Learn a Language for Real: What you can do that's better than Duolingo
Here is another LANGUAGE LEARNING GUIDE video from The Reykjavik Review, with three clear steps for making your language learning a more tangible process.
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The pics used in this video are free stop photos, mostly from the excellent PicJumbo and the very talented and generous Viktor Hanacek.
Some further photos came from Upsplash. Thank you for the brilliant photos those websites continue to provide.
Whether you are learning something 'easy' like the French language, the Norwegian language and the Swedish language... or something difficult like the Arabic language or the Chinese language, language learning can be tough because we don't have very clear feedback on how we are going, and there are not agreed upon steps as to how to go beyond the beginner level.
This video is all about how to make that process more tangible and to be sure that what you are doing is effective. I guarantee that if you haven't been doing any of these things and you implement everything I suggest in this video, your language learning will improve by about double (100%).
The first tip is:
Spend time thinking about what you need at your stage of language learning. If you spend an hour thinking about how to be more efficient in your language learning, and writing your thoughts and your proposed changes down, and even if you do it once a month for the upcoming month, then you spend the next 30 hours being twice as efficient. 1 hour put into thinking about better methodology, 30 hours of learning efficiency gained.
The 2nd tip is:
Making videos in your target language is a damn good idea. It gives you a specific goal, a specific goal is always a good thing - basically every learning guru out there, Josh Kaufman, Tim Ferriss recommend having almost strangely specific goals.
And the last piece of advice: make for yourself a task based goal. Aim to have a certain number of conversations, write a blog, an article, film a video a week for 10 weeks - make it something umcomfortably difficult. Duolingo and Babbel do not count for this.
Although I like Benny Lewis and generally agree with him, one small issue I have with his methodology is that he doesn't advocate for enough time spent on efficiency. He says to just speak and speak as much as possible; and although that will make you quite confident with speaking a language, it isn't a particularly efficient way of doing it. I have spent somewhere around 400-500 hours speaking Swedish; so I can speak confidently, but my vocabulary and accent are not as good as they should be after that long, because 250-300 hours of that conversation time has only been spent developing my conversation skills. It has not been what Cal Newport would call 'Deep Work'. This video explains more about how we can get the best of both worlds in order to learn a language fast rather than just sitting on Duolingo. There are resources and apps better than Duolingo!
Thank you for watching! Enjoy!
Imma be honest, at the start I thought you were gonna Segway into some fitness bike sponsor thing
😂 same
I have just come from replying to someone who seemed to think I am a sell out because I linked to iTalki. :-/
Segway ≠ segue
segue*
@@glokta1 nope it’s segway
Duolingo has left the chat.
Some things I did when I plateaued: 1 Swiched language in computer games to french 2 Watched english movies I know well in french 3 Befriended french people in VRchat and Sansar 4 Subscribed to YT channels that covers my hobbies but in french
Those are probably among the best things to do. Definitely much more enjoyable than making videos in the target language like the guy in this video suggested (which just sounds stressful). One thing that I do is that I read books and comics in french, and when I see a word I don't know, I look up the translation and write it in the margins of the pages. And when I re-read it, I can see my progress in when I come across those words again and now know what they mean.
@@KungKras I agree and I think avoiding making it a source of stress is key in the long run, as it will slowly kill the willpower to continue.
@@Ashtree81 Yup, optimizing for consistency and for the will to continue is definitely the way to go. Having the most efficient learning method ever will still do no good if you get stressed out and quit. While having an inefficient method that you can keep going with indefinitely will eventually add up to having learned the language.
@@KungKras Yeah I made that mistake once when learning the piano. Eventually stopped playing. Wont make that mistake again!
Ahh thankyou
What helped me a ton to learn English as a second language was to honestly just think in it. Think in it a lot. Reflect in it. Sometimes out loud to myself. Speak about my life, new experiences, struggles. Have a dictionary at hand and whenever there was a gap in my vocab I'd fill it immediately. I built vocabulary relevant to my life, my interests and I learnt in context. Obviously I also needed input. I listened to stuff that was comfortable yet challenging. Again whenever I didn't know something I would look it up immediately and eventually my vocab was extensive enough to be able to decipher from context. I immersed myself in English (which is quite easy since English has so much content that I missed out on in my first language!). I congratulate you if English is your first language and you pick up a second one because it is comfortable enough to speak English since it is the Lingua Franca.
I do it exactly the same way
I do this with German.
Your english is so good! I wouldn’t have known you weren’t a native if you hadn’t said
@@thunderkhajiitkitten6787 any resources you'd recommend for German please?
I do this with German too!
I saw Duolingo doesn't have the effect I expected: I was learning Japanese through it, I was progressing fast on Duolingo... but out of this app my mind was empty when it came to Japanese. That's why I quit with using it.
