Can You Learn a Language Like a Kid?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ม.ค. 2021
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A B O U T T H I S V I D E O
In this video, I will dispel some myths about language learning, explain why even as an adult you can master a language to a near-native level, and share with you some scientific data on how children and adults learn languages.
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I always appreciate each video you made. Your wisdom is admirable and a true value of knowledge for me. Regards from Mexico!
I am thirty years old and myy native language is Portuguese. I started to learn English seriouly only two years ago. Of couse, I'm not fluent in English yet but I can read almost everything in English. I also can listen to podcast and understand that! It's been a amazing journey! I know that I am far from fluent, but If I keep working hard on it, one day I will reach this position!
Keep going brother.
Fluent doesn't mean native-like... maybe you're underestimating yourself
We are in the same boat, buddy!
Go with faith
Your English is really good. Your already great I’m a native English speaker and you already know how to right better then me😭
Thanks Luca. My mother tongue is Standard American English. A two years ago at the age of 62 I began learning German, being motivated by daughter having moved to Germany three years ago - and loving it so much that I truly doubt that she will ever return to the US for more than a visit. Most of my German learning consists of reading and listening - not much speaking and almost no writing. I really like the experience of reading along with audio books, and, when needed, ferreting out the meaning of a passage. Recently, I bought a dictionary with the 10,000 most frequently used words in the German language. Thumbing through it from the least to the most frequently used words, I discovered that I know a huge fraction of them.
So, I, for one, think that it is true that one can learn a language at any age (Steve Kaufmann, who is over 70 and has knowledge of around 20 languages, is one of my language heroes). I attribute whatever success I have in language learning to exactly one thing: I just keep doing it. Every day I do something with German for at least an hour. I gauge my success by what I can read(I will move speaking up my priority list someday) and what spoken German I can understand. The most recent book I've read and listened to is "Alexander von Humboldt und die Erfindung der Natur" by Andrea Wulf.
Thanks for all you do for the language learning community, Luca.
From Michigan in the USA
You are an inspiration
I am from Michigan as well, very inspirational!
Fantastic comment and story! Yes, it might sound trite but the simple truth is: keep learning on a daily basis for a long period of time. Believe, experiment, and enjoy the learning process. You can do it at any age, wherever you are. Thanks again for swinging by and leaving such an inspiring comment!
Hey I’m learning German too! If you like cooking/baking Check out “Sally’s Welt” here on YT all her videos have CC too!
Get Netflix and start watching all the German movies and TV shows! Es wird schnell gehen!
i think it’s important to recognize just how much easier it is to articulate a child’s thoughts in a language than it is to articulate complex and abstract thoughts, ideas and feelings of an adult. it’s a lot easier for children to get to a child’s level in a language and thus the mistakes they make/ideas they discuss seem ordinary. but when an adult speaks like a child in a foreign tongue, it seems out of the norm and insufficient. it is definitely a lot more difficult to get to an adult’s level in any language than it is for a child to get to a child’s level in their own. this makes sense though.
I completely not disagree with you .
Perfect!!!
I think this is also a psychological obstacle but caused by the society.
Based on my experience I think that you can overcome it with choosing open minded language partners.
And of course it depends also if you care the other's opinion. I am confident in start speaking foreign languages and I don't care doing mistakes, but I developed this consciously. If your communication partner is smart he or she understands that you are not native and even make you compliments.
Exactly that. I am now living in Romania, and therefore learning the language, and now I have the level of a 4-5 year old kid. It is sufficient to express basic things, but whenever I find myself having to do paperwork, renewing my driver's license, returning something at a store, or filing a complaint about something, then I realize the real difference. As an adult, you need to manage with your child level, only having to do things for adults and which kids would never do until they have already attained a fluent level.
Anyway, I find this enjoyable, because I know it's part of the language learning process, which you must go through in order to become fluent. I went through it when learning English and know it's the only way it works. There's no way around it and I embrace that.
I've started learning a second language at the age of 29, and nowadays I'm totally fluent on it. Five years later I started to learn a third language, and I reached a high level on it. Four months ago I started to study a fourth language and I'm doing very well for now, so from my point of view, you can learn a new language at any age, the only thing that you have to bare in mind is that you need to dedicate time to do it, have pacience and be persistent. Learning a language requires many time and you'll aways be learning it during all your life.
juicy Cipriano Yeah.
Admire you. I have been learning English for 15 months. And 2 years later i will speak E fluently, i hope so.
@@kitaduyphuong thank you! I'm sure you will. Best wishes! 🙂
What languages do you want?
@@amadeusmalonje8263 I speak Spanish, Portuguese, English and now I'm learning Dutch.
Luca highkey improving my English and I’m a native English speaker
I am a native, but not English.
Lol!
That midkey impressive
@@Maidaseu I believe it is 1/4th key impressive.
@@Maidaseu jk 🤣
Luca, many thanks for this informative video. My native language is English, and I began to study Spanish at age 15 in high school, although back in the day we were poorly taught. I was very motivated to learn so I enrolled in a Mexican university and lived in the home of a Mexican family where only Spanish was spoken. I did this for two years. After graduating from college in the United States I moved to Spain where I also lived with a Spanish family. I did this for four years. I returned to the United States where I was hired by the Berlitz schools ,and this is where I learned to teach Spanish without using English. We used lots of props and charts.At age 26 I married my husband who is from Madrid, Spain. We moved back to Spain and raised 5 bilingual children there. We have been married for 51 years. I taught Spanish for many years without using much English and I took advantage of my children's toys, using them as props. My students were relaxed in class and learned rapidly through lots of games, role play, movies, news from Spanish- speaking countries etc. At one point we began to read Spanish literature, including several episodes of "Don Quijote". We would read an episode and then watch it in a video.
