@@QuizmasterLaw because if you know many languages, you know the pros and cons and you can construct a language which uses the best parts of every language and eliminates the worst parts.
@@QuizmasterLaw I'm not sure what you're confused about. It's not complicated. Design a language that makes you the happiest. Then discuss it with others who have done the same. I know it's not easy. Don't misunderstand and think I meant it would be easy.
I’ve heard people say “I’ve been studying this language for two years and I speak worse than an 8 year old” But how long do they think it took the 8 year old? 😂
I’ve been learning Japanese for about 2 years. (Well, I really started putting daily effort into it around a year ago) and I speak Japanese better than a Japanese 2 year old lol. (But not much better).
@@carloscorona3143 that's assuming he's learning kanji. Yeah, there's no shortcut to kanji, it's a time consuming slog. One that a 6 year old Japanese kid has ahead of them.
@@Brascofarian I just learn the kanji when I make vocab flashcards. I know about 2,000 ish. Enough to read texts my japanese friends send me, or their HelloTalk posts lol
An adult will pretty much learn anything faster than a child if they put in the same amount of time. Since they understand and remember patterns better and use their time more efficiently. The biggest advantage of learning stuff as a kid, is generally you just have more time.
@@gabrielantunesmusic6785 As an adult, you can correct yourself by reading grammar and listen to natives through videos. And by the way, adults don't correct their children that much. That's a myth. It would take a lot of effort to correct children because they make mistakes allll the time. Parents let their children to make mistakes because.. well they are just kids. Children correct themselves as they listen to adults.
Yeah keep lying to yourself. That’s why Henry Kissenger has speaking English for 100 yrs and still sounds terrible. Why do so many people believe this BS. Children learn better. So what? Go from there.
It’s not just time it’s curiosity and social settings. My grandma used to teach German to refugees. Most of the adults would learn really slow because they would stick in their own social groups. They had the time after all they were usually unemployed. But they don’t socialise like their kids would. Adults are afraid of making mistakes, saving face, they’re not as curious as kids and they are not sent to kindergarten or school. Adults that force themselves into these kind of situations learn very quickly. I used to have a friend from Russia that after 3 years spoke better German than many natives, but she went to German universities classes, had a boyfriend and friends she would talk with in German. If you invest an hour every day progressing on Duolingo and than talk to your colleagues at work to practice you will become fluent in a language really fast.
I think the key thing (which most people ignore) is the 24/7 teacher (parent, older sibling) giving them constant feedback. You mention this at the start, and throughout your analysis. Imagine how fast I would learn a new language, if I could afford many hours every single day of Skype interaction with a patient teacher! Kids don't "pick up by listening". They have help.
I picked up a language just by listening and I yave friends who did that too. It was our second language and we learned it by watching tv within 2 years.
I picked up a language as a child just by listening and I have friends who did that too. It was our second language and we learned it by watching tv within 2 years.
How did you start ? And why did you pick korean(it's a cool language but it isn't as popular as japanese)? Also did you get a tutor or did you learn it through input?
@@milosm9280 I learned hangul and some words by myself, watching kdramas and listening to korean music.. Now, I'm in a free online class in nround.. You 2 classes: beginners and upper beginners
@@ichliebebaeumeweilbaum I do agree with you (korean is way more popular than it was in the 90s) however it is still not easy to decide between these 3 languages. When you pick a language like korean you must have good reasoning as why you picked that one over the other 2.
Yes! I was hoping you would state how long it takes a child to learn a language, even if it's his/her mother tongue (5:16). Yes, it seems like children are geniuses (of course they are!) when it comes to learning languages, but when you think about it, it does take them much longer than we think. I remember having a French substitute teacher speaking fluently that I thought he was French. He told me he just studied aggressively for 2 years straight.
@@storylearning There are many inconvenient truths! :-D When you have put a lot of time and effort into learning other languages than your mother-tongue, and then master them fairly well, people dismiss the hard work with: "Easy for your, you have a special talent for them!" - which in my case is absolutely untrue. So I had to struggle and find my own ways to learn them, with all the trial and error needed, while that prejudiced talk about "talent" wasn't of any help, really, on the contrary.
@@roucoupse I spent two weeks in Portugal with a church group and picked up Portuguese so well that another of the group was still astonished when we met again fifteen years later. But I grew up hearing French and Spanish, so learning Portuguese was trivial. I did not become nearly as fluent in Czech spending a few weeks in Prague, though as I had already taken Russian, I had no trouble understanding "východ". I would do even worse in Turkey.
Great video Olly! Another way to think about how long it takes children to learn a language is to measure by hours rather than years. Assume, conservatively, that a young child sleeps 8 hours a day. That means they are learning language 16 hours a day, or 5,840 hours a year. Multiply that by 6 or 7 years and you can see how long it takes child to really get a good grasp on their native tongue.
I remember my young daughter searching her closet. She said she wanted her suitcase. She was insistent and I finally realized she wanted her bathing suit. A rookie mistake in language learning.
The strongest advantage children have is that they don't know any language, and therefore don't translate phrases in their head before speaking, it just comes out naturally.
I don't think this actually counts... They get everyday input for several *years* to do that, if you're at year-2 and still translate in your head then..... Idk what to say anymore
An advantage that children have is that they don't have idiots teaching them who have idiotic theories about how to teach them. For example, if you take a formal course in another language, you will spend weeks and weeks and weeks on the present tense. Children, by contrast, learn all tenses at once. Plus, you will learn odd vocabulary items. When I took Arabic, we learned the term for "United Nations" about a third of the way through the first term. It was eight syllables long, and since we didn't use it very often, I had forgotten it by the end of the year. Children will naturally learn those words most useful for them, words that they hear constantly. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which words beginners should be learning and to teach those words and not others that are useless.
Babies know nothing about words. They only hear sounds. They manage to group these sounds to form chunks. They hear these chunks every day. After a while these chunks make sense for them. Then from 0 to 2 they store up ton of chunks. Let's go to the park. For us six words, for a baby letsgotothepark one chunk, and after some time a baby associates this chunk with what happens after, to be in a park.
I've been learning my target language since the beginning of 2019. I'm at a B1 level and slowly moving towards a B2. I'm convinced that it will take me another 7+ years for my skill level to reach a C level in the European Language Framework. It really does take thousands of hours of engaging in the language to get to a proficient level.
I've heard that babies can learn hand gestures for simple concepts (like food, tired, potty, etc.) well before the age of speaking. I had a coworker who was doing this with his kid. Another coworker gave him a book on baby sign language. I was flipping through it and it was all situational practical stuff...plus dinosaur. Hahaha!! What baby needs to know how to sign dinosaur??!!
nou, je hebt gelijk! Ik ben begonen met nederlands leren sommige maanden geleden, en het is een beetje moeilijk, maar niet zo lastig omdat had ik al engels geleerd...Na zes maanden denk ik dat ik kan heel goed met dit niveau me voelen, terwijl een kind kan het niet
Leuk dat je Nederlands leert. Leer je het nu 8 maanden? Hoe vordert je studie? Ik kom niet vaak mensen op TH-cam tegen die Nederlands leren. Daarom ben ik een beetje nieuwsgierig. Hopelijk vind je dat niet vervelend 😅
I totally resonate with this video. I just read the first chapter of the “Italian short stories for beginners” book… even though I could not understand every word or grammar structure, I still got a general gist of the plot and I loved it. Thank you :) (I’ve been learning for 5 months)
@Olly Richards I have an idea for a video. I think it would be interesting to discuss the possible challenges of learning another language when someone has hearing problems or auditory processing disorder (APD).
I agree with you Olly! I have three children by myself and we have three languages at home, and my children do speak/understand all these three languages. However as an adult I still have a better command and understanding over those languages than my kids.
Yours was the revelation of my life. You said few if any one speeks Latin. That took my mind out of the gutter which is the how to learn a language debate. Thanks.
You say kids have no native accent, and in a sense I agree. But I also disagree in the sense that some kids have trouble with specific sounds, like "r" or confusing "th" and "f".
Thank you for this. I feel much better and will no longer be that hard on myself for not learning to speak like a native after teaching myself a new language for a couple of weeks. I think I'm really hard on myself though because I started five years ago. Life happened, I stopped and I picked it back up a couple of weeks ago. I'm here regretting not having stuck to it despite what was happening. If nothing else, if I had taught myself one word a day I would be in a better place. No place for "coulda-shoulda-wouldas" now I guess. I'm back on it and I have no intention of making the same mistake I made before. I'm only going forward now. I'm giving myself a year to have basic conversation and be able to translate basic conversation when I hear the language. I can translate basic sentences if I hear just that or if I see it written but it's much more difficult in real world conversation. This has always been my issue. It's like I can't pass this glitch but I'm working on it.
hi olly love your channel, ive got the portuguese short stories book for me, and the italian one for my wife, we both love your work, even at an intermediate level in portuguese ive learned how to use many expressions and verbs with your book, also im interested to know if the turkish uncovered will come out in september too? please let us know, chinese and turkish uncovered really intesrests me both
I think many people get frustrated in the process of learning a new language, they know how to express themselves in their native language, but lack the vocabulary and grammer to do it in a new language. It feels uncomfortable and generally we would opt out of uncomfortable situations. But we have such a big advantage of already being literary and having made certain connections in our brain that kids don't have. Learning is basically an incremental process and if you get a grasp of that concept, it'll be so much easier to embrace that and seeing the progression over time.
