How to Learn a Language: INPUT (Why most methods don't work)

[@WhatIveLearned]

EDIT: Points discussed in this video: [1] We improve our language skills *only* when we *acquire* language through understanding what is being said (According to Krashen). [2] Your brain is a massive pattern recognition device that can piece out vocabulary and grammar rules IF it gets the meaning. [3] Dictionaries may help you "learn" words, but they do not help you improve your language skills (though it may indirectly help you "acquire" language which would improve your language skill) [4] Input of content in the target language is so important because it rapidly exposes you to a wide variety of vocabulary, grammar and contextual clues for how the language works. [5] NO SUBTITLES IN YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE. You can kiss any language gains goodbye if you use them. Though, subtitles in the target language can even have you learn quicker. [6] Speaking is NOT necessary for acquiring language. (Though it is surely necessary for pronunciation and being able to speak fluidly) As per Krashen "It means talking out loud to yourself in the car in Spanish will NOT help your Spanish ability." However, speaking can *indirectly* improve your language because you can use it to elicit more speech from speakers of your target language. [7] Use shadowing to improve your listening and pronunciation. Extra tips: RECOMMENDED BOOKS to get started in developing a productive approach to learning a language: ・Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition by Stephen Krashen ・Fluent forever by Gabriel Wyner ・Fluent in 3 months by Benny Lewis ◆I don't agree with everything said in these books. For example, Benny Lewis has some great approaches to language, but I don't agree with "Use the Language from Day 1" unless you are entirely comfortable embarrassing yourself in front of strangers. As per Krashen's Input Theory, The affective filter hypothesis states that learners' ability to acquire language is constrained if they are experiencing negative emotions such as fear or embarrassment. I totally agree with this based on my experience and think this is why "classroom language teaching" does not work. You are risking embarrassment every time the teacher calls on you and may be in fear of failing as you study the language. ◆Also, I do not think techniques for "memorizing" words are a good use of your time, *unless you are taking a language test.* If your aim is to learn the language to where you can understand media in that language and have enjoyable conversations, then mnemonics are not helpful. This is because they facilitate "learning" of the language and not "acquisition." For example, if someone says "Do you know what taberu means?" You can access your mnemonic of "I eat on a table [TABEru means eat!]," but if someone says to you "issho ni gohan tabenai?" you probably won't be able to rapidly comprehend this phrase and respond in a natural way. ◆The distinction between acquisition and learning is tricky, but very important to keep in mind while you develop methods to *acquiring* your target language in an efficient manner. ・Beginner Vocabulary: Try and find the "Core 100" words of your target language. After you get those down, move on to the next 100 and so on. The "core" is the most commonly used words (make sure the list you get distinguishes between the 100 most commonly used spoken words and written words) Relevant resource: fluent-forever.com/the-method/vocabulary/base-vocabulary-list/ ・Beginner Grammar: I recommend Tim Ferriss's "13 Sentences for introducing yourself to the Grammar. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqnUoGdtmqyCgtU SHADOWING ・Shadowing is simply finding a clip of a native speaker speaking and mimicking everything about their speech - pacing, intonation, cadence, and most importantly of course: pronunciation ・Try and shadow with video clips that show the speakers mouth so you can copy their mouth positioning. ・Especially if you're a beginner, do not attempt to shadow _everything._ For example a beginner shadowing session of an English sentence like "Hey bro I was thinking we should go grab some steak at that place around the corner when we finish work." would be like "Hey bro .... grab some... around the corner.... work." In short, you don't want to rush yourself to try and copy everything because you will mumble and that is not a good habit ・Be attentive of your frustration level. Shadowing is super hard and challenging. Let your goal be to slowly increase the amount of time you can sit in frustration. For example, one day you start shadowing, get super frustrated because you feel like you can't get more than 3 syllables right at a time and give up in 10 minutes. No problem. See if you can sit in that frustration for 11 minutes the next day. Don't overload yourself and turn language learning into a chore or you'll become more and more averse to doing language acquisition and shoot yourself in the foot. ・BEGINNERS may be especially frustrated, but even a little bit of shadowing will be very helpful. Work your way up from just 5 minutes or so. ・Keep in mind certain types of clips will be more useful to shadow than others. For example, since most people in Japan don't speak much like a newscaster or anime character at all, that's not a really good shadowing target. ・Get apps like "Video Speed Controller" for chrome so you can quickly adjust the video's speed on the fly. (Being able to quickly adjust the speed is especially helpful if you have one character in a TV show who mumbles and other characters who speak really clearly) ・RECORD yourself. This is a tip from @Dogen, and I wish I implemented this more often when I was learning Japanese, it adds more time to your practice, but really does reveal where your pronunciation is lacking. JAPANESE ・If you're trying to improve your Japanese skills, particularly pronunciation, I recommend checking out @Dogen . He's got a funny youtube channel kzbin.info But if you're interested in specifics on how to step up your Japanese, check out www.patreon.com/dogen ・JLPT - If you're aiming to pass the JLPT, don't waste any time on WRITING Kanji. It's 100% not necessary for the test (As of 2012). Which, honestly I think is a good thing, because I can get everything I want to done in Japan without being able to write a lick of Kanji. To clarify: I would say I am fluent in written Japanese, I can read newspapers, books and can type and read most Kanji. *However,* I can hardly _write_ Kanji. Then again, I don't need to. The only time I do is when I have to fill something out on a tax form or address a letter - but there's no rules against referring to your phone when filling forms in. Just make sure you know the stroke order behind Kanji.

[@FrameByFrame96]

Amazing video. As usual. However, I'm quite surprised that inspite of your excellent critical choice of your research rsources, you haven't mentioned Chris Lonsdale and his Third Ear book. It's a book that basically illustrates a very effective way to learn a language starting from the very beginning of trying to make sense of your environment until the very end when you get a language parent that helps you learn how to actually coverse in that language. And he gives very interesting and useful tips. For example, with the language parent, basically some native, s/he has to converse with you and cofirms that s/he understands you every time you say something correctly. However, if wrongly said, s/he would reformulate what you've just said but in the right way. One question, though, did you study Japanese at the university or at some institute or did you manage to have that certificate on your own? Cuz if it's on your own, only using the concepts you discussed in your video, man that's amazing! I have a similair story with lagnauge acquisition as well. I was born and raised speaking Arabic and learnt English at uni. Then I traveled to Hungary to resume my studies there. I couldn't make sense of what they were saying so I looked up how to learn a language from scratch and Chris Lonsdale's video came up. Since then, I've been implementing his concepts and now, I'm able to more or less hold a conversation in Hungarian :D (quite the achievment considering it's only been a year and never studied the language in uni or some private school)

[@ikosimazaki723]

Super helpful, definitely gonna use the techniques to teach my students!

[@TruFlyFox]

Get some sleep! Also, I use these techniques to learn languages. I gave 4...learned to different levels of proficiency but I'm planning on sticking with one for now with MASSIVE input until I'm dreaming in it. Then on to another one.

[@Terri_2.0]

Your sleep is more important right now; thank you for the very informative video.

[@SouthPark333Gaming]

Where is that lecture you showed bits of? I would love to watch that

[@dixiiid3842]

There is no better feeling than when a new language starts to click

[@menaatefadly]

U mean...its better than sex?

[@JohnSmith-gd8ec]

@@menaatefadly yes

[@nodeue]

@@menaatefadly it's absolutely better than sex, better than the best sex you can imagine.

[@deez3]

@@menaatefadly yes

[@abdullahhamoodah3200]

@@menaatefadly ye man because I’m a virgin

[@victorgrazziani4055]

Learning a new leanguage is like unlocking another part of the internet you didn't had access before

[@ndescruzur4378]

this!

[@RussianWonder29]

so truee for russian !!!

[@HolahkuTaigiTWFormosanDiplomat]

0.0

[@Termenz1]

@@RussianWonder29 Are you Russian too? For me it feels like English internet is so much different than the Russian one, different tastes, different community etc.

[@RussianWonder29]

@@Termenz1 Нет, я Францус но учу русского языка ;)

[@spanishafterhours]

People pretend to learn a language in 3-6 months, when kids are still making mistakes at age 5. Patience and dedication is the answer.

[@EmilyKinny]

most underrated comment.... people think they've always "known" their language and so think they magically one day at the age of 2 became perfect at it. Not so, my guys. Even for your FIRST, native, language it takes 6 or more years to be "fluent" and even longer to be fluent in an "adult" way. But people expect to talk like perfect adults in their second language within a year.

[@InsertHere]

Remember that kids are also learning how to live, and what the hell is going on. Although they learn stuff much more easly

[@spanishafterhours]

@@EmilyKinny Exactly, it takes time, but nowadays we feel like everything must be done in a rush.

[@spanishafterhours]

@@InsertHere That is also true, hahah they are not only learning a language, they are learning everything, but still, the fact that learning a language takes time, is still true even for kids, whose learning ability is way better than that of adults.

[@pooyamazloomi6548]

One learn the language once, the rest is only differnt tongues and words

[@john27638]

I am currently 17 years old, not a native English speaker, and have been speaking English fluently since I was 11 just from watching a bunch of KZbin videos. Ever since I won some competitions, I have been an advocate for learning from consuming media.

[@bestusernameever6518]

This works as long as you're still within the critical period (which ends at 20).

[@tubax926]

Bro, are u me? I basically speak and write like a native (I've literally talked with strangers, and they were surprised to hear that I wasn't from the US because of my accent). Literally learned it through youtube and video games (of course, it took me like 6-7 years to reach the level of a native). Planning to do the same with German, once I get to the B1 level.

[@gianfranco8572]

Nice

[@metaphordreams378]

@@bestusernameever6518 I have heard its between 2 and puberty

[@9000ck]

amazing

[@adde9506]

"I learned English through magic, like every other baby." Word.

[@wesnohathas1993]

Those darn babies with their unfair advantage in language acquisition...

[@MrEysox]

As a baby I didn't learn English sadly...

