I legit watched on 2x Geschwindigkeit 😂.... Great content sire. Ich habe sofort abonniert. Feel like the video could have been made at most 10 minutes lange No offense, ich sage gerade.... Danke für das geniales Video.
That was actually very helpful. I write down sentences all the time, now I think I will go back and organize them in a more helpful way. I'm almost 70 and I'm learning German, and Mandarin for the first time. I like your videos and find them very helpful. Danke und bis bald.
Something that Matt vs Japan pointed out that I think is really helpful is to remember that you generally can't rely on native speakers to correct your mistakes when you talk to them (unless they're your tutor), so taking a more introverted and input-heavy approach will often be more effective anyways.
so true. they absolutely DONT correct you unless you ask them too. but even i dont like correcting everything i hear a non native say when they ask me to because it can stall the conversation and make one more hesitant in speaking.
I agree. By the way, it's baffling how self-centered some language learners can be. For some reason, they expect, or even feel entitled to demand, random native speakers to be their teachers for free. If a native speaker talks with a non-native, it's because they want to meet them and not to work as their teacher for free. Can anyone imagine if you were the native speaker and had to interrupt the non-native after every sentence to correct and explain their mistakes? That'd be anything but enjoyable and would feel like work.
Great comments, thanks. The exceptions are some French people, who will become indignant if you err. I heard they have a culture that's proud of their language and low tolerance of people sloppy with it. I prefer to be corrected.
Great comments, thanks. The exceptions are some French people, who will become indignant if you err. I heard they have a culture that's proud of their language and low tolerance of people sloppy with it. I prefer to be corrected.
The idea of becoming an independent speaker (firstly, an interlocutor for ourselves :) is gorgeous ! The method has to be adapted differently to the needs and abilities of each person. but it can work, that's obvious ! Thank you for giving us the courage to speak and think independently ! It is great ! Merci Beaucoup Michel
Thanks for this encouraging comment, Michel! I totally agree that the method has to be adapted to each person and what they enjoy and need 😄 I really appreciate the support!
I really feel the connection of acting and language learning. I was doing some read throughs (first reading along while listening, then minicking, then followed by listening with eyes closed an translating it) to improve my English accent. And it felt like I was rehearsing for a play, which makes it such a fun experience. :)
I practically had to reteach myself english just to be able to learn another language. I didn't realise how much I didn't know about even my own langauge.
How you did it? Im fucking (sorry for my french) in New York , but even in this country even english is native language i cant learn 😫 give me hint plsssssss
@@hfarida8466 so for me, I could spell. and I knew a decent amount of words, Since I read a lot. but I had no idea what a noun, predicate, verb, adjective, subject, object or anything of the sort was. So before I could even start learning another language. I had to reteach myself what all of that (and more) was just to be able to understand simple sentence structures.
@@berryblumoon I think you don't need to learn all grammar before you start learning a new language, just learn it as youre going. Learning Spanish taught me a lot about object and indirect objects and it also made me notice my own language. I already knew about subject-verb link Korean has taught me about adjectival phrases and adverbial phrases but it's screwed me up on subject because they use the term slightly differently. It's also made me more conscious of transitive and intransitive verbs (but I'm only intermediate at Korean, so I think I'll learn more) Lately I've been dabbling in Filipino and it looks like I'm going to finally ave to get my head around what the predicate is, which I've tried to learn before but simply couldn't understand. So yeah, I'm learning grammar STILL
I only went to primary and secondary modern. INn England they stopped teaching grammar to sec mod kids in the early 1960's. I find grammar fascinating now , I'm still learning english grammar now and it helps me with understanding the italian and spanish that I'm learning. If you try and build a house on mud it will sink, you need foundations !
@@solea59 exactly! That's what I ended up realizing in the end. 😂 every time the lesson I was studying said anything about grammar, I was just lost. So I had to go back to my roots and make sure, I understood that in the first place.
