Listening to native speakers of your target language speak English is also a great way to learn the more difficult things like proper use of prepositions. If we missuse prepositions in our target language, we are normally still understood. But what I have noticed often is that even Advanced speakers of English will still default to their own language's use of prepositions, which gives you an insight into how their language works grammatically. I hope that makes sense 😅
Makes perfect sense. One example that occurs to me: the way I remember that in Spanish you "escuchar musica" (without a preposition) is that Spanish speakers will say in English "I like to listen music."
I love that last point. I started doing this with Spanish (or at least noticing it) a couple months ago and paying attention to how Spanish speakers make grammatical errors in English, because I could then reverse engineer how to say that phrase in Spanish. It tells you a lot about sentence construction. Even hearing Spanish speakers speak French (though my Spanish is much better than my French) reveals a lot about the language. And yeah, I would totally nerd out on that last video you mentioned.
I noticed that too, it is also interesting to hear or read material made for learners of our native language, it helps a lot to learn the idiomatic form of the language.
Lamont, I don’t typically comment on anything and am mostly a lurker, but MY GOSH your videos are amazing. You provide very practical advice that is relatively easy yo apply. On top of that, you don’t fall victim to the language learning elitism that can be prevalent in the language learning community. Thank you so much for being you and for providing such quality advice 😊 I have watched practically every language learning video under the sun, and your videos really are quality, so thanks!
I can't believe you do that too!! I LOVE listening to Russians speak English because I love honing my Russian phonetics through it. Funny story: I grew up in the US, but my brothers grew up in Russia; we connected a few years ago. At first, I did not know any Russian and they barely knew any English. I would speak English slowly and simply, but it didn't work and we couldn't communicate. Then I started speaking English with a very, very heavy Russian accent (a real one with real phonetics, not the Hollywood one) and I made my English grammar match closer to the Russian grammar they are used to. It was amazing! Suddenly, they understood nearly everything I said. Even now, having reached a very high level in Russian, I still find myself speaking English with a Russian accent after coming out of a Russian audiobook. The phonetics are just so deep inside me, even if I don't always have the word I want or the grammar I need. Speaking English with a Russian accent is a wonderful way to improve your phonetics because it takes off the pressure of "foreign words." Additionally, listening to foreigners speak your native language helps you hear what is unique and what is similar. It is just an incredibly powerful way to open your eyes to a foreign language.
I've recently taken a big break from my Spanish learning as life and other commitments were becoming overwhelming. Today I had my first lesson on iTalki in about 2 months and I had booked it about 2 weeks ago. It was a great incentive to coming back to my learning and after around two months of bare minimum learning it's nice to know I haven't really lost much. It's taken a week or so to get back to where I was but it's now like I never left! Can't recommend iTalki enough.
The biggest realization I had in language learning is that B1 is functionally fluent. I have spent so much time in French recently and it is interesting seeing the results (When I went to grab dinner, it was like my brain was expecting French and speaking English felt kind of off), but I have to do more to get even to A2. It is always a pleasure to learn from you, thank you.
I like no 2 because I think learning little bits here and there can help piece the bigger picture or help you work out meanings of other related words etc. and yeah it makes learning fun!
My commute to work involves 20 minutes of walking and about 25 minutes on the bus. So while walking, I listen to Spanish stuff, and on the bus, I'm reading or doing a language app. Then repeat when I get back home. Makes the whole day feel productive! Edit: At work I have a few people I practice Spanish with. It can get confusing because of the different pronunciations, but it forces me to study more!
Love this. I’ve been a firm believer for a long time myself that examining the mistakes natives make tells you a lot about the language. For example, just from listening to a Russian woman speak German, I learned that articles seemingly are not needed in Russian. I think it’s honestly quite a cool shortcut to quickly find out what you are likely to struggle with in learning that language.
Very interesting video. I have often thought that listening to native speakers of French speak English has helped my French learning. Listening to native French speakers trying to create spontaneous sentences in English has helped me to remember and better understand how they use their own language. Without going to indepth into an example the French language uses the verb "faire" more than we use the verbs "to do" or "to make" in how they speak some times like "Je fais du vélo" for "I'm riding a bike," so when I hear a French native speaker say, "I'm doing some bike" it strangely helps solidify "Je fais du vélo" when "I want to say I'm riding a bike" en français. Great video. I am always very impressed by how well thought out your content is.
I asked my friend from Mexico, Luis if he heard our friend Rick speaking spanish with an accent. Rick was born and raised in Texas and has parents from Mexico. Spanish was spoken in the home and Rick was raised speaking it. Luis said Rick had a very pronounced accent.
I am a first-language speaker English who is of Chinese heritage. My mother speaks understandable but not grammatically very good English. It wasn't until I tried to learn Cantonese that I realised how she speaks English with a lot of Cantonese grammar structure. It was kinda cool when I noticed. Though it may not work for some target languages, I found it helpful to learn to structure common phrase structures of my target language in English at first in order to enforce the structure into my mind. For example, "Today you WANT NOT WANT eat rice?". Another example of applying this theory to French, "OF IT TO DO, this is very difficult for me".
in Spanish we call those little gaps in the day "tiempos muertos", like "dead time". It kind of implies that you can not do anything with it... But when you actually start using those gaps, you realise how big and "alive" they can be 😮 And it has the nice side effect of you wanting to do things you did not use to like (like cleaning, doing the dishes, driving your car...). When driving with my partner, we always listen to audiobooks and that has made me want to go on longer trips 😊
EXACTLY. I never used to "remember" to clean up or do anything like that so I was a terrible husband, not by choice but because I'm always just off in my own world (my videos don't display even a quarter of how raving my thoughts are) but these days I'm often like "Eurgh... washing up... on the other hand... audiobook!"
That's interesting. I'd only heard it in the context of sports (as in a "time out"). I just figured it was "dead time" in the sense that you stop the clock so it's not moving anymore, i.e. it's dead ^^ Hashtag crappyetymologist ^^ Never knew it had that more general usage in everyday life though.
You are definitely right about listening to the sounds and patterns that people who speak your target language natively make while speaking your native language...you can pick up a lot of clues about how they "think" their language too from their grammatical mistakes. Also though, if you can listen to other people who speak the same language as you natively as they attempt to speak your target language, you can get clues on where the most common mispronunciations and grammar pitfalls are. We all learn differently, and what seems obvious to one learner, my go unrecognized by another. I have listened to videos of other Americans attempting to speak Danish on RUclips, and some of their mistakes stick out like a sore thumb to my ear, and I'm sure some of mine probably do to them as well.
when i learned instruments, i practiced so much listening that you start to break apart everything you hear. i recomend people to learn some instrument, or even learn to sing in your larget language why not. it is a great skill to have and it complements so well with language learning.
TOTALLY WORKS in Italian- No 5. Italians when speaking English, overemphasize the vowels especially at the end of words. They even seem to add a vowel sound! so yes studying Italian I realize HOW IMPORTANT vowels are in Italian and saying them clearly. So very good point.
I thought I would be the only nerd wanting you to make a 30 min video about point 5 but it seems plenty do, which is interesting in itself. I like listening to Jurgen Klopp speaking English with his choice of phrases and pauses, and then try to use his voice if and when I speak German.
Jag har tittat på din kanal ett tag och jag måste säga att du talar svenska mycket bra. Jag är mycket imponerad. Jag hoppas att du fortsätter med ditt Svenska lärande och fortsätter att lära dig nyanserna i vårt underskattade språk. Lycka Till!
Listen to radio listen to radio listen to radio. All the time. Repeating adds, news, switch between music and spoken, fibre you breaks, no pressure, just simply in the background.
!!! I am so happy about your last point! I’ve instinctively done that the whole time, and it really helps with the Nordic Germanic languages (easy to do as a native English speaker) but I found myself being reminded of TL natives speaking “unproper” English as a clue into their syntax and grammar. It would make me go “oh it makes sense that we say it this way in Norwegian” etc. you articulated it wonderfully for us to explain it to others. Aside from a reverse engineering of accents and grammar, the other tips are on point. I find myself acting like a language addict sneaking in study or immersion in all of the in between moments throughout the day 😂
The thing is with listening when I have breaks is that I absorb nothing. I think once I'm better at the language that'll definitely improve, but whenever I try to listen whilst doing something, I don't really process or understand much except for words here and there because I'm not actively listening to it and my mind has the ability to wonder, so idk how useful it is for me to do that just yet.
I think it's not a great idea to say "I absorb nothing". You never really know what you absorb until you absorb it. Language learning by immersion isn't "pour 5 litres of water in per month and after 2 years you'll have 120 litres". It's "leave this bucket here for as much of the time as you possibly can... Let's see what you've got in 5 years." Your TL going in your ears is better than it not, even if you can't feel it.
@@daysandwords That's true! It's just I've seen some people online say it's useless to listen if you aren't comprehending it (because you're focusing on something else, not because of the difficulty level), but I've also seen others say that it's probably at least a little bit helpful, so I never know what to do lol. Recently I only really actively listen to things but maybe I'll start passively doing it again! I did used to listen passively when I came home from school and started to hang up my clothes, put on my pyjamas, etc but I stopped.
I think it’s good to do a mix. I’m finishing up an audiobook that is wayyy above my level and I was beginning to think it had been a waste of my time (I spent a lot of it “tuned out” because it was difficult), but I wanted to power through, and yesterday while cleaning I realized I had just listened to a whole passage and been listening to the meaning without even realizing it was in another language.
