im so glad this was the first video i saw when i looked how to become a polyglot. thank you so much. this knowledge you have passed on to us csn be applied to basically everything, and I love that. thank you
Till today i have never really ever enjoyed any youtubers videos. But this video- you just changed so much in my life. Im 18 and have little time left. Thank you so much!! You are a true inspiration
Zack aus Amerika it's not just America, the world in general. only a few places seem to know working at it making it quality slowly and carefully beats speed.
This is spot on. I've been making music in the same program since I was 12 and have done it for hours a day every day for nearly a decade now. I was never really after a tangible result, I just really liked doing it. And now I have releases on several different record labels and a fair amount of fans on Soundcloud. You really do have to fall in love with the learning process to master it.
Had seen this video a while ago and came to see it again now. It's just fantastic!! Denifinitely the best formula of how to learn a language in minutes!! :)
I actually loved this video - and I watch lots and lots of language learning videos on youtube! You meandered and meandered and covered a lot of different technical things and you lost me for a bit but the ending really clinched it, well done!
this video has a good message about really loving language learning (or anything you want to be good at). at first i wasn't a fan of the video but it started getting better.thanks. good wrap up
@FluentCzech Yes, it was the course at DLI in Monterey. However, it was in 1986, and they were still using textbooks from WWII. So when I watch WWII era Czech films, I can understand a fair amount, but not most of it. I loved that course, and I loved being around so many native speakers. Thank you again for your inspiration. Ahoj!
This video is absolutely insightful! You've taken universal principals and applied them to language mastery in a masterful way. Thanks for putting this up on the web.
Thanks for sharing us such words of wisdom. I can relate on the level of college classes or any classes in a school setting for that matter. Whenever it's a boring class I feel like it runs for hours and hours, but when it's a fun class it flies by in what feels like a minute. Motivation and passion are really the key to learning and enjoying something.
Hello! I was one of those US Army gals who learned Czech for 8 hours a day for a year. This video has inspired me greatly. Much of that learning has gone by the wayside. This video has inspired me to stick with it. It is worth it. Djěkuji mnoho krát!
Hi Anthony, I love your videos, they are always so motivating. I especially loved your polyNOT presentation, it had me chuckling the whole way through.
I strongly agree with the message of the video. When you have such a strong desire to learn a given language, learning it well becomes more of a pleasure than a chore.
Great video. I like your definition of "mastery of a language". I also agree with the 80/20 rule. Those first few hundred hours you just absorb so much every day. It's like building a house; you start like anyone else, building the foundation off the blueprints, you measure out the door and shim it to fit the doorway, but no one tells you where to hang the pictures or what color drapes to hang.
@Fasulye2009 Hello Fasulye, thanks for the kind words here, and for your comments on the forum too. I must say I have been quite surprised by the very positive responses, since I was concerned that people would think I was being negative by stating that mastery takes a lot of work over a long time.
@FluentCzech My theory involves Music. Those who can successfully tune a guitar can usually mimic sounds more easily than others who can't. More research on this later.
There's a TED talk about studying something for 20 hours to become essentially good enough on that something. By 20 hours I mean 20 hours of dedicated studying, focusing your mind to that particular thing you want to learn. Turns out it's true! You don't have to spend 10k hours to become a master. It depends on the person!
***** You chose to complicate my statement. It's up to you on how you want to argue about it with yourself. I was able to learn Japanese by reading Japanese subtitles of "My Boss my Hero" episode 1 and having it converted to English, kanji per kanji, looking them up by radicals, until I reached the point where I really understood everything in that single episode for just 16 hours of learning while completely focused the entire time. After that episode, I can understand around 60-70% of the contents in the next episode. Of course there are some breaks but I was tracking how much time I spend in order to help me determine how long it would take me to learn something else. In just 16 hours of dedicated use of time, I was able to learn a decent amount of statements. What you mentioned in your first reply clearly did not get my point.
Not really. It's all about two things: - what one means with "learning a language" and - what one means with "20 hours". If you put in 3 hours a day, in a week (after 21 hours) you could have A-level in language. (Could have, meaning, if you put the 3 hours in smart use) That's "basic level", "elementary", "beginner". It's very simple, but enough to be able to read and watch television and movies. One would, of course, not understand every word, but enough to learn more by reading and watching. Now, I would say that's "learning a language in a week". Where could one go if one used 20 hours in one day? To the level of a 3yo native speaker.
This is so true, a year and a half ago I could only speak English, now I can speak Cantonese and French at an intermediate level, after about 40+ skype sessions during that period, the time really flew by.
Nice. French is what I tackle at the moment - what a beautiful language. I also really like English, it´s one of my favorite languages, I especially enjoy (somewhat dated) British English! So classical! Russian and Chinese are next on my bucket list :)
This video is so inspiring. It means that there's an end to this seemingly endless tunnel. And and end to the "quick solution" i've been hoping to find. I have been studying Cantonese for 2 years for about 3 hours a day and feel like I'm only 50% there. I suppose it also depends on the difficulty of the language. And without complete immersion, there just aren't enough resources available to assit me. But I will continue diligently and realize its the love of language that drives me! Thanks!
