I love the honesty! I feel like polyglots always make it seem like they're fluent in every language they're learning. "Language flings" kind of have a negative connotation in the community but some people just want to dable🤷🏾♀️
You don't use it, you lose it... I totally agree with you about the effort and the time which is needed to learn and maintain a language, so people loving languages need to choose.
>>> Now that I’ve retired and have time on my hands, I have decided to try something new. When I was young I was an autodidact in French, perhaps B2ish, and somewhat later in Japanese probably about C1 (I used Japanese professionally as a technical translator and proofreader in the fields of electronics and engineering). My new venture is to see if it is possible, as a 75 year old very elderly man, to learn a completely new language to B2 level within one year, or as close as I can get in that time. My target is German. After French and Japanese, German's arcane and convoluted grammar comes as quite a shock and it remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to hack it at my age. My objective with German is to be able to read German literature rather than to be conversationally fluent. Owing to frailty and general dilapitude, I doubt if I will ever visit Germany, Switzerland or France again, far less Japan. But, all that notwithstanding, next year I hope to revisit French and Japanese and get them back, working simultaneously, to B2 level or better.
I'm certain you can manage it. If you spend a fair bit of time on TH-cam and haven't run across it already, check out the channel "Learn German with Anja". She's a bit silly, but wonderful for communicating bits of the language. It may not be the most efficient use of your time, but I found some of her random, topical content to be extremely helpful, and almost more importatly, enjoyable. Viel Glueck!
I’m currently studying Swahili and Irish at the moment. Because they’re both heritage languages of mine and I just want to study them to upper beginner level only. Afterwards, I will return to learning Levantine Arabic for which I had fallen in love with.
That's great, Chenelle! I think there is something really lovely about studying our heritage languages. I have often thought about studying Scottish Gaelic (my dad is from Scotland) or Arabic (my mother is from Iraq). I think I will do that one day, when the time is right 🙂
Robin MacPherson you won’t regret it if you do decide to learn both of those languages they’re worth it in the end. I’m even going as far as to learn how to cook Lebanese food from scratch and join a Lebanese cooking group on Facebook as well and I made a ton of friends as a result of it plus I’ve also went out to restaurants in order food and had a small conversation and Lebanese Arabic and it was awesome
Thanks for answering my questions again!! I've noticed that my Mandarin doesn't degrade as fast as my beginner level languages. After a couple weeks those beginner languages are 60% gone so I need to refresh again. I am aware of my priorities in my language journey I've made a list for myself: Native (English, French) and I want to speak Mandarin, Korean, Russian and Spanish well. Other languages I dont mind having a low level (Tagalog, bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, etc.) A year ago I gave myself a goal to be able to speak 6 languages by 2025. I will definitively stay focused and under control.
That's an amazing list of languages! Ahh I just love it. Imagine all the worlds that open up to you and how much there is for you to explore, discover, enjoy. It sounds like you have set good, clear goals for yourself and I am absolutely looking forward to hearing about the journey in our comment discussions as time goes on 😄
That’s it! I think the same, if you are comfortable with jumping from one language to another, go on, have fun. But I personally prefer to master just some of them, but I do not freak out, I‘ve been studying Italian for like 1 year now and I feel that, because they are so similar, some of my Spanish is starting “to vanish”. To avoid that, I started reading short stories and watching some conversational videos in Spanish a few days in the week and that’s been helping a lot. I keep focusing more in Italian, once I like it better, but I’ve found a way to keep Spanish alive. I agree that we can get to a C level with the ones we like the most and B1/B2 with the ones that are not priority to us, having fun in the journey is what really matters.
I eventually want to learn 6 languages including my mother tongue. But I’m only learning languages I know I’ll use at least on a weekly basis. But once I learn each to a intermediate level I’m going to work on just improving them each greatly.
This really hits home. I've been absolutely buried in Italian for the last three months. I've immersed myself in the language to try doing something productive with a period of time that's otherwise a wreck on account of the pandemic. After many hours a day, every day, all I can think about is how much I miss German, which I spent six months with prior to taking a road trip in Austria. A close second occupying my mind is to find a way to learn Slovene efficiently. The resources for it online are dwarfed by the amount of content for more common languages and I don't know anyone personally that I can practice with. It's a wonderful, terrible thing to be interested in languages. Ultimately, I feel like I'm wasting my life because I live in California, and the only language I encounter with any frequency is Spanish, but I'm spending next to no time on that. I'm 35 and haven't gotten anywhere near comfortably conversational in any language. It seems like it'll never happen if I can't find focus. Italian is my strongest language despite the last number of calendar days on it, so there's a sense of sunk cost. Trying to maintain it while learning something else just sounds like a nightmare. Trying to keep up with 8 at a high level sounds terrifying!
Another helpful video, thank you. Choosing only one instead of many is hard because we always want more. Last year I was learning Turkish and Japanese simultaneously and working full-time. My Turkish was around A2 level at that moment and I was just strarting with Japanese. After a few months I realised I had to pick one, cause I simply had no time for both. I picked Turkish because it was much more meaningful to me. I could have tried keeping up with both and making little progress in both.. Instead I chose Turkish and actually feel that I have improved significantly. First I thought I would regret having abandoned Japanese (6 months wasted for god's sake!) but now I know it was the right decision, the more my Turkish improves the more I love it and the happier I am about my decision.
Hi there! I did it once. It worked and I didn’t confuse them in my brain. I just think the progress is much slower and I love diving in a language. I divide my time between “traditional learning” and “leisure learning”. When I’m learning a language I go through the language in every minute of my life. I keep the languages that I’ve already studied in my brain by chatting on WhatsApp group and talking to people. They get a bit rusty with time but not much actually. Professor X here. Stay safe.
The thing I don't really like about some polyglots is that they give the impression of wanting to pile up languages like a recount of countries, castles or beaches they have seen in the world. I very much enjoy learning languages and I speak a few but I my main aim is still to accomplish a fairly high level in all of them in order to be really able to communicate in them. Listening practice is so crucial for that as well. It seems that we are all aiming at speaking a language but it's all interrelated
We don't lose languages. They only go rusty. During the pandemic I went back to Swedish that I hadn't touched for 30 years (ages 12-42. I was not a native speaker). It all came back in a matter of weeks. It all truly stays.