Admiro mucho este y otros canales, a veces sé que no estoy estudiando como quisiera pero escucharlos a ustedes siempre es un recordatorio de que hay que retomar el camino, gracias
Great video, as always! I like that you have such good advice ranging from absolute beginner to more advanced (with this video being on the more advanced end). Especially like the point about learning oddly specific grammar points - I think I'm at the point in Spanish where I need to start doing that, since I'm fluent enough that it's easy just to coast on my current level.
Thanks a lot, Lamont - I enjoyed all your tips, they are great! I have a little to add - adding to the tidbits of time to use for listening to your target language, so that they sum up to great improvement in listening skill, I have similarly also used such morsels of time to improve my pronunciation and fluence in talking. While doing chores around the house, and when walking or cycling, for exercise or errands, I used to talk in my target language with imaginary people about different topics. Arguing, explaining, asking, doubting, referring, guiding... Those of you who do a lot of driving might of course speak aloud in you car. In those days when I did this, most people never talked with invisible persons, if they didn't have a mental "something", but nowadays others don't see, if you've got a device on, so no shame anymore. Next advice was something I struggled hardest with, like when at the B-levels, I was too vain to accept the corrections and criticism from native speakers and those who were at the C-levels ahead of me. I didn't receive such helpful comments with open arms. I still cringe when I remember how foolishly I protested, when my German boyfriend said I sounded like a Circus-presenter when I spoke German - he claimed that I said: Danke schen instead of Danke schön! Well, in time, when I had accepted that he was the native speaker after all, I could admit that the background must have been the two Ö-sounds we have in Swedish, which pattern I unconsciously had adapted willy-nilly to German, which at least in Hessisch has only one Ö-sound, only the same as in Swedish "smör, lördag, göra", (like in English "bird, learn, girl") and not the narrow Ö-sound we have in "bröd, fönster, bön" - which latter Ö-sound he heard as the same as "e" in English "let, bed, mess". I don't think standard English has this sound either. All of my German pronunciation got better, though! Also singing in your target language helps a lot, knowing the lyrics by heart. My tips are surely closely related to Lamonts 5! :-)
Great video! I see from other comments that other learners have discovered the utility of listening to non-natives speak your own language. An example of this in Spanish is the verb llevar, whose 1st definition is "to carry," but has a myriad of uses in Spanish. Anytime I hear a native Spanish speaker say "carry" and it doesn't really make sense, I have just learned another use of llevar. Also, A+++ with the Rick Beato shoutout. I'm not a musician at all and love that channel.
At last someone talks about something I noticed myself, and that is not the common idea: I like to know rare words even at the beginning, and grammar terms.
I've stepped back from studying Swedish purposefully for now, because my work is full time in the summer, and I am exhausted in my free time. Still, I find that a day without any exposure to Swedish feels wrong, it's such a part of my life after 18 months. Nu kör vi!
I've been using italki for 2 years now and it's so great. I already have a lesson scheduled for a week and a hlaf from now with my usual teacher but this video inspired me to try out a new teacher (with more availability) this weekend so I can take lessons more frequently
I love these tips, I also thought about how I could learn my target language's grammar better by hearing those native speakers (with little to 0% experience) speak my language. Figured that if I tend to directly translate some languages with english grammar (even though it's incorrect), I could learn different grammar from native speakers
I am intrigued by your points about listening. Next time I go to my local Chinese restaurant I will definitely try to listen conciously to the way the owners speak Finnish. I did recognise myself from how switching a language suddenly can momentarily change how the other language comes out of one's mouth. Using a Finnish word in the middle of a sentence in English can totally throw me off balance and the next English word will end up sounding weird. This works both ways. And apparently I'm not too far off with how I sometimes focus on trying to really hear the lyrics in Chinese songs, it's a funny feeling zooming into the sounds. Never knew it was an actual thing I could find out more about! It just happens to be songs in my case, because my 'carry this everywhere with you' item is an old school mp3 player and headphones. Now all I have to do is extend this approach into more content than just songs. Thank you for making videos that so very often open my eyes to the things that are already unconciously happening and enabling me to utilise them in my language learning journey.
Lamont! Eureka! I’ve experimented a bit with memorizing information throughout “mind images” and memory palaces for a couple of days. In the practice I put out words in my house in forms of bizarre objects and scenes like images in my head. They really seem to stick! It’s amazing! I for example have Ann Frank hidden in the attic for the Spanish word “Desván” and Woody Allen running on the street with his big glasses completely full of fog and has a Siamese twin on his left side lashing him as he struggles to run for the word “empañado”. The images stick in my head, and when I think about the images the word automatically comes to my mind! Because apparently humans remember most effectively in images. I have made my house and neighborhood (that I know very well in my head) and have all these words featured in different absurd scenes around my house. And it doesn’t matter if I forget the word, because the next time I see or hear the word my mind will instantly connect that word with that absurd and bizzare scene in my house or neighborhood, rather than just a black and white text! It’s much more memorable! I’ve tried a bit using this method when I do flash cards in Anki, I can feel that they really stick! Especially when learning infrequent words that doesn’t appear as often. What are you’re thoughts on this? Maybe you can make a video on the topic!
The final point is definitely true of Irish, and not just for pronunciation The way English is spoken by many people in Ireland (Hiberno English) uses English words, but sometimes fits them into a format that preserves the original structure of the Irish. Those structures include some that English speakers aren't used to, and have difficulty remembering when and how to use (e.g. the Present Habitual tense, or the word order with a verbal noun). Hiberno-English might at first sound like 'bad' English if you're not familiar with it, but once you realise the grammatical structures underlying something like 'we do be using it every day', it really helps you remember the original Irish form.
Idk if this is a coincidence, but your style of explaining reminds me of old Matt vs. Japan videos. Anyway, you have your own style and i always liked it a lot! I am immersing to chinese currently, being fluent in russian (native) and italian. GL !
Excellent advice as always. I used iTalki tutors when I was trying to go from B2 to C1 in French, and I found them very helpful. Now I’m a complete beginner in Italian having just started 20 days ago and I’m wondering if a tutor would be helpful. I learned French almost entirely on my own, so I know I can learn Italian that way, too, but would I learn faster with a tutor and when is a tutor most useful.
I think as a general rule, the frequency of lessons should go up as the level goes up. I think if you're studying Italian for say, 2 hours a day, then a lesson a week would be great, just to start training the brain to turn what's in your head into language in the mouth. If you're only studying 30 minutes a day, then something more like a lesson a month would be more appropriate. Once you're at B2 then I'd be taking a lesson a week minimum. At C1 Swedish, ideally I'd do that (take a lesson a week) but I'd rather "feel" a difference with every lesson so I try to take them a bit less frequently and work on something particular.
Nice video. To your last point of learning your target language better by listening to foreign speakers of your native language absolutely works. There was a time in my life that I taught conversational ESL in the U.S. after spending a year in Japan teaching English. Most of the students I taught in the U.S. were native speakers of Spanish, and I learned a lot about Spanish working with them. They generally were in the B1/B2 range, so their accents were still pronounced but intelligible, however there were a fair number of word-order mistakes in English that would be correct in Spanish. This helped improve my Spanish understanding the changed word order. This is just one of many examples.
About listening to foreign speakers of your target language speaking English. I learned that by imitating a Russian accent while speaking Russian I was able to impress native Russian speakers when I would say something in Russian. I’m still not fluent in Russian. I’ve also done that with Japanese but I only took a semester of it.
Even if I didn't care about the content, my thumbs-up would be earned just for the music kicking in with the 'deep listening' section and lasting until the end of the video. But that's not the case because I want to say: great content. And really not just in this video, but with your whole channel you bring fresh and lively and interesting contributions to this language-learning niche on RUclips. And by the way, this deep listening thing resonated with me as it resembles something I did for trying to trigger lucid dreaming (sorry for the wild change of landscape, lol): ADA for All-Day Awareness, that is, trying to do the exact same thing as long as possible with all the senses so that, while automatically doing it within a dream, it helps you to recognise that you're dreaming. And I agree: the level of detail that we can get into is tremendous and, during our normal daily life, is only limited by our ability to maintain focus. Cheers!
Your 5th tip is an excellent one. (Good job all round, but that's my favourite.) I don't have any objective, measured reason for agreeing with you, but intuitively it makes sense. (Combine this with a bit of deep listening, and it might even help people who're trying to crack the difficult parts of a tonal language, like isiZulu, for instance. That's a case in which something some people might dismiss as trivial - "just an accent" - becomes important to understand and express meaning. Zulu is not as "tone-critical" as Chinese is, but it "accent" can still make a semantic difference.) Maybe the 6th point is that it gives the diligent student a splash pool to just mess around in at times. To really get into an accent you need to mimic it (the important part of that being internalizing it). So "Make Fun of People More Often" would be the clickbaity way of saying that.
Deep listening will be useful for me, because there are languages where native speakers use the 'sh' sound or the 'sh' sound or the 'sh' sound, and they tell you all three sounds are different. I personally find them hard to tell apart, so I will have to listen harder.
Another point for tip 5 is that if you are fairly new to a language then it's pretty useful to listen to a speaker of that language who is about A2-B1 in English, speak in English. Due to English's fairly complex grammar and unique word order, I've found that English speakers of this level still structure their sentences more or less how it would be structured in their native language. You can gain a lot of insight into your target language's native sentence structure and possibly even word choice through listening out for these people!
