Let's be honest, thats 3 hours a day and every day. On average, no casual learner who is spending 15 minutes every day will become fluent in less than a decade.
This is not true at all. If you have 3 class a week during one year and you study a little bit also you can reach B1 in 1 or 2 years in a lot of languages.
@@jimzorn3853 You way of thinking is no-sens. You will never learn 100.000 words. They connect with each other by speaking a lot. I'm fluent in 4 languages I know what I say. I never had to study 3 hours a day. You will be suprise by how small is the amount of words you use everyday
Fluent also doesn't mean anyhting. I consider myself as fluent in english but if you start to speak to me about certain topic it would probably be harder. But I"m very fluent if I speak about music or movie. Also fluent in british, irish, american english ? What does it mean ? Don't think I want to be fluent, you will never be fluent like in you mother tongue. Think about what you can do in the language. Take you time, have a good teacher and you will have good results without too much work. Short goals are amazing.
I feel like as a young adult saying “6 months from now you could speak another language pretty well” is like saying “hey if you spend an eternity learning this language you speak it a bit ok ish” But as an older person who’s a father of 3 that’s like saying “hey start today and tomorrow you’ll be speaking fluently tomorrow”
Same man, I had no idea it would be this hard but 3 years later I'm still having so much fun and it's one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had 頑張ってください！
Don't forget that these won't apply to you if your native language isn't English though! I.e. French and Portuguese are probably Category 4 for me, while Mongolian and Korean are Category 1, as a native Turkish speaker. But it'll of course be easier to learn German and Dutch after learning English either way, let alone the availability of high quality resources. Take your own language and also the ones you've learned so far into account before approaching such lists :) Lastly, don't get lost in such details, just learn whichever the one that motivates you the most!!
True! if the place you live is, for historical reason, "bilingual,"your brain will identify the other language as "not so foreign", and it will understand the logic and above all the culture of this language, even if you don't like it. This is the case in the former German-occupied zones of France.
Exactly. If you're a native English speaker who's studied German, Old English will be much easier than if you hadn't. And if you've studied those three, all the Germanic languages start to look the same.
I've been learning Chinese as my 3rd language and my friend was learning Dutch at the same time for a few years. I was always curious as to how did she manage to learn it so fast. Now I know 😂 Learning Chinese has been a struggle, but worth it
I'm truly a StoryLearning veteran now Olly. I've finished French Uncovered till B1, four books (Short Stories Simple, Intermediate, Conversations Simple and Intermediate) and am currently enjoying Subjunctive Made Simple. I also correctly guessed Tagalog and already speak two category IV languages - Hindi and Marathi. My aim is B2 Spanish post B2 French!
To be clear, Hindi's inclusion in Category IV-requiring 44 weeks or 1,100 class hours of study-is only for native English speakers who don't speak any other language. Whereas if you speak any language from the Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan) family fluently, then Hindi would be an easy Category I. Marathi is not categorized or taught by the FSI, as it's not an international diplomatic language. But I think I know what you mean. Of course, to anyone who already knows Hindi or other Sanskrit-family languages, Marathi too would be an easy Category I (or II at worst).
honestly, don't be scared off from learning a language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet! I'm learning Ukrainian and I'm dyslexic, and it really only took me an afternoon to get a good grasp of the different letters. once you generally remember them most of the time, start reading asap and soon you'll be able to read perfectly in no time ☺️
I knew it was Tagalog because I’m a native speaker. I want to say though that in the Philippines it’s officially known as Filipino, which is the national language based on Tagalog (the biggest ethnic group and situated around Manila, the country’s capital) but which incorporates elements from Spanish,, English, Chinese and other languages. It’s a beautifully expressive language but I agree it can be a challenge for anglophones to learn. (I have C2 English and B2 French, currently learning Spanish).
@@nsevv Can you elaborate on what makes it "better"? I paid $15 for my book which is less than a meal these days so the cost isn't an issue. I do appreciate the suggestion though as it's something to look into for continued studies. Sidenote: Paul Noble's book alone is $18.99 which is more expensive.
I agree. Don't let the categories stop you. I personally am just fascinated by languages and I'm across the board learning German, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish. In the future I also want to learn Icelandic and Igbo. Unlike most people though, my goal is to have a basic understanding of the language. If fluency comes then great. I just don't want to look at a language and gloss over it because I have no clue what it says.
What a coincidence I’m learning Tagalog right now (the mystery language)😂😅 I have an advantage knowing a regional Filipino language Bisaya, but Tagalog has more complex conjugations and stricter grammar rules. I’m struggling a little bit but I’m pushing through! Thanks Olly for always coming out with motivational language learning content.
My native language is Swedish and when I was a kid we started to learn English in school at ten and the third language at 13. I was pretty tired of school by then so my choice was German since I was told it was easier than French. I didn’t really want to learn German so I later studied French for a year. During that year we had classes several hours a week and used a studio to practice speaking and listening. So in a year my French surpassed the four years of German I had studied earlier. This was in the 1980s something so I don’t speak either language today. But, I had use of both languages alongside Spanish, Italian and Latin while I was studying classical singing. And I am very grateful for my teachers in German for their persistence in teaching the importance of grammar and usage, which benefited me greatly when I later took English at university level, and when learning to understand and sing in new languages
As someone who is a native speaker and who learned some German in school, French is so much harder than German to be able to have a basic conversation or to communicate with people.
It was the Brahmic script. Some of the languages in the Philippines used to be written in it, and some still do. The script could be mixed up with the other languages that still use it across the Asian continent at first glance.
@@darktheme2192 The Brahmic script was widely used. Good to know that it is somewhat offered in the Philippines for people to learn Baybayin. It is too bad other systems like Kulitan, Palaw'an, Buhid, etc... It is also too bad other places like Indonesia is not using their versions as much either.
As a second language learner of English, I put in my best effort to learn, but I often face challenges and setbacks. Your advice is truly motivating and gives me hope. I've heard about an extension called Immersive Translate from some TH-camr's comments, and it sounds quite intriguing. I'll give it a try and hope to make significant progress in this area.
So I know Lao, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Latin to varying degrees. Currently relearning Spanish after decades back in high school. Almost like getting back on a bike. Should be back to the level I want in the next few months.
You didn't speak much about Arabic on this video, but one thing I want to point out that makes learning it extra complicated is the difference between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and the many regional dialects - and the dialects aren't even officially written! I'm not sure to what extent universities teach Arabic dialects now, but they weren't taught when I studied Arabic, so I studied MSA for 4 years at a US university and got a minor in it. However, when I went to Morocco to study Moroccan Arabic ("darija") for 3 months, I had to go back to the beginning level. They are almost like separate languages! I lived with a Moroccan family and traveled all over the country, to places where I had no choice by to speak Moroccan. Living there and studying the dialect for a semester made me more fluent than I was after all the book learning of MSA in the US! No Arabs actually speak MSA as a first language. They have to study it too! So when you study MSA, you're great at reading, since almost everything (minus informal writing, like on social media) is written in MSA, but you are almost clueless when you step out onto the street and try to have a conversation. Some dialects are closer to MSA, like urban Jordanian/Palestinian. I was able to pick that up pretty quickly living in the Middle East. But as much as I love Morocco and the Moroccan dialect, most other Arabic-speaking countries don't understand it. As for MSA language learning materials, there aren't many. You kind of have to go from textbooks to native language materials. Forget Netflix and all the fun aspects of learning a language! The subtitles on Netflix are in MSA, and there are no movies or shows in MSA that I'm aware of. So you're watching something where they're speaking Egyptian Arabic, for example, and the subtitles are written in MSA -- not actually representing the words you are hearing. You are relegated to children's cartoons, religious programming, and the news - and they all get old fast!
