A recap I made for myself: Material needed: - magazines with lot of pictures (20% of acquiring) - children stories (80% of acquiring) - paper and pencil - props Rules: 1. speak in the target language only, other languages not allowed (5-10% tolerance) 2. no grammar explanations (5 seconds tolerance) 3. no corrections. You will eventually get it right after ~40 repetitions First learn how to say in the target language: - yes - no - what's this? - it's not important Begin your language exchange using magazine and talking about the pictures. If you don't understand something, try drawing, using gestures, props, pointing to things, etc. When you have enough understanding of the language, you can begin your exhanges with TPR: your partner will give you commands that you will try to accomplish, i.e.: write, read, study, yell, cry, swim, watch TV, explore the internet, touch the table, touch your nose, touch your eyebrows... When you acquire 500/1000 words you can move on to children stories. Final thoughts: if you make a wordlist, make drawings to explain the meanings and try to stay away from translations.
I'm lost here. He says he's going to use magazines 20% of the time, and at about the 2:44 mark, he says that after about a 500-1000 words he'll switch to children's books. My question, after looking at your analysis, is what about the 80% of the time before children's books; what's he doing with that time? He didn't say. Thanks
@@keithstarkey5584 I think when he says 500 words, he means that they'll say about 500 words before they move on to children's books, not that you need to aquire those words. I expect the 500 word mark to be about 20% of the session. Might be wrong :)
XxViBexX I agree with you 1000% Especially because this video showed someone with a good command of English and I think the English part would be very different and I am interested in seeing that, as well.
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457, we need a culture of recorded language exchanges to take off on RUclips, I think it would be absolutely phenomenal and positive.
@@ClassPunkOnRumbleAndSubstack YESSS!! That would be AWESOME! Much better than any language course out there :> And you can be the first one to post it :) (don't forget to notify me ;) ). Just please, don't litter it with stock music and sound effects, PLEASE! ;o I can't hear ANY of her Korean talking because of that distracting crappy music ;/ And since it starts precisely when she starts talking, it almost looks like as if you put it there on purpose to hinder learning :q
This is inspirational! I downloaded Hello Talk and did a Language exchange on my phone yesterday. I posted an ad on Craigslist on Sunday. Next, I am going to try to find someone from an ESL class.
Nice. Good job. :) I loooooooove language exchange. Yes, I go to ESL classes all the time. It's a no brainer and a win-win. Just make sure they don't correct you because most will unless you tell them. :)
No luck on my first Craigslist ad, and the English school’s not in session right now. BUT Hello Talk has increased my listening and speaking skills tremendously! It’s like my passive knowledge has been activated. I’ve never had so much fun learning Spanish. I am grateful to you for teaching me about language exchanges. I’ve put this video on a playlist on my channel. I’ll keep you updated on me and my children’s progress every once-in-a-while. Thanks again! :)
Don't know if you'll see this since your comment is a year old, but I'm learning Japanese, and I'm about top use HelloTalk. What exactly did you do during your online language exchange, because it can't be exactly the same as doing one in person like in this video.
This is so helpful! Can you please post more of your full length language exchanges, unedited? Especially for the beginner level - "your first language exchange" that sort of thing! thank you!
I always thought language exchange doesn't work. I am in China and I feel that Chinese people always try to speak English with me, not giving me a chance to acquire Chinese. So I never did the language exchange thing. This video shows how to do it the right way. Amazing. Will definitely give it a try now! Thanks for the video!
Your videos have COMPLETELY opened my eyes to the possibilities of language learning!!!! I can't thank you enough for this :)) I am learning Korean but I don't want to just be able to pass a school test, I want to be able to effectively communicate in the language and this is exactly what I've been needing! I do have one question though: Is it effective, or even possible, to apply this method to a language I've been learning in school for a long time? I've been studying Spanish for about 5 years now and have a good understanding of grammar with a pretty big vocabulary, but because it's been in a classroom mostly focused on reading and grammar drills, I still struggle to speak with native speakers and to communicate naturally. I would love to improve my Spanish this way too! Any thoughts?
Absolutely, go for it! Your background knowledge only helps as long as you keep a beginners' mind and aren't afraid to make mistakes and get out of the perfectionist class-room mindset ;)
Yes. It's very effective to apply this method to a language you have already "learned." The key word here is "learned." You learned the language but never acquired it. Now is the time to acquire it. Just try not to think of the grammar too much when acquiring that language that you already "know."
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 I love your videos they are so good and a very different approach to "acquiring a language" It would be great if you can continue uploading your acquisition sessions. Thanks.
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 How would I learn sight words in Russian (my target language) like the, and, or, this, ect. You can't point at a picture and say " Look at this this is a sight word". How would I learn Sight Words and stick away from reading, speaking, and writing English?
I knew it was important to structure language exchanges so that one language doesn't dominate/so that you don't have the same conversation multiple times but I could never really imagine how. Thank you for the suggestions! (:
This is fantastic! Would you please post a full session? I found your videos so inspiring, I'm full of enthusiasm to start learning Korean now Thank you !
Today my mother told me that she is going to bring me down from my sister's house the children stories books she used to teach my nephew and niece during their Homeschooling years. I'm so happy!!.
Muchas Gracias Profesor Jeff . La mejor instrucción para poder aplicar el enfoque natural de adquisicion de Idiomas. Ya lo estoy aplicando con mis estudiantes de español en Italki. ! Nuevamente gracias Profesor Jeff !
Yes! would save me trying to explain it! that and the 60-minute one he did. If nothing else, I think this style of learning would add a lot more enjoyment to whatever other activities doing alongside. (if any).
Thank you! I'm so glad I came across your videos. I've noticed that my 12mo grandson has started mimicking most of my Japanese phrases I use to talk to him when it's my turn to mind him for the day. So cute! *I Will Not Correct Him*, thanks to your video. We will enjoy and just have fun! Hopefully he will ACQUIRE Japanese, or maybe not! (I am going to try German with this method)
The girl is loving, haha. I am Chinese and now I am acquiring English and French. Thanks for your videos, they are pretty awesome and make me believe I have the might.
