I always see these videos and find it's the same old advice recycled over and over again, but to my surprise, this is actually refreshingly different. The focus on practice is something you very rarely hear from the TH-cam language "experts". Thank you, this was really appreciated and 100% spot on! 👏👏👏
I had a poor base on phonetics when I started to learn English - I was too young and not truly interested, the method was not too focused on phonetics, the professors didn’t explained me that English has sounds that don’t exist in Portuguese etc. All that changed when I started to learn French by myself. I saw some videos of a guy talking about the importance of the good pronunciation, mainly to make other people thinks that you know the language even if you have a poor vocabulary, and I deeply focused on learning pronunciation and the sounds of it. That helped me a lot! A solid base on pronunciation helps you to understand what people say, to guess how to write something that you heard, to read as the writer intended, and the list goes on. That was a good advice.
Absolutely-it can be a serious game-changer to find out that languages don't just use all the same sounds in different configurations, but that, at the level of the sounds themselves, they're actually different.
I love that level - the pronunciation, sounds, and writing system. Sometimes in traveling, because of apparently really good pronunciation by me, I've had native speakers light up and assume I know their language and start babbling at me very quickly. To this day I dk Polish or German, only a few words, but it happened with those languages - lol. It's the bigger part that slows me down. I wish I could perfect my French, but no matter how much I play French CAnadian radio in the car, it's just way too fast to catch much of anything.
I really enjoy the feeling when people say that sort of thing-it makes you feel like you’re really nailing it! Have you done that with many other languages?
Yes definitely the gentleman is correct whenever you're studying Spanish it's pretty cool because Spanish sounds like it looks on paper. So if you master the alphabet then you have a head start on the language. For example la Cena sounds differently whenever you say it pronouncing it like a person who speaks English. So many people get educated on the language but they forget to focus on the alphabet. I'm in year three now with Spanish and I'm focusing more on the alphabet once more, just as a way to sharpen the Spanish sword.
Thank you for this video. I am currently studying Latin. Since it is not spoken anymore i cant speak or talk with someone or even immerse myself in this language by watching shows in this language or even visit a country and learn it by living there. Do you have any tips to learn a dead language?
A dead language is a special beast! If your goal is to be able to read and write it, it’s best to practice doing that (but I would still suggest ‘speaking’ it in your head as you do both). On the other hand, if you truly want to speak Latin, the best thing is to find a group of people who want to do it too, and spend time doing it. There’s truly no replacement for practicing exactly the thing you want to be able to do well.
Find a tutor on Preply who exclusively speaks and teaches it. There are people who actually speak and teach it well. I am learning how to speak it by using Familia Romana and am following a course put out by satura lanx. She is an amazing teacher and it’s all in spoken Latin. Full immersion! I highly recommend her program and you can find her on TH-cam: youtube.com/@saturalanx?si=JsVhzOJTqhXXMO65
Italian got one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters. Learning 'connected speech' and stuff like pitch, pronunciation, the 'music' of AE, was pretty challenging. It ain't a breeze at all. Still on my learning journey, but I'm pretty used to the overall sound of it, now. Cheers from Italy 🇮🇹
Connected speech phenomena are pretty difficult, over and above the individual sounds! I’ll have to make some videos on that 🤔 Glad your language journey is going well!
Fascinating. I own a ton of language materials in multiples languages and have noticed that they often start with the alphabet (or corresponding writing system) and the "set of sounds". I have to admit that I generally ignore the "set of sounds", or spend minimal time on this. Have I been making things harder for myself? In any case I do feel now I might spend a little more time on this section.
"There's a limited array of sounds" was a bit of an epiphany. In my 20's, I rapidly acquired conversational fluency is Modern Standard Arabic through immersion training. I already spoke Spanish and German in addition to English, but MSA is WAY outside any language tree I knew and it changed alphabets as well. The alphabet change actually facilitated learning Arabic faster: knowing the sounds that a letter COULD make enables you to sound out any written word, even if you don't know what it means. I'm in my 50's now and struggling to acquire new languages. Your tip provides a useful positive constraint. A tip of my own, from having been around a lot of monolingual language learners. When we approach a second language, we want to use the language we already speak as a reference. We want to graft our grammar rules, word sounds, and meanings into or onto the one we're learning. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, we want to create a deep set of rules to explain the exceptions. This isn't effective. We have to start with a clean slate. "This new language does things in its own way." Similarities can help us to build a ladder, but a clean slate, learning it as it is, is MUCH easier and faster.
