I really like Steve's videos because it's like he's saying, "Relax... Of course learning a language isn't an easy task, but you don't need to be perfect to use the language. So, there is no reason to fear using it." It's a very positive view on language learning.
when I'm listening I understand 70-90% (it depends on the accent), but when I have to write or speak, I'm quite bad, It's frustrating, and I don't even speak correctly, I commit a lot of grammar mistakes. How can I solve that? Thank you very much! This illustrates on problem people have when speaking...grammar obsession.
Here is a question I received which illustrates two problems. Hi Steve, I'm trying to learn english and I think that your videos are very helpfull, however I would like to ask you a question. Well, I'm much better listening or reading than speaking or writing, when I'm reading I understand almost everything,
Steve, you´re my mentor. I appreciate all your videos in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese ´cuz I´m Brazilian. Your pieces of advice sound great to me.I wish I could speak as many languages as you do. God Bless you. You rock!!!
I should have used " " quotation marks to make it clearer that this was all one question. However, this question was removed from my youtube channel. I had to go to the channel of the commenter to find it. I doubt if that person removed his comment. Why did it disappear? Does anyone know? Why does this appear? Comment removed Author withheld
What do you think about this metaphor...in the languages learning the active vocabulary is the top of what you can see of a iceberg... and what's underwater is the passive one!
Also, if you use Firefox or Google Chrome as an internet browser, download the Adblock Plus extension. It will eleminate ALL of the ads, all over the internet.
Wonderful, your comment magically reappeared. You are absolutely right. You speak well you have to speak a lot. You also have to forget about any obsessions you may have about speaking grammatically correct all the time. However to speak well you also need lots of words and a high level of comprehension. This is best acquired through lots of listening and reading.
I think the important part in speaking from day 1 is that you get the chance, say you practice with some natives in skype, to realize what you learned, in real life situation. Many times when I'm learning Chinese I wish I could try and say this and that to someone, who would understand me. It provides immense motivational boost to be able to speak to someone every now and then. It doesn't matter if you learn much (actually you always do), but it's fun and it helps to keep you on the road.
After attempting Turkish a language far away from any other (non-Indo-European) I know, I feel that I needed a lot more passive exposure. I have considered writing down my passive learning time but many people emphasise writing your studying time on your timetable. I might watch a movie with subtitles without actively studying or listen to lots of music and I think that's important building up your passive exposure especially in the early period.
You are right that largely same areas of the brain involved in language comprehension and production. However, some areas may be far important for production than comprehension. For example, expressive aphasia (a.k.a. agrammatic aphasia) is characterized by slow, halting, agrammatical speech, while comprehension is impaired to a much lesser degree (because word comprehension is preserved).
Focus on the intonation. Listen to a phrase, then repeat with an emphasis on intonation. Same for sentences, and then paragraphs. You could focus on individual vowels, diphthongs, long and short sounds (heat and hit), but I think that will just tie you up in knots. Get the intonation and the rest will come, gradually. I recommend audio books, more useful than video for learning and for pronunciation. Mucha suerte. Estoy leyendo en español actualmente. Marina de Ruiz Zafón
Thanks for the answer Steve. Yes, I do listen a lot, mainly on RUclips, with films etc and I can understand everything without too much effort. I think English is difficult for me because I didn´t learn the sounds (mainly vowel sounds) properly. You know, Spanish is my mother tongue and we just have five vowels! So at the moment I´m focusing on fixing that. My expectations, indeed, are too high, but pronunciation in English is for me VERY important in order to connect phrases fluently.
Hello Steve and thank you for another interesting video. Just want to say that from my point of view and experience with trying to learn Thai, I guess there may be many language learners out there who may comprehend a language sufficiently to have many appropriate responses in a conversation, yet can't get seem to get the words out because of a lack of confidence and practice in producing the sounds; even though the sounds are fully comprehended and part of the learner's passive vocabulary.
