When I used to study classical music my teacher once said "most people practice a piece until it's possible for them to play it without mistakes, but the really good ones practice it until it's impossible for them to play it with mistakes". I've always found musical practice mapped quite well onto learning accent and intonation, probably because they're both fine motor skills
I can really say that Atomic Habits changed my life. I started learning Italian after reading the book and I made it a rule to listen to the languages at least 10 minutes a day. It really helped to have such a tiny goal because I never felt "too tired" to do it. Sometimes I did more than the 10 minutes because it was fun, but I never felt forced to. After a year, I am conversational (B1 level maybe?) After seeing this "success", at the beginning of the year I started reading a book in Russian with the rule to read a page a day, and now I have almost read 300 pages. I would have never felt capable to read a whole book in Russian but breaking it down to small steps made it doable in my mind. I really feel that the book enabled me to take action, as the small things I decided to do were achievable. "Learning Italian" or "reading a book in Russian" would have sounded like too much. So whenever I talk about Atomic Habits I mention the subtitle too: "Tiny changes, remarkable results". An awesome book, everyone should read it
Consistency does wonders. Consistency is the key for working out as well. No amount of motivation, or hard work will help you if you aren't consistent.
Atomic habits is such a great book. I am someone who is pretty self discipline and this helped me to get fluent in German and mandarin chinese, so when I was reading the book, it was like scientific proof of the validity of the things I do unconsciously.
@Couch Polyglot muchas gracias por tu comentario de verdad que me motivo a seguir aprendiendo, a veces quiero rendirme porque no veo resultados rápido, pero después leo tu comentario y me doy cuenta lo mucho que he estado aprendiendo 🙏🏾 entiendo inglés, puedo leer puedo ver videos y películas, gracias a este método, solo me falta el output y se que pronto lo voy a lograr, mil gracias por esa motivación, saludos desde Colombia 🇨🇴
Shadowing was so helpful with my Korean! What first piqued my interest in Korean was that I couldn't hear it. It didn't sound like any discernable words and nothing I could replicate. I got so frustrated one day, I decided to listen to one phrase over and over and tried to repeat it every time. I didn't know it was called shadowing at the time. After spending quite some time going over about 20 phrases like that, I turned on a RUclips video of a native speaker and was shocked to find that I could now hear what he was saying! I still didn't know what it meant but I could now hear the pauses between words and the different intonations in the words. I completely agree that shadowing helps tremendously with hearing your target language. It was better for me than just repetitive listening because I pay more attention if I know I have to repeat what I hear.
I love how you defined fluency as the ability to think clearly in a language. It kinda raised the bar for me, but nevertheless, it's for a good reason. Thank you for this video!
The analogy with the Orchestral music was so spot on! I remember that it was only after I started to play the clarinet in a high school band that my ear improved and I could then pick apart all of the different instruments within a band!
Totally agree (and one thing that's next level, when you listen to classical music your band played, is to hum the parts of instruments other than yours)!! I plan to work more on "accent mirroring" due to this video -thanks, Lamont!
By the way, THANK YOU for demonstrating the power of deliberate practice of native speech mimicry. Too many people just don’t seem to get the extremely powerful effect it has on one’s linguistic abilities.
After 100 + days of dual lingual (sp!) My wife has noted an improvement of my speaking. As a result of your posts I watch and sing along with contemporary Christian music in Swedish with subtitles. Those I already know from Church in English have a profound effect on my growth. Thank you.
Exactly, Italki lessons are really more helpful if one reviews and practices what can be learned, instead of finishing the session and sort of congratulating oneself for simply staying in the ring for 30 min or an hour.
6 months ago I started doing “listen and repeat”for 30 minutes before having conversations in French. Every single one of my Italki tutors and language partners commented on my increased fluidity in French. Fewer pauses. I have tried zeroing in on what is causing me to pause or stumble but that makes the pauses much more pronounced, but maybe it is worth that short term pain to get more fluent. Looking forward to your results at the end of the 60 days.
I've been doing something similar to what you've said about going on a sprint then a walk with reading Japanese. Every once an awhile I will try to read a book way above my level, even for just a page. Then, before I get burnt out, I go back to the easier material that I am immersing in now, and I understand it so much better.
How do you deal with iTalki topics? Some days I feel like I’ve run out of discussion topics and the conversation veers to basic routine discussions. Do you have a list of topics you prepare and share with the tutor beforehand? Do you discuss articles you’ve both read beforehand?
When I meet a tutor, I like to align with them on my goals and my interests. Even if they are not many to start, you can go deep on vocab, understand more native ways to say things or draw on their cultural references for you to gain a deeper level of understanding of your own interest in another way. That in itself can be limitless, even dissecting videos or stories on the interest is helpful. After that, I like to work on ways, phrases or cues to more elegantly express myself and move from one interest to the other without it being so jarring or confusing.
I've started writing down phrases in my target language, as opposed to single words. I have a check box next to it for repeating it slowly, medium speed, faster, and finally as fast as the native speaker. My voice and their's should overlap perfectly before I move on to the next phrase. My speaking is quite rough. I usually can only do two phrases with the repetition required to get it "perfect" before my brain says enough, I'm about to start tuning out. After a half hour break, or more, I'll try something new. This means my progress is very slow, especially since I can't seem to get into it everyday. Seeing your videos inspires me to keep going and keep trying for the little improvements.
@@aggiebattery8354 Not sure if you realise that Tomanita is referring to a part of the video where you see me typing goals (that could be "possible" with the 1% rule).
Your channel and Matt's channel are my favorites. I'm fed up with fake polyglots claiming that they speak countless languages but they know them only superficially and they don't remember half of them because in my opinion it's nearly impossible to maintain 10 languages, that's how our brain works. And getting very good at one language is what's really difficult. You channel is about that so I really like it. I'm studying Italian philology at university and I want to get extremely good because I would like my future work involve this language( by the way, the way they teach language at the University is so ridiculous, but I follow my own methods )
It's been 2 months that I've been procrastinating to practice my English and my Spanish by shadowing, but you motivated me man! I just shadowed a little part of this video ahahah
i really appreciate your level of commitment to testing ideas like this before coming to a conclusion on them, if that makes sense. a lot of experts on social media (and in culture in general tbh) seem to look retrospectively on how they got to their level and make sweeping, neat little generalizations and “techniques” to explain how they got to where they are and how you can too. that isn’t always unhelpful, of course, but i do appreciate your more scientific and forward-thinking approach. also your analogies are always really interesting and helpful in allowing me to grasp what you’re talking about. keep up the good work!
Can you do a topic on accents? We all know that laguages have rules that people follow but when it comes to speaking, people have a variety of accents so when you want to speak like a native Swede for example, you typically don't have one ultimate stereotypical Swede accent for anyone learning a foreign language. You have multiple accents to choose from, multiple voices to adopt. When I first got into language learning, it never occured to me that there are multiple accents of Italian from different regions, class, etc. I just thought Italian just had an Italian accent like the Italian accent people make when speaking in English. Anyway, I find accents interesting because it start off fresh with a voice of your choosing and I noticed that people when they speak a foreign language, they seem entirely like a different person. Different tone, enunciations, personality even. Almost as if they were putting on a mask (technically voice) and were someone else. Acquiring a new language and getting good at it really gives you another soul.
I second this~ I've been really curious about this as well as I delve deeper into French and I'm starting to be able to pick out the different kinds of French accents out there. Especially since many accents come in a package with some sort of dialect/regional influence that affects not just the tone of speaking, but also the way someone might phrase/express themselves. It's almost like a game now of trying to find the 'right voice' that sits well with me, and 'fits' my personality that little bit better. I actually grew up in a functionally bilingual country - and I've noticed that there are 1) multi-linguals who have entirely different personalities with each of their languages, and 2) those whose 'change' in accent (and to a certain associated extent, their 'personalities' lol) is so much more subtle and as such, there's still a strong personal characteristic in the way they speak all of their languages whilst still sounding completely natural (or 'native', I guess). I can't quite self-assess myself so I don't know which camp I fall into but either way, with French now, I'm sort of wondering if I'll get to a point of fluency enough that I will be able to 'shed' the 'borrowed' accent a little bit if I want to, and still sound natural afterwards, like those people in the 2nd group. Or if this if a phenomenon that's really only doable for the languages we grew up (and hence developed our personalities) with. Sorry for the rambling anyway. Just happy to see other people have been sitting on this topic too!
People have asked me to do this but I kind of don't know what I would actually do. Like, I am only familiar with Swedish, Australian and SOME British accents. I kind of don't know how I would make a video about accents in general.
You should check out Matt's video on : How to start outputting. He discusses it in the video. Basically, you need to find a language parent. I recommend you watch the video for details.
