and feel confident in the language, should we focus on this language and not worry about others?

[@PolyglotProgress]

It started as personal interest and developed into a personal challenge since I've definitely found it a lot harder than every other language I've studied (both because of the language itself and because of the lack of resources) and now more connection with the language/Bulgaria as I've met people through learning. As far as I know I'm not of Bulgarian descent at all. And I definitely think focussing on personal goals/reasons and the language is much more beneficial than focussing on others and their opinions. I think that's true of life in general, if we constantly focus on what others are thinking we'll feel a lot less fulfilled and a lot less confident than if we just do what makes us happy and motivated and focus on our own accomplishments. I'll admit I'm still definitely guilty of getting caught up in what other people think though, it's a learning process :)

[@sheeliekittie9298]

@Polyglot Progress I love and agree with everything you said here! I also don't know if maybe people will tell me I'm wrong lol. But I feel like the best way to learn and truly progress in a new language is focus on that one alone for extended periods of time. I always worry that I will forget the other languages I have studied though!

[@skylersfudge1346]

Do you know any textbooks to learn bisaya in?

[@PolyglotProgress]

No sorry :( Maybe someone else will have some recommendations!

[@rafalkaminski6389]

Writing words seems to help in mind focusing. 😅

[@eusouneto20]

I'm like you. I prefer.learn foreign languages with textbooks! 💕

[@rafalkaminski6389]

2:10 begins

[@Storytime2023x]

You are fooling yourself. Immersion is the only way. Switch to immersion after you learn the basics.

[@PolyglotProgress]

I...do switch to immersion after I pass the basic level? Lol That said I totally disagree. There is no "only way" to learn a language. But I'm glad you've found what works well for you!

[@chikondibanda6479]

@@PolyglotProgress I love your response. I believe his choice of words wasn't the best. However, I saw you avoided entertaining that. I fully agree with your point.

[@buddhistbeer4409]

what is your opinion of fluenz?

[@PolyglotProgress]

I haven't tried it, sorry!