Yes! This is something a lot of people try-to take the slots in their native language and just fit material from their new language into those slots. But the secret is, the whole language is different, not just pieces. It's interesting to think about how an entirely new writing system forced you to really get clear on what the letters are doing-a challenge, but in the end a very beneficial one!
@@TonyTheLinguist I can't help but to see this as a "positive constraint" that leads to proper pronunciation, a way to focus my mind on the language that I'm bumbling through acquiring. 🙂
Thanks. A very good video! I'm learning a few languages and you're totally right. Spanish sounds very similar to the written words. My level in French is higher and it took me less time to have good pronunciation in Spanish than French haha.
@@TonyTheLinguist Thanks for the reply! I'd love to see more language related videos. Videos about how to learn languages, tips etc. You have a new subscriber :)
I would very much like to learn one of the Slavic languages and I wonder if you have any thoughts on which one to start with. Since this will once again take me outside my familiar Latin language family, I'd like to start with one that has broad applicability to learning more: broad phonetic compatibility, heavily borrowed from by other Slavic languages (cognates), and broad grammatical compatibility. In essence, a language that "unlocks" the others by permitting me to learn the deltas by ear. Any thoughts? I'm stuck in "analysis paralysis" at the moment because I hesitate to invest my 50 year old brain's more limited language learning capacity in what may turn out to be a linguistic "edge case." 🙂
It's extremely rewarding to take on a new challenge like that! I'd agree with @seansaraf-kv6mc here-Russian, being the language in the family with the most native speakers, but on top of that also still a lingua franca in much of the region because of the influence of Russia and the USSR before it, is a great choice. Good luck!
Very difficult to say! They may have slightly different etymologies (Leonard seems to have come via Germanic, but I'm not sure about Leon), but my guess is that it has to do with reducing the vowels in the longer word because the change is much easier and a little less noticeable, whereas in Leon it would be a much larger change to the word!
Fantastic video! My end goal, and I know I'm in a teeny tiny minority, is to speak as close as humanly possible to a native speaker. Would it make sense to primarily focus on listening to a small group of people, with the same dialect, who are speaking naturally? For example, a podcast with video for native speakers. I've never heard of someone just listening to thousands and thousands of hours of video, with a select group of native speakers, the same dialect, and without captions or translations. My hunch is that this would be somewhat similar to how we have all learned our first language. I realize it sounds a bit insane. I've tried doing research into this type of a technique that almost entirely focuses on speaking and accent. It genuinely seems like NO ONE has the same interest in trying to speak "perfectly" while simultaneously learning the language "naturally" like I do. There is a lot of advice suggesting learning the International Phonetic Alphabet, mouth shapes, accent patterns, etc. That's not even remotely close to how we have all learned to speak our native language. We just hear it a ton and then recreate those sounds based on intuition and whether it not it "feels" correct... right? Are there any good books or resources (for a non-linguist) related to this sort of idea? There has to be other people laser focused on accent and natural speaking as well. Any help or guidance is greatly appreciated!
That sounds like a worthwhile goal! I've felt the same way as I've learned Spanish-I want to be indistinguishable from a native speaker. And I think it's possible. Here are some thoughts on what you bring up. Keep in mind that there are three major differences between learning a first language and a non-first language. First, the input you'll get from video and audio won't quite be the same as a child gets because you won't have the same level of social pressure to continually improve (though you might supply some of this pressure yourself). Second, your language system has become accustomed to your native language, and because of this, when you learn another language, you aren't detailing a blank box. When learning your first language, the categories are created out of just input; when learning a second language, the categories (sounds, word meanings, sentence structure, etc.) of your first language tend to interfere. This leads to the third difference-while children don't have this level of thinking they can use to approach learning a language, you do! So learning, on the one hand, the IPA, mouth shapes, etc., and, on the other hand, applying them, will work wonders. But I'd say you're absolutely right that the goal is to get beyond just 'knowing' to something more like feeling. I personally haven't seen any resources relating just to this-it's a really overlooked area of language learning!
There is actually a correspondence in Mandarin between characters and pronunciation. Many complex characters have pronunciation components. It's not as straightforward as in alphabetical systems, but it's still there. Look it up, it's quite interesting and as a linguist you should know that.
