Hey guys, This is a complicated topic and I could easily do a three hour video on it and still not reperesent my views entirely on it. To summarise: 1. Try as I might, I am never going to be able to be completely neutral on this. I make money from this channel and related things, and I am friends with various other language content creators, all of whom also make money. 2. People have different lines on where it stops being "making honest profit" and starts being "scamming". I'm not saying that making money or even making a LOT of money from stuff is inherently bad. Making money from saying something untrue is bad. I have turned down VERY lucrative offers from sponsors (both LL brands and other brands) because I simply wasn't willing to spout the garbage that they told me to say. This doesn't make me a saint, I am just not comfortable with it. 3. The pattern of wanting to make money in what I consider a "scammy" way is much more to do with the person than it is to do with the method. When I mentioned Khatzumoto in this video, I said "prophet p-h-", referring ONLY to the fact that it's the methodology that Matt vs Japan adopted. However it is fairly acknowledged by a lot of people in the Japanese community that Khatzumoto didn't offer much value for the products or services he sold and that he may have even full on stolen money from a few unfortunate people. I simply wasn't addressing this in my video, I wasn't suggesting that Khats is all good in my books. 4. Same goes for Matt. I am not addressing Matt's monetisation (which in my opinion, is perfectly fair anyway, and he gave me an AWFUL lot of value before I ever gave him a cent). I was only addressing the results. What he did worked, and that's all I was saying. 5. Yes, I know Krashen doesn't make anything from us watching Netflix. But I felt that in order to be fair, I should make a very quick reference to the stuff that Christian was getting at which is that Krashen has charged schools in the US high hourly rates for consulting sessions. Personally I don't really know enough about this and I'm sort of regretting putting that bit in, but please just acknowledge that I am trying to cover as many sides as I can. Wasn't trying to smear Krashen, wasn't trying to laud him, and the same with Matt, Olly, Christian or The Joker. I'm just calling it how I see it. I am not here to plug anything or anyone and I am not saying anyone is perfect. Please be nice to each other in the comments.
Overall, I think it's still a well made video. You explained a lot of stuff quite well and tried to consider everyone's side of the story. Props to you Lamont!
Christian was throwing mud at 'input hypothesis' people in general, slandering them all as scammers, and his getting you to explain second-hand that he was only referring to Stephen Krashen is not good. He should make a video naming people he thinks are scamming if that is what he does think, rather than throwing mud and not caring who it is sticking to. Just like you had the guts to name Khatzumoto, Christian should name who he is talking about, rather than doing it via a PM to somebody else.
@@stevencarr4002 I just want to make it clear that Christian didn't ask me to put it in. In fact, I told him that I would make an amendment and he said that I shouldn't for this very reason (interfering with my objectivity is how he put it) but I said that I wanted to since the whole video was essentially predicated on Christian calling people scammers, and it turned out he wasn't doing that the way I thought he was. His video was unclear but I felt it was only add to the confusion if I had not included the amendment.
I thought the bit about Krashen was good in a devil's advocate kind of way. The one guy who stands to make lots of money is him, and on the whole he hasn't really.
Don't you get DuckDuckGo in Australia? Canguru English is the registered trademark of Fluentify, a company offering private language tuition at about 30 pounds per hour. Christian is under no obligation, legal or moral, to say how much he got to let Fluentify use the name of his channel. And it is not a crime to monetize a CZcams channel. That's kind of the point. But frankly it stinks that Christian's video never disclosed his links to a commercial tuition company, while he was calling other methods 'bullshit' and calling them 'false prophets'. Contrast that with Lamont's full disclosure that he is on Italki. If you sold 'Days of French and Swedish' to Duolingo, (an unlikely scenario), I think you would mention that if you made a video reviewing non-Duolingo products.
When you mentioned Krashen and him vehemently defending his hypothesis, you have to consider that he initially believed in studying grammar and practice. He even has a PhD in grammar he likes it so much. His research was done initially in favor of grammar and practice. However, it was through his research that he uncovered what he now calls the Input Hypothesis. You can even catch him saying "we've tried everything else", mentioning things like traditional study, computers, practice, etc etc. Even if the Input Hypothesis isn't the whole story, just like Einstein's theory of relatively, it's pretty damn accurate.
As someone who spent years getting pulled in and eventually dragged into disappointment again and again by speak-early and classroom-study-style programs, I appreciate your passion when you talk about their taking advantage of desperate people who want to be able to speak a foreign language.
A class-room crash-course in German at the Goethe Institut in Freiburg helped me a lot to get from the level where I could read and understand almost any text, to being able to converse intelligently about almost any text, and to understand what they said on German radio-news (fast speech and surprising content), as an example of just listening comprehension, etc. On the other hand: I took a course in Russian at Folkuniversitet with a native highly educated Russian speaker as the teacher, but it was so disappointing that I left the latter part unattended. For me at that beginners level, a course with a bilingual teacher, had been much more effective, no matter what little accent could have been the case. Too much attention is paid to a slight level of foreign accent - with slight I mean, for example in English that one should clearly hear the difference between sh and ch, good and God, jet and yet, and the like. There should be an audible difference in intonation between a question and a statement. Grammar and vocabulary should also be errorless most of the time, but an occasional error doesn't cause the students to get stuck in the mistake. A foreign teacher of Swedish should be able to clearly produce the difference between a and å, o and ö, i and y, and the like. It wouldn't matter which sh-sound he had in sjuk or skön, as long as it doesn't sound the same as in tjuv and tjöt. But most importantly - a teacher should be able to arrange a learning situation that is inspiring and supports long term learning, and shows methods on how to keep up the students' studies in the long run. And a teacher should be able to explain the difficulties in a way that is easy for the students to understand, which is often a stumble stone for native teachers who haven't had the difficulty themselves. A little more than "that's how it is" would be helpful. Ideally a language lerner should have periods of learning the target language with both teachers who are native speakers and teachers who are not. That's how education in English is arranged at Lund University at the first levels - highly recommended! Lamont should become a Swedish and English teacher in Sweden! Thumbs up!
The problems with classroom style learning is that one, the class moves at the pace of its slowest student, and two, it's just very inefficient use of your time and money in terms of amount of stuff learned. You can hire a private language tutor online for hour sessions at just a fraction of the price, and can study things like vocab and grammar on your own time without a class.
That note about Krashen being so overly confident of his own theories really stuck out to me in his interview with Steve Kaufman where he claims to have gained native level German purely through reading and firmly stood by the claim that one could achieve native level in a language with reading alone. I think you can acquire a large vocabulary strictly through reading, sure, but there's no way you can actually reproduce the language at a native level (accent, intonation, pitch, etc.) without extensive listening. And plus, written language is very different from spoken language, especially in a language like Japanese, which has entirely different grammar and word usage in written vs. spoken language (文語・口語).
listening and reading has such a big effect on brain. I know from personal experience listening to Japanese and Chinese for 1 year (+learning basic grammar and phrases) and I could have a conversation without any speaking practice all of a sudden. From then it's worth doing some speaking practice to improve some mistakes Anyways I'm a big advocate of massive input with a small amount of book studying, hope you guys learn your desired languages also
Re Krashen trying to get rich on talking about input it should be noted that he gives away all his articles for free because academic journals can be prohibitive, and he always mentions that in his recent speaking engagements, so....
I've enjoyed every minute of this series, so thanks so much for all your hard work! I don't know how much money Krashen has made off his theory, but I do think he's rather dismissive of the possibility that input isn't the be all and end all. There's a video of Matt interviewing Krashen, where Matt explains that he agrees about the importance of input but has also found that, once he reached the level where he was ready to speak, the speaking practice did help him further improve his speaking skills, not least because it helped him identify gaps in his knowledge of the language. This seems pretty obvious to me and is in line with my own experience, but Krashen just kept saying: "Nope! Speaking doesn't help. Nothing else helps. The only thing that works is input."
I think you are right to make a distinction between Krashen's original hypothesis and the way that many of the current proponents actually study. The example of Matt speaking better Japanese that Khatzumoto is a great one.
@@AussieEnglishPodcast It does mock many promises on YT. But it is a really refreshing slogan, actually, because isn't that what we all do, in our mother-tongue? And some of us in second, third, and more languages, too.
@@DNA350ppm Yeah, precisely. The trouble is people today have less and less concentration spans and are trained by marketing NOT to delay gratification at all. They want everything NOW and they want it FAST. It seems crazy that we have to unlearn this condition in order to get significant results in anything we want to learn.
@@AussieEnglishPodcast Haha, when I read that post, I imagined the corrections to it in that mock Russian accent that Lamont did in his video: "shorter shorter, not less less concentration span," and "if they want NOW is redundant to say also they want FAST"
If I recall correctly Krashen makes his academic research available for free. I'm sure he's comfortable enough as a tenured academic but he's hardly going to be Jeff Bezos from promoting this hypothesis. Unless this Canguro guy has some specific allegations to level at him then it's a pretty pathetic and low tactic tbh.
I've pinned a comment. Christian linked me to like a website that looked like it'd be where you'd find someone's wisdom about how the Second World War never happened or something that claimed Krashen was ripping off school's by consulting at $240 an hour or something. I dunno - there are people who talk s*** about anyone. I had a Canadian guy claiming I don't speak a word of Swedish so...
@@daysandwords Even if true that fee is kind of what I'd expect a leading academic to charge. If you're an institution it's going to cost a few grand to hire someone like that. Lawyers, accountants IT consultants etc all this stuff costs money in the real world, what do people expect?
Just the fact that nearly every experienced polyglot is in the 'imput heavy' camp speaks volumes. Really the only way to notice patterns and speak overall more like a native.
One thing to keep in mind is that Christian is an English teacher. I’ve watched his videos and when he talks of learning a language, I have to remind myself he’s referring to English most of the time. I’m a native English and Chinese speaker, two diametrically opposed languages. And I’m learning Russian, yet another linguistically distant language. I’ve scoured the depths of the internet. I’ve bought online courses which did little or nothing. There is no one best method. There’s only the method that works for you. For me currently, that seems to be a combination of listening and conversation practice.
I totally agree with you however, I want to add one small opinion, I personally believe there are a few methods that are better than others but as a whole there is no one method works best, Like you said different people learn in different ways, so you need to find the way that suits you the best.
I definitely think there are a few methods that work well, and a lot of stuff that doesn’t work well. There are some big personal factors like, what are your goals and uses to the language, what resources do you have access to, what fits into your routine best and becomes a habit, and what motivates you to spend as much time in your TL as possible? The personal factors can often be the biggest, but you do have to find one of the genuinely effective methods that best works for your situation.
Where does he work as an English teacher, in a school in Australia or somewhere else? Does he teach English to non native English speakers or to native English speakers?
Hey Lamont, I'm not sure If you've gone deeper into these two guys (mat..something) and (k..something) processes. It would be great to listen from you about them. I mean...if you haven't done that yet....in that case, I would love to know where that video is :) thanks!
I saw the Canguro video a few days ago and was briefly doubting my own promotion of Input. I teach English to second language learners through the public library (for free!) and I see what the traditional style of teaching does to most students. They are very difficult to understand and getting them to pronounce words even close to accurately is quite a challenge. I push them constantly to listen and watch (and read even) as much Native English content as possible, but I don't think they do it. My one student I see every week has started to do it and his English has improved immensely. I agree with everything you said, except the diss of Krashen. I know you didn't mean it though. Thanks for putting these response videos together.
This isn’t entirely related but the little cartoon at 4:10 to help people remember the character 猫 is precisely the reason so many people struggle with learning Chinese characters IMO - they don’t engage at all with the actual logic of the characters themselves (which is admittedly harder to do with Japanese) and instead just make up random mnemonic devices on an individual character basis.
Swedish sinologue Cecilia Lindquist found out that her students learned the Chinese characters more easily, when she taught them about the history, the development, of the character from picture to written character. She does it beautifully in this book, the front cover of which illustrates her point. Her pedagogical point is clear and convincing, so I have applied it when teaching Swedish orthography, and it sure has helped. The history hasn't to be very detailed and it seems to suffice with examples. www.adlibris.com/se/bok/tecknens-rike-9789134508576
Yep, understanding components, radicals, and phonetics is the key to high level chinese. I know of people who have degrees or certificates in Chinese and can't use a dictionary because they don't understand radicals.
@@nobodyqwertyu insanity. And I bet even if they do understand radicals, many people still can't use dictionaries because they don't know how to properly count the number of strokes in a character, lol.
The guy who created AJATT, the method Matt used to learn japanese, sold Something called "the silverspoon" for a rediculous ammount of money. People generally consider that product a scam.
If I recall correctly, he did that and disappeared shortly after (possibly with people's money?) - and it was from there Matt started MIA, when that original AJATT community was left thinking wtf. I learned that history after the fact though, so I might not have the facts straight.
