How to learn a language by yourself
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 13. 06. 2024
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Sample Weekly Study Plan:
*Monday: Vocabulary and Grammar*
- Morning: 30 minutes on vocabulary using flashcards (Anki/Quizlet)
- Evening: 30-1 hour on grammar exercises from a textbook. Dump them into anki. Use active recall and spaced repetition.
*Tuesday: Listening and Speaking*
- Morning: 20 minutes listening to a podcast in the target language. This is super easy. Another one I recommend is just listening to podcasts every night while, say, doing the dishes.
- Evening: 30-1h practicing speaking with a language exchange partner
*Wednesday: Reading and Writing*
- Morning: 20 minutes reading a short article or book chapter. Note any grammatical concepts you donât understand. Dump words into Anki (or similar).
- Evening: 30 minutes writing a journal entry in the target language. Try to use what you were working on in the morning, engaging in spaced, active recall.
*Thursday: Immersion and Media*
- Evening: 1 hour watching a TV show or movie in the target language. Lazy. Easy. Fun.
*Friday: Review and Practice*
- Morning: 30 minutes reviewing vocabulary and grammar from the week. Add anything you havenât added to your spaced repetition flash cards, that you think you should.
- Evening: 30 minutes practicing speaking or doing interactive exercises online.
*Saturday: Cultural Exploration*
- Afternoon: 1 hour exploring cultural aspects through cooking, music, or virtual tours. You can do a lot of this on CZcams or Wikipedia.
*Sunday: Rest and Reflect*
- Reflect on the weekâs progress and adjust goals or methods if necessary
Edited with Gling AI: bit.ly/46bGeYv
#languagelearning #italki #fluency #languages #languageskills
Honestly, my motivation to learn languages is the process of learning itself. Getting from point A to B and starting to understand things you previously couldn't is just a magical feeling that never gets old!
Thatâs beautiful
Yup, itâs awesome!
This is the thing i love the most about language learning. I like it so much that it demotivated me a little to learn Spanish for a while because I'm a native Portuguese speaker and these languages are so similar that this effect doesn't really exist.
@@Brian5506 Ă© verdade! Apesar de que vocĂȘ pode sempre se desafiar a se tornar um falante avançado de espanhol, em particular em sotaques mais difĂceis, como o porto riquinho (nem parece mais espanhol kkkkkkk)!
It's weird because the pleausure comes from understanding something in a language that is alien to you, so the sweetspot is being in that intermediate stage where the language is still relatively new, but you can understand a good amount of it, not a later stage where you're comfortable and familiar with it.
Everytime I look at this channel I get the much needed reminder that I am completely half assing my attempts at learning a language.
Itâs my own reminder to myself đ
Every single time I've tried flashcards, I got burnt out and dropped what I was learning. They're not for me. I'm saying this in case anyone else sees this and has a similar struggle. What I started doing instead is just interacting with media in the target language, and when I see a word I can't remember or don't recognize I look it up, try to create a mnemonic, and sometimes make the flashcard.
Sounds like you've found a way that flashcards work for you! đI've found that I prefer to have lots of flashcards that have different examples of word usage that follow a similar structure, e.g. having a flashcard for just the verb as well as a separate flashcard for using it for he/she/it, I, you, we, etc. It creates a lot of cards, but I get a lot of repetition in without it taking a lot of time when I'm reviewing since they're similar and not feeling like I'm struggling to remember something too complicated or just not remembering something because I've only seen it on a single flashcard a month ago
Language notebook. A written record of everything you tried to remember but forgot. đ
Trying to learn a critically endangered indigenous language (from my own nation, MĂ©tis/Michif), with limited resources and incompletely documented/recorded. Itâs really hard. Hard to keep up motivation when it feels futile. But trying to keep putting in the hours despite being a busy and overworked grad student by day. My goal is fluency, eventually, but with opportunities for immersion limited, that might not happen in my lifetime. More feasible goal is to learn enough of the fundamental language foundations to raise kids who grow up knowing those brutally complicated conjugation tables instinctively/naturally by being raised with it instead of having to memorize them, who could go on to learn more and speak it if they choose to.
I want to learn/am learning Basque to be able to speak with my fiance. She's from the basque country but since moving away she virtually never speaks it. I learned a lot last June, challenging myself to learn as much as I could in 4 weeks (since she came at the end of the month) to surprise her. How I found this channel, actually. Since then, because life and illness, I hadn't been able to sit down and study without getting headaches. But I haven't lost sight of my goal. I want her to never lose that part of home, no matter how far away she travels.
The surprise worked, btw, and she was very happy :)
God speed my friend, i have complete faith in you!
Zorionak! Basque is an amazing language I've been learning for a year after having lived in EH for 7 years
My motivations are pretty shallow to be honest, English was the only language that I had a LOT of motivation for learning because I actually have many reasons to use it and benefit from it greatly. Every other language I've tried has mostly been out of curiosity and kind of a gateway to learning more about a certain country's history and culture, this curiosity goes away after a couple of weeks though, probably because I'm on the autism spectrum lol
I guess I enjoy studying the grammar and etymology more than actually learning how to speak other languages in a real world scenario.
Sounds like a linguist!
