Love this TED Talk. He's so right. The biggest obstacle to learning another language is not wanting to look stupid. You have to leave your ego at the door. After that it's just learning the most important words in the language; moving your facial muscles, mouth, and tongue like native speakers do; and going out there and doing your best.
I wanted to say the same thing before I read your post. What impressed me was when he said that learning a new language is like having another chance to become a child again. This could have other health and mental positives that are yet to be explored. I am learning Chinese now and when I conversed with Chinese people they were so impressed and one of them begged me to keep learning.
Absolutely incorrect. Many things he says are not quantifiable (what is fluent?) and flat out wrong (anybody can learn to pronounce any sound in any language in the world). Further, most of the ideas and strategies he is suggesting are appropriate in informal situations with family and friends. However, if the situation is more demanding; business, politics, philosophy, policy, law, etc, etc, the lower levels of language and the conversation's counterpart's patience simply don't suffice. Even after many years of living in another country, it is still common to find oneself in a situation where an entire passage of speech is virtually incomprehensible due to unknown vocabulary, grammar and dialectic. Yes, playing Charades and Taboo with native speakers of our second language is fun for a while, but there is simply no replacement for and no easy answer to achieving native level competence in a second language. A far better idea, in the long term, would be for all countries of the world to agree on a global public language which becomes the language of education. Since English is already the global language of science and because it is my native language, I shamelessly believe it should be English!
@@coladelrossi But it is so: anybody can learn how to pronounce any sound in any language in the world. It's undoubtedly an absolute true. Even deaf people can do it. I know why you doubt it. You just didn't ever see how articulatory instructions could be used to learn new sounds. It's my pleasure to give you this excerpt of Catford's Practical Introduction to Phonetics: To synthesize glottalic pressure [k'], go carefully through the following steps. (i) Tightly close the glottis and keep it closed (i.e. hold your breath) until the very end of the experiment (step v). (ll) While keeping the glottis closed, bring the back of the tongue into firm contact with the roof of the mouth, making a[kl-closure- and hold that closure. (iii) Slightly raise the larynx, compressing the air trapped between the glottal closure and the [k]-closure. (lv) While maintaining glottal closure and high pressure of the trapped air, suddenly release the ft]-closure. The result should be a glottalic pressure [k'l with a short, sharp small explosion. (v) Now, at last, open the glottis-which should have been held closed throughout the experiment. Fig. 10 shows, diagrammatically, the sequence of events. Now go through the procedure several more times while looking at the diagram. Having learned to produce a simple glottalic pressure [k'1, try holding the breath for several seconds-keeping the glottis closed- and do a series of ft']s . . . Ik'l tkl ft'] on one stretch of glottal closure. I am very sorry for the quality, but I cannot possibly make it better unless I retype the text. This is a copy-paste from a scanned book. I have learned to make this particular sound as well as many others by doing such exercises. I chose this sound to show because it was the first sound I found challenging. I recommend everyone carefully read this book and do the exercises.
Completely agree. Learning Cantonese has put this into perspective for me. The richness of the language is mindblowing, and apart from the huge lexicon, tonal and writing systems, developing proficiency in it involves familiarity with regional culture and customs that only comes from one thing: massive exposure. Promoting accurate pronunciation and grammatical notions as the key to learning, while saying "we don't need to know that much vocabulary" gives a misleading impression of the task ahead
This man describes beautifully how to learn a language. Getting over embarrassment is key, then training muscles to formulate sounds correctly. Learning simple connecting words, gaining a wholistic view of the grammar system and the vocabulary needed to express our physical, emotional and social responses. This is a great beginning. I would add learning some phrases that work in social situations such as Hello and Glad to meet you.
He also mentions relying on the other speaker for help and learning to improvise. Learning the unique cadence of a new language is important. He gives important reasons for making the effort to learn a language and how it will change your life. There is too much to learn so it is important to trim the task to a manageable size by prioritizing what you need to learn. I think that a holistic view of vocabulary also helps such as understanding word families.
@@jianfeibai I'm currently taking classes under Connor in a language reclamation project, and I disagree. Also, cognitive linguistics would disagree as speaking and understanding what is heard are happening in different parts of the brain and thus bring different kinds of understanding. Doing the both of them will only help more.
@@rajurima9123 in can trully confirme you that it is isn't right i have been watching anime for the past 5 years in a very constant way and if you dont understand little by little what they are saying you wont learn abssoluty nothing, not only about me to a lot of people happend the same thing
True, wasn't speaking for myself but for my classmates who still struggle to make a complete sentence with tones. It depends on how much effort you put in and whether you're able to let go of everything you learnt before in your own language. What also helped is not following what my teachers said, but follow my own way.
"oral coreography"...I don't think I've ever heard that before. That is a really good way to put how to shape your mouth to make the different sounds that different languages make. Pretty cool.
He's right, actually is the best video about this subject, I tell why, all others videos just tell: "Go, don't be afraid, just talk in the language, use the language and so on," but he is giving good and useful tips.
Yes,I agree. I'd love to actually speaking it whenever I can. But the thing is i am in China, which means i don't have native speakers to talk to. Gong to a English country for one or two months may be a nice idea to improving my speaking fluency. But the cost would be a problem. Oh, we do have foreign tourists here, in Lijiang, Yunnan, but I am not sure if it would bother them or not to try to talk to them.
Conor Nitap, you continue to amaze me. As someone who is hoping to further go into Linguistics I definitely can look up to you. I feel as though I learned much listening to this
I agree but I think most of the popular polyglots downplay how much time it will take you to learn, but I think it's done with good intentions. Unless you live under a rock or are really naive you should know in order to reach a competent level in anything takes a long long time. Languages aren't any different, you get back what you put in and it takes a lot of time there is no secret no "hacks" just straight up time spent with it is your only tool.