I'm learning Japanese right now and It doesn't matter what a chart says about its difficulty: the simple fact is, the language is incredibly foreign to someone of indo-european speaking origin, in my case Serbian and English (which are, comparatively, quite similar). Whereas if you're a speaker of a related language group, the language will be at least grammatically be similar, if not share vocab with your target language. Then again I am having an easier time with Japanese just because I enjoy Japanese media so much more than with Polish, which is a very closely related language.
Been learning Japanese - appreciate your comment on what it takes to learn the category 5 languages. Basically be patient, it’ll happen eventually. Nice reminder to enjoy the process!
Then again, as Olly said, US diplomats don't need to learn the Navajo language, because they speak to the Navajo people in English. Hence they don't teach it at the FSI, nor have they assigned a category to it. The US government has left it entirely up to the Navajo people to preserve their language, population, and way of life-like it has with all indigenous Americans who've managed to survive till now.
@@nHans Unfortunately many indigenous groups don't see preserving their language as much of a priority. In Canada it was proposed in one province that anyone, including non indigenous people had to learn an indigenous language to work at an indigenous owned casino. The people who rejected the idea was non other than the indigenous elders. The big contributing factor was those very elders did not speak any other language aside from English.
@@Matt-jc2ml The languages with an Asterix could technically be put in their own category of difficulty. The level 4 languages such as: Estonian, Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Georgian, Thai and Vietnamese. They should be labelled as level 5. Level 6 should be Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic, Korean. Level 7 Japanese.
I’ve been studying Hebrew for slightly over a year, and I am probably at a mid-A2 level. Some people learn languages more slowly, and some languages are naturally much more difficult to learn.
As a Dutchman, born in 1949, the educational system was provided bt the government. All schools were government schools, the books were the same and teachers were certified. We also had to learn 3 foreign languages, starting with French in the 5th. grade and followed by German and English from the 7th. grade. Final exams consisted in having read 3 books in each language and be able to have a fluent conversation about them during an hour. Yes, we really learned those languages because they "weighed" as much as maths.
I find it often easy to use comparative sounds between languages. I am fluent in German. A cook in German = Koch, just change the "o" to an "a" and add an english "wa" to the end, Kachwa {coffee in Arabic}. I am sure it would be easier to use an international phonetic-sound conversion tool. Do you know of any?
My study journey was unbearably lonely without a peer. Your vlogs alleviated that, but language barriers hinder me. Now, I'm using Immersive Translate to enhance my language skills and hope to comprehend your videos independently.
I learned French to C1 level relatively quickly. It helped I got posted to Paris for 3 years. But the step up to German is so challenging. I won't let it beat me though. I'm currently battling on to get to B2.
I'm German, and I also find French to be pretty easy. But it's surprising to me that you find German so much harder than French, I would have guessed for an English speaker, they should be around the same difficulty
@@mikereisert2803 I think it is because French grammar is relatively similar to English grammar, whereas German grammar and word order is very different from English. All those cases, declensions and verbs coming at the end of sentences are quite mind-taxing. But I enjoy the challenge.
As a native Russian and Hebrew speaker I remember English used to be crazy hard and confusing, but learning persian afterwards was a relatively smooth ride. So I guess it's influenced by the languages ypu already speak and there are many individual differences
I’m Italian, i already speak both English and German, and this made picking up Dutch pretty easy. I was able to have small conversations with locals without making mistakes (as the locals told me) after 2 weeks of occasional study in the Netherlands. However the 90% of the vocabs that i picked up didn’t come from interactions with natives but from TV series and spongebob.
The language spoken at roughly 10:30 was Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines. I have no clue what level/rating it is, but my husband is Filipino and I've heard him and his family speak their language for the past 25 years. 😁 That doesn't mean I understand much! When I rewind and listen to her again I pick up something about an older sister... and a soup called sinigang with some other food related terms.... then I'm lost again. 😂
Surprisingly I’m studying tagalog for my second language and when I saw the babayin script I was like oh shit no way!! I’m about a year in my journey and I’m about an A2ish level. I believe my next step is just obtaining as much vocab as possible. For the most part understood the clip as well!
There must be a structured 12-year formal schooling in a certain foreign language from preschool up to high school, not just as a language subject, but also as a medium of instruction for science, mathematics, and civic subjects. This preferred foreign language must be used as a medium in businesses, mass media, and civil service to complement compulsory schooling. I hope this approach will be considered by Filipino educators and politicians if they wish to revive Spanish as a spoken language in the Philippines.
My second language is Mandarin Chinese... I've been learning it for about 2 years, and I just started learning Russian because I love the sound of Russian, and I already know the syrillic alphabet
As Swedes, we don't even really count English. It's just a given. It seems like our *third language* is more like your (English speakers') second language.
When I started studying Russian, I thought the cyrillic alphabet was hard. Then I thought it was the six cases. But boy, oh boy, I was not ready for the verbs: those are probably the real beast 😂
@@yvfj155 я люблю изучать языки, а я хочу изучать один славянский язык. Also, it’s a bit more challenging than, say, spanish or italian 🤭 But holy moly, it is painful at times 🤣
15:12 I understand that the content creator wanted to show how different Russian alphabet is, but its the old Russian alphabet. The writing reform 1708 dumped 15 letters (3of which were later added back and added one extra letter which didn't exist before) the Soviet government in 1917 dumped 3 more letters and simplified the rules to make them closer to the actual pronunciation. back in the day.
I really think that the difficulty of a learning a new language is determined by people's mindset, and the capacity of being challenged in our certainty and vision of the world. The time it takes to master a new language will depend on how resilient our minds are to accept these different ways of perceiving the world, our motivation (what for) and personal organisation.
10:29 That's Tagalog since the vast majority of my co-workers are Pinoy. I'm Mexican-American btw so this was due to exposure and not my ethnic identity
I’m on day 204 of Italian and feel very much like a beginner. I practise between 15 mins to 3 hours a day so probably at least 1 hour everyday on average, it’s not like I’ve not been expose to it either as my mum is Italian. I also listen to Italian at least an hour a day. I do wonder if I’m too dumb to learn a language
I feel the same about Spanish. I have been learning it for three and a half years (1 hour a day). And I am afraid I am not even at B1 level. Though I still hope to reach C1 one day...
Same amount of days and I feel the same in spanish. I average 2 maybe 3 hours a day and Spanish is said to be a bit easier then italian. I've been messing around with italian too for fun, I only know a few phrases though. I really like italian. Buona fortuna per il tuo cammino!
@@halcyon733 Sólo llevo siete meses aprendiendo español. Creo que mi español ya debería ser mejor para ahora. Mi camino es largo, pero lo voy a hacer y aprender español. buena suerte en tu camino
@@thetightwadhomesteader3089 thank you, I’m going to Italy in about 6 weeks so maybe that will help. Luckily have family there that speak both English and Italian so maybe they can help. Good luck with your Spanish learning
Agreed, as a Dutch speaker, German is one of the easier languages for me. Yet so are Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, since Papiamento is my mother tongue.
I'm a native English speaker. I learned German in school over 5 years. Now I'm learning Croatian on my own. I know it's a difficult language, but I think if I stay dedicated I can do it. Also a lot of the language learning skills I got from German are coming in handy.
nice you learned French and Icelandic like I did. (though I'd love to have a proper course on Icelandic as I learned it on my own in an unconventional way)
Thanks Olly! สวัสดีค่ะ I’m Thai and I feel very well represented here 😊. (Actually the sentence ending for politeness for a guy is “ครับ“ with the character above included. I guess the English only keyboard might not be able to handle that.) In terms of language learning experience, you’re so right about German. I was a one academic year exchange student when I was in high school, then college workload got better of me for years. After about 8 years of almost no exposure I just wrapped up some courage to talk to a random German speaking person on public transport 😂😂😂. I was still conversationable to some extent. I’m afraid if I didn’t dare to get some practice that day there might not be another chance for years to come and I might lose my ability altogether.