It is much easier to learn another language now because of the internet. When I first began to learn the language I would listen to Fidel Castro on a short wave radio, and I purchased records by Spanish-speaking singers. Books in Spanish were difficult to find. There were no TV programs in Spanish. It is so much easier today to learn another language.
This method has proven to work for babies to learn languages without translation of the primary language (English) to have understanding and without grammar. In American schools the grammar and English translation messes up the learning process.
I speak English fluent and Spanish from family from South and Central America's while living on a Native American Reservation in Arizona when I was child and when I moved to New York the school system didn't have a fundamental way to properly teach second languages unless you was enrolled into a non English school like German School a lot of these schools focus on language learning in its pure form without speaking any English to translate so you actually get acquainted with speaking German or any other languages that the professors teach to the students and in my personal experience living around south and central native tribes learning was accurate and better than the American school system which uses too much English translation and much focused on grammar. Though grammar is important it's not the first step to learning any language because when you're around others that speak the language you learned and you speak it is awkward because most of all Spanish teaching in school is based on just grammar and you can tell the level of the individuals proficiency.
If practicing with pure Spanish speakers in the US it's best not to depend on English to back you up when you speak it's a lazy method I learned that causes English speakers to avoid speaking Spanish because your vocabulary words are limited. It's good to learn as many vocabulary words as possible to use in conjunction with your basic sentences for asking questions and answering them likewise. But hands down your method is what I heard from many language teachers who follow the baby language learning methods all over many countries not just in US and the universities in us have programs their students do abroad in he country of the language they are Learning which is key as well because English translation won't much be used so you'll get the full scope of the language in its raw pure form without any laziness and your level of proficiency will be much greater. Many of the students that attended such schools in the US acquire multiple languages under the Linguistics program to become a polyglot (to speaking multiple languages. Polyglot is also researched and is part of a broader field of study focused on understanding the brain processes involved in acquiring language, either native ones or those learned later in life.) for being a translator for any business world wide or simply just to learn languages in general as a hobby
Thank you for reminding us all these. I am a mother of 2 small children, working and studying. I started learning German one year ago at the age of 35. Because what I did was to spend time with the language every day, change my bad habits of scrolling social media, with scrolling with a purpose, listening while doing my chores, reading more in German instead of English, or my native Romanian. I know it's a journey that will last my whole life, but the fact that I am conversational now, I can read and listen to things in German, gives me motivation to keep going. It's amazing to trace back my journey. I couldn't say a word in German one year ago, and now I can have an hour conversation in German. And the best thing about this, is that I evolved a lot as a human, I accepted my mistakes, I challenged myself, I exposed myself. I feel I've lived 10 years in just one, and all this because of the decision to learn a foreign language, despite the hectic life I am living. And you were always part of my inspiration. Thank you, Luca!
You inspired me! Ich bin vollkommen beeindruckt 😁🥇
I learned Hungarian by immersion, starting at the age of 27. I am native-like fluent, but pronunciation, some stilistic and even a few grammar points haven't become perfect. So the result isn't the same for me as for a child raised in Hungary, but I really loved aquiring a language by immersion. I did have vocab lists, but much better were reading, listening and speaking. Maybe the third time I came across a word, I recognized it, the seventh time I had an idea about its meaning, and the eleventh time I really knew it.
I think it took me three years to get fluent, and since then, my progress is slowing down. In the beginning, there were people who spoke languages I spoke, but there always were people who wanted to talk in Hungarian with me.
And like a child, I didn't mind making mistakes, trying to express a longer thought with two main words and find out from the reaction whether I had been understood correctly.
Before, I had learned languages only from books and mostly visually.
Maybe I had 5 hours per day of Hungarian immersion, which means about 5500 hours in three years.
Maybe you started speaking too early which resulted in pronunciation problems that can never be completely solved.
@@ZipfelmannKD Do you think my pronunciation would have become better if I had started speaking later?
I think it is impossible to get pronunciation really perfect without any accent, if you start learning the language after you are ten. You can get very close though even as an adult, so I'm quite happy with my result.
@@heidiloesti3267 I don't know you so I can't really say, but often people end up with bad pronunciation because they think that speaking from day 1 is key, but unfortunately it oftens results in bad habits (not only pronunciation) that cannot be undone (or it's extremely hard and takes lots of time).
Look at a child for example. They usually start speaking at the age of 22 months. Until that time the only thing they did was listening, watching and guessing which is why they have a "perfect/native" pronunciation.
You can read more about those ideas if you google "Automatic language growth" or "From the Outside In" by Dr. Marvin Brown.
@@ZipfelmannKD Actually, I didn't think about speaking from day one or not speaking from day one, I just interacted with people around me, either in English or other common languages, or in Hungarian. But in a way, children do the same. They start interacting with smiles or crying, later some sounds which are interpreted as "mum" and "dad" or other important words, and most of them speak before being able to articulate every sound properly. I think the difference is that a child's mouth hasn't been "deformed" by another language, when he learns his mother tongue.
But actually I agree with you, I don't think the most important thing is to start speaking from day one. I'll have a look at the sites you suggested ...
