How U.S. diplomats learn languages | FSI language courses review

[@Thelinguist]

📲 The app I use to learn languages: tinyurl.com/yc2svn89 🆓 My 10 FREE secrets to language learning: tinyurl.com/2fhxsjux ❓Do you think it's possible to reach B2 in such a short amount of time? Let me know in the comments!

[@schoolingdiana9086]

Yes. After one semester of German, the whole class was at emerging B2 level (reading, writing, and speaking). Our instructor utilized cartoons (not Calvin & Hobbs, but one with a frog), and we didn’t do audio labs but sat in a different room informally and had to speak organically for an hour 2x a week. I listened to German singers like Nena (I also quite like Faun & Sylbermond) outside of class, as well as 2-ish hours of reading out loud, counting pennies out loud, and reciting the most common verbs in their basic conjugations. I also didn’t just fill in the worksheets but wrote the whole thing out 5x each, just like my vocabulary words. We also had a once a month German Club where we had to talk entirely in English, and watched German films. So I had 3 hours per day plus one hour of singing, 5 days per week. And whenever I ran into any classmates on campus, we usually spoke German to each other, too. My oldest son did something similar on his own when Thailand went into lockdown, and taught himself Lao in 4 weeks, primarily from the State Department language materials (he bought off an eBay like website), and then speaking it when he went grocery shopping (since it’s similar to Thai).

[@williebrown4266]

I retired from the State Department in 2021. And I went through the French course at FSI. During the course the teachers as well as the administration stressed that the learning didn't end at FSI. We were also encouraged to continue studying our respective languages at our overseas assignments, which is what I did. I totally agree, going from zero to B1 in less than a year is a bit of a stretch. But the training at FSI/NFATC was an excellent starting point.

[@mikereisert2803]

In my experience (of course depending on the language), going from nothing to B1 is pretty easy. Going from there to B2 might take 3 or more times of what it takes you to go from nothing to B1.

[@schoolingdiana9086]

@boffy2648I did it in 6 weeks, but I was singing along to German artists (Nena, mostly; Rammstein uses archaic grammar and isn’t suitable), plus practicing on my own for about 2 hours outside the classroom. Keep in mind that our teacher utilized cartoons, and didn’t have us do audio labs-we actually had to sit in a room and organically talk to each other for an hour 2x a week. Then we had monthly German club meetings, where we watched German language films and also had to speak entirely in English. We were all verging into B2 by the end of the semester (reading, writing, and speaking).

[@Robespierre-lI]

... And this is a program which already selected people who are likely to persevere in a challenging learning environment. Unless I misunderstand the State Department's hiring practices... Also, I imagine the knowledge that very soon you'll need to use the language in your work and life outside work (usually) is quite motivating. Personally, I've only ever been successful with immersion. And curiously, the culture you are immersing yourself into also matters. I don't mean to rehearse old stereotypes, but I found immersion in Paris France very different from immersion in Berlin Germany. ... Do I really need to complete that thought? ... Germans were way more tolerant of mistakes and willing to allow you to fumble through a conversation without switching to English.

[@alanguages]

Many of the language learning hobbyists don't understand, that the FSI is one of the most intense language learning methods when taking them. It literally is for people, that will determine if they can attain a level to do the occupation in making a livelihood. For the easier languages, not only do they finish the 24- 30 weeks of 600- 750 CLASS hours. The learners have to use what they learn outside of class as much as possible. Once they are done, then it is recommended to even do at least one year in the target language they just finished studying. @@Robespierre-lI

[@Fex986]

Sorry, what does FSI/NFATC means?

[@Jean-wj4tn]

I learned English basically just by watching KZbin videos and reading over the years. I didn't even remember the first time I was be able to really understand to what I was watching. Now I'm starting to study Russian because I really like some Russian songs and I want to understand them without translate. I don't care if "Russian grammar is difficult" because I'm just enjoying the process

[@FrozenMermaid666]

In truth, the Germanic languages are by far the easiest languages ever to learn and memorize, as the prettier the words are, the easier they are to memorize, and some of those stats don’t take into account things such as the methods of learning that the ppl that participated in the tests used and the focus and the number of resources and videos teaching them etc, otherwise Icelandic and Hungarian and Finnish would all be listed as three of the easiest languages ever, since they are very easy, and Norse and Icelandic are in the top five easiest to learn and memorize after English and Dutch and Norwegian which are the top 3 easiest languages ever, with English being the absolute easiest language in every way, and these five are also the most fun to learn as they are the prettiest ever, and Gothic / Faroese / Danish too, and Hungarian is easy, being a mid category 2 language, and Estonian / Latvian / Finnish are just a bit less easy to memorize than Hungarian and are also category 2 with normal letters and very easy category 1 pronunciation! Esperanto is very easy, but it’s not one of the top 10 easiest as it’s way harder to memorize the words in Esperanto (especially if one doesn’t know any Latin language like Spanish or Portuguese fluently, one will need to repeat the Esperanto words a lot more than one needs to repeat Germanic words) and it doesn’t use a proper grammar that would sound right! For example, the 8th language that was listed as a ‘category 1’ around 1:07 is not even close to being a category 1 language and it’s more like category 4 as most words are extremely non-pretty and not fun to learn and take way more repetitions and it has a very heavy spelling with many diacritics that remind of Czech and Polish, and it’s not a Latin language, so it hasn’t even been classified correctly, as the most accurate classification would be Thracian-Aslavic or something like that because it’s not truly Slavic either, even though it does have many Slavic word endings and a Slavic intonation, and, it is certainly not easier to learn than Icelandic and German or any other Germanic languages lol, so some of the official classifications and official rankings are not correct at all, like, some of them are, but not all, and what they refer to as fluent isn’t native speaker level fluency, just a C1 or C2 level which is just advanced, but not native speaker level and not even close to writer level which is what I would refer to as true fluency, and one must know over thirty-five thousand base words automatically to be writer level in a language, and getting to a writer level can even take five or ten years or more, depending on whether the learner is actively learning many new words every day and revising previously learnt words a lot on a regular basis, but learning in a more passive-like way will take more years tho, and, to get to a native speaker level with fully developed automatic mode in the new language or languages will take at least three to five years even in the prettiest languages, though learning the actual words and understanding the written language can be achieved in one year or so, especially in the prettiest languages ever!

[@FrozenMermaid666]

There are actually many ways to rank languages, as some languages have easy category 1 spelling and less easy category 2 pronunciation, while other languages have light spelling but they aren’t easy to memorize because most words aren’t pretty etc, so the best way to rank languages is by word memorability and prettiness (the prettier the words, the easier they are to learn) and by spelling and pronunciation, for example, if I were to rank all the prettiest languages ever by prettiness of the words and how easy it is to memorize them, they would all be at the top as languages like Norse / Icelandic / Dutch / English / Norwegian / Gothic are equally gorgeous and the prettiest ever, so I can remember most of their words after seeing them two to five times, however, English and Dutch have the lightest spelling ever with almost no diacritics or umlauts, except for a few words like resumé and geïntereseerd etc, so they are the easiest to type on any device, and Norwegian and Danish are almost as easy to type as English and Dutch, and, if I would have to rank them by pronunciation, English and Norse and Icelandic and Dutch have the easiest pronunciation ever with the accents that are the easiest to imitate, so I sounded native in languages like Icelandic and Dutch and Norse even when I was beginner level, but now I am upper intermediate level in Icelandic and Norse and very close to advanced level in Icelandic and upper advanced level in Dutch, and I am also advanced level in Norwegian - I am learning tons of pretty languages and I prioritize the prettiest languages the most, and I focus mostly on vocab, so I learn them very fast, like, I’ve been prioritizing Icelandic a lot over the past few months, and I am already close to advanced level and I know over 6.000 words at the moment, despite the very limited resources, which are also usually not taken into consideration when they create the official rankings and stuff like that, so one should keep that in mind, that the official rankings are not 100% accurate and that they haven’t taken all aspects into consideration, and they also don’t include all languages, so they’re not complete either!

[@FrozenMermaid666]

English is by far the easiest language ever created and also the easiest to use and type on any device, so I don’t think one can express very complex ideas and concepts in any other languages the way one can express them in English or speak with the same fluidity even at an intermediate or advanced level, but Dutch and Norwegian and Norse and Icelandic come very close, and also Gothic, and also Faroese and Welsh and Breton and Cornish and Manx and Danish, which are also the most fun to learn, tho Danish has a category 2 pronunciation like German / French / Swedish / Brazilian Portuguese, but the languages themselves are very easy to learn and are category 1, and it may seem at first like Norse languages like Icelandic and Gothic and Norse have a category 2 spelling, but in fact, it’s harder to spell words in French and Spanish and Portuguese because these languages have accents where one wouldn’t expect them to be or don’t have accents where one would expect them to be, so the accents are harder to memorize in Latin languages, whereas in Norse languages the accents are in fact different vowels or sounds, so it’s easier to spell the words if one knows the word and the pronunciation well, and am native speaker level in Spanish, but I noticed that I tend to correct my comments more when I type in Spanish because I never get every accent right, so the spelling in Latin languages is less easy than in Germanic languages for sure, and I haven’t had any difficulty with the spelling of Norse / Germanic words, even though I am only upper intermediate level in Icelandic and Norse! So I have to give the Norse languages a category 1 ranking, as I have been learning them myself, and I noticed that they aren’t category 2 as I used to think, even though they may look very intimidating at first, plus French is definitely less easy than any of the Norse languages and the pronunciation of French words is not easy, and French is still listed as a category 1 language, so I don’t think any of the Germanic languages are truly category 2, tho Proto Germanic might be, and, some of the languages listed as category one or two languages are not category one or two at all, so the official rankings are not one hundred percent accurate, like, any non-pretty language is at least a category four language as it’s not fun to learn and not easy to memorize, while the pretty languages are by far the easiest languages ever as pretty languages are naturally easier to memorize and fun to learn, and the prettiest languages ever are by far the easiest languages to learn! Chinese languages and Japanese are the hardest ever as they are category ten with impossible writing systems and tonal pronunciation and words that sound the same, and the right rankings would be from one to ten at least because there are many languages and there many different levels of difficulty, so one cannot rank them from one to four or five, like, Russian would be a category five language, and Polish and Czech are category four etc, and there is a huge difference even between the difficulty level of Russian and the difficulty level of the hardest languages such as Chinese and Japanese and Korean etc, and any language harder than Irish and Scottish Gaelic (which are category three) is an objectively hard languages, while Germanic languages and modern Celtic languages and the true Latin languages and Slovene and Hungarian and Latvian and Finnish and Estonian are objectively easy, with Irish / Scottish Gaelic / Finnish / Estonian / Latvian being the ‘hardest’ languages that are on the easy side, and Irish and Scottish Gaelic can be quite complicated, but still, they are not impossible and they are very pretty, which makes it very fun to learn them!