@@virtheon I'm sorry I don't really have the full story. Just pieces of the story from listening to videos made by JapanesefromZero and TkyoSam. Apparently Katsumoto charged several grand for a course in which he would tell you what to do every day, and hold your hand through immersion learning. He promised people could get a refund if they backed out in a certain ammount of time. He didn't pay people back their money and a lot of people didn't feel like they got their money's worth. He also apparently fled the country. Hopefully someone can give you more detailed answer.
I’ve enjoyed these three videos. Thanks. The discussion of ‘deliberate learning’ has been very interesting. For context, I work as an ESL teacher (and often times teacher trainer/mentor/syllabus designer, etc), and I’ve often advocated creating opportunities for encouraging reading and listening habits. I’m sure ‘deliberate learning’ has come up in my studies, but to see it contextualised here has been invaluable. I know that deliberate learning has been intuitively applied in my classrooms, but perhaps not intentionally (meaning while I was teaching, I wasn’t thinking ‘what my students are doing now is based on my knowledge of ‘deliberate learning’). As a language LEARNER, on brief immediate reflection, I’ve done this intuitively to an extent (again, not using ‘deliberate learning’ as a definition). I will reflect and learn more of the theory and apply it more directly over the next while to my studies and teaching. Many thanks.
These academic discussion in the language youtube community is what we need. I studied these theories for a year as a part of my degree and our teacher would always say, after we learn about each of those hypotheses, we really can't clearly state that they would certainly lead to fluency. Like it was said in the video for we to call a hypothesis a way that works on everyone it has to be applicable to all kinds of people. In our textbooks, we examined them with 16 criteria and even though there is not a single one that meets our standards, it's important for language professionals to be aware of them and be critical of them
See the prof who learned Arabic by comprehensible input? Everyone forgets one super important aspect... The motivation, self confidence, anxiety triangle and Krashen has mentioned this but everyone gets caught up on the input part.
Watching this series and part 2 especially made me realize you can do the immersion approach while still socializing somewhat with natives. All you need to do is to find, or more appropriately let yourself be found by, the sort of person who monopolizes the conversation and just let be themselves, the end result will still be 95% listening, with a some backchanneling and a few questions mixed between. Think of that Dogen skit with the old guy who approaches him in the train, this is most likely scenario that's gonna lead you to the perfect AJAT language partner. If this seems more entertaining to you than just watching netflix or reading a book go right ahead.
All three of these videos are highly interesting and informative! I was thrilled for all the food for thought. 1) Lamont, your Swedish doesn't suck. It is amazing! I think you will be able to be a Swedish teacher as soon as the pandemic is over. 2) What is the role of the student and what is the role of the teacher? A class-room context is not the optimal solution, but it is cost-effective for the one paying for it. A tutor can be worse. On how many variables does a good learning environment depend? 3) As far as I am aware modern views on how children learn their mother tongue state that it starts in the womb. Then the adapted speech mothers and fathers (an significant others) produce when speaking with babies is important, it is a simplified, repetitive, high pitch, soft, and encouraging communication, where lots of non-verbal props are crucial. A good teacher for adults keeps up their interest, provides a variety of materials and methods, supports students to both go their own ways, and test new approaches, in addition to the teacher giving feed-back about what is needed for the students to reach the students' goals. A mediocre teacher tries to get the student to do what the teacher is convenient with. A good teacher inspires and guides the student to reach the learning goals the student is motivated by, and perhaps a little bit more. 4) Second, third, fourth, fifth language learning is different from mother-tongue learning, and depends on when and where and what for. It can be emotional-intuitive with the right spouse, or it can rely heavily on logic and intellect, if these are one's strong points also otherwise, or any mixture of variables. Earlier learning experiences might have taught you how to learn. Vocab and structural patterns can overlap and support learning. 5) Everything is made harder for adult learners if one of the languages, mother-tongue and target language, is English. English is - I'm sorry to say it bluntly - is such a hotch-potch that it is one of the most difficult languages I've tried. Which illustrates the point that every language needs its own set of pedagogical methods. And I'd say every native English speaker tends to be a problem-student for his or her target-language-teacher, because the huge difficulty to explain and demonstrate how "it" works - nothing is stable, and where then to fix the lever? (But English is a good enough language to make Pidgin of, much better than Latin, so it has shown itself to be useful in this world as it is.) Thank you, Lamont, for honestly venting the conundrums!
I enjoyed this three-part series thoroughly. I, too, am shifting to the input hypothesis. My English is far from natural, but I get surprised when the censor and dictator in me disappear and English flows just okay. Thanks for this in-depth discussion.
I know the input hypothesis is true because I accidentally used it to learn English to a C2 level when I was in highschool. Being an angsty teenager that can only watch shows in English cause nothing gay enough is ever translated in Romanian has its benefits 🤷🏻♀️
I think another reason that the heavy output (or maybe one on one conversation) method plateaus much earlier than the heavy input method is that when people can tell you're not native / near native, they tend to grade their language. Often times they grade it a LOT. I've been studying Japanese 10 years now and Japanese people still automatically assume I can't follow long sentences or words that are based on kanji (Chinese) as opposed to English loan words. In addition to not really correcting my mistakes, I only get low level Japanese spoken to me, there's no way I'll ever get past what would be considered a bare minumum to have a basic conversation. This tendency to grade their language heavily when speaking to foreigners drove me nuts when I was living in Japan and I actually got angry at Japanese people in general because of it. Of course, grading your language is a bit of a skill - so you can seek out people that don't have it. If you're serious about learning that'll help you more than people who can grade their language because they'll unconsciously do it all the time. Of course, if you're at the government office trying to get your paperwork sorted, you definitely want someone who can grade their language helping you.
The scamming diet coach says..... You have to diet and excersize and it is really hard(hard in that you need to do it a lot) and you mostly have to do this as your own journey....now that is not a message to scam anyone in the diet field
I have recently realized WHY *some* hate the input theory. Imagine I want to learn Swedish. So I could follow some Swedish language channel and being a *proper* learner.. Right? Yes. But I'm also interested in let's say trains. There must be for sure some Swedish youtuber out there making videos about trains in Swedish. So why to follow "boring" channel explaining me the language, when I can follow a native speaker talking about the stuff I am interested in? At the end of the day we don't need so many teachers to teach us. It is always US and OUR BRAIN to do actual work. That's why some people will always stand against the input. Some teachers would tell you that the language can be learned in four walls class room only. Internet? CZcams? They didn't have youtube back then, and they are teachers now, so they *must be* right. Isn't? Well...
@Kenura Medagedara Okay, but how it is related to languages learning? You DO need to study biology from paper book or pdf. To learn a language you can just listen to the radio or TV... (almost) Each native speaker is fluent. Some native speakers are linguistic scientists. If you want to be fluent (as much as possible) you don't need to study applied linguistic science. If you want to be reasonably good at biology, you do need to study to some degree. You CAN watch BBC documents about animals, but you would not became a scientist by this. Please, talk about languages here, not about how to became a rocket scientist easier way.
@Kenura Medagedara Okay, you are absolutely right. But if you ask people what is easier, to attend to a class and to study, or to listen to a radio - many would say class and study is easier because to listen to a radio in native language is super scary. For most of the people. Especially those denying to listen to, while they *don't understand each single word*. And even such a silly thing like a radio station from the country on the other side of the world, would not be easy to get 20 years ago or more. On the other side if you were born in 80s and you had a satelite dish back then, did you learn any language this way? I know one friend, he did to learn English as a 8 year old because of watching cartoons. BUT it was his partent to tell him to WATCH those cartoons. Most parent would say at best meeh, waste of time, you and your stupid cartoons from whatever country. So yeah, I guess we do agree, we just point some other details, but the picture is more or less same. I hope :)
Maybe that applies to some people. But honestly it's unfair to assume motivations like that. I think the input hypothesis is incorrect and I have no vested interest in any of this. I just think it's wrong based on my review of the scientific literature and evidence at hand. What gets me worked up, and what some people might perceive as "hating" the hypothesis, is just how many bad takes on the science are put out there as justification for these methods. I've got no problem with people wanting to follow a heavy-input or even an exclusively-input based approach. If that floats their boat, more power to them. But all the talk about "scientifically proven", "we learn like babies, and babies do X or Y", etc. honestly I'll admit that does peeve me. It's just a lot of really, really bad takes on the science.
@@bofbob1 What soft of science proof you are looking for? I do not overestimate or underestimate various teories. But I have learned German in relatively short period of time (2 years) to B2 niveau by input. CZcams, radio, news, and tv soaps. The input principe has worked FOR ME, and this is the only reason why I am advocating for this very method. Not because of this youtube video, or any other video. It works in general, it worked super well for me, but if it works for everybody? The only scienfic research could be related to the last part. Would it work for everyone or not? I believe, not for everyone but maybe for most of us. That is all, folks.
@@charlieshanowsky6103 More power to you. If more people did like you and just said "I'm doing this because I've tried it and it has worked well for me", I'd have no problem at all with any of it. It's just the gibberish scientific claims I often hear alongside it that get me riled up (not saying you're making those claims. You're not. But I do hear them from a lot of people). I react to those claims, and that gives the impression to some people that I'm hating on their approach to language learning, when I'm really not. Anyway, it's neither here nor there. Carry on. :-)
Idk if they say it with learning other languages, but there's a saying I heard about Spanish learning: "there are two reasons you don't understand what was said: 1, you don't know the words... 2, you haven't listened to Spanish enough". Yeah, grammar is important. No matter how you learn it. Self-study, classes, courses. But you also definitely need input. Grammar can't teach you different accents or rhythms or give you a sense of a language.
Seems to me that the skill-building hypothesis is one you can readily charge for. (And also seems to be the one responsible for a few generations of people here in the US who (1) studied foreign languages in both high school and university, and (2) can't speak any foreign language.) And that the input hypothesis is, as you say, much harder to monetize.
I think the input hypothesis is the best in the long run, but people don't realize how long it actually takes and not everyone has the patience and time that people like Matt did to be exposed to so much Japanese before starting to actually understand and speak it.
I think people focus on getting to the speaking part too fast. By doing this, you will stay stuck on the basic level of the language. If you try to learn with comprehensive, compelling input, you will read more, listen more, and respect the language more. There are people who say learn the most common words and phrases in the language (about 1,000-5,000 words). We tend to forget that we know 10-20 times more words than that (in a multitude of contexts) in our native language (for many people reading this, your native language may be English). Imagine how limited of a conversation a person would have speaking to a native English speaker, only learning 1,000-5,000 words and phrases. You probably would struggle to have a decent conversation with them the way you would with your close friends. It took me years to realize this. I been trying to learn Spanish, literally for decades because I was stuck on the basic level because I never thought about compelling Comprehensive reading material and listening to hours of the spoken language (I'm talking podcasts, radio shows, and TV shows where there is very little dead air time). By me doing a lot of input, I can hear words better in Spanish, even when people speak fast because my ears can listen faster and I'm reading more words and recognizing them when I hear them. Even if I don't know what is said, I can still "hear the words" instead of a mush of words blended together. I would give Stephen Krashen and Steve Kaufmann credit for putting a huge emphasis on reading instead of mastering grammar books and trying to learn a bunch of words through brute force using flash cards. I think flash cards are effective, but reading is neglected by a lot of the language learners to truly learn the language on a higher and deeper level. When it comes to speaking, I have to give major credit to Idahosa Ness with the Mimic Method, where he focuses on the sounds of the language, instead of trying to speak the language how it's written. Learning songs from popular rap or fast-paced songs are highly effective as an exercise to speak fluidly because you are training the "speaking muscles" to move in a similar way native speakers speak the language. When it comes to Immersion, I give major credit to Khatzumato and Matt vs. Japan. Spending hours in the language helps accelerate the language learning process. I use to watch Spanish speaking content for about the length of a show hear and there, but now, I listen to it for hours a day while I work every day. This is another reason why people can't understand native speakers in their target language... they don't listen to enough of it.
I myself have learnt a few languages without spending money at all. Recently I've started to learn Italian and will follow the same pattern: no spending money at all. Btw, Krashen advocates that selling books is a great source of money in language learning as a whole and CI doesn't need those!
Selling beginner language learning books is the most probable to make the money. Everyone has to start from the beginning. Most won't stay for the long haul. Advance levels won't be as lucrative.
This is off topic but yesterday I tried to translate a text from SC to English and I realized that translating from your native language to your target language is harder than just talking in your target language. When you are translating from your native language, there are a lot of expressions which you can't translate literally and sometimes it is hard to find the expression in English which captures the essence of the expression in SC.