This is how I learned German word order as a very young child by watching Dennis the Dachshund in Toytown. He spoke with a German word order. Of course at the time I had no idea it wasn't just a different kind of English, but the word order patterns stuck and seemed very natural when I later learned German as an adult.
Vocab can do that too. I can speak Swedish, but it's been ages since I actively studied the language and my active vocabulary is really bad, full of holes and I've forgotten a lot of idiomatic Swedish. As a result, my Swedish sentences are basically English thoughts expressed in Swedish words. It's understandable, but it's not good. I'd need to do an SVT marathon à la Lamont's short film to fix my Swedish.
Hey brother, I was wondering if you would consider making a video about the importance of grammar study, or the lack there of, when accompanying your immersion study method towards language learning. How to balance these two is difficult and I was wondering your approach. Thanks so much - love the content.
Yeah that's a tough one haha. You might want to check regularly... I have checked before and there was ONE Icelandic teacher and for a while there, there were 6. So it can change quickly.
I put my daughter's favorite shows in my target language. It's helped me spend 30-60 more minutes in my target language, and she doesn't care (she's nearly two btw).
If I had a bunch of credit and wasn't just starting on my French journey... again... I'd see if I could find someone with a similar interest or that knew something that I wanted to know so I could get better at that. I'm a nerd and love DnD and other basic nerd things, I used to call myself a Nerd Bard because I was engaged in most of the fandoms at the time, but wasn't really that big into anything. It's alot of specialized vocab and unusual things that are required to get what is going on. Eventually it could lead me to joining a game or something in my TL.
I would personally looooove to watch the video on deep listening! It's something I've been aware of for a long time but it'd be great to get a different perspective. By the way, do you have the link to Peter Lindgren's video?
This was taken from a few different ones but if you just search "Peter Lindgren why I switched to iphone" then it will be that one, that's the one with the Gothenburg joke.
01:19. Interstitial. That's the adjective. Interstitial language learning. Shoving the target language into every vacant nook and cranny of one's life. Feel free to appropriate and patent this terminology if you wish. Och tack för att du inkluderade radarugglan igen @14:13! Radarugglan är alltid välkommen.
Watching this video again for more inspo to keep trucking along with my French! I just hit a 50 day streak of learning, I've been listening to a French podcast at work every day and I'm noticing that when I go back to apps to learn, I can more easily pick out what's being said now and don't have to hit the 'repeat' button as often to hear every word. That being said, does anyone know how/where to find foreign language audiobooks? I can see free websites that offer very old books or weird romance novels but no popular authors or modern books.
Without a doubt "Storytel". Create an account on their website and select that you are in France or Belgium, and then on the app when you sign in, you'll have whatever languages the country you chose offers. It's not always easy to predict but my bet would be that Belgium would give you 4 languages (English, French, German and Dutch), whereas France might only give you two, although a lot of countries offer Arabic and German as well. The different countries have different pricing BTW, so that might be worth checking too.
Storytel is really the only one I use these days. If I were learning a new language I would use Speakly, but it would depend on the language. I am starting to think that there is something good out there to learn every language, but that it's different for every language.
Hello Lamont! I have an interesting question on your opinion on repeating what is being said as a way of learning. I’ve been a hardcore follower of input based method just listening and reading to learn, but recently I have experimented with repeating a frase after someone and it feels like that particular frase stays in my brain after only like 1-2 occasions of me saying that frase. If this observation is true, is this really a more effective way of learning? Or is it just a consequence of a lot of input that I know what the sentence already means, and then when I repeat it, the brain absorbs it as a sponge? That it is a result of when we finally start outputting, the process is super fast? That outputting gives much more faster results than input? Or is this simply a better way of imputing? That the brain remembers information better this way when we repeat information out loudly after hearing/reading it? Something primitive in the brain that process information better when we use it ourselves throughout voice? I still haven’t tried this with a sentence of a new word. Will my brain be better at remembering it after repeating the sentence featuring the word being said? I can make an update on this comment about my observation on it later
I take Russian and Spanish lessons on italki. I’ve also watched many profile videos of tutors of those two languages. When Russian tutors speak English, typical accent signals appear, like stronger R’s and G’s. When Spanish tutors speak English, quite a number of them say words that start with S as ES. For example, they pronounce “Spanish” as “ES-panish”. This is because Spanish words that start with S are pronounced that way! For example “ski” is “esquí” (pronounced as “es-ki”) in spanish.
Maybe just to add: it's only when the initial "s" is followed by a consonant that Spanish speakers tend to add an "e" before it. Words that start with s+vowel are common in Spanish (saber, salpicar, serpiente, San Sebastián, supermercado, etc.). What's rare is words that start with s+consonant. So, for instance, when they say a name like Sylvester Stallone, they'll usually add an "e" on "Stallone" but not on "Sylvester".
Not exactly sure at the moment. Also on my current schedule it could be quite some time before genuinely reaching C2 Swedish. Honestly I think it's more a label than anything else. I know people with C2 certificates in English or other languages who can barely get through a sentence, while I know some B2 students who are quite fluent.
Lamont! Have you seen the Weeve books that increase the proportion of target language words compared to English over time as a method of learning words in context? They only have the most popular languages and I’ve just bought the beginners set in French, what do you think? I have a goal of reading the Witcher series in French one day so I’m hoping this will help along with all of my other study.
I remember a) thinking that this should be a thing, like years ago, maybe 6 years or so and b) seeing a company with an ad for that but only in German. I don't know if that was the beginning of Weeve or if Weeve is a different company but I think it's a fantastic idea and really just needs the technology to integrate it. One small problem they're always going to come up against is sentences that are structured entirely differently, which occurs much more often in more distant languages, but I still think it can be handled.
@@daysandwords I think Weeve used to be Diglot and they’ve just rebranded. They currently have Italian, German, Irish, Spanish and French, and it looks like Dutch is going to be added soon. I’m coming up on A1 in French (about to take the Busuu test!), your videos inspired me to start learning French again, and I’ve just surpassed a 40 day streak of at least an hour (normally 2) per day of study! It’s so encouraging when I can actually read stuff and even infer meaning when I don’t know a word, because I know some of the others! Also hello from Melbourne! 🥳
Language Mixing is another such publisher. They only have Italian atm. Anyway, I have the Sherlock Holmes Weeve book for Spanish, my thoughts so far (I'm in chapter 4) are: - The English is _just_ old enough to be a cognitive load (plus there's a few pages in straight-up 18th-century English) even by itself - I keep having moments (I'll come back with some examples) of "what! in Spanish they say that in _exactly_ the same way as English? are they just doing lazy translation?" that are quite diverting... - The Diglot podcast (here on RUclips) makes me think the main guy really speaks these languages, and also they have weaves like "an hombre" which they presumably wouldn't have if it were shit-tier translation (it would be "a hombre" then, because "a man") - There is offset punctuation and the like which is the type of thing you would usually catch when you post something on the internet and then re-read everything you just wrote
I’ve been meaning to on Ítalki for at least a year, I know every language learner RUclipsr raves about it, I know it will be beneficial YET… I haven’t started. I’m terrified. I don’t know why but I just can’t take that first step. My target language (Spanish) just has so many tutors…. How to choose? Will they be nice? Will I make a fool of myself? I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to just take this leap!!! Any tips for people like me? (Or am I the only weirdo who feels like this?). Thanks! Ps. I hope you got your Democracy sausage today and it was yum! 🤣🤣🤣
Just choose a teacher whose video you like. Honestly I've had well over 100 teachers on italki, in 4 different languages (Icelandic and Norwegian are the other two... it's a long story) and I have literally only had like 3 teachers who "weren't nice" and even that is a bit of a stretch to say. One teacher wasn't "nice" because she kept correcting pronunciation that was standard Swedish when it was she who had a non-standard accent. It would be like me telling a student that "can't" said in the American accent is wrong, even though it's Australians who says "kah-nt". I mean THAT'S the level I'm stretching to in order to find a teacher whom I didn't like. I assume you've settled on a given dialect and accent of Spanish (e.g. Argentinian?)... if so then that narrows it down (and you can sort by country of origin too).
Hi Anna. Here are some tips for you to choose the right tutor. 1. In order to know more about tutors, we recommend you watch their intro videos to see if their accents, teaching styles suit your need. 2. Check their profile page and read comments from previous students. 3. Leverage the filters on "find a teacher" page: you have - lesson price - lesson type - lesson time - teacher is from - Non or native speaker. 4. italki provides 3 discounted trial lessons for new sign-ups. The price is usually 50% off compared to normal price. We sincerely encourage you to make that 1st step and level up your language learning with us :)
So I'm learning Norwegian. Not quite the same as you but I figure it's similar enough to ask. How long of learning did it take before listening or reading started making sense? When I see Norwegian it still looks foreign!
Definitely similar enough to ask. Pretty much all the anglosemblant languages (e.g. Spanish, French, German, Dutch etc.) have the same answer to that question... which is, unfortunately, not really an answer. For me it took about a year before I felt like it made some sense when I heard say, a podcast or something. But here's the thing: There's a much BIGGER difference between "some sense" and "perfect sense" than there is between "zero sense" and "some sense". That may sound the wrong way around, but I mean in terms of time. It's only in the last year that I would say I'm closer to "perfect sense" than "some sense". I don't remember the change happening, because it didn't just happen one day. I know that in April of 2020 (technically 3 years of learning by that point), it was pretty hard work to watch like an hour of Swedish RUclips, and these days it would be the same as doing it in English. But then the other thing I haven't touched on is number of hours. I have never actually done very intensive Swedish input, except for April of 2020 for one week. And I only started a comprehensible input approach at about that time, so 2 years ago. Since then I've only averaged around an hour a day so that's about 750 hours. Obviously I had a head start before that (because I had technically been learning Swedish for 3 years), but it wasn't very effective, so let's call it a 400 hour head start. So to roung up, I think about 1200 hours of comprehensible input is going to result in quite a good level of Norwegian.