[@FrozenMermaid666]

Re Danish, a good point was made in the video about the pronunciation of Danish, and, it’s the same with French and Swedish - Danish does have a category 2 pronunciation like German / French / Brazilian Portuguese / Swedish, so the pronunciation itself is not as easy as the pronunciation of Dutch / Norse / Icelandic / Norwegian / Gothic / Welsh / Breton / Cornish / Italian etc, so the pronunciation will take more practice to get the right native accent, and Swedish pronunciation can also be quite complicated because of the actual intonations and pitch accents, though one can just learn one of the other Swedish accents that don’t use the intonations that the standard Swedish accent has, and Danish has lots of glottal stops, by the way, like, it has more glottal stops than any other language I’ve ever heard, so even though the words themselves are category 1, one should know that the pronunciation itself is category 2 and the accent isn’t as easy to imitate as the accents of most other Germanic languages, so one will have to practice pronunciation and hear a lot of the spoken language to get the right accent, and Spanish intonation and accent are also kinda category2ish, as it’s not as easy to imitate the actual accent, so when it comes to pronunciation alone, the languages with the easiest pronunciation and the accent that is the easiest to imitate are English / Norse / Icelandic / Gothic / Dutch / Welsh / Breton / Cornish / Manx / Italian / Esperanto / Galician / Latin! Irish and Scottish Gaelic also have an easy pronunciation overall, but it’s the spelling that’s more complicated in these two, so these two have a category 3 spelling and the numbers are very complicated too, and, for me, the Danish Rs are easy, but the glottal stops not so easy, so my Danish pronunciation isn’t very good yet, but I am beginner level in Danish tho, but in German I am upper intermediate level as I am in Icelandic and Norse, but my German pronunciation needs a lot of practice because it doesn’t sound natural and it doesn’t sound right, so the German accent is not easy to imitate naturally either, and it requires a lot of practice and being at least upper advanced level and knowing the words automatically to get a more natural accent! Re the languages listed as ‘category 3’ they are totally not category 3 at all and are at least category 4, and Icelandic / Norse / Gothic and Hungarian and Latvian / Finnish / Estonian and Slovene etc are not even close to category 4 and are certainly not ‘harder’ than Swalihi or Indonesian etc lol, like, Indonesian is an agglutinative language just like Hungarian, so they both have the exact same grammar with postpositions added at the end of the nouns and written as one word, so I find it funny how they listed Indonesian as a category 3 despite the fact that it has mostly non-pretty words that are way harder to learn than Hungarian which has mostly pretty and unique words that are very easy to memorize, so I wouldn’t believe official stats because they aren’t always accurate, and they didn’t even include any Celtic languages and Norse and Gothic etc, and they haven’t taken into consideration the number of resources available and how well the ones teaching explained the grammar of the less known languages like Icelandic and Hungarian, because I am sure they didn’t mention the fact that the word endings are the same for each group of nouns and verbs and adjectives in languages like Icelandic and Hungarian etc, so they aren’t any more ‘difficult’ than French and Spanish which have like a zillion verb tenses, so how can French be category 1 and Icelandic ‘category 4’ which makes no sense, and how can the hardest languages ever Chinese and Arabic and Japanese be just slightly harder than Icelandic which uses a normal writing system with Latin letters, and how can Russian and Icelandic and Slovene be in the same category when Icelandic and Slovene use the Latin alphabet and Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet which is indeed way harder to read and get used to, so one can see that official stats aren’t always accurate and don’t always make sense one hundred percent, and should be taken with a grain of salt!

[@Calmasastone]

Hey, if you really like Russian language I’d like to recommend you several songs such as: 1. Екатерина Арлашникова - Луна 2. Кино - спокойная ночь 3. Би2 - а мы не ангелы парень 4. Fun Mode - рыцарь и королева That’s enough for today. If you want more - write something back 👋

[@patrickmills8701]

The idea of languages continuing to gestate is so liberating. Thank you!

[@jaelob]

I believe Dr Steven Krashen said that what you comprehendingly listen to today takes 6 months for the brain to absorb before you naturally can speak it.

[@compositeur8455]

Ideally you're going to be using the language for the rest of your life. Don't worry about rushing to get fluent, consistent, sustained effort will get you much farther.

[@FrozenMermaid666]

I learned Spanish passively in childhood and I haven’t used it in over a decade before I started learning languages on my own about one+ year ago, and I am native speaker level in Spanish, but I didn’t even realize that in the past because I never really used Spanish, and it didn’t feel like it was that good in childhood, so it’s true that languages get better with time, like, the words become a lot more automatic after many years, and it’s a lot easier to say things fast in languages that one learned a longer time ago, whereas in newer languages it’s not very easy to form sentences or think fast, not even when one knows the words very well, and I think it’s because languages naturally need more years to be processed fully and to become fully automatic inside the hern, and it takes several years for the hern to fully get used to the new language or languages! It’s easy to learn the actual words and to be able to understand the written language, and this can even be achieved in one year in languages that are very easy and pretty with gorgeous words such as Norse / Icelandic / Dutch / English / Norwegian / Gothic / Welsh / Breton etc which are some of the prettiest ever and some of the languages that are the easiest and most fun to learn, but to fully develop an automatic mode in the new language or languages where one can say fast anything without having to think about it takes several years, even in the prettiest and easiest languages, and typing a lot in the new languages can also help a lot because it helps create a muscle memory or reflexive memory or something like that! I think I just got at or around an advanced level in Icelandic after learning it for a few months, almost every day, but lately I’ve been learning it every day, so my level in Icelandic is now around the same level I have in Norwegian, and my Dutch is at an upper advanced level, so it’s a bit higher, like, in Dutch there are usually only two or three new words in almost every new video, and I usually know more than 99% of the Dutch words from almost every new video I watch, and in Icelandic there are ten to twenty new words in each longer video, so maybe about ten new words in shorter videos that are around 10 minutes, so my vocab at least is advanced, though one of my goals qua language learning is to learn all the words that I can find in the prettiest languages ever like Norse and Icelandic and Dutch and English and Norwegian and Gothic and Faroese and Welsh and Breton and Cornish and Forn Svenska and Danish and East Norse and Middle English and the Öld and Middle versions of these languages which are the languages I want to use the most, but I also want to learn all the words in Manx and Irish and Scottish Gaelic and also in Slovene and Latin and Galician and Portuguese and Gallo and Occitan and Hungarian and Old English and Swedish as these languages also have mostly pretty words and very epic idioms and sayings, and in most of my other target languages I want to be at least native speaker level and to know at least ten thousand to fifteen thousand base words and to be able to understand the written language at least, even though Irish and Scottish Gaelic are a bit complicated as these two are the true category 3 languages at least qua spelling, so they are a bit more complicated than Hungarian and Latvian and Estonian and Finnish which are actually category 2 languages, tho most of the Irish and Gaelic words themselves are usually easier to learn than most Finnish and Estonian words, so I can usually remember them after seeing them three to five times, as modern Celtic languages have a word memorability level similar to that of Norse / Germanic words, so it doesn’t take many repetitions to learn the words and to recognize them in sentences when seeing them again, though it does take more repetitions in general to get the words to become extremely automatic, so I would recommend seeing and hearing and revising each word at least thirty times actively over a longer period of time and typing each word several times to learn them extremely automatically!

[@s.espinoza1167]

Thanks for the video, Viewers: be aware, the title is misleading, he really does not talk about how diplomats learn languages. He talks about his insights about why a language can be more difficult to learn than others. He higligths the similarities of the language, the alphabet, etc.

[@lollycopter]

3 students per tutor, 5 hours a day.

[@jasonbfhfj8132]

He didn’t go into detail about the exercises they do but he explained how much they study in a classroom vs at home

[@brekkoh]

he uses the US state departments categories as a starting point for the video, so yeah its not all that misleading, seems like you just misunderstand or didnt watch the intro

[@alanguages]

@@lollycopter 15 hrs. of homework a week added to the 25 hrs. a week. of classroom study of about 24 weeks overall for the easiest languages for English speakers (Spanish, Dutch, French, etc...) That is 960 hrs., then it is recommended to spend an entire year in the target language country afterwards. The livelihood depends on the success of these participants. Effectively it is just the start in their proficiency to qualify for their career in as a Foreign Service Officer.

[@renegade-spectre]

Best 2 best things you can do when you are learning any language (even cat I), are - never compare the time it takes you to how long it may take others or what a website says…reason for this is because everyone’s experience is different…some people live in the country, some people have friends or relatives that speak the language…some others just don’t do anything else in their free time than learn the language etc - just enjoy the process. Never start learning a language thinking you will be fluent in x time…I understand some people need it for a time sensitive matter, but a language no matter how easy is always very complex to learn to any degree

[@skeingamepodcast5993]

And definitely pick a language you're definitely interested in. I wasted time learning a language that was "useful" but not something I was genuinely interested in.

[@renegade-spectre]

@@skeingamepodcast5993 100%. I was learning Chinese for almost 8 months because it would be useful….but I liked nothing of it. I specially disliked the way it sounded…..so instead I dropped it so I can dedicate more time to just enjoy japanese (which I can never have enough of) and italian…havent looked back since tbh

[@FrozenMermaid666]

I would highly recommend learning the easiest and prettiest languages ever created Norse / Gothic / Icelandic / Faroese / English / Dutch / Norwegian / Danish / Welsh / Breton / Cornish instead of languages such as Japanese or Chinese languages etc which have mostly funny-sounding words and are impossible category 10 languages - Norse languages are so heavenly, they are just so beautiful and perfect and so professional in both aspect and sound! (Ek elska hvert Norrænt mál ok ek vil verða reiprennandi!)