True, but translation is good practice if you want to become more conscious about the gaps and traps. No good translation is verbatim. One can take advantage of professional high quality translators' work while learning like this: pick a page of highly interesting text in your target language (and give it 2 -10 hours) and make sure there is a good translation, but don't use it yet. Try to translate yourself, with the help of dictionaries and grammar books and write your translation down so that you can compare with the work of the professional, and ponder on the differences. This reflection has a very important function. Let's say you like Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" - do translate a passage and compare with a good published translation. In Swedish we have the translation "Det susar i säven" by Signe Hallström. In the very good translation, we see how already in the title she has chosen to keep the alliteration and rhytm instead of a verbatim translation. This example is such a good translation, that you can try to do the exercise the other way around, too. Google-translate is not a veery good help, really, but you can use it if your sense of style is strong and you are aware of the limits and fallacies of automatic translation.
Indeed. It's a pretty common misconception that translating/interpreting requires nothing more than mastery of several languages. But they both require additional skillsets that, while related to language, are quite specific to the activity itself. Source: me ^^(I worked as a conference interpreter for just short of a decade)
@@bofbob1 Simultanious translation is especially hard. I tried to do it, translating English movie to my native language and I couldn't find the words in my native language fast enough. I understand the sentence in English but I can't think of the flwords in my language fast enough and/or I can't make the sentence structure in my native language fast enough and/or I simply don't know how to translate it because literal translation would just give you nonsense.
Speaking of real versus false prophets, here's the money quote which may be the basis for all our future epiphanies: "If the task of learning to speak English were additive and linear, as present linguistic and psychological discussions suggest it is, it is difficult to see how anyone could learn English. If each phonological and syntactic rule, each complex of lexical features, each semantic value and stylistic nuance - in short, if each item which the linguist's analysis leads him to identify had to be acquired one at a time, proceeding from simplest to most complex, and then each had to be connected to specified stimuli or stimulus sets, the child learner would be old before he could say a single appropriate thing and the adult learner would be dead. If each frame of a self-instructional program could teach only one item (or even two or three) at a time, programmed language instruction would never enable the students to use the language significantly. The item-by-item contrastive drills proposed by most modern applied linguists and the requirement by programmers that the behaviors to be taught must be specified seem to rest on this essentially hopeless notion of the language learning process. " Newmark, 19 friggin' 66. Full citation available. Where is the scandal, Christian? In the billions of dollars spent each year in the halls of our most vaunted academic institutions, where the linear approach still holds sway, or in those who realize that we learn a second language much like we learn our first one?
As for the claim that Krashen is somehow monetizing this approach doesn't it contradict his decision to make all of his works, books, articles available completely for free on his website which doesn't have any ads whatsoever? He has a CZcams channel which is not updated (often) and I don't think that it has monetization, he gives (I assume) free online lectures for universities etc. He advocates for libraries and free scientific journals. I just find it really hard to see any avenue that he could use for money. I mean the guy's incredibly old, I doubt money concern him at this point (and I doubt it ever had). He's driven by curiosity and truth, the same reasons why any person knowing how good input is is trying to show it to others without getting any money from it.
Late to this, but I really enjoyed these three videos (it would be helpful though if they were labelled 1-3, I didn't realise until recently that this was part of the series). Having come to input via Matt v Japan and others, I've been surprised talking to other Japanese language learners how few people know of input. I've also noted quite obvious hostility to input from a lot of traditional teachers. I think rather than 'false profits', its more a case that nobody wants to find out that they could have learned all the know in a much easier and more efficient manner.
I just came back to learning French. And I’ve been doing it in a very relaxed and unambitious sort of way. Not trying hard - it’s just fun to start connecting with the language again. I’m a low A2. When I was last studying it I was very very ambitious and I spent a lot of time trying every single app and doing various courses. I was using all three approaches - learning the grammar trying to speak and listening to audios. Then I stopped and I haven’t studied French for about two years. And this time I just began doing a short Duolingo session for free morning and evening, to amuse myself. But some days I started working through my audiobook collection and listen for maybe a couple of hours a day. Within three days I was startled by what happened. I began thinking in French. I began muttering to myself in French. On the days where I didn’t do that, it didn’t happen and didn’t happen the next day, but if I had a day of listening for a couple of hours, the next day I was thinking in French, I was speaking in French to myself and my unfortunate partner. And it just sold me on what happens when you do immerse yourself, even just for a couple of hours in comprehensible input. I would find phrases popping up in my brain I’ve never learnt that were just imported from what I was listening to. I’d have to go and look them up to find out what they meant. It just works, people, it just works.
I remember a Krashen Interview, where when asked if this or that idea could be right, he said "I don't know". People who say this aren't "false prophets" or scammers.
Pretty cool to see how your own intellectual journey to finding the input hypothesis mirrors my own. I'm guessing there are a lot of us who have been through this same process.
Thanks for the video's this is a complicated topic but a great one to discuss. I'm learning French after almost 20 years of not speaking it and was only exposed to classroom learning in my youth but now recognize the importance of having a solid mixed method depending on what my goals are. Look forward to checking out your other videos.
That's the exact conclusion i came up with myself some time ago. Of course no one will promote( by no one I mean language learning companies and stuff ) input based approach since it's very difficult to monetize.
@@xavier01110 czcams.com/play/PL4lJLtpfKDUEUofMMkp9XO0l8vM10BMAh.html I followed that from 10/3 seeing one episode each day, and the progressed to a podcast on Spotify called "Innerfrench". (Innerfrench also have a youtube channel.) Being 5 months in I'm rather surprised at how useful my French is already in my daily life. And I've promised myself this time to be more hardcore Krashen than Krashen himself, and not speak any French until I have something I want to say! (Or until I pass 2000 hours of input, whatever comes first)
@@xavier01110 People usually start with learning the alphabet & pronunciation. You can learn both by watching CZcams videos designed for beginners. Then you learn a few simple phrases & greetings to get to know the language. You can also buy a text book for this. The Teach Yourself series is popular.
I like how you have different ways of looking at language learning. I am struggling to learn hangeul and I get inspiration from watching your videos. They give me ideas about how I can change up my efforts. I'm also into Japanese and Spanish. I'm all over the place lol
Making money is what people do through CZcams monetization, Patreon or by other means. It is not a bad thing unless it's part of an unrealistic 'get __ fast' scam or the like. If Krashen wants to make money (even lots of it) selling books and programs using his hard work and methodology, he has every right to it. The same goes for everyone else. If you center the talk around money, you can accuse anyone of bad intentions. Heck, I can even claim they are using the long scam tactic; dangling a free carrot at the beginning before locking content behind a paywall once they gain the traction they needed to escape obscurity.
I agree. Krashen does have some books you can buy but most of his research work you can just find online for free. So I doubt that he is getting rich out of the input method.
I’m fluent in American Sign Language and the only way you can learn it is through input. Learn basic structure, vocab, input, vocab, input, vocab, input. When you start to understand large chunks of what you listen to start speaking. Seems to be what everyone comes to that I’ve ever spoken to that’s truly fluent in a language.
I am a year late, but I just watched all 3 of your videos, very interesting. I am someone who believes in lots of input. It's how we learn our first language. Think of how long a child takes before they start speaking. They get lots of input before they get to that stage. However, we know they understand what they hear because they give other forms of response. They make mistakes, but eventually they say the right thing because of what they hear. I personally believe that learning to speak a language is not a creative field. We imitate. We copy. We repeat what we hear. You cannot speak what you have never heard or read. When we acquire something it becomes ours, and we get to use it. This is true as well for languages. We acquire language through lots of exposure, we get to speak it.
great vids such an interesting topic.. just some feedback - for me its really unclear which 3 videos are in the series I'e re-watched 2 or 3 times over the past few months because it's so fascinating and, every time, I've struggled to find the others in the series - unless im missing something there's nothing linking the videos (part 1/2/3, or consistent thumbnails/titles etc.)
Hi Lamont, Did you record your hours spent studying in Swedish? If so, I am really curious on what you think about the Common European Framework for language reference as well as the hours required. I loved these three videos and I am really interested in hearing what you think about it.
I found that sometimes having paid course or a teacher helps people just because it gives them motivation to practice... regardless of the course/method approach. People are strange )
Very interesting. I agree with a lot of what you say in all 3 videos. There are no absolutes. But modeling ourselves on input is very important. In my first L2, German, I could always hear American accents from my class colleagues, and even later from a fluent (fellow masters) student (who worked for a German Uni) who still had a clear American accent with his German. I always tried to model my German on input from others and TV (dubbed Star Trek TNG's Cptn Picard was one model). Now in Japan, my 2ns L2, and one I speak more now, I haven't really found a good model, and my Japanese is not really as good, even though I can produce, I still make the same mistakes often (mixing transitive and intransitive verbs, eg), so I will be seeking more on that. I've started looking at another L2 (Mandarin), for work, but it's not as important yet.
I really appreciated these three videos. As somebody bilingual (English/Italian) and a former language teacher, this really rings true. Is there an input-based website or resources for English? My girlfriend would benefit... of course I will check out your channel now.
thank you sir. your honesty is too honest. I think one more thing that bugs me , is that language learning in some of these tradition output in classroom first and often can also be potentially damaging or limiting if the learners goal is actual fluency. but again. what do I know I'm just a pleb.
He provided no research to back up his criticism. Then at 6:45, I see he teaches words with opposite meanings together. Even though this is a common practice among teachers and publishers, most research I've read shows that teaching opposites together isn't a great idea.
Cool man. Pretty much agree with most of what you're saying here. I learned Spanish with input-based learning. I basically focused on the i+1 idea to extract sentences from my input and study with Anki flashcards. I went as far as getting native speakers to correct and record sentences that I wrote for my new vocabulary. I still use Anki these days but adapted for a more advanced level.
I've personally done a lot of research about this topic as well over the last 3 years and have personal experience learning languages in all 3 settings. I studied Latin in highschool, German and Russian in college, and have been self teaching myself Japanese and Korean. From my time interacting with my fellow learners, everyone I know who has learned a language without actively engaging with native material during the learning process does not fundamentally understand the phonology and cultural norms and influences surrounding the construction of the language. Learning language based on books and courses is often very limited in scope as it has a definite beginning and end while languages never end. Language learning books and courses should I think be see as more of a beginners stepping block up to real native level communication. I don't think "immersion only" is actually a very good strategy, but heavy immersion when combined with deliberate studying is important. Some parts of a language will not just suddenly pop into your head just because you heard others say it before. For Japanese I had to intentionally study pitch accent and Kanji or there's no way would be able to understand them. Immersion also doesn't mean just listening to a language either, but to really dig in and engage with it. Look for words you know, try to use context to learn new words before looking them up, pay attention to pronunciation and context in which vocabulary is used. It won't be too long before you'll be able to understand all the common stuff so you can focus on the meaningful parts of the material.
Ironically, Krashen is one of the worst examples of "the proof is in the pudding" ... I too have never forgotten the moment Matt completely owned LingQ Daddy, after being told to his face for the entire interview that his method was not correct and because he didn't know what pitch accent was, it couldn't be important. Then later LingQ Daddy tried to say "well it was never my GOAL to speak like a perfect native speaker" well okay then it isn't my GOAL to buy your product lmao.
You want to learn to speak -- eventually. But before you start speaking you really need to learn how to understand when someone is answering, otherwise what is the point of you talking (unless you plan to make a living by claiming to be a polyglot on CZcams). Somehow people tend to be impressed when you can say a couple of sentences in some language they don't understand, even if those three sentences are the only thing you know. I guess it makes a better video than you watching a lecture on rocket science in your target language and actually understanding it, but which is more useful?
Hey there, I have a passion in acquiring fluency in Italian due to my heritage but I'll cut right to the chase on something I wanted your opinion on. I bought a text book "Complete Italian Step by Step". It is a text book composed of Italian lessons from very beginners Italian to advanced Italian lessons. I was wondering if you think this book alone would be an effective tool in achieving my goal of fluency with only this book, or if using other tools would be essential. So far what I've learned is the gender of Italian words, I've learned about how and when to use the words stare and essere which both mean "to be" bit are used differently. I have also learned how to use the definite and indefinite articles. That's baseline what I've learned so far and that's covering 1 and a half chapters out of almost 38 chapters. However my question is: Can I achieve my goal only using this book, or should I consider using other tools for learning? Please let me know the thoughts you have because I really like your content and your input on the matter of language learning.
No book alone, no matter how thick it is or clever the method is, is enough to reach fluency in any language. You need at least 1000 hours of input from genuine content made for native speakers of the language. A book is certainly enough to get you to the point of being able to watch/listen to real content. But the book is really JUST the start.
If not a classroom, you need a competent, trained, and qualified teacher; lots of input (reading and listening) and; eventually, lots of output (writing and speaking). This is the way. There are no shortcuts.