@@daysandwords Tusen takk! I can get some sense. Especially with Disney movies that I've seen before. And I can find words I know. But today I recorded a short little video in Norwegian per your suggestion and I found myself thinking "What did I say when I typed this script?" So it's a work in progress!
Hey Lamont, this question is a little off topic. I'm gonna go life to Sweden since I got a great offer there. The thing is that I've been learning Norwegian for a few years. Do you think I should stick to Norwegian? Do you thing I should keep them both? Do you think I should change to Swedish? Thanks in advance
It depends how good your Norwegian is. If you're Norwegian is already C1 and you've started imitating the accent and everything, then I would go all in on a specific dialect of Norwegian, which gives you an "advantage" in Sweden because they'll think you're Norwegian, rather than thinking you're a native English speaker (or whatever you are). I know this because Norwegians and Danes always just assume I'm Swedish, whereas Swedes know that I'm not. In this case you can slowly "assimilate" to Swedish while you're there, like Skavlan (the talk show host who is Norwegian, but he has lived in Sweden for ages). If you're only at B2 or under in Norwegian, I would probably switch to Swedish immediately, and that way you have to learn a little bit of grammar and how to spell (assuming you'll need to write), and then just pick up your journey from there. You'll be able to start picking up the accent pretty quickly I think (which city by the way?) Either way you have a huge advantage over someone who hasn't learnt any Swedish, because the vocab is mostly the same, the grammar is a tiny bit different and the accent is fairly different BUT... if you've already started sounding Norwegian, then you'll arguably sound "more Swedish" than normal, because the big difference between English and Scandinavian languages is the intonation, and Norwegian is probably the MOST different, being essentially backwards from us. So I think you'll end up speaking good Swedish, it's just a question of whether you want to do it through more Norwegian or through immediate Swedish. My pick would be for the second option because it's going to happen eventually anyway. Not even Norwegians can live in Sweden too long without starting to sound Swedish.
@@daysandwords Wow, thanks so much for the long and informative reply. I'm going to Stockholm so it shouldn't be too difficult. I'm a B2 (not too near C1 tho) so I was having my questions. But I really love norway so my heart is kinda split in two haha. Thanks so much, now I have it a bit more clear but I'll give it a few more thoughts. I really would like not to lose my level in Norwegian. But I'm afraid that I start mixing them. Is it similar to the intelegibility between Catalan and Spanish? Because that way I think I could keep my Norwegian level but also learn Swedish
@@YourPhysicsSimulator I really don't know much about Catalan and Spanish... basically all of Scandinavia is a sort of spectrum, with the borders between the three countries only representing a more sudden change right at that point. So someone from Norway can understand someone from Göteborg much more easily than they can understand someone from, say, Luleå (in the far north) or from the Swedish speaking parts of Finland. I don't think you'll LOSE Norwegian permanently, it will just be very hard to always pronounce words correctly etc., but there are people who just speak a sort of blend of both, and they're not really thought of as "lesser" because of it. To Norwegians they sound Swedish and to Swedes they sound a bit Norwegian. Like some Australians think I sound a bit British, but to British people I sound super Australian. Getting better at Swedish won't entail getting worse at Norwegian, it will just be making your Norwegian less accessible for the next little while, kind of like body building doesn't mean you will permanently run more slowly, but it will certainly slow you down while you are doing it. Wait I will send you an interview I did.
@@YourPhysicsSimulator This might help a little bit - this guy is Swedish and learnt to speak Norwegian when he moved there, rather than just carrying on with Swedish: ruclips.net/video/psF6LSlkhgk/видео.html
@@daysandwords You are the best. Thanks for all the replies! I'll watch the interview just now! ❤️ With that being said, I'll learn Swedish but I'll keep watching the YT content I like to watch in Norwegian. Also if you can recommend me great tv shows and YT channels in swedish I would like that. You are the MVP🤩
How the heck did you identify that he was from the west coast by listening to his accent? I'm very impressed, I would probably never be able to do something like that.
Full disclosure, it was a little more complicated than that. I first saw him in a video with Peter McKinnon, and I didn't know his last name at that point, but I thought "I think he's Swedish or Norwegian..." When I found out his last name, I thought "OK probably Swedish" and then I listened to him a bit more and thought "Well if I'm right about that, I would even say west coast but now I'm really guessing..." - But it seemed right, given his intonation and the fact that originally I thought he might be Norwegian. But I wouldn't have bet even $20 on it. I was just theorising. By the time I "knew for sure", he said that thing about "Gothenburg joke for you!" and then obviously it was too late for guesses. I'm actually more "impressed" by the fact that I could pick up that he was Nordic at all, given his appearance. Like, PewdiePie would be much easier to pick from appearance, but harder if it were just accent. It shows that I was switched on because the first video I saw him in was actually in Italy, and combined with the skin tone, the natural assumption was Italian... but after like 3 sentences I was like "No Italian sounds like that..."
What is the best learning program on the net to learn English .My native language are Swedish.Yes I shall live in Africa they speak two languages swahilli and English .är det möjligt att bli flytande på två språk.
Problem with number5 is not many people speaking in my native (Hungarian) as a foreign language not to mention among those natives of the languages I want to learn :P
Haha, thanks. I've been working on a lot of stuff that won't show a lot of result for a while. I'd say "exciting stuff" but I always feel like the level of excitement from the person themselves is divided by about 20 even for fans.
Turn your life into Swedish. Swedish audiobooks on the train home. Swedish TV shows and movies even when you're tired. When you're sick of hearing Swedish and listening to Swedish: put something Swedish on in the background and just don't pay attention.
Thanks! I just use the Sound Peats (Amazon) ones, I got them "on special" (but they are that price like half the time) and that made them $35 AU instead of $55 and I've honestly used them 5 days a week for 2 years now, no problems.
Damn, it obviously didn't work but it was actually a shoe with headphones as the laces. It didn't come out as well as I hoped, but yeah that's what it is. It's actually an N, just side on.
Oh god, I can hear the west coast dialect of the Swedish RUclipsr 😅 and also when he says Sweden, the first e is a special kind of pronunciation of Swedish i that only exists in some dialects. Cringe 😅
Oh wow, ok that bit got past me, I must admit. Your own accent always sounds cringeworthy but no one else cares. When I hear Australians speak anything (often including English) I'm like "GAH STOP!" Vilken stad kommer du ifrån förresten?
@@daysandwords It was very quick, I didn't hear it until the last time it was played! That's true, although I always get nervous when I have to speak in another language... Jag är från Uddevalla, en liten stad nära Göteborg 😊
Well, I don't watch that many of Steve's videos. So forgive me if you feel I've repeated something that he has already said but I'll guaran-damn-tee you one thing: My music and B roll was better.
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Ya incluyeron quizzes y podcast así que está increíble 🙌🌈😊
If you haven’t done it already, I’d love to see more advice on getting the most out of italki conversations
Yes! That would be a great topic
Listening to native speakers of your target language speak English is also a great way to learn the more difficult things like proper use of prepositions.
If we missuse prepositions in our target language, we are normally still understood. But what I have noticed often is that even Advanced speakers of English will still default to their own language's use of prepositions, which gives you an insight into how their language works grammatically.
I hope that makes sense 😅
Makes perfect sense. One example that occurs to me: the way I remember that in Spanish you "escuchar musica" (without a preposition) is that Spanish speakers will say in English "I like to listen music."
I love that last point. I started doing this with Spanish (or at least noticing it) a couple months ago and paying attention to how Spanish speakers make grammatical errors in English, because I could then reverse engineer how to say that phrase in Spanish. It tells you a lot about sentence construction. Even hearing Spanish speakers speak French (though my Spanish is much better than my French) reveals a lot about the language. And yeah, I would totally nerd out on that last video you mentioned.
I noticed that too, it is also interesting to hear or read material made for learners of our native language, it helps a lot to learn the idiomatic form of the language.
Lamont, I don’t typically comment on anything and am mostly a lurker, but MY GOSH your videos are amazing. You provide very practical advice that is relatively easy yo apply. On top of that, you don’t fall victim to the language learning elitism that can be prevalent in the language learning community. Thank you so much for being you and for providing such quality advice 😊 I have watched practically every language learning video under the sun, and your videos really are quality, so thanks!
Thanks so much for saying so. I really do appreciate it!
I can't believe you do that too!! I LOVE listening to Russians speak English because I love honing my Russian phonetics through it. Funny story: I grew up in the US, but my brothers grew up in Russia; we connected a few years ago. At first, I did not know any Russian and they barely knew any English. I would speak English slowly and simply, but it didn't work and we couldn't communicate. Then I started speaking English with a very, very heavy Russian accent (a real one with real phonetics, not the Hollywood one) and I made my English grammar match closer to the Russian grammar they are used to. It was amazing! Suddenly, they understood nearly everything I said. Even now, having reached a very high level in Russian, I still find myself speaking English with a Russian accent after coming out of a Russian audiobook. The phonetics are just so deep inside me, even if I don't always have the word I want or the grammar I need. Speaking English with a Russian accent is a wonderful way to improve your phonetics because it takes off the pressure of "foreign words." Additionally, listening to foreigners speak your native language helps you hear what is unique and what is similar. It is just an incredibly powerful way to open your eyes to a foreign language.
