What are some ways you are currently working on your comprehension in your target language? The app I use to learn languages -> bit.ly/3xB8Cms My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com
I use Deutsch lernen mit Video by DW which are on a variety of topics and are all under 5 minutes which is manageable. For longer stuff, currently I’m reading Terry Pratchet.
Dear Steve, do you believe all input has to be comprehensible? If so then what about in the case of videos/movies with subtitles in your target language that's above your level? Having to pause every few seconds to look up a word can disrupt the enjoyment and be slower and it'll probably show up in your vocabulary deck later on anyway right? I guess there should be a balance of intensive and extensive reading/listening.
I swear by face-to-face conversations with native speakers who want to practice my native language. I have several weekly convos with the same people on Skype. When conversing with the same people every week the conversation evolves rather than repeating the same first convo every time. This helps us both in speaking, comprehension and grammar. We both speak in one language and then switch to the other.
The biggest breakthrough I had with listening was when I trained myself to not stop listening at the first word or sentence I didn’t understand. That’s common when you start: you listen and listen and then suddenly there’s something you don’t know, so you stop and try to work it out. This means you miss what comes next and you lose the thread, including info that may have actually helped you understand that confusing part. Also, and this is the key part to train yourself, I realized that if I didn’t understand something it’s because I hadn’t learned it. It didn’t matter how long or hard I thought about it, I was never going to work it out because it simply wasn’t in my head anywhere. I didn’t have that language at all yet, so I wasn’t ever going to find it. Once I realized this obvious point, I became comfortable ignoring what I didn’t comprehend. I trained myself to spend no more than a second processing a word and if it didn’t come to me in that time, drop it, move on and keep up with the speaker.
I listened to lots of 3 - 5 minute videos by "Lucrezia" while learning Italian. I wrote every word in the captions in Italian, also watched the translation. This really helped. I wasn't totally ignorant of Italian at the time but certainly not fluent. I kept this up for about a year, reading, writing, creating conversations with myself. Having studied French helped. The main this is keeping at it
I think no one should try reading a book in a foreign language before learning around 1000 words or so considering it's not a children's book or a beginners reader sort of book And even at 1.000 words, one should choose a simple book to start
I did that too. Had to read Flyga Drake (The Kite Runner) for Svenska som andraspråk. Wrote down and found the translations for every word I didn't understand. The list was 300 words long after a few chapters! So I bought the English language version too, but only compared them if there was a whole paragraph or section that I couldn't comprehend. After that experience I have mostly read books that I have previously read in English (though not recently) so that I know the main plot points. Then I only look up a word if not understanding it prevents me from understanding something vital in that chapter. It still takes me much longer to read things than in English, but it's more enjoyable.
I have found that Steve's advice applies to learning Calculus, and Physics where memorization is not the key skill but practice is. I dare say Stever's approach is useful for any subject.
coming from a physics student per se.Yeah all this time i couldn't figure it out what's the culprit that causes severe effect in my learning and development , and this is just what i need
I am studying for civil services and this is how I approach the preparation. I have to read a lot from economics to geography to history to polity and this advice holds true for all those subjects.
I really appreciate that analogy. I guess the key word that I miss/forget is EVENTUALLY. I need to be patient. Especially when I question if any progress is being made... Like with the puzzle, I just can't see it yet, but EVENTUALLY I will. 🤯
The biggest breakthrough I had with listening was when I trained myself to not stop listening at the first word or sentence I didn’t understand. That’s common when you start: you listen and listen and then suddenly there’s something you don’t know, so you stop and try to work it out. This means you miss what comes next and you lose the thread, including info that may have actually helped you understand that confusing part. Also, and this is the key part to train yourself, I realized that if I didn’t understand something it’s because I hadn’t learned it. It didn’t matter how long or hard I thought about it, I was never going to work it out because it simply wasn’t in my head anywhere. I didn’t have that language at all yet, so I wasn’t ever going to find it. Once I realized this obvious point, I became comfortable ignoring what I didn’t comprehend. I trained myself to spend no more than a second processing a word and if it didn’t come to me in that time, drop it, move on and keep up with the speaker.
Not understaning something you haven't learned doesn't seem to be a problem to me. I've just watched a video and heard the word "versatile". I didn't know the word, but I caught it all right and even spelled it properly in my mind. The only thing I had to do was to look it up in the dictionary. How about failing to comprehend something you know quite well, and those are the simplest words or phrases you can imagine: water, green (or was it actually "grin"), hold on, whale? On top of that, I turn on the subtitles, listen to what's being said several times, and still can't discern the words or the meaning in general, but what I hear is aah-eeh ahh-ooh, something similar to an ocean tide. That's what's killing me, and there seems to be no proper solution to this.
I learned Italian when my parents moved to Italy for a year, and put me into an Italian public school. I was in the 4th grade. It was all so weird and different that I didn't think of it as learning a language. I understood most of what people were saying within three months, without any real effort. I wasn't really paying any attention to the learning process. I was just sitting there soaking it all in. No one at school knew any English, not even the teacher.
@ Steven Eardley. Yup! To communicate with specific people I didn't try to "learn their language." Instead I tried to figure out how to communicate with them -using whatever means I could. If that turned out to be "learning a new language" then it turned out to be learning a new language. It was easier for me if I thought of it just as learning some new words. That, however, doesn't seem to be much use if I a planning to go somewhere where people don't speak much English and they typically speak some other language and if I want to learn how to communicate with them - before I go there - so I don't have to learn while I am there. .
Well I had the baptism of fire when I was 5 years old and went to school. I was brought up by my Hungarian mother and only spoke that language at home. At school in England I was forced to learn quickly when I did not know the word to go to the toilet! Consequently I wet my pants and was given a heavy serge replacement 😊 Thereafter I quickly learned key phrases useful for a 5 year old boy😏
I live in italy i speak spanish ,i reached a intermediate level in just 6 months ,i can understand but i wanna learn more vocabulary and i have the same problem with english when i read books,tips?
@@Flortaffa Your English already looks very good. I'm studying German now. I go to German language channels, put on the German subtitles, and set it at 3/4 speed. It's all about exposure. I did study German a bit in college, that's why I turn on the German subtitles. Of course, like Italian and Spanish, German is very phonetic. English spelling is flat-out bizarre. That may be a good reason to turn on the English subtitles, since you can then see how these things are spelled. I remember when I was younger I thought misled was two different words--one pronounced mizeled, and one pronounced mis-led. In my mind, it was much worse to mizle someone than to mislead them.
I’m a 9th grader and I watched this on the bus to school to take my Language Arts Final Exam. I am done with the exam now and I got 100 for the first time everrr,🎉🎉
I totally agree. Sometimes I would listen to an audio or video and try to understand as many words as possible and in the end I would realize that I hadn't paid much attention to the main topic because of that. One day, while walking, I was listening to a podcast without forcing myself to understand the specific words, but paying attention and imagining what the person was saying. In the end I understood much of the podcast.
An interesting exercise is to listen to a podcast in your own native language and focus on understanding all the words. When I try that, I find it's hard to follow the message because my attention is in the wrong place. And that's in my native language!
Yes! I've found just before sleep, listening to something and not trying to translate, I suddenly see pictures of everything being said, even words that I don't really know.
I'm finding this is particularly true as I'm learning Korean. With French and Spanish, sentence structure is quite similar to English, but with Korean I have to constantly remind myself to just let the whole sentence wash over me before I check if I understand it. Because actually, context is a big piece of comprehension even for our native languages! There are homonyms and different meanings within English even that get cleared up if you just keep listening for the whole sentence or paragraph or more of the conversation-language is about more than grammar and vocabulary, so while we do have to learn these things, this video is a good reminder that PATIENT persistence is key.
I'm learning Spanish and I often catch myself "trying a little to hard" versus just letting my brain absorb what it can and then come back later for a "second pass" to absorb more. The lawn mowing analogy was perfect - thank you!
Hey Chuck, would you like to do a language exchange? I'm a Spaniard learning English and French. If you like the idea let me know, we could talk via whatsapp, telegram or whatever app you prefer.
I think this point applies to learning mathematics, too. I'm studying a very mathematical university course and too many times I have tried to really understand each line of a textbook and made slow progress. Much faster to keep pushing on and not getting hung up on what you don't understand right away. Very interesting.
Hey Colin! Thanks for sharing. This was an answer I was looking for, cause I'm learning Python, etc now and sometimes struggle to get a full grasp of things. But does this approach really help? What's your experience? Eveuntually you manage to understand things deeper?
@@grandpraline hi! Yes, I think with learning Python you have to try and push past the parts you don't understand as well and try and get code working. You need to immerse yourself in the language just like maths I think. It will take time but it will make more and more sense with time. Hope that helps :)
@@grandpraline Yes, just keep coding and don't worry too much about what others tell you is the right way. Either you will appreciate why they said that later by making the mistake or after you do try their way you understand why they are wrong. Code and keeping coding. Learning is like a tree growing. You don't see it grow. But come back next year and you will see a difference.
I agree 100%. Creating resistance and forcing yourself is a progress killer. Trying to understand at all costs is like trying to fall asleep - the more you try, the harder it gets.
Its not. People are like 'yeah! she's right! the more you try to sleep the harder it is!' Forgetting the first sentence. Take it to the extreme, do you think if you just sit there for years listening and not engaging that you'll learn quickly/at all? Then imagine you engage with everything you hear, forever. Neither extreme is optimal but to say that just zoning out and letting it all seep in is a load of bull.
@@thesampsoninstitute I didn't say anything about not engaging. Please, don't put words in my mouth and distort my comment like that. Both Steve and I have talked about the importance of noticing and paying attention to patterns. But that can be done without creating resistance. It's all about noticing without stress, resistance etc.
I understand your point regarding understanding. As for the sleeping thing, many people fall asleep almost immediately after seconds or minutes of trying, myself included, so it's not a good example.
Just stumbled across this video and channel. I don't speak multiple languages, but I find this fascinating because it's a direct analog to something I do work with - teaching mathematics. Students who try to "understand" everything upon the first lesson before any practice tend to do worse, or at least take longer to fully grasp the material. Students who push forward through the practice and repetition while accepting their initial lack of understanding will usually develop that understanding much quicker. I think it speaks toward the way the human brain works in general across different disciplines. Thanks for the great material!
This is generally good advice for nearly all non-linear subjects. Or better put, any subjects that relies on ability rather than simply knowing. Anything you can "work a muscle" for.
A year ago, I was stuck in English reading until I stopped trying understand every single word, only then I starts learning rapidly and I shocked by my comprehension level! I found that novels is within my reach so I quit Oxford stories and forced myself to - finally - read what I want, which is Sherlock Holmes's adventures, I finished them all few days ago. Unforgettable journey!
@@saeedyahya9020 قصص اكسفورد مبسطة لمن يتعلم اللغة الإنجليزية، تركتها لأنني تجاوزت هذه المرحلة وصرت قادر على قراءة القصص العادية مثلي مثل من لغته الأم هي الإنجليزية.
This is why music works so well for me. You can listen to a song in another language and be fine not knowing a single word. But over time you start to recognize words you learn from other mediums, and then how they string together etc.
This happened to me recently. I was reading something and then when I read a word I didn't know in my head I remembered hearing it in a song. So when I looked it up it all clicked and now it feels stronger in my head
Nice analogy. I’ve had to move away from my old perfectionist mindset and realize that language is learning something, forgetting it, learning again, forgetting again, over and over but with each relearning it gets stronger until it’s set in our brain.