@@heidiloesti3267 That point about deformation of the mouth is really interesting and makes a lot of sense to me actually. Speaking french after speaking Italian for example feels quite weird and needs some getting used to 😅
Even if you live in the country where your target language is spoken, you don't have at least one person always with you who is willing to repeat the same words and phrases over and over again and correct you patiently because you are their beloved child. Our parents were not qualified language teachers but they spent an incredible amount of time speaking their mother tongue to us.
I learn like a child. (Apart from the time thing - even on the weekends I have a max of 8 hours to dedicated to learning - way more than adults, but less then children. ) I think learning like a child is difficult for my teachers though. A lot of my teachers expect to correct things and have it stick. While I expect that it will get there eventually if I keep working on both my input and my output.
Also, yeah, exposure is huge. I don't think Japanese is my best language but it is definitely my fastest to "fluency". After four months living here and watching insane amounts of tv, I went to a dealer and attempted to buy a car. I failed. But that was because my financial skills are so much worse than my linguistic ones.
Yeah Financial skills, .... besides, can be depends on how Lucky we are (I'm on my own business) While language skills almost how's our efforts.
I've been learning spanish on and off since i was 14, and since im moving to spain next year i decided to really hunker down and just immerse myself in it. i was surprised how much i just knew when i came back to the language and how much i was able to progress with simple immersion through shows, youtubers, and books meant for native speakers. Now i have some textbooks to help really hone down grammar and vocab, but immersion really was my biggest help.
Wow, I reached my English native-like fluency at 18 years-old, I've got to avow that I almost cried as it was so hard for me to pick it up, I spoke up at anything to interact with others to attain my English fluency, I never thought it was so difficult. Right now, I'm changing my American accent to British accent as it sounds so beautiful to me, I'm learning French, and German at a time. I'm already 21 years-old, and I'm decided to devote all my life to languages. I'm breaking through my language learning. French has been easier than English was, and German is too weird, and strange as I am, that's why I love it... Live it up, keep it up, I love your videos, you're outstanding... I always know what I've got to do look forward and go ahead with my language learning as I'm a self-taught language learner and lover.
Boy do I have an uphill battle here. I started learning Italian in March during the quarantine here in New York. I am 75 years old. I have watched a lot of your videos and used them as inspiration/hope that I can learn Italian. "ogni giorno, ascolto y guardo video de insignate Italiano" I am happy to say I can "capito multo non tutto" but "parlando" is more difficult, translating in my head to english before trying Italian. and the sequence of words is not a one on one translation. I am trying to get to native language skill in pronunciation. I can make simple sentences because I have acquired some "parola" because of the repetition like you said. I continue to be inspired by your teaching/insight and will let you know that if you can aquire a language in your seventies.
Thanks Rolando! Keep learning! Language learning takes time but it is an exhilarating experience, it opens horizons and to top it all off, it keeps your mind young ;-)
your insight is amazing !!!
Hey, Luca! I really enjoy your videos and I do appreciate the time and effort you put into making them in order to bring and share with us such amazing pieces of information regarding language learning. I started studying English at the age of 17, and Japanese around 18. The latter was really difficult, especially in the beginning. I have to confess that I neglected it for some years, but around 2010, I felt that I really wanted to learn it for real and shouldn't waste any more time, so I started "devouring" books and consumming as much Japanese media as I could. I had the chance to travel to Japan a couple of times before I moved to Tokyo in 2017 to take my PhD. My wife is Japanese, and, even though we have other languages in common like Portuguese (I am Brazilian) and English, our communication is 100% in Japanese. It took me a long time and it was quite strenuous at many points to get where I am now, but it's totally possible to get fluent in languages as distant from your mother tongue as Japanese. I think the key points are that we need to be consistent and never give up, and I can say that in the end it is really worth walking this long path. Cheers!
I particularly like videos like this that provide important context, qualitative or quantitative, necessary to make comparisons. The insights on how, for how long and with what incentives children learn languages clarify many confusions!
I have one of those linguistic backgrounds that defies the ideal types but still fits your argument. I grew up with English as my home language, in a bilingual city, Montreal, where I was exposed to a lot of French from an early age. I then spent a large part of my pre-adult life living with my family in Japan, and living away from the 'international' enclave I soon came to have the kind of exposure to Japanese that far exceeds what is usually possible for adults.
I have used Japanese both for work and personally everyday of my life, but I deeply internalized it and French, even when I went years not using the latter. I did use both 'childhood languages' as platforms to learn other languages; in university I studied Chinese already knowing how to read Japanese fluently, and later on, as a parent, I used French to study Italian and then Spanish with one of my sons. Today I'm in my 50s an I'm still using Japanese as an anchor as I struggle to learn a completely new language, Thai.
Loved your video and utterly agree with your approach! I started learning English after Uni, when I was actually around 22 and now I'm an English teacher! Together with that, I started learning Portuguese when I was around 35 and I became fluent! My mother tongue is Spanish and I speak French too so Yeap.. Your mind is unlimited 🙌 Thanks for sharing 🙏
I started learning my very first second language - Persian - at the age of 54. Now, 3 years later I'm able to read subjects that I'm familiar with fairly well, my speaking skills are usually sufficient to get my message across, although I make many mistakes, but my weak point is listening so I'm focusing on that now. I hope that in another couple of years I'll reach my definition of fluency. By then, I'll be nearly 60, but I plan to tackle German then!