There are two thoughts I have on "practice makes perfect". In my mother's book, So Your Child Wants To Take Piano Lessons, she states that Practice Makes Permanence. You shouldn't be worried about perfection, because you will always have flaws, but instead be worried about keeping these skills you practice with you throughout your life. My band teacher says "Perfect practice makes perfect performance." Practicing but not very well won't get you perfect, only perfect practice will do that, where you can practice it perfectly.
@FrapaneseGirl Thank you, I am glad you liked it. I watched your 1st multilingual video, and see you have the passion too, the love for languages where the hours feel like minutes. I look forward to seeing more.
Oh my God! You' have just been my eye-opener ! What you said in this video, and how you led us step by step to the conclusion that loving a language is the key to success just made me realize how I managed to learn languages faster than my classmates etc..! (not that I am that good though) Thank you so much for that, I am now thinking of learning a few new languages thanks to your awesome reflection. Thanks again!
Hello ! thanks for this very good video ! Since I'm learning polish, I just wonder if polish and czech are very similar and to what extend? Can you understand polish if you speak czech and vice versa? Thanks !
Thank you for an excellent video, in particular, this part of your reply to Richard: 'You helped me see clearly the difference between short term lust for results, and long term love for and commitment to the whole experience of learning languages.' Languages for life, not just for next week! (although I also enjoy the occasional "language dabbling" as a break from other language learning). :-)
A very interesting video and thanks for the advice. The 80-20 principle perfectly describes language learning. You see people go to live away, for sometimes not even a year and they come back and it seems like they are fluent, but what's actually going on is this 80-20 business. Cheers!
Thanks! Your video motivated me to return to my polygot goals. Your video gave me two goals : the 2000 threshold and the master level in 10K. =) Your presentation was also clean, organized and sincere.
Watching videos about the 10,000 rule, I waver between hope and giving up. Like HEY, anything's possible, but if I could even think of something I wanted enough, it would still seem out of reach. Anyway, I like how you explained the 80/20 idea, i hadn't thought of it that way before. 80% proficiency in anything would be more than enough in many situations, and 2000 hours over a few years seems almost reasonable. Thanks for taking the time to make this.
Thank you so much! I am a dedicating linguist who can speak more than three languages, this video is like a gem or jewel amongst the sea of youtube. Very Enlightening! It's true! I love learning new languages!
Love the Petrucciani quote! I agree that the time is not that relevant if you forget about the other factors : Attention, meaningful content (of quality and variety). State of mind will also play a part on your ability to focus. Thus the 10,000h rule will be adjusted according to those, as well as the other skills you already have : If you already speak three latin languages like I did when I started learning Spanish, it will require much less time than for a Chinese speaker for example. Your brain uses the neural pathways it has already built. It also depends on what you call a "native speaker". If you base your expectations on the level of "language" of the best humourist in the target language, then you will obviously need other skills than just listening & speaking. If you're looking to imitate some specific accents, that requires other skills than just combining words together. Most importantly : We use a language as a tool for communication, and communication involves two things : understanding others and being understood. And there is much more to it than "just" speaking the right language...
@FeralArtist I admire your achievements on the guitar, and you clearly have talent that I do not possess. Now, even after several years of playing, every time I start to think I am getting good, I come across a whole new level of playing that makes me feel like a beginner again. It keeps me motivated, but also remind me that (for me at least) it will be a life-long journey.
Some very good points are made here. It does take a very long time to get truly fluent in a language, simply because it involves mastering millions of bits of information. It took me more than 4 years to become fluent in Spanish, despite constant practice, and that's one of the easiest of all languages. Still, many people have mastered artificial languages like Interlingua and Esperanto in only about 4 months. I like your point about joy of learning.
I actually used the spanish version of that book to help me with spanish. I was way over my head, but it helped me with both guitar and spanish because I was going to try my hardest.
@jmichaelrout Thanks. One thing I like about the 80/20 rule is that it explains why people become frustrated saying they are "stuck" at the intermediate stage. After the first 80 of rapid progress, the remaining 20% s indeed very slow. It isn't a "hump" to get over, but rather a long process of gradual refinement. Accepting this helped me personally to stop beating myself up at just how long things were taking.
@PaulSLambeth Thank you. When I make a videos I am never sure what the reaction will be, so I am really happy to hear that people are enjoying this one.
@loki2504 That is correct. It is similar to an English speaker hearing French. They will pick up lots of words, but the differences mean you have to concentrate hard and will miss a lot unless you deliberately study the other language.
@Squeedow Marvellous. I am quite jealous that you manage to go on the US Army course. I have the full DLI course (if this is the one you mean) and worked through it some months ago, and found it very impressive.