I'm from Argentina and of course I speak Spanish. I'd like to learn several languish, English mainly, but Italian, Portuguese and French too. Because of that I try to study English every day in the morning and in the afternoon the others, one per day.
I first want to say thank you for your contributions here, Robin. Your videos really add so much value to my life. 聽到你正在很努力地學習中文讓我感到非常高興！I’m an advanced Mandarin learner, and I love this language so much. I'm currently pursuing a master's degree in Translation and Interpretation in Taiwan, and although I'm working as a Mandarin/English translator, my spoken Mandarin skills are still lacking significantly in comparison to my listening, reading, and writing skills. I find it extremely difficult to verbally express complex concepts in Mandarin. Now that I'm in a master's program with mostly local Taiwanese classmates, I really would like to improve my speaking skills so I can communicate with them more effectively and keep up with deeper conversations than just the average small talk. I really thought this would just happen naturally once I had lived here for a long time and reached an advanced level in the classroom, but I've been here for over two years now and I seem to have hit a wall in the last six months or so. I think I'll try using the method you mentioned in your "how to improve fluency in a language" video and see if I can get this method to work for me. Beyond improving my spoken fluency in Mandarin, I actually intended to begin a serious journey to re-learn Spanish this school year, but I'm a month into grad school now and I haven't started yet. Time management is a big issue for me. I have so many plans, but I never seem to have enough time in a day. I'm hoping that one of your time-management videos can offer me some helpful advice. Anyway, *加油*!!
Hey, I was a bit nervous when I clicked on this video I thought it might lean on the negative side criticizing polyglots and I can't tell you how happy this video made me....you don't take sides instead you are helping your audience see the big picture...Thanks for the vid :) So,, getting back to the content. I completely agree with what you said. Though I love languages I can't learn them all...so, I got to choose and pursue those for the long term...because, in the first place i pursued those languages in order to experience life in those languages...other wise it will be just a waste of time. I had rather learn 6 or 7 and keep them rather than learn 20 and loose 10 of them. Because we all know the hard work, the tears, the sweat that it costs us to learn languages and real language learner will know that...even though we enjoy them. But, dabbling isn't bad. Everything is as you said. I Couldn't have said it better :)
Thanks so much for sharing this feedback with me Leul! I have to say, I was a little nervous about the topic in case it would come across the wrong way somehow, but it seems that you received the exact message and tone that I hoped for! 🙌🏼 I'm really glad the content resonated with you, too 😊 I wish you much success with those 6 or 7 languages and look forward to chatting more in the comments of future videos. Keep up the great work! 💪🏼
Hey Robin, looks like we have quite a lot in common in terms of the approach to choosing and nurturing our beloved languages. Congrats for your videos, it's a real pleasure to listen to you :) Hopefully we can meet at a language-related event of some sort one day
Being able to speak a new language is like having a quite new personality, a new life, as if you were born again 🐥 I believe that my English (as a third language) isn't great but I'm able to enjoy English books, movies, videos and research articles, for me that's all I need French as my second language enables me to enjoy "la littérature française", poems, books, novels, theater, old movies Arabic as my native language is the best, I love the history, the language and everything about it, especially the religion, things about our prophet(pbuh), and a lot of things And right now I 'm learning Chinese, I love the littérature, the culture, the wisdom I don't assume that I'm good in any of these languages But I do accept all of the imperfections I have, and it took me so long time to realize it It's ok to be learning a language for myself, for my own pleasure 🐥
The beautiful thing about learning languages is that you don't have know them perfectly to get value from them. I believe that learning a foreign language to a B1+ level is a good way to make it stick. Anything beyond that requires a lot of dedication. I've scaled back massively. For me adding new languages is a massive decision. I decided a few years ago not to add anymore. However, I broke that promise to learn my ancestral language Norwegian. To be honest this feels like my last addition. Luckily, it's not too difficult. I might even get a certificate foe the language someday. Russian is my #1 priority as I live in Moscow. Norwegian is my ancestral language and #2 priority. Spanish, Portuguese and French are for curiosity and fun. Luckily, they're all related and not too difficult, so I can improve/maintain them as I please. I consider all of this a massive amount of intellectual work as I'm not a full-time TH-cam polyglot and have other interests as well. I've made my picks and I want to get deeper into these languages and cultures. Travel to countries where they're spoken. I haven't been to Norway or a Portuguese speaking country yet. I honestly want to use my languages to communicate, hear/read good stories and most importantly have adventures in new places. Being a "polyglot" is a goofy flex I think. Just my two kopecks comrades. Won't buy you much vodka though. Skål!
The part at the end about wishing you could go and enjoy your advanced level languages, but being "stuck" slogging through lower level language really speaks to me. Just about when I got to the point when I could really start enjoying Mandarin, then I met my wife and started learning her two languages and I've been slogging through those more than 15 years and it's really slowed down what I could have done. I don't seem to be as tempted to dabble in other languages as some people. Lots of other life stuff going on during that time, of course.
It's very much like a horse race ! Looking from above, Italian is coming up on the left, no,no !! now Spanish has pushed ahead and Portuguese is making a push for middle space......This is how I see my progress I quite enjoy it !
I'm not even sure whether you regress less/slower in languages you know better. At least I feel it much more painful when I haven't spoken a C2 or my native language for a while or at least not as intensely as I used to and instead flooded my day with another language and then experience that I have to think longer for a word or in hindsight feel I should have used a more precise synonym - while with a language that's B2 or below I may objectively have lost quite a bit after less usage, but the loss doesn't feel that strongly as I remember to have struggled in conversations anyway. And usually with those intermediate languages, it only takes 2 weeks of intense usage to get it back to the level I was, while with the C2/native languages it takes more work and effort to get back to where it was.