All of this! Important context: I'm American (living in America), and I graduated high school 30 years ago . I took Russian and German in high school, never used them again, and promptly lost them. I can still sing the Soviet national anthem although I couldn't translate it to save my life, and I can still conjugate irregular verbs in German that I no longer even know the meaning of...because we sang stupid songs to them over and over. When I started teaching myself Albanian (which I ALSO no longer speak), I listened to a lot of music and painstakingly translated it word by word...hence when I needed a word and couldn't think of it, I remembered the song had that word, mentally sang it in my head until I got to the lyric, and was able to pull the word out of my head that way. (Hey...it worked. And I still remember that specific word, oddly, although I don't remember any of the others in that stanza. Or song. Or the name of the song.)
Actually, the figure 24/7 is not correct. The baby sleeps almost all the time if not being fed or washed. Young kids sleep more than 12 hours a day, and I believe, they do not practice the language non-stop during all the other 12 hours. So, if to draw out this minus, children practice a language probably as much as a determined adult who learns it intensively. The single advantage of kids is that they learn the language casual way and have much more time and fun to joy the repetition.
Pretty sure Olly's using this expression figuratively, not literally. Children are learning in their waking hours, every single day - usually passively, and exactly the way he described.
I think the ability that children have at an early age is quite limited but it serves their basic needs for survival. I still had a lot to learn about English grammar after fourteen years when I got to junior high. After a couple of years of French I was good at the grammar but my pronunciation was not good at all. It's fascinating how children can duplicate the sound of the local language much better than a foreigner.
Children can learn two or more languages before the age of 7. I was bilingual because my parents were English but we lived in the Argentine, so I spoke both English and Spanish.
Very nice topic, again! I agree with a lot of points you've made. I do think, when it comes to second language acquisition, starting younger can be better than adults. Let's say, kids older than 7 or 8, can be better or faster at acquiring the second language compared to adults if they are in the same exact environment. So I do believe it would be beneficial for younger kids to have opportunities to learn other languages. But as you say, there are lots of elements that affect language acquisition and age is just one element. Adults can learn new languages and I believe they should learn them because it would be beneficial for many things. Being an adult has its own advantages when it comes to language learning. By the way, according to my parents, I learned Indonesian faster than them when I was living there for 4 years, I was a toddler. I was in a situation where I was immersed in the second language before acquiring my native language. But the thing is, I left the country at the age of 5 or 6, and soon after I totally lost all Indonesian I knew. Well, and my parents (they were 30 -40 years old at that time), it's rusty but still speak some Indonesian even after decades. The interesting thing is my friend at that time, the same age with the same native language, stayed 4 more years in Indonesia and he still speaks the language even though he never went back to Indonesia.
My older kids are 12 and 9 and supposed to be bilingual as they grew up immersed in 2 languages. However I started to learn their mother's language about 3 years ago and I speak it a lot better than them. The reason is that they only got exposed to some basic everyday language but not any complicated topics. They don't understand much from news or some politics, religious, historical and cultural topics. Their language and understanding is very limited compared to adults. We always had 3 languages at our home used daily and our kids do understand them but I still have a way better command and comprehension over those languages than my 12 year old. The reason is that I had a more holistic exposure to the languages than my kids. I didn't limit myself to some daily affairs but got a lot deeper insight with wider vocabulary. Let's be honest how many kids are reading newspapers or even books besides some children ones or watching news or listening to some podcasts etc.? They just do what they like doing like watching some tic tocs, youtube trends/challenges or some gaming videos and playing video games. If they watch some series they are usually in English only so it might improve only their English skills. And knowing/speaking English here in Scandinavia is not any big deal since most of the people speak it at pretty high level.
@@a.r.4707 3 languages at home?? Wow, amazing! Well, I believe your children are building a nice base for language acquisition. As we know, there are a lot more elements that help learn new languages. Even though they have limited comprehension now, I believe they have an advantage for later language development. When they grow up more and if they become interested and motivated to really learn more, the earlier years of language experiences would help, I guess. I myself should have grown up bilingual or trilingual but I didn't. But I grew up learning some English and Spanish. It was never enough because I never really dedicated myself to "really learn" like you are doing. And I was never that motivated to study. Now I'm much older and finally motivated. And I believe that having grown up knowing some languages is helping. At least to some extent. Well, in my native country, Japan, people struggle a lot to learn a second language, even English (the only language they teach at school). Well, the reason can be many many things, but one thing is that we Japanese do not get much exposure to foreign languages if they only live in Japan. Well, the time I grew up was even more limited. Now, there is much more exposure, but compared to foreign countries, it's not much. So I feel like I was lucky to have grown up in an environment where I had that kind of exposure.
@@bzylarisa You are right, I totally agree with you. The children will get a good base for language learning. I by myself grew up as monolingual and only learned English at school as a compulsory subject back in the 80's and early 90's and the level of English here wasn't as high as it is nowadays with all the social media platforms etc. we just had a television back then haha. I bought my first computer when I was about 20 years old😄. Then later I had compulsory Swedish at school as well. We have 2 compulsory foreign languages at the primary school here in Finland. The first one you can choose and most people choose English. You usually have about 2 or 3 or sometimes 4 options for the first compulsory foreign language. The options usually are English, Swedish, French and German but it depends on the school really. Then the second compulsory foreign language is Swedish always and it starts nowadays from the 6th grade. The first foreign language starts nowadays from the 1st grade already. At my time it started from the 3rd grade. Then if you want you can take 2 more optional languages and that would be 4 languages altogether. Most people just proceed with those 2 compulsory ones. My other daughter just started optional Spanish now at 3rd grade and she had compulsory English from the 1st grade. And an other daughter just started Swedish at 6th grade and she had compulsory French from a 3rd grade and optional English from a 4th grade. However she wants to quit French now and just continue with English instead, because of lack of motivation and interest. Yes I've heard that in Asia English is very popular language as a foreign language like it is in the middle east, but people are really struggling to learn it and the demand of English teachers and materials is great. Here in Finland or in the Nordic countries generally the level of English is very high nowadays, but they usually don't know much other languages besides Finnish, Swedish and English. Your English is really superb, amazing! Do you speak/understand Spanish also or some other languages as well?
@@a.r.4707 Ohhh Finland! I've heard a lot about their educational system and I'm so curious. Very very interesting. No wonder you grew up in a monolingual environment. Well, personally, Finnish is a total mystery to me. I don't think I've had opportunities to really hear the language. Maybe some metal band songs haha🎸 I have an impression that it is very different from the Roman language, is it? Well, in Japan, foreign language education is not advanced at all (unless you are in a private school that has a special curriculum). And English is the sole compulsory foreign language. Until very recently, we only started to learn English from 7th grade (the age around 13). The educational system itself has always been defective and has never been practical (focusing on grammar learning), so even after 6 years of learning, the majority of people can't even hold a single conversation. Comparing to neighboring countries like South Korea and China, we are way too far behind. Since 2020, the education system got reformed and now kids are starting to learn English from 3rd grade, but I doubt that it would make a great difference, because there is no strong "motivation" or "need" to acquire the language, except for passing school exams. You just don't use it unless you have some foreigners around in your life or have specific jobs that require it. And my English always improves when I leave Japan hahaha, thank you for the compliment by the way🙏🏻 I'm currently living in Central America so I do speak a certain level of Spanish (also improved since I settled in here.) Naturally, it became necessary for me to improve my Spanish and as I got more exposure of both Spanish and English, it made me more and more motivated to improve and learn more. So, I've started to learn Brazillian Portuguese and French by myself, too. Especially since the pandemic, I have more time so I'm taking advantage of it. I also remember that time we only had television and books to learn😂 We all should take advantage of the infinite numbers of materials that are available now.