As a kid I learned way more english through videogames and TV shows than in the classroom at school. I used to watch Tarzan on Disney Channel with either English or Spanish (my nativa language) subtitles, and quite often those episodes would be repeated. I think that is exactly the phenomenon you're decribing. I need to get on to doing the same with Russian, my current target language.
Very well said! As a non-native English speaker, when my English skills were at their lowest I used to watch English youtube videos and barely understand 5% of what was being said, and I just kept watching regardless, and now that you made me think of that, I think that is what helped me get better the most. My skill is still far from perfect however, as you might've noticed. 😅
Love the metaphor, quite clever. Also funny that you took pictures lol. I'd like to figure out why is it that now it takes me so much to tolerate uncertainty. I learned English pretty well and I seemingly navigated uncertainty well, I had some outside encouragement but I was mainly motivated internally, English just became a part of what I use to interact with things and I cannot remember how I dealt with uncertainty back then
I'm doing Classics at university at the moment. I had a surgery earlier this semester that meant I had to miss a tonne of content in both Greek and Latin, it was crazy. It's meant alot of self-teaching and this week I was feeling really down about my skills and progress. I was also really feeling the pressure that comes with learning these languages quickly. This video really calmed me down and settled my mind. Thank you!
This 'don't try too hard' is actually true. Sometimes I'm beating my head against the wall trying to 'understand' a certain piece in one of my languages and end up giving it up. But then I come across that again eventually and it clicks! That's because acquisition happens unconsciously. You do your part and take your time. The brain assimilates things during sleep.
You can actually go to extreme degrees with this method I learned English by playing video games, listening to music, watching RUclips. Basically I started by playing games that had Russian (my native) text, but English voice and just pointing out some words from the context. I've extended my dictionary a bit while learning lyrics for the songs I like and sometimes their translation, but I haven't done this a whole lot and only when I already somewhat solid base. I started watching RUclips completely in English like four years ago and this was the biggest boost to me. I started with videos on video games, so I had bigger part of the required words and now I can easily watch anything (almost, but I think rocket science will be hard for someone like me even in his native language) The problem with that is the fact that I understand (almost) everything, but speaking is still a bit problematic to me
I fully agree with what this man is saying, to not force the process so much to get the result. Russian is my target language, and I struggle with comprehension mainly because I have to admit that I’ve been trying to base my language learning skills off the way one would learn in a military academy. Unfortunately that’s now I learned as a boy, and as a young adult. There’s even a specific word in Russian for someone who just memorizes things and doesn’t comprehend at all. It’s on the tip of my tongue now. Learning to let go and accept where our comprehension level is, is a big deal. Not getting caught up in trying for example, watch a presidential speech or listen to a full conversation on эхо Москвы, when you are an upper beginner like me :)
Hi Steve I’m from Brazil and hereby to thank you for all your work and effort dedicated in teach and advise us for free on yt. I’ve been learning English for about 2 and half years and, thanks to you, I’ve been improving so much that I can’t measure or describe this improvement. I’m really proud for my little achievement’s and now I can read read and understand any book or even series and podcast effortlessly. I wrote all this above from the top off my head and sorry if I got some mistakes. Thank you again!
I'm a gay Lithuanian man and I want to visit Brazil. I want to go to the beaches in Rio De Janeiro, eat açaí, and have fun with gay handsome Brazilian men.
@@theocurtis02 thank you so much, bro. I appreciate your feedback. Even though I don’t feel like that fluent and sometimes I struggle with the language, especially when it comes to speaking, i feel like getting better and better. Take care!
@@cesarchiarelli8039 let matters take their course! I'm a native Spanish speaker and I think I've reached an English proficiency level in which I feel comfortable interacting with other people and in general just using the language as any other person would. Just keep immersing yourself in the language, talk to other people (in English ofc), and without you noticing, time will take care of things and you'll just keep getting better! I wish you success in your journey, learning another language is not an easy task. Be proud of the progress you've made so far, your English is great!
Very true. I went through the military's language school many years ago, and the pace and length of that course washed out a lot of people. One of the biggest reasons was that students would get frustrated and give up because they felt they weren't understanding everything. I think those of us who made it through just accepted that we wouldn't get everything and just needed to hang on. Read/listen to something, grasp as many essential elements of information as possible given time constraints, and just move on. Full comprehension, especially at first pass, can take years to develop.
What this video boils down to is: you need to switch what you're studying repeatedly to force your brain to store things in long term memory. If you just keep studying the same thing until you "Master it" it'll be stuck in short term memory and you'll almost never move on.
Yup, the method I tell people time and time again of how I improved my Japanese listening and comprehension basically goes like this. Watch a drama in Japanese and expect to understand about 10% of it. Watch it again with subtitles and now you understand the content, maybe not any more of the language, but at least now you know what to listen for. Watch a third time with no subtitles again (you could also add a viewing with Japanese subtitles as well if you like), and now you'll probably understand about 25% of it. Don't worry about the other 75%, just go on the next episode of the drama. If you finish the drama you can come back to that first episode and by that time you'll likely understand 60% or more of it. *This is of course meant to be a compliment to regular language study outside of these viewings as well. And actually if the drama is based on a manga, you can read the manga in between episodes and take notes on the vocabulary that comes up as well.
Very nice analogy. I'm an English teacher and I always say something similar to my students. The key to learning is repeatetion. Every time you repeat you understand a bit more. Also sometimes students want to understand every single word and then forget to listen what is being said.
I'm a native Spanish speaker, and I really like to hear you speak, Steve. I utilize your videos as a listening practice, and I must tell you that I understand 99% of everything you say. I feel happy because I can confirm that I'm now at an advanced listening level.
The problems start when you try to speak your vocabulary adquired out loud :( , it becomes all like if you never learned anything as if you had just a few begginer words . That happens to me , i understane too much but if i try to speak what i wrote here it becomes a hell for me . What do you say about my problem ? , does that happen to you too?
@@ChristoChristo03 Yes brother, it is normal, but as Steve has said in several videos, you must first listen a lot, read and finally read aloud and gradually imitate the sentences in English, you must be patient, and enjoy the trip brother
Frequency is the best ally when it comes to language learning, assuming people expose themselves to their target language a lot. While exposing yourself to the language you are trying to learn, some words will repeat themselves a lot and will be learned easily and automatically. As for other words they will not repeat with the same number or frequency, some of them will stick and others will be forgotten.
@@joyfulburger2395 If you are advanced enough in your learning journey you can use your target language's dictionaries to define words you encounter, otherwise if the word refers to an abstract concept you can translate it to your native language. If it's referring to a concrete concept it is preferable to just google it and find the meaning through an image.
Supongo que la mayoría de los estudiantes están tratando de leer textos demasiado difíciles, porque cuando leemos un texto interesante y que está bien adaptado a nuestro nivel de comprensión, los problemas desaparecen y no tenemos que interrumpir nuestra lectura con cada frase o cada párrafo. Simplemente disfrutamos con el texto, porque es divertido, curioso o algo inesperado pasa en la historia, etc. y como leemos sin interrupciones, leemos más : terminamos antes el libro y podemos empezar antes el siguiente.
After trying myself to “force the mower” I can relate to this … and I understood this concept some the first time I thought about, but now I understand it a little more after watching this video ;)
Very important video!! I need to have this imprinted in my brain cause i keep falling into the bad habits of pushing that lawn mower through the high grass
Go with the flow. Get the overall meaning, gist, not individual words or the grammar structure. That will come later. Naturally. I grew up speaking three languages fluently - English is my third - and learned eight more - more or less - and would go from melody to meaning to words, top down. When I was first learning French, I knew how to order a coffee and simple phrases but did not know how the phrase - the array of sounds - broke down into individual words, but it worked, got the job done. When speaking, I would ram through making all kinds of grammatical mistakes, but that was better than stopping, trying to get the sentence perfect in my head first before speaking because by then the conversation would have advanced and I would never have said anything. Above all, relax, have fun, and if you have the chance to be immersed in the new language, in a place where everyone speaks it, it will come. I never learned a language without being in the country where it is spoken. German I learned by reading comic books in German - Tintin - with at first an English translation of the same story to check things I didn't understand, and later moved on to German fairy tales, Märchen der Gebrüder Grimm, and then American films dubbed into German. And then going out and doing my best in society. Instead of a lawnmower, I liken it to learning how to ski. Enjoy the slope and the snow even if you're not a very good skier. If you stay at it, relaxed, you will improve over time.
interesting perspective. To me, learning a language feels like growing something in my head, which indeed requires mainly patience, a kind relaxation, repetition, and novelty. I would never have thought of a mowing analogy.
This perspective reminds me very much of when I was a kid, reading books in my native language, but that definitely didn't fully understand -- even if it was a classic "kid's book". (For example, I remember a reference at the beginning of R. L. Stevenson's _Kidnapped_ -- what the heck was a "Jacobite"? And why was it relevant? How well did I really understand the finer details of _Ivanhoe_ , or _The Count of Monte Cristo_ ?) There were all sorts of words, references, and allusions that I didn't understand, but that didn't normally prevent me from enjoying the story. It was only as an adult that I started to have trouble enjoying things that I knew I didn't fully understand _because_ I didn't fully understand them. I eventually noticed this, and gave myself permission to accept that my comprehension in new things might not equal my "normal" adult level (I also started to realize that many things I think I understand are in truth merely familiar -- it's made me considerably more open-minded.) These days I sometimes wonder how much their necessary acceptance of not understanding _everything_ they encounter might contribute to children's greater ability to absorb new languages... - Somewhat related: I've also learned that when reading material in my target language, I'm better off reading original works rather than translations of English ones. The language use is often (usually?) perceptibly "more natural", plus I'm less distracted by trying to compare the translation to the original -- especially for a familiar or favorite classic such as (for example) _Alice In Wonderland_ . Bonus: reading target-language originals, I also find I'm far more comfortable dealing with any parts I don't quite get yet.
I would agree with this, Steve, but I'd caveat it by saying it's fine to want to understand everything if it's completely engrossing/compelling content. Straining and struggling to understand something you're not that into will lead to burn out fairly quickly, but if you're loving the content and you don't want to miss even a single word, I think it's completely fine. On the subject of allowing yourself to go without understanding some things, I believe this to be the most natural and legit way to learn a language, it's how we all learned our native language. You can reach fluency just from understanding parts of sentences (obviously, eventually you'll understand full sentences), hearing patterns over and over is all that matters, by doing so, the grammar will click in eventually, and the vocab will come, albeit slowly. I watched a video not so long ago (I believe it was a Lingq vlog) where a lady was feeling 'guilty' about not finishing books she'd started to read. I thought about that, and commented that actually you could probably reach fluency by reading just the first page of thousands of different books. I don't see why not.
I also feel guilty about not finishing a book I've started, so I usually just flip through the rest if it doesn't interest me any more. Strange mindset. It's probably due to the amount of time already invested in reading the book.
Don't be surprised how quickly that comes. I was alone for 3 weeks in Spain one year and watched the same TV documentary series every night, different episode each time. My street comprehension improved about 300%.