There are no shortcuts but you definitely don't need a trained and qualified teacher. Kids speak their native languages essentially perfectly by age 13, and normally even better if they were home schooled by their mum or dad.
New to the channel... No clue what you're talking about yet. But it sounds like what I did to learn any language, so yeah, seems legit. Everything that comes out of the head has to go in before. Kids don't learn by speaking. They understand language way before they can speak. In the end it's about understanding. The active vocabulary will follow.
@@daysandwords I hope so because otherwise it would mean he actually is dumb. How can an English language teacher have such a poor grasp of English that they think acquiring a language means that you are not going to be able to speak it (the word "acquire" in no way implies this), and be so lacking in understanding how languages are learned that they fail to understand the power of input?
He will probably read this at some point but is actually a few sandwiches short of a picnic. His response to my videos, for example, was completely bizarre and unhinged. One of the comment threads on one of the videos got as far as blaming him for things and questioning his financial interests... This was all on Europe/US time while I was asleep; I never saw or participated in these comments, yet he messaged me saying that I had completed my mission of assassinating his character???
@@daysandwords I think he does a good job of providing comprehensible input for students whose level is quite low, which is ironic since he seems to be slagging off the whole concept of comprehensible input. But anyway, I think he does a good job for a lot of people, but I don't think his analytical skills can be all that good based on what you're saying here (like, what?) and based on his comments about language learning. To reiterate what I've said already, I think you are spot on with your analysis. Good channel and good videos, too, by the way 👍
I am a French teacher. I also speak German, Italian, and Spanish. I have also read some of the research and talked to lots of successful language learners. There are different methods that work. I prefer to combine methods. Input does help. However, if you only ever do input, you won't be able to speak. But you will learn to speak very quickly if you are ever immersed in the language. Output also works, but you need to get input also or you won't understand anything. Explicit vocabulary learning does work. Explicit grammar instruction does not work well- you actually learn grammar better by just reading. Pronunciation practice is important so native speakers can understand you. Combining the methods that work is a good approach. For example, getting a language tutor, using a flash card vocabulary app, and watching videos in your target language works. Just doing one of those things is not going to be very effective. IMHO, input + output + explicit learning = successful language learning (or should I say acquisition?). If you miss one of these factors, you will not learn as much. Traditional classrooms do mostly explicit learning. Little input until advanced levels where you read books that are way too hard for you, but still little listening comprehension. You need thousands of hours of listening. Some schools have switched to all comprehensible input, with no explicit instruction or output, which also does not work in terms of speaking although it does improve comprehension. IMHO, you need a balance of the 3. Input, output, and explicit learning.
I don't believe that "there are different methods that work". I believe that all methods can work because eventually they all amount to the same thing; so you might as well go for the bit that is actually doing the heavy lifting (input). That's a 2 sentence summary of a 20,000 essay that I am yet to write.
I’ve been watching a lot of Spanish videos to learn Spanish, but I’m also engaging in conversation on a regular basis with native speakers. I don’t do a ton of vocab sheets, but if I hear something that I don’t know, I may look it up to understand the context that word is in. For example why are they using “-te” or “-lo” in that sentence?
Sorry I arrived late to this discussion, but it's really screwing with my experience. I bought into Krashen/Kaufmann big time, and spent hundreds of hours listening, listening, and more listening to comprehensible input. I got nowhere. The whole experience was very discouraging. I arrived at the conclusion that you really have to incorporate speaking into your program at an early stage. There appears to be some sort of ideal balance between CI and speaking. I don't know what that balance is, but I just sense that a good language learning program has to include both.
It certainly doesn't have to be EARLY. I absolutely agree that you need to speak in order to get good, but it doesn't need to be early and I can attest to that personally, and I know others who speak their languages better than I do who were silent for a year or two.
Listen, I never watched no 54 minute video of yours and second that prosody assignment was a mini study I did 2 years ago for my Communications class. CZcams won’t let me post the links!
Hey man, I have a question. I've been studying english for a few months using this immersion approach. I do a lot of listening every day and I use headphones, but using headphones for 4 or more hours per day isn't comfortable in my opinion. I'm thinking about stop using it, at least for a while. So, is listening without headphones or earbuds as effective as listening with them on?
Well, I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but I would first recommend a pair of Audio Technica ATH-AD500 / 700 / 900 / 1000 (the number doesn't matter, or if they have an X after them doesn't matter either, but they should be AD not just A) - I am a headphone enthusiast but even I have never found headphones even half as comfortable. I am sitting here writing this wih my 12 year old ATH-AD900 which are literally held together with a large peg because even THEN they are more comfortable. Otherwise, is there an extra hour or two a day you can get in without headphones? Even just reading? But yeah I think listening without headphones is also fine.
I was actually listening instead of looking at the video and was so stoked when I understood the Japanese of the bat. Then I was super shocked when I found out it was Matt. He should brag less about sounding like a native and just post a clip where you cant see who’s speaking until the end, but what a legend.
It's important to mention that no matter how much money you spend, or how many hours a day you spend studying, you'll never learn anything if you're learning the wrong way. My prefered way of studying doesn't necessarily mean it's the best way for someone else. Learning how to learn is a journey in of itself and it's extremely subjective to the person themselves. There's no end-all-be-all best method for learning. It's dangerous to make claims such as input-heavy learning being the best, but it's also dangerous to make claims that it's absolutely not the best. Reading, listening, speaking, studying grammar forms, every aspect is important in its own way when it comes to learning efficiency. You can learn a language by only reading or listening, but mixing and matching methods that you personally find work will yield the best result. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the most enjoyable method for you, but it gives results which is what matters most of the time.
Although I'm a fan of Matt's videos and I would love to speak Japanese to the same level that he does, I don't think you can discount the age factor in acquiring a language. He got the language bug as a freshman in highschool - that's like 14 years old? Most 14 year olds moving to a new country will end up speaking the new language very well. But adults who do the same thing don't get that same result. If an English speaker starts learning Japanese at say age 34, do you really think it's possible to get Matt's results? I don't think so. I'd love to see otherwise though.
I don't think there is proof that learning a language at 14 is going to be any easier or more successful than 34. The main thing the 14 year old has over the 34 year old (in many cases) is more free time and fewer responsibilities.
@@dodgingcars Well, this doesn't count as "proof," but to me it's strongly suggestive: I can remember plenty of people in high school who came to Australia as teens and spoke either no or very little English, yet within a few short years were speaking as fluently as natives and their only distinguishing trait was their accent. I can't think of a single immigrant who arrived as an adult with no/little English and who has attained similar fluency, and I'm sure I've met more immigrant adults than I have immigrant teenagers.
I think it's ironic that Christian hosted Steve Kaufmann on his channel "czcams.com/video/9YpvlPbzgnM/video.html", wherein Steve touted the merits of massive input, but Christian chose not to tell Steve that the Input-Hypothesis is bullshit. Steve has, in fact, learned 20 languages following the Input-Hypothesis.
I was actually thinking of one day, creating a course as well, to teach my language students French. Now I feel like I am an upcoming scammer haha. What would say are some of the things, I should look out for, so that if I create such a product, I would actually put out some value and not be a scammer.
I've done some language teaching in the past, before I found out about Krashen and CI and ALG and all that. I sometimes feel like I was an unwitting scammer too. In my defense, at the time I was giving my students the best I had and I always looked for flaws in myself before blaming them. Which is why I'm here now.
@@joelthomastr Me too. That is the same mindset I have. But for me for example, I have a chinese online teacher and I have gotten fluent in chinese thanks to her. But mostly because I did a lot of self studying
I tried twice my (extensive) comments talking about my experience using Input were deleted by yt idk, to sum up it has worked for me doesn't mean it will for everyone. It's not perfect but not bs
Yeah they haven't shown up in "held for review" either, sorry to hear they were deleted. I actually do think that it will more or less work for everyone. Basically I think that if you get enough input and you are bad at the language, then there is a separate issue going on (e.g. a conscious intervention blocking correct acqusition or something).
@@daysandwords Not the point but thanks for letting me know. I think all begun weeks ago. Helping a user with a link, every since then when I tried to write long comments.. bam. That's right, we need to understand how really the Input works and I'm not a genius, prons and cons, that Input automatically doesn't mean fluency.
I’m going to be a truck driver soon so I won’t have time to watch tv but I wanted to listen to podcast while driving and read when I had time . Even if I don’t understand will I start to understand overtime magically if I just listen and (read when I have time) ?
OK well Portuguese is anglosemblant, meaning that it shares a reasonable amount with English. You COULD just listen and watch tv shows and eventually you would pick it up, but it will take much longer than if you learn about 500 of the most common words and a few important grammar structures. THEN listen, watch and read a tonne, and you will eventually soak up the language.
Bara engelska och svenska. Jag brukade förtstå ganska mycket franska men inte nu längre. Jag bestämde mig för att fokusera på svenska. Varför valde jag just svenska? Det är ju en lång historia...
Input hypothesis BS? I learned German word order by watching Toytown when I was a small child. That wasn't even in German. One of the characters spoke English with a German word order. When I started studying German, the word order was the easiest thing in the world for me. It was so natural. I made many mistakes in German, but word order was never one I made.
I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of LingQ... I have even asked Steve himself why it looks so terrible (I think it now looks a lot better), but how is it a scam? (Or were you being sarcastic?)
Hi, I have no way to watch your videos. I don't understand the language. Please write what is the best way to learn a language? What do I need to do every day?
If you mean that you don't understand English, then the best way to learn to understand English is by reading and listening to as much as possible in English. TV shows, books, podcasts and make them things that you like. If you can find someone else who speaks English already and who also speaks your native language, then ask them to explain SOME things to you. But just keep listening and reading.
Hey guys,
This is a complicated topic and I could easily do a three hour video on it and still not reperesent my views entirely on it.
To summarise:
1. Try as I might, I am never going to be able to be completely neutral on this. I make money from this channel and related things, and I am friends with various other language content creators, all of whom also make money.
2. People have different lines on where it stops being "making honest profit" and starts being "scamming". I'm not saying that making money or even making a LOT of money from stuff is inherently bad. Making money from saying something untrue is bad. I have turned down VERY lucrative offers from sponsors (both LL brands and other brands) because I simply wasn't willing to spout the garbage that they told me to say. This doesn't make me a saint, I am just not comfortable with it.
3. The pattern of wanting to make money in what I consider a "scammy" way is much more to do with the person than it is to do with the method. When I mentioned Khatzumoto in this video, I said "prophet p-h-", referring ONLY to the fact that it's the methodology that Matt vs Japan adopted. However it is fairly acknowledged by a lot of people in the Japanese community that Khatzumoto didn't offer much value for the products or services he sold and that he may have even full on stolen money from a few unfortunate people.
I simply wasn't addressing this in my video, I wasn't suggesting that Khats is all good in my books.
4. Same goes for Matt. I am not addressing Matt's monetisation (which in my opinion, is perfectly fair anyway, and he gave me an AWFUL lot of value before I ever gave him a cent).
I was only addressing the results. What he did worked, and that's all I was saying.
5. Yes, I know Krashen doesn't make anything from us watching Netflix. But I felt that in order to be fair, I should make a very quick reference to the stuff that Christian was getting at which is that Krashen has charged schools in the US high hourly rates for consulting sessions. Personally I don't really know enough about this and I'm sort of regretting putting that bit in, but please just acknowledge that I am trying to cover as many sides as I can. Wasn't trying to smear Krashen, wasn't trying to laud him, and the same with Matt, Olly, Christian or The Joker. I'm just calling it how I see it.
I am not here to plug anything or anyone and I am not saying anyone is perfect. Please be nice to each other in the comments.
Overall, I think it's still a well made video. You explained a lot of stuff quite well and tried to consider everyone's side of the story. Props to you Lamont!
Christian was throwing mud at 'input hypothesis' people in general, slandering them all as scammers, and his getting you to explain second-hand that he was only referring to Stephen Krashen is not good. He should make a video naming people he thinks are scamming if that is what he does think, rather than throwing mud and not caring who it is sticking to.
Just like you had the guts to name Khatzumoto, Christian should name who he is talking about, rather than doing it via a PM to somebody else.
@@stevencarr4002 I just want to make it clear that Christian didn't ask me to put it in. In fact, I told him that I would make an amendment and he said that I shouldn't for this very reason (interfering with my objectivity is how he put it) but I said that I wanted to since the whole video was essentially predicated on Christian calling people scammers, and it turned out he wasn't doing that the way I thought he was. His video was unclear but I felt it was only add to the confusion if I had not included the amendment.
I thought the bit about Krashen was good in a devil's advocate kind of way. The one guy who stands to make lots of money is him, and on the whole he hasn't really.