Hi , your videos are really interesting. I hadn’t come across this method before and I’d like to try it with my own language learning projects. It would be really useful if you could share your command list as I am sure that you have fine tuned it over time.
Oh, wow, I was in luck! Korean exchange!!! She is a great teacher! I'm going to try to do this with my students this week on Zoom! It won't be the best setting but still its' better than nothing. Thank you!
Amazing. Added to my favourites. I hope I will be able to come back to this video for reference for years to come. Stellar content, thank you for sharing!
Я в восхищении! Браво! Я преподаю немецкий беженцам,но традиционным методом, но нозчу попробовать преподавать с помощью compehensibel input. И я хочу выучить испанский с нуля с помощью этого метода. Спасибо. Могу обменяться языками: русский(родной), немецкий (С2) на испанский, итальянский, английский. Всем удачи!
You have given me a lot of hope. I am wanting to learn (old way of thinking) acquire a new language later in life and I was having doubts. This is a fabulous idea. Thanks. Gavin
Jeff thank you for this enlightening information about acquiring a language instead of learning it. Prior to watching your videos I have been trying to learn French using a Linguaphone course which is just drill, drill and grammar, grammar. This has just about driven me up the wall. Your advice is a lifesaver to me as I was close to throwing in the towel.
Jeff thank you so much. This video where you break everything down is so helpful. You should have so much more subscribers compared to all those fake polyglots with their click bate title of how they became fluent in a week. You are the real deal. I hope you make more content in 2022! Thank you again!
Excellent demonstration of acquiring language, Prof. Brown. After watching your How to Acquire a Language video, I was wondering how I am going to explain this to my language partner, and how I am going to acquire language. This video demonstrated that in an amazing way. Thanks a lot Prof. Brown
I love the videos of Jeff Brown, his enthusiasm is communicative! I've been sharing the "How to acquire any language?" video with dozen of my students to introduce them to my teaching method & comprehensible input. This said, Quinny is an amazing language partner ;)
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 2nd session too - I remember so much of what I learned, and it's just available to me like that. I heard in your other video. You talked about reading as that missing piece to pull in all the grammar, and get more contextual exposure. but it's a little hard with Chinese characters. Do you have any recommendation?
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 I don't know about that - do you think it would be okay to read pinyin? You talk a lot about comprehensible input, and I'm thinking if I could read it would fill in those grammar gaps. Do you have experience with reading pinyin to fill that need?
Absolutely fascinating video! And you have some of my favorite children’s stories. 😂 We love The Berenstain Bears and PD Eastman. I’m so excited to implement this method! 😍
Such a good video!! Thanks for posting the actual exchange with books and magazines. My 4-year-old daughter was watching with me and immediately noticed The Best Nest (bird book). One of our fav PD Eastman books.
It seems to me like the korean exchange partner used too many words from the get go, would you agree? i guess the "remedy" for this is asking about the word youre wondering about and asking her to repeat those exact words and not think about understand all those other words shes saying at a rapid pace.
In your Arabic video you said, "Always start with clothing and color." But in this one you started with a road and cars. How come? Also it is more effective to start with clothing and color what are the next more effective subjects? I.e. numbers, food, body parts, buildings, etc. Thanks, Dr. Learning a lot for my EFL students 😉
TEFL Hero I would not start with clothes and colors i would start with basic conversation like hello how are you my name is etc the important thing is you get started so it doesn’t matter where you start
that was a great example. I just realized that Duolingo's grammar is learned similarly to the repetition that Queenie (spelling?) did for you, but the difference is that the sentences are translated to English as you move to the next phrase or sentence
In one of his other videos he mentions using a specific list, they're called the Sweet 16. You can usually find them in Spanish, but they can be applied for any language.
I'm going to have one of my Chinese friends make a visit to the bookstore with me and pick up some books. Can't wait to do this with Chinese and Japanese. I'm no beginner in these languages so I think I'll really take off doing this regularly.
Thank you so much for your videos. You have given me the confidence to go ahead and learn the language of my partner’s family, Dutch. I am so excited to learn in the same way children do👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Going to try a language exchange with my partner using this method in a few hours. I'm super excited. I've done language exchange before but I always get stuck on 'What should I talk about since I don't know how to say anything?' Thanks so much for making this video!
Woah this is totally amazing! I'm learning korean and I just bumped into this video hahaha I'm super grateful and really schocked! you have opened my mind. If there's someone here that speaks korean and would like to practise english and or spanish; talk to me!
again a great example how you show how to use TPRS. I have a question. How would one do this with an online teacher or language exchange partner such as on Italki? Should the student or teacher share their screen? And for children stories, could online comic books in the target language also be used?? When is approximately the right time to actually start having conversations?
This video is great because it shows you how. The internet and RUclips are full of explanations about comprehensible input, but when you know 0.00% of your target language it's hard to figure out how to get it. Surely there might be other ways beyond this one in the video, but here this method is SHOWN and this gives something to hold on to when planning from that 0.00% starting point. Incredibly useful content (it still seems hard to acquire the language in this way, seen from the outside - but I guess this is how it goes). I'm just upset that I got to discover these approaches now in times of social distancing.
So the “teacher ” makes up the story as they go? They’re describing the picture based on what ever comes to mind in the moment, not necessarily a narrative?
That laugh track got me to laugh subconsciously after about 40 repetitions. xD Seriously though, this is a great walkthrough on the power of language exchange through immersive comprehensive input!
This was really helpful. Thank you! Couple questions, though. How do you typically set this up over skype/ online? Are the children's stories/ magazines in the target language (I couldn't see, sorry)? Also, this seems like it would help you get a strong grasp on the basics/ set up a foundation in the language. But, how do you acquire the ability to string together sentences more complex than, 'this is a plane', etc? Do you only do straight up comp input? How do you change your daily language study regiment as you progress? What exactly do you do from novice to 'fluent'?
