Fluent in one language or good in many?
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 16. 05. 2024
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CC subtitles available in multiple languages.
I often get asked whether it's better to focus on one language and become fluent in it or to explore many languages. In this video I talk about why I don't think there's one answer to this question.
âČïž TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 One or many?
0:26 How many languages can one learn?
2:13 Reasons to explore multiple languages
2:33 Mastering one language at a time
5:20 Plateauing at B1
7:46 My B2 languages
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âDo you prefer focusing on one language or exploring many? Let me know in the comments!
Focus on one @ a time đTY
I'm at a bit of a crossroads there...I want to be fluent in french and also had dreams of learning japanese and spanish, but my french progress has been so slow I don't really have hopes of achieving fluency so I don't know how I'm supposed to do that in more languages. But I did learn it in school and don't really know how to keep learning on my own yet, so maybe I'll figure it out.
I want to be fluent in english because its the need of the day, and anxious to reach the depth of Arabic to understand the Quran . I know its not an easy task, but I believe, 'where there is a will, there is a way. If Sir Steve kaffman can learn 20 languages , shouldn't we struggle for at least two ? (one for here and one for hereafter).
I like how honest he is about still making mistakes, learning taking a lot of effort, stagnating on languages, etc.
Hello Steve, I'm from Argentina now I'm living in Portugal, working in an hotel that is full of English speakers (England, Ireland, Scotish). I've to say that we need more videos but in bad quality đ because when we hear videos from CZcams, the words that we heard are very clear, in real life is not the same jaja Thank you for your videos, I start to learn English the last year before move to Portugal, I don't know if I make many mistakes writing this message I gonna check after send you đ You are the best đȘ
if you want some examples of coversational speaking videos, you can check out the easy languages channels (easy italian, easy british english, easy spanish, etc..) they are great because they do some interviews on street to regular people asking them usually about cultural topics. the videos have with subtitles in english and the target language.
Saludos de otro Argentino (pero en Noruega :D )
@@augustomaggiori5209 Agreed, Easy Languages is a fantastic resource
@@augustomaggiori5209 jajaja we are everywhere đ€Ł Gracias Augusto por el consejo! Abrazo grande đȘ
Hola Franco! I am Irish and have been learning Spanish for a few years - I can understand your pain and if itâs any consolation, I feel the same way about Spanish from Argentina đ It isnât typically the accent that is taught to us by Spanish teachers as I imagine the Irish and Scottish ones are not when you are trying to learn English. I would recommend watching some TV shows or movies from these countries to help you get used to the accents and the slang. Or maybe seek them out specifically if you do italki or preply classes?
@@adelaideboyle8610 jajaj đ€Ł I understand you because in Argentina LL sounds like Sh example Llave in Spain they pronounce Liave but in Argentina we pronounce Shave, we have to immerse ourselves in many types of accents as you tell me, because these little things make us confused, greetings I will look for content from your land đ
hi steve!! i started english 3 years ago when i discovered your channel, now im quite fluent and starting my 2d language: portuguese. very exited! best regards from argentina !!!!
Boa sorte amigo
Desejo sucesso no seu aprendizado.
boa sorte aprendendo a nossa lingua espero que se diverta durante o processo
Legal! Bons estudos no PortuguĂȘs.
Seriously?? Nice bro!! Iâm brazilian. 4 months ago I started learning Italian, im not fluent in english yet, but I donât need anymore that hard, I simply can Listening and I know if I do that, Iâll improve my english, because of that I started learning other language. Good luck for You, you can do it.
I am not that proficient in any language but have the ability to reach an elementary level in any language easily. I enjoy being a language vagabond. Living in America all of my life I never had the need to be bilingual but my vagabond attitude at least gives me a basic knowledge of many languages and some understanding of various cultures. Great topic Steve. I admire and respect your experience.
The most enjoyable is being extremely good in just two: my native(portuguese) and english, the rest I'm happy to learn up to B1 or B2 and move on, even easy languages, because these others are just for enrich my life with another culture, make friends, break the ice
I think the biggest thing for me, when I see people ask about or defend studying multiple languages, it really depends on the motivation. So much of the time, I see a lot of people asking this question that are basically looking for an out/excuse because the language got hard. At the beginning it's all fun and easy because you didn't know anything before and now you know at least a little bit. However, and this doesn't just apply to language learning, but to hobbies/interests/skills in general- at a certain point, if you want to improve, you're going to have to do the work and it isn't necessarily going to be easy (it very likely isn't). Getting good at things is hard and requires a lot of discipline and investment in time. I've always studied multiple languages concurrently- it keeps things fun and fresh, and when you are maybe struggling a bit with one language, hopefully you are making progress in another. But I've never started a new language as a way to avoid doing the hard work in another language. I think that distinction is critical. Maybe you genuinely lose interest in the language, which is perfectly fine. Dabbling can be fun and interesting too. I would just caution lying to yourself about your motivations for wanting to start a new language and/or drop your current language.