[@m3talhe4d72]

I live in Canada and took French Immersion from grade four until I graduated. My French improved VERY slowly until grade twelve, where my capacities in the language suddenly EXPLODED and I couldn't figure out why - but the only difference was the way that my teacher taught our class. We learnt grammar of course, but the majority of the time we spent was simply talking. JUST TALKING. My spoken french improved from a B1 to a C1 in such a short amount of time from just talking and listening in french and being gently corrected by a kind teacher. You can definitely learn a language in 24 weeks, but it really depends on your motivations, learning styles, and support.

[@Niambag]

Coming from french to English, I had a very similar experience, it's only in secondaire 2 and 3 that my English started coming onto its own. Then I went on to do my Cégep, undergrad and master's in English.

[@vercingetorix444]

Agreed. My experience as an American learning Spanish was that 95% of the years just learning nouns here and there and not conversing were completely useless.

[@wastingtimeop]

I studied Thai full time at the US Defense Language Institute. One year course, 7 hours a day, 6 people in the class. I was able to reach B1 in 10 months. I achieved C1 after a few years of living in Thailand. The hardest part by far was the writing system. I have self studied Vietnamese. It is Cat 3 like Thai but much easier due to an easy writing system. I am also self studied Mandarin, Indonesian and Spanish. For me, the hard part is the writing system. I don't find Chinese speaking so hard, but reading is really hard. For Spanish and Indonesia, you basically learn to read with no effort just by studying the language. At least this is my experience.

[@FrozenMermaid666]

Thai is category 7 or category 8 like Korean, not category 3 lol, these official classifications and rankings are not accurate and are incomplete as they don’t include most languages that exist, only some of the more known languages, and, Icelandic and Slovene are two of the easiest languages ever, they should be listed as category 1, while the Tharcian-Aslavic language that was incorrectly classified as a ‘Latin’ language and listed as the 8th ‘category 1’ languages is at least category 4 same as Czech and Polish with very heavy aspect with many diacritics and mostly non-pretty words that are way harder to memorize, and the languages listed as a ‘category 3 language’ such as Swahili and Indonesian etc are at least a category 4 language as well and aren’t fun to learn, and any language that has mostly non-pretty words that aren’t fun to learn is naturally very hard to learn, while the words of all languages that use different alphabets which are harder than the easiest alphabet ever aka the Latin alphabet are naturally very hard to read and process the written text, while Chinese languages and Japanese (which use characters instead of actual alphabets) and Arabic languages (which have the scripts that are the most complicated and hardest to read) etc are category 10 and category 9 languages, and they are way harder than Russian which is category 5, so the rankings should be from one to ten at least because one to five rankings aren’t accurate and there are many languages with make different difficulty level, so one cannot properly classify them if it’s just a one to five rankings system, plus many of the languages that they included are incorrectly ranked which are either easier or harder than they were ranked, so these types of rankings and lists aren’t one hundred percent accurate and aren’t complete as they don’t even include most languages that exist, so one should always take that info with a grain of salt! A true category 3 language would be Irish and Scottish Gaelic which are the hardest pretty languages and the hardest languages that I am learning, and Hungarian is just a mid category 2 language, and Latvian / Finnish / Estonian are just slightly harder than Hungarian and are also category two, and German is similar to French in difficulty level and it’s still a category one language tho it’s closer to a category two language than it is to the easiest category one languages, and the absolute easiest language ever is English, and Dutch and Norwegian are the easiest after English, and Norse / Icelandic / Gothic and Welsh / Breton / Cornish are also in the top easiest languages that are the easiest and most fun to learn, and I am saying this from personal experience, as I am learning all the Norse / Germanic / Nordic languages and the modern Celtic languages and all other pretty languages at the same time, so I know how easy they really are! However, it seems like those that made the classifications and rankings didn’t truly study or observe most of those languages or the ones teaching some of the less known ones like Icelandic and Hungarian etc didn’t explain the grammar well to the learners, because I cannot understand how can Icelandic and Slovene and Hungarian etc be listed as a ‘category four’ and languages that are way harder and not fun to learn are listed as a ‘category three’ or ‘category one’ and even languages with different alphabets such as Russian and Greek are listed in the same category with Icelandic and Slovene and Hungarian and Latvian and Finnish and Estonian etc which makes no sense and isn’t accurate, because it’s easy to learn the words in all Germanic languages (Germanic languages are naturally the easiest languages to memorize and learn) and it’s easy to use them if one understands how the grammar works and if one knows the word endings associated with each group of words well, because the words follow the exact same patterns, especially in Norse languages, the noun endings and the verb endings and the adjective endings are exactly the same for every group of nouns / verbs / adjectives, with very few exceptions, so it’s easy to memorize the different forms of each word if one knows the base words and the endings associated with each group of words automatically! Like, I can remember the declensions and conjugations for every Icelandic word that I know automatically after only reading them once or twice, and I know the patterns very well, even though I am only upper intermediate level in Icelandic and Norse at the moment, and it’s the same in Hungarian and Finnish etc from what I have seen so far, the endings are the same and tend to follow the exact same patterns, so their grammar isn’t hard as most ppl that make those types of lists and rankings etc try to make it out to be, so I don’t think they tried studying these languages themselves or had them taught properly to learners if they even tried to teach them at all! Besides, languages such as French and Spanish and Italian have more verb tenses with like 100+ different verb forms for each verb which is way more different forms then the verbs in all Germanic languages combined lol, yet they are still listed as a category one, while Icelandic was listed as a category four which makes no sense at all, if anything, it’s way easier to learn Icelandic than French and Italian and Spanish, and it’s way easier to imitate the Icelandic accent than French which has a category two pronunciation and accent and Spanish which has an accent that is not easy to imitate even if one is native speaker level in Spanish, like, I am native speaker level in Spanish since childhood yet it’s not easy to naturally get the standard Spanish accent and intonation, whereas Icelandic is so easy to pronounce and imitate that I could sound native even when I was beginner level and I didn’t even have to practice the actual accent because it’s naturally easy to imitate by just adding a soft H sound before double consonants and speaking in a breathy way because Icelandic is the breathiest language ever!

[@FrozenMermaid666]

I am upper intermediate level in Icelandic and Norse and I am real close to reaching an advanced level in Icelandic after actively studying it for a few months, for a few hours a day almost every day, and I know over 6.000 words in Icelandic at the moment, and I focused for like 4 months mostly on Icelandic and maybe 2 months mostly on Norse, and I can perfectly understand how the grammar works and have no difficulty using the right forms, and I feel like typing Norse and Icelandic words is easier than typing Spanish words and getting all the Spanish accents right, even though I am native speaker level in Spanish as I learned it passively in childhood, and typing French words is even harder than typing Spanish or Italian words as French words have even more words with more types of random accents and diacritics, so even after learning the actual words automatically, one still has to see the words in their written form many times to fully memorize every single accent and diacritic that tends to be quite random in French, so yea - these types of official lists are only partially accurate, but they are not 100% accurate, especially when it comes to less know languages, less known languages tend to get incorrect rankings and incorrect classifications etc, probably because they haven’t been studied and observed and analyzed in detail and the ppl teaching them didn’t know how to explain the grammar in a very clear and detailed way, and the learners aren’t usually made aware of the fact that the word endings are the same for every group of words, so most learners get the idea that they are not easy to learn and don’t try to observe and analyze the different patterns on their own either...

[@JohnnyLynnLee]

I always thought of those "24 months" to learn x language of the FSI as the ACTUAL TIME you learn. Like numbers of hours. So, unless you spend 24 hours in a day learning the language, a DAY WHERE you learned the language does not equal of A DAY LEEARNING. I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure how they measure it. It's like saying it takes 10,000 hours or something. It's 10,000 hours of actual focused learning. When you go take a bath it's not counting. If yo see it THAT way I think those estimates are quite reasonable. A day has 24 hours., If you studied for 2-8 hours IN A DAY that doesn't make for a day studying the language. So, if you study 8 hours a day, that means it will take 3 days to get ONE day of learning.

[@CaptainWumbo]

​​@@JohnnyLynnLeeit is wild that you think that 😅 The number are how long they think they need to train you for an assignment. I think the problem is comparing apples to oranges in terms of their grading, they may consider people ready to do the job after that much time, they're unlikey to be concerned with european measurements of overall fluency. as far as I know they also try to select for people with high aptitude, so not just average folks going through the program but likely people who hear the language reasonably well from the start or have already had an interest prior to the program.

[@JohnnyLynnLee]

@@CaptainWumbo Buy then the number doesn't mean anything if not specified of how long a day you'll study. Someone studying for one hour a day for for months will get very different results from someone doing it 8 hours a day. And someone studying 8 hours actively will have different results from someone studying 8 hours but with 4 active hours and 5 passive hours. When you are cleaning your house, sleeping, shitting (unless, to some extent, if you are doing passive listening) you are NOT studying So a 'month" in that sense means NOTHING at all. And also, as you5slef have noticed it depends on what you consider "able". After a year could you sit and watch Thai news comfortably? It took me five years in Japanese with 3 to 8 hours a day to do so. I'm entering my 4th year of Vietnamese and I still can't pick, say, Guns Germs and Still and red it in Vietnamese. Not by a long shot. Without specifying the TIME and what we REALLY are able to do in the time better that measurement means nothing.

[@ManForToday]

I think most would agree that B2 is really the level we can say we are 'fluent' in the common sense of that word. I love how Olly Richards described B2 - the ability to chat and converse with native friends in a pub all evening on a variety of topics, joke, keep up the pace most of the time, etc and when you finish your mouth or head doesn't hurt (it was comfortable enough). That's more difficult and takes longer than people think. My understanding of Russian is certainly at B2 level I think, but speaking is still a protracted process that takes me time. B1 is achievable for many but the leap from B1 to B2 is huge and takes a long time.