My Polish tutor has been off for a while due to having a baby and I've been doing nothing but reading Harry Potter using LingQ. Occasionally I will practice having a conversation with myself and I'm amazed at how much more I can say. I think my tutor is going to be surprised at how much my speaking has improved doing nothing but reading. I hit level B1/Basic Intermediate back in March. Right around the time I hit it, I found it was easier to read and I was starting to get to the point that I could read for fun/because I wanted to enjoy the story, instead of reading because I needed to do my daily slog of language practice. Now I often read way more than my goal and I can make up to 20 known words per session (as opposed to the handful I used to do). I'm on the 3rd Harry Potter book, and I think that helps because authors have a style of writing and words and phrases that they will repeat. And, of course, there's HP-specific words that get repeated all the time, like wizard, wand, cloak, cauldron, etc. So there's a lot of repetition that I wouldn't necessarily get if I bounced between unrelated books.
If it’s something that I’m forced to read and the subject is boring, I will not retain what I read. This is how it is on reading exams. Those long boring stories.
As someone who was raised with 3 languages at home and then went on to learn a few others, I believe the best way to learn a language is to "doodle" with the language's quirks for some time. Have a couple of thoughts about the language constantly in your mind. Funny features or sounds. When learning, understand the in the spoken language, word breaks in sentences are different than your native language. You need to consider the rhythm, something akin to jump roping at a new speed. A double edged sword often occurs when you learn a language similar to one you already know IE: English to German or Spanish to Portuguese. You end up piggy backing off of the one and then creating a mess in your mind; eventually, though, you'll be able to detach the new language from your native vocabulary. ... I always try to find how things just don't translate perfectly. I find it fascinating and it keeps me wanting to learn more. As an example: humming bird in Portuguese is beija-flor (flower kisser). And although both identify the same animal, the nuance makes the exact same animal take on a new dimension in every aspect; from art, to poetry, to double entendres etc. A private conversation in French is a tête-à-tête, but lyrics to a song played with that and said "c'est tête-à-text" which means this private conversation now written in song. Andrew Bird wrote a song saying "legionaries with two by fours as if they're marching on to war", which some would understand soldiers heading to war, but those that lived in the US will know that a 2x4 is a piece of wood used in basic construction, and those pieces of wood are also used in parades as pretend rifles. Andrew Bird was talking about a parade and not war. I could go on and on.
I had this thought about what he said: when learning a new language try to listen the same way you listen to music. I say this as a non native english speaker.
The same applies to math, the sciences and technology. I use to struggle particularly with bath be I felt I had to understand every bit of it. So what would happen is that I would fall back because I was too fixated on perfectly understanding earlier material rather than just getting the gist of it, and moving on to the next chapters. It took me until my mid-30s to stop this practice. Though sometimes I still find myself repeating in when learning new technology.
I think this advice applies well to beginners and intermediate learners. But for advance learners one needs to challenge oneself with difficult content or else one would feel that they are making too little progress.
This is good advice. Learning a language is not a linear process. It's more like something cyclical. It's also good for students if teachers keep this in mind. It's a mistake to think that if you have studied something or taught something that it is then done without the need for revisiting the same material several times. Each revisit is likely to expand the understanding, because what you might have learned later will enable you to grasp what you could not first time around.
The lawn mower analogy is really helpful. I’ve been studying languages for the last 10+ years, and I found that several passes over the same material really helps to reinforce my studies.
When I was a kid, I was a "slow" reader. Most everyone in my class finished reading assignments before I did - every time. We used some color-coded resding materials, and I progressed more slowly than my classmates. Not sure what passed as reading "instruction" in those days, but it seems likely that my teachers took me to be an average or lesser reader. My SAT Verbal score turned out not to be below average, and, in college, I regularly read some very challenging material with no problem except that I took more time perhaps than many readers. Once I started taking pedagogy courses to become a teacher, and learned more about learning & teaching reading, I realized that my habit was to go back & read every sentence until I understood it. Sometimes once or twice was enough, but occasionally I might have read more complicated sentences 3-4 times for full comprehension - as I then understood the term. This lead to my realization that slow readers might have better comprehension, but their exposure to material & ideas could have limitations. Indeed, sometime after college, I performed well on the GRE & entered grad school, where I performed well enough - but reading, for me, took extra time, as I expected good comprehension. As I look back, I see that, while my reading comprehension was high, it was at the cost of slower volume of reading. Now, as an ESL/ELL teacher, I use shorter selections & lower-level reading materials to help students learn comprehension, which skills students can then apply to longer or more complicated selections. This approach of disregarding some of the concern over comprehension, and instead pushing through more material, is also very relevant, so I will begin blending or alternating these two approaches for further student development & success.
Terrific story & growth in self awareness. Even today, I fear, and maybe there’s actually a regression in this regard, for all the talk of different learning styles and the uniqueness of each student, I think there’s a rather brutal one size fits all approach that ends up valuing only certain kinds of learners… with the rest left to feel somehow deficient. A terrible disservice with incalculable human cost
I thought that as you read more the better you get at it and therefore the faster you can read the same material while retaining a good level of comprehension. Btw do you have any advice that has struggled his entire life to get into reading? I'm pretty fluent in English but I've always struggled with developing the habit of reading. No one in my family nor my social circle is fond of reading and as a kid I always hated reading even though I was good at math. Probably the environment has a lot to do with my perception and as result it's so hard for me to read for pleasure
@@TheAnarchist99 You & I are very similar in background, talent, and experience! Read topics that INTEREST you. Your own interests should guide your reading & you will find it more relevant & pleasant. For example, there are some very good topics in math that one can read & learn about. You could choose a known topic & read deeper about it - or pick a new topic in math or a related skill (such as economics) to broaden your knowledge & practice your reading skills in context.
@@TheAnarchist99 I realize this comment is old by now, but maybe this'll still be helpful. I'm someone who was an avid reader as a kid but struggles badly with it as an adult. See if your local library has a collection of audiobooks! If the time commitment is a hurdle to sitting down with a paper book, throw one on while you do something else. There's this weird stigma around it that it doesn't count but it absolutely does. It's got me into reading again, maybe it can get you into reading in the first place :)
That lawnmower analogy was fire, and it's exactly what I do. Know your limits. Push hard, but don't let yourself get bogged down by pushing too hard the first pass.
The problem when learning another language being spoken, is that if you dwell on trying to understand a specific unknown word, then you lose focus on all the upcoming words. You find yourself behind, and understanding very little.
I think I’m one of the biggest beneficiaries of comprehensible input. I learned English from scratch in 2014, and because of comprehensible input, mostly I spend my time on watching RUclips and reading BBC news, I achieved an overall band score of 7.5 (L8, R8, S7.5, W6.5) in IELTS just last month. I think my English proficiency got improved immensely during the past 3 years because firstly I turned off subtitles on RUclips regardless of if I understand it and secondly I read a lot on BBC everyday, which enabled me to gain a lot of new vocabulary. I remember that when I just turned off the subtitle, I did not fully understand every single word but I still kept the subtitle off because I was able to understand the general meaning. As time passes by, now I can understand at least 99 percent of news lated videos and 100 percent of everyday life related videos. I do not know why but I assume that it’s all because of comprehensive input.
Could you tell me how much u dedicated specifically to listen English In the past 3 years without subtitles? Am curious cuz am trying to learn or understand Norwegian and am just interested in the stats
@Aditya learning any language takes time. If you plan to be extremely proficient pretty much immersing yourself everyday for hours is the way to go. At least that's what I do for japanese
Who here read the same english book several times months apart in between other books? That's me 😄 I just freaking moved on to another book and after few months came back to the same book. Every time I did that, I grasped more of the plot and lots more details I missed on the previous run.
thank you for motivation boost ! My experience after two years: The more I want to understand everything the weaker the motivation gets and I stop for a long period of time. The more I dont care about understanding everything then I keep on moving and accept my level of where I am right now.
I definitely agree! Moreover, You don't fully understand everything even in your native language. You can read again a great book and discover many new interesting details.
The lawn is a good analogy, but I think the biggest problem is impatience with oneself. I would say " leave the lawn longer, it's nicer on bare feet rather than prickly short grass "
Sou Brasileiro, 🇧🇷 aprendi inglês sozinho, consigo entender qualquer assunto ou música escutando 👂 apenas um vez, sei ler e escrever em inglês, más odeio 🤔 tenho memória fotográfica 📸 entendi sobre o que vc disse em não forçar o cortador de gramas resolver tudo apenas com uma passada, pôr que provavelmente irá forçar a máquina, que a dica é ir ajustando as lâminas em cada passada, porém tem uma coisa que a maioria das pessoas, não sabem, qualquer assunto falado 🗣️ ou qualquer música 🎼 cantada em inglês, quando as pessoas não nativas repetem,acaba pôr entender completamente ( tal assunto 🗣️ ) ou ( tal música 🎼 ) porém é só pegar outro assunto especialmente no Ted 🗣️) ou ( outra música 🎼) e sentir de repente 😲) eu não entendo nada a respeito, pôr isso sempre digo em redes sociais para todos no planeta 🌎, se não tiverem uma mente 🧠 fotográfica 📸, como a minha, não percam tempo escutando 👂 isso ou aquilo na vastidão de vídeos no ( youTube ▶️ ) em inglês 🇬🇧 🇺🇸, aprendam com vocabulários de Aeroportos 👨✈️👩✈️🛫🛬🛩️, para poderem viajar, vocabulários de hotéis 🏨🛌 para poderem hospedar em qualquer lugar do mundo 🌎🌐 e pôr fim aprendam vocabulários de Restaurantes 🍔🍕🍜🍟🍛, para poderem alimentar, um pouco de vocabulários para comprimentos 🗣️👩✈️👨✈️ e esqueçam o resto dos outros vocabulários, quem avisa amigo é, simples assim! 🤔
Hi Steve - this is encouraging as I struggle with comprehension in French. I have an on-line tutor and I think even she is a little baffled at my struggles to understand. She gives me stuff which I feel is too difficult for me and I find this demotivating. I prefer the comprehensible input approach but I know I'm making slow but constant progress so I'll just keep at it. Thanks for your tip on the subject.
I`ve been learning french for a year now and I can by now watch most french RUclips videos and understand pretty much everything. It took me a lot of time tho just listening, re-listening and re-listening. Maybe a few content tips that I love: - InnerFrenchPodcast (probably the most known one for learners. It has over 100 episodes right now and every episode is transcipted, so that you can read as well as listen to it. The difficulty increases slowly from episode 1 so that you dont even realize it. I almost exclusively used this podcast for the first say 3-4 months just listening to it ALL THE TIME until I got kinda "bored" and wanted to increase the difficulty even more with content for natives.) - Nota Bene (pretty big histoy channel with A LOT of interesting videos of wich most are subtitled by humans. Can be hard to understand sometimes tho. I just download the subtitles, import them into Lingq and read them like a book.) - Mamytwink (also pretty big history channel thats focused mostly (but not only) to the second world war with very interesting storys that fit the small story in the big context. Almost all videos are subtitled by humans and I think pretty easy to understand. They talk in slow, precise sentences) - Questions d'Histoire (history channel as well with a lot of their videos subtiteld) - Secrets d'Histoire (about 2h long videos about history, not subtitled tho) - Colas Bim (funny animated videos. Hard to understand as a beginner. He talks pretty fast but the videos are funny even if you dont understand lol. I sometimes found them even more funny when I didnt understand :D) - quoi de neuf docteur (big french streamers taking a pretty long interview in the form of a (fake) psychiatry session. I like it because they mostly have the same structure and questions. So you know at least about what they are talking about and if you dont understand, there will be a next question soon. They all talk naturally and without soundeffects or other distracting things in the background. Just hours of pure talking. No subtitles tho. - Joachim Mouhamad (chess channel with a guy on his quest to become a grandmaster. As I'm learning chess as well right know its pretty useful to do both (french and chess) at the same time. - Koinsky (Lets Player with games I like. Great tip if you like lets plays. Just watch a lets play with a game that you know and you will understand a lot from that context alone) - french comprehensible input (a lot of videos with varying difficulty. Can be nice for beginners because he has a lot of very basic stuff.) You see these are a lot of history realated stuff because I love history. A big part in learning a language is finding content that you love in that language. Its hard to learn with content that you dont like or that you consume just because its in your target language. Dont rely on your tutor to provide you with content. When you are intrinsicly motivated to understand, it will be a lot easier to stay motivated even if you dont understand everything. Also notice that there are still videos that I dont understand anything even tho in others I understand almost a 100%. LAnguage learning is just like this but it gets easier the more time you spend with it. And its not only getting easier, its becomes fun to watch stuff in french and learning on the go while you have fun. Trust me its worth it. (sorry for long post and teacher-like attitude)
@@Tighris Thanks for taking the time to share your French learning experience with me and also the various French websites and You Tubers - I have been listening to the InnerFrench podcast and find it very good although I'm sure he talks slowly for us learners but that's okay. I will check out the others and will I'm sure fine some useful content. My tutor gives me TV5 B1 oral comp exercises but I find these difficult and they take (me) quite a bit of time to do. So I tend not to do them. I prefer to listen to a longer piece with no interruptions, that I can understand (75%) and I think I get more out of my listening this way. Thanks again.