I've recently taken a big break from my Spanish learning as life and other commitments were becoming overwhelming. Today I had my first lesson on iTalki in about 2 months and I had booked it about 2 weeks ago. It was a great incentive to coming back to my learning and after around two months of bare minimum learning it's nice to know I haven't really lost much. It's taken a week or so to get back to where I was but it's now like I never left! Can't recommend iTalki enough.
Qué alegría que hayas retomado tu aprendizaje 😊✨😊🌈
Thank you❤
@@Italkilanguage hi
The biggest realization I had in language learning is that B1 is functionally fluent. I have spent so much time in French recently and it is interesting seeing the results (When I went to grab dinner, it was like my brain was expecting French and speaking English felt kind of off), but I have to do more to get even to A2. It is always a pleasure to learn from you, thank you.
You mean B2?
Thanks Lamont I'm gonna try these for my Portuguese.
I like no 2 because I think learning little bits here and there can help piece the bigger picture or help you work out meanings of other related words etc. and yeah it makes learning fun!
My commute to work involves 20 minutes of walking and about 25 minutes on the bus. So while walking, I listen to Spanish stuff, and on the bus, I'm reading or doing a language app. Then repeat when I get back home. Makes the whole day feel productive!
Edit: At work I have a few people I practice Spanish with. It can get confusing because of the different pronunciations, but it forces me to study more!
Love this. I’ve been a firm believer for a long time myself that examining the mistakes natives make tells you a lot about the language. For example, just from listening to a Russian woman speak German, I learned that articles seemingly are not needed in Russian. I think it’s honestly quite a cool shortcut to quickly find out what you are likely to struggle with in learning that language.
Very interesting video. I have often thought that listening to native speakers of French speak English has helped my French learning. Listening to native French speakers trying to create spontaneous sentences in English has helped me to remember and better understand how they use their own language. Without going to indepth into an example the French language uses the verb "faire" more than we use the verbs "to do" or "to make" in how they speak some times like "Je fais du vélo" for "I'm riding a bike," so when I hear a French native speaker say, "I'm doing some bike" it strangely helps solidify "Je fais du vélo" when "I want to say I'm riding a bike" en français. Great video. I am always very impressed by how well thought out your content is.
Thank you!
I asked my friend from Mexico, Luis if he heard our friend Rick speaking spanish with an accent. Rick was born and raised in Texas and has parents from Mexico. Spanish was spoken in the home and Rick was raised speaking it. Luis said Rick had a very pronounced accent.
Makes sense
I am a first-language speaker English who is of Chinese heritage. My mother speaks understandable but not grammatically very good English. It wasn't until I tried to learn Cantonese that I realised how she speaks English with a lot of Cantonese grammar structure. It was kinda cool when I noticed. Though it may not work for some target languages, I found it helpful to learn to structure common phrase structures of my target language in English at first in order to enforce the structure into my mind. For example, "Today you WANT NOT WANT eat rice?". Another example of applying this theory to French, "OF IT TO DO, this is very difficult for me".
in Spanish we call those little gaps in the day "tiempos muertos", like "dead time". It kind of implies that you can not do anything with it... But when you actually start using those gaps, you realise how big and "alive" they can be 😮
And it has the nice side effect of you wanting to do things you did not use to like (like cleaning, doing the dishes, driving your car...). When driving with my partner, we always listen to audiobooks and that has made me want to go on longer trips 😊
EXACTLY.
I never used to "remember" to clean up or do anything like that so I was a terrible husband, not by choice but because I'm always just off in my own world (my videos don't display even a quarter of how raving my thoughts are) but these days I'm often like "Eurgh... washing up... on the other hand... audiobook!"
That's interesting. I'd only heard it in the context of sports (as in a "time out"). I just figured it was "dead time" in the sense that you stop the clock so it's not moving anymore, i.e. it's dead ^^ Hashtag crappyetymologist ^^ Never knew it had that more general usage in everyday life though.
You are definitely right about listening to the sounds and patterns that people who speak your target language natively make while speaking your native language...you can pick up a lot of clues about how they "think" their language too from their grammatical mistakes. Also though, if you can listen to other people who speak the same language as you natively as they attempt to speak your target language, you can get clues on where the most common mispronunciations and grammar pitfalls are. We all learn differently, and what seems obvious to one learner, my go unrecognized by another. I have listened to videos of other Americans attempting to speak Danish on RUclips, and some of their mistakes stick out like a sore thumb to my ear, and I'm sure some of mine probably do to them as well.
when i learned instruments, i practiced so much listening that you start to break apart everything you hear. i recomend people to learn some instrument, or even learn to sing in your larget language why not. it is a great skill to have and it complements so well with language learning.
TOTALLY WORKS in Italian- No 5. Italians when speaking English, overemphasize the vowels especially at the end of words. They even seem to add a vowel sound! so yes studying Italian I realize HOW IMPORTANT vowels are in Italian and saying them clearly. So very good point.
Yes, so glad theres a new vid!
I thought I would be the only nerd wanting you to make a 30 min video about point 5 but it seems plenty do, which is interesting in itself. I like listening to Jurgen Klopp speaking English with his choice of phrases and pauses, and then try to use his voice if and when I speak German.
Jag har tittat på din kanal ett tag och jag måste säga att du talar svenska mycket bra. Jag är mycket imponerad. Jag hoppas att du fortsätter med ditt Svenska lärande och fortsätter att lära dig nyanserna i vårt underskattade språk.
Lycka Till!
Listen to radio listen to radio listen to radio. All the time.
Repeating adds, news, switch between music and spoken, fibre you breaks, no pressure, just simply in the background.
!!! I am so happy about your last point! I’ve instinctively done that the whole time, and it really helps with the Nordic Germanic languages (easy to do as a native English speaker) but I found myself being reminded of TL natives speaking “unproper” English as a clue into their syntax and grammar. It would make me go “oh it makes sense that we say it this way in Norwegian” etc. you articulated it wonderfully for us to explain it to others.
Aside from a reverse engineering of accents and grammar, the other tips are on point. I find myself acting like a language addict sneaking in study or immersion in all of the in between moments throughout the day 😂
The thing is with listening when I have breaks is that I absorb nothing. I think once I'm better at the language that'll definitely improve, but whenever I try to listen whilst doing something, I don't really process or understand much except for words here and there because I'm not actively listening to it and my mind has the ability to wonder, so idk how useful it is for me to do that just yet.
I think it's not a great idea to say "I absorb nothing". You never really know what you absorb until you absorb it. Language learning by immersion isn't "pour 5 litres of water in per month and after 2 years you'll have 120 litres". It's "leave this bucket here for as much of the time as you possibly can... Let's see what you've got in 5 years."
Your TL going in your ears is better than it not, even if you can't feel it.
@@daysandwords That's true! It's just I've seen some people online say it's useless to listen if you aren't comprehending it (because you're focusing on something else, not because of the difficulty level), but I've also seen others say that it's probably at least a little bit helpful, so I never know what to do lol. Recently I only really actively listen to things but maybe I'll start passively doing it again! I did used to listen passively when I came home from school and started to hang up my clothes, put on my pyjamas, etc but I stopped.
I think it’s good to do a mix. I’m finishing up an audiobook that is wayyy above my level and I was beginning to think it had been a waste of my time (I spent a lot of it “tuned out” because it was difficult), but I wanted to power through, and yesterday while cleaning I realized I had just listened to a whole passage and been listening to the meaning without even realizing it was in another language.
Admiro mucho este y otros canales, a veces sé que no estoy estudiando como quisiera pero escucharlos a ustedes siempre es un recordatorio de que hay que retomar el camino, gracias
I'm starting to listen to podcasts in my target language right away. I'm on my path from B1 to B2 and this should be a great help, thanks Lamont!
Great video, as always! I like that you have such good advice ranging from absolute beginner to more advanced (with this video being on the more advanced end). Especially like the point about learning oddly specific grammar points - I think I'm at the point in Spanish where I need to start doing that, since I'm fluent enough that it's easy just to coast on my current level.
Thanks a lot, Lamont - I enjoyed all your tips, they are great!
I have a little to add - adding to the tidbits of time to use for listening to your target language, so that they sum up to great improvement in listening skill, I have similarly also used such morsels of time to improve my pronunciation and fluence in talking.
While doing chores around the house, and when walking or cycling, for exercise or errands, I used to talk in my target language with imaginary people about different topics. Arguing, explaining, asking, doubting, referring, guiding...
Those of you who do a lot of driving might of course speak aloud in you car. In those days when I did this, most people never talked with invisible persons, if they didn't have a mental "something", but nowadays others don't see, if you've got a device on, so no shame anymore.
Next advice was something I struggled hardest with, like when at the B-levels, I was too vain to accept the corrections and criticism from native speakers and those who were at the C-levels ahead of me. I didn't receive such helpful comments with open arms. I still cringe when I remember how foolishly I protested, when my German boyfriend said I sounded like a Circus-presenter when I spoke German - he claimed that I said: Danke schen instead of Danke schön!