[@Zaefnyr]

my first language isn't english and same

[@kyrakia5507]

Eysox Don’t you understand? All babies learn English through magic, even if they live in a non-English speaking country and never meet anyone who speaks and English. Its magic.

[@MrEysox]

@@kyrakia5507 but I'm a muggle...

[@thatredheaddan5809]

I think this is basically how I gained most of my knowledge in English. I would just consume every bit of American media I could find during middle and high school. I still remember how I mostly didn’t understand about 40% of the words but overtime I learned the meaning only by context. Turns out, now I can’t give u a precise translation in my mother language because I never learned it. In my head certain words are saved like a feeling of what the word actually means.

[@MrBombSTI]

Same here, I struggle to translate words from english into german directly since I dont know the direct translation a lot of the time, usually I give a few examples to describe in which context a word is used and mention synonyms

[@thatredheaddan5809]

tahjera robinson I guess, counting from the beginning I started learning English in elementary school, around 15 years. Now I would consider my English to be quite fluent but it changes over time depending on how much I speak in real life. Although I can’t really count the first six years or so in school, cause I wasn’t really invested in learning anything.... sadly

[@thatredheaddan5809]

NBFGTA4 oh that’s so true! Plus German media, in my eyes, became kind of spoiled. Too much pretentious behavior, superficial content or the typical “Assi“ (short for asocial, but as a very derogatory term) stuff, when talking about television. Not saying that American Media is free of all that stuff but it‘s a foreign culture to me so I’m not so judging or can just look over it

[@Pvemaster2]

@@thatredheaddan5809 I had the same when I told someone I was watching Neo Magazin Royale for German language practice, like I don't really get the "level" of the content anyway, I was just using it for listening/understanding purposes. They made sure to tell me it "wasn't their preferred thing to watch" lal. Now I binge this channel called bushfunkistan cus I really like mushroom stuff and it's a great "context" way of learning while someone's describing characteristics or whatever

[@Hanex94]

Understanding a language and translating seems like two different things to me, sometimes I try to do that in my home with my family (spanish speakers), but always find myself using all my brainpower and failing in my head like 4 times before giving a proper translation

[@Dixxi91]

In short: learn like a child would. Lots of listening with pictures and things for context, then try to mimic sounds.

[@neruya09]

Dixxi91 thank you so much 💕

[@kaichpotato6156]

thanks for the tldw

[@maze7376]

I love you, bye.

[@DinosaurNick]

That makes so much sense! Gracias!

[@SirDavid290]

It's literally how i learned to speak english, with Markiplier's reaction compilation.

[@Mohjo19]

As a Brazilian, all my knowledge about English came from everything but english classes. All the content I really liked to watch/consume back then was in english, so I did to learn it in the "hard way", watching videos without subtitles or with just the native language subs. At some point I just acquired knowledge enough that the English classes I had in school just seemed trivial, aaand here we are today.

[@cfilgueira]

Literally learned English the same way. I used to consume so much content in English that eventually i didn't need subtitles in Portuguese anymore.

[@bastianse8235]

My case is similar like yours and also English classes becomes so easy to me (not always but in the most of the time)

[@bepreparedforwhatscoming4975]

@@cfilgueira how long do you think it took? 6 months? 2 years+ ?

[@ViniciusRodriguesBR]

@@bepreparedforwhatscoming4975 it took me 2 years and some moths

[@mrnarason]

Every Brazilian person I know who is pretty fluent in English learn it the same way. I'm trying to learn portuguese kkkkkk

[@user-nf9xc7ww7m]

Dyslexia is fun too. I kept calling my teacher 생선님 instead of 선생님. She was wondering why I kept calling her the "honourable fish" instead of "(honourable) teacher" 😋

[@sonofthepatient1714]

I'm not even gonna lie,this made my day😂😂😂😂

[@erikamiglioranza1559]

ahahahaha 😆

[@dywsliws]

Lmaoo this also made my day 😂

[@butterflyexists]

honourable... fish... that’s hilarious

[@default632]

Yeah Hangul has this weakness. Japanese doesn't do this and make you learn a lot of different symbols for each sound. Even then there are similar looking ones -.-

[@verybarebones]

I learned English by playing videogames that were untranslated. All the years of English classes in middle school were useless compared to 10 hours of pokemon with a dictionary.

[@Hanex94]

Same happened to me with resident evil and silent hill :D

[@FranciscoBattistella]

Same for me, but with Age of Empires!

[@si-bang-sat]

It was GTA San Andreas for me... with a running e-dictionary in the background!

[@triforce_xiii]

i played Resident evil by the age of 13 and learned a lot by it, same with breath of fire 2, played it at about 11 or so; now i think i am pretty decent at this language.

[@luciosobrinho7508]

This way is the best way that a lot of people have to get english vocabulary

[@SuperOnigiripanda]

“And in two years I was able to pass the highest Japanese proficiency test” -throws all my textbooks out the window-

[@nicolelindsay2098]

Same, I've spent two years in university and I'm not that level. And now people tell me

[@bobhoskins8306]

I wouldn't bother. Passing the JLPT N1 isn't as scary as you think. There's no speaking component.

[@dererlkonig7428]

I was really surprised when he said it.N1 is 10 000 words 2000 kanji+grammar.It's insane.

[@pao-sol]

Looks like I’m wasting my time with genki and anki :( But how do you learn kanji with this method?

[@alfredomulleretxeberria4239]

@@pao-sol Read at least 3 hours a day every day. Also, don't learn kanji. Just learn to recognize them as squiggles inside of words.

[@chikokishi7030]

Im am an english teacher in Japan with no formal english training... Im an engineer grad. But over the years, i have slowly learned this as well so my teaching is 90% focused on situational cues and understanding more than exact grammar.

[@juleslefumiste9204]

so your students probably say 'everyone DO it'? lol

[@chikokishi7030]

@@juleslefumiste9204 No, but ill be using your comment to teach "how to be a lowkey dbag online" lessons. Thanks lol

[@FireyDeath4]

@@chikokishi7030 erm never gona give you up xd yesh

[@chikokishi7030]

@@FireyDeath4 never gonna let you down buddy

[@TheFrantastic]

I am an aspiring English teacher, I would like to know what do you do exactly, because this video has made me doubt my choice of career and your comment gave me hope.

[@smokesparkdragonfly1368]

I have two native frech speaking friends, and I like to parrot them under my breath to get the feel of the language. So one day I parrot a word a little too loud and they hear me. They look horrified, but don't tell me what the word means, so I repeat it. Over and over, I pester them to try and get the awnser. Then I go to french class and ask my teacher, who politely informs that I am saying the f word

[@braidygal]

SmokeSpark Dragonfly oh my gosh I just burst out laughing at this!!

[@lebulle4544]

fourrer?

[@youhavetogotheretocomeback]

r/thathappened

[@youhavetogotheretocomeback]

@@RanchDressingPop-Tarts You sound very discerning "Sounds probable, I'll believe it"

[@youhavetogotheretocomeback]

@@RanchDressingPop-Tarts Cool. So you have no opinion on this. Next.

[@alnatex9815]

If you're still very new to a language and consuming media is too overwhelming try starting with media geared towards children. Especially programs that are ment to teach native kids their own language. They have lots of visual clues, easy plots to follow and a simple vocabulary. That's something one of my English teacher did with us in school.

[@coralpuppytin1139]

I tried doing this but it was just dubbed Peppa pig, too much of an obnoxious show for me. I’m trying to find something else

[@drvlnn]

watch a news is helpful

[@koolooc726]

@@coralpuppytin1139 dont watch cartoons aimed at infants, lighthearted simple cartoons such as the ones in Cartoon Network are better

[@unicorn111]

Dora the explorer for the 🏆 win

[@KR_Kosmik]

We watched a lot of German SpongeBob in my German class

[@aninhagamez]

The biggest proof that I'm improving in my 2nd language is that I understood almost everything of this video, even though my native language is Portuguese

[@chaeaddicted6346]

mitou

[@Kim-rw6tz]

same. i haven't attended classes. just some verrry basic lessens in school (alphabet and some simple grammars.) but bcz of spending a loooot of time in youtube and watching korean and thai series with eng subtitles, now i understand 99% of youtube's eng videos. and bcz of commenting and chatting with people in comment sections my writing also improved a looot.

[@chaeaddicted6346]

@@Kim-rw6tz on KZbin*

[@Kim-rw6tz]

@@chaeaddicted6346 thanks for correcting me. >.

[@chaeaddicted6346]

@@Kim-rw6tz youre welcome also youre so smart cause self studying is tought, wish you luck keep on improving :)

[@aikuisviihteenarkkipiispa8602]

I talk to myself in English all the time. It's a fun way to practise pronunciation and it helps with getting used to actually using the language for more than just watching stuff online. Making comments like this one is also really helpful for the same exact reasons after reading out loud what I've written.

[@MysticHeather]

Your written English is fantastic!

[@AdamOwenBrowning]

based finn

[@Hanuuuuuuu]

I thought you're a native speaker lol

[@gus7130]

I have learned on my own skin that if you don't take the time to practice speaking and writing, you will never wake up one morning suddenly able to communicate fluently in the language. I'm aware of people who can comprehend every single word they read or hear, and someone is even able to write decently, but they simply connot speak.

[@jessicalourenco7472]

​@@gus7130I feel like that... But the craziest thing about my speaking is sometimes I'm able to have a productive conversation with myself (when I'm talking alone in English 😂) but sometimes I feel unable to do it.. it's horrible.. but maybe it's part of the process...

[@zissler1]

Took me a while to finally realize he wasn’t talking about learning c++

[@grendo45]

Maybe reading tons of source code and understanding what it does also works well for programming languages

[@zjohnson870]

grendo44 or just copy from stack overflow

[@OrangeC7]

@@zjohnson870 That's what everyone does anyways

[@AutistenKick]

Which steps do you guys suggest for learning a language on a c++ level?

[@Flipoutpk2015]

How high r u my dude

[@sallybradshaw4576]

The "positive learning experience" thing is honestly so underrated. I had an awful French teacher who was really rude and condescending, and every person in that class now has an aversion to learning French, which is really a pity.

