You're not Stupid: How to FINALLY Learn a Language
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- Do you like the idea of being able to speak a second language but are struggling to get there? Here is some perspective to help you on your journey.
Comment below on how you are finding learning a second language 😊
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You just got a shoutout from Lamont from Days of French and Swedish
That’s so kind of him. Where did he shout me out? I need to thank him. Also, thank you for checking out the channel!
@@matt_brooks-green I thought it was super cool of him. He shouted you on his newest video he put out about an hour ago. Thank you your channel seems deserving of it
Lamont’s shoutout over at th-cam.com/video/RLrwmm56kmY/w-d-xo.html
I've just came here from his video!😅 Will be exploring it all
Came from Lamont's video! Great work!
Hey, thank you Church. Really appreciate it! 🙏
I'm learning Japanese - 2 years semi- seriously and maybe three years dabbling before that, but I can still barely string together a sentence or read 'normal' Japanese. It is tremendously demotivating to compare yourself to others who seem to be chatting away after 6 months (I've learned that many people are not honest about how much work they've put into getting to intermediate). The best thing I did for myself was just accept that for a tough language like Japanese you just need to be in it for the long haul. I do an hour every day, but even at that rate it will take years to get to the 2-3000 hours you need to be fairly confident in the language. Once I mentally accepted that, and that there are no short-cuts, it became much easier to keep those habits up.
My Chinese is the same. It was reading that helped me progress but after what I’ve learnt more about learning through Spanish I can’t wait to get back to Chinese and do the same. Are there any comprehensible input Japanese channels? Maybe podcasts for learners? Like you say, if you enjoy the process who cares when you get there (wherever ‘there’ is)
@@matt_brooks-green The God of comprehensible input is Matt vs Japan of course. As for courses, not so many although Satori Reader is an excellent resource, really well designed stories. I use Nativshark which is input-ish. Lots of review cards, but all sentence based and no stupid 'hacks' or tricks - just constant repetition of 'real' Japanese with good audio and written cards and simple lessons. I like their approach, although the site does have its flaws. There are a few excellent Japanese YT channels for conversation - Miku Real Japanese is good, and 'Ask Japanese' is good for listening to contemporary youth Tokyo talk.
@@opusmagus1949 I agree very much. There is an old joke about advertising, that everyone knows half of all money spent on adverts is wasted, the problem is that nobody knows which half. Much the same I think applies to language learning.
As you say it doesn't help that people aren't always honest with others or themselves about how they learned (or failed to learn). And a lot of people are delusional about their own abilities. This particularly applies to Asian languages I think as (in my experience) most Asian people are so happy to hear a westerner speak their language that they are too polite to tell them they are really bad at it.
One of the greatest tragedies of East Asia is that Japan makes the best entertainment but never had a 박정희 to kill the cursed characters. So now your choice is great content and orthographic torture or lamer but I guess good enough entertainment but retain your sanity. Or you could pick Mandarin and get both meh entertainment and the torture.
I found your channel thanks to a shout out from Days of French ‘n’ Swedish. I really enjoyed this video and am glad to have found your channel!
Thanks Rachel! Can’t believe Lamont was so kind!
Great video about setting realistic expectations. My time frames have been getting longer as work and other life things come about.
Thanks David, I really appreciate that. I think once we focus on the process rather than the goal we are much more likely to succeed
I really connected with the point about not being able to "do it all." When I started learning my first foreign language I was working full-time and also training a lot physically. The pandemic hit, and I couldn't train as much nor work so I started learning more languages. Fast forward a few years and I've let my physical conditioning go somewhat in order to make space for the languages (of which I'm fluent in at least 2 of them). There really aren't enough hours in the day to maintain my languages, my studies and my physical training, plus whatever social responsibilities I have to my family and friends, and I've decided that the languages are more important. Would I like to be back at my physical peak? Of course, but I don't know how realistic that is given my current balance that I, honestly, quite like. It's about your personal value system.
