No More Excuses: The Art of Learning Multiple Languages at Once

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Why you must learn multiple languages at one time and how to do it. I study 10 languages with 8 being studied daily.
/ robbiekunz

[@RobbieKunz]

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[@elishevabarenbaum5319]

Really good advice. The truth is that you never finish learning a language. Also you don't have to aim for the same level in every language you learn. In some the goal might be mastery, life-long learning and deep cultural literacy, in others it could be chit-chat, or just a passive knowledge to consume media, books, songs etc.

[@RobbieKunz]

Very true! It's possible to aim for different levels in each language depending on your interests and inclinations. And yes, learning a language is a lifelong journey.

[@Guillejchi-Idiomas-k8q]

Totally agreed...

[@islam-karam]

“Even tomorrow is not guaranteed”, indeed.🙁

[@RobbieKunz]

Yes, if you want something, you may as well do it now :)

[@Heidelbuam]

I do acquire Portuguese,Swedish and Spanish primarily through binge=watching vlogs and listening to podcasts.. I can never resort to only one language because all my 6 languages (3 of which I speak advanced to fluent-native) are close to my heart. My thoughts flow in my 3 main languages, sometimes after a 6 hour marathon of watching Brazilian vloggers I would flow in Portuguese mentally. But I never allocate only 15 min deliberately:)

[@RobbieKunz]

Seems like you're on the right track! I'm curious what your 3 advanced to fluent-native languages are. Nonetheless, Portuguese, Swedish and Spanish are great languages to learn.

[@Heidelbuam]

@@RobbieKunz Hi Robbie, I wrote an answer some weeks ago and it disappeared for no apparent reason -sorry for the belated response. My 3 main languages are :Bulgarian as a native,German as a quasi-native and English as advanced (or so I think ) :) In those languages do flow my thoughts. As to fluency I regard the comprehensive and productive fluency as 2 completely separate entities within acquisition. If you are interested in further discussions about these kinds of topics with me, I am glad to respond.

[@elisesteele6939]

What vlogs and podcasts do you watch? I'm learning those three too!

[@Heidelbuam]

@@elisesteele6939 Which languages are you learning?

[@elisesteele6939]

@@Heidelbuam Portuguese,Swedish and Spanish

[@JacobLaguerre91]

Really enjoyed your video. Ive been studying Spanish and French and i have strong reasons for both languages. I really enjoy Latin American culture and im also part of a Latino-based fraternity which fuels my motivation for Spanish. As for French, i have family members on both sides of the family that speak it so in a way, its like im honoring my roots. I would really like to learn Japanese later on due to my love of anime and i would like to pick up Esperanto at some point too.

[@RobbieKunz]

Spanish and French are both Romance languages so you got that going for you. A lot of the time, you can just swap out the words in a sentence and have a grammatically correct sentence in either language. The grammar is set up the same way. Also, a lot of vocabulary is shared. Since you are part of a Latino-based fraternity, I assume some brothers in there speak Spanish. You should try speaking with them, even if it's basic things you look up on Google Translate right beforehand. Try to get them to teach you. Japanese is always a fun language to learn and since so many people want to know this language, there are a ton of good resources for it, not to mention the great soft power it holds (anime, manga, video games, etc.) Esperanto you could probably start speaking basically in a week if you know Spanish or French. The grammar is very streamlined so you don't have to do a lot of work for it.

[@heavensbutterfly]

Thank you for normalising my language thirst. Other language youtubers had discouraged me but you gave me a fresh will. How happy I am to have found you in my feed!

[@RobbieKunz]

You're welcome :) I am glad you got some encouragement from my video. Why had the other KZbinrs discouraged you?

[@heavensbutterfly]

@RobbieKunz I think they over-complicate the learning process. They establish a lot of hard and fast rules, one of them being not to learn too many languages at once. You seem to mainly convey the message "just do it". Part of the reason I haven't acquired all the languages I want over the years, is analysis paralysis. Which language to pick first? And which dialect? If I had chosen a few back then, I would have come much further since. Slow is way better than not at all.

[@Kim-vk1md]

Thanks for this video, I'm studying English but I want to add French, German and Korean. I thought it was crazy but now I feel more motivated to do it 😊

[@RobbieKunz]

You can definitely do so if you are committed to making language learning a focus in your life. It will require more study time for each additional language but it's up to you to decide how you want to spend your time so feel free to spend it as you please :)

[@kenspri5139]

Thanks a lot for the video! No irritating background music or distractions - it's perfect. Please continue making videos without music; I truly appreciate that. Also, two of the languages (other than English )you mentioned are what I'm learning. It was tough, and I almost wanted to give up, but your video changed my mind. Thank you is an understatement, but it's all I can say for now. You're in my prayers, and I hope Allah blesses and guides you. Ameen.

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you for your great comment. I'm glad you didn't give up on languages. Just curious, which of the two languages are you also studying? I appreciate your kindness.