@@Tighris many thanks for your suggestions . I am also on a journey of learning and being fluent in French. I live in ontario canada and just a few hours drive to Quebec . After reading your message I subscribed to 3 of the you tube channels and the pod cast. Thanks again
So true. I have been telling my students the same thing for ages. After all, babies and little children don't understand everything... but that doesn't stop them at all, they keep going! In many ways, we need to become like children to learn a language
I am so happy that I am not a native speaker and I have eventually the full comprehension of that video! Learning the language is an amazing stuff. I have been learning English for so long and finally I begin to really enjoy English-langunage content without my dictionary opened. So amazing. Learn the languages!
Hi Steve, thanks for sharing your tips based on your long experience. I'm a French native speaker, fluent in German and started learning Russian 7 months ago. I wonder if you have some more specific tips to learn this difficult language. I know about 4000 words but still can't understand such funny сериал "Кухня" or any book. I would be pleased to get some advice on how to pass this border. German was a piece of cake in comparison.
Привет Марк I have been learning Russian for a long time now. I use the rule of 23 - that is I have to be exposed to a word / phrase 23 times to remember it. The point being, don’t beat yourself up for not remembering - just keep the flame alive with exposure and novelty and being active in your language learning. Удачи!
At a certain point during French classes last year I came up with a rhyming motto for this idea: “pour mieux comprendre, il faut se détendre” - to understand better, you must relax!! Because I had noticed the very same thing. Now lately every third book or so that I finish is in French. Is my understanding 100%? Of course not. But I’ve noticed I’ve started to recognize and (when I practice speaking or writing) think of vocabulary I never studied specifically.
I think you're exactly right! Your analogy to cutting the lawn is brilliant! Thank you! It will help me in my Italian language learning journey for certain!
What you said was refreshing and makes sense! I read in English without consulting a dictionary, mostly because it prevented me from enjoying a book. I find myself slowly getting a vague picture of the English language. I didn't "learn" English within a period of time but improved it over years.
It was so pleasant and positive to meet you again, Sir. As I just read few notes below, many people are completely agree with your viewpoint. There are dozens of appreciation notes there! Stay healthy and keep encourage people loving foreign languages. Thank you.
I’m reading a book called México Amargo. I several months back, a linguist(I don’t know, he has a phd in a field in linguistics) told me that as you approach an advanced level of a language, it no longer is sufficient to “get the gist” of what you’re listening or reading but that you must make the effort to understand. Unfortunately for me, I take things way too far and I’m on pg 127 of 370 and I have probably spent, conservatively, 40 hours of concentrated effort(the reality is I spend way more time and get distracted researching cultural context and and studying the many definitions the words have that I don’t understand) and I realize that it will literally take 6 months at my rate to finish this book. The reality is that I’m much too slow for me to get enough to acquire the knowledge that I need. On the other hand, I’ve taken the other route of mass volume intake and that isn’t too good either because while I may have been “getting the gist”, I wasn’t getting the nuance and I wasn’t improving my vocabulary much either.
I started doing this with books I’ve read in English, would look up a few words I didn’t know but didn’t worry about searching every word/grammar point I was confused on. Since it’s something I’ve already read, it’s not like I’m missing any big ideas! This has helped immensely by using books with audiobooks at the same time.
thanks Mr.Kaufmann.actually,I'm Persian and glad to see that you like Persian language . the point you mentioned is of utmost importance.I'm not perfect in English but I've completely realised that for better comprehension you most just keep going and this is a day in day out process. I'm always thinking about it and good to hear that from you .
I am currently learning my third language and you managed to say what I experienced learning english, not trying to be perfect is the way in almost any stage of learning a new language, thanks for reminding me that.
Thank you for the video, Steve! I am A2 level in English and this content is very important for me because I have to know that I won't understand everything and my brain needs novelty but at the same time, go back to the old content to mow new blades of lawn.
I cannot agree with this more! It's more than just getting little by little though. What I've noticed is that the stress of trying to understand more actually hinders the brain's natural comprehension and acquisition. I heard Stephen Krashen mention this as well. When I forget about whether or not I'm understanding, and just enjoy the content, while trying to understand without stress, I understand so much more!
Great video! Right now I’m learning to do coding and computer programming. This advice is marvelous for that as well as natural language acquisition. I also wanna learn how to speak French. Thank you
It's nice to hear you saying this. I'm going to be quoting your line that "experienced learners accept uncertainty." I haven't been able to articulate it so concisely to my students. I have also used percentages when talking about this idea with students. The way I frame it is that ideally in the future, we want to get as close to 100% comprehension as we can. However, if we're starting from 0% comphrension as beginners, then any increase in comprehension, even if it's just from 10% to 15% is progress we should be happy with. This is how I try to get them comforable with the idea that they don't need to try to understand everything.
The idea that came to mind for me here is “what you learn from one thing can be implemented into others” You said (basically) 1- we need a simplified approach to learning so that we get hands on experience. This frees up our mind to later analyze the skill further. 2 - we need novelty If you sit down and think about those two and deliberately plan to apply them to multiple areas of life it should theoretically improve the process!
*Short truth:* Statements in any language are patterns. Teaching the mind to detect patterns is learning. Language learning is pattern recognition. To suggest otherwise is not to understand how the mind works. Speed learning of a language requires learning the top few 1,000 nouns, verbs, adverbs, which will let getting the gist of statements happen. Ideally, one learns a group of words and then those words in sentences. This conditions the mind to detect patterns. Acquiring language requires hours of listening in spite of what RUclipsrs claim. Most RUclipsrs are revisionists as to how they learned their foreign languages. Intelligent speaking is stating opinion to statements or stating responses to questions. That holds true for all languages as that is foundation to communication. Clear production of second language is a function of vowel pronunciation. Accents arise because of variant vowel production. It is OK to speak a foreign language with an accent.
I think this is an important point for learning anything. For example learning an instrument like the drums.I gave up on playing drums. I felt It was impossible for me to coordinate keeping the beat with my foot and doing different beat with drum stick. I gave up instead of giving my brain a chance to absorb the effort. Just keep trying and enjoy the attempt knowing your brain will take care of it with time and repetition.
The part of this idea is to go for the easy stuff first. Get the easiest stuff first. That will make the harder stuff easier. If a bunch of material is too difficult for you now, deal with easier stuff first - get a working grasp of the easiest stuff, and work on getting a working grasp of progressively more complex material. Come back when you are ready (or at least better prepared to deal with it). And even if you can handle material, don't expect to get grasp everything immediately. Strive to get a rough sense of what each word or phrase means within the context of the sentences and paragraphs you are reading. As your vocabulary and understanding of how the language is put together increases, your understanding of sentences, paragraphs and articles/documents will increase. Stop working on an article/document If working on an article/document feels too frustrating or as if it is too much work -- and work on something else. Work on different articles/documents for some time. You can come always come back later, and take another stab at any given article or document a few hours, days, weeks, or months later.
I tried an experiment with my Spanish students. On an answer sheet, they were given three possible responses to the statements I was making in Spanish. When I gave them time to think about what choice to make, they didn't score very well. When I told them to choose an answer without thinking about it, they scored much higher.
Two weeks ago I tried to read a novel in japanese, but I gave up after I realised there's like 15-20 words I don't understand per page. A week later I tried reading it again, but this time didn't use any dictionary - just guessed the general meaning of any new word and went along with it. Not only am I having lots of fun that way, but some of the once obscure words make a lot of sense, I even caught myself using them myself later. Totally recommend this approach!
What are some ways you are currently working on your comprehension in your target language?
The app I use to learn languages -> bit.ly/3xB8Cms
My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com
I use Deutsch lernen mit Video by DW which are on a variety of topics and are all under 5 minutes which is manageable.
For longer stuff, currently I’m reading Terry Pratchet.
@@Liliquan is this an app or you use the website version ?
@@Aliraza10107 App.
Dear Steve, do you believe all input has to be comprehensible? If so then what about in the case of videos/movies with subtitles in your target language that's above your level? Having to pause every few seconds to look up a word can disrupt the enjoyment and be slower and it'll probably show up in your vocabulary deck later on anyway right?
I guess there should be a balance of intensive and extensive reading/listening.
I swear by face-to-face conversations with native speakers who want to practice my native language. I have several weekly convos with the same people on Skype. When conversing with the same people every week the conversation evolves rather than repeating the same first convo every time. This helps us both in speaking, comprehension and grammar. We both speak in one language and then switch to the other.
Came for comprehension advice, stayed for the lawn-mowing advice.
The biggest breakthrough I had with listening was when I trained myself to not stop listening at the first word or sentence I didn’t understand. That’s common when you start: you listen and listen and then suddenly there’s something you don’t know, so you stop and try to work it out. This means you miss what comes next and you lose the thread, including info that may have actually helped you understand that confusing part. Also, and this is the key part to train yourself, I realized that if I didn’t understand something it’s because I hadn’t learned it. It didn’t matter how long or hard I thought about it, I was never going to work it out because it simply wasn’t in my head anywhere. I didn’t have that language at all yet, so I wasn’t ever going to find it. Once I realized this obvious point, I became comfortable ignoring what I didn’t comprehend. I trained myself to spend no more than a second processing a word and if it didn’t come to me in that time, drop it, move on and keep up with the speaker.
your seggestion is good
I listened to lots of 3 - 5 minute videos by "Lucrezia" while learning Italian. I wrote every word in the captions in Italian, also watched the translation. This really helped. I wasn't totally ignorant of Italian at the time but certainly not fluent. I kept this up for about a year, reading, writing, creating conversations with myself. Having studied French helped.
The main this is keeping at it
Thanks for the suggestion
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@@DrOrsonim learning italian rn lol
I made this mistake.. read a book, wanted to understand every single word.. took me ages to finish a book in a foreign language ;)
Sounds like me ,extensive reading is more practical
Sounds like me ,extensive reading is more practical
I think no one should try reading a book in a foreign language before learning around 1000 words or so
considering it's not a children's book or a beginners reader sort of book
And even at 1.000 words, one should choose a simple book to start
I did that too. Had to read Flyga Drake (The Kite Runner) for Svenska som andraspråk. Wrote down and found the translations for every word I didn't understand. The list was 300 words long after a few chapters! So I bought the English language version too, but only compared them if there was a whole paragraph or section that I couldn't comprehend.