[@eanevakivi2479]

For me (English-speaking native) B2 Finnish was when I could happily discuss or read even a college textbook type of text. Long before that I COULD have read all sorts of things but it was such a huge effort that I needed some significant need or interest to plow through it. B2 was also when I understood background noise immediately (like trains being called out in a station) even when I was not intentionally listening.

[@ManForToday]

@@eanevakivi2479 That's interesting because I'd say I can listen to background stuff as you describe fairly comfortably, not knowing every single word but understanding 95%+. It's the 'meaningful conversation' I struggle with. To make interesting points on interesting topics. But is that B2 stuff or really C1?

[@eanevakivi2479]

@@ManForToday Not hearing if I do not actively listen could just my tendency to mute background noise: hours & hours learning to read on a schoolbus 😊 I guess college-level texts no problem was more like C1, but that was after 10+ yrs.

[@Carol61347]

Love your videos, I have dyslexia so really struggle, but it is as you say, language learning has evolved. KZbin channels help with such a variety of material, it’s all about the enthusiasm and wanting to learn, you hit the nail on the head with that statement….thank you as always ❤

[@jbw1988bc]

Through Covid I had to get an elbow reconstruction and decided to pick up Spanish.. I took the total immersion approach of listening or reading 11 hrs a day and with one Spanish class a day with an excellent teacher who believed in comprehension based learning. I’d say I reached a b2 level of receiving input in 8 months and took around 2 years to feel the same with output. I now can safely I’m honestly fluent in Spanish although I do make errors in pronunciation and conjunction but it was an amazing experience.. I went and lived in South America for a year totally immersed in the language and it was so great. I’m doing the same in French now but trying a much more holistic approach of pure immersion without classes. Thanks Steve, great video.. you truly are a hyper polyglot gigachad

[@EtoGmajor]

Uhhhhhh

[@felipegonzalez1934]

I am about to start my 6th language and I credit Steve a great deal for the motivation and for showing that learning a new language is not as overwhelming as it seems at the beginning.

[@elainer8288]

Wow! Congratulations! Put some of your tips here! I'm still in my third.

[@piroskaracz3621]

Im 71 and have always purchased FSI courses with audio and books. For me doesn't matter if they're from decades ago...the ones I have are amazing. Greek Hungarian French. Love them.

[@tedcrowley6080]

Thank you. Some good ideas. I liked the "springboard" idea. I studied Japanese a bit in the 1980s, but got nowhere. This week I listened to some Japanese podcasts and was surprised how much I recognized 40 years later, with no use in between. That means I'm not starting at zero, if I start studying again. A lot of things will be "remembering", not "learning anew".

[@RogerRamos1993]

I believe the brain doesn't truly erase anything.

[@MTimWeaver]

I attended graduate school in the late 80s, and the language instruction for the school was predominantly based on the FSI method, especially for Spanish, which was what I studied. We spent 5 hours per week in conversation class (1 hour per day, for 5 days) for the first two levels, and 3 hours per week in grammar (2x1.5hours). Conversation class was based on the pattern drills you mentioned, and the class was totally in Spanish (in fact, we didn’t know our instructor even spoke English until the last day of class). Grammar was taught in English. Conversations were memorized to be recited in class (we would transcribe them phonetically from cassette tapes and memorize them), then we would extend/expand/improvise the dialogues in class, based on previous lessons. We did not see the printed conversation until after we had finished the dialogue and improvisation. I started in February and went through mid-May (for level I), then went to Mexico for their exchange program for level 2 during the summer, where I lived with a local family. Both semesters instruction consisted of the same days and time in conversation and grammar. All our business courses were in English. I calculated that Feb 1 - Aug 31 is 30 weeks. If we take out the time between the 1 and 2n semester of 2-ish weeks, that’s 28. By the end of the summer, I was at a low B1 level. I probably started the summer at a low A2, maybe, based on going to a birthday party with my host family’s two oldest (in their mid-20s), and found it very difficult to to communicate there. When I left, I was having extended conversations with the host family, watching Telenovelas on occasion, and things like that. Living and studying in Mexico was a tremendous help, for sure, given the exposure and need to use it daily. So while I can’t know if spending F/T in a dedicated FSI-environment would have made a difference, I can say the method did work (for me) and got me to a level close to what they claimed w/o nearly the time-on-task as an FSO-trainee would have had in the language. With current language resources, I suspect it’s even better.

[@jamalydude]

This was a very interesting read. Thank you!

[@rinaldir8628]

Hello, Steve. I regularly watch your videos since, like, five years ago. Indonesian native speaker here. Indonesian uses Latin alphabet, does not have gender, number, conjugation, tenses nor cases. But the most challenging for an English speaker (and other too, actually) is the combination of various prefixes, infixes and suffixes attached to the verbs. The other challenge is diglossia, you learn the formal Indonesian on the textbooks, but regular Indonesians speak the informal form for daily communications.

[@hardway_6823]

Steve I haven't even finished this video yet, but I can tell this is another gem right off the bat. I think your teachings, thoughts and ideas about learning languages, particularly the whole comprehensible input idea (didn't you come up with that in the first place?) are absolutely the best and most useful for anyone sincerely desiring to learn a new language. THANK YOU for your work and what you do!

[@TheClearSighted]

Steve doesn’t care about you. Most often the time he doesn’t answer internet users. Wake up, dude. Steve is not a friend. He’s a businessman.

[@hardway_6823]

I don't really care if Steve "cares" about me or not, I appreciate his content and remarked on it, that's it. Lotta vitriol there dude, what happened to you? @@TheClearSighted

[@NThomas-xj7bj]

Thanks for another interesting video, Steve. :) I think an important factor in language learning is self-confidence. I've noticed that most polyglots are at least self-confident : many of them are very self-confident. Another factor that I believe makes a difference is how many dialects the learner's native language has and that the learner is familiar with. This makes learning other languages that have dialects easier.

[@StillAliveAndKicking_]

I thonk you are right about self confidence. Even the more introvert ones are confident

[@J_Trask]

I like your comment. I’ve been learning Spanish for a few years, and now use every opportunity on the construction sites I work to use the Spanish I know. Almost 100% of the time I get positive reactions, and the Spanish speakers practice their English on me 😂

[@simonsmatthew]

Very true what is said here. I think it really depends on individuals and circumstances. I have seen people do intensive language courses and generally been quite surprised how little they knew after a year of intensive study. I have learned French and Japanese. Japanese was my first foreign language to study seriously. I progressed in it surprisingly fast. I put it down to the fact I had a homestay and had a lot of fun learning it. I did some classes, but mainly I learned on my own and with volunteers and exchange partners. I just remember enjoying every minute of it. 20 years later I tried French. Much slower, even though it is not supposed to be a difficult language. When I think over the same time period how much more I knew in Japanese it shows Steve's point about motivation and circumstances. The easier language will be the one your are motivated to learn. In Japan it was my desire to speak with the host family that made me really want to learn. I can say that the French is picking up now, but it was a very slow start. Interesting and reassuring point Steve makes about gestation.

[@helgastegh-thomeczek3276]

Thanks for your videos, I like the "springboard" idea, get a decent level and than continue to progress in the language and just enjoy the process .

[@templarjo]

There are a couple of factors that were missed that are on the website. They mention _aptitude_ for foreign language learning, _prior language learning_ and time spent _in class_ . There is also two hours of homework every night. They do not mention listening or writing in these languages only speaking and reading to these levels which, I believe, is much easier to achieve. There is also no mention of conversational ability. I would also add that most would be members of the diplomatic corps, they would be being prepared for an overseas posting (high motivating factor - failure means broken or delayed deployment). Furthermore they are probably university educated (proven ability to learn complex materials) and probably have slightly more general intelligent than the average person on the street. Taking this into account, I think it is very possible to get to a B2 level in 30 weeks of classroom instruction in a language such as Spanish. You can go from 0 vocabulary to a couple of hundred (thousand?) items in the space of a few hours once you learnt how.

[@ntatenarin]

4:50 I love your honesty here.

[@jaelob]

Interesting that Indonesian is level 3. Barry Farber, who learned some 25 languages or more said he thought the easiest language in the world to learn was Indonesian, because vowels are very pure and consistent like Spanish, and grammar is similarly simple and consistent. My Indonesian friend always encouraged me and told me it should be easy to learn. I find Danish much harder than Norwegian too. But its more like being in a fog. If I concentrate and focus closely until i can see more clearly, so to speak, I find that it becomes magically as clear as Norwegian. But I often switch back and forth between foggy and clear. Its like I need warmup time before the fog clears away. Norwegian always sounds clear as a bell.

[@dharmony1378]

I came across the FSI Brazilian Portuguese FAST Program about 6 months ago and I like it a lot. Biggest thing for me is that it is structured and progressive and useful for self study. There are about 30 different lessons, each with audio (maybe 30 minutes native speakers per lesson) along with enough translation and grammar to help explain the language and keep me challenged. Before I had tried to use grammar books on my own and even took 2 instructor led courses but they seemed to go over the basics each time. I tried supplementing that with material/content from on different YTube channels and Netflix movies but those were so haphazard I found it difficult to make any real progress. I haven't tried Assimil but I have a sense that its similar to FSI FAST programs. Not sure what level I can claim comfortably but I know my listening comprehension has increased significantly and even my speaking. I know that once I really get into speaking regularly, my portuguese will take off.

[@natanalves6266]

muito bom, e como está o seu português atualmente? consegue me entender ?

[@Tehui1974]

A great video Steve. Well structured and very informative. One of your best. 👍

[@user-gr7jo9qb3l]

I learned katakana/hiragana in uni, it helped me learn Tibetan. Tibetan helped me learn hangeul. You're right, you have to change your concepts to the culture of the language. I had no interest in Latin cultures, so Spanish was boring in hs. This video was helpful. Thank you

[@markusstoess1915]

Thanks Steve! You mention very interesting aspects on e.g. why and what precisely makes a language difficult to learn. I only speak 4 languages (german, russian, french, English) and I confirm your proposals.