Hey Eli. Thanks for checking out the video and I'm glad something resonated with you. Sadly there are too many interesting things to do! That's a pretty lucky position to be in to be fair so we shouldn't complain too much. I think once you make the choice as to what to prioritise then there is less guilt about the other stuff as you have chosen where you want to progress. Good luck!
Matt Brooks-Green. Come for the thought provoking language learning content. Stay for the masterful video production.
Hahaha. Thanks Nicholas. Glad you enjoy it!
Love your content and love your kind and authentic delivery. Keep up the good work!
That's so kind of you to say. Thank you for checking out the videos. Working on more this wee so stay tuned!
Sound advice and wise words. I have successfully used the very same method to learn Italian and Latin. You just need to stay consistent and do anything that you like in the target language. :)
Really nice simple but effective advice. Thanks
Thanks Riaz!
I LOVE the style of your video and your storytelling
Ahmed! That is such a kind thing to say. Thank you so much. Glad you liked it 😄
your voice is so soothing
Hahaha! I’ll do some ASMR in a future vid then 🤣
Thank you, this is giving me hope
That is exactly why I made these videos 😊. I was a crap language learner for many many (many) years. Honestly, anyone can learn a language
@@matt_brooks-green yeah exactly and it's amazing to see someone realistic and with the same experience. I feel like even successful language learners don't talk about how it sucked at first. Ty.
Enjoyed the video :)
Cheers AJ! 🙏
Great video. It cheers me up. I was feeling depressed because I am not seeing any progress with my Italian, even though I am learning it every day recently.
Thanks Wei Xu. So kind of you to say. Keep going! Just keep it enjoyable and take out the expectations. If you enjoy the process who cares how long it takes
Hey man, sometimes you make progress despite not seeing it. Trust the process and keep going :)
@@andreygrant8676 Exactly! Time and consistency are the biggest factors
I've just a goal for every day. The idea of tracking hours sounds good, so I might consider it. Thanks, Matt -from a PTYA member. Your videos help me!!
Btw, do you know any service with the feature of counting hours in another language?
Hi Homer! 👋 Yeah, it really is useful. I am going to keep doing it even after I go back to Chinese. It gives you that tiny dopamine hit to see the number go up each day. I don't know of a specific service but I would just create a spreadsheet in Notion or somewhere to keep track. Look forward to seeing your homework!
@@matt_brooks-green Cool. I will try. Keep up your good work!!
I find it amusing that I've come back to this channel for advice, but here I am! So I'm a recessive bilingual, meaning I can understand a language perfectly, but have a hard time speaking. Ever since birth my parents have been speaking to me in Tagalog, but when I have speech delay from being around two languages(English and Tagalog), they got scared and spoke to me mainly in English. So what I've come here to ask is, now that I've gotten my input, how to I get to start speaking? Thanks for responding to my previous comment and I checked out Lindie Botes on her Korean journey!
Hey! If you have a lot of input and you have high comprehension I think it would be worth just jumping in and finding an online tutor - I don't know which sites have Tagalog so you will have to search for it, failing that even just chat sites like Omegle much have Tagalog users. Maybe you can make use of any family who speak it and call them to see how they are?
@@matt_brooks-green Thanks! I don't I'm allowed to talk with your family though. I will consider taking a Tagalog tutor after I've done Korean, thanks for the advice!
Language learning is a commitment , more or so a passion to keep learning. It's a lifestyle. I'm going into my forth language (dabbing between French or Turkish) after not learning a new language in years. It takes time, but more importantly, it's really about enjoying the process and seeing one's accomplishments come through, regardless how little it may be.
And as you noted, we're not fluent for that matter so might as well keep going..
Exactly. When I was less experienced I perceived it as there was some sort of 'end' when a learner could say they were good enough to have learnt the language. Now that I have a bit more perspective it doesn't feel that way at all. Thanks for checking out the video
Very sensible advice. I will take a look at Atomic Habits. I recommend books by Matthew Syed, though you’ve probably read them.