Hi Ollie, thanks for another great video. I must say, one of the most fascinating language overlaps I found was when I started learning Russian and discovered so many Afrikaans and German words or very close derivatives thereof. This fascinated me so much that I started making my own Afrikaans/Russian dictionary but then life got in the way and I never got much further with it. I suppose, it would mean quite a big overlap with Dutch too then since it is a 'sister' to Afrikaans as you say. I can pick up and understand a lot of words when I hear someone speaking Dutch. Maybe one day I'll tackle Dutch too but there are too many other choices on the bucketlist which I want to conquer first and it might be a bit like learning Portuguese after you've learned Spanish, lol. I might get a lot of words confused, lol.
I’m taking a German class right now that’s 20hrs a week. A1.1 first month, A1.2 next month, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1, etc so B2 fluency would be in about 8 months. It was tough in the beginning trying to get a grasp on the grammar but once that started to click, you do feel like you’re making progress but so much still to learn
I didn’t realize but I made a goal to learn Portuguese, German, Russian, and Mandarin and they are all in different categories. Almost C1 in PT I suppose German is next!
Dutch is actually very complex for english native speakers. When they think they're good, they still make a lot of mistakes in the word order. And I mean, a lot. They just got it wrong all the time. They need to listen more. It's like in German here 9:17 'Ik denk dat ik het versta'.
FSI really doesnt apply properly to normal people. Only thing one should take from it is that which langs are normally easier, and which ones will probably take more time. And if you know a second language, depending on what language that is, FSI chart can become very wrong. Because its designed for only English speakers.
I've studied multiple languages from Categories 1, 4 and 5 (as a native English speaker). Out of all of them, French has been the hardest for me. According to the chart, it should have been one of the easiest. There really are a lot of other factors that determine how difficult a language will be for each individual.
@@falafelbrincess I myself am learning French right now, and yes its more difficult than I thought it was. Currently 2 year + learning French, still has trouble understanding natives. I though it would be easy when I saw FSI chart for first time before learning French.
I totally understood the mystery language you presented. It's not my mother tongue (I speak Cebuano), but we did have to learn it in school since it's the national language. Unfortunately, I can barely speak it now (moved to the States when I was 10), but at least I still could understand it. Good thing English is also the other language we learned in school. I can reply in English. 😅
I have found a very unique challenge in learning my husband's tribal language. Ekpeye is a Nigerian language and there are not many resources, so I have made my own. I am constantly trying to find ways to make it a part of my daily life. I would guess that this one is a Category III. Although it's not that hard grammatically. I just don't have the same forms of comprehensible input as I do with any of my other languages(Spanish, German, Romanian).
@afonsoscrinn I have found some academic papers about the language with translations into English. I chose to take classes of nouns(animals, foods, family members etc.) And created picture charts with only the ekpeye words under each picture. It helps me to associate the word with the object. My next task is to create picture charts for the verbs. After that I might create sentence blanks to fill in such as: Nde kpu ___ zhile la?( How is/are ___ doing? )
@@TiffanyHallmark thank you for your answer. I'm thinking of doing something similar with the few resources of the languages I want to learn. Have you figured what to do about the language sounds, specially when it comes to know weather you are speaking the words correctly?
I think the bit that everyone misses about the listing is that its 'classroom hours', with the assumption that study is extra. I think the general rule that to get to B2 will take around 3,000 hours, +/- 40% is a good one - with the category 1 languages being the minus 40%, and category 5 being +40% is pretty reasonable. The good news is though that with category 5 languages it gets easier to learn some if you already know one - even though they are not linguistically connected, you do have some advantages, such as knowing kanji/hanzi or the similar syntax of Korean and Japanese.
Personally my biggest struggle when it comes to learning languages is the access to resources. I am learning Japanese and it’s been rather slow. Most if not all of the accurate and study worthy resources are kind of expensive, and so it makes it hard to access resources. Luckily, I’m graduating soon and will be majoring in Japanese in college, hopefully it goes well😅 I do really want to get story learning for Japanese as well as other languages I want to improve (Spanish in particular)
During COVID I picked up Russian and Japanese. Use the "grow" method. Little kids learn by listening all day every day. Then they try speaking small words and adults correct them. Then once they have a handle on speaking, then they learn the alphabet and reading...and writing last. It's the BEST WAY to learn. It takes a bit longer, but you'll truly understand the language
9:17 You forgot a comma there. The correct sentence would be: "Ich denke, dass ich es verstehe" or to sound more natural while speaking "Ich denk(e), ich versteh(e) es".
I’m currently learning Japanese and it hasn’t been the hardest. The only thing hard for me has to be the writing and reading. Speaking has been an easier experience for me.
Japanese speaking has levels to it. It depends on if you want to speak words and phrases in a good pitch accent or not. If you just speak without a pitch accent, you'll probably still be understood by native speakers, but you'll sound very foreign. It took me a good year of careful studying of the standard pitch accent to be able to hear it clearly and replicate it consistently in my own speech. It's much better to study it earlier than later so you don't develop bad pronunciation early on you'd have to unlearn.
I agree on the last point, learning korean alphabet took me less than two hours and I wasn't only focus on this task at the moment (reading fluently took me more time tho)
I wanted to cry when I saw Korean was Cat V. Always wanted to understand the interviews I watch every week without having to have it translated. Don't need to speak it though. Would that cut the hours down?
You can do it if you have the enough motivation, I'm studying Korean, I know will be a long journey but I love the language, I like it a lot and is not as difficult as people said, of course have some details like different endings depending the formality a lot of particles and some details with certain grammatical points but if you want you can.
You can do it! Even if you get to only a b1 b2 level, you can understand most words in an interview / song. C not being too necessary. Plus with these kind of languages, Koreans are very thankful that you even took the time to learn it. With French, my third language, I find interesting content to be hard to find. But Korean has a lot. I recommend TTMIK and How to Study Korean as your textbooks. Good luck!
Been a bit over a year learning Finnish and I’m not even B1. Sitting around A2.3. Not easy. The 16 grammatical cases aside, the vocabulary is probably the most difficult thing. The only saving grace is the alphabet being Latin letters. This is also the first language I’ve decided to learn outside of English.
Icelandic is not as easy as I thought it would be, or as fast to learn as I thought, but I'm hanging in there. I'm using LingQ and the Story Learning book for it, which is awesome.
En tant que camerounais, nous sommes exposés au français et à l'anglais au quotidien. Ayant fait toutes mes études en français, j'ai décidé d'apprendre l'anglais de moi-même sur internet et avec des livres pour pouvoir regarder les vidéos TH-cam et regarder les films américains. En me lançant dans cette voie je me suis dis que ça allait être facile, mais en réalité non! Ça m'a pris un an de travail intensif. J'ai réellement expérimenté à quel point il est difficile d'apprendre une nouvelle langue étant adulte. Si les autres langues sont plus difficiles que l'anglais comme vous le dites, je me contenterai des trois langues que me maîtrise déjà: le français, l'anglais et l'ewondo (ma langue maternelle). Bonne chance à ceux qui, étant adulte, se lancent dans l'apprentissage des langues de la classe IV ou V.
Russian truly isn't as hard as people say it is. I've been learning Russian for only a year and I'm already almost past A2. I would be happy to help anyone learn the beautiful language of Russian for free!
