I started studying Italian about nine months ago and I am just now beginning to feel like I could communicate with an Italian in broken Italian if I really had to. I am very proud of that.
Congrats! That’s awesome, I hope to make my way back around to Italian, life kind of took me in a completely different direction, language wise. I’m currently working on Japanese. Buona fortuna!
I would like to add a note of hope to people who, like me, are more dilettantes in their language learning. I _first_ started learning French in 1981 (I recall causing much laughter when I said 'merdi' instead of 'mardi'...). Just one year in school, then another 2 weeks of military training (about 2-hours a day, the goal wasn't to get us fluent, just to give us enough to be reasonably polite), then a semester here and there in college (we're now in 1989). Then ... nothing for 25 years. In 2016 I started French yet _again_ with our local Alliance Francaise, and I am now at about a B1 (though I have not been formally tested). I spend maybe 2-3 hours a week, but I'm not in a race, so my advancement can be slow. You don't _have_ to learn a language quickly, and there is nothing wrong with taking a long time - or even a very long break and coming back to it. I was surprised at how much I remembered after 25 years. I am planning on getting back into German as well (which I started hearing from family when I was little, and took my first class in 1978!) My point is - you can always come back, and learning is its own reward, no matter how slowly you go!
Some can definitely learn to play the guitar in 30 days, if they know another instrument already. My cousin (younger than me) achieved that feat in 3 weeks. Not long after he traveled Europe as a busking musician. It bothered me somewhat that it was so easy for him - he asked me to teach him to play the guitar and he learned everything I had spent years learning, in that very short time. Of course, learning the violin to the level needed for playing in a symphony orchestra takes years and years and years. But to learn an instrument to a level where you can play, i.e. communicate, with others is feasible in a reasonably short time (though maybe not the violin or the shakuhachi). Learning a language is different. Very different. Learning a computer language is easy, if you're a programmer. A human language is a totally different story.
I actually prefer Steve Kaufmann and Lindie Botes. Also Luke Ranieri and Jackson Crawford. Something about Language Simp comes off (to me) as arrogant, and it irritates me, just a little bit.
@@corinna007 Nah, Language simp's a chill dude, he's just playing a character he's created. Afterall, one of the reasons his channel exists is literally making fool out of these so called "hyperpolyglots" Metatron mentioned in the video.
The absolute shortest time I took to reach proficiency, not even fluency in a language, was one year, and that was Old English coming from being a Native English speaker and already being proficient in Latin and Greek
@@cerebrummaximus3762 mostly thinking time. Like, I can form a sentence in English without thinking about it too much even though it's not my native language, but in Russian I still struggle trying to remember grammar or the correct vocab. I can also think in English easily, while I have to translate my thoughts into Russian when speaking.
Funny for me is that I've seen many if not all of those you showed as examples, and before understanding that their just blatant lies, I would think to myself "is there something wrong with me? Am I an idiot for not being able to do what they've done in the same time frames?" It's very discouraging things that I think can push people away from wanting to learn languages because they don't at first understand the true time that is needed to be put into learning one.
Exactly, that what makes it all worse - that they use these claims for clicks is one thing, but it also it shows a complete disregard for the negative repercussions on people who will compare themselves to these claims in good faith
We are in capitalism , what do you expect ? TH-cam seek money primarily , not great content. Sometime you need great content to make money , alas most of the time you don't .
Thank you for making this video. I've been learning Finnish for eight years, and I still don't feel fluent. There is still a lot of the spoken language that I don't understand, and my listening comprehension and conversational skills are still behind my reading and writing skills (although italki lessons are definitely helping with that). It's very discouraging to see titles like that, even though I know it's clickbait. But I'm still learning because I'm stubborn, and I really do love the language.
Finnish is interesting. I have tried that out sometimes too. I'm on a reasonably high level in Modern Greek, although not fluent. Good luck! Yes, I mean.... It's another thing completely if we are talking about language geniuses who are more or less fluent in say six langagues after two and a half years or something like that. That's really impressing and most of all inspiring, not discouraging! And while they have all the right to be proud, they probably don't have a need to brag about their achievments. ... but ridiculous claims are anything but inspiring.
@@NidusFormicarum It is. I've definitely had long stretches of lacking motivation, but at the moment it's picking back up. My best languages besides English are Finnish and German, although I don't really consider myself fluent in either of them yet. I think at some point I might give Greek a try too. And thanks! Exactly. As long as the time frame they say is realistic and they don't try to be deceptive about how long it actually took, then I don't mind. But those clickbait titles knock my motivation down a bit, because I already feel like I should know more of my target languages by now than it feels like I do, and those titles just add to it.
The grammar in the language is crazy. i have been trying for 2 years i still only understand basic phrases. its going to take me decades to get fluent.
As a Finn, I can attest to our language being quite difficult, for native speakers of Indo-European languages, being an agglutinative language; though, not the hardest, by a long shot. That being said; even native Finns make rookie mistakes, all the time; like, with compound words; so, don’t stress over it too much 🙂.
I took 4 years of French in High School. I could reasonably read Moliere and Victor Hugo, but spoken regional dialects threw me loops in trying to follow. Fifty years later, with little use of this, I can still read reasonably well, but speaking would need spending a few months to get my skills back.
Thanks for making this video! This makes everyone feel less insecure about their language learning ability! So sick of these wannebe polyglots trying to impress everyone to sell.
I have been studying American Sign Language. It's as complicated as learning any language. Results? After 4 months of fairly intense practice and study, I am just approaching the ability to hold basic conversations. Fluency is probably 2 years away.
Ya, you can learn it fast if you use it a lot. Even then it still needs a fair bit of practice. and fast is not 6 days to two weeks. I was at a school that had a group of deaf people. So I started to learn it there.
Maybe if you are a spanish speaker, you can gain some proficiency in italian in a couple of month. That's because the two languages are quite similar. Were you to try to learn another language, something like arabic, you will get nowhere.
0:40 It’s, like all those TH-cam-videos and other tutorial videos on, how to play pool or Snooker, perfectly. Like, if you have the secret to playing perfect pool / Snooker, why aren’t you out there, racking up tournament gold medals / trophies? 🤯😅
Good video. And true. What needs to be understood about languages is that it's not easy unless it's a language closely related to your own - the huge difference in this latter case is that you'll be able to _understand_ relatively quickly. This is really the big hurdle otherwise. Metatron mentioned that he studied Japanese full time at university for two years before he moved to Japan. My wife studied my native language full time for two years, in my country, at a school which really know what they are doing, if you look at their track record. Two years. Lots of immersion. And hours of homework every single night. And didn't really get to B1 at the exam after two years - the issue is understanding what people are saying, not really about speaking. Years after this she still feels inadequate when it comes to understanding what everyone is saying. She speaks very well, but can't follow news on TV (for some reason they use really convoluted language on the news, not used elsewhere, which doesn't make it easier). Heck, I can speak Japanese with relatively good pronunciation, even if it is very simple stuff, but today I couldn't understand a particular question I was asked in a shop (I'm in Japan right now). I believe it must have been a very simple question, maybe one level above "do you need a bag". Happened the other day too, in another shop. I've been at this for years, and I *still* haven't reached any level of fluency. I learned English without any conscious effort - I just read books I liked, and watched movies, and listened to people, and talked a bit with customers - but thinking back it still took a lot of time. Years, probably, I just didn't keep track because I wasn't specifically trying to learn the language. And I could pick up enough Italian to survive, decades ago when I lived in the country, but learning for real, as in learning a completely different language, with hard studying, and not being a teenager - well, that turns out to be _really difficult_. Even when I think I'm getting better I soon learn differently, as I did today. I feel that I'm not even at A1 yet. All the standard phrases are fine - and Japanese has tons of those - but not real speech. The way I see it is that those ".. in X days/weeks" people who are "speaking" some language - I bet they don't actually _understand_ the language to any useful level. I've come to the conclusion that the really important thing is to understand. A lot of what's taught about languages, also here on TH-cam, stresses that you have to start speaking. Well, right, doesn't help one single bit when you don't understand what the person you're speaking to is saying. I now more and more believe that you must focus on understanding what's said. If you can manage to read the language (easy enough if the script is the same as your own), then read and read and read interesting material. And listen listen listen - when you understand everything, speech _will_ come. Again I'm looking back to how I got proficient in English. With enough input, and understanding, sentences will start echoing around in your brain and speech _will_ come. Focus on understanding. When you understand what everyone is saying, even when not actively listening - you can shift all the effort over to speech (of course I'm not saying that you shouldn't practice speaking at all, just put more effort into input and understanding the input, because without understanding, speech will be useless). That's how I now see it.