Luca you are wonderful, thank you! This was such an encouraging and motivating video; you had me at maths. I started learning Italian at home in the last six months, and finding examples of people learning a second language as an adult without moving to the country of their target language is hard to come by. I find it comforting to know that if I put in the time, I will achieve my goal of fluency. If it takes five years (and many hip flasks) then so be it. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us!
Thanks for the nice comment Julia! Language learning takes time, that's why it is so important to focus on the process rather than the results, and this goes for any skill you want to develop in life
Dziękuję za jeszcze więcej inspiracji!
Nice video, Luca! 👏 One of my favourite topics!
Hi Lucca! I'm from Greece and I live in Alexandroupoli, a town located in the north Greece near to the borders with Turkey. I 've been learning english for six years. Now I' m 62 years old. My daughter and her family live in England. When I've been to visit them for the first time I was anxious and frustrated. Then, I decided to learn english just for being more confident. Now I'm feeling pleased because I can understand english-speaking videos on TH-cam. I discovered a hole new world. I can have access to an enormous amount of information. I like english and I keep learning. I hope to reach fluency in the future.
This man is Amazing.
He's changing my life.💟
Thank U for being on this platform Luca🙏
Hello Luca, thank you for your encouraging video! I learnt Spanish when I was about 50, I don't think I ever sound like native but I spent 5 weeks of holidays in Spain and didn't say a single word in English. And I constantly looked for opportunities to speak with locals. Now well over 70 I started studying Italian, absolutely love it!. With about 20 Italian words, maybe 50, l went to Italy and as before couldn't wait to use them. My great motivation is desire to learn Greek but only when I'm confident enough in Italian. You made me a bit emotional talking polish from Krakow, my birth place
. Now for over 40 years I live permanently in new Zealand, linguisticly v barren county. Kind regards, Elizabeth.
Complimenti davvero per il tuo percorso! Come va con l'italiano? Anche a me affascina molto il greco
A well made argument for such an interesting linguistic concept. And a hopeful one at that!
LUCA , my teacher (Mustafa from Turkey) who is Linguist and Polyglot knows Russian even deeper and fluent than most Russian native speaker despite he has started learning after the age of 20. Maybe he is the best non-native Russian speaker all around the world. Besides, he clearly even knows more vocabulary and able to masterly jangle and deal with difficult and complex sentences His channel Linguamus U can take a look and listen to his Russian speeches.
Thanks for the information, just beginning with Russian here, will definitely check his channel
Спасибо, learning Russian from the United Argentinian Emirates xD 謝謝
@@mobius7745 His videos in Russian just about language learning approach and systems and only for Russian native speakers
Thanks a lot. Very inspiring and informative.
Un analisi molto pertinente e molto ben fatta. Complimenti Luca!
Grazie mille per le belle parole! =)
Na końcu filmu normalnie uśmiechałam się do ekranu. Dzięki za tak dużo motywacji i wiary, że mogę mówić dobrze w wielu językach, co jest moim marzeniem c;
Hey Luca. I'm 39 years old and I started studying Spanish on my own in 2008, when I was 27. I did study Spanish in high school years earlier, but never got very far with it. Today, I live in Spain and I am married to a wonderful Spanish woman and we have a beautiful bilingual four year old daughter. I don't know that I'll ever reach native like fluency in Spanish, although that is always my goal, however I do feel as if I have made some really good progress over the years. I feel like the most important feature one needs to learn a new language isn't a special talent, or in this case youth, rather confidence in yourself. Yes, it is a challenge to learn a new language, and it certainly gets harder with age, but my best days come when I am confident in myself and what I know of Spanish. I really enjoyed this video and look forward to more, as I feel like you do a great job keeping us all motivated. Thanks.
Thank you so much!
Great talk Luca, Thank you very much. My native language is Spanish, but ever since I was in school as a young child, I used to see American movies and I remember wishing to speak English the way they spoke in the movies. To make a long story short, I kept on studying the language and then I migrated to the US. When I arrived I thought I spoke a fairly good language, but to my surprise I hardly understood what people were saying, that sent me all the way down to not being able to speak a word of English. The easy way is always to find people who spoke Spanish so I could communicate. Little by little, I began to pay closer attention and therefore understand a lot better people around me. I avoided Spanish speakers and dedicated English practice for as many hours as possible. After a while I attended college and now, many many years later I can say that English as well as Spanish are my mother tongues, sometimes I can identify the meaning of words better in English rather than Spanish.......... ..
A very informative video, as always. Your videos are great. I also do believe that psychology is a huge game player in language learning. If you’re enough motivated then it is indeed possible to reach fluency as an adult. Motivation and discipline are key factors here.
In the first six months of 2020, I improved my English a lot! What I did was surrounding myself with contents in that language: on social media and especially on TH-cam.
I read a scientific article, that brain is plastic throughout human's life. Anyway, I think that if someone really wants to learn something, he or she won't even bother to think about trivias like age. Personally, I have started to learn german being 24 years old and it goes really well, the language is difficult but I think I am progressing. Where is a will, there is a way.
Krzysztof Choma "Where is a will, there is a way", completely agree with that.
Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.
Thanks so much for this. I am mid A-2 German and have ruminated this and you articulated it perfectly. There's hope!🤣
Luca, your videos are really good, thank you for all your helpful recommendations. Your level of proficiency in some of the languages I speak is simply remarkable.