@@bzylarisa Yes, our educational system is famous for its effectiveness around the globe and the great thing is that it's completely free for us to study even at the university. Our language is from the Finno-ugric family and they say that it's from the altaic languages and related to Hungarian and Turkish. However I can't understand any Hungarian or Turkish without studying them. Estonian language is closely related to Finnish and we can understand some amount of it. Swedish is a second official language here and pretty much everything from road signs to train announcements etc. are in both Finnish and Swedish. Those metal bands and that metal music is quite popular here but I think that they are mostly singing in English. I can't recall any which would really sing in Finnish, generally it's all in English. We didn't have many immigrants/foreigners here during the 80's so I could only practise my English with some American Mormon missionary preachers. During the 90's we started to receive many immigrants especially asylum seekers from a war torn countries and I used to practise my English with them. I had some foreign friends who I saw pretty much daily and we would speak English for hours. That's how I learned English for real, and now I have used English daily with my wife for 17 years. I also lived in England for 1 year and I was working with native English speakers, so I got some daily practise there as well. I also read a lot in English different kind of stuff based on my interests. My wife is from Serbia originally and when we met English was our lingua franca. After we learned each other's languages, but we still mostly communicate in English out of old habit, it kind of remained haha. Sometimes we use Finnish and Serbian too, it depends. I'm anyway trying to maintain and improve my Serbian via daily listening and reading. I also study Arabic, mostly just reading and listening but occasionally talking and trying to use it also. We have many immigrants nowadays in my neighbourhood and you can hear so many different languages here when you just walk outdoors. Although you don't hear Spanish often here, I think that we don't have many Spanish speakers here in my area. I know one Spaniard though and one Italian😄. Spanish is on my list too so maybe one day will start to learn it also😊. Are you in Mexico by the way if I may ask? I know one Mexican guy here too but he moved to an other place and I haven't seen him for ages.
great, funny , inspiring. love these vids dude. you're fun. when i'e got some more languages a bit more fluent, we do a show perhaps i want to master 15 by time I die i speak Fair french, german, a bunch of spanish, polish, czech, learning russian, & portuguese, and arabic, hebrew, romani, italian, latin, esperanto are amongst the languages I wanna master fluently.
Actually, psychologicaly there is some truth to it that there is possibly an optimal window for language learning during childhood. However, the same evidence suggests, that it is not impossible to learn anything after those biological optimal moments as a human developing in a normal band of developement (There is no such thing as THE standard or normal developement, it is always a case from between x and y, if below or above something might be off) Learning theory suggests at the moment that the best and only way to learn anything is to do small portions and repeat them if possible at the point of almost forgetting -> repeting with more and more time between repetitions. That said this doesn't state how and in which settings those repetitions should be made, for example, reading, talking, answering questions or any other way of engaging a topic counts as a repetition. Sorry for any mistakes, it has been some time since I attended an english class :-)
The point you make around 4:10 also shows that we can eliminate our accent in foreign languages by actually taking the time to learn the sounds by dropping our preexisting concepts by comparing to a different language
Been learning Japanese for 9 months but I moved to Germany so I gotta learn German now, but I don't wanna leave Japanese. So now im studying both at once. Shit is hard to manage. My Japanese luckily recently gotten good enough to easily listen to semi-basic convo and reading comprehension is also decent, too. German listening is a work in progress but i've been making progress too.
So where my husband is from, they commonly employ live in maids and assistants from other countries to work in households (they come for the higher pay compared to what they would get back in their home countries). When they get there they probably know very little of the language, and unless both the worker and the members of the household know another language like English to communicate in, they have no choice but to quickly learn common words and within a year can be very fluent in the other language. They are as emersed as one can get with no one there to translate to their native language.
The advantages that kids have are: 1) they have more free time 2) they got lots of adults feedbacks 3) they learn the language almost unconsciously 4) they are fully immersed in that language 5) they aren't afraid of making mistakes 6) there brains are more neuroplastic to capture the pronunciation better 7) they born with no language and need to learn the one around them, contrary to us who learn another beside the one we already had. So it is more or less a must for the kids to learn the language around them I hope I helo
I learned italian in for less than half a year, I had some basic skills in spanish thats all. My Italian was still basic but I could express myself quite good back then. It may have fallen asleep over the years a bit but still is my second or third foreign language (Depending how you count). I said things like "ieri anno" "yersteday year" for last year because I didn´t know the word but it worked. "anno scroso" if I remember correctly. I didn´t have my native tounges accent they could hear I am foreign. They asked me most often if I was english if they did. But I am really sure I didn´t have an english accent. My native tongue belongs to the german languages.
Children have one thing adults don't have: an insane amount of free time. Adults know how they can be more efficient with their time, while children actually repeat the same thing over and over in multiple contexts.
Children have a superb memory. This greatly helps, memorizing and repeating words. If a human gets older, the memory becomes weaker. (Maybe because too much knowledge is crammed into the brain, that interferes?). On the other hand, I remember my little sister saying "Parziman" instead of "Marzipan" for a long while, because there is no logical hook to the sound. When I learned the English word "marzipan", I could remember it instantly, because its identical to the German "Marzipan", only the pronounciation is slightly different. (In this instance, previous knowledge helped.)
The key to success in learning a language, is your passion for it; regardless how much money and time you spend learning it. If you don't have that fervor, you'll never learn any language. This was a great video Olly, my friend and I would love to chat with you sometime in the near future...hahahahaha!!!
I attended a lecture by a researcher who studies how new arriving immigrants learn English in the UK. She said children do it faster because they go to school where they have far greater exposure than adults who often work with other homies from the old country. And if you will give both say 100 hours to study, the adult will make greater progress than the children.
I learned English through Cartoon Network and Spanish through telenovelas when I was a kid. Well it was more of a starting point but it gave me a feeling for syntax and sounds.
Someone said this to me just last week. I knew then he was never going to improve his French. He also lamented that he didn't live in Europe where it's sooo easy to learn a language 🙄He doesn't want to improve his French so much as he wants it to magically get better.
According to what I've read, there is one distinct advantage children have that you touched on, but didn't fully explore, and that is regarding accents. They don't just "learn" them more easily because of input and not having an established one interfering. According to at least one study, a young child can actually hear and understand even foreign accents more easily than adults. In other words, if a British toddler heard a Chinese person speaking English, assuming they were familiar words, they would understand more easily than their parents would. Also keep in mind that a child appearing to master language more slowly is in part only because they are learning so many different things at once (you try learning a new language while you're still in university studying biology and music or something). Also, part of the reason their early speaking skills are so bad is that their muscle control isn't very fine-tuned. I think there a difference in learning environments, too. Constant input is good, but when it's always dumbed-down input because the parents assume the child won't understand... what can you expect?
I’m sorry I think kids make much better learners especially when it comes to languages but I’m with you on one thing, what else am I gonna do, just stop because I’m not the ideal age to learn a language? Nope.
Yes this is true. You can learn a language quicker, but it will harder for you and take you longer to pronounce it correctly and understand the nuances.
Just layman chat here, but I think it might have to do with the movements of mouth, tongue, larynx etc that one has been, or has been not, used to for many years
I was a 12-13 year old kid and I no joke just started watching TH-cam videos and anime in English to learn it and I did and in just 3 years I can understand, write and read. As you can see but all tho I have problems remember the alphabets in a specific word and I also have a hard time trying to read words that are new to me and I have never heard it, so it's not the best way to learn English but school didn't teach me I taught myself that's the thing I am very proud of.
Let's say that a child begins to learn a language at 4 years and is able to carry on an intelligent conversation at 14. That's 10 years to learn syntax, verb tenses,, vocabulary, etc. Let's further say that they have acquired a vocabulary of 5000 words along with the usages of all. That amounts to learning 500 words per year or 4 new words every 3 days, every week, every month, every year for 10 years. The thing that amazes me is the acquisition of this much vocabulary at such a rapid rate.
It is quite a pleasure to hear someone else say this. Even when I retrained in TEFL European direct, the instructors promulgated this children are language sponges nonsense. There are some pitfalls of L1 in that one can miscategorize the language specific as universal which takes some undoing for L2, but that is about it. As one of my favorite cognitive linguists Jerome Feldman wryly put it, some people can continue to learn even after adolescence, and for such people, language need be no more difficult than anything else. The trick is how.
What a lot of people miss, yes kids are better equipped for learning language in terms of absorption. Relatively less exposure to your native language also makes a lot of concepts less weird. Like, you don't really have to wrap your head around using an article, because you didn't live the last forty years happily without it. Plus, I would argue that it is easier for kids to learn a new writing system (I am talking something like arabic letters). However, what kids don't have and what cripples their ability is an attention span required to learn new vocabulary/grammar, understanding of self that is crucial for choosing best way of learning and they are rarely in control of their own time, so they can't manage it properly. On top of that their motivation is rarely internal. They don't learn language for what it has to offer them, but because otherwise dad won't let you go play football. From my personal experience, I wasn't able to properly learn anything until I got all the skills I mentioned. I half-assed all the homework assignments because it is boring and I would rather play GTA, I didn't know that my brain only works 10-16 and I am unable to do anything even remotely intellectual outside these hours, just as I didn't know how I prefer learning every part and in what order and I couldn't manage my time because mama knows best and I couldn't just threw away stuff I saw no reason for
2:23 What I have heard is, after 13, you cannot acquire a language with an accent you haven't used before, perfectly. In other words, the ear gets accustomed to the sound combinations of one or more languages already known, and reuses these for other languages. Like, whatever I do, my "front half closed vowel" Swedish e will be more closed than the actual French standard for their "front half closed vowel" é, and some French will hear my é as being i, consequently. But that doesn't mean I don't speak French ... or wrote French (though making "noces" masculine plural, now corrected, was obviously a blooper).