Well, in time, when I had accepted that he was the native speaker after all, I could admit that the background must have been the two Ö-sounds we have in Swedish, which pattern I unconsciously had adapted willy-nilly to German, which at least in Hessisch has only one Ö-sound, only the same as in Swedish "smör, lördag, göra", (like in English "bird, learn, girl") and not the narrow Ö-sound we have in "bröd, fönster, bön" - which latter Ö-sound he heard as the same as "e" in English "let, bed, mess". I don't think standard English has this sound either. All of my German pronunciation got better, though!
Also singing in your target language helps a lot, knowing the lyrics by heart.
My tips are surely closely related to Lamonts 5! :-)
Great video! I see from other comments that other learners have discovered the utility of listening to non-natives speak your own language. An example of this in Spanish is the verb llevar, whose 1st definition is "to carry," but has a myriad of uses in Spanish. Anytime I hear a native Spanish speaker say "carry" and it doesn't really make sense, I have just learned another use of llevar. Also, A+++ with the Rick Beato shoutout. I'm not a musician at all and love that channel.
At last someone talks about something I noticed myself, and that is not the common idea: I like to know rare words even at the beginning, and grammar terms.
Thanks I'll definitely use these when learning german
I've stepped back from studying Swedish purposefully for now, because my work is full time in the summer, and I am exhausted in my free time. Still, I find that a day without any exposure to Swedish feels wrong, it's such a part of my life after 18 months. Nu kör vi!
Great video thanks! Especially the part about listening to how others speak your own language is really interesting!
You always give great advice. I already do a few of these but now I’m definitely going to implement the ‘oddly specific ‘ one!
I've been using italki for 2 years now and it's so great. I already have a lesson scheduled for a week and a hlaf from now with my usual teacher but this video inspired me to try out a new teacher (with more availability) this weekend so I can take lessons more frequently
Hey Brian. Feel free to explore other italki teachers. We provide different lesson types ranging from conversation practice to text preparation 😊
I love these tips, I also thought about how I could learn my target language's grammar better by hearing those native speakers (with little to 0% experience) speak my language.
Figured that if I tend to directly translate some languages with english grammar (even though it's incorrect), I could learn different grammar from native speakers
I am intrigued by your points about listening. Next time I go to my local Chinese restaurant I will definitely try to listen conciously to the way the owners speak Finnish. I did recognise myself from how switching a language suddenly can momentarily change how the other language comes out of one's mouth. Using a Finnish word in the middle of a sentence in English can totally throw me off balance and the next English word will end up sounding weird. This works both ways.
And apparently I'm not too far off with how I sometimes focus on trying to really hear the lyrics in Chinese songs, it's a funny feeling zooming into the sounds. Never knew it was an actual thing I could find out more about! It just happens to be songs in my case, because my 'carry this everywhere with you' item is an old school mp3 player and headphones. Now all I have to do is extend this approach into more content than just songs.
Thank you for making videos that so very often open my eyes to the things that are already unconciously happening and enabling me to utilise them in my language learning journey.
Lamont! Eureka!
I’ve experimented a bit with memorizing information throughout “mind images” and memory palaces for a couple of days.
In the practice I put out words in my house in forms of bizarre objects and scenes like images in my head.
They really seem to stick! It’s amazing!
I for example have Ann Frank hidden in the attic for the Spanish word “Desván” and Woody Allen running on the street with his big glasses completely full of fog and has a Siamese twin on his left side lashing him as he struggles to run for the word “empañado”.
The images stick in my head, and when I think about the images the word automatically comes to my mind!
Because apparently humans remember most effectively in images.
I have made my house and neighborhood (that I know very well in my head) and have all these words featured in different absurd scenes around my house.
And it doesn’t matter if I forget the word, because the next time I see or hear the word my mind will instantly connect that word with that absurd and bizzare scene in my house or neighborhood, rather than just a black and white text!
It’s much more memorable!
I’ve tried a bit using this method when I do flash cards in Anki, I can feel that they really stick!
Especially when learning infrequent words that doesn’t appear as often.
What are you’re thoughts on this? Maybe you can make a video on the topic!
The final point is definitely true of Irish, and not just for pronunciation The way English is spoken by many people in Ireland (Hiberno English) uses English words, but sometimes fits them into a format that preserves the original structure of the Irish. Those structures include some that English speakers aren't used to, and have difficulty remembering when and how to use (e.g. the Present Habitual tense, or the word order with a verbal noun).
Hiberno-English might at first sound like 'bad' English if you're not familiar with it, but once you realise the grammatical structures underlying something like 'we do be using it every day', it really helps you remember the original Irish form.
Useful, as always! Thank you, Lamont!
Idk if this is a coincidence, but your style of explaining reminds me of old Matt vs. Japan videos.
Anyway, you have your own style and i always liked it a lot!
I am immersing to chinese currently, being fluent in russian (native) and italian.
GL !
Excellent advice as always. I used iTalki tutors when I was trying to go from B2 to C1 in French, and I found them very helpful. Now I’m a complete beginner in Italian having just started 20 days ago and I’m wondering if a tutor would be helpful. I learned French almost entirely on my own, so I know I can learn Italian that way, too, but would I learn faster with a tutor and when is a tutor most useful.
I think as a general rule, the frequency of lessons should go up as the level goes up. I think if you're studying Italian for say, 2 hours a day, then a lesson a week would be great, just to start training the brain to turn what's in your head into language in the mouth. If you're only studying 30 minutes a day, then something more like a lesson a month would be more appropriate.
Once you're at B2 then I'd be taking a lesson a week minimum. At C1 Swedish, ideally I'd do that (take a lesson a week) but I'd rather "feel" a difference with every lesson so I try to take them a bit less frequently and work on something particular.
Nice video. To your last point of learning your target language better by listening to foreign speakers of your native language absolutely works.
There was a time in my life that I taught conversational ESL in the U.S. after spending a year in Japan teaching English. Most of the students I taught in the U.S. were native speakers of Spanish, and I learned a lot about Spanish working with them.
They generally were in the B1/B2 range, so their accents were still pronounced but intelligible, however there were a fair number of word-order mistakes in English that would be correct in Spanish. This helped improve my Spanish understanding the changed word order. This is just one of many examples.
About listening to foreign speakers of your target language speaking English. I learned that by imitating a Russian accent while speaking Russian I was able to impress native Russian speakers when I would say something in Russian. I’m still not fluent in Russian. I’ve also done that with Japanese but I only took a semester of it.
Even if I didn't care about the content, my thumbs-up would be earned just for the music kicking in with the 'deep listening' section and lasting until the end of the video.
But that's not the case because I want to say: great content. And really not just in this video, but with your whole channel you bring fresh and lively and interesting contributions to this language-learning niche on RUclips.
And by the way, this deep listening thing resonated with me as it resembles something I did for trying to trigger lucid dreaming (sorry for the wild change of landscape, lol): ADA for All-Day Awareness, that is, trying to do the exact same thing as long as possible with all the senses so that, while automatically doing it within a dream, it helps you to recognise that you're dreaming. And I agree: the level of detail that we can get into is tremendous and, during our normal daily life, is only limited by our ability to maintain focus.
Cheers!
Happy to take the credits off of you :} but yeah could be a contest you match credits invested etc
Your 5th tip is an excellent one. (Good job all round, but that's my favourite.) I don't have any objective, measured reason for agreeing with you, but intuitively it makes sense. (Combine this with a bit of deep listening, and it might even help people who're trying to crack the difficult parts of a tonal language, like isiZulu, for instance. That's a case in which something some people might dismiss as trivial - "just an accent" - becomes important to understand and express meaning. Zulu is not as "tone-critical" as Chinese is, but it "accent" can still make a semantic difference.)
Maybe the 6th point is that it gives the diligent student a splash pool to just mess around in at times. To really get into an accent you need to mimic it (the important part of that being internalizing it). So "Make Fun of People More Often" would be the clickbaity way of saying that.
Deep listening will be useful for me, because there are languages where native speakers use the 'sh' sound or the 'sh' sound or the 'sh' sound, and they tell you all three sounds are different.
I personally find them hard to tell apart, so I will have to listen harder.
You are learning Polish.
Yesssss. Do the deep listening video.
Another point for tip 5 is that if you are fairly new to a language then it's pretty useful to listen to a speaker of that language who is about A2-B1 in English, speak in English. Due to English's fairly complex grammar and unique word order, I've found that English speakers of this level still structure their sentences more or less how it would be structured in their native language. You can gain a lot of insight into your target language's native sentence structure and possibly even word choice through listening out for these people!
This is how I learned German word order as a very young child by watching Dennis the Dachshund in Toytown. He spoke with a German word order. Of course at the time I had no idea it wasn't just a different kind of English, but the word order patterns stuck and seemed very natural when I later learned German as an adult.
@@stevencarr4002 I'm doing the same thing now for Spanish by listening to my girlfriend's mum speak English! That's where I noticed it
Vocab can do that too. I can speak Swedish, but it's been ages since I actively studied the language and my active vocabulary is really bad, full of holes and I've forgotten a lot of idiomatic Swedish. As a result, my Swedish sentences are basically English thoughts expressed in Swedish words. It's understandable, but it's not good. I'd need to do an SVT marathon à la Lamont's short film to fix my Swedish.
Hey brother, I was wondering if you would consider making a video about the importance of grammar study, or the lack there of, when accompanying your immersion study method towards language learning.
How to balance these two is difficult and I was wondering your approach. Thanks so much - love the content.
Great video really helped me out!