I find very usefull, but at least for korean I think it’s a good thing to learn the basics of Hangul, because it’s very simple, you can learn it in less than an hour, and even for this method I find it very usefull because you can learn easily the pronunciation, ( maybe Chinese or Japanese doesn’t make sense, they have a lot of characters)
This is a great summary detailing the nuts and bolts of how to do language exchange. I think it's the only one I have seen detailing the process within a session. Agree with the others that the music is obtrusive but otherwise, an excellent video. Thanks for making it and sharing.
Love the video. Question though, what’s the next step if you are already fairly comfortable with basic conversation and can read children’s stories easily? I’m trying to get to a level in German where I can listen to the news, watch a film or speak with easy fluency but I’m totally stuck. I’ve been reading magazines and watching shows. Maybe more meet ups? Thank you!
Yes,i was wondering this too...I mean, you'd want do progressively move onto harder stuff asking your language exchage for a some i +1 and progress that way.
Great video! I've always been afraid of language exchange because I wouldn't know what to talk about but using magazines and books sounds like a perfect way to get lots of vocabulary and simple grammar so that I can begin communicating. I also have a couple questions I would really love to get your opinion on! First, you ask not to be corrected, which for grammar I understand, but what about pronunciation? For example, you repeated "hagana" which should have been "hwagana". Should she not correct you; take a few seconds to practice the pronunciation? Second, you've already answered this in other comments but I wanted to double check. From what I understand, once you are pretty fluent, you don't use children's books? You can move onto getting comprehensible input alone from books (or rather begin learning to read if you only focused on speaking and listening for languages with non-roman letters, like you recommended in your other video) and RUclips videos or just practice normal conversation? Do you still do something like story listening without pictures like Dr. Mason does for her upper level students? Sorry for the long comment! I'm looking forward to trying this method myself soon!
I don't understand what do you focus on when you're starting listening to the new language, like in this example video? Do you have any goal in mind for the session? Maybe you focus on what gets your attention, but in that case I don't understand how do you get the 40 or 50 repetitions of the same word in a way that works well for your brain. You can listen 3 or 4 times using the recording (btw: how do you know what are you listening to? you only have the sound but no image to relate to...), but what happens if it takes time for this same word to appear again? Wouldn't it be like forgetting and starting from scratch, like you didn't hear it before? (For example, let's say you have the oportunity to listen to the same word, not the next session, but maybe two or three weeks later, or maybe a couple months later... Not sure if my question is clear, obviously english is not my mother tongue, haha). In case you have time to answer, I'm curious: you really don't write or do anything like "studying"? Do you have something in mind as a goal for the meeting with your partner, like "today I want to learn words relating to food" (or arquitecture or something)? Do you choose children books or magazines somehow or any one is good enough? The videos are great, please keep them coming! Thank you!!
I don't have any goal. I open the magazine and have my teacher describe everything in great detail. The same words come up over and over again. But if I open up a fashion magazine, I already know I'm going to acquire words related to fashion, beauty, etc. If it's a boating magazine, I'll be acquiring boat stuff. For children's books Berenstain Bears can't be beat. I have all of them.
It would be cool to have a video made for a particular language that explains the process and rules. If two people wanted to learn each other’s language, but don’t speak any of the language they want to acquire, if both people had the rules and understand the process, could they learn the language?
After viewing this video and the other one about how to acquire a language, I signed up for a language exchange here in Dubai. I'm married to a native French speaker and we've been together for 13 years, but trying to learn from her is challenging. I do speak a few words and phrases, but usually don't understand anything people say in French. I've tried all the online courses, apps and videos, but it just doesn't stick. I'm hoping this will finally get me there. Thanks for the awesome inspiration. Any chance you could share a list of your favorite commands in English?
The two videos of yours that I have watched are utterly inspiring. I used to live in Korea and have been learning Korean since 2015, I've done many language exchanges etc but have always felt method was lacking and I relied too much on traditional methods like grammar books. You have clarified perfectly how to acquire languages efficiently and naturally. Very grateful and I will implement the techniques with fresh language exchanges going forward! I was wondering if you have any experience language exchanging online or even audio only? Is it possible?
Thank you for your kind words. I have never done language exchanges online. I'm sure it would work but I'm not a big fan. I audio record all of my language exchanges listen to them later. I once sent my Arabic teacher in Egypt stories that I audio recorded and she sent me the same stories in Arabic. That could work.
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 When you watch tv in your target language do you use English subtitles? I assume not because you'd be using the translation approach which you've mentioned a lot that it's not effective! But I'm learning Russian and I think it helps me more to follow along when I have subtitles on. I'm curious on your thought process when you watch cartoons in your target language :) How far into your language acquisition do you start watching them? Thank you!! Borja
Thank you for these fantastic videos! I'm studying to become an ESL teacher (already a volunteer) and I've noticed that drawing is so helpful for getting concepts across. It adds humor and spontaneity as well, while avoiding verbal translation. Would you 1) consider doing a video showing how you use drawing/sketching/cartooning or 2) can you suggest any other sources for this? I've searched without success, which surprises me, since becoming an agile cartoonist (nothing fancy, just quick) seems like a great skill to add to language teaching and learning. Any academic or non-academic sources to recommend?
Hi. Thank you. Yes. I will be doing another video soon about my acquiring Farsi and it will be just the acquisition portion. Very few comments. You'll see me drawing and gesturing like crazy. I'll work on it on Jun 1. I recommend the Facebook group iFLT/NTPRS/CI We are all CI instructors. We are a cult. :)
Hey, Its impossible to meet someone in person for this because of the Quarantine, do you have any advice for an online exchange. It would be great if you could do a video just on that
My girlfriend wants to Aquire the Japanese language but is having trouble finding someone online to aquire Japanese from. Is she going about this the wrong way? And how can she find someone to language exchange with who will be willing to stay in frequent contact with her?