This is your best video yet--Bravo! I have been using a variation of the "80-20 Rule" for many years now in regards to my diet. If I eat good, wholesome foods 80% of the time, I try not to worry too much about the other 20% when the "real me" finds where my wife has hidden the chocolate cake.
Nice twist at the end! :) There is something more to take into consideration: regularity multiplies gains. Here's what it means: it is much better to study a language for just 20 min a day, 6 days a week, than it is to study it for 2 hours in a row, once a week. The total time spent is the same but learning is much more efficient when you apply yourself regularly. I could share more ideas but too few commenting space on TH-cam!
@getreallanguage That is very kind. I have never been a teacher. Many years ago I was an academic who had to make lots of presentations defending my research at large scientific conferences, and there I startedd to enjoy explaining my thoughts on things. Making youtube videos reminds me a little bit of that, in that there is a very short time to get points across, and you can never know who will be in the audience. I enjoy it very much.
Thank you, I have been researching ways for the best way to learn languages/skills and this i guess you could say "scientifically" explains it. Thanks again
very enlightening and very true i have played guitar for several years easily playing from 3 to 6 hours a day i will not say i am a master but i will say i can play almost any thing i hear if not i can improvise with it and that is what makes practice so fun. now im going to work on learning Japanese i have dabbled in it but not stuck with learning for 3 hours a day
OK, thanks for your testimony. Unfortunately, I have not yet traveled intensively (only, two times in Germany) so I remain a bit naive when it comes to living as an expat abroad. Dekuji !
I'm from Norway and I am 15 years old. I moved to Texas right before I turned 14 and after about 2 months in regular American High School (taking normal classes with fluent english speakers) I was pretty much fluent. I write and speak english at the same level as any other american teenager. Some people can notice a slight accent when I talk. I took english about 2 hours per week in Norway starting in 4th grade, just learning basic stuff. Besides that I just watched a lot of american television.
"Practise doesn`t make perfect. Perfect practise makes perfect" -some kind of football coach dude. However I´d agree that pretty much any kind of immersion leads to improvements in a language. I made it a habit to consume any sort of entertainment (such as movies books etc) in either English or Spanish if available and even though I barely speak to someone in these languages I found that in the rare case I do communicate with a native speaker I can hold a conversation on pretty much any topic effortlessly and be 100% comfortable... which I think is extraordinary given the little amount of practise I have talking to someone.
Yes, this is an excellent video here showing deep insight in how the quantity of language learning is accumulated. This discussion here about your video is very interesting, I enjoyed reading it. A more detailed feedback I gave you in the language forum. Fasulye
@loki2504 Now that is a good question. Even though Polish is from the same language family (west slavic) as Czech, it is surprisingly different. There are lots of similarities, of course. For example, you do have a "head start" once you have absorbed the complexities of aspect and case. much of which relates to both languages. Even so, also lots of unexpected differences so that after learning one there is quite some effort required to learn the other.
@19fas88 I am a native English speaker, but i went to Hungary for 12 years and when i came back it took me months to figure out English again. Languages aren't permanent
I find that the more i can do with something the more i can do. Exponential skill growth. I also play guitar and you obviously have a very quick learning curve where you go from not being able to hold it to being able to strum simple tunes relatively quickly but there are often plateau's but these can be put down to practicing the wrong way. There is a difference between time spent and QUALITY of time spent. I only know this through experience and it's hard to explain unless you've recognised it yourself. As far as language learning is concerned, i think living in the country is the ultimate best way provided you are living a reasonably sociable life. No good moving to say Spain but sitting indoors all day. 12 hours exposure per day is around 4k hours per year which would mean if you added this to some serious private study you could be near-fluent in just a couple of years i reckon. I'm moving to Germany this year though so i will be testing this out for myself!
Sorry about cutting off my reply. I use more or less the system you use, especially listening to the language and getting used to the rhythm of that language. I have found that language learning (at least the listening and speaking aspect) is a case of what is termed "over-learning", i.e., being constantly exposed to the language, and doing substitution drills once a certain syntax pattern is studied and a reasonable amount of associated vocabulary is learned (FSI courses are great for this!)
Today I realized that in addition to oral and written mastery of Spanish as a foreign language, I understand Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, Galician, French to a lesser extent, and Romanian to a much smaller extent. I have only ever formally studied Spanish (8 years) and Portuguese (1 semester). I have picked everything else up from movies, music, films, TH-cam, from my own total dedicated love to Romance Languages. I'm proud to one day be fuent in all of them. Then on to Chinese & Japanese!
Is it possible to learn 2 or more languages at once? I want to learn Hebrew and Tagalog. But I find that my mind sort of has this "foreign mode" where when I try to speak, say Hebrew, my mind just seeks out words from the "foreign storebank" in my mind, and they might be Spanish, French, Hebrew, or who knows what (I've studied a lot of languages over the years)!