[@mayeuni-3]

I love how you said things realistically. Not setting too ambitious progress in an instant. I was deciding to study languages together but I thought I wasn’t good enough at it, but videos like this gives me the push that I need. I recently reached N4 level in Japanese and I have always been interested in Mandarin. I think I should study both this year. Great video!! ❤

[@RobbieKunz]

Congratulations reaching N4 level in Japanese. Studying more than one language definitely requires better study habits but it is most certainly possible. 頑張って！

[@mayeuni-3]

Thanks for the encouragement! @@RobbieKunz

[@phoenixknight8837]

Very helpful. Also, good discussion with Professor Arguelles.

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you for that! I'm glad you enjoyed the discussion. I always enjoy talking with him.

[@marianomontero3286]

It's an encouraging message. I've thought to learn several languages at same time was an impossible task but after see this wonderful message I'll try to reach those useful goals.

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you for your kind comment. Yes, it is definitely possible to learn several languages at the same time!

[@marco.nascimento]

This is pretty solid advice, immersion is the way and speaking for practice is very effective and motivational too. Currently I'm studying spanish, french and japanese. I'm brazilian and already fluent in english, was a B2 level in french a couple of years ago but without practice it became a little rusty, so I'm kinda just remembering the details and getting back some vocab.

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you, Marco. Yes, learning a language is not just learning it but also upkeeping it once you've learnt it. Spanish and French are both in the same language family as Portuguese but Japanese is quite a bit different! Nice to see you taking on that challenge.

[@ibrahimsyarikin7699]

First off, I hardly ever post comments and I've never hit the like button! I'm one of those stingy viewers that enjoy content in the shadows overly conscious of leaving a digital footprint. So although this post and this like won't do much for the youtube algorithm to push out your content, I hope it personifies the tremendous amount value this video has given me. I'm currently learning 3-4 languages at the same time and I thought I was crazy for doing so. I've been looking for videos of people's experiences for months now speaking aboutb their experience in learning more than one language at once. I don't know why it took so long for your video to be suggested to me (I have the idea that people like me are the reason why lol) but I'm so happy I did! You have throughly inspired me from first few seconds of your video actually! I paused the video and read the note you wrote on the piece of paper and was shocked when I read that you were studying 8 languages at the same time! Without even watching the video yet I immediately shared you video with a friend and will share the video with my mother who thinks I have a severe case of shiny-object-syndrome haha. Anyways, thank you soooooo much for sharing this. You have no idea how much it has benefited me. This morning I read the story of the three little pigs to my daughter in French and I was thinking to myself how cool would it be to read several stories to her in different languages andd lo and behold, your obscure video was suggested to me by the algorithm! Thank you!!!

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you for your comment! I really appreciate comments like this. I think it's perfectly natural to study multiple languages at the same time and would even say it's necessary if you intend to know multiple languages in the future. That would be cool if you could read in other languages to your daughter, too. It wouldn't even be that difficult if you wanted to do some of the other Romance languages like Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. You didn't mention which 4 languages you are studying but I assume you could do it in those, too. Anyway, good luck with your studies and thank you again for your kind comment!

[@vito_b0]

Exactly my situation. I'm studying 5 languages, French, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish. My native language is Indonesian and English is my key to learn these languages. So I started with learning french, then try to learn french with german, but it didn't work out. French is very very hard to me, but a year later, I finally achieve B1. While improving my french, I learn mandarin, also exhausting, but then, something clicks in my brain, and now i figured out how to learn multiple languages but scheduled.

[@han_ane9763]

how I can learn them please what's your method to learn easily

[@RobbieKunz]

That's great to hear that you are studying 5 languages! Also great to hear that you figured out how to learn multiple languages. The languages you chose are all from different families with the exception of Spanish and French so it will take more time to study all of them. If you can learn Spanish or French well, the other won't be too difficult, especially if you know English already. English will help you somewhat with German, too, as it is also a Germanic language. What did you find difficult about learning French? Also, "laddering" languages is a great way to practice two languages at once. That is, using one language you learned to learn another.

[@vito_b0]

@@han_ane9763 Sorry for late response. To be honest, I have no specific method or a Study-Plan. But my routine is to finish at least one Duolingo level (that has 3-5 parts) for vocabularies, then I watch comprehensible input videos (usually stories or mini convo. it has to be comprehensible input, super important), then native's vlogs, then films (at least 15m), read reddit and X (twitter) posts, and chat gpt. For speaking, I'll just write random conversations and then speak it out loud with the help of Google Translate to test if I pronounce it right. Sometimes having a call with a native but it doesn't work for me if I were a beginner.

[@vito_b0]

@@RobbieKunz French is very difficult because the sounds are like 80% of something I haven't heard in my life. While Spanish, 90% of the sound is recognizeable, so I just simply get used to the writing rules.