For those english speakers that intend to learn German or vice versa: it helps learning vocabulary, when you look at how the languages developed appart (Lautverschiebung), as you can spot more words with common origin.
edi I always feel that the best way to learn a language is to start by singing the songs of children. This teaches cadence, timbre, pronunciation, culture, and the fundamentals. Then learn vocabulary.
Kenneth Slayor Makes sence to learn similar to kids, but adults don't want to feal like kids again. However, I learned quite a bit of French by reading Asterix. For English Harry Potter would be nice, because the guy that reads it on tape does an awesome job.
MrPrivatbruger But no-one knows how exactly it looked like. We have a good impression of ancient Latin and Greek, but everything before that is a mystery. We see similarities and can see the branching, but we don't know the root. Funfact: some mythical creatures e.g. werwulf seem to date back to the invention of the wheel and are known from Portugal to India.
This is exactly how I learn languages. I am far from being a polyglot, but I get by comfortably in 7 languages and I am currently learning Chinese and Russian. It need not be that difficult.
It feels a little like a "curse of knowledge" - a linguist naturally feels that learning a new language has a very clear path. However, there are numerous linguistic patterns shaped over the years in his brain - and learning a new language is a matter of matching the pattern. I speak Ukrainian and English and now I'm studying German. I found that it is much easier for me to find a "match" of words and grammatical structures relying on two languages from different groups rather than one. Just imagine, how quickly Dr. Conor Quinn can learn a new language compared to us, mere mortals.
Ever heard of Pimsluer? You can learn a new language in about a month. the lessons are divided into 3 classes that cover speech and reading; each lesson is ~30min. The first class is about 30 lessons and the other 2 are about 60, so doing 6 lessons a day (~3.5hr) you can finish the entire course in about 28 days. You might not be perfect, but that comes with practice.
I love how he talks about small languages too, because the languages I want to learn are mostly spoken in just one country or by a small population of people. Like when I go to University of Hawaii, I want to learn Hawaiian in their program. And I really love the language Swahili, and I really want to learn it even though most the people who speak it know English.
You are spot on! I loved your idea about the two big categories of grammar and what you said about egocentric vocab. Thanks a lot. Grazie mille. Merci and Danke!
True. I had the means to say, "It's a thing that's like a cat, but big and orange -- and the one behind you looks a bit hungry," long before I discovered the word "tiger"... ;)
For my understanding he had some good tips but a lot of the instruction seemed to be too vague and unconnnected. Need more practical examples of the mechanics instead of vague theories.
There's a better Ted talk that is more specific. I can't remember who it is now, but it's less than 20 minutes and would probably be one of the first search results.
People like this speaker and others on TED don't realise how clever they are. What they talk about is true for their brilliant brains but it's not true for ordinary people.
I feel like this inspiration comes at the cost of knowledge and truth. Wouldn't be the first academic to overestimate the skills of his YEARS worth of studies helping them learn similar thing though....
I've always wanted to meet a real practising field linguist and discuss how they work. I've looked around on the internet but I've never come across a handbook or training manual. It seems to be a dark art only passed on by word of mouth. I'm also curious about historical 'first contact' situations where there was no common language. E.g. the first Europeans in (for example) New England. They encountered people who spoke languages with nothing in common with any languages they'd have known, weird complex grammars built on totally alien lines, unknown vocabulary ... and yet within a few years they'd done a complete Bible translation. How did they manage?
***** Agree, but still you'd think by now they'd have worked out some standard methodology. There are many pitfalls. Like in many native american languages you can't say "hand", you can only say, "my hand" or "her hand" or at best "somebody's hand", the idea of a hand is inseparable from it's ownership. Or there might be one word for 'palm' and one for 'fist' but none for 'hand', and so on. Plus any response you get could be wrapped up in all kinds of unexpected grammar. Look up 'foot' in a Welsh dictionary and you'll get "troed" but point to someone's foot and they might well answer "'nhroed i" 'my foot'. And of course there are the stories (probably some of them true) about names on the map where the explorer asks "what do call that mountain?" and the native mutters in his own language the equivalent of "buggered if I know" and that gets written down. Actually I know one genuine case. The largest primate of Madagascar is called the Indri, to science it's Indri indri indri, or the family Indrididae etc. Well it seems when an early explorer was travelling through the Eastern coastal rainforest, this spectacular creature came bounding through the canopy above (as they do) and all the natives shouted "Indro izy!" which means 'look at that!' but was misinterpreted as "That's an Indri". Believe it or not, as they say ... ;-)
Well the Europeans have been sailing all over the world, especially to India and China, and have passed through the Middle East for centuries so they must have worked out some kind of a system for deciphering foreign languages.
Bullet Craft There were usually links, people who'd grown up where two cultures overlapped. So there were Europeans in the Med who also knew Arabic, and Arab traders in the Indian Ocean who knew Malay, and Malay traders in Malacca who knew Chinese, and so on. But when Europeans arrived in the New World, or Australia they encountered totally unknown languages that were unrelated to anything they knew. No common vocabulary, really weird grammars, the whole alien shooting-match. What happens then?
marconatrix I guess just raw immersion into the culture was the only way to go. I can't imagine anyone learning a language so foreign at the time without completely immersing themselves into that society and only using that language, like a baby would.
Penobscot, an Eastern Algonquian language of central Maine - endangered language. -- How does this help me learn the Spanish subjunctive verb conjugation, particularly irregular verbs? ACK.