I love this video~ I dont know why but i got all teary eyed with the quote. It gives me hope that maybe i did not have to be born in Korea to learn Korean and its not my moms fault that she didnt teach me many languages i seriously thirst to know fluently and fully to this day when i was growing up.
It can do, but not necessarily. I find that new words I learn in English (like a term I hadn't heard of before) have a slight Korean accent on them now unless I really try hard to say it properly, because I study Korean and listen to Korean so much.
If you haven't read The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten, I think that you would love it. It's one of those books that you have to keep buying because you end up giving your copy away.
And when listening the point is to get used to the sound of the entire language and capture words. Everyday you capture more words than the day before, even words you haven't read before, and normaly it takes you 1, 2 or 3 months to capture all the words depending on how close is the new language to your language or any other foreign language you learned before. In the meantime of it all I study the polite expressions everybody learns in the beginning and start inserting new words everyday.
A question.. I am learning French at the moment and if you're putting in 6 hours a day should you be working on learning new concepts through out the 6 hours every day or mastering what you already know and then move on to new concepts?
I have a question.. Would you think that pronunciation can be something that you can just be naturally good at? I have personal experience with it being something natural. Having the ability to mimic and turn a native accent into yours in a very short time. What are you thoughts?
@verapamil07 I do mention courses such as FSI in the video, pointing out that a diplomat will study a language for, say, 2000 hours, and reach an 80% level - which is enough for daily business. Only complete mastery takes 10000 hours. In terms of children learning languages quickly, that is true, but then they can only talk about childish things. Being able to hold sophisticated adult conversations on complex topics is what takes most of the time, and that is beyond children's abilities.
@flashatizer I am certainly no expert on this, but I have read that people who are poor at accents usually cannot hear the differences in sounds in the target language and therefore cannot mimic them. Some people believe this ability needs to be developed in childhood, or is lost. Other people believe that everybody can improve their accent if they want to - but most are simply not interested. It is undeniable, though, that some people do pick up accents very quickly and with little effort.
i think that the most important thing to do in order for someone to learn a second language is to master his own language, and maybe for english native speaker is easier, and even though my first language is italian and i still have several problems with the grammar :(
@Torbyrne Richard, it is you more than anybody that helped me realise what true passion for language learning is. You helped me see clearly the difference between short term lust for results, and long term love for and commitment to the whole experience of learning languages.
Anthony thanks great video I don't know about high level mastery but Im really fascinated with the whole polyglot realm.This is the kind of fad that the world needs to catch on to rather than the usual video games Hollywood be bop.Can you imagine how life would change on this earth if being a polyglot was the in thing just awesome.Im so pumped thanks so much.
Excellent, Thank you for sharing. I learned a lot from this. I just discovered myself loving to learn new languages, although I've always enjoyed, but I had to hear from someone and I said... holy shit, your right. Every hour when I am studying or engaging conversation in that new language it feels like a minute. Every minute when I am not, it feels like hour.
Heck I don't even want to be a language professor or an interpreter, the language thing is just a hobby. Plus I did have a lot of help with friends growing up (whom I am friends with today) whom speak those languages. I have A LOT of friends with different cultural backgrounds and upbringings. My first 2 languages were Arabic (mother) and Sicilian (father). I learned English via Pimsleur approach before I moved to the U.S. I actually did take the Pimsleur for some languages I already knew.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 91 | คู่เอก "คมอาวุธ vs อเล็กเซย์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/V0RkEfYFsgM/mqdefault.jpg)
What a fantastically and refreshingly honest video.
This is exactly what is needed for wanting to be a polyglot. I myself am learning French, German, Swedish, Romanian and Czech.
Good luck learning the ř sound in Czech!
Great video. Outliers is a great book.
laoshu :(
I absolutely LOVE that quote at the end there. Thanks for sharing
im so glad this was the first video i saw when i looked how to become a polyglot. thank you so much. this knowledge you have passed on to us csn be applied to basically everything, and I love that. thank you
Till today i have never really ever enjoyed any youtubers videos. But this video- you just changed so much in my life. Im 18 and have little time left. Thank you so much!! You are a true inspiration
That was awesome!! Thanks for your wise words and wisdom..
I know all what you spoke about, but the last quote was beautiful!!!
Nice work mate!
Very insightful. Sadly todays culture, at least in America is slanted towards instant gratification.
Zack aus Amerika it's not just America, the world in general. only a few places seem to know working at it making it quality slowly and carefully beats speed.
Excellent video!! Found the title confusing until I got to the end and it does make sense :D
I didn't see this coming. That was amazing - I loved it very much. I feel inspired now haha. Thank you, you deserve a lot of credit
This is probably the most well thought out, inspiring video I have seen on youtube in years. Bravo !
Your answer is always so clear ! Thanks !
