It’s not easy in that it takes a lot of work to learn a language. It is easy in that it doesn’t need to be a complicated process to learn a language. I learned Russian through podcasts and TH-cam videos, while occasionally googling random grammar questions. The process was easy, but it took years of consistency.
That is true, the actual process is very simple, you have a concept, you have a word that associates with that concept and then you just remember that said word associates with the concept. Like for example друг in Russian meaning friend... and no it was not the first example in Russian I thought of, but it was the first non-profanity. As long as you remember that it means friend, you're 1 step closer to learning the language. Now you just have to remember all the grammar that changes said word in a sentence as well, but that's not as important as learning the basic words, after all if you have learned a couple of words you can already construct simple sentences in the direct/nominative case. I want milk, (yo) quiero leche. And that was a Spanish example.. Now the real problem with learning a language is repetition and cramming vocab... and while you don't need perhaps more than 2-3000 words to be relatively fluent in most languages... except English... Now that takes time to learn, and even if you keep it at a good pace like say 20 words per day, that still requires 100 days to get the vocab, and while that's just 3 and a half months... it's still a long time, and that's just cramming words, then you need to regularly listen to the language, listening exercises are the most important because you need them to be able to get a good comprehension of the language. And if you're truly down to learn a language you can shorten or lengthen the learning period to what suits you best. Slow and Steady tends to give better results though.
9:59 I agree with this sentiment! Another thing a lot of people don't understand, is that you can hear the language, read the language, and write the language, but depending on what language you are learning, your mouth does not have the ability to form the words correctly. Depending how far removed your target language is from your native language there are a lot of muscles that are going to be involved that you've never used before. It can be physically exhausting trying to form the words or make sounds you've never heard (let alone made yourself) accurately or as close to accurately as you can.
I first thought you were English and then I realized you are Italian. Your English is perfect. I do agree with the video and your observations. If one wants to learn any language then one will seek all the needed resources and attempt to speak said language without fear. That’s my take on it. One thing I do is listen to Anime or Japanese drama and write down what I think i am hearing and then i look up the sentences, find the translation and then l find the more formal version. I repeat it out loud a few times and I repeat the episode. 🤷🏻♂️ 10:06 - absolutely!
As a kid, anime was not enough to keep me going through Japanese flashcards. As an adult, I'm powering through this annoying temporary setback (due to rescheduling) of about 2k cards a day, because I have Japanese friends that I want to understand. So, I REALLY felt that bit. It was me. I was the demotivated dork.
I've spent several years attempting to learn Japanese because one of my favorite recording artists is Japanese and I want to understand his songs without having to look up the lyrics. At this point the only thing I've managed is the most complete phrases I can utter in Japanese are by singing his songs. Otherwise a slow three year old could probably talk circles around me.
As an American i find it odd I suppose that Turkish is in category 4 because I found it not only easy but fast in my comprehension. I surprised native speakers with the speed in which I was learning. Within about 2 months I was able to converse, with some limitation, in Turkish and be understood while understanding the other person. I found Spanish far more difficult though I have and had no desire to learn. Now that I learned Turkish, for the most part, I believe it will be far easier for me to go back and become fluent in German. Personally I find learning another language is made easier the more it differs from your first language. Is that just me though?
2:50 it's true! I've had a relatively easy time learning Turkish, because I was super interested, but it was very hard to learn Spanish and I still don't know it that well, even though I've studied Latin and I know French! It has to do with the reasons why you're learning a language, not so much with how close it is to others you know
I remember in my 2nd semester German class in high school we watched the entirety of Karate Kid 2 in German with no subtitles and built a whole unit of the course out of trying to understand basic elements of the plot
It's really interesting and refreshing to hear you say that it's important to speak right away. As I'm sure you've seen there are a lot of people in the language learning community who discourage speaking for some time (for example I think Dreaming Spanish mostly discourages speaking until about 1000 hours of listening? Could be mistaken on the amount of hours; I'm not learning Spanish so I don't use their platform) and argue that it's better to delay speaking for nearly a year. Not an expert myself but it strikes me that delaying it so long wouldn't serve someone super well because certain sounds take different muscles to make than in one's native language so it seems like it would be more efficient to train your mouth to develop those sounds sooner. Plus in terms of practicing certain grammar it seems less overwhelming to take it bits at a time. For example after I learned passato prossimo my conversation tutor would ask what I did the other day, when I learned imperfetto she would ask me about my childhood, and now she's helping me practice congiuntivo etc. It seems like it would be so much more overwhelming to try and do it all at once. So it's nice to hear that you're pro speaking sooner, kind of feels reassuring that I might be going about it the right way afterall.
I'm using this method, but I skipped/changed some parts: 1. I went straight to watch videos and films. I wanted to see if It's possible to learn a language without even opening a grammar book. 2. I don't have a partner to talk to (It means I don't talk aloud). But I'm looking for those now that I feel I'm at the B level sphere, I didn't want to annoy anyone with my lack of vocabulary and things like that. 3. I use english subtitles all the time. I feel it's working out for me so far. The downsides are I barely speak or write the language, or even read it (not that I cannot do that, I mean I haven't devoted time for those skills). But I'm trying to complement it by making chatgpt write short stories adecuated to my current level. I think it's working because now I can even understand when the subtitle is 'wrong' (in terms of it's not 100% the same words said by the actors or even a complete different sentence but with the same meaning like 'she's late' for 'she haven't arrived'). So for me, using english subtitles haven't been a downside so far. Maybe if I haven't used them my current level would be better, but at the same time I hated those 'easy' videos that you can watch without subtitles so probably I would've given up by now. I must also add, that I also use only the audio for those series or films I already watched in the target language as a podcast when I'm outside working out or walking around and I can understand them.