As a Thai, I'm so glad that our language is being mentioned here . I just took french a month ago, and I'm struggling with the conjugation and genders. I can't believe that Thai is at the IV level in FSI ranking. We have no tenses, no articles, no genders, and most importantly no conjugations.
สวัสดีค่ะ I'm learning Thai right now (as a native English speaker), and I love it! I definitely appreciate the "no tenses, no articles, no genders, and no conjugations" aspect! 😆 I've actually had a lot of fun learning & practicing the writing system, and the tones start to feel more accessible & instinctive as my listening improves. I really encourage people interested in learning Thai to not let those aspects intimidate them! สู้ๆ
it's actually crazy how well I remember things from stories I've read. I still after like 8 years if not more remember what whale is in italian because I read a story about a whale and a seagull in italian. for those wondering it is balena
I'm pretty sure you know and someone has pointed out that chocolate is a Nahuatl word, not Latin, but it did probably pass through a Romance language or two before getting into English.
as a chinese,it just take me four months to communicate with native english,but at present i have learned for 10months ,i still cant understant a lot of American seriers
I would like to see where Cherokee fits on the list. I have been studying Cherokee casually for a short time. It is quite difficult to find resources, but not impossible if you are dedicated. The grammar is crazy hard though, and since it is an endangered language close to extinction, it is almost impossible to find native speakers.
Would be interesting to see where Welsh fits onto that list. I'd guess one of the first categories as it's really not that difficult, even though people seem to claim that it is. I'm currently learning Dutch, as the first real attempt at learning a language since leaving school over 30 years ago. I just wish I had the time available to put the effort in as much as I'd like. It's been about 18 months now and while I can understand a decent amout, I still can't really form sentences properly yet.
I learned the syrillic alphabet without meaning to me. I was just listening to music in Russian and reading the lyrics in Russian while singing along, I also thought myself the Greek alphabet 1 day, because I wanted to, so I normally write people's names in the Greek alphabet in my journal, while the journal itself is in a mix of Russian and Mandarin Chinese... so only I can read it
Sometimes, the language levels can feel deceiving. In my case, I was a missionary for my church and had to learn Thai, which was challenging for sure, but it seemed a lot easier for me to learn Thai than it currently is for me to learn Portuguese which is arguably much easier. There are just a lot of factors, and putting a time frame on it is just kind of unrealistic. However, it does help to somewhat get an idea of how challenging a language is to pick up. For an English speaker, of course.
lol the fact that i was so excited for the mystery language and it was just my mother tongue.. it made me happy that my language is mysterious but i also wanted to try and guess😂😂
i live and work in Japan as a graphic designer. Japanese will be rewarding when I'm fluent but for now it is like knowing something so well but going to work and realizing you know nothing. I can literally understand formatting text and have casual convo. I'm doing a pretty good job working with the text, it helped me with gaining a better grasp of the language by getting thrown in. a huge part of this language is culture based, so answering a question with a yes brings confusion as well as a no. It is hard to stay motivated from time to time. And no i didn't use a lot of capital letters writing this, i don't need those things anymore... except for my entire name every time i write it. And my keyboard is Japanese so i spend a lot of time trying to find the correct punctuation or just remembering to change between languages. cuz there are actually FOUR alphabets if you include romaji that I use daily in advertising. the space in English is shorter width than the space in Japanese. that's all i can muster for now.
I am from Ukraine, and I am bilingual in Ukrainian and Russian languages. I also have an intermediate level in Slovak because I studied there. Because of this, I can understand (but speak poorly) Polish and Czech. I have read The Witcher in Polish and had no huge difficulties with it. So if you know some languages from the same language group, you can easily understand them, but probably not speak them fluently. But I have no clue how to understand Germanic or Latin language groups other than words like chocolate, restaurant, cafe, etc 😅
My favorite way to learn a language is too read lots of children books and cartoons because Many native kids are probably just as a beginner as you are.
What's your language level right now? 👉🏼 th-cam.com/video/yBTjkYoQj4E/w-d-xo.htmlsi=JhFAPhzQqm1BDZNC
Mystery language is Tagalog at cat 4 if I remember correctly. I have B2 Tagalog, C2 English, A1 Hungarian + currently learning German.
Im learning turkish and i think im between A2 and B1 level
Very low lol. Not even A1 in Hungarian. Could probably scrape A1 in German if I get my brain into gear.
I am dying with Swahili it's 5 category because it has no content at all
C2 English C2 Bulgarian B2 Spanish A1 Greek and Italian and Portuguese
Let's be honest, thats 3 hours a day and every day. On average, no casual learner who is spending 15 minutes every day will become fluent in less than a decade.
In reality it will take a decade or more to really be fluent even with multiple hours of practice per day for years on end.
This is not true at all. If you have 3 class a week during one year and you study a little bit also you can reach B1 in 1 or 2 years in a lot of languages.
@jimzorn3853 no it doesn't, conversational fluency can be achieved with a much smaller amount of words than that
@@jimzorn3853 You way of thinking is no-sens. You will never learn 100.000 words. They connect with each other by speaking a lot. I'm fluent in 4 languages I know what I say. I never had to study 3 hours a day. You will be suprise by how small is the amount of words you use everyday
Fluent also doesn't mean anyhting. I consider myself as fluent in english but if you start to speak to me about certain topic it would probably be harder. But I"m very fluent if I speak about music or movie. Also fluent in british, irish, american english ? What does it mean ?
Don't think I want to be fluent, you will never be fluent like in you mother tongue. Think about what you can do in the language. Take you time, have a good teacher and you will have good results without too much work. Short goals are amazing.
I feel like as a young adult saying “6 months from now you could speak another language pretty well” is like saying “hey if you spend an eternity learning this language you speak it a bit ok ish”
But as an older person who’s a father of 3 that’s like saying “hey start today and tomorrow you’ll be speaking fluently tomorrow”
"Do you recognize... THIS language?"
*says "easy Italian" in the upper right hand corner*
But did you recognise it?
@@alphonsoelm5652 no
Currently learning Japanese and I'm having a blast! It's a journey, not a rush :)
Wanikani is awesome for Kanji if you didn't already know
So desu ne?
Same man, I had no idea it would be this hard but 3 years later I'm still having so much fun and it's one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had
頑張ってください！
Good. It is supposed to be fun.
@@dethswurl117
Same, although at times that journey can feel like having your tires stuck in a mud in the middle of nowhere and having to call emergency help.
Im a native arabic speaker and i can confirm that even us arabs face difficulties in our language 😂
We Arabs, ;-)
I've been studying Arabic for a little over a year and can only do basic conversations in Fusha.
Spend time with native Arabic speakers as they live their daily lives.
@@rollizle
@@antonboludo8886but the don’t really live their daily lives completely in fusha, mostly dialects
Yes. I suppose you are wanting to learn Classical Arabic and not one of the dialects.
@@m_ron2742
Once you have learned a few you know what to look for in a new language, even if it is completely different from the ones you know already.
Don't forget that these won't apply to you if your native language isn't English though!
I.e. French and Portuguese are probably Category 4 for me, while Mongolian and Korean are Category 1, as a native Turkish speaker.
But it'll of course be easier to learn German and Dutch after learning English either way, let alone the availability of high quality resources.
Take your own language and also the ones you've learned so far into account before approaching such lists :)
Lastly, don't get lost in such details, just learn whichever the one that motivates you the most!!