You sir earned yourself a sub. I'm a language learner, I studied Spanish a lot but never was able to find people interested in helping me maintain it. Most of maintaining my Spanish is reading and listening now, but this is rare because I haven't been learning Spanish. Currently I'm focusing on Arabic because of my degree I'm working on, and also Italian for a study abroad program. I also have learned about 10 languages at the same time, I couldn't keep up even when my life was really easy to accommodate around that. I always maintained honesty in this, though, I'm not a polyglot but I aspire to be one and travel the world. I'm hoping study abroad will help me maintain and use more languages, as well as burn them more into memory.
I hate when people loudly claim that they can speak 10 languages or 6 languages or more but when you speak to them in the language that they claim to speak, they're not even fluent nor they don't understand basic conversation. I'd understand if they don't have the correct accent for the language but when for example every grammar and pronunciation they make is incorrect to the point where we don't understand 100% that's where I get abit agitated. If they said that they speak a bit then that's alright but to fully 100% claim that they speak that language is a whole different story. For example, you'll speak to the person in their local language. They find out you're from a country where they're learning your native language. You're asking questions in their local language and they reply in terrible English.
Hello Robin. I will use your tips about prioritising. I came back from Rome last year fired up with italian. But spanish was always my first love and I keep that ticking away in the background, ( a bit like leaving an engine running I suppose ! ) But then my interest in Portuguese bubbled up and my italian has moved to the cheaper seats ! Thank you for your honest no nonsense approach ! Bom dia : From England !
This hit me like a sack of bricks today 🤣 I've structured up a schedule for improving my portuguese through August and have been going strong for two weeks with some decent improvement . And nothing is changing that plan now! But then today I was in my language group I talk in, and a couple of the german speakers were talking and I was like "... I want to learn this!" So now I'll have to structure this to be my 2nd tier of learning ! Thanks Robin!
Haha I am sorry to hit you like a sack of bricks, my friend 😂 But I am really glad that the video came at a critical moment and hopefully had a positive influence! I look forward to hearing about how your 2nd tier works out! You've got this 😄💪🏼
10:05 Have some proper Swedish coffee, looking into the mug will make you feel like you are staring into the void (Robbaz: Swedish coffee, darker than your soul 🤣).
Great points Robin. Thank you for grear advice as ever. I'm happy with my spanish , somewhere about B2 but I'm pushing it uphill now. Italian I think I'm at A2 . Portuguese I tick along , my understanding is better than my speaking. And now, I have started Icelandic but I'm not obsessed about it. It's quite difficult so I'm just going to spend at least a month on pronunciation only !
I speak English, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and French at B2 or higher, and I agree that it's much harder for those languages to atrophy. The time you have had being B2 or C1, etc also impacts the speed of atrophy. French is my newest one (reached fluency 2 years ago) and it definitely fluctuates more than the second last one (Japanese) which I've spoken for 10 years. Currently I'm living in Kazakhstan, and I've reached intermediate in Russian (the dominant language of the country) and am working on Kazakh. The bilingual situation in KZ makes learning both inevitable, but I'm struggling to find quality, interesting content in Kazakh. The media isn't as engaging and informative as the media in Russian
Hi again! 😊 Great question and response. 👍 Both struck a chord, or rather several chords 😁, with me. Maintaining languages while being seduced by new ones will always be a balancing act. The best way I can describe it is with a juggling analogy. I tend to juggle with some smaller balls, two or three (new languages I dabble in, or older ones I rekindle), while keeping one or two bigger ones going. For example, currently my main focus is on consolidating Mandarin Chinese at a good HSK3 level (so it doesn't slip back again so much), but I am also revisiting Irish Gaelic and Japanese basics. Why? Because I like to. 😊 However, adding other new balls will become to difficult to mindfully juggle, so I don't. Or I just drop one for the time being. I can always pick it up again later, depending on time and circumstances/opportunity (i.e. living in a certain place or meeting certain people, etc.). Wishing you all happy learning! 🤗
I'm studying German right now and am quite enjoying it but there is this part of me that wishes I was also learning Russian. To satisfy that craving I allow myself a few minutes every day to learn the cryllic alphabet on Duolingo (something I feel like Duolingo is actually quite good for) but no more than a few minutes. I feel like it's enough to satisfy my curiosity without taking time away from German study. That said, I still make time to consume French and Spanish content everyday even though I'm not actively studying them. If learning a new language meant I had to sacrifice French literature then I wouldn't do it!
I have another question and maybe others will share my struggles. I have difficulty getting my self engaged with audio/video based lessons. I much rather just stick to my books where I read and study. Everytime i do the video/audio lessons I learn more than I would've on my own. But I seem to lack to motivation to get to it. I wonder if you have similar issues and how you deal with it?
Another great question! I will totally add this to the list 🙂 I can relate to your feelings on this. I always like reading because I have an opportunity to understand every word since it is written, where with audio/listening content there's so much more uncertainty as I can't always hear all of the words -- but those are incredibly rewarding activities, as you say. It'll make a great video!
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms funny thing...for me it depends on the language for English I preferred reading but, now when it comes to Chinese I prefer audio content because characters are just insane lol
Even in my mother language, I'd rather read than watch a vídeo/film... But with English I have to keep listening, because of the irregular pronunciation...
Well, I have a long term relationship with Spanish and some on-off relationships with French, Italien, Russian, Arabic. I guess my Spanish level is at the moment B2 and also my English. But I actually I do nothing for my English. I only listen or watch content in English. I know I need a lot of time to overcome my intermediare level in Spanish. There is barely no time to learn another language with the same seriousness , but from time to time looking around what could be another language to learn I think is completely fine.
I find that for me vocabulary acquisition becomes a critical path activity, as my memory is not the best anymore, and if I study multiple languages at the same time, I just steal from one, to study the other. I prefer to stick to one language as my main language, but just like you, I do dabble occasionally in others, just for curiosity's sake, I just can't help myself. But eventually, I have to leave the distractions aside and get back to the main task, otherwise I lose all the momentum, and then it is really hard to start back up again.
