Honestly I have no interest in these sentences. Fluency is simply the ability to communicate comfortably and understand in most situations, it is not an obstacle course.
@yourheadtops I met my wife in Hong Kong and we lived together in there and in obviously for the rest of our lives. You don't know what will happen in life, it is best not to plan too much. We have Polish at LingQ.
Hi Steve, I am a Taiwanese and l live in Vancouver. I always use you for an example to encourage other people that should always want to learn other languages.
Steve i just discovered your channel and i find it so interesting! I would stay hours listening to the way you talk about languages and cultures, and why and how you learned them!
I would not move to a French-speaking place until I already had a fairly good level in the language. Furthermore, Montréal is very bilingual and it is easy to live there in English.
"When the student is turned on you don't need a teacher" YES! I believe teachers job is to make themselves unnecessary, more like a pushing hand to encourage or guide, rather than someone who "downloads" knowledge onto the student.
Il est très intéressant de vous écouter parler de votre histoire, Steve. Vous êtes quelqu'un de très cultivé et vous semblez avoir beaucoup de vécu, et j'aime votre objectivité lorsque vous parlez de différents enjeux politiques et sociaux, ça dévoile une certaine sagesse. A l'époque, j'imagine que les choses étaient beaucoup plus captivantes qu'aujourd'hui, car maintenant la majorité de la population est branchée sur un ordinateur ....
@MelancholyInLove To improve in reading you just need to read more. I find it very difficult to absorb the grammar until I have had a lot of exposure to the language.
I have no much to say, really, other than that I find those stories of your life--and especially as viewed from the perspective of learning languages in order to learn about cultures and history, and so as to be able to communicate with the people of a country of interest--absolutely fascinating and just wonderful to listen to. I'm so glad for you and it's so good that all these superb life opportunities have befallen to such a nice and open-minded person. I really appreciate your sharing this.
I started learning Spanish already in 1994, but I started reading books in Spanish only in 2007 during a trip to Argentina and Chile. The first book in Spanish that I read was a science book about the ecology of the Patagonian forests. The second was a copy of Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges. I found it absolutely stunning. Borges was able to express more thoughts in a story of a few pages than other people in a whole book. I became a Borges addict, and reading his stories enormously improved my vocabulary and understanding of the Spanish language.
Hi Steve, Your speech really caught my ears. As soon as I heard you speak, I was highly suspecting you were probably a Canadian near where French speakers also lived, and as soon as you mentioned Montreal, Rene Levesque, McGill, etc. all doubts were cast off! I say this because I teach Spanish to lots of Americans and a few Canadians and your inflections and the musicality of your voice in general really stands out from the typical American accents I hear almost everyday now. If I'm not mistaken, I can tell you are native English Speaker but even when speaking English I hear that you have also assimilated the typical inflections of Quebecois (J'adore son français: Ben !...on est ben niaiseux icitte là !)
Amazing to listen to your story. I am Chinese, and I can speak Korean and English. I learned Vietnamese for one month. Now I am thinking of learning French or Spanish, and your video makes me to think that I can learn both of them together. Thank you so much for this video.
A positive environment is important. The learner needs to feel a sense of achievement. This can come from being able to understand more and more of the language. It need not be a matter of external feedbacks.
Hey Steve. I'm bilingual in Spanish and becoming Trilingual in French - and was pleasantly stunned by the "jump start" I got from having mastered one Romanic language and then learning another. Would you agree in saying that the most effective way for a language to be taught is if there is a plethora of positive feedback? What I mean by that is creating an open environment in which the student feels s/he is learning and doing well, they'll remain motivated to speak the language? Thanks!
I suggest you get on LingQ. There are lots of audio lessons with transcript, graded for difficulty and downloadable free of charge. Other than that, I would look in the book stores in Spain. But to get good at listening you need to listen a lot, preferably to material you can also read. That is why I recommend LingQ until you can comfortably read newspapers, magazines and books. You can also import from newspapers, magazines etc. into LingQ. So I say, get on over to LingQ.
So, let me explain, my vocabulary really started to skyrocket and structures became effortless when I really started reading as a small child. So, I have realized that the best way I am going to learn ANY language is by reading TONS of books, big books too, so that structures will become natural and "sound right" by feel, rather than grammatical construction. For languages like Russian, Chinese, Cantonese (especially), Croatian, I don't know where to get good, reliable books ( Fat ones) Thanks,
La sombra del viento es perfecto para los estudiantes de español. Yo lo leí hace dos años, y después leí "Cien años de soledad" que es un poco mas difícil, pero también lo recomiendo. Saludos.
We disagree. I manage just fine in many languages, and in some I do very well, with excellent communication in both directions. Your examples of extremely uncommon situations are not relevant to most situations and where they arise, the native speaker can easily fill in the blanks. Sorry, I think you are being pedantic and your approach is not helpful to language learners.