Same!
I'm trying to learn it too what have you done?
Tom Chagas The textbook I use at college is called Situational Functional Japanese volume one if you want a book to work with. Our professor didn’t require us to write kanji, just katakana and hiragana. So all writing is in those alphabets. The first month was repeatedly getting quizzed on writing both in the correct order on charts. But we did also have to recognize the kanji in each chapter that we covered. I’ve just taken one semester so far, but when watching anime, now I sometimes recognize a kanji or try to read part of the episode title when it flashes on screen. It’s really satisfying to recognize the characters even if I don’t know the meaning. So learn the kanas and practice them over and over again. Then find words that are relevant to you and write them. When bored in other classes, I’d write the names of fictional characters in kana and sometimes construct simple sentences. “Xxxchan is cute” “xxxkun and xxxchan are students”
@@rysingsun4693 it helps a lot
I use it just as a way of revising what I am learning in my actual course with a native speaker, and it helps in that way. But besides, I would recommend downloading at least three different apps for different purposes (kanji, hiragana, katakana, story reading, etc)
Is there some kind of quota for uses of the word "heaps" that each Australian must meet each day in order to keep their citizenship?
Yes. My citizenship is automatic because I was born here but for new Australian citizens it's 42 per day.
But in all seriousness, the English in my older videos is less interesting with less variation because it's actually quite hard to do good takes (people think it's easy until they try), so these days my English in my videos is more natural but often not correct because I'll just go with a take that properly conveyed the meaning. Also, I made it to 3:15 in this video without using the word "heaps" even once, and I had referred to a lot/a great deal/a large number at least 7 times already, so I'd say I did OK haha. But I think "heaps" is a handy word because it can refer to both "much" and "many" which makes it more useful than either of those just mentioned.
@@daysandwords I mean, I understand. They'll revoke my Canadian citizenship if I don't apologize at least 10 times a day. (I'm sorry if my comment upset you.)
@@julianowak4798 Nah it didn't haha. If you're skin if that thin in Australia, either the sun gets you or the yobbos do.
Days of French 'n' Swedish Oh, I thought I‘d detected some Melbournian in your speech... and was unsure as I‘m not a native english speaker so I have really no business guessing where someone is from ;-) Bonus points for me, achievement unlocked.
"you can only improve your conversation, BY HAVING CONVERSATIONS"
The problem with people, it's they focus more on the results, the records after something learned, instead of the journey. The good results always sell more than the failures. But are the failures which make u stronger.
This is some of the best language stuff on KZhead mate, learnt lots.
Hey there - thanks for watching and for your comment!
learnt heaps
I think it’s a curse to have English as your native language if you’re someone who wants to learn other languages. First of all there’s the curse that when you actually try to speak your target language with someone else, if you’re not perfect at it, they’ll just switch to English thinking they’re doing you a favor. And secondly, it generally just feels so much harder to learn a second language as a native English speaker than it seems to be for people who natively speak other languages. There’s even data to prove it. If you do a quick google search, English speaking countries are the most monolingual countries on earth.
I never thought about that but it makes sense 🤔. Maybe it's harder bc english is so different from anything else. My native language is portuguese, so learning spanish, italian, french, etc is way easier to me than it would be for a native english speaker. My british friend started studying spanish way before than I did but he's not fluent yet and I can sound native. He struggled with stuff that I never had to bc it was the same as my native language. Similar grammar structure, gendered words, even pronunciation... I progressed faster bc I didn't have to learn why things are the way they are I would just think "oh, it's like that in portuguese too, got it". They say german is easier for english speakers but honestly I see no similarities, nothing that makes learning easier.
Random Guy exactly! English has become such a hybrid of so many different languages that it doesn’t resemble any single other language anymore. When we want to learn a second language, it’s like learning to speak all over again. English should resemble German because it’s in the same language family, but it has so many French/Latin words that its vocabulary is completely different. So you would think that it would be easy for us to learn a Latin language, but it’s not because our grammar is completely different. Simple phrases in Mandarin have similar word order to simple English phrases, but the words sound completely different and after the beginning stages, the grammar is also completely different. That’s why I’m fighting to learn Spanish. It’s the most useful second language in my country. And I hope that if I can master Spanish, other Latin languages will become easier. But it is hell trying to learn your first foreign language as a native English speaker. You’re very lucky that your native language is so similar to so many other languages. I envy you! lol. But I’m determined to break through this wall!