Great video. I'll remind myself of this when I become frustrated learning language and playing music. Supremely wise words indeed 👌👍
This is spot on. I've been making music in the same program since I was 12 and have done it for hours a day every day for nearly a decade now. I was never really after a tangible result, I just really liked doing it. And now I have releases on several different record labels and a fair amount of fans on Soundcloud. You really do have to fall in love with the learning process to master it.
Well said. And the explanation at the end is quite clever, as linds has already noted. Thanks for the references to Ericsson and Gladwell.
This is one of the best language learning videos I've ever saw.
Brilliant! It boils down to a) be willing to make an effort and be consistent, b) enjoy doing it. Great video. Inspiring! Thanks.
I really enjoyed this video. It helps with anything anyone wants to do. I am glad I came across it!
Had seen this video a while ago and came to see it again now. It's just fantastic!! Denifinitely the best formula of how to learn a language in minutes!! :)
@tiamtheelf Wonderful. Congratulations on your success, and your passion for languages.
I actually loved this video - and I watch lots and lots of language learning videos on youtube! You meandered and meandered and covered a lot of different technical things and you lost me for a bit but the ending really clinched it, well done!
this video has a good message about really loving language learning (or anything you want to be good at). at first i wasn't a fan of the video but it started getting better.thanks. good wrap up
@FluentCzech Yes, it was the course at DLI in Monterey. However, it was in 1986, and they were still using textbooks from WWII. So when I watch WWII era Czech films, I can understand a fair amount, but not most of it. I loved that course, and I loved being around so many native speakers. Thank you again for your inspiration. Ahoj!
This video is absolutely insightful! You've taken universal principals and applied them to language mastery in a masterful way. Thanks for putting this up on the web.
Thanks for sharing us such words of wisdom. I can relate on the level of college classes or any classes in a school setting for that matter. Whenever it's a boring class I feel like it runs for hours and hours, but when it's a fun class it flies by in what feels like a minute. Motivation and passion are really the key to learning and enjoying something.
Hello! I was one of those US Army gals who learned Czech for 8 hours a day for a year. This video has inspired me greatly. Much of that learning has gone by the wayside. This video has inspired me to stick with it. It is worth it.
Djěkuji mnoho krát!
Hi Anthony, I love your videos, they are always so motivating. I especially loved your polyNOT presentation, it had me chuckling the whole way through.
Great video, FC! I have been familiar with those principles, and it's very encouraging to see a good synthesis like this. Keep up your good work!
excellent video
I strongly agree with the message of the video. When you have such a strong desire to learn a given language, learning it well becomes more of a pleasure than a chore.
Refreshingly honest and spot on. Thanks .
Great video. I like your definition of "mastery of a language". I also agree with the 80/20 rule. Those first few hundred hours you just absorb so much every day. It's like building a house; you start like anyone else, building the foundation off the blueprints, you measure out the door and shim it to fit the doorway, but no one tells you where to hang the pictures or what color drapes to hang.
@Fasulye2009 Hello Fasulye, thanks for the kind words here, and for your comments on the forum too. I must say I have been quite surprised by the very positive responses, since I was concerned that people would think I was being negative by stating that mastery takes a lot of work over a long time.
@FluentCzech My theory involves Music. Those who can successfully tune a guitar can usually mimic sounds more easily than others who can't. More research on this later.
There's a TED talk about studying something for 20 hours to become essentially good enough on that something. By 20 hours I mean 20 hours of dedicated studying, focusing your mind to that particular thing you want to learn. Turns out it's true! You don't have to spend 10k hours to become a master. It depends on the person!
***** That wasn't his point. Reread his point.
***** You chose to complicate my statement. It's up to you on how you want to argue about it with yourself.
I was able to learn Japanese by reading Japanese subtitles of "My Boss my Hero" episode 1 and having it converted to English, kanji per kanji, looking them up by radicals, until I reached the point where I really understood everything in that single episode for just 16 hours of learning while completely focused the entire time. After that episode, I can understand around 60-70% of the contents in the next episode. Of course there are some breaks but I was tracking how much time I spend in order to help me determine how long it would take me to learn something else.
In just 16 hours of dedicated use of time, I was able to learn a decent amount of statements.
What you mentioned in your first reply clearly did not get my point.
its pretty crazy to imply someone can learn a language in 20 hours...
Not really. It's all about two things:
- what one means with "learning a language" and
- what one means with "20 hours".
If you put in 3 hours a day, in a week (after 21 hours) you could have A-level in language. (Could have, meaning, if you put the 3 hours in smart use) That's "basic level", "elementary", "beginner". It's very simple, but enough to be able to read and watch television and movies. One would, of course, not understand every word, but enough to learn more by reading and watching.
Now, I would say that's "learning a language in a week". Where could one go if one used 20 hours in one day? To the level of a 3yo native speaker.
This is so true, a year and a half ago I could only speak English, now I can speak Cantonese and French at an intermediate level, after about 40+ skype sessions during that period, the time really flew by.