J'avais le même type de professeur au secondaire. Il se contrefichait de la grammaire et nous sensibilisait à la ittérature et à la philosophie. J'avais toujours hâte d'aller à son cours, c'était merveilleux.
I speak 12. I suggest you combine Pimsleur with LingQ and forget about Rosetta Stone. I think that somewhere around A2 B1 is a little ambitious if you have only an hour or so a day. However, with 4 or 5 hours a day it is definitely possible.
Judging by your comment, you are not one of these people. Politics are an integral part of the life of a modern society. But then one is not obliged to listen or read things that one is not interested in.
@paraescucharrap I wrote a biography, The Linguist A Language Learning Odyssey. You can find it on Amazon. You cannot read a complete book until you have spent a lot of time reading and listening to shorter content , and learning words.
Actually English was the first language I learned. However, I was not aware of the learning process at the time. I don't even remember it. And now, learning Spanish consciously is a bit harder. One thing that's helping is the lack of a deadline. This way, I allow myself to learn the language without stressing too much.
I can confirm that the problem for me is precisely not being able to imagine myself ever speaking a new language as well as I speak my native tongue. I am bilingual but I learned both languages as a child and don't remember 'learning' them so the thought of being equally as fluent in a third language is just so foreign, I've tried it with Italian, German and Dutch and failed to learn the language every single time. However, I'm moving to France soon and French is a very important language for business and a widely spoken one so I really do not want to have the same thing happen to me where I start, make some progress but give up cause I feel like I'll never reach fluency.
the method i'm trying to learn Spanish is by using words like: the, what, who, where why, them, I am, Here, There. Once I understood those words I felt like I could branch into other words.
So you do like to talk politics as I expected. I have no trouble with leftist or rightist content when I am learning languages but did point out in mu video that the Grupo Risa were somewhat political, and in fact represented conservative view points. I really cannot see what you are complaining about. I am certainly not going to discuss Spanish politics with you though.
Hey Steve, I've learned some Spanish through schooling, and I enjoy it very much. However, French is also very appealing to me and I'd like to begin learning that as well. Is learning French and Spanish simultaneously a poor idea?
What if we exchange languages? Just in case you want to, look for me on facebook as Anderson Alejandro Alba and we could chat and learn. I'm a native speaker of Spanish, by the way.
It's not advised to learn simultaneously languages from the same family like Spanish,French, Portuguese and Italian are all Latin languages.It takes weeks or months for a new language to create roots in your subconscious mind,so you can start even thinking in that language. So if you want to learn many languages at the same time,it's better to choose languages from different families. If they are from the same family, you'll start mixing and confusing yourself. Because languages from the same family have the same patterns. I doubted that,but it happened to me.
It's not advised to learn simultaneously languages from the same family like Spanish,French, Portuguese and Italian are all Latin languages.It takes weeks or months for a new language to create roots in your subconscious mind,so you can start even thinking in that language. So if you want to learn many languages at the same time,it's better to choose languages from different families. If they are from the same family, you'll start mixing and confusing yourself. Because languages from the same family have the same patterns. I doubted that,but it happened to me.
Hi Steve, Me again! Thanks for your past responses & videos! Couple quick questions. 1. Portuguese on lingq, is it Brazilian or European? Is there a big difference once you know one over the other for travelling purposes? 2. How did you go about learning Portuguese? I can't seem the find the basic "Teach Yourself" Portuguese Grammar. Also I will be paying for a membership on Lingq today or tomorrow. Started learning on the free account and love the way everything is linked! Thanks again, Paul
...and why did I bother with Czech" Hmm.. ;) Ok, I will be more than happy to hear this one! As for your passion for myths / legends of the origin, I recommend the one about Forefather Cech and his brother Lech ;) Keep up the good work Steve! Pavel - recently living in Strasbourg and struggling with French - I need that bike also!!
Reading is the most difficult part as I am concerned. I can tell that because of my experience. And there is where i am improving my second and third language now, can't wait to do it with my fourth, but I'll have to wait, or may not, maybe I will approach to the fourth one differently by starting reading right away instead of keep listening ans studying grammar.
At the moment I'm working on Spanish + French and they work well together, because the words match each other. Spanish has many similarities to English and French. In this case: Yep! Japanese and Spanish didn't work out for me, because Japanese is a language on its own (and new for me). In this case I should go for a 100% Japanese. Anyway, you know the basics, so go for it :)
ikbenikHD Can u speak Spanish and French fluently? I want to learn those two languages at the same time but i’m not so sure if i can make it i’m scared that i confuse them :(
You are an inspiration :). My dfficulty with French was the pronunciation, well still is, specially when i had to say "que" or "qui" I sometimes pronounce them very similar, but i had a bad teacher, or better a mean teacher, anyways, she didn't get to make me hate French!