Might also be due to motivation. As english is the most prominent language in the world, we know we really don't need to learn other languages, because most people/things use english
BJB fitness I feel that the prominence of English that you speak of is vastly overstated by monolingual anglophones as an excuse not to learn a second language. Yes English is “taught” in a lot of schools around the world, but most people in non English speaking countries don’t actually retain much English outside of the basics unless they plan on getting into a job that involves either international diplomacy, international business, or outsourced customer service call centers. Most of the numbers and statistics that make English look like its spoken by most of the world include people who only know basic greetings in English. I made the mistake of traveling to parts of Latin America with the “everybody on earth speaks English” mindset and to my surprise, I quickly discovered that English becomes all but useless the further you travel from your all-inclusive resort. And I like to travel, not vacation (there is a big difference between the two). Which is the exact reason why, now that I’m back in the US, I’m more motivated than ever to become fluent in Spanish, which would even be cool to use here (once I’m fluent enough to have meaningful conversation) considering that I live in a state that happens to have a lot of Hispanic people. It just sucks because the Spanish speakers I happen to try to practice with around where I live are also trying to learn English so they take the opportunity to practice their English (which is better than my Spanish) whenever they see I’m struggling with my Spanish.
@@jscorpio1987 I'm a native spanish speaker, and I already know my english, since I've been to the US. I can always help you learn spanish if you want
I learned english by accident. No, I mean it, I never meant to learn it!!! I followed a comic that I really loved, but the people making the spanish translation just gave up at some point, and OF COURSE I couldn't just, like, stop reading it! So I decided to continue reading the original version, which was in english. And believe me when I say I barely knew how to say hello at that point. But still, I just HAD to know what happened in the comic, so I took google translate, a dictionary, a bunch of grammar websites and went ahead. I never meant to learn the language, with knowing what the text in the comic said it was more than enough for me, but eventually I just, like, improved my understanding of it without realizing. At some point I decided to enter a forum about that comic, because all my friends had quit reading it as soon as they reached the point where the translation stopped, and I just haaaaad to talk about it with someone! Anyone!! So I made friends and started talking to people, not because I wanted to improve my english, I just really, really, reaaaaally wanted to talk about that comic. Before I knew it I had a fairly good grasp of the language, and, well, once you understand a language enough to read most things, specially if it's such a convenient one as english, you can't just NOT use it. So I got into more comics, read some books, started listening to podcasts, and, well, here we are. I have tried replicating the process with other languages I actually wanted to learn, thinking "I did it once, I'll do it again!" but for some reason it never works out. Maybe it's because this time I'm actually trying to learn while the first time it was a completely secundary effect, or maybe it's because this time I don't have that maddening drive that comes from needing to continue on with a story you truly love no matter what. Whatever the case, I'll still continue trying to learn japanese.
I soooorta did the same thing with Swedish and to an extent French.
Easier to do with English than any other language - in much of the world, English is hard to get away from. Many other languages are hard to encounter at all, at least by chance. I doubt whether anyone learns Irish by accident, for example. Probably not even in Ireland.
this kinda reminds me of a book i havent finished reading yet. so there was this old manga that was in japanese originally and never got picked up by english licensing officially but it was scanlated. as far as im aware i dont think it was ever 100% finished but im pretty sure its been translated to spanish, so ill probably end up using that as motivation to learn once spanish i run out of the english fan translations to read XD
you can't just say that and not tell us what the comic is called
This video is gold! Useful time stamps: 4:22 Spend time thinking how you should be practicing 6:41 Put progress-measuring tools in place 10:10 Create a task-based goals (rather than performance based goals)
Wow, actually, thank you! This makes so much sense going to implement these ideas! Subscribed!
I just discovered ur channel and I went through some of ur videos and they're super useful thx and u have a new subscriber sir ✌🏼keep em coming
i am so happy i stumbled across your channel. some amazing stuff here and ill definitely be sticking around! thankyou
I really appreciate your passion for language learning; makes me want to pick up my Spanish textbook again
also changing things up is so useful for learning, I used to just watch tv in other languages and at first I'd pick things up, but it could only get me so far, so now I do my best to mix both lessons and kids tv in for Arabic and I'm learning so much more and it's so much easier to sit through
New subscriber here, I really like how legit you are. I decry most of the language channels because typically 90% I've seen are more about the content creator than the languages. I only seen a handful that really are passionate about the language and not stroking their egos in 12 different languages. Good job!
I appreciate that! I do plan on "good" (as in "polished") content soon, but it will never be stroking ego about 4 or 5 or more languages.
@@daysandwords I cant wait keep up the good work!
Thank you for sharing, that's very helpful. Planning is something I was missing, and this can be applied not just to language learning. :)
You have some excellent ideas in this video. Thank you very much for your time, this wisdom shall not go to waste!👍👍
All good advice and he is right to be sceptical of language learning apps. I have never met anyone who learned a language to any level this way.
great video! wonderful tips that i will be applying-thank you!
