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I think in school we get taught wrong way. Listening and Speaking should be more important. Writing and Reading took civilization thousand years to develop.
I think a lot of problems arise when we see books like 'learn Japanese in a year' or videos titled 'I learnt Japanese in 6 months'. FOr me personally, I find this very demotivating as it makes me think that I'm not doing well or am not good enough because after one and a half years I'm not fluent yet. As you said in your video, we're all very different, have different amounts of time that we can spend studying and have different learning styles. I really think it's important to try not to compare yourself to other people when language learning. Just do your best, whatever that is :)
Nobody learns in 6 months...of course you can understand a lot of basic content and speak a little, but in 6 months with an average of 1500-2000 words, trust me you won't understand everything. Furthermore, in Japanese you need to learn 3 writing systems. In 6 months you can get a B1 in any language if you spend time learning the language everyday. For a B2 you need a year...and for a C1-C2 you will need at least two years of dedication
Sounding like a native and have no foreigner accent is not a requirement to be called fluent...yet the accent has to be light at least..but not everyone has the ability to sound perfectly native
I would say it's not a requirement, but your pronunciation has to be _correct,_ so more or less the same/the correct sounds even if not refined, but no mixing up phonemes within the language. However this still often allows for some "play room" and a heavy accent. It could be heavy but still clear and correct.
I think that accent is okay, but you need to pronounce well, there is a difference between having accent and pronouncing well (but sounding like a native also helps a lot
intonations / stressing correctly words make you sound more native..because an accent is what it is (not a perfect pronunciation or incorrect intonation) but it is funny you manage to sound like a native Korean when clearly you don't sound native in English..considering how closer Afrikaans is to English than Korean..yet you are fluent in English.
Ugh I agree. I've studied 9 languages throughout my life but I say I am only fluent in 3 and ppl usually seem to interpret that as I learn a bit and then drop the language or that I suck at studying but no, being fluent is just a completely different level imo than what most ppl seem to think.
Like with everything else in life, people usually overestimate their habilities, or just like to pretend to be something they're not. My native language is Spanish, and I've heard a lot of people say that they can speak English when in fact they can't.
Likewise I think people get too salty about the word “fluent” being used. It means the ability to communicate in a language. That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate it.
I am on year 3 of learning Korean. I wish I had been more consistent in the beginning because I would have made a lot more progress. My new motivation is that I am returning to Korea in May so I want to speak confidently even if I still make mistakes.
How's it going? What language are you learning? I'm trying to dust off my school German and develop it into a skill. At least, I'm trying to make some meaning of all my time inside.
@@orangew3988 Cool, I've been learning Mandarin for the past couple of days (atleast 30 min per day) and it's going well so far. Im also planning to learn German after getting decent in Mandarin
Hi :) I learn polish German Japanese and Spanish. My favourite language is Japanese because fun language Is love this language but difficult because *I don't know how to learn Kanji*.
@@asir2052 I'm studying chinese, I know they're different but you could looking for some books like "Introduction of Japanese characters". I usually learn 2-3 character per day. I re-write the character several times until I memorize it (as usual I use one entire page for character) and then I train my mind using flashcards (sorry if my english is bad, I'm italian). I use this method, and it works.
I want so badly to end all advertising of "learn language quick" apps and programs. Also "he who shall not be named" even mentions in his book that true fluency probably isn't possible in 3 months, however I find the book title and concept a bit misleading. People are also way too caught up on learning languages fast, like come on y'all, enjoy the journey and memories made from learning!
Well, I think the problem is that some people see languages, or education in general, as something that need to have a clear finish line. Similar to a "graduation" either in school, college or university. Nonetheless, I'd say that all depends on your goals, and a time frame might help you to achieve them, if they are specific. In other words, SMART goals. Anyhow, I agree that there's no ending in the language learning journey, unless you want to! You'll always learn something new within a language and or culture. It took me a year to get "fluent" in English when I was 15 ( due to the fact I had a fallen in love with a girl who couldn't speak Portuguese - I'm Brazilian). But before that I had several years of English at school and my English was a disaster. Though it took longer to "sound native". French was a bit easier, because of my language background, and I actually spent 2 months in French after a year and half studying it. As far as Italian is concerned, it took me 8-9 months to be able to become quite conversational with native speakers without them have to slow de or be careful with the vocab choice, but I'm still something around a B1..
Setting goals to reach is also an important part, you're right. Some people need that "finish line" kins of goal to get motivated to get there, where as others maybe have the motivation in themselves and don't need a set goal to reach. Either way, I think what works best for each person should be the way to go for them, but also it's good to know that language learning doesn't have an end, especially if you plan on using the languages you've learned regularly or surround yourself with the languages As an example, I'm planning to start learning french, but I need to set a goal for the language I'm currently learning (korean) so that I know that I won't give up one to learn the other, so, once I get to that level of korean where I can understand most of the dialogue I hear daily (variety shows mostly) then I know I will be able to keep on learning korean anyways even if I don't formally sit down with a notebook and a pen and "study properly". So, it's not like I'm setting a goal to reach and be like: that's it, I'm done. It's more of like a: ok, now that I'm here I'm comfortable to ditch the textbook for a while.
오하늘Sky same here. It's nice to know someone else "ditch" the textbook after a while of learning a language, too :)) everyone have a textbook and i have the... youtube.
It was interesting how you said that it's hard to get by with just English in Japan. People who don't want to study languages like to argue that most people learn English, so you wouldn't need to learn another language. It would be interesting to hear about your experiences with finding people who speak (or not) English in the different countries that you've been to
I've been studying a language for about 3 months now. I'm trying to expose myself to the language as much as I can. I don't want to take 8 years to become an advanced speaker. I'd rather go all out and try to achieve it in 3 years.
@@kbs6025 I'm at a B1 level now and getting closer to a B2 level every week. I'm still motivated which is the main thing. I don't try to 'study' the language as much these days, rather I prefer to 'engage' with the language through comprehensible input so that I'm acquiring the language naturally rather than trying to memorise words and grammatical rules. So far, so good.
Yah, I started studying Japanese over 10 years ago but I never tell people this because then they don't understand why I'm not fluent yet... -_-" Meanwhile, I only study occasionally, have never been to Japan, don't know anyone Japanese and hardly watch anime anymore so my exposure is seriously limited...and always has been.
Yep, that's what learning occasionally is like. I'm actually postponing learning Cantonese for this reason, and also because the tones and pronunciation are difficult for me and I think I'll forget everythung unless I regularly practise deliberately.
@@aklapka4579 Same! Started in fall 2011 and I just barely passed the N3 last December (2018). I must say that I haven't studied it seriously since summer 2015 (when I had my last classes of Japanese in Japan).... X3 I know I should put more effort into it since my goal is N2. TL;DR When one puts effort and heart into something, they usually gets some results. Also, even though some of my goals were to learn Chinese and Korean as well (I stop learning Chinese in 2014 at beginner level, and I only know the Korean alphabet and a few phrases), I started learning Russian about almost 2 months ago. I haven't studied everyday, but I'm already fine with the alphabet, how to write it and read it as it is written. Now, I'm trying to remember all the reading and writing rules, as well as grammar and vocabulary. It's already starting to make sense after just 2 months since I'm only concentrating on Russian!
I mean, as language learners, let's not be hard on ourselves. We learn new things every day even in our native culture. I've been speaking English all of my life but when I write my short stories, I use a thesaurus and a dictionary to insert new words that aren't as commonly spoken. That's like with any other Language. You learn new words, the more you're expose to them. Nobody knows everything 😀🙂 加油
I do agree with you . .. I have been learning Chinese for 10 years and my Chinese is average. I can understand daily conversation perfectly...But I watch news on TV or reading newspaper.... Suddenly blank wkwkkw alot of specific economic/medical/political vocabularies that we usually miss if we keep focusing on daily vocabulary
"Pronunciation makes you sound a lot more fluent than you may or may not be." Japanese people that hear me on the phone and all my classmates taking Japanese: "Wow, you're so good at Japanese!" Me: Knows 200 words and 3 grammar rules but has almost near native pronunciation "uhh..."
Aren't the Japanese just being nice? I don't think your pronunciation would be that good if you only know 200 words. I heard if you're foreigner and even speaking just the basic in bad pronunciation, they'll be impressed.
@@maheshpun4804 that's what I thought too, but I spoke to a few people on a Japanese server in a mixture of Japanese and English and they said they told me they were surprised when I told them I was American cause they thought I was Japanese 🤷♀️ My pronunciation definitely isn't perfect though. I'm sure if I spoke Japanese for long enough, they'd figure it out. I've still gotta lot to learn, especially about intonation.
@@maheshpun4804 How many words doesn't matter. For example If you practice a sentence a thousand or thousands of times. You will likely pronounce it like a native. Regardless of what you know beyond that. You could sound near native with a self introduction. If you have practiced it thousands of times.
I think learning language takes forever.The more you get fluent the more you understand that there are more things you need to work at.You know it said: "I know that I know nothing".Lindie thank you for your videos.I really enjoy your videos and get motivated to learn language and be confident about it.
You seem like such a nice person. I’m 12 and love to learn languages , currently I’m learning German and all your videos have helped me a lot thank you😊
I believe that if you put effort in learn a language you can be fluent. For example, I'm a native Portuguese speaker, and I am learn English for, almost, 6 years. However, even that I've been studying English for so long, I wasn't able to speak until last year. But, as I've been putting more effort in learn the language, I became more fluent and confident. It's just a matter of how much effort do you put in learning. x
* I have been learning English for almost six years ... *But as I've been putting in more effort to learn the language. Your English is great, every native sucks at tenses somewhere so you're damn near a native lol Welcome and congrats on coming this far 🎉
I'm fluent in Croatian🇭🇷, German🇩🇪 and English🇺🇸 I was learning Japanese from 08th December 2018 to 01.01.2020 on DUOLINGO. BIG MISTAKE I haven't learned ish (Only basic grammar and particles)😂 Then on 01.01.2020 I have purchased myself a notebook and I started writing down important things, learn grammar, vocabularies etc. And in 6 months I have reached B2 in Japanese which is great I think🤩. Pronounciation in Japanese was pretty easy for me because Croatian and Japanese have kinda the same way of pronouncing things. Particles were easy to me. Everything is great with Japanese. And I started learning Korean on 03.05.2020 and I have learned things like particles, sentence structure. But now I'm kinda lost idk what to learn. Because the app busuu helped me with Japanese but Korean doesn't exist on Busuu.😂 I guess I'll start learning Korean from Articles and etc. Feel free to comment if you have any recommendations.🥺
You should probably work on conjugations like past tense, future tense and etc. Things like adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions are also important, i think they're part of grammar as well. You can also try to build up your vocabulary using SRS like Anki or just flashcards. Watch films and music videos in that language to get that immersion. Those are what i'm doing as of rn but i literally started learning 2 weeks ago so i can't say for certain that it's the best method xd.
Still feeling stuck? I have a new video about language learning mindsets to get you into the right frame of mind to start a language! ruclips.net/video/juo8qIMTTOc/видео.html
I don't think perfectly knowing a language is possible we are always learning even our native language! Always finding something new. But exposure and immersion is critical imo to make a progress. I would like to add that having fun while learning helps a lot! The way you see your studies. For example if you are fascinated by a language and watch and listen things that are in this language and constantly are curious about how it is used you will make a better progress than if you feel that you have to learn it and you spend hours staring at a text book... Having fun with it really helps! I've learned more English by translating song lyrics at home and watching movies/TV shows in English than I've learned by studying in class! When we do something that really interest us it tends to stuck better in our heads! Last month I've started learning German Spanish Japanese and Korean... Will see how it goes XD but I try to see it as something I want to do not something I have to do because mental preassure is always slowing me down in my studies! I really like you videos, will be watching more 😁 thank you!!