I presume you are talking about improving your "native" Korean. In my view, you need to do a lot of listening and reading, and to develop the ability to notice the structures in the language. Occasionally reading grammar books can also help. You might also want to give LingQ a try.
passive video reading,passive audio listening, active video writing,active audio speaking. all four are available at the same time in four part harmony. this means all four can be done at once in all environments. or in other words four and four and four and four and... the things you know are equal to a five gallon bucket. the entirety of the things you can say are equal to a thimble. you may never say all you know, for it is impossible...! but this difference allows you to learn even while you speak and write...! however in the case of a new language, there must be a massively greater quantity in the bucket before you are able to speak. this is of no matter as the effect actually allows you to focus on learning, filling the bucket. after all ,you can only remove a thimbleful at a time. therefore, you will speak automatically long before the bucket gets full. especially since your bucket cannot ever be completely full anyway. not enough time in s thousand lifetimes to fill up one bucket...!
In my own experience, I think it’s more common than not for second learners who are distance learning (geographically away from first speakers) to be able to read and write in a language, but be unable to understand spoken language or to themselves speak intelligibly, especially with tonal languages. I know plenty of learners of one particular endangered tonal language whose tones/cadence are so poorly developed as to make their words barely recognizable by speakers. Being able to recognize and produce written characters of a tonal language is a world away from knowing how to properly “sing” a tonal language accurately enough to be understood. Thankfully though, as the proliferation of audio/video media like RUclips, audiobooks, and various podcast and streaming platforms flourishes and grows, more spoken content is available in tonal languages and particularly in endangered tonal languages. Greater access to spoken content on the internet lessens the likelihood of being unable to speak for those who aren’t fortunate enough to live in close proximity with a first speaker.
I agree that we need to speak a lot to get good at it. But the passive knowledge, our vocabulary and understand are the keys to being able to communicate with confidence. But when we start we will stumble. The ore concerned we are about our performance, the worse we do.
I don't know the answer to whether or not active and passive knowledge uses different parts of the brain, but I do know, from my neuropsychology classes, that our native language and foreign languages are processed in different areas of the brain. Anyway, great video, as usual! :D
Of course the level of production will not be at the same level as comprehension. However to be able to produce well, we need a very high level of comprehension. Our passive vocabulary will almost always the many times larger than our active vocabulary
Yes I would definitely agree with that. I think to speak well you have to have enough understanding to keep up with the speed of conversation, both in terms of comprehension and the practised ability to make sounds in response. Do you think there's also a tipping point where responses become increasingly less and less 'thought out' and more spontaneous? I mean a tipping point in terms of it being a barrier that, once passed, speech becomes rapidly more fluent.
Muchas gracias Steve. Disfruta del libro! Ruiz Zafón es un buen escritor. Yo solo he leído "La sombra del viento" y es muy bueno, lo recomiendo totalmente. Tienes razón con lo de la entonación, pero es que después de descubrir como es el sonido de, por ejemplo, "Cat" o "Hat", ya me obsesiono y lo quiero hacer siempre bien, sobretodo porque al escuchar los reconozco. Supongo que influye que aprendí a hablar alemán mejor que inglés y ahora quiero solucionar cuanto antes mi problema con el inglés!
It depends on the person. Krashen feels that speaking early can make learners too self-conscious about the the accuracy of their speech and becomes an affective filter, a source of anxiety. I guess it all depends on what we like to do.
I suggest you install something like the flashblock addon for firefox. Then youtube videos require you click them before they play (same for other flash items like ads). You possibly will need to remove youtube from the addon's whitelist somewhere in its settings.
RUclips stuff: 1. Post received too many negative votes = people voted it as spam, youtube system automatically hides it. 2. Author withheld = bug? This one I'm not sure about 3. Video turns on when replying - check youtube plugins for the browser you are using, there are numerous plugins/extensions designed to improve youtube experience and turning off autoplay is almost always a feature they have :)
Hi! Yeah, you are right, English has 5 vowels and 2 semi-vowels, but 11 up to 20 vowel sounds.... æ - ɑ: - ʌ are not the same :D But that´s not the problem, I think, as Steve said, that I need to practice my intonation. I just haven´t break the wall between practice and fluency. I noticed the "click" on my head while listening but not while speaking! (Well, I realized it too but just a few times :P) Any help is welcome.