I've been learning japanese by myself for a number of years now, and have put a lot of this advice to work. All I have to say is I would probably be a way better speaker if I knew about and implemented the pieces of advice I didn't know about LOL
Me too, as I learned these I realized how much time I had wasted
There is another resource not mentioned that is excellent for speaking and listening comprehension: conversation groups that you can find on Meetup, in community centers, etc. They are either free or very low cost. Often native speakers show up. I participate in 4 or 5 French conversation groups that meet once a week. You get everything: feedback, practice in the real presence of someone, and, as a bonus, you can make friends who share your interest. I find this the most helpful and enjoyable thing I do. Itâs also good prep before traveling to a francophone country. Even QuĂ©bec.đ
I would be interested in a video that goes into depth about how you structure your anki cards and how you use it.
I was doing this for a while in the livestreams. Ideal card has English word and image on one side, target language and audio on the other. Doesnât have to be a word, but I find full sentences are too much, and cloze deletion doesnât really do much for me, at least at first. Less than ideal is no audio, or no picture, or both.
@@languagejones6784 cool, thanks for answering
@@languagejones6784 Any thoughts, (pros, cons, etc. . . ), on Wyner's (Fluent Forever) suggestion for only using a target language in an Anki deck? His stuff has worked reasonably well for me as I've learned Greek; curious about your thoughts.
What a cunning linguist you are!
Fascinating.
I've been teaching myself Russian, poorly, for the past 6 or so years.
I think I finally have the alphabet down! :D
Ń ĐŸŃĐŸŃ
"cunning linguist"đ€š
After years learning other languages and occasionally seeing the Cyrillic alphabet, this year I started learning Russian on Duolingo and found out I knew almost all of the alphabet.
I learn Russian as well! I started off learning the alphabet with a Russian alphabet kids video I saw on CZcams! I also have a picture dictionary that is connected to an app where I can listen to the pronunciation if Iâm unsure. Additionally, I made a Russian music playlist! With perseverance you can. Even with all that I still have a very, very long way to go! Wishing you well!
@@Jessica-oy8zs Are you Brazilian by any chance? We could have conversations to practice if you want.
Ive been learning Russian by myself and with the help of native speakers on discord for the past few months, progress is slow but I'm making progress at least! (Also i love how the shabbat is like a free digital detox!)
Itâs funny, if I say I do a weekly digital detox and make a point of eating ethically slaughtered or just vegetarian, people love it. Mention Shabbat and kashrut, though⊠đ đ
Was watching Hotel Del Luna (íží ëžëŁšë) on Netflix with subtitles, and I suddenly felt the urge to be able to *hear* the words being spoken instead of just a string of incomprehensible sounds. 3 years later and I can understand maybe 10% of dialog on a good day (more often less), but I'm stretching my old brain and making slow slow progress while loving every minute.
One of my first words was: êł ììŽ, cat, kitty...which a little girl called the ghost tiger. I got the joke!!
Hotel del Luna was so good. I hope to rewatch it one day and understand most of what I hearing. đ€đœ
I want to be able to ring up a customer in Spanish. Like, itâs a black coffee. I shouldnât need to get someone else to understand thatâŠ..but also Iâm not going to be in this job forever. No idea what my motivation will be when i have a desk job (where a native speaker will just be so much of a better choice than me) but i definitely want to keep learning.
Thatâs an imminently doable goal. Follow up is small talk (âhowâs your day going?â âGood to see you again, the usual?â)
My wife and I are learning Spanish because we plan on retiring to a Spanish0speaking country in 10 years. We're being somewhat leisurely about it because we have time, but we have a lot of Spanish-speakers in the area so we can practice as we go.
Bien, buena suerte.
Thatâs delightful! Enjoy!
I'm learning Modern Standard Arabic with Duolingo, and I have been keeping a journal of everything I learn. It's literally the only way I can remember anything đ
i have been learning mandarin chinese by myself ever since i was 15 (i'm 20 now) and i swear by (mostly) everything you said!
i wanted to be able to understand native material depicting real life converations asap, since i like many chinese celebrities. i used hsk 2.0 as a guide but since i have adhd it's hard for me to turn the words into flashcards and actually review them, so i instead looked for example sentences and tried coming up with scenarios in which you could use that word.
like i said, i like chinese celebrities, so i also looked up words i didnt know that showed up often in songs or cdramas
i began my reading journey with fanfiction (lol) but soon moved on to books and (mainly) online news outlets
i did not practice speaking !! it was the pandemic and i was too awkward to meet natives online and too broke to get lessons. my town doesn't have a big immigrant community, but i was able to meet a family that moved here from taiwan and i could actually communicate with them, to my surprise
overall what i think is most important is tailoring these guidelines to your needs and *likes*, because you won't stick to something you find boring
ć æČčïŒ
Iâm working on Latin. Iâd like to be able to read it for understanding. I also use it for prayers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that people are actually learning to communicate in it.
Several years ago, I returned from my first visit to Paris and swore that I would speak French when I returned. After 4 years of grinding Duo and watching lots of YT videos, I returned to France and spoke nothing but French for the entire trip. But I was burnt out when I returned and quit for at least a year.
Now, Iâm back at it with a new goal. My wife and I want to buy a small home in rural France in 3 years and I want to be able to converse and understand spoken French much better. I know I need far more speaking and learning practice than the owl can give, so I took the leap to sign up for italki. The next leap of faith will be to step out and risk practicing and feeling foolish with a native speaker. So, thatâs my motivation: not feel like a complete idiot and unable to communicate with my neighbors in France!