I completely agree. Also, connected to understanding; it’s a real shame that regional varieties and dialects don’t get taught enough (as in, almost not at all). If you’re learning Finnish, for example; regional dialects are *_A MUST!_* At least, when it comes to understanding. Standard Finnish is useless, if you’re trying to understand native speakers. Because *_NO-ONE,_* in Finland speaks standard Finnish (it’s a coalesced amalgamation of different dialects, much like Standard Italian; mostly, of the Western ones, sadly). If you did (with native-like accent, rhythm of speech, everything; and you’re white, of European ethnicity; so, you could pass, as a native), people will think you’re ”special”. Standard Finnish is like speaking English without contractions or weak forms. It’s only used in *_HIGHLY_* official speeches; and, of course, for documentaries, news broadcasts, etc. Let’s compare the sentence: ”I’m home.”, in Standard Finnish, and Helsinki slang (since most tourists also, unfortunately, only visit Helsinki; because Capital): *Standard Finnish:* _”Olen kotona.”_ *Helsinki slang:* _”M’oo himas.”_ Now; would you be able to understand one, just with the other? Hell; vernacular Finnish (used all across the country) even uses different grammar. For example; for the 1st person plural forms of verbs, we use the Passive Voice! For example; changing the number, in the above example, from singular to plural, would give: *Standard Finnish:* _”Olemme kotona.”_ (literally: ”We are at home.”) *Helsinki slang:* _”Himas ollaan.”_ (literally: ”Home one is.”, or: ”Home it’s been.”) In that example, we also change the word order, for emphasis; because that’s actually a conventional phrase, in Finnish. You often find people using that phrase; even, when referring to just him-/herself. Add to that, the speech tempo of natives; and you’re screwed, if you only understand Standard Finnish. Unfortunately; 99,99% of all language courses, text books, language resources, etc. are all based on standard (just like with any language).
What you're thinking of is basically called comprehensive input, which is indeed very very important for language acquisition. Many experts think that this is how language's should be learned, without ofc ignorinf grammar and speaking, but still giving comprehemsive input a prominent role alongside those.
I did a 5 week course that concluded in a B2 level test and that was possible doing basically 40+ hours a week with immersion in the country. But that was a) specifically for speakers of a closely related language and b) I can tell you my actual level after that wasn't B2 just cause that's what the test said. I was still bad at the actual speaking part and I couldn't understand people speaking more colloquially or in non-standard dialects well at all. What it prepared me well for is listening to university lectures, but not speaking with people on the streets.
@@RonaldBradycptgmpy that's because colloquial stuff changes far more rapidly, you're good knowing the standard language in most situations and picking up colloquial stuff when you actually need it I do give some info on the more "stable" colloquial things when I teach English, like some variations in grammar/some typical contractions, but otherwise it's just overloading people with the information and not giving them enough on the more formal thimgs which can help them understand the colloquial language as well. One important thing, in my opinion, is to teach the students to learn on their own. To fact-check information. To ask for an explanation when they don't understand something. That's something a lot of my students struggle with
@@atriyakoller136 I understand all of that, but that’s not a reason not to teach any of it. There are colloquialisms in every language that last longer than others. Giving a student a sense of how colloquialisms come about, and some of the more common ones that have lasted does a lot to build out their language, navigation skills, having the ability to cope with more things that they might not necessarily completely understand.
@@RonaldBradycptgmpy that's actually something I partly teach my students about and encourage them to learn to research on their own but not be afraid of asking me to help them with! If only I didn't have a limited number of hours and a fixed curriculum. I'd definitely teach them more about that
Being in the language environment helps tremendously because you don't get any "days off" so to speak - you have to listen and practice every day if you want to get by and enjoy your life. I've been doing full language immersion for about 5 months (as you mentioned, the first month really was just breaking the ice and adjusting to a new life), and while I can say my Chinese is lightyears better than when I first arrived, I know I still have a long way to go to reach "fluency". The youtube "polyglots" are either showing off or trying to sell you something and the result is people believing their lies and then losing any motivation to learn. From my experience so far, I'd say that daily study, practice and persistence will get you to a pretty reasonably level quickly, but native-like fluency takes years - but that's ok! You don't need to speak like a native to make friends, do a job, etc. I feel that happens gradually over time spent in the language environment.
It took me 7 years of living here in Italy (I'm Norwegian), married to an Italian to now be at the level where I consider myself fluent-ish. And with that I mean I can reasonably except to go into any setting, including very technical or special settings and understand everything that is being said and being able to communicate well. The ish, is because I sometimes still get hung up at times, often because I have to jump between many languages in my mind, but I've reached a level where I can communicate with different vocabulary to communicate if I get stuck or forget some words.
@@NeutralOrNotTooBadStuff 4. Norwegian (native), English, Italian and Spanish. And of course i understand Swedish and Danish but that doesn't count I feel. I mostly think in English, or Norwegian (a good mix) but more so now in Italian as well, having an Italian wife and two kids. I'm really bad at speaking Norwegian to my kids though, it's so easy for my brain to default to Italian as that is the language I am surrounded by
There's channels that get millions of views/ videos, one channel in particular and every single video is the same. Go to ethnic restaurant in American city. Speak their obscure language. The owners say ''wow, you speak our language, but you're white!'' And he always say the same thing. ''My name is soandso I like to eat x y z national dish from your country. I am a youtuber. I want to visit your country one day.'' I felt really sick after like the 10th video because the only reason these people go along with it is because they genuinely thought he wanted to learn their language and visit their country meanwhile this guy was learning a new language the next week and selling his course because he was ''fluent'' in 50 languages.
Yeah, the conversations are usually just... uninteresting. Basically, copy and paste your normal transcript into a different language and study just to appear as you are fluent. It's like playing different music instruments but you only know enough to impress people.
That's my other problem with these videos.. "white guy speaks.." - what on earth has "white" got to do with anything? It's as useful as saying "guy with a blue bicycle speaks Klingon (or whatever)".
@@MrAllmightyCornholioz Hey, I can play "twinkle twinkle little star" on just about any instrument handed to me, so I'm clearly good at playing those instruments.. er.. I'll show myself out now. 🙂
@@tohaason Yeah its because non-whites are easily impressed when someone speaks their language but will riduclue their own people if they speak like him.
There are two factors that can greatly shorten language learning time. Immersion for one. Not eating until you can property ask for exactly what you want it a great motivator. The Soviets had a boat on the Volga that was an English school. Not one word of Russian was permitted. In just a few months, students were ready for jobs in consulates and embassies as unofficial intelligence agents. Knowing a language similar to the one being learned helps a lot. I know English and learned Spanish and have never studied any other language. I can make some sense of written French, Italian, and Portuguese. German, not at all.
I managed to get a minor in Spanish at school, and during that time when I spoke it best, I think I would have considered myself "almost fluent." I certainly could (and still can) read just about anything written in Spanish and understand it, but my speaking/writing at their best are about on par with Borat's English I suspect, and it's probably worse now. But I guess it depends on what you mean by fluency. Certainly it's nowhere near Metatron's English, but even with my terrible accent and numerous grammatical errors, I can be understood and express the idea I want.
From my experiences becoming everyday conversation fluent in a third or fourth language anything below 3- 4 months is bs. Because - studying for more than some 4 hours per day is useless. Most brains need some time to process. - more than 4-5 days a week is pointless as well for the same reason. 200 h is considered the minimum by the US foreign office to learn a level 1 language. (E.g dutch for english speakers) They will know.
Ciao, Metatron. I was surprised for the honesty and good analysis on your video. Indeed, there are so many things that aren’t know to casual or beginner learners and those who know languages, and certainly this can be used for unbalanced profit, as so many things on life where we may be desperate to find an easy solution on the wrong places with the wrong people. One thing that I want to expand from you is that every single language learning and assessment institution has different interpretations of the CEFR levels, not only between Asian and European languages. A B2 level in English is assessed differently from a French B2, or an Italian B2, and so on, even if supposedly they should be on the same level.
Couldn't agree more. From my perspective of a language tutor, not that of a blogger, I can say that many students, too, expect to reach fluency unrealistically quickly. I don't know if this idea comes from course titles like these, or from students themselves, or from both sides, but I can't help wondering. Because I don't think the same people would expect to freely play the piano, or write programming codes, or master any other skill well equally soon.