Interesting perspective, especially because you've had the opportunity to live in multiple countries and benefit from immersion, which is something that most language learners cannot benefit from. And what an opportunity by the way! I hope to one day get to use my Arabic in my everyday life! The question about "how long it takes to learn a language" is something that frustrates a lot of people. Language learning is about delayed gratification, and especially if you're new to language learning, you'll have a hard time keeping up steam and staying motivated when you just cannot see the light in the end of the tunnel. In reality, it depends on so many things. The mother tongue, past experiences with languages (or studying in general), motivation, the time put in, consistency, the level that you aim for... And then there's the difference that immersion makes, as you exemplified with your Korean VS your Japanese! I've tried looking at some of those different variables and making a tool that sort of adds up the different factors and spits out a number based on those variables. It's really extremely imprecise, and as you know, there are so many other factors that play a role. Add to that that that there doesn't exist a lot of data or research on the subject. Still, I was hoping you'd take a look at my "study time calculator". While it's imperfect in a lot of ways, it spits out a number that a language self-student can look at and judge for him/herself, which is at least a little more tangible than "it depends" or "anywhere form 6 months to 20 years"... Anyway - I was hoping to hear your opinion on the calculator. You can find it on my site autolingual.com/study-time-calculator Please let me know what you think, especially if you have any suggestions for improvement!
Your video gave me so much motivation! I'm Brazilian and I've been learning English for three years. I'm improving my skills every day and I'm very proud of my evolution. As you said, you took a few years to become confident speaking Korean and I understand you. The fear of saying something wrong is too much, but we have to keep trying to reach our goals.
I love this video! I have always felt like there is an awkwardness in relating time to skill level in languages or really, any discipline. Not only for the reasons you mentioned: the amount of actual time invested or immersion achieved over 10 years might be totally different for one person versus another, or one person in one language versus another, but also--you can take breaks! I feel awkward to say that I have been learning Chinese for 5 years, because while that's technically when I started and took a class, I took a 3 year break and basically started from scratch after that. I feel like my level is quite low for a 5 year learner but it's also inaccurate to say that I didn't start 5 years ago. All of that confusion or need for additional explanation could be avoided if it were more common to judge skills on something less arbitrary.
I find it really lovely how honest you are about it taking years to get to your level in languages. I sometimes feel like an idiot for how long i've been learning Spanish and not being fluent yet. This really helps, thank you!
I've been learning Korean for 2 years by myself and about month ago I was listeting to music and I thought : Wait, I understand everything in Korean 🤔🤔🤔 But I'm kinda bad at speaking because I don't have a possibility to talk to native speakers. But English is my second language and I'm sure that I speak fluently :)
Lindie, thanks for reminding everyone that the "I became fluent in 3 months" rubbish is well, rubbish! As you said in your video the minimum time frame will be years. 日本語を頑張ってくださいー！
Exactly! That's why I always have this mindset that after a year, I should at least have a little bit of progress in the languages I'm learning. But I'm not pressuring myself to be fluent within that time frame because I know it's totally imposible 😂
Hi Lindie! So nice to finally get a chance to say Hello! I did not know how to make comments. The section for comments is way below the video! I am learning Chinese and French. I have been studying them on and off for years. When I work a little every day, there is much more progress! I also noticed that the skill you work on the most gets better, such as pronunciation or comprehension. You can be a lot better at one skill than another within the same language. I really admire your interest in Asian languages!
Yup! It definitely depends on the person and sometimes the language. I have been learning American Sign Language for 3 years, and im still not fluent but that’s okay! Learning a language is a process, not a race.(great video btw~)
Hello all! I love learning languages and I’m working to become a hyper-polyglot so that I can interpret all six official languages of the UN. Right now, I’m sticking with the Romance language family. I understand Portuguese, Spanish and Italian rather well but Romanian...not so much. I’m bilingual between French and English and the reason my Romanian isn’t where it needs to be is that all those others have more cognates to English and similar grammatical structures to English. Another thing that is important would be THE AMOUNT OF RESOURCES AND FLUENT SPEAKERS AVAILABLE in your area! Here in central Illinois there are quite a few Spanish/French/Portuguese speakers but almost no Romanians. All my Romanian resources come from Știrile ProTv or similar news sources with video/online text and I understand most of what is said but I’m not confident. Never let lack of resources/people stop you from pushing through because you’ll get there eventually! 😊
I agree with everything that’s said in this video. Even someone who grew up in America, would never know every piece of vocab, and know every piece of grammar (though I think grammar is way more doable? 🤷🏼♂️) so in a kind of sense we’re never done with any language, now matter how long you’ve been studying/speaking said language
Absolutely. I’m American and now as an adult I’m learning Scottish Gaelic. I’ve realised that there are many, many grammar terms and rules that I just “know” from speaking English as a native language. So I feel very confused sometimes when I’m having to learn English grammar rules in order to learn Gaelic grammar rules! 🤔🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ Like you said, we’re always learning no matter how long we’ve been speaking a language.
I agree very much that immersion and time put into learning a language is very true! For my mom when she had first come into the United States she did not know a single BIT of English. But she learned by herself, listening, reading, etc mostly out of a survival need. Since she had no one to speak in her native language with, but eventually got to that English fluency that made others think she had studied _years_ to get that point. She admitted that no. It took her about a year because _she had to._ While I remember a classmate who had been in the same school as me for practically _10 years_ and she never learned English because she always had a translator and surrounded herself with those who spoke her language. SO. Moral of the story is that immersion can only go a long way if you don’t put your time into it, but immersion can be _so effective_ if you do. And if neither time or immersion is put into it then yeah, even living in the country of that spoken target language can never happen.
너무 멋져요!! 린디씨가 배운 많은 언어들 중에 첫 언어가 한국어여서 왠지모르게 뿌듯하네요ㅎㅎ 화이팅!! Du bist toll, ich bin froh, dass es Koreanisch ist, dass du zuerst gelernt hast! ¡eres maravillosa! ¡Me alegro mucho de que hayas aprendido coreano primero! Tu es génial! Je suis content que ce soit coréen que tu as appris en premier!
Just saw a comments down below about not telling people about your language studies and its so true. I remember i was looking for a spanish book and found the website where one girl said she learned spanish nearly two years but still couldnot speak it. And i think its really okey not to be perfect in things like this, special people who called interpreters do this for us. And there is no necessary to be good enough because its you and only you decide whether to learn a language very fast or to know every part of the construction. As you can see my english could be better as ive been learning it for 7 years maybe and its still sad. But i think i will be able to do my best in the future. I started leaning korean and its my second year but i still cant speak it fast though. So its ok!
This is SO true! It all depends on your motivation. This sounds so silly but, I watched this Chinese drama, and found out, halfway through and fully invested, there were no subs for the second half of the season. I wanted to finish it so badly I started intensely studying Chinese so I could at least understand the jist of what was going on. In six months of studying Chinese, I became 10x more fluent than I was in French (which I had studied for six years) and 2x more fluent than I was in Korean (which I had studied for a year and a half)! Your motivation, drive and effort determines how fast you can become "fluent" in a language; although you never really do stop learning! I also totally agree on pronunciation. I sounded more "native" in Korean than in French, despite studying French formally & for longer and Korean on my own, all because I specifically spent months practicing native-sounding pronunciation and accents, dialect, etc!! It makes all the difference.
@@cutekitten45 It was this drama called (incoming cringe title) "Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me". Honestly, it wasn't even that great of a drama but I got sucked in, because I loved the actors! (Also, totally fell in love with the second lead, who disappeared for half the drama. Talk about suffering). If you end up watching, the first season is pretty decent, actually, but the second season is awful lol!! Also, good luck in your Chinese studies! I hope all goes well 🤗 If you're into dramas, I'd love to recommend "Love O2O" and "Accidentally in Love" they're my favourites, I used them to study Chinese too! And the RUclips channels "CCTV6 CHINA MOVIE OFFICIAL CHANNEL", "腾讯视频TencentVideo " and "电影公社 China Movie", along with some others, post full length (and usually English subbed!) Chinese movies and dramas all the time, it's amazing as a study tool ^^ The movies are the best because they're usually only an hour, and they're actually really amazing! :-)
@@sleepiestgirlever4405 Thank you, i always watch chinese dramas as part of my studies, they're honestly the best for listening and pronunciation!! And i have watched Love 020 and i loved it!! And thank you for the recommendations, ive almost finished watching the current drama that I'm on (pretty li hui zhen) and i'll be sure to check out the others you mentioned!!😊😊
I did this too with English (not my native language, I'm from SEA), not with drama but with games😂 I remember my English was terrible, I always got below B in school and after learning English intensely from games, a year later I was at intermediate level. I'm trying to apply this method again with my Japanese
@@sachisas Omg that is so cool! I never thought you could learn a language from games but I bet that would be such a fast fun way to study!! I need to try that
Great point of view! I think motivation is key, as when I was in Korea, the first year I didn't have as much motivation and then my second year I had more people around me who were also learning it and being immersed in the language and culture helped to get used to hearing words I studied before and gaining greater understanding.
Came across your channel today. You're absolutely AMAZING!!! I'm also a fellow South African currently living in China and I'm grateful to have come across your awesome channel🤗🤗
Immersion really plays a big role in language learning. I started learning French in September 2016 and took B1 in November 2018. Even I passed, I didn't have the courage to speak the language until I came here to France in January 2019. Ill stay until June 2019 and hope I will be in level B2 by the time I leave this country.
Your videos are interesting! I am an English and German private teacher. Your pieces of advice are always welcomed. I am focused on finding new teaching methods. I completely agree with you. It’s so difficult to quantify how much time we become fluent in a language. I experienced learning English, French and Spanish in Italy in more than ten years, between high school and university. On the contrary, I learnt German and Portuguese much further than my previous ones, because I used to live respectively in Germany for ten months in total (six in 2007 and four in 2013) and in Portugal for two years and a half. So, it really depends on our goals and on how much time we spend studying and having fun with our target languages. I’ve started with Japanese for three weeks just for fun and to challenge myself. 😊
I agree hundred percent with you about immersion. I was born in France and spoke french every day for 30 years. It has been 15 years since I moved in Quebec and I lost a lot of my native french since then. Also I am learning Japanese and you are very motivating. Thank You.
I think everyone have their one way to learn new languages especially if you have a lot of motivations.Im learning Korean right now and because I love the culture I really think I can Learn it within 4 months. I study Korean 8 hours a day. So maybe this is why I’m progressing that much.
I speak portuguese, and I'm in a journey to learn English, it's hard 'cause I study alone without course or teacher, so is just me. But I already can understand what you say without subtitles, it's is a big progress, right?? So good luck to us, languages learnes❤️
You always give me my motivation back to keep going. The way you explain stuff just makes me feel that I’m doing great and don’t need to rush the language.
Hi Lindie, If you ever want to practice Spanish, I'm your girl (I'm from Chile, a really small country in South America :P). I started watching your vids because I'm learning Korean and I'm in love of your pronunciation, so you give me hope that with time and effort everything its possible! Keep fighting!