[@dangmefinnish]

Unfortunately didnt work for me. Im a Finn and I learnt English and swedish at school. I didnt have motivation for swedish so i dropped it. I moved to ghana and began to study Dangme and Twi. Later i added french. It got so oveewhelming together with having to work full time, take care if kids, later do masters, and also k have passion to do art. Just too much going on. So even after 15 years all my languages are pretty stunted. So this year i decided to hyperfocus on just Dangme. Im even putting art on the hold. I figured if i can do one year of just dangme then next year i can choose another focus and just passively learn dangme like through conversation and reading books etc. Lets see how this goes. Anyway I found the video interesting regardless. You got yourself a new follower. ❤

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you for the support! Balance in life is critical and if you don't have balance in life first, you need to work on that before even studying 1 language, not to mention multiple languages. Also, as you point out, motivation is key, too. Very interesting that you are studying Dangme! I hope it goes well for you :)

[@firebug1892]

What you are saying is very true, I don’t know if you know about the polyglot Laoshu505000 , he knew over 50 languages and he passed away recently in his late 30s

[@RobbieKunz]

Laoshu505000 (Moses McCormick) is a legend! Great guy and he certainly put into practice the art of learning multiple languages at once.

[@chrissystewart6268]

Hello Robbie my name's Chrissy I'm from Baltimore Maryland🇺🇸 since Childhood & Teen years I look forward to learn languages as multilingual. I love meeting people from around the world

[@RobbieKunz]

Hey Chrissy! Hope you enjoy the channel and you study many languages.

[@eRRicmaRRtin]

Very nice video and encouraging. So many people over complicate the language learning process. I am currently learning 10 languages too, I mainly study Spanish, German, and French, but the full list is Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. For me I have humble goals and don't expect to get too far too quickly, but desire to learn all of them, and personally prefer learning languages simultaneously.

[@RobbieKunz]

That's a lot of languages! Keep at it, they are all very rewarding. Great to see such "exotic" languages as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Russian in your list, too!

[@Abracadabra211]

I speak English and I can speak French to an intermediate level. I am currently learning Spanish, Norwegian and Russian. 🎉I am excited for this new language learning journey 🙂🙏

[@RobbieKunz]

Spanish and Norwegian will be easier for you since you know French and English. Russian will be a bit harder but I like that you are studying a more challenging language, too. I also have been practicing my Norwegian recently. I have a book coming out soon in regards to that along with Swedish and Danish. Look out for more information on the channel hopefully next month!

[@poohoff]

I take up a new language every two or three years and then have to maintain it 😂

[@RobbieKunz]

At some point, maintaining languages becomes the biggest activity.

[@MiokaYurika]

Wow, so cool! I never met anyone before, who studies many of the languages I study. Nice! Keep going! I study Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and Marathi every day. I am a new subscriber.

[@RobbieKunz]

Nice to meet you :) I am also interested in Persian and Marathi. I may begin studying Persian in 2024 although I am not sure yet. It may be Hindi instead. Thanks for subscribing. I am curious how you learn Marathi because I believe there are not a lot of materials for that language. How do you study it? Also, nice job studying all those other languages ;)

[@RubenTheFirstBorn]

About 3 weeks ago I started trying to learn ~10 languages at once. What I did was the following: 1. I downloaded the Holy Bible audio in 10 different languages. I downloaded on the Android app and copied the audio to my pc. 2. Every day in the morning I listen to 1 chapter of the Bible. I listen to one chapter of Proberbs a day. Yesterday was 14th of December, so I listened Proverbs 14 in 10 languages. 3. Today Proverbs 15 4. Tomorrow Proverbs 16. ... Next month I can start the Book of Proverbs of Solomon again, or choose a different book of the Holy Bible. The good thing about listening to the Bible, specially Proverbs is that in addition to learning the language, you definitely became wiser, and by the Grace of God, go to Heavens when time comes.

[@RobbieKunz]

If you can figure out the meaning of foreign languages by just listening to text you already know, more power to you!

[@blubber0_0]

Preach

[@Rebecca-kg6vd]

I really enjoy your videos. They are motivating with very practical, straightforward advice. I also really appreciate your take on learning multiple languages at the same time as there are not many people I've come across who endorse this. As someone who simply doesn't want to slow down and learn just one at a time, I find your logic and advice is so helpful. I'm curious how you keep track daily of which languages you have studied and if you set specific goals weekly/daily? I would love to know more about your average weekly schedule as I bet there are some great ideas in there. Thank you for making this channel!

[@RobbieKunz]

Hi Rebecca, thank you for your kind comment. The only real "set" study times I have during the week are for Sanskrit and Arabic because I take those classes at the Language Academy and I want to keep up with the class. Besides that, I am pretty flexible as to how much I study or what I choose to study at any one moment. I study in 15 minute blocks and what I study depends on that particular language (read Borges in Spanish, talk to AI in German, write to a friend in Japanese, etc.) I try to aim for about 3-4 hours of study on average per day although it can be challenging to meet that as I have a lot of other things going on in my life, too. I try to take advantage of those "hidden" moments like listening to Assimil audio or foreign language audiobooks while driving the car, for example. I do keep a spreadsheet that tracks how much time and what activity for each language. For my 8 active languages that I study everyday, I make sure I do something in each of them (even if just a little bit). Some languages naturally get more time than others and some days give more time to certain languages. It depends on my schedule and what I feel like at that time.