This February, It will be three years since I've started my Japanese learning journey. I read somewhere that the average to get "just okay" is like ten to twelve years. Either way, the process is fun. Tons of content to enjoy and immerse myself with. Lots of Japanese Let's Plays, lol.
React to the interview with Carlos Amaral Freire, the Brazilian man who studied over 150 languages in his life, on the basis of 2 per year. He died at 89. He wrote a book called Babel de poemas, in which he translated 60 poems from 60 different languages to Portuguese.
Of course, learning a language because it's close to the languages we already know is easy! But people who learn languages are so diverse in motivations, the time they can dedicate to the language, even the level of mastery of their native language, and more rarely evoked but so important: capacities, especially social anxiety that rules out the speaking early or having pronunciation checked.
Metatron speaking facts again. Like even if you don't speak it out you still won't be able to read let's take korean for example what's ㄱ it's k what's ㅋ also k they're both k and if you're an English speaker if you don't know the phonetics of korean it doesn't matter yk how to read those letters that are different in korean will be the same to you thus you can't read that. Reading is related to speech. And for some reason korean alphabet is simple but korean phonetics is complicated so even reading is complicated bc you have to know how to read it in this case or that other case. In korean the difference between the two k's is aspiration the line on the bottom indicates aspiration. I read the deasoirated k is voiced if it's in the middle of the word. And n and m are denasalised at the beginning of the word though this is optional bc there are korean that do nasalise it but if you don't know this then you'll confuse ne with de. Maybe you can get away with voicing the desperated consonants and not getting in the weeds of phonetics or try to listen to a lot of natives and trying to mimick them or find credibale sources to the language.
I also don't emphasize speaking, and I know 3 foreign languages. First of all, sometimes you are just not that interested in speaking. I learned Japanese to read VNs, jRPGs, manga and so on, thus I might know the meaning of a kanji or a word, but cannot spell it out (but then, I wouldn't say I mastered Japanese - I am quite decent at reading, but wouldn't be able to keep up in a conversation). But then, it's just so much easier to start speaking fluently if you got really advanced in reading and listening (aside from languages like Japanese where just reading won't take you far due to their non-phonetic writing system). That was my experience in French. I spent maybe thousands of hours reading and listening, and just a few hours practicing conversational French. But recently I talked to a native, and I managed just fine. Of course, it's very important to master pronunciation rules from the very start, so that you won't discover after reading French books for 100s of hours that you don't actually pronounce -ent in verbs like "ils mangent" 🙂 As it'll be too hard to rewire your brain at that point.
I'm fluent in english (I watch and listen to any stuff that I enjoy every day with ease, I had a native english speaker girlfriend for over a year but I don't know if I got to c1 level) my native language is polish. I would like to learn vietnamese or mandarin but I'm scared of the tones .. That's a crazy concept to comprehend that the same word can have 5 different meanings ..
10:20 I used to learn German by myself. What did I do? I read books outloud. Definitely helped with pronunciation. When I came to A1 German class I already could read decently and moreover sound good. Whilst many struggled with this aspect. P.S. to be frank I have dropped German simply because I don't need it anymore
By dropped do you mean you no longee study it? Or that you know how to speak & write the language but dont really consume German content and/or dont use it anymore?
I have learnt several languages to the point of being able to read and translate. Most of these have fallen away over the years. Since retirement, ten years ago, I have used Spanish, Basque, French, Serbo-Croat, and Romanian. Italian and Danish were easy to read, although English was always at hand, everywhere in Europe. Speaking it aloud while studying or walking around town reading everything one sees. It's necessary to learn a dose of phonetics and study the relevant data ps Google Translate is very useful
I am learning Finnish for no practical reason. I will almost certainly never be able to travel there (money and health reasons); but I had a friend in high school that taught me a few words in Finnish (Finnish mother) and introduced me to the Kalevala, the national epic poem of Finland/Karelia, that one of my favorite classical music composers (Sibelius) used as inspiration for his music. I have plenty time to make slow incremental progress and I find the challenge of learning the language, even though complex in very different ways from English. I also watch English language TV with the Finnish subtitles on and make a kind of game out of identifying words and word patterns.
While I do believe that listening exercises are the most important, sounding out words even if you don't understand the words is also important, because you need to be able to replicate those sounds in the future if you want to communicate... because let's face it, no matter how much my Arabic colleagues speak Arabic, I'll never learn the language from just listening to them talk about Middle Eastern Politics all day. I sure can hear the individual words, I have no idea what any of them mean, except for the place names, after all if someone says Iraq in Arabic, guess what word in English it sounds like... that's right Iraq... not exactly the a is long the q is a back consonant not a front consonant.. doesn't matter, the lesson is that you will never learn a language from just listening. Unless someone literally shows you an apple and says une pomme. Or they show you a garden gnome and say En Trädgårdstomte... And I know a lot of people who find learning new words through language learning tiktoks, where they repeat a word in their native language and then repeat it in the target language. Because it's an effective way to learn words, it's how kids learn words, and while it is not the fastest way, not by far, it is effective.