These sounds do exist in English. In order to say "que", you need to make the /k/ consonant sound, and then the /ə/ vowel sound as in the first "A" of "America": /kə/. In order to pronounce "qui", you need to make the /k/ consonant sound, and then the /i/ vowel sound as in the "ea" grapheme of "leave"; /ki/. Simple! Yeah. I know all about bad teachers... I had a very bad English teacher in primary school! As Mr. Kaufmann explained, it's important to have teacher to makes you want to love and learn the language.
@koolibrii Depende de tu nivel. Por mi fue una procesión natural. Viaje a Colombia, y antes de irme quería leer Marquez. Si fue un poco dificil, sobre todo al principio, pero el reto mejoró mi español y cuando estaba en el país, yo podía discutir el libro con la gente allá. Creo que es mas importante comprender la historia de Colombia y la Biblia, que tener un nivel de nativo-hablante en español para comprender este libro. Un saludo
🌹💙 Mr. Kaufmann I have a perplexing question: I need to learn a foreign language for college (USA)-going back to finish my degree; I took some Spanish in high school forty years ago, and for practical purposes being fluent Spanish (bilingual) would be a skill required by some employers, even though it’s not my first choice. However, my heart wants French. Learning both is probably unlikely. Any advice? Btw, I’ve subscribed and looking forward to watching your awesome content. Blessings! 🙏
man, you should write your biography !!! you have had quite an interesting life !!! I have a quiestion Steve, when you say that we should read complete books, is that from the very beginning??? when we have basically don't know the language???
I'm a newbie in French, I really feel like reading, but the problem is I am afraid to invent pronunciations in my mind for things that I don't know and it spoils me in the future
@lingosteve that's exactly what I'm doing. Thank you for the advice :), I wll apply a different plan for my third language, I already know the basis at least
Hi Steve, I'm looking to become fluent in French. I've been thinking about it for years! I believe I need to live in a place where I can use it (use it or lose it right?). Would you recommend an English speaking person to move to Montreal to learn French and become fluent? It would be a risk financially but in the long run, it would help me big professionally. Thanks, Nicole :)
I have that same book in Spanish I got it years ago and I have no idea if I read it or part of it but it looked fun to read. I'm so lazy I've gotten really reliant on reading ebooks over paper books that I haven't made the effort to read a paper book at all this year even. I'll have to fix that.
Dear Steve, I am an 18 year-old Australian boy learning Spanish. I've done it for 13 weeks at university but I am currently in Spain for 3 weeks trying to immerse myself. My biggest problem is listening and understanding, as I find speaking and expressing myself to be manageable for now. I want to read more so expand my vocabulary and I think this could also help my ability to listen and to process. I am about an A1/A2 level right now. Can you suggest some basic books that I could read?
Dude I just subscribed recently as I was amazed by your multilingual ability. How many languages do you 'speak'. I'm using pimsleur spanish and I plan to use it up to level three. and the level four has only 10 lessons. do you think that if I complete the lessons (3months roughly) I will have an A2 or B1 proficiency? Pimsleur is good in my opinion. but what if I combine with Rosetta Stone, then do you think B1 is attainable?
Hi Steve. I would like to ask a question and please give me some suggestions if you have some spare time. I am currently trying to learn English, and therefore I have been trying to immerse myself in the language environment by listening to loads of English RUclips channel, movie and etc. Do u think I should pause the video and look up the dictionary when I listen to words that I don't know? Or I should just ignore it and learn the rethym of the language? Thank you very much for your time.
I had to playback the video so many times because I kept getting lost trying to figure out what piece of music was playing in the background! 😆 I'm sad to say I couldn't get it
+HigginsIsHere The key is accessible interesting content. It is not so much the language as the joy of reading about and listening to things of interest in another language. In this sense Korean has been difficult. Polish, what we had at LingQ, Realpolish.pl. and then the audio books and ebooks I bought at public.pl was a breeze.
you seem to have spent a lot of time in different places, it is so neat, but how did you find time to find your wife and or settle down? do you believe a world traveler should wait til he has travelled everywhere and then settle down or just do it at the same time? though i believe this might be hard because one is focused on doing so much things that it seems like a personal life would be ignored. anyways thanks for the great video and polish would be great for lingq!!!
i have to learn spanish for school but i easily get distracted because there is always more fun things to do.. did you have problems with this? what advice would you give me?