True! if the place you live is, for historical reason, "bilingual,"your brain will identify the other language as "not so foreign", and it will understand the logic and above all the culture of this language, even if you don't like it. This is the case in the former German-occupied zones of France.
omg someone needed to say this.. the whole chart is just if you speak european languages
Exactly. If you're a native English speaker who's studied German, Old English will be much easier than if you hadn't. And if you've studied those three, all the Germanic languages start to look the same.
@@slayla2926to be fair, Olly did say this
@@PapaGabo ive seen countless videos not mentioning it at all
I've been learning Chinese as my 3rd language and my friend was learning Dutch at the same time for a few years. I was always curious as to how did she manage to learn it so fast. Now I know 😂
Learning Chinese has been a struggle, but worth it
I'm truly a StoryLearning veteran now Olly. I've finished French Uncovered till B1, four books (Short Stories Simple, Intermediate, Conversations Simple and Intermediate) and am currently enjoying Subjunctive Made Simple. I also correctly guessed Tagalog and already speak two category IV languages - Hindi and Marathi. My aim is B2 Spanish post B2 French!
amazing!
To be clear, Hindi's inclusion in Category IV-requiring 44 weeks or 1,100 class hours of study-is only for native English speakers who don't speak any other language. Whereas if you speak any language from the Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan) family fluently, then Hindi would be an easy Category I.
Marathi is not categorized or taught by the FSI, as it's not an international diplomatic language. But I think I know what you mean. Of course, to anyone who already knows Hindi or other Sanskrit-family languages, Marathi too would be an easy Category I (or II at worst).
I’m 14 years old and learning Finnish for 50 days now. I can see the progress!
You are young! That helps!
Same, I'm 14 turning 15 in Jan, I've been learning German for 82 days now 😃
honestly, don't be scared off from learning a language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet! I'm learning Ukrainian and I'm dyslexic, and it really only took me an afternoon to get a good grasp of the different letters. once you generally remember them most of the time, start reading asap and soon you'll be able to read perfectly in no time ☺️
I knew it was Tagalog because I’m a native speaker. I want to say though that in the Philippines it’s officially known as Filipino, which is the national language based on Tagalog (the biggest ethnic group and situated around Manila, the country’s capital) but which incorporates elements from Spanish,, English, Chinese and other languages. It’s a beautifully expressive language but I agree it can be a challenge for anglophones to learn. (I have C2 English and B2 French, currently learning Spanish).
I speak tagalog, bisaya, and also english.
Kababayan
One never really finishes learning any language even your native one.
That is precisely correct.
This is an EXCELLENT video. I enjoyed it immensely. I hope people from all around the world watch it!
I've recently picked up your Short Stories in French book! Looking forward to implementing that read & practice into my studies. Great video!
Paul noble book and audio course is better and cheaper.
@@nsevv Can you elaborate on what makes it "better"? I paid $15 for my book which is less than a meal these days so the cost isn't an issue. I do appreciate the suggestion though as it's something to look into for continued studies. Sidenote: Paul Noble's book alone is $18.99 which is more expensive.
I agree. Don't let the categories stop you. I personally am just fascinated by languages and I'm across the board learning German, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish. In the future I also want to learn Icelandic and Igbo.
Unlike most people though, my goal is to have a basic understanding of the language. If fluency comes then great.
I just don't want to look at a language and gloss over it because I have no clue what it says.
What a coincidence I’m learning Tagalog right now (the mystery language)😂😅 I have an advantage knowing a regional Filipino language Bisaya, but Tagalog has more complex conjugations and stricter grammar rules. I’m struggling a little bit but I’m pushing through! Thanks Olly for always coming out with motivational language learning content.
My native language is Swedish and when I was a kid we started to learn English in school at ten and the third language at 13. I was pretty tired of school by then so my choice was German since I was told it was easier than French. I didn’t really want to learn German so I later studied French for a year. During that year we had classes several hours a week and used a studio to practice speaking and listening. So in a year my French surpassed the four years of German I had studied earlier. This was in the 1980s something so I don’t speak either language today. But, I had use of both languages alongside Spanish, Italian and Latin while I was studying classical singing. And I am very grateful for my teachers in German for their persistence in teaching the importance of grammar and usage, which benefited me greatly when I later took English at university level, and when learning to understand and sing in new languages
As someone who is a native speaker and who learned some German in school, French is so much harder than German to be able to have a basic conversation or to communicate with people.
I initially thought Tagalog but the different script threw me off and stumped me 🤣 good one, Olly!
That's a script that used to be used for Tagalog. Now it's written in Latin.
It was the Brahmic script. Some of the languages in the Philippines used to be written in it, and some still do. The script could be mixed up with the other languages that still use it across the Asian continent at first glance.
That script is called Baybayin. It's not used but taught in sort of elective classes at uni level I believe.
@@darktheme2192 The Brahmic script was widely used. Good to know that it is somewhat offered in the Philippines for people to learn Baybayin. It is too bad other systems like Kulitan, Palaw'an, Buhid, etc...
It is also too bad other places like Indonesia is not using their versions as much either.
As a second language learner of English, I put in my best effort to learn, but I often face challenges and setbacks. Your advice is truly motivating and gives me hope. I've heard about an extension called Immersive Translate from some TH-camr's comments, and it sounds quite intriguing. I'll give it a try and hope to make significant progress in this area.
One of the best long educative videos I've seen in a while.
25 minutes and I wish it didn't stop. You're good, man. Kudos.
So I know Lao, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Latin to varying degrees. Currently relearning Spanish after decades back in high school. Almost like getting back on a bike. Should be back to the level I want in the next few months.
And Tagalog spoken by the lady
You didn't speak much about Arabic on this video, but one thing I want to point out that makes learning it extra complicated is the difference between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and the many regional dialects - and the dialects aren't even officially written! I'm not sure to what extent universities teach Arabic dialects now, but they weren't taught when I studied Arabic, so I studied MSA for 4 years at a US university and got a minor in it. However, when I went to Morocco to study Moroccan Arabic ("darija") for 3 months, I had to go back to the beginning level. They are almost like separate languages! I lived with a Moroccan family and traveled all over the country, to places where I had no choice by to speak Moroccan. Living there and studying the dialect for a semester made me more fluent than I was after all the book learning of MSA in the US! No Arabs actually speak MSA as a first language. They have to study it too! So when you study MSA, you're great at reading, since almost everything (minus informal writing, like on social media) is written in MSA, but you are almost clueless when you step out onto the street and try to have a conversation. Some dialects are closer to MSA, like urban Jordanian/Palestinian. I was able to pick that up pretty quickly living in the Middle East. But as much as I love Morocco and the Moroccan dialect, most other Arabic-speaking countries don't understand it. As for MSA language learning materials, there aren't many. You kind of have to go from textbooks to native language materials. Forget Netflix and all the fun aspects of learning a language! The subtitles on Netflix are in MSA, and there are no movies or shows in MSA that I'm aware of. So you're watching something where they're speaking Egyptian Arabic, for example, and the subtitles are written in MSA -- not actually representing the words you are hearing. You are relegated to children's cartoons, religious programming, and the news - and they all get old fast!
I'm learning Japanese right now and It doesn't matter what a chart says about its difficulty: the simple fact is, the language is incredibly foreign to someone of indo-european speaking origin, in my case Serbian and English (which are, comparatively, quite similar). Whereas if you're a speaker of a related language group, the language will be at least grammatically be similar, if not share vocab with your target language.
Then again I am having an easier time with Japanese just because I enjoy Japanese media so much more than with Polish, which is a very closely related language.
Been learning Japanese - appreciate your comment on what it takes to learn the category 5 languages. Basically be patient, it’ll happen eventually. Nice reminder to enjoy the process!
Haha, you got me there. I hear Tagalog but I was confused by the old script. Wow, that was their old writing system. Very cool.