8:43 I would say it depends on the language group. If your native language is romance language you can learn other romance languages fairly easy. Similar with te germanic and nordic language groups. Also the slavic group. Then you have the se asian group which is hard regardless of your native language and the african languages which are even harder
I love your commented videos of other people. I mostly agree with you. I am 80 years old and am on day 10 of trying to learn some Greek. I speak 6 languages, three of them since early childhood: Norwegian, Spanish and German. English and French in highschool followed by two years immersion in Paris. Portuguese by 24/7 immersion in Mozambique for 20 years as an adult, where I slowly went from spanguese to a quite decent portuñol after some years. My initial motivation for learning Greek was simply to be able to read and pronounce words in Greek, as when you look up a word in a language you know and it says something like "this word comes from the Greek #&%£..." and you have no idea of what that stands for! So I subscribed to Duolingo and so far I just love it. I go though each lesson a couple of times just listening and doing the exercises, then I go back and repeat everything loud several times. Then I sit down and write it with pen and paper (I copy/draw the characters as best I can, no fluent writing yet).
After a couple of lessons I feel the need to systematize a bit, so I go to websites/TH-cam channels that are more grammarly inclined and copy tables of relevant verb conjugations,, articles and pronouns in all genders, etc. And try to memorize them. Then I watch a couple of Easy Greek videos and others about relevant things and finally I go back to duolingo for the next lesson. Rinse and repeat. I love it, I'm enjoying every minute of it and at 80 I have the luxury of having lots of time at my disposal.
I've always found it usful to have a Grammar book with vocabulary list with exercises relating to the grammar topic and vocab list is always great for me. Sadly not all grammar books work this way sadly
@tanizaki you will not believe the amount of grammar books that don't work that way and expect you to go find a dictionary and use no vocab in their exercises
@ Such as what publisher? Regardless, your state of desire is for the standard textbook. Teach Yourself, Routledge, and most any other publisher has been providing what you seek for decades.
@@tanizaki teach yourself sucks I am not a fan at all for their natural method it is not a standard text book like Rutledge. But I'm also talking about what works for me.
@@tanizaki a great example is B&H academic their grammar for biblical Greek works very well the exercises are perfectly catered to the lesson and the order of lessons build on eachother so 1st nouns then a simple present tense verbs lesson which will make most exercises much smoother.
The Z Library joke was pretty good. I’ve heard there’s a lot of good books in any language there, but of course I’m not saying I know from first hand experience 🙃
Also I really disagree with needing to speak very early. We’ve seen actual results from people like MattVsJapan that show speaking immediately isn’t necessarily the best choice.
I'm an auditory learner, so I quite like listening exercises. But god, the audio for the listening question in my English tests and exams were either horrible quality or sound like they were recorded pretty close construction sites. The listening exercises from the English books`s cds were fine actually
I'm in a linguistics discord server. At one point (could be a few years ago not sure) this one guy came in with "I want to learn a language, what is an easy language to learn" (ignoring the fact that linguistics is not the same as language learning although there is overlap). And we took him seriously for quite a while so we brainstormed and gave him a LOT of suggestions, including conlangs like esperanto. He proceeded to reject every suggestion but still kept asking, every once in a while repeating the question accompanied by a steadily growing list of languages he is NOT interested in. He was eventually banned, but has not been forgotten... As he has provided us all with a new meme: "what language should i learn? but not "
easy, actually really just makes videos that give you the basic tools you need to accomplish your goal, with a heavy dose of humor. For example, his video on getting a personality pretty much just explains that you need to have some niche knowledge that other people might want to talk to you about, but he doesn't really go further than that. That I know of, he doesn't have tons of experience in his topics, he mostly just boils down what he learns (he makes videos on all sorts of things people struggle with, exercise, needing friends, ect.).
It's not hard in the same way a math problem can be hard. It's however extremely hard on a personal level, requiring lots of willpower and discipline. Forget motivation, that's just an extra that's nice to have. You can't rely solely on motivation to keep going or you WILL end up quitting when you find yourself in the dumps and you don't feel like doing anything, much less studying your target language. We all have these periods, and they need to be overcome with rigorous discipline and commitment.
yeah I had a really hard time learning spanish in school, now when im trying to learn Japanese on my own its going a lot better lol purely bcs im doing it on my own terms and I actually have a reason. Back then it was just "All homies choosin this so fk it, and apparently its not that hard", not the smartest move...
Speaking feels weird. On the one hand, it's claimed essential for learning a language, but on the other… I'm too poor to travel, so the only opportunity I have for practicing is online. And online I prefer texting. Tbf, I have autistic traits and communication sometimes feels like a chore.
Still waiting for changes my language skill of being able to say tractor in hundred languages comes in handy. Might be one if the most universal words around the globe. Does not work in China. But in most countries you are good or close enough saying tractor.
I find kids stuff a good start of point. If you are at starter level, start at the beginning. The getting out of slow. Disagree having to get out of it fast. Learning how to communicate that you are new to the language and if they please could speak a bit slower, very common. Even if you are pretty competent, some people speak like machine guns.
