I feel like speaking a language as a beginner is like acting. You are faking everything - and the most important thing you need to be faking is confidence. You are NOT being yourself (if you lack confidence speaking the language). You are pretending to be confident. If you don't sound confident then even if you say it completely right the other person may have tuned you out. I imagine that people with legit acting experience have a big edge up when it comes to this sort of thing but I don't know maybe not. I think this is the one are where having studied previous languages really helps. That said, if you just speak the language enough, you're going to get past the unconfident phase no matter what eventually. The recording thing is very informative. If you have never recorded yourself then you probably do not sound anything like what you think you sound. I studied Japanese for several years (without going to Japan) and thought I was semi fluent. Then I finally got around to recording myself talking. It was SO slow. I had recorded myself to improve my pronunciation but instead immediately went about trying to speak faster. As fast as I possibly could. After listening to that recording I knew that if I spoke at the fastest rate I was capable of, I still wasn't going to be near the speed of a native speaker in any situation but it clearly was the worst thing about my spoken Japanese. And I think it's the easiest thing you can do to improve your speaking. Sure you probably want to pronounce everything like a native but if you've spoken to non-native English speakers who have even been living in the US for years then you know most people's accent doesn't change. I'm not saying it's impossible to improve you accent - just hard. But improving your rate of speed makes you a lot more interesting to listen to. Although recording yourself regularly is probably good, just doing it once in a while is helpful too. I didn't record my Japanese speaking for a long time after that - it was so painful I didn't want to hear it lol. But that impression of my slow spoken Japanese stayed with me probably even to this day and when people say I speak Japanese fast I don't really believe them lol.
Cool tips. Make sense about the mic across the room. Thinking about it now. My lessons were online and I read quietly because I do that at the library or cafe. Feels awkard when actually speaking to another person. Feedback, I would prefer the lo fi sound be more quieter to hear you more clearly.
Pretty cool video on a topic I've not seen directly addressed before. I think there is an analogous issue with comprehension. When I am learning a new language I tend to understand the instructor but not language spoken "in the wild." I call this Deutschlehrer Deutsch.
The repeating aloud thing is also useful for your native tongue if you are not a good reader. In this regard i encourage the mastery of a single paragraph at a time by reading each sentence 5 times. So do sentence one 5 times, then sentence two etc. Once all have been done 5 times, re-read the entire paragraph in one go. Then do the same for the next paragraph, and so on... I used this technique to help my wife become a better reader in her native tongue if English. And it also helped her writing. One paragraph at a time does not feel daunting so she could handle it.
I often times feel pretty confident when my level is at a beginner level, but when reaching the intermediate I lose a lot of that confidence because native speakers often times believe I understand them better than what I actually do, and when and if I reach a more advanced level then my confidence is usually back. I will try to read the same text out loud 100 times in Russian, which could be an interesting challenge. This was yet another interesting video. As a jew who has learned German, are you also considering studying Yiddish? it is a minority language in Sweden where I live but I don't think that I ever heard anyone speak it.
Yiddish is cool, it is very funny as well. I heard it is around 80% German and 20% Hebrew. I'm actually learning German at the moment, and I already know Hebrew as an Israeli. So I plan to get my German to a decent level so that it would be easy for me to learn Yiddish afterwards, and then I would be able to speak with my grandmother in Yiddish as well!!!
Excellent, with some genuinely useful ideas which I have not come across before. It was just a bit funny though that one of your very good tips of placing the microphone across the room was one that you don't use yourself on the video. Yes, I realise that you are not speaking a new language, but if you used this method you would not need to cradle the huge microphone against your cheek... But, apart from that... thanks for a great video!
Cooles video :) eine Sache die mir immer hilft - weil ich sowieso gern Vokabeln in einem Satz lerne - ist, mir ganze Sätze zu merken die man irgendwie im Alltag oft benutzen würde und dann die Aussprache und Grammatik davon zu perfektionieren. Wenn man bei ein paar Sätzen die Aussprache richtig gut drauf hat, hat man irgendwann auch alle Laute in der Sprache einmal gehabt und alles weitere wird leichter
Great video in general, but 1:10 I beg to differ. I'd say pronunciation is so important that even if you're saying nonsense, as long as your pronunciation or even more importantly the accent is great or at native level, the other person will potentially think they understand what you're saying even if you're not even getting a single point across. Tried that many times. Accent + pronunciation >>> meaning.