@@missusCIRQUE check this link ruclips.net/video/YCESUUA0wL0/видео.html. How to start outputting. Matt discusses the "choosing the accent" issue in this video
Despite having a high level in Spanish and speaking it for hours almost every day, watching this makes me feel like I need to not leave my accent on the side assuming that it’s good enough and letting it plateau. I also know that I REALLY need to work on my Russian pronunciation. Very creative video - appreciate your take on Atomic Habits!
OMG!! I love Atomic habits. I read it too, but in German. In German, it is also called the 1% rule. Scandinavian languages and German are quite similar from what I heard..
They are reasonably similar but the languages being similar actually doesn't actually influence whether they receive the same title or not. For example, there's a novel that I know of that has 4 different titles in the 4 GERMANIC languages that I've seen it in (German, English, Swedish and Dutch).
Hej! I reallly enjoy these videos. These är great for Swedish learners. One thing that i reallly find useful is after an speaking lesson listening a part of Swedish podcast. You can realize that you understand better and enjoy more. Its like brain sports.
Glad to know that I'm doing something similar to listening and mimicry. I've been listen to thousands of great quotes and words of wisdom from Italian voice actors while trying to pronounce each line like them. 24 minutes of voice lines took me almost a week because of how tedious it is. My brain for the first few weeks had a hard time comprehending what they were saying but in time, my hears adapted and could pick up those small audible cues that you mentioned. The orchestra analogy is exactly what this is like.
I love your channel. Something that helped me a lot with my Spanish early on was working on a page of tongue twisters with a native speaker. The day I first produced a trilled r was glorious, and that time of practice has paid big dividends 15 years on.
@@jazmine9570 So true. Before I spoke Spanish I was trilling it too far back in my mouth instead of the tip of the tongue. My kids have learned it without any trouble since we live in Colombia, and my favorite tongue twister (which may be of help) is: Erre con “erre” cigarro, “erre” con “erre” barril. Rápido ruedan los carros, Cargados de azúcar del ferrocarril.
Hi Lamont, thank you a lot for sharing. I have struggle myself with improving my pronunciation, in English and French. The point is, I've learned them wrongly, and I accumulated a lot of bad pronunciation habits. it's difficult to "undo it". The best method I have found is using my ear plugs with the ambient sound option on. Like that I can hear myself, I don't have to record anything, re-listen to myself (🤮) or keep any files. I went through Pimsleur lessons of French. During 2 weeks of daily practice I had incredible results.. but when I stopped, quickly I became "sloppy" in speaking again. My brain just automatically came back to the old pronunciation. The methods are easy to implement, but without consistency we will not get a stable result. There is also a reason why some people stay for 20 years in a foreign country and still talk with a strong accent. If you don't pay attention to the sounds, you will never really fully notice them. It's like with really sloppy drawing. We "re-draw" sth but without giving attention to the exact shape. So we keep drawing like children.
You hit the nail on the head at around 13:00. Learning to vocalize is helpful when trying to listening ability. Also, at my level of Italian I am running across new words all the time. If I just 'say' that word in my head, I fumble when I need to use it. But if I practice saying it aloud when I come across it, then I have a better than fair chance of getting it out when I use it. While I believe in massive input, some output early helps input, imho.
You can ear train in any language. I think this is the benefit of learning multiple languages. I can even ear train mimicking your Australian English. It's actually interesting hearing you speak to my very American ear. I do think having been exposed to music helps.
The thing that's weird, is how the better you get at something the easier it gets to just put more and more into it. So yes 1% every day compounds very quickly and isn't practical in human terms, but what makes it not completely crazy is you can keep putting more time in. In my case, I always simplify things so I don't waste time doing things like choosing books to read, or shows go watch, or whatever. I just say, every day I will listen to native content for at least 3.5 hours and read 30.000 words. Four months ago I was reading 25.000 every day. Now I'm wondering when I'll be ready for 4+ hours a day, or layering in another activity I might enjoy! The other thing you hit on is what I've been saying! Ask questions or have a tutor point things out to you, then try and actually notice the answer. It's like a game that when you notice it you win.
@@daysandwords as I think you said, once it passes the point that it's "just a language you can use", you don't really feel the need to switch back. That's where I've more or less gotten to with Swedish now, if only all the people around me would cooperate! Though there are certain things I simply don't know the word for word, or can't remember, for so they become "grejer" or "-aktig". That borstegrejen (kvast) eller vad som helst. I actually read an article that this happens to people as the get older (in their native language). They end up with so much stuff in their head that it takes that moment longer to remember the word so they resort to generalized terms. I guess that's what I look forward to now that I'm my thirties...!
To be honest, my biggest fluency thief right now is my limited vocabulary! I'm always having to slam the brakes on in the middle of sentences because a word eludes me. Sometimes it'll be a word I know - and that I know I know - but it just won't come.
Really looking forward to the video at the end of this experiment! Could you explain a bit more about how you do the shadowing? Is it consecutive (playing a short segment and then pausing while you repeat it) or simultaneous (talking directly over the native speaker in real time)?
People have different ideas of what it means but I basically use an umbrella term to mean any attempting to repeat EVERYTHING a native speaker says, including like if they say "ah... yeah so anyway we can... guys... we can get started, umm, thank you all for coming ...aaaaand, yeah I wanted to say..." Like, basically, pretend that you were dubbing their part and you had to make it look realistic. But generally to get good at it you'll have to do some bits over and over.
i think personally it is more helpful for myself if i do consecutive on a lenguage i cannot think fast and recognize each word as i am listening, as well as not having the ability to repeat it with the necessary speed to be comprehensible. This way i am mostly working on the pronounciation of individual words in the context of a sentence. I do this for my current target lenguage (danish) when i am not too tired and lazy to do it haha. I do the consecutive with english, which i consider myself quite fluent in, but since i mostly write it and don't speak it, when i do speak it i tend to pause a lot between words, use too many fillers and in general make more mistakes because of it than i would make when writing (grammatical and of vocabulary). So the consecutive type helps me mostly on intonation and rhythm instead of how to pronounce individual words. But if i find a word that is particularly hard to pronounce that i hadn't noticed i had that gap in my knowledge before, i do pause to practice it a few times before moving on. basically i think both are useful for slightly different things and might be more or less useful at different levels.
Is it sad that I got quite happy when I saw my face pop up in one of your videos, even though you told me it would..? Probably 😂 Anyway, great vídeo as always man and looking forward to seeing the results! Will be interested to see how you get on with improving pronunciation because that’s something I haven’t really done much of but feel I need to start addressing more now
I get that little jolt of novelty when I see my videos in other people's videos as well, even if it's a channel with only a few subscribers. I think it's to do with it being undeniable evidence that they watched your video and that it's now part of a "conversation" rather than you just making videos on your own.
Incredible summary, thank you! Like you, being "functional" is my current target also, in Farsi. You can only be ignorant to repeat errors for so long before you realise you're holding yourself back. The orchestra analogy is particularly important to understand, especially for us Australians with our 20-26 vowel phonemes! Comparatively to Farsi and its 6-8 vowel phonemes, the "customer effort score" (to use a business term for it - Ha!) for learning the language is *very* real and what you've raised is an unescapable exercise if you even just want to produce the same word(s) successfully with consistent production each and every time you want to use it.
I agree the example is too extreme anyway but I think the reason why the compounding effect sounds ridiculous in regard to CEFR levels is because they already have that kind of exponential growth baked into them - i.e. A2 is double the vocab of A1, B1 is double A2, B2 is double B1 etc. so if your rate of learning does exponentially rise, the rate at which you progress through CEFR levels remains linear ... -ish
I actually think that it's more like 3x for every level. Not in VOCABULARY like you mentioned, but in terms of your overall competence. If A1 is a 10, then A2 is a 30, B1 is an 80, B2 is a 250, C1 is a 700 and C2 is about 2000. But you seem to have misinterpreted my numbers because I actually allowed for what you are allowing for and still had the numbers coming in "wrong". It's not just with CEFR levels that it doesn't work. A 1% daily increase is actually impossible at most levels of MOST things. In sprinting, a 0.0001% improvement would be considered huge.