Your title is the difference between a TRUE polyglot and Xiaomax.
I focused on Chinese and only Chinese at first to learn how I best learn languages. Once I figured out the resource types and techniques that work for me, I started applying it to other languages. I'm an explorer, a dabbler. I'm still studying Chinese at the intermediate level, and I find working on a new language helps me understand things I was struggling with in my other languages.
Personally I think learning Mandarin is the worst choice. Don't get me wrong, I am married to a Chinese person and have been too China too many time to remember. My best friend lives in China. But Chinese government is brutal repressive authoritarian regime, full of ever increasing censorship, militant nationalism, relentless political persecutions etc. Ask yourself, would you be learning German in the 1930s as the Nazi power was growing? I would not. I picked my 3rd fluent language to be Japanese and have since visited Japan for extended periods 4-6 time a year. Do that, and you will see the difference.
@@johns4651 What the hell does learning a language have to do with the political situation in one of the countries itâs spoken? The only problem I see there is that the input content from the last 100 years is heavily framed ideologically. That does not involve Chinese classics, and also not Taiwanese media. I donât see your point to be frank.
@@johns4651 So you're married to a Chinese, despite the militant nationalism? Shame on you.
@@johns4651 The U.S. is actively arresting student protestors, so by your logic, no one should ever learn English.
â@@SuhnikRight, I completely agree.
Personally I want to be good in about 4 other languages (other than my native language) I think learning 4 languages is the perfect balance, where you can achieve a high level in all languages while also having variety. If you learn too many languages than your most likely going to speak alot of them at a fairly low level and if you only focus on one it could possibly get stale.
you have a very engaging and interesting delivery Steve, keeps us going đ
You're the most sensible person to talk about language learning! Thank you!
I'm not a polyglot since I only speak 3 languages fluently, but in my small experience I had some of those effects too: studying a language improves the others, it even improves my native one!
Also, once I reached B2, I completely stopped studying the language and now I just focus on using it.
The goal is to reach B2. Once you get there, you got the language. From there it's just a matter of keeping it alive and thriving by using it
I absolutely agree. As soon as you can read books and understand films, podcasts etc. you can train the language without studying vocs or grammar much.
Steve, it's off-top but I know you were a diplomat. Could you make a video about becoming, being one? I'd be interested in your honest opinion about this kind of job and what are the pros and cons of it, skills necessary, etc. It is connected with languages of course so I guess there are more ppl who would love to listen a bit about your career and thoughts on that.
up
You talk logically! That's great! Thank you! đ
Thank you for this video.
Great advice!
Language learning is such a personal thing, and people all have their own reasons for language learning. I'm more of the "really proficient in a few languages" person, but that's just more of a personal preference. Right now, my focus is on Russian (in which I'm at probably a B1 level), and Korean (which I've just started dabbling in). My Spanish is not my focus now, but I bet after a bit of time, I can get it back to my previous (pretty fluent) level. And my Japanese- I kinda stalled out on that one!
And the relationship between Korean and Japanese is probably best described as moderately high-hanging fruit!
Great video, as always Steve!
Great topic, Steve! I sometimes struggle with wanting to learn so many languages that I end up not learning much in any of them. I'm currently focusing on studying three languages (Egyptian Arabic, Korean, & Russian) as I want to make the biggest advancements in these languages, while letting the other languages I know (French & Spanish) sit on the sidelines. It's tough trying to decide what to focus on, but ultimately it's important to do so for an over-thinker like me. If I don't decide and stick with something now, I won't get anything done. Even three languages at once can be a lot đ„ČI can always pivot in the future but the important thing is to just focus on SOMETHING now. Like you said, the answer to this question completely depends on one's unique circumstances, goals, and motivations - I personally want to speak a few core languages at a B2 level or higher as well as explore other languages in the future.
ĐŁĐŽĐ°ŃĐž Ń ĐžĐ·ŃŃĐ”ĐœĐžĐ”ĐŒ ŃŃŃŃĐșĐŸĐłĐŸ
Great tips!
Thanks so much dear!
Really great points. At the moment, I'm only focused on two languages, although I have gone through where I have learned multiple as well. Like you said, enjoy the process!!!
Steve is amazing!
I study English, French and German at the same time, because I can get more motivated like that.
Very understandable. It is much easier to stay motivated with multiple languages than just one.
I'm learning spainsh, but I work a little bit on italian on the side, then I'm messing with another small language, but just to read/understand it since its simlar to romance and germanic languages, but harder to speak. I mostly like that it's easier to understand vs larger languages (doesn't have 100s of verbs to remember for example like spanish). With my italian my spanish is kind of carrying it, I only put in maybe 15 mins in italian on average, but the more spanish I learn the easier italian gets. I'd like to learn most of the romance languages, probably german and dutch too. What is your native language?
