How I Learned Spanish
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2024
- I don't worry about how well I speak Spanish, nor about the mistakes I make. I can't control how others react to my Spanish. I can only control how I feel about using the language, and these are feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, regardless of my level. I have always enjoyed my 60 year association with the Spanish language and culture.
0:00 - When was my first encounter with the Spanish language?
2:17 - Reading Spanish newspapers.
4:10 - My travels in Spain in the '60s.
6:31 - How I reignited my love for Spanish after leaving Europe.
8:59 - What I love about the Spanish language.
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#learnspanish #languages #polyglot
Following up on the videos I recently did on how I learned French and Japanese, here is one on how I learned Spanish. It has been a highly enjoyable association of over 60 years with this lovely language and culture.
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You're such an inspiration to me. I really admire you!
Can you do one on German next? I want to do an exchange program from Canada to Germany, so I am interested in how you tackled the german language.
It does the Spanish easier to learn?
Puedes seguir poniendo imagenes como contexto de lo que estas ablando ayuda a enterderte
I can't believe it. 2 years ago I listened to a video by Steve Kaufman and had really almost zero interest in learning a language. His enthusiasm for language learning got me hooked. Now I am spending almost 2 hours a day immersed in language learning. His sheer exuberance inspired me. I just had to get some of that good stuff what ever it was!!!
How many languages do u speak now and what do you for improving in them?
@@Carlos-rw3oj @Carlos Hi Carlos, I am concentrating on French right now. I really didn't really know if I could learn a language other than my native tongue. How about you? How many languages? Really, I have a dream of spending 3 more years on French, then move on to Spanish and then get creative like an Asian language, Russian or maybe Arabic. I don't make progress unless I put in a substantial amount of time. Once I got past the very beginning stages and could read at an intermediate level it really wasn't not that much fun. But once I got the hang of it I can't stop. Only my reading is progressing fast. My listening skills are far behind and well speaking is non-existent. But I think they will catch up. I think the key is "massive comprehensible input". Not giving the mind dribs and drabs but let it sink into a juicy bite.
@@xbluebells Thanks for replying, my native language is Spanish and I've been learning English for the past 3 years and I started with French 3 months ago
I don't know a second language. But I am trying to pick up Spanish because I might go a country like Colombia for a few months during my last semester at college. (its online, so doesn't matter where I live.) After that I might want to learn Chinese but I want to learn Arabic, and Hindi. I am going into poverty alleviation and I think Arabic is important because there are deeply poor areas in the middle east. Also though its dangerous as crap so I am not going there anytime soon. Besides that I want to learn Hindi because majority of the poor in India speak that. Though there are thousands of dialects. With hundreds of millions speaking Hindi I think its a very important language if you were working with the poor in India, but not so important if you aren't you know living and working in a slum.
Steve Kaufman was the reason why I started to learn Chinese, now it's been 5 years and I got a job at alibaba in China and speak Chinese all day
The most useful book I ever read in Spanish was a translation of Robinson Crusoe. WHY ? Vocabulary !! In the story, Crusoe talks about EVERYTHING.....all the words for tools, household implements, foods, plants, animals, weather, the ocean, maritime terms, ships, geographical terms, clothing, construction terms, body parts, illnesses etc. etc. etc. This one book was a review of ALL the basic vocabulary you might ever use....plus it's just a great story. What more could you possibly want ?
Shit that's actually a good idea lol
I started learning Spanish some time in 2022, but without much dedication and willingness. 5-10 minutes a day, not even every day. And then in January 2023 I flew to Alicante for 4 days and already at the airport I realised I can read and understand the signs, then I went to the bus stop and realised I can understand a little of what the ticket man was saying to me, so I opened my mouth and replied to him in my basic broken Spanish and he understood. This was the day since which I've started learning every single day and my connection went up high. Since then I've visited Spain 4 more times and always loved it.
Remember me
I will be back in 5 years and I will be fluent in Spanish.
You could do it inside 6 months if you fully immerse thru internet
@@agame-jv6zv i also try to perfect my English on the side.
Suerte!
Same 💪🏾
¡Éxitos! :)
100% agree with what you said at the end. I think lots of people give up learning a new language because they don't meet the crazy expectations they put on themselves, because they want instant results. Learning a language is like a slow process of osmosis, where the more immersed you are the more gradually seeps in and settles. The western lifestyle however conditions us to expect instant gratification however. The most successful people love the process as much, if not more than they love the results.
And the 'I LEARNT FLUENT SPANISH FROM SCRATCH IN TWO WEEKS [NOT CLICKBAIT]' videos don't help either.