So I don't just think it's necessarily a limitation of grammatical knowledge, or some other mental block of the target language that might impede someone from speaking a particular language. Also I totally agree with your gripes about RUclips! It's almost better to only comment on videos with good music if you have to have them running in the background as you type... And why do comments have to be limited to 500 characters...?? 72 to go, 63 now .........................30................done.!
Hi Steve! Thank you so much for your videos, 我是学汉语和日语的学生，而且你的视频一直都帮助我提高我的语言水平。I just had a suggestion, I sometimes feel your videos can be a bit long, and am unable to view the whole thing. In the future, could you possibly make videos a bit shorter? 谢谢 :)
Speaking from day one helps people who are learning their first or second foreign language as it boosts their confidence. They don't mind having very little vocab. It's also quite exciting for them as it's a new experience. But for someone like Steve who speaks a dozen languages, this method is not so useful, since it's not such an exciting experience any more, having undergone the process ten or more times.
Nice video! Regarding the comments about the length of your videos, I have also thought that they have recently become a little too long. What you say is mostly very interesting, but 15 minutes is quite long for this kind of talking head video. Just my preference though.
"This people might exist, I have not come across such people" Well, I´m one of those guys, I read complex novels and understand almost 100% but I still struggle when it comes to speaking. I learned english with a lot of input but I didn´t speak till some years later. There is a big gap there and I have to fix it. How? Well, I think that I have to write and to speak more!
It bothers me too, that comments that people vote downward (5 downvotes, if i'm not mistaken) are hidden. It might seem like a blind sentiment, but I prefer systems that give every comment/post an equal volume no matter how uninformed or pointless the post seems to be.
I have nothing to recommend other than that you Google to look for these kinds of resources. You could also comment on our form at link and ask other members if they know of such resources. I will also have a look.
Hi Steve. When you read a book and come across a sentence that you think you understand but have some degree of doubt, do you ever translate the sentence into English to double-check yourself, or is it just better to keep on reading? Thanks!
I am on the same boat as shahmirali1098. What I do is I watch in segments :D I watch a few minutes, then I come back to watch the rest of the videos at another point (within a reasonable time frame so I still remember the content). So for a 10 minute video I watch in 2-3 segments.
To speak well we have to speak a lot. At first it is always going to be difficult. The better we understand, the better our attempts at speaking will go.
Haha my apologies steve that would be very important info to provide I'm interested in ancient Gaul I was looking at purchasing an Asterix comic book in french maybe I can talk about that with serge
Steve, are there any French history books that you could recommend or upload onto lingq I would really appreciate it I'm very interested in French history
Hey Steve how are you ? Well I can say I can understand quite a lot in Japanese ( I live in Japan) but I am unable to speak . I am using lingq and I actually can understand up to 80% of the Intermediate level 2 but still can`t speak .When I watch movies or your podcasts together with my Japanese wife and tell her what I have understood in Japanese she confirms that I actually understood clearly . I actually speak 4 other languages but I am struggling with Japanese learning . Would love to try to speak it with you and prove than I can understand but will probably reply you in another language . Cheers!
Steve,I´m an english teacher trainee. It´s my first year at the institute and maaaaany years have pased since I didn´t have the opportunity of speaking english. I´m lacking of fluency and this inhibits me of talking as I use to... I am now 42 years old and I attended the British School in my school life. Please if you can/wish do you have any hints so as to make me feel again,comfortable with english speaking..? Kind regards
I agree totally with everything you say! And thanks for giving the name and author of the book you recommend. Lernen: Gehirnforschung und die Schule des Lebens by Manfred Spitzer. I just bought a used copy from Abe Books.
a e i o u and sometimes y..what's the other semi vowel sound? And ahhh yes..I believe what you are referring to are the diphthongs...like ai and ei and ea and that kind of stuff? But yes, for sure speaking and imitating native speakers really helps acquire a good accent :-) and I think Steve has a lot Of good advice for this kind of stuff :-D
What you can do with the negative votes is just to disable voting. Of course that will also disable positive votes, but... that's the only way I know to get rid of the problem. Cheers!
ahh ok cool....now I know all about what you mean :-) I remember talking about this in school.....yeah, English is weird like that, because unless you know a word, you can never know if a vowel is long or short and what not. accent marks are not used to show anything...how silly...