â@@thetightwadhomesteader3089 My mother tongue is Portuguese, I'd like to learn Spanish too, but learning two Latin languages at the same time is a little difficult because you can confuse them, they're very similar. I want to master French first and then learn Spanish.
@@MarcosAguiar-br awesome, I hope to learn it some day too. So far I haven't gotten mixed up on them, maybe a few words here and there. What I like to do is think of spainsh words, sentences, phrases and translate in over to italian. That way I know the differences or simlaitary and remember which language it is. The grammer being simlar helps a lot too with learning italian.
I'm sure if I cut italian it would speed up my spanish a littlemore, but I get burnt out on spainsh sometimes and messing around with another language keeps it fun and keeps me in the same mindset. Plus if spainsh is helping with italian, it might work the other way around too.
â@@thetightwadhomesteader3089
Awesome! I speak Spanish as native language but I'm trying to learn English and use what I already know as much as I can. I believe I've reached a reasonable level such that I can now move on to other languages. I'm happy because I started learning French and it is indeed interesting how there are words in French whose meaning I can guess either because it's similar to a word in Spanish or to a word in English! So it's just fun to learn French. :))
It's hard for me to say whether I'm focused on English or French because I use English pretty much all the time but when I try to focus on studying a language, I tend to choose French although I think I should choose English for the sake of learning as much as I can before some important exam I have to perform soon.
Anyway, I think it's interesting although somewhat hard to learn different languages at the same time while also focusing on just one enough to get to a reasonable level of it. :)
It's very interesting!
Thank you very much.
Excelling video! Five stars! Every student is different, so each viewer will get different ideas from this video, but everyone will get some good ideas.
Most respected Steve Sir! You are the very first one I found on jforrest channel and I stoped searching over there.
At that specific time I comment for you and your host and on 10th of April 2024, my daughter Minahil's interview went on air from that channel. Sir ! people like you are the assets for us and when we need motivation and inner strength to meet the target , you will be there in shape of your priceless advices. May you live long
love the increased production values :)
Vagabonding hitchhiking bro Steve you're a Legend man thank you.
Depends on how good⊠If itâs like a good B1 or even B2 level Iâd definitely choose good in many like Chinese, Arabian, Japanese and so on
It's not easy to reach B2 level in a new language, it takes alot of effort
@introboy1 Yup, not mentioning C1 or so, I've been studying german for a while, now I'm doing B2 course, I always find new vocabularies and grammer issues, it's never been easy.
@@YuserAlhaj thanks captain đšââïž like we still donât understand thatđ€Šđ»ââïž
Arabic*
â@@rahmaomar4119I started learning Arabic and English at the same time. but dulingo Arabic course is weird in some aspects. repitition , translation and content everything ,buut I m not going to quit because it keeps me intouched with the learning process. dolingo should modify its lessons, I need so
I've used to focus on Japanese for many years, before I became quite comfortable. Then I've noticed I'm not really improving anymore, and decided to try Mandarin. I've learned it for several years but have never become with with it as good as I was with Japanese.
Then I've suddenly become bored and started to explore different Asian languages, up to a couple of months for each of them.
I've found Indonesian and Turkish relatively easy, but Hindi, Korean and especially Thai hard.
Imo, if learning languages is your hobby, you should just do whatever you want and/or whatever works for you. What I do is try to reach a B2 level before starting a new language, because that's what works for me, but I know people who study 4-5 languages concomitantly and it works for them... If you're enjoying the process, you'll be fine
Ong, just have fun
I'm a bit older than Steve, with different history and goals. I never lived outside the US or used a foreign language for work or family. My goal is a B2 level of input (understanding what I hear and read). I can't afford tutors (even iTalki ones), so my speaking won't get beyond A2. Currently my input level is B2 in Spanish and B1/2 in French. I am studying Mandarin (B1), Turkish (A2), and Japanese (A1/A2). I studied a little Korean (A1).
Just fo more input, you'll get better at speaking eventually.
Even with eng, it took you years as a child to get good at it right?
Just keep going brother, you got it
@tedc đđđ
Great ! you can definitely achieve your goal.
Thanks so much for your words Mr.Ted. Quite inspiring. You've definitely motivated me. Good luck with your studies! đȘđŒđđŒ
@@mingyu9092 đ
You nailed it. My experience. Basic language is English, born in the US. I can speak in different dialects because I moved around as a kid. Had to learn an eastern European language because grandma never spoke English. My father, born in Mississippi, taught me how to write in old German script. If I had stayed an extra six months in school, I would also have a degree in German, but I don't use the language anymore.
Learned some Japanese. Imagine eating a cafe in rural seacoast Portugal and having a conversation in broken Spanish and Japense with a fisherman!