You need to take the last 2 minutes of this video and make a separate one for it as that advice is just spot on!
Spanish was extremely difficult for me until I developed an interest in tango and began travelling to Buenos Aires, this was after pretty much flunking out of Spanish in high school and college. It's amazing how much your interest in something can play in your motivation and your ability to comprehend it. My Spanish isn't perfect yet, but I'm not confounded by it, and there is the added benefit of the recent influx of Spanish speaking people into the U.S. something that wasn't that common when I was in school.
Este tío es una leyenda. Muchísimas gracias por el LingQ, senior Kaufmann. Ojalá lo hubiera encontrado antes.
When Steve says whatever level i was at "i was happy" if i could say three things in spanish to someone i was happy... i think this is the key.. finding the joy in language .. not competing or comparing yourself...every new word learned a gift..
Was ABOUT to open a CZcams search to find how to learn Spanish and you immediately upload the video! Universe gives me signs that I should learn Spanish :D
It’s a good language I learned it it’s worth it
I am learning it ☺️
Te cambio mi español por tu inglés
@@agame-jv6zv what methods did you use to learn
@@frances6379 memorize present tense and most common 100 words on Anki then binge Netflix with subtitles then binge Netflix without subtitles Silvana sin Lana is the best show ever
You're so awesome Steve! So inspirational. I'm going to get back into language learning ^_^ I hope you have a good weekend!
After listening to Steve I always come away feeling inspired to carry on my language learning journey. Thanks Steve 👍🏾
What a life you've lived Steve. I always loved learning from you, I think you're the best language influencer/tutor/commentator (Whatever word fits the bill) on CZcams, but I never knew you had such an adventurous life. Loved listening to your stories. Would love to hear more :)
When I listen to your experience I feel so grateful for being able to learn languages in this century. I'm learning Korean now and there's so much free material I don't know what to use!
absolutely correct! Love and only love to a language can motivate yourself, making mistakes when speaking or writing, it doesn't matter, don't be shy. DON'T be afraid of MAKING MISTAKES !
Love you Steve! Thanks so much for all your insight. You are truly amazing
Thank you so much for your videos Mr. Steve. As a graduating high school senior who has a dream of becoming a foreign service officer and living my life learning languages and traveling, these videos have proven to be very helpful to me as I try to determine which language I should study in university. Keep up the great work Mr. Steve!
Steve Kaufmann is such an inspiring and legendary polyglot who knows how to learn any language in a fun way without getting stressed out. His Spanish learning experiences were fantastic and so interesting as far as I know. Listening and reading are the key to handle and enjoy a new language, it's what I do with my English which is the language I know the most by far. I'm also interested in learning other languages, though. The path to the fluency is long and tough of course, but I know I can do it even if I trip up making unavoidable mistakes when it comes to speak English for a real conversation and listen to it carefully which I can misunderstand some familiar words or unknown words or hard phrases to catch for me. Furthermore I have a little bit of knowledge in French, Italian, Russian among other languages because I'm learning them from scratch practically. As a curious learner, I wanna keep on developing myself through several ways and I look for new opportunities to keep thinking big. By being humble and smart in fight for my goals, it'll be beneficial and helpful for my career, wellness and happiness. If you have always had several dreams, just go for it.
Thank you!!! These are the words I needed to hear!
Very inspiring video. Thank you, Steve!
Me gusta la actitud que tienes en el aprendizaje, te he escuchado hablar español y los "errores" que haces son bastante insignificantes porque te expresas muy claramente.
À très bientôt !
If you want to learn a lot of slangs in spanish I recommend "El Qhubo" a newspaper from Colombia. It's hilarious, please do not take it seriously.
Lo he mirado por curiosidad y que susto 😅. Está lleno de crímenes en las portadas. Mi primera mujer era de Japón, aprendió a imitar la forma de hablar de la calle (en España) con un cómic llamado Maki Navaja. Una vez trabajó de intérprete y todos los españoles la preferían a ella entre sus compañeros porque tenía un lenguaje más informal. Cuando la preguntaban dónde había aprendido a hablar así decía que de su marido. Al conocerme se sorprendían: ¡pero si tu marido habla normal! 😂
@@hoseruisu30 Jajaja coges ese periódico y le chorrea sangre. Pero tiene unos titulares muy buenos. Nadie en Colombia se lo toma enserio, es como un meme. Pero pues claro, es un periódico de verdad jeje
"Y hubo alguien
Que se encargó de darme
Todo cada tarde"
hahaha
Please, forgive me, but I can't loose the joke.