[@TheWayOfAlex]

The FSI materials you can find online are decades out of date. Having just finished the French program there (I'd rate myself B1) it was a lot of studying the language and grammar in context from audio/video/print media. I will confirm that it is absolutely exhausting. Imagine a 5 hour meeting in a language you don't speak. Just torturous. Then you have to go home and do homework, usually reading the news and preparing to be grilled about it the next morning.

[@Phylaetra]

It does help to have 25 hours of in-person instruction a week (plus the additional time spent doing homework and additional study for that course) based on the most recent research on language acquisition. And while Mr. Kaufmann pooh-poohs drills, it turns out that they actually help you to easily generate speech. Drills get you used to actually using various grammatical structures so when you want to say something, you don't have to think about it. Of course - these courses are not just drills and memorization. Also - ILR 3 is _not_ B1, it's more like C2. While difficult to find direct comparisons, there are comparisons to ACTFL levels, and (with a little wriggle-room) ILR 3 is ACTFL 'superior' is CEFL C2. Is it possible to reach that - people regularly do, so yes - it is possible. And note - DoS regulations do not allow you to keep a '3' indefinitely, you must retest every 5 years to demonstrate proficiency in that language; ILR 4 can be used indefinitely if you have that score twice from tests more than 2 years apart; ILR 5 is indefinite. Note that a person who is L1 will find it difficult to score a 3+; ILR 4 and 5 require a very high level in the language, far greater than the average speaker.

[@kimo1stdan]

Danish is a beautiful language and is easily acquirable if you are open to learning it. In my opinion, it is much easier than German so it does not deserve a Category 2. However, just because someone dabbled in Swedish or Norwegian doesn’t mean Danish will acquire itself with no effort. You still have to do the work but it’s not overly difficult. It’s actually my favorite out of the Scandinavian languages.

[@sarahannsmith3129]

As a native English speaker, I was able to teach myself Romanian about 20 years ago, before we moved over there for a year.....up to a point, it's pretty easy , having a lot of similarities with Spanish and Italian...

[@vrmartin202]

Gestation: interesting observation. After over 40 years now that I’m retired, I’m amazed at the German vocabulary that’s still with me.

[@Ron-v5f]

I would appreciate if you can suggest course suggestion for German A1 to C1 level ? I'm looking for German language exam preparation resource which is efficient and the best.

[@vrmartin202]

@@Ron-v5fmaybe the Goethe institute. Search for "Goethe institute preparing for language proficiency tests"

[@vrmartin202]

@@Ron-v5fI have now left 2 comments in answer to your question, but apparently my advice is being blocked.

[@kungfoochicken08]

@@vrmartin202KZbin is really cracking down on censorship. It seems like half of my comments get deleted. Maybe because it’s an election year in the US?

[@replyingtomemeansyourstupi8996]

@@vrmartin202 I can't see your answer, sir

[@Hellenicheavymetal]

Took me about 8 months just to get to a B1 in Greek and I was reading for hours a day. Hoping to reach a B2 by the end of this year. I'm also learning Arabic so that may or may not happen.

[@pietroborgesparri]

I'm a portuguese native speaker and I started russian couple weeks ago, do you think I could get maybe to B1 in less than a year? How does reading help you? In the beginning you read like anything not worrying if you are not understanding? I think I might do that, just to get a sense of the language I like to review things a lot so the few things I know, I know very well, but I'm too slow at picking new things up

[@kristynamunzarova122]

I think it´s possible. Although it requires a lot of dedication and time. Have you already mastered the Cyrillic alphabet? If not, I´d focus on it for a while, it´s crucial. And I´d recommend you start by listening to something rather than reading, it´s easier.

[@entertainmentchannel7180]

It's so true about Spanish language. I'm Ukrainian and I'm around B2 with English. Two weeks ago I started to learn Spanish just out of curiosity and surprisingly it was so easy compared to how I was struggling with English!!

[@azanseq]

It takes the time it must take. I learned English watching KZbin and I don't even remember when I started. It was natural. I did the same with japanese and it was also the same. Now I'm learning German watching KZbin.

[@smarteam5920]

Can you explain how you use KZbin? Language learning channels, or just by listening to random videos?

[@collegesuccess]

Wisely and sanely put. Progress is no accident.

[@Hunter7023]

Can you explain a little more how you are doing this? I am learning German myself but I feel like a lot of language learning channels are boring and not very well structured. If it's just videos you're interested in my intuition would be to build up a big vocabulary prior. I mean I've been watching anime for 10+ years but outside of a few phrases I haven't picked up much Japanese naturally.

[@sammondaw]

Definitely interested in your method

[@Thelinguist]

When watching a video on KZbin I click on the LingQ browser extension on my computer, or use the Share function on my mobile to share it with LingQ. AI will automatically transcribe the video and create a lesson for you in LingQ.

[@bmkmymaggots]

props to the Editor, the videos look really good

[@dodgermartin4895]

One person below indicated he went thru the FSI system, and he would be a primary source to refer to. As for "MOTIVATION TO LEARN" perhaps if your job depended upon learning the language... you might have more MOTIVATION than someone who learns languages only as a hobby.

[@beautifulveneer]

Some words have one specific meaning (e.g. "book"), but others may have many different meanings and nuances. There are verbs in Spanish that I "learned" years ago but am still learning new subtleties in how they are used.

[@rikorobinson]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one! People look at me like I have three heads when I tell them that as a native English speaker, I have found that Japanese is a far easier language to learn than German, considering English and German are both Western Germanic languages.

[@undekagon2264]

I like with what you are saying. I agree very much on the idea that it takes a long time to let the language grow on its own in you and even with this intensive study method it takes much longer until you get near B2. I am still for a long time now in some mord beginnerish level in most of the languages I know. my English is most likely around C1, french maybe B2, russian I guess more A, and all the Indian ones I started and ttied are surrly in the A section and will still stay there for another year or so. But their course materials are nice in addition to other stuff.

[@RogerRamos1993]

I think you could get to a C1 level to pass a test in 3-6 months with intensive study and buttloads of imput. But, you'll have actually reached a B1 level. And the C1 level will come 1 or 2 or 3 years later, depending on how much you use the language.

[@leonyses2887]

I started learning English a few months ago, and I have to say it’s been an extremely challenging endeavour. Hopefully one day my proficiency will improve enough such that it becomes second nature.

[@derikaem8021]

Would you agree that the following meaningful measures of difficulty? 1. number of vocabulary [the less vocab there are the sooner vocab is repeated the faster you learn it. and obviously it is just less to learn] 2. number of phonems [the less phonems there are the more different are the existing phonems to each other, so listening or pronouniciation errors occur less often]

[@백인줄어든다]

in terms of language learning, I totally have the same opinion with him. Two Paramount aspects are motivation and learning resources. And you have to put so many time into reading and listening called input

[@ultramarinetoo]

You'll enjoy learning Hindi! I once dipped my toe in as had learnt a little Urdu in childhood but was deterred by the writing. I read a grammar and it was a really fun read. They have postpositions, and there is there was a way for one word to "hide" from another to avoid agreement :-) . I think this was by "ne", though I may be misremembering. And listening to film characters with their typical mixture of English and Hindi is also fun. Edit: just realised I have two Grammars (McGregor, Outline and Agnihotri, Essential) and don't remember which was the entertaining one. And while I'm editing: I was blown away by the grid alphabet, so nice and tidy, while we still just have this arbitrary list alphabet that goes way back to the aleph, beit, gimel, dalet...

[@PeterHKwok]

The Cyrillic alphabet is the easiest part to learning Russian & when presented correctly it's really not that difficult to learn to speak it, but it's also not the best idea to worry about reading or writing much if at all when you are a beginner in a language, they are unnecessary barriers to feeling good enough to communicate, which keeps people motivated to learn more of the language

[@rkgki]

In Yuri Shevchuk's book Beginner's Ukrainian, he refers to the to the look alike, but not sound alike letters in Cyrillic as "imposters". I found that helpful in learning Ukrainian. I concur that I often read the B and P wrong in Ukrainian ("v" and "r"). But now and then I get it right without trying. Declensions are my nemesis. Thank you helping the world to learn Ukrainian.

[@Robespierre-lI]

Interesting. My weakness in languages is grammar, but I'm weirdly good with writing systems and phonetics. This isn't a brag. It's a terrible mismatch! Imagine a native speaker seeing you able to read words and produce the sounds very accurately but then stumble through sentences like a drunken six year-old. Not good.

[@siamakalaei1148]

Thanks for your explanations, Steve. Best wishes 🤩🤩🤩

[@carolfox9620]

Very interesting talk. I've struggled with espanol, living in Mexico for many years but still only at the point of getting along in shops and restaurants. I know lots of words but find speaking difficult.

[@carlito6038]

try a different method or something else to what you're doing. respectfully there is no way it should take you that long

[@MrShikaga]

Are you struggling to speak, or listen? I moved to Spain, and it was my listening that I struggled with initially, I could pretty much limp through saying what I needed to. Solution was to just listen, listen, listen to Spanish, no subtitles, and find natives to listen to listen to speaking naturally. You will have no trouble finding people in Mexico to have an intercambio with. To be clear though, everything that wasn’t my job was in Spanish, so probably at least 4 hours of input a day, and it was still difficult to understand people talking naturally with no pauses or pronouncing the whole word

[@thiloreichelt4199]

The video is more about perceived language difficulty from the perspective of a native English speaker. Of course, people are different, so it is more language difficulty averaged over the people attending the FSI. Which throws together difficulties of different kind together: Complex pronouncitation, non-transparent writing systems (hey, if you have mastered English, that should not deter you), foreign writing systems, complex grammar, everything. These factors are different for any individual.