If grammar lives in a neighborhood and has relationships with its neighbors, then Polish grammar is like going to the only pub in a village in Ireland late on a Saturday night where everyone's drunk and it's hard to tell who's related to whom, but most of the people seem to be simultaneously shouting and laughing at and with one another about stories that date back to their grandfather's generation and for which you have no backstory or frame of reference. English grammar lives onboard the Enterprise. It's fairly tidy and organized until you get knocked into a rip in the Space-Time Continuum (happens every. single. week.) and you have to start talking about what you will have been going to do three Saturdays from now when time catches up to you where you are now.
The main message is at 8:40 I wonder whether and how one learns to pronounce the sounds they do not hear like H for French or R vs L for Japanese learners....it is probably closely realted to the pronuntiation drill/ schooling of a person with a hearing impediment
Spoken languagee comes first, then comes written language, first reading, then writing. Of course, in practice it's not as simple as that: you almost immediately start doing the three together. Sometimes it's combined: your teacher reads you a text and you listen and look at it as he or she reads.
Don't be a fool. The mic was turned away from the audience. They chuckled at his joke. You just had your fingers in your ears. Obviously. Because you just wanted to belittle someone. And @Akriloth, Jason Moran's little sheepy follower, he didn't "feel terrible" and you didn't "feel" any putative awkwardness; you, too, just wanted to join in on the belittling of someone. Gawd! people like you two are putrid.
Largely disagree with this presentation. Many platitudes and half-truths. We need to learn many words in order to understand what people are saying. The problem is not so much a fear of the inability to say things, aothough that can be a factor, but the fear of not understanding what is said. If we understand, we can learn to speak. In my experience advice from trained linguists is largely irrelevant to language learning
I'm Canadian living in Montreal and fluent in three languages. I've leaned a lesson while visiting Paris years ago that Parisians have low tolerance with my speaking the language of Molière imperfectly. Since then, I speak only English to them and get more respect that way.
Do you mean they don't like French Canadian? It's quite different, for all I know. When I hear it (as a non-native speaker of French who's learned French from France with some excursions into Swiss and Belgian numbers) I manage to understand most of what people are saying, but it's tiring.
Very expressive hands, that young man lecturer. I wonder that he need spoken language at all. Or maybe those hands are how he makes his thoughts clear in just one week. Don't get me wrong. I am not sneering here. Anything that works is communication.
Dear Translator: It's "to be able to party with (the Czechs) not (the chicks)"! 🤣🤣 Hey, check out those cheeky Czech chicks dancing cheek to cheek. Just choking 🤣🤣
There are no "hacks". I speak and understand 12 languages and am working on 2 more. You need a large passive vocabulary to really get into the language. This takes time. Learning a few key words won't do it. And to pronounce well you need to listen a lot, pay attention and imitate. Trying to figure out where to put your tongue in your mouth is not very useful.
Some people just don't hear the differences between various sounds or are not able to imitate them without expert help. Knowing where to put your tongue does help.
I am not sure about the title, hacking a language.. I didn't see that word... I think he tries to speak about imitation, yes I like that way but I am not sure, I've been learning English, grammar and pronunciation. Everything in English and I believe that I am still learning. English is so rich , I speak Spanish but I am not sure if these speeches or conferences in Ted are good for improving my listening and speaking?. Because in real life people not really speak like that.
I feel like Milo Thatch (who was a linguist) from Atlantis (disney) was based off this guy. And Daniel Jackson (also linguist) from stargate sg1. Just saying.
The only point in here that seemed actually unique to the other "Hacking Language Learning:" titles on TED talks seems to be the idea of universal field linguistic tools. Sadly, that's a hard topic to actually "get into", let alone in 14 minutes. In response to other comments: yes, the amount of time needed to learn a language is downplayed here and there in the video, but honestly *how* one learns a language can cut the time needed to learn it by a third or further. (Outright floundering or making half-efforts in a language will take longer still.) In East Asian languages especially, I've often had a friend who knows how to make a language make sense (not in terms of English, but as its own, or simply 'a' system) cover a month's worth of grammar inside of an hour more understandably than across the combined lessons. In Japanese, I've done the same for a couple friends. The same can be said for not practicing what you learn at frequently enough or, especially, in real conversation (I'll admit I have that latter problem). Just look at online national language test records if they ask the test-takers for the amount of time spent in the language. The time taken to reach high levels of proficiency varies widely.
had to think for a second how to say almost in the three languages i know: casi, fast, presque. i could't at first but then i thought of them in a sentence and they came right out.
I've spent many hours of many days of many years working on building a linguistic bridge so that some day everyone can have a proverbial "foot in the door" of every spoken and written language with a mininum of effort. Anybody know how to reach this guy? I would love to have the chance to present and explain to him what I've worked out as a solution.
not much substance really, but a few tips around 8:00. Def. a misleading title though. And the speaker was very nervous throughout the whole thing unfortunately. At times, it seemed he was trying to remember his script. I'm not criticizing him because he probably does some incredible work to save those small languages, and he is for sure smarter then I, but just wished he could have shared more details in a relaxed way.
Teaching people to communicate should never be entrusted to teachers who have advanced degrees in that language. Most of them are lit majors. Their level of perfection is often not attainable in a reasonable amount of time to a student. The best teachers are native speakers who have been taught to teach their own language as a second language to immigrants. The goal of the students should be first to understand simple sentences in the language and then to speak. Understanding must come first. Basic learning should be pass or fail or better pass and go forward. Using this method any student after 100 hours should be able to understand 2000 words and use 1000 words. Basic communication is established.