Great video! I’m a researcher and at our lab we study different aspects of the psychology of bilingualism, and I would say that the way you develop your speaking skills is totally based on what we know regarding deliberate practice and expertise (specially when you mentioned that you produce output based on input - that might be an audio or text produced by a native speaker). Everything we say (in our L1 or L2) is a result of a mental representation of how something is supposed to be said, and we get that out of the input. This kind of purposeful speaking practice you do leads to building more efficient mental representations regarding how things are supposed to be said (because the input you are using gives you constant feedback, as much as a tutor would give you... and you could say that your “chunks of language” - the sentences in your file - are those more efficient mental representations you have been developing with this kind of deliberate practice. That would be one of the reasons why it works so well. Congrats on your great job!
I just found out this channel and I am in love with all your content! Thank you so much, this video was really helpful and I know that it will boost my speaking ability. Keep it up with your good work!
I recently discovered your channel after TH-cam recommended it to me and the timing is absolutely wonderful! I’m currently learning Italian right now and I’m really enjoying it, but I have been quite worried about the speaking part and, after seeing your previous video about being an independent conversationalist and then now this, I’m really grateful. I’m so grateful that you’re sharing all your advice with us and your channel is amazing! You’re gonna be a great resource in this language journey of mine! 🤍
That's interesting. So "on the weekend" is an 'Australianism' as well as an Americanism. As a Scottish English speaker, I'd say "at the weekend". Guess it's mainly a matter of custom what you say but to my ear there seems to be a subtle difference in meaning. "At the weekend" implies at the end of a period of time as in "I'll do it at the end of the month", whereas, "on the weekend" kind of treats 'the weekend' like a specified day of the week as in "I'll do it (on) Friday".
This is gold, thanks Robin! I have intuitively been doing something similar, but just less complete and elaborate. And just the other day, I came across a teacher of Italian who also speak about these "reference frases". I have always collected frases I knew I would likely use, but I haven't collected proper reference frases as a mold to say something similar but not quite the same. So thanks, this enforces something important.
English is not my native language. I was trying to learn it at school, but it failed. I'm still struggling with grammar, but i really like to speak and English is my favourite foreign language now. There is one thing that helped me. Wanna share the story to prove every word in this and previous videos. I joined a speaking club. There were couple students and a teacher. We had different topic every day and it was nice. But the case is.. The teacher was not correcting us. Just sometimes he could do it but with so much typical mistakes (like "to" after "can"). All the strategies of this speaking club were: 1. make students speak and feel comfortable 2. do it every day. Results were amazing. In 2 month people were impressed how good my speaking skills are. Now i follow this method with other languages, free and by myself. I'm glad that many people are able to use the method thankful your videos. I got some useful tips how to improve it as well. Thank you so much and i'm really glad to subscribe the channel.
Your written English is amazing, as a native speaker, I can't see any errors, except for capitalization, but we don't really pull people up on that unless it's in a formal sense. Thank you for telling us your story, it's amazing, I myself am learning Icelandic, I've only just started and I find listening to music and shadowing it with lip-syncing really helps with internation, so I'm hoping to be able to speak it fluently enough that people can understand me and I just like the language in general. Your English is really good, by the way.
Alexa A Thank you, I wish you luck with learning more of English if you ever need to learn more. I believe you never stop learning and English in my personal opinion is by far the weirdest Language.
this is kinda what i do too with korean! one of the most important things i believe is: never learn something out of context, always find useful sentences... for example, the word for "idea" is much more useful than the word for "apple", at least if you wanna have real life conversations; but also learn "i have an idea" and " that's a bad idea" etc
Ich freue mich immer total, wenn Leute Deutsch lernen und davon begeistert sind 😊 Ein Video in dem du zeigst wie du es lernst, wäre wirklich toll 😁 I really enjoy your videos. They helped me a lot when I struggled with learning Chinese. Thank you 😊
This is such a powerful video Robin. I have been doing this for ages. I think it's exactly as you say, I think that people get hung too hung up on accuracy , it's just not necessary. The people we are trying to communicate with will be delighted that they are being asked " in their language ! " and won't worry about mistakes !
your videos are blowing my mind, I know this topic my be debatable, however, this bring back memories of the first time I tried to speak english with a native speaker I've never felt more demoralized in my life, I can tell you it was such a mess, I'm currently using this method with english and Portuguese and it's working perfectly. you're such an inspiration for me. Muchas gracias
Excellent follow up. I can also recommend something very similar to what you’re doing using the service/app/site Reverso Context. For each translation it will give you multiple real world uses of the word or phrase in context. I save the one I like the best, or the ones I like the best, to my favorites. This then gives me a list that I can search as you do, I can print it out, and revise and use as desired. Thanks again.