I get a little frustrated at times because I am only studying my 1st language French and have been for 2 years and 2 months. I am conversational but I tend to try to judge myself on others that seem to have studied a shorter time than I bit are better. I listen 1 to 2 hours a day and read using lingq so I can look up words. But I still struggle with some phrase structure and am getting s little frustrated. Any pointers to kick it up a great notch. I am probably B1 to lower B2 and I don't think that good enough for 26 months. Granted I'd say I got serious about studyimg maybe 18 months ago. Love your videos and watch every day. I need that eureka moment.
How do I feel tempted to dabble in all the languages I love. OH MY GOD. I do choose the languages I want to speak russian very well, and read .. because it's one of my favorite literature. That's an interesting topic.
I don't struggle to mantain my languages because i only care about understanding, not speaking them.. cause i'm so introverted that even a single language is sometimes too much 😂 Imo as long as you learn by immersion, all the knowledge lodges deep in your brain and stays with you.. And i've been surprised that seemingly no understanding at all was lost after months, and in another case YEARS of completely neglecting a language! (and not one i knew at a very high level either).
Great video - and inspiraing as ever. It takes me so long to wrap my head around 1 language that it's an impossible dream to be able to dabble in languages while maintaining a few at a high level. My main goal has always been to learn how to learn a language. I've tried loads of methods and felt many times that i was close...I still keep trying because the goal of fluency is too great!
"Little language flings"! Haha, I love it. No matter how true this is and how much you say it, there are still going to be people who claim to speak 40 languages to a C level, or people who claim that once you've learned Swedish, you can then easily learn German in 15 days or some rubbish. This is perfect timing for me (I say that a lot on your channel, and I am starting to wonder if you are just the Tyler Durdan version of me haha). I have recently decided to go "All Swedish All the Time". I can speak Swedish fine, but it's not really "useful" yet, because I still can't speak it any better than 80% of young Swedes can speak English. So I am going all in on Swedish, and I don't care if in 2022 I can still only speak Swedish and English; at least I'll be able to speak those two properly. Ah - like I said, we are very similar (albeit you have walked this road much longer than I have) but one thing I soooort of disagree with you (at least, it's not been my experience): Dipping your toe in on other languages. Why I deliberately don't do that (sometimes to my detriment, in that it's hard to review products from a beginner's perspective) is the temptation effect. I am like a recovered alcohol who doesn't drink light beer. The light beer isn't the problem; it's what I then associate it with. (This is just an example, I'm not a recoevered alcholic haha). When I dip my toe in on a language, I have a very hard time staying only "toe deep". So personally, I will do almost anything to avoid even associating with other languages and will continue to do so until my Swedish is at a C level. Great video Robin, keep these up mate!
@@Uninvisibl Really?? I see it all the time even on big channels, e.g. I've seen Matt D'avella commenting on other channels of a million subs. But also on some of my own videos there are comments from Lindie Botes. But yeah I think it's a funny feeling to see it, and it's something I quite like about TH-cam. PS. If you're at all interested in TH-cam yourself, check out Eric Wen. I am kinda becoming mates with him haha but he makes EXCELLENT videos on how to be better at YT.
Hello! I get inspired by your videos! May I ask your journey in language learning? I mean when did you start learning other languages and how many years did you study each language? You deserve more views tbh.
Oh my God that's like my ASL somebody threw me in a situation where they're like she speaks ASL and I haven't spoken it in 5 years and I felt retarded! It started coming back and then for a few weeks I started reviewing it and it all slowed back what I had learned but during the time and the situation I was in I was barely getting through and as the night progressed I started remembering more and more. So yes I definitely believe about language atrophen.
I tried to pay attention but your holding the mug of coffee distracted me quite a lot. Was sort of concerned whether It was getting cold, whether you were sipping from it in between, what brand it might be. Let's see if It will be empty in the end.
i have a question , I wanted to reach a c1 or c2 in english cuz right now I'm b2 level , if you could give me some tips , I feel like I'm lost in polyglots ideas or mind and idk what to do , I wanted to take ielts exam , I also want to learn Italian, but confused cuz of sources , do I have to set up goal or make a plan , I saw one of ur video you talked about dedicated time ,dead time , extensive reading , intensive reading , also a video about podcast . I wish you can help me please I'm so confused, could u help me out ,it would be nice of you to get back to me asap
I stop helping anyone for learning Chinese. I am native speaker but I speak too fast with 5+6 accent at the same time with some throat problem so most of time not easy to be heard It cause even those foreign who studied Chinese 10+ years could not understand me at all.
There is such a glut of you-tubers now who are, or claim to be, polyglots that the whole thing has become something of a joke. The point has kinda got lost with money needed to be accrued to maintain a YT channel.
You mispronounced Tagalog. I did the same thing a month ago when talking with a phone representative from the Philippines. Knew better but couldn't help myself. I guess because "Tag a long" is a legitimate English sentence.
I love the honesty! I feel like polyglots always make it seem like they're fluent in every language they're learning. "Language flings" kind of have a negative connotation in the community but some people just want to dable🤷🏾♀️
It depends what you want:
1 speaking many languages on a basic level
2 speaking a few languages fluently
I personally aim for the second one
You don't use it, you lose it... I totally agree with you about the effort and the time which is needed to learn and maintain a language, so people loving languages need to choose.
Thanks evagonbla! I'm glad my thoughts resonated with you 🙂
>>> Now that I’ve retired and have time on my hands, I have decided to try something new. When I was young I was an autodidact in French, perhaps B2ish, and somewhat later in Japanese probably about C1 (I used Japanese professionally as a technical translator and proofreader in the fields of electronics and engineering).
My new venture is to see if it is possible, as a 75 year old very elderly man, to learn a completely new language to B2 level within one year, or as close as I can get in that time. My target is German. After French and Japanese, German's arcane and convoluted grammar comes as quite a shock and it remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to hack it at my age.
My objective with German is to be able to read German literature rather than to be conversationally fluent. Owing to frailty and general dilapitude, I doubt if I will ever visit Germany, Switzerland or France again, far less Japan. But, all that notwithstanding, next year I hope to revisit French and Japanese and get them back, working simultaneously, to B2 level or better.