I recommend watching tutorials of stuff that interests you (cars, computer science, whatever) in your target language.
That’s a great idea. Thanks!
Hi. This video couldn't have come at a more opportune time. I'm at a point where I'm totally stumped in my language learning progress, and I think your tips just make a lot of sense. The tip about recording myself as a way of tracking progress sounds great. Thanks so much for this. More power!
You are so insightful and informative!!
This was quite helpful for me. I have learned French for many years in HS and college but never got to a point where I would feel rather comfortable having a basic conversation and I'm also struggling with procrastination. It's difficult to get started on studying and I often feel overwhelmed but I have decided for a rather drastic approach. I'll be going to France in September as an Au pair and living with a family of 8, and most of the children only speak French so it will be a boot camp for me. Let's see how much I can improve my skill before I am off to France.
Tu aimes la France?
You are one of the few people I watched on KZhead who actually gave me a concrete advice. Thank you for that, and thank you for breaking up my relationship with duolingo. I've wasted so much time there having been sure that I have been making progress. Damn!
this is quite resourceful, not just in language learning , I may apply this to all the things I am aiming to learn.
DFNS, you somehow structure every video, every sentence, every word, to make it fitting for anything outside Language learning. Not only am I learning a thing or two for learning languages, but this it's absolutely fitting for so many more things.
I think your videos are profound and helpful, thanks! Greetings from Germany 🙂
Thank you for this video! I am glad to see something addressing some of the big failings people hit. Not stopping to plan language learning is what used to really hold me back. Now, although sometimes I’m still inefficient, I sit down to plan regularly enough that I can notice what inefficient study things I do compared to MY goals, and change them into something more useful quicker than if I never looked into it. I’ve never made a video in my target language, but your reasons for it make sense and I might consider it. I’m learning chinese primarily to read, so how I tend to measure progress is by picking up my favorite cnovel and trying to read it every few weeks. It was Brutal in the beginning, absolutely brutal - I used a dictionary to look up almost every word, I could not follow the grammar. But it showed me the solid goals I needed - I needed to focus on GRAMMAR so that at least with a dictionary I could start interpreting sentences. Then when grammar got less overwhelming to read, I realized words known was holding me back. So I knew I needed to start increasing my focused word study. Also, the difficulty in the beginning made me look into graded readers - which provide Me with smaller measures of progress, and eventual accomplishments that I will be able to measure progress by and Read much sooner than I’ll ever reach the goal of reading the chinese novels I’d like to read. Despite being brutally hard at first, my progress is noticeable and it’s incredibly motivating for me. The first month I only knew greetings and numbers basically. After a few months, I could pick up my novel and at least understand some basic dialogue (a huge improvement I could notice). The next few months, action verbs became easier for me to recognize and read. A few months later, I started getting used to the adjective pattens and better at recognizing pieces of sentences about action versus thoughts versus descriptions. Etc etc. As expected, such a hard challenge as just reading a native level novel was a struggle. So I picked up some graded readers to bridge the gap. My first graded readers were 500 words. It was exciting to understand the grammar, and made me realize I STILL had so many words not known holding me back - helping me to form my goals/study plan. After a few months of the reworked plan, I can read the 500 word graded readers. Which is a really exciting motivating thing for me. I just say all this to mean... I think there are a few ways to examine our progress, and part of it for me involves if the activity is related to my goals.
I've been binge watching your videos for the past few days and I absolutely love them! It's so refreshing to see that someone on KZhead who is open about their struggles instead of "yeah, I speak seven languages and I'm 22, anyone can do it". I'm from Poland and I've been learning English since I was like 5, and I'm 19, so I am rather fluent in this language, but a few months ago I decided to learn Norwegian and it's definitely not an easy task. I was already planning out my strategies and goals, but for some reason recording videos never crossed my mind, it is a lovely idea which I am surely going to incorporate into my monthly or even weekly routine. I have a feeling that it's gonna be a lot of fun, thank you so much for all the tips!
Great video! I seem to have reached that plateau you spoke about (even though my level isn't very high) but now I realise it's because I'm not changing my direction as I learn. I'll be giving the 10 videos in 10 weeks a shot for sure! Thanks!
This video is excellent! I don't know why I didn't see it before! Superb advises, thanks!
this is actually the perfect type of thing for me. and youre not totally bougie like a lot of the other language people are lol. thanks!
Thank you so much for your honest, thoughtful opinions. I am a teacher (and learner!) of Spanish and German; my classes meet only an hour a week, so students have to spend most of their time studying on their own. Your ideas are going to help me give more structure to their work, and (I hope) will help them stay motivated as well.