10:13 I fell into this rabbit hole with Spanish back in the day. Granted, I was taking Spanish in school and learning a language in school is kind of a drag. That’s why many students come out of high school not remembering a single word of the language they took lol. But yea in school you kinda fall into the trap of doing your “tarea” (hw) and taking tests where they mostly test you on grammar with very little in-class speaking time (at least this is how it was for me in hs 10 years ago). To learn a language effectively you must speak it as much as possible. Grammar is important but that will come with practice listening to what’s being said to you and replying to a native speaker
I completely agree with this! For me, taking Spanish in school was probably about 33 or 35 years ago and it sounds like they're still teaching it the same way if 10 years ago you were still doing grammar lessons and taking tests. They really need to change it up! I learned more Spanish by watching my favorite movie in Spanish 50 times with either no subtitles or in Spanish with Spanish subtitles so I can make the connection between the sounds and what I was reading and vice versa, than I ever did taking Spanish for 2 years in high school.
@@alb91878 And also when you are required to do homework and take tests along with all your other classes you just don’t feel like learning it and you become completely uninterested.
The best reason to learn a foreign language is dating. #2 is employment. If you're American, the obvious choice is spainish. And it's also easy to get a few years for free in HS. Then, theres the telenovelas and comedies...
Should change the title learning leaning is easy if the language is based on alphabet system you already know. As somebody who been at Japanese for about 2.5 years and has spent 2 months in Japan it not easy because of the time commitment if you don't love it or your life depends on, which is why people that love anime and are not at least decent at Japanese, is kind of strange to me. Also still amazes me people can live in Japan for so long and be bad at the language it must be some kind of superpower, altered reality bubble maybe ?
you can easy have your first million, just pick the rigth currency (other video on that channel) dollar, and Euro is way harder als in Irani Rial, Venezuellan Bolivar, or viatnem dong you need 23 dollar around :)
@@ByTheStorm I am Italian. French and Italian are super similar. I speak some French and I don't see this "Germanic" influence people talk about. I would say French has a bit of a Celtic/Gaullish influence like in the way they say numbers from 70 to 99 and the pronunciation. I also speak a bit of my regional language from the Northwest of Italy and I can see even bigger similarities with the French language.
You should try to speak as early as possible. Use speech recognition. When your words are recognized, you are probably saying them correctly, otherwise change your pronunciation a few times. Start with watching videos for small children. At the same time learn speaking some words and phrases. Learn in a playful manner.
Nonsense. People learn languages only by speaking. As simple as copying what one hears. Had s female teacher asking me why I spoke in a feminine way. I looked at her, because you do? Yes it matters who you copy. But when I traveled,y accent adapted automaticly to local tongue. To the point when I had soent time somewhere, the next would place me from where I came from. Certain languages are hard if you do not hear or practiced to pronounced certain sounds. One should start practicing listening and speaking from the start. Can always adapt the pronouncation.
@tjallingdalheuvel126 I have a really hard time getting rid of old pronounciation habits in English that I wouldn't have formed if I just waited with speaking
Nome of my teachers ever delayed making us speak. Maybe you missed the feedback on your pronunciation. Yes unlearning habits is harder. But still one should not wait to get to speaking. It helps with learning too. Maybe be more precise when learning. Get good feedback. Or record and listen to oneself. Compare that to various nati e speakers. But in practice, foreign accent shining through has it's charm. If it is good enough to be understood, it is good enough for most cases, isn't it?
@tjallingdalheuvel126 yeah sure I will be understood but I personally don't want to sound really foreign when I speak English if you just want to be understood then sure in that case it doesnt't matter that much
Those recommendations are rubbish. They won't work for anything not resembling a Western European language. Unless you have a real tutor you will not conquer a truly foreign language.
The romance languages are harder to learn than related, Germanic, languages for English speakers. French is harder than German. Yes, I know both, but not fluently. I used to.... But I've forgotten too much.
It’s not easy in that it takes a lot of work to learn a language.
It is easy in that it doesn’t need to be a complicated process to learn a language. I learned Russian through podcasts and TH-cam videos, while occasionally googling random grammar questions.
The process was easy, but it took years of consistency.
so i assume you learned mainly through immersion then? how many years did it take you to become confident in the language?
I'm also learning russian the way you did. How long did it take you and what is your native language?
Same with english, as a romanian being 5 and starting from 2013 until now, as well i'd search words too
That is true, the actual process is very simple, you have a concept, you have a word that associates with that concept and then you just remember that said word associates with the concept. Like for example друг in Russian meaning friend... and no it was not the first example in Russian I thought of, but it was the first non-profanity.
As long as you remember that it means friend, you're 1 step closer to learning the language. Now you just have to remember all the grammar that changes said word in a sentence as well, but that's not as important as learning the basic words, after all if you have learned a couple of words you can already construct simple sentences in the direct/nominative case.
I want milk, (yo) quiero leche. And that was a Spanish example..
Now the real problem with learning a language is repetition and cramming vocab... and while you don't need perhaps more than 2-3000 words to be relatively fluent in most languages... except English... Now that takes time to learn, and even if you keep it at a good pace like say 20 words per day, that still requires 100 days to get the vocab, and while that's just 3 and a half months... it's still a long time, and that's just cramming words, then you need to regularly listen to the language, listening exercises are the most important because you need them to be able to get a good comprehension of the language.
