2:31 N1 Listening is where the party starts 4:51 N2 Keep it easy 5:47 N3 Do it every day 6:32 N4 Break it down 7:27 N5 Reading 8:18 N6 Keep yourself accountable 8:54 N7 Don't worry about speaking 10:06 N8 Trust the process
With everyone’s busy schedules, it is oftentimes difficult to fit in language learning into our lives. That is why Immersive Translate makes it easier and fun as well. I use it to watch Netflix every day and this has really helped me integrate my target language into my life.
I worked in a mexican resteraunt 2 years , with people who spoke very little english. My spanish is so fluent, people don't know that It is not my first language.
In addition to these great tips your earphones should get a mention in every video… I was having real trouble listening enough because my earphones were really irritating my ears. My headphones also became uncomfortable after a while. Bought the earphones you recommended. Game changer. Genuinely. I’ve nearly tripled my daily passive listening consumption purely because of these earphones. I’d never heard of them before I started watching your videos, so thank you!
Yes Charlotte! Headphones are the unsung heroes of language learning. They do most of the heavy lifting for me. SO glad you found them useful! These ones are much safer crossing the road too 🤣
I'm glad you mentioned ALG. Most people have never heard of the Listening Approach & assume they need to consciously study grammar & vocab, even though ALG is easy, fun, & at least as effective as any other method. I'm very glad I learned about this way of acquiring languages, & hope it will continue to become more popular & mainstream.
@@alwayslearning7672 Absolutely, I love Dreaming Spanish & recommend it to everyone who wants to learn Spanish. Pablo does so much behind the scenes to help spread ALG / comprehensible input as well.
Lots of input and delayed speaking has been such a great approach for Spanish. I will certainly use elements of this for Chinese: what do you think about ALG and learning characters?
@@matt_brooks-green I'm not at the point of learning characters myself yet. As ALG recommends, I don't plan to start reading until I can understand spoken Chinese reasonably well. At that point, I plan to start with watching shows & videos with subtitles, and continue with graded readers or other simple texts.
That video was so well done :) (Editing, Footage, etc) As for ALG….it can be a bit more tricky to find content for a language that is not as high in demand - Thai for example has some things online but way less than Chinese for example. So if you are a picky consumer of material (like me….) it is a bit harder to find interesting content. Also…as somebody that decided to start studying Thai because of the script, I do need my daily reading exercises (usally coupled with me transcribing the story…because writing Thai is like meditating)
Thank you 🙏. Slowly getting better 😅. Yeah, sadly the content isn't there for every language. Comprehensible Thai looks like a decent YT to get some extra input (though you're probably already aware)
Great video mate. have been studying Bulgarian for the past two years, hit a major plateau a while back and your videos have provided the necessary motivation to keep going 👍🏻 cheers and keep making awesome content 😀
Sounds so simple! The challenge of course is finding just the right level for input. I've tried to use higher level material, but getting to know it first via translation first. It has some benefits, but as always with language techniques, its very hard to compare and know which one is working. Sometimes language learning is like fighting your way through a fog, with things slowly coming into focus. But oh, so slowly....
Hey Philip. Finding the right material is a challenge depending on the language but certainly for most major languages there is a lot of content to choose from (almost too much!). The biggest benefit of doing things this way is that I can get significantly more input than if I "tried" to learn a language. I don't have a huge amount of free time and so any approach for me needs to be both enjoyable and easy to do alongside being a grown up and having too many things to do. You're right about the fog though! I am on the cusp of a lot of native content but much of it isn't quite intelligible enough!
@@matt_brooks-green Yup. Btw, I'm curious about your thoughts on Pimsleur. I am going through Pimsleur French right now to try to boost my half forgotten school lessons. I find it super convenient (I just listen on my walk to work) and I'm thinking of using it as a base for taking on Korean next - and possibly to get myself back to basics to start outputting Japanese. The recordings are very high quality, but it is pricy compared to a lot of other audio courses.
