Want to Learn Languages? This is the Best One to Start With!

[@sansansansan_]

From an Italian, THANK YOU SO MUCH for this!!! you made me proud of my language and culture! Happy that you had fun with it! ^^ You already got a new subscriber!

[@vivioschen]

I mean, italian is probably my favourite language and i agree with everything you said haha, but i guess my tip is to just learn the language you're most interested in! if you are more excited thinking about learning norwegian, then do it! i've learned that being a fan of musicians ( btw italian artists are fucking amazing) or a tv show or basically anything makes the learning process so so so much easier, because you're surrounding yourself with that language automatically, especially if you're a person who falls in love with fandoms very easily like me. oh, and being forced to learn a language at school is probably the worst thing that could happen to anyone, it made me hate french so much even though it's not even /that/ bad.

[@TomCopeland]

Absolutly 100% agree and wish I put this in the video! Being forced to learn a langauge for any reason is THE most demoralising thing, whilst truly WANTING to learn something is absolutely the biggest single motivating factor you can have.

[@TravelStammer]

good point :) what are the italian dimintives and fandoms?

[@olliert4840]

I agree with this 100%, I've had a fascination with German for 5/6 years now, and have met so many lovely german (-speaking) friends over the years. I often get discouraged cause learning German is really kind of pointless tbh. Germans speak english really well, far better than any of the latin-language countries in my experience. But even though I could learn a more useful language second, I don't think I could ever drop German in order to learn a new language.

[@tullochgorum6323]

Another great advantage of Italian is that there are thousands of cognates (similar words and phrases) with English. Learn a few rules and you have a virtually immediate vocabulary that would take years to develop in more distant languages. In particular much of our more abstract vocabulary derives pretty directly from the same roots as Italian. So I can, for example, follow a TedX talk just a few weeks in. Try that with Mandarin... Vocab is THE toughest issue, so with Italian you'll make fast and motivating progress. The first language is the hardest - you have to figure out what approaches work for you, and you're not even confident that you'll succeed. Having a few thousand words at your command from the get go is a huge advantage for that first step.

[@fizeekpoaster]

Great video! A few years ago I chose to learn Norwegian because it was the closest to English. It went quite well and I fell in love with the culture. Unfortunately, my work assignment was cancelled, and I never made the trip to Norway. I still have maintained quite a bit Norwegian over the years and it's been fun teaching it to my son. Recently I became more interested in learning Italian after finding out I am part Italian (genetically, not culturally). However, I ended up going with Spanish for now because I live in Texas so I'll be able to practice Spanish a lot more. And like you said, it'll help me with Italian one day. I too am like you and am a language nerd, moreso in the past than now, but I feel like I always need to be learning something new and languages really scratches that itch. Plus you always get to eat some amazing food, meet some amazing people, and become a little more open minded. Cheers Tom, looking forward to your adventures in Germany now.

[@hentievisagie5062]

Really enjoy your videos!! I have been studying German but am thinking of swapping out one day a week out with Italian. Just to keep things interesting ya know haha Thank you for the content and keep up with it!

[@TomCopeland]

It's really such a beautiful language, and really fun to learn! You will find it much simpler to get to grips with than German, and you will be learning grammar structures that would be really useful if you ever chose to do French or Spanish :D Can't recommend it enough!

[@faiththong1984]

I'm currently learning Italian .I agreed with you Tom .After learning 6 month of French and 4 weeks of Spanish I pick up Italian language very easily . some of the words in these three languages are some more similar . But I would say French is the hardest language to master so far .

[@bhavin_ch]

I dunno.. Still feel Spanish is the right first foreign language! Has most of the benefits of Italian (grammar is not THAT hard and I'm yet to come across a true exception in pronunciation like in French or English) with the added advantage of a vast pool of people who speak it and a huge variety of shows and movies - sometimes a-grade stuff and not stuff-you-watch-just-to-learn-a-language stuff. Nothing wrong with Italian.. But I feel like the only good thing on TV that I can watch is The Sopranos and some spaghetti westerns Italian is probably a little bit simpler (haven't started it yet) but I feel that Spanish trumps in it's over-all utility and just the sheer number of people you can talk to

[@hiphopson]

Hi Tom! I like languages so much which is why its difficult for me to decide, I have a serious case of analysis paralysis! like i want to learn Portuguese but i have Spanish materiel, music playlist, follow Spanish speaking KZbinrs and other social media. I figured I'm set up for Spanish so maybe just go with that? which isn't bad! but then there Portuguese and French and Italian (i actually have an Italian friend in Italy).