This isn't entirely true, it's difficult but there are people that through study and shadowing were able to get accent as well, I've heard a couple stories of Chinese adults that done something such as listening to the same movie over and over again before even starting their language learning journey, and it resulted in them picking up English sounds better and resulted in them having a near-perfect accent when they reached fluency. People can definitely rewire their brain to hear the new sounds of the language, it just takes time. And yah I guess you did say perfectly and not near perfectly, but anyone can get a good enough accent that the 100% perfection virtually wouldn't make a difference.
I love this topic! One I have debated with many linguists. I think the main reason children never fail at learning a language (whereas most adults do) is because we are trying to learn it the way we study any subject in school. What do you think?
It’s simpler than that. When you’re born, you have no way to express anything. So your first language is a way to create all meanings in the world, born from necessity to communicate. You rarely have that level of necessity in a second language, but those who do invariably learn it well.
@@storylearning yeah, I see your point. That might be the biggest factor at play. I do think that is part of what I am referring to as well, the academic approach fails because students in school have no real NEED to learn the language. The closest way to mimic this is to move to another country. But even with that necessity, many adults still go about the process in very inefficient unnatural ways. Of course, even moving to another country you don’t NEED the language to formulate ideas and attach meaning to your world. So its still not the same level of necessity as an infant…🤷🏻♂️
The problem I have is that I have a terrible memory. So I go through say vocabulary, get a good feel as I'm able to recite a couple of hundred words. But then I stumble....oh what is that word.....don't look it up don't look it up....ohh! I knew that! So then it turns into a cycle of doubt, and I leave it for a few weeks or longer. I try again, oh see at how much I've forgotten.....
I wish someone would use baby talk with me lol Currently, I'm playing with copying every minor tone change and syllable transition in extremely slow audio on audacity to build that as a foundation
You can only learn language faster than children when it comes to learning it on an adult level. But otherwise ... native speaking children SURELY know much MORE than you know.
its sort of true but not exactly. Kids only develop the ability to speak at all around 3 so a 4 year old is not 4 years of just being immersed. I knew a french girl who was 7 who had been living in the u.s for one year and spoke english fluently from just going to school. She would translate for her parents when speaking to me. My older brother and sister grew up in germany until the age of 5 and spoke German, English(from my mom who is american), and Slovak (from speaking to my grandma). They could speak all of these languages by 5 and had never looked at a book. Kids brains are scientifically proven to listen and to immitate, they are gifted with language.
Children learn better because they have a smaller vocabulary to cope with, so less to learn at that age (as you say, no Peking duck needed). And far more free space on their hard drives! They pick up the rest as they go along. They don't NEED to be able to express more complicated concepts. (But you express all this far better than I) Once a child has started with two languages they are programmed to accommodate further languages (either in childhood or later). I have seen this in my 3, brought up bilingually and now adults and comfortably polyglot.
Probably an uncommon opinion, but i dont even want to completely loose my german accent when speaking a foreign language. I dont butcher pronounciation of course and try to speak as "native" as possible. But in the end of day, i remain german and that wont change.
It is nice to hear that there are people that learn languages. But I'm calling out other like myself how don't learn. I started Italian Undercovered for beginners plus have done that immersion stuff by listening podcast, news and audiobooks, used apps, looked news etc. over two years Waste of time.
I didn't allow anyone to talk baby jabber towards my son. The first few years of him actual talking people would remark how he sounded far advanced over most kids his age. I guess my idea that giving him proper English from the onset would be beneficial actually panned out well!
6:39 Not quite correct for all circumstances, concepts overlap differently in different languages. In French, "handfull" and "door handle" are both "poignée". The Swedish for "door handle" is a compound where the second part (as in English) means "handle" - or even "grip", but outside doors, handle may in French be "anse" (not sure if handle is the right word in English) ...
@@lisanarramore222 At 6:39 Olly Richards says, we already have the concepts. My logic is that while this is true for most circumstances, it is off for some others, like when different item types are classified in different sets of larger and fewer subdivisions.
I understand :) I think what Olly means by "The concept is already there" is : As an adult, when you look around you at the world, you understand that all things have names and serve a purpose - whether you know their names or not. Even if you can't speak a language yet, you understand how language works to talk about things, and how to interact with people. You know that a bus can take you from A to B, even if you don't know what the bus is called. Or, you understand the concept of 'time' even if you don't yet know how to ask the time in a certain language. So when learning a language, you can just find out what the correct 'time' phrases are. A small child, however, doesn't understand the concept of time yet... so when they're learning 'time' words, they also have to learn what 'time' even means! :)
@@lisanarramore222 True - but not for all concepts. From English or Swedish I knew "this" vs "that" and it came as a little shock that Latin and Classic Attic had a _three_ fold division, hic, iste, ille or hode, houtos, ekeinos.
@@syedzubair1351 Well said. Think positive like a child. The first thing I did today morning after brushing is to sit on my table with short stories in Italian
I have an idea to speak and learn any language by matching... for example I am an Arabic native speaker, l want someone English native speaker to speak with and he or she want someone speak Arabic to practice and develop his or her language...if someone agree and have desire to learn with me reply by comment and I will communicate with him and start learn new language with no obstacles and fake way, like he said in the video the most valuable way to learn language is by communicate and practice...I want to speak English if someone want to speak Arabic come... And apply this idea for other languages... Forgive me I am beginner in English if you didn't understand what I wrote above
There's a lot of social leniency on children who don't speak as an adult would, but adults have expectations for themselves and for other adults. Talking like a child would instinctively feels like you're signaling lower status by way of admitting lower proficiency: you reveal your reliance on others, which is partly why I think many people feel humiliated when they have to engage in child-like conversations with language-learning partners or watch children's cartoons or read children's books. Amongst a crowd of people speaking the language you wish to, you're immediately outed as the one who can't be relied on in the conversation and the one who needs to be vocally babied.
me: grew up hearing 5 different languages, mixed all the words in one sentence (basically whatever word I know would get inserted and not care whether the sentence is in the same language or not) also me: got scolded for code switching all the damn time :( I'm fine though speak 5, 1 language at B1 and learning 1 more
Yep, they are. I became a perfect native speaker of French in exactly one year when I moved to Brussels. I was 8 at that time. Based on my observations the threshold is around 12, meaning that above that age many learners fail to learn to speak with a perfect accent and never really become part of the culture attached to the language.
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Kids read and listen to stories over and over. And you should, too! Get my free StoryLearning®️ kit to learn how 👉🏼 bit.ly/freeslkit_learnlanguagefast
Cool. So, when will polyglots come up with their own languages and then meet together to compare them?
@@QuizmasterLaw because if you know many languages, you know the pros and cons and you can construct a language which uses the best parts of every language and eliminates the worst parts.
@@QuizmasterLaw it may be mostly personal preference but to say it's wrong doesn't mean anything.
@@QuizmasterLaw I'm not sure what you're confused about. It's not complicated. Design a language that makes you the happiest. Then discuss it with others who have done the same. I know it's not easy. Don't misunderstand and think I meant it would be easy.
I’ve heard people say “I’ve been studying this language for two years and I speak worse than an 8 year old”
But how long do they think it took the 8 year old? 😂
Haha I found this so funny because this is something that I would've said myself hahahaa
Lol
Quizás le gustaría del canal de TH-cam “Liberté Cyclique” th-cam.com/users/shortsNKkfgno1AZU
I’ve been learning Japanese for about 2 years. (Well, I really started putting daily effort into it around a year ago) and I speak Japanese better than a Japanese 2 year old lol. (But not much better).
wait until they're 6.
He'll be better at reading Japanese than a 6-year-old Japanese kid
@@carloscorona3143 that's assuming he's learning kanji. Yeah, there's no shortcut to kanji, it's a time consuming slog. One that a 6 year old Japanese kid has ahead of them.
@@Brascofarian I just learn the kanji when I make vocab flashcards. I know about 2,000 ish. Enough to read texts my japanese friends send me, or their HelloTalk posts lol
Don't relent; keep up with the excellent work.
An adult will pretty much learn anything faster than a child if they put in the same amount of time. Since they understand and remember patterns better and use their time more efficiently. The biggest advantage of learning stuff as a kid, is generally you just have more time.
Yes !
And you have adults correcting you 24/7
@@gabrielantunesmusic6785 As an adult, you can correct yourself by reading grammar and listen to natives through videos.
And by the way, adults don't correct their children that much. That's a myth. It would take a lot of effort to correct children because they make mistakes allll the time. Parents let their children to make mistakes because.. well they are just kids. Children correct themselves as they listen to adults.
Yeah keep lying to yourself. That’s why Henry Kissenger has speaking English for 100 yrs and still sounds terrible.
Why do so many people believe this BS. Children learn better. So what? Go from there.