I've never even thought about doing video of myself talking in Spanish. Thanks for this exellent idea❤️
I'm watching this video at a perfect time! Thanks!
I make tasks in Trello like 'Read a Spanish article today' or 'Break down the lyrics of a Spanish song', as you said: task oriented planning. Now I will be adding: 'Make a video every week in Spanish'. Thanks!
Oh, that recording of yourself idea is so good. This is gonna help me so much, thanks!
You're welcome!
Found this a really encouraging and inspiring video; thank you. I did get caught up with both Ikenna and Nathaniel Drew's videos, and as inspiring as they are, I just didn't think I could do it, and couldn't relate to the latter especially 'coz he'd had some experience with Italian, while I really don't speak any French (target language) at all! Just subscribed, and maybe I will try to not rush to an unattainable goal.
Great work! If you go to my channel and search "goals", there are 2 or 3 videos that would be good for you I think.
LOOOOOVED (the video) but also the intro. I hate long intros, and yours is actually 1 sec long. Loved it.
Just found about your channel new subscriber here! Keep up the content. Merci!
Awesome, thank you!
That’s so funny I just saw this video today hahaha yesterday I was thinking that it will be a great idea to post videos in my target languages so I can ask native speakers to correct me 😁 I agree it’s a great way to see our progress. Thanks for this amazing video 🙏🏼 I have used Duolingo for German and for me it’s great because everytime I learn something new, I go to my german friends and try to use the words or phrases talking with them 😆
Great video. Thanks for the inspiration
Thank you for your videos! The tips you gave can also be used in other fields in life.
Glad you like them!
Wow, amazing job. Really love the video.
I enjoy Duolingo (learning a couple of languages, mostly focusing on Spanish lately) but it's mostly good for picking up vocabulary (and the stories help with reading comprehension), but obviously one needs conversations. And I also find that Duolingo is not that great for grammar (or maybe it's just me?), I need to do lots and lots of grammar exercises in traditional course books etc. Anyway, thank you for the advice. Looks to be very useful!
I find that Duolingo isn’t good for grammar because it doesn’t explain grammar rules and why the rules are like that.
Duo lingo is good, but it should be treated as only one tool to learn the language.
Yeah it’s not great for grammar and it’s very slow paced, but it’s decent at vocabulary. I mean it does have simple explanation before each unit, but I do recommend reading the discussions, they are helpful and dive deeper into it than Duolingo itself. It’s a good supplementary program. I intend to finish the tree, but I’m also working with textbooks and other things
El MariPacchi ••• It does - it’s in tips and notes
@@brumav9779 I know but to me, I don't find it detailed enough. But idk it still might be good for beginners
Recently discovered your channel. Your content is excellent!!
thanks for the tips! very informative
This is such a great video. The first tip really resonated with me. I want to be more strategic in my approach. The second tip reminded me of a conversation I had with my language partner last night. We both struggled to talk about our respective cities and rather than move on to a new topic next time, we decided to do the same topic again. So I’ve been learning vocabulary that will help me to describe the city. I’m looking forward to checking out your other videos! 😊
Yeah, being repetitive in our learning is not something that adults naturally do, unfortunately, because I think the benefits of it are HUGE. I think it's one of the reasons that kids are such "good" language learners. They get a phrase and turn it inside out, upside down and twist it every which way until they understand the structure of it better than almost anything else in the world. I find doing these videos encourages ME to be more deliberate in my approach too, because it tightens up any time I have, and in the time I spend doing the videos, I obviously think about what I should be doing when I'm learning languages haha. Thanks for the comment! And if there is something you'd like to see a video on, please let me know!
Thank you very much, it helped a lot ❤
Great content. Thanks!
Really love your content man. You're pretty legit compared to a lot of the content out there.
This was such a good video. I was really stuck in that inefficient routine you were talking about with French for a while. I would do Babbel on my lunch break every day at work, and though I did gain some vocabulary the final results were not far from where I had started. I've since got a tutor on italki and am editing my routine based on what I'm having trouble expressing in my French lesson.
Thanks for this, really helpful video. I've been 'learning' German for a couple of years now with all sorts of things: Michel Thomas, reading books, listening to music and yes, Duolingo. Progress has been OK then slow. I'm definitely going to plan more having watched this vid and I'm absolutely going to start making videos to judge progress/focus on distinct areas of vocab. Oh, and watch more of your stuff!
This is a really good video--many thanks for posting it! I'm working on my German now and will soon turn to working on my Mandarin again and then my Japanese. I am thinking about how to do things differently (more efficiently and more effectively) and your videos give me some really good ideas on how to approach things--many thanks again!
awesome !! good luck ! where are u from ??