[@Rebecca-kg6vd]

@@RobbieKunz Thank you for the thoughtful reply! I'd love to see how you set up your spreadsheet if you are ever at a loss for new video content. :) I've tried so many different things to track my language learning but haven't found one that has felt quite right yet.

[@Grimmsongz]

I live in Philadelphia too, and I would love to use this strategy

[@RobbieKunz]

I am a product of Philadelphia. Please do use the strategy :)

[@languagelearningdabbler]

Any chance I can talk you into adding Russian to your list 😜 I really like your approach to learning multiple languages. Having a solid strategy in place really makes the difference. I think that’s where I was lacking this year. Will be continuing to work on Spanish, Russian, and Mandarin in 2024 🤓 A little dabble in Georgian isn’t out of the equation 🙃

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you for your kind comment. Learning languages basically comes down to strategy and time management. If you can get those two under control, then you'll be flying in no time. Spanish and Mandarin are great choices. Georgian, too. Very exotic ;) As for talking me into Russian... send me a message on Instagram or to my email address and let's talk about it :)

[@archiesenol9104]

Geeez, 8 languages everyday! What a language Navy Seal! Kudos!

[@sarahassislanguages]

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. It really motivated me!

[@RobbieKunz]

You're welcome, Sarah :) I really appreciate you saying that.

[@maletu]

I'd be interested learning, in detail, HOW you trained your mind to keep languages separate. I never had trouble with this till I started learning--well, OK, reading--Portuguese on the basis of my pretty-good Spanish. (With strong initial attention to pronunciation.) This was astonishingly easy, and now my reading and listening skills in Portuguese are getting better and better. BUT I'm having a really strange time trying to PRODUCE Portuguese-the Spanish rushes in. As I see it, this represents a failure to adequately train my mind to keep them separate. But, how to do that? Can you be explicit about how YOU did this?

[@RobbieKunz]

Great question. Spanish and Portuguese are so similar. They are both Romance languages and I consider them just two variations on a common theme. I think if Portugual were ruled by Spain in the past, we would consider "Portuguese" another form of "Spanish", the same way "Castillian" and "Catalan" are "Spanish". The closer two languages are, the more difficult it may be to keep them separated. The simple answer is that keeping them separated while speaking is merely a skill you need to train. Do you study any other languages or just Spanish and Portuguese? Especially with the first few languages, it's hard to keep them separated because your mind reaches for the "foreign language" box in your head whenever you try to speak a foreign language so perhaps you haven't had time to rewire your brain to realize there are multiple foreign languages now to choose from when you wish to speak in a foreign language. The important part when you train this is that when the Spanish word comes up while speaking Portuguese, don't have a negative reaction to this or get upset. Doing so is detrimental to developing the skill. You can just thank your mind for being helpful in bringing you a foreign language word (in Spanish) but simply remind it that you want Portuguese words now and then move on to continuing to speak in Portuguese. If you can keep this attitude while continuing to practice Portuguese, you will find that the number of times your mind brings you Spanish words begins to decrease until eventually you are just speaking Portuguese without confusion.

[@maletu]

​@@RobbieKunz The problem is, with 89% of the vocabulary cognates between the two (and possibly a similar amount of morphology?), I'm READING on the basis of recognizing the Portuguese word as a variant on a Spanish word I know (or even the Spanish morphology)-that is, I've gotten a tremendous amount of input of Portuguese, but input as a sort of variant of Spanish. And, really, it is different: there are more verb tenses, there are rules that do not have equivalences in Spanish, the similar-but-different morphologies are not optional, and there are more irregularities. I've read that Castillian went through a couple of rounds of deliberate simplification and rationalization, beginning during the Arabic period, and I now have something to fill in what it might have looked like without that. Knowing/being able to parse some of the history (e.g., tenere (Lat) > tener (Sp) > ter (Pt) (and lots of similar-but-different forms in all the tenses and persons), because Pt just likes do drop medial ns and ls, and to smush together the remaining vowels. But to SPEAK Portuguese I need neither to RECOGNIZE it nor UNDERSTAND it historically, but to have it jump to the mouth. I've currently put other languages on "hold" because I'm auditioning Portugal as a place to move. I can read French (other skills debatable), learned a smidge of Catalan, but "German for reading" in graduate school was a total joke. (Also I've learned varying amounts of a number of languages that I DIDN'T need to produce: koine Greek, a semester of Hebrew, a semester of Syriac, an intensive summer of Latin, and some Pali, plus Coptic for my dissertation (with an entirely frivolous excursion into earlier Egyptian). Oh, and Esperanto. Btw, I consider Catalan(/Occitan/Valencian) to differ significantly MORE from Spanish than Portuguese does--and the people I know who have learned it seem to concur.