Don't you get DuckDuckGo in Australia?
Canguru English is the registered trademark of Fluentify, a company offering private language tuition at about 30 pounds per hour.
Christian is under no obligation, legal or moral, to say how much he got to let Fluentify use the name of his channel.
And it is not a crime to monetize a CZcams channel. That's kind of the point.
But frankly it stinks that Christian's video never disclosed his links to a commercial tuition company, while he was calling other methods 'bullshit' and calling them 'false prophets'. Contrast that with Lamont's full disclosure that he is on Italki.
If you sold 'Days of French and Swedish' to Duolingo, (an unlikely scenario), I think you would mention that if you made a video reviewing non-Duolingo products.
All Japanese all the Time is the only way to learn Swedish.
Ja. Hai.
AJATT
Da, это правда.
Si
All Skånska all the Time 🤩
When you mentioned Krashen and him vehemently defending his hypothesis, you have to consider that he initially believed in studying grammar and practice. He even has a PhD in grammar he likes it so much. His research was done initially in favor of grammar and practice. However, it was through his research that he uncovered what he now calls the Input Hypothesis. You can even catch him saying "we've tried everything else", mentioning things like traditional study, computers, practice, etc etc.
Even if the Input Hypothesis isn't the whole story, just like Einstein's theory of relatively, it's pretty damn accurate.
As someone who spent years getting pulled in and eventually dragged into disappointment again and again by speak-early and classroom-study-style programs, I appreciate your passion when you talk about their taking advantage of desperate people who want to be able to speak a foreign language.
A class-room crash-course in German at the Goethe Institut in Freiburg helped me a lot to get from the level where I could read and understand almost any text, to being able to converse intelligently about almost any text, and to understand what they said on German radio-news (fast speech and surprising content), as an example of just listening comprehension, etc.
On the other hand: I took a course in Russian at Folkuniversitet with a native highly educated Russian speaker as the teacher, but it was so disappointing that I left the latter part unattended. For me at that beginners level, a course with a bilingual teacher, had been much more effective, no matter what little accent could have been the case.
Too much attention is paid to a slight level of foreign accent - with slight I mean, for example in English that one should clearly hear the difference between sh and ch, good and God, jet and yet, and the like.
There should be an audible difference in intonation between a question and a statement. Grammar and vocabulary should also be errorless most of the time, but an occasional error doesn't cause the students to get stuck in the mistake.
A foreign teacher of Swedish should be able to clearly produce the difference between a and å, o and ö, i and y, and the like. It wouldn't matter which sh-sound he had in sjuk or skön, as long as it doesn't sound the same as in tjuv and tjöt.
But most importantly - a teacher should be able to arrange a learning situation that is inspiring and supports long term learning, and shows methods on how to keep up the students' studies in the long run. And a teacher should be able to explain the difficulties in a way that is easy for the students to understand, which is often a stumble stone for native teachers who haven't had the difficulty themselves. A little more than "that's how it is" would be helpful.
Ideally a language lerner should have periods of learning the target language with both teachers who are native speakers and teachers who are not. That's how education in English is arranged at Lund University at the first levels - highly recommended!
Lamont should become a Swedish and English teacher in Sweden! Thumbs up!
The problems with classroom style learning is that one, the class moves at the pace of its slowest student, and two, it's just very inefficient use of your time and money in terms of amount of stuff learned. You can hire a private language tutor online for hour sessions at just a fraction of the price, and can study things like vocab and grammar on your own time without a class.
Your videos are like buses, sometimes you're waiting forever and sometimes there's 3 in a row, but you're always happy to see one.
Hahaha, this is a great comment.
You are much more likely to see three in a row when it's literally one bus in 3 parts.
@@daysandwords nooo you broke my metaphor :(
@@fancywrong6405 'oh no..my metaphor...it's broken...'
(Paraphrasing a Tiktok trend)
@@sharonoddlyenough 😂😂 "well... his metaphors broken"
That note about Krashen being so overly confident of his own theories really stuck out to me in his interview with Steve Kaufman where he claims to have gained native level German purely through reading and firmly stood by the claim that one could achieve native level in a language with reading alone. I think you can acquire a large vocabulary strictly through reading, sure, but there's no way you can actually reproduce the language at a native level (accent, intonation, pitch, etc.) without extensive listening. And plus, written language is very different from spoken language, especially in a language like Japanese, which has entirely different grammar and word usage in written vs. spoken language (文語・口語).
You’re a perfect example of someone who assumes reading is all achievers of a native like accent do.
listening and reading has such a big effect on brain. I know from personal experience listening to Japanese and Chinese for 1 year (+learning basic grammar and phrases) and I could have a conversation without any speaking practice all of a sudden. From then it's worth doing some speaking practice to improve some mistakes
Anyways I'm a big advocate of massive input with a small amount of book studying, hope you guys learn your desired languages also
Re Krashen trying to get rich on talking about input it should be noted that he gives away all his articles for free because academic journals can be prohibitive, and he always mentions that in his recent speaking engagements, so....
Exactly what I was thinking
I've pinned a comment about this.
I've enjoyed every minute of this series, so thanks so much for all your hard work! I don't know how much money Krashen has made off his theory, but I do think he's rather dismissive of the possibility that input isn't the be all and end all. There's a video of Matt interviewing Krashen, where Matt explains that he agrees about the importance of input but has also found that, once he reached the level where he was ready to speak, the speaking practice did help him further improve his speaking skills, not least because it helped him identify gaps in his knowledge of the language. This seems pretty obvious to me and is in line with my own experience, but Krashen just kept saying: "Nope! Speaking doesn't help. Nothing else helps. The only thing that works is input."
I think you are right to make a distinction between Krashen's original hypothesis and the way that many of the current proponents actually study. The example of Matt speaking better Japanese that Khatzumoto is a great one.
Wooo, made a cameo :D Good video, mate.
Haha it was basically your channel that made me realise I should put that bit in!
@@daysandwords I need to release a course with the clickbait title "L3 - Learn a Language in a Lifetime"
@@AussieEnglishPodcast It does mock many promises on YT. But it is a really refreshing slogan, actually, because isn't that what we all do, in our mother-tongue? And some of us in second, third, and more languages, too.
@@DNA350ppm Yeah, precisely. The trouble is people today have less and less concentration spans and are trained by marketing NOT to delay gratification at all. They want everything NOW and they want it FAST. It seems crazy that we have to unlearn this condition in order to get significant results in anything we want to learn.
@@AussieEnglishPodcast Haha, when I read that post, I imagined the corrections to it in that mock Russian accent that Lamont did in his video: "shorter shorter, not less less concentration span," and "if they want NOW is redundant to say also they want FAST"
If I recall correctly Krashen makes his academic research available for free. I'm sure he's comfortable enough as a tenured academic but he's hardly going to be Jeff Bezos from promoting this hypothesis.
Unless this Canguro guy has some specific allegations to level at him then it's a pretty pathetic and low tactic tbh.
Yeah, Krashen is very much in favour of making academia as affordable and accessible as possible
I've pinned a comment.
Christian linked me to like a website that looked like it'd be where you'd find someone's wisdom about how the Second World War never happened or something that claimed Krashen was ripping off school's by consulting at $240 an hour or something. I dunno - there are people who talk s*** about anyone. I had a Canadian guy claiming I don't speak a word of Swedish so...
@@lolozo214 even if he didn’t it’s not like it hard to pirate articles legit it’s takes less then a minute
Edit:Not that I advocate doing pirating.
@@xenioralad3159 funnily enough the other day Krashen tweeted something to the effect of "books are expensive, pirate mine from these websites"
@@daysandwords Even if true that fee is kind of what I'd expect a leading academic to charge. If you're an institution it's going to cost a few grand to hire someone like that. Lawyers, accountants IT consultants etc all this stuff costs money in the real world, what do people expect?
Just the fact that nearly every experienced polyglot is in the 'imput heavy' camp speaks volumes.
Really the only way to notice patterns and speak overall more like a native.
One thing to keep in mind is that Christian is an English teacher. I’ve watched his videos and when he talks of learning a language, I have to remind myself he’s referring to English most of the time.
I’m a native English and Chinese speaker, two diametrically opposed languages. And I’m learning Russian, yet another linguistically distant language.
I’ve scoured the depths of the internet. I’ve bought online courses which did little or nothing. There is no one best method. There’s only the method that works for you. For me currently, that seems to be a combination of listening and conversation practice.
I totally agree with you however, I want to add one small opinion, I personally believe there are a few methods that are better than others but as a whole there is no one method works best, Like you said different people learn in different ways, so you need to find the way that suits you the best.
@@runningriot7963 well put
I definitely think there are a few methods that work well, and a lot of stuff that doesn’t work well.
There are some big personal factors like, what are your goals and uses to the language, what resources do you have access to, what fits into your routine best and becomes a habit, and what motivates you to spend as much time in your TL as possible?
The personal factors can often be the biggest, but you do have to find one of the genuinely effective methods that best works for your situation.
Where does he work as an English teacher, in a school in Australia or somewhere else? Does he teach English to non native English speakers or to native English speakers?
@@smrtfasizmu6161 I think he teaches in Spain. But I’m not sure on that. Might be Italy.
Thanks for watching, if you haven't seen Parts 1 and 2, check those out and subscribe for some lighter and more fun videos coming soon! Cheers.
Great response trilogy, Lamont - thoroughly enjoyed it! You said everything I wanted to after his video.
Looking forward to them!
Why throw Krashen under the bus at the end
Hey Lamont, I'm not sure If you've gone deeper into these two guys (mat..something) and (k..something) processes. It would be great to listen from you about them. I mean...if you haven't done that yet....in that case, I would love to know where that video is :) thanks!
I saw the Canguro video a few days ago and was briefly doubting my own promotion of Input. I teach English to second language learners through the public library (for free!) and I see what the traditional style of teaching does to most students. They are very difficult to understand and getting them to pronounce words even close to accurately is quite a challenge. I push them constantly to listen and watch (and read even) as much Native English content as possible, but I don't think they do it. My one student I see every week has started to do it and his English has improved immensely.
I agree with everything you said, except the diss of Krashen. I know you didn't mean it though. Thanks for putting these response videos together.
This isn’t entirely related but the little cartoon at 4:10 to help people remember the character 猫 is precisely the reason so many people struggle with learning Chinese characters IMO - they don’t engage at all with the actual logic of the characters themselves (which is admittedly harder to do with Japanese) and instead just make up random mnemonic devices on an individual character basis.
I have seen a book called Chineasy that is full of these little cartoons and stuff, but I don't think it's the only one of its kind.
Swedish sinologue Cecilia Lindquist found out that her students learned the Chinese characters more easily, when she taught them about the history, the development, of the character from picture to written character. She does it beautifully in this book, the front cover of which illustrates her point. Her pedagogical point is clear and convincing, so I have applied it when teaching Swedish orthography, and it sure has helped. The history hasn't to be very detailed and it seems to suffice with examples.
www.adlibris.com/se/bok/tecknens-rike-9789134508576
Yep, understanding components, radicals, and phonetics is the key to high level chinese. I know of people who have degrees or certificates in Chinese and can't use a dictionary because they don't understand radicals.
@@nobodyqwertyu insanity. And I bet even if they do understand radicals, many people still can't use dictionaries because they don't know how to properly count the number of strokes in a character, lol.
The guy who created AJATT, the method Matt used to learn japanese, sold Something called "the silverspoon" for a rediculous ammount of money. People generally consider that product a scam.
If I recall correctly, he did that and disappeared shortly after (possibly with people's money?) - and it was from there Matt started MIA, when that original AJATT community was left thinking wtf. I learned that history after the fact though, so I might not have the facts straight.
I'm tagging along bc I'm curious
Bumping because I'm curious too.
@@virtheon I'm sorry I don't really have the full story. Just pieces of the story from listening to videos made by JapanesefromZero and TkyoSam. Apparently Katsumoto charged several grand for a course in which he would tell you what to do every day, and hold your hand through immersion learning. He promised people could get a refund if they backed out in a certain ammount of time.
He didn't pay people back their money and a lot of people didn't feel like they got their money's worth. He also apparently fled the country.
Hopefully someone can give you more detailed answer.
@@mikemustmurder damn Khatzumoto was a scammer? :(
I’ve enjoyed these three videos. Thanks. The discussion of ‘deliberate learning’ has been very interesting. For context, I work as an ESL teacher (and often times teacher trainer/mentor/syllabus designer, etc), and I’ve often advocated creating opportunities for encouraging reading and listening habits. I’m sure ‘deliberate learning’ has come up in my studies, but to see it contextualised here has been invaluable. I know that deliberate learning has been intuitively applied in my classrooms, but perhaps not intentionally (meaning while I was teaching, I wasn’t thinking ‘what my students are doing now is based on my knowledge of ‘deliberate learning’). As a language LEARNER, on brief immediate reflection, I’ve done this intuitively to an extent (again, not using ‘deliberate learning’ as a definition). I will reflect and learn more of the theory and apply it more directly over the next while to my studies and teaching. Many thanks.