It’s not just time it’s curiosity and social settings. My grandma used to teach German to refugees. Most of the adults would learn really slow because they would stick in their own social groups. They had the time after all they were usually unemployed. But they don’t socialise like their kids would. Adults are afraid of making mistakes, saving face, they’re not as curious as kids and they are not sent to kindergarten or school. Adults that force themselves into these kind of situations learn very quickly. I used to have a friend from Russia that after 3 years spoke better German than many natives, but she went to German universities classes, had a boyfriend and friends she would talk with in German. If you invest an hour every day progressing on Duolingo and than talk to your colleagues at work to practice you will become fluent in a language really fast.
I think the key thing (which most people ignore) is the 24/7 teacher (parent, older sibling) giving them constant feedback. You mention this at the start, and throughout your analysis. Imagine how fast I would learn a new language, if I could afford many hours every single day of Skype interaction with a patient teacher! Kids don't "pick up by listening". They have help.
I picked up a language just by listening and I yave friends who did that too. It was our second language and we learned it by watching tv within 2 years.
I picked up a language as a child just by listening and I have friends who did that too. It was our second language and we learned it by watching tv within 2 years.
I speak Korean better than a 8 y.o child and just took me two years of this quarantine to achieved that 😁
How did you start ? And why did you pick korean(it's a cool language but it isn't as popular as japanese)? Also did you get a tutor or did you learn it through input?
@@milosm9280 I'm learning korean by myself and really want to know the answers to your questions 😅
@@milosm9280 I learned hangul and some words by myself, watching kdramas and listening to korean music.. Now, I'm in a free online class in nround.. You 2 classes: beginners and upper beginners
@@milosm9280 I'd say nowadays korean got pretty popular xD
@@ichliebebaeumeweilbaum
I do agree with you (korean is way more popular than it was in the 90s) however it is still not easy to decide between these 3 languages. When you pick a language like korean you must have good reasoning as why you picked that one over the other 2.
"You probably were not a... feral kid"
Damn, how did you know???
😂
Just a hunch
I was a feral child. I feel discriminated.
Yes! I was hoping you would state how long it takes a child to learn a language, even if it's his/her mother tongue (5:16). Yes, it seems like children are geniuses (of course they are!) when it comes to learning languages, but when you think about it, it does take them much longer than we think.
I remember having a French substitute teacher speaking fluently that I thought he was French. He told me he just studied aggressively for 2 years straight.
It seems so obvious, I don’t know why more people don’t realise it
@@storylearning There are many inconvenient truths! :-D
When you have put a lot of time and effort into learning other languages than your mother-tongue, and then master them fairly well, people dismiss the hard work with: "Easy for your, you have a special talent for them!" - which in my case is absolutely untrue. So I had to struggle and find my own ways to learn them, with all the trial and error needed, while that prejudiced talk about "talent" wasn't of any help, really, on the contrary.
@@DNA350ppm Even worse, if you have spent a few weeks in the country, they say "Easy for you, it's because you have been there for a few weeks."
@@roucoupse Yeah, that's a ridiculous one, for sure! And definitely a way to spot one who does not know anything about language learning. ;-)
@@roucoupse I spent two weeks in Portugal with a church group and picked up Portuguese so well that another of the group was still astonished when we met again fifteen years later. But I grew up hearing French and Spanish, so learning Portuguese was trivial. I did not become nearly as fluent in Czech spending a few weeks in Prague, though as I had already taken Russian, I had no trouble understanding "východ". I would do even worse in Turkey.
You've really been killing it lately with the topics for your videos/podcast! Excellent work, Olly! Saludos!
Thank you!
I totally agree! Olly is doing a great job
Great video Olly! Another way to think about how long it takes children to learn a language is to measure by hours rather than years. Assume, conservatively, that a young child sleeps 8 hours a day. That means they are learning language 16 hours a day, or 5,840 hours a year. Multiply that by 6 or 7 years and you can see how long it takes child to really get a good grasp on their native tongue.
I remember my young daughter searching her closet. She said she wanted her suitcase. She was insistent and I finally realized she wanted her bathing suit. A rookie mistake in language learning.
Lol I am an adult who did very well in my native language at school and I frequently make that kind of “rookie mistake” word error in speech.
The strongest advantage children have is that they don't know any language, and therefore don't translate phrases in their head before speaking, it just comes out naturally.
I don't think this actually counts... They get everyday input for several *years* to do that, if you're at year-2 and still translate in your head then..... Idk what to say anymore
An advantage that children have is that they don't have idiots teaching them who have idiotic theories about how to teach them. For example, if you take a formal course in another language, you will spend weeks and weeks and weeks on the present tense. Children, by contrast, learn all tenses at once. Plus, you will learn odd vocabulary items. When I took Arabic, we learned the term for "United Nations" about a third of the way through the first term. It was eight syllables long, and since we didn't use it very often, I had forgotten it by the end of the year. Children will naturally learn those words most useful for them, words that they hear constantly. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which words beginners should be learning and to teach those words and not others that are useless.
Babies know nothing about words. They only hear sounds. They manage to group these sounds to form chunks. They hear these chunks every day. After a while these chunks make sense for them. Then from 0 to 2 they store up ton of chunks.
Let's go to the park. For us six words, for a baby letsgotothepark one chunk, and after some time a baby associates this chunk with what happens after, to be in a park.
I've been learning my target language since the beginning of 2019. I'm at a B1 level and slowly moving towards a B2. I'm convinced that it will take me another 7+ years for my skill level to reach a C level in the European Language Framework. It really does take thousands of hours of engaging in the language to get to a proficient level.
I've heard that babies can learn hand gestures for simple concepts (like food, tired, potty, etc.) well before the age of speaking. I had a coworker who was doing this with his kid. Another coworker gave him a book on baby sign language. I was flipping through it and it was all situational practical stuff...plus dinosaur. Hahaha!! What baby needs to know how to sign dinosaur??!!
Why WOULDN'T babies need to know signs about dinosaurs!?!?!? 😎
nou, je hebt gelijk! Ik ben begonen met nederlands leren sommige maanden geleden, en het is een beetje moeilijk, maar niet zo lastig omdat had ik al engels geleerd...Na zes maanden denk ik dat ik kan heel goed met dit niveau me voelen, terwijl een kind kan het niet
Leuk dat je Nederlands leert. Leer je het nu 8 maanden? Hoe vordert je studie? Ik kom niet vaak mensen op TH-cam tegen die Nederlands leren. Daarom ben ik een beetje nieuwsgierig. Hopelijk vind je dat niet vervelend 😅
Awesome video as always, Olly! ❤️ Thanks so much!
this topic comes up over and over again when I talk to "monoglots" and you have a very nice presentation indeed
When i am learning a new language i am getting a nostalgic feeling.
I totally resonate with this video. I just read the first chapter of the “Italian short stories for beginners” book… even though I could not understand every word or grammar structure, I still got a general gist of the plot and I loved it. Thank you :)
(I’ve been learning for 5 months)
@Olly Richards
I have an idea for a video.
I think it would be interesting to discuss the possible challenges of learning another language when someone has hearing problems or auditory processing disorder (APD).
Nice idea.
Braille and sign-language(s) to the rescue.
Thank you for this. I never thought about it from this perspective and it is very valid.....and very heartening!!
Hii! I love your videos, you're really an inspiration to me
Thank you 🙏🏻
I agree with you Olly! I have three children by myself and we have three languages at home, and my children do speak/understand all these three languages. However as an adult I still have a better command and understanding over those languages than my kids.
Three languages I suppose your spouse and you are from different countries but what is the third one lol
@@watermelon3679 Yes we are from different countries, and we speak English to each other. So the languages are Finnish, Serbian and English.
Yours was the revelation of my life. You said few if any one speeks Latin. That took my mind out of the gutter which is the how to learn a language debate. Thanks.
You say kids have no native accent, and in a sense I agree. But I also disagree in the sense that some kids have trouble with specific sounds, like "r" or confusing "th" and "f".
Thank you for this. I feel much better and will no longer be that hard on myself for not learning to speak like a native after teaching myself a new language for a couple of weeks. I think I'm really hard on myself though because I started five years ago. Life happened, I stopped and I picked it back up a couple of weeks ago. I'm here regretting not having stuck to it despite what was happening. If nothing else, if I had taught myself one word a day I would be in a better place. No place for "coulda-shoulda-wouldas" now I guess. I'm back on it and I have no intention of making the same mistake I made before. I'm only going forward now. I'm giving myself a year to have basic conversation and be able to translate basic conversation when I hear the language. I can translate basic sentences if I hear just that or if I see it written but it's much more difficult in real world conversation. This has always been my issue. It's like I can't pass this glitch but I'm working on it.
hi olly love your channel, ive got the portuguese short stories book for me, and the italian one for my wife, we both love your work, even at an intermediate level in portuguese ive learned how to use many expressions and verbs with your book, also im interested to know if the turkish uncovered will come out in september too? please let us know, chinese and turkish uncovered really intesrests me both
Eu, brasileiro, fico muito feliz por saber alguém como vocês está a querer português. Fico muito feliz mesmo. Continue o progresso!