[@RobbieKunz]

It seems like you have learned a lot of languages on a reading basis either because of your schooling or because they were languages that are simply not spoken anymore. I know what you mean about being able to read and understand Portuguese with your background but not being able to have it jump to your mouth when you need to speak. Something I always found beneficial for training myself to speak was shadowing. That is, listening to either learning material or an audiobook and speaking the language at the same time you hear it. In your situation, I think it would make most sense to shadow something like the Assimil manual for Portuguese in order to really form those new pathways for speaking Portuguese that are different from your Spanish ones. Basically, keep playing the audio file over and over again while repeating it simultaneously until it's just the most natural thing for the phrases to roll off your tongue. You spent a while building the Spanish highway in your mind and while it's a similar route, now it's time to build the Portuguese one.

[@Flortaffa]

In studyng italian,english and i started yesterday with chinese , also i started to read parallel texts i mean in italian-english and then i listen to podcasts in chinese How can I start from 0 with chinese? Can you help me ? Thank you

[@thetightwadhomesteader3089]

I only know english and ive been learning spainsh for 3 months. On the side im learning italian (it gives me a break from spainsh, but it keeps me in that mind frame of learning) im making a lot of progress just putting in average of 10-20 mins a day. I contribute learning spainsh to that. That said I looked into french and portuguese and they seem impossible for me. I dropped those two, but Im working on Esperanto now...its easier then those 2..but much harder then spainsh and italian even though its suppose to be easier. I don't plan to put much energy into the others vs spainsh right now, but i figure ill be ahead of the game when I do! I know im getting ahead of myself, but id love to learn german and dutch too. I have question for you, do you think learning Esperanto would help learning all these languages given it borrows from them or should i drop it and focus on just Italian and spanish? Only reason im learning it is to maybe help with other languages down the road. I also kind of like it because it sounds sorta italian when spoken which is cool. I want to talk with local spainsh people, then italian i love how they talk and im 1/4 italian so the movation is there for those 2 languages..not so much with Esperanto. Im 1/4 German too and always wanted to learn it (ive failed in the past, but tech has helped a lot) with dutch i just hope to use it to learn german. My goal is to learn them before 2030...but i don't want to spread myself to thin and burn out.

[@RobbieKunz]

Unless you really have a strong interest in Esperanto, I'd say just focus on Spanish and Italian. Learning one of those languages will help you learn the other languages just as much as Esperanto might. Also, Spanish and Italian have way more cultural expression than Esperanto does. At the end of the day, what will determine whether you make it in these languages or not is if you are able to put in a little bit of study time each day over a long enough period of time. If you can stay consistent, I don't see why you can't learn them. Also the more languages you learn, the easier it becomes.

[@thetightwadhomesteader3089]

@@RobbieKunz @RobbieKunz thanks! One thing that interest me about it is the passport program where it's members will let you stay at their place when traveling. I've only ever been been to 3 states, but would like to travel some while I still have the means. I think what I'm going to do is keep going with it, but focus more on the other 2. I definitely see how learning one is transferring over to the other even this early on. So far I'm putting in everyday at least an hour at min, sometimes up to 9 depending on how I feel/time I have.

[@danielrose7566]

I've been learning German for about 1 year and I have had the feeling to attempt another language at the same time , so I believe this is a sign to get started. I just need to decide between french or Italian. I was wondering on what method you have towards learning languages, do you start with the grammar or the vocabulary or do you learn both simoltainously ( for the begging phase of a language)?? Anyways thanks for making this video as it's reignited energy within me to actually bother with language learning again 🙏🙏

[@RobbieKunz]

You're welcome, Daniel! French and Italian are both great choices so I don't think you can go wrong there. Recently I have been using the Assimil manuals to learn the basics. For example, with German, I went through the 3 manuals they have (the one from the 1950s, 1990s and most recent one). Then I jumped into reading real literature. It was difficult but if you are comfortable with not understanding 100% of what you are reading, it's doable.

[@danielrose7566]

​@@RobbieKunz Hey, thank you for replying. I will certainly take your advice and look into Assimil manuals to gain a better foot hold on the basics. In the past day I began properly looking into french learning and so far I've enjoyed it and have found it to be decently simple for writing and reading so far however I am currently struggling with pronunciation and understanding vocal listening with the language but I'm certain that with a bit of time and practice this can be dealt with

[@Rationalific]

Thanks for the videos! It would be cool to hear you say some things in Sanskrit and especially Teochew! I do know of Teochew (although I don't know how to speak it). I lived in Singapore before, and they have a lot of people who are from Hokkien and Teochew families over there. Unfortunately, Mandarin is dominating there as well as on the mainland. I don't mind Mandarin being the lingua franca of most Chinese people, but I don't want the local/traditional languages to die out. And I would call Teochew a language (or a dialect of Min Nan / Ban Lam perhaps...though not a dialect of Mandarin by any means). Why not make a video giving a few phrases in Teochew and how it differs wildly from Mandarin? That would definitely be an interesting video!