@@daysandwords thanks for responding 😊 yeah woops I missed that - I guess because it was going through so quickly I thought it must not be accounting for that But yeah no definitely agreed improving 1% in a day isnt realistic at all
A kind of video that might help you, just by giving yourself a task to carry out in Swedish, might be to start documenting your progress through the original Canterbury Tales, using only Swedish resources to assist with the process. (That's an eternity worth of material, so the trick would probably be to start with The Miller's Tale - which might bring you some Swedish viewers, just because of the subject matter.) I have a tendency to, myself, try to "get the accent right" in the languages I dabble in, but for others, to encourage them to just make the gift of their lovely accents to English. (The only accent it's not right to share is a South African accent - although even with one of those, I've met speakers of one of the proper Englishes who say things like "Say something to me" ... which might be less impossible than it seems for someone less shy, I suppose.) You've offered the first rationale I've ever heard that makes sense, for trying to sound native, instead of just bringing the lovely gift of a new accent for the language I'm borrowing to be spoken in, and just focusing on things like lexicon und so weiter. If you try out the accent, you improve your ear. That's a good reason for doing so. (To be consistent with wanting foreign speakers of English not to spoil their accents - and I don't just mean making themselves sound brutally South African - I have to set an ultimate "accent goal" for myself in other languages as becoming ... not quite authentic, because that would mean doing horrible South African things to some innocent language ... but maybe "apparently Australian"? Or Ner Ziland, since that's a bt claser too Seowf Efrikun. ... stop being stupid, you're losing the point you twat ... ... oh yes ... I feel like I SHOULDN'T be paying the attention to accent that I do, and now you've given me a good reason (not just an excuse, which would've also done) to do this.) )) ? maybe one more for luck ). Given that the accent-learning is justified in terms of how it improves your hearing, (and yes it does!), it would be best to not choose a "good accent", though? One could, one supposes, tastefully select the most noble of the Swedish dialects, to emulate with superior erudition (old chap) but for ear training, it may be necessary to stoop to something foul and common. Heaven forfend! One may even need to speak in a yokelish and rural manner at times. Or you could just give it a go, mate. Imitate the bastards. Find out how they say Oy! there. Or ow they say Aaarh! when them marines is comin tru the market day "recruiting" and they pokes you out from under the table you wuz hidin under so it's off to sea ye go to teach Bony to leave ole Jack Tarr sleepin if you hear him snore. (One would perpetrate jolly abominations, no doubt, were one to make a habit of mimicry of all forms of Swedish, right to the very swineherd's curses; however it might be fun?) If you don't do the Canterbury Tales, you could do Swedish lessons in English punctuation? (I could use some of those, so all I'd have to do is learn Swedish to get on that wagon.)
Improvement is not linear. Very rarely is it exponential, and most of the time it's exponential decay without practice. If you do try to practice and master what you've learned and simultaneously try to keep on improving as well, then it's as wild as a new crypto going up and down depending on how you tweak the system.
Thanks for the video and your insight on accent! Is there any specific software you are using for working/practing shadowing with those audio samples? *Open question for anyone who would like to answer. Thanks!
Hi - you don't really need anything, but I did actually name "Audacity" in the video. It's free and assuming you've got a microphone you can also record yourself.
I don't play the drums, I just wanted to use a bit from The Talented Mr Ripley for that transition and then Whiplash made sense as well to keep it on theme.
Great video, I do have a question/concern about iTalk if you wouldn't mind please, as I have been thinking of using it for some time but hesitate... Is there any expectation of booking another lesson/pressure to go with the same tutor again? I would really like to sign on and speak to a new person each time, or is that not really the aim/mentality behind iTalki? I might be thinking to much with the chatroom or Omegle mentality, but it would be so good to just practice introducing myself and learning in this way. Thanks again for another great video
No definitely not. I have used at least 50 teachers whom I've then not used again. About 20% of them is because I just didn't really like the interaction that much, we didn't "click" so to speak... but the other 80% is more just because there was a teacher I preferred. If I could afford the time and money, I would probably spend 14 hours a day just going through all the teachers haha.
@@daysandwords Thank you so much for the answer, I really appreciate your time, I'll definately try it now. I also need to mention that I also appreciate your commitment to your channel and it's quality, it's the best for language learning I have found, always inspiring.
Putting in the effort to sound "more Swedish" is probably the thing that will impress Swedes the most. 😜 Is there any progress on the trip here? Will you be allowed to travel soon? Also, are you getting better at recognizing different dialects in Swedish? Because there are LOADS! 😂
I've been able to pick out the broad categories (like 5 or 6 areas) for a while now but as I do more accent practice I'm getting better at distinguishing like "hmm, slightly Stockholm vs VERY Stockholm / or, t.ex little hint of Norrländska vs VERY Norrländska". There is a very slight update on the trip there. Some of it might come in a special announcement so I'll keep that under wraps but I got my first Pfizer shot a few days ago (long story, most people are still getting AZ here) and yeah we're hoping for travel to open in 2022 and then maybe your summer could be on the cards.
@@daysandwords Lol, the VERY stockholmska is probably my least favorite dialect... 😜 😂 I'm in the "almost undistinguishable norrländska" myself. 😜 Btw, is your family learning Swedish too? If you're coming in the summer you just have to go up north a bit, so you can experience the light summer nights properly! 😍
Yeah the "very strong Stockholm" thing was just an example. I don't like it either. My point is that I'm getting to hear more and more "slight" vs "strong" accents, but at the moment my internal map of Sweden is only in like, a few different regions. If I met someone from, for example, Västerås and they had a "classic" Västerås accent (I don't think that's a thing but let's say it was) - then I wouldn't even know because I don't really know anything about that city. It'd be like trying to ask you to distinguish between Sydney and Canberra when you don't even know where Canberra is or anything about it other than it being the capital. My younger son is arguably a low-key Swedish native in that we've been watching Swedish kids programs on SVT and TV4 since he was old enough to sit up, and I have spoken to him in Swedish 90% of the time, although obviously that sometimes results in me making stuff up so sometimes if I don't know exactly how to say something I'll just stay quiet or say it in English. He very clearly says "tack" (and not just "ta" which is what we teach kids here) and he also says "kaka" when he wants a cookie (and that one is even more clear because in Australia they're called biscuits, so he can't be just mispronuncing "cookie"). In a few months I'll know for sure how it's going because he's speaking more and more, but at the moment he mainly just makes sounds. My older son and I watch stuff every now and then and being 10 years old, he picks up quite a lot. My wife is a very slow conversion that I'm working on haha. She understands a lot of the stuff that I say to Austen (the younger one) but that's because I mostly say the same things.
I really like this book, but my problem with James Clear's 1% rule was his intro to the whole concept of the book. He talks about the PROFESSIONAL sports team of the british cyclists, and how they improved 1% at EVERY SINGLE THING they did to become the best in the world.. Which is the exact opposite of what the book prescribes. It's not about optimality in any sense of the word, it's about small things done consistently. In fact at one point the book makes the point that we should 'focus on the important things, and work on them', which again is the exact opposite of what the british cycling team did - they improved every single thing even stuff you wouldn't think about like the pillows they used. Because of this I was quite confused about the whole concept for a while, but I love a lot of what the book talks about in terms of starting and maintaining habits.
i think the thing about 1% not being realistic is true but i think the recommendation of that book (which i also read) is if you can't improve your skill or ability at something by 1% a day, you improve your daily processes and habits by 1% a day. so it's not that you get 1% better at a language each day. it's that you get 1% better at *studying* the language every day. you become 1% more efficient in your study methods.
Does shadowing songs in your target language count? Does it matter if the music is close to every day conversational speech if you are just focusing on accent?
"Count" is massively overused term in language learning. There are no tests except for whether it helps you learn the language, so there's no "this counts and that doesn't count" - if you think it helps, do it. However I would say that songs don't help as much as everyday speech unless you are wanting to sing songs. Like, focusing on the accent of the person you want to sound like "counts" for a lot more than focusing on music.
I've noticed that in English non-native singers don't sound nearly as foreign when they sing than when they speak. Take someone like Aurora Aksnes (Aurora) or Klaus Meine (Scorpions), listen to a song and then to an interview, and it's just night and day. Dunno what that tells you. My hunch is that it might have something to do with vowel modification, which is often used in singing either for stylistic reasons or to overcome certain technical limitations in the upper/lower ranges of a singer's voice. The idea would be that we're just used to hearing vowel modifications in music, so it doesn't register as "foreign" to us. But then within the narrow pitch range of everyday speech, we register it any small difference as foreign. But that's just a hunch. In any case, vowel modification is probably something to look out for if you're using songs for accent reduction. There's no guarantee that the way they're singing a given word matches how it is spoken.
Grammar is a lot of output, moreso than input. You'll recognise the tense and interrogative of the phrases with just input but you'll be stumbling to construct your sentences if you've minimal output.
You might want to check out the YT channel of Richard deLong of Frictionless Mastery who has some slightly different ideas about how to use what you discover in speaking practice especially what to spend your time working on. Crudely, he suggests somewhat counterintuitively that it is most effective to spend your deliberate practice time on what you can do *almost* with full ease or ‘mastery’, rather than practice what you are strongly struggling with. I’m interested to hear if you find anything useful in his ideas/approach.