English has 5 vowels too....y is only sometimes a vowel.....I speak Spanish and English too....what kind of problems are you having with pronunciation? maybe I can help you?
You say you haven't come across people who can understand well but cannoy speak, but... when we encounter someone who has trouble speaking, isn't the natural tendency to assume this person must not understand as well? I mean, how do you measure their understanding on an objective way
Hi Steve , i am from Algeria and i want to speak like you , i am always imitate you please any help to speak like english man , really i need your help , and thanks for your videos :) all are great
Do you listen a lot? You seem to write well. Maybe your expectations are too high. To become very good at speaking, you have to speak a lot, and not worry about how you sound. You may read like a native and eventually learn to write like a native, but speaking like a native is out of reach for most of us.
I really like Steve's videos because it's like he's saying, "Relax... Of course learning a language isn't an easy task, but you don't need to be perfect to use the language. So, there is no reason to fear using it." It's a very positive view on language learning.
When we speak a foreign language we often feel uncomfortable. We just have to keep going and things get better. cheers.
when I'm listening I understand 70-90% (it depends on the accent), but when I have to write or speak, I'm quite bad, It's frustrating, and I don't even speak correctly, I commit a lot of grammar mistakes. How can I solve that? Thank you very much!
This illustrates on problem people have when speaking...grammar obsession.
Here is a question I received which illustrates two problems.
Hi Steve, I'm trying to learn english and I think that your videos are very helpfull, however I would like to ask you a question. Well, I'm much better listening or reading than speaking or writing, when I'm reading I understand almost everything,
Yes I speak Italian and will try to do a video in that language in the next few weeks.
Steve, you´re my mentor. I appreciate all your videos in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese ´cuz I´m Brazilian. Your pieces of advice sound great to me.I wish I could speak as many languages as you do. God Bless you. You rock!!!
I should have used " " quotation marks to make it clearer that this was all one question.
However, this question was removed from my youtube channel. I had to go to the channel of the commenter to find it. I doubt if that person removed his comment. Why did it disappear? Does anyone know? Why does this appear?
Comment removed
Author withheld
What do you think about this metaphor...in the languages learning the active vocabulary is the top of what you can see of a iceberg... and what's underwater is the passive one!
Also, if you use Firefox or Google Chrome as an internet browser, download the Adblock Plus extension. It will eleminate ALL of the ads, all over the internet.
Wonderful, your comment magically reappeared. You are absolutely right. You speak well you have to speak a lot. You also have to forget about any obsessions you may have about speaking grammatically correct all the time. However to speak well you also need lots of words and a high level of comprehension. This is best acquired through lots of listening and reading.
I think the important part in speaking from day 1 is that you get the chance, say you practice with some natives in skype, to realize what you learned, in real life situation. Many times when I'm learning Chinese I wish I could try and say this and that to someone, who would understand me. It provides immense motivational boost to be able to speak to someone every now and then. It doesn't matter if you learn much (actually you always do), but it's fun and it helps to keep you on the road.
After attempting Turkish a language far away from any other (non-Indo-European) I know, I feel that I needed a lot more passive exposure. I have considered writing down my passive learning time but many people emphasise writing your studying time on your timetable. I might watch a movie with subtitles without actively studying or listen to lots of music and I think that's important building up your passive exposure especially in the early period.
You are right that largely same areas of the brain involved in language comprehension and production. However, some areas may be far important for production than comprehension. For example, expressive aphasia (a.k.a. agrammatic aphasia) is characterized by slow, halting, agrammatical speech, while comprehension is impaired to a much lesser degree (because word comprehension is preserved).