Great videos! Thanks a lot. I have been learning Spanish for some time through variety of methods including some conversation sessions when we would just talk - I will definetely try to include some props or children's books in that! I am a native Polish speaker but I also speak English on a fairly professional level after living in the UK for 6 years as for now. I don't quite know how to look for a language partner, it seems that few people want to learn Polish and not that many of them speak the language(s) I would be interested in. Actually Korean is one language I made some progress in and I am interested in furthering that. So my question is, would it be best for me to 1. just get a teacher, i.e. just pay someone for their time and do it one way 2. continue looking desperately for a Korean dude wanting to learn Polish in an English town 3. try to advertise myself with English even though there's a lot of native English speakers aroundd who I guess anyone would prefer 4. something else? With Spanish I found people at my dancing class (since I am training latin dances lot of people are from spanish speaking countries, also music is all in spanish and that helps a lot), they agree to do it one way (they teach me and that's it) after I dance with them an buy them a drink haha. When it comes to other languages it is more difficult.
If you can afford it, pay a tutor. However, there are many people out there who will do it for free. Look for Korean Facebook groups in your area. You'd be surprised how many people will teach you for free.
Profesor, dos dudas: 1. ¿A partir de cuándo deberían ser corregidos nuestros errores de pronunciación? 2. ¿Cuándo deberíamos comenzar con la escritura? En especial si hay que aprender un alfabeto completamente nuevo (como el haengul en este caso). ¡Muchas gracias por los videos! Aprendí mucho sobre la adquisición de nuevos idiomas. Siga así :)
Los errores se deben corregir solo cuando el estudiante o bebe habla con fluidez. O si no, los errores no tendran ningun efecto. 2. Para idiomas que usan el alfabeto romano, se debe empezar a leer tan pronto como posible. Pero si es un idioma donde usan otro alfabeto que no es el romano, se debe de esperar hasta que uno tenga 5.000 palabras adquiridas.
This is vert helpful! Thank you! Do we need to bring magazine/children book in both target langagues (ex: Korean and English in your example)? Or any magazine/children book with pictures is fine? It's hard to find books in my target languages in my country.
The magazines and the children's books can be in any language. Your language parent is not going to read you the story. He/she is going to tell you the story, using the pictures. Or he/she is going to describe the pictures in a magazine to you.
This is a really interesting approach to language learning which until now, have been very boring and tedious to me. At first I was confused on how we were supposed to understand what they're saying by just having them talk to a foreign language, but after seeing it in action I understand it more. Is this an example of Comprehensible input?
Hello Professor. This example of learning Korean is very helpful. Could we get more examples like this for learning Chinese please? And what should we do once you reach the level where you can converse in language? How should we learn grammar, and etc?
A recap I made for myself:
Material needed:
- magazines with lot of pictures (20% of acquiring)
- children stories (80% of acquiring)
- paper and pencil
- props
Rules:
1. speak in the target language only, other languages not allowed (5-10% tolerance)
2. no grammar explanations (5 seconds tolerance)
3. no corrections. You will eventually get it right after ~40 repetitions
First learn how to say in the target language:
- yes
- no
- what's this?
- it's not important
Begin your language exchange using magazine and talking about the pictures.
If you don't understand something, try drawing, using gestures, props, pointing to things, etc.
When you have enough understanding of the language, you can begin your exhanges with TPR: your partner will give you commands that you will try to accomplish, i.e.: write, read, study, yell, cry, swim, watch TV, explore the internet, touch the table, touch your nose, touch your eyebrows...
When you acquire 500/1000 words you can move on to children stories.
Final thoughts: if you make a wordlist, make drawings to explain the meanings and try to stay away from translations.
I'm lost here. He says he's going to use magazines 20% of the time, and at about the 2:44 mark, he says that after about a 500-1000 words he'll switch to children's books. My question, after looking at your analysis, is what about the 80% of the time before children's books; what's he doing with that time? He didn't say. Thanks
@@keithstarkey5584 I think when he says 500 words, he means that they'll say about 500 words before they move on to children's books, not that you need to aquire those words. I expect the 500 word mark to be about 20% of the session. Might be wrong :)
Nice!
@@eiriks680 Could be. Thanks.
Thanks for the notes... This is going straight into my evernote
Great content, but I am a bit distracted by the music which is competing with your voice. Criticism with the best of intentions. Cheers.
agreed. and the SFX are distracting as well. going to adopt this method with my language partners. interested to see how this works oit
Yes, through me off for a few seconds
Agreed--Music is appropriate but it is a little too loud.
Wow! It’s amazing. I love your approach.
agreed, awesome instruction but as someone with ASD, sifting competing sounds is difficult and exhausting
Can you please post as many full language exchanges as you can, it would help us all a lot.
XxViBexX I agree with you 1000% Especially because this video showed someone with a good command of English and I think the English part would be very different and I am interested in seeing that, as well.
June 2019. I promise.
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457, we need a culture of recorded language exchanges to take off on RUclips, I think it would be absolutely phenomenal and positive.
@@ClassPunkOnRumbleAndSubstack ok
@@ClassPunkOnRumbleAndSubstack YESSS!! That would be AWESOME! Much better than any language course out there :> And you can be the first one to post it :) (don't forget to notify me ;) ).
Just please, don't litter it with stock music and sound effects, PLEASE! ;o I can't hear ANY of her Korean talking because of that distracting crappy music ;/ And since it starts precisely when she starts talking, it almost looks like as if you put it there on purpose to hinder learning :q
This is fantastic. You sir are a genius.
I concur! He is incredible
This is inspirational! I downloaded Hello Talk and did a Language exchange on my phone yesterday. I posted an ad on Craigslist on Sunday. Next, I am going to try to find someone from an ESL class.