Reading through the comments and I just had that cool moment of reading two sentences in French without realizing. Soon I will have to move away from Harry Potter (the greatest set of books to learn any language, at least for me) and get back to grammar and vocabulary, I still confuse chouette and hibou, it is awesome to find stuff that is specific to a language and does not have any direct translations, but one really does need wikipedia and google image search to learn the difference.
Hi Steve I'm learning both French and Spanish do you thing it's a good combination? I mean what are the chances of mixing the two languages. I'm really interested in both. What do you think?
Faisal. S How’s it going? Can u speak those two languages fluently and understand what u read? I want to learn French and Spanish at the same time but i am not sure if its possible. Pls answer this and let me know!
Hey man, quick question and ive been to ask people whos into languages like you man.*Ive been dying, okay so heres the stuff: im currently a.2.4 now in my german class working up to that b1 now, and seeing that i want to get more things done and accomplish i decided to choose 1 language to go with. Chinese or korean, chinese bc i had already started using it (basic phrases and stuff, and had chinese friends) but i want to go even further this year also my korean was done through kdramas and ttmik website of those grammar level books and as for me i really want to get to my level 2 within this 3 months im going to be graduating already and i just want to know ur honest opinion on which language to go with? As it had been keeping late nights just to choose 1, im following an advice frm smeone tht mentioned to focus ur timr 80% on hard 20% easy and for me that meant really giving my time on german and 20% to learning one of those mentioned languages. Please please, it would really help if you could give me an advice about this please
Steve I've been studying english has one year more or less and now i started to study japanese do you think that it is a good idea to study two language at once my goal is to get a good level in english and after study japanese more than i am now and when i reach the intermediate level in japanese i will start to study french , what do you think about it?
hi steve, Im trying to decide wether i should take french or spanish in high school. i know i want to take one of the two i just cant find anything about either of the languages that make me think "Wow i want to learn that instead of this for sure". Im just asking if you have any opinions on one over the other, or just any info about the 2 languages that would help me decide. any info you can provide would be super, greatly appreciated!
So the church was included in the same sentence as corrupt? Then you hung out with Spanish republicans swearing. But people in "Franco's Spain" were extremely friendly? Tell you anything?
@lingosteve ahah my second teacher taught me well the difference, it was the first one who didn't know how to get to students, i used to call her the ugly nazist!, but the new one is very kind. When I do my second exam with her I will know the true!
You should've learned spanish from some latin american country :) . In latin America the spanish is more melodic and soft, spanish from Spain or Castellano is a bit more rough.
I personally find South American Spanish a bit hard on the ears. The absence of a θ (theta) sound hard to take seriously. Arguably, this is extremely relative!
Steve proves the point that you have to keep your mind young and inquisitive to learn... The guy has the enthusiasm of a teenager.
Honestly I have no interest in these sentences. Fluency is simply the ability to communicate comfortably and understand in most situations, it is not an obstacle course.
@yourheadtops I met my wife in Hong Kong and we lived together in there and in obviously for the rest of our lives. You don't know what will happen in life, it is best not to plan too much. We have Polish at LingQ.
Hi Steve, I am a Taiwanese and l live in Vancouver. I always use you for an example to encourage other people that should always want to learn other languages.
Steve i just discovered your channel and i find it so interesting! I would stay hours listening to the way you talk about languages and cultures, and why and how you learned them!
Great to hear from you.
"Eight hours on a plane is a good place to read - nobody to bother you" - LMFAO
I would not move to a French-speaking place until I already had a fairly good level in the language. Furthermore, Montréal is very bilingual and it is easy to live there in English.
Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve C'est vrai!!!
"When the student is turned on you don't need a teacher" YES! I believe teachers job is to make themselves unnecessary, more like a pushing hand to encourage or guide, rather than someone who "downloads" knowledge onto the student.
You're so inspirational. The life you have lived sounds amazing!
Il est très intéressant de vous écouter parler de votre histoire, Steve. Vous êtes quelqu'un de très cultivé et vous semblez avoir beaucoup de vécu, et j'aime votre objectivité lorsque vous parlez de différents enjeux politiques et sociaux, ça dévoile une certaine sagesse. A l'époque, j'imagine que les choses étaient beaucoup plus captivantes qu'aujourd'hui, car maintenant la majorité de la population est branchée sur un ordinateur ....
@MelancholyInLove To improve in reading you just need to read more. I find it very difficult to absorb the grammar until I have had a lot of exposure to the language.
I have no much to say, really, other than that I find those stories of your life--and especially as viewed from the perspective of learning languages in order to learn about cultures and history, and so as to be able to communicate with the people of a country of interest--absolutely fascinating and just wonderful to listen to. I'm so glad for you and it's so good that all these superb life opportunities have befallen to such a nice and open-minded person. I really appreciate your sharing this.