Großartiges Video, Luca! Ein großer Irrglaube, wenn nicht sogar der Größte, der in Verbindung mit dem Sprachenlernen herrscht. Leider glauben zu viele Leute daran und stehen sich damit beim erfolgreichen Sprachenlernen selbst im Weg - ich spreche aus eigener Erfahrung. Ich bin jetzt Anfang 20 und lerne gerade meine vierte Sprache. Danke, dass du mit deinen Videos Klarheit schaffst! Alles Gute dir :)
Luca lampariello you're a genius bud.. Thanks for the video. I loved it..
This really is the only video you'll need to put language learning in perspective ! The time it takes, really, you have to keep it fresh and fun to succeed.
Amazing video man. I have been studying Japanese for 3 and a half years now, living in Japan for 2 and a half years and I am at a high fluent level and I actually work in Japanese customer service using it all day everyday! I started learning when I was 19 with no previous exposure to the language. If you believe in yourself and the want/need to learn is there it’s definitely possible!
Fantastic video, communicated so succinctly. Thanks you - I am currently throwing everything but the kitchen sink at learning a foreign language at 47, and good to know I am roughly doing the right things. It’s good to be a kid again 😀. Cheers, Paul
A fantastic encouraging video, Luca. Thank you. I'd like to mention something you've not spoken about in more detail. I also have seen people that were born and raised in a multiple language family, so in a bilingual or even more languages surrounding and if they haven't practiced enough they still struggle to speak one of their languages. Let's say an example from my personal experience, an adult who has acquired naturally both Romanian and Spanish, living in Spain but with a Romanian mother and a Spanish father. As he has always lived in Spain, he has not spent much time in a Romanian context and usually addresses his parents in Spanish. I can see that this person has many difficulties expressing himself in Romanian as naturally as his mother or any of his relatives and he always tries to switch back to Spanish.
Actually, that is proof that babies have it easier to learn a language, yet they have to go through all this process. You can see that if they skip some of the steps, they fail to speak what we'd call native-like. For me this is another example that supports an adult can reach a very high level in a language, although it gradually becomes more complex to start and engage in such a process as years pass by exactly as you said. Language learning is not something to take for granted, even for native speakers, it's not magic, it's a question of effort and motivation. Don't be fooled, it is very hard to make it up for the 100,000 hours that a baby on average is exposed to his language until 18, BUT do not get discouraged as I firmly think it is not an unfeasible goal.
Thank you for this new video ! I'm french and can speak English. My target language is Japanese and that's not easy. It was a great video to start the new year ! ☺☺
Thanks for the information Lucas, I have been memorizing spanish phrase without immersion and I didn't see no improvement at all. I will try this method
At nearly 40, I am learning Swedish, and it is such a fun language. I did try learning French half a lifetime ago, but the tools were not available. We are living in a golden age of language learning tools, there has never been a better time to unlock parts of the world
I’m italian like you Luca and for me you are a BIG inspiration, i learned like you english at school but i became fluent when i have been for 1 month in USA, after that i decided to learn polish (because my mother is polish) but was very hard, in particular the declination, so i gave up also because i wanted to go in germany for the erasmus, so i started to learn german. After 1 year and 3 month i became a B1, and when i was there i improved soo much my skills (like you said in the video, because the mother tongue correct you) so when i came back here in italy i got the B2 by the Goethe Institut. Now, i’m learning Dutch and Swedish at University Orientale in Naples but we are doing just grammar stuff and the guys don’t speak. I can actually speak because i try every day to say something and really like to see videos on you tube in dutch and swedish (i also saw some your videos😂). In ogni caso sei un grande, aspetto con ansia ogni video che fai perché pieni di contenuto e molto motivazionali, spero un giorno di stringerti la mano a qualche fiera per poliglotti appena sarà possibile, un abbraccio💪🏻
congratulations for your results in German! But my advice is: try to get back to Polish as soon as you can, it's a beautiful language and you'll get to know great people and a great country (and it's your heritage too). Don't use old-school, grammar-heavy methods for Polish, as it's practically suicide (I did it myself when I didn't know any better), rather focus on pronunciation (not too difficult for Italians, apart from a few nasty consonant clusters) and vocabulary. There's a ton of more useful activities you can do. My suggestion is to read and listen materials you can understand (use a translation if needed), and the read out the material. A textbook with lots of dialogues, such as assimil or polishin4weeks, might be a good start. After having been exposed to a lot of (understandable) material you'll brain will automatically pick out the relevant patterns.
Nothing new, but as always, thank you for the clear summary. I'm to lazy /don't have the time /have choices not to become fluent or get any high level in other languages than the ones I started at school. But you are totally right, that is a question of choice and life circumstances.
Olá Luca.
Muito obrigada por esse vídeo mega motivador. 💓
Interesting video about the learning language process and the open path that we all have to learn any language at any age
I experienced two sides of the learning process on English and German.
On one side , I learned from childhood to early adulthood English under the typical school setting with textbooks and a structured program where eventually I obtained a level b2, this took me around 10 years or maybe even more, then I went abroad , and surprisingly I felt I knew nothing about the language, grammar, pronunciation, accents and so on were a true challenge, afterwards , I got used to the English speaking environment and noticed how significantly my English improved overall , so a live interaction is so important beyond an school setting
On the other hand, i went to a language school to learn German (following the same way as i did it) and did a 3 month course, but suddenly I found the lessons unnatural,robotic and not really helping to learn the language, it was really difficult to learn by memorizing rules and conjugations. I was lucky to travel to Germany on a city where accents are quite difficult. I say so since once I was there with my basic German, I was pushed to interact and speak to people in order to face the every day life. It was another true challenge which help me a lot. After some time, I could understand, read and communicate on a way people knew what I meant.
