@@davido6881 thanks, for me, it is hard to learn japanese. It is normal to deal with lack of comprehension in any target language, what is not normal is that in order to learn Japanese, it takes longer immersion time than languages like English.
Learned English through lots of free flow, already studied japanese a little, but now that I discovered your channel, would want to immerse into some language, japanese or any other. Anyway, thank you for your work, it really helps.
Thank you for providing another piece of the puzzle. I am two months into learning Spanish and finding myself increasingly frustrated by non-literal translations. While translation is helpful and allows me to understand the other person, I want to become fluent. It seems essential to learn to think like native speakers. So far, unless I specifically request a literal translation, I often receive interpretations that make sense in my language but cause me to miss out on valuable learning opportunities. For example, consider the phrase "hit that baby out of the park." I'm unsure how this would be translated into another language. I am certain it wouldn’t lead someone to believe that Americans literally hit babies out of the park. Instead, it would likely convey the idea of hitting a ball very hard and achieving a home run or something similar. However, without being given the literal translation of "hit that baby out of the park," how can I dig deeper and understand the culture and mindset behind the language? To be fair to translations, how would I translate the literal words "hit that baby out of the park" without the help of a native speaker or living in the country? I feel fortunate to live in a time with resources like Google and advanced tools like ChatGPT. I can discover these answers if I am curious enough to learn. I hope that by using literal translations, I will think like a native speaker. While this may feel infinitely more challenging initially, I believe it will make things easier in the long run. As I'm new to all of this, I am eager to see what unfolds. Thank you for discussing this topic, as it's not something I see addressed elsewhere.
Good tip. I like to do glosses for really complicated sentences too, or anything I can't understand after I've read it and listened to it a few times. Especially if it's one of those sentences where I know most of the words and grammar, but for some reason my brain just can't understand it. I prefer to do background listening only after I've already studied a passage and (at least at one time in the past) knew what it meant.
Yeah, and even cooler, some Czech words do not have plural, or do not have singular... this one (zelenina) exists only in singular form, so it is using singular form always, no matter if it is one piece of vegetable or tons of them
(Comment for the Algor of Rhythms.) Good job on this video, Ben. This will be really handy! Also great thumbnails to whoever made them! Scientist, Builder, what job will he take on next? :D Thanks again, see you in class.
Buen video. Muchas gracias. Cuando solamente leo me es más fácil interactuar con el idioma; desglosarlo y tratar de entenderlo. Pero me queda la duda de cuando es en doble canal, audio y lectura, ahí siento que pierdo un poco el trabajo con el audio porque paso más tiempo interactuando con el escrito. Sería interesante saber cómo llevan este proceso a la vez.
I'm pretty advanced in Spanish but I'm going back to this puzzling over the meaning of sentences. I find overly translating a crutch, unless there's a new word. It's much more helpful to go over and over the sentence until you get the meaning. I'll do this in LingQ or just reading a page from a book again. I'll read and re-read each sentence/phrase/word that I don't get fully until the meaning clicks and then I move on. If there's any question of meaning I spend as much time as possible on the piece of the language. Then, the rest of my time is freeflow. I'm stage 3b-c and I'm at about 85% free flow immersion to intensive study
Ah thank so much. This was not only helpful but validating. Sometimes for me it's a matter of understanding the general concept of a sentence as best as I can. If and when I misunderstand a text I'm usually corrected as I progress through it. And when I can't get it it'll hopefully come up in my immersion later. Plus, when learning something like Japanese, it's really helpful for learning Kanji and taking the time to "puzzle it out." Taking a moment to see if I can recognize the Kanji, and possibly it's reading has been helpful. And if I can't figure it out that way, it's been helpful to try to guess it's meaning if I recognize the Kanji but don't know the reading. It's harder and more time consuming but it helps things stick in the end. ^-^
I'm part of the Refold team! There are ~10 of us on the internal team working every day to helping the world learn languages! I specifically work on all sorts of things, such as coaching, content production, process development, etc. But the thing you're mostly likely to see me in are the RUclips videos and livestreams. You can see the whole team here: community.refold.la/about-us/
There is an older guy on here that did 500 hours of input and his progress and ability to speak and understand is limited Iv come to realise that unless the free flow comprehensible input is 70-90 percent understandable you’ll make no progress. When it is at that level context fills in the gaps and allows one to understand new words without looking. like learning Spanish words with other Spanish words like I do in English my native language I may hear a word but il use the phone dictionary to understand the word using other English words. To get to the nigh b1 stage Iv used apps learning to understand the tenses with was unconscious to me before trying to acquire a second language.