Great channel (although I've never been a coffee-lover :)) The energy, optimism and kindness you show are absolutely infectious, something everyone needs to learn a new language. Saludos desde España.
Every time you post a video, all I can say is thank you! The information is totally useful and valuable. The only time I take a break from listening and learning German and Dutch (yes, at the same time😂) I watch your videos. I love the insight you have!
I totally agree with you! I did it the same way for the last few years/languages. But with my latest language (Quechua) I started to talk to tutors from the beginning. And am very happy with both strategies. I guess everyone should try both ways to see which one suits them better.
I totally agree. I just realized now that ive been learning English without really being unaware that im using the same technique. And i appreciate sharing with us your experiences. This is very helpful as im learning Deutsch at the moment.
This looks like a fantastic method. While watching this, I realized that I've been doing a very similar thing in my studies of Dutch. The only difference is that I've just been jotting down phrases and sentences in a notebook. I love the idea of using a Word program. That makes it so much easier to look up phrases when I need them. I don't know why I didn't think of this before! Thanks for sharing.
I used to have a lisp a few years ago, It started getting pretty bad so i wanted to get rid of it. I started walking around doing very quiet beat boxing, paying extra close attention to getting my teeth to touch when doing a 'ss' sound and found that was really effective on getting rid of it
I did something similar to learn to roll my r's. Practiced walking around town, exaggerating the heck out of it in words. You can imagine me saying "brrrrrrrook" over and over till I learned that. Then slowly adding in other sounds before and after the rrrr.
I've got to say. I've seen several polyglot vids but I don't always subscribe. This one, boy I couldn't resist. I subscribed right away (on the previous video). It's rare I subscribe to a video on first watch.😂 Schön, dein Video zu sehen. Die Qualität ist super. Great content really. Your interview on easy German won me over😂
I do something a little different. I sit down in front of the laptop and start talking about something random, and every time I come across a word that I can't say I check on the google translator and keep talking after knowing how to say the previous word, and ok. After that section of conversation, I take all the words or phrases I didn't know and put in Anki. That's it! Ps > Hell yeah, my English is totally rusty, that's why you can realize a ton of grammatical mistakes, im Brazilian but currently im living in Finland and I'm focusing on improving my Finnish and Swedish, but as soon as possible I'll start studying English again. Thanks for the video!
Hey Robin! I'm not questioning you and I know you have more knowledge than me about language learning.. But I truly believe in learning through output. I know input is king, but output is a fundamental part of the genuine language learning process. I believe you learn languages without tutoring, but I guess a tutor can boost your learning journey. I have once per week Spanish tutoring and I always make the same mistakes and it sounds a bit dumb.. But I'm aware of my main flaws because of my tutor. Once again, I really admire you as one of the most respectful and charismatic polyglots that I follow and I will keep following you hehe! Great video buddy! Thanks for sharing!
Hola me parece curioso que siempre cometas los mismos errores semana tras semana, no dudo de tu tutor pero definitivamente algo está pasando... saludos!
@@alobo_78 pues es algo muy simple... yo digo muchas veces por ejemplo "lo hombre he dicho..." y el correcto es "el hombre".. yo estoy casi superando ese error pero eso es algo que viene de mi lengua materna (portugués) entonces a pesar de parecer algo sencillo no lo es para mi, porque el portugués está siempre en mi cabeza para esas trampas jeje
Hey @Professor X! Thanks for sharing your perspective! I agree that output is an important part of the process (for some people earlier, for others later), and I believe that part of the method I described here is also learning through output. I do want to say that I'm not against talking to tutors or native speakers at all. I think my main hope with these two videos was to show people that if you are in a situation where you either can't talk to another person or perhaps don't feel comfortable doing so (if somebody is very introverted or shy, for example), it is still totally possible to learn the language 😊 This is just how I personally enjoy learning and I have seen a lot of people say things like "I want to learn Portuguese, but I don't have anyone to talk to and I can't afford a tutor, so I can't learn it". I want to help those people understand that they can still be successful! If somebody enjoys talking to native speakers at an earlier point in their journey, or they can afford to pay for a tutor and enjoy it, I think that's wonderful 😄 Personally, I would love to have a tutor once I reach that basic fluency level and I can really get lots of incredible value in improving how naturally and accurately I speak, and I can also enjoy the conversation with them! But I can definitely understand that you would prefer to do that earlier in the process. Thank you again for sharing and supporting me!