After that experience I have mostly read books that I have previously read in English (though not recently) so that I know the main plot points. Then I only look up a word if not understanding it prevents me from understanding something vital in that chapter. It still takes me much longer to read things than in English, but it's more enjoyable.
Me too
I have found that Steve's advice applies to learning Calculus, and Physics where memorization is not the key skill but practice is. I dare say Stever's approach is useful for any subject.
That's so interesting. I was thinking about seeing if it applies to other subjects as well
That's really interesting. A new way to comprehend such difficult subjects. Thank you for sharing man.
coming from a physics student per se.Yeah all this time i couldn't figure it out what's the culprit that causes severe effect in my learning and development , and this is just what i need
also business ;)
I am studying for civil services and this is how I approach the preparation. I have to read a lot from economics to geography to history to polity and this advice holds true for all those subjects.
I like to analogize comprehension to a puzzle game. if you start with the easy pieces, the difficult ones will eventually solve themselves.
that is exactly how the grammar is aquired, it falls in place naturally
I really appreciate that analogy. I guess the key word that I miss/forget is EVENTUALLY. I need to be patient. Especially when I question if any progress is being made... Like with the puzzle, I just can't see it yet, but EVENTUALLY I will. 🤯
that's one great analogy
The biggest breakthrough I had with listening was when I trained myself to not stop listening at the first word or sentence I didn’t understand. That’s common when you start: you listen and listen and then suddenly there’s something you don’t know, so you stop and try to work it out. This means you miss what comes next and you lose the thread, including info that may have actually helped you understand that confusing part. Also, and this is the key part to train yourself, I realized that if I didn’t understand something it’s because I hadn’t learned it. It didn’t matter how long or hard I thought about it, I was never going to work it out because it simply wasn’t in my head anywhere. I didn’t have that language at all yet, so I wasn’t ever going to find it. Once I realized this obvious point, I became comfortable ignoring what I didn’t comprehend. I trained myself to spend no more than a second processing a word and if it didn’t come to me in that time, drop it, move on and keep up with the speaker.
Not understaning something you haven't learned doesn't seem to be a problem to me. I've just watched a video and heard the word "versatile". I didn't know the word, but I caught it all right and even spelled it properly in my mind. The only thing I had to do was to look it up in the dictionary. How about failing to comprehend something you know quite well, and those are the simplest words or phrases you can imagine: water, green (or was it actually "grin"), hold on, whale? On top of that, I turn on the subtitles, listen to what's being said several times, and still can't discern the words or the meaning in general, but what I hear is aah-eeh ahh-ooh, something similar to an ocean tide. That's what's killing me, and there seems to be no proper solution to this.
@@widerstandskampfer1762 this is so true, this is the problem i am having
This is so true! Happens to me all the time.
Thanks for this
Real talk! Comprehension doesn't happen overnight no matter how hard you try... it's a process, an everyday thing... thanks man
My teacher is 60 years old and he kept telling me, "I needed 60 years to speak at my level."
@@josepmariaalcoverropons9186 He's absolutely right!
I learned Italian when my parents moved to Italy for a year, and put me into an Italian public school. I was in the 4th grade. It was all so weird and different that I didn't think of it as learning a language. I understood most of what people were saying within three months, without any real effort. I wasn't really paying any attention to the learning process. I was just sitting there soaking it all in. No one at school knew any English, not even the teacher.
@ Steven Eardley. Yup! To communicate with specific people I didn't try to "learn their language." Instead I tried to figure out how to communicate with them -using whatever means I could. If that turned out to be "learning a new language" then it turned out to be learning a new language. It was easier for me if I thought of it just as learning some new words. That, however, doesn't seem to be much use if I a planning to go somewhere where people don't speak much English and they typically speak some other language and if I want to learn how to communicate with them - before I go there - so I don't have to learn while I am there. .
Well I had the baptism of fire when I was 5 years old and went to school.
I was brought up by my Hungarian mother and only spoke that language at home.
At school in England I was forced to learn quickly when I did not know the word to go to the toilet!
Consequently I wet my pants and was given a heavy serge replacement 😊
Thereafter I quickly learned key phrases useful for a 5 year old boy😏
I live in italy i speak spanish ,i reached a intermediate level in just 6 months ,i can understand but i wanna learn more vocabulary and i have the same problem with english when i read books,tips?
@@Flortaffa Your English already looks very good. I'm studying German now. I go to German language channels, put on the German subtitles, and set it at 3/4 speed. It's all about exposure. I did study German a bit in college, that's why I turn on the German subtitles. Of course, like Italian and Spanish, German is very phonetic. English spelling is flat-out bizarre. That may be a good reason to turn on the English subtitles, since you can then see how these things are spelled. I remember when I was younger I thought misled was two different words--one pronounced mizeled, and one pronounced mis-led. In my mind, it was much worse to mizle someone than to mislead them.
Any tips on finding a wife?
Learn the secksiest language of all: baguette language.
Dad?
Speak German.
@@BryanAJParry amen
Stop looking.
I’m a 9th grader and I watched this on the bus to school to take my Language Arts Final Exam. I am done with the exam now and I got 100 for the first time everrr,🎉🎉
Well done!!
Congratulations!!
yeahh sure
Diss tha' haters, fantastic job young lady 👏 🥳🥳🥳 keep it up.
Ok lol
I totally agree. Sometimes I would listen to an audio or video and try to understand as many words as possible and in the end I would realize that I hadn't paid much attention to the main topic because of that. One day, while walking, I was listening to a podcast without forcing myself to understand the specific words, but paying attention and imagining what the person was saying. In the end I understood much of the podcast.
Yes sir, so true, that is the mistake that language learners make.
An interesting exercise is to listen to a podcast in your own native language and focus on understanding all the words. When I try that, I find it's hard to follow the message because my attention is in the wrong place. And that's in my native language!
Yes! I've found just before sleep, listening to something and not trying to translate, I suddenly see pictures of everything being said, even words that I don't really know.
yea, that is awesome. It works exactly like that and also It is much enjoyable the process of learning a new language
Thanks for your experience. I'll try to listen podcast whitout to try understand every single Word. Thanks so much.
I'm finding this is particularly true as I'm learning Korean. With French and Spanish, sentence structure is quite similar to English, but with Korean I have to constantly remind myself to just let the whole sentence wash over me before I check if I understand it. Because actually, context is a big piece of comprehension even for our native languages! There are homonyms and different meanings within English even that get cleared up if you just keep listening for the whole sentence or paragraph or more of the conversation-language is about more than grammar and vocabulary, so while we do have to learn these things, this video is a good reminder that PATIENT persistence is key.
What is your purpose in life ? Learning Spanish , French , Korean , Hindhi etc has any impact on your career!!
I'm learning Spanish and I often catch myself "trying a little to hard" versus just letting my brain absorb what it can and then come back later for a "second pass" to absorb more. The lawn mowing analogy was perfect - thank you!
Yo también, no más
I watched Rick and Morty 5 times and always get a bit more.
Yo hablo español!!
Hey Chuck, would you like to do a language exchange? I'm a Spaniard learning English and French. If you like the idea let me know, we could talk via whatsapp, telegram or whatever app you prefer.
I'm learning English, we must be practice !
I think this point applies to learning mathematics, too. I'm studying a very mathematical university course and too many times I have tried to really understand each line of a textbook and made slow progress. Much faster to keep pushing on and not getting hung up on what you don't understand right away. Very interesting.
Hey Colin!
Thanks for sharing. This was an answer I was looking for, cause I'm learning Python, etc now and sometimes struggle to get a full grasp of things.
But does this approach really help? What's your experience?
Eveuntually you manage to understand things deeper?
@@grandpraline hi! Yes, I think with learning Python you have to try and push past the parts you don't understand as well and try and get code working.
You need to immerse yourself in the language just like maths I think. It will take time but it will make more and more sense with time.
Hope that helps :)
@@grandpraline Yes, just keep coding and don't worry too much about what others tell you is the right way. Either you will appreciate why they said that later by making the mistake or after you do try their way you understand why they are wrong.
Code and keeping coding.
Learning is like a tree growing. You don't see it grow. But come back next year and you will see a difference.
I agree 100%. Creating resistance and forcing yourself is a progress killer. Trying to understand at all costs is like trying to fall asleep - the more you try, the harder it gets.
Its not. People are like 'yeah! she's right! the more you try to sleep the harder it is!'
Forgetting the first sentence. Take it to the extreme, do you think if you just sit there for years listening and not engaging that you'll learn quickly/at all?
Then imagine you engage with everything you hear, forever. Neither extreme is optimal but to say that just zoning out and letting it all seep in is a load of bull.
@@thesampsoninstitute I didn't say anything about not engaging. Please, don't put words in my mouth and distort my comment like that.
Both Steve and I have talked about the importance of noticing and paying attention to patterns. But that can be done without creating resistance. It's all about noticing without stress, resistance etc.
Physics books have to read this way, my friend. It's hard, doesn't mean it's not right.
AA
I understand your point regarding understanding. As for the sleeping thing, many people fall asleep almost immediately after seconds or minutes of trying, myself included, so it's not a good example.
Just stumbled across this video and channel. I don't speak multiple languages, but I find this fascinating because it's a direct analog to something I do work with - teaching mathematics. Students who try to "understand" everything upon the first lesson before any practice tend to do worse, or at least take longer to fully grasp the material. Students who push forward through the practice and repetition while accepting their initial lack of understanding will usually develop that understanding much quicker. I think it speaks toward the way the human brain works in general across different disciplines. Thanks for the great material!
Similar experience with coding!
This is generally good advice for nearly all non-linear subjects. Or better put, any subjects that relies on ability rather than simply knowing. Anything you can "work a muscle" for.
A year ago, I was stuck in English reading until I stopped trying understand every single word, only then I starts learning rapidly and I shocked by my comprehension level! I found that novels is within my reach so I quit Oxford stories and forced myself to - finally - read what I want, which is Sherlock Holmes's adventures, I finished them all few days ago. Unforgettable journey!
ليش تركت قصص اكسفورد ؟
@@saeedyahya9020 قصص اكسفورد مبسطة لمن يتعلم اللغة الإنجليزية، تركتها لأنني تجاوزت هذه المرحلة وصرت قادر على قراءة القصص العادية مثلي مثل من لغته الأم هي الإنجليزية.
@@TheESMAT07 نصائحك عن مهارة الاستماع اريد اطور مستواي من مبتدئ الى متوسط افهم
Awesome 👌 try the audiobooks on youtube ;)
Only reading??
This is why music works so well for me. You can listen to a song in another language and be fine not knowing a single word. But over time you start to recognize words you learn from other mediums, and then how they string together etc.
This happened to me recently. I was reading something and then when I read a word I didn't know in my head I remembered hearing it in a song. So when I looked it up it all clicked and now it feels stronger in my head
Nice analogy. I’ve had to move away from my old perfectionist mindset and realize that language is learning something, forgetting it, learning again, forgetting again, over and over but with each relearning it gets stronger until it’s set in our brain.
fruitful way to avoid early frustration
As a kid I learned way more english through videogames and TV shows than in the classroom at school. I used to watch Tarzan on Disney Channel with either English or Spanish (my nativa language) subtitles, and quite often those episodes would be repeated. I think that is exactly the phenomenon you're decribing. I need to get on to doing the same with Russian, my current target language.