@@daysandwords One place I found where he mentions these aspects of his approach was here: ruclips.net/video/x0P52KfN8R8/видео.html from about 12:40 on. He did have a more succinct version but I don’t see it on his channel. Maybe his website might have it.
Somebody on the Internet promises a counterintuitive method..... First question, what are his credentials? Well, I saw him speaking Russian and Polish, so his methods do work. His Polish sounded OK to me. He says himself it is not a high level. He hasn't spent all that long practicising. I can't judge his Russian but it sounded more much fluent than the Polish. But he doesn't seem to have MattvsJapan like levels of competence. His book is quite cheap on Kindle, so I think I will have a browse through it.
If clear thinking helps with speaking your target language, then idk what helps me speak better when inebriated. Is it really just the lack of anxiety?
you're becoming such a role model for me, i just need to put stuff into practice... laziness has pulled me back very baadddlyyy, any tips on overcoming laziness? like: "just do it!", fuck i just gave the tip for me myself :O
this is amazing advice Lamont, I'll make sure to share it with my friends and students! can't wait to see the results of your 2 months experiment, it's going to be worth it 😊
I haven’t watched the video yet, but you look like you got a good crying session in in the thumbnail pic 😂 Sorry I had to point it out. You’re still one of the GOAT language RUclipsrs. I will leave another comment after watching the video.
Haha, can't say why that would be. I mean it was 2am but I had been to sleep and woken up so it's not like it was after a whole day's work. I was vaccinated 12 hours before? Not sure haha.
Do you think there's something to be said for completely putting off speaking at the initial stage of learning a language and perhaps even up to the point where you've sunk several 100s of hours if not more to then begin to speak? The idea would be that you would have a more complete image of how the language actually sounds as opposed to what happens if you start talking from the start which is essentially your brain piecing together whatever you think the language sounds like in conjunction with sounds from your native language, in turn cementing a problem that is going to require hours of work to fix later down the line anyway.
All my videos kind of assume that one already has this view of language learning. But I actually did develop a lot of my Swedish through tons of lessons, so I didn't make that up. But if I were learning a third language, yes I would be reserved in output. Maybe not NONE, but not very much.
@@flappyfeet1147 Oh no no, you didn't say anything. I just meant that even though I recommend massive input at the start, it's actually not what I did myself.
What do you think of Lingoda? I’m thinking of doing a 2-month Super Sprint with them. If I take a class every day for 60 days I’ll be refunded the money. They have French (my target language), but not Swedish yet 😢
1:04 😂😂😂 This got me dying of laughter. Are you sure, the journey of you watching movies begins with no steps?? Don't you have to walk to the kitchen to get the bag of chips. 😂😂😂 I usually go get chips and wine.
I'm not actually sure because I have been fairly "on and off" with keeping track of them, but I have a rough idea that it must be between 600 and 800. By "done" I mean literally any unbroken exposure to Swedish. So I wouldn't count, say, reading a RUclips comment that's in Swedish, but I would count listening to an audiobook while washing the dishes.
@Days of French 'n' Swedish impressive. What do you think the cumulative hours needed for each CEFR level (B2, C1 and C2) are in Swedish? I got to B2 in German after 800 hours and I feel I may reach C1 at 1,200 hours.
@@richarddonnelly4811 Technically German is supposed to be harder than Swedish but I think once we're talking about higher than B2, it's pretty similar. It really depends on the quality of the input. As you can see, I go for quantity over quality. I've never worried about stuff being at the right level of difficulty and therefore I've probably "wasted" a lot of hours, although when I really think about it, I wouldn't have spent much more than 1200 hours total. Because in my first two years of Swedish I rarely did more than 40 minutes a day and a lot of that was silly stuff like Duolingo. But I think there's an inherent problem with "testing" various levels, especially when they are C1/C2. It's hard to explain but the best way I can think of describing it is that it's like trying to know how complex a tree's root system is by looking at the leaves of the tree. I have a British friend who is living in Sweden who just passed a Swedish test which supposedly "indicates" a C1 level. (It doesn't actually certify that level it just says that someone who is at a C1 should pass.) But this friend would happily admit that my Swedish is three times as good as hers. It doesn't SOUND like it is; it sounds better but not that much better. But competency at that level is about more than a bunch of memorised phrases and vaguely getting the gist of what was said to you. It's about feeling the difference between say, "shall" and "will" and "is going to". Or all the forms of "die", like "pass away" and "lost their battle with cancer" etc etc. The leaves of the tree might look very similar but the root system goes much deeper and is more complex, and so it is my current opinion that although I'm pretty happy to say that my Swedish is at C1 now, I can still not really say exactly what C1 is and isn't. Therefore I'd have difficulty specifying the number of hours that it took me. I also said to someone recently my Swedish still feels sluggish. Like a Golf GTI if my English is an F1 car. Most people would be happy to have a Golf GTI but compared to an F1 it would feel like a tortoise.
@@daysandwords "I think once we're talking about higher than B2, it's pretty similar" That's why I never really get the comparisons people make between how hard languages are to learn at native-like level. Everything evens out in the end. Sure, at the beginning it's true that for an English speaker a language like Chinese will be harder than Spanish. But the further you go, the more it evens out. Kind of like how the age difference between a 7 and an 11 year old seems huge, but the difference between a 61 and a 64 year old doesn't. That 4 year difference is still there, but in relative terms it has become much less significant. It's kind of a shame, not because people overestimate the work put in by people who learn "distant" languages, but more because they underestimate the work put in by people who learn "close" languages. It's interesting to hear how you relate to the CEFR. To me it's just a standardisation tool for formal examinations. Meaning that I have no problem at all saying "I'm C2" in a language as soon as I've passed a formal examination at that level. But I've noticed that a lot of people react strongly to that, and for them it seems that C2 means "native-like". To the point where now with strangers I usually just say "I've passed a C2 exam" just to play it safe. :)
The only reason there are no tutors based in Antarctica is that the penguins have difficulty signing up as teachers. Do they make keyboards for flippers? I think not.
@@DaKrazedKyubizt Haha I also just googled to see how the team was going and saw that they beat the Redsox literally a few hours ago! I think I'm gonna have to start going for Chicago for real.
Holy crap dude - How could U have managed to flapped your lips soo much and spoken so many words (in whatever language) and actually managed to communicate NOTHING?
![Hunxho - Ball Forever [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nki9ZTF9Uls/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for watching!
Leave me a comment to let me know what kind of video you'd like to see at the end of the 60 days!
Väldigt pog video!
When I used to study classical music my teacher once said "most people practice a piece until it's possible for them to play it without mistakes, but the really good ones practice it until it's impossible for them to play it with mistakes". I've always found musical practice mapped quite well onto learning accent and intonation, probably because they're both fine motor skills
Wow that's a strong saying. It really spoke to me.
Good words
I can really say that Atomic Habits changed my life. I started learning Italian after reading the book and I made it a rule to listen to the languages at least 10 minutes a day. It really helped to have such a tiny goal because I never felt "too tired" to do it. Sometimes I did more than the 10 minutes because it was fun, but I never felt forced to. After a year, I am conversational (B1 level maybe?)
After seeing this "success", at the beginning of the year I started reading a book in Russian with the rule to read a page a day, and now I have almost read 300 pages. I would have never felt capable to read a whole book in Russian but breaking it down to small steps made it doable in my mind.
I really feel that the book enabled me to take action, as the small things I decided to do were achievable. "Learning Italian" or "reading a book in Russian" would have sounded like too much.
So whenever I talk about Atomic Habits I mention the subtitle too: "Tiny changes, remarkable results". An awesome book, everyone should read it
Consistency does wonders. Consistency is the key for working out as well. No amount of motivation, or hard work will help you if you aren't consistent.
Atomic habits is such a great book. I am someone who is pretty self discipline and this helped me to get fluent in German and mandarin chinese, so when I was reading the book, it was like scientific proof of the validity of the things I do unconsciously.
@Couch Polyglot muchas gracias por tu comentario de verdad que me motivo a seguir aprendiendo, a veces quiero rendirme porque no veo resultados rápido, pero después leo tu comentario y me doy cuenta lo mucho que he estado aprendiendo 🙏🏾 entiendo inglés, puedo leer puedo ver videos y películas, gracias a este método, solo me falta el output y se que pronto lo voy a lograr, mil gracias por esa motivación, saludos desde Colombia 🇨🇴
Почему вы решили изучать русский?
I kept nodding my head vigorously as you talked about "fluency thieves" -- such an important point and so well said.
