She says motivation, motivation, motivation, which is the primary factor, I agree. She speaks vaguely of immersive environment and active vs passive. From my experience, reading a book (not a graded reader or textbook) until you can read at near normal speed while recognising (i.e., knowing) all the words will give good active results. She skips the rest of the aspects that influence the chance of success.
You're totally right when you said about studying languages only with passive skills! I'm Brazilian and I have a good English level, but I learned it with this traditional method in school and it wasn't so interesting to me. But in November 2023 I started to learn French by myself with a method that works for me. It's always a pleasure to learn new words and expressions in French and, during the conversation with natives on the internet, I utilise them and it's so rewarding
100% correct about passive learning leading nowhere, although I don't speak when I train, I write. Written language is far greater than spoken language.
Thank you so much for your video and your insights! I only just now realised how important it also is to allow myself to say that some languages I tried to study in the past simply didn't "click" with me (at least at that point in my life) and that is okay. It also gives me some more motivation to further increase my French active language skills because they have been lacking so far :) Oh and regarding your own experience with German (I suppose this also applies to my own language attempts), I suppose even if it wasnt the right setting in the past and didn't "click" I suppose this leaves the possibility open to the future, should the circumstances ever change. :) (Als Deutsche freut es mich natürlich immer, wenn sich jemand dazu entscheidet, meine Muttersprache zu lernen. Aber ich weiß auch, wie unglaublich kompliziert und frustrierend die Sprache sein kann (und dass sie für andere Muttersprachler meist sehr "hart" klingt) und kann somit vollkommen verstehen, dass die Sprache nicht jedermanns Fall ist. Also egal welche Sprache du dir aussuchst weiter zu lernen, ich wünsche dir ganz viel Erfolg!)
Thank you so much! ❤️ This is so relieving to know that if you haven’t succeeded with a certain language earlier in your life, you can still conquer it when the circumstances are right 💪🏻 I am very open to come back to German some day! ☺️
I'm having the same challenge learning Thai.... I speak English, French and Spanish, but am struggling with Thai. I'm impressed you spent 10 years trying to learn Esperanto! Maybe you can do another video talking about when you know it's time to abandon a language? I'm curious when you realized that you should quit and cut your losses. By the way, I think Duolingo has so much potential but in its present iteration is an abomination.
Shortly after starting to date my wife, when I was working in her hometown here in Korea, one late evening we were walking together taking her back to her place. She pointed at this one sign for some closed up business asking me to read what the English said, since they were words she didn't recognize. I looked at it confused, because it was clearly not English, but looked like a mixture of words that seemed vaguely German and others vaguely Spanish, but I could tell that it said that it was a medical clinic for foreigners. After Googling for a minute, I figured out that the sign had been in Esperanto. Presumably, prior to the clinic shutting down, the doctor who ran it had been under the impression that because Esperanto is the "international language" he should name the place that way.
Thank you for sharing. I've also learned Esperanto in Sydney, Australia, and I felt the same way you did. It wasn't real and the people who spoke it belonged to the 'Save the World' intelligentsia so you had to abide by their correct opinions. Overall the speakers had a good heart, but the environment was boring. It was like a 'political party' where you had to have the same mindset! Please tell me something, how did you master the stress on Russian words? Polish is very regular, but the stress on Russian words changes all the time. I find it so confusing...
Luckily, I didn’t have to sweat on mastering the stress on Russian words, since I was raised bilingual, Russian being my other language, but if I had to learn Russian from the scratch, I’d listen to the language as much as possible, plus talking to Russian-speakers to master the stress in practice. I cannot imagine learning some grammar rules by heart, just pure practice and lots of listening. Thankfully there’s a lot of good stuff to listen to in Russian :)
maybe try dutch huh? i'm picking up my lithuanian language right now i was born there and spoke the language when i was young but have forgotten it now living in the netherlands!
@@Methodsaimon I’d definitely learn Dutch if I was to move there, otherwise I rather choose Lithuanian, since it’s the only language out there similar to my mother tongue Latvian ☺️ Good luck on your learning journey!
She says motivation, motivation, motivation, which is the primary factor, I agree.
She speaks vaguely of immersive environment and active vs passive. From my experience, reading a book (not a graded reader or textbook) until you can read at near normal speed while recognising (i.e., knowing) all the words will give good active results. She skips the rest of the aspects that influence the chance of success.