Nice. French is what I tackle at the moment - what a beautiful language. I also really like English, it´s one of my favorite languages, I especially enjoy (somewhat dated) British English! So classical! Russian and Chinese are next on my bucket list :)
very good analogies, and analysis of what is required, and expected outcomes/gains for efforts applied.
This video is so inspiring. It means that there's an end to this seemingly endless tunnel. And and end to the "quick solution" i've been hoping to find. I have been studying Cantonese for 2 years for about 3 hours a day and feel like I'm only 50% there. I suppose it also depends on the difficulty of the language. And without complete immersion, there just aren't enough resources available to assit me. But I will continue diligently and realize its the love of language that drives me! Thanks!
Very clever your explanation of minutes not years at the ending...... I liked it
:)
There are two thoughts I have on "practice makes perfect".
In my mother's book, So Your Child Wants To Take Piano Lessons, she states that Practice Makes Permanence. You shouldn't be worried about perfection, because you will always have flaws, but instead be worried about keeping these skills you practice with you throughout your life.
My band teacher says "Perfect practice makes perfect performance." Practicing but not very well won't get you perfect, only perfect practice will do that, where you can practice it perfectly.
@FrapaneseGirl Thank you, I am glad you liked it. I watched your 1st multilingual video, and see you have the passion too, the love for languages where the hours feel like minutes. I look forward to seeing more.
Oh my God! You' have just been my eye-opener ! What you said in this video, and how you led us step by step to the conclusion that loving a language is the key to success just made me realize how I managed to learn languages faster than my classmates etc..! (not that I am that good though)
Thank you so much for that, I am now thinking of learning a few new languages thanks to your awesome reflection. Thanks again!
Many useful and relevant insights all along the video, thank you.
Fantastic truths revealed :-D You should hold seminars in this subject ! I know its true, I experienced what you talk about :-)
Hello ! thanks for this very good video !
Since I'm learning polish, I just wonder if polish and czech are very similar and to what extend? Can you understand polish if you speak czech and vice versa?
Thanks !
Well made video.
I agree, that love is the ultimate impetus to anything.
What an interesting video!
Thank you for an excellent video, in particular, this part of your reply to Richard: 'You helped me see clearly the difference between short term lust for results, and long term love for and commitment to the whole experience of learning languages.' Languages for life, not just for next week! (although I also enjoy the occasional "language dabbling" as a break from other language learning). :-)
A very interesting video and thanks for the advice. The 80-20 principle perfectly describes language learning. You see people go to live away, for sometimes not even a year and they come back and it seems like they are fluent, but what's actually going on is this 80-20 business. Cheers!
Thanks! Your video motivated me to return to my polygot goals. Your video gave me two goals : the 2000 threshold and the master level in 10K. =) Your presentation was also clean, organized and sincere.
Watching videos about the 10,000 rule, I waver between hope and giving up. Like HEY, anything's possible, but if I could even think of something I wanted enough, it would still seem out of reach. Anyway, I like how you explained the 80/20 idea, i hadn't thought of it that way before. 80% proficiency in anything would be more than enough in many situations, and 2000 hours over a few years seems almost reasonable. Thanks for taking the time to make this.
Thank you so much! I am a dedicating linguist who can speak more than three languages, this video is like a gem or jewel amongst the sea of youtube. Very Enlightening! It's true! I love learning new languages!
@ABOUJAD123 That is, for me, a great honour to hear. Thank you very much for your comment.
Love is the strong base for all successes...You're right...
Love the Petrucciani quote! I agree that the time is not that relevant if you forget about the other factors : Attention, meaningful content (of quality and variety). State of mind will also play a part on your ability to focus.
Thus the 10,000h rule will be adjusted according to those, as well as the other skills you already have : If you already speak three latin languages like I did when I started learning Spanish, it will require much less time than for a Chinese speaker for example. Your brain uses the neural pathways it has already built.
It also depends on what you call a "native speaker". If you base your expectations on the level of "language" of the best humourist in the target language, then you will obviously need other skills than just listening & speaking.
If you're looking to imitate some specific accents, that requires other skills than just combining words together.
Most importantly : We use a language as a tool for communication, and communication involves two things : understanding others and being understood.
And there is much more to it than "just" speaking the right language...
@FeralArtist I admire your achievements on the guitar, and you clearly have talent that I do not possess. Now, even after several years of playing, every time I start to think I am getting good, I come across a whole new level of playing that makes me feel like a beginner again. It keeps me motivated, but also remind me that (for me at least) it will be a life-long journey.
Some very good points are made here. It does take a very long time to get truly fluent in a language, simply because it involves mastering millions of bits of information. It took me more than 4 years to become fluent in Spanish, despite constant practice, and that's one of the easiest of all languages. Still, many people have mastered artificial languages like Interlingua and Esperanto in only about 4 months. I like your point about joy of learning.
I actually used the spanish version of that book to help me with spanish. I was way over my head, but it helped me with both guitar and spanish because I was going to try my hardest.