The girl friend is French. Tomorrow afternoon is a small French conversation class at the public library. Every day is flash cards and Duolingo.
The all time experience was visiting the late wife's relatives in the hills of Sicily. I conversed for four hours. Everyone once in a while, I would stop because I didn't know the word. Afterwards, I asked my wife what language I was speaking - Spanish. But why? Because the relative had lived in Venezuela for 8 years. When you are under pressure, you speak.
A relative came from the hills of Sicily at age 18. Didn't speak English. A 5 year old female was attached to him and she accompanied him everywhere, speaking in English. He speaks English very well. The girlfriend had studied English in France. She came to the US in her 20s. She watched re-runs of I Love Lucy. Speaks French, English, fluent Spanish (worked for an airline), and some Italian.
I choose to stick with one at a time. I usually learn languages to connect with a certain group of people and want to be as good at that language as I can be. I like learning about other languages, but I don't spend time learning more than basic grammar points.
A very interesting video. Many thanks. I can only speak about western and northern Europe but in my experience one doesn't have to go far without the language, culture and food changing. However we have a shared history and therefore you can't get a handle on one country's history without considering what has happening to their neighbours at the same time. A knowledge of just one language still opens up other languages in the region because of the shared linguistic history. So if you are curious, it is very natural to want to understand other languages at a basic level. Also, a basic knowledge helps a lot when you are off the tourist trail trying to read a menu, dealing with native speakers who don't realise you are not a local or during encounters with other tourists who don't speak your native language. The more you know the more enjoyable the experience.
Whatever you put endeavor, interest and motivation are the most important thing~ i totally agree him
I like what you said about this topic. Languages are fascinating to me though Iâm not very talented to learn them properly.
Very interesting, thank you
I like reading stories written in their native languages. You can really see the weird limitations English has when you compare the translation to the original.
You talking about language but me I'm enjoye the way how speak English that's making me feel good and improving my skills to be so more fluent in English language more thanks for you and we nees also author more useful way to keep better and better and to keep improving
I realize that your ideas about learning languages can apply to my other learning skills.
That's a very interesting question. I always think that we have to choice only some languages to master, because we don't have all the time to learn better a lot languages.
Sir, I am following you from 3 months.
Where i work there are many nationalities mostly polish and romanian. So I started to learn to greet in these two languages which made them be very happy. So i started to learn to greet all the other languages at work. Now I can greet in more than 35 languages and proceed to learn more on Romanian and Spanish
I love this guy
I have focused on Spanish but I had 3 years of French in college but that was decades ago and I have had no exposure to French over the years so consequently I have forgot nearly everything I learned in French. I have thought I would like to take up French again but I have not done so yet. I have thought too about Portuguese but I am afraid I might get it confused with Spanish. I try to keep up with Spanish as much as possible by watching CZcams and also Facebook and some reading but I donât speak either anyone. I do speak to myself and I read aloud. I am very isolated, retired and living alone.
Never give up!
Knowing multiple languages gives versatility. More people to connect with. A person starts seeing patterns amongst languages. Sometimes our society indirectly competes with languages. People get criticized for mistakes more than those who do not speak at all. I have perceived that at times in my life. My personal experience, very little. Others, a little more.
Hi Steve, would you consider yourself B2 if you can watch films, stand-up comedy and series without subtitles, listening to podcasts and music, reading books on psychology, astrophysics, philosophy and understanding let's say 98% of it, guessing the words you don't know by context ? Also when speaking, forgetting a couple words here and there from time to time, but still being able to hold a conversation for an hour with a native and talk about any subjects, would you consider this to be B2 or fluent ?
Thanks in advance, great video as always !
I would say that's C1 and fluent
Fluency is topic-specific. You can be pretty fluent while talking about philosophy but unable to produce a text typically expected from a B2 user in any other topic. Even native speakers are not fluent in every subject, but general fluency is achieved at a B1/B2 level
Hey Steve, looking forward to your Hindi journey as Iâm learning Hindi also and my name is also Steve :D
That's very fortunate. I studied Japanese in college and spoke it pretty fluently (albeit at only a roughly B2 level) when I graduated but I'm not sure I'd even be at an A2 now. It's the strangest thing seeing some papers I wrote for my Japanese classes that I can only partially decipher now through the kanji thanks to the many years I've spent in Taiwan.