@@o_felipe_reis ahhh entiendo.... "El hombre ha dicho" .. . Recuerda la conjugación del verbo haber en tercera persona ... Yo he, Tu has, Ella / El ha. Se que no es fácil. Yo entiendo portugués cuando lo escucho pero se que es fácil confundirse al escribir... Ánimo!
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms Thanks for your response! Yeah I also think that studying alone is way better than don't study at all due to the lack of tutors. We can learn alone I agree with you and yeah I do prefer having a tutor to identify my main mistakes and correct them earlier on. Thanks again and one more time: amazing video! Stay safe!
This was very interesting, normally I write down the vocabulary, I don't think to write down the grammatical structures. That's clever, I don't know why I didn't think of it, but I'm going to give it a try, thank you!
This is old-school Berlitz technique that was popular in the 50s-80s. You develop an inner database of phrases and then learn to mix and match them. I found it a very powerful technique, and I'm sorry it went out of fashion in favor of input methodology.
The point here is that speech is a SKILL; not a knowledge collection. Some people have large vocabularies they cannot use. We need words but words don't equal speech! Bricks don't become skyscrapers because you have enough of them. You develop the SKILL by making a box or a doghouse, and once you have enough blocks, building a house will not be hard. Good thoughts!
This is great! Really. I love the approach. Besides, I think when you do this kind of thing, the input help you fix and correct the things you've been using wrong (songs, TV, and the like). Thanks for the video!
I am on the same path, collecting useful sentences from different ressources and trying to understand the pieces to reuse them for my own purposes. And it is really nice to be an independent, following your own interests and tastes. thanks for sharing
Robin. I was wondering if you could do a video of a day in the life of. And feature what your study day looks like from wake up to bed time. Including time spent doing each study. I think that would be useful. Many of us wonder around in the dark.
yeah I wanna hear Robin talking to himself in his target language, practicing modifying and extending sentences while he's in the shower [er... no camera required ;)] or washing up.
Yeah, of course there is always risk of making mistake, but it is good! Because you can think it over and check out the right answer. Because it is all about you who learns. It makes you are the best, independent tutor for yourself!
Really amazing stuff. Can't wait to get started. The one thing I wasn't sure about is - Should you be sat with a computer whilst doing the speaking alone task? So that if you don't know how to say something you can look up in the data base and ensure you then are saying correctly?
Hi Robin, Can you show in short video how did you create a notion page ? Your method is amazing and am trying to create the same for my language learning
Here in Brazil we've that amazing way of learning by the phrase "the book is on the table", but, unfortunately, most of the learners don't understand how useful this method is
This method that you have explained applies so great to learning Chinese, because its grammar is so simple and modular that you can really do a lot with few words. On the contrary, for Japanese I find this quite more difficult because its grammar is so complicated, that you will find yourself learning new grammatical structures for ever and ever...
Your basic idea is an interesting and useful one, but it has pitfalls. Checking out your German page in Notion, I see that you have "Lass uns gehen" for "Let's go". In my time living in Germany, I never heard that. People say "Gehen wir". "Lass uns gehen" is a word-for-word translation from English rather than a German idiomatic phrase. Actually, I suspect you can find "lass uns gehen" somewhere in the German corpus, but it sounds archaic and formal, like Biblical language. Also, you have "See you on the weekend!" correctly translated as "Bis zum Wochenende", but then you suggest using this phrase as a way to build other constructions meaning "on the weekend". It doesn't work that way. "Bis zum Wochenende" literally means "until the weekend", or idiomatically in English "See you this weekend" or "See you on the weekend". It's kind of a promise. You can't use the same construction to describe something you did or will do on the weekend. For that narrative sense of "on the weekend", you need "am Wochenende". This kind of incorrect extrapolation could be another pitfall of your method.