I have a idea for miniseries but it really may be unreliable because there are tons of different language lessons on yt alone Since i love watching your linguistic content i'd love to see you explain basics and useful tips on languages you already know (including italian) for people who can't decide between two languages (for example i had this problem with german and russian recently) I know it's not very original but getting few nice tips about italian from metatron himself sounds great
Raff has been talking about advanced learning, so I would add that I think for a normal person starting from basically nothing, it takes at least around 2 years for the "neuroadaptations" to form from a solid enough foundation to close to "native'like" fluency" *in more ordinary vocabulary and linguistic usages* so around B2 to C1 Then from there maybe around another 2 years to properly reach C2 to true native level to fully comprehend all the different linguistic intricacies and to appropriately and correctly employ them If you're not speedrunning, generally that's a good amount of time to give and consider, and to evaluate progress, to more naturally absorbe and "live" (with) a language
Thank you for advocating honesty. The problem is that as long as TH-cam rewards people for misleading clickbaity titles, there will always be people who will take advantage of that.
"where we explore how to learn languages in the most fun and engaging way possible" it's okay to complain every once in a while, and I agree, these people are shits that need to go down. but can we pleeease go back to that sometimes? I know being outraged gets views, and it is well deserved, but I would really like to learn something from you like you did many times before
From my personal experience with learning German as my 7th foreign language; became able to form sentences and hold a basic conversation in app. 1-1,5 months, white still not being able to understand native speakers (on TH-cam)
It took me about 48 days just to learn the meanings of Kanji in Japanese, and I was studying like a mad man 8 hours a day except Fridays. and it took me about 2 years to become a fluent reader and I'm still looking up words from time to time.
How many Kanji? If you learned ”just” the 2000, or so, most commonly used Kanji, in just 48 days; that’s, actually, really impressive 😮👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻! Even Japanese people spend *_YEARS,_* learning Kanji; and, even still, you occasionally find Japanese adults, who mess up or forget quite basic Kanji (like the one guy/gal, whom Raffaello mentioned, in his video on learning Kanji; who forgot the latter of the 2 Kanji that make up the word for ”Hospital”); and they’re litterally surrounded by, and bombarded with, Kanji, 24/7; and they’re also brought up, in the system and culture.
yeah...I'm currently studying Japanese and thats not the first language I learned...I'm very disciplined with learning and I would not consider myself stupid either. But after three months (and also currently living in Japan) I'm still in the territory of a little bit above a toddler. When I see language-TH-camrs claiming that they have reached fluency in Japanese in 6 months it usually totally demotivates me, apart from that I just can't believe that that is true or possible for the average language learner who hasn't learned 5 other languages already. I really try to stay away from that kind of content now because it makes the slow process of learning a language very frustrating...when it actually should be fun.
I mean, even if you judge that you are almost there - almost fluent - something like six days wouldn't be enough to make you feel you are fluent after that short period of time. That is a ridicious short time to make general, broad claims about your improvement. Something like four months would be more reasonable after say three and a half years and you just need that little bit of extra training to finally feel that you are really fluent.
When you are actually learning a language ( im for example learning Italian as a dutch person) you will not get fooled by these nonsense claims. The people that fall for this kind of shit are likely to be young and ignorant people. Its a sad world. I like your videos btw. (:
It really depends on what your standards are. I have tried to learn Spanish since High School, and I would rate my competency as that of of a potty mouthed two year old.
I love that you are naming names and bringing receipts. I'm so sick of this. I've been learning languages for 30 years now, and the only one I feel confident speaking as a second language is Spanish. I can also read several others, but I'm not comfortable using them. I'd rather be humble and let others brag for me.
As someone who is fluent in English and basically nearly fluent in French (government level Expert)...I couldn't bloody deal with 60% of the language in Italy (Pisticci). I could discern most when reading because a lot of the root words are similar to French, but if somebody talked to me or I talked back in my best attempt at Italian, I looked like a fool.
The internet sets such impossibly high standards. It took me many years of language study to finally come to terms with the fact that I am not a failure for not having become fluent in my target language a less than a year. That kind of content really can be damaging
I was fortunate enough to have lived abroad for most of my life, I moved to the US from Italy when I was 6 therefore when I then came back to Italy I was able to grasp much of the dictionary without giving it much thought however I didn't learn a thing about conjugation or capitalising therefore although I could understand English I couldn't really put it into a paper, I then learnt the basis at school and then consumed much of ny YT entertainment in English and nowadays I'm pretty confident I could enjoy a fluent conversation with a native speaker. Long story short it took time and effort, it should go without saying but people who are advertising their courses in such clickbaty titles are selling you a lie, be aware of it. Edit: funnily enough I'm experiencing the same thing with Spanish nowadays since I consume media in Spanish and I'm well navigated with it but since I didn't study the basis I don't know how to conjugate words properly but thankfully given how Spanish is a romance language as Italian is I can somehow manage.
On the other hand adults must take responsibility for their own decisions. If you really believe you can learn any language in three months you're almost certainly too stupid to learn any language in three months.
The issue is that the internet is largely anglophone, and anglophones have this weird idea that speaking even more than just one language beyond English is some herculean feat.* so not only does it function as a great way for these people to make money, it also strokes their egos bc people who only speak English go crazy for this sort of thing, even when the person, to any person with some familiarity in the language, isn't really speaking that well. Monetary incentive + egoistical incentive means yeah, people are gunna do this and it sucks, especially for those still in that first "second language" phase where they're not sure yet if it's actually possible to learn that second language to satisfying level. it's discouraging that they can't seem to achieve what this random youtuber claims to have achieved in a fraction of the time. the best advice (that no one asked for lol) to any unsure or discouraged language learners i've come up with is this: a) know yourself. know what you like to do, and try to do it in your target language. like video games? play in that language, if possible. movies? same deal. when i started with italian, i watched the prince of egypt every day for a month in italian (i even had to buy a region from blu ray player to do it lol) b) recreate the environment you had as a child. think back to the things you did as a kid, and do them again as an adult but in the target language. again, calling back to prince of egypt, i watched that every day because as a kid, for whatever reason, i would just watch the same things over and over again. also price of egypt is just better in italian. c) try not to think of making mistakes as a condemnation of your ability, but rather an opportunity to recalibrate your understanding of the grammar. if you fuck up the gender of a noun, think, "oh, ok, i just need to recalibrate with that information going forward." it's an opportunity for growth, you're not an idiot. in spanish there's a saying, "tener rostro". it basically means "to go for it." don't be afraid to fuck up. no one who's worth your energy is going to make fun of you or judge you. learning a language, even for kids, is a trial and error process. no one blames a 4 year old kid for not speaking correctly, and chances are u have less years in your target lagnuage than that 4 year old. good luck! * it's really great to speak more than one language! but many, many people are bilingual or more, it's not herculean. i really hate telling ppl i speak more than 2 languages cuz everyone sort of loses their minds, but to me, i didn't achieve some herculean feat, i just followed my passion at my own pace and learned languages related to the one i had already more or less mastered (italian > spanish, portuguese). granted learning italian felt hard at that time, but really the hard part was not being sure if anything laid at the end of all that effort. i don't want to discourage anyone who is in the process of learning their first "second language" bc i remember what that felt like. but i just want to stress that this is a largely anglophone obsession and contributes to the monetary value of the "I learned X in 3 minutes" type videos.
A while ago I found a similar thing with cooking videos, but to the point I wanted to nuke them off the planet. I was looking for quick recipes for desserts,... and I couldn't find any, because all I could find was videos whose titles hinted at 2 or 3 ingredients and 5-10 minutes to make, but then in reality the videos were about 5-10 ingredients and 3 hours in the freakin oven...
I learned Japanese for 9 months (and still only just realised that there’s general intonation of sentence - I only just got the hang of pitch accent rules, why).
Isle of Tenerife, Spain, Africa. These videos are always full of great insights. Well done! Hey, how long will it take me to learn Frisian if I start next month? Keep up the great work, Patchy.
I don't see a sensational title as clickbait in itself. Lots of topics are sensational. But when the title doesn't match the content or when the title implies the opposite of the what the video ends up arguing, that's clickbait.