@TonyTheLinguist all the words have 3 cases in arabic they change according to the situation and there are 14 pronouns and for these 14 pronouns we need to change the suffix and prefix of verbs i mean verbs are conjugated for each pronoun and noun,this is the difficult part to learn and keep all these rules in mind while speaking. I have learned tenses and grammar rules now I'm working on building vocabulary .and yes , pronunciation of the words should be correct otherwise it'll give a different meaning Example - qalb means heart Kalb means dog We need to pronounce them well
@sam34315 sorry I missed this reply! That case system is incredible-sounds like it can be very interesting to work with, but hard. And that q in the back of the throat can be tough but important!
French here. I disagree with you when you say that there is no correspondance in french between what is written and how it's pronounced. In french you can say how a word is pronounced by just looking at how the word is written. It took me a lot of time to understand that english pronunciation is a mess 😀
Thanks for the comment! I definitely wouldn't say there's no correspondence, just less, compared to a language like Spanish or Italian, where each letter has one sound, except for in very few cases. French is definitely more regular than English though!
i usually automatically dislike videos on how to learn languages and only like if they're good, and i'm displeased to say that you only earned yourself a no-like or dislike. the only way to learn a language is to listen and read lots and lots and lots of it. you don't need to practise speaking with people, because it comes automatically if you read, listen and shadow. i know because i became fluent in german and was able to hold reasonably advanced conversations having never spoken to a german speaker until after i was already fluent.
That's an interesting approach! And might make a good video. While a huge amount of input from all kinds of sources is really important, unless you put it to use it'll just sort of be so much information in your mind. But it sounds like your approach is a little different because of the kind of material you're working with. I think the bridge here is what you say about shadowing-I could see how, with a large amount of input that is 'conversational' (reading, listening, rather than pure textbook work and memorization) and you actually working through conversations *as if* you were talking to someone, you'd be gaining some of the same skills. The issue comes when we spend hours and hours trying to learn a language like a list of things to memorize, without paying attention to it in the flow of conversation and without trying it out-in some way-ourselves. Thanks for the perspective!
Sorry, but only linguists can follow this advice. After three decades, I am still struggling to hear the difference between hard and soft consonants. English teaches canon is a hard n, canyon is a soft n. Sorry, but no. The latter is not just soft, it is overly soft. A soft consonant has a centimeter more tongue touching the roof, not a third of the tongue. Natives hear the difference, but do not feel ashamed if you do not and do not pronounce a soft consonant properly. Natives will understand you 99 percent of the time. It's like saying 'tyu' instead of 'two' in English. A strong accent, but understandable. Worry about communicating, not pronunciation perfection, unless you are an actor or public speaker.
I'm glad you bring this up-because the idea of a 'hard' and 'soft' sound is a way linguists would never talk about it, and I don't think it's helpful. The difference between 'canon' and 'canyon' is that the first uses an alveolar nasal, and the second uses a palatal nasal-don't think about how much of the tongue is touching the roof of the mouth, just think about the fact that with the first the tongue touches behind the teeth, and for the second it touches further back, and uses the body rather than the tip of the tongue. Things like this do in fact make a difference-communication overall is improved when pronunciation is improved, but also the way you remember words will be better, because they're clearly differentiated in your mind, rather than being homophones. The good news is that, with linguistics, rather than traditional approaches like hard and soft sounds, this is a lot easier than we typically think!
@@TonyTheLinguist In my experience, it is the vowels that are more important for understanding. Also the stressed syllables are more important than the unstressed syllables, both stressed in the word and the sentence. You have not stated what languages you know, so I can't tailor the remark more closely, but Americans in general speak from the back of the throat, which causes consonants to be swallowed and indistinct. (sounds sort of like humming the words) Brits, on the other hand, and Lithuanians speak on the tip of their tongues, which makes their consonants crisp. But I have not heard you advocate for making that basic change in pronunciation, which really improves comprehension for those who speak on the tip of their tongues. What Americans really have to learn is to pronounce foreign vowels softly, unless it is an accented e in Lithuanian. There are three main things in language: pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. All are important, but if you don't know the word, there is no communication. So, I recommend people focus on vocabulary. Forgot the third remark.