I use somewhat the same method for Turkish. I don't care so much about the sentence in and of itself, but I do care very much about the structure. Many times, I take the sentences from Turkish soap operas, noting how these sentences are employed.
Yes this is exactly what I do as well! I wanted to also show how I grab sentences from places like books and TV shows in this video but it was getting long. I also do this with podcasts, basically any authentic content I can get my hands on!
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms I noticed that I take sentences from books also. I just came across a couple of sentences from the Teach Yourself series in my notebooks. This is a great method! I am able to construct an entire conversation from my notes.
@@taino20 could be bad for things like french. French does inversions when written and uses nous a lot. But spoken you use inflection more and "on" instead of nous.
@@muttlanguages3912 Yes, you cannot depend solely on the written word in French. That is why it is important to watch movies and soap operas to learn how people really talk in everyday life.
Thank you Dhay! I'll be happy to talk more about learning German soon 😄 I also have the new "Reviving My German" series playlist here just in case you haven't seen that yet: th-cam.com/play/PLuIhQdwUVqqoHpBI5yAX8yfbc2ap7SkFX.html
This points out the fact why language teaching at school is so ineffective. You need to do the language EVERY day at school to make it work. It's totally pointless the way it's set up. One lesson per week is so useless. The kids might do the homework when they get home and then forget it all for the following week ! I would have prefered an extra lesson of carpentry than french !
that's will help me alot 😄 because in my country it's really rare to find and speak to a native speaker...so yeah I mostly talk to myself in secret 🙃 cause if my family 👀 talk to myself 💯 they will say our son is crazy 😂😂....thanks 😊 🙏
I'm glad this is helpful for you! Which country are you from? And which language are you learning? 😄 hahaha hopefully one day your family will understand, once you can speak the language you are learning really well 😂 You're welcome!
Thanks 😊 I'm kurd from Iraq..I'm learning English...actually my goal is bigger but right is only English ..to be honest I never learned English from the school 😅..I acquired from 👀 movies and videos from TH-cam and of course music ...but this year I will go to a university to study more 😃...I ✍ alot 😂 sorry 😁
@@serpentdevil5251 oh 👋 devil ..yeah that will be great 👍.. but I think my English still bad especially when I talking ..I think cause I never talk with anyone in English...but yeah this year everything will change...sorry for all ✍ I'm still 👎 😅
Thank you for your useful content and the nice comfortable way you explain. I am studying German and I have to reach the C1 level by next juli and I am not good enough yet. My native German tutor corrects every single sentence I say and makes it more complicated and daily I have a lot to study. She always compares me with my fluent classmates. I nearly hated the language and hated all that chaos in my notebooks . So, I started following your tips, made notion account and started revising everything and I will try to speak to myself. Your videos revived me XD Vielen Dank für Ihnen Hilfe ^^
I really like your approach of learning languages thanks a lot for your videos they are really helpful I applied your tips on word order conjugation they work wonders 👍👏
Very interesting method. Thank you. I wonder about your comprehension in real world interaction. My experience living in France and speaking French is that,, even after 9 years here, I still have a lot of problem with comprehension because of accents, or speed of speech, etc. How do you overcome that? EDIT: I just listened to your video on Podcasts where you discuss comprehension. It answers my questions. Feel free to add anything new, if you like :-)
"On the weekend" is perfectly natural English! It's how it's said in North America. You would likely never say "at the weekend" if you were from the U.S., unless you watch a lot of shows from across the pond. :)
Hi Robin! First of all, let me say your content is amazing :) I came across your channel last week and have been binge-watching since haha. I'm currently learning Japanese and I'm planning to start using some of your techniques. But my question today is about English, I'm a native Spanish speaker and have been living and working in England for 5 years now. I can convey all my ideas in English, however, I'm aware I still make many mistakes and don't sound natural sometimes when it comes to idioms or some basic expressions. I've noticed I have many bad habits in terms of grammar and pronunciation due to the way I was taught English (traditional school methodology), I really want to achieve a very high level and feel confident when talking especially to native English speakers. But I don't know where to start, shall I tackle grammar books? do shadowing? use anki? more reading? more listening? and also what sort of materials shall I use? I feel there are so many gaps to fill that only thinking about it demotivates me : (...Do you have any advice to fix these bad habits? I'd really appreciate any help.