Interactive immersion isn't *always* better than freeflow. The earlier you are in the process, the more useful interactive immersion is. But also, like you said, if the content is very difficult, you should probably be doing interactive with it. If you freeflow with content that's **way** too hard, you're not going to learn nearly as much. But you also can't neglect freeflow since it's what solidifies all your learning and makes it automatic. Thanks for watching! - Ben
1- should I do only this or mix interactive + freeflow? 2- is it okay if I keep translating things to my nl even when i’m more advanced ? can I learn a language like that ?
Doing this *and* freeflow is very useful! This is an interactive activity. Doing both helps you round out your learning more. This isn't "translation." You're just using your native language as a way to make sense of the language. Eventually, you can just use the foreign words but still use the same process of "working through" the language.
I am a native Japanese speaker learning English. I used deepl to translate this video in order to understand it, but the translation is unnatural in places, and I feel that I do not fully understand what you are trying to say. So, I would like to check, is the method you are talking about translating sentences that are not naturally understood into the native language, and then aligning the word order and grammatical roles of the sentences in the native language and the language you want to learn?
That's mostly what I meant. I think the main piece missing from your understanding is "being okay with things not *really* making sense." For example, a lot of (English speakers) who learn Japanese mention how it feels like you need to think backward. But, to you, a native speaker, that is the most normal way to speak. So English must feel backwards. Instead of trying to think about how to naturally say an idea in Japanese, it's better to trick your brain into understanding English while using a little bit of Japanese to help you. It's a stepping stone between actual translation and naturally understanding the language. I hope this helps! - Ben
i get 0 percieved benefits from free flow immersion. all the duolingo spanish podcasts seem so useless to me in intermediate hell. typically with most new words i've never been exposed to the word because it's a low-mid/low frequency word that i can't really internalize it unless i do anki to force it in my mind so every few weeks i see the word again it's like seeing it for the first time because i'm not doing any SRS on it. I have a nasty habit of forcing myself to make a new card for every single sentence i don't understand and i'm not sure what i should do. i know about 2k words not including cognates i haven't been exposed to and have been tested grammar wise and am said to be mid/high B1 ... please help big bro i have no idea what i should do. read an intermediate book? keep up with podcasts but this time do intensive immersion? scroll through spanish reddit/twitter/youtube? is there even a point in making cards anymore? i feel like i get 0 benefit from immersion unless it's active and when immersion is active my brain always wants to tell me that i'd be learning this shit faster if i just did Anki
RUclips and Netflix are where it's at. Active immersion is 100% where you'll feel the gains, but I promise it's also happening with freeflow. It's just a slow process. Hoping for and expecting things to be completely different after a week or two would be like starting a workout routine and being disappointed that you don't look like a body builder after a month. Don't worry about making new cards for everything and focus on finding content that you can do a LOT of and try this process. Engage your brain and push yourself beyond where you are now and you'll start to feel the difference after a few weeks. You got this!
Language "closeness" is a massive factor when it comes to learning. Japanese is *completely* different from any European language (and even quite different from many Asian languages). To acquire Japanese to the same level, it may take twice as long.
Your Czech translation is wrong as "zeleninu" is the accusative of "zelenina". I noticed that because I'm a Pole and my Slavic brain fellt that sth was off. There's a Polish word "zielenina" in Polish and the accusative would be "zieleninę"(Zielenina means sth different in Polish, but the words are cognates). The "ę" in the Polish words corresponds to the "u" in Czech. So basically the sentence is "Now, we are cutting the vegetable"
An alternative is simply to submit the following prompt to ChatGPT: "Please translate the Czech sentence "Ted' nožem nakrájíme zeleninu" and then give a word-by-word grammatical explanation of how the Czech sentence means what it does."