I started learning Spanish already in 1994, but I started reading books in Spanish only in 2007 during a trip to Argentina and Chile. The first book in Spanish that I read was a science book about the ecology of the Patagonian forests. The second was a copy of Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges. I found it absolutely stunning. Borges was able to express more thoughts in a story of a few pages than other people in a whole book. I became a Borges addict, and reading his stories enormously improved my vocabulary and understanding of the Spanish language.
Hi Steve, Your speech really caught my ears. As soon as I heard you speak, I was highly suspecting you were probably a Canadian near where French speakers also lived, and as soon as you mentioned Montreal, Rene Levesque, McGill, etc. all doubts were cast off! I say this because I teach Spanish to lots of Americans and a few Canadians and your inflections and the musicality of your voice in general really stands out from the typical American accents I hear almost everyday now. If I'm not mistaken, I can tell you are native English Speaker but even when speaking English I hear that you have also assimilated the typical inflections of Quebecois (J'adore son français: Ben !...on est ben niaiseux icitte là !)
Amazing to listen to your story. I am Chinese, and I can speak Korean and English. I learned Vietnamese for one month. Now I am thinking of learning French or Spanish, and your video makes me to think that I can learn both of them together. Thank you so much for this video.
A positive environment is important. The learner needs to feel a sense of achievement. This can come from being able to understand more and more of the language. It need not be a matter of external feedbacks.
Hey Steve. I'm bilingual in Spanish and becoming Trilingual in French - and was pleasantly stunned by the "jump start" I got from having mastered one Romanic language and then learning another.
Would you agree in saying that the most effective way for a language to be taught is if there is a plethora of positive feedback? What I mean by that is creating an open environment in which the student feels s/he is learning and doing well, they'll remain motivated to speak the language? Thanks!
I suggest you get on LingQ. There are lots of audio lessons with transcript, graded for difficulty and downloadable free of charge. Other than that, I would look in the book stores in Spain. But to get good at listening you need to listen a lot, preferably to material you can also read. That is why I recommend LingQ until you can comfortably read newspapers, magazines and books. You can also import from newspapers, magazines etc. into LingQ. So I say, get on over to LingQ.
I am not studying Spanish right now. If I were, I would use one of our tutors at LingQ..
So, let me explain,
my vocabulary really started to skyrocket and structures became effortless when I really started reading as a small child.
So, I have realized that the best way I am going to learn
ANY language is by reading TONS of books, big books too, so that structures will become natural and "sound right" by feel, rather than grammatical construction.
For languages like Russian, Chinese, Cantonese (especially), Croatian, I don't know where to get good, reliable books ( Fat ones)
Thanks,
La sombra del viento es perfecto para los estudiantes de español. Yo lo leí hace dos años, y después leí "Cien años de soledad" que es un poco mas difícil, pero también lo recomiendo. Saludos.
We disagree. I manage just fine in many languages, and in some I do very well, with excellent communication in both directions. Your examples of extremely uncommon situations are not relevant to most situations and where they arise, the native speaker can easily fill in the blanks. Sorry, I think you are being pedantic and your approach is not helpful to language learners.
J'avais le même type de professeur au secondaire. Il se contrefichait de la grammaire et nous sensibilisait à la ittérature et à la philosophie. J'avais toujours hâte d'aller à son cours, c'était merveilleux.
I speak 12. I suggest you combine Pimsleur with LingQ and forget about Rosetta Stone. I think that somewhere around A2 B1 is a little ambitious if you have only an hour or so a day. However, with 4 or 5 hours a day it is definitely possible.
Judging by your comment, you are not one of these people. Politics are an integral part of the life of a modern society. But then one is not obliged to listen or read things that one is not interested in.
@paraescucharrap I wrote a biography, The Linguist A Language Learning Odyssey. You can find it on Amazon. You cannot read a complete book until you have spent a lot of time reading and listening to shorter content , and learning words.
Steve... you’ve really had a wonderful life!
@Mexicanpolyglot91 Gracias y saludos y un abrazo a ti tambien.
Je suis en train de apprendre francais, my English is ok, and mi espanol es cada vez mejor.
Actually English was the first language I learned. However, I was not aware of the learning process at the time. I don't even remember it. And now, learning Spanish consciously is a bit harder. One thing that's helping is the lack of a deadline. This way, I allow myself to learn the language without stressing too much.
The spanish part kinda starts at 6:00
@Elekias Thanks and I am really enjoying learning Czech.
@MelancholyInLove Que and Qui is not a pronunciation issue, I believe, but knowing which one to use.
@Neuroneos Merci pour ces gentils mots. Je continue de trouver le monde fascinant, et je dois dire que j'aime mon ordinateur.