Good that you have retired Gareth, like myself. Now we have ( more time ) as it were, we now have the problem of prioritising ! 🤔
I'm certain you can manage it. If you spend a fair bit of time on TH-cam and haven't run across it already, check out the channel "Learn German with Anja". She's a bit silly, but wonderful for communicating bits of the language. It may not be the most efficient use of your time, but I found some of her random, topical content to be extremely helpful, and almost more importatly, enjoyable. Viel Glueck!
Hi Garteth, how are your studies going?
A year later, how's it going? 🌼
I hope it's gone well for you!
I’m currently studying Swahili and Irish at the moment. Because they’re both heritage languages of mine and I just want to study them to upper beginner level only. Afterwards, I will return to learning Levantine Arabic for which I had fallen in love with.
That's great, Chenelle! I think there is something really lovely about studying our heritage languages. I have often thought about studying Scottish Gaelic (my dad is from Scotland) or Arabic (my mother is from Iraq). I think I will do that one day, when the time is right 🙂
Robin MacPherson you won’t regret it if you do decide to learn both of those languages they’re worth it in the end. I’m even going as far as to learn how to cook Lebanese food from scratch and join a Lebanese cooking group on Facebook as well and I made a ton of friends as a result of it plus I’ve also went out to restaurants in order food and had a small conversation and Lebanese Arabic and it was awesome
What is LEVANTINE?
@@cloeye32 Usife moyo! Pole pole ndio mwendo!
Thanks for answering my questions again!! I've noticed that my Mandarin doesn't degrade as fast as my beginner level languages. After a couple weeks those beginner languages are 60% gone so I need to refresh again. I am aware of my priorities in my language journey
I've made a list for myself:
Native (English, French) and I want to speak Mandarin, Korean, Russian and Spanish well. Other languages I dont mind having a low level (Tagalog, bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, etc.)
A year ago I gave myself a goal to be able to speak 6 languages by 2025. I will definitively stay focused and under control.
Also, love the content. Keep it up!
That's an amazing list of languages! Ahh I just love it. Imagine all the worlds that open up to you and how much there is for you to explore, discover, enjoy. It sounds like you have set good, clear goals for yourself and I am absolutely looking forward to hearing about the journey in our comment discussions as time goes on 😄
Thank you for the support and the great questions!
That’s it! I think the same, if you are comfortable with jumping from one language to another, go on, have fun. But I personally prefer to master just some of them, but I do not freak out, I‘ve been studying Italian for like 1 year now and I feel that, because they are so similar, some of my Spanish is starting “to vanish”. To avoid that, I started reading short stories and watching some conversational videos in Spanish a few days in the week and that’s been helping a lot. I keep focusing more in Italian, once I like it better, but I’ve found a way to keep Spanish alive. I agree that we can get to a C level with the ones we like the most and B1/B2 with the ones that are not priority to us, having fun in the journey is what really matters.
You are so helpful. I get so bogged down every day tackling another language. I am well-intentioned, however!
Danke, dass du diese Videos hochlädst! Ich finde es immer schön, den Erlebnissen von anderen zu lauschen. Macht weiter so, Sprachenlerner!
I eventually want to learn 6 languages including my mother tongue. But I’m only learning languages I know I’ll use at least on a weekly basis. But once I learn each to a intermediate level I’m going to work on just improving them each greatly.
This really hits home. I've been absolutely buried in Italian for the last three months. I've immersed myself in the language to try doing something productive with a period of time that's otherwise a wreck on account of the pandemic. After many hours a day, every day, all I can think about is how much I miss German, which I spent six months with prior to taking a road trip in Austria. A close second occupying my mind is to find a way to learn Slovene efficiently. The resources for it online are dwarfed by the amount of content for more common languages and I don't know anyone personally that I can practice with. It's a wonderful, terrible thing to be interested in languages. Ultimately, I feel like I'm wasting my life because I live in California, and the only language I encounter with any frequency is Spanish, but I'm spending next to no time on that. I'm 35 and haven't gotten anywhere near comfortably conversational in any language. It seems like it'll never happen if I can't find focus. Italian is my strongest language despite the last number of calendar days on it, so there's a sense of sunk cost. Trying to maintain it while learning something else just sounds like a nightmare. Trying to keep up with 8 at a high level sounds terrifying!
Another helpful video, thank you. Choosing only one instead of many is hard because we always want more. Last year I was learning Turkish and Japanese simultaneously and working full-time. My Turkish was around A2 level at that moment and I was just strarting with Japanese. After a few months I realised I had to pick one, cause I simply had no time for both. I picked Turkish because it was much more meaningful to me. I could have tried keeping up with both and making little progress in both.. Instead I chose Turkish and actually feel that I have improved significantly. First I thought I would regret having abandoned Japanese (6 months wasted for god's sake!) but now I know it was the right decision, the more my Turkish improves the more I love it and the happier I am about my decision.
Hi there! I did it once. It worked and I didn’t confuse them in my brain. I just think the progress is much slower and I love diving in a language. I divide my time between “traditional learning” and “leisure learning”. When I’m learning a language I go through the language in every minute of my life. I keep the languages that I’ve already studied in my brain by chatting on WhatsApp group and talking to people. They get a bit rusty with time but not much actually. Professor X here. Stay safe.
I'm really glad that I came across your channel after seeing your collaboration with Lindie ~ you've been honest in your abilities
The thing I don't really like about some polyglots is that they give the impression of wanting to pile up languages like a recount of countries, castles or beaches they have seen in the world. I very much enjoy learning languages and I speak a few but I my main aim is still to accomplish a fairly high level in all of them in order to be really able to communicate in them. Listening practice is so crucial for that as well. It seems that we are all aiming at speaking a language but it's all interrelated
We don't lose languages. They only go rusty. During the pandemic I went back to Swedish that I hadn't touched for 30 years (ages 12-42. I was not a native speaker). It all came back in a matter of weeks.
It all truly stays.
I'm from Argentina and of course I speak Spanish. I'd like to learn several languish, English mainly, but Italian, Portuguese and French too. Because of that I try to study English every day in the morning and in the afternoon the others, one per day.
That is doable, knowing your native language is Spanish the last three won't be big deal.