A video request: Why haven’t I been able to learn even conversational level Swedish despite studying it for 12 years? Some background information: Finland, much like Canada, is a bilingual country. 87% of Finns speak Finnish and 5% speak Swedish as their primary languages in Finland. (This is a very old dispute among Finns as to why Swedish is a compulsory study subject. It goes back to hundreds of years when we used to be a vassal state of Sweden. A lot of Finns nowadays are not happy being essentially forced to study Swedish.) Swedish is usually the B language for most Finns. (A1 typically being English which is taught earlier than Swedish). Swedish studies begin in 6th grade nowadays (students being 11-12 year old). It’s compulsory in every academic level. Meaning that ie. I had to learn it in primary school (grades 7-9, ages 13-15), high school (ages 16-18) and university (three years). I actually have two university degrees so 2 x 3 years in my case. My reading/listening comprehension is on the level of a.. maybe 5-6 year old (native speaker). My speaking level is equivalent to a maybe 2-3 yo native… What makes matters worse, I have studied other languages as well (Italian, French, Korean, Japanese and obvs English). I’d say that Swedish is by far the most simple. It’s very regular and logical. It has the same alphabet as Finnish and pronunciation is very easily learnable. I’d like to see a video on the topic but I’ll also give my own input as to why no amount of time learning a language may not guarantee fluency. 1. Lack of exposure. I don’t subject myself to the language at almost any capacity. I don’t read Swedish magazines, watch Swedish shows and I’ve only visited Sweden once. I have no-one around me who speaks the language even passably. 2. Attitude problem. I simply don’t like the language and I detest the politics behind the compulsory education. 3. Latent dyslexia and possible neurodivergence. I learn stuff fast but I forget it faster… Difficulties in concentration (while other times being hyperfocused). Among many other issues. Grazie for your insights and intriguing videos! 👌🏻
@@omp199 Haha, my comprehension of other languages besides Finnish and English is abysmal. 😅 I took one course of French in high school and I’ve visited France once but haven’t had any practical use for the language since. Italian I studied in open university for one study credit and visited Italy once, haven’t used it since. I used to hang out with a Korean exchange student a couple of years ago when we were doing a peer-taught language exchange course. Neither of us learned much because we mainly used English when talking to each other. We also discovered that there were some vowels in both of our languages the other was physically unable to pronounce. 😅 I can’t remember what the Korean phonetic was that I just couldn’t say but for her it was the Finnish “ö” she couldn’t pronounce. 😂 We straight up laughed an hour straight when trying to explain to each other how to pronounce the vowels. But speaking is much about muscle training. If you’ve literally never used your oral muscles to produce a Finnish “ö”, it’s nearly impossible to get it right without a lot of practice. And then words like “yö” (“night” in Finnish) would be unintelligible gibberish for a native listener. I’ve been an otaku for nearly two decades so my Japanese listening comprehension is probably at a preschooler level. I also can pronounce Japanese with ease (the phonetic systems in both Finnish and Japanese are very similar), but my output vocabulary is considerably weaker than input vocabulary. I cannot read or write hiragana or kanji whatsoever. I learned some katakana years ago, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten pretty much all of it. :/ I put all my language eggs in the English basket! 🥲
Where does this guy actually come from ? Italy? As someone understanding 10 languages, each of which reached different levels from beginner to advanced, I totally agree on his point.
You can indeed learn a language at level A2 within a month. I did so with spanish. BUT I forgot that language within two months. AND: It meant several hours learning per day. And I already knew latin and french and some italian, which helps a lot. No problems with the grammatical structure. No problems with vocabulary because it's similar to my other languages. But even with being quite gifted with languages and having these good conditions, and being able to spend a lot of time each day - I just can't learn more than 50 words a day. On my very best days 100. You can get the grammar within a month, but not the vocabulary. The german university of Heidelberg teaches biblical hebrew and ancient greek in one month each and latin in two months - to students of theology. But these need only the grammar, for the vocabulary they have dictionaries. They need the structure and some 300-700 words. For this they have 8 lessons a day and they have to spend all of the rest of the day on homework. That's the hardest language course I ever heard of, and it works. I had to learn hebrew in 4 months, and it already was very hard and I passed the exam with good marks only because I am really excellent in using my dictionary (because of all the languages I learned before). And it was only the grammar, as I said, combined with as few words as one needs to understand the grammar. The publisher Langenscheidt (editor of our mostly used dictiinaries) once edited language courses with 30 lessons, claiming you could learn a language within that time. By these I learned Spanish within a month and dutch, well, I learnt more slowly. But again: by that time you defined knowing a language by knowing the basic grammar. The result was about A2. And this was only meant to be the start from where on you could start deciphering a newspaper by the help of one of their dictionaries. Or where you could survive as a tourist for two weeks. That's not fluent. But that was the main purpose of these courses. And again: they don't tell you, that you need lots of vocabulary, and and that you have to learn many hours a day. Which a normal person just can't. You have to go to school or to work and usually you won't spend all of the free days of a year to full time learning a language.
I met guy that learned swedish in six month. I thought that was good. ok he lives on a island with 158 pepole and olny one more that can speak pashtun. maybe half of the population lerned english in school. so I don´t have to tell you what the posibility for him. to speak anything other then swedish was.
Yeah these channel are discourage some of us to learn channel because we where missleading on the difficulty . Wow we can learn in 30 days a language , it's not that long , let's do it .But then again we surely fail to achieve that and that could give a big lack or motivation or even worste , make people quit . i remenber some years ago , quitting my learning of my third language (japanese) because i didn't know how difficult it will be. You need to visualize the path you are going to go , to accept the fact that learning a language is a journey and not one big marraton ; that they are no cheat code , you need to commit to it , every day , to dedicate a part of your life to it. (and the more time you can allow to your learning , the more quick you will be to reach that fluency ) When you have accepted it , when you have the motivation to do that , then you will be able to learn with efficiency . PS: it doesn't have to be boring , but it need commitment
I just became fluent in subtlehints in 10 minutes. 🤓 Ok, ok. Yes, I'll be your algorithm fodder, Metatron. Geez, next time just ask bro. 😂😂 Seriously though thanks for being real.👍
Actually you cannot LEARN a language at all. No one can achieve a full and deep knowledge of any language so LEVELS are necessary. I would say before B1 it should be a tourist level too and in 2 weeks you can learn something basic and have a decent pronunciation and be able to order a coffee for example. Many want to speak a language and you can spend years of learning and not be able to say much but also you can learn a basic vocabulary and frases add a smile and some gestures and be able to explain yourself. The titles are vague and it also depends what your needs are. Mind that I never studied English😅
It takes me an average of 2 highschool years, or two middle school years or 3 Community College quarters to get proficent at a foreign language. For master I would say between 28 to 30 years as a native speaker.
I could learn Mandarin in 5 hours no cap
I could learn English right now at this very moment, and I just did.
I could learn cantonese in less than 5 minutes if I really wish to
How long did it take you to learn Albanian sign language?
Alfa Chad
@@chasqui06 WHAT?! I need that! Let me pay you $500 a day to learn the sacred language
I started studying Italian about nine months ago and I am just now beginning to feel like I could communicate with an Italian in broken Italian if I really had to.
I am very proud of that.
Congrats! That’s awesome, I hope to make my way back around to Italian, life kind of took me in a completely different direction, language wise. I’m currently working on Japanese. Buona fortuna!
Well, congrats brother.
As you should be! Fluent in Three Months etc is trash.
@@BryanAJParry Ye, it took me 2 years to be fluwnt in Spanish, and I still kind of struggle in formal conversation.
@@BryanAJParry He should rename the channel to fluent in 3 decades.
I would like to add a note of hope to people who, like me, are more dilettantes in their language learning. I _first_ started learning French in 1981 (I recall causing much laughter when I said 'merdi' instead of 'mardi'...). Just one year in school, then another 2 weeks of military training (about 2-hours a day, the goal wasn't to get us fluent, just to give us enough to be reasonably polite), then a semester here and there in college (we're now in 1989). Then ... nothing for 25 years. In 2016 I started French yet _again_ with our local Alliance Francaise, and I am now at about a B1 (though I have not been formally tested). I spend maybe 2-3 hours a week, but I'm not in a race, so my advancement can be slow.
You don't _have_ to learn a language quickly, and there is nothing wrong with taking a long time - or even a very long break and coming back to it. I was surprised at how much I remembered after 25 years.
I am planning on getting back into German as well (which I started hearing from family when I was little, and took my first class in 1978!)
My point is - you can always come back, and learning is its own reward, no matter how slowly you go!
Books like plat piano in 30 days, play guitar in 30 days, speak Japanese in 30 days, etc were and are rampant on the market.
Some can definitely learn to play the guitar in 30 days, if they know another instrument already. My cousin (younger than me) achieved that feat in 3 weeks. Not long after he traveled Europe as a busking musician. It bothered me somewhat that it was so easy for him - he asked me to teach him to play the guitar and he learned everything I had spent years learning, in that very short time. Of course, learning the violin to the level needed for playing in a symphony orchestra takes years and years and years. But to learn an instrument to a level where you can play, i.e. communicate, with others is feasible in a reasonably short time (though maybe not the violin or the shakuhachi).
Learning a language is different. Very different. Learning a computer language is easy, if you're a programmer. A human language is a totally different story.
Great vid! The only TH-camr who can be forgiven is Language Simp (Because he's genuinely a hyperpolyglot gigachad)
I actually prefer Steve Kaufmann and Lindie Botes. Also Luke Ranieri and Jackson Crawford. Something about Language Simp comes off (to me) as arrogant, and it irritates me, just a little bit.