I think many people get frustrated in the process of learning a new language, they know how to express themselves in their native language, but lack the vocabulary and grammer to do it in a new language. It feels uncomfortable and generally we would opt out of uncomfortable situations. But we have such a big advantage of already being literary and having made certain connections in our brain that kids don't have. Learning is basically an incremental process and if you get a grasp of that concept, it'll be so much easier to embrace that and seeing the progression over time.
Very logical approach to answering a very fundamental question about language learning. Thanks Olly!
So true, love this myth debunking type of video. I'd love to see more
All of this!
Important context: I'm American (living in America), and I graduated high school 30 years ago . I took Russian and German in high school, never used them again, and promptly lost them. I can still sing the Soviet national anthem although I couldn't translate it to save my life, and I can still conjugate irregular verbs in German that I no longer even know the meaning of...because we sang stupid songs to them over and over. When I started teaching myself Albanian (which I ALSO no longer speak), I listened to a lot of music and painstakingly translated it word by word...hence when I needed a word and couldn't think of it, I remembered the song had that word, mentally sang it in my head until I got to the lyric, and was able to pull the word out of my head that way. (Hey...it worked. And I still remember that specific word, oddly, although I don't remember any of the others in that stanza. Or song. Or the name of the song.)
Actually, the figure 24/7 is not correct. The baby sleeps almost all the time if not being fed or washed. Young kids sleep more than 12 hours a day, and I believe, they do not practice the language non-stop during all the other 12 hours. So, if to draw out this minus, children practice a language probably as much as a determined adult who learns it intensively. The single advantage of kids is that they learn the language casual way and have much more time and fun to joy the repetition.
Pretty sure Olly's using this expression figuratively, not literally. Children are learning in their waking hours, every single day - usually passively, and exactly the way he described.
Hey, Olly, you really make a great point for adults learning new languages. Keep posting these high quality videos😊
Thank you for this! I always assume that it’s always too late for me to learn a new language and I’m only 20!
I think the ability that children have at an early age is quite limited but it serves their basic needs for survival.
I still had a lot to learn about English grammar after fourteen years when I got to junior high.
After a couple of years of French I was good at the grammar but my pronunciation was not good at all.
It's fascinating how children can duplicate the sound of the local language much better than a foreigner.
Children can learn two or more languages before the age of 7. I was bilingual because my parents were English but we lived in the Argentine, so I spoke both English and Spanish.
I like this guy, Olly. He seems wicked chill.
Very nice topic, again! I agree with a lot of points you've made. I do think, when it comes to second language acquisition, starting younger can be better than adults. Let's say, kids older than 7 or 8, can be better or faster at acquiring the second language compared to adults if they are in the same exact environment. So I do believe it would be beneficial for younger kids to have opportunities to learn other languages. But as you say, there are lots of elements that affect language acquisition and age is just one element. Adults can learn new languages and I believe they should learn them because it would be beneficial for many things. Being an adult has its own advantages when it comes to language learning. By the way, according to my parents, I learned Indonesian faster than them when I was living there for 4 years, I was a toddler. I was in a situation where I was immersed in the second language before acquiring my native language. But the thing is, I left the country at the age of 5 or 6, and soon after I totally lost all Indonesian I knew. Well, and my parents (they were 30 -40 years old at that time), it's rusty but still speak some Indonesian even after decades. The interesting thing is my friend at that time, the same age with the same native language, stayed 4 more years in Indonesia and he still speaks the language even though he never went back to Indonesia.
My older kids are 12 and 9 and supposed to be bilingual as they grew up immersed in 2 languages. However I started to learn their mother's language about 3 years ago and I speak it a lot better than them. The reason is that they only got exposed to some basic everyday language but not any complicated topics. They don't understand much from news or some politics, religious, historical and cultural topics. Their language and understanding is very limited compared to adults. We always had 3 languages at our home used daily and our kids do understand them but I still have a way better command and comprehension over those languages than my 12 year old. The reason is that I had a more holistic exposure to the languages than my kids. I didn't limit myself to some daily affairs but got a lot deeper insight with wider vocabulary. Let's be honest how many kids are reading newspapers or even books besides some children ones or watching news or listening to some podcasts etc.? They just do what they like doing like watching some tic tocs, youtube trends/challenges or some gaming videos and playing video games. If they watch some series they are usually in English only so it might improve only their English skills. And knowing/speaking English here in Scandinavia is not any big deal since most of the people speak it at pretty high level.
@@a.r.4707 3 languages at home?? Wow, amazing! Well, I believe your children are building a nice base for language acquisition. As we know, there are a lot more elements that help learn new languages. Even though they have limited comprehension now, I believe they have an advantage for later language development. When they grow up more and if they become interested and motivated to really learn more, the earlier years of language experiences would help, I guess. I myself should have grown up bilingual or trilingual but I didn't. But I grew up learning some English and Spanish. It was never enough because I never really dedicated myself to "really learn" like you are doing. And I was never that motivated to study. Now I'm much older and finally motivated. And I believe that having grown up knowing some languages is helping. At least to some extent. Well, in my native country, Japan, people struggle a lot to learn a second language, even English (the only language they teach at school). Well, the reason can be many many things, but one thing is that we Japanese do not get much exposure to foreign languages if they only live in Japan. Well, the time I grew up was even more limited. Now, there is much more exposure, but compared to foreign countries, it's not much. So I feel like I was lucky to have grown up in an environment where I had that kind of exposure.
@@bzylarisa You are right, I totally agree with you. The children will get a good base for language learning. I by myself grew up as monolingual and only learned English at school as a compulsory subject back in the 80's and early 90's and the level of English here wasn't as high as it is nowadays with all the social media platforms etc. we just had a television back then haha. I bought my first computer when I was about 20 years old😄. Then later I had compulsory Swedish at school as well. We have 2 compulsory foreign languages at the primary school here in Finland. The first one you can choose and most people choose English. You usually have about 2 or 3 or sometimes 4 options for the first compulsory foreign language. The options usually are English, Swedish, French and German but it depends on the school really. Then the second compulsory foreign language is Swedish always and it starts nowadays from the 6th grade. The first foreign language starts nowadays from the 1st grade already. At my time it started from the 3rd grade. Then if you want you can take 2 more optional languages and that would be 4 languages altogether. Most people just proceed with those 2 compulsory ones. My other daughter just started optional Spanish now at 3rd grade and she had compulsory English from the 1st grade. And an other daughter just started Swedish at 6th grade and she had compulsory French from a 3rd grade and optional English from a 4th grade. However she wants to quit French now and just continue with English instead, because of lack of motivation and interest. Yes I've heard that in Asia English is very popular language as a foreign language like it is in the middle east, but people are really struggling to learn it and the demand of English teachers and materials is great. Here in Finland or in the Nordic countries generally the level of English is very high nowadays, but they usually don't know much other languages besides Finnish, Swedish and English. Your English is really superb, amazing! Do you speak/understand Spanish also or some other languages as well?
@@a.r.4707 Ohhh Finland! I've heard a lot about their educational system and I'm so curious. Very very interesting. No wonder you grew up in a monolingual environment. Well, personally, Finnish is a total mystery to me. I don't think I've had opportunities to really hear the language. Maybe some metal band songs haha🎸 I have an impression that it is very different from the Roman language, is it? Well, in Japan, foreign language education is not advanced at all (unless you are in a private school that has a special curriculum). And English is the sole compulsory foreign language. Until very recently, we only started to learn English from 7th grade (the age around 13). The educational system itself has always been defective and has never been practical (focusing on grammar learning), so even after 6 years of learning, the majority of people can't even hold a single conversation. Comparing to neighboring countries like South Korea and China, we are way too far behind. Since 2020, the education system got reformed and now kids are starting to learn English from 3rd grade, but I doubt that it would make a great difference, because there is no strong "motivation" or "need" to acquire the language, except for passing school exams. You just don't use it unless you have some foreigners around in your life or have specific jobs that require it. And my English always improves when I leave Japan hahaha, thank you for the compliment by the way🙏🏻 I'm currently living in Central America so I do speak a certain level of Spanish (also improved since I settled in here.) Naturally, it became necessary for me to improve my Spanish and as I got more exposure of both Spanish and English, it made me more and more motivated to improve and learn more. So, I've started to learn Brazillian Portuguese and French by myself, too. Especially since the pandemic, I have more time so I'm taking advantage of it. I also remember that time we only had television and books to learn😂 We all should take advantage of the infinite numbers of materials that are available now.
@@bzylarisa Yes, our educational system is famous for its effectiveness around the globe and the great thing is that it's completely free for us to study even at the university. Our language is from the Finno-ugric family and they say that it's from the altaic languages and related to Hungarian and Turkish. However I can't understand any Hungarian or Turkish without studying them. Estonian language is closely related to Finnish and we can understand some amount of it. Swedish is a second official language here and pretty much everything from road signs to train announcements etc. are in both Finnish and Swedish.
Those metal bands and that metal music is quite popular here but I think that they are mostly singing in English. I can't recall any which would really sing in Finnish, generally it's all in English.