Not just language learning. Everything worth doing. Nothing worth learning should be left to the elites. There are a thousand branches of medicine but there are more dieseses to cure than 200 years ago when modern medicine had not been invented. Anything that involves profit will somehow become difficult. A child learns mainly from the mom without paying but you pay to learn a language at a university or college and after four years you still cannot speak the language.
+melanphilia Actually, he's Irish Gaelic and speaks it well. I speak to him for learning Abenaki and the language he is talking about, I believe, is Passamaquoddy which he is very very active in.
2:58 so Czech people eat French Fries with plumbs,did not know that.I will have to try them some time.Next time I am there,I will order some plumbs and fries with sangfroid.
Although I feel his presentation skills are lacking, Conor has some real skillz and it pays off to rewind and take heed of what dude is saying. For example, in his "how to say tiger" riff, he explains: cat, big, orange; but then he turns it up- "The one behind you looks hungry." When he said that, I was like "yeah, man- that's how you do it." ( Of course he's boasting when he says this- What he really says in Czech is "That one is hungry.")
Watch my video - in my other comment. Yes, languages are extremely easy to learn - fully. You want to save any particular language - talk to me, I will show you how. Contact Lee Sohlden on facebook messenger, and lets get started. (Note, you will do the work - I will show you how.) Basically, you need native speakers to start making youtube videos, and providing texts for what they are saying on the video. I will be gald to host the videos on my youtube channel. From there, anyone who wants to learn the language, until the very end of time, can do so. Using my system - but note, though my system - you will do the bulk of the work filling in the nuts and bolts for that language. I will be glad to help with the ear tuning syllables though.
Anshul Raman あなたは日本語をはなせますか? I am still learning the Kanji (there is a massive amount of it) but I began studying Japanese a few months ago & to my surprise, it is a very fun & easy language to learn. use Memrise & Japan Sensei!
Robbie Reyes I agree. It is a very fun language, but memorising the written symbols is so hard, especially with 3 different alphabets. I'm just learning in romaji right now because it is easier for me.
The kana are not too bad, even if there are two types. I would totally suggest you at least learn those, because without them, you can't read anything at all in Japanese, including loanwords you could sound out. Of course some of them look somewhat similar... さちき こたに あお but with time it gets simple.
This guy has a couple of good tips: don't view your task as speaking to perfection and getting the rhythm down makes native speech not seem so fast any more. However, for the rest of it he makes the same mistake many "simplifiers" of language learning make: assuming that speech is the primary task. However, once you have a vocabulary of a couple thousand words you can probably make yourself understood, but the native speaker you are trying to understand probably knows twenty thousand or more. You can't simplify him. All the shortcut, simplify, it's-not-really-so-hard types are selling snake oil. It's hard. Get used to it.
Love this TED Talk. He's so right. The biggest obstacle to learning another language is not wanting to look stupid. You have to leave your ego at the door. After that it's just learning the most important words in the language; moving your facial muscles, mouth, and tongue like native speakers do; and going out there and doing your best.
I wanted to say the same thing before I read your post. What impressed me was when he said that learning a new language is like having another chance to become a child again. This could have other health and mental positives that are yet to be explored. I am learning Chinese now and when I conversed with Chinese people they were so impressed and one of them begged me to keep learning.
in my opinion, learning a new language is learning new things again with the new language, rather than studying a kind of language
Absolutely incorrect. Many things he says are not quantifiable (what is fluent?) and flat out wrong (anybody can learn to pronounce any sound in any language in the world). Further, most of the ideas and strategies he is suggesting are appropriate in informal situations with family and friends. However, if the situation is more demanding; business, politics, philosophy, policy, law, etc, etc, the lower levels of language and the conversation's counterpart's patience simply don't suffice. Even after many years of living in another country, it is still common to find oneself in a situation where an entire passage of speech is virtually incomprehensible due to unknown vocabulary, grammar and dialectic. Yes, playing Charades and Taboo with native speakers of our second language is fun for a while, but there is simply no replacement for and no easy answer to achieving native level competence in a second language. A far better idea, in the long term, would be for all countries of the world to agree on a global public language which becomes the language of education. Since English is already the global language of science and because it is my native language, I shamelessly believe it should be English!
@@coladelrossi But it is so: anybody can learn how to pronounce any sound in any language in the world. It's undoubtedly an absolute true. Even deaf people can do it. I know why you doubt it. You just didn't ever see how articulatory instructions could be used to learn new sounds.
It's my pleasure to give you this excerpt of Catford's Practical Introduction to Phonetics:
To
synthesize glottalic pressure [k'], go carefully through the
following steps.
(i) Tightly
close the glottis and keep
it closed
(i.e. hold your
breath) until the very end of the experiment (step v).
(ll) While keeping the glottis closed, bring the back of the tongue
into firm contact with the roof of the mouth, making a[kl-closure-
and hold that closure.
(iii) Slightly raise the larynx, compressing the air trapped between
the glottal closure and the [k]-closure.
(lv) While maintaining glottal closure and high pressure of the
trapped air, suddenly release the ft]-closure. The result should be a
glottalic pressure [k'l with a short, sharp small explosion.
(v) Now, at last, open the glottis-which should have been held
closed throughout the experiment.
Fig. 10 shows, diagrammatically, the sequence of events. Now go
through the procedure several more times while looking at the
diagram.
Having learned to produce a simple glottalic pressure [k'1, try
holding the breath for several seconds-keeping the glottis closed-
and do a series of ft']s . . . Ik'l tkl ft'] on one stretch of glottal closure.
I am very sorry for the quality, but I cannot possibly make it better unless I retype the text. This is a copy-paste from a scanned book. I have learned to make this particular sound as well as many others by doing such exercises. I chose this sound to show because it was the first sound I found challenging. I recommend everyone carefully read this book and do the exercises.