I discovered this channel about two days ago, and I think it's now one of my favourite channels!
I decided to learn spanish a few months ago after a trip. But I had to stop because of health issues taking their toll. I've been so demoralised to start up again, but I like this small, manageable study plan.
Thanks for taking the time to help us langauge house md!
I donât see it, but I still appreciate that you do đ
@@languagejones6784 Look at the "polyglots" video again?
I totally see it...
Oh wow: 11:10 Iâve never heard the term âspatial memoryâ, but in classic rejection of Sapir Whorf, this concept has affected my learning life so much for decades . Itâs why Anki and uniform size flash cards have never worked for me at all, but a paper scrap book with bits of random paper and stuck in it does.
I started learning Japanese because of a translator's comment in something I read, something along the lines of "This conversation isn't really translatable but this is what's going on". "Aha!" I thought, "If I learn japanese then I will understand that." A few years down the line and I'm not yet that good, but I am now able to read simpler things like Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, sorry, æäžăźăăăŸăéł„ăŻăăăŻă« without too much struggle.
I had a very similar trigger for learning Japanese. I read two different English translations of the same Japanese manga and noticed quite a few differences between them. I remember thinking "which is more correct" before getting the idea that maybe neither quite captured the nuances correctly because there wasn't an English language equivalent. That made me want to be able to read (and later, listen) to the original Japanese without a translation.
@@benjaminfunk168 Yeah, the more I got into Japanese the more I realized how variable the translations were. TBH, if I'd known anything about the language before I started, I probably wouldn't have, but ignorance of the difficulty, needing a hobby, and being stuck in the house because of lockdowns got me over the initial horror.
That is awesome!
Another great video. Thanks. Two things I've found very helpful: (1) Every now and then transcribe something you are listening to. Sort of like doing a dictée in French. At first this might be very hard. But nothing, I mean nothing, improves your aural comprehension as much as transcribing what you are hearing. Ideally, transcribe something which has the text available. I employed this learning technique after moving to German speaking Switzerland. My reading and writing skills were decent. I could speak well enough to express my thoughts. I couldn't understand one word. So I spent a year listening to podcast, watching videos in German, movies, shows, news, etc.-and transcribing. I can now transcribe anything I hear in German, even if I don't understand one word. Listening is a skill and you can sharpen this skill on the whetstone of transcription. (2) Read or listen to all sorts of material, not just the same stuff. If you listen to weather reports, you will get good at weather reports. Won't help you much when you have to report a broken appliance in your apartment to your landlord. In particular, I recently started working through a book to prep German students for high school (Sicher ins Gymnasium). I find this absolutely wonderful, because I did not go to grammar school or high school in Germany. The prep book has all kinds of vocabulary and readings which are filling gaps in my German literacy.
Aloha Taylor. I've been doing self-study of te reo MÄori off and on for about four years, though, as you note, my reading and listening are far beyond my speaking and, to a lesser degree, writing. I started working on Tahitian earlier this year as I'm going to be doing some research in both locations next year in addition trying to immerse in the languages. So that's the motivation. I highly proficient with Hawaiian (30+ years with many years working in a Hawaiian language environment. All three languages are closely related 70% cognates, closely related grammatical structures and cultural elements. There are many amazing resources for MÄori, a bit less but still significant resources for Hawaiian, and far less for Tahitian (especially in English). Your videos, particularly this one, have really rekindled the fire after a few months away from study. Mahalo!
I have a Duolingo notebook very similar to this!! When I donât have access to my notebook, I do a screenshot and make notes directly on that screenshot. I have learned a bit of Russian like this. I would probably have learned more by now, but I haven't been very consistent in writing in my little notebook. I have been using mostly Duolingo because it teaches me new vocabulary and reinforces some basic grammar. I use Pimsleur when I want to start learning a language, and it gives me an amazing jumpstart to hearing and speaking.
I'm glad that the Japanese language learning community has some great resources and helpful community. I made a lot of progress shadowing and using Anki to get me out of the beginning phase. Every day I would learn some grammar and a few new words then just immerse trying to use what I had just learned. When I got to the intermediate phase I started interacting with Japanese people online especially in video games so I had plenty of options to practice speaking listening without having to hire private tutors.
Iâm learning Spanish because I live and work in Philly where a third or so of the people primarily speak it, and 80% of the people I interact with do.
Iâm pretty good at the 15 same sentences I need until I run into someone that has a slightly different problem lol
I think one problem when people give advice about learning a language is that they don't break it down into levels. The "listen to podcasts" and "watch TV shows" etc isn't good for beginners and can be very demotivating for a lot of them. That's basically "listen to the sentences, pause it, look up every word you hear" and repeat. After you get some solid vocab and grammar, then it's good, but before then it's awful. It's much better actually learning the vocab and grammar, you can even hear a native do it and teach you about it on CZcams. The beginner part of the language learning is the hardest part, once you get to a low level conversational, where you can understand a bit and have small conversations, it gets a ton easier.
The thing I like about getting a teacher or tutor from italki is I can learn what I want and need to learn. This makes the process more engaging and useful. For example, I know Polish vocabulary about bicycling, which I do, but little about train stations, which is standard textbook fare I don't need.
i love you, keep making content please.