I really liked this video! :D [Sorry long comment ahead!] I think when people these days start to learn a new language, they always want to know how to get to a good level as fast as possible. They want to be "fluent in 3 months" or whatever. In my opinion that's not what makes language learning fun and that's not the mindset with which you should start learning it. As for me I had English lessons since 1st grade (it's the second language I learn). Back then I was 5 and just went with it because I liked the language. Over the past 10 years I never lost my interest in this language and constantly tried my best. After about 7 years I even started to watch movies, series etc in English only. Means I started surrounding myself with it more. I'm in my 11th year of learning this language now and I consider myself pretty fluent. But I didn't get fluent because that was my goal. I never really noticed or thought about how fluent I am before I've watched a video which was about this topic. In year 6 in school I started learning French. I was totally interested in this language and I still am but it was a school language again. This time I was interested in the language but never really surrounded myself with it until 10th grade (which was also the last year I had this in school). Still I never thought about being fluent in that language what was part of the reason I could happily continue learning. After 5 years of learning French I might not be really good, especially since it's been 3-4 months since I graduated, but I still have the motivation to continue learning it because I love this language. So my advice for language learners is: Don't learn a language because you want to be fluent in it. Learn a language because you want to and because you love it. It doesn't matter if it takes you 3 or 10 years to become "fluent". As long as you enjoy learning it you'll be happy. Thanks for listening to my Ted talk xD
I think it really depends on the learner. Some pick-up languages really fast and some struggle a bit more. Right now I have been learning Japanese for about 8 years but still I think my level it still in beginner 2. I think the problem I have is that I don't practice the language much and I would admit I have been slacking off nowadays. I still have my goal of being fluent one day and work and live in Japan. Currently, I'm 19 years old and is a nursing student, being a student I would say studying my lessons take more priority than language learning but still this is not an excuse to stop learning a language. Language learning became something that I love doing and I also think it would be an asset in the future.
The problem with me abt learning Korean is I do get lazy most of the time so I always end up only reviewing the lessons and add it with schoolworks:< AND NO TIME MANAGEMENT Please give me some tips on how to be consistently studying it
My number one tip: learn what habits fail you. For me, I cannot even TOUCH the internet in the mornings or I will get nothing done the whole day. So I try to break my habit of being on the internet all day and keep my mornings clear of it. The mornings for me personally turned out to he crucial. I try to get my studying done then. If you go to school in the mornings then maybe for you the time right after school is crucial. Or maybe eating sweets or something else gets you into a lazy mode. Think about what it is that fails you and fix it. It could be different for you. So how to find this out: be mindful of what you're doing at the moment and why and what you should he doing and why you aren't doing that. I did this and it made me feel so stupid. XD but the key is to be honest, it's just you and noone else anyway. When you keep analyzing these things you'll naturally come up with ideas on how to change it and help yourself. So, recap: Analyse and be mindful of: 1. What are you doing right now? (mornings, lunch, afternoons and late evenings) 2. Why am I doing this right now? 3. What should I be doing right now/What do I want to do idealy? 4. Why am I not doing that? And then 5. What fails me, what can I try to do to fix this? Idk your age but believe me, when I was your age I was lazy and it only got worse from then on. It's no joke! It becomes a habit - being lazy - and it's so hard to get rid of if you do it for long. And it's NOT fun! If you implement these steps, implement them just honestly for yourself and not for anyone else, you'll benefit greatly! I'm sorry that this is so long but I really hope it helps and I wish you all the best! ^^
OMG thank youuu~ for giving your effort and time on typing this. I really do appreciate that you want to help meㅜㅜ Pls don't be sorry that you've make it too long coz this is the most detailed and helpful advice I've ever received and again, thank you for sharing your experiences and make it as a knowledge to other ppl who also do it and by that, your using your experiences to become an inspiration to to other ppl to do better than what they are right now. I will try to follow all of your advice next week coz I have many requirements to accomplish&pass this week:< Thank you again and Have a nice day!^^ *and btw I'm 15 yrs old^^*
@@방탄소년단완전사랑해 I'm so happy to hear that! ^^ one more advice: scientists have literally proven it's ok to fail as long as you get back up. So don't beat yourself up if you fail, it's a process. :) Studies show that everyone fails when trying to build a new habit - sooner or later everyone fails - but the people who get the best results are the ones who get back up as soon as they can and start over. So don't stress out over this! ^^ And once again I wish you all the best, you rock and you'll kill it this week! ^^
Also check out the shadowing method. I bet you watch a lot of videos in Korean. try to watch those with Korean subs and hopefully there will be english subs as well. You can do this particularly well on vlive.
You right Lindies about the familly of language, for instance English helps me a lot to learn Dutch and afterwards Dutch could do the same thing to learn German. Each language is a bridge to an other. Cheers from Belgium.
Thank you! People always talk about learning a language to fluency in a few months and here I am still learning! The biggest game changer for me was just mustering up the confidence to speak, which I think is the biggest tip when it comes to language learning.
I've been learning English for about 6 to 7 years. I'm exposing myself to the language every single day and I watch more videos in English than I do in German, my mother language. I'm now learning Spanish and Korean, one for scool and the other one because I really want to. I'm at a point where I don't remember how I got so fluent in English, I'm starting at point zero even though I aready learned a whole language. I think it's so interesting that I'm better at Korean than I am at Spanish, just because I prefer one language over the other. I spend more time studying and I have way more fun doing so. I think it's really important to be interested in the language you are learning
I had a similar experience as you did in my French studies, learning it for 9 years in high school as my first foreign language to an advanced level in reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. But then it became rusty again as I later didn’t have to use it as much as other languages at university or at work. But while it was difficult to output it fluently now I still could read and understand most materials which is a big advantage, and it took only about a year with maybe an hour a day of reviewing vocabulary and grammar or listening to native content to reactivate most of my dormant skills. So it wouldn’t take nearly the same amount of time and effort to get to some level of fluency as someone starting fresh, and by now I am also more aware of my preferred learning strategies than in high school. And of the fact that French isn’t really as difficult/exotic compared to languages from different families.
I came to Brazil in 2011 and started to learn Portuguese. I could get my point across by 2013 and that made me kind of confindent. "Now I can start learning a new language!" :) I took on Turkish at the end of 2013 and I'm nowhere near my level of Portuguese from 2013. Because of the reason you've mentioned, the amount of exposure. But it's OK. It much better than nothing.
Hi Lindie. :) Yeah, I get you. I've been learning Finnish for four years now, mostly through immersion. And I'm getting more comfortable speaking, but I find it totally ok to not be quite there yet. Even if Finnish is a phonetic language, I'll give myself two-three more years and then see where I'm at. But reading goes smoother now, so that's a plus. Ida. PS: Keep going, you are amazing.
Really cool to hear about your Experience. And true that if you really wanna know and understand someone, English will never be enough. I'm French and am currently living in Japan so I can totally relate to what you're saying. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with you, your accent makes you sound more fluent than you actually are, so I'm learning Spanish and when I speak with natives they always say that my Spanish is good because I've worked on my accent and grammar although I have a lot of vocabulary to learn, and its all about the immersion and goals you set for yourself. For me I study every single day as much as I can and its working
I started to learn Japanese in 2013. It's almost 6 years of studies, efforts and musics. I took the JLPT last year and I got the N3 as you!! For me, this process to acquire this level took a longer time than you. Here we have one example that the "being fluent in a language" is a thing that depends on the person and the immersion. I really agree with your thoughts!
You really nailed it. I tried to learn Japanese and because I wasn't so concentrated, I failed and left it. Now you've motivated me to start over with it. I've been thinking about starting this next year. But now I'm focusing on German because I still haven't reached to the level I'd like to be. Besides, I'm also improving other languages, so, I think that's the reason I failed. Now I understand why and why some people can learn a language better. Good video!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Lindie. I completely agree. Trying to quantify language learning is so difficult, especially when trying to explain to someone who is monolingual. This video made me really happy:) You're so down to earth and your videos get to the point, which I really appreciate. Thank you!!
Now i have the same experience with Korean and Japanese as you, because i am currently learning both at a university, and Korean helped me a lot (unlike my teachers..). And i am a hungarian native, so if you may want to practice, i could help you out, because i should practice english, korean and japanese more to get a scholarship.. :)
I guess you are the first person on youtube (I have watched) that seems really honest about the process of learning a new language. Motivation is the key to improve faster, however, there a many factors that influence the learning (e.g. mother language background) that is hard to estimate the 'time' it takes... and i believe learning a language is a lifelong journey.
it depends a lot on what kind of languages you speak at first. For example, in France we must learn english and spanish at the same time. When I had done my exam of languages in High School. I had got a better note in spanish than in englis because spanish is closer than english to french.
can i just say, I love you so much! 😭 You're so inspiring! Right now, I'm studying intermediate Japanese and A1 in German. I also want to learn French and Spanish. I hope I'll be able to do it! 💪
Great video. I am learning Korean right now but I have learned Japanese for years so the similarities in grammar do make it easier. The fact that Korean is easy to read is a big plus point. As others have said, the whole concept of ‘fluent’ is subjective. Obviously it is way easier to get to a good level once you are immersed in the target language and culture. However, the proximity of the language to your own is a really big factor too. My second language is Dutch which is very similar to English but my wife’s language is Polish and all of the inflections mean that speaking it accurately is a task that would require far more effort than I am willing to put in. On the other hand, I have been learning Slovenië lately and having a foundation in a Slavonic language makes it far easier to learn than if I were a monoglot English speaker. You have the same thing if you know Irish (which I took for 14 years at school) and then you look at Scots Gaelic or, more distantly, Welsh. Anyway, I think that a final ‘key’ to fluency is being attracted to the culture(s) linked to the language. Without the passion linked to attraction it all becomes an academic exercise. When I was younger I learned all kinds of languages in a haphazard way but I only found out what it meant to really make a language my own when I had a deeper motivation.
You are right in thinking that asking why makes language learning take longer. I asked why all the time while learning german but not while learning swedish and swedish came considerably faster
Between 5th and 11th grade I had English classes at school. I was bad~!!! I was really really bad at English. I was so bad that... One time on 10th grade my English teacher asked me to solve an exercise on the black board. I didn't know how to do it. Then... The teacher asked me something that I think I'll never forget. "What is the meaning of the word *rain*?". I was there in front of the class like "Am I suppose to know that?" 5 years of English classes and I didn't know the meaning of such basic word. I should be embarrassed of writing this but it's the true. The reason I wrote about this moment is because I agree with Lindie. You need to want to learn the language. You need to interact with the language. You need something that keeps you motivated to learn it. I was forced to learn English, it was not like I wanted to do it. I remember that I memorized the verbs conjugations but I actually didn't know the meaning of most of the verbs and... Let's not talk about French. Between 7th and 9th grade I had French classes. I hated it!!! I didn't understand why I had to study French. I didn't learn a thing. I was a little girl who didn't know a thing about the world. I was very naive (or dumb) I thought that I could have a Digimon friend if I was a good girl. Nobody told me how important this could be. I was raised by simple people, with simple minds. I was raised by people who think life is work, find someone to marry, keep working and the end. They were good people but looking back I wish they would have made a fuss about my bad grades. It's was only after I start to use internet that I started to realize how big is the world. How much there is to learn. How important languages can be. Sadly I learned that too late. I learned about this basically after I dropped out school and I started to work. If I keep writing, soon this will look like a depressing comment about the life a frustrated person but what I wrote still is the reality, my reality. Anyway, before this will turn into a book I'm gonna share how I started to improve my English. Rascal Flatts were the reason. I liked their songs, I didn't know what they were singing and one thing leads to another and here I am today. There are days that I still struggle a lot with English but I do struggle with my own language (Portuguese - Portugal) too so... Thank You for your videos and I'm sorry for this testament but one day this comment might help someone to understand/realize how lucky they are for having access to internet at a young age or simply because they have parents who care/cared about their grades (I am not talking about those Nazis parents). Those parents, usually, know how to explain how important it is to study. No, I am not 62 y.o. I'm just half of it XD Again... thank you!!!
What really helps to learn pronounciation is to search on youtube or the internet a video or photo or picture from the inside of the mouth. It looks kinda like an x ray. So you can see the tongue position things like that.