[@Ingrid_EverydayFilmmaker]

I am learning Czech, (one of the hardest languages on earth! No matter how they rank it as a cat 4, it should be up there with cat 5, but I'm doing ok. My first language is English. The US State Dept states that the weeks they ascribe to learning a language is with FULL IMMERSION living and speaking 24/hrs 7 days a week with the target population, or living with those who will only speak to you in that language. That after the first two weeks of mixed English and target language, by the third week- you will only be spoken to and must respond only in the target language. I am studying Czech at Karlovy Uni (Charles University in Prague), and the teacher only teaches in Czech- no English at all, from lectures to homework. From A1-C2 so you have to sink or swim. This is also the way Mormon missionaries are trained when they are about to be dropped into diff countries.

[@wg0016]

3:44 The language is category IV Steve Kaufmann: I'm encouraged to see that it's considered approachable

[@piyushsharma3233]

Thanks for this video. I know Hindi and English and now learning French in Montreal, Quebec. This piece of advise coming from you is helpful. Good luck with Hindi. Vocab and pronounciation is ofcourse very diff but grammar, mostly the tenses - both has 12 major tenses - is quite similar. Thanks!

[@replyingtomemeansyourstupi8996]

one of my indian friends called me "bhosdeeke". What does it mean?

[@apaul9776]

Excellent video. Very concise, clear, interesting. One of your best, thank you.

[@skeingamepodcast5993]

Learning to read Farai is surprisingly easy, and will definitely help with learning/speaking practice because you can read more texts. There was a guy on KZbin called Reza that had amazing Farsi videos and a couple books. There are a lot of loan words from tomance languages, but some of the sounds can be tricky for English speakers. Don't give up!

[@Wazkaty]

Really motivating, thank you a lot for sharing your experiences with us ! I like your point of view a lot, "impregnation" and its quality is very important! Still working on my Arabic, and my English oc haha.

[@DanBlabbers]

I’m about A1 in Russian, I have many Russian friends, and I recently hired a Russian tutor who lives in Russia. I can tell you that saying you’re B1 just to get by and speaking it absolutely correctly are completely different objectives. I see the language as an art and not a hill to climb and conquer. Russian is a complicated and nuanced language… I was with a Russian girl and she hated that she couldn’t express herself in Russian to me, that’s my motivation, not just saying a bunch of vocabulary and learning the case system for utility.

[@kp74952]

This was a very well-thought out video. Thank you for making quality content and not just spewing random thoughts out at the camera like many others.

[@Imsooverit]

I learned Arabic in a year but, only speak it not writing just by watching Arabic shows I’ve learned it

[@stefanhansen5882]

B2 can easily be reached in less than 600-750 hours-if these hours are spread over a longer period of time (and the method is good). The length of the period is crucial when discussing if this is possible. 10-12 hours a day for 2 months is highly unlikely to bring you to B2. However, 1 hour a day for two years will certainly get you to B2, if not higher (with a good method). In both cases it's about 600-750 hours.

[@MrShikaga]

Not a chance, unless you are absurdly gifted. I doubt any normal person studying for an hour a day would be able to read a children’s book after 2 years, let alone have a fluid conversation with a native. I suspect most people would get to A2.

[@stefanhansen5882]

@@MrShikaga Well, I have almost 10 years of experience as a language coach, so my claim was based on what my students have attained. However, as I stated, the method matters a lot. With a sub-optimal method (which traditional language teaching is) it's a different story.

[@MrShikaga]

@@stefanhansen5882 fair enough. If I ever want to learn Danish will give you a call! Keep up the good work!

[@christopherfleming7505]

Lots of people will look at this list and think something like: "40 months to learn Japanese isn't that much". The problem is that almost none of them will be prepared to put in 8 hours of study per day, which is what the figures presuppose.

[@LuluLinArt]

Ok but have you seen the language lord videos bc he’s doing 0 to a B1/C1 level in 2 months 😭

[@loveloreal]

Or so he says ​@@LuluLinArt

[@kcc879]

The Malay based languages are very similar, Bh Indonesia has about 80% Malaysian vocab with variations on slang and usages. They are basically the same language. I learned Bh Indo at school and decades later taught in Brunei for six months, I could still use my Indo and communicate as Brunei and KL while at the airport. I guess with some practice your ear picks up slight variations in pronunciations and flow otherwise it's basically the same.

[@StillAliveAndKicking_]

An interesting video, worth watching, though I wish you had also talked a bit about how US diplomats learn languages.

[@cronoscoin417]

I took French at DLI FLC, and yes 5 hours of language on top of military duties was tiring to say the least 😂 Since then I've learned in order, German, Portuguese, Macedonian, Spanish, and now learning Italian. Each subsequent language gets easier and easier. I learned the Macedonian alphabet in a few days of walking around the city, as I did with Greek and Russian and Korean. I studied the Korean alphabet for about an hour before going around Seoul, and it was quite easy to learn. But I was only able to read things having no idea of their meaning 😂

[@WordAte]

Context is important in all languages. It is also important in understanding data and complex ideas. The U.S. Diplomat program is filled with people who have extensive experience at learning, a well-rounded education, and a good idea about what they want to express in the foreign language. This is assuming they are only training the diplomats themselves. If the diplomat's family is also trained, there is the advantage of learning a language with the people who are closest to you and with whom you live. They can practice exactly what they are learning at all times of the day. They can share their language research. And they know one another. I could explain myself better in Mandarin if my older brother told me what he thinks of me in Mandarin. My point is that the US Diplomat program data should likely be thought of as "under the best circumstances." A shy girl living in a small town in Appalachia learning Arabic or Chinese may not have the same advantages as the diplomats and their families.

[@IyoLu]

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant !

[@TheOtherMwalimu]

with the right materials, maybe a good teacher or immersion, Kiswahili should NOT be in category 3. through immersion in Tanzania/ Congo, i arrived at B1 in 12 weeks. however, i was highly motivated for my research. i have found French (category 1) more challenging than i found Kiswahili (category 3). the latin alphabet, grammar structure, pronunciation of Kiswahili is much more straightforward than English or French. one downside to Kiswahili is the limited materials and the apps are generally horrible for Kiswahili.

[@Fabio-qx2ns]

Kwangu mimi kiswahili ina shida mbili kubwa, ya kwanza ulivyotaja wewe kwamba ni vigumu kupata (kwa mfano) movie nyingi za kuangalia au vitabu vya kusoma lakini pia ukiishafika nchi ambayo wanaongea kiswahili utakuta sio kile ulichokisoma wewe, kile chenye cha ndani tuseme ni tofauti na cha kwenye vitabu. Tuchukulie salaamu kwa mfano, utafundisha kwamba salaam kuu ni jambo, hujambo, unaendeleaje, habari za leo na mambo, lakini sio hivyo, mimi mwenyewe nilikaa tanzania kama mwaka na naishi na mchumba wangu mtanzania, siwezi kabisa kumsalimia kwa kusema jambo au hujambo, ukimwambia mzee hujambo itakuwa kama umemkosea, sana sana hujambo ni salaam kwa watu unaowazidi umri, tunasemaga vipi, shwari, safi, shikamoo (kwa wazee) mambo, za asubuhi na pia wahuni (kwa maana ya watu wabaya au vijana hasa wale ambao wanajifanya wamarekani) wanapendaga kusema hoya inakuwaje, nyaje na salaam zingine zinazzokuja tu nakupotea kwa muda mfupi, tena sijawahi kuona kitabu chochote kinachofundisha -ga wanasema "habitual tense" ni hu - kama huenda shuleweweni lakini kawaida kila mtu anasema unaendaga shuleni. tena ukiwa unaongea kuhusu kiswahili cha congo hadi utakoma, hata watanzania wenyewe wanashindwa kuwaelewa, kiswahili kina mambo mengi ila mi napenda nafikiria siku moja nataka niandike kozi ya kiswahili cha ndani yaani kile ambacho watu wanaongea hata wakiwa nyumbani na sio tu kwenye matangazo ya serikali au kwenye habari wanavyofundisha kwenye vitabu vya kawaida. nakutakia masomo mema hata ukikuta ni vigumu we vumilia tu utafika sehemu kiswahili chako kitakuwa kimenyooka na watu watafurahi mno, ila uwe makini watanzania huwaga wanapenda kudanganya wazungu kujifanya marafiki ili wapate tu hela ukikuta mtu una mashaka naye bora tu umwache hata mimi nilipata shida sana kwenye hilo jambo.

[@MrLiveGain]

Look at the chart at :11. It’s up to date. His charts in the rest of the video are all outdated. Swahili is not category 3. It’s category 2 now.

[@TheOtherMwalimu]

@@MrLiveGain good eye 👍

[@owieczkanapolu7327]

search if you like language transfer on YT - the developer there has put together a solid course for Swahili learners based on FSI methodology

[@Ron-v5f]

​@@MrLiveGainwhat is your course suggestion for German A1 to C1 level ? I'm looking for German language exam preparation resource which is efficient and the best.

[@scottficklin6132]

I have done three languages at fsi. Most of what you are saying is incorrect or outdated (or misunderstood). There are no drills in class like you displayed. Those examples were from FOIA'd documents from the 70s-90s. Instruction time usually revolves around a theme like a group of verbs or a conjugation tense. We then will use it little by little like Legos. Eventually we will combine it with past knowledge. There is reading practice in there as well as media. We study in 45 minute spurts then break for 15 usually. Those 5 hours also include an hour of independent study. There were a lot of other inaccuracies that I'm not going to go through one by one. I think you just relied on information that is 30-40 years out of date.

[@loveloreal]

Amharic is easier than i thought. Once i understood the prefix and suffix verb and noun system, it was much more achievable. The words have more of concepts than specific definitions. Its like learning a written sign language. The script tells you exactly how to pronounce the word. I think its super possible to get this language in about 44 weeks with a lot of listening and some grammar and conversation practice. I love the language, culture, and country, though... so theres that

[@alifchief]

Malaysian ( which usually refers to the people of Malaysia) is the incorrect term for the Malay language, which is linguistically similar to Indonesian. Malay itself is spoken in Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and parts of Indonesia and Thailand.

[@corinna007]

I'm 9 years into learning Finnish, and the easiest thing is the writing and pronunciation. The grammar is a completely different beast. But I also don't study as much as I could or should.