I can confirm that the problem for me is precisely not being able to imagine myself ever speaking a new language as well as I speak my native tongue. I am bilingual but I learned both languages as a child and don't remember 'learning' them so the thought of being equally as fluent in a third language is just so foreign, I've tried it with Italian, German and Dutch and failed to learn the language every single time. However, I'm moving to France soon and French is a very important language for business and a widely spoken one so I really do not want to have the same thing happen to me where I start, make some progress but give up cause I feel like I'll never reach fluency.
the method i'm trying to learn Spanish is by using words like: the, what, who, where why, them, I am, Here, There. Once I understood those words I felt like I could branch into other words.
@eugrus I only like output in real situations preferably with native speakers. I prefer input until I get the opporutnity.
So you do like to talk politics as I expected. I have no trouble with leftist or rightist content when I am learning languages but did point out in mu video that the Grupo Risa were somewhat political, and in fact represented conservative view points. I really cannot see what you are complaining about. I am certainly not going to discuss Spanish politics with you though.
Hey Steve,
I've learned some Spanish through schooling, and I enjoy it very much. However, French is also very appealing to me and I'd like to begin learning that as well. Is learning French and Spanish simultaneously a poor idea?
What if we exchange languages? Just in case you want to, look for me on facebook as Anderson Alejandro Alba and we could chat and learn. I'm a native speaker of Spanish, by the way.
It's not advised to learn simultaneously languages from the same family like Spanish,French, Portuguese and Italian are all Latin languages.It takes weeks or months for a new language to create roots in your subconscious mind,so you can start even thinking in that language.
So if you want to learn many languages at the same time,it's better to choose languages from different families. If they are from the same family, you'll start mixing and confusing yourself. Because languages from the same family have the same patterns.
I doubted that,but it happened to me.
It's not advised to learn simultaneously languages from the same family like Spanish,French, Portuguese and Italian are all Latin languages.It takes weeks or months for a new language to create roots in your subconscious mind,so you can start even thinking in that language.
So if you want to learn many languages at the same time,it's better to choose languages from different families. If they are from the same family, you'll start mixing and confusing yourself. Because languages from the same family have the same patterns.
I doubted that,but it happened to me.
I prefer to listen to natives speakers and therefore do not use Michel Thomas, although I have listened to it.
@Ven0mB0Y Of course I understand both and I don't think the difference is that great, at least in the cities.
I love this man.
Hi Steve,
Me again! Thanks for your past responses & videos! Couple quick questions.
1. Portuguese on lingq, is it Brazilian or European? Is there a big difference once you know one over the other for travelling purposes?
2. How did you go about learning Portuguese? I can't seem the find the basic "Teach Yourself" Portuguese Grammar.
Also I will be paying for a membership on Lingq today or tomorrow. Started learning on the free account and love the way everything is linked!
Thanks again,
Paul
@erdal0 Give Spanish a chance. Read interesting things. Listen to songs in Spanish. The more you do it, the more you will enjoy it, maybe.
@Jamiekimme0643 El Bosque Originario by Jon Juaristu
Very interesting! What an adventure !
...and why did I bother with Czech" Hmm.. ;) Ok, I will be more than happy to hear this one! As for your passion for myths / legends of the origin, I recommend the one about Forefather Cech and his brother Lech ;) Keep up the good work Steve!
Pavel - recently living in Strasbourg and struggling with French - I need that bike also!!
Reading is the most difficult part as I am concerned. I can tell that because of my experience. And there is where i am improving my second and third language now, can't wait to do it with my fourth, but I'll have to wait, or may not, maybe I will approach to the fourth one differently by starting reading right away instead of keep listening ans studying grammar.
French - à â æ ç è é ê ë î ï ò ô œ ù û ü ÿ
Spanish - á é í ñ ó ú ü (ü is not that common in Spanish)
হাঁ pingüino es mi favorito 😂
@Kevin Alvarez bilingüe
At the moment I'm working on Spanish + French and they work well together, because the words match each other. Spanish has many similarities to English and French. In this case: Yep!
Japanese and Spanish didn't work out for me, because Japanese is a language on its own (and new for me). In this case I should go for a 100% Japanese.
Anyway, you know the basics, so go for it :)
ikbenikHD Can u speak Spanish and French fluently? I want to learn those two languages at the same time but i’m not so sure if i can make it i’m scared that i confuse them :(
OMG, Thanks for your story.
You are an inspiration 🙂
You are an inspiration :). My dfficulty with French was the pronunciation, well still is, specially when i had to say "que" or "qui" I sometimes pronounce them very similar, but i had a bad teacher, or better a mean teacher, anyways, she didn't get to make me hate French!
These sounds do exist in English. In order to say "que", you need to make the /k/ consonant sound, and then the /ə/ vowel sound as in the first "A" of "America": /kə/.