How is your guitar playing going? I'm thoroughly curious now that it's been three more years! Anthony Lauder
Great video! I completely agree, it really takes passion to want to put the time into anything.
@jmichaelrout Thanks. One thing I like about the 80/20 rule is that it explains why people become frustrated saying they are "stuck" at the intermediate stage. After the first 80 of rapid progress, the remaining 20% s indeed very slow. It isn't a "hump" to get over, but rather a long process of gradual refinement. Accepting this helped me personally to stop beating myself up at just how long things were taking.
@PaulSLambeth Thank you. When I make a videos I am never sure what the reaction will be, so I am really happy to hear that people are enjoying this one.
@loki2504 That is correct. It is similar to an English speaker hearing French. They will pick up lots of words, but the differences mean you have to concentrate hard and will miss a lot unless you deliberately study the other language.
@Squeedow Marvellous. I am quite jealous that you manage to go on the US Army course. I have the full DLI course (if this is the one you mean) and worked through it some months ago, and found it very impressive.
This is your best video yet--Bravo!
I have been using a variation of the "80-20 Rule" for many years now in regards to my diet. If I eat good, wholesome foods 80% of the time, I try not to worry too much about the other 20% when the "real me" finds where my wife has hidden the chocolate cake.
Nice twist at the end! :)
There is something more to take into consideration: regularity multiplies gains. Here's what it means: it is much better to study a language for just 20 min a day, 6 days a week, than it is to study it for 2 hours in a row, once a week. The total time spent is the same but learning is much more efficient when you apply yourself regularly.
I could share more ideas but too few commenting space on TH-cam!
@getreallanguage That is very kind. I have never been a teacher. Many years ago I was an academic who had to make lots of presentations defending my research at large scientific conferences, and there I startedd to enjoy explaining my thoughts on things. Making youtube videos reminds me a little bit of that, in that there is a very short time to get points across, and you can never know who will be in the audience. I enjoy it very much.
Beautiful video Splog!
Thank you, I have been researching ways for the best way to learn languages/skills and this i guess you could say "scientifically" explains it. Thanks again
very enlightening and very true i have played guitar for several years easily playing from 3 to 6 hours a day i will not say i am a master but i will say i can play almost any thing i hear if not i can improvise with it and that is what makes practice so fun. now im going to work on learning Japanese i have dabbled in it but not stuck with learning for 3 hours a day
OK, thanks for your testimony. Unfortunately, I have not yet traveled intensively (only, two times in Germany) so I remain a bit naive when it comes to living as an expat abroad. Dekuji !
I'm from Norway and I am 15 years old. I moved to Texas right before I turned 14 and after about 2 months in regular American High School (taking normal classes with fluent english speakers) I was pretty much fluent. I write and speak english at the same level as any other american teenager. Some people can notice a slight accent when I talk. I took english about 2 hours per week in Norway starting in 4th grade, just learning basic stuff. Besides that I just watched a lot of american television.
@irishpolyglot Haha - yes, I worried that the title was a bit misleading, but decided to go with it just for fun. Glad you liked the video Benny.
@OmegaRage I was born in the UK, but have lived most of my life in other countries, including (now) the Czech republic. My wife is Czech.
"Practise doesn`t make perfect. Perfect practise makes perfect" -some kind of football coach dude. However I´d agree that pretty much any kind of immersion leads to improvements in a language. I made it a habit to consume any sort of entertainment (such as movies books etc) in either English or Spanish if available and even though I barely speak to someone in these languages I found that in the rare case I do communicate with a native speaker I can hold a conversation on pretty much any topic effortlessly and be 100% comfortable... which I think is extraordinary given the little amount of practise I have talking to someone.
Please post a video demonstrating this ability. As a commenter said below, one minute per language would be sufficient.
Yes, this is an excellent video here showing deep insight in how the quantity of language learning is accumulated. This discussion here about your video is very interesting, I enjoyed reading it. A more detailed feedback I gave you in the language forum. Fasulye
@loki2504 Now that is a good question. Even though Polish is from the same language family (west slavic) as Czech, it is surprisingly different. There are lots of similarities, of course. For example, you do have a "head start" once you have absorbed the complexities of aspect and case. much of which relates to both languages. Even so, also lots of unexpected differences so that after learning one there is quite some effort required to learn the other.
@19fas88 I am a native English speaker, but i went to Hungary for 12 years and when i came back it took me months to figure out English again. Languages aren't permanent
@FluentCzech Does that mean that a polish doesn't understand what a czech says and vice versa?
I find that the more i can do with something the more i can do. Exponential skill growth.
I also play guitar and you obviously have a very quick learning curve where you go from not being able to hold it to being able to strum simple tunes relatively quickly but there are often plateau's but these can be put down to practicing the wrong way.
There is a difference between time spent and QUALITY of time spent. I only know this through experience and it's hard to explain unless you've recognised it yourself.