[@herp_derpingson]

" French ... who was ... condescending" thats redundant ;)

[@sallybradshaw4576]

@@herp_derpingson I should clarify that he was an American who taught French, not a teacher from France. But your comment made me chortle.

[@mimihua2]

Same tho. I now have an aversion to french because of my French teacher

[@viktorreznov1548]

Interesting.. i had a similar experience with my french teacher. Maybe languages really do have a character.

[@user-up7nb6id1f]

@@sallybradshaw4576 “chortle” haven’t seen this word in a while

[@anastasiadolgaya9618]

I agree that input is crucial - I, for one, was able to learn English by watching KZbin and reading books, with no actual speaking practice with native speakers. However, I'd like to add that simply talking out loud to myself (I promise, I'm not crazy) helped me to feel more confident in my ability to express my ideas in English. So I wouldn't say it's completely useless. I still like doing these lengthy monologues in foreign languages haha idk why it's never in my native language

[@proverbalizer]

Definitely. If you want to be able to speak a language you're definitely gonna have to speak. I guess you could "learn" or "understand" the game of basketball by watching NBA games, reading books, listening to coaches...but if you never actually pick up the ball and practice shooting....

[@tamaszalanyi6316]

Haha, I can totally relate to that!

[@egyptianpools]

omg i thought i was the only one! one day i was talking to myself while in the shower and my dad overheard me. later he asked me "who were you talking to?" and i said " ummm no one? do you not do that when you're alone?" and he looked at me weird lol

[@JamesKelly89]

You're not crazy. I talk to myself in Spanish all the time. It seems to have helped a lot actually.

[@thedeegeesaga]

Production, if you desire active skills (speaking and writing) is key, and talking to yourself is production, you organize the ideas on your mind quicker and quicker if you keep talking to yourself, shadowing, etc. Only input is a myth, otherwise there would be much more people better at languages.

[@nicholaswise5818]

Shadowing made a lot of sense to me when I started Japanese. As a Jazz musician, I often "Lift" solos, in which I learn a solo by ear and try to match the tone, time, and other characteristics of the solo as closely as possible. Music really is a kind of language acquisition!

[@lubedhomo]

Dude, you are precious

[@ClemensAlive]

After school I learned english by just watching KZbin and Netflix in english, and forced my brain to learn it. My thought was: "If a baby can do it, why shouldn't I?" So..7 years later my english is far from perfect. But fluent enough to make serious business conversations with international partners. (I never visited an english speaking country for more than 1 day.)

[@NicolaiSyvertsen]

English being the defacto world language makes it so easy as well. I got massively exposed to it through computers back in the early 90s and being online and interacting with people from all over the world. I'm trying to learn spanish now and started out with the Duolingo app which has been fun. I need to start reading some spanish language news sites and try out some of those duolingo podcasts but I feel like I don't know enough spanish yet to understand much. Norwegian is my mother tongue.

[@emmamemma4162]

It was so difficult for me to start understanding what people where saying in Spanish, @@NicolaiSyvertsen. What helped me a lot was watching Spanish series with subtitles in Spanish. There is an educational series called "Extra Espanol" that can be found on YT. Watch with subtitles first and then re-watch without subtitles, after this you will have an easier time with regular movies and series.

[@Isaac-cq6ns]

Did u watch with subtitles

[@meat.]

ClemensAlive babies learn language differently than teens/adults so not really a great route to take without subtitles lol

[@michaelshultz2199]

ClemensAlive your English seems perfect to be honest 👌

[@nenufae7499]

Shadowing is great technique until you learn japanese by mimicking anime and you end up speaking like jojo characters

[@MrDadidou]

tbh to be successful in life, all you need is some MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA

[@KAFaye-nk5tl]

Nenufae lmaooo i laughed at this

[@bvamstel9282]

KONO DIO DA ゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ

[@rizkyanuar]

NANI!?

[@makarlock]

Yare yare daze

[@RachelleAshmanWells]

so you're telling me that continuing to watch korean dramas nonstop will indeed help me in my efforts to learn korean? i am pleased with this information.

[@Jack-lc9zu]

Without subtittles tho

[@banhbae]

have to avoid historical dramas though since they use outdated korean to fit with the time period (imagine someone learning english from a shakespearean play). which sucks since i love historical dramas 😭

[@Jack-lc9zu]

@@banhbae Thanks..I didn't know that. But yeah in my country they use the old language to. It makes sense

[@litchtheshinigami8936]

Tsubasa Datenshi eh i prefer ones that are in this time but have spiritual or fantasy esque undertones. I recently watched hi bye mama on netflix and I ADORED that show. Sucks it came to an end though now i’m watching itaewon class wich though isn’t exactly spiritual er fantasy esque i still really enjoy.

[@meghanagk2578]

I actually did learn Korean that way. Pay more attention to words and how they're used and maybe study a little about them.

[@nathanielcolbert9070]

Conversation is also very important. I have plenty of friends that grew up with parents that spoke another language to them, but my friends only responded in English. As a result, they are able to understand everything perfectly but are unable to speak the language back because they aren’t used to thinking about responses in that language. It’s really strange, but speaking and listening skills are two separate things.

[@us3rG]

I spoke three languages all my life since I was a kid but now am starting to lose one couse I rarely speak it nowadays

[@NikeshDahal-yz1bf]

Sad what language?

[@nesounesouu1133]

Same here ! I'm from France but I'm of Moroccan origin. My parents used to talk to me in Moroccan and I always respond in French... I understand Moroccan, but I find it a little tricky when it comes to speaking...

[@Reforming_LL]

@@nesounesouu1133What is Moroccan? Because you either mean: Moroccan Arabic or any of the Berber/Tamazight languages.

[@702degrees]

this is receptive bilingualism!

[@i-dunnowhatimtalkingaboutbut]

I initially thought I learned some German words at 2:53 and was hyped about it, until I realized I'm a native German speaker :(

[@thomas.thomas]

Nein nein, die paar Wörter haben einfach dir das ganze deutsche Vokabular beigebracht.

[@liamthom7127]

Thomas S. *haben ihn ein Deutscher gemacht*

[@aan2538]

Thomas S. Ziben ziben ei lu lu ziben ziben eintz

[@rebeccan8290]

Same though, I was like woooaaaah, I understand and then I was like wait, I am German....

[@gjmarin2004]

😂🤣

[@stavrostziounis4756]

That's exactly how I learned and became fluent at English, from KZbin. Even though I was studying English as a lesson I never got much out of it and never really studied. Looking at my old textbooks now even from the proficiency level I know almost all the words and can perform very high on the grammar and other exercises even though I hardly studied for the class. I've noticed that it is kinda hard for me to translate from English back to my native tongue and that makes me think that when learning a second language you are not associating the words with your native tongue words but with the concept itself.

[@etofok]

haha i have the exact same experience. Several years ago when I was on Advanced level I couldn't translate "on the fly" AT ALL, it'd take me unpractical amounts of time to do so. Granted I improved on that matter but yes I came to the same conclusion = I got my 2nd language separated from my native and the words/phrases have no "bridges" so to speak. It's like a completely different skill

[@muhammedberkonder7802]

palm boy69 same

[@grumpyrabbit1934]

Same hahahahahha

[@zeeschelp]

@palm boy69 did you use a dictionary while watching vids?

[@SlackwareNVM]

Although it sucks for translating, that is the point where you want to be at. To have an intuitive understanding of the concept that is being talked about, and not having to translate it to your own language in your head to understand it (that's terribly inefficient). Translating on the fly is then a different skill to learn on top of the language you've acquired.

[@chewygami8781]

"you dont need to use your mouth to lea-" **Celebrates in social anxiety**

[@m_m_e_e_f]

Exactly!😂😂

[@justsomeguywithoutamask9602]

My Anxiety, Social Anxiety and Shyness are really thankful

[@haltdieklappe7972]

Except you do sorry bro. Input is just more important

[@loveexposure3351]

@@haltdieklappe7972 Shut up

[@haltdieklappe7972]

Optigisa you’re the one that’s probably got shyness issues so I think it’s fair to say you should shut up

[@Nosttromo]

I am a natural portuguese speaker, and I learned english without noticing it, through a method that this video basically described almost perfectly step by step. I had english classes at school, and learned some things about the structure, and many words in english are similar to portuguese, because english takes a lot from latin. For example, "prepare" in portuguese means "prepare" in english. It's that similar. My dad bought me a PS2 game called Ace Combat 5 and I started playing it. I didn't understand a thing about anything so I started blasting planes, but I got stuck at a particular mission. At this time, I started looking up what I should do in the mission, and started paying attention to everything, without understanding anything, of course. Then, I started paying attention to the words I knew, together with the words that I thought similar to my natural language, and then deduced the meaning of the rest of the words, based on context. Once in a while, some word's meaning would get confusing and contradictory, so I looked it up on a dictionary. Not an english to portuguese dictionary, an english dictionary, that tells the meaning of words in english. Usually the same cycle would repeat 2 or 3 times, until I found something that would make the entire chain click, and then i would learn not only my target word, but many other similar ones. When I started playing the game, I didn't understand a thing. The campaign lasts for 5 hours, and by the end of it, I didn't need the dictionary anymore. Of course, i didn't learn everything in 5 hours, beause I would fail missions a lot and repeat others to learn the context and plot. It's so curious to see the video describing very precisely the things that I did alone by myself. Needless to say, it worked. I'm now learning japanese because I like to watch a lot of anime. And it's going through the same process.

[@JMSG76]

Same here

[@alavanemano9027]

igual eu vei

[@tomwell9238]

Excellent experience!