ChatGPT is an amazing tool for verifying natural language and generating things to use to make something even more amazing. But, it frequently makes things up and can give bad advice. Plus, the purpose of this exercise is *not* to use tools to do the thinking for you. The whole benefit is what you get by making sense of things in your head, unraveling the language and learning to process it on your own. If you just have it make an explanation for you, you miss out on the benefit. It'd be like watching a bunch of "How to play guitar videos" but never actually holding an instrument yourself.
I love your content but sometimes with it wasn't so tightly scripted... I would love to hear you speak about this more naturally instead of reading it.
I've changed that up recently! The more recent videos are a lot more off the cuff. I originally did that to reduce the editing time (cause if I don't use the script directly, I end up taking 45 minutes to record 😅). But you're right! They're more natural without the script. Thanks for the kind words and feedback! - Ben
Matt had said it on someone's channel. For those who want to learn a "foreign" language, Refold isn't for them. Foreign language is a language you don't really want to use, don't really have to use. It isn't a part of you, it's something foreign. Refold was created for those who want to acquire a SECOND language to a near native level. And they WANT to use it regularly just because they love that language for whatever reason.
Hey I would recommend you guys to simplify your thumbnails. They are way too wordy at the moment and I think it hurts the attractiveness of this channel.
![Twenty One Pilots - The Line (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XCz7WUotXs8/mqdefault.jpg)
Very good video.
Pondering the language will improve your language skills faster than letting it wash over you.
I can testify that to be true.
I learned English as a foreign language, if you did too, give a thumbs up 👍
nice job man! it's hard learning second languages. just a small note you would say "if you did too"
@@davido6881 thanks, for me, it is hard to learn japanese. It is normal to deal with lack of comprehension in any target language, what is not normal is that in order to learn Japanese, it takes longer immersion time than languages like English.
Learned English through lots of free flow, already studied japanese a little, but now that I discovered your channel, would want to immerse into some language, japanese or any other. Anyway, thank you for your work, it really helps.
Thank you for providing another piece of the puzzle. I am two months into learning Spanish and finding myself increasingly frustrated by non-literal translations. While translation is helpful and allows me to understand the other person, I want to become fluent. It seems essential to learn to think like native speakers.
So far, unless I specifically request a literal translation, I often receive interpretations that make sense in my language but cause me to miss out on valuable learning opportunities.
For example, consider the phrase "hit that baby out of the park." I'm unsure how this would be translated into another language. I am certain it wouldn’t lead someone to believe that Americans literally hit babies out of the park. Instead, it would likely convey the idea of hitting a ball very hard and achieving a home run or something similar. However, without being given the literal translation of "hit that baby out of the park," how can I dig deeper and understand the culture and mindset behind the language?
To be fair to translations, how would I translate the literal words "hit that baby out of the park" without the help of a native speaker or living in the country? I feel fortunate to live in a time with resources like Google and advanced tools like ChatGPT. I can discover these answers if I am curious enough to learn. I hope that by using literal translations, I will think like a native speaker. While this may feel infinitely more challenging initially, I believe it will make things easier in the long run.
As I'm new to all of this, I am eager to see what unfolds. Thank you for discussing this topic, as it's not something I see addressed elsewhere.
Good tip. I like to do glosses for really complicated sentences too, or anything I can't understand after I've read it and listened to it a few times. Especially if it's one of those sentences where I know most of the words and grammar, but for some reason my brain just can't understand it. I prefer to do background listening only after I've already studied a passage and (at least at one time in the past) knew what it meant.
This is a long winded process, and is still translating!
Thank you!
Yeah, and even cooler, some Czech words do not have plural, or do not have singular... this one (zelenina) exists only in singular form, so it is using singular form always, no matter if it is one piece of vegetable or tons of them
(Comment for the Algor of Rhythms.) Good job on this video, Ben. This will be really handy!
Also great thumbnails to whoever made them! Scientist, Builder, what job will he take on next? :D
Thanks again, see you in class.