Lets be honest, a lot of the "Polyglots" that impress people on RUclips focus on specific areas. Lets take Xiaoma - now his Chinese is good. but learning Spanish / Mayan. still impressive but he's spending full days learning these languages while making money from all the people watchin, that is his full time job. Now I never see him put any of that language to use except ordering food. So what I like about Lindie's channel is she's not here to just glamor people with light skills over and over (example of ordering food over and over). I'd like to also mention, I'm an English speaker and if my wife talks to me about science, its as if i don't even know English. When we talk in German, i can do very well house hold items, every day stuff, you introduce something else which i haven't learned yet (hobbies etc.) then I'm lost again. So becoming well rounded takes experience in those areas.
You are such a big inspiration. I am currently learning french but it's very hard even though i live in Switzerland where a quarter from the country speaks french. I still can't speak it but i don't give up.
That's common sense and nuanced approach. The things that many people are not very fond of today. Those people don't read articles, just headlines, and they also want short and simple answers and instructions. When you tell them that there's no single answer, there are different factors and everything is very individual they get mad and think you're avoiding the answer.
In my point of view, as you have already said, we cannot predict surely how long it will take for one to learn a specific language, because it really depends on one's mother tongue, the amount of effort put into it, and many other factors. For instance, I've been learning Turkish for 10 months now. My mother tongue is Portuguese, and it is way different from the structure of Turkish. Therefore, it is taking longer than, for example, it took for me to get to a good level in French.
Another great video! I guess we can also consider the differences/similarities between native and target language. For example, my native language is English, so it would be easier for me to learn Spanish than Japanese because English and Spanish are more alike (similar grammar structures, same alphabet, etc.) Anyways, since I found your channel, I am more motivated to begin studying Korean again!
Hey Lindie! Languages interest me, specifically linguistics and how different languages have vocabulary for concepts others don't. I currently take Spanish in school (Spanish 3 to be exact), but wish Mandarin was available. I find tonal languages to be very cool and the Chinese characters are truly beautiful. It is crazy that characters have semantic meanings as opposed to an alphabet encompassing all words in the language. Anyway, I specifically wanted to discuss Afrikaans with you. I know it is your first language, so obviously you are fluent in it. I currently live in the states, but I have dual citizenship of America and South Africa as my mother was South-African. I desperately want to learn Afrikaans because my mother spoke it. She passed away of cancer 2 years ago on Christmas Eve when I was fourteen. She always wanted to teach me it, and when I was a little girl I loved to sit on her bed and listen as she talked on the phone to her friends in Afrikaans. It is to my understanding that Afrikaans isn't a particularly difficult language as it is of West-Germanic origin and has fairly simple tenses. I proposed Duolingo create a course for it but never heard back, though I have gained lots of support. I was wondering if there was any way you could help me. I know you are very busy, so I understand your help may be very limited, but I what a video of yours that stressed the importance of having a language partner and thought I should give it a shot. You inspired me to reach out to my foreign exchange friend Tracy to become language partners for Mandarin. I hope you see this and respond when you can. It would mean a lot to me. Sincerely, Isabella Childress
Hi Isabella! Thanks for the comment. I'm so sorry about your mother 💖 I have a second channel called Afrikaans with Lindie, and then on my website under freebies you can download the most common Afrikaans words and phrases (lindiebotes.com) . But resources are scarce indeed. I'm busy compiling a list, so please email me and I'll get back to you!
Thanks for sharing your experience with us. In my case I never be so constant at the moment to learn a language, because always appeared something that make hardest keep going. However, since June of this year I have been studying english constantly for a requirement of my university to pass it. At the point to pay for universities courses in english while I learning the language even though my level is not a C1 and a difficult B2.
I'm learning japanese in senior high school for 3 years but as long as that I just learned the basic level it was so slow And then I do study abroad to Japan.. Because I wanna learn Japanese animation and comic so I have to study hard in Japanese language school for 1 year 6 month from level N5 but, it's just take 6 month there's no many problems because I studied as well before..and then after I graduated I got n3 level..so it's better which I able to continue to colleague Now I'm still learning n2 for exam for this December I heard you preparing too, 一緒にもっと頑張りましょう！！🙏🏽✨
I have been learning English since elementary school (I am German) but I never focused on it that much. I had to use it a lot; when I traveled to other European countries or on social media And like suddenly, after about 2 years of being connected to the world through the Internet, I realised later on that I could actually understand all these song lyrics on the radio. Since a lot of RUclips videos or subtitles for other languages are in English I improve mine everyday. It's Incredible! I think the best thing about language learning is learning your favourite language without wanting to be fluent as soon as possible. As a kid I adored the French language (I loved its sound). Because of that I started learning it at school and I was usually very interested and motivated in every lesson although I never studied at home or did more than I had to for my language learning. 4 years later, when I went to France I was so shook because I could understand the people I was talking to and they could understand me, too. I suddenly felt so proud of myself! My French friend there taught me the last important steps to achieve the perfect pronounciation in a way a teacher couldn't. Now I sound fluent and I understand a lot and I can talk about a lot of subjects in French, it's really cool and useful and there's still so much to learn :D And that's why I'm motivated to learn Mandarin step by step, it's not about the fluency, it's about having fun learning new words, pronouncing them and understanding the Grammar *-*
As mentioned, its different stroke for different folk. I personally can't see how its feasible to learn an entire language to fluency within 3 months also. Korean, I'm currently working on intonation and pronuncation as its now one year since I decided to begin studying it and I think its been the most intense studying I've done in a long time in regards to a language ^^
I've still been trying to become fluent in a second language for a long time. I take Latin in school, but it is a really awkward language and some of it really just doesn't make sense. I also tried learning Spanish on Duolingo but it was still hard for me to understand some grammatical things and I wasn't really confident in trying to speak it either. Right now I just started learning German on Duolingo though and it is a lot easier for me to understand. The words are kind of similar to English and the grammar is also similar. I'm hoping that since English and German are in the same language family that I will be able to learn German fast and get the experience of knowing a second language, so that I can try to apply it to other languages I want to learn.
Hiii I'm from Brazil ~~ I am intermediate level in English and I am learning Korean .... I admire you sooooo💜 ... sometimes I feel lost, I am very confused on how to study kkk
I’m Japanese and I’m trying to learn new languages. So I love watching your videos. Thank you! Also, I was so glad that you like Japanese so much! I hope I can meet you some day! Love you!
It depends on many factors. I am beginning to learn my familial language, which is Ukrainian. It is a category 3 language in terms of difficulty for English speakers, though, it is coming easier than expected for me because I had moderate exposure to the language in my household growing up which gave me a base for pronunciation of phonetics not found in English. Though, I never actually 'learned' the language growing up, I was just exposed to it knowing only a handful of words. But that bit of exposure has helped quite a bit, and my pronunciation is considerably good starting off. However, the grammar is very different from English and takes a great deal of adjustment. I feel as though if I worked on it daily/routinely for a year, I could be fairly proficient. Again, this depends on many factors. I also have a parent who is fluent in the language so I have a sort of tutor at any time who I can ask questions to, so this speeds up the process certainly. Listening to conversation and music in Ukrainian very much helps to establish pronunciation and vocabulary skills over time. Also, the written form of a language plays a significant role in learning times. If you're a native English speaker and you are learning a language such as French, German, etc which already use the Latin script, this helps a lot. I am learning the Cyrillic script which is different but comes very fast. I can't imagine how tricky learning Korean, Japanese, or Arabic script would be like. I'm sure it would make the process more difficult and tack on an extra 25% difficulty I'd imagine.
I think as much effort and discipline that one have it’s s okay but when you really like to learn new languages you can be like most of the time studying for example in my case it took 2 years to learn Korean and have an intermediate level but it’s all patience and don’t give up y’all can do it ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I totally agree that language families help. My Italian was high enough to watch tv with no subtitles in about a year, because it came on the back of a decade of French and Spanish. Another thing that might make Japanese easier is that basically all the sounds exist in English, But in Korean there are few strange vowels and the double consonant sounds that we don’t have.
Ps, I’m learning Korean through Japanese and I found the language families also help with vocabulary. There are a lot of Chinese words that are similar in Korean and Japanese, and there are a lot of loan words. I’ve found that I am able to remember these words after one time studying them. And sometimes I can guess the meaning of a Korean word if it’s based on Chinese, because of my Japanese.
I think it depends on the person. I've always been better at languages than most people around me (just like most people are better at maths than me), so while these ideas you outline are certainly good for learning fast, it also just depends on genetics and surroundings. I have always been better at English than my peers and I'm from a country where English fluency is high. I have also been able to become fluent in Swedish in around half a year, just from forcing myself to speak even though i wouldnt feel comfortable enough to do it yet. It's not impossible to learn a language very fast, sometimes it just depends on your knack for these things.
for me, I am now fluent in 3 languages. so far they are Bahasa Indonesia (my mother language), English, and Sundanese. and I can understand and catch up a bit of daily convo in Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and Spanish. till now, all I can say about the amount of time to be "fluent" is that, it is up to the person. the amount of time they have to learn, their ability to understand and real-life practice the languages, and many more aspects. just a side note, for me it is really hard to get fluent in Mandarin. I have been learning Mandarin for around 6 years (all in formal school), and I still am lacking a lot because formal school rarely teaches the speaking. I really want to be fluent in Mandarin ;-;
![When are you fluent in a language? [Polyglot opinion]](/img/1.gif)
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I think in school we get taught wrong way. Listening and Speaking should be more important. Writing and Reading took civilization thousand years to develop.
True! The struggle of focused practice speaking with a real person will help us level-up our foreign languages the quickest.
@@ElementaryChinese are u learning Chinese?
@@rongwang9400 Yeah. Learning for LIFE!
@@ElementaryChinesemaybe we can be language partner??😄
@@ElementaryChinese oh i Just noticed u are a RUclipsr and ur Chinese is pretty good.😂i thought u are a beginner
I think a lot of problems arise when we see books like 'learn Japanese in a year' or videos titled 'I learnt Japanese in 6 months'. FOr me personally, I find this very demotivating as it makes me think that I'm not doing well or am not good enough because after one and a half years I'm not fluent yet. As you said in your video, we're all very different, have different amounts of time that we can spend studying and have different learning styles. I really think it's important to try not to compare yourself to other people when language learning. Just do your best, whatever that is :)
Oh my God, yesss! I get extremely demotivated to the point of giving up when I come across such things. We all learn at different speeds!
You couldn't have said it any better! Un grand merci
Sooo true. I’m almost a year in and study every friggin day and while I’ve gotten better I’m no where near fluency. Someone had to say!
Nobody learns in 6 months...of course you can understand a lot of basic content and speak a little, but in 6 months with an average of 1500-2000 words, trust me you won't understand everything. Furthermore, in Japanese you need to learn 3 writing systems. In 6 months you can get a B1 in any language if you spend time learning the language everyday. For a B2 you need a year...and for a C1-C2 you will need at least two years of dedication
@@kartoffeln6806 100% of those videos are just a clickbait, nobody learns a language in 6 months.
Sounding like a native and have no foreigner accent is not a requirement to be called fluent...yet the accent has to be light at least..but not everyone has the ability to sound perfectly native
Not a requirement at all, but it helps you "sound" more fluent than you actually are :P
I would say it's not a requirement, but your pronunciation has to be _correct,_ so more or less the same/the correct sounds even if not refined, but no mixing up phonemes within the language. However this still often allows for some "play room" and a heavy accent. It could be heavy but still clear and correct.
I think that accent is okay, but you need to pronounce well, there is a difference between having accent and pronouncing well (but sounding like a native also helps a lot
intonations / stressing correctly words make you sound more native..because an accent is what it is (not a perfect pronunciation or incorrect intonation) but it is funny you manage to sound like a native Korean when clearly you don't sound native in English..considering how closer Afrikaans is to English than Korean..yet you are fluent in English.