ć€èŹäœ æąæèŠăïŒăăăăšăă
ŰčۧÙÛ ŰšÙŰŻ . ŰźÛÙÛ Ù Ù ÙÙÙÙ
I think there are differences between pursuing language as a tool and pursuing it for cultural immersion. It's very easy to bring your level up to the degree that you can use it for some specific purposes, whatever those may be, typically some interaction with another person in some circumstance. That can be satisfying and a good investment of time whereafter you only really improve a small amount here and there as you use the language in those situations. Bringing it to the level you can engage with the culture meaningfully and with high understanding is much more difficult and frustrating, and if you are not living your life in that language and using it as a tool every day, can be a really tremendously poor use of time; eg where we might find ourselves as hobbiest learners now hoping to get to these upper levels of fluency and competance. I have found this climb through b1 b2 to be tremendously difficult and only occasionally rewarding, and as a tool I still really only an email once a month, a feat I could do without effort at a2 when I was not even considering learning the language to a high level seriously if life circumstances did not put me in the country it is spoken.
If someone builds more passive vocabulary, in other words input, compared to active, also known as output, that is very helpful in expanding knowledge of a language.
Hi
I would like to learn french, this is my third language. Do you think I should learn french in my first language or in English (my second language), I'm thinking of learning it by english so as to improve my english too.
I wish I was better in each, but I really like to understand how various languages work.
I thought Korean would be low hanging fruit after studying Japanese (but not Chinese) too. It wasn't. That was about 5 years ago. I'm plugging along thanks to sheer stubbornness and it's slow but getting better. For the longest time I couldn't see the progress but since my 3 week trip to Korea a year and a half ago I did start to see some slow progress again. Finally. I'm going back to Seoul in a month and I'm very excited to see how much I've improved. I think I will cry if I can't notice an improvement. I am going back to the same language school and I hope they don't put me back in the same level again đđ
I'm experiencing the same thing! I'm fluent in Japanese and live there and I underestimated korean. I attended classes once a week for a couple of years in korean which helped me become comfortable with pronunciation and basic grammar. But during covid classes stopped and so did my motivation. I'm really struggling with it now, but I just came back from Seoul and I somehow got by so my motivation has been rekindled!
i have been learning many languages slowly because i don't know if a language will be useful to me or not in the future .some languages that i thought would be useful like Indonesian or Persian haven't been useful for me yet .but others that i didn't expect to be useful like Khmer or Albanian have been useful because of very random unpredictable events but my khmer is still very bad .sometimes learning certain languages is easier or harder for me for reasons i don't understand. like i made a lot of progress in Hungarian considering i don't study much and its considered hard but my Greek is horrible despite it being considered easier and i started learning it 1 year earlier.
Yes, for those who don't speak English as their first language, it's beneficial to focus on mastering it. Aiming for a C1 level would be ideal to become effective and clear communicators. English is widely spoken globally and serves as the lingua franca, making it incredibly useful for international interactions.
My situation is pretty odd , because I started and learned English , Spanish , french and Italian in a language school đ« . I finished the course language but the institute just offered up till B2 level and then I went on studying on my own at home and I feel pretty confident to say that I've attained c1 in all of the languages I have learnt. Now I am totally focused on learning German on my on . However the beginning it is always the worst part once u still have a very tiny vocabulary đ . But I won't give up on it because my goal is to be able to speak the five world's most important languages in the world đđ
6:38 I agree Korean is much harder than Japanese. I could have daily conversations in Japanese after six months of studies. So I thought I would learn Korean quickly but the Korean grammar and especially pronunciation is much harder! Japanese pronunciation is easy and all sounds are distinctly different and sounds clear. Speaking Japanese felt very natural to me. But Korean has many similar sounds and the pronunciation varies depending on the syllable order.
I always made myself understood in Japan from day one but in Korean I was often discouraged cause people couldn't understand me. But these days, I'm finally improving my Korean.
Some say it dependends on which language you Learn first but I find Korean harder because of the following reasons:
----------------------------------
Object particle:
Japanese: always ă
Korean: ì or ë„Œ
Subject particle:
Japanese: always ă
Korean: ìŽ or ê°
Topic particle:
Japanese: always ăŻ
Koresan: ë or ì
These can often be omitted so they aren't that much of a problem. But other features are harder:
-----------------------------------
Normal polite form:
Korean: -ìŽì or ìì (íŽì)
Then, commonly used honorific level (íìžì) and deferential levels (í©ëë€)+ some even more polite + humble levels.
Japanese: we can usually always use -ăăŸă (ăăŸă)
With just a few honorifics
(ăȘăăăŸă)and humble verbs (ăăăăŸă).
-----------------------------------
Perhaps the Japanese ăŠ- form is the exception where there are about 5 options (ăŠ, ăŁăŠ, ăăŠ, ăă§, ăăŠ) while only 2 (ìŽ/ì) or even 1 ("and"/êł ) in Korean.
-----------------------------------
The hardest for me is when features/connectives to a verb varies depending on if the word ends with a vowel or consonant as is so common in Korean.
-----------------------------------
About the pronunciation: Japanese is virtually always pronounced as it's written while Korean sometimes isn't( ì°ëœ= ìŽëœ).