Focus on the intonation. Listen to a phrase, then repeat with an emphasis on intonation. Same for sentences, and then paragraphs. You could focus on individual vowels, diphthongs, long and short sounds (heat and hit), but I think that will just tie you up in knots. Get the intonation and the rest will come, gradually. I recommend audio books, more useful than video for learning and for pronunciation. Mucha suerte. Estoy leyendo en español actualmente. Marina de Ruiz Zafón
Thanks for the answer Steve. Yes, I do listen a lot, mainly on RUclips, with films etc and I can understand everything without too much effort.
I think English is difficult for me because I didn´t learn the sounds (mainly vowel sounds) properly. You know, Spanish is my mother tongue and we just have five vowels! So at the moment I´m focusing on fixing that. My expectations, indeed, are too high, but pronunciation in English is for me VERY important in order to connect phrases fluently.
Golf swing analogy spot on! Well done🤘🏼
Hello Steve and thank you for another interesting video. Just want to say that from my point of view and experience with trying to learn Thai, I guess there may be many language learners out there who may comprehend a language sufficiently to have many appropriate responses in a conversation, yet can't get seem to get the words out because of a lack of confidence and practice in producing the sounds; even though the sounds are fully comprehended and part of the learner's passive vocabulary.
I presume you are talking about improving your "native" Korean. In my view, you need to do a lot of listening and reading, and to develop the ability to notice the structures in the language. Occasionally reading grammar books can also help. You might also want to give LingQ a try.
passive video reading,passive audio listening, active video writing,active audio speaking. all four are available at the same time in four part harmony. this means all four can be done at once in all environments. or in other words four and four and four and four and...
the things you know are equal to a five gallon bucket. the entirety of the things you can say are equal to a thimble. you may never say all you know, for it is impossible...! but this difference allows you to learn even while you speak and write...! however in the case of a new language, there must be a massively greater quantity in the bucket before you are able to speak. this is of no matter as the effect actually allows you to focus on learning, filling the bucket. after all ,you can only remove a thimbleful at a time. therefore, you will speak automatically long before the bucket gets full. especially since your bucket cannot ever be completely full anyway. not enough time in s thousand lifetimes to fill up one bucket...!
Merci parce que vous faites le français beaucoup intéressant et amusant que dans mon classe français. Bonne chance !
In my own experience, I think it’s more common than not for second learners who are distance learning (geographically away from first speakers) to be able to read and write in a language, but be unable to understand spoken language or to themselves speak intelligibly, especially with tonal languages. I know plenty of learners of one particular endangered tonal language whose tones/cadence are so poorly developed as to make their words barely recognizable by speakers. Being able to recognize and produce written characters of a tonal language is a world away from knowing how to properly “sing” a tonal language accurately enough to be understood.
Thankfully though, as the proliferation of audio/video media like RUclips, audiobooks, and various podcast and streaming platforms flourishes and grows, more spoken content is available in tonal languages and particularly in endangered tonal languages. Greater access to spoken content on the internet lessens the likelihood of being unable to speak for those who aren’t fortunate enough to live in close proximity with a first speaker.
I agree that we need to speak a lot to get good at it. But the passive knowledge, our vocabulary and understand are the keys to being able to communicate with confidence. But when we start we will stumble. The ore concerned we are about our performance, the worse we do.
I don't know the answer to whether or not active and passive knowledge uses different parts of the brain, but I do know, from my neuropsychology classes, that our native language and foreign languages are processed in different areas of the brain. Anyway, great video, as usual! :D
Of course the level of production will not be at the same level as comprehension. However to be able to produce well, we need a very high level of comprehension. Our passive vocabulary will almost always the many times larger than our active vocabulary
Yes I would definitely agree with that. I think to speak well you have to have enough understanding to keep up with the speed of conversation, both in terms of comprehension and the practised ability to make sounds in response. Do you think there's also a tipping point where responses become increasingly less and less 'thought out' and more spontaneous? I mean a tipping point in terms of it being a barrier that, once passed, speech becomes rapidly more fluent.
Muchas gracias Steve. Disfruta del libro! Ruiz Zafón es un buen escritor. Yo solo he leído "La sombra del viento" y es muy bueno, lo recomiendo totalmente.
