How to learn foreign languages through 'chunking' (no grammar study)

[@FrankKimono744]

I learn whole sentences saying them aloud. 5 days - 300 repetitions per day at least. Later I don't need to translate. I know the meaning of words straight away like in my native language. And also I remember the meaning longer than by learning separate words. It was a real game changer in my learning process and communication skills in English and other languages.😊

[@razor3106]

Person: How's it going? Me: Yes.

[@dariollanos]

lol

[@dominic2446]

1:50

[@jancovanderwesthuizen8070]

Turns out this is exactly what I've been doing for quite a while. So I can assure you all that it works

[@lifeisneverthesame910]

Yeah it works for me too..

[@squelchtheory]

"Unpack it all when you're ready to unpack it." That was great and helpful.

[@jimmorrison2657]

I know people who go through their whole lives without knowing what an adjective is. They are intelligent and eloquent, they just don't need to know those things. If you want to learn grammar, fine, but learn the language first. It will be much easier. Good video as always✌🏼

[@williambudd2850]

To use grammar or not? Children learn language by listening and repeating what they hear. They know nothing about grammar. That method works 100% of the time and it is the reason immersion is so successful. Adults take courses and are fed a steady diet of grammer. These courses are dismal failures. They are lucky to have a 20% success rate in teaching people how to speak a new language. Wise up. Go on you tube and find a video that presents common phrases in the language you want to learn. Then listen and repeat. Again and again and again. Keep this in mind. If you want to learn how to drive a car, you have to practice driving one. Reading the manual (grammar) may help you understand how it works but you have to practice driving the car to learn now to drive a car. Its the same way with learning to speak a language. You have to practice speaking the language if you want to speak a language.

[@TheFiestyhick]

Well stated. 💫💫💫👍👍

[@monicaunver1668]

and here is a passage from Michael Lewis himself: "The Lexical Approach suggests the content and role of grammar in language courses needs to be radically revised but the Approach in no way denies the value of grammar, nor its unique role in language. While the Lexical Approach emphasises probable language, based on observation of ‘used’ language, it recognises clearly that lexis is not enough and that courses which totally discard grammar are doing learners a serious disservice."

[@talakayan-pilipinas]

Good comment. Totally agree with you.

[@strangerintheselands251]

Yeah, and whereas grammar at the outset just intimidates and bores to death, it is actually very beneficial in later stages, BECAUSE IT HELPS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS NOT POSSIBLE IN THE LANGUAGE, while exposure to used language only shows you what IS POSSIBLE. You need both components to be competent.

[@Mohr1245]

Dude , your pronunciation of Arabic is perfect and support your point.

[@emiliosgregoriou8943]

Sounds like you can get good mileage from using the method, however it might be limiting if you want to achieve a high level of fluency. As you get more advanced, you'll start to hear and speak longer, more complicated sentences. Doing so can be quite a challenge if you don't grasp the grammar to help build your sentences, and if you don't know the basics of grammar to begin with, it might be a set back. Same goes for unusual words that you wouldn't come across by "chuncking", because you wouldn't think to look for such words.

[@chooch1andonly735]

This is such a good argument against grammar! I look at grammar as the "why" of the 5 W's. Most of the time, only who, what, when and where (and sometimes how) are what matter to a conversation. "Why" is by far the most complicated of interrogatives, and least necessary to know what is happening. If someone wanted to learn to ride a bicycle or skateboard, you wouldn't begin teaching them by going into a physics lesson on mechanical energy because they only want to learn inasmuch as will get them to the ACTION of RIDING. You're correct that grammar is a turn off for so many. For language enthusiasts like me, I enjoy grammar because of the complexity. There's just something about the challenge that gets the gears in my head turning :D Nevertheless, I can't really say how learning grammar has gotten my to speaking a language faster. It's really a waste of energy and might only be need to be deployed to explain rare ambiguities. And the evidence is so abundantly clear: not a single person in the world learned their mother tongue by being taught grammar, but by sheer immersion; the natural way.

[@vminmotivationalcurve88yea64]

Kinda glad i found some random dude mention the "Magic language Method" I've always known English and tagalog since I was a child but i never studied grammar rules prior. Good to know that it's actually called something.. Been wondering how that works..

[@h3w45]

I got 100/100 in English at school and i don't really know what an adverb really means.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

adverbs modify verbs, though english fucks around with gerunds adverbial phrases and varieties of other nominalization of verbs that generate a fair amount of (needless) confusion (because some grammarians are monolingual).

[@vminmotivationalcurve88yea64]

Same same

[@QuizmasterLaw]

Yep! Learn vocabulary actively but grammar passively.

[@jeffreyd508]

Good vid! I like this method, and then after many months, review some grammar to have lots of 'ah ha' moments. I think no grammar can work for languages like English, Spanish, Romania, Swedish etc. But Russian, for example, would take years to figure out WHY we use certain endings (36 for each adjective) and personal pronouns (292)

[@rrp2600]

I actually enjoy the grammar learning part. The more it differs from my native English the more interesting. "oh, they do future tense like that? that is so weird" But I think I agree that it is not the proper emphasis to become fluent. Just look at a 4 year old anywhere in the world. They are somewhat fluent with virtually no ability to explain the grammar rules they are using.