-----------------------------------
One more annoying thing: if I learn "clothes" is ì· "o", it's hard to understand when it sounds like "osun" ì·ì or ì·ìŽ "oshi" or "osul" ì·ì depending on how it's used.
Korean has so many "soft"/silent ending consonants that are only pronounced when combines with other particles/words.
-----------------------------------
Well, compared to German or French grammar, Korean and Japanese are both easy and at least Korean doesn't use Chinese characters.
I've been struggling with this one. I'm pretty good at Spanish and have been wondering if I should keep focusing on it 100% or start learning French. I finally decided to start learning French along with Spanish.
Maybe you'd like to try language stacking? Learning French through resources intended for native Spanish speakers? Basically learn French through Spanish. I'm currently looking for resources to try this with Korean for Italian speakers and Spanish for Turkish speakers.
@@SuperTikes Iâm considering this. I thought about switching apps like Speakly and Duolingo into Spanish as the native language and French as the learning language. I had not thought of other resources like books though, that is a great suggestion.
Thanks for your advice. I was kind of thinking about leaving some of the languages I've learned previously for good, like Turkish and Italian, because I don't need them in everyday life. And now I think, why leave them if there are no limits?
I can only see someone only choosing one language if it's related to their career or if only that one language interests them. To me, learning many languages not only helps scratch those itches us language learners have, but it opens up more and more parts of the world for you. Being able to speak a country's language even to a basic degree, makes traveling more enriching and convenient. When I visit other countries, I also tend to come by foreigners who speak languages I've learned in the past! For example, I've spoken Japanese in Taiwan, Chinese in Peru, Spanish & Polish in the US, etc.
After 10 years since I started my first language, I think I officially prefer getting to a high A2 to a low B1 level before I start inserting my next language. I tend to stop actively learning a language when I reach the plateau at an almost B2 level. This is because I usually am not able to spend enough time in a country to solidify a high B2-C1 level. I know the languages and countries I want to visit and don't want to waste too much time on only one language/country, it can become boring and demotivating. I know I can always dip back into those languages in the future. Trust me, I'm always surprised how much I can still speak a language like Mandarin, which I haven't studied in 4 years. Once I start speaking with someone or listen to music, or watch TV in those languages, words I haven't used in years start coming back to me! It takes time for words to truly solidify in your brain. This is why even though Spanish is more fresh on my mind and probably better than my Chinese, it's still usually easier for me to speak Chinese as I studied it 3 years in university, while I've only been actively studying Spanish for like 10 months...
Also, listening to music in your target language is underrated imo
It's not even comparable imo. Investing all the time I devote to language learning to only one language feels to me almost like travelling again and again to one single place, or peaking one food to eat every day or listening to one and only song on repeat. It misses the point. That being said, I admit it's fascinating as an observer to see the fluency people naturally achieve when they focus all their energy and time in one language. I admire that!
I'm learning spainsh, then a little Italian on the side. I find that learning spainsh is helping passively with italian and I can understand a tiny bit in other romance languages as well the more I learn. Spainsh will be the main language I focus on, but I'd like to learn the majority of the romance languages too. I think in my case it will only make my spanish better, that is the cool part about having so many languages similar to one another. Italian, spainsh, portuguese, catalan, galician etc...I'd include French but that is really hard imo, it's last on my list if I do decide to learn it lol. Edit: Romanian too, but im interested in it since it would have such a different culture compared to the others.
For those learning Spanish, Mr Salas is a channel here in CZcams where Mr Salas shares tips to learn languages. As far as I know, he knows English, German, Japanese, French and obviously Spanish.
It might be helpful for you to practice your listening in Spanish while learning how to learn a language on your own. ;)
Thanks for another interesting video, Steve. :)
The internet age has made language study so much easier that if you're not focussed on one language you may be pulled this way and that by different languages and never be any good at any of them. What do you think of the videos that offer to teach you a language ' while you sleep '? I've watched a few and found them to be a good source of phrases and vocabulary. I've never left one running overnight.
I don't think it works. We need our sleep.
Iâve been back and forth with Spanish and French for two years . I decided to stick with Spanish for the last year and a half and I find myself constantly hitting a dead end . I feel like my experience with French was more fun and easier especially if I applied the same learning principles as I did with Spanish. I feel like going back to French because of the experience I had with it . I donât know :(
Great content as usual sir,ty so much!I had a question to ask u:At what age u started learning languages?
His first was French, which I believe he learned in his early 20s.
Look up a video by him called "how I learned french"
It's also worth mentioning that knowinl language as good as you can and professional fluency (the ability to work proficiently in your target language within your field of expertise) are not the same. Many of my colleagues at work speak with accents or make grammatical mistakes, but this doesn't prevent them from having successful careers.
The Pareto principle, also called the 80-20 rule applies. 80 percent of your gains come in the first 20 percent of the time. So, 200 hours of language input will get you 80 percent of what 1000 hours will do.