@@TonyTheLinguist Yes, as far as I know, linguists attend special classes for pronouncing all the sounds made by man, or a good selection of them. Most teachers have not attended those classes. The textbook I used for Lithuanian had the illustrations, but it took me 40 years to figure them out. Thus, most of your viewers are not going to have that training. Actors and public speakers also can have that training. You have three types of viewers. Wannabe linguists who are interested in that topic, but how many people teach themselves linguistics on youTube? There is too much bad advice out there. Second, you have people who just want to relax with a fun activity they can share with family and friends. They are happy learning a thousand words and being polite to tourists. And that is a valid pursuit; it helps to keep the brain young. And then there are those who need a foreign language in order to get or keep a job. I see mostly this last group. The second group usually goes home or is comfortable speaking English. The second group is the most populous, the third the most serious. If you want subscribers, you need to make languages fun. And is you want serious learners, then you need to show how to learn 20,000 words, or at least 10,000. So, where are you on this scale?
@@TonyTheLinguist part one second time Yes, as far as I know, linguists attend special classes for pronouncing all the sounds made by man, or a good selection of them. Most teachers have not attended those classes. The textbook I used for Lithuanian had the illustrations, but it took me 40 years to figure them out. Thus, most of your viewers are not going to have that training. Actors and public speakers also can have that training.
@@TonyTheLinguist part two second time There are three types of viewers. Wannabe linguists who are interested in that topic, but how many people teach themselves linguistics here? Second, you have people who just want to relax with a fun activity they can share with family and friends. They are happy learning a thousand words and being polite to tourists. And that is a valid pursuit; it helps to keep the brain young. And then there are those who need a foreign language in order to get or keep a job. I see mostly this last group. The second group usually goes home or is comfortable speaking English. The second group is the most populous, the third the most serious. To get subscribers, make languages fun. For serious learners, show how to learn 20,000 words, or at least 10,000.
Hey bro, hope you had a wonderful weekend. I don't mean any disrespect. But how come yet another linguist on TH-cam comes to the same conclusions about language learning as Lindie Botes? In your video there was nothing related to language acquisition. Languages aren't just detached sounds you have to drill. Languages are way more complicated than that. What you said sounded just like behaviourism. Language acquisition isn't anywhere near like going to the gym. We acquire languages through well-delivered messages from the people we're listening to and hinted meanings. Language acquisition is an incremental subconscious process. We acquire languages through compelling comprehensible input. You can make stuff more comprehensible through several methods. Like through lookups, through translation, through drawings, through gestures, through universal symbols etc.. Please, consider reading Stephen Krashen's research and please challenge your biases. I don't mean to offend you or anything. I'm trying to be as polite as possible. Have a beautiful week!! 😉 I know it was well-meant. Yours sincerely, Joaquim. :))))
Actually I think these are some great points Joaquim-and this is a huge part of why practice is so critical: the stakes are just different when you're interacting with someone, rather than using an app or reading a book, etc. Thanks for the comment!
@@TonyTheLinguist, you're welcome. 🤗😊 Yeah, like for interacting with someone we don't understand what they're saying, body language, gestures, drawings, pointing at things help a lot. And for say reading a book or a transcript or a text, the easier it is to look up or translate, the better. :))) Nice channel, bro! ☺️😊
this guy really just put "stanford linguist" in the title and gave the most mediocre run of the mill advice that any slightly interested in language learning person has already heard a thousand times, like even luodingo starts you with phonetics what are you talking about, "you need to practice" wow no $hit tell me more professor
I pronounce "beard" with a TENSE high front vowel [biə̯ɻd], though a lax realization is not very surprising given the general variation in how the NEAR diaphoneme is realized, as well as the mirror-clearer merger.
Yes! I tend to think of my vowels as on the fairly advanced side of several changes underway in the US. The degree of variation is pretty incredible though!
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I always see these videos and find it's the same old advice recycled over and over again, but to my surprise, this is actually refreshingly different. The focus on practice is something you very rarely hear from the TH-cam language "experts". Thank you, this was really appreciated and 100% spot on! 👏👏👏
I'm glad you found this helpful! It's true-without practice, we'll only ever know, and never do.
I had a poor base on phonetics when I started to learn English - I was too young and not truly interested, the method was not too focused on phonetics, the professors didn’t explained me that English has sounds that don’t exist in Portuguese etc.
All that changed when I started to learn French by myself. I saw some videos of a guy talking about the importance of the good pronunciation, mainly to make other people thinks that you know the language even if you have a poor vocabulary, and I deeply focused on learning pronunciation and the sounds of it.
That helped me a lot! A solid base on pronunciation helps you to understand what people say, to guess how to write something that you heard, to read as the writer intended, and the list goes on. That was a good advice.
Absolutely-it can be a serious game-changer to find out that languages don't just use all the same sounds in different configurations, but that, at the level of the sounds themselves, they're actually different.