@@philipdavis7521 Yeah, I don't hate it. I don't have enough experience on it to give a well qualified opinion yet. Certainly you can get a lot of audio on the go for a complete beginner. Its convenience is a real plus
2:31 N1 Listening is where the party starts 4:51 N2 Keep it easy 5:47 N3 Do it every day 6:32 N4 Break it down 7:27 N5 Reading 8:18 N6 Keep yourself accountable 8:54 N7 Don't worry about speaking 10:06 N8 Trust the process :D
Great video, thanks Matt! I'm a big believer in comprehensible input, but personally I need a bit more help with the 'comprehension' part. I've found that if I just try to listen, it takes me a lot longer to learn than if I prime my brain with vocab first. In case there's anyone else watching this who wants to try the comprehensible input method but is a bit unsure whether they'll be able to understand enough for it to help: I use Drops for 5-30 minutes a day to pick up new vocab, learn the pronunciation + some initial visual/topic associations for the word, and don't worry too much if it doesn't 'stick'. Once I've seen it in Drops, I'll often spot it in the Italian tv shows/youtube videos I watch over the next week or two, and boom, lightbulb moment. Drops specifically is great because it's low pressure (5 minutes is enough to keep up a streak, and their streak system is very motivating), it has spaced repetition built in, and you can dip in and out of topics depending on what you're interested in. Over the last three months I've built up about 1800 words of vocab doing 5-20 minutes a day, around a FT job and a part time uni course. Very much a "turtle" slow and steady strat. Over those three months I've gone from being able to say "si", "grazie", and "fa caldo" to being able to watch reality TV shows (think Master Chef/Property Brothers) intended for native speakers and understanding ~80% of it. I promise I'm not sponsored by Drops, I just love the app haha. Ultimately Matt's last point is the key though: trust the process and keep going. And if you're not having fun, change things up so it IS fun again.
I've been learning Italian for a couple of years now and I've got a tutor I see every week who only speaks Italian with me. The problem is when she talks fast my brain gets stumped. But when she slows down to repeat, I understand perfectly and I even know every word she says. It's all in my vocabulary. I've been trying to improve this aspect of my Italian by watching movies, TV shows, listening to songs and having more conversations, but no luck so far. The same situation happens with songs. I know all the words when I read the lyrics, but it goes over my head when I hear the song being sung. Do you have any advice on this? Thanks for the great videos by the way! :)
I would find a lot of material that you can understand pretty well and listen to a ton of it. In Spanish for example there are a lot of podcasts for Spanish learners but they are solely in Spanish and so I can get content I mostly understand and get used to the speed of speech that way. Maybe have a search for more intermediate/ advanced learner stuff if a lot of native material is too fast. The audio is also often very good which helps
Watch Italian shows with Italian subtitles. Watch it once, if you understand most all of it great! A few days later repeat the episode without subtitles and see how many words you can catch. All about the ears now, it will be much easier if you can think in Italian without having to translate most of it.
Thanks for sharing. It's cool to see that others have similar approaches. I am currently about to get to a decent level so that I can understand "normal" Italian spoken podcasts. I'm getting there slowly but steadily. For that I am focusing on small bits of podcasts and relisten to them several times. I sometimes get the transcripts as well. For me, listening or watching to content has always been my main resource in language learning. Cheers, Daniel.
I started off with Spanish Uncovered (paid course - link in the description) but for free stuff it was almost exclusively Dreaming Spanish videos in the early stages. There are other channels that are good though - Spanish After Hours is another I enjoy. Olly Richards' books also have audiobooks you can buy but they aren't cheap and it might be better depending on your level to listen to the audio for RUclips videos (depends on how much data you have when you are out and about too!)
Yeah, I'll do a more in depth video at some point. The short answer is fail for ten years, find graded readers, listen a lot. My Chinese still has a long way to go though!
I should probably use it more. I find myself translating a lot rather than learning just from context as the colouring system seems to promote that (in my head at least). It is a great resource though, especially for those that prefer reading
@@matt_brooks-green It has immensely helped me improove my vocabulary and comprehension in Egyptian Arabic (which there aren't many resources for). I think its great to help get out of the beginner phase even though I wish there were more listening based resources for.
Not yet. I used a lot of free audio for graded readers from the Singolingua site. You can obviously purchase the physical books (or get the electronic version in pleco) but all of the audio is free to download on the website (or at least it was the last time I was there!)
For anyone who's doubtful that this will work, I've done a comprehensible input taster on my channel #opetp. You "pick up" the tiny conlang of Toki Pona in just 20 minutes x 30 stories = 10 hours of CI. I've done interviews with people who've watched them all #30dcic, if you don't have time you could just dip in to those
2:31 N1 Listening is where the party starts
4:51 N2 Keep it easy
5:47 N3 Do it every day
6:32 N4 Break it down
7:27 N5 Reading
8:18 N6 Keep yourself accountable
8:54 N7 Don't worry about speaking
10:06 N8 Trust the process
Thank you Grace. Time stamps are always very useful. Cheers, Daniel.
I thought these were the levels of the JLPT first, so I was very confused for a second or two, haha. Thanks for the time stamps!
N?
With everyone’s busy schedules, it is oftentimes difficult to fit in language learning into our lives. That is why Immersive Translate makes it easier and fun as well. I use it to watch Netflix every day and this has really helped me integrate my target language into my life.
I worked in a mexican resteraunt 2 years , with people who spoke very little english. My spanish is so fluent, people don't know that It is not my first language.
That's awesome. Great work!