I've started learing Japanese a little less than 3 years ago, and I didn't even have a specific reason other than "This writing isn't a script, it's artwork!" or "This sounds so different from my mother tongue, how do they communicate?". I rather learned to love the language by spending time studying it. Now I could name a ton of reasons why I should keep studying it. Sometimes you find it all along the way, which is a great anology to the saying of the journey being the goal =)
I can also encourage everyone to keep making physical notes and stuff instead of just keeping everything on the phone. It is an amazing feeling lifting your 5000+ flashcard box knowing that you memorized them all
MotivationâŠ. My son in law is a wonderful guy from Punjab and wants my grandkids to speak Punjabi as a second language. It will help if I learn Punjabi so that I can assist to reinforce that learning. Would also love to be able to converse in Punjabi with my son-in-lawâs mum . đ
That is awesome! Itâs distantly related to English so I always find figuring out the relationships fun
@@languagejones6784 itâs incredibly fascinating the old P-I-E. The etymology of âmeadâ is one of thousands of examples â„ïž
You are such an awesome grandma!
@@JustAnotherNameYo thanks sweetie. â„ïž
An incredibly wholesome goal!
Now Iâm so interested in the program youâre contractually obligated not to mention.
Also to answer your question: within the last few years Iâve gotten back into singing opera and want to learn Italian not only to better understand what Iâm singing but also to understand the Italian school of vocal instruction and the wealth of videos and literature about it
Itâs just an italki competitor. Iâm actually not a fan, but you do you
I'm a native spanish speaker, I can speak english, french, a little german and I'm currently learning mandarin chinese. I have always enjoyed learning languages, being able to think in another language is such a wonderful feeling. With chinese my original motivation was just to understand the chinese dramas without subtitles. The more I studied, though, the more I feel in love with the language and with the culture, so now my motivation is that I want a job where I'm required to speak mandarin on a daily basis because it makes me happy.
As a mathematician, I feel like I have it easy to start due to familiar context. Just opening some material in my area of my research, or any preferably easy one at the start-I understand the meaning fully and half the words used by default, so I can actively fill in the gaps. Now I'm doing it in French. My goal is to mostly understand french mathematics and being able to reason aloud in it, maybe then extend it as a base to some general speaking ability, beyond being able to make or understand a lecture or conference. Also, I aim to read certain French math works and lecture seminar notes. It is fun! And the best thing is, that many languages have the same areas of math covered, so I can in the future replicate it with different sources. Maybe I won't be able to communicate fluently in many languages, but at least I'll understand math research papers and have fun.
That is amazing! I often criticize the online polyglots, and this is exactly the kind of domain specific knowledge I would LOVE to see from people. I was sort of the same, but wanted to read early linguistic works in French
@@languagejones6784 Thanks, we could arrange a short interview one day, maybe just not too soon, as I don't want to get embarrassed online with my 2 week old french, and it would be far more interesting to see results after at least 3 months. Also, my credibility would be higher, as for now it is just my early observation, not something worthy of note and tested over lengthier period of time. Until then, cheers!
@@languagejones6784I have a similar thing. Iâm reading a book on computer science in my target language. Theoretically itâs way beyond my language level, but because I know the topic very well I do understand it, and Iâm naturally picking up a lot of vocabulary through context. Itâs effectively Comprehensible Input!
Excellent vid. I've been doing this for hebrew in the last months, it's been working fine!
ŚŚŚ ŚŚŚ ŚŚŚŚŠŚŚŚ!
What: I am learning Esperanto
Why: I am interested in constructed languages and find the regularity and structure appealing. As someone who is autistic, I appreciate the security that comes with learning an IAL. I think what happened to Esperanto in WWII is tragic and I feel a calling to become a speaker to honor those who died advocating for it.
How: My goal is to complete all lessons on Lernu and Dualingvo within the next two months or so as a daily habit, with extra exploration during this time as I see fit. I do not have a language exchange partner of any kind and I don't know of any Esperanta TV shows, or even ones with Esperanta captions, so applying the suggested lesson plan exactly would be difficult, but I will keep those suggestions in mind as I may find those things in future.
Thank you, these are great ideas
Motivation for my current languages: Love, friendship, one just for fun as it is relatively easy and sounds cool, and finally one for work as I get paid to do it. The one for love and friendship are the hardest but my motivation is intense even without seeing any meaningful progress (yet).
This is so perfectly timed I think it's a sign, yesterday I started my journey learning german by myself and this video is extremely helpful to start on the right track. I will implement all the tips you mentioned, thanks so much and greetings from Spain!
Most people don't want to be polyglots, but to speak languages and communicate effectively.
Thanks so much for this!
Awesome advice, thank you!
I wish you had done this video 2 yrs ago when I embarked on learning Ukrainian by myself. (Motivation was the war and attempting to learn a Slavic language for fun.) So much of what you recommend, I discovered painfully slowly on my own. But you did have a couple of new ideas for me and you confirmed what I am doing.
ĐŃĐșŃŃ!