@@corinna007 Nah, Language simp's a chill dude, he's just playing a character he's created. Afterall, one of the reasons his channel exists is literally making fool out of these so called "hyperpolyglots" Metatron mentioned in the video.
@@corinna007 Language simp is a comedian.
The absolute shortest time I took to reach proficiency, not even fluency in a language, was one year, and that was Old English coming from being a Native English speaker and already being proficient in Latin and Greek
I'm sorry to hear that.
What's proficiency vs fluency?
@@cerebrummaximus3762 being proficient is being able to have conversations with some effort, and being fluent is doing the same without effort.
@@johnlastname8752 That makes sense, thanks. But then, if you know how to form sentences why would you struggle with it? Embarrassment? Thinking time?
@@cerebrummaximus3762 mostly thinking time. Like, I can form a sentence in English without thinking about it too much even though it's not my native language, but in Russian I still struggle trying to remember grammar or the correct vocab. I can also think in English easily, while I have to translate my thoughts into Russian when speaking.
I'm fluent in tons of languages...of course by fluent, I mean illiterate.
Chad
Funny for me is that I've seen many if not all of those you showed as examples, and before understanding that their just blatant lies, I would think to myself "is there something wrong with me? Am I an idiot for not being able to do what they've done in the same time frames?" It's very discouraging things that I think can push people away from wanting to learn languages because they don't at first understand the true time that is needed to be put into learning one.
Oh my god you literally said the same thing haha I was like 9 minutes into the video when I made that comment
Exactly, that what makes it all worse - that they use these claims for clicks is one thing, but it also it shows a complete disregard for the negative repercussions on people who will compare themselves to these claims in good faith
TH-cam's algorithm needs to push this video not those that promote lies.
We are in capitalism , what do you expect ? TH-cam seek money primarily , not great content. Sometime you need great content to make money , alas most of the time you don't .
@@Eldiran1 Exactly 👌🏻🎯👍🏻!
Language simp made a really good comment on that: treat your desired language like a baby and after 9 months, See what Happens.
I'm glad you are talking about this.
Indeed! Metatron is a creator I came to trust, so I am glad he's tackling this topic.
Thank you for making this video. I've been learning Finnish for eight years, and I still don't feel fluent. There is still a lot of the spoken language that I don't understand, and my listening comprehension and conversational skills are still behind my reading and writing skills (although italki lessons are definitely helping with that). It's very discouraging to see titles like that, even though I know it's clickbait. But I'm still learning because I'm stubborn, and I really do love the language.
Finnish is interesting. I have tried that out sometimes too. I'm on a reasonably high level in Modern Greek, although not fluent. Good luck!
Yes, I mean.... It's another thing completely if we are talking about language geniuses who are more or less fluent in say six langagues after two and a half years or something like that. That's really impressing and most of all inspiring, not discouraging! And while they have all the right to be proud, they probably don't have a need to brag about their achievments. ... but ridiculous claims are anything but inspiring.
@@NidusFormicarum It is. I've definitely had long stretches of lacking motivation, but at the moment it's picking back up. My best languages besides English are Finnish and German, although I don't really consider myself fluent in either of them yet. I think at some point I might give Greek a try too. And thanks!
Exactly. As long as the time frame they say is realistic and they don't try to be deceptive about how long it actually took, then I don't mind. But those clickbait titles knock my motivation down a bit, because I already feel like I should know more of my target languages by now than it feels like I do, and those titles just add to it.
Suomi
The grammar in the language is crazy. i have been trying for 2 years i still only understand basic phrases. its going to take me decades to get fluent.
As a Finn, I can attest to our language being quite difficult, for native speakers of Indo-European languages, being an agglutinative language; though, not the hardest, by a long shot. That being said; even native Finns make rookie mistakes, all the time; like, with compound words; so, don’t stress over it too much 🙂.
I took 4 years of French in High School. I could reasonably read Moliere and Victor Hugo, but spoken regional dialects threw me loops in trying to follow. Fifty years later, with little use of this, I can still read reasonably well, but speaking would need spending a few months to get my skills back.
I'm glad people are adressing this subject, the definition of fluency is getting so cheap!
Thanks for making this video! This makes everyone feel less insecure about their language learning ability! So sick of these wannebe polyglots trying to impress everyone to sell.
I have been studying American Sign Language. It's as complicated as learning any language. Results? After 4 months of fairly intense practice and study, I am just approaching the ability to hold basic conversations. Fluency is probably 2 years away.
And then... THERE"S THE POETRY! Completely different ballgame. It's an amazing language, best of luck!
Ya, you can learn it fast if you use it a lot. Even then it still needs a fair bit of practice. and fast is not 6 days to two weeks. I was at a school that had a group of deaf people. So I started to learn it there.
Maybe if you are a spanish speaker, you can gain some proficiency in italian in a couple of month.
That's because the two languages are quite similar.
Were you to try to learn another language, something like arabic, you will get nowhere.
In passing, I like your definition of "charisma"😊
A lot of TH-camrs are essentially scam artists.
This situation is analogous to the to body building content creators pretending they aren't juicing.
True. Natural gains = best gains.
0:40 It’s, like all those TH-cam-videos and other tutorial videos on, how to play pool or Snooker, perfectly. Like, if you have the secret to playing perfect pool / Snooker, why aren’t you out there, racking up tournament gold medals / trophies? 🤯😅
Good video. And true. What needs to be understood about languages is that it's not easy unless it's a language closely related to your own - the huge difference in this latter case is that you'll be able to _understand_ relatively quickly. This is really the big hurdle otherwise.
Metatron mentioned that he studied Japanese full time at university for two years before he moved to Japan. My wife studied my native language full time for two years, in my country, at a school which really know what they are doing, if you look at their track record. Two years. Lots of immersion. And hours of homework every single night. And didn't really get to B1 at the exam after two years - the issue is understanding what people are saying, not really about speaking. Years after this she still feels inadequate when it comes to understanding what everyone is saying. She speaks very well, but can't follow news on TV (for some reason they use really convoluted language on the news, not used elsewhere, which doesn't make it easier).
Heck, I can speak Japanese with relatively good pronunciation, even if it is very simple stuff, but today I couldn't understand a particular question I was asked in a shop (I'm in Japan right now). I believe it must have been a very simple question, maybe one level above "do you need a bag". Happened the other day too, in another shop. I've been at this for years, and I *still* haven't reached any level of fluency.
I learned English without any conscious effort - I just read books I liked, and watched movies, and listened to people, and talked a bit with customers - but thinking back it still took a lot of time. Years, probably, I just didn't keep track because I wasn't specifically trying to learn the language. And I could pick up enough Italian to survive, decades ago when I lived in the country, but learning for real, as in learning a completely different language, with hard studying, and not being a teenager - well, that turns out to be _really difficult_. Even when I think I'm getting better I soon learn differently, as I did today. I feel that I'm not even at A1 yet. All the standard phrases are fine - and Japanese has tons of those - but not real speech.
The way I see it is that those ".. in X days/weeks" people who are "speaking" some language - I bet they don't actually _understand_ the language to any useful level. I've come to the conclusion that the really important thing is to understand. A lot of what's taught about languages, also here on TH-cam, stresses that you have to start speaking. Well, right, doesn't help one single bit when you don't understand what the person you're speaking to is saying.
I now more and more believe that you must focus on understanding what's said. If you can manage to read the language (easy enough if the script is the same as your own), then read and read and read interesting material. And listen listen listen - when you understand everything, speech _will_ come. Again I'm looking back to how I got proficient in English.
With enough input, and understanding, sentences will start echoing around in your brain and speech _will_ come. Focus on understanding. When you understand what everyone is saying, even when not actively listening - you can shift all the effort over to speech (of course I'm not saying that you shouldn't practice speaking at all, just put more effort into input and understanding the input, because without understanding, speech will be useless). That's how I now see it.
I completely agree. Also, connected to understanding; it’s a real shame that regional varieties and dialects don’t get taught enough (as in, almost not at all). If you’re learning Finnish, for example; regional dialects are *_A MUST!_* At least, when it comes to understanding. Standard Finnish is useless, if you’re trying to understand native speakers. Because *_NO-ONE,_* in Finland speaks standard Finnish (it’s a coalesced amalgamation of different dialects, much like Standard Italian; mostly, of the Western ones, sadly). If you did (with native-like accent, rhythm of speech, everything; and you’re white, of European ethnicity; so, you could pass, as a native), people will think you’re ”special”. Standard Finnish is like speaking English without contractions or weak forms. It’s only used in *_HIGHLY_* official speeches; and, of course, for documentaries, news broadcasts, etc. Let’s compare the sentence: ”I’m home.”, in Standard Finnish, and Helsinki slang (since most tourists also, unfortunately, only visit Helsinki; because Capital):
*Standard Finnish:* _”Olen kotona.”_
*Helsinki slang:* _”M’oo himas.”_
Now; would you be able to understand one, just with the other? Hell; vernacular Finnish (used all across the country) even uses different grammar. For example; for the 1st person plural forms of verbs, we use the Passive Voice! For example; changing the number, in the above example, from singular to plural, would give:
*Standard Finnish:* _”Olemme kotona.”_
(literally: ”We are at home.”)