The Don is back! It's a pity there isn't any native Gaeilge speakers on iTalki (last time I checked). I would do a lesson daily if i had the chance.
Yeah that's a tough one haha. You might want to check regularly... I have checked before and there was ONE Icelandic teacher and for a while there, there were 6. So it can change quickly.
I put my daughter's favorite shows in my target language. It's helped me spend 30-60 more minutes in my target language, and she doesn't care (she's nearly two btw).
i would like to hear more about this topic (natives speking your language)
Thank you so much!!
Can you do a list of top apps paid and free, I know you did a free list but it was 2 years ago, and I’d love to see your thoughts on paid ones aswell
If I had a bunch of credit and wasn't just starting on my French journey... again... I'd see if I could find someone with a similar interest or that knew something that I wanted to know so I could get better at that. I'm a nerd and love DnD and other basic nerd things, I used to call myself a Nerd Bard because I was engaged in most of the fandoms at the time, but wasn't really that big into anything. It's alot of specialized vocab and unusual things that are required to get what is going on. Eventually it could lead me to joining a game or something in my TL.
I would personally looooove to watch the video on deep listening! It's something I've been aware of for a long time but it'd be great to get a different perspective.
By the way, do you have the link to Peter Lindgren's video?
This was taken from a few different ones but if you just search "Peter Lindgren why I switched to iphone" then it will be that one, that's the one with the Gothenburg joke.
@@daysandwords yay thank you
01:19. Interstitial. That's the adjective. Interstitial language learning. Shoving the target language into every vacant nook and cranny of one's life. Feel free to appropriate and patent this terminology if you wish. Och tack för att du inkluderade radarugglan igen @14:13! Radarugglan är alltid välkommen.
Omg I wanna see the video about non-natives speaking English!
Watching this video again for more inspo to keep trucking along with my French! I just hit a 50 day streak of learning, I've been listening to a French podcast at work every day and I'm noticing that when I go back to apps to learn, I can more easily pick out what's being said now and don't have to hit the 'repeat' button as often to hear every word.
That being said, does anyone know how/where to find foreign language audiobooks? I can see free websites that offer very old books or weird romance novels but no popular authors or modern books.
Without a doubt "Storytel".
Create an account on their website and select that you are in France or Belgium, and then on the app when you sign in, you'll have whatever languages the country you chose offers. It's not always easy to predict but my bet would be that Belgium would give you 4 languages (English, French, German and Dutch), whereas France might only give you two, although a lot of countries offer Arabic and German as well. The different countries have different pricing BTW, so that might be worth checking too.
@@daysandwords Ah! Amazing! Thanks so much :)
Great video Lamont! I'm sure you've mentioned this somewhere but i can't find it- what audiobook apps/websites do you use the most?
Storytel is really the only one I use these days. If I were learning a new language I would use Speakly, but it would depend on the language. I am starting to think that there is something good out there to learn every language, but that it's different for every language.
@@daysandwords Awesome, thanks so much!
What app are you using for those audiobooks? 🙂
Storytel.
Sign up from a country that your language is spoken in (use a VPN).
Hello Lamont!
I have an interesting question on your opinion on repeating what is being said as a way of learning.
I’ve been a hardcore follower of input based method just listening and reading to learn, but recently I have experimented with repeating a frase after someone and it feels like that particular frase stays in my brain after only like 1-2 occasions of me saying that frase.
If this observation is true, is this really a more effective way of learning? Or is it just a consequence of a lot of input that I know what the sentence already means, and then when I repeat it, the brain absorbs it as a sponge?
That it is a result of when we finally start outputting, the process is super fast?
That outputting gives much more faster results than input?
Or is this simply a better way of imputing? That the brain remembers information better this way when we repeat information out loudly after hearing/reading it?
Something primitive in the brain that process information better when we use it ourselves throughout voice?
I still haven’t tried this with a sentence of a new word.
Will my brain be better at remembering it after repeating the sentence featuring the word being said?
I can make an update on this comment about my observation on it later
Where you've been mate, it's been a while (in youtube terms) Hope all is well, miss your uploads
I take Russian and Spanish lessons on italki. I’ve also watched many profile videos of tutors of those two languages. When Russian tutors speak English, typical accent signals appear, like stronger R’s and G’s. When Spanish tutors speak English, quite a number of them say words that start with S as ES. For example, they pronounce “Spanish” as “ES-panish”. This is because Spanish words that start with S are pronounced that way! For example “ski” is “esquí” (pronounced as “es-ki”) in spanish.
Yea I gave up on Russian, seems like a dead end language.
Maybe just to add: it's only when the initial "s" is followed by a consonant that Spanish speakers tend to add an "e" before it. Words that start with s+vowel are common in Spanish (saber, salpicar, serpiente, San Sebastián, supermercado, etc.). What's rare is words that start with s+consonant. So, for instance, when they say a name like Sylvester Stallone, they'll usually add an "e" on "Stallone" but not on "Sylvester".
I’d watch that!
can you also give tricks to become an awesome language teacher?
Haha, well that would be a pretty egocentric title but hey... it's RUclips... yeah actually that's a good video idea! Thanks!
Not sure if covered in previous videos but im guessing when he ge gets to C2 in swedish he plans to tackle French in much the same way?
Not exactly sure at the moment. Also on my current schedule it could be quite some time before genuinely reaching C2 Swedish. Honestly I think it's more a label than anything else. I know people with C2 certificates in English or other languages who can barely get through a sentence, while I know some B2 students who are quite fluent.
Lamont! Have you seen the Weeve books that increase the proportion of target language words compared to English over time as a method of learning words in context?
They only have the most popular languages and I’ve just bought the beginners set in French, what do you think? I have a goal of reading the Witcher series in French one day so I’m hoping this will help along with all of my other study.
I remember a) thinking that this should be a thing, like years ago, maybe 6 years or so and b) seeing a company with an ad for that but only in German. I don't know if that was the beginning of Weeve or if Weeve is a different company but I think it's a fantastic idea and really just needs the technology to integrate it.
One small problem they're always going to come up against is sentences that are structured entirely differently, which occurs much more often in more distant languages, but I still think it can be handled.
@@daysandwords I think Weeve used to be Diglot and they’ve just rebranded. They currently have Italian, German, Irish, Spanish and French, and it looks like Dutch is going to be added soon.
I’m coming up on A1 in French (about to take the Busuu test!), your videos inspired me to start learning French again, and I’ve just surpassed a 40 day streak of at least an hour (normally 2) per day of study! It’s so encouraging when I can actually read stuff and even infer meaning when I don’t know a word, because I know some of the others!
Also hello from Melbourne! 🥳
Language Mixing is another such publisher. They only have Italian atm. Anyway, I have the Sherlock Holmes Weeve book for Spanish, my thoughts so far (I'm in chapter 4) are:
- The English is _just_ old enough to be a cognitive load (plus there's a few pages in straight-up 18th-century English) even by itself
- I keep having moments (I'll come back with some examples) of "what! in Spanish they say that in _exactly_ the same way as English? are they just doing lazy translation?" that are quite diverting...
- The Diglot podcast (here on RUclips) makes me think the main guy really speaks these languages, and also they have weaves like "an hombre" which they presumably wouldn't have if it were shit-tier translation (it would be "a hombre" then, because "a man")
- There is offset punctuation and the like which is the type of thing you would usually catch when you post something on the internet and then re-read everything you just wrote
I’ve been meaning to on Ítalki for at least a year, I know every language learner RUclipsr raves about it, I know it will be beneficial YET… I haven’t started. I’m terrified. I don’t know why but I just can’t take that first step. My target language (Spanish) just has so many tutors…. How to choose? Will they be nice? Will I make a fool of myself? I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to just take this leap!!! Any tips for people like me? (Or am I the only weirdo who feels like this?). Thanks! Ps. I hope you got your Democracy sausage today and it was yum! 🤣🤣🤣
Just choose a teacher whose video you like. Honestly I've had well over 100 teachers on italki, in 4 different languages (Icelandic and Norwegian are the other two... it's a long story) and I have literally only had like 3 teachers who "weren't nice" and even that is a bit of a stretch to say. One teacher wasn't "nice" because she kept correcting pronunciation that was standard Swedish when it was she who had a non-standard accent. It would be like me telling a student that "can't" said in the American accent is wrong, even though it's Australians who says "kah-nt".
I mean THAT'S the level I'm stretching to in order to find a teacher whom I didn't like.
I assume you've settled on a given dialect and accent of Spanish (e.g. Argentinian?)... if so then that narrows it down (and you can sort by country of origin too).
Hi Anna. Here are some tips for you to choose the right tutor. 1. In order to know more about tutors, we recommend you watch their intro videos to see if their accents, teaching styles suit your need. 2. Check their profile page and read comments from previous students. 3. Leverage the filters on "find a teacher" page: you have - lesson price - lesson type - lesson time - teacher is from - Non or native speaker. 4. italki provides 3 discounted trial lessons for new sign-ups. The price is usually 50% off compared to normal price. We sincerely encourage you to make that 1st step and level up your language learning with us :)
Thanks for the reply Lamont. It’s time to stop being a baby and get into it!!!
Thanks!!!
Yooo you watch Rick Beato videos too? My piano teacher recommended him. Great stuff!
never thought id see a rick beato cameo in a lamont vid
I pretty much only watch the music niche on YT.
how many minutes per day of your target language do you recommend listening to, (using Comprehensible Input) in order to learn a language in a year?
From scratch, in a year?