These academic discussion in the language youtube community is what we need. I studied these theories for a year as a part of my degree and our teacher would always say, after we learn about each of those hypotheses, we really can't clearly state that they would certainly lead to fluency. Like it was said in the video for we to call a hypothesis a way that works on everyone it has to be applicable to all kinds of people. In our textbooks, we examined them with 16 criteria and even though there is not a single one that meets our standards, it's important for language professionals to be aware of them and be critical of them
See the prof who learned Arabic by comprehensible input? Everyone forgets one super important aspect... The motivation, self confidence, anxiety triangle and Krashen has mentioned this but everyone gets caught up on the input part.
The affective filter?
@@Nemo_Anom what do you mean, affective filter?
Watching this series and part 2 especially made me realize you can do the immersion approach while still socializing somewhat with natives. All you need to do is to find, or more appropriately let yourself be found by, the sort of person who monopolizes the conversation and just let be themselves, the end result will still be 95% listening, with a some backchanneling and a few questions mixed between.
Think of that Dogen skit with the old guy who approaches him in the train, this is most likely scenario that's gonna lead you to the perfect AJAT language partner. If this seems more entertaining to you than just watching netflix or reading a book go right ahead.
All three of these videos are highly interesting and informative! I was thrilled for all the food for thought.
1) Lamont, your Swedish doesn't suck. It is amazing! I think you will be able to be a Swedish teacher as soon as the pandemic is over.
2) What is the role of the student and what is the role of the teacher? A class-room context is not the optimal solution, but it is cost-effective for the one paying for it. A tutor can be worse. On how many variables does a good learning environment depend?
3) As far as I am aware modern views on how children learn their mother tongue state that it starts in the womb. Then the adapted speech mothers and fathers (an significant others) produce when speaking with babies is important, it is a simplified, repetitive, high pitch, soft, and encouraging communication, where lots of non-verbal props are crucial.
A good teacher for adults keeps up their interest, provides a variety of materials and methods, supports students to both go their own ways, and test new approaches, in addition to the teacher giving feed-back about what is needed for the students to reach the students' goals. A mediocre teacher tries to get the student to do what the teacher is convenient with. A good teacher inspires and guides the student to reach the learning goals the student is motivated by, and perhaps a little bit more.
4) Second, third, fourth, fifth language learning is different from mother-tongue learning, and depends on when and where and what for. It can be emotional-intuitive with the right spouse, or it can rely heavily on logic and intellect, if these are one's strong points also otherwise, or any mixture of variables. Earlier learning experiences might have taught you how to learn. Vocab and structural patterns can overlap and support learning.
5) Everything is made harder for adult learners if one of the languages, mother-tongue and target language, is English. English is - I'm sorry to say it bluntly - is such a hotch-potch that it is one of the most difficult languages I've tried. Which illustrates the point that every language needs its own set of pedagogical methods. And I'd say every native English speaker tends to be a problem-student for his or her target-language-teacher, because the huge difficulty to explain and demonstrate how "it" works - nothing is stable, and where then to fix the lever? (But English is a good enough language to make Pidgin of, much better than Latin, so it has shown itself to be useful in this world as it is.)
Thank you, Lamont, for honestly venting the conundrums!
I enjoyed this three-part series thoroughly. I, too, am shifting to the input hypothesis. My English is far from natural, but I get surprised when the censor and dictator in me disappear and English flows just okay. Thanks for this in-depth discussion.
this series has been absolutely amazing, thank you so much, I'd be interested in what Christian's response to this is
I know the input hypothesis is true because I accidentally used it to learn English to a C2 level when I was in highschool. Being an angsty teenager that can only watch shows in English cause nothing gay enough is ever translated in Romanian has its benefits 🤷🏻♀️
Haha "gay enough".
I think another reason that the heavy output (or maybe one on one conversation) method plateaus much earlier than the heavy input method is that when people can tell you're not native / near native, they tend to grade their language. Often times they grade it a LOT. I've been studying Japanese 10 years now and Japanese people still automatically assume I can't follow long sentences or words that are based on kanji (Chinese) as opposed to English loan words. In addition to not really correcting my mistakes, I only get low level Japanese spoken to me, there's no way I'll ever get past what would be considered a bare minumum to have a basic conversation. This tendency to grade their language heavily when speaking to foreigners drove me nuts when I was living in Japan and I actually got angry at Japanese people in general because of it. Of course, grading your language is a bit of a skill - so you can seek out people that don't have it. If you're serious about learning that'll help you more than people who can grade their language because they'll unconsciously do it all the time. Of course, if you're at the government office trying to get your paperwork sorted, you definitely want someone who can grade their language helping you.
The scamming diet coach says..... You have to diet and excersize and it is really hard(hard in that you need to do it a lot) and you mostly have to do this as your own journey....now that is not a message to scam anyone in the diet field
Really enjoyed this series! Christian also seems to have been a good sport throughout. I hope he looks a bit more into input based learning after this
I have recently realized WHY *some* hate the input theory. Imagine I want to learn Swedish. So I could follow some Swedish language channel and being a *proper* learner.. Right? Yes. But I'm also interested in let's say trains. There must be for sure some Swedish youtuber out there making videos about trains in Swedish. So why to follow "boring" channel explaining me the language, when I can follow a native speaker talking about the stuff I am interested in? At the end of the day we don't need so many teachers to teach us. It is always US and OUR BRAIN to do actual work. That's why some people will always stand against the input. Some teachers would tell you that the language can be learned in four walls class room only. Internet? CZcams? They didn't have youtube back then, and they are teachers now, so they *must be* right. Isn't? Well...
@Kenura Medagedara Okay, but how it is related to languages learning? You DO need to study biology from paper book or pdf. To learn a language you can just listen to the radio or TV... (almost) Each native speaker is fluent. Some native speakers are linguistic scientists. If you want to be fluent (as much as possible) you don't need to study applied linguistic science. If you want to be reasonably good at biology, you do need to study to some degree. You CAN watch BBC documents about animals, but you would not became a scientist by this. Please, talk about languages here, not about how to became a rocket scientist easier way.
@Kenura Medagedara Okay, you are absolutely right. But if you ask people what is easier, to attend to a class and to study, or to listen to a radio - many would say class and study is easier because to listen to a radio in native language is super scary. For most of the people. Especially those denying to listen to, while they *don't understand each single word*. And even such a silly thing like a radio station from the country on the other side of the world, would not be easy to get 20 years ago or more. On the other side if you were born in 80s and you had a satelite dish back then, did you learn any language this way? I know one friend, he did to learn English as a 8 year old because of watching cartoons. BUT it was his partent to tell him to WATCH those cartoons. Most parent would say at best meeh, waste of time, you and your stupid cartoons from whatever country. So yeah, I guess we do agree, we just point some other details, but the picture is more or less same. I hope :)
Maybe that applies to some people. But honestly it's unfair to assume motivations like that. I think the input hypothesis is incorrect and I have no vested interest in any of this. I just think it's wrong based on my review of the scientific literature and evidence at hand. What gets me worked up, and what some people might perceive as "hating" the hypothesis, is just how many bad takes on the science are put out there as justification for these methods. I've got no problem with people wanting to follow a heavy-input or even an exclusively-input based approach. If that floats their boat, more power to them. But all the talk about "scientifically proven", "we learn like babies, and babies do X or Y", etc. honestly I'll admit that does peeve me. It's just a lot of really, really bad takes on the science.
@@bofbob1 What soft of science proof you are looking for? I do not overestimate or underestimate various teories. But I have learned German in relatively short period of time (2 years) to B2 niveau by input. CZcams, radio, news, and tv soaps. The input principe has worked FOR ME, and this is the only reason why I am advocating for this very method. Not because of this youtube video, or any other video. It works in general, it worked super well for me, but if it works for everybody? The only scienfic research could be related to the last part. Would it work for everyone or not? I believe, not for everyone but maybe for most of us. That is all, folks.
@@charlieshanowsky6103 More power to you. If more people did like you and just said "I'm doing this because I've tried it and it has worked well for me", I'd have no problem at all with any of it. It's just the gibberish scientific claims I often hear alongside it that get me riled up (not saying you're making those claims. You're not. But I do hear them from a lot of people). I react to those claims, and that gives the impression to some people that I'm hating on their approach to language learning, when I'm really not. Anyway, it's neither here nor there. Carry on. :-)
Idk if they say it with learning other languages, but there's a saying I heard about Spanish learning: "there are two reasons you don't understand what was said: 1, you don't know the words... 2, you haven't listened to Spanish enough".
Yeah, grammar is important. No matter how you learn it. Self-study, classes, courses.
But you also definitely need input. Grammar can't teach you different accents or rhythms or give you a sense of a language.
Seems to me that the skill-building hypothesis is one you can readily charge for. (And also seems to be the one responsible for a few generations of people here in the US who (1) studied foreign languages in both high school and university, and (2) can't speak any foreign language.)
And that the input hypothesis is, as you say, much harder to monetize.
I think the input hypothesis is the best in the long run, but people don't realize how long it actually takes and not everyone has the patience and time that people like Matt did to be exposed to so much Japanese before starting to actually understand and speak it.
I think people focus on getting to the speaking part too fast. By doing this, you will stay stuck on the basic level of the language. If you try to learn with comprehensive, compelling input, you will read more, listen more, and respect the language more.
There are people who say learn the most common words and phrases in the language (about 1,000-5,000 words). We tend to forget that we know 10-20 times more words than that (in a multitude of contexts) in our native language (for many people reading this, your native language may be English). Imagine how limited of a conversation a person would have speaking to a native English speaker, only learning 1,000-5,000 words and phrases. You probably would struggle to have a decent conversation with them the way you would with your close friends. It took me years to realize this. I been trying to learn Spanish, literally for decades because I was stuck on the basic level because I never thought about compelling Comprehensive reading material and listening to hours of the spoken language (I'm talking podcasts, radio shows, and TV shows where there is very little dead air time). By me doing a lot of input, I can hear words better in Spanish, even when people speak fast because my ears can listen faster and I'm reading more words and recognizing them when I hear them. Even if I don't know what is said, I can still "hear the words" instead of a mush of words blended together.
I would give Stephen Krashen and Steve Kaufmann credit for putting a huge emphasis on reading instead of mastering grammar books and trying to learn a bunch of words through brute force using flash cards. I think flash cards are effective, but reading is neglected by a lot of the language learners to truly learn the language on a higher and deeper level.
When it comes to speaking, I have to give major credit to Idahosa Ness with the Mimic Method, where he focuses on the sounds of the language, instead of trying to speak the language how it's written. Learning songs from popular rap or fast-paced songs are highly effective as an exercise to speak fluidly because you are training the "speaking muscles" to move in a similar way native speakers speak the language.
When it comes to Immersion, I give major credit to Khatzumato and Matt vs. Japan. Spending hours in the language helps accelerate the language learning process. I use to watch Spanish speaking content for about the length of a show hear and there, but now, I listen to it for hours a day while I work every day. This is another reason why people can't understand native speakers in their target language... they don't listen to enough of it.
I myself have learnt a few languages without spending money at all. Recently I've started to learn Italian and will follow the same pattern: no spending money at all. Btw, Krashen advocates that selling books is a great source of money in language learning as a whole and CI doesn't need those!
I definitely think that selling them books can make one some money. I have a ton of them lying in my house haha.
Selling beginner language learning books is the most probable to make the money. Everyone has to start from the beginning. Most won't stay for the long haul. Advance levels won't be as lucrative.
And how was your approach? Especially in the beginning I find it hard without a structured cource or something
This is off topic but yesterday I tried to translate a text from SC to English and I realized that translating from your native language to your target language is harder than just talking in your target language. When you are translating from your native language, there are a lot of expressions which you can't translate literally and sometimes it is hard to find the expression in English which captures the essence of the expression in SC.
True, but translation is good practice if you want to become more conscious about the gaps and traps. No good translation is verbatim. One can take advantage of professional high quality translators' work while learning like this: pick a page of highly interesting text in your target language (and give it 2 -10 hours) and make sure there is a good translation, but don't use it yet.
Try to translate yourself, with the help of dictionaries and grammar books and write your translation down so that you can compare with the work of the professional, and ponder on the differences. This reflection has a very important function.
Let's say you like Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" - do translate a passage and compare with a good published translation. In Swedish we have the translation "Det susar i säven" by Signe Hallström. In the very good translation, we see how already in the title she has chosen to keep the alliteration and rhytm instead of a verbatim translation.