Great video, I'm learning German and this gave me some thoughts on things that I could start doing! Keep it up and good luck with your language learning journey!
Good luck and perseverance ! Greetings from Dresden,Germany. Viel Glück und Durchhaltevermögen ! Grüße aus Dresden, Deutschland.
Kannst du jetzt Deutsch? 👀
I love your content. Thanks for calling us out on letting inertia/status quo tempt us into complacency rather than doing the hard work. One thing I will say though is that I think there’s lots of good evidence that even in fitness, which has those objective performance measurements, one can really benefit from focusing on setting task based goals to get you through the long, difficult times between when you first start and when you finally achieve your performance goal. Love the stuff! Thanks!
My pleasure!
Great advice buddy!
Your videos are amazing !
This is excellent advice. I have heard of some people mentioning that recording themselves speaking in their target language which in turn helped them improve tremendously ( namely:NFKRZ , your Russian homeboi). I have thought about it but never seriously considered it- I just thought to keep doing what I am doing will be good enough. I am going to make an effort and start this- it will mean that you will have another tool in the toolbox- even though I will feel silly doing it , I can already see the logic in it. Thanks for the great vid and advice.
Thank you. I really like the tip about sitting down and planning my month. I have been learning Croatian for one year but I feel stuck and when I started (one year ago) I would thought that my progress would be much more by now. But I guess, I haven't put enough effort to it, or at least the right effort. I watched your video about the 15 minutes and gravity. Guess that's what has holding my progress back.
Pozdrav! Svaka čast što pokušavaš naučiti hrvatski! Ne odustaj! By, Hrvat :D
@@Imperiusism Hvala ti puno. Imaš pravo.
I just watched the intro and I immediately subscribed
Great tips! I really want to reach fluency in French, so thanks for making this video😃
Great work! Thanks for your comment. I am picking up my French again just now; I am going to "go hard" (colloquial for work very hard) for the next 6 months and then see what's happening with my language learning. My personal recommendation for French is busuu; I just finished some lessons today on it... it is by far the best language learning app in my opinion! Oh and I checked out your channel, I really like it! Loved the Russian in 30 days video; it's much more honest and realistic than many others.
Sorry - your already know about Busuu! You and I are very much on the same wavelength for language learning! (Except that you speak English and I don't speak German haha.)
The Reykjavik Review Thank you so much for replying and checking out my channel! Yes, busuu is amazing and I finished the whole thing for French a few years ago. I struggle a lot with grammar (when to use the tenses), so I'm mostly going to focus on that from now on. It's great you'll spend 6 months on French! I only have time to study intensively over the summer but I’m going to make the best of it :)
Bonne chance, tu vas réussir😊
this sounds like how I learned to draw, but with some small differences. Awesome video, thank you for making this. It is very informative. c:
SnowyCaa as i watch videos that give you realistic tips such as this one i realize more and more that this is pretty much how everythigg n is learned but for some reason in language learning we’re not conditioned to do this right away.
Best video about language learning I have seen in KZhead. Believe me I have seen a lot since I am studying a degree in English to teaching it. Very useful, very honest
Wow, that's huge - thank you. I soon want to make an even better one haha, this was a long time ago actually.
Spitting facts from beginning to end!
7:00 my way to measure that is. take a mother tongue that doesn’t speak your language, now communicate, how much you managed to say and the security you had while talking is your progress
This was a great video, you make sound suggestions. I've been feeling recently that Duolingo isn't really helping me learn that much. I am being exposed to more with Busuu but I know I should be writing a journal and recording myself. It's embarassing but I'll just have to get over it. Thanks for your videos!
Yeah... man, recording yourself is like an elixir... It's SO hard but so beneficial.
@@daysandwords and i mean at the end of the day you dont even have to upload it anywhere, just keep it in your library and look back at it :) i absolutely love writing and reading in my languages, but videos are such an awesome idea
I'm glad to see someone talking about the sports analogy. Another analogy that could be made is progressive overload, which is like the zone of proximal development in language education. Also, the CEFR reference of scales is extremely useful for making level-specific goals because it helps to self-assess where you're at and tells you what tasks you should try to be able to do next, thus eliminating the need to sit and think of a goal. You can then spend 5 minutes looking at the pdf (unless you memorized it due to being a teacher and using it constantly) and 55 minutes coming up with a plan to teach yourself the next thing. It even points out which kinds of movies you'll likely be able to watch first.
French and Swedish are the languages I'm interested in. Hopefully this will be a good channel for me to come back to along the way.
Goodness, this is amazing! I should have seem this video seven months ago when I started learning Spanish! arghhh
Glad it was helpful! I wish KZhead had promoted like nuts 7 months ago too haha.