How do I not sound native in English? 😂 thats hilarious
I think people throw around the word "fluent" way too much. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Ugh I agree. I've studied 9 languages throughout my life but I say I am only fluent in 3 and ppl usually seem to interpret that as I learn a bit and then drop the language or that I suck at studying but no, being fluent is just a completely different level imo than what most ppl seem to think.
Like with everything else in life, people usually overestimate their habilities, or just like to pretend to be something they're not.
My native language is Spanish, and I've heard a lot of people say that they can speak English when in fact they can't.
Thanks for the question! I have two videos about my thoughts on what fluency is.
Likewise I think people get too salty about the word “fluent” being used. It means the ability to communicate in a language. That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate it.
Many people think that to be fluent is to reach C2?
I am on year 3 of learning Korean. I wish I had been more consistent in the beginning because I would have made a lot more progress. My new motivation is that I am returning to Korea in May so I want to speak confidently even if I still make mistakes.
I wish you all the best! ^^
GOOD LUCK!
화이팅~~
화이팅! 할수있어!!
고마워요!
Who else is here to learn a language in quarantine?
How's it going? What language are you learning? I'm trying to dust off my school German and develop it into a skill. At least, I'm trying to make some meaning of all my time inside.
@@orangew3988 Cool, I've been learning Mandarin for the past couple of days (atleast 30 min per day) and it's going well so far. Im also planning to learn German after getting decent in Mandarin
I'm learning how to read and write in Vietnamese. I can speak the language, but my grammar and literacy are non-existent.
Learning Shona and High-Valyrian
I'm trying to learn Norwegian and Spanish
Sorry for the video quality, friends :( I was using a friend's camera for a while, and this is my own camera made out of a potato lol
It doesn't look bad, don't mind
Hi :) I learn polish German Japanese and Spanish. My favourite language is Japanese because fun language Is love this language but difficult because *I don't know how to learn Kanji*.
Ehy, have you got some advice to imrpove the pronounciation and the listening of chinese?
I wrote a blog post about improving listening skills here! lindiebotes.com/2018/09/28/6-unique-ways-to-improve-listening-in-any-language/
@@asir2052 I'm studying chinese, I know they're different but you could looking for some books like "Introduction of Japanese characters". I usually learn 2-3 character per day. I re-write the character several times until I memorize it (as usual I use one entire page for character) and then I train my mind using flashcards (sorry if my english is bad, I'm italian). I use this method, and it works.
I want so badly to end all advertising of "learn language quick" apps and programs. Also "he who shall not be named" even mentions in his book that true fluency probably isn't possible in 3 months, however I find the book title and concept a bit misleading. People are also way too caught up on learning languages fast, like come on y'all, enjoy the journey and memories made from learning!
You hit the nail on the head!
Rob Reyes are you talking about ikena ?
@@zion9812 I think yes buddy
@@zion9812 there is him too, but there is also a thing literally called fluent in 3 months, which might be the thing referenced
Well, I think the problem is that some people see languages, or education in general, as something that need to have a clear finish line. Similar to a "graduation" either in school, college or university.
Nonetheless, I'd say that all depends on your goals, and a time frame might help you to achieve them, if they are specific. In other words, SMART goals. Anyhow, I agree that there's no ending in the language learning journey, unless you want to! You'll always learn something new within a language and or culture.
It took me a year to get "fluent" in English when I was 15 ( due to the fact I had a fallen in love with a girl who couldn't speak Portuguese - I'm Brazilian). But before that I had several years of English at school and my English was a disaster. Though it took longer to "sound native".
French was a bit easier, because of my language background, and I actually spent 2 months in French after a year and half studying it. As far as Italian is concerned, it took me 8-9 months to be able to become quite conversational with native speakers without them have to slow de or be careful with the vocab choice, but I'm still something around a B1..
Setting goals to reach is also an important part, you're right. Some people need that "finish line" kins of goal to get motivated to get there, where as others maybe have the motivation in themselves and don't need a set goal to reach. Either way, I think what works best for each person should be the way to go for them, but also it's good to know that language learning doesn't have an end, especially if you plan on using the languages you've learned regularly or surround yourself with the languages
As an example, I'm planning to start learning french, but I need to set a goal for the language I'm currently learning (korean) so that I know that I won't give up one to learn the other, so, once I get to that level of korean where I can understand most of the dialogue I hear daily (variety shows mostly) then I know I will be able to keep on learning korean anyways even if I don't formally sit down with a notebook and a pen and "study properly". So, it's not like I'm setting a goal to reach and be like: that's it, I'm done. It's more of like a: ok, now that I'm here I'm comfortable to ditch the textbook for a while.
오하늘Sky same here. It's nice to know someone else "ditch" the textbook after a while of learning a language, too :)) everyone have a textbook and i have the... youtube.
I'm currently learning Portuguese, your comment made me feel better as I already speak French and am hoping it'd help me with it.
Dick energy is really strong
It was interesting how you said that it's hard to get by with just English in Japan. People who don't want to study languages like to argue that most people learn English, so you wouldn't need to learn another language. It would be interesting to hear about your experiences with finding people who speak (or not) English in the different countries that you've been to
I live in Morocco and almost no one speaks English. Arabic, french and some Spanish only
I've been studying a language for about 3 months now. I'm trying to expose myself to the language as much as I can. I don't want to take 8 years to become an advanced speaker. I'd rather go all out and try to achieve it in 3 years.
Me too. I wish I could in one year lol
Have a good technique. Study every day and do imersion in your target language. Who stays 10 years to become fluent, is because don't study very well!
@@kbs6025 I'm at a B1 level now and getting closer to a B2 level every week. I'm still motivated which is the main thing. I don't try to 'study' the language as much these days, rather I prefer to 'engage' with the language through comprehensible input so that I'm acquiring the language naturally rather than trying to memorise words and grammatical rules. So far, so good.
Fluency in 3 months is just a gimmick to sell things! It's not possible or realistic. Great video!
Yah, I started studying Japanese over 10 years ago but I never tell people this because then they don't understand why I'm not fluent yet... -_-" Meanwhile, I only study occasionally, have never been to Japan, don't know anyone Japanese and hardly watch anime anymore so my exposure is seriously limited...and always has been.
That's how I feel about Mandarin 😂 I hate telling people when I started studying cause I should be a lot better than I am lpl
Yep, that's what learning occasionally is like. I'm actually postponing learning Cantonese for this reason, and also because the tones and pronunciation are difficult for me and I think I'll forget everythung unless I regularly practise deliberately.
Relate to this on a huge level!!! 😹
Same here. I started learning Japanese in 2011.. still struggling with JLPT N3
@@aklapka4579 Same! Started in fall 2011 and I just barely passed the N3 last December (2018). I must say that I haven't studied it seriously since summer 2015 (when I had my last classes of Japanese in Japan).... X3 I know I should put more effort into it since my goal is N2.
TL;DR When one puts effort and heart into something, they usually gets some results.
Also, even though some of my goals were to learn Chinese and Korean as well (I stop learning Chinese in 2014 at beginner level, and I only know the Korean alphabet and a few phrases), I started learning Russian about almost 2 months ago. I haven't studied everyday, but I'm already fine with the alphabet, how to write it and read it as it is written. Now, I'm trying to remember all the reading and writing rules, as well as grammar and vocabulary. It's already starting to make sense after just 2 months since I'm only concentrating on Russian!
I mean, as language learners, let's not be hard on ourselves.
We learn new things every day even in our native culture.
I've been speaking English all of my life but when I write my short stories, I use a thesaurus and a dictionary to insert new words that aren't as commonly spoken.
That's like with any other Language. You learn new words, the more you're expose to them.
Nobody knows everything 😀🙂
加油
I do agree with you . .. I have been learning Chinese for 10 years and my Chinese is average. I can understand daily conversation perfectly...But I watch news on TV or reading newspaper.... Suddenly blank wkwkkw alot of specific economic/medical/political vocabularies that we usually miss if we keep focusing on daily vocabulary
do u want a language partner😂
"Pronunciation makes you sound a lot more fluent than you may or may not be."
Japanese people that hear me on the phone and all my classmates taking Japanese: "Wow, you're so good at Japanese!"
Me: Knows 200 words and 3 grammar rules but has almost near native pronunciation "uhh..."
Yeah, pronounciation/tone is important
Aren't the Japanese just being nice? I don't think your pronunciation would be that good if you only know 200 words.
I heard if you're foreigner and even speaking just the basic in bad pronunciation, they'll be impressed.
@@maheshpun4804 that's what I thought too, but I spoke to a few people on a Japanese server in a mixture of Japanese and English and they said they told me they were surprised when I told them I was American cause they thought I was Japanese 🤷♀️
My pronunciation definitely isn't perfect though. I'm sure if I spoke Japanese for long enough, they'd figure it out. I've still gotta lot to learn, especially about intonation.
@@maheshpun4804 How many words doesn't matter. For example If you practice a sentence a thousand or thousands of times. You will likely pronounce it like a native. Regardless of what you know beyond that. You could sound near native with a self introduction. If you have practiced it thousands of times.
Lol me with spanish
Recalls 30 words and can make 10 sentences
I think learning language takes forever.The more you get fluent the more you understand that there are more things you need to work at.You know it said: "I know that I know nothing".Lindie thank you for your videos.I really enjoy your videos and get motivated to learn language and be confident about it.
How do you maintain all the languages you speak?
You seem like such a nice person. I’m 12 and love to learn languages , currently I’m learning German and all your videos have helped me a lot thank you😊
I believe that if you put effort in learn a language you can be fluent. For example, I'm a native Portuguese speaker, and I am learn English for, almost, 6 years. However, even that I've been studying English for so long, I wasn't able to speak until last year. But, as I've been putting more effort in learn the language, I became more fluent and confident. It's just a matter of how much effort do you put in learning. x
* I have been learning English for almost six years ...
*But as I've been putting in more effort to learn the language.
Your English is great, every native sucks at tenses somewhere so you're damn near a native lol
Welcome and congrats on coming this far 🎉
I'm fluent in Croatian🇭🇷, German🇩🇪 and English🇺🇸
I was learning Japanese from 08th December 2018 to 01.01.2020 on DUOLINGO. BIG MISTAKE I haven't learned ish (Only basic grammar and particles)😂
Then on 01.01.2020 I have purchased myself a notebook and I started writing down important things, learn grammar, vocabularies etc. And in 6 months I have reached B2 in Japanese which is great I think🤩.
Pronounciation in Japanese was pretty easy for me because Croatian and Japanese have kinda the same way of pronouncing things.
Particles were easy to me. Everything is great with Japanese.
And I started learning Korean on 03.05.2020 and I have learned things like particles, sentence structure. But now I'm kinda lost idk what to learn. Because the app busuu helped me with Japanese but Korean doesn't exist on Busuu.😂
I guess I'll start learning Korean from Articles and etc.
Feel free to comment if you have any recommendations.🥺
You should probably work on conjugations like past tense, future tense and etc. Things like adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions are also important, i think they're part of grammar as well. You can also try to build up your vocabulary using SRS like Anki or just flashcards. Watch films and music videos in that language to get that immersion. Those are what i'm doing as of rn but i literally started learning 2 weeks ago so i can't say for certain that it's the best method xd.
Woow, I am learning German now but it is too tough to pronounce 😬
Still feeling stuck? I have a new video about language learning mindsets to get you into the right frame of mind to start a language! ruclips.net/video/juo8qIMTTOc/видео.html
I don't think perfectly knowing a language is possible we are always learning even our native language! Always finding something new. But exposure and immersion is critical imo to make a progress. I would like to add that having fun while learning helps a lot! The way you see your studies. For example if you are fascinated by a language and watch and listen things that are in this language and constantly are curious about how it is used you will make a better progress than if you feel that you have to learn it and you spend hours staring at a text book... Having fun with it really helps! I've learned more English by translating song lyrics at home and watching movies/TV shows in English than I've learned by studying in class! When we do something that really interest us it tends to stuck better in our heads! Last month I've started learning German Spanish Japanese and Korean... Will see how it goes XD but I try to see it as something I want to do not something I have to do because mental preassure is always slowing me down in my studies!