I love the phrase "join the speech community" vs "learn the language" ❤❤❤
M m
Same❤
Completely agree. Learning Cantonese has put this into perspective for me. The richness of the language is mindblowing, and apart from the huge lexicon, tonal and writing systems, developing proficiency in it involves familiarity with regional culture and customs that only comes from one thing: massive exposure. Promoting accurate pronunciation and grammatical notions as the key to learning, while saying "we don't need to know that much vocabulary" gives a misleading impression of the task ahead
This man describes beautifully how to learn a language. Getting over embarrassment is key, then training muscles to formulate sounds correctly. Learning simple connecting words, gaining a wholistic view of the grammar system and the vocabulary needed to express our physical, emotional and social responses. This is a great beginning. I would add learning some phrases that work in social situations such as Hello and Glad to meet you.
He also mentions relying on the other speaker for help and learning to improvise. Learning the unique cadence of a new language is important. He gives important reasons for making the effort to learn a language and how it will change your life. There is too much to learn so it is important to trim the task to a manageable size by prioritizing what you need to learn. I think that a holistic view of vocabulary also helps such as understanding word families.
Lots of reading and listening. The emphasis on speaking early in most language instruction is misplaced. They key is to understand what is said.
Steve Kaufmann I agree with you 100%
@@jianfeibai I'm currently taking classes under Connor in a language reclamation project, and I disagree. Also, cognitive linguistics would disagree as speaking and understanding what is heard are happening in different parts of the brain and thus bring different kinds of understanding. Doing the both of them will only help more.
Does listening to a language intensively help in speaking well?
@@rajurima9123 in can trully confirme you that it is isn't right i have been watching anime for the past 5 years in a very constant way and if you dont understand little by little what they are saying you wont learn abssoluty nothing, not only about me to a lot of people happend the same thing
@Al 72 comprehension and formulation of language happen in different parts of the brain and require different types of recall and processing, yes.
True, wasn't speaking for myself but for my classmates who still struggle to make a complete sentence with tones. It depends on how much effort you put in and whether you're able to let go of everything you learnt before in your own language. What also helped is not following what my teachers said, but follow my own way.
"oral coreography"...I don't think I've ever heard that before. That is a really good way to put how to shape your mouth to make the different sounds that different languages make. Pretty cool.
He's right, actually is the best video about this subject, I tell why, all others videos just tell: "Go, don't be afraid, just talk in the language, use the language and so on," but he is giving good and useful tips.
brilliant! best TED talk about learning languages!!!
I learn English from RUclips comments. I read them again and again. Does anyone else do the same thing?
+周夜 cause I don't have any native speaker to talk with. Anyway, reading some comments aloud is fun, lol.
try actually speaking too. then you will feel very good about the language
Yes,I agree. I'd love to actually speaking it whenever I can. But the thing is i am in China, which means i don't have native speakers to talk to. Gong to a English country for one or two months may be a nice idea to improving my speaking fluency. But the cost would be a problem. Oh, we do have foreign tourists here, in Lijiang, Yunnan, but I am not sure if it would bother them or not to try to talk to them.
sounds good. what's your skype id?
Yeah, comments are a interesting source for my study (;
Conor Nitap, you continue to amaze me. As someone who is hoping to further go into Linguistics I definitely can look up to you. I feel as though I learned much listening to this
What a sweet, kind, gentle presentation. Sums up what I've been realizing and frames language learning in concise manner.
Ted talks need more talks from "polyglots" about how easy it is to be a "polyglot" and how easy and original the speakers method is.
Sarcasm detector reads "100%"
I agree but I think most of the popular polyglots downplay how much time it will take you to learn, but I think it's done with good intentions. Unless you live under a rock or are really naive you should know in order to reach a competent level in anything takes a long long time. Languages aren't any different, you get back what you put in and it takes a lot of time there is no secret no "hacks" just straight up time spent with it is your only tool.
That was some Good Stuff!! Take it from an average man who's been studying Spanish for at least 10 years!
For those english speakers that intend to learn German or vice versa: it helps learning vocabulary, when you look at how the languages developed appart (Lautverschiebung), as you can spot more words with common origin.
edi I always feel that the best way to learn a language is to start by singing the songs of children. This teaches cadence, timbre, pronunciation, culture, and the fundamentals. Then learn vocabulary.
Kenneth Slayor
Makes sence to learn similar to kids, but adults don't want to feal like kids again. However, I learned quite a bit of French by reading Asterix. For English Harry Potter would be nice, because the guy that reads it on tape does an awesome job.
LOL, I am male. I feel it is my duty to be as much of a kid as I can manage as soon as the bills are paid.
+edi Proto-Indo-European as a common ancestor is a good place to start. It is amazing how similar European languages are.
MrPrivatbruger
But no-one knows how exactly it looked like.
We have a good impression of ancient Latin and Greek, but everything before that is a mystery. We see similarities and can see the branching, but we don't know the root. Funfact: some mythical creatures e.g. werwulf seem to date back to the invention of the wheel and are known from Portugal to India.
This is exactly how I learn languages. I am far from being a polyglot, but I get by comfortably in 7 languages and I am currently learning Chinese and Russian. It need not be that difficult.
+Malte Christensen I think a person who speaks 7 languages is well enough to be called a polyglot. Just saying.
+Emilios Gregoriou He said he gets by in 7 languages, which is not the same as being fluent.
+ParaditeRs exactly. I'm fluent in 4, comfortable in 3 more.