"No aguanto dos balazos en la cabeza" XD
@@user-fi8su1em6w that sounds like a cronica's title, it is a argentinian channel, some time they made a new called "fue por vino, y ya no vino" hahahahha
I've started learning Spanish since six months ago. This is such a motivational video for me.
How is it going
Ya sabes leer y hablar español?
Steve your world is very fascinating, thanks a lot for your enthusiasm! Spanish is going to be my next goal after Portuguese 👍
Thank you so much for this video!
I have heard it a few times, I listened and it was funny, I read and it was interesting, even though everything was not comprehensible. Filling in the blanks if fun, so is finally getting it. Thanks for sharing your journey, Steve.
Muy interesante Steve! Me encantaría hablar contigo en español algún día sobre los idiomas y tu experiencia
I am a Russian living in Canada (so English is my second language). Was always fascinated with French, so I started to learn it, took a couple of courses, listened to a lot of songs (we grew up with French songs), read most of Alexandre Dumas. Now learning Spanish, it's not as enjoyable as French for some reason (genetics, previous lives?), but I am sticking to it. Like Steve says "you decide whether you enjoy the language" (lots of wisdom in this phrase).
Lately downloaded "Los tres mosqueteros" and started to read it. When a phrase doesn't make sense I go to "Les Trois Mousquetaires" (the origin) and compare the translation. Guys, that is really fun! You'd think how different can two roman languages be, but they are and it makes it even more fun to see how the French ways of expression differ from Spanish. On top of that I do duolinguo and Steve's LingQ. We live in a wonderful time!
That bit about genetics may be more real than you realize. I took Russian in High School, over half a century ago, so I could read Russian Chess magazines (just like Harmon in the Queen's Gambit Netflix series !!). As we had a 45 minute class 5 times a week, the first thing I noticed was that some of the words and sentences had an almost haunting strong "deja-vu" experience, as though, somehow, I had heard it before, spoke before in some distant past. Years later, analyzing my DNA, it turns out that a small portion of my ancestors come from the region of the Caucus Mountains. I still use Russian, translating Russian herbal books into English for my own research. As for Steve Kaufman, he has a lot of good suggestions and hints, great videos.
@@Jimserac Thanks, it's really interesting how this works. For some languages you feel some innate affinity and they are easy and enjoyable, others just go against the grain, no matter what you do. Maybe the language's music plays some important role. To me it feels like French is smooth and flowing, Spanish is bumpy and syncopated, but maybe it's just me, not in tune with it yet.
@@kneejerkreactor9100 No it's not just you. Listen to Polish, it has a strangely smooth quality and being close to Russian I can understand many of the words. It is almost as though Polish was the "French" of the slavic languages. Now listen to Czech. It has an almost staccato abruptness to it, much as your describe Spanish. Croatian even more so. Yet to the Czechs and Croatians, no doubt Russian and Polish may sound harsh. It is subjective, I guess, based on one's own native language.
@@Jimserac Out of the slavic languages to my ears only Ukranian has the smooth qualities. Polish has too many of "sh" and "ch" sounds to be smooth to me. I guess that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Gracias por compartir tu historia y conocimientos Steve. Tenes que volver a Argentina algún día 🇦🇷
3 minutes before mentioning linq, has to be a record. In all seriousness, I did love the video :)
WOW!! What an adventure!! Brave!!
saludos de Chicago IL.
Felicidades Señor deberas que tiene usted un Español muy muy bueno.
admirable su trabajo y muy apreciados sus comentarios y consejos.
De veras*
Thank you very much Mr. Steve
Saludos desde Argentina Steve !!!!!!
I would love to see some photos of you as a young adventurer in 1964 in Europe :)
I second this! :)
My mother language! Lo habla muy bien... felicidades!
What a great story!!!!
Steve, you have my grandpa’s voice but in a different language. Feels like I’m listening to my grandpa speaking English. 😊
Enjoy the language is one of the most important step in the process getting a new language. When I start learning English a year ago untill now I just have been studying in ways and with contentes that pleased me, its has been like that since the beginning when I hadn't find out yet the better methods for me till now when I know what work on. Then I did some choices that probably getting me into a superior development in some of the 4 skills than other, por exemple, my listen is pretty down thant my reading, because I prefer reading a lot, its where I am happyest setting eforts to improve. That way I find myself enjoying the process, and doesn't mind if it make me learning lesser. Also I don't mind all the plenty of mistakes committed, when you are learning there are no why try be perfect at all, you need just give your best.