*Helsinki slang:* _”Himas ollaan.”_ (literally: ”Home one is.”, or: ”Home it’s been.”)
In that example, we also change the word order, for emphasis; because that’s actually a conventional phrase, in Finnish. You often find people using that phrase; even, when referring to just him-/herself. Add to that, the speech tempo of natives; and you’re screwed, if you only understand Standard Finnish. Unfortunately; 99,99% of all language courses, text books, language resources, etc. are all based on standard (just like with any language).
What you're thinking of is basically called comprehensive input, which is indeed very very important for language acquisition. Many experts think that this is how language's should be learned, without ofc ignorinf grammar and speaking, but still giving comprehemsive input a prominent role alongside those.
I did a 5 week course that concluded in a B2 level test and that was possible doing basically 40+ hours a week with immersion in the country. But that was a) specifically for speakers of a closely related language and b) I can tell you my actual level after that wasn't B2 just cause that's what the test said. I was still bad at the actual speaking part and I couldn't understand people speaking more colloquially or in non-standard dialects well at all. What it prepared me well for is listening to university lectures, but not speaking with people on the streets.
Yeah, this is a huge thing with any language and standard course structure, they tend not to cover the coloquial stuff well
@@RonaldBradycptgmpy that's because colloquial stuff changes far more rapidly, you're good knowing the standard language in most situations and picking up colloquial stuff when you actually need it
I do give some info on the more "stable" colloquial things when I teach English, like some variations in grammar/some typical contractions, but otherwise it's just overloading people with the information and not giving them enough on the more formal thimgs which can help them understand the colloquial language as well.
One important thing, in my opinion, is to teach the students to learn on their own. To fact-check information. To ask for an explanation when they don't understand something. That's something a lot of my students struggle with
Are you Portuguese studying in Spain?
@@atriyakoller136 I understand all of that, but that’s not a reason not to teach any of it. There are colloquialisms in every language that last longer than others. Giving a student a sense of how colloquialisms come about, and some of the more common ones that have lasted does a lot to build out their language, navigation skills, having the ability to cope with more things that they might not necessarily completely understand.
@@RonaldBradycptgmpy that's actually something I partly teach my students about and encourage them to learn to research on their own but not be afraid of asking me to help them with! If only I didn't have a limited number of hours and a fixed curriculum. I'd definitely teach them more about that
And I am sitting here, not fluent in any language :(
you are fluent in your native language ;)
Being in the language environment helps tremendously because you don't get any "days off" so to speak - you have to listen and practice every day if you want to get by and enjoy your life. I've been doing full language immersion for about 5 months (as you mentioned, the first month really was just breaking the ice and adjusting to a new life), and while I can say my Chinese is lightyears better than when I first arrived, I know I still have a long way to go to reach "fluency".
The youtube "polyglots" are either showing off or trying to sell you something and the result is people believing their lies and then losing any motivation to learn. From my experience so far, I'd say that daily study, practice and persistence will get you to a pretty reasonably level quickly, but native-like fluency takes years - but that's ok! You don't need to speak like a native to make friends, do a job, etc. I feel that happens gradually over time spent in the language environment.
It took me 7 years of living here in Italy (I'm Norwegian), married to an Italian to now be at the level where I consider myself fluent-ish. And with that I mean I can reasonably except to go into any setting, including very technical or special settings and understand everything that is being said and being able to communicate well. The ish, is because I sometimes still get hung up at times, often because I have to jump between many languages in my mind, but I've reached a level where I can communicate with different vocabulary to communicate if I get stuck or forget some words.
Wait, how many languages do you know?
@@NeutralOrNotTooBadStuff 4. Norwegian (native), English, Italian and Spanish. And of course i understand Swedish and Danish but that doesn't count I feel. I mostly think in English, or Norwegian (a good mix) but more so now in Italian as well, having an Italian wife and two kids. I'm really bad at speaking Norwegian to my kids though, it's so easy for my brain to default to Italian as that is the language I am surrounded by
There's channels that get millions of views/ videos, one channel in particular and every single video is the same. Go to ethnic restaurant in American city. Speak their obscure language. The owners say ''wow, you speak our language, but you're white!'' And he always say the same thing. ''My name is soandso I like to eat x y z national dish from your country. I am a youtuber. I want to visit your country one day.'' I felt really sick after like the 10th video because the only reason these people go along with it is because they genuinely thought he wanted to learn their language and visit their country meanwhile this guy was learning a new language the next week and selling his course because he was ''fluent'' in 50 languages.
hey look, he's in the video. Yeah, he should stick to mandarin.
Yeah, the conversations are usually just... uninteresting. Basically, copy and paste your normal transcript into a different language and study just to appear as you are fluent. It's like playing different music instruments but you only know enough to impress people.
That's my other problem with these videos.. "white guy speaks.." - what on earth has "white" got to do with anything? It's as useful as saying "guy with a blue bicycle speaks Klingon (or whatever)".
@@MrAllmightyCornholioz Hey, I can play "twinkle twinkle little star" on just about any instrument handed to me, so I'm clearly good at playing those instruments.. er.. I'll show myself out now. 🙂
@@tohaason Yeah its because non-whites are easily impressed when someone speaks their language but will riduclue their own people if they speak like him.
There are two factors that can greatly shorten language learning time.
Immersion for one. Not eating until you can property ask for exactly what you want it a great motivator. The Soviets had a boat on the Volga that was an English school. Not one word of Russian was permitted. In just a few months, students were ready for jobs in consulates and embassies as unofficial intelligence agents.
Knowing a language similar to the one being learned helps a lot. I know English and learned Spanish and have never studied any other language. I can make some sense of written French, Italian, and Portuguese. German, not at all.
I managed to get a minor in Spanish at school, and during that time when I spoke it best, I think I would have considered myself "almost fluent." I certainly could (and still can) read just about anything written in Spanish and understand it, but my speaking/writing at their best are about on par with Borat's English I suspect, and it's probably worse now.
But I guess it depends on what you mean by fluency. Certainly it's nowhere near Metatron's English, but even with my terrible accent and numerous grammatical errors, I can be understood and express the idea I want.
The worst ones are the people who learn specific phrases to show it lol
You mean the "white guy orders food in perfect Mandarin" videos?
いいね
like xiaomanyc
Those sites and TH-camrs always make me feel bad since it takes me forever to learn Japanese
From my experiences becoming everyday conversation fluent in a third or fourth language anything below 3- 4 months is bs. Because
- studying for more than some 4 hours per day is useless. Most brains need some time to process.
- more than 4-5 days a week is pointless as well for the same reason.
200 h is considered the minimum by the US foreign office to learn a level 1 language. (E.g dutch for english speakers) They will know.
Ciao, Metatron. I was surprised for the honesty and good analysis on your video. Indeed, there are so many things that aren’t know to casual or beginner learners and those who know languages, and certainly this can be used for unbalanced profit, as so many things on life where we may be desperate to find an easy solution on the wrong places with the wrong people. One thing that I want to expand from you is that every single language learning and assessment institution has different interpretations of the CEFR levels, not only between Asian and European languages. A B2 level in English is assessed differently from a French B2, or an Italian B2, and so on, even if supposedly they should be on the same level.
Couldn't agree more. From my perspective of a language tutor, not that of a blogger, I can say that many students, too, expect to reach fluency unrealistically quickly. I don't know if this idea comes from course titles like these, or from students themselves, or from both sides, but I can't help wondering. Because I don't think the same people would expect to freely play the piano, or write programming codes, or master any other skill well equally soon.