@@juanandres3248 You are right whit Portuguese and Italian, but French is not so easy
@@raulduek7121 It's quite complicated at first
I first want to say thank you for your contributions here, Robin. Your videos really add so much value to my life.
聽到你正在很努力地學習中文讓我感到非常高興！I’m an advanced Mandarin learner, and I love this language so much. I'm currently pursuing a master's degree in Translation and Interpretation in Taiwan, and although I'm working as a Mandarin/English translator, my spoken Mandarin skills are still lacking significantly in comparison to my listening, reading, and writing skills. I find it extremely difficult to verbally express complex concepts in Mandarin. Now that I'm in a master's program with mostly local Taiwanese classmates, I really would like to improve my speaking skills so I can communicate with them more effectively and keep up with deeper conversations than just the average small talk. I really thought this would just happen naturally once I had lived here for a long time and reached an advanced level in the classroom, but I've been here for over two years now and I seem to have hit a wall in the last six months or so. I think I'll try using the method you mentioned in your "how to improve fluency in a language" video and see if I can get this method to work for me.
Beyond improving my spoken fluency in Mandarin, I actually intended to begin a serious journey to re-learn Spanish this school year, but I'm a month into grad school now and I haven't started yet. Time management is a big issue for me. I have so many plans, but I never seem to have enough time in a day. I'm hoping that one of your time-management videos can offer me some helpful advice. Anyway, *加油*!!
So cute how you talk about having a "fling" with some languages as though they were real people!
Hey, I was a bit nervous when I clicked on this video I thought it might lean on the negative side criticizing polyglots and I can't tell you how happy this video made me....you don't take sides instead you are helping your audience see the big picture...Thanks for the vid :)
So,, getting back to the content. I completely agree with what you said. Though I love languages I can't learn them all...so, I got to choose and pursue those for the long term...because, in the first place i pursued those languages in order to experience life in those languages...other wise it will be just a waste of time. I had rather learn 6 or 7 and keep them rather than learn 20 and loose 10 of them. Because we all know the hard work, the tears, the sweat that it costs us to learn languages and real language learner will know that...even though we enjoy them. But, dabbling isn't bad. Everything is as you said. I Couldn't have said it better :)
Thanks so much for sharing this feedback with me Leul! I have to say, I was a little nervous about the topic in case it would come across the wrong way somehow, but it seems that you received the exact message and tone that I hoped for! 🙌🏼
I'm really glad the content resonated with you, too 😊 I wish you much success with those 6 or 7 languages and look forward to chatting more in the comments of future videos. Keep up the great work! 💪🏼
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms Thanks...looking forward for more :)
Hey Robin, looks like we have quite a lot in common in terms of the approach to choosing and nurturing our beloved languages. Congrats for your videos, it's a real pleasure to listen to you :) Hopefully we can meet at a language-related event of some sort one day
Being able to speak a new language is like having a quite new personality, a new life, as if you were born again 🐥
I believe that my English (as a third language) isn't great but I'm able to enjoy English books, movies, videos and research articles, for me that's all I need
French as my second language enables me to enjoy "la littérature française", poems, books, novels, theater, old movies
Arabic as my native language is the best, I love the history, the language and everything about it, especially the religion, things about our prophet(pbuh), and a lot of things
And right now I 'm learning Chinese, I love the littérature, the culture, the wisdom
I don't assume that I'm good in any of these languages
But I do accept all of the imperfections I have, and it took me so long time to realize it
It's ok to be learning a language for myself, for my own pleasure 🐥
The beautiful thing about learning languages is that you don't have know them perfectly to get value from them. I believe that learning a foreign language to a B1+ level is a good way to make it stick. Anything beyond that requires a lot of dedication. I've scaled back massively. For me adding new languages is a massive decision. I decided a few years ago not to add anymore. However, I broke that promise to learn my ancestral language Norwegian. To be honest this feels like my last addition. Luckily, it's not too difficult. I might even get a certificate foe the language someday. Russian is my #1 priority as I live in Moscow. Norwegian is my ancestral language and #2 priority. Spanish, Portuguese and French are for curiosity and fun. Luckily, they're all related and not too difficult, so I can improve/maintain them as I please. I consider all of this a massive amount of intellectual work as I'm not a full-time TH-cam polyglot and have other interests as well. I've made my picks and I want to get deeper into these languages and cultures. Travel to countries where they're spoken. I haven't been to Norway or a Portuguese speaking country yet. I honestly want to use my languages to communicate, hear/read good stories and most importantly have adventures in new places. Being a "polyglot" is a goofy flex I think. Just my two kopecks comrades. Won't buy you much vodka though. Skål!
The part at the end about wishing you could go and enjoy your advanced level languages, but being "stuck" slogging through lower level language really speaks to me. Just about when I got to the point when I could really start enjoying Mandarin, then I met my wife and started learning her two languages and I've been slogging through those more than 15 years and it's really slowed down what I could have done. I don't seem to be as tempted to dabble in other languages as some people. Lots of other life stuff going on during that time, of course.
It's very much like a horse race ! Looking from above, Italian is coming up on the left, no,no !! now Spanish has pushed ahead and Portuguese is making a push for middle space......This is how I see my progress I quite enjoy it !
I'm not even sure whether you regress less/slower in languages you know better. At least I feel it much more painful when I haven't spoken a C2 or my native language for a while or at least not as intensely as I used to and instead flooded my day with another language and then experience that I have to think longer for a word or in hindsight feel I should have used a more precise synonym - while with a language that's B2 or below I may objectively have lost quite a bit after less usage, but the loss doesn't feel that strongly as I remember to have struggled in conversations anyway. And usually with those intermediate languages, it only takes 2 weeks of intense usage to get it back to the level I was, while with the C2/native languages it takes more work and effort to get back to where it was.
totally helpful, I will continue improving my French to listen with comprehension to cinema while dabbling a little in Hungarian and italian.