ĐŁŃĐżŃŃ ŃĐČ Đ· ĐČĐžĐČŃĐ”ĐœĐœŃĐŒ ŃĐșŃĐ°ŃĐœŃŃĐșĐŸŃ ĐŒĐŸĐČĐž! ĐŠĐ” ĐČажĐșĐŸ, алД ŃĐ” ĐŽŃжД гаŃĐœĐ° ĐŒĐŸĐČĐ° Ń ĐșĐŸĐ¶Đ”Đœ ŃĐșŃĐ°ŃĐœĐ”ŃŃ ŃĐ° ŃĐșŃĐ°ŃĐœĐșĐ° ĐœĐ°ĐŽĐ·ĐČĐžŃĐ°ĐčĐœĐŸ ŃĐ°ĐŽŃŃĐžĐŒĐ” ŃĐŸĐŒŃ, ŃĐŸ ĐČĐž ĐČĐžŃŃŃОлО ĐČŃĐžŃĐž ŃĐșŃĐ°ŃĐœŃŃĐșŃ :)
@@ingvarmayer8947 ĐŃĐșŃŃ. ĐĐ”ĐœŃ ĐżĐŸĐŽĐŸĐ±Đ°ŃŃŃŃŃ ĐČĐžĐșлОĐș.
I always enjoy the videos on this channel†thank you
Wait. You can't say you have an amazing pasta recipe from an Italian grandmother and not share it with us.
I feel like the best way to learn a language by yourself is to search for the quickest path to start reading native content.
I had some surprisingly great results by going extremely vertical on certain topics. Itâs a way to limit the amount of vocabulary you might encounter and you just focus on comprehension and putting everything together. The best sentences are always those where you can read and understand about 80/90% of it and sort of infer the rest from context. Trying to make predictions about the meaning of a sentence has been probably the most effective way to get fluent in another language for me.
My current goal language is ekpeye, my husband's tribal language. Guess what language doesn't have many resources? I'm slowly gathering things and making my own. One day I hope to be conversaÈional enough to be able to speak with his family entirely in ekpeye. Thank you for all of these tips
I absolutely love italki and the tutors I have on it. So far, italian, neapolitan, and korean. I recommend it to everyone that tells me they want to learn a language. Its an amazing service to connect you to some amazing tutors. Their main competitor doesnt pay the tutors for the first lesson and takes a larger cut, so I agree with you, respect your tutors and use the better service for them and you. Flash cards dont work well for me, it might just be a patience issue. However, I find writing stories, finding the vocab, and then speaking or sharing the text with my tutors (basically corrected homework) helps me retain vocabulary. If I write a story about going to the movies with my fiancee, where we sat, and the comfy chairs and snacks, then suddenly I learned a lot of vocabulary in context. The review of the story gives feedback on all my mistakes in context. And I just reread the story a few times when I dont quite remember it all. Basically spaced repetition but on subjects I wrote in context. I also find this helps me learn all the words that I would use most commonly as well; so it doubles as sort of a natural way to find words and verbs that are the most common without again, having to just memorize a 500 most used verbs book.
You need to use it in your daily needs. Just like our students.
Thanks Dr Jones â€
Thank you!
The recipe idea is actually a pretty good one. The tutor I had on iTalki for Vietnamese put up a cooking video to show me how to make Vietnameae spring rolls but it was all in Vietnamese & recommended me a channel to follow...which admittedly I still need to do, but that's more on my procrastination in the kitchen than my procrastination with language learning...I have different excuses for the latter.
That is the last video I'm going to watch for language learning tips, there is actually everything you need to know structure-wise. Meaning I understand now how to actually learn language without picking up C2 words which I will encounter twice in my lifetime (but I really like them), and not spending more than one hour every day which protects me from burnout.
If you have any resources for learners of Historical Languages (Sanskrit, Classical Chinese, PÄli, Latin, etc) I would love to here it!
My motivation is that I am a practicing Buddhist and would love to read the SĆ«tras and other works in the original tongue they were composed in, and I find reading historical documents in their og tongue fascinating on its own.
The biggest challenge I see is that these have no L1 speakers, but some do have sizeable L2 communities, and Im not sure how to find them
Yes: I've learned French to the B2 level (generally considered as "fluent") since the pandemic using LingQ (assisted reading, daily streak keeping, and objective progress metrics), iTalki (conversation and pronunciation feedback), Lingoda (written lesson prep, grammar, cultural formation, and objective progress metrics), Babbel (spaced repetition and daily streak keeping), CZcams (language, cultural and random personal interest podcasts and videos), Netflix (series / simple entertainment), Language Reactor (assisted viewing and listening), Spotify (music), Audible (books), many news websites, ChatGPT (translation and writing correction), and only a few dozen actual face-to-face hours. I don't journal and throw away writing after first use. I don't do flashcards and let the tools and language itself even take care of spaced repetition. I recently went to France and few switched to English. All of these tools are very mature for English, German, and the primary romance languages.
I started using italki after I saw a different video of yours recommending it. I love it! Iâve got adhd (and maybe mild dyslexia, assessors of my French keep asking if I am), and having a tutor makes things so much better.
Growing up in various Canadian provinces means my French education was a nightmare and I never got a decent grammar baseline. Directly tutoring makes a huge difference
I want to learn Dutch because a.) I want to go to the Netherlands, and b.) I'm writing a book abd the main character is Dutch, so it would be helpful to speak Dutch. Also, I want to prove (to myself) that I actually am capable of learning another language on my own AND for free, because I've tried two others with Duolingo and.. it did not go well lol
Italki is wonderful
Great video, subbed!