I think they should create a category VI just for Navajo. That language is completely insane.
Then again, as Olly said, US diplomats don't need to learn the Navajo language, because they speak to the Navajo people in English. Hence they don't teach it at the FSI, nor have they assigned a category to it. The US government has left it entirely up to the Navajo people to preserve their language, population, and way of life-like it has with all indigenous Americans who've managed to survive till now.
@@nHans Unfortunately many indigenous groups don't see preserving their language as much of a priority. In Canada it was proposed in one province that anyone, including non indigenous people had to learn an indigenous language to work at an indigenous owned casino. The people who rejected the idea was non other than the indigenous elders.
The big contributing factor was those very elders did not speak any other language aside from English.
Lots of languages would be level 6 but they aren't major languages. Bantu languages, North Caucasian etc
@@Matt-jc2ml The languages with an Asterix could technically be put in their own category of difficulty.
The level 4 languages such as: Estonian, Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Georgian, Thai and Vietnamese.
They should be labelled as level 5.
Level 6 should be Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic, Korean.
Level 7 Japanese.
Put Chinese there too
I've been studying Finnish every day for hours for 5 months and I'm barely A2...
Focus on high frequency vocabulary and grammar only.
A2 in Finnish is not even remotely bad if you've only studied for 5 months. Keep going, you have this native speaker's support. :)
Babadum Clozemaster Busuu Drops Duolingo
Babadum Clozemaster Busuu Drops Duolingo
I’ve been studying Hebrew for slightly over a year, and I am probably at a mid-A2 level. Some people learn languages more slowly, and some languages are naturally much more difficult to learn.
As a Dutchman, born in 1949, the educational system was provided bt the government. All schools were government schools, the books were the same and teachers were certified. We also had to learn 3 foreign languages, starting with French in the 5th. grade and followed by German and English from the 7th. grade. Final exams consisted in having read 3 books in each language and be able to have a fluent conversation about them during an hour. Yes, we really learned those languages because they "weighed" as much as maths.
I find it often easy to use comparative sounds between languages. I am fluent in German. A cook in German = Koch, just change the "o" to an "a" and add an english "wa" to the end, Kachwa {coffee in Arabic}. I am sure it would be easier to use an international phonetic-sound conversion tool. Do you know of any?
My study journey was unbearably lonely without a peer. Your vlogs alleviated that, but language barriers hinder me. Now, I'm using Immersive Translate to enhance my language skills and hope to comprehend your videos independently.
I learned French to C1 level relatively quickly. It helped I got posted to Paris for 3 years. But the step up to German is so challenging. I won't let it beat me though. I'm currently battling on to get to B2.
I'm German, and I also find French to be pretty easy. But it's surprising to me that you find German so much harder than French, I would have guessed for an English speaker, they should be around the same difficulty
@mikereisert2803 yes actually french s harder than german unless u re a romance language speaker
Go to Berlin. ;)
@@mikereisert2803 I think it is because French grammar is relatively similar to English grammar, whereas German grammar and word order is very different from English. All those cases, declensions and verbs coming at the end of sentences are quite mind-taxing. But I enjoy the challenge.
As a native Russian and Hebrew speaker I remember English used to be crazy hard and confusing, but learning persian afterwards was a relatively smooth ride. So I guess it's influenced by the languages ypu already speak and there are many individual differences
I’m Italian, i already speak both English and German, and this made picking up Dutch pretty easy. I was able to have small conversations with locals without making mistakes (as the locals told me) after 2 weeks of occasional study in the Netherlands. However the 90% of the vocabs that i picked up didn’t come from interactions with natives but from TV series and spongebob.
The language spoken at roughly 10:30 was Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines. I have no clue what level/rating it is, but my husband is Filipino and I've heard him and his family speak their language for the past 25 years. 😁
That doesn't mean I understand much!
When I rewind and listen to her again I pick up something about an older sister... and a soup called sinigang with some other food related terms.... then I'm lost again. 😂
Surprisingly I’m studying tagalog for my second language and when I saw the babayin script I was like oh shit no way!! I’m about a year in my journey and I’m about an A2ish level. I believe my next step is just obtaining as much vocab as possible. For the most part understood the clip as well!
Vocab is the key. Seriously, you can skip conjugations for a while but if you miss words - no conjugation will tell you what that word means... :/
There must be a structured 12-year formal schooling in a certain foreign language from preschool up to high school, not just as a language subject, but also as a medium of instruction for science, mathematics, and civic subjects. This preferred foreign language must be used as a medium in businesses, mass media, and civil service to complement compulsory schooling.
I hope this approach will be considered by Filipino educators and politicians if they wish to revive Spanish as a spoken language in the Philippines.
Interesting about the duplication of words for plural in Indonesian. Australian Aboriginal languages do the same.
My second language is Mandarin Chinese... I've been learning it for about 2 years, and I just started learning Russian because I love the sound of Russian, and I already know the syrillic alphabet
Удачи в изучении)
Is Chinese your native language but you're better at English?
As Swedes, we don't even really count English. It's just a given.
It seems like our *third language* is more like your (English speakers') second language.
When I started studying Russian, I thought the cyrillic alphabet was hard. Then I thought it was the six cases. But boy, oh boy, I was not ready for the verbs: those are probably the real beast 😂
Как долго вы учите русский?
@@erturtemirbaev5207 я начал изучать русский язык шесть месяцев назад, I’m just a beginner 🤣
I tried to learn Russian once but gave up it s really really hard I don't understand how people learn this language they must be a genius.
Чисто из любопытства, зачем вообще учить русский? Смысл в этом какой?
@@yvfj155 я люблю изучать языки, а я хочу изучать один славянский язык. Also, it’s a bit more challenging than, say, spanish or italian 🤭
But holy moly, it is painful at times 🤣
15:12 I understand that the content creator wanted to show how different Russian alphabet is, but its the old Russian alphabet. The writing reform 1708 dumped 15 letters (3of which were later added back and added one extra letter which didn't exist before) the Soviet government in 1917 dumped 3 more letters and simplified the rules to make them closer to the actual pronunciation. back in the day.
I really think that the difficulty of a learning a new language is determined by people's mindset, and the capacity of being challenged in our certainty and vision of the world. The time it takes to master a new language will depend on how resilient our minds are to accept these different ways of perceiving the world, our motivation (what for) and personal organisation.
10:29 That's Tagalog since the vast majority of my co-workers are Pinoy. I'm Mexican-American btw so this was due to exposure and not my ethnic identity
I’m on day 204 of Italian and feel very much like a beginner. I practise between 15 mins to 3 hours a day so probably at least 1 hour everyday on average, it’s not like I’ve not been expose to it either as my mum is Italian. I also listen to Italian at least an hour a day. I do wonder if I’m too dumb to learn a language
I feel the same about Spanish. I have been learning it for three and a half years (1 hour a day). And I am afraid I am not even at B1 level. Though I still hope to reach C1 one day...
Same amount of days and I feel the same in spanish. I average 2 maybe 3 hours a day and Spanish is said to be a bit easier then italian. I've been messing around with italian too for fun, I only know a few phrases though. I really like italian. Buona fortuna per il tuo cammino!
@@halcyon733 Sólo llevo siete meses aprendiendo español. Creo que mi español ya debería ser mejor para ahora. Mi camino es largo, pero lo voy a hacer y aprender español. buena suerte en tu camino
@@halcyon733 sorry to hear that. Well done for sticking it for so long
@@thetightwadhomesteader3089 thank you, I’m going to Italy in about 6 weeks so maybe that will help. Luckily have family there that speak both English and Italian so maybe they can help. Good luck with your Spanish learning
Imo there is no such thing as a "difficult language", the difficulty depends on your mother tongue (or the languages you have already learned)
Agree, as a Korean myself, Japanese is the easiest language to learn because we share very similar syntax and ways of thinking
Exactly as for me russian s much harder than Japanese for example
Agreed, as a Dutch speaker, German is one of the easier languages for me. Yet so are Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, since Papiamento is my mother tongue.