[@RobbieKunz]

Thanks for your great comment. I might consider saying some things in Sanskrit, although you can hear me speaking Sanskrit in my video "6 Language Rap". That's great you lived in Singapore, I've always wanted to go there to check it out. Yes, the Chinese government is pushing hard for Mandarin to be spoken in favor of local dialects in order to push things forward. There isn't the same sense of wanting to preserve minority languages like there is in the West so many Chinese people don't mind speaking only Mandarin and not passing on their native language. In the example of the girl I met this past Thursday, when I asked her if she spoke any other languages besides Mandarin, she told me she was learning a little bit of Cantonese but that was it. I actually had to ask her several times if she spoke any other languages before she admitted she also spoke Teochew. Teochew is interesting because it is considered one of the most conservative Chinese languages and has preserved many features from Old Chinese that Mandarin has lost, for example. To give a quick example, I always wondered why the Sino-Japanese word for "two" in Japanese was "ni" when in Mandarin, it's "er", which sounds quite different. If Japanese originally got the word "ni" from Chinese, then why is Mandarin so different? However, if you look at Teochew, "two" is "no" which keeps that "n" sound at the beginning. So, Japanese adopted the word for "two" at an earlier stage of the Chinese language evolution which Mandarin went on to lose and Teochew kept. Thank you for the video idea. I will definitely consider making a video on Teochew!

[@Rationalific]

​@@RobbieKunz Thanks for the detailed reply! It's such a shame that Chinese languages (even if some are in the millions) are dying. Mandarin is just one of them. Of course, the reason is that the government (admittedly like many governments including Western ones throughout time) wants to pretend that it is mono-ethnic (except for a few "minorities" who wear "funny clothes" for tourists). The fact is that China could have easily been something like Europe with countries speaking different languages, such as the multiple Romance-language countries, Germanic countries, Slavic countries (that Russia is trying to do something about), etc. I think the government is deathly afraid that if people realize that they are actually linguistically varied, there is a chance they will want to eventually break away (even if not soon). But it's really sad that major languages will be largely erased within maybe a century and a half. What a loss for culture. And yes, disappearing languages are a loss for historic linkages as well. I don't know Min Nan languages at all, but I have also learned Japanese (to an intermediate level) and also know that the Min Nan languages appear to resemble the sounds that Japanese took into their own language. For example, in Hokkien, Hokkaido appears to be Pak-hái-tō (closer than "Bei hai dao", I'd say). "Nationality" (國籍) is kok-che̍k (like "koku seki"). The US (美國) is Bí-kok, with the "bi" just like in Japanese (beautiful, not "bei" as in rice". In Japanese, if it used those kanji, it would be "bi koku"), while Mandarin has "Mei guo". "Mankind" (人類) in Hokkien is jîn-lūi, just like "jin rui" in Japanese. Of course, not all of these are so close (and "lang" is another reading of 人 in Hokkien in some words), but it's really fascinating. And even the word for Japan in English probably has roots in a similar pronunciation. I mean (using a dictionary), "Japan" in Hokkien is Ji̍t-pún, not "Rer ben" (to put it more phonetically in Mandarin). I think that if anything, Teochew is even less well-known than Hokkien (which has a larger presence both in China and also Taiwan), but I'm definitely interested in it. And if you ever get the chance to visit Singapore and Malaysia, you'll be able to find people who speak Teochew (although Singapore also promotes only Mandarin out of its Chinese languages, even though most of the Chinese there are not descended from Mandarin speakers...but money talks, and they know their major trading partners, of course. Even so, I knew a Teochew person when I lived in Singapore for just a year. I'll check out your "6 Language Rap", but I'd also be very interested in seeing a Teochew video.

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you for the detailed reply and sorry for my late response. I am still figuring out how KZbin shows me the comments on my videos. That's very interesting about Hokkien, I do not know much about that language but from what you've told me, it also seems to keep a lot of elements from older forms of Chinese that Japanese also kept. So interesting to see. I know there are actually some areas like this in English/French where English kept an older French word with its original meaning while modern French evolved into something else. Unfortunately I am not well versed on this so I cannot give any examples. I'd really like to visit Singapore some day even if I don't get a chance to speak Teochew there. I have a good friend who lives there who I've wanted to visit for a while. Teochew itself I have found someone to practice with who lives in France as well as two people in my own city, Philadelphia, so far. Then I have my good friend who lives in Shenzhen now. By the way, how do you know about all these words in Hokkien? Have you studied it?