In order to pronounce "qui", you need to make the /k/ consonant sound, and then the /i/ vowel sound as in the "ea" grapheme of "leave"; /ki/. Simple! Yeah. I know all about bad teachers... I had a very bad English teacher in primary school! As Mr. Kaufmann explained, it's important to have teacher to makes you want to love and learn the language.
@koolibrii Depende de tu nivel. Por mi fue una procesión natural. Viaje a Colombia, y antes de irme quería leer Marquez. Si fue un poco dificil, sobre todo al principio, pero el reto mejoró mi español y cuando estaba en el país, yo podía discutir el libro con la gente allá. Creo que es mas importante comprender la historia de Colombia y la Biblia, que tener un nivel de nativo-hablante en español para comprender este libro. Un saludo
The Cortina Method has a Brazilian Portuguese in 20 Lessons with 8 cds and some dictionary and other grammatical tools.
This is next level thinking
🌹💙 Mr. Kaufmann I have a perplexing question: I need to learn a foreign language for college (USA)-going back to finish my degree; I took some Spanish in high school forty years ago, and for practical purposes being fluent Spanish (bilingual) would be a skill required by some employers, even though it’s not my first choice. However, my heart wants French. Learning both is probably unlikely. Any advice? Btw, I’ve subscribed and looking forward to watching your awesome content. Blessings! 🙏
man, you should write your biography !!! you have had quite an interesting life !!! I have a quiestion Steve, when you say that we should read complete books, is that from the very beginning??? when we have basically don't know the language???
aha! I knew you were from montreal! I am from vancouver :) I love your channel. Take care.
i loved this video!
I'm a newbie in French, I really feel like reading, but the problem is I am afraid to invent pronunciations in my mind for things that I don't know and it spoils me in the future
I wouldn't worry about it. But I will mention this subject in my next video.
Which language, what kind of books?
@lingosteve that's exactly what I'm doing. Thank you for the advice :), I wll apply a different plan for my third language, I already know the basis at least
Thank you for your videos Steve! They have been of great help and motivation for me.
Have you ever learned Portuguese??
Hi Steve,
I'm looking to become fluent in French. I've been thinking about it for years! I believe I need to live in a place where I can use it (use it or lose it right?). Would you recommend an English speaking person to move to Montreal to learn French and become fluent? It would be a risk financially but in the long run, it would help me big professionally.
Thanks,
Nicole :)
7 years ago ypu made this video. It. is still inspiring. Where would suggest one should go in Spain and France.
I have that same book in Spanish I got it years ago and I have no idea if I read it or part of it but it looked fun to read. I'm so lazy I've gotten really reliant on reading ebooks over paper books that I haven't made the effort to read a paper book at all this year even. I'll have to fix that.
Dear Steve,
I am an 18 year-old Australian boy learning Spanish. I've done it for 13 weeks at university but I am currently in Spain for 3 weeks trying to immerse myself. My biggest problem is listening and understanding, as I find speaking and expressing myself to be manageable for now. I want to read more so expand my vocabulary and I think this could also help my ability to listen and to process. I am about an A1/A2 level right now. Can you suggest some basic books that I could read?
John de Bhal what's your level now?
Dude I just subscribed recently as I was amazed by your multilingual ability. How many languages do you 'speak'. I'm using pimsleur spanish and I plan to use it up to level three. and the level four has only 10 lessons. do you think that if I complete the lessons (3months roughly) I will have an A2 or B1 proficiency? Pimsleur is good in my opinion. but what if I combine with Rosetta Stone, then do you think B1 is attainable?
Possibly a combo vid for Japanese/Korean? =D
Wow, you went to Montreal!? I live there!
@lingosteve Very insightful video, which language is the next one?
No, we don't think we can do it. It seems impossible...BUT I DID IT!!! :) :) :)
Hi Steve. I would like to ask a question and please give me some suggestions if you have some spare time. I am currently trying to learn English, and therefore I have been trying to immerse myself in the language environment by listening to loads of English RUclips channel, movie and etc. Do u think I should pause the video and look up the dictionary when I listen to words that I don't know? Or I should just ignore it and learn the rethym of the language? Thank you very much for your time.
I had to playback the video so many times because I kept getting lost trying to figure out what piece of music was playing in the background! 😆 I'm sad to say I couldn't get it
Sorry, I couldn't tell and it was a while ago.
9 years later. How's your wife's piano playing 😊
Which language/s do you like the least and why? Did it present a difficulty while learning?