Nice. Good job. :) I loooooooove language exchange. Yes, I go to ESL classes all the time. It's a no brainer and a win-win. Just make sure they don't correct you because most will unless you tell them. :)
No luck on my first Craigslist ad, and the English school’s not in session right now. BUT Hello Talk has increased my listening and speaking skills tremendously! It’s like my passive knowledge has been activated. I’ve never had so much fun learning Spanish.
I am grateful to you for teaching me about language exchanges. I’ve put this video on a playlist on my channel. I’ll keep you updated on me and my children’s progress every once-in-a-while. Thanks again! :)
That's awesome! Did you look at magazines over Hello Talk? I was wondering how it would be to use the magazine/story method on there.
Don't know if you'll see this since your comment is a year old, but I'm learning Japanese, and I'm about top use HelloTalk. What exactly did you do during your online language exchange, because it can't be exactly the same as doing one in person like in this video.
@@abramthegamingguy9016 where you able to use the videos tips (acquisition with a magazine) in hello talk?
this is very important shift in language learning= the new era of LANGUAGE AQUISITION!! Luv this guy!!
Thank you. I agree. 😊
Great follow up on your "How to Acquire Any Language." Just what I wanted. Thanks.
This is so helpful! Can you please post more of your full length language exchanges, unedited? Especially for the beginner level - "your first language exchange" that sort of thing! thank you!
I always thought language exchange doesn't work. I am in China and I feel that Chinese people always try to speak English with me, not giving me a chance to acquire Chinese. So I never did the language exchange thing. This video shows how to do it the right way. Amazing. Will definitely give it a try now! Thanks for the video!
They love to do that, hence why you set rules
Your videos have COMPLETELY opened my eyes to the possibilities of language learning!!!! I can't thank you enough for this :)) I am learning Korean but I don't want to just be able to pass a school test, I want to be able to effectively communicate in the language and this is exactly what I've been needing!
I do have one question though: Is it effective, or even possible, to apply this method to a language I've been learning in school for a long time? I've been studying Spanish for about 5 years now and have a good understanding of grammar with a pretty big vocabulary, but because it's been in a classroom mostly focused on reading and grammar drills, I still struggle to speak with native speakers and to communicate naturally. I would love to improve my Spanish this way too! Any thoughts?
Absolutely, go for it! Your background knowledge only helps as long as you keep a beginners' mind and aren't afraid to make mistakes and get out of the perfectionist class-room mindset ;)
Yes. It's very effective to apply this method to a language you have already "learned." The key word here is "learned." You learned the language but never acquired it. Now is the time to acquire it. Just try not to think of the grammar too much when acquiring that language that you already "know."
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 I love your videos they are so good and a very different approach to "acquiring a language" It would be great if you can continue uploading your acquisition sessions. Thanks.
Hi i speak Spanish if you want to speak and i practise english. You are native in English?
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 How would I learn sight words in Russian (my target language) like the, and, or, this, ect. You can't point at a picture and say " Look at this this is a sight word". How would I learn Sight Words and stick away from reading, speaking, and writing English?
I knew it was important to structure language exchanges so that one language doesn't dominate/so that you don't have the same conversation multiple times but I could never really imagine how. Thank you for the suggestions! (:
This is fantastic!
Would you please post a full session?
I found your videos so inspiring, I'm full of enthusiasm to start learning Korean now
Thank you !
Daniel Kanno I’m learning korean too 😊
Today my mother told me that she is going to bring me down from my sister's house the children stories books she used to teach my nephew and niece during their Homeschooling years. I'm so happy!!.
Muchas Gracias Profesor Jeff . La mejor instrucción para poder aplicar el enfoque natural de adquisicion de Idiomas. Ya lo estoy aplicando con mis estudiantes de español en Italki. ! Nuevamente gracias Profesor Jeff !
De nada!
this is a great video to send your prospective language exchange partners until you find the ones who react with "we should totally do that".
Yes! would save me trying to explain it! that and the 60-minute one he did. If nothing else, I think this style of learning would add a lot more enjoyment to whatever other activities doing alongside. (if any).
Thank you! I'm so glad I came across your videos. I've noticed that my 12mo grandson has started mimicking most of my Japanese phrases I use to talk to him when it's my turn to mind him for the day. So cute! *I Will Not Correct Him*, thanks to your video. We will enjoy and just have fun! Hopefully he will ACQUIRE Japanese, or maybe not! (I am going to try German with this method)
Awesome.
Thank you SO MUCH. This really confirms my ideas on acquiring a language. I am acquiring Tagalog and Cebuano here in the Philippines. Such a thrill!
The girl is loving, haha. I am Chinese and now I am acquiring English and French. Thanks for your videos, they are pretty awesome and make me believe I have the might.
Hi , your videos are really interesting. I hadn’t come across this method before and I’d like to try it with my own language learning projects. It would be really useful if you could share your command list as I am sure that you have fine tuned it over time.
I would like to see the command list too. please share it.
He has an entire Google doc in his video "How to acquire language, not learn it", which includes his command list and his entire TPRS process
Oh, wow, I was in luck! Korean exchange!!! She is a great teacher! I'm going to try to do this with my students this week on Zoom! It won't be the best setting but still its' better than nothing. Thank you!
This is what I've been looking for, Jeff! Thank you. I needed the demo.
I had given up on ever learning another language. Your videos have given me a fresh motivation to do it!
Amazing. Added to my favourites. I hope I will be able to come back to this video for reference for years to come. Stellar content, thank you for sharing!
OH MY GOODNESS, THIS IS SOOO EXCITING!!. And I don't have Korean in my language goals yet!. LOVE THIS!!!
Я в восхищении! Браво! Я преподаю немецкий беженцам,но традиционным методом, но нозчу попробовать преподавать с помощью compehensibel input. И я хочу выучить испанский с нуля с помощью этого метода. Спасибо. Могу обменяться языками: русский(родной), немецкий (С2) на испанский, итальянский, английский. Всем удачи!