And of course I love languages
Saludos a todos
Liebe Grüße an alle
Greetings to everyone
hola luca,muchas gracias por este video estaba anclado en un punto que no podia habanzar y siempre con tus videos los desmiento y me ayudas en muchas forrmas ,actualmente tengo 18 y gracias a ti desarrollo el gusto por los idiomas,muchas gracias hasta pronto
wow, what an excellent video essay!
Just started Chinese at 28 and I am absolutely in love with it. I've never learned a language properly before and everyone says it's hard but I'm enjoying it so much I don't even think about the difficulties. That being said I am just beginning. The one thing I tell myself is that I know I can learn language already because I know English, my native tongue. It may be different and tougher now, but I can do it with dedication and hard work. Plus you learn so many little things each lesson, it's like placing down pieces of a massive puzzle. It'll take years to get it close to complete, but you're getting there, piece by piece.
How do you learn
@@derln111 I've been using the HelloChinese app main course, learning the characters for all the words I find, using Pleco for flashcards, TrainChinese for writing characters and also attend a weekly class on Zoom :)
I’m 35. Before the age of 30, I would study English and was somewhere between basic and pre-intermediate level. However, it’s been more than 4 years that I’ve been ceaselessly studying English and am burying myself in assorted books and materials to better my English to somewhere way beyond proficiency. I know it’s dramatically challenging, but my aphorism ‘I’ll find a way or I’ll make it’ push me to fight it and I’m enjoying learning and learning and keep learning. The videos was very fruitful. Thanks Luca.
As ever, a fantastic video.
What a great video. This should have more views.
I like this video. Thanks Luca for thr explanation.
You are most welcome Mitfah! =)
Very interesting topic!
Glad you found it interesting! =)
We often forget that we DID NOT learn our first language by "acquisition", that is: by "absorbing" it or "by instinct". We STUDIED it for many years and we PRACTICED it a lot under the supervision of our parents, our (certified) teachers and other adults. For example, I started to speak my native language (Italian) when I was 12 o 18 months old. I practiced it under the supervision of my parents for four years before acceding school. From that moment on, I studied Italian every single day of my life for at least a couple of hours per day. I was even taught every other discipline in that same language (something that we now know as "Content and Language Integrated Learning" or CLIL). Despite this, I became really fluent and correct only at the end of middle school (age 12 or 13). Do you think that I could not learn - for example - Chinese if I was able to devote that same amount of time to it? It is not a matter of AGE: it is a matter of TIME (and effort, and money) that you can devote to this task.
That is totally right! Kids aren't that amazing. Adults are! Your average kid isn't fully literate in their L1 until 15. An adult--a very determined and hard working one--can do it in a year!
Well said Alessandro ;-)
@@nicholasschroeder3678 that is not true, 99.99 percent language learners cannot reach the level of a 7 year old native speaker in one year, that doesn't make any sense.
@@kimcuongtran5495 Actually, quite a number of people do. But they're not doing it a classroom: they're immersed, usually living in the culture, and they're highly motivated and determined. I had a friend who went to Japan to teach EFL (she knew NO Japanese upon her arrival). When she got there, she decided to go full on Japanese. She literally tossed all her English books, spent her free time all with native Japanese, and bought and worked through the entire Kumon Japanese grammar (she believes she's the only person in the world to have done so). Before she left Japan she married a Japanese and worked at a Japanese firm, often doing telephone work (she says no one knew she wasn't Japanese on the phone). Granted, she was exceptionally determined--and she's pretty smart in general--but the point is adults can learn languages very fast, faster than children. One thing adults have a lot of trouble with is accents. It's quite rare for an adult to learn accent free. It seems adults aren't able to make some fine phonological distinctions that children can. But I'm not saying any of this is easy. Children learn languages naturally in the course of living in their environment--at least the speaking part. Adults have to make a mission of it while they're doing the rest of their lives.
Fantastic video. I am commenting because I have been learning Japanese on and off for 9 years (starting at age 19 now 28) and I've reached a level where I took university courses in Japanese, I can read Japanese novels made for adults with little difficulty, and I am able to enjoy Japanese television and movies in Japanese. Now, I'm not sure if one would consider this a high level, B2, C1, or what have you, but it is a good enough level to function in Japanese society (which I have and will continue to do). I never thought age really mattered when it came to learning a language, but rather about how much time one invests in a low stress environment. Thanks for giving people of all ages hope to learn foreign languages, Luca.
This is a very refreshing video. I have been learning Spanish forever now and still don't speak fluently.
What s actually active learning? Bona feina Luca! Segueix així! Un plaer sentir~te!
Great video, Luca!
I learned three languages before I turned 18 and I’m still learning new ones. If you love it, you’ll stick with it. 🤓📚
Thanks for the nice comment Rene! =)
Great Sir❤️❤️❤️
Watching your speech I realized that you are right: anybody can start learning a language at any age. Believe or not I started learning Spanish at 68 years old, then Italian, then Portuguese...Now I (at 73) am fluent in all of those languages. I came in Canada 37 years and now I am retired and enjoy speaking all of these languages..Ce tengo a dirti che tu "podcast" e tanto roba...Grazie mille.
What was your way of learning?
I guess, as you have said many times, the only person that can tell you if you can or cannot do anything is yourself.
After I read the book “What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid? - Borja Vilaseca” I realized, If I am not afraid of the “NO” and failures, I could use them as a step to move forward and nothing could stop us.