This example is such a good translation, that you can try to do the exercise the other way around, too.
Google-translate is not a veery good help, really, but you can use it if your sense of style is strong and you are aware of the limits and fallacies of automatic translation.
@Kenura Medagedara Serbo-Croatian
@Kenura Medagedara That's a riddle to me, too! :-) But the principle is always the same. Word by word translations are not a good goal.
Indeed. It's a pretty common misconception that translating/interpreting requires nothing more than mastery of several languages. But they both require additional skillsets that, while related to language, are quite specific to the activity itself. Source: me ^^(I worked as a conference interpreter for just short of a decade)
@@bofbob1 Simultanious translation is especially hard. I tried to do it, translating English movie to my native language and I couldn't find the words in my native language fast enough. I understand the sentence in English but I can't think of the flwords in my language fast enough and/or I can't make the sentence structure in my native language fast enough and/or I simply don't know how to translate it because literal translation would just give you nonsense.
Speaking of real versus false prophets, here's the money quote which may be the basis for all our future epiphanies: "If the task of learning to speak English were additive and linear, as present linguistic and psychological discussions suggest it is, it is difficult to see how anyone could learn English. If each phonological and syntactic rule, each complex of lexical features, each semantic value and stylistic nuance - in short, if each item which the linguist's analysis leads him to identify had to be acquired one at a time, proceeding from simplest to most complex, and then each had to be connected to specified stimuli or stimulus sets, the child learner would be old before he could say a single appropriate thing and the adult learner would be dead. If each frame of a self-instructional program could teach only one item (or even two or three) at a time, programmed language instruction would never enable the students to use the language significantly. The item-by-item contrastive drills proposed by most modern applied linguists and the requirement by programmers that the behaviors to be taught must be specified seem to rest on this essentially hopeless notion of the language learning process.
" Newmark, 19 friggin' 66. Full citation available. Where is the scandal, Christian? In the billions of dollars spent each year in the halls of our most vaunted academic institutions, where the linear approach still holds sway, or in those who realize that we learn a second language much like we learn our first one?
As for the claim that Krashen is somehow monetizing this approach doesn't it contradict his decision to make all of his works, books, articles available completely for free on his website which doesn't have any ads whatsoever? He has a CZcams channel which is not updated (often) and I don't think that it has monetization, he gives (I assume) free online lectures for universities etc. He advocates for libraries and free scientific journals.
I just find it really hard to see any avenue that he could use for money. I mean the guy's incredibly old, I doubt money concern him at this point (and I doubt it ever had). He's driven by curiosity and truth, the same reasons why any person knowing how good input is is trying to show it to others without getting any money from it.
I am going to pin a comment about this.
Not to be political, but I think I know why he’s being that generous lmao.
@@Reforming_LL Why?
@@user-bw3xj3ni6r He follows left leaning accounts on Twitter.
Late to this, but I really enjoyed these three videos (it would be helpful though if they were labelled 1-3, I didn't realise until recently that this was part of the series). Having come to input via Matt v Japan and others, I've been surprised talking to other Japanese language learners how few people know of input. I've also noted quite obvious hostility to input from a lot of traditional teachers. I think rather than 'false profits', its more a case that nobody wants to find out that they could have learned all the know in a much easier and more efficient manner.
I just came back to learning French. And I’ve been doing it in a very relaxed and unambitious sort of way. Not trying hard - it’s just fun to start connecting with the language again. I’m a low A2. When I was last studying it I was very very ambitious and I spent a lot of time trying every single app and doing various courses. I was using all three approaches - learning the grammar trying to speak and listening to audios. Then I stopped and I haven’t studied French for about two years. And this time I just began doing a short Duolingo session for free morning and evening, to amuse myself. But some days I started working through my audiobook collection and listen for maybe a couple of hours a day. Within three days I was startled by what happened. I began thinking in French. I began muttering to myself in French. On the days where I didn’t do that, it didn’t happen and didn’t happen the next day, but if I had a day of listening for a couple of hours, the next day I was thinking in French, I was speaking in French to myself and my unfortunate partner. And it just sold me on what happens when you do immerse yourself, even just for a couple of hours in comprehensible input. I would find phrases popping up in my brain I’ve never learnt that were just imported from what I was listening to. I’d have to go and look them up to find out what they meant. It just works, people, it just works.
I remember a Krashen Interview, where when asked if this or that idea could be right, he said "I don't know". People who say this aren't "false prophets" or scammers.
Your videos have definitely inspired me to do more input based learning. Going to start with videos aimed at natives and not learning videos
Pretty cool to see how your own intellectual journey to finding the input hypothesis mirrors my own. I'm guessing there are a lot of us who have been through this same process.
Thanks for the video's this is a complicated topic but a great one to discuss. I'm learning French after almost 20 years of not speaking it and was only exposed to classroom learning in my youth but now recognize the importance of having a solid mixed method depending on what my goals are. Look forward to checking out your other videos.
Superbra serie! Din youtube-kanal är min favorit, och jag ser ständigt fram emot nya videos.
Jag blir också mer och mer imponerad och engagerad.
That's the exact conclusion i came up with myself some time ago. Of course no one will promote( by no one I mean language learning companies and stuff ) input based approach since it's very difficult to monetize.
I've just reached B1 in French. Not a single penny spent, nor do I plan on spending any on the future.
I want to learn French but I have no idea where to begin. What is the first thing you do when learning a new language?
@@xavier01110 czcams.com/play/PL4lJLtpfKDUEUofMMkp9XO0l8vM10BMAh.html
I followed that from 10/3 seeing one episode each day, and the progressed to a podcast on Spotify called "Innerfrench". (Innerfrench also have a youtube channel.)
Being 5 months in I'm rather surprised at how useful my French is already in my daily life.
And I've promised myself this time to be more hardcore Krashen than Krashen himself, and not speak any French until I have something I want to say!
(Or until I pass 2000 hours of input, whatever comes first)
@@xavier01110 People usually start with learning the alphabet & pronunciation. You can learn both by watching CZcams videos designed for beginners. Then you learn a few simple phrases & greetings to get to know the language. You can also buy a text book for this. The Teach Yourself series is popular.
I like how you have different ways of looking at language learning. I am struggling to learn hangeul and I get inspiration from watching your videos. They give me ideas about how I can change up my efforts. I'm also into Japanese and Spanish. I'm all over the place lol
Making money is what people do through CZcams monetization, Patreon or by other means. It is not a bad thing unless it's part of an unrealistic 'get __ fast' scam or the like. If Krashen wants to make money (even lots of it) selling books and programs using his hard work and methodology, he has every right to it. The same goes for everyone else. If you center the talk around money, you can accuse anyone of bad intentions. Heck, I can even claim they are using the long scam tactic; dangling a free carrot at the beginning before locking content behind a paywall once they gain the traction they needed to escape obscurity.
I agree. Krashen does have some books you can buy but most of his research work you can just find online for free. So I doubt that he is getting rich out of the input method.
I have pinned a comment about this.
I’m fluent in American Sign Language and the only way you can learn it is through input. Learn basic structure, vocab, input, vocab, input, vocab, input. When you start to understand large chunks of what you listen to start speaking. Seems to be what everyone comes to that I’ve ever spoken to that’s truly fluent in a language.
I am a year late, but I just watched all 3 of your videos, very interesting. I am someone who believes in lots of input. It's how we learn our first language. Think of how long a child takes before they start speaking. They get lots of input before they get to that stage. However, we know they understand what they hear because they give other forms of response. They make mistakes, but eventually they say the right thing because of what they hear.
I personally believe that learning to speak a language is not a creative field. We imitate. We copy. We repeat what we hear. You cannot speak what you have never heard or read.
When we acquire something it becomes ours, and we get to use it. This is true as well for languages. We acquire language through lots of exposure, we get to speak it.
great vids such an interesting topic.. just some feedback - for me its really unclear which 3 videos are in the series I'e re-watched 2 or 3 times over the past few months because it's so fascinating and, every time, I've struggled to find the others in the series - unless im missing something there's nothing linking the videos (part 1/2/3, or consistent thumbnails/titles etc.)
Love seeing your average video views going up. Well deserved
Hi Lamont,
Did you record your hours spent studying in Swedish? If so, I am really curious on what you think about the Common European Framework for language reference as well as the hours required. I loved these three videos and I am really interested in hearing what you think about it.
I found that sometimes having paid course or a teacher helps people just because it gives them motivation to practice... regardless of the course/method approach. People are strange )
Very interesting. I agree with a lot of what you say in all 3 videos. There are no absolutes. But modeling ourselves on input is very important.
In my first L2, German, I could always hear American accents from my class colleagues, and even later from a fluent (fellow masters) student (who worked for a German Uni) who still had a clear American accent with his German. I always tried to model my German on input from others and TV (dubbed Star Trek TNG's Cptn Picard was one model). Now in Japan, my 2ns L2, and one I speak more now, I haven't really found a good model, and my Japanese is not really as good, even though I can produce, I still make the same mistakes often (mixing transitive and intransitive verbs, eg), so I will be seeking more on that. I've started looking at another L2 (Mandarin), for work, but it's not as important yet.
I really appreciated these three videos. As somebody bilingual (English/Italian) and a former language teacher, this really rings true. Is there an input-based website or resources for English? My girlfriend would benefit... of course I will check out your channel now.
thank you sir. your honesty is too honest. I think one more thing that bugs me , is that language learning in some of these tradition output in classroom first and often can also be potentially damaging or limiting if the learners goal is actual fluency. but again. what do I know I'm just a pleb.
Yes I love to hear you go on about stuff. Keep it up. About to go back to French.
He provided no research to back up his criticism. Then at 6:45, I see he teaches words with opposite meanings together. Even though this is a common practice among teachers and publishers, most research I've read shows that teaching opposites together isn't a great idea.
Cool man. Pretty much agree with most of what you're saying here. I learned Spanish with input-based learning. I basically focused on the i+1 idea to extract sentences from my input and study with Anki flashcards. I went as far as getting native speakers to correct and record sentences that I wrote for my new vocabulary. I still use Anki these days but adapted for a more advanced level.
All non native english speakers learn the language through input.
I've personally done a lot of research about this topic as well over the last 3 years and have personal experience learning languages in all 3 settings. I studied Latin in highschool, German and Russian in college, and have been self teaching myself Japanese and Korean. From my time interacting with my fellow learners, everyone I know who has learned a language without actively engaging with native material during the learning process does not fundamentally understand the phonology and cultural norms and influences surrounding the construction of the language. Learning language based on books and courses is often very limited in scope as it has a definite beginning and end while languages never end. Language learning books and courses should I think be see as more of a beginners stepping block up to real native level communication. I don't think "immersion only" is actually a very good strategy, but heavy immersion when combined with deliberate studying is important. Some parts of a language will not just suddenly pop into your head just because you heard others say it before. For Japanese I had to intentionally study pitch accent and Kanji or there's no way would be able to understand them. Immersion also doesn't mean just listening to a language either, but to really dig in and engage with it. Look for words you know, try to use context to learn new words before looking them up, pay attention to pronunciation and context in which vocabulary is used. It won't be too long before you'll be able to understand all the common stuff so you can focus on the meaningful parts of the material.
Ironically, Krashen is one of the worst examples of "the proof is in the pudding" ...
I too have never forgotten the moment Matt completely owned LingQ Daddy, after being told to his face for the entire interview that his method was not correct and because he didn't know what pitch accent was, it couldn't be important. Then later LingQ Daddy tried to say "well it was never my GOAL to speak like a perfect native speaker" well okay then it isn't my GOAL to buy your product lmao.
You want to learn to speak -- eventually.
But before you start speaking you really need to learn how to understand when someone is answering, otherwise what is the point of you talking (unless you plan to make a living by claiming to be a polyglot on CZcams).
Somehow people tend to be impressed when you can say a couple of sentences in some language they don't understand, even if those three sentences are the only thing you know. I guess it makes a better video than you watching a lecture on rocket science in your target language and actually understanding it, but which is more useful?
Hey there, I have a passion in acquiring fluency in Italian due to my heritage but I'll cut right to the chase on something I wanted your opinion on. I bought a text book "Complete Italian Step by Step". It is a text book composed of Italian lessons from very beginners Italian to advanced Italian lessons. I was wondering if you think this book alone would be an effective tool in achieving my goal of fluency with only this book, or if using other tools would be essential. So far what I've learned is the gender of Italian words, I've learned about how and when to use the words stare and essere which both mean "to be" bit are used differently. I have also learned how to use the definite and indefinite articles. That's baseline what I've learned so far and that's covering 1 and a half chapters out of almost 38 chapters. However my question is: Can I achieve my goal only using this book, or should I consider using other tools for learning? Please let me know the thoughts you have because I really like your content and your input on the matter of language learning.