It feels a little like a "curse of knowledge" - a linguist naturally feels that learning a new language has a very clear path. However, there are numerous linguistic patterns shaped over the years in his brain - and learning a new language is a matter of matching the pattern. I speak Ukrainian and English and now I'm studying German. I found that it is much easier for me to find a "match" of words and grammatical structures relying on two languages from different groups rather than one. Just imagine, how quickly Dr. Conor Quinn can learn a new language compared to us, mere mortals.
Ever heard of Pimsluer? You can learn a new language in about a month. the lessons are divided into 3 classes that cover speech and reading; each lesson is ~30min. The first class is about 30 lessons and the other 2 are about 60, so doing 6 lessons a day (~3.5hr) you can finish the entire course in about 28 days.
You might not be perfect, but that comes with practice.
I love how he talks about small languages too, because the languages I want to learn are mostly spoken in just one country or by a small population of people. Like when I go to University of Hawaii, I want to learn Hawaiian in their program. And I really love the language Swahili, and I really want to learn it even though most the people who speak it know English.
You are spot on! I loved your idea about the two big categories of grammar and what you said about egocentric vocab. Thanks a lot. Grazie mille. Merci and Danke!
bueno
True. I had the means to say, "It's a thing that's like a cat, but big and orange -- and the one behind you looks a bit hungry," long before I discovered the word "tiger"... ;)
For my understanding he had some good tips but a lot of the instruction seemed to be too vague and unconnnected. Need more practical examples of the mechanics instead of vague theories.
There's a better Ted talk that is more specific. I can't remember who it is now, but it's less than 20 minutes and would probably be one of the first search results.
@@artteacher71 Ben Lewis?
By far the best language learning video I've seen. And I've seen a LOT.
He's like Jared Leto combined with Barney Stinson in his hippie years.
haha, spot on! may i add, a little of Viggo Mortensen? ;P
Yes, yes! :D A little.
right? haha. moreover, Viggo can speak multiple languages too! :)
Well, he can speak Eldarin and Quenya
damn well i know for sure :D
true, true!! haha :D
Thank you Connor. You've been a good help!
Nice explanation, good strategies. 'Slightly' exaggerates the simplicity of the processes, but as a set of ideas to work with, great going.
I am Finnish- I am quite interested in learning the language. I am currently learning German and swedish
I personally attended the University of Helsinki and studied Finnish for Foreigners for 2 years! back in 1976-78
People like this speaker and others on TED don't realise how clever they are. What they talk about is true for their brilliant brains but it's not true for ordinary people.
Oh my GOSH!!! Conor! On TEDx!!!!
thank you, you gave very good tips that i will try to use when learning languages
Excellent vídeo. Very encouraging and informative.
Hi Steve，
I agree with you!
Listening is more important then other!
I absolutely love this video! Thank you Dr. Conor Quinn
i love tedx manner of how they devellop important question.
Aaron & Michael just mentioned this video and now I'm here. Cool.
I feel like this inspiration comes at the cost of knowledge and truth. Wouldn't be the first academic to overestimate the skills of his YEARS worth of studies helping them learn similar thing though....
I love the way he explaine that. Thank u Sir
I really enjoyed this. Thank you very much. I'm encouraged!
excellent talk by a great presenter
Is Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree a linguist??
A lot of great ideas that need further development - or more time to explain.
I've always wanted to meet a real practising field linguist and discuss how they work. I've looked around on the internet but I've never come across a handbook or training manual. It seems to be a dark art only passed on by word of mouth. I'm also curious about historical 'first contact' situations where there was no common language. E.g. the first Europeans in (for example) New England. They encountered people who spoke languages with nothing in common with any languages they'd have known, weird complex grammars built on totally alien lines, unknown vocabulary ... and yet within a few years they'd done a complete Bible translation. How did they manage?
*****
Agree, but still you'd think by now they'd have worked out some standard methodology. There are many pitfalls. Like in many native american languages you can't say "hand", you can only say, "my hand" or "her hand" or at best "somebody's hand", the idea of a hand is inseparable from it's ownership. Or there might be one word for 'palm' and one for 'fist' but none for 'hand', and so on. Plus any response you get could be wrapped up in all kinds of unexpected grammar. Look up 'foot' in a Welsh dictionary and you'll get "troed" but point to someone's foot and they might well answer "'nhroed i" 'my foot'. And of course there are the stories (probably some of them true) about names on the map where the explorer asks "what do call that mountain?" and the native mutters in his own language the equivalent of "buggered if I know" and that gets written down. Actually I know one genuine case. The largest primate of Madagascar is called the Indri, to science it's Indri indri indri, or the family Indrididae etc. Well it seems when an early explorer was travelling through the Eastern coastal rainforest, this spectacular creature came bounding through the canopy above (as they do) and all the natives shouted "Indro izy!" which means 'look at that!' but was misinterpreted as "That's an Indri". Believe it or not, as they say ... ;-)
Well the Europeans have been sailing all over the world, especially to India and China, and have passed through the Middle East for centuries so they must have worked out some kind of a system for deciphering foreign languages.
Bullet Craft
There were usually links, people who'd grown up where two cultures overlapped. So there were Europeans in the Med who also knew Arabic, and Arab traders in the Indian Ocean who knew Malay, and Malay traders in Malacca who knew Chinese, and so on. But when Europeans arrived in the New World, or Australia they encountered totally unknown languages that were unrelated to anything they knew. No common vocabulary, really weird grammars, the whole alien shooting-match. What happens then?
marconatrix I guess just raw immersion into the culture was the only way to go. I can't imagine anyone learning a language so foreign at the time without completely immersing themselves into that society and only using that language, like a baby would.
I have really enjoyed the presentations,they are enjoyable and educative.....