Very well said!
As a non-native English speaker, when my English skills were at their lowest I used to watch English youtube videos and barely understand 5% of what was being said, and I just kept watching regardless, and now that you made me think of that, I think that is what helped me get better the most. My skill is still far from perfect however, as you might've noticed. 😅
Your writing skills are excellent my friend!
I think this is great😂
Love the metaphor, quite clever. Also funny that you took pictures lol. I'd like to figure out why is it that now it takes me so much to tolerate uncertainty. I learned English pretty well and I seemingly navigated uncertainty well, I had some outside encouragement but I was mainly motivated internally, English just became a part of what I use to interact with things and I cannot remember how I dealt with uncertainty back then
I'm dealing with uncertainty I don't know how to compete this issue .
I'm doing Classics at university at the moment. I had a surgery earlier this semester that meant I had to miss a tonne of content in both Greek and Latin, it was crazy. It's meant alot of self-teaching and this week I was feeling really down about my skills and progress. I was also really feeling the pressure that comes with learning these languages quickly.
This video really calmed me down and settled my mind. Thank you!
This 'don't try too hard' is actually true. Sometimes I'm beating my head against the wall trying to 'understand' a certain piece in one of my languages and end up giving it up.
But then I come across that again eventually and it clicks!
That's because acquisition happens unconsciously. You do your part and take your time. The brain assimilates things during sleep.
Sleep is critical.
You can actually go to extreme degrees with this method
I learned English by playing video games, listening to music, watching RUclips. Basically I started by playing games that had Russian (my native) text, but English voice and just pointing out some words from the context. I've extended my dictionary a bit while learning lyrics for the songs I like and sometimes their translation, but I haven't done this a whole lot and only when I already somewhat solid base. I started watching RUclips completely in English like four years ago and this was the biggest boost to me. I started with videos on video games, so I had bigger part of the required words and now I can easily watch anything (almost, but I think rocket science will be hard for someone like me even in his native language)
The problem with that is the fact that I understand (almost) everything, but speaking is still a bit problematic to me
I fully agree with what this man is saying, to not force the process so much to get the result. Russian is my target language, and I struggle with comprehension mainly because I have to admit that I’ve been trying to base my language learning skills off the way one would learn in a military academy. Unfortunately that’s now I learned as a boy, and as a young adult. There’s even a specific word in Russian for someone who just memorizes things and doesn’t comprehend at all. It’s on the tip of my tongue now.
Learning to let go and accept where our comprehension level is, is a big deal. Not getting caught up in trying for example, watch a presidential speech or listen to a full conversation on эхо Москвы, when you are an upper beginner like me :)
Hi Steve
I’m from Brazil and hereby to thank you for all your work and effort dedicated in teach and advise us for free on yt.
I’ve been learning English for about 2 and half years and, thanks to you, I’ve been improving so much that I can’t measure or describe this improvement.
I’m really proud for my little achievement’s and now I can read read and understand any book or even series and podcast effortlessly.
I wrote all this above from the top off my head and sorry if I got some mistakes.
Thank you again!
I'm a gay Lithuanian man and I want to visit Brazil. I want to go to the beaches in Rio De Janeiro, eat açaí, and have fun with gay handsome Brazilian men.
@@lukasbalchunas1272 lol
I’m not from rio and am not gay as well. But surely you’ll be welcome in our country. Rio is a very lively and bustling city.
Your English is great! Congratulations on your progress!
@@theocurtis02 thank you so much, bro. I appreciate your feedback. Even though I don’t feel like that fluent and sometimes I struggle with the language, especially when it comes to speaking, i feel like getting better and better. Take care!
@@cesarchiarelli8039 let matters take their course! I'm a native Spanish speaker and I think I've reached an English proficiency level in which I feel comfortable interacting with other people and in general just using the language as any other person would. Just keep immersing yourself in the language, talk to other people (in English ofc), and without you noticing, time will take care of things and you'll just keep getting better! I wish you success in your journey, learning another language is not an easy task. Be proud of the progress you've made so far, your English is great!
Very true. I went through the military's language school many years ago, and the pace and length of that course washed out a lot of people. One of the biggest reasons was that students would get frustrated and give up because they felt they weren't understanding everything. I think those of us who made it through just accepted that we wouldn't get everything and just needed to hang on. Read/listen to something, grasp as many essential elements of information as possible given time constraints, and just move on. Full comprehension, especially at first pass, can take years to develop.
What this video boils down to is: you need to switch what you're studying repeatedly to force your brain to store things in long term memory. If you just keep studying the same thing until you "Master it" it'll be stuck in short term memory and you'll almost never move on.
Yup, the method I tell people time and time again of how I improved my Japanese listening and comprehension basically goes like this.
Watch a drama in Japanese and expect to understand about 10% of it.
Watch it again with subtitles and now you understand the content, maybe not any more of the language, but at least now you know what to listen for.
Watch a third time with no subtitles again (you could also add a viewing with Japanese subtitles as well if you like), and now you'll probably understand about 25% of it.
Don't worry about the other 75%, just go on the next episode of the drama.
If you finish the drama you can come back to that first episode and by that time you'll likely understand 60% or more of it.
*This is of course meant to be a compliment to regular language study outside of these viewings as well.
And actually if the drama is based on a manga, you can read the manga in between episodes and take notes on the vocabulary that comes up as well.
Very nice analogy. I'm an English teacher and I always say something similar to my students. The key to learning is repeatetion. Every time you repeat you understand a bit more. Also sometimes students want to understand every single word and then forget to listen what is being said.
I somehow hate repetition, it's like programming something you might not use even in hundred years time.
I'm a native Spanish speaker, and I really like to hear you speak, Steve. I utilize your videos as a listening practice, and I must tell you that I understand 99% of everything you say. I feel happy because I can confirm that I'm now at an advanced listening level.
The problems start when you try to speak your vocabulary adquired out loud :( , it becomes all like if you never learned anything as if you had just a few begginer words .
That happens to me , i understane too much but if i try to speak what i wrote here it becomes a hell for me .
What do you say about my problem ? , does that happen to you too?
@@ChristoChristo03 Yes brother, it is normal, but as Steve has said in several videos, you must first listen a lot, read and finally read aloud and gradually imitate the sentences in English, you must be patient, and enjoy the trip brother
@@pablojure3550 thank you very much my friend for your help :D, God bless you .
I admire you Steve :') Thanks for sharing with us
Frequency is the best ally when it comes to language learning, assuming people expose themselves to their target language a lot.
While exposing yourself to the language you are trying to learn, some words will repeat themselves a lot and will be learned easily and automatically. As for other words they will not repeat with the same number or frequency, some of them will stick and others will be forgotten.
if your seeing new words, should you try and translate them or just expect to understand their meaning after repetition in different contexts?
@@joyfulburger2395 If you are advanced enough in your learning journey you can use your target language's dictionaries to define words you encounter, otherwise if the word refers to an abstract concept you can translate it to your native language. If it's referring to a concrete concept it is preferable to just google it and find the meaning through an image.
Supongo que la mayoría de los estudiantes están tratando de leer textos demasiado difíciles, porque cuando leemos un texto interesante y que está bien adaptado a nuestro nivel de comprensión, los problemas desaparecen y no tenemos que interrumpir nuestra lectura con cada frase o cada párrafo. Simplemente disfrutamos con el texto, porque es divertido, curioso o algo inesperado pasa en la historia, etc. y como leemos sin interrupciones, leemos más : terminamos antes el libro y podemos empezar antes el siguiente.
After trying myself to “force the mower” I can relate to this … and I understood this concept some the first time I thought about, but now I understand it a little more after watching this video ;)
Very important video!! I need to have this imprinted in my brain cause i keep falling into the bad habits of pushing that lawn mower through the high grass
Go with the flow. Get the overall meaning, gist, not individual words or the grammar structure. That will come later. Naturally. I grew up speaking three languages fluently - English is my third - and learned eight more - more or less - and would go from melody to meaning to words, top down.
When I was first learning French, I knew how to order a coffee and simple phrases but did not know how the phrase - the array of sounds - broke down into individual words, but it worked, got the job done. When speaking, I would ram through making all kinds of grammatical mistakes, but that was better than stopping, trying to get the sentence perfect in my head first before speaking because by then the conversation would have advanced and I would never have said anything.
Above all, relax, have fun, and if you have the chance to be immersed in the new language, in a place where everyone speaks it, it will come. I never learned a language without being in the country where it is spoken. German I learned by reading comic books in German - Tintin - with at first an English translation of the same story to check things I didn't understand, and later moved on to German fairy tales, Märchen der Gebrüder Grimm, and then American films dubbed into German. And then going out and doing my best in society. Instead of a lawnmower, I liken it to learning how to ski. Enjoy the slope and the snow even if you're not a very good skier. If you stay at it, relaxed, you will improve over time.
interesting perspective. To me, learning a language feels like growing something in my head, which indeed requires mainly patience, a kind relaxation, repetition, and novelty. I would never have thought of a mowing analogy.
This perspective reminds me very much of when I was a kid, reading books in my native language, but that definitely didn't fully understand -- even if it was a classic "kid's book". (For example, I remember a reference at the beginning of R. L. Stevenson's _Kidnapped_ -- what the heck was a "Jacobite"? And why was it relevant? How well did I really understand the finer details of _Ivanhoe_ , or _The Count of Monte Cristo_ ?)
There were all sorts of words, references, and allusions that I didn't understand, but that didn't normally prevent me from enjoying the story. It was only as an adult that I started to have trouble enjoying things that I knew I didn't fully understand _because_ I didn't fully understand them. I eventually noticed this, and gave myself permission to accept that my comprehension in new things might not equal my "normal" adult level (I also started to realize that many things I think I understand are in truth merely familiar -- it's made me considerably more open-minded.)
These days I sometimes wonder how much their necessary acceptance of not understanding _everything_ they encounter might contribute to children's greater ability to absorb new languages...
-
Somewhat related:
I've also learned that when reading material in my target language, I'm better off reading original works rather than translations of English ones. The language use is often (usually?) perceptibly "more natural", plus I'm less distracted by trying to compare the translation to the original -- especially for a familiar or favorite classic such as (for example) _Alice In Wonderland_ . Bonus: reading target-language originals, I also find I'm far more comfortable dealing with any parts I don't quite get yet.
I would agree with this, Steve, but I'd caveat it by saying it's fine to want to understand everything if it's completely engrossing/compelling content. Straining and struggling to understand something you're not that into will lead to burn out fairly quickly, but if you're loving the content and you don't want to miss even a single word, I think it's completely fine.
On the subject of allowing yourself to go without understanding some things, I believe this to be the most natural and legit way to learn a language, it's how we all learned our native language. You can reach fluency just from understanding parts of sentences (obviously, eventually you'll understand full sentences), hearing patterns over and over is all that matters, by doing so, the grammar will click in eventually, and the vocab will come, albeit slowly.
I watched a video not so long ago (I believe it was a Lingq vlog) where a lady was feeling 'guilty' about not finishing books she'd started to read. I thought about that, and commented that actually you could probably reach fluency by reading just the first page of thousands of different books. I don't see why not.
I also feel guilty about not finishing a book I've started, so I usually just flip through the rest if it doesn't interest me any more. Strange mindset. It's probably due to the amount of time already invested in reading the book.
This is so true even in other types of learning and life in general as well. Perfection is the enemy of progress...