I love that level - the pronunciation, sounds, and writing system. Sometimes in traveling, because of apparently really good pronunciation by me, I've had native speakers light up and assume I know their language and start babbling at me very quickly. To this day I dk Polish or German, only a few words, but it happened with those languages - lol. It's the bigger part that slows me down. I wish I could perfect my French, but no matter how much I play French CAnadian radio in the car, it's just way too fast to catch much of anything.
I really enjoy the feeling when people say that sort of thing-it makes you feel like you’re really nailing it! Have you done that with many other languages?
Yes definitely the gentleman is correct whenever you're studying Spanish it's pretty cool because Spanish sounds like it looks on paper. So if you master the alphabet then you have a head start on the language. For example la Cena sounds differently whenever you say it pronouncing it like a person who speaks English. So many people get educated on the language but they forget to focus on the alphabet. I'm in year three now with Spanish and I'm focusing more on the alphabet once more, just as a way to sharpen the Spanish sword.
It can be really helpful to refocus on sounds again!
Thank you for this video. I am currently studying Latin. Since it is not spoken anymore i cant speak or talk with someone or even immerse myself in this language by watching shows in this language or even visit a country and learn it by living there. Do you have any tips to learn a dead language?
A dead language is a special beast! If your goal is to be able to read and write it, it’s best to practice doing that (but I would still suggest ‘speaking’ it in your head as you do both). On the other hand, if you truly want to speak Latin, the best thing is to find a group of people who want to do it too, and spend time doing it. There’s truly no replacement for practicing exactly the thing you want to be able to do well.
There are Latin Shows wow didn't know that quiet interesting
Find a tutor on Preply who exclusively speaks and teaches it. There are people who actually speak and teach it well. I am learning how to speak it by using Familia Romana and am following a course put out by satura lanx. She is an amazing teacher and it’s all in spoken Latin. Full immersion! I highly recommend her program and you can find her on TH-cam: youtube.com/@saturalanx?si=JsVhzOJTqhXXMO65
You might also find Luke Ranieri’s channel Polymathy helpful (if you’re not already following him).
Well, that just makes a lot of sense to learn all the sounds first now that I think about it!
Really useful advices there, very much appreciated!
Glad you enjoyed it! It makes sense-but even a lot of language teachers and programs overlook it!
Tony keeping it real love the videos!
Italian got one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters. Learning 'connected speech' and stuff like pitch, pronunciation, the 'music' of AE, was pretty challenging. It ain't a breeze at all. Still on my learning journey, but I'm pretty used to the overall sound of it, now. Cheers from Italy 🇮🇹
Connected speech phenomena are pretty difficult, over and above the individual sounds! I’ll have to make some videos on that 🤔 Glad your language journey is going well!
Fascinating. I own a ton of language materials in multiples languages and have noticed that they often start with the alphabet (or corresponding writing system) and the "set of sounds". I have to admit that I generally ignore the "set of sounds", or spend minimal time on this. Have I been making things harder for myself? In any case I do feel now I might spend a little more time on this section.
I think it's worth it! To help motivate you, just keep in mind that it will make the rest of the steps much easier.
"There's a limited array of sounds" was a bit of an epiphany. In my 20's, I rapidly acquired conversational fluency is Modern Standard Arabic through immersion training. I already spoke Spanish and German in addition to English, but MSA is WAY outside any language tree I knew and it changed alphabets as well. The alphabet change actually facilitated learning Arabic faster: knowing the sounds that a letter COULD make enables you to sound out any written word, even if you don't know what it means.
I'm in my 50's now and struggling to acquire new languages. Your tip provides a useful positive constraint.
A tip of my own, from having been around a lot of monolingual language learners. When we approach a second language, we want to use the language we already speak as a reference. We want to graft our grammar rules, word sounds, and meanings into or onto the one we're learning. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, we want to create a deep set of rules to explain the exceptions. This isn't effective. We have to start with a clean slate. "This new language does things in its own way." Similarities can help us to build a ladder, but a clean slate, learning it as it is, is MUCH easier and faster.
Yes! This is something a lot of people try-to take the slots in their native language and just fit material from their new language into those slots. But the secret is, the whole language is different, not just pieces. It's interesting to think about how an entirely new writing system forced you to really get clear on what the letters are doing-a challenge, but in the end a very beneficial one!