[@flutterbyfisto]

In short: See like a baby Listen like a baby Talk like a baby Learn like a baby BE the- Lets not be too ahead of ourselves now~

[@greenblue1608]

😂

[@robertjamestaylor9261]

BE DABABY LET'S GOOOO

[@sharpnell7949]

My pacifier's ready. LEZZGOOO

[@DiarioCarnivoro]

You forgot "sleep like a baby" 😜

[@username1093]

lessgooo

[@junsuidearu]

MY JAPANESE TEACHER MAKES US DO SHADOWING ALL THE TIME!!! Makes so much sense now. However, we had some Japanese students in a exchange and they all said we spoke like anime characters... :,)

[@mpatel7080]

If only I could speak like an anime character! :(

[@deen_771]

@@mpatel7080 nah u dont wanna do the moan gasp konichiwa and "B-BAKA!" when trying to get your bread in japan

[@junsuidearu]

@@mpatel7080 hehe the japanese made fun of us xD

[@yiumyoumsan6997]

@@mpatel7080 Please don't

[@mpatel7080]

@@junsuidearu ok.(-_-)

[@kannan3801]

1.learn through context Movies Shows 2.maximise input 3.listen and shadow

[@allina15]

10x

[@mikesaunders8411]

Perhaps after shadowing record your voice and allow a native speaker to correct you thats the final test of fluency !!

[@Luis-io6fb]

@@lorax121323 Where can I get raw manga for free?

[@AmiciCherno]

Kannan Ravinther maximize*

[@magnificentsven1694]

Maximise is fine for UK/ex-USA spelling

[@SparklesNJazz]

when i was in Greece, i hardly knew any, but this little girl came up to me who knew zero English and started talking to me. by the end of our conversation i knew the words for milk, cup, and table. one of my best memories, and i realize now, taught me everything i need to know about language.

[@sMowlad]

Bilinguals be like: "We learned 2 languages through magic!"

[@xofantaxoo4690]

As a bilingual I agree

[@orangekoi]

That's kinda true

[@hazensze4490]

Damn my English is kinda off cuz I stopped using it for about three years when I was 11. I guess I'm just a half bilingual :(

[@angrydoodle8919]

I learned English through watching only spongebob and by talking only English in my school for five months.There was a program to learn English in 6th grade. The first five months of school, we would do it in French and we would use it to learn all that we have to learn during the year and in the last five months, the only class we had was English class and we were not allowed to speak another language. The only time we could talk French was to be understood by younger students.

[@dq8431]

Idk how I learned English when basically all my family doesn’t know it or prefers Spanish

[@RookieN08]

This video pretty much explains how I've gotten fluent in English. My English was atrocious to say the least when I was learning it in school. But after a decade of playing video games and watching movies with English subs, I now find it easier to speak and write English compared to my first language lol.

[@RICKtoSICK10]

What is your first language by the way?

[@AbyssWatcher745]

I know right

[@diersteinjulien6773]

Same for me. I'm french and I was speaking very decent english at 10 because I just wanted to play video games. Also, my girlfriend started watching english youtubers, and her english is getting better really fast (as for me, watching english youtubers didn't get my english better, but it got my listening comprehension throught the roof)

[@chemmaz]

same af.

[@MedK001]

Same

[@aryanshygun4317]

*tries to learn japanese and find patterns by watching movies with japanese subs * KANJI : ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF

[@Mu5icGodzilla]

Cries

[@Iluhvahtar]

@@scorpioassmodeusgtx1811 IDK, i find seemingly random sounds easier to learn than seemingly random images. And I don't get what you mean by the second part. I mean, 車 and 電車 have similar kanji, but not a single phonem of one is in the other.

[@egiamulyabaskara897]

@@Iluhvahtar kanji imo make it easier to understand the meaning of a word, but not how it pronounced in japanese. Like in your example, at least for me, i know automatically its a car and a train in english, but i usually forgot how the pronounciation in japanese.

[@Iluhvahtar]

@@egiamulyabaskara897 Yeah, I cam see how kanji could help make it easier to understand a word (even though I'm really vocal and want to know how to say it). What I don't get is how it would help to know how it sound

[@davidmacdonald9159]

Scorpio Assmödeus GTX1 i agree, especially having already learned a few hundred words in chinese for school

[@Sugarglidergirl101]

Moving to Japan through a language school was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Never felt more free in my life. I was a pretty sheltered kid and this was my first time ever being away from family longer than like two weeks maybe. And going from a small town in the southern states of America to living in Tokyo was so exciting. My life back home seems bland and boring now.

[@mobaplayer307]

How does one get into a language school!? i’m trying to do something similar when i get out of the marines but for portuguese!

[@eleanorgates3700]

how long did u go for? and did u go after highschool or college?

[@Sugarglidergirl101]

@@mobaplayer307 I just found one I liked and sent an application! I actually visited the school in person first during a trip there!

[@Sugarglidergirl101]

@@eleanorgates3700 I was in the language school for a year and a half. Went back home temporarily to see family and right now I live in Japan. I went after university (technically not right after, I worked in my studied field for a while first.

[@finbar21]

By watching Star Wars learned a language I did

[@hzmi_]

lmao

[@user-lh3bw4vy7r]

Well played sir.

[@mlgprussian7115]

Ho ho young skywalker

[@jenniferwilson9579]

👍🏻😂

[@dylanbracey9493]

There is another

[@screamcheeese7175]

This is actually how I learned German, and it was even in my 100 level classes. My professor spoke only German, but he also pointed at things so that we would understand context. Best experience I ever had in learning a language.

[@taranpreetkaur3134]

Heyy, ich würde dir die Serie "How to sell drugs online fast" empfehlen. Die ist SUPER LUSTIG und SPANNEND! Du wirst sie lieben!

[@user-up7nb6id1f]

@@taranpreetkaur3134 ich habe angeschaut, es ist sowieso ok aber konnte nicht jenseits der fünfte Folge schauen. weiß nicht warum, zu viel Wörter wahrscheinlich 😂

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

A thing my teacher told me is that you need atleast a small word base. She talked only German, we had no training data and no idea about how to feel about german stuff, it was just horrible. Nobody knew what to do and what page is it

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

@@user-up7nb6id1f ich habe nicht "drugs", das die habe "drugs"? Ich finde essen "drugs" SUPER LUSTIG und SPANNED! (Ich night Deutch, ich spreche deutch bekommen kuh)

[@KevWebsz]

Apple Brad Pitt Got it Moving to Japan.

[@liyans1]

KevWebsz 😂

[@StellaPlayss]

I laughed way too much at that

[@HeatherCutright]

@@StellaPlayss me too lol 😆

[@gabe_ed]

Ahhh, Taberu, my favorite actor

[@JosephM]

Same

[@harktischris]

I did a ton of flash cards at the beginning, basically just to scaffold my way up to the point where I *could* start consuming media in my target language (German) without having to look up every word. Then language "practice" became listening to podcasts, watching shows (consciously trying to avoid subtitles when I could), playing video games in German, reading books (esp ones that I knew I would enjoy, like the German Calvin & Hobbes), etc. It felt really effective, but felt like, i dunno, "dirty", given that my german grammar worksheet book was going unused. Glad to find this video that puts words to what I was dancing around, and even provides some studies validating this approach towards focusing on input! (I took some tests and I'm apparently now ~B2 overall in German, w/ C1 when it comes to reading/writing. Compared to years of me failing to learn French in school, focusing on input is the only approach that has actually worked for me. I was beginning to comprehend content well before I even know what grammatical structures were at play)

[@nickc3657]

Lmao my applied linguistics professor took almost two months to explain what you laid out in less than 13 minutes.

[@theshagidelicgamers4232]

College in a nutshell

[@OatmealTheCrazy]

@@theshagidelicgamers4232 School in general really

[@Meverynoob]

@。ガッレット you wouldn't learn anything in 13 minutes though, there's no one lesson that can be learnt without hours of build up.

[@rotnmold7861]

Imma leave it at 420

[@nickc3657]

。ガッレット *she. Most of the professors I’ve met are women, it turns out

[@maklasik]

I spent 5 years studying English in school. Even though I had better chances to study a new language back then (due to brain plasticity) after 5 years I had little to no knowledge. Then I decided to learn language by watching all seasons of South Park in English, my English perception skyrocketed to say the least. Started with subtitles and I spent 40 minutes per episode because I really wanted to understand all the jokes and had to use Google translate. After 5 seasons I was done with subtitles and after 7 more seasons I only needed google translate 1 word per episode. I finally made learning English fun! My advice would be to learn basics first. Like alphabet, 100-200 most common words and learn most used sentence structures. Then go rewatch your favorite tv-shows/movies. You most likely remember what people say in each dialog (since you watched it in your language) and now you just make these connections with the language you learn. It's fun, it's fast and if you think about it, it gives you that high "input". Happy learning guys!

[@ly_0]

brain plasticity degrading with age is a myth

[@Panic_Pickle]

Alaya or at least a vastly exaggerated one.

[@FeelingShred]

That's similar to how I learned english too. Playing strategy games and always looking at the dictionary for any word I didn't know. This was shortly before the internet.

[@willmcpherson2]

This method is genius.

[@not-so-smartaleck8987]

so what'd you think of South Park? "screw you guys, I'm goin' home" ;)

[@Kiwikick238]

My mom says she learned English by watching kids shows with me and my siblings and she’d do her own copy of my kindergarten work like practicing the letters and learning the shapes and colours. She’d also try to talk to us a lot in English so the convos were easy to follow since vocabulary wasn’t that big in early elementary. To this day she’s still better than my dad at speaking English and he did some classes lol

[@ht1ps555]

Kiwikick238 wow she’s a genius!

[@Cuticatie]

Cheer to your mum! and your dad may learn a thing or two from your mum (esp. the appropriate method for ur dad and an enjoyable experience in learning will improve your dad's English). remember the comprehensible input! (you don't need to be genius to acquire a foreign language imho)

[@racoon_in_ankhmorpork]

It’s funny-I clicked on this video thinking “oh, this’ll be useful for my Japanese studies!”, and it turns out the example language is exactly that! Thanks for all the tips: some of it I knew intuitively (I learned many languages at a young age, so the importance of acquisition was something I already knew about), but I gained insight on many other things I had previously overlooked. Great video ;)

[@megancress1384]

I learned English through SpongeBob. I watched so much SpongeBob when I was little that I managed to learn the damn language

[@megancress1384]

@m m oh afterwards I came to Canada. It's just the amount I learned from SpongeBob managed to get me through school and conversations and such, which surprised us all

[@marley4273]

@@megancress1384 WOAHH!!