And if you're truly down to learn a language you can shorten or lengthen the learning period to what suits you best. Slow and Steady tends to give better results though.
9:59 I agree with this sentiment! Another thing a lot of people don't understand, is that you can hear the language, read the language, and write the language, but depending on what language you are learning, your mouth does not have the ability to form the words correctly. Depending how far removed your target language is from your native language there are a lot of muscles that are going to be involved that you've never used before.
It can be physically exhausting trying to form the words or make sounds you've never heard (let alone made yourself) accurately or as close to accurately as you can.
I first thought you were English and then I realized you are Italian. Your English is perfect.
I do agree with the video and your observations. If one wants to learn any language then one will seek all the needed resources and attempt to speak said language without fear. That’s my take on it.
One thing I do is listen to Anime or Japanese drama and write down what I think i am hearing and then i look up the sentences, find the translation and then l find the more formal version. I repeat it out loud a few times and I repeat the episode. 🤷🏻♂️
10:06 - absolutely!
As a kid, anime was not enough to keep me going through Japanese flashcards. As an adult, I'm powering through this annoying temporary setback (due to rescheduling) of about 2k cards a day, because I have Japanese friends that I want to understand.
So, I REALLY felt that bit. It was me. I was the demotivated dork.
2k cards are you trying to learn a language or playing 遊戯王 matches ?
How did you make japanese friends, where can I make japanese friends
I've spent several years attempting to learn Japanese because one of my favorite recording artists is Japanese and I want to understand his songs without having to look up the lyrics. At this point the only thing I've managed is the most complete phrases I can utter in Japanese are by singing his songs. Otherwise a slow three year old could probably talk circles around me.
As an American i find it odd I suppose that Turkish is in category 4 because I found it not only easy but fast in my comprehension. I surprised native speakers with the speed in which I was learning. Within about 2 months I was able to converse, with some limitation, in Turkish and be understood while understanding the other person. I found Spanish far more difficult though I have and had no desire to learn. Now that I learned Turkish, for the most part, I believe it will be far easier for me to go back and become fluent in German. Personally I find learning another language is made easier the more it differs from your first language. Is that just me though?
2:50 it's true! I've had a relatively easy time learning Turkish, because I was super interested, but it was very hard to learn Spanish and I still don't know it that well, even though I've studied Latin and I know French! It has to do with the reasons why you're learning a language, not so much with how close it is to others you know
I remember in my 2nd semester German class in high school we watched the entirety of Karate Kid 2 in German with no subtitles and built a whole unit of the course out of trying to understand basic elements of the plot
It's really interesting and refreshing to hear you say that it's important to speak right away. As I'm sure you've seen there are a lot of people in the language learning community who discourage speaking for some time (for example I think Dreaming Spanish mostly discourages speaking until about 1000 hours of listening? Could be mistaken on the amount of hours; I'm not learning Spanish so I don't use their platform) and argue that it's better to delay speaking for nearly a year.
Not an expert myself but it strikes me that delaying it so long wouldn't serve someone super well because certain sounds take different muscles to make than in one's native language so it seems like it would be more efficient to train your mouth to develop those sounds sooner. Plus in terms of practicing certain grammar it seems less overwhelming to take it bits at a time. For example after I learned passato prossimo my conversation tutor would ask what I did the other day, when I learned imperfetto she would ask me about my childhood, and now she's helping me practice congiuntivo etc. It seems like it would be so much more overwhelming to try and do it all at once.
So it's nice to hear that you're pro speaking sooner, kind of feels reassuring that I might be going about it the right way afterall.
I'm using this method, but I skipped/changed some parts:
1. I went straight to watch videos and films. I wanted to see if It's possible to learn a language without even opening a grammar book.
2. I don't have a partner to talk to (It means I don't talk aloud). But I'm looking for those now that I feel I'm at the B level sphere, I didn't want to annoy anyone with my lack of vocabulary and things like that.
3. I use english subtitles all the time.
I feel it's working out for me so far. The downsides are I barely speak or write the language, or even read it (not that I cannot do that, I mean I haven't devoted time for those skills). But I'm trying to complement it by making chatgpt write short stories adecuated to my current level. I think it's working because now I can even understand when the subtitle is 'wrong' (in terms of it's not 100% the same words said by the actors or even a complete different sentence but with the same meaning like 'she's late' for 'she haven't arrived'). So for me, using english subtitles haven't been a downside so far. Maybe if I haven't used them my current level would be better, but at the same time I hated those 'easy' videos that you can watch without subtitles so probably I would've given up by now. I must also add, that I also use only the audio for those series or films I already watched in the target language as a podcast when I'm outside working out or walking around and I can understand them.
This February, It will be three years since I've started my Japanese learning journey. I read somewhere that the average to get "just okay" is like ten to twelve years. Either way, the process is fun. Tons of content to enjoy and immerse myself with. Lots of Japanese Let's Plays, lol.
React to the interview with Carlos Amaral Freire, the Brazilian man who studied over 150 languages in his life, on the basis of 2 per year. He died at 89.
He wrote a book called Babel de poemas, in which he translated 60 poems from 60 different languages to Portuguese.
Thank you for this comment! I can't wait to look him up!