No book alone, no matter how thick it is or clever the method is, is enough to reach fluency in any language.
You need at least 1000 hours of input from genuine content made for native speakers of the language. A book is certainly enough to get you to the point of being able to watch/listen to real content. But the book is really JUST the start.
If not a classroom, you need a competent, trained, and qualified teacher; lots of input (reading and listening) and; eventually, lots of output (writing and speaking). This is the way. There are no shortcuts.
There are no shortcuts but you definitely don't need a trained and qualified teacher.
Kids speak their native languages essentially perfectly by age 13, and normally even better if they were home schooled by their mum or dad.
New to the channel... No clue what you're talking about yet. But it sounds like what I did to learn any language, so yeah, seems legit. Everything that comes out of the head has to go in before. Kids don't learn by speaking. They understand language way before they can speak. In the end it's about understanding. The active vocabulary will follow.
You are right and he is wrong. I totally agree with you, and I find it strange that he is able to be so wrong.
I think he's actually "playing dumb" a bit to spark controversy.
@@daysandwords I hope so because otherwise it would mean he actually is dumb. How can an English language teacher have such a poor grasp of English that they think acquiring a language means that you are not going to be able to speak it (the word "acquire" in no way implies this), and be so lacking in understanding how languages are learned that they fail to understand the power of input?
He will probably read this at some point but is actually a few sandwiches short of a picnic. His response to my videos, for example, was completely bizarre and unhinged. One of the comment threads on one of the videos got as far as blaming him for things and questioning his financial interests... This was all on Europe/US time while I was asleep; I never saw or participated in these comments, yet he messaged me saying that I had completed my mission of assassinating his character???
@@daysandwords I think he does a good job of providing comprehensible input for students whose level is quite low, which is ironic since he seems to be slagging off the whole concept of comprehensible input. But anyway, I think he does a good job for a lot of people, but I don't think his analytical skills can be all that good based on what you're saying here (like, what?) and based on his comments about language learning. To reiterate what I've said already, I think you are spot on with your analysis. Good channel and good videos, too, by the way 👍
@@daysandwords did he ever make a video response?
I am a French teacher. I also speak German, Italian, and Spanish. I have also read some of the research and talked to lots of successful language learners. There are different methods that work. I prefer to combine methods. Input does help. However, if you only ever do input, you won't be able to speak. But you will learn to speak very quickly if you are ever immersed in the language. Output also works, but you need to get input also or you won't understand anything. Explicit vocabulary learning does work. Explicit grammar instruction does not work well- you actually learn grammar better by just reading. Pronunciation practice is important so native speakers can understand you. Combining the methods that work is a good approach. For example, getting a language tutor, using a flash card vocabulary app, and watching videos in your target language works. Just doing one of those things is not going to be very effective. IMHO, input + output + explicit learning = successful language learning (or should I say acquisition?). If you miss one of these factors, you will not learn as much. Traditional classrooms do mostly explicit learning. Little input until advanced levels where you read books that are way too hard for you, but still little listening comprehension. You need thousands of hours of listening. Some schools have switched to all comprehensible input, with no explicit instruction or output, which also does not work in terms of speaking although it does improve comprehension. IMHO, you need a balance of the 3. Input, output, and explicit learning.
I don't believe that "there are different methods that work". I believe that all methods can work because eventually they all amount to the same thing; so you might as well go for the bit that is actually doing the heavy lifting (input). That's a 2 sentence summary of a 20,000 essay that I am yet to write.
I’ve been watching a lot of Spanish videos to learn Spanish, but I’m also engaging in conversation on a regular basis with native speakers. I don’t do a ton of vocab sheets, but if I hear something that I don’t know, I may look it up to understand the context that word is in. For example why are they using “-te” or “-lo” in that sentence?
The reference to the prestige was ingenious )
Krashen is the man, end of discussion
Sorry I arrived late to this discussion, but it's really screwing with my experience. I bought into Krashen/Kaufmann big time, and spent hundreds of hours listening, listening, and more listening to comprehensible input. I got nowhere. The whole experience was very discouraging. I arrived at the conclusion that you really have to incorporate speaking into your program at an early stage. There appears to be some sort of ideal balance between CI and speaking. I don't know what that balance is, but I just sense that a good language learning program has to include both.
It certainly doesn't have to be EARLY.
I absolutely agree that you need to speak in order to get good, but it doesn't need to be early and I can attest to that personally, and I know others who speak their languages better than I do who were silent for a year or two.
Krashen isn't mistaken tho, deliberate practice makes understanding messages easier Which is what he says
"how stupid learning a language by listening to the language" says no baby ever😂😂😂😂
Epic series, looking forward to the next one. We just have to wait for someone to make another controversial video. Haha 😂
Listen, I never watched no 54 minute video of yours and second that prosody assignment was a mini study I did 2 years ago for my Communications class. CZcams won’t let me post the links!
Input method has only failed me when I'm learning a language with little engaging content :(
Canguro speaks Spanish quite well and fluently, but you’re right, his accent is pretty strong. It is really odd and not natural sounding at all to me
Hey man, I have a question. I've been studying english for a few months using this immersion approach. I do a lot of listening every day and I use headphones, but using headphones for 4 or more hours per day isn't comfortable in my opinion. I'm thinking about stop using it, at least for a while. So, is listening without headphones or earbuds as effective as listening with them on?
Well, I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but I would first recommend a pair of Audio Technica ATH-AD500 / 700 / 900 / 1000 (the number doesn't matter, or if they have an X after them doesn't matter either, but they should be AD not just A) - I am a headphone enthusiast but even I have never found headphones even half as comfortable. I am sitting here writing this wih my 12 year old ATH-AD900 which are literally held together with a large peg because even THEN they are more comfortable.
Otherwise, is there an extra hour or two a day you can get in without headphones?
Even just reading?
But yeah I think listening without headphones is also fine.
@@daysandwords wow, thanks for answering man, you're a legend
I love that you are so honest.
Interesting stuff man!
I was actually listening instead of looking at the video and was so stoked when I understood the Japanese of the bat. Then I was super shocked when I found out it was Matt. He should brag less about sounding like a native and just post a clip where you cant see who’s speaking until the end, but what a legend.
I've never heard Matt claim he sounds native - quite the opposite, he always rejects that praise and says he still has imperfections
@@sandwichbreath0 He has done so multiple times
He has a video where he claims to be tricking Japanese people into thinking he's a native
It's important to mention that no matter how much money you spend, or how many hours a day you spend studying, you'll never learn anything if you're learning the wrong way. My prefered way of studying doesn't necessarily mean it's the best way for someone else. Learning how to learn is a journey in of itself and it's extremely subjective to the person themselves. There's no end-all-be-all best method for learning.
It's dangerous to make claims such as input-heavy learning being the best, but it's also dangerous to make claims that it's absolutely not the best. Reading, listening, speaking, studying grammar forms, every aspect is important in its own way when it comes to learning efficiency.
You can learn a language by only reading or listening, but mixing and matching methods that you personally find work will yield the best result. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the most enjoyable method for you, but it gives results which is what matters most of the time.
Your thinking system must be reached !!
Although I'm a fan of Matt's videos and I would love to speak Japanese to the same level that he does, I don't think you can discount the age factor in acquiring a language. He got the language bug as a freshman in highschool - that's like 14 years old? Most 14 year olds moving to a new country will end up speaking the new language very well. But adults who do the same thing don't get that same result. If an English speaker starts learning Japanese at say age 34, do you really think it's possible to get Matt's results? I don't think so. I'd love to see otherwise though.
I have quite a lot of answers to this that I might type if I have time but for right now, I kind of agree and disagree.
I started at 20 and it’s working well for Spanish so lol.
I don't think there is proof that learning a language at 14 is going to be any easier or more successful than 34. The main thing the 14 year old has over the 34 year old (in many cases) is more free time and fewer responsibilities.
@@dodgingcars Yeah, pretty much this.
@@dodgingcars Well, this doesn't count as "proof," but to me it's strongly suggestive: I can remember plenty of people in high school who came to Australia as teens and spoke either no or very little English, yet within a few short years were speaking as fluently as natives and their only distinguishing trait was their accent. I can't think of a single immigrant who arrived as an adult with no/little English and who has attained similar fluency, and I'm sure I've met more immigrant adults than I have immigrant teenagers.
I think it's ironic that Christian hosted Steve Kaufmann on his channel "czcams.com/video/9YpvlPbzgnM/video.html", wherein Steve touted the merits of massive input, but Christian chose not to tell Steve that the Input-Hypothesis is bullshit. Steve has, in fact, learned 20 languages following the Input-Hypothesis.
I was actually thinking of one day, creating a course as well, to teach my language students French. Now I feel like I am an upcoming scammer haha. What would say are some of the things, I should look out for, so that if I create such a product, I would actually put out some value and not be a scammer.
I've done some language teaching in the past, before I found out about Krashen and CI and ALG and all that. I sometimes feel like I was an unwitting scammer too. In my defense, at the time I was giving my students the best I had and I always looked for flaws in myself before blaming them. Which is why I'm here now.
@@joelthomastr Me too. That is the same mindset I have. But for me for example, I have a chinese online teacher and I have gotten fluent in chinese thanks to her. But mostly because I did a lot of self studying
I tried twice my (extensive) comments talking about my experience using Input were deleted by yt idk, to sum up it has worked for me doesn't mean it will for everyone. It's not perfect but not bs
Yeah they haven't shown up in "held for review" either, sorry to hear they were deleted.
I actually do think that it will more or less work for everyone. Basically I think that if you get enough input and you are bad at the language, then there is a separate issue going on (e.g. a conscious intervention blocking correct acqusition or something).
@@daysandwords Not the point but thanks for letting me know. I think all begun weeks ago. Helping a user with a link, every since then when I tried to write long comments.. bam.
That's right, we need to understand how really the Input works and I'm not a genius, prons and cons, that Input automatically doesn't mean fluency.
I’m going to be a truck driver soon so I won’t have time to watch tv but I wanted to listen to podcast while driving and read when I had time . Even if I don’t understand will I start to understand overtime magically if I just listen and (read when I have time) ?
What language is this for, and what language or languages do you already speak?
@@daysandwords i speak English and learning Portuguese right now
OK well Portuguese is anglosemblant, meaning that it shares a reasonable amount with English. You COULD just listen and watch tv shows and eventually you would pick it up, but it will take much longer than if you learn about 500 of the most common words and a few important grammar structures. THEN listen, watch and read a tonne, and you will eventually soak up the language.
Hello. How's your Portuguese?
@@depotemkin I switched to Spanish
Hur många språk kan du tala och skriva? Och varför valde du att lära dig dem?
Bara engelska och svenska. Jag brukade förtstå ganska mycket franska men inte nu längre. Jag bestämde mig för att fokusera på svenska. Varför valde jag just svenska? Det är ju en lång historia...
It seems that Christian finally made a response video. Although it's still unlisted.
Input hypothesis BS? I learned German word order by watching Toytown when I was a small child. That wasn't even in German. One of the characters spoke English with a German word order. When I started studying German, the word order was the easiest thing in the world for me. It was so natural. I made many mistakes in German, but word order was never one I made.
@@stevencarr4002 Are you referring to Christian's response video?
@@jamesmccloud7535 The original one. I haven't watched the response video.
@@stevencarr4002 Ohh okay your reply to my comment just seemed a bit random lol
I just got scammed by Steve Kaufman's LingQ for 6 months
I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of LingQ... I have even asked Steve himself why it looks so terrible (I think it now looks a lot better), but how is it a scam? (Or were you being sarcastic?)
Lol 😂 Joel Olstein (or whatever) when you mentioned false prophets. Oh man i hope you didn’t make anyone too mad.
They can take out their anger on me in heaven. Except, wait... they won't be there.
Nice vid man
Can't agree with you more
POLYGLOT of 10 languages judges your ability to speak 1...wait, different video, sorry.
What does language acquisition really mean ??? I cannot sort it out from all things said.
Basically, how a baby learns a language.
Hi William - watch the 2nd video in this series, that explains it pretty well I think.
Hi, I have no way to watch your videos. I don't understand the language. Please write what is the best way to learn a language? What do I need to do every day?
If you mean that you don't understand English, then the best way to learn to understand English is by reading and listening to as much as possible in English. TV shows, books, podcasts and make them things that you like.
If you can find someone else who speaks English already and who also speaks your native language, then ask them to explain SOME things to you. But just keep listening and reading.
@@daysandwords thank you so much
I don't know about fake prophets but I for one worship our real and true second coming of the messiah Matt of Oregon