[@litchtheshinigami8936]

In my case it was a mix or winnie the pooh for ps1 and the tweenies wich was a british tv show i adored as a kid. I used to beg my mum to watch more so she then searched it up on the internet and let me watch the english version

[@feynstein1004]

I'm squidward, I'm squidward, I'm squidward squidward squidward

[@muthiafrachman9234]

I love that for you

[@DarkAngels1600]

When I was a kid I would get mad at my sister and mother for speaking German to each other so I wouldn't understand them. So I started to watch kid shows in German without any subtitles and learned the language based on context. This makes so much sense to me now!

[@weltraumkotze]

may I ask why your mom apparently taught your sister, but not you?

[@justthere845]

@@weltraumkotze probably a huge age gap like me. I have a 14 year difference from my oldest sibling and the next is 9 older than me. My older siblings can speak and write our 2 native languages but things changed as time went on and I can only barely speak the one and understand a little of the other one.

[@woodaloo5982]

can you recommend german shows for kids pls? im a beginner at learning german

[@Kutaibon]

@@woodaloo5982 Angelo, because it plays offen in School

[@kylebui1530]

1. Learn from the context 2. Maximize the input 3. Listen & pronounce

[@tillie_brn]

Having a positive experience while learning is such a huge factor. I learnt English mostly by watching TV shows, KZbinrs, and looking up the translations of my favorite English-language songs. I was fluent within 3 years. Meanwhile, I took German classes for 10 years. The first two years I had horrible, abusive teachers, and the rest of the time even with better teachers it was always all about learning grammar rules and lists of vocabulary by heart. I never got past a mediocre intermediate level. These days I've been into a lot of Korean media, and surprise surprise, although I've only been actively trying to learn the language for a few months, I'm already starting to pick it up much more naturally than I ever did German. I guess this applies to anything you want to learn, not just languages, but I find it fascinating the way our brains just refuse to absorb information if we view it in a negative light.

[@unleashingpotential-psycho9433]

Mimicking a native speaker has a great idea for learning a new language. I have to try this out for Spanish.

[@MrRishik123]

As matt vs Japan said. There are billions of English speakers, so pick one and copy them. No point trying to make your own speech style if you never grew up there.

[@dailyjoy9556]

Mr Rishi The Cookie buena suerte!

[@felipeperez5505]

beware of accents could be a little annoying for non-native speakers

[@differentlyabledmuslimjewi4475]

The people I've met abroad who get English the best, were not those with English teaching jobs, but the young people who watched american cartoons, played videogames in English and enjoyed British TV.

[@Wolfenry]

Sorry but, don't, as a native Spanish speaker i can tell you that if you choose one person and mimick it, your Spanish may be ruined, this is because all of the different pronounciations of Spanish. Just go basic, it's a difficult language and no one can blame your pronounciation

[@MegaLuros]

A lot of us learned English without speaking a word. KZbin was our school. I never went into an English speaking country before I became fluent in English. I almost never spoke English before I started a year of study entirely taught in English.

[@americanfootball5939]

I can write, understand and read english... thanks KZbin !

[@ani_n01]

I learned it by asking Google to translate linkin park lyrics lmao... And then I got into mobile games yoh know those alliances and stuff

[@livedandletdie]

MegaLuros, when I was a kid, I wish KZbin was a thing... you kids are lucky, I had to learn English from text based adventure games and later on Strategy games and RPGS. So in the year 2000 when Broadband became a thing I was semi-fluent in English, at age 8, mind you I wasn't even fluent in my native language.

[@livedandletdie]

egal, Deutschen KZbin... let me think, if you are interested in music, then listening to German music would be a great idea, other than that, I think that the channel Gibt's nicht might work, as it's a lot of talking seeing that it's a German top 10 channel. Other than that, it's too interest based of what content you would like to watch. There should be a lot of German gaming channels as far as I know. I just wish there were a lot more interesting youtube channels out there period though. Oh and try shadowing the words Daaruum says in her videos, it should help out a lot, or go to Google Translate and type in your hobby/interest and translate it into German and paste that into KZbin to maybe find other similar channels. I've run out of other ideas, sure you could combine this with some other language help such as Duolingo or Babbel.

[@ajhhc]

@@Retrosenescent I haven't started learning German actively yet, but I found a channel called Don't trust the rabbit, and she has some videos in German, you may want to check it out if you haven't yet.

[@greyfoxninja1239]

I started doing this and now I run into people in my dreams who speak Japanese I can't understand but it sounds fluent. I don't get it, it's MY dream, those words are coming from my mind and yet I can't understand them.

[@MagnusSkiptonLLC]

Maybe they're just speaking Japanese-sounding gibberish.

[@shuu_39]

Hey I've had that dream. But that was after I played a japanese visual novel game. The characters appeared in my dream, and their said words would come out in big bold text blocks that floated in the air. I have to thank the voice actors of the game and the massive text dialogs that came along with it lol

[@OfficialFedHater]

Have you ever heard the idea that other people's consciousness can influence your dreams? Like a guy in Germany just showing up in your dream while he's also sleeping and trying to speak to you. Weird to think about, we really know very little about what's going on with our brains while sleeping.

[@Hyperactivi]

That is the funniest thing i’ve heard in a long time haha

[@dylanlacelle3728]

Its just gibberish but your brain thinks its correct japanese

[@vannedotdash7749]

This was so peaceful to watch. Because this is what I did to learn English. And that's what I'm trying to do to learn Japanese now. It's a lot of fun, and I'm glad there's more people learning about this.

[@MrWackydoodles]

y fluent now?

[@vannedotdash7749]

@@MrWackydoodles in Japanese? Not yet, I'm taking it slow 😂 admittedly I haven't really studied in a while, this comment reminded me of it, thank you!

[@MrWackydoodles]

@@vannedotdash7749 haha! I'm 2 months in and I'm starting to doubt myself If I'll ever learn it lol

[@cry-wr4wt]

As a german, english is my main second language. And if im honest, besides the basics i've learned not much of it in school. But playing games, watching movies, yt so and so on i managed to get really confident in it, with no stress whatsoever. Now i try the same tactic with norwegian and so far id say it works :)

[@Sternburg]

wahre Worte

[@mallagallabumbum8209]

I'm also German and its the same for me. I still don't get how anyone is supposed to learn, let alone acquire, a language (apart from Latin and Old Greek maybe) with the methods used in school.

[@Arrijoyyy]

OMG YES! I learned most of my English from watching english movies, games, and of course watching KZbin videos and Twitch streams! :D

[@CJ-be2cu]

I learned most of my English through magic, and some in school using flash cards

[@MsBonsai2010]

Your written English is spot-on

[@mariablanco77]

I am Mexican, and here on my country, people spend a lot of money on useless english classes and only end up having very little knowledge with almost 0 fluency Of course, I am talking just of what i've seen all my life, but even on the school (normal, obligatory one) I used to despise my teachers because it was so boring and lame, and not only because I already knew some of the language I have never spent any of my money on an english class because I already know how it's going to be, and yet, I have much much higher level than any of the people that have. No one believes me when I tell them that I learned (or perhaps, acquired?) english by myself with this very method without even noticing that I was learning, starting at 12-13 years old (now 18) Now, my main goal (besides university) is becoming a traductor or a teacher, mainly focused on English and i'm saving money to pay my certificates Thank you, for summarizing this in such a cool form, and yet, I apologize if my comment has any mistakes, English is not my native language :)

[@kurashi3078]

That's really motivating to hear! I am still rather hesitant towards using media rather than a more "formal approach", but this feels much more enjoyable, and better mimics how children learn their native language (in my opinion). Also, your English is great, there were only a few mistakes in your comment. I hope to reach this level in Japanese someday!

[@diegomastro5681]

@@kurashi3078 play games in japanese, youll learn a lot

[@kurashi3078]

@@diegomastro5681 Alright, thanks for the tip!

[@gabrielsoler5465]

Maria Blanco, that's exactly what happens in Brazil

[@gossamera4665]

Traductor should be translator or interpreter, someone who interprets another language, I think there's even a third, more official word that I'm not recalling at the moment. Traduction is translation.

[@lizannedsouza1838]

When I was learning French, only watching shows with French subtitles was super helpful. Thanks so much for this incredible video!

[@rixille]

Vous avez raison. Les jeux videos et livres m'aider aussi. I'm not perfect but it seems to be working.

[@IndellableHatesHandles]

"The Japanese word for persimmon is..." I don't even know what a persimmon is lol

[@ronlugbill1400]

A fruit. Looks kind of like a tomato but it is sweet and tasty. I ate persimmons in Italy and didn't know what they were in English either but they were delicious.

[@Antonina_Naamah]

@@ronlugbill1400 oh you mean a kaki in german. :D

[@MarcosAntonio-xt8xp]

@@Antonina_Naamah Ah, you mean a caqui in portuguese!

[@OJapaXD]

@@MarcosAntonio-xt8xp Agora entendi mano kkkkkk

[@JoaoPedro-qk3uq]

@@OJapaXD Sksksksksksksksksk tbm mano

[@angelb8317]

It really does seem like we learned our native languages magically tho 😂

[@dixiiid3842]

I thought that too but then I think of all the language classes you take in school to learn about sentence structure, verbs, everything! Still insane that we can absorb all of it at such a young age, language is pretty cool

[@inconnn]

@@dixiiid3842 it's bc we gotta use the info we learn right away since everything we see and listen to is in that language so we remember it

[@Comintern1919]

​@@dixiiid3842 But you also have to remember it takes children around 6 years to get a decent control of their native language, and another 4, 5 years to "perfect" it. An Adult can achieve that in around 3 years and even less with the right methods and resources.

[@dixiiid3842]

AugustusCaesar I would have thought children would learn it quicker than adults. I remember reading that it’s far more difficult to learn a new language as an adult because our brains don’t have the same plasticity as children do, but I suppose 3 years is still a fairly long time. Would take an awful lot of language acquisition for that!