Love this! Now I can relax more when watching Spanish series and just enjoy the flow of the language.... duh..... it just takes time...........
Don't be surprised how quickly that comes.
I was alone for 3 weeks in Spain one year and watched the same TV documentary series every night, different episode each time.
My street comprehension improved about 300%.
0:21 Your will be done.
My Polish tutor has been off for a while due to having a baby and I've been doing nothing but reading Harry Potter using LingQ. Occasionally I will practice having a conversation with myself and I'm amazed at how much more I can say. I think my tutor is going to be surprised at how much my speaking has improved doing nothing but reading.
I hit level B1/Basic Intermediate back in March. Right around the time I hit it, I found it was easier to read and I was starting to get to the point that I could read for fun/because I wanted to enjoy the story, instead of reading because I needed to do my daily slog of language practice. Now I often read way more than my goal and I can make up to 20 known words per session (as opposed to the handful I used to do).
I'm on the 3rd Harry Potter book, and I think that helps because authors have a style of writing and words and phrases that they will repeat. And, of course, there's HP-specific words that get repeated all the time, like wizard, wand, cloak, cauldron, etc. So there's a lot of repetition that I wouldn't necessarily get if I bounced between unrelated books.
If it’s something that I’m forced to read and the subject is boring, I will not retain what I read. This is how it is on reading exams. Those long boring stories.
Steve, you are always spot on. Amazing content and tips! Thank you for the amazing work you do for the language learning community!
As someone who was raised with 3 languages at home and then went on to learn a few others, I believe the best way to learn a language is to "doodle" with the language's quirks for some time. Have a couple of thoughts about the language constantly in your mind. Funny features or sounds. When learning, understand the in the spoken language, word breaks in sentences are different than your native language. You need to consider the rhythm, something akin to jump roping at a new speed. A double edged sword often occurs when you learn a language similar to one you already know IE: English to German or Spanish to Portuguese. You end up piggy backing off of the one and then creating a mess in your mind; eventually, though, you'll be able to detach the new language from your native vocabulary. ... I always try to find how things just don't translate perfectly. I find it fascinating and it keeps me wanting to learn more. As an example: humming bird in Portuguese is beija-flor (flower kisser). And although both identify the same animal, the nuance makes the exact same animal take on a new dimension in every aspect; from art, to poetry, to double entendres etc. A private conversation in French is a tête-à-tête, but lyrics to a song played with that and said "c'est tête-à-text" which means this private conversation now written in song. Andrew Bird wrote a song saying "legionaries with two by fours as if they're marching on to war", which some would understand soldiers heading to war, but those that lived in the US will know that a 2x4 is a piece of wood used in basic construction, and those pieces of wood are also used in parades as pretend rifles. Andrew Bird was talking about a parade and not war. I could go on and on.
can I just say you're my type of language nerd! that comment was such a delight to read
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I had this thought about what he said: when learning a new language try to listen the same way you listen to music. I say this as a non native english speaker.
The same applies to math, the sciences and technology. I use to struggle particularly with bath be I felt I had to understand every bit of it. So what would happen is that I would fall back because I was too fixated on perfectly understanding earlier material rather than just getting the gist of it, and moving on to the next chapters.
It took me until my mid-30s to stop this practice. Though sometimes I still find myself repeating in when learning new technology.
I think this advice applies well to beginners and intermediate learners.
But for advance learners one needs to challenge oneself with difficult content or else one would feel that they are making too little progress.
B1 to B2?
@@marcelosilveira7079
B1 Low intermediate
B2 Upper Intermediate
C1 Advanced
C2 Native level
Read challenging books.
@@MG-ln1yw The vast majority of natives don't have a C2 level. C2 is an academic level.
@@aquarius4953 Why would "academic" be considered a higher level?
This is good advice. Learning a language is not a linear process. It's more like something cyclical. It's also good for students if teachers keep this in mind. It's a mistake to think that if you have studied something or taught something that it is then done without the need for revisiting the same material several times. Each revisit is likely to expand the understanding, because what you might have learned later will enable you to grasp what you could not first time around.
Lawn mowing is a brilliant and lucid analogy. The second run is the fun one.
Thank you so much for this beautiful explanation!
The lawn mower analogy is really helpful. I’ve been studying languages for the last 10+ years, and I found that several passes over the same material really helps to reinforce my studies.
I´m learning English and I´m going to do it way. Thanks! And I´ll be commenting on my evolution in your vídeos, congratulations for them!!
When I was a kid, I was a "slow" reader. Most everyone in my class finished reading assignments before I did - every time. We used some color-coded resding materials, and I progressed more slowly than my classmates. Not sure what passed as reading "instruction" in those days, but it seems likely that my teachers took me to be an average or lesser reader. My SAT Verbal score turned out not to be below average, and, in college, I regularly read some very challenging material with no problem except that I took more time perhaps than many readers. Once I started taking pedagogy courses to become a teacher, and learned more about learning & teaching reading, I realized that my habit was to go back & read every sentence until I understood it. Sometimes once or twice was enough, but occasionally I might have read more complicated sentences 3-4 times for full comprehension - as I then understood the term. This lead to my realization that slow readers might have better comprehension, but their exposure to material & ideas could have limitations. Indeed, sometime after college, I performed well on the GRE & entered grad school, where I performed well enough - but reading, for me, took extra time, as I expected good comprehension. As I look back, I see that, while my reading comprehension was high, it was at the cost of slower volume of reading. Now, as an ESL/ELL teacher, I use shorter selections & lower-level reading materials to help students learn comprehension, which skills students can then apply to longer or more complicated selections. This approach of disregarding some of the concern over comprehension, and instead pushing through more material, is also very relevant, so I will begin blending or alternating these two approaches for further student development & success.
Terrific story & growth in self awareness. Even today, I fear, and maybe there’s actually a regression in this regard, for all the talk of different learning styles and the uniqueness of each student, I think there’s a rather brutal one size fits all approach that ends up valuing only certain kinds of learners… with the rest left to feel somehow deficient. A terrible disservice with incalculable human cost
I thought that as you read more the better you get at it and therefore the faster you can read the same material while retaining a good level of comprehension. Btw do you have any advice that has struggled his entire life to get into reading? I'm pretty fluent in English but I've always struggled with developing the habit of reading. No one in my family nor my social circle is fond of reading and as a kid I always hated reading even though I was good at math. Probably the environment has a lot to do with my perception and as result it's so hard for me to read for pleasure
@@TheAnarchist99 You & I are very similar in background, talent, and experience! Read topics that INTEREST you. Your own interests should guide your reading & you will find it more relevant & pleasant. For example, there are some very good topics in math that one can read & learn about. You could choose a known topic & read deeper about it - or pick a new topic in math or a related skill (such as economics) to broaden your knowledge & practice your reading skills in context.
@@TheAnarchist99 I realize this comment is old by now, but maybe this'll still be helpful. I'm someone who was an avid reader as a kid but struggles badly with it as an adult. See if your local library has a collection of audiobooks! If the time commitment is a hurdle to sitting down with a paper book, throw one on while you do something else. There's this weird stigma around it that it doesn't count but it absolutely does. It's got me into reading again, maybe it can get you into reading in the first place :)
That was an excellent analogy. Thank you for sharing.
That lawnmower analogy was fire, and it's exactly what I do. Know your limits. Push hard, but don't let yourself get bogged down by pushing too hard the first pass.
Once I accepted my imperfections, I flourished!
The problem when learning another language being spoken, is that if you dwell on trying to understand a specific unknown word, then you lose focus on all the upcoming words. You find yourself behind, and understanding very little.
Wise words. Repetition is the key to learn any language.
I think I’m one of the biggest beneficiaries of comprehensible input. I learned English from scratch in 2014, and because of comprehensible input, mostly I spend my time on watching RUclips and reading BBC news, I achieved an overall band score of 7.5 (L8, R8, S7.5, W6.5) in IELTS just last month. I think my English proficiency got improved immensely during the past 3 years because firstly I turned off subtitles on RUclips regardless of if I understand it and secondly I read a lot on BBC everyday, which enabled me to gain a lot of new vocabulary. I remember that when I just turned off the subtitle, I did not fully understand every single word but I still kept the subtitle off because I was able to understand the general meaning. As time passes by, now I can understand at least 99 percent of news lated videos and 100 percent of everyday life related videos. I do not know why but I assume that it’s all because of comprehensive input.
So how u get the meaning wt actually they try to say. Do u listen them repeatedly
Could you tell me how much u dedicated specifically to listen English In the past 3 years without subtitles? Am curious cuz am trying to learn or understand Norwegian and am just interested in the stats
@@NSh-xn9en if you don't get it's okay just keep listening, eventually you'll figure it out
@Aditya learning any language takes time. If you plan to be extremely proficient pretty much immersing yourself everyday for hours is the way to go. At least that's what I do for japanese
I am stuck. It is like white noise to me
it almost makes my head hurt everytime lol
Who here read the same english book several times months apart in between other books?
That's me 😄 I just freaking moved on to another book and after few months came back to the same book. Every time I did that, I grasped more of the plot and lots more details I missed on the previous run.
thank you for motivation boost ! My experience after two years: The more I want to understand everything the weaker the motivation gets and I stop for a long period of time. The more I dont care about understanding everything then I keep on moving and accept my level of where I am right now.
I definitely agree! Moreover, You don't fully understand everything even in your native language. You can read again a great book and discover many new interesting details.
The lawn is a good analogy, but I think the biggest problem is impatience with oneself. I would say " leave the lawn longer, it's nicer on bare feet rather than prickly short grass "
Sou Brasileiro, 🇧🇷 aprendi inglês sozinho, consigo entender qualquer assunto ou música escutando 👂 apenas um vez, sei ler e escrever em inglês, más odeio 🤔 tenho memória fotográfica 📸 entendi sobre o que vc disse em não forçar o cortador de gramas resolver tudo apenas com uma passada, pôr que provavelmente irá forçar a máquina, que a dica é ir ajustando as lâminas em cada passada, porém tem uma coisa que a maioria das pessoas, não sabem, qualquer assunto falado 🗣️ ou qualquer música 🎼 cantada em inglês, quando as pessoas não nativas repetem,acaba pôr entender completamente ( tal assunto 🗣️ ) ou ( tal música 🎼 ) porém é só pegar outro assunto especialmente no Ted 🗣️) ou ( outra música 🎼) e sentir de repente 😲) eu não entendo nada a respeito, pôr isso sempre digo em redes sociais para todos no planeta 🌎, se não tiverem uma mente 🧠 fotográfica 📸, como a minha, não percam tempo escutando 👂 isso ou aquilo na vastidão de vídeos no ( youTube ▶️ ) em inglês 🇬🇧 🇺🇸, aprendam com vocabulários de Aeroportos 👨✈️👩✈️🛫🛬🛩️, para poderem viajar, vocabulários de hotéis 🏨🛌 para poderem hospedar em qualquer lugar do mundo 🌎🌐 e pôr fim aprendam vocabulários de Restaurantes 🍔🍕🍜🍟🍛, para poderem alimentar, um pouco de vocabulários para comprimentos 🗣️👩✈️👨✈️ e esqueçam o resto dos outros vocabulários, quem avisa amigo é, simples assim! 🤔
This is quite inspirational. I always burn myself on trying to understand too much and ends up giving up.