I have a idea for miniseries but it really may be unreliable because there are tons of different language lessons on yt alone
Since i love watching your linguistic content i'd love to see you explain basics and useful tips on languages you already know (including italian) for people who can't decide between two languages (for example i had this problem with german and russian recently)
I know it's not very original but getting few nice tips about italian from metatron himself sounds great
Raff has been talking about advanced learning, so I would add that
I think for a normal person starting from basically nothing, it takes at least around 2 years for the "neuroadaptations" to form from a solid enough foundation to close to "native'like" fluency" *in more ordinary vocabulary and linguistic usages* so around B2 to C1
Then from there maybe around another 2 years to properly reach C2 to true native level to fully comprehend all the different linguistic intricacies and to appropriately and correctly employ them
If you're not speedrunning, generally that's a good amount of time to give and consider, and to evaluate progress, to more naturally absorbe and "live" (with) a language
Thank you for advocating honesty. The problem is that as long as TH-cam rewards people for misleading clickbaity titles, there will always be people who will take advantage of that.
You CAN become fluent in days...
For constructed languages that are designed specifically to be extremely easy to learn (like Toki Pona)
"where we explore how to learn languages in the most fun and engaging way possible"
it's okay to complain every once in a while, and I agree, these people are shits that need to go down.
but can we pleeease go back to that sometimes?
I know being outraged gets views, and it is well deserved, but I would really like to learn something from you like you did many times before
From my personal experience with learning German as my 7th foreign language; became able to form sentences and hold a basic conversation in app. 1-1,5 months, white still not being able to understand native speakers (on TH-cam)
It seems like reading comprehension is always first when learning a new language outside of native.
It took me about 48 days just to learn the meanings of Kanji in Japanese, and I was studying like a mad man 8 hours a day except Fridays. and it took me about 2 years to become a fluent reader and I'm still looking up words from time to time.
How many Kanji? If you learned ”just” the 2000, or so, most commonly used Kanji, in just 48 days; that’s, actually, really impressive 😮👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻! Even Japanese people spend *_YEARS,_* learning Kanji; and, even still, you occasionally find Japanese adults, who mess up or forget quite basic Kanji (like the one guy/gal, whom Raffaello mentioned, in his video on learning Kanji; who forgot the latter of the 2 Kanji that make up the word for ”Hospital”); and they’re litterally surrounded by, and bombarded with, Kanji, 24/7; and they’re also brought up, in the system and culture.
yeah...I'm currently studying Japanese and thats not the first language I learned...I'm very disciplined with learning and I would not consider myself stupid either. But after three months (and also currently living in Japan) I'm still in the territory of a little bit above a toddler.
When I see language-TH-camrs claiming that they have reached fluency in Japanese in 6 months it usually totally demotivates me, apart from that I just can't believe that that is true or possible for the average language learner who hasn't learned 5 other languages already.
I really try to stay away from that kind of content now because it makes the slow process of learning a language very frustrating...when it actually should be fun.
I mean, even if you judge that you are almost there - almost fluent - something like six days wouldn't be enough to make you feel you are fluent after that short period of time. That is a ridicious short time to make general, broad claims about your improvement. Something like four months would be more reasonable after say three and a half years and you just need that little bit of extra training to finally feel that you are really fluent.
You have a good moral character and it's reflected in your excellent output
Nobody:
Me: How I got overwhelmed by the Cyrillic alphabet in 4 days. 😅
When you are actually learning a language ( im for example learning Italian as a dutch person) you will not get fooled by these nonsense claims. The people that fall for this kind of shit are likely to be young and ignorant people. Its a sad world. I like your videos btw. (:
It really depends on what your standards are. I have tried to learn Spanish since High School, and I would rate my competency as that of of a potty mouthed two year old.
I'm Italian and I'm still learning Italian😁
exactly!
Like most of us, Italian is difficult 🤣 saresti stupito da quanti sguardi straniti ottengo quando dico che "chiedo venia"🤣
@@erikas.6790 termine vetusto 😁
I love that you are naming names and bringing receipts. I'm so sick of this. I've been learning languages for 30 years now, and the only one I feel confident speaking as a second language is Spanish. I can also read several others, but I'm not comfortable using them.
I'd rather be humble and let others brag for me.
@@ConontheBinarian
'below average intelligence' lmao
i moved to a new country 6 years ago and still not fluent. getting there though
"i learned japanese in 2 weeks"..
My ass sitting there, watching and thinking " i spent the first weeks just to learn how to say ごちそうさまでした”😑😑😑
As someone who is fluent in English and basically nearly fluent in French (government level Expert)...I couldn't bloody deal with 60% of the language in Italy (Pisticci). I could discern most when reading because a lot of the root words are similar to French, but if somebody talked to me or I talked back in my best attempt at Italian, I looked like a fool.
How long did it take you to become nearly fluent in French?
@@rixille A year and a half living in Quebec after some prior knowledge of the language to grade 6.
The internet sets such impossibly high standards. It took me many years of language study to finally come to terms with the fact that I am not a failure for not having become fluent in my target language a less than a year. That kind of content really can be damaging
I was fortunate enough to have lived abroad for most of my life, I moved to the US from Italy when I was 6 therefore when I then came back to Italy I was able to grasp much of the dictionary without giving it much thought however I didn't learn a thing about conjugation or capitalising therefore although I could understand English I couldn't really put it into a paper, I then learnt the basis at school and then consumed much of ny YT entertainment in English and nowadays I'm pretty confident I could enjoy a fluent conversation with a native speaker. Long story short it took time and effort, it should go without saying but people who are advertising their courses in such clickbaty titles are selling you a lie, be aware of it.
Edit: funnily enough I'm experiencing the same thing with Spanish nowadays since I consume media in Spanish and I'm well navigated with it but since I didn't study the basis I don't know how to conjugate words properly but thankfully given how Spanish is a romance language as Italian is I can somehow manage.
On the other hand adults must take responsibility for their own decisions. If you really believe you can learn any language in three months you're almost certainly too stupid to learn any language in three months.
I have been learning Japanese for 5 years now and I am nowhere near fluency
The issue is that the internet is largely anglophone, and anglophones have this weird idea that speaking even more than just one language beyond English is some herculean feat.* so not only does it function as a great way for these people to make money, it also strokes their egos bc people who only speak English go crazy for this sort of thing, even when the person, to any person with some familiarity in the language, isn't really speaking that well.
Monetary incentive + egoistical incentive means yeah, people are gunna do this and it sucks, especially for those still in that first "second language" phase where they're not sure yet if it's actually possible to learn that second language to satisfying level. it's discouraging that they can't seem to achieve what this random youtuber claims to have achieved in a fraction of the time.
the best advice (that no one asked for lol) to any unsure or discouraged language learners i've come up with is this:
a) know yourself. know what you like to do, and try to do it in your target language. like video games? play in that language, if possible. movies? same deal. when i started with italian, i watched the prince of egypt every day for a month in italian (i even had to buy a region from blu ray player to do it lol)
b) recreate the environment you had as a child. think back to the things you did as a kid, and do them again as an adult but in the target language. again, calling back to prince of egypt, i watched that every day because as a kid, for whatever reason, i would just watch the same things over and over again. also price of egypt is just better in italian.
c) try not to think of making mistakes as a condemnation of your ability, but rather an opportunity to recalibrate your understanding of the grammar. if you fuck up the gender of a noun, think, "oh, ok, i just need to recalibrate with that information going forward." it's an opportunity for growth, you're not an idiot. in spanish there's a saying, "tener rostro". it basically means "to go for it." don't be afraid to fuck up. no one who's worth your energy is going to make fun of you or judge you. learning a language, even for kids, is a trial and error process. no one blames a 4 year old kid for not speaking correctly, and chances are u have less years in your target lagnuage than that 4 year old.
good luck!
* it's really great to speak more than one language! but many, many people are bilingual or more, it's not herculean. i really hate telling ppl i speak more than 2 languages cuz everyone sort of loses their minds, but to me, i didn't achieve some herculean feat, i just followed my passion at my own pace and learned languages related to the one i had already more or less mastered (italian > spanish, portuguese). granted learning italian felt hard at that time, but really the hard part was not being sure if anything laid at the end of all that effort. i don't want to discourage anyone who is in the process of learning their first "second language" bc i remember what that felt like. but i just want to stress that this is a largely anglophone obsession and contributes to the monetary value of the "I learned X in 3 minutes" type videos.
A while ago I found a similar thing with cooking videos, but to the point I wanted to nuke them off the planet. I was looking for quick recipes for desserts,... and I couldn't find any, because all I could find was videos whose titles hinted at 2 or 3 ingredients and 5-10 minutes to make, but then in reality the videos were about 5-10 ingredients and 3 hours in the freakin oven...
I learned Japanese for 9 months (and still only just realised that there’s general intonation of sentence - I only just got the hang of pitch accent rules, why).
Isle of Tenerife,
Spain,
Africa.
These videos are always full of great insights.
Well done!
Hey, how long will it take me to learn Frisian if I start next month?