Shadowing was so helpful with my Korean! What first piqued my interest in Korean was that I couldn't hear it. It didn't sound like any discernable words and nothing I could replicate. I got so frustrated one day, I decided to listen to one phrase over and over and tried to repeat it every time. I didn't know it was called shadowing at the time. After spending quite some time going over about 20 phrases like that, I turned on a RUclips video of a native speaker and was shocked to find that I could now hear what he was saying! I still didn't know what it meant but I could now hear the pauses between words and the different intonations in the words. I completely agree that shadowing helps tremendously with hearing your target language. It was better for me than just repetitive listening because I pay more attention if I know I have to repeat what I hear.
I love how you defined fluency as the ability to think clearly in a language.
It kinda raised the bar for me, but nevertheless, it's for a good reason.
Thank you for this video!
The analogy with the Orchestral music was so spot on! I remember that it was only after I started to play the clarinet in a high school band that my ear improved and I could then pick apart all of the different instruments within a band!
Totally agree (and one thing that's next level, when you listen to classical music your band played, is to hum the parts of instruments other than yours)!! I plan to work more on "accent mirroring" due to this video -thanks, Lamont!
By the way, THANK YOU for demonstrating the power of deliberate practice of native speech mimicry. Too many people just don’t seem to get the extremely powerful effect it has on one’s linguistic abilities.
After 100 + days of dual lingual (sp!) My wife has noted an improvement of my speaking. As a result of your posts I watch and sing along with contemporary Christian music in Swedish with subtitles. Those I already know from Church in English have a profound effect on my growth. Thank you.
This is why I love you Channel, you cut through the bs and find the nuggets of gold. I’m going to try some of these suggestions 🙌
Exactly, Italki lessons are really more helpful if one reviews and practices what can be learned, instead of finishing the session and sort of congratulating oneself for simply staying in the ring for 30 min or an hour.
Who doesn't floss? Those who don't reach D1 in their language, that's who.
6 months ago I started doing “listen and repeat”for 30 minutes before having conversations in French. Every single one of my Italki tutors and language partners commented on my increased fluidity in French. Fewer pauses.
I have tried zeroing in on what is causing me to pause or stumble but that makes the pauses much more pronounced, but maybe it is worth that short term pain to get more fluent. Looking forward to your results at the end of the 60 days.
Your second paragraph about focusing too much is maybe a good way to give yourself a stutter
I've been doing something similar to what you've said about going on a sprint then a walk with reading Japanese. Every once an awhile I will try to read a book way above my level, even for just a page. Then, before I get burnt out, I go back to the easier material that I am immersing in now, and I understand it so much better.
How do you deal with iTalki topics? Some days I feel like I’ve run out of discussion topics and the conversation veers to basic routine discussions. Do you have a list of topics you prepare and share with the tutor beforehand? Do you discuss articles you’ve both read beforehand?
Sometimes. But often, no. I'm trying to use these months to be more proactive with that stuff.
When I meet a tutor, I like to align with them on my goals and my interests. Even if they are not many to start, you can go deep on vocab, understand more native ways to say things or draw on their cultural references for you to gain a deeper level of understanding of your own interest in another way. That in itself can be limitless, even dissecting videos or stories on the interest is helpful. After that, I like to work on ways, phrases or cues to more elegantly express myself and move from one interest to the other without it being so jarring or confusing.
Joseph
I don't use free conversation lesson, but someone is ready for many questions about grammar, expressions in national way in advance.
I've started writing down phrases in my target language, as opposed to single words. I have a check box next to it for repeating it slowly, medium speed, faster, and finally as fast as the native speaker. My voice and their's should overlap perfectly before I move on to the next phrase. My speaking is quite rough. I usually can only do two phrases with the repetition required to get it "perfect" before my brain says enough, I'm about to start tuning out. After a half hour break, or more, I'll try something new. This means my progress is very slow, especially since I can't seem to get into it everyday. Seeing your videos inspires me to keep going and keep trying for the little improvements.
Can't wait to hear more about the experiment! Btw, I hope you'll reach Swedish E4 and become Thor😂🤣
That would make for an interesting video!
@@aggiebattery8354 Not sure if you realise that Tomanita is referring to a part of the video where you see me typing goals (that could be "possible" with the 1% rule).
Your channel and Matt's channel are my favorites. I'm fed up with fake polyglots claiming that they speak countless languages but they know them only superficially and they don't remember half of them because in my opinion it's nearly impossible to maintain 10 languages, that's how our brain works. And getting very good at one language is what's really difficult. You channel is about that so I really like it. I'm studying Italian philology at university and I want to get extremely good because I would like my future work involve this language( by the way, the way they teach language at the University is so ridiculous, but I follow my own methods )
It's been 2 months that I've been procrastinating to practice my English and my Spanish by shadowing, but you motivated me man! I just shadowed a little part of this video ahahah
Haha you'll end up sounding like you're from Sydney
i really appreciate your level of commitment to testing ideas like this before coming to a conclusion on them, if that makes sense. a lot of experts on social media (and in culture in general tbh) seem to look retrospectively on how they got to their level and make sweeping, neat little generalizations and “techniques” to explain how they got to where they are and how you can too. that isn’t always unhelpful, of course, but i do appreciate your more scientific and forward-thinking approach. also your analogies are always really interesting and helpful in allowing me to grasp what you’re talking about. keep up the good work!
Can you do a topic on accents? We all know that laguages have rules that people follow but when it comes to speaking, people have a variety of accents so when you want to speak like a native Swede for example, you typically don't have one ultimate stereotypical Swede accent for anyone learning a foreign language. You have multiple accents to choose from, multiple voices to adopt. When I first got into language learning, it never occured to me that there are multiple accents of Italian from different regions, class, etc. I just thought Italian just had an Italian accent like the Italian accent people make when speaking in English. Anyway, I find accents interesting because it start off fresh with a voice of your choosing and I noticed that people when they speak a foreign language, they seem entirely like a different person. Different tone, enunciations, personality even. Almost as if they were putting on a mask (technically voice) and were someone else. Acquiring a new language and getting good at it really gives you another soul.
I second this~ I've been really curious about this as well as I delve deeper into French and I'm starting to be able to pick out the different kinds of French accents out there. Especially since many accents come in a package with some sort of dialect/regional influence that affects not just the tone of speaking, but also the way someone might phrase/express themselves. It's almost like a game now of trying to find the 'right voice' that sits well with me, and 'fits' my personality that little bit better.
I actually grew up in a functionally bilingual country - and I've noticed that there are 1) multi-linguals who have entirely different personalities with each of their languages, and 2) those whose 'change' in accent (and to a certain associated extent, their 'personalities' lol) is so much more subtle and as such, there's still a strong personal characteristic in the way they speak all of their languages whilst still sounding completely natural (or 'native', I guess). I can't quite self-assess myself so I don't know which camp I fall into but either way, with French now, I'm sort of wondering if I'll get to a point of fluency enough that I will be able to 'shed' the 'borrowed' accent a little bit if I want to, and still sound natural afterwards, like those people in the 2nd group. Or if this if a phenomenon that's really only doable for the languages we grew up (and hence developed our personalities) with.
Sorry for the rambling anyway. Just happy to see other people have been sitting on this topic too!
People have asked me to do this but I kind of don't know what I would actually do.
Like, I am only familiar with Swedish, Australian and SOME British accents. I kind of don't know how I would make a video about accents in general.
You should check out Matt's video on : How to start outputting.
He discusses it in the video.
Basically, you need to find a language parent.
I recommend you watch the video for details.
The link : ruclips.net/video/YCESUUA0wL0/видео.html
@@missusCIRQUE check this link ruclips.net/video/YCESUUA0wL0/видео.html.
How to start outputting.
Matt discusses the "choosing the accent" issue in this video
Forvo helps with this, because you can search for phrases and hear different native speakers say it, and the variety is helpful.
Despite having a high level in Spanish and speaking it for hours almost every day, watching this makes me feel like I need to not leave my accent on the side assuming that it’s good enough and letting it plateau. I also know that I REALLY need to work on my Russian pronunciation.
Very creative video - appreciate your take on Atomic Habits!
OMG!! I love Atomic habits. I read it too, but in German. In German, it is also called the 1% rule. Scandinavian languages and German are quite similar from what I heard..
They are reasonably similar but the languages being similar actually doesn't actually influence whether they receive the same title or not. For example, there's a novel that I know of that has 4 different titles in the 4 GERMANIC languages that I've seen it in (German, English, Swedish and Dutch).
@@daysandwords Really? Wow! I don't even understand why they would give so many different titles.
Hej! I reallly enjoy these videos. These är great for Swedish learners. One thing that i reallly find useful is after an speaking lesson listening a part of Swedish podcast. You can realize that you understand better and enjoy more. Its like brain sports.