We didn't have many immigrants/foreigners here during the 80's so I could only practise my English with some American Mormon missionary preachers. During the 90's we started to receive many immigrants especially asylum seekers from a war torn countries and I used to practise my English with them. I had some foreign friends who I saw pretty much daily and we would speak English for hours. That's how I learned English for real, and now I have used English daily with my wife for 17 years. I also lived in England for 1 year and I was working with native English speakers, so I got some daily practise there as well. I also read a lot in English different kind of stuff based on my interests.
My wife is from Serbia originally and when we met English was our lingua franca. After we learned each other's languages, but we still mostly communicate in English out of old habit, it kind of remained haha. Sometimes we use Finnish and Serbian too, it depends. I'm anyway trying to maintain and improve my Serbian via daily listening and reading. I also study Arabic, mostly just reading and listening but occasionally talking and trying to use it also. We have many immigrants nowadays in my neighbourhood and you can hear so many different languages here when you just walk outdoors. Although you don't hear Spanish often here, I think that we don't have many Spanish speakers here in my area. I know one Spaniard though and one Italian😄. Spanish is on my list too so maybe one day will start to learn it also😊. Are you in Mexico by the way if I may ask? I know one Mexican guy here too but he moved to an other place and I haven't seen him for ages.
great, funny , inspiring. love these vids dude. you're fun. when i'e got some more languages a bit more fluent, we do a show perhaps
i want to master 15 by time I die
i speak Fair french, german,
a bunch of spanish, polish, czech,
learning russian, & portuguese, and arabic, hebrew, romani, italian, latin, esperanto are amongst the languages I wanna master fluently.
Actually, psychologicaly there is some truth to it that there is possibly an optimal window for language learning during childhood.
However, the same evidence suggests, that it is not impossible to learn anything after those biological optimal moments as a human developing in a normal band of developement (There is no such thing as THE standard or normal developement, it is always a case from between x and y, if below or above something might be off)
Learning theory suggests at the moment that the best and only way to learn anything is to do small portions and repeat them if possible at the point of almost forgetting -> repeting with more and more time between repetitions.
That said this doesn't state how and in which settings those repetitions should be made, for example, reading, talking, answering questions or any other way of engaging a topic counts as a repetition.
Sorry for any mistakes, it has been some time since I attended an english class :-)
This video is brilliant
No, they don't, because it takes like 10 years for a kid to be good at their own language... despite so much immersion.
Facts
The main advantage kids have is in accent and immersion and having lots of time for immersion and practice.
The point you make around 4:10 also shows that we can eliminate our accent in foreign languages by actually taking the time to learn the sounds by dropping our preexisting concepts by comparing to a different language
3:20 those are my favorite kind of lessons
Been learning Japanese for 9 months but I moved to Germany so I gotta learn German now, but I don't wanna leave Japanese. So now im studying both at once. Shit is hard to manage. My Japanese luckily recently gotten good enough to easily listen to semi-basic convo and reading comprehension is also decent, too. German listening is a work in progress but i've been making progress too.
So where my husband is from, they commonly employ live in maids and assistants from other countries to work in households (they come for the higher pay compared to what they would get back in their home countries). When they get there they probably know very little of the language, and unless both the worker and the members of the household know another language like English to communicate in, they have no choice but to quickly learn common words and within a year can be very fluent in the other language. They are as emersed as one can get with no one there to translate to their native language.
The advantages that kids have are:
1) they have more free time
2) they got lots of adults feedbacks
3) they learn the language almost unconsciously
4) they are fully immersed in that language
5) they aren't afraid of making mistakes
6) there brains are more neuroplastic to capture the pronunciation better
7) they born with no language and need to learn the one around them, contrary to us who learn another beside the one we already had. So it is more or less a must for the kids to learn the language around them
I hope I helo
Loved it ❤🎉
I learned italian in for less than half a year, I had some basic skills in spanish thats all. My Italian was still basic but I could express myself quite good back then. It may have fallen asleep over the years a bit but still is my second or third foreign language (Depending how you count).
I said things like "ieri anno" "yersteday year" for last year because I didn´t know the word but it worked. "anno scroso" if I remember correctly. I didn´t have my native tounges accent they could hear I am foreign. They asked me most often if I was english if they did. But I am really sure I didn´t have an english accent. My native tongue belongs to the german languages.
I was reading at 3 and entered 1st grade with an 8th grade reading level. Yeah, I'm also a polyglot.
It is possible to be hyper-verbal before age 3.
Children have one thing adults don't have: an insane amount of free time. Adults know how they can be more efficient with their time, while children actually repeat the same thing over and over in multiple contexts.
Learning a new language's grammar and phonetics is like a giant puzzle, and I've tackled it in the only way you can, using logic.
Children have a superb memory. This greatly helps, memorizing and repeating words. If a human gets older, the memory becomes weaker. (Maybe because too much knowledge is crammed into the brain, that interferes?).
On the other hand, I remember my little sister saying "Parziman" instead of "Marzipan" for a long while, because there is no logical hook to the sound. When I learned the English word "marzipan", I could remember it instantly, because its identical to the German "Marzipan", only the pronounciation is slightly different. (In this instance, previous knowledge helped.)
The key to success in learning a language, is your passion for it; regardless how much money and time you spend learning it. If you don't have that fervor, you'll never learn any language. This was a great video Olly, my friend and I would love to chat with you sometime in the near future...hahahahaha!!!
Great video Olly, thanks!
Good take. I needed to hear 👂 this!
I attended a lecture by a researcher who studies how new arriving immigrants learn English in the UK. She said children do it faster because they go to school where they have far greater exposure than adults who often work with other homies from the old country. And if you will give both say 100 hours to study, the adult will make greater progress than the children.
Hi Olly I was wondering if you could make a short stories book in Polish,
I learned English through Cartoon Network and Spanish through telenovelas when I was a kid. Well it was more of a starting point but it gave me a feeling for syntax and sounds.
I've never heard "feral" pronounced like that before! (I'm from the UK)
Someone said this to me just last week. I knew then he was never going to improve his French. He also lamented that he didn't live in Europe where it's sooo easy to learn a language 🙄He doesn't want to improve his French so much as he wants it to magically get better.
I learnt Spanish and I have never been to a Spanish speaking country.
Laoshu 505000 became fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese and he never once visited China. Rip
According to what I've read, there is one distinct advantage children have that you touched on, but didn't fully explore, and that is regarding accents. They don't just "learn" them more easily because of input and not having an established one interfering. According to at least one study, a young child can actually hear and understand even foreign accents more easily than adults. In other words, if a British toddler heard a Chinese person speaking English, assuming they were familiar words, they would understand more easily than their parents would.
Also keep in mind that a child appearing to master language more slowly is in part only because they are learning so many different things at once (you try learning a new language while you're still in university studying biology and music or something). Also, part of the reason their early speaking skills are so bad is that their muscle control isn't very fine-tuned. I think there a difference in learning environments, too. Constant input is good, but when it's always dumbed-down input because the parents assume the child won't understand... what can you expect?
I’m sorry I think kids make much better learners especially when it comes to languages but I’m with you on one thing, what else am I gonna do, just stop because I’m not the ideal age to learn a language? Nope.
What about pronunciation? I've heard that the younger you start learning, the easier it is for you to pronunce.
Noramlly, that is true.
Yes this is true. You can learn a language quicker, but it will harder for you and take you longer to pronounce it correctly and understand the nuances.
Just layman chat here, but I think it might have to do with the movements of mouth, tongue, larynx etc that one has been, or has been not, used to for many years
I was a 12-13 year old kid and I no joke just started watching TH-cam videos and anime in English to learn it and I did and in just 3 years I can understand, write and read. As you can see but all tho I have problems remember the alphabets in a specific word and I also have a hard time trying to read words that are new to me and I have never heard it, so it's not the best way to learn English but school didn't teach me I taught myself that's the thing I am very proud of.
Let's say that a child begins to learn a language at 4 years and is able to carry on an intelligent conversation at 14. That's 10 years to learn syntax, verb tenses,, vocabulary, etc. Let's further say that they have acquired a vocabulary of 5000 words along with the usages of all. That amounts to learning 500 words per year or 4 new words every 3 days, every week, every month, every year for 10 years. The thing that amazes me is the acquisition of this much vocabulary at such a rapid rate.
It is quite a pleasure to hear someone else say this. Even when I retrained in TEFL European direct, the instructors promulgated this children are language sponges nonsense. There are some pitfalls of L1 in that one can miscategorize the language specific as universal which takes some undoing for L2, but that is about it. As one of my favorite cognitive linguists Jerome Feldman wryly put it, some people can continue to learn even after adolescence, and for such people, language need be no more difficult than anything else. The trick is how.
Host is persuasive!