Tienes razón con lo de la entonación, pero es que después de descubrir como es el sonido de, por ejemplo, "Cat" o "Hat", ya me obsesiono y lo quiero hacer siempre bien, sobretodo porque al escuchar los reconozco. Supongo que influye que aprendí a hablar alemán mejor que inglés y ahora quiero solucionar cuanto antes mi problema con el inglés!
It depends on the person. Krashen feels that speaking early can make learners too self-conscious about the the accuracy of their speech and becomes an affective filter, a source of anxiety. I guess it all depends on what we like to do.
I suggest you install something like the flashblock addon for firefox. Then youtube videos require you click them before they play (same for other flash items like ads). You possibly will need to remove youtube from the addon's whitelist somewhere in its settings.
RUclips stuff: 1. Post received too many negative votes = people voted it as spam, youtube system automatically hides it. 2. Author withheld = bug? This one I'm not sure about 3. Video turns on when replying - check youtube plugins for the browser you are using, there are numerous plugins/extensions designed to improve youtube experience and turning off autoplay is almost always a feature they have :)
Дорогой Стив,я восхищаюсь глубиной ваших мыслей. Спасибо, за то что Вы есть.
Hi! Yeah, you are right, English has 5 vowels and 2 semi-vowels, but 11 up to 20 vowel sounds.... æ - ɑ: - ʌ are not the same :D
But that´s not the problem, I think, as Steve said, that I need to practice my intonation. I just haven´t break the wall between practice and fluency. I noticed the "click" on my head while listening but not while speaking! (Well, I realized it too but just a few times :P)
Any help is welcome.
So I don't just think it's necessarily a limitation of grammatical knowledge, or some other mental block of the target language that might impede someone from speaking a particular language.
Also I totally agree with your gripes about RUclips! It's almost better to only comment on videos with good music if you have to have them running in the background as you type... And why do comments have to be limited to 500 characters...?? 72 to go, 63 now .........................30................done.!
Hi Steve! Thank you so much for your videos, 我是学汉语和日语的学生，而且你的视频一直都帮助我提高我的语言水平。I just had a suggestion, I sometimes feel your videos can be a bit long, and am unable to view the whole thing. In the future, could you possibly make videos a bit shorter? 谢谢 :)
Speaking from day one helps people who are learning their first or second foreign language as it boosts their confidence. They don't mind having very little vocab. It's also quite exciting for them as it's a new experience. But for someone like Steve who speaks a dozen languages, this method is not so useful, since it's not such an exciting experience any more, having undergone the process ten or more times.
Nice video! Regarding the comments about the length of your videos, I have also thought that they have recently become a little too long. What you say is mostly very interesting, but 15 minutes is quite long for this kind of talking head video. Just my preference though.
"This people might exist, I have not come across such people"
Well, I´m one of those guys, I read complex novels and understand almost 100% but I still struggle when it comes to speaking. I learned english with a lot of input but I didn´t speak till some years later. There is a big gap there and I have to fix it. How? Well, I think that I have to write and to speak more!
It bothers me too, that comments that people vote downward (5 downvotes, if i'm not mistaken) are hidden. It might seem like a blind sentiment, but I prefer systems that give every comment/post an equal volume no matter how uninformed or pointless the post seems to be.
Gracias para ensañarme y me da confianza en yo mismo. Lo entiendo un poco pero que yo escribir o hablar no va bien.
I have nothing to recommend other than that you Google to look for these kinds of resources. You could also comment on our form at link and ask other members if they know of such resources. I will also have a look.
Hi Steve. When you read a book and come across a sentence that you think you understand but have some degree of doubt, do you ever translate the sentence into English to double-check yourself, or is it just better to keep on reading? Thanks!
I am on the same boat as shahmirali1098. What I do is I watch in segments :D I watch a few minutes, then I come back to watch the rest of the videos at another point (within a reasonable time frame so I still remember the content). So for a 10 minute video I watch in 2-3 segments.
What do other people think? I am happy to match the length of my videos to the wish of the majority here.