I did this once. I called it No-lifing it (which covid helped, tbh). Your approach seems much more manageable
I feel like there is a lot of benefit in a ton of easy stuff. Love your channel btw - really helps my Spanish. Thanks for checking out the vid 🙏
In addition to these great tips your earphones should get a mention in every video… I was having real trouble listening enough because my earphones were really irritating my ears. My headphones also became uncomfortable after a while. Bought the earphones you recommended. Game changer. Genuinely. I’ve nearly tripled my daily passive listening consumption purely because of these earphones. I’d never heard of them before I started watching your videos, so thank you!
Yes Charlotte! Headphones are the unsung heroes of language learning. They do most of the heavy lifting for me. SO glad you found them useful! These ones are much safer crossing the road too 🤣
Nice insights! Get yourself as much language exposure as you can. Nothing will beat that.
Hey Max! Yep! You can certainly do other things but so far this is the most productive and enjoyable for me
I'm glad you mentioned ALG. Most people have never heard of the Listening Approach & assume they need to consciously study grammar & vocab, even though ALG is easy, fun, & at least as effective as any other method. I'm very glad I learned about this way of acquiring languages, & hope it will continue to become more popular & mainstream.
The Dreaming Spanish team is best for this.
Pablo himself is now doing this with Chinese.
@@alwayslearning7672 Absolutely, I love Dreaming Spanish & recommend it to everyone who wants to learn Spanish. Pablo does so much behind the scenes to help spread ALG / comprehensible input as well.
Lots of input and delayed speaking has been such a great approach for Spanish. I will certainly use elements of this for Chinese: what do you think about ALG and learning characters?
@@matt_brooks-green I'm not at the point of learning characters myself yet. As ALG recommends, I don't plan to start reading until I can understand spoken Chinese reasonably well. At that point, I plan to start with watching shows & videos with subtitles, and continue with graded readers or other simple texts.
@@ComprehensibleMandarin Interesting I really like that approach. Let us know how you get on. I might be too invested with characters to stop now!
That video was so well done :) (Editing, Footage, etc)
As for ALG….it can be a bit more tricky to find content for a language that is not as high in demand - Thai for example has some things online but way less than Chinese for example. So if you are a picky consumer of material (like me….) it is a bit harder to find interesting content.
Also…as somebody that decided to start studying Thai because of the script, I do need my daily reading exercises (usally coupled with me transcribing the story…because writing Thai is like meditating)
Thank you 🙏. Slowly getting better 😅. Yeah, sadly the content isn't there for every language. Comprehensible Thai looks like a decent YT to get some extra input (though you're probably already aware)
Nice to see Lucas. I am subscribed to "French Comprehensible Input". 🙂
I really like his vibe. I am a long way from learning French but it is on the 'some day' list
Great video mate. have been studying Bulgarian for the past two years, hit a major plateau a while back and your videos have provided the necessary motivation to keep going 👍🏻 cheers and keep making awesome content 😀
Thanks man, that means a lot. Keep getting input and you'll keep making progress!
Sounds so simple! The challenge of course is finding just the right level for input. I've tried to use higher level material, but getting to know it first via translation first. It has some benefits, but as always with language techniques, its very hard to compare and know which one is working. Sometimes language learning is like fighting your way through a fog, with things slowly coming into focus. But oh, so slowly....
Hey Philip. Finding the right material is a challenge depending on the language but certainly for most major languages there is a lot of content to choose from (almost too much!). The biggest benefit of doing things this way is that I can get significantly more input than if I "tried" to learn a language. I don't have a huge amount of free time and so any approach for me needs to be both enjoyable and easy to do alongside being a grown up and having too many things to do. You're right about the fog though! I am on the cusp of a lot of native content but much of it isn't quite intelligible enough!
@@matt_brooks-green Yup. Btw, I'm curious about your thoughts on Pimsleur. I am going through Pimsleur French right now to try to boost my half forgotten school lessons. I find it super convenient (I just listen on my walk to work) and I'm thinking of using it as a base for taking on Korean next - and possibly to get myself back to basics to start outputting Japanese. The recordings are very high quality, but it is pricy compared to a lot of other audio courses.
@@philipdavis7521 Yeah, I don't hate it. I don't have enough experience on it to give a well qualified opinion yet. Certainly you can get a lot of audio on the go for a complete beginner. Its convenience is a real plus
Amazing video! I was wondering if you could time stamp the video so that it is easy to go back and find each step when revisiting the video :D
2:31 N1 Listening is where the party starts
4:51 N2 Keep it easy
5:47 N3 Do it every day
6:32 N4 Break it down
7:27 N5 Reading
8:18 N6 Keep yourself accountable
8:54 N7 Don't worry about speaking
10:06 N8 Trust the process
:D
Great video, thanks Matt! I'm a big believer in comprehensible input, but personally I need a bit more help with the 'comprehension' part. I've found that if I just try to listen, it takes me a lot longer to learn than if I prime my brain with vocab first.