Of course, learning a language because it's close to the languages we already know is easy! But people who learn languages are so diverse in motivations, the time they can dedicate to the language, even the level of mastery of their native language, and more rarely evoked but so important: capacities, especially social anxiety that rules out the speaking early or having pronunciation checked.
I decided to learn Mandarin because I'm interested in China culture wise and I like the music from China/Taiwan
Metatron speaking facts again. Like even if you don't speak it out you still won't be able to read let's take korean for example what's ㄱ it's k what's ㅋ also k they're both k and if you're an English speaker if you don't know the phonetics of korean it doesn't matter yk how to read those letters that are different in korean will be the same to you thus you can't read that. Reading is related to speech. And for some reason korean alphabet is simple but korean phonetics is complicated so even reading is complicated bc you have to know how to read it in this case or that other case. In korean the difference between the two k's is aspiration the line on the bottom indicates aspiration. I read the deasoirated k is voiced if it's in the middle of the word. And n and m are denasalised at the beginning of the word though this is optional bc there are korean that do nasalise it but if you don't know this then you'll confuse ne with de. Maybe you can get away with voicing the desperated consonants and not getting in the weeds of phonetics or try to listen to a lot of natives and trying to mimick them or find credibale sources to the language.
I also don't emphasize speaking, and I know 3 foreign languages. First of all, sometimes you are just not that interested in speaking. I learned Japanese to read VNs, jRPGs, manga and so on, thus I might know the meaning of a kanji or a word, but cannot spell it out (but then, I wouldn't say I mastered Japanese - I am quite decent at reading, but wouldn't be able to keep up in a conversation).
But then, it's just so much easier to start speaking fluently if you got really advanced in reading and listening (aside from languages like Japanese where just reading won't take you far due to their non-phonetic writing system). That was my experience in French. I spent maybe thousands of hours reading and listening, and just a few hours practicing conversational French. But recently I talked to a native, and I managed just fine. Of course, it's very important to master pronunciation rules from the very start, so that you won't discover after reading French books for 100s of hours that you don't actually pronounce -ent in verbs like "ils mangent" 🙂 As it'll be too hard to rewire your brain at that point.
I'm fluent in english (I watch and listen to any stuff that I enjoy every day with ease, I had a native english speaker girlfriend for over a year but I don't know if I got to c1 level) my native language is polish. I would like to learn vietnamese or mandarin but I'm scared of the tones .. That's a crazy concept to comprehend that the same word can have 5 different meanings ..
10:20 I used to learn German by myself. What did I do? I read books outloud. Definitely helped with pronunciation. When I came to A1 German class I already could read decently and moreover sound good. Whilst many struggled with this aspect.
P.S. to be frank I have dropped German simply because I don't need it anymore
By dropped do you mean you no longee study it? Or that you know how to speak & write the language but dont really consume German content and/or dont use it anymore?
LEHER DAS DAMNER DEUTCH RIGT JETZT
@@AbsurdScandal I have no longer study it. Maybe it will sparkle again and I will passionately study it
@5podsolnuhov 🤓
I have learnt several languages to the point of being able to read and translate. Most of these have fallen away over the years. Since retirement, ten years ago, I have used Spanish, Basque, French, Serbo-Croat, and Romanian. Italian and Danish were easy to read, although English was always at hand, everywhere in Europe. Speaking it aloud while studying or walking around town reading everything one sees. It's necessary to learn a dose of phonetics and study the relevant data ps Google Translate is very useful
I am learning Finnish for no practical reason. I will almost certainly never be able to travel there (money and health reasons); but I had a friend in high school that taught me a few words in Finnish (Finnish mother) and introduced me to the Kalevala, the national epic poem of Finland/Karelia, that one of my favorite classical music composers (Sibelius) used as inspiration for his music. I have plenty time to make slow incremental progress and I find the challenge of learning the language, even though complex in very different ways from English. I also watch English language TV with the Finnish subtitles on and make a kind of game out of identifying words and word patterns.
I am interested in Finnish for a similar reason: a friend of mine is Finnish and the language sounds really cool
While I do believe that listening exercises are the most important, sounding out words even if you don't understand the words is also important, because you need to be able to replicate those sounds in the future if you want to communicate... because let's face it, no matter how much my Arabic colleagues speak Arabic, I'll never learn the language from just listening to them talk about Middle Eastern Politics all day. I sure can hear the individual words, I have no idea what any of them mean, except for the place names, after all if someone says Iraq in Arabic, guess what word in English it sounds like... that's right Iraq... not exactly the a is long the q is a back consonant not a front consonant.. doesn't matter, the lesson is that you will never learn a language from just listening. Unless someone literally shows you an apple and says une pomme. Or they show you a garden gnome and say En Trädgårdstomte... And I know a lot of people who find learning new words through language learning tiktoks, where they repeat a word in their native language and then repeat it in the target language. Because it's an effective way to learn words, it's how kids learn words, and while it is not the fastest way, not by far, it is effective.
8:43 I would say it depends on the language group. If your native language is romance language you can learn other romance languages fairly easy. Similar with te germanic and nordic language groups. Also the slavic group. Then you have the se asian group which is hard regardless of your native language and the african languages which are even harder
I love your commented videos of other people. I mostly agree with you.
I am 80 years old and am on day 10 of trying to learn some Greek.