Could you recommend some spanish comprehensible channel that you personally use on youtube.
Your videos are absolutely the best honestly.. 👌
Well Dreaming Spanish and Spanish After Hours are where I would start. Both are fantastic. I have been using the paid Dreaming Spanish stuff for a while now and it is incredible. The method really does work if you want to go the CI route. You just have to give it enough hours of listening at an appropriate level and you will pick it up without realising. Good luck!
@@matt_brooks-green muchas gracias
I want to learn Portuguese/ Brazilian as I watch a lot of Brazilian football be good to read about it aswell
I liked your accents makes me want to learn british english even more
Hahaha! Thanks😂
What book would you recommend for someone who is a beginner in Spanish to read. or can you please do a video on the books that you used as a beginner in Spanish to develop you vocabulary acquisition and reading skills.
Hi! As ever, it depends on your level but Olly Richards' 101 Conversations in Simple Spanish is the easiest of his books that I have read. It is actually a story, despite what the title suggests geni.us/simplespanish I am planning on doing some videos about books in the future 🙌
I know how comprehensible input is an amazing method (having proof of that with Spanish), but with other languages I'm doing like Korean, I'm having a hard time finding resources with my beginner-intermediate transition. If there's any way you can help me with this, please help! Love your content and like how you're spreading the gospel of CI to people who learn languages in a skill building manner.
Thank you! I have no experience of Korean sadly. I know Lindie Botes is a Korean speaker so not sure if she’s got a video on Korean CI?
@@matt_brooks-green Thanks for responding, I'll take note!
Unrelated to language learning, but which art(s) do you practice, if you not mind my asking? I looked at the quick clip of you in the ring a couple of times but could merely narrow the list of options.
That was a sanda fight (chinese kickboxing). I do 3 different Chinese styles (hence the interest in Chinese) and BJJ
@@matt_brooks-green I’m impressed that you can fit in 4 different arts/styles and two languages + life!
Thank you for pointing out how demotivating those "I became fluent in this language is 30 seconds" videos are!
30 seconds - that's a long time these days. I heard of this method that only takes 10 seconds and gives you a PERFECT native accent 😂. No worries John, thanks for checking out the video
Matt this was hugely helpful. I have been flip-flopping with learning Spanish and 2023 will be the third year running that I will gear myself up to take this language seriously and master it . . . I am multilingual by birth; English, French, Creole (Seychelles) and Creole (Mauritius) living in UK (and having accidentally found out that I more or less understand every other Creole language in the world 😃) I cannot understand why I have been struggling so hard with Spanish which should be relatively easy for someone like me to learn - I understand more than I am confident in speaking. Here we go again! New subscriber.
I so glad you found this useful. Thank you for subscribing Marie-Michelle. Just stick with it - the easier that you can make it the less it will feel like hard work. And once you get to that lower intermediate stage you can just start to enjoy TH-cam videos. I did a video about channels on TH-cam to watch for Spanish you might find helpful. Good luck with your journey!
@@matt_brooks-green Muchas gracias 😃
30 years of learning German and I’m B1 👋
If you’re enjoying the journey, who cares?! Keep going 😊
Subbed b/c Lamont shouted you out.
Hey Ricky! Thanks for the sub, really appreciate you taking the effort. Hope you like the content!
@@matt_brooks-green Haven't watched anything yet lol. But I'll let you know after I check a few videos out 😉
Can you make a video on Xiomanyc Street smart Spanish course
I haven't checked it out actually so I might look into it. I've followed Ari since the days of his Ari in Beijing channel so would be interested to see the method. Very much speak early I guess. Will check it out. Thanks for stopping by!
Your welcome
What audio resources do you use for Spanish?