[@kc7159]

Please don’t say Spanish 🤞 please don’t say Spanish 🤞 please don’t say Spanish!🤞🤞 Edit: WOW OKAY that’s the language I’m learning whew! 😅

[@TomCopeland]

😂

[@liftbert937]

In what language do you have to learn a whole new conjugation to speak formal? In most of them you don't. German -> 3rd person plural; French -> 2nd person plural; Slavic languages -> 2nd person plural; Swedish -> no formal form and btw conjugation is not affected by person at all! And in total, I don't get the point of Italian grammar being straight forward and easy. For sure it is easier than French and German, but by far more complex than scandinavian languages (like Swedish, which I would recommend as a first foreign language for native speakers of English).

[@TomCopeland]

You're quite right that in some other European languages the formal form is "borrowed" from another conjugations! I figured that Italian is quite unique in that it is the Lei form, which you get lots of practise using really early on! In my experience, Vous and Sie (Fr and De), come up slightly less frequently and therefore would come slightly less naturally to a beginner? Would be interested to hear what you think about that! Meanwhile, I think the main thing for me is that Italian gives learners a great introduction to many grammatical concepts (such as conjugation and formal forms, but also conjunctive and perfect / imperfect past) without being overwhelming. Ultimately these concepts will be super important if you do choose to move on so I think it's nice to get them under your belt early, as opposed to starting with something like Swedish (or Dutch!) where you lack one or two of them. What do you think?

[@liftbert937]

Tom Crewther That is true, maybe it is just your example which I don't agree with because it isn’t the “unique selling proposition” of Italian. Italian is definitely a language one can learn as a first foreign language. All the culture and nice people that goes with learning Italian is unique. However, I don’t think that it is a disadvantage to learn a language which does not introduce you into different grammatical structures. I support the theory that one should learn a very easy language as a first foreign language. When you learn an easy language in which you can get fluent very early on, it will make you feel more confident speaking a foreign language and furthermore will motivate you to continue learning other languages. There is an interesting TED-talk about this topic: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bpi2cp6LhKqfqck of course, Esperanto is a controversial language, but I support the principal idea of getting used to learning languages with an “easy” language. And maybe Italian does even fit in this category. My first foreign language is English (obviously) which as a native German speaker was very easy to learn. I then had a very easy time to learn other foreign languages from other language families (Romance and Slavic). But I guess as a native English speaker every language one is really interested in suits as a first foreign language. All the others “have” to learn English first :D

[@Philoglossos]

Japanese has something like five levels of grammatical politeness, including entirely different words in some cases that one uses either to be respectful to another individual or to be humble yourself.

[@liftbert937]

@@Philoglossos interesting. didn't know Japan was in Europe 🤔

[@Philoglossos]

@@liftbert937 You said "in what language," not "in what European language". Believe it or not, they do speak languages outside of Europe 😉

[@zenawoz]

I totally agree! I took two semesters each of French, Spanish, and Italian in college. People always assume Spanish is the easiest but that was not the case. Between estar and ser and all the different variations in different countries, Spanish was the hardest for me. Italian was a joy to learn and much simpler in comparison!

[@shaikhaalkaabi9267]

great points . I tried to learn Spanish and I maybe reached level a1 .However , when I did I was able to understand Italian as if it was my target language!

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

Oh I thought you'd say Esperanto

[@quebbbin]

and.. Esperanto?

[@TomCopeland]

Esperanto is certainly a good choice for many of the reasons I mention in the video. The reason I have never explored it too deeply is that I know it can be difficult to find conversations parters. Luckily this is getting easier every year, but I think the natural languages often have a great benefit in that there is a country or collection of countries where you can guarantee you will be able to get real native experience. What do you think?

[@leandroseoane4926]

Ti piaci la musica di Mina? Io ho imparato l’italiano fra ascoltare la sua musica per molti anni. Il mio italiano scritto non è perfecto, ma ci provo, al meno.

[@mellowasahorse]

Miss your content, Sir!

[@BLUE3DREAM]

Amazing edit and best ways to learn thx man and keep do what u do.

[@javirezio5]

Interesting suggestion! Beautiful language! The Scandinavian Effect occurs mostly in the Germanic world. We latinos love others trying to speak our languages xD

[@SoniaCerca]

I'm kinda disappointed because I'm Italian so I speak it already lol

[@RonaldMcPaul]

Learn it again!!

[@daysandwords]

I would 100% recommend Swedish to beginners. It has possibly the easiest grammar (for an English speaker) of ANY language. Verb conjugations? Nope. Formal and informal you? Nope. Cases? Dra åt helvete, nej!