[@heatherperleberg7816]

@@dixiiid3842 as a youngen myself trying to learn Italian, i think i missed the gap that would yield the greatest return in the shortest time. I know too much about english to be able to think about another language as an individual thing, by which i mean something seperate from English. Id say being a younger child arounf 4-6 is probably the best time to learn a language. Not entirely fluent, so they can disassociate languages from english easier. Thats my thought process, at least.

[@X33Ultras0und]

Did I just buy a language course by accident or something? This seems like knowledge you have to pay for.

[@correctionguy7632]

what do you mean? MattvsJapan and Ikenna all cover this and more on their youtube.

[@luxraider5384]

people spent their time creating this textbook so it is normal to pay for it. It is still better than learning a language from scratch by only listenning to native people. Theorically you can learn everything by yourself but what you're buying is not knowledge, it is the time to learn the knowledge that can be reduced by buying the book

[@user-hf6jm4tv2v]

If you need a little bit of aid but not from textbooks as they do view languages such as japanese as if it's a European language when it's far, far from any sort of european language in reality but from independent sources that actually understand what the Japanese language is structurally then it's in option but even this particular independent source I mentioned also says that you need to be immersed in the language, watch things that you enjoy in the language in order to get something out of it, they take modern day knowledge into account. Cure dolly is the great source I mentioned as it actually helpful, say if you're mind cannot absorb the language particularly as consistently as people who can understand 20% of the language then after a second viewing end up understanding up to 30-40% afterwards, basically they have an approach for those with a lower tolerance to ambiguity though if you particularly do have a high tolerance for ambiguity and that it's working for you then they say continue on with what you're doing as that is actually working well for you. A "whatever size fits you the best" kind of line of thought.

[@alaskawoolf3737]

You don't need to pay for knowledge if you have internet. Somewhere, somebody is sharing it for free. Just look in the right places.

[@X33Ultras0und]

@@alaskawoolf3737 You are right. Only thing is, those who have more money (the ones you pay for) take all the attention and Google / YT search space. So it is really difficult.

[@temar_tinez]

Dude your ideas where in my brain but I couldn't put them into words. This is exactly what I am going through. I'm studying Japanese and found the interactions with native speakers helped me more with actual vocabulary and the way to use them than just memorizing them from the course. Cheers

[@atJamie]

Now I can justify my Netflix binges as studying sessions. Oh hell yeah.

[@WhatIveLearned]

You totally can! But... no English subtitles :)

[@jayf872]

Would you recommend watching anime in japanese with japanese subtitles for learning then? Or would drama/film be better I suppose?

[@rauln9273]

yes but try to see the same chapter many times

[@yugom488mmmauser2]

if we're going by what the video cited, japanese show + japanese subtitles is suggested to be the most effective. however, there will be a point where it become unnecessary.

[@nanusantos1696]

That's literally how i learned English, so i guess you're as justified as you can be

[@XIL3GANDIX]

This is why i watch anime like a true linguist

[@AstraIVagabond]

This is unironically what I'm planning to do now, though. (Slice-of-life will probably work best, obviously, since I'm not trying to learn to become a galactic mech hero just yet.) How did KZbin know I needed this video??

[@asdfgoogle]

How is that? In Japanese language with Japanese subtitles?

[@user-dw2yp6jl8s]

@@asdfgoogle , Romaji and/or hiragana subtitles 🤔

[@justwow1915]

Because of this video I realized I actually knew a lot of phrases from anime.

[@jimmyd.6431]

+Just Wow same

[@fire6889]

Had me in the first half, not gonna lie. He genuinely made me believe that his mother had forced him to go through verbs, nouns and other such stuff when he was a child.

[@rockinggirl0610]

Lolll

[@Mateus.007]

LMAO.

[@fyradur]

It's so cringe when some language learners say things like "you can't learn Japanese by just watching anime", but they don't realise that most of us non-native speakers of English in the comment section acquired it by just watching Cartoons and KZbin. (the reason why most weebs don't know Japanese is because L1 subtitles completely hinders language acquisition)

[@sazukegu]

And English is super easy too.

[@t.ist666]

@@sazukegu Easy to learn, hard to master.

[@Krasses]

Some might be able to do it. I didn't learn through anime but I learned it through dramas and a shitload of anki jpod101 and stacks of A4 paper writing characters every single day. You might be able to learn phrases and repeated words in anime but for the grammar things? Yeah no. Listening is one thing, forming sentences in your head is another thing

[@fyradur]

@@Krasses Read the referenced studies in the literature by professor Stephen Krashen. Grammar drilling does not help one in the path to fluent comprehension. Hundreds of hours of comprehensible input is the only path to true fluent comprehension. "I before e, except after c" is not a rule, it is a pattern. You can only learn patterns and their exceptions from examples. I know it sounds unitiutive that just mindlessly consuming content leads anywhere, but it is supported by the literature and I can anecdotally confirm this as a non-native speaker of English.

[@Krasses]

@@fyradur English is not my native either. Japanese is probably my 4th. But yeah I'll look into the guy

[@mitchki]

I tried really, REALLY hard to get my Japanese coworkers to apply some of Krashen's ideas because I discovered him back when I was a student, used those ideas for myself and my skills noticeably improved where my teachers were surprised how much better I became at speaking than my classmates. It's input, folks. We all learn by input, not 'repeat after me' garbage. Spoiler alert; none of my Japanese coworkers believed me until I convinced them to let me do a "club" with students who wanted to improve their English and I did my own comprehensible input-based classes. Of course, THOSE kids saw improvements across the board in English. My coworkers begrudgingly said "Ok, I guess it works... but we still need to teach based on the college entrance exams, so we can't use it in REAL classes." The absolute state of Japanese English education, folks.

[@RhysMcGoldrick94]

This ^^ :( I feel the same way

[@laur-unstagenameactuallyca1587]

wtf...

[@PeterKoperdan]

'repeat after me' is a form of input. Its usefulness depends on many factors.

[@abcxyz4653]

You can get input AND study to speed up the process. It’s not one or the other........

[@aimexoxo2933]

Just like korean english education hahahaha

[@ruvik2508]

"Das ist meine Hand. Verstehen sie das? Hand?" Me who is German: Aber natürlich!

[@B9nji]

It’s kinda weird how i can’t speak german at all, but i understood what you said easily? Lol

[@user-nf4qd8wr1u]

@asdf yea i understood that too and the only germanic language that i speak is english (not super fluent) that is different than the other germanic ones i think that is a great example of the comprehensible input

[@delphio4669]

Same but I'm a Swede.

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

I can understand german context, but our teacher teaches the words in a very dump way....... always hated german since fifth grade....... it's a cool language though

[@erex9875]

@@B9nji how did you understand I have no clue what he's saying.

[@leoniecarolin1538]

And then there's me: I'm learning korean I dreamed something in korean And I don't have a clue what that meant😂

[@gabic6174]

i feel you lol

[@angrydoodle8919]

You lucky ones !

[@glitterfae6053]

it happened to me with Portuguese, I understood in the dream but woke up like ? I didn't know I knew how to say that, lmao

[@lauragg9121]

Sameeeee

[@renkun99]

I had a dream in Spanish once. I also didn't know what it meant either lol

[@dl5641]

Holy crap, I already speak Japanese but that example between just having text and a spoken sample vs. having basically a step-by-step demonstration of what you are referring to is night and day! I can definitely see where that is super helpful in acquiring a language at any point in fluency.

[@AwesomeCrabman]

I came here to improve my English, now I've learned some Japanese. Ringo tabaru.

[@ravenclaw1228]

Ringo o taberu

[@lieutenantgonads]

@@ravenclaw1228 oshiri kudasai

[@janetdoon2247]

@@lieutenantgonads that is hilarious!! :-)

[@proyagchakraborty1525]

@@lieutenantgonads nani?!

[@bleack8701]

@@lieutenantgonads den - matte....setsu!

[@halls4849]

Everyone laughs when I tell them that minecraft taught me a big part of the vocabulary I can use now

[@Redcloudsrocks]

pokémon blue for game boy taught me

[@heckinmemes6430]

"Hnnnnn"

[@stepa9595]

same

[@33blue]

The input from factions servers wasn't that useful to learn communicative language lol

[@Frahppei]

mine was barney

[@aykay7828]

Ten years ago, I was in a car accident. Hence, my catastrophic massive stroke which fork up my oral speaking and written spelling. I relearned the English language. I was a trilingual speaker and reading in French and Hebrew. My aphasia and apraxia gotten in the way of my oral speaking. And yet, I started out with no speech and began to talk with a toddler language. Missing words at all. I do mixing up the phases or placing the noun where the verb should be. Lately, within weeks, I began to talk like I used to do, before my stroke.

[@patricioiglesias5346]

Did you forget all of your French and Hebrew?

[@Brillemeister]

You're doing well now, all things considered! I even see an adverb in there (lately). My aunt has had several strokes in the last few years, and for a while she could barely talk. Now she's speaking in full sentences.

[@sincereexistentialist4100]

That’s horrible to hear man, I do hope you become trilingual again dude.

[@busteraycan]

are you considered lucky to only lose the information about languages in your brain instead of the ability to do something else?

[@elizabethmonroe2290]

The most powerful learning ive done as I start learning Japanese, is to pick the words i learn from the media i enjoy. I take a word from a song i like, look up it's meaning, bonus points if i can find where someone broke the word down to it's individual ideas that explain why a word means what it means. From that point on, that word acts like hook at the end of a fishing line, where if im zoned out, it grabs my attention and my mind translates, or at least makes it's best effort to translate, it without needing to intentionally, and manually, translate it. I find that this helps me to learn the word as it's own word, rather than as a translation to an english word i know, though ive also spent time intentionally learning the very few words i do know in a way that tries to avoid translations, and just links the word to the 'feeling', object, or meaning of the word. Now, when i hear one of those words, my mind doesnt translate it automatically, yet i can "sense" the meaning of the word in the same way as i just know what words mean in my native language (albeit, the mental connections feel much much weaker than i have with those of my native language) What I plan to do is learn a few words a day, especially those that pop up in songs and when i zone out to music, i just focus on keeping up with the speaker, making sure i hear each mora without focusing too much on any words i recognize, then working on comprehension overtime while keeping up

[@SapphFire]

Another technique you can try out is: 1. Watch a movie or an episode of a series with subtitles on for a language you're fluent in 2. Watch it again later with the subtitles and audio track in the language you want to learn If the time between those is great enough you won't exactly remember what anyone is saying but you'll have more context which helps your brain understand the new language better. Of course only do this with movies that you feel like watching again. If you bore yourself out you wont pay as much attention to the language.