I love books tips!
I am now 76 years old and have been learning Spanish since I was 15 years old. The Spanish language is the great love of my life. I studied French in college for only three years but have had almost no exposure to French since those days so I have not maintained it.
Are you still alive
Please share more of your stories from the 1960s and that hitchhike
Su español es excelente, igual que su explicación. Gracias.
I remember reading La Barraca but it was another book by Blasco Ibanez that stayed with me, Los Cuarto Jinetes de la Apocalipsis. That book and Zola's L'Assommoir profoundly affected me. I am a very different person for having read them. People, be careful what you read for what you read can make you and it can break you too.
Un gran consejo, Steve.
La Costa Brava ya no tiene nada que ver con la de los años 60, pero todavía sigue siendo hermosa.
How about doing one of these videos for Finnish, Indonesian or Vietnamese? You did learn these to some extent, did you not? Would be interesting to hear of your experiences with the languages, interactions with natives, or even of travels to the countries
Let’s go Steve!!!!!😤😤😤😤💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼
Destinos is where it's at for Spanish. It's freely available at learner.org. It's a telenovela designed to teach Spanish using comprehensible input. It's 52 episodes each 26 minutes long. It starts simple and gets slowly more complicated. I watched the whole series 4 times. After that there's easy spanish podcasts and regular telenovelas. I learned most of my Spanish from watching telenovelas.
Thank you for sharing
Tour spanish Is exelent. Tanhk you.
LA FORMA EN COMO LO EXPRESA ES MUI RECONFORTE
thankyou one on Italian please
I have a goal to learn & talk Spanish fluently in 3 years 😊. I speak 4 different languages and Spanish will be my 5th. Hope so 😊.
Oh Nice
I from Mexico
Do you suggest to first study Spain Spanish or Latin American Spanish?
I am learning spanish alongside japanese and french. Since its not my priority right now, I found speaking it very enjoyable, however badly. All comes the attitude like Steve said in the last few mins.
Sounds like Steve had a vibesy life!
Mr Kaufmann, just an idea, it would be very interesting to see you doing a Russian video series. Do you often find Russian speaking people over there in Vancouver?
You speak Russian?
Hopefully you see Mr. Kaufmann, and please anyone else who knows Spanish or uses it natively!!…..I’ve been doing a structure course and although it works on grammar it isn’t really going into it deeply where you get confused, more so makes you aware. So my goal is to finish this course do a vocab course while simultaneously reading and listening “reading and listening simultaneously” constantly. I’ve come to feel like translation after a point is not smart bc English is not Spanish. To me it makes sense to catch on to how Spanish speakers say things by reading over and over how they say them in different contexts; rather than always being in the mindset of okay here’s what I want to say in English now translate. Seems counterproductive. I’m fluent in American Sign Language so I have some baseline of knowing how learn another language successfully. i just feel like I need the structural understanding to be able to make the input comprehensible. To see reflexive pronouns and know that’s what it is. To see me lo and know “it to Me” and to know that can be on the end of a full verb or in front of all of it. Basically knowing where one chunk begins and ends. I’m not even a month into this process so know I know I’m truly a beginner regardless if I’m doing 4-6 hours a day.
Thank you to anyone who responds!
Steve, como le va con los diferentes acentos que tenemos los hispanos en los diferentes paises de Latinoamerica, Chile habla un español diferente al de Argentina y Mexico con su acento tan particular, los Panameños tenemos dichos que probablemente solo entendemos nosostros, jejeje es como otro idioma en cada pais.
maybe someday I will learn it ,but right now I want to learn languages with different writing systems,so I'm a native arabic speaker,I learnd English,I'm learning japanese ,I want to learn ,russian,korean ,and hebrew ,but I would love to learn Spanish one day
Good luck
@@amadeusmalonje8263 thanks
Learn Chinese~
@@vivianchen134 yes,maybe one day
@@vivianchen134 I'd like to learn it as well
I can say lots of things in spanish but when they speak back to me, my problem is understanding. I will try your input method.
It is my dream to go to and maybe live in Brazil for a couple months, maybe years. I wish I had the money to do so 😔
As a chinese that is fluent in Japanese. The first time speaking Japanese to a Japanese person feels like talking for the first time to a human. Now I really wish I could learn spanish.
What is holding you back from learning Spanish, and why stop there? Go for it.
La Barraca, gracias.