So, letâs say youâve done 500 hours of language. You could do 2000 more hours to go from 80 percent of your goal to 100 percent OR you could bring four other languages to a basic level.
You can see this with vocabulary. After leaning the first 2000 most frequent vocabulary words, you have, say, 90 percent of the vocabulary you would encounter in an average week. But to get another 9 percent, you would have to learn lots of very uncommon words, say 10,000 words. And you would spend much more time for much less benefit.
I think youâll should get your first second language up to easy fluency, where you enjoy watching a movie or reading a book in that target language and forget that itâs another language.
Then learn another one. You donât need to go as far with this one. This is because you know the end goal and how to get there and how it feels. You can judge whether itâs worth it time. Go for the many languages if there is no obvious target language to learn.
It's like traveling - I've only spent a couple of days in Finland, I didn't see every street of every city, I didn't get permanent residence...but it was still a nice experience.
Same thing with language learning, dabbling isn't any better or worse than studying for 20 years to become a quasi-native speaker.
Your life seems so very interesting. I wish I could get paid to learn Portuguese in Brazil. Or even visit Brazil.. living there is a long long distant dream:')
I like to learn two at the same time.
Be fluent in them all!
Im currently studying french, korean and madarin
For me, let's say if I could speak 2 languages at B2 upwards or 4 at B1...... I would choose 2 at B2 upwards... I respect anyone that gets to a B1 in any language if it be their only one. B1 IS A SOLID level. I think that it is important to keep in mind that Language learning is not 1 size fits all. I have Friends who were taught 3 languages in childhood and near on speak 3 languages at C2 level. My Friend for instance has a Norwegian Dad and a Swedesh Mum but grew up in Chile from about the age of 13.
8:01 Here with "my shirt tails are hanging out" it's almost like I hear the clumsiness but still can't quite point a finger at what's exactly makes it sound that way. Inputs are much appreciated!
I think one can have a good level of passive understanding, especially reading, in a much shorter time than getting to a similar level in other areas. I can read books in Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Ancient and Modern Greek, and Latin, but I can only speak and write in German, French, Italian, English, and Chinese (speaking in Modern Mandarin, and writing in Classical Chinese). Currently I feel that I only have the motivation of learning to speak and write Russian, and am quite happy to leave my other âunfinishedâ languages as they are, since it is the Russian authors who fascinate me now. I sincerely donât think I will ever start a new language, because I believe you can only understand one or two great civilisations. All my languages, with the noticeable exception of Chinese, are European languages and belong more or less to one Kulturraum. Since these are the greatest languages of European civilisation, it is not of much use then to spend time on learning minor languages such as Czech or Polish, unless one day, by any chance, I may have something personal to do with those countries. Useless also of learning Japanese or Korean, since the historical works of these countries are written in Classical Chinese, and I am not that interested in modern Japan or Korea. I doubt if I will ever have the energy to undertake the arduous task of an Indian or a Semitic language, though I am being increasingly drawn to these civilisations.
Another great video from Steve. I would just add one point. Don't be monolingual! Do you know of monolingual English speakers who learn 10 languages but none above A2 level? How about learning 5 languages instead of 10, if you're so passionate about languages, but getting one out of those 5 to B2 level so that you are fluent in two rather than just one (your own) language. I get the impression that the people who learn many languages but can't get to an even medium level in one, lack discipline or are unsure of what they want (become bored quickly). Here's my piece of advice: become bilingual and then after that, do whatever you want and learn as many languages as you like to the level of your choosing.
Thanks for the video.
Also thank you for the Ukrainian flag and embroidery on the background from a Ukrainian who is now reasonably good in English and learning German.
I know 3 foreign languages very well (in the C2 ballpark) , that is French, Spanish and German and I have one language that is up-and-coming and being actively worked on, currently at a B1 level, that is the language of my ancestors, Hungarian. Itâs definitely a matter of taste and meeting oneâs own goals! Personally, I find it unsatisfactory to speak a language at less than a C1 level. I would not call the B2 level âfluentâ, though most people who are into âcollectingâ languages do. My observation, having known many people at the B2 level in my different languages, is that B2 is the âcan stumble by on most topicsâ level⊠with limited vocabulary and lots of mistakes. Yes a B2 speaker can make themselves understood, but I personally would not call them fluent. I also like to keep all of my languages active so I can immediately use any of them on the spot if called on to do so. Naturally with these standards and only so much time in the day, Iâve already got my full compliment of languages in my life, and will firmly avoid any temptation to go for any others!!! (beyond picking up a few basics for travel purposes, which is always fun). But as they say different strokes for different folksâ!