[@Rationalific]

​@@RobbieKunz No problem about the delay in replying! Actually, I generally don't expect replies at all from online video creators, so any reply at any time is more than I usually imagine that I'll get. I haven't studied Hokkien or Teochew at all. I just know a few facts about them. From the little that I have learned, the way their characters are pronounced does appear to be closest to the Japanese on'yomi pronunciations when compared with other Chinese languages (at least outside of the Fujian area). That is one thing that makes them fascinating to me (again, even though I haven't studied them). I believe I first got to know about Teochew and Hokkien in Singapore, as again, those languages are relatively common there (although they are being replaced by Mandarin, as in mainland China). Besides that, I've just done a bit of "research" on Wikipedia and a few other places. As you probably know already, Teochew and Hokkien are both languages in the Min Nan / Ban Lam branch, and have at least some limited level of mutual-intelligibility. I don't know the specifics, but I guess that their similarities are like those between Spanish and Portuguese/Italian. Whereas their distance from Mandarin/Cantonese might be more like the distance between Spanish and French/Romanian... I honestly know none of the languages that I've mentioned above (except for intermediate Japanese), but that's my conception based on the little I have looked into it. I did also watch a video recently about exactly what you mentioned regarding English retaining some old French words while standard French lost them (or possibly differed from Norman French even then). So I know what you mean. The video is here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXOqknRphahsqrM As examples, Hôpital in French is "Hospital" in English. French used to have the "s" after the "o", but lost it, so the "ô" symbol is used to show the lost "s" that is now neither written nor pronounced. Of course, French has also retained many letters that it no longer pronounces as well. It is said in that video that "hostel" came to English first, and then after French lost the "s" in that word, "hotel" then came to English as well, and they have similar meanings in English now, but not exactly the same (but they come from the same French word, which was "hostel" but now "hôtel"). Similarly, Japanese didn't take from the Beijing area when it was taking up kanji readings from China. And in addition, even those in Beijing didn't speak the same, and Mandarin has probably changed more than most other Chinese languages (probably largely due to invasions from the north, but that's my own conjecture). And even more recently, Mandarin has been evolving. Beijing vs "Peking" should give a clue to that. The 京 character was pronounced more like "king" before. Somewhat modern Mandarin changed the initial sound from "k" to "j". Japanese, on the other hand, took an earlier version (from another region as well) and apparently changed the ending sound from "ng" to "o(u)". It seems that most Chinese languages besides Mandarin retain more of a "k/g" sound rather than the "j" sound. Anyway, Singapore is an amazing place, and if you successfully learn Teochew, you should definitely visit Singapore. I mean, it's fantastic even if you are not in it for the languages (of course, English is the main lingua franca, and Mandarin is of course very widespread, as are Malay and Tamil in those respective populations). But you'd definitely be able to find some Teochew people to converse with (even if sadly, the younger generation seems to be giving it up and replacing it with Mandarin)...

[@amj.composer]

Oh my, sanskrit? Why is that? (I've studied sanskrit for a while, I love it)

[@RobbieKunz]

I didn't have a strong reason for beginning. One of the other students at the Language Academy wanted to learn Sanskrit and so a class was formed for it. They invited me to join and because I like languages, I agreed. I don't really believe you need a strong reason to start learning a language. I'm perfectly happy to learn a language and see what opportunities it affords me in the future. Also, I have always had an interest in Ganesh. How do you study Sanskrit?

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Great video and great life lessons best time is now. The only thing I do with multiple languages is if I know a word for Japanese but not Spanish it usually will pop into my head or vice versa. For me I like traveling to Spanish speaking countries so it been very useful as far as Japanese that became a Covid hobby due the all the content available and really like the flow. So I am going to travel next year to Japan for a few months and put my skills to the test.

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you for that! I think you will have a great time in Japan. I always enjoy going to the country where the language is spoken and actually get some "real" use out of it :)

[@markc6411]

I thought I was crazy studying 3 languages (Mandarin, Spanish, and French) every day :)

[@RobbieKunz]

Not crazy at all. Mandarin is challenging but Spanish and French are both in the same language family so you got that going for you, too.

[@Rebecca-kg6vd]

Hi! Can you share a bit about what you said in your flyers? And were they in English or multiple languages? I want to try something similar 🙂

[@RobbieKunz]

They were in English although if I had to do it again, I would put the names of the languages in their respective languages, especially if they use a different character set like 日本語 for Japanese and 中文 for Chinese. I figure that would catch the eye of a native speaker much better. The way I did it, I just said in really big letters at the top, "Looking for speakers of: Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Teochew, German" and then had a short introduction about myself and what I was looking for along with my contact info. Good luck with your flyer! Which languages are you looking for?

[@Rebecca-kg6vd]

@@RobbieKunz thanks so much! Looking for Greek and Korean at the moment. Some of the others I’m studying like French or Spanish are easier as there are several different meetup options.

[@vixdevil]

What is ur age and at what age did learned ur first foreign language?