The problem with the Spanish language is that there are so many accents and variants. We have European Spanish (castellano) spoken in Spain ( Europe) with its different accents depending on what part of Spain you are in. Then, there many other Spanish speaking countries located in South America where they also have different accents and slang etc. I've seen people who learned Spanish from Colombia travel to Spain and do not understand a word from someone who speaks European Spanish.
Hispanic America: about 412,823,811 speakers
Spain: about 47,450,795 speakers (= 10% of the total native Spanish speakers)
O.O
@@tiagocomth3194 Great, I’m learning Spain Spanish and that makes me wanna switch over to Mexican Spanish…
❤️❤️❤️
مرحبا ستيڤ ، كيف أنت ؟ أتمنى لك دوام الصحة ..
أودُّ أن أسألك سؤالاً عن علاقة اللغات اللاتينية كالإيطالية والفرنسية باللغات المشرقية كالهندية والعربية ؟؟
At what age did you become fluent? Im 31 and im doing 2 hours a day trying to break through intermediate to fluency
Any tips? What do you do in those 2 hours?
I’m learning Spanish currently. 102 at university.
It’s horrible. The way linguist teach in school is a waste of time. I’m going to be signing up for Q tonight!!
a quien quiera practicar su español estoy dispuesto a ayudar, saludos desde Venezuela
Ok 👍🆗️
I 'm Chinese,working in Shanghai, i'm learning Spanish when having the free time, the problem is i cannot use the Spanish lanuage here,especially the world is locked now as the Covid. Is it very important to master Spanish????? Quiero estudiar Espanol con amigos aqui,vivo en Shanghai China.
Talk to me. I'm a Spanish teacher and I'm Brazilian. I started teaching when I was 40. Then, as I am graduated in Italian, I started teaching Italian, and English because I was a student at the same language school.
Is anyone here English who has learned spanish? What advice would you give someone who wants to learn it? Looking for advice, books, videos, anything to help. Thanks!
Hitch hiked on a boat? Sounds like Arya's journey from Game of Thrones.
Spent 3 days on the docks in Montreal asking to meet the captain to see if I could work my way across the Atlantic. Day 3 I found work on a small German tramp freighter.
أنا أستاذ لفة عربية من الكويت ..
Steve which language are you around C1/2?
I don't know since I don't take tests. I would guess French, Japanese maybe Mandarin. My other stronger languages are probably varying degrees of B2. Some other languages aren't far off but I just don't have the time to improve in them. It's not something I think about. I just like to understand and communicate.
@@Thelinguist I am learning Italian and aim eventually to reach fluency in French and Italian
The way you talk about learning languages before Lingq reminds me of "Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!" Dictionaries are stone age at this point.
Can anyone help me to improve my English🙂
While everyone has a reason to learn the very popular languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Japanese, etc. very few people including myself care enough to explore outside the popular domain. I'm learning Indonesian among others (without LingQ), the language of the 4th most populous country and what some agree to be one of the easiest. I enjoy learning official languages of countries most people never bother with, and if Steve ever learns some of these, I can rest easy knowing I have more experience and am better at the language than him, ready to call out his rookie mistakes.
Oh, man, you're the most annoying thing in the world. You don't have an idea about how your obsession with Steve screams a complex of inferiority in the eyes of everyone here.
How did you have money to travel all over europe
Been following and watching you for a while sir, yet I still don't know what your mother tongue is. You sound like your native language is of Germanic family, to my ear it does at least
English is my first language.Cheers.
@@Thelinguist Haha. I was in the wrong then. What I took for an accent must be just your individual utterance, diction.
@@user-pc3wb5fv6m English is a Germanic Language~
@@vivianchen134 sure. But it has gone too far and it doesn't sound like any other Germanic language nowadays.
Is the LingQ technical team actually doing something and making progress to add new languages to the platform or are they just stalling? People want to learn certain languages, but since some won't use any other resource besides LingQ, then it goes without saying: the longer the delay, the more opportunities everyone misses.
Have you heard that Moses McCormick died? He was only 40!
Struggling with your TL can be demoralizing and frustrating. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed the process. I do intend to reflect fondly on these days when I reach mastery. Maybe I’ll make a video telling people how I reached the summit. I’m gonna make the same video when I get my black belt.
Steve: spend time in Mexico.
:)
Yesss First time the firsrt
If you put it at 2x speed he sounds Irish 😂
First
Spanish is whatever I say…
…yo soy contento 😊
Esa es la actitud 😎
N 🇦🇷 es
C 🇺🇾 es
B 🇬🇧 en
A 🇮🇹 it 🇧🇷 pt 🇩🇪 de 🇫🇷 fr