I speak 6 languages, three of them since early childhood: Norwegian, Spanish and German.
English and French in highschool followed by two years immersion in Paris.
Portuguese by 24/7 immersion in Mozambique for 20 years as an adult, where I slowly went from spanguese to a quite decent portuñol after some years.
My initial motivation for learning Greek was simply to be able to read and pronounce words in Greek, as when you look up a word in a language you know and it says something like "this word comes from the Greek #&%£..." and you have no idea of what that stands for!
So I subscribed to Duolingo and so far I just love it. I go though each lesson a couple of times just listening and doing the exercises, then I go back and repeat everything loud several times.
Then I sit down and write it with pen and paper (I copy/draw the characters as best I can, no fluent writing yet).
After a couple of lessons I feel the need to systematize a bit, so I go to websites/TH-cam channels that are more grammarly inclined and copy tables of relevant verb conjugations,, articles and pronouns in all genders, etc. And try to memorize them.
Then I watch a couple of Easy Greek videos and others about relevant things and finally I go back to duolingo for the next lesson. Rinse and repeat.
I love it, I'm enjoying every minute of it and at 80 I have the luxury of having lots of time at my disposal.
I've always found it usful to have a Grammar book with vocabulary list with exercises relating to the grammar topic and vocab list is always great for me. Sadly not all grammar books work this way sadly
You just described a standard textbook.
@tanizaki you will not believe the amount of grammar books that don't work that way and expect you to go find a dictionary and use no vocab in their exercises
@ Such as what publisher?
Regardless, your state of desire is for the standard textbook. Teach Yourself, Routledge, and most any other publisher has been providing what you seek for decades.
@@tanizaki teach yourself sucks I am not a fan at all for their natural method it is not a standard text book like Rutledge. But I'm also talking about what works for me.
@@tanizaki a great example is B&H academic their grammar for biblical Greek works very well the exercises are perfectly catered to the lesson and the order of lessons build on eachother so 1st nouns then a simple present tense verbs lesson which will make most exercises much smoother.
The Z Library joke was pretty good. I’ve heard there’s a lot of good books in any language there, but of course I’m not saying I know from first hand experience 🙃
Also I really disagree with needing to speak very early. We’ve seen actual results from people like MattVsJapan that show speaking immediately isn’t necessarily the best choice.
The easiest language will always be the one you like the most, not the simplest one
Easy actually is a great channel actually. I am an old subscriber. So far only one channel that you reacted to I am not subscribed to.
I'm an auditory learner, so I quite like listening exercises.
But god, the audio for the listening question in my English tests and exams were either horrible quality or sound like they were recorded pretty close construction sites.
The listening exercises from the English books`s cds were fine actually
I'm in a linguistics discord server. At one point (could be a few years ago not sure) this one guy came in with "I want to learn a language, what is an easy language to learn" (ignoring the fact that linguistics is not the same as language learning although there is overlap).
And we took him seriously for quite a while so we brainstormed and gave him a LOT of suggestions, including conlangs like esperanto. He proceeded to reject every suggestion but still kept asking, every once in a while repeating the question accompanied by a steadily growing list of languages he is NOT interested in. He was eventually banned, but has not been forgotten... As he has provided us all with a new meme: "what language should i learn? but not "
easy, actually really just makes videos that give you the basic tools you need to accomplish your goal, with a heavy dose of humor. For example, his video on getting a personality pretty much just explains that you need to have some niche knowledge that other people might want to talk to you about, but he doesn't really go further than that.
That I know of, he doesn't have tons of experience in his topics, he mostly just boils down what he learns (he makes videos on all sorts of things people struggle with, exercise, needing friends, ect.).
It's not hard in the same way a math problem can be hard.
It's however extremely hard on a personal level, requiring lots of willpower and discipline. Forget motivation, that's just an extra that's nice to have. You can't rely solely on motivation to keep going or you WILL end up quitting when you find yourself in the dumps and you don't feel like doing anything, much less studying your target language. We all have these periods, and they need to be overcome with rigorous discipline and commitment.
yeah I had a really hard time learning spanish in school, now when im trying to learn Japanese on my own its going a lot better lol purely bcs im doing it on my own terms and I actually have a reason. Back then it was just "All homies choosin this so fk it, and apparently its not that hard", not the smartest move...
Speaking feels weird.
On the one hand, it's claimed essential for learning a language, but on the other…
I'm too poor to travel, so the only opportunity I have for practicing is online. And online I prefer texting.
Tbf, I have autistic traits and communication sometimes feels like a chore.
I speak spanish swedish and i speak really bad english but have really good understanding 19:33
Still waiting for changes my language skill of being able to say tractor in hundred languages comes in handy. Might be one if the most universal words around the globe. Does not work in China. But in most countries you are good or close enough saying tractor.
I find kids stuff a good start of point. If you are at starter level, start at the beginning. The getting out of slow. Disagree having to get out of it fast. Learning how to communicate that you are new to the language and if they please could speak a bit slower, very common. Even if you are pretty competent, some people speak like machine guns.
Hey Metatron I too am interested in learning more Spanish & Portuguese, cool!