What a lot of people miss, yes kids are better equipped for learning language in terms of absorption. Relatively less exposure to your native language also makes a lot of concepts less weird. Like, you don't really have to wrap your head around using an article, because you didn't live the last forty years happily without it. Plus, I would argue that it is easier for kids to learn a new writing system (I am talking something like arabic letters). However, what kids don't have and what cripples their ability is an attention span required to learn new vocabulary/grammar, understanding of self that is crucial for choosing best way of learning and they are rarely in control of their own time, so they can't manage it properly. On top of that their motivation is rarely internal. They don't learn language for what it has to offer them, but because otherwise dad won't let you go play football.
From my personal experience, I wasn't able to properly learn anything until I got all the skills I mentioned. I half-assed all the homework assignments because it is boring and I would rather play GTA, I didn't know that my brain only works 10-16 and I am unable to do anything even remotely intellectual outside these hours, just as I didn't know how I prefer learning every part and in what order and I couldn't manage my time because mama knows best and I couldn't just threw away stuff I saw no reason for
2:23 What I have heard is, after 13, you cannot acquire a language with an accent you haven't used before, perfectly. In other words, the ear gets accustomed to the sound combinations of one or more languages already known, and reuses these for other languages.
Like, whatever I do, my "front half closed vowel" Swedish e will be more closed than the actual French standard for their "front half closed vowel" é, and some French will hear my é as being i, consequently.
But that doesn't mean I don't speak French ... or wrote French (though making "noces" masculine plural, now corrected, was obviously a blooper).
This isn't entirely true, it's difficult but there are people that through study and shadowing were able to get accent as well, I've heard a couple stories of Chinese adults that done something such as listening to the same movie over and over again before even starting their language learning journey, and it resulted in them picking up English sounds better and resulted in them having a near-perfect accent when they reached fluency. People can definitely rewire their brain to hear the new sounds of the language, it just takes time. And yah I guess you did say perfectly and not near perfectly, but anyone can get a good enough accent that the 100% perfection virtually wouldn't make a difference.
@@deddrz2549 Depends on who's judging you.
@@deddrz2549 yes you can, but it just takes you longer.
So then how did my mum learn English without an accent as an adult?
@@Vt12365 Is it Indian English she speaks without an accent?
Because Indian English has the accent of Hindi.
I love this topic! One I have debated with many linguists. I think the main reason children never fail at learning a language (whereas most adults do) is because we are trying to learn it the way we study any subject in school. What do you think?
It’s simpler than that. When you’re born, you have no way to express anything. So your first language is a way to create all meanings in the world, born from necessity to communicate. You rarely have that level of necessity in a second language, but those who do invariably learn it well.
@@storylearning yeah, I see your point. That might be the biggest factor at play. I do think that is part of what I am referring to as well, the academic approach fails because students in school have no real NEED to learn the language. The closest way to mimic this is to move to another country. But even with that necessity, many adults still go about the process in very inefficient unnatural ways. Of course, even moving to another country you don’t NEED the language to formulate ideas and attach meaning to your world. So its still not the same level of necessity as an infant…🤷🏻♂️
Stories and movies!
The problem I have is that I have a terrible memory. So I go through say vocabulary, get a good feel as I'm able to recite a couple of hundred words. But then I stumble....oh what is that word.....don't look it up don't look it up....ohh! I knew that! So then it turns into a cycle of doubt, and I leave it for a few weeks or longer. I try again, oh see at how much I've forgotten.....
I’ve actually come across quite a few language teachers (!!!)who perpetuate this one
I wish someone would use baby talk with me lol
Currently, I'm playing with copying every minor tone change and syllable transition in extremely slow audio on audacity to build that as a foundation
such a cool T-shirt!
You can only learn language faster than children when it comes to learning it on an adult level. But otherwise ... native speaking children SURELY know much MORE than you know.
Blimey... that's so wise what you've said.
its sort of true but not exactly. Kids only develop the ability to speak at all around 3 so a 4 year old is not 4 years of just being immersed. I knew a french girl who was 7 who had been living in the u.s for one year and spoke english fluently from just going to school. She would translate for her parents when speaking to me. My older brother and sister grew up in germany until the age of 5 and spoke German, English(from my mom who is american), and Slovak (from speaking to my grandma). They could speak all of these languages by 5 and had never looked at a book. Kids brains are scientifically proven to listen and to immitate, they are gifted with language.
Children learn better because they have a smaller vocabulary to cope with, so less to learn at that age (as you say, no Peking duck needed). And far more free space on their hard drives! They pick up the rest as they go along. They don't NEED to be able to express more complicated concepts.
(But you express all this far better than I)
Once a child has started with two languages they are programmed to accommodate further languages (either in childhood or later). I have seen this in my 3, brought up bilingually and now adults and comfortably polyglot.
Their ears are also more open to hear all phonemes.
@@diariosdelextranjero True. And their face muscles not yet fixed for making a limited number of sounds, the hallmark of monoglots.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides.
I want to know crazily what you're trying to convey so much. I desperately need Korean translation.
Probably an uncommon opinion, but i dont even want to completely loose my german accent when speaking a foreign language. I dont butcher pronounciation of course and try to speak as "native" as possible. But in the end of day, i remain german and that wont change.
Bold of you to assume I’m an adult
It is nice to hear that there are people that learn languages. But I'm calling out other like myself how don't learn. I started Italian Undercovered for beginners plus have done that immersion stuff by listening podcast, news and audiobooks, used apps, looked news etc. over two years Waste of time.
I didn't allow anyone to talk baby jabber towards my son. The first few years of him actual talking people would remark how he sounded far advanced over most kids his age.
I guess my idea that giving him proper English from the onset would be beneficial actually panned out well!
6:39 Not quite correct for all circumstances, concepts overlap differently in different languages.
In French, "handfull" and "door handle" are both "poignée".
The Swedish for "door handle" is a compound where the second part (as in English) means "handle" - or even "grip", but outside doors, handle may in French be "anse" (not sure if handle is the right word in English) ...
Not sure we follow your logic here?
@@lisanarramore222 At 6:39 Olly Richards says, we already have the concepts.
My logic is that while this is true for most circumstances, it is off for some others, like when different item types are classified in different sets of larger and fewer subdivisions.
I understand :) I think what Olly means by "The concept is already there" is : As an adult, when you look around you at the world, you understand that all things have names and serve a purpose - whether you know their names or not. Even if you can't speak a language yet, you understand how language works to talk about things, and how to interact with people. You know that a bus can take you from A to B, even if you don't know what the bus is called.
Or, you understand the concept of 'time' even if you don't yet know how to ask the time in a certain language. So when learning a language, you can just find out what the correct 'time' phrases are. A small child, however, doesn't understand the concept of time yet... so when they're learning 'time' words, they also have to learn what 'time' even means! :)
@@lisanarramore222 True - but not for all concepts.
From English or Swedish I knew "this" vs "that" and it came as a little shock that Latin and Classic Attic had a _three_ fold division, hic, iste, ille or hode, houtos, ekeinos.
I learned english when I was five
Older people/ adults may learn faster and forget faster. Adolescents take a little while but will never forget! Concerning children I have no idea.
I dont think the link at the bottom of the description is wrong, they're American
I like that word vitriol. You certainly don't hear it every day.
What do you think I should do when I feel demotivated and not feeling like studying? It really messes with my consistency
@@syedzubair1351 Well said. Think positive like a child. The first thing I did today morning after brushing is to sit on my table with short stories in Italian
Maybe go watch tv shows in your target language. It requires less effort but still makes you practice your listening skills and it's fun
I have an idea to speak and learn any language by matching... for example I am an Arabic native speaker, l want someone English native speaker to speak with and he or she want someone speak Arabic to practice and develop his or her language...if someone agree and have desire to learn with me reply by comment and I will communicate with him and start learn new language with no obstacles and fake way, like he said in the video the most valuable way to learn language is by communicate and practice...I want to speak English if someone want to speak Arabic come...
And apply this idea for other languages...
Forgive me I am beginner in English if you didn't understand what I wrote above
The kid in the thumbnail! So cute!
Right?! 💙
There's a lot of social leniency on children who don't speak as an adult would, but adults have expectations for themselves and for other adults. Talking like a child would instinctively feels like you're signaling lower status by way of admitting lower proficiency: you reveal your reliance on others, which is partly why I think many people feel humiliated when they have to engage in child-like conversations with language-learning partners or watch children's cartoons or read children's books. Amongst a crowd of people speaking the language you wish to, you're immediately outed as the one who can't be relied on in the conversation and the one who needs to be vocally babied.
Obviously
awesome!
Children are good to learn a foreign language from...they are clear and slow in their speech patterns.
me: grew up hearing 5 different languages, mixed all the words in one sentence (basically whatever word I know would get inserted and not care whether the sentence is in the same language or not)
also me: got scolded for code switching all the damn time :(
I'm fine though speak 5, 1 language at B1 and learning 1 more
Yep, they are. I became a perfect native speaker of French in exactly one year when I moved to Brussels. I was 8 at that time. Based on my observations the threshold is around 12, meaning that above that age many learners fail to learn to speak with a perfect accent and never really become part of the culture attached to the language.