A B2 person is someone who is able to converse about most subjects without too much trouble (obviously excluding very technical subjects). They are able to actually (or potentially) live alone in the country where that language is spoken and be able to do pretty much everything like go to the doctor, call up a tradesman to fix a problem at their home, write a letter, make a phone call etc. all without the assistance of a translator. That is fluency but it will still be far short of mastering a language. Fluency just means feeling quite comfortable speaking a language. To me what you are describing sounds more like a B1 level - ie. can only just get by, but still very shaky. Speaking at B2 level is not unsatisfactory (although I understand if that may be the case for you personally). Most immigrants to a country never get past a B2 level and cope just fine in their adoptive homeland. To get to a C1 level requires a high degree of skill which most people who aren't gifted in language learning don't have and will never manage to acquire. B2 is fluent and fine, unless it's your own native language which you are only able to speak at the level of a B2 speaker - then you have a bit of a problem.
Multiple languages is built into my two hour per day study approach. I've been "studying" 40 languages over the past four years. But because I have some background in four languages, the vast majority of my time is on those four. I don't consider the other 36 language learning so much as just getting a small degree of familiarity with what the language feels like, knowing a few words and phrases. Some I barely know the script or alphabet for. I enjoy this approach and I'm not super concerned with achieving eventual conversational level proficiency beyond those four. I've had varying degrees of very simple conversations in my core four languages (French, ASL, German, Spanish), so I'm pleased with the progress on those.
Spending any amount of time on multiple languages as I choose to do is certainly not for everyone; it's just how I enjoy this hobby. My retention is fair, but would of course be better if I only focused on one at a time and kept up some review as I went.
I've got relatives and friends living in the UK and British relatives. When I started to focus on British English, just to not sound like a stranger among my relatives. I heard some colleagues saying I was arrogant because I chose to speak British English. Unfortunately, people prefer to judge instead of seek the truth.
They sound like turds. I'm American and can say some Americans have an irrational dislike of British English. I think it comes from Americans believing Brits look down on American English as a bastardization of their language. Don't know for sure though. But do your thing and speak English however you want :) your family is most important
Iâm more a focused learner. I have been learning Korean for nine years now, and I am not interested in learning another language. Never have been. I don't think I could put as much energy into it as I did with Korean. đđđ
For someone who speaks English and Spanish very well, French really does becomes a low-hanging fruit. Almost all of French has either an English or Spanish reference, in either the grammar, the phrases, or the words themselves.
I flip flop between dedicating myself entirely to Spanish or branching out and adding French, Italian, and Portuguese to my collection. Living in Spain, I feel my first priority is to speak Spanish as well as I can, but every few months, I find myself studying another. It's a difficult decision, and in the end, I have high hopes of speaking all of those languages at at least a B1 level.
I'm a bookworm. My aunt once asked me how much do I remember of what I read. I replied that I remember more than I would if I didn't read at all. Same with language study or any study. Something is better than nothing.
Hi đ Iâm learning and I have one question. The question is: if I watch podcasts without translating, just watching. Is it useful or useless
Thanks for answer
I'm okay with a B2 level in all of them.
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I have been plateaued at B1 in Spanish it seems like forever. I want to become completely fluent to the point I could work in a Spanish speaking position. I am becoming discouraged and feel it will never happen. How do you get past these times of feeling discouraged?
If you are a non native English speaker aspiring to be a "polyglot", you definitely need to be almost perfect in English for anyone to take you seriously.
English is the only language that really counts, being lingua franca of the world and the language of đșđž.
What I'd still like clarity on is , do we study one language at a time and how do we do that without forgetting the other languages we have studied upbto that point?
I tried something very unusual that seemed to make other people angry at me. I studied Hebrew as a silent language like a deaf person would study a language without trying to say the words. I would look at the words and then just translate them to English without ever saying the words in Hebrew. I was trying to study Biblical Hebrew, so I learned some things, but after many years I really didn't know Hebrew in a normal way. I can recognize words and grammar things, but now I think it was a bad idea to do this. When I told other people on the internet, they seemed to put me down for it as if I was not actually studying the language at all.
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Do whatever you want to.
Hey Steve! How are you.. Hope that you are fine..
I would like to do an interview with you. I am from Pakistan.
I don't know Steve, but I honestly think that by trying to learn so many languages I would become a jack of all trades but a master of none, spreading myself too thin. On the other hand, if everyone felt the same way, the only languages people would learn for practical reasons would be either English or Spanish, and maybe French and Mandarin Chinese. The 4 most widespread languages. A very dull and narrow minded world indeed.
Learning Mandarin in Hong Kong is like learning Spanish in California. But there are some advantages to the fact the written language and grammar is practically identical for Cantonese and Mandarin.
Edit: Cantonese uses traditional characters like Taiwanese Mandarin. Mainland Mandarin uses simplified characters. I was speaking of the slight differences between written traditional Mandarin and written Cantonese, which exist to a lesser degree.