10:13 I fell into this rabbit hole with Spanish back in the day. Granted, I was taking Spanish in school and learning a language in school is kind of a drag. That’s why many students come out of high school not remembering a single word of the language they took lol. But yea in school you kinda fall into the trap of doing your “tarea” (hw) and taking tests where they mostly test you on grammar with very little in-class speaking time (at least this is how it was for me in hs 10 years ago). To learn a language effectively you must speak it as much as possible. Grammar is important but that will come with practice listening to what’s being said to you and replying to a native speaker
I completely agree with this! For me, taking Spanish in school was probably about 33 or 35 years ago and it sounds like they're still teaching it the same way if 10 years ago you were still doing grammar lessons and taking tests. They really need to change it up!
I learned more Spanish by watching my favorite movie in Spanish 50 times with either no subtitles or in Spanish with Spanish subtitles so I can make the connection between the sounds and what I was reading and vice versa, than I ever did taking Spanish for 2 years in high school.
@@alb91878
And also when you are required to do homework and take tests along with all your other classes you just don’t feel like learning it and you become completely uninterested.
Hey Raf, I have been trying to learn italian for a while, is there any shows you can recommend I watch?
The best reason to learn a foreign language is dating. #2 is employment. If you're American, the obvious choice is spainish. And it's also easy to get a few years for free in HS. Then, theres the telenovelas and comedies...
As man who actually use his method it actually works
But not in every language like japanese where you have to use srs
I asked you during your live cuz your doing videos on languages I’ve always wanted to to know about Gaelic metatron
Which of the three 🤔🇮🇪🏴Manx
Please do a Video on Sanskrit! Thank you
Should change the title learning leaning is easy if the language is based on alphabet system you already know. As somebody who been at Japanese for about 2.5 years and has spent 2 months in Japan it not easy because of the time commitment if you don't love it or your life depends on, which is why people that love anime and are not at least decent at Japanese, is kind of strange to me.
Also still amazes me people can live in Japan for so long and be bad at the language it must be some kind of superpower, altered reality bubble maybe ?
you can easy have your first million, just pick the rigth currency (other video on that channel) dollar, and Euro is way harder als in Irani Rial, Venezuellan Bolivar, or viatnem dong you need 23 dollar around :)
Please, react to Daniel Thrasher "Every gifted kid goes through this" video!
Why does it sound like Corey Feldman is into languages?
Good
I'm learning Italian since september 2024 and it's not easy despite i once learned French till Delf B1.
French is almost a hybrid between Romance and Germanic. It’s not like Italian and Spanish.
@@ByTheStorm I am Italian. French and Italian are super similar. I speak some French and I don't see this "Germanic" influence people talk about. I would say French has a bit of a Celtic/Gaullish influence like in the way they say numbers from 70 to 99 and the pronunciation. I also speak a bit of my regional language from the Northwest of Italy and I can see even bigger similarities with the French language.
I've always wanted to learn Italian. The most beautiful language after Arabic (i have to be biased to my mother tongue 😂)
Please try Hungarian...
The one language i’ve got a head start on him a bit.
Hungarian is like pines in the middle of birch forest
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It's going to depend on which language you want to learn and which language you're coming from.
wait its gonna take months to learn spanish? nvm
I wanna learn gothic because its cool. But i dunno with whom imma use it.
16:49 so you are trying to say I can't say to the employer: Yamete kudasai, onii-chan 😮
No it's perfectly fine. They will think you're native
This is day 19 of commenting on each video until he does Cajun French and Louisiana Creole.
Keep fighting brother ✊️
You should try to speak as early as possible. Use speech recognition. When your words are recognized, you are probably saying them correctly, otherwise change your pronunciation a few times.
Start with watching videos for small children. At the same time learn speaking some words and phrases.
Learn in a playful manner.
But I agree with him that you shouldnt speak early because you will develop bad pronounciation habits
Nonsense. People learn languages only by speaking. As simple as copying what one hears. Had s female teacher asking me why I spoke in a feminine way. I looked at her, because you do? Yes it matters who you copy. But when I traveled,y accent adapted automaticly to local tongue. To the point when I had soent time somewhere, the next would place me from where I came from. Certain languages are hard if you do not hear or practiced to pronounced certain sounds. One should start practicing listening and speaking from the start. Can always adapt the pronouncation.
@tjallingdalheuvel126 I have a really hard time getting rid of old pronounciation habits in English that I wouldn't have formed if I just waited with speaking
Nome of my teachers ever delayed making us speak. Maybe you missed the feedback on your pronunciation. Yes unlearning habits is harder. But still one should not wait to get to speaking. It helps with learning too. Maybe be more precise when learning. Get good feedback. Or record and listen to oneself. Compare that to various nati e speakers. But in practice, foreign accent shining through has it's charm. If it is good enough to be understood, it is good enough for most cases, isn't it?
@tjallingdalheuvel126 yeah sure I will be understood but I personally don't want to sound really foreign when I speak English if you just want to be understood then sure in that case it doesnt't matter that much
you should watch elysse daVega recent video on how to learn a language in 2025.
I know it's just me being picky, but the right side of your camera HUD is like a blank and it really annoys me
Those recommendations are rubbish. They won't work for anything not resembling a Western European language. Unless you have a real tutor you will not conquer a truly foreign language.
Please don't try Hungarian...
The romance languages are harder to learn than related, Germanic, languages for English speakers. French is harder than German. Yes, I know both, but not fluently. I used to.... But I've forgotten too much.
First!
Third 🎉