Glad to know that I'm doing something similar to listening and mimicry. I've been listen to thousands of great quotes and words of wisdom from Italian voice actors while trying to pronounce each line like them. 24 minutes of voice lines took me almost a week because of how tedious it is. My brain for the first few weeks had a hard time comprehending what they were saying but in time, my hears adapted and could pick up those small audible cues that you mentioned. The orchestra analogy is exactly what this is like.
I love your channel. Something that helped me a lot with my Spanish early on was working on a page of tongue twisters with a native speaker. The day I first produced a trilled r was glorious, and that time of practice has paid big dividends 15 years on.
@@jazmine9570 So true. Before I spoke Spanish I was trilling it too far back in my mouth instead of the tip of the tongue. My kids have learned it without any trouble since we live in Colombia, and my favorite tongue twister (which may be of help) is: Erre con “erre” cigarro,
“erre” con “erre” barril.
Rápido ruedan los carros,
Cargados de azúcar del ferrocarril.
Hi Lamont, thank you a lot for sharing. I have struggle myself with improving my pronunciation, in English and French. The point is, I've learned them wrongly, and I accumulated a lot of bad pronunciation habits. it's difficult to "undo it". The best method I have found is using my ear plugs with the ambient sound option on. Like that I can hear myself, I don't have to record anything, re-listen to myself (🤮) or keep any files. I went through Pimsleur lessons of French. During 2 weeks of daily practice I had incredible results.. but when I stopped, quickly I became "sloppy" in speaking again. My brain just automatically came back to the old pronunciation. The methods are easy to implement, but without consistency we will not get a stable result.
There is also a reason why some people stay for 20 years in a foreign country and still talk with a strong accent. If you don't pay attention to the sounds, you will never really fully notice them. It's like with really sloppy drawing. We "re-draw" sth but without giving attention to the exact shape. So we keep drawing like children.
Ear plugs with ambient sound option.
Will have to keep that in mind.
Flossing is important.
Your content is getting better.
So spot on the analogy with music... Very interesting talk btw
You hit the nail on the head at around 13:00. Learning to vocalize is helpful when trying to listening ability. Also, at my level of Italian I am running across new words all the time. If I just 'say' that word in my head, I fumble when I need to use it. But if I practice saying it aloud when I come across it, then I have a better than fair chance of getting it out when I use it.
While I believe in massive input, some output early helps input, imho.
You can ear train in any language. I think this is the benefit of learning multiple languages. I can even ear train mimicking your Australian English. It's actually interesting hearing you speak to my very American ear. I do think having been exposed to music helps.
Very informative, thank you Lamont
At the end of the 60 days, I'd like to hear you speaking Swedish (WITH SUBTITLES). By the way, have you tried Discord for speaking Swedish?
The Swedish lessons don't really cost me anything.
Discord costs everyone their livelihood as far as I'm concerned.
@@daysandwords good one
@@joachim1006 what's wrong with discord, perhaps I'm missing something?
@@DanVogt It's just a joke.
The thing that's weird, is how the better you get at something the easier it gets to just put more and more into it. So yes 1% every day compounds very quickly and isn't practical in human terms, but what makes it not completely crazy is you can keep putting more time in.
In my case, I always simplify things so I don't waste time doing things like choosing books to read, or shows go watch, or whatever. I just say, every day I will listen to native content for at least 3.5 hours and read 30.000 words. Four months ago I was reading 25.000 every day.
Now I'm wondering when I'll be ready for 4+ hours a day, or layering in another activity I might enjoy!
The other thing you hit on is what I've been saying! Ask questions or have a tutor point things out to you, then try and actually notice the answer. It's like a game that when you notice it you win.
Yeah it's true, like I could easily do the whole day in Swedish now, and probably for weeks on end - but that's not practical in terms of time.
@@daysandwords as I think you said, once it passes the point that it's "just a language you can use", you don't really feel the need to switch back.
That's where I've more or less gotten to with Swedish now, if only all the people around me would cooperate!
Though there are certain things I simply don't know the word for word, or can't remember, for so they become "grejer" or "-aktig". That borstegrejen (kvast) eller vad som helst.
I actually read an article that this happens to people as the get older (in their native language). They end up with so much stuff in their head that it takes that moment longer to remember the word so they resort to generalized terms. I guess that's what I look forward to now that I'm my thirties...!
I really appreciate how the music and video match up at 7:58 .... so satisfying
I appreciate your appreciation!
To be honest, my biggest fluency thief right now is my limited vocabulary! I'm always having to slam the brakes on in the middle of sentences because a word eludes me. Sometimes it'll be a word I know - and that I know I know - but it just won't come.
Really looking forward to the video at the end of this experiment! Could you explain a bit more about how you do the shadowing? Is it consecutive (playing a short segment and then pausing while you repeat it) or simultaneous (talking directly over the native speaker in real time)?
People have different ideas of what it means but I basically use an umbrella term to mean any attempting to repeat EVERYTHING a native speaker says, including like if they say "ah... yeah so anyway we can... guys... we can get started, umm, thank you all for coming ...aaaaand, yeah I wanted to say..."
Like, basically, pretend that you were dubbing their part and you had to make it look realistic. But generally to get good at it you'll have to do some bits over and over.
i think personally it is more helpful for myself if i do consecutive on a lenguage i cannot think fast and recognize each word as i am listening, as well as not having the ability to repeat it with the necessary speed to be comprehensible. This way i am mostly working on the pronounciation of individual words in the context of a sentence. I do this for my current target lenguage (danish) when i am not too tired and lazy to do it haha.
I do the consecutive with english, which i consider myself quite fluent in, but since i mostly write it and don't speak it, when i do speak it i tend to pause a lot between words, use too many fillers and in general make more mistakes because of it than i would make when writing (grammatical and of vocabulary). So the consecutive type helps me mostly on intonation and rhythm instead of how to pronounce individual words. But if i find a word that is particularly hard to pronounce that i hadn't noticed i had that gap in my knowledge before, i do pause to practice it a few times before moving on.
basically i think both are useful for slightly different things and might be more or less useful at different levels.
I am using fado as a way to get my sound right in Portuguese. I am learning one song but I think just carefully listening would be fine.
Is it sad that I got quite happy when I saw my face pop up in one of your videos, even though you told me it would..? Probably 😂 Anyway, great vídeo as always man and looking forward to seeing the results! Will be interested to see how you get on with improving pronunciation because that’s something I haven’t really done much of but feel I need to start addressing more now
I get that little jolt of novelty when I see my videos in other people's videos as well, even if it's a channel with only a few subscribers. I think it's to do with it being undeniable evidence that they watched your video and that it's now part of a "conversation" rather than you just making videos on your own.
"Perfection is the enemy of the good".
Incredible summary, thank you! Like you, being "functional" is my current target also, in Farsi. You can only be ignorant to repeat errors for so long before you realise you're holding yourself back. The orchestra analogy is particularly important to understand, especially for us Australians with our 20-26 vowel phonemes! Comparatively to Farsi and its 6-8 vowel phonemes, the "customer effort score" (to use a business term for it - Ha!) for learning the language is *very* real and what you've raised is an unescapable exercise if you even just want to produce the same word(s) successfully with consistent production each and every time you want to use it.
Well.done, inspired to emulate this practice
I agree the example is too extreme anyway but I think the reason why the compounding effect sounds ridiculous in regard to CEFR levels is because they already have that kind of exponential growth baked into them - i.e. A2 is double the vocab of A1, B1 is double A2, B2 is double B1 etc.
so if your rate of learning does exponentially rise, the rate at which you progress through CEFR levels remains linear ... -ish
I actually think that it's more like 3x for every level. Not in VOCABULARY like you mentioned, but in terms of your overall competence.
If A1 is a 10, then A2 is a 30, B1 is an 80, B2 is a 250, C1 is a 700 and C2 is about 2000.
But you seem to have misinterpreted my numbers because I actually allowed for what you are allowing for and still had the numbers coming in "wrong". It's not just with CEFR levels that it doesn't work. A 1% daily increase is actually impossible at most levels of MOST things. In sprinting, a 0.0001% improvement would be considered huge.
@@daysandwords thanks for responding 😊 yeah woops I missed that - I guess because it was going through so quickly I thought it must not be accounting for that
But yeah no definitely agreed improving 1% in a day isnt realistic at all
Best piece of advice in Atomic Habits, imho, is to PAIR a desired behaviour with something you're already doing or place you're already going to.
A kind of video that might help you, just by giving yourself a task to carry out in Swedish, might be to start documenting your progress through the original Canterbury Tales, using only Swedish resources to assist with the process. (That's an eternity worth of material, so the trick would probably be to start with The Miller's Tale - which might bring you some Swedish viewers, just because of the subject matter.)