Thanks for sharing
Thanks Luca... your advice is very useful.... btw I am 63 yrs old and have reached about a B2 level in French.. all after I turned 60.
I started to learn Norwegian from scratch. I'm 30 and I enjoy this experience, in fact now I want to continue learning later on, another language more
I loved it... you are right...
Hello Luca! I didn't watch this video of yours until now and it's actually pretty curious that that study found one could learn a language up to the age of 18 and still become very proficient in it all but like a native speaker, and here's why I find it earthshaking. From my own experience I share that view since I started to learn English officially at the age of 19 and I've come to learn a whole bunch of things which appear to be unfeasible to learn for some adult students I've been classmates with. I wouldn't assure they will never learn these structures and vocabulary because eventually and with persistence they will, yet it's not as easy for them as it is for me to only "pick them up" or learn them with ease. I've seen many of my former classmates still continue to struggle with all these big words and more elaborated structures of English. But if you're over 18 or 19 don't get discouraged. This shouldn't disappoint you whatsoever if you're over this perfect age. Will you struggle with your learning process? Maybe just a bit more than others, but hey, persistence is key and no matter how talented you happen to be you must put all of your energy and enthusiasm into it, and appreciate your own efforts. I'm 26 now and I do commit an awful lot of mistakes, but I give myself the time and the chance to learn. I'm of the firm belief that anyone can learn a language proficiently, but first and foremost, you need to learn to be patient enough.
I'm 19 years old and I'm currently learning my 4th language however it's not been that easy at the beginning, as many others, when I started studying my first foreign language i used to get afraid when speaking but fortunately I could overcome fears fast. Age matters but age doesn't hinder us to succeed!.
Such a great video btw 👏 .
bro how ? im 19 and im buying childrens spanish books now because that's how i remember how i learned how to speak english as a baby and im going to practice but i dont know if it will work
I started to learn Persian when I was 20,and I have reached fluency. Didn't really have a choice, my Iranian friends were so encouraging and didn't let me forget what I learned 😉
موفق باشی
@@skepticnavid1575 سلامت باشی :)
This vid made my day
You can definitely learn languages to a very good level as an adult....even not-really-polyglot people who do lots of other things can. I'm a Canadian native English speaker and I'm onto my fifth language. I started learning French seriously when I was 16, Spanish in my mid-thirties and German in my early fifties. I have a C1/C2 level in all of them and "play with them" and use them all regularly in my life.
Now I'm just starting into Hungarian, my parent's language, which I actually did speak as a small child until my parents separated and we started speaking just English at home. I swear this is my last language....you have to maintain them all!
Of course I really enjoyed listening to this video Luca!
Hi Luca, I started learning Swedish at the age of 62 and now after 5 years living in Sweden I believe that I am able to speak it well (may be not fluently but I am satisfy with it). I know that I have a long way to go and I study every single day. Something interesting is that I always compare myself with children who have been here for about five or six years!! and I have noticed that I know more words (vocabulary) than them!! besides they make a lot of grammatical mistakes that I hardly do! I think I am a good example of learning a new language at the older age. I should also mention that I had already learned two languages (one of them at the age of 32 and the other when I was 15) before I start learning Swedish. I believe that you understand it Luca very well that I am an average as far as IQ. Thanks for this interesting video. Wish you the best luck !
i'm also learning swedish! do you have any ressources which you can share with me ? children books in pdf?
For the past 1 year and 6 months i've been applying this method in order to master english, i still make a lot of mistakes and i believe that i'm still really far away from fluency, but, at least now i can finally watch about 80% of the videos in english on TH-cam just fine, although when it comes to speak, oh shi-
Perfect video!
I think the main problem of people's failure to learn like kids is pression, for example people who want to learn new language to work in an international company, their goal is the job, the salary....or benefits.....but not learning.
Thank for giving me totally new way of thinking about learning language
Thanks from india👍❤
thanks Luca,
My native language is English and I started Spanish when I was 17. I would say that I'm at a B2 level and can have a pretty good conversation with Spanish speakers. So yes, it is not impossible to learn a language after age 10 but what it does require is a conscious and determined mindset. Since we are no longer kids, we cannot actively engage with the language the way they do, so I believe it is important to set aside some time every day and be dedicated and consistent to practicing that language.
Hi.I'm brasilian.When I was learning english I was frenquentely afraid to make mistakes when speaking but now that's I'm learning French I'm learning with pleasure because now I don't care about be gramatically correct, I'm enjoying the process and I try to put french into my life every day. It's fun and I'm not afraid.I'm learning more fast this way. 👍
I'm really fond of languages and I do translation as a job. After my eighteen years I learnt Spanish and Catalan :)
I started to learn English by the age of 21 and I have to admit that I procrastinated a lot although after 5 years now my English level is C1
Great video Luca. I think that adults have some advantages over children: they are more focussed, know what they want to talk about and what they need and can make use of their prior knowledge of other languages
Indeed Timothy and thanks for the comment! =)
Ciao, Luca! Sono lituana e ho 24 anni. All'inizio di 2020 non potevo capire ed esprimermi bene in italiano, adesso già posso dire che capisco molto molto meglio e ho aumentato il mio livello. Anche se parlare è ancora un po' difficile. Ma quello che posso dire è che per aumentare il mio livello richiede costanza ed impegno. La realtà è che per imparare qualciasi lingue ci vuole lavoro. 😊
Ciao Ruta! Esattamente =) E complimenti per il tuo italiano! =)
I met my uncle in nice on my trip he comes to France from the USA at age 70 when I met him I thought he is one of the people he no in France. He speaks like a native speaker now he is 73 years old. I always believe that you can learn at any age. thanks, luca.