You sir earned yourself a sub. I'm a language learner, I studied Spanish a lot but never was able to find people interested in helping me maintain it. Most of maintaining my Spanish is reading and listening now, but this is rare because I haven't been learning Spanish. Currently I'm focusing on Arabic because of my degree I'm working on, and also Italian for a study abroad program. I also have learned about 10 languages at the same time, I couldn't keep up even when my life was really easy to accommodate around that. I always maintained honesty in this, though, I'm not a polyglot but I aspire to be one and travel the world. I'm hoping study abroad will help me maintain and use more languages, as well as burn them more into memory.
I hate when people loudly claim that they can speak 10 languages or 6 languages or more but when you speak to them in the language that they claim to speak, they're not even fluent nor they don't understand basic conversation.
I'd understand if they don't have the correct accent for the language but when for example every grammar and pronunciation they make is incorrect to the point where we don't understand 100% that's where I get abit agitated.
If they said that they speak a bit then that's alright but to fully 100% claim that they speak that language is a whole different story.
For example, you'll speak to the person in their local language. They find out you're from a country where they're learning your native language. You're asking questions in their local language and they reply in terrible English.
Hello Robin. I will use your tips about prioritising. I came back from Rome last year fired up with italian. But spanish was always my first love and I keep that ticking away in the background, ( a bit like leaving an engine running I suppose ! ) But then my interest in Portuguese bubbled up and my italian has moved to the cheaper seats ! Thank you for your honest no nonsense approach ! Bom dia : From England !
This hit me like a sack of bricks today 🤣
I've structured up a schedule for improving my portuguese through August and have been going strong for two weeks with some decent improvement . And nothing is changing that plan now!
But then today I was in my language group I talk in, and a couple of the german speakers were talking and I was like "... I want to learn this!"
So now I'll have to structure this to be my 2nd tier of learning ! Thanks Robin!
Haha I am sorry to hit you like a sack of bricks, my friend 😂
But I am really glad that the video came at a critical moment and hopefully had a positive influence! I look forward to hearing about how your 2nd tier works out! You've got this 😄💪🏼
10:05 Have some proper Swedish coffee, looking into the mug will make you feel like you are staring into the void (Robbaz: Swedish coffee, darker than your soul 🤣).
In Brazilian Portuguese you should definitely read Dom Casmurro. I must have read it at least 30 times
Wow interesting. I'm currently learning português. What is the book about? 😊
Great points Robin. Thank you for grear advice as ever. I'm happy with my spanish , somewhere about B2 but I'm pushing it uphill now. Italian I think I'm at A2 . Portuguese I tick along , my understanding is better than my speaking. And now, I have started Icelandic but I'm not obsessed about it.
It's quite difficult so I'm just going to spend at least a month on pronunciation only !
Love your content! Keep it coming 😊👌🏻
This was phenomenally useful! Subscribed!
I speak English, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and French at B2 or higher, and I agree that it's much harder for those languages to atrophy. The time you have had being B2 or C1, etc also impacts the speed of atrophy. French is my newest one (reached fluency 2 years ago) and it definitely fluctuates more than the second last one (Japanese) which I've spoken for 10 years.
Currently I'm living in Kazakhstan, and I've reached intermediate in Russian (the dominant language of the country) and am working on Kazakh. The bilingual situation in KZ makes learning both inevitable, but I'm struggling to find quality, interesting content in Kazakh. The media isn't as engaging and informative as the media in Russian
Hi again! 😊 Great question and response. 👍 Both struck a chord, or rather several chords 😁, with me. Maintaining languages while being seduced by new ones will always be a balancing act. The best way I can describe it is with a juggling analogy. I tend to juggle with some smaller balls, two or three (new languages I dabble in, or older ones I rekindle), while keeping one or two bigger ones going. For example, currently my main focus is on consolidating Mandarin Chinese at a good HSK3 level (so it doesn't slip back again so much), but I am also revisiting Irish Gaelic and Japanese basics. Why? Because I like to. 😊 However, adding other new balls will become to difficult to mindfully juggle, so I don't. Or I just drop one for the time being. I can always pick it up again later, depending on time and circumstances/opportunity (i.e. living in a certain place or meeting certain people, etc.). Wishing you all happy learning! 🤗
I'm studying German right now and am quite enjoying it but there is this part of me that wishes I was also learning Russian. To satisfy that craving I allow myself a few minutes every day to learn the cryllic alphabet on Duolingo (something I feel like Duolingo is actually quite good for) but no more than a few minutes. I feel like it's enough to satisfy my curiosity without taking time away from German study. That said, I still make time to consume French and Spanish content everyday even though I'm not actively studying them. If learning a new language meant I had to sacrifice French literature then I wouldn't do it!
I have another question and maybe others will share my struggles. I have difficulty getting my self engaged with audio/video based lessons. I much rather just stick to my books where I read and study. Everytime i do the video/audio lessons I learn more than I would've on my own. But I seem to lack to motivation to get to it. I wonder if you have similar issues and how you deal with it?
Another great question! I will totally add this to the list 🙂 I can relate to your feelings on this. I always like reading because I have an opportunity to understand every word since it is written, where with audio/listening content there's so much more uncertainty as I can't always hear all of the words -- but those are incredibly rewarding activities, as you say. It'll make a great video!
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms funny thing...for me it depends on the language for English I preferred reading but, now when it comes to Chinese I prefer audio content because characters are just insane lol
Even in my mother language, I'd rather read than watch a vídeo/film... But with English I have to keep listening, because of the irregular pronunciation...
Well, I have a long term relationship with Spanish and some on-off relationships with French, Italien, Russian, Arabic. I guess my Spanish level is at the moment B2 and also my English. But I actually I do nothing for my English. I only listen or watch content in English. I know I need a lot of time to overcome my intermediare level in Spanish. There is barely no time to learn another language with the same seriousness , but from time to time looking around what could be another language to learn I think is completely fine.
I find that for me vocabulary acquisition becomes a critical path activity, as my memory is not the best anymore, and if I study multiple languages at the same time, I just steal from one, to study the other. I prefer to stick to one language as my main language, but just like you, I do dabble occasionally in others, just for curiosity's sake, I just can't help myself. But eventually, I have to leave the distractions aside and get back to the main task, otherwise I lose all the momentum, and then it is really hard to start back up again.