I have a tendency to, myself, try to "get the accent right" in the languages I dabble in, but for others, to encourage them to just make the gift of their lovely accents to English. (The only accent it's not right to share is a South African accent - although even with one of those, I've met speakers of one of the proper Englishes who say things like "Say something to me" ... which might be less impossible than it seems for someone less shy, I suppose.)
You've offered the first rationale I've ever heard that makes sense, for trying to sound native, instead of just bringing the lovely gift of a new accent for the language I'm borrowing to be spoken in, and just focusing on things like lexicon und so weiter.
If you try out the accent, you improve your ear. That's a good reason for doing so. (To be consistent with wanting foreign speakers of English not to spoil their accents - and I don't just mean making themselves sound brutally South African - I have to set an ultimate "accent goal" for myself in other languages as becoming ... not quite authentic, because that would mean doing horrible South African things to some innocent language ... but maybe "apparently Australian"? Or Ner Ziland, since that's a bt claser too Seowf Efrikun. ... stop being stupid, you're losing the point you twat ... ... oh yes ... I feel like I SHOULDN'T be paying the attention to accent that I do, and now you've given me a good reason (not just an excuse, which would've also done) to do this.) )) ? maybe one more for luck ).
Given that the accent-learning is justified in terms of how it improves your hearing, (and yes it does!), it would be best to not choose a "good accent", though? One could, one supposes, tastefully select the most noble of the Swedish dialects, to emulate with superior erudition (old chap) but for ear training, it may be necessary to stoop to something foul and common. Heaven forfend! One may even need to speak in a yokelish and rural manner at times. Or you could just give it a go, mate. Imitate the bastards. Find out how they say Oy! there. Or ow they say Aaarh! when them marines is comin tru the market day "recruiting" and they pokes you out from under the table you wuz hidin under so it's off to sea ye go to teach Bony to leave ole Jack Tarr sleepin if you hear him snore.
(One would perpetrate jolly abominations, no doubt, were one to make a habit of mimicry of all forms of Swedish, right to the very swineherd's curses; however it might be fun?)
If you don't do the Canterbury Tales, you could do Swedish lessons in English punctuation? (I could use some of those, so all I'd have to do is learn Swedish to get on that wagon.)
I had to toss up between reading this comment and writing a whole new video. I went with the video, sorry.
Improvement is not linear. Very rarely is it exponential, and most of the time it's exponential decay without practice. If you do try to practice and master what you've learned and simultaneously try to keep on improving as well, then it's as wild as a new crypto going up and down depending on how you tweak the system.
Re: "thinking clearly": my current metaphor is getting my brain to run--and run smoothly--on a different operating system (i.e., the target language).
Thanks for the video and your insight on accent! Is there any specific software you are using for working/practing shadowing with those audio samples?
*Open question for anyone who would like to answer. Thanks!
Hi - you don't really need anything, but I did actually name "Audacity" in the video. It's free and assuming you've got a microphone you can also record yourself.
@@daysandwords Got it. Thank you, man. I'll give this a try! Greetings from Chile! 🙂
Hey La Monte, do you play drums? I notice you like the whiplash scenes lol. As a 🥁 whiplash is quite gosh, good movie tho.
I don't play the drums, I just wanted to use a bit from The Talented Mr Ripley for that transition and then Whiplash made sense as well to keep it on theme.
Great video, I do have a question/concern about iTalk if you wouldn't mind please, as I have been thinking of using it for some time but hesitate... Is there any expectation of booking another lesson/pressure to go with the same tutor again? I would really like to sign on and speak to a new person each time, or is that not really the aim/mentality behind iTalki? I might be thinking to much with the chatroom or Omegle mentality, but it would be so good to just practice introducing myself and learning in this way. Thanks again for another great video
No definitely not. I have used at least 50 teachers whom I've then not used again. About 20% of them is because I just didn't really like the interaction that much, we didn't "click" so to speak... but the other 80% is more just because there was a teacher I preferred. If I could afford the time and money, I would probably spend 14 hours a day just going through all the teachers haha.
@@daysandwords Thank you so much for the answer, I really appreciate your time, I'll definately try it now. I also need to mention that I also appreciate your commitment to your channel and it's quality, it's the best for language learning I have found, always inspiring.
Putting in the effort to sound "more Swedish" is probably the thing that will impress Swedes the most. 😜
Is there any progress on the trip here? Will you be allowed to travel soon?
Also, are you getting better at recognizing different dialects in Swedish? Because there are LOADS! 😂
I've been able to pick out the broad categories (like 5 or 6 areas) for a while now but as I do more accent practice I'm getting better at distinguishing like "hmm, slightly Stockholm vs VERY Stockholm / or, t.ex little hint of Norrländska vs VERY Norrländska".
There is a very slight update on the trip there. Some of it might come in a special announcement so I'll keep that under wraps but I got my first Pfizer shot a few days ago (long story, most people are still getting AZ here) and yeah we're hoping for travel to open in 2022 and then maybe your summer could be on the cards.
@@daysandwords
Lol, the VERY stockholmska is probably my least favorite dialect... 😜 😂 I'm in the "almost undistinguishable norrländska" myself. 😜
Btw, is your family learning Swedish too?
If you're coming in the summer you just have to go up north a bit, so you can experience the light summer nights properly! 😍
Yeah the "very strong Stockholm" thing was just an example. I don't like it either. My point is that I'm getting to hear more and more "slight" vs "strong" accents, but at the moment my internal map of Sweden is only in like, a few different regions. If I met someone from, for example, Västerås and they had a "classic" Västerås accent (I don't think that's a thing but let's say it was) - then I wouldn't even know because I don't really know anything about that city. It'd be like trying to ask you to distinguish between Sydney and Canberra when you don't even know where Canberra is or anything about it other than it being the capital.
My younger son is arguably a low-key Swedish native in that we've been watching Swedish kids programs on SVT and TV4 since he was old enough to sit up, and I have spoken to him in Swedish 90% of the time, although obviously that sometimes results in me making stuff up so sometimes if I don't know exactly how to say something I'll just stay quiet or say it in English. He very clearly says "tack" (and not just "ta" which is what we teach kids here) and he also says "kaka" when he wants a cookie (and that one is even more clear because in Australia they're called biscuits, so he can't be just mispronuncing "cookie").
In a few months I'll know for sure how it's going because he's speaking more and more, but at the moment he mainly just makes sounds.
My older son and I watch stuff every now and then and being 10 years old, he picks up quite a lot. My wife is a very slow conversion that I'm working on haha. She understands a lot of the stuff that I say to Austen (the younger one) but that's because I mostly say the same things.
Can’t wait for you to get to D1 in Swedish!
I really like this book, but my problem with James Clear's 1% rule was his intro to the whole concept of the book. He talks about the PROFESSIONAL sports team of the british cyclists, and how they improved 1% at EVERY SINGLE THING they did to become the best in the world.. Which is the exact opposite of what the book prescribes. It's not about optimality in any sense of the word, it's about small things done consistently. In fact at one point the book makes the point that we should 'focus on the important things, and work on them', which again is the exact opposite of what the british cycling team did - they improved every single thing even stuff you wouldn't think about like the pillows they used. Because of this I was quite confused about the whole concept for a while, but I love a lot of what the book talks about in terms of starting and maintaining habits.
i think the thing about 1% not being realistic is true but i think the recommendation of that book (which i also read) is if you can't improve your skill or ability at something by 1% a day, you improve your daily processes and habits by 1% a day. so it's not that you get 1% better at a language each day. it's that you get 1% better at *studying* the language every day. you become 1% more efficient in your study methods.
Damn I spend more time watching how to learn languages than actually trying to learn the languages lmao
Does shadowing songs in your target language count? Does it matter if the music is close to every day conversational speech if you are just focusing on accent?
"Count" is massively overused term in language learning. There are no tests except for whether it helps you learn the language, so there's no "this counts and that doesn't count" - if you think it helps, do it.
However I would say that songs don't help as much as everyday speech unless you are wanting to sing songs. Like, focusing on the accent of the person you want to sound like "counts" for a lot more than focusing on music.
I've noticed that in English non-native singers don't sound nearly as foreign when they sing than when they speak. Take someone like Aurora Aksnes (Aurora) or Klaus Meine (Scorpions), listen to a song and then to an interview, and it's just night and day. Dunno what that tells you. My hunch is that it might have something to do with vowel modification, which is often used in singing either for stylistic reasons or to overcome certain technical limitations in the upper/lower ranges of a singer's voice. The idea would be that we're just used to hearing vowel modifications in music, so it doesn't register as "foreign" to us. But then within the narrow pitch range of everyday speech, we register it any small difference as foreign. But that's just a hunch. In any case, vowel modification is probably something to look out for if you're using songs for accent reduction. There's no guarantee that the way they're singing a given word matches how it is spoken.