As far as language learning is concerned, i think living in the country is the ultimate best way provided you are living a reasonably sociable life. No good moving to say Spain but sitting indoors all day. 12 hours exposure per day is around 4k hours per year which would mean if you added this to some serious private study you could be near-fluent in just a couple of years i reckon.
I'm moving to Germany this year though so i will be testing this out for myself!
Sorry about cutting off my reply. I use more or less the system you use, especially listening to the language and getting used to the rhythm of that language. I have found that language learning (at least the listening and speaking aspect) is a case of what is termed "over-learning", i.e., being constantly exposed to the language, and doing substitution drills once a certain syntax pattern is studied and a reasonable amount of associated vocabulary is learned (FSI courses are great for this!)
Today I realized that in addition to oral and written mastery of Spanish as a foreign language, I understand Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, Galician, French to a lesser extent, and Romanian to a much smaller extent. I have only ever formally studied Spanish (8 years) and Portuguese (1 semester). I have picked everything else up from movies, music, films, TH-cam, from my own total dedicated love to Romance Languages. I'm proud to one day be fuent in all of them. Then on to Chinese & Japanese!
Is it possible to learn 2 or more languages at once? I want to learn Hebrew and Tagalog. But I find that my mind sort of has this "foreign mode" where when I try to speak, say Hebrew, my mind just seeks out words from the "foreign storebank" in my mind, and they might be Spanish, French, Hebrew, or who knows what (I've studied a lot of languages over the years)!
Great video! So eloquent.
I love this video~ I dont know why but i got all teary eyed with the quote. It gives me hope that maybe i did not have to be born in Korea to learn Korean and its not my moms fault that she didnt teach me many languages i seriously thirst to know fluently and fully to this day when i was growing up.
It can do, but not necessarily. I find that new words I learn in English (like a term I hadn't heard of before) have a slight Korean accent on them now unless I really try hard to say it properly, because I study Korean and listen to Korean so much.
If you haven't read The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten, I think that you would love it. It's one of those books that you have to keep buying because you end up giving your copy away.
That is a very impressive story. You should make youtube videos discussing your amazing success. I am sure you would have lots of viewers.
And when listening the point is to get used to the sound of the entire language and capture words. Everyday you capture more words than the day before, even words you haven't read before, and normaly it takes you 1, 2 or 3 months to capture all the words depending on how close is the new language to your language or any other foreign language you learned before.
In the meantime of it all I study the polite expressions everybody learns in the beginning and start inserting new words everyday.
A question.. I am learning French at the moment and if you're putting in 6 hours a day should you be working on learning new concepts through out the 6 hours every day or mastering what you already know and then move on to new concepts?
I have a question.. Would you think that pronunciation can be something that you can just be naturally good at? I have personal experience with it being something natural. Having the ability to mimic and turn a native accent into yours in a very short time. What are you thoughts?
@verapamil07 I do mention courses such as FSI in the video, pointing out that a diplomat will study a language for, say, 2000 hours, and reach an 80% level - which is enough for daily business. Only complete mastery takes 10000 hours. In terms of children learning languages quickly, that is true, but then they can only talk about childish things. Being able to hold sophisticated adult conversations on complex topics is what takes most of the time, and that is beyond children's abilities.
@flashatizer I am certainly no expert on this, but I have read that people who are poor at accents usually cannot hear the differences in sounds in the target language and therefore cannot mimic them. Some people believe this ability needs to be developed in childhood, or is lost. Other people believe that everybody can improve their accent if they want to - but most are simply not interested. It is undeniable, though, that some people do pick up accents very quickly and with little effort.
i think that the most important thing to do in order for someone to learn a second language is to master his own language, and maybe for english native speaker is easier, and even though my first language is italian and i still have several problems with the grammar :(
@Torbyrne Richard, it is you more than anybody that helped me realise what true passion for language learning is. You helped me see clearly the difference between short term lust for results, and long term love for and commitment to the whole experience of learning languages.
Anthony thanks great video I don't know about high level mastery but Im really fascinated with the whole polyglot realm.This is the kind of fad that the world needs to catch on to rather than the usual video games Hollywood be bop.Can you imagine how life would change on this earth if being a polyglot was the in thing just awesome.Im so pumped thanks so much.
excellent well thought out video, thank you
Excellent, Thank you for sharing. I learned a lot from this. I just discovered myself loving to learn new languages, although I've always enjoyed, but I had to hear from someone and I said... holy shit, your right. Every hour when I am studying or engaging conversation in that new language it feels like a minute. Every minute when I am not, it feels like hour.
Heck I don't even want to be a language professor or an interpreter, the language thing is just a hobby. Plus I did have a lot of help with friends growing up (whom I am friends with today) whom speak those languages. I have A LOT of friends with different cultural backgrounds and upbringings. My first 2 languages were Arabic (mother) and Sicilian (father). I learned English via Pimsleur approach before I moved to the U.S. I actually did take the Pimsleur for some languages I already knew.