I really like you videos, will be watching more 😁 thank you!!
Interesting perspective, especially because you've had the opportunity to live in multiple countries and benefit from immersion, which is something that most language learners cannot benefit from. And what an opportunity by the way! I hope to one day get to use my Arabic in my everyday life!
The question about "how long it takes to learn a language" is something that frustrates a lot of people. Language learning is about delayed gratification, and especially if you're new to language learning, you'll have a hard time keeping up steam and staying motivated when you just cannot see the light in the end of the tunnel.
In reality, it depends on so many things. The mother tongue, past experiences with languages (or studying in general), motivation, the time put in, consistency, the level that you aim for... And then there's the difference that immersion makes, as you exemplified with your Korean VS your Japanese!
I've tried looking at some of those different variables and making a tool that sort of adds up the different factors and spits out a number based on those variables. It's really extremely imprecise, and as you know, there are so many other factors that play a role. Add to that that that there doesn't exist a lot of data or research on the subject. Still, I was hoping you'd take a look at my "study time calculator". While it's imperfect in a lot of ways, it spits out a number that a language self-student can look at and judge for him/herself, which is at least a little more tangible than "it depends" or "anywhere form 6 months to 20 years"...
Anyway - I was hoping to hear your opinion on the calculator. You can find it on my site autolingual.com/study-time-calculator Please let me know what you think, especially if you have any suggestions for improvement!
Your video gave me so much motivation! I'm Brazilian and I've been learning English for three years. I'm improving my skills every day and I'm very proud of my evolution. As you said, you took a few years to become confident speaking Korean and I understand you. The fear of saying something wrong is too much, but we have to keep trying to reach our goals.
how are you doing now in the language? It’s been 6 years
I love this video! I have always felt like there is an awkwardness in relating time to skill level in languages or really, any discipline. Not only for the reasons you mentioned: the amount of actual time invested or immersion achieved over 10 years might be totally different for one person versus another, or one person in one language versus another, but also--you can take breaks! I feel awkward to say that I have been learning Chinese for 5 years, because while that's technically when I started and took a class, I took a 3 year break and basically started from scratch after that. I feel like my level is quite low for a 5 year learner but it's also inaccurate to say that I didn't start 5 years ago. All of that confusion or need for additional explanation could be avoided if it were more common to judge skills on something less arbitrary.
I find it really lovely how honest you are about it taking years to get to your level in languages. I sometimes feel like an idiot for how long i've been learning Spanish and not being fluent yet. This really helps, thank you!
I've been learning Korean for 2 years by myself and about month ago I was listeting to music and I thought : Wait, I understand everything in Korean 🤔🤔🤔
But I'm kinda bad at speaking because I don't have a possibility to talk to native speakers. But English is my second language and I'm sure that I speak fluently :)
Lindie, thanks for reminding everyone that the "I became fluent in 3 months" rubbish is well, rubbish! As you said in your video the minimum time frame will be years. 日本語を頑張ってくださいー！
Exactly! That's why I always have this mindset that after a year, I should at least have a little bit of progress in the languages I'm learning. But I'm not pressuring myself to be fluent within that time frame because I know it's totally imposible 😂
Hi Lindie! So nice to finally get a chance to say Hello! I did not know how to make comments. The section for comments is way below the video! I am learning Chinese and French. I have been studying them on and off for years. When I work a little every day, there is much more progress! I also noticed that the skill you work on the most gets better, such as pronunciation or comprehension. You can be a lot better at one skill than another within the same language. I really admire your interest in Asian languages!
Yup! It definitely depends on the person and sometimes the language. I have been learning American Sign Language for 3 years, and im still not fluent but that’s okay! Learning a language is a process, not a race.(great video btw~)
Hello all! I love learning languages and I’m working to become a hyper-polyglot so that I can interpret all six official languages of the UN. Right now, I’m sticking with the Romance language family. I understand Portuguese, Spanish and Italian rather well but Romanian...not so much. I’m bilingual between French and English and the reason my Romanian isn’t where it needs to be is that all those others have more cognates to English and similar grammatical structures to English. Another thing that is important would be THE AMOUNT OF RESOURCES AND FLUENT SPEAKERS AVAILABLE in your area! Here in central Illinois there are quite a few Spanish/French/Portuguese speakers but almost no Romanians. All my Romanian resources come from Știrile ProTv or similar news sources with video/online text and I understand most of what is said but I’m not confident. Never let lack of resources/people stop you from pushing through because you’ll get there eventually! 😊
I agree with everything that’s said in this video. Even someone who grew up in America, would never know every piece of vocab, and know every piece of grammar (though I think grammar is way more doable? 🤷🏼♂️) so in a kind of sense we’re never done with any language, now matter how long you’ve been studying/speaking said language
Absolutely. I’m American and now as an adult I’m learning Scottish Gaelic. I’ve realised that there are many, many grammar terms and rules that I just “know” from speaking English as a native language. So I feel very confused sometimes when I’m having to learn English grammar rules in order to learn Gaelic grammar rules! 🤔🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
Like you said, we’re always learning no matter how long we’ve been speaking a language.
I agree very much that immersion and time put into learning a language is very true!
For my mom when she had first come into the United States she did not know a single BIT of English.
But she learned by herself, listening, reading, etc mostly out of a survival need. Since she had no one to speak in her native language with, but eventually got to that English fluency that made others think she had studied _years_ to get that point.
She admitted that no. It took her about a year because _she had to._
While I remember a classmate who had been in the same school as me for practically _10 years_ and she never learned English because she always had a translator and surrounded herself with those who spoke her language.
SO.
Moral of the story is that immersion can only go a long way if you don’t put your time into it, but immersion can be _so effective_ if you do.
And if neither time or immersion is put into it then yeah, even living in the country of that spoken target language can never happen.
너무 멋져요!! 린디씨가 배운 많은 언어들 중에 첫 언어가 한국어여서 왠지모르게 뿌듯하네요ㅎㅎ 화이팅!!
Du bist toll, ich bin froh, dass es Koreanisch ist, dass du zuerst gelernt hast!
¡eres maravillosa! ¡Me alegro mucho de que hayas aprendido coreano primero!
Tu es génial! Je suis content que ce soit coréen que tu as appris en premier!
Just saw a comments down below about not telling people about your language studies and its so true. I remember i was looking for a spanish book and found the website where one girl said she learned spanish nearly two years but still couldnot speak it. And i think its really okey not to be perfect in things like this, special people who called interpreters do this for us. And there is no necessary to be good enough because its you and only you decide whether to learn a language very fast or to know every part of the construction. As you can see my english could be better as ive been learning it for 7 years maybe and its still sad. But i think i will be able to do my best in the future.
I started leaning korean and its my second year but i still cant speak it fast though. So its ok!
This is SO true! It all depends on your motivation. This sounds so silly but, I watched this Chinese drama, and found out, halfway through and fully invested, there were no subs for the second half of the season. I wanted to finish it so badly I started intensely studying Chinese so I could at least understand the jist of what was going on. In six months of studying Chinese, I became 10x more fluent than I was in French (which I had studied for six years) and 2x more fluent than I was in Korean (which I had studied for a year and a half)! Your motivation, drive and effort determines how fast you can become "fluent" in a language; although you never really do stop learning!
I also totally agree on pronunciation. I sounded more "native" in Korean than in French, despite studying French formally & for longer and Korean on my own, all because I specifically spent months practicing native-sounding pronunciation and accents, dialect, etc!! It makes all the difference.
Wow which chinese drama was that? Btw im also learning chinese!
@@cutekitten45 It was this drama called (incoming cringe title) "Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me". Honestly, it wasn't even that great of a drama but I got sucked in, because I loved the actors! (Also, totally fell in love with the second lead, who disappeared for half the drama. Talk about suffering). If you end up watching, the first season is pretty decent, actually, but the second season is awful lol!!
Also, good luck in your Chinese studies! I hope all goes well 🤗 If you're into dramas, I'd love to recommend "Love O2O" and "Accidentally in Love" they're my favourites, I used them to study Chinese too! And the RUclips channels "CCTV6 CHINA MOVIE OFFICIAL CHANNEL", "腾讯视频TencentVideo
" and "电影公社 China Movie", along with some others, post full length (and usually English subbed!) Chinese movies and dramas all the time, it's amazing as a study tool ^^ The movies are the best because they're usually only an hour, and they're actually really amazing! :-)
@@sleepiestgirlever4405 Thank you, i always watch chinese dramas as part of my studies, they're honestly the best for listening and pronunciation!! And i have watched Love 020 and i loved it!! And thank you for the recommendations, ive almost finished watching the current drama that I'm on (pretty li hui zhen) and i'll be sure to check out the others you mentioned!!😊😊
I did this too with English (not my native language, I'm from SEA), not with drama but with games😂 I remember my English was terrible, I always got below B in school and after learning English intensely from games, a year later I was at intermediate level. I'm trying to apply this method again with my Japanese
@@sachisas Omg that is so cool! I never thought you could learn a language from games but I bet that would be such a fast fun way to study!! I need to try that
初めまして！私は英語の勉強をしている日本人です！
韓国語を学びたくて、第3言語の学習時期についての動画を探していたら、このチャンネルを見つけました！
最後に言語習得の期間について"I don't know, couse I'm still learning"的なフレーズがとてもしっくりきました☺️💖
Great point of view! I think motivation is key, as when I was in Korea, the first year I didn't have as much motivation and then my second year I had more people around me who were also learning it and being immersed in the language and culture helped to get used to hearing words I studied before and gaining greater understanding.
Thank you so much for this video. This is the most realistic advice that has been given in a RUclips video.
Came across your channel today. You're absolutely AMAZING!!! I'm also a fellow South African currently living in China and I'm grateful to have come across your awesome channel🤗🤗
Immersion really plays a big role in language learning. I started learning French in September 2016 and took B1 in November 2018. Even I passed, I didn't have the courage to speak the language until I came here to France in January 2019. Ill stay until June 2019 and hope I will be in level B2 by the time I leave this country.
Your videos are interesting! I am an English and German private teacher. Your pieces of advice are always welcomed. I am focused on finding new teaching methods.
I completely agree with you. It’s so difficult to quantify how much time we become fluent in a language.
I experienced learning English, French and Spanish in Italy in more than ten years, between high school and university. On the contrary, I learnt German and Portuguese much further than my previous ones, because I used to live respectively in Germany for ten months in total (six in 2007 and four in 2013) and in Portugal for two years and a half.
So, it really depends on our goals and on how much time we spend studying and having fun with our target languages.
I’ve started with Japanese for three weeks just for fun and to challenge myself. 😊
I agree hundred percent with you about immersion. I was born in France and spoke french every day for 30 years. It has been 15 years since I moved in Quebec and I lost a lot of my native french since then. Also I am learning Japanese and you are very motivating. Thank You.
Languages I know
English (A2)
Bengali (A1)
Hindi (A1)
Assamese (B1)
Korean (B2)
Languages I wanna learn
Chinese
Spanish
Fillipino
I discovered this channel today and I'm simply loving it. I'm learning english and it's so great to find places like this to improve my dream. Thanks!
I think everyone have their one way to learn new languages especially if you have a lot of motivations.Im learning Korean right now and because I love the culture I really think I can Learn it within 4 months. I study Korean 8 hours a day. So maybe this is why I’m progressing that much.