I'm a native English speaker. I learned German in school over 5 years. Now I'm learning Croatian on my own. I know it's a difficult language, but I think if I stay dedicated I can do it. Also a lot of the language learning skills I got from German are coming in handy.
I speak English. Je parle français. Ég er að læra íslensku! 🙂
Is the last one, Icelandic?
@@darktheme2192 Yes, it is! 🇮🇸
nice you learned French and Icelandic like I did. (though I'd love to have a proper course on Icelandic as I learned it on my own in an unconventional way)
Olly, can you make a video about different alphabets? 😊
Thanks Olly! สวัสดีค่ะ I’m Thai and I feel very well represented here 😊. (Actually the sentence ending for politeness for a guy is “ครับ“ with the character above included. I guess the English only keyboard might not be able to handle that.)
In terms of language learning experience, you’re so right about German. I was a one academic year exchange student when I was in high school, then college workload got better of me for years. After about 8 years of almost no exposure I just wrapped up some courage to talk to a random German speaking person on public transport 😂😂😂. I was still conversationable to some extent. I’m afraid if I didn’t dare to get some practice that day there might not be another chance for years to come and I might lose my ability altogether.
Hi Ollie, thanks for another great video.
I must say, one of the most fascinating language overlaps I found was when I started learning Russian and discovered so many Afrikaans and German words or very close derivatives thereof. This fascinated me so much that I started making my own Afrikaans/Russian dictionary but then life got in the way and I never got much further with it.
I suppose, it would mean quite a big overlap with Dutch too then since it is a 'sister' to Afrikaans as you say. I can pick up and understand a lot of words when I hear someone speaking Dutch. Maybe one day I'll tackle Dutch too but there are too many other choices on the bucketlist which I want to conquer first and it might be a bit like learning Portuguese after you've learned Spanish, lol. I might get a lot of words confused, lol.
Thanks for the great video! I have a question: which category would you put English in, if it were a second language?
10:40 My guess: Hindi (because Indus river). FSI 3 or 4 (hard, but not the absolute hardest).
I’m taking a German class right now that’s 20hrs a week. A1.1 first month, A1.2 next month, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1, etc so B2 fluency would be in about 8 months. It was tough in the beginning trying to get a grasp on the grammar but once that started to click, you do feel like you’re making progress but so much still to learn
I didn’t realize but I made a goal to learn Portuguese, German, Russian, and Mandarin and they are all in different categories. Almost C1 in PT I suppose German is next!
Tagalog. Lived in the Philippines for 3 years. I love how flexible it is. Once it clicks, it is very fun. I would guess category 3-4
I love learning the alphabets of other countries, super easy and when you get to use it it’s fun :)
Dutch is actually very complex for english native speakers. When they think they're good, they still make a lot of mistakes in the word order. And I mean, a lot. They just got it wrong all the time. They need to listen more. It's like in German here 9:17 'Ik denk dat ik het versta'.
FSI really doesnt apply properly to normal people. Only thing one should take from it is that which langs are normally easier, and which ones will probably take more time. And if you know a second language, depending on what language that is, FSI chart can become very wrong. Because its designed for only English speakers.
I've studied multiple languages from Categories 1, 4 and 5 (as a native English speaker). Out of all of them, French has been the hardest for me. According to the chart, it should have been one of the easiest. There really are a lot of other factors that determine how difficult a language will be for each individual.
@@falafelbrincess I myself am learning French right now, and yes its more difficult than I thought it was. Currently 2 year + learning French, still has trouble understanding natives. I though it would be easy when I saw FSI chart for first time before learning French.
I knew it was Tagalog! Right from the influences. I started learning that; it’s so beautiful and cute. But now I’m on to German.
I totally understood the mystery language you presented. It's not my mother tongue (I speak Cebuano), but we did have to learn it in school since it's the national language. Unfortunately, I can barely speak it now (moved to the States when I was 10), but at least I still could understand it. Good thing English is also the other language we learned in school. I can reply in English. 😅
Yawa lisod ang Tagalog pero kasabot pa ko gamay 😅 mas ganahan mi mag English kaming Cebuano 🤣
I have found a very unique challenge in learning my husband's tribal language. Ekpeye is a Nigerian language and there are not many resources, so I have made my own. I am constantly trying to find ways to make it a part of my daily life. I would guess that this one is a Category III. Although it's not that hard grammatically. I just don't have the same forms of comprehensible input as I do with any of my other languages(Spanish, German, Romanian).
As someone who wants to learn languages with few or almost zero resources, I'm intrigued: what exactly did you mean by making your own resources?
@afonsoscrinn I have found some academic papers about the language with translations into English. I chose to take classes of nouns(animals, foods, family members etc.) And created picture charts with only the ekpeye words under each picture. It helps me to associate the word with the object. My next task is to create picture charts for the verbs. After that I might create sentence blanks to fill in such as: Nde kpu ___ zhile la?( How is/are ___ doing? )
@@TiffanyHallmark thank you for your answer. I'm thinking of doing something similar with the few resources of the languages I want to learn.
Have you figured what to do about the language sounds, specially when it comes to know weather you are speaking the words correctly?
2:35 Since my native tongue (dutch) is among the same list as english, I guess I can assume portuguese and italian would take me 600 hours as well?
Bro it feels good to be Arabian you have a category v language in the bag by default
And english comes passively as well
I think the bit that everyone misses about the listing is that its 'classroom hours', with the assumption that study is extra. I think the general rule that to get to B2 will take around 3,000 hours, +/- 40% is a good one - with the category 1 languages being the minus 40%, and category 5 being +40% is pretty reasonable. The good news is though that with category 5 languages it gets easier to learn some if you already know one - even though they are not linguistically connected, you do have some advantages, such as knowing kanji/hanzi or the similar syntax of Korean and Japanese.
9:30: It should be "Die Katze". Katz' is a word in some southern spoken dialects.
9:45 I didn’t skip towards the end to cheat and by the clues I am guessing Punjabi, which should be in either category 3 or 4.
10:06 all i can think of is Tok Pisin
I dont know why its stuck there
Category III?
Personally my biggest struggle when it comes to learning languages is the access to resources. I am learning Japanese and it’s been rather slow. Most if not all of the accurate and study worthy resources are kind of expensive, and so it makes it hard to access resources. Luckily, I’m graduating soon and will be majoring in Japanese in college, hopefully it goes well😅 I do really want to get story learning for Japanese as well as other languages I want to improve (Spanish in particular)
During COVID I picked up Russian and Japanese.
Use the "grow" method. Little kids learn by listening all day every day. Then they try speaking small words and adults correct them.
Then once they have a handle on speaking, then they learn the alphabet and reading...and writing last.
It's the BEST WAY to learn. It takes a bit longer, but you'll truly understand the language
When are you releasing an Icelandic story learning course :)
9:17 You forgot a comma there. The correct sentence would be: "Ich denke, dass ich es verstehe" or to sound more natural while speaking "Ich denk(e), ich versteh(e) es".
I’m currently learning Japanese and it hasn’t been the hardest. The only thing hard for me has to be the writing and reading. Speaking has been an easier experience for me.