Personnally I think there's a fine line between passive and active vocabulary.
To speak well we have to speak a lot. At first it is always going to be difficult. The better we understand, the better our attempts at speaking will go.
Another amazing video. Thank you very much Steve! :)
Haha my apologies steve that would be very important info to provide I'm interested in ancient Gaul I was looking at purchasing an Asterix comic book in french maybe I can talk about that with serge
Steve, are there any French history books that you could recommend or upload onto lingq I would really appreciate it I'm very interested in French history
Hey Steve how are you ? Well I can say I can understand quite a lot in Japanese ( I live in Japan) but I am unable to speak . I am using lingq and I actually can understand up to 80% of the Intermediate level 2 but still can`t speak .When I watch movies or your podcasts together with my Japanese wife and tell her what I have understood in Japanese she confirms that I actually understood clearly . I actually speak 4 other languages but I am struggling with Japanese learning . Would love to try to speak it with you and prove than I can understand but will probably reply you in another language . Cheers!
off topic...but what kind of webcam do you use for your videos? I was looking around for a bit and then I got one and its not as nice as yours :-(
By that I mean history books In French the language I'm currently studying on your site
Steve,I´m an english teacher trainee.
It´s my first year at the institute and maaaaany years have pased since I didn´t have the opportunity of speaking english. I´m lacking of fluency and this inhibits me of talking as I use to...
I am now 42 years old and I attended the British School in my school life.
Please if you can/wish do you have any hints so as to make me feel again,comfortable with english speaking..?
Kind regards
I agree totally with everything you say! And thanks for giving the name and author of the book you recommend. Lernen: Gehirnforschung und die Schule des Lebens by Manfred Spitzer. I just bought a used copy from Abe Books.
a e i o u and sometimes y..what's the other semi vowel sound? And ahhh yes..I believe what you are referring to are the diphthongs...like ai and ei and ea and that kind of stuff? But yes, for sure speaking and imitating native speakers really helps acquire a good accent :-) and I think Steve has a lot Of good advice for this kind of stuff :-D
;-) I can see that You are very perceptive and the good linguist. Thanks for this lesson. :)
Funny thing is... just when Steve began to complain about the adds an App popped up. 🤣
If you suffering from adds download add-on for you browser such as ADBLOCK
What you can do with the negative votes is just to disable voting. Of course that will also disable positive votes, but... that's the only way I know to get rid of the problem.
Cheers!
what is the isbn for that book for that nero book: domo arigato gozaimasu
Congratulations ! But I have a question, do you speak italian too?
ahh ok cool....now I know all about what you mean :-) I remember talking about this in school.....yeah, English is weird like that, because unless you know a word, you can never know if a vowel is long or short and what not. accent marks are not used to show anything...how silly...
Just read it again if I still don't understand keep going.
By the way, history of what?
Miért nem próbálod ki a Magyart...?
Azt hallottam hogy nehéz a amerikaiaknak meg tanulni.
English has 5 vowels too....y is only sometimes a vowel.....I speak Spanish and English too....what kind of problems are you having with pronunciation? maybe I can help you?
You say you haven't come across people who can understand well but cannoy speak, but... when we encounter someone who has trouble speaking, isn't the natural tendency to assume this person must not understand as well? I mean, how do you measure their understanding on an objective way
thought2007 I judge people's reaction to what I am saying, their degree of understanding, by how they react to what I say and what they say.
Hi Steve , i am from Algeria and i want to speak like you , i am always imitate you please any help to speak like english man , really i need your help , and thanks for your videos :) all are great
Thanks and just keep working at it. Our attitude and commitment and confidence is what matters most.
I think youtube does that because there has been a lot of cyberbullying over the years. But I could be wrong.
Do you listen a lot? You seem to write well. Maybe your expectations are too high. To become very good at speaking, you have to speak a lot, and not worry about how you sound. You may read like a native and eventually learn to write like a native, but speaking like a native is out of reach for most of us.
what do you mean, you cant learn a language.
me too -__-
Deaf people dont like it when you call them 'deaf and dumb'