[@RayZin]

My favorite part is that I can’t understand this comment. My brain stopped working

[@Dankschon]

@@RayZin Just watch a movie you like and then watch again with the subtitles from the language you want to learn.

[@yunusseven]

I was just looking for German movies I could watch with German subtitles when I saw your comment. Makes a lot of sense to me but I can't seem find any German movies with perfect German subtitles (not those simplified subtitles for the hearing impaired). Anybody have any suggestions? Thanks.

[@calspencer5862]

I do this with Ghibli! I used to watch the movies in english dub as a kid a lot so I already know the general context and then just re-watch in japanese with corresponding captions :) It's really fun

[@bonvabriones]

That's exactly how I finally learned English. Years and years of school classes didn't make the cut.

[@serpentscorpio9893]

I and many other non-native English speakers of my generation learned English primarily from video games as kids (we had no choice since most games were only in English). Of course we had English classes at school, but the gaming population was always miles better than those who didn't play games.

[@KabooM1067]

Yes. Completely agreed. Games and online gaming communities were my biggest source of English input as a kid. Even though the native speakers weren't a majority. Most came from Europe and spoke English as a second language but still spoke it near fluently. Especially Swedish people. Idk why but whenever I met a Swede in a game he would have perfect writing and speaking that you'd have a hard time figuring out he wasn't a native, no sign of an accent whatsoever.

[@johnmcclane4430]

Yea, that and youtube have teached me how to speak english fluently.

[@emmatessier600]

*taught - ironic mistake there brett (though you said fluent not without errors)

[@pentrubarbati]

I've learned from cartoons witch were in English sadly now are translated in my country language = dumber people sadly ....

[@emmatessier600]

They changed it? Which country?

[@dudusampaioo]

I'm brazillian and I have been learning how to speak english since 2019 One of my main methods to do so is to watch english videos... I think it's working...

[@clmoderno5008]

Im learning english since I started to play games that dont have portuguese subtitles

[@MrGeencie]

Watch "Amazing Facts" videos by Doug Batchelor or Joe Crews! You will learn Bible and English!

[@giotavares]

eu aprendi cantando let it go do frozen até que eu soubesse tudo oq significava ;-; bons tempos

[@0terrors1]

Yea it's working

[@jalk12]

Worked for me together with google translator

[@TrollMcLolTheFirst]

You’ve described Hermeneutics, the process of analyzing ‘part’ to apprehend the ‘whole’. Current worldview(the whole)-> event or text raises the need for the meaning of said event or text(the part)->the need for meaning is projected through actions or speech->engaging with the part elicits feedback, which challenges our understanding of the whole.->challenge triggers reflection, reinterpretation and greater understanding->cycle continues.

[@Brutaltronics]

I learned English through memes. Yes I yeet

[@risingstars3478]

Brutaltronics lol wut

[@Hentai_Master_69]

I learned english through youtube and cartoons. Thus i can't speak it properly, but most of the times i can understand it.

[@brandonwong8169]

Haha

[@ixalaz4536]

Me too

[@Manie230]

I learned English through English KZbin videos. One day I just started watching English videos even though I only knew the basic stuff that you learn in school. Now I often use words in the right context but can’t translate them in German( german is my native language.) And in my class I am know as the dictionary. So watching native speakers is the best learning method in my opinion. But my teachers always said that I have a talent for learning languages.

[@Chan98Yuki]

I'm majoring in Japanese. Before going to university, I've learnt Japanese through acquisition (watching films, listening to music) for about 5 years or so. To use the language in daily situation may be easy, but to understand big words or concepts like economy or anatomy is a whole different thing. When I couldn't understand too many words in the video I'm watching, I started to feel bored and switch on subtitles. Also, after 5 years of playing around, I finally went to a proper Japanese class. Only then did I realize that the words I unconsciously learnt in 5 years can be learnt in just 1 semester. My classmates, who didn't interact with Japanese before, are now at the same level as I am. They might have been struggling at first, but with their diligence, they did manage to make progress. The thing I want to point out is that learning a language through acquisition may sound simple, but it requires time and effort much like any other learning methods. In fact, it even takes more time. So if one is under time pressure, say an upcoming exam, they'd better study really hard for it rather than wasting time on watching films. Learning languages through movies and sorts should only be supplementary, whereas text books should still remain compulsory.

[@barszczpop]

Thank you, I've been hoping to see such a comment. Even though I agree that surrounding yourself with the language is really helpful, the message the video brought across seemed a bit oversimplified. The various comments saying "Neat! Now I only need to watch Japanese tv series!" show what I'm talking about.

[@LinkinGarden]

The best way to learn a language is through acquisition and actively studying it at the same time.

[@burritobowl0190]

All I can say is kansei dorifto

[@Leadvest]

KZbin videos in general, have to show reductive viewpoint to be valuable. Sometimes like in this case they can be very one sided. The alternative is 4h videos only appealing to small audiences. Long all encompassing statements kill discussions. The benefit of a youtube video is presenting an argument in a concise accessible way. Creating opportunity for social interaction, and sharing of viewpoints. Besides that you should always consider past experiences, and ask questions, when consuming media. You can't just blindly internalize, and/or parrot things you heard in a video one time. This entire discussion is much more elegantly summed up by the top comment on the video. Obviously it's still going to take actual work to learn a language.

[@ryanw8509]

Thank you. The truth is, everyone wants to believe that we can learn with out working "just like babies" . "You don't have to study, just watch anime!" but in fact, if you put in work, you will make progress much faster.

[@Blondesax]

Haha! "I learned English through magic, like every other baby." Perfect.

[@CaptainAMAZINGGG]

Literally same tho.

[@jakistam1000]

Yeah, this suggests that every baby learns English. I didn't.

[@yvonnesaldana7347]

Krzysztof Szyszka Same. I began learning it when I was in Elementary school.

[@Blondesax]

GalacticalYvonneGaming Yeah, I gotcha. I’m sure that’s not what he meant to imply, though.

[@YoutubeViral77]

Omg! Mr. Lockwood I really miss you playing the piano for our chorus class.

[@gierasole]

so here's something i've learned. My best friend through my school life was from Colombia, living in Canada. He spoke spanish with his mom at home around me almost all the time, and i've learned that I am almost fluent now through minimal learning as an adult because I'm already used to how the language sounds already (and I also just retained a lot of what I heard)

[@redsea1234]

This is by far THE BEST video I have seen on language acquisition. Someone that finally gets how things are meant to be learned.

[@Reforming_LL]

True

[@dannyd4339]

Dude I understood like 20% of what you said the first time thanks to anime lol. But with visual aid I understood almost 92% of everything said. That's amazing.

[@Cromartie]

Definitely makes me rethink only using books for most of my Korean learning

[@rv7w602]

Books should definitely be the number 1 thing to rely on but you should hundred percent use other things with it

[@RandomUserX99]

you should start watching K-drama and movies with Korean subtitle.

[@xenioralad3159]

@@rv7w602 disagree lol u need to listen and study native audio content to train your ears

[@adiellaishere]

@@RandomUserX99 I can speak intermediate korean from that alone

[@TerraMarie34]

I can’t speak an ounce of Korean and only learned how to pronounce and write the Korean alphabet, but watching Korean dramas with even English subtitles has gotten me really far. I’ve never tried without English subtitles though. I will be taking that advice from this video for sure!

[@avgchoobafan]

I can confidently say that this is one of the most time consuming but more solid ways to learn a new language. Just look at me, I studied Tourism in school but never got past the barrier of giving directions and receiving basic orders from customers, but at some point you just 'know' the language you want to learn and the more you consume from it you're just getting better at it. I'm a native Spanish speaker but I can say I can interact with pretty much anyone who speaks English, although my pronunciation is not the best, in text at least I think I'm indistinguishable from a native speaker, almost everything self taught, or better said, learned through comprehensible input.

[@commoners4655]

yeah same goes for me!

[@komurohokyoji9169]

I learned English just by watching stuff and playing games in English, even without subs or translation, and learning guided by my curiosity and talking with people online I am just as fluent in English as I am in Spanish. I didn't even notice it.

[@funkyrhcpcat7849]

Jennifer Mabel i think it does not work with an hard learning language like german or france :/

[@pmmeurcatpics]

@@funkyrhcpcat7849 but German isn't hard learning language at all

[@funkyrhcpcat7849]

Угур Алекперов I bet you are a native german speaker haha

[@samuelis3455]

@@funkyrhcpcat7849 French and German aren't hard to learn

[@addalang7164]

i did the same with german

[@taylarobinson7999]

I’ve actually experienced this without knowing this was a thing! Before going to Cuba, I got into the habit of constantly listening to Spanish music-no other forms of practicing Spanish. My Spanish was BASIC. When I got to Cuba, I was blown away by how much I understood! I could follow a conversation and was constantly hearing phrases I had heard in the songs. Though I was slow to speak in the beginning, I started listening to the accent and literally just copying phrases I’d heard. It ended up with me convincing some other tourists I was Cuban by speaking “Cuban” Spanish with them. Amazing how this works.

[@anthonyhernandez4266]

Could you give a bit of detail about how you "studied". Like did you hear a phrase in a song and then say it out loud or something?

[@yondercode4983]

wow interesting! i can recite despacito fluently so.. brb going to cuba and pretend as a native

[@juliamaria3807]

Maybe sing along?