@@TonyTheLinguist I can't help but to see this as a "positive constraint" that leads to proper pronunciation, a way to focus my mind on the language that I'm bumbling through acquiring. 🙂
It often feels like bumbling 😅 but I’m sure it’s going great! Keep working at it-it’s great to see it the way you do, with positive constraints.
Thanks. A very good video! I'm learning a few languages and you're totally right. Spanish sounds very similar to the written words. My level in French is higher and it took me less time to have good pronunciation in Spanish than French haha.
Yeah totally-it's a lot more straightforward!
@@TonyTheLinguist Thanks for the reply! I'd love to see more language related videos. Videos about how to learn languages, tips etc. You have a new subscriber :)
@lorenzovonmatta8278 thanks for the support! I hope that you’ve been finding the new videos helpful and interesting! Sorry I missed your reply here!
I would very much like to learn one of the Slavic languages and I wonder if you have any thoughts on which one to start with. Since this will once again take me outside my familiar Latin language family, I'd like to start with one that has broad applicability to learning more: broad phonetic compatibility, heavily borrowed from by other Slavic languages (cognates), and broad grammatical compatibility. In essence, a language that "unlocks" the others by permitting me to learn the deltas by ear. Any thoughts? I'm stuck in "analysis paralysis" at the moment because I hesitate to invest my 50 year old brain's more limited language learning capacity in what may turn out to be a linguistic "edge case." 🙂
@@tomwende5529 Russian
It's extremely rewarding to take on a new challenge like that! I'd agree with @seansaraf-kv6mc here-Russian, being the language in the family with the most native speakers, but on top of that also still a lingua franca in much of the region because of the influence of Russia and the USSR before it, is a great choice. Good luck!
Exactly why leon we speak as lijon
But Leonard as lenard?
Very difficult to say! They may have slightly different etymologies (Leonard seems to have come via Germanic, but I'm not sure about Leon), but my guess is that it has to do with reducing the vowels in the longer word because the change is much easier and a little less noticeable, whereas in Leon it would be a much larger change to the word!
Thanks ❤
Thanks for watching!
Fantastic video!
My end goal, and I know I'm in a teeny tiny minority, is to speak as close as humanly possible to a native speaker. Would it make sense to primarily focus on listening to a small group of people, with the same dialect, who are speaking naturally? For example, a podcast with video for native speakers.
I've never heard of someone just listening to thousands and thousands of hours of video, with a select group of native speakers, the same dialect, and without captions or translations. My hunch is that this would be somewhat similar to how we have all learned our first language.
I realize it sounds a bit insane. I've tried doing research into this type of a technique that almost entirely focuses on speaking and accent. It genuinely seems like NO ONE has the same interest in trying to speak "perfectly" while simultaneously learning the language "naturally" like I do. There is a lot of advice suggesting learning the International Phonetic Alphabet, mouth shapes, accent patterns, etc. That's not even remotely close to how we have all learned to speak our native language. We just hear it a ton and then recreate those sounds based on intuition and whether it not it "feels" correct... right?
Are there any good books or resources (for a non-linguist) related to this sort of idea? There has to be other people laser focused on accent and natural speaking as well.
Any help or guidance is greatly appreciated!
That sounds like a worthwhile goal! I've felt the same way as I've learned Spanish-I want to be indistinguishable from a native speaker. And I think it's possible. Here are some thoughts on what you bring up. Keep in mind that there are three major differences between learning a first language and a non-first language. First, the input you'll get from video and audio won't quite be the same as a child gets because you won't have the same level of social pressure to continually improve (though you might supply some of this pressure yourself). Second, your language system has become accustomed to your native language, and because of this, when you learn another language, you aren't detailing a blank box. When learning your first language, the categories are created out of just input; when learning a second language, the categories (sounds, word meanings, sentence structure, etc.) of your first language tend to interfere. This leads to the third difference-while children don't have this level of thinking they can use to approach learning a language, you do! So learning, on the one hand, the IPA, mouth shapes, etc., and, on the other hand, applying them, will work wonders. But I'd say you're absolutely right that the goal is to get beyond just 'knowing' to something more like feeling. I personally haven't seen any resources relating just to this-it's a really overlooked area of language learning!
@@TonyTheLinguist Thank you so much for the help and thoughtful reply. It's greatly appreciated.
Your channel is off to a fantastic start!
Thank you @zak8953-I missed your reply but really appreciate the support!
Dreaming Spanish? A lot of people use comprehensible input.
Awsome!