Very good lecture! Very interesting and informative!
Real fantastic and helpful!
This guy really should write a book.
Gosh, this is briliant !
Remenber. You can do it. only depends on you.
I actually met him and he did go to China already.
Penobscot, an Eastern Algonquian language of central Maine - endangered language. -- How does this help me learn the Spanish subjunctive verb conjugation, particularly irregular verbs? ACK.
I really enjoyed this talk.
If grammar lives in a neighborhood and has relationships with its neighbors, then Polish grammar is like going to the only pub in a village in Ireland late on a Saturday night where everyone's drunk and it's hard to tell who's related to whom, but most of the people seem to be simultaneously shouting and laughing at and with one another about stories that date back to their grandfather's generation and for which you have no backstory or frame of reference.
English grammar lives onboard the Enterprise. It's fairly tidy and organized until you get knocked into a rip in the Space-Time Continuum (happens every. single. week.) and you have to start talking about what you will have been going to do three Saturdays from now when time catches up to you where you are now.
The main message is at 8:40 I wonder whether and how one learns to pronounce the sounds they do not hear like H for French or R vs L for Japanese learners....it is probably closely realted to the pronuntiation drill/ schooling of a person with a hearing impediment
I really like this talk....AWESOME!
But the question I have is, how to start? Do we start by learning to
read? Do we start by learning how to speak? Do we start by learning how
to write?
Spoken languagee comes first, then comes written language, first reading, then writing. Of course, in practice it's not as simple as that: you almost immediately start doing the three together. Sometimes it's combined: your teacher reads you a text and you listen and look at it as he or she reads.
i'm Chinese,and i want to learn English,i found it's difficult to speak out,！！
I would learn more Spanish in order to speak better with my inlaws but then I realise I don't really want to talk to them that much 😂😂😂
Very Interesting. Good Tips.
6:19 - that awkward moment when no one laughs at your joke
lol
He clearly felt terrible after doing that joke. I felt his awkwardness :l
Don't be a fool. The mic was turned away from the audience. They chuckled at his joke. You just had your fingers in your ears. Obviously. Because you just wanted to belittle someone. And @Akriloth, Jason Moran's little sheepy follower, he didn't "feel terrible" and you didn't "feel" any putative awkwardness; you, too, just wanted to join in on the belittling of someone. Gawd! people like you two are putrid.
thanks doctor!
how does it differ from italki? i have not tried neither of them yet..
Largely disagree with this presentation. Many platitudes and half-truths. We need to learn many words in order to understand what people are saying. The problem is not so much a fear of the inability to say things, aothough that can be a factor, but the fear of not understanding what is said. If we understand, we can learn to speak. In my experience advice from trained linguists is largely irrelevant to language learning
I'm Canadian living in Montreal and fluent in three languages. I've leaned a lesson while visiting Paris years ago that Parisians have low tolerance with my speaking the language of Molière imperfectly. Since then, I speak only English to them and get more respect that way.
how did you learn your 2 other languages to fluency?
Do you mean they don't like French Canadian? It's quite different, for all I know. When I hear it (as a non-native speaker of French who's learned French from France with some excursions into Swiss and Belgian numbers) I manage to understand most of what people are saying, but it's tiring.
Very expressive hands, that young man lecturer. I wonder that he need spoken language at all. Or maybe those hands are how he makes his thoughts clear in just one week. Don't get me wrong. I am not sneering here. Anything that works is communication.
Dear Translator: It's "to be able to party with (the Czechs) not (the chicks)"! 🤣🤣 Hey, check out those cheeky Czech chicks dancing cheek to cheek. Just choking 🤣🤣
This is profound advice - thank you!
he's so lovely!
There are no "hacks". I speak and understand 12 languages and am working on 2 more. You need a large passive vocabulary to really get into the language. This takes time. Learning a few key words won't do it. And to pronounce well you need to listen a lot, pay attention and imitate. Trying to figure out where to put your tongue in your mouth is not very useful.
Some people just don't hear the differences between various sounds or are not able to imitate them without expert help. Knowing where to put your tongue does help.
that is awesome .... thanks a million
Thanks for the tips :)
as a learning Spanish sounded incredibly fast until I started getting the cadence.
I am not sure about the title, hacking a language.. I didn't see that word... I think he tries to speak about imitation, yes I like that way but I am not sure, I've been learning English, grammar and pronunciation. Everything in English and I believe that I am still learning. English is so rich , I speak Spanish but I am not sure if these speeches or conferences in Ted are good for improving my listening and speaking?. Because in real life people not really speak like that.
I feel like Milo Thatch (who was a linguist) from Atlantis (disney) was based off this guy. And Daniel Jackson (also linguist) from stargate sg1. Just saying.
balbalbal. finally have some benefit to hear something good to me at the last minutes.
so. here are the upvote.
The only point in here that seemed actually unique to the other "Hacking Language Learning:" titles on TED talks seems to be the idea of universal field linguistic tools. Sadly, that's a hard topic to actually "get into", let alone in 14 minutes.
In response to other comments: yes, the amount of time needed to learn a language is downplayed here and there in the video, but honestly *how* one learns a language can cut the time needed to learn it by a third or further. (Outright floundering or making half-efforts in a language will take longer still.) In East Asian languages especially, I've often had a friend who knows how to make a language make sense (not in terms of English, but as its own, or simply 'a' system) cover a month's worth of grammar inside of an hour more understandably than across the combined lessons. In Japanese, I've done the same for a couple friends. The same can be said for not practicing what you learn at frequently enough or, especially, in real conversation (I'll admit I have that latter problem). Just look at online national language test records if they ask the test-takers for the amount of time spent in the language. The time taken to reach high levels of proficiency varies widely.
had to think for a second how to say almost in the three languages i know: casi, fast, presque. i could't at first but then i thought of them in a sentence and they came right out.
casi is wrong, i know it cause i am native.
no se dicr casi, casi significa almost, fast se dice rápido o veloz.