+HigginsIsHere The key is accessible interesting content. It is not so much the language as the joy of reading about and listening to things of interest in another language. In this sense Korean has been difficult. Polish, what we had at LingQ, Realpolish.pl. and then the audio books and ebooks I bought at public.pl was a breeze.
you seem to have spent a lot of time in different places, it is so neat, but how did you find time to find your wife and or settle down? do you believe a world traveler should wait til he has travelled everywhere and then settle down or just do it at the same time? though i believe this might be hard because one is focused on doing so much things that it seems like a personal life would be ignored.
anyways thanks for the great video and polish would be great for lingq!!!
i have to learn spanish for school but i easily get distracted because there is always more fun things to do.. did you have problems with this? what advice would you give me?
Would you say Steve, you learned these languages simultaneously?
No not at all. Each one was a separate endeavour, but knowing French helped me in Spanish.
Reading through the comments and I just had that cool moment of reading two sentences in French without realizing. Soon I will have to move away from Harry Potter (the greatest set of books to learn any language, at least for me) and get back to grammar and vocabulary, I still confuse chouette and hibou, it is awesome to find stuff that is specific to a language and does not have any direct translations, but one really does need wikipedia and google image search to learn the difference.
Language learning with Harry Potter?
Did you learn any spells?
@@Kitiwake Haha, no, but you can learn a bit of latin with those:p
Hi Steve I'm learning both French and Spanish do you thing it's a good combination? I mean what are the chances of mixing the two languages. I'm really interested in both. What do you think?
why not just go for it and see how it works out. I usually prefer to focus on one language at a time
Faisal. S How’s it going? Can u speak those two languages fluently and understand what u read? I want to learn French and Spanish at the same time but i am not sure if its possible. Pls answer this and let me know!
Hey man, quick question and ive been to ask people whos into languages like you man.*Ive been dying, okay so heres the stuff: im currently a.2.4 now in my german class working up to that b1 now, and seeing that i want to get more things done and accomplish i decided to choose 1 language to go with. Chinese or korean, chinese bc i had already started using it (basic phrases and stuff, and had chinese friends) but i want to go even further this year also my korean was done through kdramas and ttmik website of those grammar level books and as for me i really want to get to my level 2 within this 3 months im going to be graduating already and i just want to know ur honest opinion on which language to go with? As it had been keeping late nights just to choose 1, im following an advice frm smeone tht mentioned to focus ur timr 80% on hard 20% easy and for me that meant really giving my time on german and 20% to learning one of those mentioned languages. Please please, it would really help if you could give me an advice about this please
Steve I've been studying english has one year more or less and now i started to study japanese do you think that it is a good idea to study two language at once my goal is to get a good level in english and after study japanese more than i am now and when i reach the intermediate level in japanese i will start to study french , what do you think about it?
wow “in the 50’s”?! como assim, steve? quantos anos você tem?
Dang. I was hoping you would say what that piano program is. I'm in a lump for playing piano haha.
Hello, PLEASE answer this,
where do you find your books for language learning?
I have trouble finding good books for foreign language.
thanks
"El bosque originario" de Jon Juaristi
hi steve,
Im trying to decide wether i should take french or spanish in high school. i know i want to take one of the two i just cant find anything about either of the languages that make me think "Wow i want to learn that instead of this for sure". Im just asking if you have any opinions on one over the other, or just any info about the 2 languages that would help me decide. any info you can provide would be super, greatly appreciated!
It's five years later, which language did you decide on?😊😄💛
The "but" came off as "I wouldn't normally listen to them on account of their conservative politics." If I misinterpreted you, I apologize.
This is of no use to me. I'm not from Montreal and I can't run off to France for years.
Who is your Spanish tutor?
J'ai pas tout compris ! (je suis en apprentissage sur LingQ) Mais j'ai bien entendu Grenoble ! ?
Frances es mi proximo idioma :)
HI HAVE YOU LEARNED BY MISHEL THOMAS METHOD EVER?IF YOU DID. PLEASE TELL US WHAT DO YOU THINK HIS SECRET IS?
fellow pianist :))
So the church was included in the same sentence as corrupt?
Then you hung out with Spanish republicans swearing.
But people in "Franco's Spain" were extremely friendly?
Tell you anything?
@lingosteve ahah my second teacher taught me well the difference, it was the first one who didn't know how to get to students, i used to call her the ugly nazist!, but the new one is very kind. When I do my second exam with her I will know the true!
bonne video :)
Why Spanish from Spain?
That is where I have spend most of my time in Spanish speaking countries.
You should've learned spanish from some latin american country :) . In latin America the spanish is more melodic and soft, spanish from Spain or Castellano is a bit more rough.
I personally find South American Spanish a bit hard on the ears. The absence of a θ (theta) sound hard to take seriously. Arguably, this is extremely relative!
Dragon Altair The Spanish from Spain sounds better and easier on the ear to me at least.
Sorry for many people the motherland of spanish is Spain, same as England for English and France for French!