Good luck with your language goals!
good
There is actually a correspondence in Mandarin between characters and pronunciation. Many complex characters have pronunciation components. It's not as straightforward as in alphabetical systems, but it's still there. Look it up, it's quite interesting and as a linguist you should know that.
That's a good point! It isn't accurate to say there's no correspondence-phonetic radicals do a lot of work in the writing system!
I started learning arabic 4 months ago ,and i reached elementary level so far
That's great! What's been the hardest part of getting to this point?
@TonyTheLinguist all the words have 3 cases in arabic they change according to the situation and there are 14 pronouns and for these 14 pronouns we need to change the suffix and prefix of verbs i mean verbs are conjugated for each pronoun and noun,this is the difficult part to learn and keep all these rules in mind while speaking.
I have learned tenses and grammar rules now I'm working on building vocabulary .and yes , pronunciation of the words should be correct otherwise it'll give a different meaning
Example - qalb means heart
Kalb means dog
We need to pronounce them well
@sam34315 sorry I missed this reply! That case system is incredible-sounds like it can be very interesting to work with, but hard. And that q in the back of the throat can be tough but important!
You sound like a high subscriber’s channel
Thank you for the support! 🙏🏼
And Arabic
Spanish, German, and Russian are phonetic.
Yes, some great examples!
French here. I disagree with you when you say that there is no correspondance in french between what is written and how it's pronounced.
In french you can say how a word is pronounced by just looking at how the word is written.
It took me a lot of time to understand that english pronunciation is a mess 😀
Thanks for the comment! I definitely wouldn't say there's no correspondence, just less, compared to a language like Spanish or Italian, where each letter has one sound, except for in very few cases. French is definitely more regular than English though!
i usually automatically dislike videos on how to learn languages and only like if they're good, and i'm displeased to say that you only earned yourself a no-like or dislike. the only way to learn a language is to listen and read lots and lots and lots of it. you don't need to practise speaking with people, because it comes automatically if you read, listen and shadow. i know because i became fluent in german and was able to hold reasonably advanced conversations having never spoken to a german speaker until after i was already fluent.
That's an interesting approach! And might make a good video. While a huge amount of input from all kinds of sources is really important, unless you put it to use it'll just sort of be so much information in your mind. But it sounds like your approach is a little different because of the kind of material you're working with. I think the bridge here is what you say about shadowing-I could see how, with a large amount of input that is 'conversational' (reading, listening, rather than pure textbook work and memorization) and you actually working through conversations *as if* you were talking to someone, you'd be gaining some of the same skills. The issue comes when we spend hours and hours trying to learn a language like a list of things to memorize, without paying attention to it in the flow of conversation and without trying it out-in some way-ourselves. Thanks for the perspective!
@@TonyTheLinguist you're welcome and i'm sorry if i came across as too confrontational/blunt
@cicolas_nage It’s always good to hear evidence from different ways of doing things
Sorry, but only linguists can follow this advice. After three decades, I am still struggling to hear the difference between hard and soft consonants. English teaches canon is a hard n, canyon is a soft n. Sorry, but no. The latter is not just soft, it is overly soft. A soft consonant has a centimeter more tongue touching the roof, not a third of the tongue. Natives hear the difference, but do not feel ashamed if you do not and do not pronounce a soft consonant properly. Natives will understand you 99 percent of the time. It's like saying 'tyu' instead of 'two' in English. A strong accent, but understandable. Worry about communicating, not pronunciation perfection, unless you are an actor or public speaker.
I'm glad you bring this up-because the idea of a 'hard' and 'soft' sound is a way linguists would never talk about it, and I don't think it's helpful. The difference between 'canon' and 'canyon' is that the first uses an alveolar nasal, and the second uses a palatal nasal-don't think about how much of the tongue is touching the roof of the mouth, just think about the fact that with the first the tongue touches behind the teeth, and for the second it touches further back, and uses the body rather than the tip of the tongue. Things like this do in fact make a difference-communication overall is improved when pronunciation is improved, but also the way you remember words will be better, because they're clearly differentiated in your mind, rather than being homophones. The good news is that, with linguistics, rather than traditional approaches like hard and soft sounds, this is a lot easier than we typically think!
@@TonyTheLinguist In my experience, it is the vowels that are more important for understanding. Also the stressed syllables are more important than the unstressed syllables, both stressed in the word and the sentence.