[@RobbieKunz]

I'm 38 now. I started learning languages when I got my first opportunity in middle school to take one trimester of Spanish and one trimester of French in 6th grade. I must have been 11 or 12 then. However, there were many years in my 20s and 30s that I did not study at all.

[@lairisyapping]

I have been bilingual my whole life (English and Spanish) but I’ve always craved knowing lots of languages I’ve finally decided to take the jump I’m learning Italian, Russian and Icelandic Icelandic is more for chit chat/reading But I want to be fluent in Italian and Russian and learn even more languages after 🩷🩷

[@ericbarreto6639]

Great video! Do you want to learn any modern Indo-Iranian language after a solid foundation in Sanskrit?

[@RobbieKunz]

Yes! I am most interested in Persian and Dari for Iranian languages. Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati for Indic languages. While life is very short to study so many languages, I also cannot say for certain where life will take me.

[@ericbarreto6639]

@@RobbieKunz Keep going! I share similar interests, and while I can't devote a reasonable amount of time to studying certain languages, I like to maintain minimal contact. For example, I review 10-25 previously studied sentences with audio per day on flashcards or learn 1 to 3 new ones. For languages with scripts other than Latin, I study the writing system and then keep it fresh by reviewing words or phrases. This approach may not be sufficient to fully learn a language, but (I hope) it serves as a good tool to facilitate the actual learning process in the future. In the meantime, I enjoy the beauty of various aspects of these "standby" languages while focusing on the main language(s) through meaningful activities like extensive reading and listening. Life is too short to master all the languages we like, but it's even shorter to ignore the urge to at least grasp a glimpse of them.

[@RobbieKunz]

I agree with you 100%. In the new year, I may be starting Hindi and/or Persian so maybe that will kick all of this off. I also try to get in even just a little bit of study time for all the languages each day. Thank you for the words of encouragement.

[@jacquesvermeulen7105]

I am currently studying Korean, but I also want to learn Japanese

[@RobbieKunz]

Hey Jacques, Korean and Japanese grammar are very similar. A lot of the time you can just swap out the Korean words for Japanese words and you'll have a correct sentence in Japanese. The basic vocabulary is different but if you get to an advanced level, many of the Sino-derived words (from Chinese) are the same. I highly recommend studying Japanese and Korean at the same time or if it seems too difficult, starting Japanese when you have a good grasp of Korean.

[@TechHog8984]

Well said

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you, I appreciate it!

[@TechHog8984]

@@RobbieKunz 👍

[@Deibi078]

I'm learning French and Japanese

[@RobbieKunz]

Both great languages! For an English speaker, Japanese is certainly more challenging.

[@Deibi078]

@@RobbieKunz I already speak spanish as a first language and English as a second 😎

[@SWilla00946]

are you someone who doesn't start a language until you reach a certain level or do you just go all out and start whenever

[@RobbieKunz]

Good question. I just go all out. It really depends on the opportunities that come up in my life to learn the language. If I meet someone or a class is offered at the language academy, I like to take those opportunities. All my languages are at various levels and I don't think it makes sense to hold off if you are serious about committing to that language for the rest of your life.

[@MrLue9]

Give me tips on learning Japanese

[@RobbieKunz]

Learn a little bit a day for the rest of your life and you'll probably end up pretty good at it.

[@mikenuttall]

No need to show us your notes

[@RobbieKunz]

Thanks for that. I feel one day handwriting will be a thing of the past so I want to show it off while I still can.

[@phonewhistler9178]

No need to tell people what they don’t need to do in their own videos. And personally, I love to see the notes!

[@kennethwdc]

@@phonewhistler9178 I like seeing the notes. It's unique. I haven't seen others share them.

[@languagelearningdabbler]

I like seeing them 🥰

[@multilinguish]

I personally like you showing the notes!@@RobbieKunz

[@fersay777]

Hello there. I'd like to ask you something about vocabulary. At certain point of learning a language, do you completely abandon the bilingual dictionary? I'm assuming you use one, not sure.. cause as english learner, I find the monolingual dictionary to be more accurate, there are lots of information, clearer definitions;but on the other hand, bilingual are more concise. Wich way you find it better? I also learn in contexts, reading a lot, trying to guess the meaning of words through the context.. 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷.

[@RobbieKunz]

I think it's better to use a monolingual dictionary if possible because it helps keep yourself and your mind in the target language (in your case English). By looking at the definitions in English, it may take longer to understand the word than by looking at a bilingual dictionary (with Portuguese definitions), but the time you will have spent looking at the English definition will also count as time spent in your target language which is beneficial. Also by reading English definitions, it will force your mind to continue to think in English and not resort back to Portuguese. I think it is always good to keep building your mind up in the target language.

[@fersay777]

@@RobbieKunz interesting.. I'd like to suggest you to make a video about this matter. Nice channel you have there.

[@RobbieKunz]

Thank you. Okay, I will keep that in mind for a future video :)