My journey to learn Japanese has only just begun, and thanks to this video I feel like the path across the jungle floor is easier to see
As with all things in my life, food is my greatest motivation and Ramen alone is my motivation to learn Japanese. A buddy and me want to go on a ramen tour of Tokyo one day and I canât describe Heaven more accurately than that
Oh man Japanese has an additional cultural element of indirect communication and âreading the airâ. Good luck, and stay motivated!
Also, having had lots of ramen in Tokyo, you are completely correct. Iâm so excited for you!
@@languagejones6784 Much appreciated Dr. Jones! Keep making CZcams a smarter and more connected place!
The advice I would add when looking for resources. First check if the University of Texas at Austin has produced a free, open source beginner's textbook with video, audio and interactive grammar and vocab exercises, because it is likely that they have!
The UT languages department is legit and the university is intriguingly not interested in making money. They make great resources and then put it online for free.
The first two semesters of Persian (the UT Persian program is one of the best in the world) is entirely available for free online on their website.
I teach college-level French and use their French materials for my beginners classes. Students get free access to materials and it's good quality. (I do not work for UT, just blown away by their magnanimity).
Adding: the French platform is called Français interactif and includes literally hours and hours of audio and video and is meant to get you to roughly B1. Their Persian program is called Persian of Iran Today
My motivation for leanring is so that I can better connect with my boyfriend and his family in his "heart language", and so that one day our future kids and him won't be able to conspire against me behind my back because I can't understand them.
I stumbled upon your channel very recently. I watched a few videos and I like your approach regarding the expectations one must have concerning language learning. I also like the depth you give the subjects you discuss. Very professional indeed. Glad I came across a good resource and I like your videos. Thank you very much! đđŒ
Welcome aboard! Thank you for the kind words
You have definitely persuaded me to give Anki another go! I have also been struggling with coming up with a successful study plan so your suggestions were also very helpful. Many thanks for this video. Greetings from Poland đ”đ±
My original motivation for learning Japanese was because I was really interested in the culture, especially the hierarchy between others expressed in the language. But when I went to college, my reason for learning Chinese was so that if I knew both Japanese AND Chinese, I would have a little more job security. I started learning Korean because I wanted to connect to my first friend in college a bit more. Eventually my reasons for continuing learning these languages werenât there, but now my only reason for upkeeping them to a degree is to stop the emotional distress that comes from not being able to communicate properly with a friend I made THROUGH said language, or having learned a language to a pretty proficient level in a short time, and then seemingly have nothing to show for it.
My partner is fluent in Spanish, so my main goal is to have conversations with her entirely in Spanish - simple conversations at first, but gradually getting more complex.
Thanks for this video. Iâm helping my 13-year-old son with his goal of learning some Modern Greek, and some of these tips are useful.
Thatâs great; Iâm glad it was helpful
Danke fĂŒr die interessante inhalte â€
I picked up a lot of French and Italian from cooking videos, but now I'm working on German and that motivation isn't so strong anymore.
After studying Portuguese intensively about ten years ago, I got good, but never quite surmounted the high intermediate plateau. So this year Iâve been back at it on a high-input diet, plus some weekly conversation on italki. Not only is there way more content now, but I am amazed by the new generation of teachers who are finding creative ways to make engaging with the language fun and social. Some are making comprehensible input videos and podcasts, some are doing livestreams, movie nights, gaming streams (eg letâs play The Sims and learn household vocab), etc. Being able to leverage my CZcams/podcast addiction for language learning has been nice, but I really need to get more systematized with a schedule like you recommend. At this level, itâs hard to feel like youâre making progress. The input has definitely helped my comprehension, but it has diminishing returns for output. Iâm finding I need to do a lot of writing, monologuing, and italki sessions to notice where all the gaps in my output abilities are.
I'm a dental professional and I want to be able to converse with my patients. Every year I meet more people who only speak Spanish.
My goal is to be able to move to Japan in 8 years, be able to work in strength and conditioning or exercise recovery. Ideally sport around baseball, dont care about level, would be fine with school, semi or pro level development. Or possibly some research.
Currently doing sports science degree in Australia and currently reading through primary-high school science/physics/chem/medical material to get used to terminology I have not interacted with from previous language study.
My reading is ok, my production barely exists though because I just never use it, so I will be using my 5 month breaks at the end of the year to focus on production and immersion.
As an edit to this, one thing that made my learning is easier was giving up trying to memorize kanji in an isolated context or in example sentences and just looking them up while I am reading content. This was especially helpful because I was exposed to them multiple times through the content while reading it and could then associate their meaning with pre-learned and concepts.
very helpful !
I never structured anything about my learning of english, and somehow I'm quite fluent now. This is how it happened:
1) learnt some basic nouns, verbs and phrases, personal pronouns and the verb "to be" at school. Used duolingo for a year.
2) watched a lot of youtube videos with subtitles, about a huge variety of topics, and every new word or idiom I found I went to google translate to learn the meaning and pronunciation.
3) started typing and reading in english at Discord, with the help of google translate
4) Started to watch english lesson videos, linguistics videos, and videos about the history of the language, all in english.