16 x 60 = 960 minutes a day.
@@daysandwords ATLATT?
So I'm learning Norwegian. Not quite the same as you but I figure it's similar enough to ask. How long of learning did it take before listening or reading started making sense? When I see Norwegian it still looks foreign!
Definitely similar enough to ask. Pretty much all the anglosemblant languages (e.g. Spanish, French, German, Dutch etc.) have the same answer to that question... which is, unfortunately, not really an answer.
For me it took about a year before I felt like it made some sense when I heard say, a podcast or something. But here's the thing:
There's a much BIGGER difference between "some sense" and "perfect sense" than there is between "zero sense" and "some sense". That may sound the wrong way around, but I mean in terms of time. It's only in the last year that I would say I'm closer to "perfect sense" than "some sense". I don't remember the change happening, because it didn't just happen one day. I know that in April of 2020 (technically 3 years of learning by that point), it was pretty hard work to watch like an hour of Swedish RUclips, and these days it would be the same as doing it in English.
But then the other thing I haven't touched on is number of hours. I have never actually done very intensive Swedish input, except for April of 2020 for one week. And I only started a comprehensible input approach at about that time, so 2 years ago. Since then I've only averaged around an hour a day so that's about 750 hours. Obviously I had a head start before that (because I had technically been learning Swedish for 3 years), but it wasn't very effective, so let's call it a 400 hour head start. So to roung up, I think about 1200 hours of comprehensible input is going to result in quite a good level of Norwegian.
@@daysandwords Tusen takk! I can get some sense. Especially with Disney movies that I've seen before. And I can find words I know. But today I recorded a short little video in Norwegian per your suggestion and I found myself thinking "What did I say when I typed this script?" So it's a work in progress!
Hey Lamont, this question is a little off topic. I'm gonna go life to Sweden since I got a great offer there. The thing is that I've been learning Norwegian for a few years. Do you think I should stick to Norwegian? Do you thing I should keep them both? Do you think I should change to Swedish?
Thanks in advance
It depends how good your Norwegian is.
If you're Norwegian is already C1 and you've started imitating the accent and everything, then I would go all in on a specific dialect of Norwegian, which gives you an "advantage" in Sweden because they'll think you're Norwegian, rather than thinking you're a native English speaker (or whatever you are). I know this because Norwegians and Danes always just assume I'm Swedish, whereas Swedes know that I'm not.
In this case you can slowly "assimilate" to Swedish while you're there, like Skavlan (the talk show host who is Norwegian, but he has lived in Sweden for ages).
If you're only at B2 or under in Norwegian, I would probably switch to Swedish immediately, and that way you have to learn a little bit of grammar and how to spell (assuming you'll need to write), and then just pick up your journey from there. You'll be able to start picking up the accent pretty quickly I think (which city by the way?)
Either way you have a huge advantage over someone who hasn't learnt any Swedish, because the vocab is mostly the same, the grammar is a tiny bit different and the accent is fairly different BUT... if you've already started sounding Norwegian, then you'll arguably sound "more Swedish" than normal, because the big difference between English and Scandinavian languages is the intonation, and Norwegian is probably the MOST different, being essentially backwards from us. So I think you'll end up speaking good Swedish, it's just a question of whether you want to do it through more Norwegian or through immediate Swedish.
My pick would be for the second option because it's going to happen eventually anyway. Not even Norwegians can live in Sweden too long without starting to sound Swedish.
@@daysandwords Wow, thanks so much for the long and informative reply. I'm going to Stockholm so it shouldn't be too difficult. I'm a B2 (not too near C1 tho) so I was having my questions.
But I really love norway so my heart is kinda split in two haha.
Thanks so much, now I have it a bit more clear but I'll give it a few more thoughts.
I really would like not to lose my level in Norwegian. But I'm afraid that I start mixing them. Is it similar to the intelegibility between Catalan and Spanish? Because that way I think I could keep my Norwegian level but also learn Swedish
@@YourPhysicsSimulator I really don't know much about Catalan and Spanish... basically all of Scandinavia is a sort of spectrum, with the borders between the three countries only representing a more sudden change right at that point. So someone from Norway can understand someone from Göteborg much more easily than they can understand someone from, say, Luleå (in the far north) or from the Swedish speaking parts of Finland.
I don't think you'll LOSE Norwegian permanently, it will just be very hard to always pronounce words correctly etc., but there are people who just speak a sort of blend of both, and they're not really thought of as "lesser" because of it. To Norwegians they sound Swedish and to Swedes they sound a bit Norwegian. Like some Australians think I sound a bit British, but to British people I sound super Australian.
Getting better at Swedish won't entail getting worse at Norwegian, it will just be making your Norwegian less accessible for the next little while, kind of like body building doesn't mean you will permanently run more slowly, but it will certainly slow you down while you are doing it. Wait I will send you an interview I did.
@@YourPhysicsSimulator
This might help a little bit - this guy is Swedish and learnt to speak Norwegian when he moved there, rather than just carrying on with Swedish:
ruclips.net/video/psF6LSlkhgk/видео.html
@@daysandwords You are the best. Thanks for all the replies! I'll watch the interview just now!
❤️
With that being said, I'll learn Swedish but I'll keep watching the YT content I like to watch in Norwegian. Also if you can recommend me great tv shows and YT channels in swedish I would like that.
You are the MVP🤩
We are finally sponsored by Italki :D
Ha, this is actually my third video with them.
I'm an English teacher. I can personally verify point five.
Thanks champ!
How the heck did you identify that he was from the west coast by listening to his accent? I'm very impressed, I would probably never be able to do something like that.
Full disclosure, it was a little more complicated than that.
I first saw him in a video with Peter McKinnon, and I didn't know his last name at that point, but I thought "I think he's Swedish or Norwegian..." When I found out his last name, I thought "OK probably Swedish" and then I listened to him a bit more and thought "Well if I'm right about that, I would even say west coast but now I'm really guessing..." - But it seemed right, given his intonation and the fact that originally I thought he might be Norwegian.
But I wouldn't have bet even $20 on it. I was just theorising. By the time I "knew for sure", he said that thing about "Gothenburg joke for you!" and then obviously it was too late for guesses.
I'm actually more "impressed" by the fact that I could pick up that he was Nordic at all, given his appearance. Like, PewdiePie would be much easier to pick from appearance, but harder if it were just accent. It shows that I was switched on because the first video I saw him in was actually in Italy, and combined with the skin tone, the natural assumption was Italian... but after like 3 sentences I was like "No Italian sounds like that..."
What is the best learning program on the net to learn English .My native language are Swedish.Yes I shall live in Africa they speak two languages swahilli and English .är det möjligt att bli flytande på två språk.
Problem with number5 is not many people speaking in my native (Hungarian) as a foreign language not to mention among those natives of the languages I want to learn :P
Watching again to avoid DFS withdrawal. Hope you doing okay.
Haha, thanks.
I've been working on a lot of stuff that won't show a lot of result for a while. I'd say "exciting stuff" but I always feel like the level of excitement from the person themselves is divided by about 20 even for fans.
Anyone have a good recommendations where to download cheap or free audio books?
What language?
Hey Lamont, Hope you're doing okay!
Yep, I've just been busy.
What's the best way I can learn Swedish?
Turn your life into Swedish. Swedish audiobooks on the train home. Swedish TV shows and movies even when you're tired. When you're sick of hearing Swedish and listening to Swedish: put something Swedish on in the background and just don't pay attention.
*skeleton meme* me waiting for Lamont to uploads some more quality content…
Hah we both have Atomic habits in our target languages, I wonder how many translations are called "the 1% method"
I would watch a thirty minute video on the triggers that cause accent change. Just saying 👀
Now that Lamont hasn’t posted in two months, I feel lost.
I'm literally making the first point with this video while doing the dishes hahaha (my mother language is Spanish)
Doing the dishes is so much more fun with language learning audio on!
I do deep listening by default... Who knew... Now, to find time to read and write... :/
Algorithm boosting comment ! 😺
I love the Portuguese but they are not chatty people.
JLab makes a good cheap set of earbuds.
Thanks!
I just use the Sound Peats (Amazon) ones, I got them "on special" (but they are that price like half the time) and that made them $35 AU instead of $55 and I've honestly used them 5 days a week for 2 years now, no problems.
Why is the Thumbnail literally just a Blue Shoe with a letter "Z" om them?
Damn, it obviously didn't work but it was actually a shoe with headphones as the laces. It didn't come out as well as I hoped, but yeah that's what it is. It's actually an N, just side on.
@@daysandwords Ok, Thanks! :D
Oh god, I can hear the west coast dialect of the Swedish RUclipsr 😅 and also when he says Sweden, the first e is a special kind of pronunciation of Swedish i that only exists in some dialects. Cringe 😅
Oh wow, ok that bit got past me, I must admit.
Your own accent always sounds cringeworthy but no one else cares. When I hear Australians speak anything (often including English) I'm like "GAH STOP!"
Vilken stad kommer du ifrån förresten?
@@daysandwords It was very quick, I didn't hear it until the last time it was played!
That's true, although I always get nervous when I have to speak in another language...
Jag är från Uddevalla, en liten stad nära Göteborg 😊
Steven Kaufman already did a video on this topic, why do you even bother?
Why do you bother?
Well, I don't watch that many of Steve's videos. So forgive me if you feel I've repeated something that he has already said but I'll guaran-damn-tee you one thing:
My music and B roll was better.
Steve lighting sucks.