Where were you when I was in school?????? I love your channel so so much :)
Hi Steve - this is encouraging as I struggle with comprehension in French. I have an on-line tutor and I think even she is a little baffled at my struggles to understand. She gives me stuff which I feel is too difficult for me and I find this demotivating. I prefer the comprehensible input approach but I know I'm making slow but constant progress so I'll just keep at it. Thanks for your tip on the subject.
Learning to comprehend spoken French is so hard, because the spoken version of the language is very different from the written version.
I`ve been learning french for a year now and I can by now watch most french RUclips videos and understand pretty much everything. It took me a lot of time tho just listening, re-listening and re-listening. Maybe a few content tips that I love:
- InnerFrenchPodcast (probably the most known one for learners. It has over 100 episodes right now and every episode is transcipted, so that you can read as well as listen to it. The difficulty increases slowly from episode 1 so that you dont even realize it. I almost exclusively used this podcast for the first say 3-4 months just listening to it ALL THE TIME until I got kinda "bored" and wanted to increase the difficulty even more with content for natives.)
- Nota Bene (pretty big histoy channel with A LOT of interesting videos of wich most are subtitled by humans. Can be hard to understand sometimes tho. I just download the subtitles, import them into Lingq and read them like a book.)
- Mamytwink (also pretty big history channel thats focused mostly (but not only) to the second world war with very interesting storys that fit the small story in the big context. Almost all videos are subtitled by humans and I think pretty easy to understand. They talk in slow, precise sentences)
- Questions d'Histoire (history channel as well with a lot of their videos subtiteld)
- Secrets d'Histoire (about 2h long videos about history, not subtitled tho)
- Colas Bim (funny animated videos. Hard to understand as a beginner. He talks pretty fast but the videos are funny even if you dont understand lol. I sometimes found them even more funny when I didnt understand :D)
- quoi de neuf docteur (big french streamers taking a pretty long interview in the form of a (fake) psychiatry session. I like it because they mostly have the same structure and questions. So you know at least about what they are talking about and if you dont understand, there will be a next question soon. They all talk naturally and without soundeffects or other distracting things in the background. Just hours of pure talking. No subtitles tho.
-
Joachim Mouhamad (chess channel with a guy on his quest to become a grandmaster. As I'm learning chess as well right know its pretty useful to do both (french and chess) at the same time.
- Koinsky (Lets Player with games I like. Great tip if you like lets plays. Just watch a lets play with a game that you know and you will understand a lot from that context alone)
- french comprehensible input (a lot of videos with varying difficulty. Can be nice for beginners because he has a lot of very basic stuff.)
You see these are a lot of history realated stuff because I love history. A big part in learning a language is finding content that you love in that language. Its hard to learn with content that you dont like or that you consume just because its in your target language. Dont rely on your tutor to provide you with content. When you are intrinsicly motivated to understand, it will be a lot easier to stay motivated even if you dont understand everything. Also notice that there are still videos that I dont understand anything even tho in others I understand almost a 100%. LAnguage learning is just like this but it gets easier the more time you spend with it. And its not only getting easier, its becomes fun to watch stuff in french and learning on the go while you have fun. Trust me its worth it.
(sorry for long post and teacher-like attitude)
@@Tighris Thanks for taking the time to share your French learning experience with me and also the various French websites and You Tubers - I have been listening to the InnerFrench podcast and find it very good although I'm sure he talks slowly for us learners but that's okay.
I will check out the others and will I'm sure fine some useful content. My tutor gives me TV5 B1 oral comp exercises but I find these difficult and they take (me) quite a bit of time to do. So I tend not to do them. I prefer to listen to a longer piece with no interruptions, that I can understand (75%) and I think I get more out of my listening this way. Thanks again.
@@Tighris many thanks for your suggestions . I am also on a journey of learning and being fluent in French. I live in ontario canada and just a few hours drive to Quebec . After reading your message I subscribed to 3 of the you tube channels and the pod cast. Thanks again
So true. I have been telling my students the same thing for ages. After all, babies and little children don't understand everything... but that doesn't stop them at all, they keep going!
In many ways, we need to become like children to learn a language
Thank you for all this insight! I find your videos very useful. Keep up the great work! Blessings.
I am so happy that I am not a native speaker and I have eventually the full comprehension of that video!
Learning the language is an amazing stuff. I have been learning English for so long and finally I begin to really enjoy English-langunage content without my dictionary opened. So amazing.
Learn the languages!
Hi Steve, thanks for sharing your tips based on your long experience. I'm a French native speaker, fluent in German and started learning Russian 7 months ago. I wonder if you have some more specific tips to learn this difficult language. I know about 4000 words but still can't understand such funny сериал "Кухня" or any book. I would be pleased to get some advice on how to pass this border. German was a piece of cake in comparison.
Привет Марк
I have been learning Russian for a long time now. I use the rule of 23 - that is I have to be exposed to a word / phrase 23 times to remember it. The point being, don’t beat yourself up for not remembering - just keep the flame alive with exposure and novelty and being active in your language learning. Удачи!
@@nicholasbenbow3906 Thanks Nicholas fot the tips, I didn't know about the rule of 23 times.
At a certain point during French classes last year I came up with a rhyming motto for this idea: “pour mieux comprendre, il faut se détendre” - to understand better, you must relax!! Because I had noticed the very same thing. Now lately every third book or so that I finish is in French. Is my understanding 100%? Of course not. But I’ve noticed I’ve started to recognize and (when I practice speaking or writing) think of vocabulary I never studied specifically.
I think you're exactly right! Your analogy to cutting the lawn is brilliant! Thank you! It will help me in my Italian language learning journey for certain!
What you said was refreshing and makes sense! I read in English without consulting a dictionary, mostly because it prevented me from enjoying a book. I find myself slowly getting a vague picture of the English language. I didn't "learn" English within a period of time but improved it over years.
It was so pleasant and positive to meet you again, Sir. As I just read few notes below, many people are completely agree with your viewpoint. There are dozens of appreciation notes there!
Stay healthy and keep encourage people loving foreign languages. Thank you.
I’m reading a book called México Amargo. I several months back, a linguist(I don’t know, he has a phd in a field in linguistics) told me that as you approach an advanced level of a language, it no longer is sufficient to “get the gist” of what you’re listening or reading but that you must make the effort to understand. Unfortunately for me, I take things way too far and I’m on pg 127 of 370 and I have probably spent, conservatively, 40 hours of concentrated effort(the reality is I spend way more time and get distracted researching cultural context and and studying the many definitions the words have that I don’t understand) and I realize that it will literally take 6 months at my rate to finish this book. The reality is that I’m much too slow for me to get enough to acquire the knowledge that I need. On the other hand, I’ve taken the other route of mass volume intake and that isn’t too good either because while I may have been “getting the gist”, I wasn’t getting the nuance and I wasn’t improving my vocabulary much either.
I started doing this with books I’ve read in English, would look up a few words I didn’t know but didn’t worry about searching every word/grammar point I was confused on. Since it’s something I’ve already read, it’s not like I’m missing any big ideas! This has helped immensely by using books with audiobooks at the same time.
thanks Mr.Kaufmann.actually,I'm Persian and glad to see that you like Persian language . the point you mentioned is of utmost importance.I'm not perfect in English but I've completely realised that for better comprehension you most just keep going and this is a day in day out process. I'm always thinking about it and good to hear that from you .
I am currently learning my third language and you managed to say what I experienced learning english, not trying to be perfect is the way in almost any stage of learning a new language, thanks for reminding me that.
Thank you for the video, Steve! I am A2 level in English and this content is very important for me because I have to know that I won't understand everything and my brain needs novelty but at the same time, go back to the old content to mow new blades of lawn.
I cannot agree with this more! It's more than just getting little by little though. What I've noticed is that the stress of trying to understand more actually hinders the brain's natural comprehension and acquisition. I heard Stephen Krashen mention this as well. When I forget about whether or not I'm understanding, and just enjoy the content, while trying to understand without stress, I understand so much more!
He's too advanced to understand
Great video!
Right now I’m learning to do coding and computer programming.
This advice is marvelous for that as well as natural language acquisition.
I also wanna learn how to speak French.
Thank you
Any SSC Aspirant here ?? 🤧
Yes, officer 😅
😂
It's nice to hear you saying this. I'm going to be quoting your line that "experienced learners accept uncertainty." I haven't been able to articulate it so concisely to my students.
I have also used percentages when talking about this idea with students. The way I frame it is that ideally in the future, we want to get as close to 100% comprehension as we can. However, if we're starting from 0% comphrension as beginners, then any increase in comprehension, even if it's just from 10% to 15% is progress we should be happy with. This is how I try to get them comforable with the idea that they don't need to try to understand everything.
The idea that came to mind for me here is “what you learn from one thing can be implemented into others”
You said (basically)
1- we need a simplified approach to learning so that we get hands on experience. This frees up our mind to later analyze the skill further.
2 - we need novelty
If you sit down and think about those two and deliberately plan to apply them to multiple areas of life it should theoretically improve the process!
Excelente y sabio video. Muchas gracias.
Sounds like GREAT ADVICE... Over thinking and over analysis distracts the brain from doing automatic recognition processing.
THANKS Very Much 😊
*Short truth:*
Statements in any language are patterns. Teaching the mind to detect patterns is learning.
Language learning is pattern recognition. To suggest otherwise is not to understand how the mind works.
Speed learning of a language requires learning the top few 1,000 nouns, verbs, adverbs, which will let getting the gist of statements happen.
Ideally, one learns a group of words and then those words in sentences. This conditions the mind to detect patterns.
Acquiring language requires hours of listening in spite of what RUclipsrs claim. Most RUclipsrs are revisionists as to how they learned their foreign languages.
Intelligent speaking is stating opinion to statements or stating responses to questions.
That holds true for all languages as that is foundation to communication.
Clear production of second language is a function of vowel pronunciation.
Accents arise because of variant vowel production. It is OK to speak a foreign language with an accent.
This content really helped me understand a hard topic.
I think this is an important point for learning anything. For example learning an instrument like the drums.I gave up on playing drums. I felt It was impossible for me to coordinate keeping the beat with my foot and doing different beat with drum stick. I gave up instead of giving my brain a chance to absorb the effort. Just keep trying and enjoy the attempt knowing your brain will take care of it with time and repetition.
The part of this idea is to go for the easy stuff first. Get the easiest stuff first. That will make the harder stuff easier. If a bunch of material is too difficult for you now, deal with easier stuff first - get a working grasp of the easiest stuff, and work on getting a working grasp of progressively more complex material. Come back when you are ready (or at least better prepared to deal with it). And even if you can handle material, don't expect to get grasp everything immediately. Strive to get a rough sense of what each word or phrase means within the context of the sentences and paragraphs you are reading. As your vocabulary and understanding of how the language is put together increases, your understanding of sentences, paragraphs and articles/documents will increase. Stop working on an article/document If working on an article/document feels too frustrating or as if it is too much work -- and work on something else. Work on different articles/documents for some time. You can come always come back later, and take another stab at any given article or document a few hours, days, weeks, or months later.
I tried an experiment with my Spanish students. On an answer sheet, they were given three possible responses to the statements I was making in Spanish. When I gave them time to think about what choice to make, they didn't score very well. When I told them to choose an answer without thinking about it, they scored much higher.
Two weeks ago I tried to read a novel in japanese, but I gave up after I realised there's like 15-20 words I don't understand per page. A week later I tried reading it again, but this time didn't use any dictionary - just guessed the general meaning of any new word and went along with it. Not only am I having lots of fun that way, but some of the once obscure words make a lot of sense, I even caught myself using them myself later. Totally recommend this approach!