In case there's anyone else watching this who wants to try the comprehensible input method but is a bit unsure whether they'll be able to understand enough for it to help:
I use Drops for 5-30 minutes a day to pick up new vocab, learn the pronunciation + some initial visual/topic associations for the word, and don't worry too much if it doesn't 'stick'. Once I've seen it in Drops, I'll often spot it in the Italian tv shows/youtube videos I watch over the next week or two, and boom, lightbulb moment.
Drops specifically is great because it's low pressure (5 minutes is enough to keep up a streak, and their streak system is very motivating), it has spaced repetition built in, and you can dip in and out of topics depending on what you're interested in. Over the last three months I've built up about 1800 words of vocab doing 5-20 minutes a day, around a FT job and a part time uni course. Very much a "turtle" slow and steady strat. Over those three months I've gone from being able to say "si", "grazie", and "fa caldo" to being able to watch reality TV shows (think Master Chef/Property Brothers) intended for native speakers and understanding ~80% of it.
I promise I'm not sponsored by Drops, I just love the app haha. Ultimately Matt's last point is the key though: trust the process and keep going. And if you're not having fun, change things up so it IS fun again.
I've been learning Italian for a couple of years now and I've got a tutor I see every week who only speaks Italian with me. The problem is when she talks fast my brain gets stumped. But when she slows down to repeat, I understand perfectly and I even know every word she says. It's all in my vocabulary.
I've been trying to improve this aspect of my Italian by watching movies, TV shows, listening to songs and having more conversations, but no luck so far. The same situation happens with songs. I know all the words when I read the lyrics, but it goes over my head when I hear the song being sung.
Do you have any advice on this?
Thanks for the great videos by the way! :)
I would find a lot of material that you can understand pretty well and listen to a ton of it. In Spanish for example there are a lot of podcasts for Spanish learners but they are solely in Spanish and so I can get content I mostly understand and get used to the speed of speech that way. Maybe have a search for more intermediate/ advanced learner stuff if a lot of native material is too fast. The audio is also often very good which helps
Watch Italian shows with Italian subtitles. Watch it once, if you understand most all of it great! A few days later repeat the episode without subtitles and see how many words you can catch. All about the ears now, it will be much easier if you can think in Italian without having to translate most of it.
Try watching videos on RUclips at 1.5x or even 2x. That's how I improved my listening/comprehension in English.
I know that this is not the topic but, that is a beautiful timepiece.
Thanks man 🙏
Thanks for sharing. It's cool to see that others have similar approaches. I am currently about to get to a decent level so that I can understand "normal" Italian spoken podcasts.
I'm getting there slowly but steadily. For that I am focusing on small bits of podcasts and relisten to them several times. I sometimes get the transcripts as well.
For me, listening or watching to content has always been my main resource in language learning.
Cheers, Daniel.
Fabulous video, Matt! Could you point me to some of the content you watched or listened to in your early days of learning Spanish?
I started off with Spanish Uncovered (paid course - link in the description) but for free stuff it was almost exclusively Dreaming Spanish videos in the early stages. There are other channels that are good though - Spanish After Hours is another I enjoy. Olly Richards' books also have audiobooks you can buy but they aren't cheap and it might be better depending on your level to listen to the audio for RUclips videos (depends on how much data you have when you are out and about too!)
Could you do a step-by-step Tutorial on how you learned Chinese?
Yeah, I'll do a more in depth video at some point. The short answer is fail for ten years, find graded readers, listen a lot. My Chinese still has a long way to go though!
happiness ameen
Would love to hear your thoughts on LingQ
I should probably use it more. I find myself translating a lot rather than learning just from context as the colouring system seems to promote that (in my head at least). It is a great resource though, especially for those that prefer reading
@@matt_brooks-green It has immensely helped me improove my vocabulary and comprehension in Egyptian Arabic (which there aren't many resources for). I think its great to help get out of the beginner phase even though I wish there were more listening based resources for.
do you have a video about your favourite chinese podcasts?
Not yet. I used a lot of free audio for graded readers from the Singolingua site. You can obviously purchase the physical books (or get the electronic version in pleco) but all of the audio is free to download on the website (or at least it was the last time I was there!)
Nor possible
8 is my lucky number.
mine is 7☹️
8 is a great number!
For anyone who's doubtful that this will work, I've done a comprehensible input taster on my channel #opetp. You "pick up" the tiny conlang of Toki Pona in just 20 minutes x 30 stories = 10 hours of CI. I've done interviews with people who've watched them all #30dcic, if you don't have time you could just dip in to those