You have given me a lot of hope. I am wanting to learn (old way of thinking) acquire a new language later in life and I was having doubts. This is a fabulous idea. Thanks. Gavin
Jeff thank you for this enlightening information about acquiring a language instead of learning it. Prior to watching your videos I have been trying to learn French using a Linguaphone course which is just drill, drill and grammar, grammar. This has just about driven me up the wall. Your advice is a lifesaver to me as I was close to throwing in the towel.
Jeff thank you so much. This video where you break everything down is so helpful. You should have so much more subscribers compared to all those fake polyglots with their click bate title of how they became fluent in a week. You are the real deal. I hope you make more content in 2022! Thank you again!
Thank you. I might move to tik tok
Excellent demonstration of acquiring language, Prof. Brown.
After watching your How to Acquire a Language video, I was wondering how I am going to explain this to my language partner, and how I am going to acquire language.
This video demonstrated that in an amazing way.
Thanks a lot Prof. Brown
I love the videos of Jeff Brown, his enthusiasm is communicative! I've been sharing the "How to acquire any language?" video with dozen of my students to introduce them to my teaching method & comprehensible input. This said, Quinny is an amazing language partner ;)
As someone who’s fluent in sign language gestures drive me nuts bc I want them to be the ASL signs lol. Wonderful video!
damn just looking at these recordings is a pretty awesome way to get comprehensible input. I'm a bit too shy to get an actual language exchange.
do it online
"The best thing about this is making new friends" Urgh, no thanks!
Excellent video, thank you for the detailed information. Do you have perhaps a list of your favorite children books? That would be great.
I am soooooo happy that i found your videos!!! Soooo useful! Can’t wait for more!
Agree about pictures on Flash Cards, I've found myself starting to do that and you have reinforced it for me!
thank you so much... I started doing exchanges like you recommened and my first session went awesome..
Awesome. Thank you!
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 2nd session too - I remember so much of what I learned, and it's just available to me like that. I heard in your other video. You talked about reading as that missing piece to pull in all the grammar, and get more contextual exposure. but it's a little hard with Chinese characters. Do you have any recommendation?
Yes. Don't read any Chinese until you know about 4000 words.
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 I don't know about that - do you think it would be okay to read pinyin? You talk a lot about comprehensible input, and I'm thinking if I could read it would fill in those grammar gaps. Do you have experience with reading pinyin to fill that need?
@@breadman5048 yes. Reading pinying is a great idea. You can get pinying books at tprsbooks.com
Superrrrrr!!! I love your method of teaching!!!! I am going to try that!!!! Best wishes to you in your work
Thank you! Cheers!
Absolutely fascinating video! And you have some of my favorite children’s stories. 😂 We love The Berenstain Bears and PD Eastman. I’m so excited to implement this method! 😍
Me too. I couldn't have done it without Berenstain Bears.
Such a good video!! Thanks for posting the actual exchange with books and magazines. My 4-year-old daughter was watching with me and immediately noticed The Best Nest (bird book). One of our fav PD Eastman books.
That is awesome!
It seems to me like the korean exchange partner used too many words from the get go, would you agree? i guess the "remedy" for this is asking about the word youre wondering about and asking her to repeat those exact words and not think about understand all those other words shes saying at a rapid pace.
In your Arabic video you said, "Always start with clothing and color." But in this one you started with a road and cars. How come?
Also it is more effective to start with clothing and color what are the next more effective subjects? I.e. numbers, food, body parts, buildings, etc.
Thanks, Dr. Learning a lot for my EFL students 😉
TEFL Hero I would not start with clothes and colors i would start with basic conversation like hello how are you my name is etc the important thing is you get started so it doesn’t matter where you start
I dislike to learn numbers and colours. Feels forced to me and boring. I learn the numbers way to late :D
that was a great example. I just realized that Duolingo's grammar is learned similarly to the repetition that Queenie (spelling?) did for you, but the difference is that the sentences are translated to English as you move to the next phrase or sentence
Could you publish the list of verbs you usually use?
In one of his other videos he mentions using a specific list, they're called the Sweet 16. You can usually find them in Spanish, but they can be applied for any language.
I'd like to see the result of the acquisition of the Korean language. Can you upload some videos of it, if possible?
I'm going to have one of my Chinese friends make a visit to the bookstore with me and pick up some books. Can't wait to do this with Chinese and Japanese. I'm no beginner in these languages so I think I'll really take off doing this regularly.
Thank you so much for your videos. You have given me the confidence to go ahead and learn the language of my partner’s family, Dutch. I am so excited to learn in the same way children do👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Consider partnering up with WeedMIC, above. I suspect he lives in the Nederlands. Success!😃
I'm korean she did a great job
Going to try a language exchange with my partner using this method in a few hours. I'm super excited. I've done language exchange before but I always get stuck on 'What should I talk about since I don't know how to say anything?' Thanks so much for making this video!
Thank you sooo much for demonstrating the process! This was amazing!
Woah this is totally amazing! I'm learning korean and I just bumped into this video hahaha I'm super grateful and really schocked! you have opened my mind.
If there's someone here that speaks korean and would like to practise english and or spanish; talk to me!
Please document your journey more!
This is GOLD. Thank you sir
again a great example how you show how to use TPRS. I have a question. How would one do this with an online teacher or language exchange partner such as on Italki? Should the student or teacher share their screen? And for children stories, could online comic books in the target language also be used?? When is approximately the right time to actually start having conversations?
This video is great because it shows you how.
The internet and RUclips are full of explanations about comprehensible input, but when you know 0.00% of your target language it's hard to figure out how to get it.
Surely there might be other ways beyond this one in the video, but here this method is SHOWN and this gives something to hold on to when planning from that 0.00% starting point.
Incredibly useful content (it still seems hard to acquire the language in this way, seen from the outside - but I guess this is how it goes).
I'm just upset that I got to discover these approaches now in times of social distancing.