Just kind of glad I found my way to learn a new language by not really trying aka accidentally by having to learn it in school (grammar) and starting to consume a lot of media in that language for fun, without thinking about how that would improve my language skills. Exposure is vital!
This was really good! Honestly! I wish I watched this when I started my journey with Arabic. So good. Thanks
يمكنك البدأ بفعل ذلك الآن You can start doing that now👍🏻
@@MrZiZoo1 إي شكرا عم بسويها حاليا بس مع الأسف ضيعت وقت ومجهود كبير قبل ما ألاقي الطريقة أصح. شكرا إلك. إنت بتعلم لغة هسا؟ ولا لا؟
@@Whatsjonosaying العفو أخي! عذرا، لم أفهم سؤالك جيّدا، هل يمكنك إعادة صياغته بالفصحى؟
@@MrZiZoo1 نعم أكيد. هل إنت تتعلم لغة الآن؟ إنت من فين؟
@@Whatsjonosaying أنا من الجزائر، و أنا الآن أتعلّم اللغة البرتغالية! توقفت من تعلم اللغة الصينية، و سأعود لها بعد الإنتهاء من البرتغالية!
Best intro i've ever seen.
when I watch your videos I get reaaly happy because months ago I couldn't understand anything in Australian accent (some sounds are different), and now I just realized I can understand you perfectly. My target language is English btw
Great job! I don't want to discourage you, but just a warning: I speak a LOT more clearly than most Australians (at least in my videos). This guy sounds much more like "normal" haha: kzhead.info/sun/bLV8l9WJm5-oY4U/bejne.html
@@daysandwords Thank you for the warning and for the video!! This will help me develop my listening. edit: forgot to mention, this is not discouraging at all!! I love the challenge of learning something new or developing a skill
Great advice
Best intro ever!
i love ur videos thank you
Lazy in the sense you're not trying to challenge yourself anymore... been there man, I'm quite complacent myself. Thanks for the video idea, it's high time to step outta my comfort zone. Keep it up 🇦🇺🐨🦘
I really like the idea of dictation, listening, writing, listening again, filling the gaps, comparing with the original text, then, giving a break and listening again, writing, listening, writing and comparing again. I do this in a course which use a book that kinda cover the A1 to B1 levels. By side, there are some quick exercises and a Deck on Memrise for each chapter of the thriller. It's really nice. I never thought I could master the Dative so easily. Because knowing the basic grammar helps, I automatically am learning when to use it, because the sounds of m and n are difficult to get when the speed of the audio is high. I think the Apps are great to support a Plan of Study that you have. That is, to review the words while you are jumping to the next topics. I think Anki and Memrise, therefore, are more flexible and appropriate to an efficient learning. The course I'm doing is called smarterGerman. I already was listening to graded books and repeating, kind of Shadowing, which is another technique. And I was writing some stuff from Nico's Weg, DW. Reading a phrase and then writing. Doing this for like a paragraph or 2, and then continuing with Nico's weg course. And doing a Nico's weg Anki Deck, to keep in touch with the vocab. I think my listening improved so much... I don't think I'll go back to a regular class. I'm now also using Speechling to hear myself and correct my pronunciation, also to practice varied vocab. It is another great technique. I've seen an entire course for improvement of fluency based on this, listening to yourself and to a native, and repeating it until you sound nice. Because it's like Decks.. like Anki, I see the cards that I struggle more often, and i end up speaking with a better pronunciation.
I've just discovered this channel, and seriously... Cheezy-stuff-coming Alarm... you voiced out the words that were crammed in my heart (I've no idea if this make any sense in English but I hope it does) Let joking aside, you really did. After years and years of frustration with French, methods and a whole lot of stuff and the stuff that I know now that I wish I had known when I first started out; all that was crammed in me and you just voiced it out. I'm sure for starters what you say in your videos ,or at least the few I've watched, may not sound like a big deal but for a language enthusiast or amateur who's a lot of prior experience, it matters DEFINITELY!
i am also learning french !! and i totally agree !! where are u from ??
@@GalaSalv I'm from Egypt and you?
Hamida Zayed from the US living in France ! How is your French going ??
@@GalaSalv Wow, one of my dreams actually is to go visit Paris one day. It's definitely better than before, each summer vacation I dedicate most of it for French. First, I learned phonetics then I studied the grammar from a book called Practice Makes Perfect, Complete French Grammar (I'd no reason for choosing it other than there was a free pdf version of it on Open Library 😂😂😂 but I'm happy I did). Now, I don't know what to do, I should improve my vocabulary but I'm still deciding on what method should I use. There were other summer vacations actually but they were kinda wasted as I didn't use efficient methods or I was so busy finding and printing lessons that the summer ended before i get to memorise any of them 😂😂😂
@@GalaSalv kind of late I know, but what about you, how's it going for you?