Diego Alonso
You misunderstood my comment. The word "almost" is:
casi in Spanish
fast in German
presque in French
@@BigSirZebras For fast also: beinah(e).
I've spent many hours of many days of many years working on building a linguistic bridge so that some day everyone can have a proverbial "foot in the door" of every spoken and written language with a mininum of effort. Anybody know how to reach this guy? I would love to have the chance to present and explain to him what I've worked out as a solution.
Anybody know what language he means we are supposed to guess from his name?
Irish Gaelic
I didn't know Steven Wilson was a linguist.
not much substance really, but a few tips around 8:00. Def. a misleading title though. And the speaker was very nervous throughout the whole thing unfortunately. At times, it seemed he was trying to remember his script. I'm not criticizing him because he probably does some incredible work to save those small languages, and he is for sure smarter then I, but just wished he could have shared more details in a relaxed way.
Richard David precht
Linguists don't understand auditory acuity. Field linguists usually have exceptionally keen hearing.
The problem i have is going to a native speaker and forgetting everything
Teaching people to communicate should never be entrusted to teachers who have advanced degrees in that language. Most of them are lit majors. Their level of perfection is often not attainable in a reasonable amount of time to a student. The best teachers are native speakers who have been taught to teach their own language as a second language to immigrants. The goal of the students should be first to understand simple sentences in the language and then to speak. Understanding must come first. Basic learning should be pass or fail or better pass and go forward. Using this method any student after 100 hours should be able to understand 2000 words and use 1000 words. Basic communication is established.
Not just language learning. Everything worth doing. Nothing worth learning should be left to the elites. There are a thousand branches of medicine but there are more dieseses to cure than 200 years ago when modern medicine had not been invented. Anything that involves profit will somehow become difficult. A child learns mainly from the mom without paying but you pay to learn a language at a university or college and after four years you still cannot speak the language.
Agree
which endangered language he meant as his own ?
+melanphilia my guess is gaelic mcDonough sounds Irish and I think Quinn is too.
thanks my friend
+melanphilia Actually, he's Irish Gaelic and speaks it well. I speak to him for learning Abenaki and the language he is talking about, I believe, is Passamaquoddy which he is very very active in.
2:58 so Czech people eat French Fries with plumbs,did not know that.I will have to try them some time.Next time I am there,I will order some plumbs and fries with sangfroid.
I think he said "with aplomb."
+HailSocialite I know,this was my attempt at a lame joke.It was a success, for it was intentionally lame.
I do my efforts to lering english... I not give up
Pour la premier fois je met en considaire que. Vous êtes une femme mon pote "_"
Merci ènormement et continu vers l'avant
Although I feel his presentation skills are lacking, Conor has some real skillz and it pays off to rewind and take heed of what dude is saying. For example, in his "how to say tiger" riff, he explains: cat, big, orange; but then he turns it up- "The one behind you looks hungry." When he said that, I was like "yeah, man- that's how you do it." ( Of course he's boasting when he says this- What he really says in Czech is "That one is hungry.")
Does he say anything at all in Czech? Somehow I missed it.
Watch my video - in my other comment. Yes, languages are extremely easy to learn - fully. You want to save any particular language - talk to me, I will show you how.
Contact Lee Sohlden on facebook messenger, and lets get started. (Note, you will do the work - I will show you how.)
Basically, you need native speakers to start making youtube videos, and providing texts for what they are saying on the video.
I will be gald to host the videos on my youtube channel. From there, anyone who wants to learn the language, until the very end of time, can do so. Using my system - but note, though my system - you will do the bulk of the work filling in the nuts and bolts for that language.
I will be glad to help with the ear tuning syllables though.
Dr Quinn - I didn't understand what you said about grammar. Loved the rest though. Thank you. Woliwon
True, it wasn't very clear.
I learned english repeating...
ananta tachi wa nihongo o hanishimasuka?
*wa
Anshul Raman あなたは日本語をはなせますか? I am still learning the Kanji (there is a massive amount of it) but I began studying Japanese a few months ago & to my surprise, it is a very fun & easy language to learn. use Memrise & Japan Sensei!
Robbie Reyes I agree. It is a very fun language, but memorising the written symbols is so hard, especially with 3 different alphabets. I'm just learning in romaji right now because it is easier for me.
The kana are not too bad, even if there are two types. I would totally suggest you at least learn those, because without them, you can't read anything at all in Japanese, including loanwords you could sound out. Of course some of them look somewhat similar... さちき こたに あお but with time it gets simple.
I like change
sygestology ... develop in Bulgaria and adopted worldwide as fast forward language courses
My hovercraft is full of eels
😂😂😂
8:20 when actual video starts tho
This guy has a couple of good tips: don't view your task as speaking to perfection and getting the rhythm down makes native speech not seem so fast any more. However, for the rest of it he makes the same mistake many "simplifiers" of language learning make: assuming that speech is the primary task. However, once you have a vocabulary of a couple thousand words you can probably make yourself understood, but the native speaker you are trying to understand probably knows twenty thousand or more. You can't simplify him.
All the shortcut, simplify, it's-not-really-so-hard types are selling snake oil. It's hard. Get used to it.
Please teach me french.cause i want to read les miserables in the original cause the english words are different in meaning when it comes to French.
Depends on your hearing? If you're a Beethoven you'll make yourself understood soon enough