[@abubakaryasin8610]

I can speak swahili,Somali,Arabic ,English.Learning Urdu now is bit challenging but worth it

[@jare3959]

Wow. I thought it was weird that I had an easier to time picking up Japanese than romance languages that are heavy on conjugation like Quebecois. That actually makes a lot more sense. The Japanese syntax is almost algebraic. Learning a new sentence structure being like learning a new formula.

[@Komatik_]

The difference between the fusional and agglutinative branches of synthetic languages (=languages that adjust a base word by adding things to it, vs. analytic languages using helper words instead of inflection). In a fusional language, one piece of inflection can adjust the word's meaning in multiple ways, and the cases can end up being pretty irregular as a result. In an agglutinative language, one piece of inflection only adjusts meaning in one way. So you end up building words like lego. Agglutinative languages tend to be very regular. PIE-descended European languages are generally fusional, while eg. Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Japanese and Korean are agglutinative.

[@Robespierre-lI]

I'm not entirely clear what the point of discussing a program that isn't available to everyone - and has resuls heavily biased by who is hired into the kinds of jobs that make them eligible. Maybe I'm being cynical, but this program gets so much admiration and praise when it seems to me that a better model for success would be programs open to all with a high rate of success. Doesn't the Goethe Institut so extremely well because of their immersion environments? Or Middlebury?

[@bastiangierahn2313]

Maybe the reason Danish is in category I, is because its grammar is as easy as its pronunciation is difficult

[@sie4431]

Interesting. I had no idea that French and Spanish were harder then Italian or even Scandinavian languages. French, Spanish and German are common language taught in school and I even switched from French to German because I thought it'd be easier. I doubt know if it's true but given how proficient the Scandinavians (and Dutch) are at English it makes sense. I also agree that motivation is a big factor, one reason I was bad at German was I simply didn't enjoy it

[@JuanINTO]

Great video, really honest!

[@richitabhattacharyya2286]

Hi Steve really admire you and your dedication to languages. Elated that you want to tackle Hindi as it is my third language. Please let me know if you wanted a conversation partner to help with speaking once you are comfortable enough with speaking

[@alfonsmelenhorst9672]

Why is Dutch in category 1 and German is category 2. You say that German is probably in category 2 because of the separable verb at the end of the sentence. But that also applies to Dutch. The pronunciation of Dutch is more difficult than German. g-ch, eu, u, ui, ij, Dutch also has cases in various expressions: "Dat doet ter zake". "inderdaad", "ten gunste van" "Koninkrijk der Nederlanden"

[@FrozenMermaid666]

When it comes to pronunciation, Dutch pronunciation is one of the easiest ever and the Dutch accent is naturally easy to imitate, whereas German has an accent that is very hard to imitate, so one has to practice German pronunciation a lot to get the right native accent, but the rankings are mostly incorrect tho, and German is in fact a category 1 language, but it is closer to a category 2 language than it is to English and Dutch and Norwegian which are the easiest category 1 languages ever and the easiest languages ever, and Icelandic and Norse and Gothic are also way easier to learn and read and pronounce than German, as German has a category 2 pronunciation and many words that have a lot of consonant clusters and umlauts! Icelandic and Slovene are two of the easiest languages ever, they should be listed as category 1, while the Tharcian-Aslavic language that was incorrectly classified as a ‘Latin’ language and listed as the 8th ‘category 1’ languages is at least category 4 same as Czech and Polish with very heavy aspect with many diacritics and mostly non-pretty words that are way harder to memorize, and the languages listed as a ‘category 3 language’ such as Swahili and Indonesian etc are at least a category 4 language as well and aren’t fun to learn, and any language that has mostly non-pretty words that aren’t fun to learn is naturally very hard to learn, while the words of all languages that use different alphabets which are harder than the easiest alphabet ever aka the Latin alphabet are naturally very hard to read and process the written text, while Chinese languages and Japanese (which use characters instead of actual alphabets) and Arabic languages (which have the scripts that are the most complicated and hardest to read) etc are category 10 and category 9 languages, and they are way harder than Russian which is category 5, and Hungarian and Latvian and Finnish and Estonian are very easy category 2 languages with easy pronunciation and easy spelling that uses the Latin alphabet and that are not much more difficult than German and French which have similar difficulty levels, and the Celtic languages weren’t even included, but Welsh / Breton / Cornish / Manx are very easy and are in the top languages that are the easiest and most fun to learn and memorize and pronounce, and Irish and Scottish are the true category 3 languages, especially their spelling, so they are the hardest languages that I am learning, and they are way harder than Hungarian and Finnish etc, but they are not as hard as Polish and Czech and other languages that use harder alphabets tho, so there are definitely a lot of different difficulty levels that a one to five rankings system cannot even convey with accuracy! So the rankings should be from one to ten at least because one to five rankings aren’t accurate and there are many languages with many different difficulty levels, so one cannot properly classify them if it’s just a one to five ranking system, plus many of the languages that they included are incorrectly ranked which are either easier or harder than they were ranked, so these types of rankings and lists aren’t one hundred percent accurate and aren’t complete as they don’t even include most languages that exist, so one should always take that info with a grain of salt!

[@FrozenMermaid666]

Re cases, all languages have cases, including English, which still has vestiges of the case system, especially for pronouns, so i is the nominative form and me is the accusative form and to me would be the dative form (tho it doesn’t have a different form in English) and my is the genitive form, and all languages automatically use the cases all the time, even when the words themselves have the same form, so every time one has a subject and a direct object in the sentence one automatically uses the cases, because it’s not possible to express things and ideas without cases - grammar is never hard or easy, it’s just a necessary part of any logical language, and without it that language wouldn’t sound right in sentences, and very few languages work well without different noun / adjective forms, including English which has been modified into a very neutral language with neutral word endings, which is why English sounds right with only one or two forms, whereas most other Germanic languages have strong word endings that aren’t neutral and they have many nouns ending in A etc, so they need the different noun endings and adjectives endings and verb endings to sound right, for example, if one said ‘he do this every day’ in English, one would know that it doesn’t sound right, so it’s the same in Icelandic and Norse etc, as those languages wouldn’t sound right without the different forms, so they need the different forms, just like English needs to use an S or ES ending for the conjugated verb that is used with he, because he do or he go etc wouldn’t sound right, because certainly words and certain pronouns only sound right when used in combination with conjugated verbs and nouns and adjectives that have a specific word ending, as Germanic languages are the most logical languages, so they were designed in a such a way that everything would sound right, and it’s also similar in Latin and Spanish and French and Italian and Welsh etc, as all these languages have different conjugated forms and Spanish and Italian and French and Latin also have different adjective forms like Norse languages, and Dutch also has an extra E at the end of adjectives when used with certain words, so learners need to understand the importance of grammar and different word endings, which are necessary and are not hard or easy, and they should be observed and learnt logically, because it’s easy to use the language if one is learning the language logically and truly understands how these things work and why they are the way they are, as these languages weren’t just randomly made, and are in fact very logical languages with very logical grammar that have a great harmony and sentences that sound right thanks to the different word endings!

[@FrozenMermaid666]

In Dutch pronunciation, the CH is literally the same sound as the CH used in German and it is also the same as the CH in Welsh and other modern Celtic languages, and G is similar and almost the same as the CH, especially when it’s in the middle of the word it sounds exactly the same, and it is a K-controlled H-like sound, though the G is in fact a G-controlled H-like sound, and there are many types of Gs, from ultra soft Gs to ultra hard Gs, and the softest Gs are very easy to pronounce as they are like a normal H-like sound that is between a G and an H sound and they have the best sound, so I highly recommend learning the Dutch accent that uses the soft Gs and the soft Rs such as the normal soft R which is a tap like in Icelandic and Brazilian Portuguese and the Americanized R aka de gooise R as that accent is the prettiest and best Dutch accent that’s also the easiest to learn, and the U in Dutch is usually a schwa sound in some words and an YU sound in other words, so it depends on the word, and the UI is an AUY sound that is actually easy to learn if one watches videos teaching this sound and if one imitates the exact sound and the mouth movements of the speaker, as that is also how I figured out how to make this sound, so it’s necessary to make that mouth movement while saying AUY and trying to melt the Y sound into the U sound from above or something like that, and it will come naturally after practicing it a few times, and the IJ is an AY sound in words like hij and jij and mijn etc and it is also pronounced like a sound that’s between a normal A sound and a normal E sound + an extra Y sound at the end in most words like fijn and pijn and trein etc, so one just has to imitate the exact sound one hears, and the sound itself is very easy to make, like, I had no difficulty imitating the IJ sound in Dutch, and the EI is usually pronounced the same as the IJ and, these are some of the prettiest sounds ever, and the UI sound and the IJ sound only exist in Dutch, though I have also heard some speakers of Norwegian using that sound in Norwegian words like greit more recently, plus I started using it in some English words and in some Norwegian words as well because it sounds so cool, but normaIly this sound comes from Dutch, and, in some regions the IJ is also pronounced EY with a normal e sound + a normal i sound said 2gether in one sound, and the EU is usually pronounced EO and in some words it is pronounced EOY like the AU in Icelandic, that is, normaI e should + normal o sound + normal i sound said 2gether in one sound, and it is similar to the EU in German which is pronounced OY, and, in words like leuk I have heard some speakers pronouncing leuk as leok and I have also heard speakers pronouncing it leoyk, so one can choose between the two pronunciations, or one can use both!

[@AA-rc4zr]

Persian, I would argue is much much easier to learn than Italian or French. Once you get past the alphabet which is not as impossible as it seems, Gramer and pronunciation is supper easy.

[@latinmaleaz]

i just start studying Farsi....ay ay...seems nice.....n challenge for sure....

[@krzychood]

I feel like the writing system is not a big deal, it would add maybe a week or two, depending on the language of course. Like, Ukrainian alphabet I have learned literally in two days and I had no contact with it or with Russian alphabet before. Chinese would be more challenging of course, because their "letters" are not really letters but words but it's another story.

[@mjunejunie]

The FSI difficulty ranking is so interesting to me. I am curious, however, about rankings relative to other languages. For example, I am a native Farsi and English speaker and am now learning Korean. While Korean is considered a difficult language for English speakers to learn, I find that the grammar is very similar to Farsi and as a a result, I have little difficulty with that piece. I have found the difficulty of Korean on par with French for me except with French I relied more on my English and with Korean, I rely more on my Farsi. What do you think?