Great video man. I’m trying to learn Español.
Great tips! I started learning Russian during this lockdown and I'm recording myself once a week, each time adding the new phrases I've learned. I'm not sure if I'm ready to switch to video (*cringe cringe) but the recordings are a good stepping stone. Now I still need to come up with a task based goal for Russian and Spanish. :)
BE SURE TO POST THEM ON KZhead! We’d love to see progress and methods of learning!
Dude, you are a genius. Im following this strategy
That's nice of you. This video is actually kinda old but I'm glad it helped.
I've come to the same conclusion. I'm at the sit and think and re-planning my language learning technique.
Your advice : Pretty solid bruh
Thanks for this video. All your suggestions are on the mark, even if or especially when they make me uncomfortable. Once I start something, I feel a compulsion to finish it. For example, I'm 1/3 the way through the Duolingo tree for learning Spanish from English. So I want to finish it. The tips before each set of lessons on a given topic are helpful, as are the discussion forums sometimes on a particular translation. I need to stop spending time, however, explaining in these forums what's wrong with Duo's English. This may be helpful to students whose native language is not English, but it's not helping me learn Spanish. Since I don't want my German to get rusty while I'm learning Spanish, I often end a Duolingo session with a couple of review exercises in Duo's German from English, which I finished some time ago. When I finish Duo's Spanish tree, I'm planning to try Yabla, which has thousands of videos in Spanish and exercises based on the videos. I think this will be very helpful, especially in improving my listening comprehension. Unlike Duolingo, Yabla is not something I'd feel compelled to stick with, if it begins to feel inefficient. There's no tree or whatever to complete. Meanwhile, doing something that requires using the target language and records one's progress is a great idea! Periodically making videos of oneself speaking in the target language seems an obvious suggestion, coming from someone who's on KZhead, but I have no idea how to make a video and find the idea repellent. Keeping a journal seems to me an obvious alternative and much more appealing. So I'll try that. And obviously the time to start is now. *_Gracias de nuevo._* & *_Vielen Dank!_*
Love the Knausgaard book in the background. What an incredible author. I can't wait to ready his 6-volume magnum opus in Norwegian one day.
Thanks for the comment! Yeah I was actually thinking that I might order the first one in Swedish because I never got around to reading it (in English, at all) so I could at least read it in a much closer translation.
Welp this is gonna be something I'm going to do during quarantine--
as a native English speaker(Australian) I started learning german about a month ago and have just discovered your channel now, has definitely given me some ideas and a boost to motivation.
Viel Spass beim lernen
Thank you! 😃
Recording yourself speaking the target language is a great idea I feel ashamed I haven't thought up myself. I will start working on a script asap.
Cosmic. THANK YOU! Literally, two hours before seeing this video I said "I have to be less lazy with my language learning." I do Duolingo every day, but I know it's inefficient. KZhead read my mind and suggested your video (creepy...) Don't get me wrong, Duo is a good way to get started for a number of languages and can make a good complement. But for me at least, it's not a long term solution. Thanks again for the "kick in the ass".
I love your intro
I am currently using Duolingo to learn some of the basics of German. I started about 4 days ago and have been trying to really get the vocabulary down. This video was very helpful because it helped me fully understand the importance of not JUST using Duolingo all the time. I am not good at German at all, but I will try my best to put together a sentence here, just to start off me trying to make sentences out of words I have learned. Ich bin nein guten Deutsch. Ich bin ein junge. Gute Nacht und bitte! That was probably really bad, but it is kind of hard for me to create sentences with the words I know right know which are mainly pronouns, very simple phrases and some foods and drinks like wasser and brot.
Really glad to have found this video!! At the moment I am participation in @Laoshu505000 30 day talking challenge. I have only done three entries, but I must say this activity breaks that mental fear and really gets you to talking! Its all about getting comfortable with the language.
I think the actual problem here is, people don't understand that getting fluent in a language is like learning how to control your body. Language is a tool in all the daily tasks we perform. Running is just a way that you could use your body and it specifically requires the optimal use of your legs. Similarly, speaking in a job context will require a specific part of the language which you can work on, IF that is the goal of your language. I think we try to get better at every aspect of a language when we start learning it without any goal. We need to be more direct with our intentions after getting to the advanced level. Also, like using our body, we need to actually use it from the beginning to get better and after some time many things almost become instinctive.
The most helpful thing I ever thought to do was hop into video game lobbies with people who speak my target language. Having to translate on the fly is made a lot nicer when it's in a game you like.
Task-based goals work better for exercising too. It gives consistency