You have not stated what languages you know, so I can't tailor the remark more closely, but Americans in general speak from the back of the throat, which causes consonants to be swallowed and indistinct. (sounds sort of like humming the words) Brits, on the other hand, and Lithuanians speak on the tip of their tongues, which makes their consonants crisp. But I have not heard you advocate for making that basic change in pronunciation, which really improves comprehension for those who speak on the tip of their tongues. What Americans really have to learn is to pronounce foreign vowels softly, unless it is an accented e in Lithuanian.
There are three main things in language: pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. All are important, but if you don't know the word, there is no communication. So, I recommend people focus on vocabulary.
Forgot the third remark.
@@TonyTheLinguist Yes, as far as I know, linguists attend special classes for pronouncing all the sounds made by man, or a good selection of them. Most teachers have not attended those classes. The textbook I used for Lithuanian had the illustrations, but it took me 40 years to figure them out. Thus, most of your viewers are not going to have that training. Actors and public speakers also can have that training.
You have three types of viewers. Wannabe linguists who are interested in that topic, but how many people teach themselves linguistics on youTube? There is too much bad advice out there. Second, you have people who just want to relax with a fun activity they can share with family and friends. They are happy learning a thousand words and being polite to tourists. And that is a valid pursuit; it helps to keep the brain young. And then there are those who need a foreign language in order to get or keep a job. I see mostly this last group. The second group usually goes home or is comfortable speaking English. The second group is the most populous, the third the most serious. If you want subscribers, you need to make languages fun. And is you want serious learners, then you need to show how to learn 20,000 words, or at least 10,000. So, where are you on this scale?
@@TonyTheLinguist part one second time
Yes, as far as I know, linguists attend special classes for pronouncing all the sounds made by man, or a good selection of them. Most teachers have not attended those classes. The textbook I used for Lithuanian had the illustrations, but it took me 40 years to figure them out. Thus, most of your viewers are not going to have that training. Actors and public speakers also can have that training.
@@TonyTheLinguist part two second time
There are three types of viewers. Wannabe linguists who are interested in that topic, but how many people teach themselves linguistics here? Second, you have people who just want to relax with a fun activity they can share with family and friends. They are happy learning a thousand words and being polite to tourists. And that is a valid pursuit; it helps to keep the brain young. And then there are those who need a foreign language in order to get or keep a job. I see mostly this last group. The second group usually goes home or is comfortable speaking English. The second group is the most populous, the third the most serious. To get subscribers, make languages fun. For serious learners, show how to learn 20,000 words, or at least 10,000.
Hey bro, hope you had a wonderful weekend. I don't mean any disrespect. But how come yet another linguist on TH-cam comes to the same conclusions about language learning as Lindie Botes? In your video there was nothing related to language acquisition. Languages aren't just detached sounds you have to drill. Languages are way more complicated than that. What you said sounded just like behaviourism. Language acquisition isn't anywhere near like going to the gym. We acquire languages through well-delivered messages from the people we're listening to and hinted meanings. Language acquisition is an incremental subconscious process. We acquire languages through compelling comprehensible input. You can make stuff more comprehensible through several methods. Like through lookups, through translation, through drawings, through gestures, through universal symbols etc.. Please, consider reading Stephen Krashen's research and please challenge your biases. I don't mean to offend you or anything. I'm trying to be as polite as possible. Have a beautiful week!! 😉
I know it was well-meant. Yours sincerely, Joaquim. :))))
Actually I think these are some great points Joaquim-and this is a huge part of why practice is so critical: the stakes are just different when you're interacting with someone, rather than using an app or reading a book, etc. Thanks for the comment!
@@TonyTheLinguist, you're welcome. 🤗😊
Yeah, like for interacting with someone we don't understand what they're saying, body language, gestures, drawings, pointing at things help a lot. And for say reading a book or a transcript or a text, the easier it is to look up or translate, the better. :)))
Nice channel, bro! ☺️😊
bro, let go of the vertical hair. its over.
😂
this guy really just put "stanford linguist" in the title and gave the most mediocre run of the mill advice that any slightly interested in language learning person has already heard a thousand times, like even luodingo starts you with phonetics what are you talking about, "you need to practice" wow no $hit tell me more professor
I guess you'll have to subscribe to get all the good stuff you're interested in 👀 Feel free to let me know what you want to see!
I pronounce "beard" with a TENSE high front vowel [biə̯ɻd], though a lax realization is not very surprising given the general variation in how the NEAR diaphoneme is realized, as well as the mirror-clearer merger.
Yes! I tend to think of my vowels as on the fairly advanced side of several changes underway in the US. The degree of variation is pretty incredible though!