[@scottficklin6132]

The rankings are written from the POV of a native English speaker only. Chinese to Korean or Japanese would be much easier than Spanish for example.

[@orlandoacontreras]

Greetings from Venezuela. 🇻🇪

[@jeremyhawkins5278]

I feel like I'm around b2 in Spanish after just a little over 2 years of self study, like an hour of reading or studying and a few hours of audiobooks. I think that if we're judging how long it takes for someone to learn a language when they are being taught 5 hours a day under ideal conditions, we're not really answering the question "how long does it take to learn a language?" we're answering "what's the fastest possible time to learn a language." and apparently even under those conditions this claim is dubious.

[@07dhiraj]

Learn in 20 weeks / 24 weeks !! All these are product selling techniques 😊😊 ... But if the content is fun & interesting then its a win- win situation...then number of weeks doesn't matter though it may be much more than the company claimed initially 😊😊🎉🎉✅💐👍

[@alanguages]

The 20- 24 weeks are for the easier languages for English speakers. The time to finish the FSI courses. The time listed is for class hours. That does not include the use of the acquired knowledge and homework outside of class. After finishing the program it is recommended to spend ONE YEAR in the target language. You should be aware, that their livelihood hinges for them to be able to perform at a proficient level as a diplomat for the particular field they are in. In other words, the motivation is as high as it can be. Unlike the hobbyists.

[@gamingwithpurg3anarchy157]

5 months for Portuguese. Wow.. I am at 2 years (and about 3, almost 4 months) and I'm still struggling like crazy.. even with some basic things. I don't have a teacher and I really don't get to ever talk.. if I did get to speak.. I'm sure I'd be a lot better than I am now. I'm certainly not b2.. tell ya that much.. I probably only have like an hour and 10-20 minutes of talking on the phone. It is very difficult for me. I wish it were easier for others.. cause trust me.. I've out in the time . And I continue to put in the time..it is my first foreign language so that's probably a good part of it.. but I'm not gonna blame it all on that.. Some people definitely have better capabilities of learning languages or anything. Everyone is different.I Will say I don't have as much listening practice as I should.. however lately I've been reading A LOT on LingQ. Like 6 hours a day reading a book and other stuff.. roughly 7,000 LingQs created and 160,000 words read. I did most listening outside of LingQ so I am not sure about that.. on LingQ it's 14 hours but it was also some hours outside of LingQ. This was within 14 days. Still haven't much of the book to finish however I took a small break to read a book in English. I wish somehow I could live in Brazil for awhile. Actually a dream

[@TimBlack08]

Hi Steve, wondering if you could expand on the 'promised results' section. If B2/C1 is unrealistic what should people expect instead? Should one be able to understand kids tv shows (lower level language), elementary novels, etc. at this point? But not news, movies, etc. Curious what your experience is in terms of the specifics on comprehension level once reaching the "Comfortable" level in a language. Any info would be helpful and motivating! Thanks!

[@markrodowicz4617]

I noticed that your FSI Category 1 list (@1:43) has not just French at 30 weeks but also Spanish. Hard to believe that Spanish is as hard as French and harder than Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. They seem to have changed the list, as the list from several years ago had Spanish (and French) at 24 weeks, the same as all of the other Cat. 1 languages.

[@Thelinguist]

I only offer the lists as some indications of difficulty. they may change them from time to time which only confirms that they are not to be taken to seriously.

[@RogerRamos1993]

Spanish is not that easy and French is not that hard. Proper Spanish, the one used in novels by authors like Borges or Garcia Marquez probably won't be reachable in just 24 weeks. French has several rules and exceptions that are hard to master, if you want to speak French like a French professor or write in French, but basically French and Spanish have almost the same level of diffficulty. I'm a native Portuguese speaker.

[@markrodowicz4617]

@@Ben-tn4qz Unfortunately I don't speak either French or Spanish. However, all of the best analyses by experts which I've watched with regards to French, Spanish and Italian indicate that for English speakers, Spanish is easier than Italian and Italian is easier than French. Those who make the argument that French is easier than the other two, usually only focus on lexicology and grammar whilst totally ignoring phonetic writing and the challenges of correct pronunciation. Someone once said: 'If you speak bad Italian, almost everyone will still understand you but if you speak bad French almost no one will understand you.'

[@annarboriter]

I don't understand why Kaufmann harps on about writing systems other than the Latin as impediments to acquiring a second language. Korean hangul better represents the language than does the transliterated Latin. I've not studied Polish but I've heard students of it bemoan how much easier it would be if it written in Cyrllic

[@Eric-xh9ee]

I speak some Polish. I don't understand how it would be easier. Is the letter D easier to pronounce than the letter D in the Cyrillic script? No, it's the same 🤔 The pronunciation differences makes sense but not the alphabet but idk

[@megadeath666666]

Im native Polish, you probably mean some letters in Russian could better represent polish double-letter sounds, like sz, cz, but I think it is very small advantage. It is for sure better to use latin alphabet in Polish, as Steve said in the video, you will not struggle with letter "p" for example :)

[@annarboriter]

@@megadeath666666 Counterexample: Łodz and again your perspective as a native speaker is interesting but it is not the same as that of a Polish language learner

[@Thelinguist]

The Latin transliteration of Hangul is not user friendly. I don' refer to it. I can TTS any Korean word if I need to know how to pronounce it. The point is that to progress in any language you need to read a lot. Reading in an unfamiliar alphabet is always slower than reading in your own language. Reading Polish or Czech is easier for me than reading in Cyrillic. So basically I don't agree with anything you say here. Has not been my experience.

[@RogerRamos1993]

One thing is knowing how the letters sound. Reading literature ina different alphabet is a whole different business.

[@shrippie-4214]

I want to be A2-C1 with Russian by the end of the year been learning Russian for total time like 5 months kind of just played around used it to procrastinate now I'm serious about it now probably around 200-300 words decent at reading Also didn't have the р in Russian problem

[@bibiberlin6220]

Funnily enough what tripped me up was H (sounds like N in Russian) and H in Greek (sounds like ee). So I never reverted to English H but would mix Greek into Russian on that one letter.

[@shawnhelton7653]

In my combination of personal experience and watching other learners around me. I find myself caught between disagreeing and agreeing with the idea that the writing system is easier to learn if it's the same script as your first language. Mainly, this is due to first language interference. That's why I suspect sometimes it might be faster for a person to pick up the new script faster overall, even if the learner has a faster start with the same script. (Im imagining people learning french and korean in particular). That being said, I do find that its still harder to memorize new words in the language with the new script.

[@RubyLynn08]

Being a native English speaker, having lived in Budapest and learned Hungarian and doing a self-study of Korean, I think Korean is easier to learn than Hungarian. Hungarian is easier pronunciation wise, but the grammar is crazy. For me, Mandarin has been the easiest grammar wise.

[@dandeliony491]

I am fluent in Cat. I, native in Cat. III, write and read in Cat. V.

[@eugenioquantro-plaga736]

It's interesting that people think that since two languages have cognates it will be easier to learn(think English and romance languages). I think that it can make things more difficult because there will be a ton of false cognates. When you learn a language that are not related its like starting with a clean slate.

[@templarjo]

I disagree. The advantage of having those cognates far outweigh any of the drawbacks for learning. It makes it far easier communicate high level ideas even for lower level students, especially for reading. You can learn hundreds of cognates in a matter of hours once you have been taught how to recognize them. While false cognates can lead to lots of hilarity due to misinterpretation, it is preferable to learn languages with cognates than those without them. This is especially true if you have a good level of vocabulary in your own language. For example, I could easily hypothesise that the Latin *pugnāre* was related to fighting. this was because I knew the word pugilist from boxing. If a Japanese learner had read that they wouldn't have a clue as to its meaning as there is no cognate for... *checks online*... it. The Japanese translation apparently is "tatakau" Generally speaking, Japanese speakers, for instance, really struggle in English classes with vocabulary that a Spanish speaker has zero problem with due to cognates. opinion - opinión English-Spanish opinion - Iken English-Japanese There is a reason why it takes 30 week of classroom instruction for Spanish as opposed to 88 week for Japanese and it is not just the writing system. Lexis (and especially cognates) is also a major contributing factor.

[@ganpik]

5 hours (1 hour = 45 min) a day is the normal in intensive courses, for example in summer, done for several weeks. Students are often in their twenties.

[@nvccru]

Steve, as always, a very interesting video. The most surprising thing is how seriously people take the FSI difficulty list. It’s based on the State Department’s assignment cycle much more than on any linguistic analysis. Student outcomes are measured by the ILR scale which is part of an internal conversation among the school house (FSI), the assignments system and the specific needs of the jobs where learners will work. According to a recent NAS study, State does not do general proficiency, it does job specific training. State always knows what job the learner will do and prepares him or her for that job. So, yes a learner can achieve quite high levels of proficiency for diplomatic language functions, be very very good at that, and have problems buying flowers for Mothers Day (in most cases diplomats don’t have their mothers with them at post, so that would be done using a website in English). Finally, a 3 on the ILR scale, which is entry level professional proficiency, does not equate to anything on the CEFR. They are birds of different feathers and serve different functions. I know of no studies where learners have cross tested in order to find out whether an ILR 3 is a B whatever. And since State doesn’t use the CEFR, it doesn’t really matter.

[@tbountybay3080]

Wow! I just discovered and was JUST researching this 1 week ago

[@gamedo4269]

Language isn't a joke any mistake made in communication can ruin a whole conversation. B1 itself is soo difficult.

[@a.r.4707]

Some of those courses are alright and they might be actually the only ones available for that language (at least almost). I did 2 of those courses, 1 for Arabic and 1 for Serbocroat. They were ok in my opinion but very boring and obviously outdated😄, also there was one man narrating all of those dialogs, the same guy in each dialog. Someone might benefit from them though. There is a lot good listening material in my opinion and entirely in the target language, no English between.