Grammar is a lot of output, moreso than input. You'll recognise the tense and interrogative of the phrases with just input but you'll be stumbling to construct your sentences if you've minimal output.
You might want to check out the YT channel of Richard deLong of Frictionless Mastery who has some slightly different ideas about how to use what you discover in speaking practice especially what to spend your time working on.
Crudely, he suggests somewhat counterintuitively that it is most effective to spend your deliberate practice time on what you can do *almost* with full ease or ‘mastery’, rather than practice what you are strongly struggling with.
I’m interested to hear if you find anything useful in his ideas/approach.
That sounds OK but I couldn't find the video where he actually spoke about that.
@@daysandwords One place I found where he mentions these aspects of his approach was here: ruclips.net/video/x0P52KfN8R8/видео.html from
about 12:40 on. He did have a more succinct version but I don’t see it on his channel. Maybe his website might have it.
Somebody on the Internet promises a counterintuitive method..... First question, what are his credentials? Well, I saw him speaking Russian and Polish, so his methods do work. His Polish sounded OK to me. He says himself it is not a high level. He hasn't spent all that long practicising.
I can't judge his Russian but it sounded more much fluent than the Polish.
But he doesn't seem to have MattvsJapan like levels of competence.
His book is quite cheap on Kindle, so I think I will have a browse through it.
If clear thinking helps with speaking your target language, then idk what helps me speak better when inebriated. Is it really just the lack of anxiety?
you're becoming such a role model for me, i just need to put stuff into practice... laziness has pulled me back very baadddlyyy, any tips on overcoming laziness? like: "just do it!", fuck i just gave the tip for me myself :O
this is amazing advice Lamont, I'll make sure to share it with my friends and students! can't wait to see the results of your 2 months experiment, it's going to be worth it 😊
I haven’t watched the video yet, but you look like you got a good crying session in in the thumbnail pic 😂 Sorry I had to point it out. You’re still one of the GOAT language RUclipsrs. I will leave another comment after watching the video.
Haha, can't say why that would be. I mean it was 2am but I had been to sleep and woken up so it's not like it was after a whole day's work. I was vaccinated 12 hours before? Not sure haha.
Can you recommend any good vocabulary, grammar apps for memorisation. I am learning italian, would you recommend, Speakly!!
Speakly is great.
Don't memorise grammar. Take the language in, that's all.
Do you think there's something to be said for completely putting off speaking at the initial stage of learning a language and perhaps even up to the point where you've sunk several 100s of hours if not more to then begin to speak? The idea would be that you would have a more complete image of how the language actually sounds as opposed to what happens if you start talking from the start which is essentially your brain piecing together whatever you think the language sounds like in conjunction with sounds from your native language, in turn cementing a problem that is going to require hours of work to fix later down the line anyway.
All my videos kind of assume that one already has this view of language learning.
But I actually did develop a lot of my Swedish through tons of lessons, so I didn't make that up. But if I were learning a third language, yes I would be reserved in output. Maybe not NONE, but not very much.
@@daysandwords I'm not sure what I said that implied I thought you were making it up, apologies regardless.
@@flappyfeet1147 Oh no no, you didn't say anything. I just meant that even though I recommend massive input at the start, it's actually not what I did myself.
What do you think of Lingoda? I’m thinking of doing a 2-month Super Sprint with them. If I take a class every day for 60 days I’ll be refunded the money. They have French (my target language), but not Swedish yet 😢
It seems ok. There are a LOT of Ts and Cs on that super sprint refund though so make sure you've read them carefully.
1:04 😂😂😂 This got me dying of laughter. Are you sure, the journey of you watching movies begins with no steps?? Don't you have to walk to the kitchen to get the bag of chips. 😂😂😂 I usually go get chips and wine.
What’s the difference between italki versus Verbling?
I have a review of Verbling, which would explain that a bit better.
How many hours of Swedish have you done since you quit French?
I'm not actually sure because I have been fairly "on and off" with keeping track of them, but I have a rough idea that it must be between 600 and 800.
By "done" I mean literally any unbroken exposure to Swedish. So I wouldn't count, say, reading a RUclips comment that's in Swedish, but I would count listening to an audiobook while washing the dishes.
@Days of French 'n' Swedish impressive. What do you think the cumulative hours needed for each CEFR level (B2, C1 and C2) are in Swedish? I got to B2 in German after 800 hours and I feel I may reach C1 at 1,200 hours.
@@richarddonnelly4811 Technically German is supposed to be harder than Swedish but I think once we're talking about higher than B2, it's pretty similar. It really depends on the quality of the input. As you can see, I go for quantity over quality. I've never worried about stuff being at the right level of difficulty and therefore I've probably "wasted" a lot of hours, although when I really think about it, I wouldn't have spent much more than 1200 hours total. Because in my first two years of Swedish I rarely did more than 40 minutes a day and a lot of that was silly stuff like Duolingo.
But I think there's an inherent problem with "testing" various levels, especially when they are C1/C2. It's hard to explain but the best way I can think of describing it is that it's like trying to know how complex a tree's root system is by looking at the leaves of the tree. I have a British friend who is living in Sweden who just passed a Swedish test which supposedly "indicates" a C1 level. (It doesn't actually certify that level it just says that someone who is at a C1 should pass.) But this friend would happily admit that my Swedish is three times as good as hers. It doesn't SOUND like it is; it sounds better but not that much better. But competency at that level is about more than a bunch of memorised phrases and vaguely getting the gist of what was said to you. It's about feeling the difference between say, "shall" and "will" and "is going to". Or all the forms of "die", like "pass away" and "lost their battle with cancer" etc etc. The leaves of the tree might look very similar but the root system goes much deeper and is more complex, and so it is my current opinion that although I'm pretty happy to say that my Swedish is at C1 now, I can still not really say exactly what C1 is and isn't. Therefore I'd have difficulty specifying the number of hours that it took me.
I also said to someone recently my Swedish still feels sluggish. Like a Golf GTI if my English is an F1 car. Most people would be happy to have a Golf GTI but compared to an F1 it would feel like a tortoise.
@@daysandwords "I think once we're talking about higher than B2, it's pretty similar"
That's why I never really get the comparisons people make between how hard languages are to learn at native-like level. Everything evens out in the end. Sure, at the beginning it's true that for an English speaker a language like Chinese will be harder than Spanish. But the further you go, the more it evens out. Kind of like how the age difference between a 7 and an 11 year old seems huge, but the difference between a 61 and a 64 year old doesn't. That 4 year difference is still there, but in relative terms it has become much less significant. It's kind of a shame, not because people overestimate the work put in by people who learn "distant" languages, but more because they underestimate the work put in by people who learn "close" languages.
It's interesting to hear how you relate to the CEFR. To me it's just a standardisation tool for formal examinations. Meaning that I have no problem at all saying "I'm C2" in a language as soon as I've passed a formal examination at that level. But I've noticed that a lot of people react strongly to that, and for them it seems that C2 means "native-like". To the point where now with strangers I usually just say "I've passed a C2 exam" just to play it safe. :)
@@bofbob1 Actually there is literally less of a difference between a 61 and 64 year old than there is between a 7 and 11 year old. 😆
"Astrid Lindgren level by Dec 2022, become Thor by 2023"
The content I'm coming here for :D
But no, good video! And interesting experiment :)
The only reason there are no tutors based in Antarctica is that the penguins have difficulty signing up as teachers. Do they make keyboards for flippers? I think not.
How can you buy Swedish audible books guys?
It's better than buying them and I explain that in my upcoming video. Hit the bell for my channel and you'll see the video in a few days!
How many Swedish tutors do you have?
At the beginning of this new phase I tested like 20 of them just to get the times of day that I needed, but now I regularly use 2 or 3.
6:19
I watch a show or talk but concentrate on one word, how it sounds, how it’s used.
1:00 Like looking in the mirror.
:)
Först!
Is that a Red Sox hat? Because it just looks like “Sex” on a hat.
Just sayin’….
Many have said that before, so I wear it for the comments now. But actually it's a Chicago White Sox hat. 🙂
@@daysandwords ooooohhhh.... that makes more sense.
you're bold. more power to ya.
@@DaKrazedKyubizt Haha I also just googled to see how the team was going and saw that they beat the Redsox literally a few hours ago! I think I'm gonna have to start going for Chicago for real.
I would wear hats with just "sex" being written on them.
Holy crap dude - How could U have managed to flapped your lips soo much and spoken so many words (in whatever language) and actually managed to communicate NOTHING?
The language was English. It's a pretty big language worldwide, you can google it.
@@daysandwords Still Nuthin"
@@TerryManitoba Yeah it'll take you a while to get used to spoken English. Just keep at it
Escribió muchas palabras pero ningún mensaje, chico jajaja 🤔 😂