[@compedium]

Same. I learned a ton of Spanish via listening to Carlos Vives and Julieta Venegas

[@cavemann_]

@@DevonMiniFlicks He didn't. He just heard the same/similar words in use in everyday life. Thus he was able to connect the dots well enough to somewhat understand, which led to understanding the language even better later on.

[@BlueDragon1504]

Alternate title: "Why learning languages in school is useless."

[@alexhjc8]

not entirely useless

[@BlueDragon1504]

@@alexhjc8 Entirely useless

[@alexhjc8]

@@BlueDragon1504 Hmm maybe for you, not for me. I learned some German in school and I'm grateful.

[@josefmarksteiner9954]

@@alexhjc8 Hallo. Wie gut sprichst du deutsch?

[@alexhjc8]

@@josefmarksteiner9954 Hallo. Ich spreche Deutsch nicht so gut, aber ich (understand some basics).

[@ComprehensibleMandarin]

Thank you for spreading the word on the benefits of learning a language through comprehensible input! We are so used to learning in a classroom environment that many people believe natural acquisition, and picking up meaning through context, are literally impossible for adults. It's great that so many people have seen this video on some of the science, & examples of its effectiveness.

[@rosabowen731]

My favourite way to learn French is to find versions of things I'm familiar with in English: Disney songs, playing and watching Pokémon, and such.

[@kallht2079]

Ouais! Pokemon en français est super. Ça m'a beaucoup aidé:)

[@Dynia298]

It's actually funny how learning a language in a formalized manner can impede the abilities of a person who learned it through "assimilation" (can't find a better word for it). My English teacher once had my whole class memorize all of the different rules that apply when using tenses in English (we didn't have to be able to use them, we just had to explain when and how to use them), in short it was a prime example of "theory over practice". Having learned all of it, it literally made me self conscious in the worst kind of way. I couldn't formulate sentences fluidly, because my mind was like "Oh, am I doing this correctly. Does it comply to the rules that I've learned", whilst before that I did not have such problems.

[@marla0412]

omg this also happened to me! honestly i advise you to try and forget all of it again, it is muuch better to use tenses naturally. and i also found that i make less mistakes that way :)

[@ahall9839]

You couldn't formulate sentences fluidly because you just learned the rules. It's just a starting point. Of course you are going to be self conscious, that is your error correcting mechanism, you need to continue listening/using the rules so that they become natural. You've somehow equated learning the rules of a language as getting worse at the language, which just isn't true. It gave you a head start. It was the parent lifting you onto your feet, and you decided it didn't help since you fell down after your first step. You still need to put in the work on your end.

[@hampTC]

@@ahall9839 you don't need to know those rules in the first place

[@videoguy640]

@@ahall9839 Their English seems perfectly fine now

[@inafridge8573]

Well eventually the new rules will come naturally for you and eventually the differences in meaning that they offer will become intuitive for you. The difficulty is only temporary. Although it's much easier to learn these more subtle rules when you learned the bulk of the language in an intuitive way

[@OlivioSarikas]

"How many parents give their children a deck of flash cards?" - All of them! You never noticed all the child books, toys and paint books that have different versions of A is for Apple in them - those are all Flash Cards....

[@unni5809]

well yes, but actually no - those are more for learning the alphabet

[@silentj624]

not the same. context also matters

[@lukes3667]

@@unni5809 still gives some base vocabulary even if it's just foods and animals

[@unni5809]

@@lukes3667 yes but the main point of it is to learn the alphabet and to read, you wouldn't need that as an adult learning a language unless it uses an alphabet that's completely different than the one you're used to.

[@lukes3667]

@@unni5809 "unless it uses an alphabet that's completley different than you're used to" ... you must be slavic.

[@e-genieclimatique]

in brief: This video discusses language learning and highlights four key points that are important for acquiring a new language efficiently: 1-Acquiring language through context 2-Maximizing input 3-Practicing listening and pronunciation simultaneously 4-Ensuring a positive learning experience The video emphasizes the concept of comprehensible input, which means understanding messages through context rather than explicit explanations. To acquire a language effectively, it is crucial to expose oneself to a lot of content in the target language, such as media, books, or conversations. Deliberate learning can trigger language acquisition when combined with context. Watching television without subtitles can be helpful, as a study showed that watching a show in the target language with subtitles in the same language resulted in a 17% improvement in language ability. The video also highlights the technique called "shadowing," which involves mimicking native speakers' pronunciation and intonation to improve one's own pronunciation and ability to recognize phonemes in natural language.

[@cutiepiedaina]

I'm an ESL teacher and my whole life revolves around comprehensible input!

[@fouronetwo813]

Really? See, I didn't think you could teach that. I thought that was something you were born with. What am I thinking right now?

[@edwardespinoza8749]

Me too

[@inductive7809]

My first language is Arabic and I learned English 'magically' through Roblox

[@j4yla959]

wow! that’s interesting, my first language is english. but i grew up watching korean dramas, with subtitles. since i’ve been watching them more that half my life since i was 7, i’ve learned fragments. i can’t speak the language enough to form a sentence, but i can understand it on a basis of conversation.

[@j4yla959]

MsSunhappy you’re right, and i can’t believe i never realized that. i’ll try it, thank you :)

[@headempty2665]

This is actually me

[@kimjihyun9153]

could you tell me what it is?

[@comradecameron3726]

Such skill.

[@Zeranon]

This is actually how i learned English as a german. I started watching a lot of english vids and movies several years ago, which pulled me ahead in school in comparison to my classmates. Now I have the best english graduation in my class

[@WhatIveLearned]

+Ludwig Baden That's great! I bet you had a lot more fun learning English too.

[@keepXonXrockin]

Same. My mum got me the newest Harry Potter in English one year, and I was annoyed at first, but as I read, it wasn't as difficult as I thought and basically kick-started a consumption spree of English language media that never ended. Don't think I've gone a day without using English in at least 12 or 15 years.

[@antodovodja5244]

Same here, my native language is Croatian though I was born in Austria where I picked up German in preschool, and throughout the years I have been interested in sports, programming and science and have found waaaaayyy more English content on all those topics and that's how i learned it, I'm currently 15 years old, and now trying to learn Italian through KZbin too and I'm learning latin at school lol.

[@MuttFitness]

To a german, isn't english like a dumbed down deutsch? Except for the french vocabulary, I'd think a german could learn english in a month.

[@Zeutomehr]

Mutt Fitness not really. while yes, both of them are germanic languages, they diverged over a thousand years ago and are wildly different today. i don't really know how you'd come to that "dumbed down" conclusion. they certainly are different languages, but that's it. neither better nor worse

[@amarug]

I think the importance of "input" can't be overstated, except perhaps by saying "it's ALL input". If you don't also start practicing from the start, you will miss out on organically developing the "synthesis" part of the language, practicing the sounds and intonations that are most likely different, and possibly most importantly, you overcome that "barrier" it takes to put yourself out there and sound terrible, early on. I tried the all-input method with Spanish and sure, I do understand it almost perfectly, but I cannot speak much at all and since the divergence between understanding and speaking has evolved so far, I lost all motivation and abandoned the study. Later I started Japanese and told myself to keep up the input as high as possible but additionally, I decided that I will try and practice using the first three words that I learned already in "real life" and searched for language exchange partners. The thing is, if you don't practice speaking the language from the start, the "barrier" to start speaking just grows and grows, because you have a lot of "potential sentences" that you might be able to squeeze out somehow, but the feedback on how your newly acquired language lands on others (best with natives) is completely missing. Then you get overwhelmed and stressed and you can't talk at all. If you start practicing crappy sentences with an exchange partner early on, you know how your sentences "land" (are they even understood etc). Building up this experience is of utmost importance. The advice I have heard a few times now, esp. from MattvsJapan to not speak the language for like 2 years at all, is one of the most bizarre language-learning "tips" I have ever heard. Speaking of the Japanese learning community, I think people like Matt and also Dogen (unintentionally) have inflicted tremendous damage by somehow normalizing the twisted idea of "you need to sound exactly like a native or you can't even be considered speaking the language". The vast majority of people will never have the time to tank hours of their lives every day for a decade or more dedicated to learning a language as these guys have done. Most of us will just want to communicate and have some fun with it or even have functional use of it during travel, business etc. Many (including myself at the start) can get insecure and demotivated by this.

[@firstlast-wg2on]

Completely agreed, and I don’t understand how he can say it’s not necessary when he himself was learning Japanese, which has pitch-based pronunciation (at times)… I feel as though I remember as a kid first learning language, and we just pronounced the alphabet, you know? And in any language, it’s so important to create those utter basics, same goes for music, another form of language. You learn the notes, the basic rhythms, maybe build into the scales, subdivided rhythms and from there building chords and polyrhythms, etc.

[@elishevabarenbaum5319]

Agree. You're building up a perfectionist psychological barrier which becomes harder to overcome as the gap between your aural and oral abilities grows.

[@sidney9884]

I’ve never understood how it was possible for immigrants like my grandparents to come to America from their home country and learn the language during their first year of school without formal teaching, because all I’ve ever known is formal teaching to learn a new language. This video is wonderful and gives a GREAT perspective.

[@x-pilot6180]

Rules 1) acquire through context 2) maximize input 3) Listen + pronounce 4) positive learning experience Examples 1) watching movies 2) with subtitles of the target language 3) shadowing: repeating. First word(s) then sentence(s) and finally whole text with the right intonation

[@sv7073]

Thanks!

[@zahirooon]

great job!

[@Pintyp96]

I love the fact that you made more sense in 14 minutes and actually made me learn more about language learning than my actual language professor in the last 15 months.

[@agalva100]

I've tried to learn german for a while now. Maybe 8-9 years. It's an on and off thing for me. I always get discouraged because in classes the focus on grammar is too much and German grammar is a tough one. But lately I've seen improvements by attending a class where there's more to it than grammar. We listen, we speak and we focus on situations. True, I still need to review grammar but I feel a lot less pressure because I know it's okay if I make a mistake.