Japanese speaking has levels to it. It depends on if you want to speak words and phrases in a good pitch accent or not. If you just speak without a pitch accent, you'll probably still be understood by native speakers, but you'll sound very foreign. It took me a good year of careful studying of the standard pitch accent to be able to hear it clearly and replicate it consistently in my own speech. It's much better to study it earlier than later so you don't develop bad pronunciation early on you'd have to unlearn.
@@coolbrotherf127 I'm studying japanese thanks for the tip
@@coolbrotherf127 I’ll have to keep that in mind thanks!
Wanikani is so helpful for Kanji. Happy learning!
@@Bmonkeygurl kanji is easy
I agree on the last point, learning korean alphabet took me less than two hours and I wasn't only focus on this task at the moment (reading fluently took me more time tho)
I wanted to cry when I saw Korean was Cat V. Always wanted to understand the interviews I watch every week without having to have it translated. Don't need to speak it though. Would that cut the hours down?
You can do it if you have the enough motivation, I'm studying Korean, I know will be a long journey but I love the language, I like it a lot and is not as difficult as people said, of course have some details like different endings depending the formality a lot of particles and some details with certain grammatical points but if you want you can.
You can do it! Even if you get to only a b1 b2 level, you can understand most words in an interview / song. C not being too necessary. Plus with these kind of languages, Koreans are very thankful that you even took the time to learn it. With French, my third language, I find interesting content to be hard to find. But Korean has a lot. I recommend TTMIK and How to Study Korean as your textbooks. Good luck!
2:34 Is there also a list where german is the basis?
Been a bit over a year learning Finnish and I’m not even B1. Sitting around A2.3. Not easy. The 16 grammatical cases aside, the vocabulary is probably the most difficult thing. The only saving grace is the alphabet being Latin letters. This is also the first language I’ve decided to learn outside of English.
Icelandic is not as easy as I thought it would be, or as fast to learn as I thought, but I'm hanging in there. I'm using LingQ and the Story Learning book for it, which is awesome.
Studied French for 2 years in high school and lost it all. Trying to jump back into it in my 40s pray for me
En tant que camerounais, nous sommes exposés au français et à l'anglais au quotidien. Ayant fait toutes mes études en français, j'ai décidé d'apprendre l'anglais de moi-même sur internet et avec des livres pour pouvoir regarder les vidéos TH-cam et regarder les films américains.
En me lançant dans cette voie je me suis dis que ça allait être facile, mais en réalité non! Ça m'a pris un an de travail intensif. J'ai réellement expérimenté à quel point il est difficile d'apprendre une nouvelle langue étant adulte.
Si les autres langues sont plus difficiles que l'anglais comme vous le dites, je me contenterai des trois langues que me maîtrise déjà: le français, l'anglais et l'ewondo (ma langue maternelle).
Bonne chance à ceux qui, étant adulte, se lancent dans l'apprentissage des langues de la classe IV ou V.
Russian truly isn't as hard as people say it is. I've been learning Russian for only a year and I'm already almost past A2. I would be happy to help anyone learn the beautiful language of Russian for free!
Help me learn Russian faster 😢 I study/practice/immerse 3 hours per day
@marlalabounty4292 give me some way of communicating with you and I'll help you out
You only told about B2 level, what's about C2 level in category IV+Outside classroom hours?
As a Thai, I'm so glad that our language is being mentioned here . I just took french a month ago, and I'm struggling with the conjugation and genders. I can't believe that Thai is at the IV level in FSI ranking. We have no tenses, no articles, no genders, and most importantly no conjugations.
Yes thai grammar s easy But strange alphabet and tones make your language hard to learn 😊
@watermelon3679 Yeahhh, I forgot to mention about the tones and alphabet. Learning other languages other than your mother tongue is hard anyway.
สวัสดีค่ะ
I'm learning Thai right now (as a native English speaker), and I love it! I definitely appreciate the "no tenses, no articles, no genders, and no conjugations" aspect! 😆
I've actually had a lot of fun learning & practicing the writing system, and the tones start to feel more accessible & instinctive as my listening improves.
I really encourage people interested in learning Thai to not let those aspects intimidate them! สู้ๆ
it's actually crazy how well I remember things from stories I've read. I still after like 8 years if not more remember what whale is in italian because I read a story about a whale and a seagull in italian. for those wondering it is balena
I'm pretty sure you know and someone has pointed out that chocolate is a Nahuatl word, not Latin, but it did probably pass through a Romance language or two before getting into English.
as a chinese,it just take me four months to communicate with native english,but at present i have learned for 10months ,i still cant understant a lot of American seriers
You're doing good, just keep going and it will come naturally.
I can understand how it is difficult for non-native speakers to understand native speakers
I would like to see where Cherokee fits on the list. I have been studying Cherokee casually for a short time. It is quite difficult to find resources, but not impossible if you are dedicated. The grammar is crazy hard though, and since it is an endangered language close to extinction, it is almost impossible to find native speakers.
What category would you give to luxemburgish?
I'm german and learned English in school. Now I jumped right into japanese. Yes I love a challenge, but it is also so fun. =)
Would be interesting to see where Welsh fits onto that list. I'd guess one of the first categories as it's really not that difficult, even though people seem to claim that it is.
I'm currently learning Dutch, as the first real attempt at learning a language since leaving school over 30 years ago. I just wish I had the time available to put the effort in as much as I'd like. It's been about 18 months now and while I can understand a decent amout, I still can't really form sentences properly yet.
I learned the syrillic alphabet without meaning to me. I was just listening to music in Russian and reading the lyrics in Russian while singing along, I also thought myself the Greek alphabet 1 day, because I wanted to, so I normally write people's names in the Greek alphabet in my journal, while the journal itself is in a mix of Russian and Mandarin Chinese... so only I can read it
Sometimes, the language levels can feel deceiving. In my case, I was a missionary for my church and had to learn Thai, which was challenging for sure, but it seemed a lot easier for me to learn Thai than it currently is for me to learn Portuguese which is arguably much easier. There are just a lot of factors, and putting a time frame on it is just kind of unrealistic. However, it does help to somewhat get an idea of how challenging a language is to pick up. For an English speaker, of course.
lol the fact that i was so excited for the mystery language and it was just my mother tongue.. it made me happy that my language is mysterious but i also wanted to try and guess😂😂
i live and work in Japan as a graphic designer. Japanese will be rewarding when I'm fluent but for now it is like knowing something so well but going to work and realizing you know nothing. I can literally understand formatting text and have casual convo. I'm doing a pretty good job working with the text, it helped me with gaining a better grasp of the language by getting thrown in.
a huge part of this language is culture based, so answering a question with a yes brings confusion as well as a no. It is hard to stay motivated from time to time.
And no i didn't use a lot of capital letters writing this, i don't need those things anymore... except for my entire name every time i write it.
And my keyboard is Japanese so i spend a lot of time trying to find the correct punctuation or just remembering to change between languages. cuz there are actually FOUR alphabets if you include romaji that I use daily in advertising. the space in English is shorter width than the space in Japanese. that's all i can muster for now.
I am from Ukraine, and I am bilingual in Ukrainian and Russian languages. I also have an intermediate level in Slovak because I studied there. Because of this, I can understand (but speak poorly) Polish and Czech. I have read The Witcher in Polish and had no huge difficulties with it. So if you know some languages from the same language group, you can easily understand them, but probably not speak them fluently.
But I have no clue how to understand Germanic or Latin language groups other than words like chocolate, restaurant, cafe, etc 😅
Curently learning indonesian and i dont think it should be catagory 3 tbh its very simple to see and understand the patterns in it.
My favorite way to learn a language is too read lots of children books and cartoons because Many native kids are probably just as a beginner as you are.
same
My current watch is SpongeBob and bluey in Italian 😂