Keep up the great work,
Patchy.
thank you for defending the truth
I don't see a sensational title as clickbait in itself. Lots of topics are sensational. But when the title doesn't match the content or when the title implies the opposite of the what the video ends up arguing, that's clickbait.
A video request: Why haven’t I been able to learn even conversational level Swedish despite studying it for 12 years?
Some background information: Finland, much like Canada, is a bilingual country. 87% of Finns speak Finnish and 5% speak Swedish as their primary languages in Finland. (This is a very old dispute among Finns as to why Swedish is a compulsory study subject. It goes back to hundreds of years when we used to be a vassal state of Sweden. A lot of Finns nowadays are not happy being essentially forced to study Swedish.)
Swedish is usually the B language for most Finns. (A1 typically being English which is taught earlier than Swedish). Swedish studies begin in 6th grade nowadays (students being 11-12 year old). It’s compulsory in every academic level. Meaning that ie. I had to learn it in primary school (grades 7-9, ages 13-15), high school (ages 16-18) and university (three years). I actually have two university degrees so 2 x 3 years in my case.
My reading/listening comprehension is on the level of a.. maybe 5-6 year old (native speaker). My speaking level is equivalent to a maybe 2-3 yo native…
What makes matters worse, I have studied other languages as well (Italian, French, Korean, Japanese and obvs English). I’d say that Swedish is by far the most simple. It’s very regular and logical. It has the same alphabet as Finnish and pronunciation is very easily learnable.
I’d like to see a video on the topic but I’ll also give my own input as to why no amount of time learning a language may not guarantee fluency.
1. Lack of exposure. I don’t subject myself to the language at almost any capacity. I don’t read Swedish magazines, watch Swedish shows and I’ve only visited Sweden once. I have no-one around me who speaks the language even passably.
2. Attitude problem. I simply don’t like the language and I detest the politics behind the compulsory education.
3. Latent dyslexia and possible neurodivergence. I learn stuff fast but I forget it faster… Difficulties in concentration (while other times being hyperfocused). Among many other issues.
Grazie for your insights and intriguing videos! 👌🏻
Your written English is very good. How are you in Italian, French, Korean, and Japanese?
@@omp199 Haha, my comprehension of other languages besides Finnish and English is abysmal. 😅
I took one course of French in high school and I’ve visited France once but haven’t had any practical use for the language since. Italian I studied in open university for one study credit and visited Italy once, haven’t used it since.
I used to hang out with a Korean exchange student a couple of years ago when we were doing a peer-taught language exchange course. Neither of us learned much because we mainly used English when talking to each other. We also discovered that there were some vowels in both of our languages the other was physically unable to pronounce. 😅
I can’t remember what the Korean phonetic was that I just couldn’t say but for her it was the Finnish “ö” she couldn’t pronounce. 😂 We straight up laughed an hour straight when trying to explain to each other how to pronounce the vowels. But speaking is much about muscle training. If you’ve literally never used your oral muscles to produce a Finnish “ö”, it’s nearly impossible to get it right without a lot of practice. And then words like “yö” (“night” in Finnish) would be unintelligible gibberish for a native listener.
I’ve been an otaku for nearly two decades so my Japanese listening comprehension is probably at a preschooler level. I also can pronounce Japanese with ease (the phonetic systems in both Finnish and Japanese are very similar), but my output vocabulary is considerably weaker than input vocabulary.
I cannot read or write hiragana or kanji whatsoever. I learned some katakana years ago, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten pretty much all of it. :/
I put all my language eggs in the English basket! 🥲
Funny that in the middle of the video I got an ad for a miraculous way to learn English fast.
Where does this guy actually come from ? Italy? As someone understanding 10 languages, each of which reached different levels from beginner to advanced, I totally agree on his point.
bravely and bravoly debunk ❤
finally and of course it's Raff, he who dares; let the show begin :D
Is this...integrity? nice
The language learning timeframe must be long enough for essential vocabulary and grammar to be in long-term memory.
You can indeed learn a language at level A2 within a month. I did so with spanish. BUT I forgot that language within two months. AND: It meant several hours learning per day. And I already knew latin and french and some italian, which helps a lot. No problems with the grammatical structure. No problems with vocabulary because it's similar to my other languages. But even with being quite gifted with languages and having these good conditions, and being able to spend a lot of time each day - I just can't learn more than 50 words a day. On my very best days 100. You can get the grammar within a month, but not the vocabulary.
The german university of Heidelberg teaches biblical hebrew and ancient greek in one month each and latin in two months - to students of theology. But these need only the grammar, for the vocabulary they have dictionaries. They need the structure and some 300-700 words. For this they have 8 lessons a day and they have to spend all of the rest of the day on homework. That's the hardest language course I ever heard of, and it works. I had to learn hebrew in 4 months, and it already was very hard and I passed the exam with good marks only because I am really excellent in using my dictionary (because of all the languages I learned before). And it was only the grammar, as I said, combined with as few words as one needs to understand the grammar. The publisher Langenscheidt (editor of our mostly used dictiinaries) once edited language courses with 30 lessons, claiming you could learn a language within that time. By these I learned Spanish within a month and dutch, well, I learnt more slowly. But again: by that time you defined knowing a language by knowing the basic grammar. The result was about A2. And this was only meant to be the start from where on you could start deciphering a newspaper by the help of one of their dictionaries. Or where you could survive as a tourist for two weeks. That's not fluent. But that was the main purpose of these courses. And again: they don't tell you, that you need lots of vocabulary, and and that you have to learn many hours a day. Which a normal person just can't. You have to go to school or to work and usually you won't spend all of the free days of a year to full time learning a language.
I wonder if I should do a video entitled "How I became almost fluent in English and less than 30 years".
I did the like, here is the comment - well done! 🙃😉😇
I got fluent in Slovak in a week. (My native language is Czech.)
and that's why I always block videos from these guys...no exception.
You are right ...they are🤥😵💫😵🥴😴🥶😭👎💯
ppl who say you can learn a language in a day is equivalent to any physical content by Vshred
I will get fluent in Hausa in 3.......... decades.
Good You are here !
Maestría for Robert Greene !!!
I met guy that learned swedish in six month. I thought that was good. ok he lives on a island with 158 pepole and olny one more that can speak pashtun. maybe half of the population lerned english in school. so I don´t have to tell you what the posibility for him. to speak anything other then swedish was.
Now a i is the big topic! 🤑
Metatron, Thanks for being a truth sayer in a disingenuous platform!
Yeah these channel are discourage some of us to learn channel because we where missleading on the difficulty . Wow we can learn in 30 days a language , it's not that long , let's do it .But then again we surely fail to achieve that and that could give a big lack or motivation or even worste , make people quit .
i remenber some years ago , quitting my learning of my third language (japanese) because i didn't know how difficult it will be. You need to visualize the path you are going to go , to accept the fact that learning a language is a journey and not one big marraton ; that they are no cheat code , you need to commit to it , every day , to dedicate a part of your life to it. (and the more time you can allow to your learning , the more quick you will be to reach that fluency )
When you have accepted it , when you have the motivation to do that , then you will be able to learn with efficiency .
PS: it doesn't have to be boring , but it need commitment
Best way to learn language-> Move to the country once you have A2 level.
I just became fluent in subtlehints in 10 minutes. 🤓
Ok, ok. Yes, I'll be your algorithm fodder, Metatron. Geez, next time just ask bro. 😂😂
Seriously though thanks for being real.👍
Actually you cannot LEARN a language at all. No one can achieve a full and deep knowledge of any language so LEVELS are necessary. I would say before B1 it should be a tourist level too and in 2 weeks you can learn something basic and have a decent pronunciation and be able to order a coffee for example. Many want to speak a language and you can spend years of learning and not be able to say much but also you can learn a basic vocabulary and frases add a smile and some gestures and be able to explain yourself. The titles are vague and it also depends what your needs are. Mind that I never studied English😅
6 months from 0 to b2 is possible.
what happened to ur sound quality, bre thastsy way bgetter over original metatron
I became fluent in bs in 5 seconds. Seriously though, Metatron rocks!
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
How to become fluent in 14 seconds.
COF COF Xiaoma COF COF
If you scroll down from your video you can see a video and it says. “Spanish in 60 days.” Hummm
凄い動画
How to reach C2?
Time, practice and determination.
@@Iisdabest889 and years of complete of immersion 😉
Xiaoma's Mandarin isn't even that good, actually.
It takes me an average of 2 highschool years, or two middle school years or 3 Community College quarters to get proficent at a foreign language. For master I would say between 28 to 30 years as a native speaker.
8:30 he said doodoo
duplicitous content should be shunned.
will you be investing in some sound proofing? I enjoy your videos a lot but sometimes it sounds like you are in a giant biscuit tin