5) Discovered the IPA! And got quite interested in phonology
6) Started talking to myself, and narrating my every move in english, with the help of google translate.
7) Started voice-chatting in english at Discord servers.
8) Started playing crosswords
9) Kept going!
So, indeed, what Dr Jones said works extremely well!
Iâve been trying to learn German. I love how it sounds, I am interested in the culture, I would love to travel to Germany one day, and I have a German friend who I want to speak German with. My motivation is mainly my German friend because she has been helping me with my German. Although, Iâve gotten past the basics and donât know where to start.
So nice you want to learn German! Our language might be complex, but I personally am always thrilled when someone shows some interest! â€
@@alinak.1774 I love the language! It is quite beautiful sounding. But goodness yes, it is complex at times, however, my motivation helps me out a bit with that. Haha! It is quite an intriguing language for me to learn. Thanks for commentingđ
I've been learning Japanese on and off for a few years. The most progress I made came after I started following a process called Refold.
In short, you start off learning the most common 1k words plus basic daily grammar practice, then transition to studying sentences from shows you're watching, and that's pretty much it.
Itâs true that learning the most common words is a good approach for maximizing understanding but, to be honest, after learning just a thousand words, a learner would have to look up way too much information so itâs not really comprehensive at that point, unless you approach consuming content as byte-sized learning or watch content for kids
@@ingvarmayer8947 there's more to the process than what I said. The initial 1k words is so that you have some kind of base to build upon. Once you've learned those, instead of simply adding thousands more vocabulary cards to your deck, you start watching shows in your target language. While doing this, you will have target language subtitles, as well. You watch the show, people say stuff, then you pause and read the subtitles, looking up any words you don't know.
If you have a proper setup, it's as easy as clicking on the subtitles to have the definitions pop up. And if you want to save that sentence as a new flash card, you double click, and it automatically saves a screenshot, audio matching the subtitle's timing, and the current subtitle into a new card with the word you clicked on the front and the example sentence from your show on the back.
That way, you have 3 channels to use to encode the context of the word you're trying to learn, which makes the vocab much easier to acquire and retain than simply drilling vocab on its own. Part of the Refold method is to try to keep vocab example sentences as close to i+1 as possible.
Another aspect of this is limiting the domain of shows you watch to be simple slice of life things, as that's where nearly all of the top 1k words would come from. Yet another is to try to watch shows you've already seen, or already know the plot to from reading spoilers ahead of time. The goal is to increase comprehension to facilitate acquisition.
Why? I want to be able to work in a bakery that makes rye bread. Iâm a professional baker, love bread, and want to find âmy people,â work with them in their native language. It would be so fun.
Im a nature guide (for school field trips usually) and I want to be able to more effectively communicate with spaniah students so they get the same experience!
Motivation is pretty vague, the idea that I'll go to Israel and have convos. I love that English speakers have no idea what I am saying to my husband (also learning). So deep smugness is my motivation. It is very difficult to know which beginner resource is good for you. Understanding that price does not equal success is good. Paying attention to metaliguistics, allow fun but don't fool yourself some bits will be hard graft. Love this vid :)
Literally no English speakers can even place Hebrew, let alone understand it. Itâs wild!
I do a (mostly) weekly livestream on Sundays where Iâve been working though the routledge colloquial Hebrew (which isâŠokay), and I feel you on the struggle with resources. Piece of Hebrew on CZcams is great, Rosetta Stone has some bizarrely good videos on CZcams as well. And honestly, duolingo combined with note taking, anki, Wiktionary for nouns and adjectives and pealim dot com for verbs has been pretty solid
As a guy marrying a lady from the Basque country, I sympathize with that motivation to a ridiculous degree.
Ive been learning Nawat and K'iche', the languages of my ancestors! These tips are gonna be so useful! Gracias, payush, and maltyox!
New to watching your channel and thank you so much for this! I'm getting a lot of (unsolicited) language study advice from a friend of mine who majored in my target language in college and has a different learning style from me. Right now I just want to be able to order a cup of tea and get on the correct train in a way that's not completely dependent on set phrases.
I'm using a couple apps in tandem right now and it's been getting me somewhere, but my "somewhere" has been a little too vague. Thanks for giving me a push to break out the trusty pen and paper. I think it's going to help me lock down some real goals.
All very good advice, of course. I use Anki, but I will add that for non simple words, such as most verbs, it is better to store example phrases. That way you learn the associated preposition, if any, and you learn the context. Thus âOn lâa placĂ© en garde Ă vueâ or âIl Ă©tait sous contrĂŽle judiciaireâ.
Honestly, my only reason for wanting to learn a new language is that I've got nothing better to do and struggle with boredom and lack of anything interesting going on in my life. Also I really like the sound of German and the history surrounding the countries that speak it.
Iâll try implementing some of these tips, Iâve just been bouncing around with my attempts at Korean for way too long. I started this channel to be accountable and document my progress, but nothing posted as of yetâŠI can only progress and move forward from here!
I love silly mnemonics... Whenever I think of the French word for 'rubber' (caoutchouc) /kautÊu/ I think of a cow chewing rubber - but 'chewing 'gomme'' for the eraser (rubber) on the end of my pencil. In Irish Gaelic, I think of running outside (amach) /Émax/ and going crazy. In Irish, too, 'marcaigh capall' /marÉki: kapÉL/ (ride a horse) sounds so much like what it means, it's almost onomatopoeic! For a lot of European languages - including English, I find understanding the origin of a word often helps. (There are a bunch masculine words in Italian and Spanish ending in -a that have a Greek origin.)