You're totally right when you said about studying languages only with passive skills!
I'm Brazilian and I have a good English level, but I learned it with this traditional method in school and it wasn't so interesting to me.
But in November 2023 I started to learn French by myself with a method that works for me. It's always a pleasure to learn new words and expressions in French and, during the conversation with natives on the internet, I utilise them and it's so rewarding
Amazing! 🤩
100% correct about passive learning leading nowhere, although I don't speak when I train, I write. Written language is far greater than spoken language.
If it serves your personal goals 👌
Interesting. Thanks.
great video thank you!
Thank you so much for your video and your insights! I only just now realised how important it also is to allow myself to say that some languages I tried to study in the past simply didn't "click" with me (at least at that point in my life) and that is okay. It also gives me some more motivation to further increase my French active language skills because they have been lacking so far :)
Oh and regarding your own experience with German (I suppose this also applies to my own language attempts), I suppose even if it wasnt the right setting in the past and didn't "click" I suppose this leaves the possibility open to the future, should the circumstances ever change. :)
(Als Deutsche freut es mich natürlich immer, wenn sich jemand dazu entscheidet, meine Muttersprache zu lernen. Aber ich weiß auch, wie unglaublich kompliziert und frustrierend die Sprache sein kann (und dass sie für andere Muttersprachler meist sehr "hart" klingt) und kann somit vollkommen verstehen, dass die Sprache nicht jedermanns Fall ist. Also egal welche Sprache du dir aussuchst weiter zu lernen, ich wünsche dir ganz viel Erfolg!)
Thank you so much! ❤️
This is so relieving to know that if you haven’t succeeded with a certain language earlier in your life, you can still conquer it when the circumstances are right 💪🏻
I am very open to come back to German some day! ☺️
I'm having the same challenge learning Thai.... I speak English, French and Spanish, but am struggling with Thai. I'm impressed you spent 10 years trying to learn Esperanto! Maybe you can do another video talking about when you know it's time to abandon a language? I'm curious when you realized that you should quit and cut your losses. By the way, I think Duolingo has so much potential but in its present iteration is an abomination.
It was German I learned for 10 years 😄 I would have never lasted that long if German hadn’t been a mandatory subject in school☺️
In the cog menu under captions autotranslate are sixteen languages to read script on screen for keeping the brain sharp 🎉😊
Если нет долгосрочной цели, то вероятнее всего человек бросит учить язык, и это относиться не только к изучению языков, а всех аспектов жизни.
Долгосрочная цель - это в идеале. Жизнь часто вносит коррекции, меняется перспектива, и вчерашняя цель отходит на второй план..
Shortly after starting to date my wife, when I was working in her hometown here in Korea, one late evening we were walking together taking her back to her place. She pointed at this one sign for some closed up business asking me to read what the English said, since they were words she didn't recognize.
I looked at it confused, because it was clearly not English, but looked like a mixture of words that seemed vaguely German and others vaguely Spanish, but I could tell that it said that it was a medical clinic for foreigners.
After Googling for a minute, I figured out that the sign had been in Esperanto. Presumably, prior to the clinic shutting down, the doctor who ran it had been under the impression that because Esperanto is the "international language" he should name the place that way.
That’s interesting! 😀
Thank you for sharing. I've also learned Esperanto in Sydney, Australia, and I felt the same way you did. It wasn't real and the people who spoke it belonged to the 'Save the World' intelligentsia so you had to abide by their correct opinions. Overall the speakers had a good heart, but the environment was boring. It was like a 'political party' where you had to have the same mindset! Please tell me something, how did you master the stress on Russian words? Polish is very regular, but the stress on Russian words changes all the time. I find it so confusing...
Luckily, I didn’t have to sweat on mastering the stress on Russian words, since I was raised bilingual, Russian being my other language, but if I had to learn Russian from the scratch, I’d listen to the language as much as possible, plus talking to Russian-speakers to master the stress in practice.
I cannot imagine learning some grammar rules by heart, just pure practice and lots of listening. Thankfully there’s a lot of good stuff to listen to in Russian :)
maybe try dutch huh? i'm picking up my lithuanian language right now i was born there and spoke the language when i was young but have forgotten it now living in the netherlands!
@@Methodsaimon I’d definitely learn Dutch if I was to move there, otherwise I rather choose Lithuanian, since it’s the only language out there similar to my mother tongue Latvian ☺️
Good luck on your learning journey!