A absolute ton. I've got a video coming out in a couple of weeks with all mine but off the top of my head, Dreaming Spanish, Spanish Language Coach, Handy Spanish, No Hay Tos, Conversations in Spanish and other Languages, random TH-cam videos. I now try to mix it up with content for native speakers so just find topics I'm interested in
What camera do you use ? it's very crisp
Cheers dude. Fuji X-T4 with XF 18-55
Learning a language for 8 hours a day is a recipe for burnout, even you're spending all that time consuming content in your target language - L2. It's cool you're doing a martial art. I did that while learning my second foreign language: French. I still use French because I learn using Assimil courses, and a lot of them have French as the L1, the language of instruction. Today I spent 3 hours on a Latin lesson, but some of that time was spent translating some French words into English as well as looking up some modern concepts like 'postal cheque' / 'giro cheque' and some mythology thrown into the lesson. In October I finished up Assimil's German course where the L1 was English. Thanks to that course - and some Duolingo and Memrise - I now understand most of the German in the Netflix series "Barbarians". I even found a German channel where the instructor teaches Latin! One thing about Mandarin, Chinese restaurant owners and workers live in so many countries, even ones where Spanish is the first language, so when you travel you can speak both languages to the same person.
Yeah, realistically your brain would melt. Loads of shop owners in Spain are mandarin speakers which makes the experience of visiting Madrid even more interesting
Excellent video. Loved the format, the presentation and the concise no nonsense approach.
I have been learning German for almost 4 years now, and I'm confident I wasted at least the first year - I was only going to a class for a couple of hours a week.
At about the 18 month mark I decided to get a little more serious. In doing so I went looking for the secret method. Short cuts to improve my speed of language acquisition.
In the end I discovered there are no short cuts - you have to do the work. I did, however, narrow down the techniques to essentially be based on comprehensible input by looking a the works of Krashen et al. Which led me to Oli Richards, and Matt vs Japan, and finally to Days of French of Swedish.
What seems to be missing from a lot of this (excellent) work on TH-cam is a more concise listing of the actual time spent working on this for example: 3 hours per day of passive listening, + x hours of active listening, x hours of reading etc.
This kind of 'effort' assessment would reveal how much actual effort is required to achieve functual fluency (say B2) in a language. In someway , it could also allow people to be realistic about their progress - If they aren't putting on a couple of hours a day of listening/reading (or both) then of course their progress is going to be slower.
Thanks again, and keep up the good work.
Warren
Hi Warren! Exactly this 👏. I jumped around and failed before realising its more about just putting in the hours and man again my expectations. The method I am following at the moment suggests that 1000 hours is the minimum to expect any level of genuine fluency... though we could debate that word endlessly. I wish someone said this to me when I started and managed my expectations when the level of input I was getting was significantly lower
I want to get into learning Dutch because it has an interesting culture, beautiful country and interesting cities. After looking at some of the language, I could use some of the German I learned when I was younger but there is one problem... I have no clue how I learned German.
Hahaha! Well at least these days there is a ton of content on TH-cam and elsewhere at different levels. I'm sure you'll smash it!
@@matt_brooks-green There's no doubt about it, I even know a Dutch speaker that can help me too. I think I do a mixture of both looking at a textbook or something on the Internet, and also listening to music in German too. So I guess I should try to replicate that.
@@lumper1168 good luck!
@@matt_brooks-green Thank you! :)
It doesn't matter how you learned German. If you forget the nasty parts of the grammar, that's pretty much Dutch. Or, better, just split the difference between German and English, and there you are. This is only a slight exaggeration.
My problem is I can't decide on one language, I just switch every week or even day. Idk why, I just can't stick to one.
If that’s what you enjoy doing then go for it. Obviously the more time you spend on one the better you’ll get at it
@@matt_brooks-green yeah I don't really like it, I want to stick with one language, there's just so many good ones out there. Don't know with which to start
I think you need to find a substantial reason to root you in a single language - music, movies, art etc