Nice! I get the feeling this is a response to a small youtuber who was critical of you, or it came out at a good time to accidentally reply to him. This is a solid video with solid steps. Thanks for sharing.
If youâre thinking about someone who was all over my âhow to spot a fraudâ with âhey, thatâs me!â Itâs just coincidence. Iâve been trying a new strategy of balancing out what kinds of videos I do in a month, and filming them all in batches - this was filmed at the same time as the other
@@languagejones6784 I haven't read those comments, I went back and checked on that video and didn't see him, I'll leave the link. He is criticizing the video of yours you referenced. Oddly this video (yours) seems to clap back at nearly every one of his points. Great anticipation! czcams.com/video/URi_AgtUsS0/video.htmlsi=PDXFD86R-e2fjZNh
Language Jones, the Indiana of speaking!
(Sorry, it passed through my head during the end of the intro, and I just like it a little bit too much...)
[Normally I am depressed by the algo hiding my comments, but with this one...]
{Did you know you have 3 different kinds of brackets to put your things in, just in the numbers row of your keyboard?}
Dun da dun DUNNN
Dun da DUNNNN
Ich hab angefangen Deutsch zu lernen vor mehr als zwei oder drei Jahre, und ich hatte viele Motivierungen als ich hab entschieden zu lernen. Ich glaube das die primÀre Motivierung war Gedichte zu lesen und klassische Lieder zu verstehen in der Sprache, und auch einfach weil ich wollte eine andere Sprache zu lernen und Deutsch scheint mir leichter als Spanisch wegen der Romanische Konjugation. Ich kann noch mit einem Mittelniveau, hauptsÀchlich weil ich finde neuen Wortschatz schwer zu lernen.
Lesen, lesen, lesen đ
(Meine Mutter war Polin, drum die Frage: Kommen Sie aus einer slawische Sprache? Manche Satzstellungen lassen mich das glauben...)
@@irgendwieanders2121 Nein, ich bin ne Amerikanerin! Manchmal wenn ich versuchen mit einer "Deutscherer" Satzstellung zu schreiben, es stellt sich als ein bisschen komisch heraus
@@s1nd3rr0z3 Was mir im Englischen geholfen hat war lesen, lesen, lesen...
Und so schlimm war die Satzstellung nicht, ein Wortpaar austauschen (es stellt) und es wÀre perfekt ;-)
Thanks for the study plan! It addresses my biggest roadblock in learning Spanish so far; lack of structure.
Started learning swedish my self and was able to say certain words and understand in the fiirst month. and seen much results. daily 2hrs makes its better
My motivation is that I'm a second-gen immigrant whose immediate family did not enforce being bilingual. I spoke German as a child but forgot it completely by the time we moved to the States when I was in first grade. I can't communicate with half of my family-a point of shame/guilt for me-and I'd like to be able to speak with my mom in German.
I started learning bachata a while ago and soon will be starting salsa too.
Over the last few months, Iâve been exposed to the latin American songs, food and culture and Iâve been enjoying it quite a bit. Iâm learning Spanish so i can dance better đđ
Iâm hoping to get the accent right this time around (after years Iâve given up on my french accent)
Great video
Thanks!
Iâm learning Japanese because I like the way it sounds and I want to enjoy the culture in the native language
I love your video
Thank you so much for your video. I am approaching 90 days and having a lot of fun with Spanish, so I need to see some sort of learning plan so I can get serious. While I am not against getting a tutor I would like to do self study as much as possible. Again, rad video, thank you.
My motivation is talk shi about people in front of themselves in a language they don't even recognize
Living the dream
For French:
Purpose - I learned it in a french school when i was there, I would like to refresh my skills and do better as there's a chance I may need it for work.
Resources - youtube, old textsbooks i have from then, also following the DELF course. (I will not use Duolingo, I looked at their french course and from the things i do remember, the duo course is frankly awful as a serious tool)
Tools I'll use: start speaking again, theres a channel in the discord i am in regularly that is for french only so i can use that for written french, and just generally speaking to myself to keep it fresh enough. I do have a binder specifically for language learning.
It may seem cheaty I'm using a language I already have experience in but I have not used it in ~10 years đ
I *could* conplete the DELF, I know at this point i need to improve some basics that i missed from my time learning at school there.
I'm currently (attempting to) learning three different languages Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese and Korean. I want to study one of three languages alongside linguistics at university in the not too distant future, I eventually want to move to either Japan, China or Korea after I finish uni and teach English for a few years before getting a languages-based career (such as working as a translator or interpreter) elsewhere in whichever country I end up moving to.
I also want to learn so I can connect with people who speak these languages and befriend them and forge new relationships with them which would, otherwise, be incredibly hard if not impossible due to the linguistic barrier.
I also just want to be able to get cultural insights that I would otherwise not be able to get unless I knew the language(s) of the culture(s) I'm interested in, whether that be through conversation with native speakers or through reading texts/watching online videos, TV shows, movies or documentaries about cultural topics I'm interested in, which are only available in the language of the culture(s) I'm interested in.