Buen video. Muchas gracias. Cuando solamente leo me es más fácil interactuar con el idioma; desglosarlo y tratar de entenderlo. Pero me queda la duda de cuando es en doble canal, audio y lectura, ahí siento que pierdo un poco el trabajo con el audio porque paso más tiempo interactuando con el escrito. Sería interesante saber cómo llevan este proceso a la vez.
I'm pretty advanced in Spanish but I'm going back to this puzzling over the meaning of sentences. I find overly translating a crutch, unless there's a new word. It's much more helpful to go over and over the sentence until you get the meaning.
I'll do this in LingQ or just reading a page from a book again. I'll read and re-read each sentence/phrase/word that I don't get fully until the meaning clicks and then I move on. If there's any question of meaning I spend as much time as possible on the piece of the language. Then, the rest of my time is freeflow. I'm stage 3b-c and I'm at about 85% free flow immersion to intensive study
6:27 let target language rule your English
Ah thank so much. This was not only helpful but validating. Sometimes for me it's a matter of understanding the general concept of a sentence as best as I can. If and when I misunderstand a text I'm usually corrected as I progress through it. And when I can't get it it'll hopefully come up in my immersion later.
Plus, when learning something like Japanese, it's really helpful for learning Kanji and taking the time to "puzzle it out." Taking a moment to see if I can recognize the Kanji, and possibly it's reading has been helpful. And if I can't figure it out that way, it's been helpful to try to guess it's meaning if I recognize the Kanji but don't know the reading. It's harder and more time consuming but it helps things stick in the end. ^-^
I know this would be a lot of work, but it would be great to have a text companion to the videos!
I'm working on (and really want to have) matching subtitles for every video! But, like you said, it is sort of a lot of work 😅
Quick question: Who are you? I cannot find you on the Refold page. Thanks.
I'm part of the Refold team! There are ~10 of us on the internal team working every day to helping the world learn languages!
I specifically work on all sorts of things, such as coaching, content production, process development, etc. But the thing you're mostly likely to see me in are the RUclips videos and livestreams.
You can see the whole team here: community.refold.la/about-us/
There is an older guy on here that did 500 hours of input and his progress and ability to speak and understand is limited Iv come to realise that unless the free flow comprehensible input is 70-90 percent understandable you’ll make no progress. When it is at that level context fills in the gaps and allows one to understand new words without looking.
like learning Spanish words with other Spanish words like I do in English my native language I may hear a word but il use the phone dictionary to understand the word using other English words. To get to the nigh b1 stage Iv used apps learning to understand the tenses with was unconscious to me before trying to acquire a second language.
Steve Kaufman?
Does it work the same way with the target language being at a higher level (intense immersion > freeflow)? Thank you, very helpful as usual.
Interactive immersion isn't *always* better than freeflow. The earlier you are in the process, the more useful interactive immersion is. But also, like you said, if the content is very difficult, you should probably be doing interactive with it. If you freeflow with content that's **way** too hard, you're not going to learn nearly as much.
But you also can't neglect freeflow since it's what solidifies all your learning and makes it automatic.
Thanks for watching!
- Ben
1- should I do only this or mix interactive + freeflow?
2- is it okay if I keep translating things to my nl even when i’m more advanced ? can I learn a language like that ?
Doing this *and* freeflow is very useful! This is an interactive activity. Doing both helps you round out your learning more.
This isn't "translation." You're just using your native language as a way to make sense of the language. Eventually, you can just use the foreign words but still use the same process of "working through" the language.
I am a native Japanese speaker learning English. I used deepl to translate this video in order to understand it, but the translation is unnatural in places, and I feel that I do not fully understand what you are trying to say. So, I would like to check, is the method you are talking about translating sentences that are not naturally understood into the native language, and then aligning the word order and grammatical roles of the sentences in the native language and the language you want to learn?
That's mostly what I meant. I think the main piece missing from your understanding is "being okay with things not *really* making sense."
For example, a lot of (English speakers) who learn Japanese mention how it feels like you need to think backward. But, to you, a native speaker, that is the most normal way to speak. So English must feel backwards. Instead of trying to think about how to naturally say an idea in Japanese, it's better to trick your brain into understanding English while using a little bit of Japanese to help you.