I get a little frustrated at times because I am only studying my 1st language French and have been for 2 years and 2 months. I am conversational but I tend to try to judge myself on others that seem to have studied a shorter time than I bit are better. I listen 1 to 2 hours a day and read using lingq so I can look up words. But I still struggle with some phrase structure and am getting s little frustrated. Any pointers to kick it up a great notch.
I am probably B1 to lower B2 and I don't think that good enough for 26 months. Granted I'd say I got serious about studyimg maybe 18 months ago.
Love your videos and watch every day. I need that eureka moment.
@@cndcpwll Transcribed from your podcasts or videos that don't have transcription?
You could probably benefit from a good tutor
@@M_SC thanks. That's what I've been doing lately.
How do I feel tempted to dabble in all the languages I love. OH MY GOD.
I do choose the languages I want to speak russian very well, and read .. because it's one of my favorite literature.
That's an interesting topic.
I don't struggle to mantain my languages because i only care about understanding, not speaking them.. cause i'm so introverted that even a single language is sometimes too much 😂
Imo as long as you learn by immersion, all the knowledge lodges deep in your brain and stays with you.. And i've been surprised that seemingly no understanding at all was lost after months, and in another case YEARS of completely neglecting a language! (and not one i knew at a very high level either).
Great video - and inspiraing as ever.
It takes me so long to wrap my head around 1 language that it's an impossible dream to be able to dabble in languages while maintaining a few at a high level.
My main goal has always been to learn how to learn a language.
I've tried loads of methods and felt many times that i was close...I still keep trying because the goal of fluency is too great!
i discovered that once i started texting, my learning skyrocketed
"Little language flings"! Haha, I love it.
No matter how true this is and how much you say it, there are still going to be people who claim to speak 40 languages to a C level, or people who claim that once you've learned Swedish, you can then easily learn German in 15 days or some rubbish.
This is perfect timing for me (I say that a lot on your channel, and I am starting to wonder if you are just the Tyler Durdan version of me haha).
I have recently decided to go "All Swedish All the Time". I can speak Swedish fine, but it's not really "useful" yet, because I still can't speak it any better than 80% of young Swedes can speak English. So I am going all in on Swedish, and I don't care if in 2022 I can still only speak Swedish and English; at least I'll be able to speak those two properly.
Ah - like I said, we are very similar (albeit you have walked this road much longer than I have) but one thing I soooort of disagree with you (at least, it's not been my experience): Dipping your toe in on other languages.
Why I deliberately don't do that (sometimes to my detriment, in that it's hard to review products from a beginner's perspective) is the temptation effect. I am like a recovered alcohol who doesn't drink light beer. The light beer isn't the problem; it's what I then associate it with. (This is just an example, I'm not a recoevered alcholic haha). When I dip my toe in on a language, I have a very hard time staying only "toe deep". So personally, I will do almost anything to avoid even associating with other languages and will continue to do so until my Swedish is at a C level. Great video Robin, keep these up mate!
This is the first time I've witnessed a youtuber commenting on another youtuber's video!
@@Uninvisibl Really?? I see it all the time even on big channels, e.g. I've seen Matt D'avella commenting on other channels of a million subs. But also on some of my own videos there are comments from Lindie Botes. But yeah I think it's a funny feeling to see it, and it's something I quite like about TH-cam.
PS. If you're at all interested in TH-cam yourself, check out Eric Wen. I am kinda becoming mates with him haha but he makes EXCELLENT videos on how to be better at YT.
Türkce ögrenmen lazım...cok güzel bir lisan..;-)
Bir gün isterim! :-D (I 100% needed to use google translate for that, haha!)
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms Yeah, why not, google translate is really not bad...;-) Have a nice day, güzel bir gün dilerim sana..;-)
Greets from Brazil.
Obrigado Rodrigo!!
I have been using your tips in my english learning. Thanks.
Hello! I get inspired by your videos! May I ask your journey in language learning? I mean when did you start learning other languages and how many years did you study each language?
You deserve more views tbh.
I always say I learn a lot ABOUT other languages, but am only STUDYING one language
Oh my God that's like my ASL somebody threw me in a situation where they're like she speaks ASL and I haven't spoken it in 5 years and I felt retarded! It started coming back and then for a few weeks I started reviewing it and it all slowed back what I had learned but during the time and the situation I was in I was barely getting through and as the night progressed I started remembering more and more. So yes I definitely believe about language atrophen.
Just a test
Like this if you have a mole on your shoulder.
I’ll explain later
I tried to pay attention but your holding the mug of coffee distracted me quite a lot. Was sort of concerned whether It was getting cold, whether you were sipping from it in between, what brand it might be. Let's see if It will be empty in the end.
i have a question , I wanted to reach a c1 or c2 in english cuz right now I'm b2 level , if you could give me some tips , I feel like I'm lost in polyglots ideas or mind and idk what to do , I wanted to take ielts exam , I also want to learn Italian, but confused cuz of sources , do I have to set up goal or make a plan , I saw one of ur video you talked about dedicated time ,dead time , extensive reading , intensive reading , also a video about podcast . I wish you can help me please I'm so confused, could u help me out ,it would be nice of you to get back to me asap
I couldnt take my eyes off the cup of tea movimg :)
Too bad we can't see it when you take a sip on your coffee despite you held on to it for a long time
I stop helping anyone for learning Chinese.
I am native speaker but I speak too fast with 5+6 accent at the same time with some throat problem so most of time not easy to be heard
It cause even those foreign who studied Chinese 10+ years could not understand me at all.
German is one of the most difficult languages of the world, even we native speakers don´t understand german grammar sometimes xD
There is such a glut of you-tubers now who are, or claim to be, polyglots that the whole thing has become something of a joke. The point has kinda got lost with money needed to be accrued to maintain a YT channel.
Put your coffee down.
You mispronounced Tagalog. I did the same thing a month ago when talking with a phone representative from the Philippines. Knew better but couldn't help myself. I guess because "Tag a long" is a legitimate English sentence.