[@emiliemaltais1309]

Don't feel bad about your french accent ! Come practice in Quebec, we are used to have our french cousins laugh at our accent and if you avoid Montreal you won't find a single confident english speaker .

[@skyeruzarakitic2706]

I‘m german and I learn 🇺🇸🇫🇷🇮🇹🇷🇺 at school

[@kevinjoseph2650]

it's good you have passion for italian but really some of the things are you say are your own perspective and not inherently true,italian is just as complicated as the other romance languages in grammar there really isn't much that i see that makes one more easier to start with than the other and the one difficulty of italian is it is not widespread of a language as french or spanish maybe if you live in europe it might be easier to find people that speak it

[@14xx07]

Can u make a vlog speaking only in Italian? :D That would be a really cool weekly/ biweekly / monthly ‘show’ to watch!!!! 😍😍😍😍

[@ITALIamo]

Grazie per il primo posto ;)

[@TomCopeland]

Prego :)

[@SaadonAksah]

Great to hear! Now do the Italian they sing in opera still the same Italian today?

[@Falanu]

Danny Lil Sawtrap: I love diminutive forms my artist name in Spanish is Trampita De Sierra (Little Sawtrap)

[@HughDickson]

Wow, what a great video (content, editing, etc)! Please do more videos like this one (along with the vlogs of your travels and language journeys/projects). P.S I reckon you should try looking into doing some collabs with other language KZbinrs (E.G Agnieszka/5-Minute Language | Gabriel Silva | Jan van der Aa/LanguageBoost | Luca Lampariello | Olly Richards/I Will Teach You A Language | et al) - I'm only suggesting this b/c I wanna see your channel grow.

[@quietcat]

Would you say that recommendation is more from the point of view of an english speaker? Also, what about kids/teenagers? As a portuguese speaker I wouldn't start with italian even though it would probably be a fairly easy one to start with. I'm wondering about the British school system in terms of language learning. Do you have to learn any foreign languages or is it optional? In Portugal you usually learn at least 2. You start in 5th grade with english and in 7th you have to pick another one. The 2nd language was only for 3 years (for me) and english 7 years. I personally didn't see it as chore having to learn a foreign language at the time. Starting with english may have helped a bit. I was already watching a lot of english language tv series. Side note, in EP-portuguese the formal ways of address use the 3rd person singular conjugation.

[@TomCopeland]

Hi there! Yes, I totally think my recommendation comes from the perspective of an English speaker. If you were German I might have a very different recommendation, for example. I would stay consistent though regardless of age! I think Italian would be just as good for teenagers and kids :) And English schools, well, we aren't very well regarded for our language-skills! You usually have to learn two foreign languages when you're quite young, but you tend to choose just one to do for your exams, i.e between ages 14 and 16. Most people therefore get around an A1 or A2 level, but they forget it as soon as they can at 16 years old! There are exceptions of course, but I think this is what happens to most English people.

[@quietcat]

@@TomCopeland I suppose english speakers don't feel the need to learn and retain a foreign language like others do. English is already the lingua franca. Plus I suppose if there isn't much contact with the language you are learning outside of school it gets more complicated in terms of retaining what you've learned. In Portugal even before I started learning english I was already watching tv in the language.

[@krncrty]

Spanish is becoming such a dominant language in British schools and Universities that Italian is struggling to get a look in. This also applies to German and even French will struggle. The power of this clip is that it provides positive reasons to learn Italian.

[@Alex-bf7mc]

In primary school (4 to 11 years old) we learnt no foreign languages at all. And then in secondary school we would study one language but for only 3 hours of classes per week and just for 3 years (11 to 14 years old). It was terrible, we learnt absolutely nothing. All of our teachers were English and just spoke to us in English the whole time. Not to mention there’s a culture here where people think there’s no need to learn a second language because English is so dominant so most of the kids didn’t even pay attention.

[@renoisawesome6993]

Hey Tom, I really appreciate your video, but I was wonder to what level have you learned all the languages you speak?

[@TomCopeland]

Hey there! I was actually going to mention this in the video, but it made the runtime HUGE, haha. Here's where I am at the moment: English - Native Speaker German - C1 (But writing skill is lower) Italian - B2 French - B1 (But would need a week to get back into the flow) Dutch - A1/2 (As above)

[@renoisawesome6993]

Pretty cool, actually right after I wrote this comment I binged on all of your progress videos and they were very inspiring... My progress I think is: Bulgarian - Native Speaker English - C1 (only an assumption, never lived in a foreign country to practice enough) German - B1 (though my reading is superior to other qualities because I mostly read) I hope that in a year I get to C1 in German and after that I want to start another language - most likely French (but Spanish is very tempting)

[@Kolvatn]

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