It's a stepping stone between actual translation and naturally understanding the language.
I hope this helps!
- Ben
This is awesome 🫶🫶🫶
i get 0 percieved benefits from free flow immersion. all the duolingo spanish podcasts seem so useless to me in intermediate hell. typically with most new words i've never been exposed to the word because it's a low-mid/low frequency word that i can't really internalize it unless i do anki to force it in my mind so every few weeks i see the word again it's like seeing it for the first time because i'm not doing any SRS on it. I have a nasty habit of forcing myself to make a new card for every single sentence i don't understand and i'm not sure what i should do. i know about 2k words not including cognates i haven't been exposed to and have been tested grammar wise and am said to be mid/high B1 ... please help big bro i have no idea what i should do. read an intermediate book? keep up with podcasts but this time do intensive immersion? scroll through spanish reddit/twitter/youtube? is there even a point in making cards anymore? i feel like i get 0 benefit from immersion unless it's active and when immersion is active my brain always wants to tell me that i'd be learning this shit faster if i just did Anki
RUclips and Netflix are where it's at. Active immersion is 100% where you'll feel the gains, but I promise it's also happening with freeflow. It's just a slow process. Hoping for and expecting things to be completely different after a week or two would be like starting a workout routine and being disappointed that you don't look like a body builder after a month.
Don't worry about making new cards for everything and focus on finding content that you can do a LOT of and try this process. Engage your brain and push yourself beyond where you are now and you'll start to feel the difference after a few weeks.
You got this!
Idk why but Japanese is much harder for me then English even with immersion method. Maybe because I never go to Japan idk
Language "closeness" is a massive factor when it comes to learning. Japanese is *completely* different from any European language (and even quite different from many Asian languages). To acquire Japanese to the same level, it may take twice as long.
Your Czech translation is wrong as "zeleninu" is the accusative of "zelenina". I noticed that because I'm a Pole and my Slavic brain fellt that sth was off. There's a Polish word "zielenina" in Polish and the accusative would be "zieleninę"(Zielenina means sth different in Polish, but the words are cognates). The "ę" in the Polish words corresponds to the "u" in Czech. So basically the sentence is "Now, we are cutting the vegetable"
Ah, so it's not plural! Doesn't really effect the video. Thanks for the correction!
@@Refold Yeah, it does not. Thanks for the vid.
An alternative is simply to submit the following prompt to ChatGPT: "Please translate the Czech sentence "Ted' nožem nakrájíme zeleninu" and then give a word-by-word grammatical explanation of how the Czech sentence means what it does."
ChatGPT is an amazing tool for verifying natural language and generating things to use to make something even more amazing. But, it frequently makes things up and can give bad advice.
Plus, the purpose of this exercise is *not* to use tools to do the thinking for you. The whole benefit is what you get by making sense of things in your head, unraveling the language and learning to process it on your own. If you just have it make an explanation for you, you miss out on the benefit. It'd be like watching a bunch of "How to play guitar videos" but never actually holding an instrument yourself.
I love your content but sometimes with it wasn't so tightly scripted... I would love to hear you speak about this more naturally instead of reading it.
I've changed that up recently! The more recent videos are a lot more off the cuff. I originally did that to reduce the editing time (cause if I don't use the script directly, I end up taking 45 minutes to record 😅). But you're right! They're more natural without the script.
Thanks for the kind words and feedback!
- Ben
@@Refold I make videos too and I know what you mean! Your content is of undeniable quality regardless, so by all means ignore my criticism 😅
Matt had said it on someone's channel.
For those who want to learn a "foreign" language, Refold isn't for them.
Foreign language is a language you don't really want to use, don't really have to use. It isn't a part of you, it's something foreign.
Refold was created for those who want to acquire a SECOND language to a near native level. And they WANT to use it regularly just because they love that language for whatever reason.
Is this called grammar(?)
Eso parece!!!
Hey I would recommend you guys to simplify your thumbnails. They are way too wordy at the moment and I think it hurts the attractiveness of this channel.
It's 4 words? How is that "too wordy"?