[@strangerintheselands251]

True, but they had 4x365 days x 18 hours exposure to the language = 26k+ hours. You cannot beat that learning your second language.

[@d80harri]

When i learned English and French in school I had the experience that it takes a long time and a lot of effort to get to a level where you are actually able to understand every day conversations, let alone taking part in them. But as soon as you are on a certain level, things get easier for exactly the same reasons outlined in this video: you start to listen and read more and learn new expressions on the go without the use of a dictionary. And the expressions you learn that way are actually much more valuable to me then those I found in my school books since they come from the real world. Three weeks ago I started to learn Catalan and I decided not to learn grammar at all. Instead I am looking for online articles that correspond to my interests or songs that I like. I use an online dictionary to translate word by word to get the meaning and text-to-speech software to listen to it over and over again. The beginning was tough. But today I was able to understand like 80 % of a song after listening to it for several times. For French this took a year or two. However, it does not work without grammar books since I dont get any feedback from fairy tales or songs. Although I dont learn grammar, I need to consult grammar books to figure out whether hansel is talking to gretel or the other way around or to figure out if they are in progress of talking to each other or if they talked to each other in the past. Would you agree, that learning a language with no grammar at all is only feasible if you are living in a country where the language is spoken or if you have a lot and lot and lot of friends that speak the language?

[@lifeisneverthesame910]

The key here is compréhensible input.

[@cmfrt1236]

really insightful. Thank you very much.

[@dionysismichalopoulos5246]

Although you're right generally , i ll have to add , as soon as you learn or "copy" in a way a couple of hundred of expressions and some rudimental replies , you should start studying Grammar in order to learn how to combine all of these words that you ve learned in to some new expressions that you ve never heard before .

[@juantorres6012]

actually you dont need to get deep into grammar when learning through chunks, cause basically chunks are patterns, so if you learn a chunk and the way you should use it you can create new sentenced based on that chunk so the new sentences that you create are acurate, this way you only need brief explanations about slme tough issues about your target language, therefore learning grammar is up to you, if you understand it and you like it go ahead and take it but if you dont just learn chunks and patterns so you can get acurate using the language overtiime without much a problem

[@jfan3689]

I kinda of do it like this for about 2-3 weeks. Then I simply break them all down, and speak. Worked for me with learning mandarin and korean! I’ll have to try Arabic someday!

[@jfan3689]

Tiffany Marie No but I do have a solid base. And I am fluent in mandarin.

[@juliusjohnson5967]

Este vídeo contém algumas informações úteis.

[@miguelferreira3527]

Is this Lendária Sarrada no Ar song?

[@billbyrne7891]

It took him 10 year to learn arabic which proves it works

[@FellowHuman18]

Keep on preaching gold, brutha.

[@idawrzesniowa422]

Thats was mine technique. But after i learn whole sentences i said mysel it is not right and correct and i start grammar and i stuck. I will come back to that ! Thank you

[@YeshuaIsTheTruth]

I wonder how long it would take to learn solely through chunking? I've been learning Spanish, focusing first on speaking with native speakers, listening to music, and reading, as well as basic conjugations, prepositions, verbs, and simple past, present, and future tenses. Now I'm starting to focus on more complex tenses. It's only been roughly 7 months, and I still live in the United States. I'm saving for my first trip out of country since I was 7 years old. Could chunking give me quicker results?

[@Kayeinel]

So learn to recognize and mimic speech, then learn the grammatical details. Time to put on the headphones and start listening to chunks

[@Ieonaa]

That's how I learned English. The only tricky part, so to speak: If Clauses.

[@juliusjohnson5967]

Nafanya hivi wakati mwingine.

[@yasminamr3287]

I'm from Egypt, bani suef 😂😂💙

[@tullochgorum6323]

To me this seems like a false dichotomy. Yes, learning grammar rules in the abstract is not effective. But if you immediately put the rule to work by learning lexical chunks that employ the rule, you get the best of both worlds. Deducing rules from mass content alone is pretty inefficient - you need huge amounts of input to master something that could be tackled more quickly with intentional learning. This is why none of the top military and diplomatic language programmes use a grammar-free approach, and the great majority of polyglots use at least some grammar too. Input should always be king, but learning a little lightweight grammar can help you understand it and put it to use.

[@many3ext]

Sure. Everyone knows that your method works in a total immersion in a place where the target language is spoken. What you do not mention is that it is most ineffective in one's own country where the target language is not spoken. Those who say it is impractical to learn the grammar of a language are generally too lazy to put forth the time, and effort necessary to learn another language.