I speak portuguese, and I'm in a journey to learn English, it's hard 'cause I study alone without course or teacher, so is just me. But I already can understand what you say without subtitles, it's is a big progress, right?? So good luck to us, languages learnes❤️
You always give me my motivation back to keep going. The way you explain stuff just makes me feel that I’m doing great and don’t need to rush the language.
Hi Lindie, If you ever want to practice Spanish, I'm your girl (I'm from Chile, a really small country in South America :P). I started watching your vids because I'm learning Korean and I'm in love of your pronunciation, so you give me hope that with time and effort everything its possible! Keep fighting!
I really liked this video! :D
[Sorry long comment ahead!]
I think when people these days start to learn a new language, they always want to know how to get to a good level as fast as possible. They want to be "fluent in 3 months" or whatever. In my opinion that's not what makes language learning fun and that's not the mindset with which you should start learning it.
As for me I had English lessons since 1st grade (it's the second language I learn). Back then I was 5 and just went with it because I liked the language. Over the past 10 years I never lost my interest in this language and constantly tried my best. After about 7 years I even started to watch movies, series etc in English only. Means I started surrounding myself with it more.
I'm in my 11th year of learning this language now and I consider myself pretty fluent. But I didn't get fluent because that was my goal. I never really noticed or thought about how fluent I am before I've watched a video which was about this topic.
In year 6 in school I started learning French. I was totally interested in this language and I still am but it was a school language again. This time I was interested in the language but never really surrounded myself with it until 10th grade (which was also the last year I had this in school). Still I never thought about being fluent in that language what was part of the reason I could happily continue learning. After 5 years of learning French I might not be really good, especially since it's been 3-4 months since I graduated, but I still have the motivation to continue learning it because I love this language.
So my advice for language learners is: Don't learn a language because you want to be fluent in it. Learn a language because you want to and because you love it. It doesn't matter if it takes you 3 or 10 years to become "fluent". As long as you enjoy learning it you'll be happy.
Thanks for listening to my Ted talk xD
LAST Dance oh my god you do that too... are there more of us out there i wonder
Fascinating and modest explanation why some languages take us more time than others and other learners.
I love your shirt! 😍😍😍
Your videos seem like a real conversation. That's really good.
I think it really depends on the learner. Some pick-up languages really fast and some struggle a bit more. Right now I have been learning Japanese for about 8 years but still I think my level it still in beginner 2. I think the problem I have is that I don't practice the language much and I would admit I have been slacking off nowadays. I still have my goal of being fluent one day and work and live in Japan. Currently, I'm 19 years old and is a nursing student, being a student I would say studying my lessons take more priority than language learning but still this is not an excuse to stop learning a language. Language learning became something that I love doing and I also think it would be an asset in the future.
You fye. I'm 23 and just starting.
The problem with me abt learning Korean is I do get lazy most of the time so I always end up only reviewing the lessons and add it with schoolworks:< AND NO TIME MANAGEMENT
Please give me some tips on how to be consistently studying it
My number one tip: learn what habits fail you. For me, I cannot even TOUCH the internet in the mornings or I will get nothing done the whole day. So I try to break my habit of being on the internet all day and keep my mornings clear of it. The mornings for me personally turned out to he crucial. I try to get my studying done then. If you go to school in the mornings then maybe for you the time right after school is crucial. Or maybe eating sweets or something else gets you into a lazy mode. Think about what it is that fails you and fix it. It could be different for you. So how to find this out: be mindful of what you're doing at the moment and why and what you should he doing and why you aren't doing that. I did this and it made me feel so stupid. XD but the key is to be honest, it's just you and noone else anyway. When you keep analyzing these things you'll naturally come up with ideas on how to change it and help yourself. So, recap:
Analyse and be mindful of:
1. What are you doing right now? (mornings, lunch, afternoons and late evenings)
2. Why am I doing this right now?
3. What should I be doing right now/What do I want to do idealy?
4. Why am I not doing that?
And then 5. What fails me, what can I try to do to fix this?
Idk your age but believe me, when I was your age I was lazy and it only got worse from then on. It's no joke! It becomes a habit - being lazy - and it's so hard to get rid of if you do it for long. And it's NOT fun! If you implement these steps, implement them just honestly for yourself and not for anyone else, you'll benefit greatly!
I'm sorry that this is so long but I really hope it helps and I wish you all the best! ^^
essennagerry Yes I totally agree! That's some great advice there. :)
OMG thank youuu~ for giving your effort and time on typing this. I really do appreciate that you want to help meㅜㅜ
Pls don't be sorry that you've make it too long coz this is the most detailed and helpful advice I've ever received and again, thank you for sharing your experiences and make it as a knowledge to other ppl who also do it and by that, your using your experiences to become an inspiration to to other ppl to do better than what they are right now.
I will try to follow all of your advice next week coz I have many requirements to accomplish&pass this week:<
Thank you again and Have a nice day!^^
*and btw I'm 15 yrs old^^*
@@방탄소년단완전사랑해 I'm so happy to hear that! ^^ one more advice: scientists have literally proven it's ok to fail as long as you get back up. So don't beat yourself up if you fail, it's a process. :) Studies show that everyone fails when trying to build a new habit - sooner or later everyone fails - but the people who get the best results are the ones who get back up as soon as they can and start over. So don't stress out over this! ^^ And once again I wish you all the best, you rock and you'll kill it this week! ^^
Also check out the shadowing method. I bet you watch a lot of videos in Korean. try to watch those with Korean subs and hopefully there will be english subs as well. You can do this particularly well on vlive.
You right Lindies about the familly of language, for instance English helps me a lot to learn Dutch and afterwards Dutch could do the same thing to learn German. Each language is a bridge to an other. Cheers from Belgium.
Thank you! People always talk about learning a language to fluency in a few months and here I am still learning! The biggest game changer for me was just mustering up the confidence to speak, which I think is the biggest tip when it comes to language learning.
I've been learning English for about 6 to 7 years. I'm exposing myself to the language every single day and I watch more videos in English than I do in German, my mother language. I'm now learning Spanish and Korean, one for scool and the other one because I really want to. I'm at a point where I don't remember how I got so fluent in English, I'm starting at point zero even though I aready learned a whole language. I think it's so interesting that I'm better at Korean than I am at Spanish, just because I prefer one language over the other. I spend more time studying and I have way more fun doing so.
I think it's really important to be interested in the language you are learning
I love that you leave in the times that you pronounce a word wrong. Makes me feel better about making mistakes in my target languages.
I had a similar experience as you did in my French studies, learning it for 9 years in high school as my first foreign language to an advanced level in reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. But then it became rusty again as I later didn’t have to use it as much as other languages at university or at work. But while it was difficult to output it fluently now I still could read and understand most materials which is a big advantage, and it took only about a year with maybe an hour a day of reviewing vocabulary and grammar or listening to native content to reactivate most of my dormant skills. So it wouldn’t take nearly the same amount of time and effort to get to some level of fluency as someone starting fresh, and by now I am also more aware of my preferred learning strategies than in high school. And of the fact that French isn’t really as difficult/exotic compared to languages from different families.
I came to Brazil in 2011 and started to learn Portuguese. I could get my point across by 2013 and that made me kind of confindent. "Now I can start learning a new language!" :) I took on Turkish at the end of 2013 and I'm nowhere near my level of Portuguese from 2013. Because of the reason you've mentioned, the amount of exposure. But it's OK. It much better than nothing.
Hi Lindie. :) Yeah, I get you. I've been learning Finnish for four years now, mostly through immersion. And I'm getting more comfortable speaking, but I find it totally ok to not be quite there yet. Even if Finnish is a phonetic language, I'll give myself two-three more years and then see where I'm at. But reading goes smoother now, so that's a plus. Ida. PS: Keep going, you are amazing.
Really cool to hear about your Experience. And true that if you really wanna know and understand someone, English will never be enough.
I'm French and am currently living in Japan so I can totally relate to what you're saying. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with you, your accent makes you sound more fluent than you actually are, so I'm learning Spanish and when I speak with natives they always say that my Spanish is good because I've worked on my accent and grammar although I have a lot of vocabulary to learn, and its all about the immersion and goals you set for yourself. For me I study every single day as much as I can and its working
Kwasi Yonkopa That’s awesome! Constant study/practice is definitely key! 👍🏾 I need to be more disciplined in my study/practice habits!
I started to learn Japanese in 2013. It's almost 6 years of studies, efforts and musics. I took the JLPT last year and I got the N3 as you!! For me, this process to acquire this level took a longer time than you. Here we have one example that the "being fluent in a language" is a thing that depends on the person and the immersion. I really agree with your thoughts!
You really nailed it. I tried to learn Japanese and because I wasn't so concentrated, I failed and left it. Now you've motivated me to start over with it. I've been thinking about starting this next year. But now I'm focusing on German because I still haven't reached to the level I'd like to be. Besides, I'm also improving other languages, so, I think that's the reason I failed. Now I understand why and why some people can learn a language better. Good video!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Lindie. I completely agree. Trying to quantify language learning is so difficult, especially when trying to explain to someone who is monolingual. This video made me really happy:) You're so down to earth and your videos get to the point, which I really appreciate. Thank you!!
Now i have the same experience with Korean and Japanese as you, because i am currently learning both at a university, and Korean helped me a lot (unlike my teachers..). And i am a hungarian native, so if you may want to practice, i could help you out, because i should practice english, korean and japanese more to get a scholarship.. :)
I guess you are the first person on youtube (I have watched) that seems really honest about the process of learning a new language. Motivation is the key to improve faster, however, there a many factors that influence the learning (e.g. mother language background) that is hard to estimate the 'time' it takes... and i believe learning a language is a lifelong journey.
it depends a lot on what kind of languages you speak at first. For example, in France we must learn english and spanish at the same time. When I had done my exam of languages in High School. I had got a better note in spanish than in englis because spanish is closer than english to french.
You are astoundingly pleasant to listen to, and almost everything you say is just utterly relatable. Thanks for creating these videos!
can i just say, I love you so much! 😭 You're so inspiring! Right now, I'm studying intermediate Japanese and A1 in German. I also want to learn French and Spanish. I hope I'll be able to do it! 💪
Great video. I am learning Korean right now but I have learned Japanese for years so the similarities in grammar do make it easier. The fact that Korean is easy to read is a big plus point.
As others have said, the whole concept of ‘fluent’ is subjective. Obviously it is way easier to get to a good level once you are immersed in the target language and culture. However, the proximity of the language to your own is a really big factor too. My second language is Dutch which is very similar to English but my wife’s language is Polish and all of the inflections mean that speaking it accurately is a task that would require far more effort than I am willing to put in. On the other hand, I have been learning Slovenië lately and having a foundation in a Slavonic language makes it far easier to learn than if I were a monoglot English speaker. You have the same thing if you know Irish (which I took for 14 years at school) and then you look at Scots Gaelic or, more distantly, Welsh.
Anyway, I think that a final ‘key’ to fluency is being attracted to the culture(s) linked to the language. Without the passion linked to attraction it all becomes an academic exercise. When I was younger I learned all kinds of languages in a haphazard way but I only found out what it meant to really make a language my own when I had a deeper motivation.
You are right in thinking that asking why makes language learning take longer. I asked why all the time while learning german but not while learning swedish and swedish came considerably faster
Between 5th and 11th grade I had English classes at school. I was bad~!!! I was really really bad at English. I was so bad that...
One time on 10th grade my English teacher asked me to solve an exercise on the black board. I didn't know how to do it. Then... The teacher asked me something that I think I'll never forget. "What is the meaning of the word *rain*?". I was there in front of the class like "Am I suppose to know that?" 5 years of English classes and I didn't know the meaning of such basic word. I should be embarrassed of writing this but it's the true. The reason I wrote about this moment is because I agree with Lindie.