Thank you. I hear your pain. Try some Zoom exchanges. One on one is not bad.
So the “teacher ” makes up the story as they go? They’re describing the picture based on what ever comes to mind in the moment, not necessarily a narrative?
That laugh track got me to laugh subconsciously after about 40 repetitions. xD Seriously though, this is a great walkthrough on the power of language exchange through immersive comprehensive input!
It's geniously!!!! Thank you a lot for sharing that with us!!!!
This was really helpful. Thank you! Couple questions, though. How do you typically set this up over skype/ online? Are the children's stories/ magazines in the target language (I couldn't see, sorry)? Also, this seems like it would help you get a strong grasp on the basics/ set up a foundation in the language. But, how do you acquire the ability to string together sentences more complex than, 'this is a plane', etc? Do you only do straight up comp input? How do you change your daily language study regiment as you progress? What exactly do you do from novice to 'fluent'?
I find very usefull, but at least for korean I think it’s a good thing to learn the basics of Hangul, because it’s very simple, you can learn it in less than an hour, and even for this method I find it very usefull because you can learn easily the pronunciation, ( maybe Chinese or Japanese doesn’t make sense, they have a lot of characters)
Some excellent ideas for language exchange. Just a pity that when she starts speaking Korean the background music started. But I get the idea.
This is fantastic. But does anyone have a list of TPR 1 commands that we can print out? Touch your eyebrow, touch your nose, swim, read, study, etc.
This might help: growingparticipatorapproach.wordpress.com/502-words-that-can-be-learned-with-total-physical-response-tpr-by-domain/
I would love to know how TPRS functions with intermediate and advanced learners. Would you follow the same structure Jeff?
This is a great summary detailing the nuts and bolts of how to do language exchange. I think it's the only one I have seen detailing the process within a session. Agree with the others that the music is obtrusive but otherwise, an excellent video. Thanks for making it and sharing.
Glad it was helpful!
Love the video. Question though, what’s the next step if you are already fairly comfortable with basic conversation and can read children’s stories easily? I’m trying to get to a level in German where I can listen to the news, watch a film or speak with easy fluency but I’m totally stuck. I’ve been reading magazines and watching shows. Maybe more meet ups? Thank you!
Yes,i was wondering this too...I mean, you'd want do progressively move onto harder stuff asking your language exchage for a some i +1 and progress that way.
I want a follow up for this as well!
I am learning Japanese at the moment. This is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo helpful and soo effective
Thank You!!
I'm so glad!
This method will be great for intermediate speakers.
Aaaaabsolutely on point! Bravo, duuude!
Great videos for learning english
你讲的非常好，对我很有帮助，谢谢你!
xie xie :)
Great video! I've always been afraid of language exchange because I wouldn't know what to talk about but using magazines and books sounds like a perfect way to get lots of vocabulary and simple grammar so that I can begin communicating.
I also have a couple questions I would really love to get your opinion on!
First, you ask not to be corrected, which for grammar I understand, but what about pronunciation? For example, you repeated "hagana" which should have been "hwagana". Should she not correct you; take a few seconds to practice the pronunciation?
Second, you've already answered this in other comments but I wanted to double check. From what I understand, once you are pretty fluent, you don't use children's books? You can move onto getting comprehensible input alone from books (or rather begin learning to read if you only focused on speaking and listening for languages with non-roman letters, like you recommended in your other video) and RUclips videos or just practice normal conversation? Do you still do something like story listening without pictures like Dr. Mason does for her upper level students?
Sorry for the long comment! I'm looking forward to trying this method myself soon!
Correction freezes creativity.
It's a big no no in brainstorm sessions.
Can you share your list of commands (all of them)?
Thank you so much for sharing this!!
She was REALLY good.
I don't understand what do you focus on when you're starting listening to the new language, like in this example video? Do you have any goal in mind for the session? Maybe you focus on what gets your attention, but in that case I don't understand how do you get the 40 or 50 repetitions of the same word in a way that works well for your brain. You can listen 3 or 4 times using the recording (btw: how do you know what are you listening to? you only have the sound but no image to relate to...), but what happens if it takes time for this same word to appear again? Wouldn't it be like forgetting and starting from scratch, like you didn't hear it before? (For example, let's say you have the oportunity to listen to the same word, not the next session, but maybe two or three weeks later, or maybe a couple months later... Not sure if my question is clear, obviously english is not my mother tongue, haha). In case you have time to answer, I'm curious: you really don't write or do anything like "studying"? Do you have something in mind as a goal for the meeting with your partner, like "today I want to learn words relating to food" (or arquitecture or something)? Do you choose children books or magazines somehow or any one is good enough? The videos are great, please keep them coming! Thank you!!
I don't have any goal. I open the magazine and have my teacher describe everything in great detail. The same words come up over and over again. But if I open up a fashion magazine, I already know I'm going to acquire words related to fashion, beauty, etc. If it's a boating magazine, I'll be acquiring boat stuff. For children's books Berenstain Bears can't be beat. I have all of them.
It would be cool to have a video made for a particular language that explains the process and rules. If two people wanted to learn each other’s language, but don’t speak any of the language they want to acquire, if both people had the rules and understand the process, could they learn the language?
Teach me all on how to acquire Korean…Learning a language can save someone life.I use google translate and repitition…It helps
This man is my hero
After viewing this video and the other one about how to acquire a language, I signed up for a language exchange here in Dubai. I'm married to a native French speaker and we've been together for 13 years, but trying to learn from her is challenging. I do speak a few words and phrases, but usually don't understand anything people say in French. I've tried all the online courses, apps and videos, but it just doesn't stick. I'm hoping this will finally get me there. Thanks for the awesome inspiration. Any chance you could share a list of your favorite commands in English?