[@alicesmith6159]

No, you're wrong about this. I live in the US and years ago I tried to learn Polish (a language famous for it's complex grammar) going to classes in the US that used a grammar-focused approach. Big fail. Nothing made sense and I thought I just sucked at languages and eventually gave up. Years later, I decided to revisit Polish, this time with zero grammar. I've been immersed in a series of fantastic short stories with accompanying audio (MrRealPolish). I'm at a sold intermediate level with really impressive listening comprehension (I watched an episode of the news on TV Polonia and was able to understand most of what they said). After putting in over 600 hours of listening, reading, speaking, and writing, I'm just now starting to investigate some grammar points that I've noticed have been popping up, and I have to say the grammar makes so much more sense to me now that I've got some kind of proficiency in the language. I still have a long way to go, but in less than a year, I have made amazing progress that I never got with a grammar-first approach.

[@tullochgorum6323]

:@Alice Smith - but there are much better ways of using grammar than "grammar first" approaches. For example the Assimil method, so beloved of many successful polyglots, introduces it in small chunks in the context of 2 minute dialogues. Or you can do a quick dive into grammar whenever you find something that confuses you or catches your interest. Providing that reading and listening are first and foremost in your routine, I believe that the right amount of grammar can accelerate things by giving you overview. But don't think of it as rules - think of it as reusable patterns and building blocks. There's no "one best way" - it just depends on what turns you on. Most polyglots make much more use of formal grammar than he's recommending here, and it works fine for them. Personally I could never learn this way - I'm very analytical and like to know how the language works. Swimming around in a sea of unknowing would turn me off, as surely as grammar would turn off a grammar hater. And I could never spend a whole day repeating one or two lexical chunks - it would drive me bonkers. So we each have to find our own way something we enjoy enough to sustain over the long haul. I've no problem when people share what works for them - that's helpful. It's when they get dogmatic and promote it as the "one true path" that it becomes tiresome.

[@d80harri]

@@alicesmith6159 Alice Smith I am so jealous. I just started this process with Catalan. But it just does not work without grammar. I mean, I dont learn grammar but I need to consult grammar books to get the meaning of what is going on in the stories I read and listen to. And stories dont give feedback. How did you handle this? Did you really just listen to stories? Did you consult a dictionary?

[@MisterGames]

Learning a grammar rule is no different than learning a math formula. The brain cannot subconsciously use it only the conscious can. Learning grammar makes you consciously filter and screen each sentence you speak. That is not how we do it natively. Everyone understands this with math but think memorising a grammar rule enables the subcon to use it, and it just doesn't work that way.

[@diariosdelextranjero]

I just interviewed a lady from China who speaks Spanish quite well. Keep in mind, she is not surrounded by native speakers, nor has she learned grammar formally.

[@كورةاونلاين-م3غ]

I'm from beni suef 😂

[@Devon_maloy]

I skipped grammar in my target language, and now nobody can understand me.

[@nreeldeep1]

The reason a child can learn to speak his native language quickly is two-fold. He's genetically engineered from birth to exist and grow incredibly fast on just breast milk. Older children and adults cannot exist and grow on just milk. Secondly, from birth to five is the fastest learning period for a human being. By far. A child learns language quickly, not because it's in "chunks," because babies begin by repeating single words for months. A toddler acquires language quickly because that is the ONLY language he hears, every day, all day. Toddlers mimic and SPEAK the language chunks and words they hear, all day, everyday to whoever will listen. Toddlers and children NEVER memorize anything. They NEVER write down language chunks or word lists to memorize. They don't seek out chunks from KZbin videos and phrase books. And Toddlers can't read! They acquire language exclusively from LISTENING. And then SPEAKING the language they've learned to whoever will listen. That's toddler immersion. Even then it takes a child up to two years to become fluent. So when you want to point to children as inspiration for language learning, remember, toddlers don't memorize! They listen and talk! So you can say pretty things about language learning and have all the materials and apps you need to learn a language. But if you aren't living a language, you won't learn it. Chunks or no chunks. Is your mobile phone set in the language you wish to learn? You should be seeing nothing but the language you are learning on your phone. Yes even Facebook. If there's an area where you live wherein they speak the language you're learning, you need to be there regularly, squeaking to them only in their language. If you're not speaking to natives everyday or someone fluent in the language you're learning, then you're just playing games with your language learning. The bottom line is, you can have 1000 pretty Spanish "chunks" memorized and ready to go. But if you're not at a spanish-only speaking auto shop using your shiny, magical "chunks, " to stumble through explaining in Spanish that you would like to have an oil change and talk about what other services they provide, you're wasting your time.

[@c.j.5455]

İ don't think you know what "memorization" means. Of course toddlers memorize! That's how brains learn. They memorize by listening. İt doesn't mean us adults with fully developed brains have to use toddlers are a model on how to learn, just like bodybuilders don't use toddlers as a way of how to increase body mass (since babies and toddlers double their body mass at an incredible rate). Reading and writing can be a great tool to supplement learning. Us adults are literate as you know, and reading can be an engaging activity that can be a tool to learn another language.

[@jimgiokezas9944]

no grammar needed. #analytical 😂