You need to want to learn the language. You need to interact with the language. You need something that keeps you motivated to learn it.
I was forced to learn English, it was not like I wanted to do it. I remember that I memorized the verbs conjugations but I actually didn't know the meaning of most of the verbs and... Let's not talk about French. Between 7th and 9th grade I had French classes. I hated it!!! I didn't understand why I had to study French. I didn't learn a thing. I was a little girl who didn't know a thing about the world. I was very naive (or dumb) I thought that I could have a Digimon friend if I was a good girl. Nobody told me how important this could be. I was raised by simple people, with simple minds. I was raised by people who think life is work, find someone to marry, keep working and the end. They were good people but looking back I wish they would have made a fuss about my bad grades.
It's was only after I start to use internet that I started to realize how big is the world. How much there is to learn. How important languages can be. Sadly I learned that too late. I learned about this basically after I dropped out school and I started to work.
If I keep writing, soon this will look like a depressing comment about the life a frustrated person but what I wrote still is the reality, my reality.
Anyway, before this will turn into a book I'm gonna share how I started to improve my English.
Rascal Flatts were the reason. I liked their songs, I didn't know what they were singing and one thing leads to another and here I am today. There are days that I still struggle a lot with English but I do struggle with my own language (Portuguese - Portugal) too so...
Thank You for your videos and I'm sorry for this testament but one day this comment might help someone to understand/realize how lucky they are for having access to internet at a young age or simply because they have parents who care/cared about their grades (I am not talking about those Nazis parents). Those parents, usually, know how to explain how important it is to study.
No, I am not 62 y.o. I'm just half of it XD
Again... thank you!!!
What really helps to learn pronounciation is to search on youtube or the internet a video or photo or picture from the inside of the mouth. It looks kinda like an x ray.
So you can see the tongue position things like that.
things like that
Lets be honest, a lot of the "Polyglots" that impress people on RUclips focus on specific areas. Lets take Xiaoma - now his Chinese is good. but learning Spanish / Mayan. still impressive but he's spending full days learning these languages while making money from all the people watchin, that is his full time job. Now I never see him put any of that language to use except ordering food.
So what I like about Lindie's channel is she's not here to just glamor people with light skills over and over (example of ordering food over and over).
I'd like to also mention, I'm an English speaker and if my wife talks to me about science, its as if i don't even know English. When we talk in German, i can do very well house hold items, every day stuff, you introduce something else which i haven't learned yet (hobbies etc.) then I'm lost again. So becoming well rounded takes experience in those areas.
You are such a big inspiration. I am currently learning french but it's very hard even though i live in Switzerland where a quarter from the country speaks french. I still can't speak it but i don't give up.
That's common sense and nuanced approach. The things that many people are not very fond of today. Those people don't read articles, just headlines, and they also want short and simple answers and instructions. When you tell them that there's no single answer, there are different factors and everything is very individual they get mad and think you're avoiding the answer.
In my point of view, as you have already said, we cannot predict surely how long it will take for one to learn a specific language, because it really depends on one's mother tongue, the amount of effort put into it, and many other factors. For instance, I've been learning Turkish for 10 months now. My mother tongue is Portuguese, and it is way different from the structure of Turkish. Therefore, it is taking longer than, for example, it took for me to get to a good level in French.
Another great video! I guess we can also consider the differences/similarities between native and target language. For example, my native language is English, so it would be easier for me to learn Spanish than Japanese because English and Spanish are more alike (similar grammar structures, same alphabet, etc.) Anyways, since I found your channel, I am more motivated to begin studying Korean again!
You're a liar.
Hey Lindie! Languages interest me, specifically linguistics and how different languages have vocabulary for concepts others don't. I currently take Spanish in school (Spanish 3 to be exact), but wish Mandarin was available. I find tonal languages to be very cool and the Chinese characters are truly beautiful. It is crazy that characters have semantic meanings as opposed to an alphabet encompassing all words in the language. Anyway, I specifically wanted to discuss Afrikaans with you. I know it is your first language, so obviously you are fluent in it. I currently live in the states, but I have dual citizenship of America and South Africa as my mother was South-African. I desperately want to learn Afrikaans because my mother spoke it. She passed away of cancer 2 years ago on Christmas Eve when I was fourteen. She always wanted to teach me it, and when I was a little girl I loved to sit on her bed and listen as she talked on the phone to her friends in Afrikaans. It is to my understanding that Afrikaans isn't a particularly difficult language as it is of West-Germanic origin and has fairly simple tenses. I proposed Duolingo create a course for it but never heard back, though I have gained lots of support. I was wondering if there was any way you could help me. I know you are very busy, so I understand your help may be very limited, but I what a video of yours that stressed the importance of having a language partner and thought I should give it a shot. You inspired me to reach out to my foreign exchange friend Tracy to become language partners for Mandarin. I hope you see this and respond when you can. It would mean a lot to me.
Sincerely, Isabella Childress
Hi Isabella! Thanks for the comment. I'm so sorry about your mother 💖 I have a second channel called Afrikaans with Lindie, and then on my website under freebies you can download the most common Afrikaans words and phrases (lindiebotes.com) . But resources are scarce indeed. I'm busy compiling a list, so please email me and I'll get back to you!
Thank you so much! I can't wait for your reply ;))@@LindieBotes
Thanks for sharing your experience with us. In my case I never be so constant at the moment to learn a language, because always appeared something that make hardest keep going. However, since June of this year I have been studying english constantly for a requirement of my university to pass it. At the point to pay for universities courses in english while I learning the language even though my level is not a C1 and a difficult B2.
I'm learning japanese in senior high school for 3 years but as long as that I just learned the basic level it was so slow And then I do study abroad to Japan.. Because I wanna learn Japanese animation and comic so I have to study hard in Japanese language school for 1 year 6 month from level N5 but, it's just take 6 month there's no many problems because I studied as well before..and then after I graduated I got n3 level..so it's better which I able to continue to colleague Now I'm still learning n2 for exam for this December
I heard you preparing too, 一緒にもっと頑張りましょう！！🙏🏽✨
I have been learning English since elementary school (I am German) but I never focused on it that much. I had to use it a lot; when I traveled to other European countries or on social media
And like suddenly, after about 2 years of being connected to the world through the Internet, I realised later on that I could actually understand all these song lyrics on the radio.
Since a lot of RUclips videos or subtitles for other languages are in English I improve mine everyday. It's Incredible!
I think the best thing about language learning is learning your favourite language without wanting to be fluent as soon as possible.
As a kid I adored the French language (I loved its sound). Because of that I started learning it at school and I was usually very interested and motivated in every lesson although I never studied at home or did more than I had to for my language learning.
4 years later, when I went to France I was so shook because I could understand the people I was talking to and they could understand me, too. I suddenly felt so proud of myself!
My French friend there taught me the last important steps to achieve the perfect pronounciation in a way a teacher couldn't.
Now I sound fluent and I understand a lot and I can talk about a lot of subjects in French, it's really cool and useful and there's still so much to learn :D
And that's why I'm motivated to learn Mandarin step by step, it's not about the fluency, it's about having fun learning new words, pronouncing them and understanding the Grammar *-*
As mentioned, its different stroke for different folk. I personally can't see how its feasible to learn an entire language to fluency within 3 months also.
Korean, I'm currently working on intonation and pronuncation as its now one year since I decided to begin studying it and I think its been the most intense studying I've done in a long time in regards to a language ^^
Speaking and Listening is really important, thankfully where I'm learning Korean they test our speaking, listening, writing and reading.
I've still been trying to become fluent in a second language for a long time. I take Latin in school, but it is a really awkward language and some of it really just doesn't make sense. I also tried learning Spanish on Duolingo but it was still hard for me to understand some grammatical things and I wasn't really confident in trying to speak it either. Right now I just started learning German on Duolingo though and it is a lot easier for me to understand. The words are kind of similar to English and the grammar is also similar. I'm hoping that since English and German are in the same language family that I will be able to learn German fast and get the experience of knowing a second language, so that I can try to apply it to other languages I want to learn.
Hiii I'm from Brazil ~~ I am intermediate level in English and I am learning Korean .... I admire you sooooo💜 ... sometimes I feel lost, I am very confused on how to study kkk
I’m Japanese and I’m trying to learn new languages. So I love watching your videos. Thank you! Also, I was so glad that you like Japanese so much! I hope I can meet you some day! Love you!
It depends on many factors. I am beginning to learn my familial language, which is Ukrainian. It is a category 3 language in terms of difficulty for English speakers, though, it is coming easier than expected for me because I had moderate exposure to the language in my household growing up which gave me a base for pronunciation of phonetics not found in English. Though, I never actually 'learned' the language growing up, I was just exposed to it knowing only a handful of words. But that bit of exposure has helped quite a bit, and my pronunciation is considerably good starting off. However, the grammar is very different from English and takes a great deal of adjustment.
I feel as though if I worked on it daily/routinely for a year, I could be fairly proficient. Again, this depends on many factors. I also have a parent who is fluent in the language so I have a sort of tutor at any time who I can ask questions to, so this speeds up the process certainly. Listening to conversation and music in Ukrainian very much helps to establish pronunciation and vocabulary skills over time.
Also, the written form of a language plays a significant role in learning times. If you're a native English speaker and you are learning a language such as French, German, etc which already use the Latin script, this helps a lot. I am learning the Cyrillic script which is different but comes very fast. I can't imagine how tricky learning Korean, Japanese, or Arabic script would be like. I'm sure it would make the process more difficult and tack on an extra 25% difficulty I'd imagine.
I think as much effort and discipline that one have it’s s okay but when you really like to learn new languages you can be like most of the time studying for example in my case it took 2 years to learn Korean and have an intermediate level but it’s all patience and don’t give up y’all can do it ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I totally agree that language families help. My Italian was high enough to watch tv with no subtitles in about a year, because it came on the back of a decade of French and Spanish.
Another thing that might make Japanese easier is that basically all the sounds exist in English, But in Korean there are few strange vowels and the double consonant sounds that we don’t have.
Ps, I’m learning Korean through Japanese and I found the language families also help with vocabulary. There are a lot of Chinese words that are similar in Korean and Japanese, and there are a lot of loan words. I’ve found that I am able to remember these words after one time studying them. And sometimes I can guess the meaning of a Korean word if it’s based on Chinese, because of my Japanese.
I like a lot all your videos! You’re great! Thank you for sharing your tips about languages 🎊😉
I think it depends on the person. I've always been better at languages than most people around me (just like most people are better at maths than me), so while these ideas you outline are certainly good for learning fast, it also just depends on genetics and surroundings. I have always been better at English than my peers and I'm from a country where English fluency is high. I have also been able to become fluent in Swedish in around half a year, just from forcing myself to speak even though i wouldnt feel comfortable enough to do it yet. It's not impossible to learn a language very fast, sometimes it just depends on your knack for these things.
Thank you for having vietnamese subtitles, i am your big fan .love you cảm ơn chị đã làm phụ đề tiếng việt em là fan lớn của chị yêu chị nhiều
Please come and visit Vietnam, Miss Vietnam, you are very beautiful
You already answered the question so now i will continue studying other language. Really helpful and makes you motivated.
for me, I am now fluent in 3 languages. so far they are Bahasa Indonesia (my mother language), English, and Sundanese.
and I can understand and catch up a bit of daily convo in Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and Spanish.
till now, all I can say about the amount of time to be "fluent" is that, it is up to the person. the amount of time they have to learn, their ability to understand and real-life practice the languages, and many more aspects.
just a side note, for me it is really hard to get fluent in Mandarin. I have been learning Mandarin for around 6 years (all in formal school), and I still am lacking a lot because formal school rarely teaches the speaking. I really want to be fluent in Mandarin ;-;