Yes this is what i noticed too i am afraid of making mistakes when i was a kid i did not care about this learning languages has been kind of nostalgic for me in a weird way.
A great video!
My story:
I never learned languages at school. School killed my creativity what comes to language learning. I still have bad memories about the language teachers, horrible!
As an adult after army I learned English and I even moved to London for a while experience everything. I have learned English a lot and still learning. How I learned. I went to evening school to study and started to speak immediately from first day. English language opened the door to international students world:)
Now I'm 39 years old. I have studied French about two years. I have only listen and read a lot. No speaking or writing a lot. I have a French teacher and two lessons a week, about 3h a week with teacher then rest I try to study 1h a day approximately.
Now I have started to make videos in French on my TH-cam channel, so output here I come. I have a little bit different approach to French language than I had to English. I haven't spoken French from first day, but now after two years.
I didn't know anything about French. Now I know a lot and it is possible to learn as an adult. I listen a lot French stories and read interesting stories I like.
I also teach Finnish on my TH-cam channel. I couldn't never believed that I would teach Finnish when I was 13 years old and in English class all my classmates laughed and mocked me when I could not speak English and said thing incorrectly...
A new language has given me a new soul...
Happy New Year Luca! Se puede aprender un segundo idioma pero como un adulto.... Sería fantástico tener unas condiciones perfectas de inmersión para cada idioma objetivo pero..... Regards from Venezuela!
saludos desde eeuu
Happy New Year to use as well Annie! Se puede aprender cualquier idioma =)
@@LucaLampariello si es cierto! Grazie per la tua guida e le tue lezioni ....!
@@LucaLampariello si es cierto! Grazie per la tua guida e le tue lezioni ....!
sehr gut Schatz. natürlich . mein Muttersprache ist persische sprache und ich wurde in Iran geboren. ich habe diese sprache beim lernen angefangen wenn ich 27 jahre alt war. denke ich der beste teil beim Fremdsprache ist Motivation zu haben. danke deine Idee bei uns zu teilen.
Im portuguese, 35 years old.
At school i was a very good student but i hated english and french classes, they looked so hard and i wasnt good at them.
At the university i went in Erasmus to Slovakia and started using english every day and from that moment i never stopped using it so now i have no problem with english.
I have been living in Spain for the last 10 years so i speak spanish perfectly without ever looking at a spanish grammer book.
Now im at school learning french and german and i am learning much faster than when i was an adolescent.
Age doesnt mean a thing, as long as you are motivated and learn/use the language EVERY SINGLE DAY you will reach fluency sooner or later.
I am 64 and a native German. Started learning English when I was at school, probably by 10. During my professional life hat to use english every day. My 3rd language was french with the age of about 30 by self-studying with a LP (Record Player) course just for fun.
Five years ago (with almost 60 years) I started to learn Swedish, Dutch and Spanish and belief to be in all these languages at a quit fluent level. I practice all languages regular with language partners, teaching them german at the same event. I totally agree that everything is possible even when you are older.
Grande Luca!
Io ho iniziato il mio viaggio col polacco un paio d'anni fa. Pianificavo una vita in una maniera ed è uscita fuori in tutto un altro modo... in Polonia! Tantissime somiglianze tra le nostre due culture poi... e a volte anche con il nostro dialetto 😀
Pensa a "ja Ci dam" e "to' do io" 😆 O a come usano "synek" in Silesia, paragonato al nostro "ah regazzì'" 😆
E hai proprio ragione: vedere come parlano tra di loro e quali espressioni prediligono può fare la differenza, se si ha un occhio attento😀
Un saluto 🤙🏻
Luca, I took Spanish and French when I was a teenager, and four years ago, I started learning Italian at the community college (as I am half Italian). For the past three semesters, I took German, including a German conversation course with the third semester of German. Sadly, because it was online, I have felt less capable of speaking it with the same fluency that I had after learning the other languages in person. As such, I have decided not to take a German conversation class this semester as it will also be online. Is this a smart move? I will take one when in person learning resumes, but will I be able to maintain what I have learned if I just watch Easy German videos and read short stories in German, and perhaps doing workbook exercises from the many ones I purchased?
I wouldn't say native but I felt like I got a pretty good intuitive sense for German after doing extensive reading in my 20's. I also dreamed in German a lot back then. I've studied other languages and haven't gotten that intuitive sense but Japanese keeps getting better. I've been studying it going on 10 years this April. I don't know if my intuitive sense for German was a result of its being closer to English, having an easier writing system, or me being younger. I often wonder.
It's pretty hard to learn languages in covid, due to isolation, languages are learned with exposure. Covid loves exposure too though.
When i was 18 Years old i learned German at the most advanced level.
At the moment i am 35 years old and i am learning english and Spanish at the same time.
This year i want to learn these languages well and the following years i also want to learn Italian , Portuguese and French!
Hi Luca, could we maybe have a book tour at some point? I’d love to see what you recommend
It is on the to-do list =)
@@LucaLampariello grazie Luca! Look forward to seeing it!
My english is getting closer and closer to fluency, but still far away from french which I speak very fluently despite not being my mother tongue and rarely speaking it in my daily life (but a fair amount of listening and reading though)!