I feel like speaking a language as a beginner is like acting. You are faking everything - and the most important thing you need to be faking is confidence. You are NOT being yourself (if you lack confidence speaking the language). You are pretending to be confident. If you don't sound confident then even if you say it completely right the other person may have tuned you out. I imagine that people with legit acting experience have a big edge up when it comes to this sort of thing but I don't know maybe not. I think this is the one are where having studied previous languages really helps. That said, if you just speak the language enough, you're going to get past the unconfident phase no matter what eventually.
The recording thing is very informative. If you have never recorded yourself then you probably do not sound anything like what you think you sound. I studied
Japanese for several years (without going to Japan) and thought I was semi fluent. Then I finally got around to recording myself talking. It was SO slow. I had recorded myself to improve my pronunciation but instead immediately went about trying to speak faster. As fast as I possibly could. After listening to that recording I knew that if I spoke at the fastest rate I was capable of, I still wasn't going to be near the speed of a native speaker in any situation but it clearly was the worst thing about my spoken Japanese. And I think it's the easiest thing you can do to improve your speaking. Sure you probably want to pronounce everything like a native but if you've spoken to non-native English speakers who have even been living in the US for years then you know most people's accent doesn't change. I'm not saying it's impossible to improve you accent - just hard. But improving your rate of speed makes you a lot more interesting to listen to.
Although recording yourself regularly is probably good, just doing it once in a while is helpful too. I didn't record my Japanese speaking for a long time after that - it was so painful I didn't want to hear it lol. But that impression of my slow spoken Japanese stayed with me probably even to this day and when people say I speak Japanese fast I don't really believe them lol.
Cool tips. Make sense about the mic across the room. Thinking about it now. My lessons were online and I read quietly because I do that at the library or cafe. Feels awkard when actually speaking to another person.
Feedback, I would prefer the lo fi sound be more quieter to hear you more clearly.
Pretty cool video on a topic I've not seen directly addressed before. I think there is an analogous issue with comprehension. When I am learning a new language I tend to understand the instructor but not language spoken "in the wild." I call this Deutschlehrer Deutsch.
Gut gemacht ! As always.
Really good tips in there.
These are some cutting-edge techniques. Awesome
The repeating aloud thing is also useful for your native tongue if you are not a good reader. In this regard i encourage the mastery of a single paragraph at a time by reading each sentence 5 times. So do sentence one 5 times, then sentence two etc. Once all have been done 5 times, re-read the entire paragraph in one go. Then do the same for the next paragraph, and so on... I used this technique to help my wife become a better reader in her native tongue if English. And it also helped her writing. One paragraph at a time does not feel daunting so she could handle it.
Great advice!
Thanks a lot! Very interesting
This is a nice video for us who have that low esteem to have confidence thanks
I often times feel pretty confident when my level is at a beginner level, but when reaching the intermediate I lose a lot of that confidence because native speakers often times believe I understand them better than what I actually do, and when and if I reach a more advanced level then my confidence is usually back. I will try to read the same text out loud 100 times in Russian, which could be an interesting challenge. This was yet another interesting video. As a jew who has learned German, are you also considering studying Yiddish? it is a minority language in Sweden where I live but I don't think that I ever heard anyone speak it.
Yiddish is cool, it is very funny as well. I heard it is around 80% German and 20% Hebrew.
I'm actually learning German at the moment, and I already know Hebrew as an Israeli. So I plan to get my German to a decent level so that it would be easy for me to learn Yiddish afterwards, and then I would be able to speak with my grandmother in Yiddish as well!!!
Excellent, with some genuinely useful ideas which I have not come across before. It was just a bit funny though that one of your very good tips of placing the microphone across the room was one that you don't use yourself on the video. Yes, I realise that you are not speaking a new language, but if you used this method you would not need to cradle the huge microphone against your cheek... But, apart from that... thanks for a great video!
Your channel is so swell!
How's the polish experience going?😁
I love your videos, super excited for more
Cooles video :) eine Sache die mir immer hilft - weil ich sowieso gern Vokabeln in einem Satz lerne - ist, mir ganze Sätze zu merken die man irgendwie im Alltag oft benutzen würde und dann die Aussprache und Grammatik davon zu perfektionieren. Wenn man bei ein paar Sätzen die Aussprache richtig gut drauf hat, hat man irgendwann auch alle Laute in der Sprache einmal gehabt und alles weitere wird leichter
Great video in general, but 1:10 I beg to differ. I'd say pronunciation is so important that even if you're saying nonsense, as long as your pronunciation or even more importantly the accent is great or at native level, the other person will potentially think they understand what you're saying even if you're not even getting a single point across. Tried that many times. Accent + pronunciation >>> meaning.