The two videos of yours that I have watched are utterly inspiring. I used to live in Korea and have been learning Korean since 2015, I've done many language exchanges etc but have always felt method was lacking and I relied too much on traditional methods like grammar books. You have clarified perfectly how to acquire languages efficiently and naturally. Very grateful and I will implement the techniques with fresh language exchanges going forward! I was wondering if you have any experience language exchanging online or even audio only? Is it possible?
Also could you perhaps detail what you do for the self-study element of acquiring a language?
Thank you for your kind words. I have never done language exchanges online. I'm sure it would work but I'm not a big fan. I audio record all of my language exchanges listen to them later. I once sent my Arabic teacher in Egypt stories that I audio recorded and she sent me the same stories in Arabic. That could work.
@@welcometojerry I watch RUclips videos and cartoons. Plus I listen to the audio portion of my language lessons on a regular basis.
@@poly-glot-a-lot6457 When you watch tv in your target language do you use English subtitles? I assume not because you'd be using the translation approach which you've mentioned a lot that it's not effective! But I'm learning Russian and I think it helps me more to follow along when I have subtitles on. I'm curious on your thought process when you watch cartoons in your target language :) How far into your language acquisition do you start watching them?
Thank you!!
Borja
This dude is so sweet and the method is great! I love this video!
Thank you for these fantastic videos! I'm studying to become an ESL teacher (already a volunteer) and I've noticed that drawing is so helpful for getting concepts across. It adds humor and spontaneity as well, while avoiding verbal translation. Would you 1) consider doing a video showing how you use drawing/sketching/cartooning or 2) can you suggest any other sources for this? I've searched without success, which surprises me, since becoming an agile cartoonist (nothing fancy, just quick) seems like a great skill to add to language teaching and learning. Any academic or non-academic sources to recommend?
Hi. Thank you. Yes. I will be doing another video soon about my acquiring Farsi and it will be just the acquisition portion. Very few comments. You'll see me drawing and gesturing like crazy. I'll work on it on Jun 1. I recommend the Facebook group iFLT/NTPRS/CI We are all CI instructors. We are a cult. :)
Hey, Its impossible to meet someone in person for this because of the Quarantine, do you have any advice for an online exchange. It would be great if you could do a video just on that
It can be done. Use Zoom. With two people, it's not bad.
I have a question, if some language has different letters when/how to start learning them?
I'm trying to learn English with your great method. I hope to learn this beautiful language and many languages.
Very good!
I love Korean. It's such a cute sounding language.
My girlfriend wants to Aquire the Japanese language but is having trouble finding someone online to aquire Japanese from. Is she going about this the wrong way? And how can she find someone to language exchange with who will be willing to stay in frequent contact with her?
Thanks from Egypt:)
Ezaik Amil/Amlah eh? Eshta :)
Eshta !! You got good friends ! 😁
She did great!
Jeff…the background music is too loud and distracting.
You are so great man I have to try this just don’t know where to start
What an interesting method to learning a language. I'd love to try it and learn Japanese :D
Nihongo is a fun language
Hi Jeff, thanks for posting. Cheers scott.
You bet
Awesome video and great method!
Great videos! Thanks a lot. I have been learning Spanish for some time through variety of methods including some conversation sessions when we would just talk - I will definetely try to include some props or children's books in that! I am a native Polish speaker but I also speak English on a fairly professional level after living in the UK for 6 years as for now. I don't quite know how to look for a language partner, it seems that few people want to learn Polish and not that many of them speak the language(s) I would be interested in. Actually Korean is one language I made some progress in and I am interested in furthering that. So my question is, would it be best for me to 1. just get a teacher, i.e. just pay someone for their time and do it one way 2. continue looking desperately for a Korean dude wanting to learn Polish in an English town 3. try to advertise myself with English even though there's a lot of native English speakers aroundd who I guess anyone would prefer 4. something else? With Spanish I found people at my dancing class (since I am training latin dances lot of people are from spanish speaking countries, also music is all in spanish and that helps a lot), they agree to do it one way (they teach me and that's it) after I dance with them an buy them a drink haha. When it comes to other languages it is more difficult.
If you can afford it, pay a tutor. However, there are many people out there who will do it for free. Look for Korean Facebook groups in your area. You'd be surprised how many people will teach you for free.
Profesor, dos dudas:
1. ¿A partir de cuándo deberían ser corregidos nuestros errores de pronunciación?
2. ¿Cuándo deberíamos comenzar con la escritura? En especial si hay que aprender un alfabeto completamente nuevo (como el haengul en este caso).
¡Muchas gracias por los videos! Aprendí mucho sobre la adquisición de nuevos idiomas. Siga así :)
Los errores se deben corregir solo cuando el estudiante o bebe habla con fluidez. O si no, los errores no tendran ningun efecto. 2. Para idiomas que usan el alfabeto romano, se debe empezar a leer tan pronto como posible. Pero si es un idioma donde usan otro alfabeto que no es el romano, se debe de esperar hasta que uno tenga 5.000 palabras adquiridas.
¡Muchas gracias, profesor!
¿El reglar de 5,000 es el mismo para estudiantes que su lengua nativo es Coreano or Japanones?
This is vert helpful! Thank you! Do we need to bring magazine/children book in both target langagues (ex: Korean and English in your example)? Or any magazine/children book with pictures is fine? It's hard to find books in my target languages in my country.
The magazines and the children's books can be in any language. Your language parent is not going to read you the story. He/she is going to tell you the story, using the pictures. Or he/she is going to describe the pictures in a magazine to you.
This is a really interesting approach to language learning which until now, have been very boring and tedious to me.
At first I was confused on how we were supposed to understand what they're saying by just having them talk to a foreign language, but after seeing it in action I understand it more. Is this an example of Comprehensible input?
Greeting from China, thanks profe
Thanks! Very useful! Going to try this out!
Glad it was helpful!
Hello Professor. This example of learning Korean is very helpful. Could we get more examples like this for learning Chinese please? And what should we do once you reach the level where you can converse in language? How should we learn grammar, and etc?