Tatoeba sentences are another good way to get phrases. I also like to write simple stuff into Google Translate and see how it comes out in German. Might not always be perfect, but probably would be understandable to a German speaker.
hola profesor, es la primera vez que veo tus videos, son geniales gracias, mi pregunta es cuando escucho otros videos y el tuyo entiendo mas los otros videos, tal vez porque ya estoy acostumbrada a sus acentos y como tu sabes varios idiomas podrías tener un acento mezclado, gracias por tu respuesta.
This is one of the best videos of language learning i have ever seen. just wondering where the search bar that you used to find words in your table was, i couldn't find it.
Where do you live that you would say "at the weekend"?? So curious! In my dialect of English (West Coast Canada) we definitely exclusively say "on the weekend"! By the way, thanks for your great videos! You are really relatable and have been motivating me a lot in improving my French. :)
Havent listened yet so curious to see what you say but my initial thought is if you are consuming native content, mistakes will iron themselves out eventually.
Loved the video. I have just been starting to set up sentences with a SRS and its been very helpful in my recalling and making sentences faster when speaking. I think from your video i should also put my sentences in some kind of table and document that I can search because so many times I think "Oh I have seen a similar sentence or what did I write before" and I am flipping through my notebook searching way too long. Thanks for the video.
I enjoy listening, do you have any tips that going to make listener people comfortable also with speaking? btw I found your method encouraging and also interesting by speaking with ourselves :)
An instructor should be able firstly to have the student try to produce a concept, then later he can correct it or give the correct example. Then he should help the student apply that pattern to different concepts/words and repeat it to gain some muscle memory. It's not just that a tutor would correct you, that's the use of an instructor. Anyway the basics can be applied independently if you have a good method.
His method begins at 6:28 for anyone who's in a hurry. Great video btw :)
He makes amazing content but over explains 😂 it's gut but slow
@@Xlicty I rather have someone detailing everything. Plus I love his positive energy.
@@itsrx870 Facts 🤔😂
I legit watched on 2x Geschwindigkeit 😂.... Great content sire. Ich habe sofort abonniert.
Feel like the video could have been made at most 10 minutes lange
No offense, ich sage gerade.... Danke für das geniales Video.
Thanks
That was actually very helpful. I write down sentences all the time, now I think I will go back and organize them in a more helpful way. I'm almost 70 and I'm learning German, and Mandarin for the first time. I like your videos and find them very helpful. Danke und bis bald.
Ja wie ist dine German jezt
I think she IS German
Something that Matt vs Japan pointed out that I think is really helpful is to remember that you generally can't rely on native speakers to correct your mistakes when you talk to them (unless they're your tutor), so taking a more introverted and input-heavy approach will often be more effective anyways.
so true. they absolutely DONT correct you unless you ask them too. but even i dont like correcting everything i hear a non native say when they ask me to because it can stall the conversation and make one more hesitant in speaking.
I agree.
By the way, it's baffling how self-centered some language learners can be. For some reason, they expect, or even feel entitled to demand, random native speakers to be their teachers for free.
If a native speaker talks with a non-native, it's because they want to meet them and not to work as their teacher for free.
Can anyone imagine if you were the native speaker and had to interrupt the non-native after every sentence to correct and explain their mistakes? That'd be anything but enjoyable and would feel like work.
Great comments, thanks. The exceptions are some French people, who will become indignant if you err. I heard they have a culture that's proud of their language and low tolerance of people sloppy with it. I prefer to be corrected.
Great comments, thanks. The exceptions are some French people, who will become indignant if you err. I heard they have a culture that's proud of their language and low tolerance of people sloppy with it. I prefer to be corrected.
The idea of becoming an independent speaker (firstly, an interlocutor for ourselves :) is gorgeous !
The method has to be adapted differently to the needs and abilities of each person. but it can work, that's obvious !
Thank you for giving us the courage to speak and think independently !
It is great !
Merci Beaucoup
Michel
Thanks for this encouraging comment, Michel! I totally agree that the method has to be adapted to each person and what they enjoy and need 😄 I really appreciate the support!
This is my favourite thing about Turkish - it's 95% phoenteic so once you've got the alphabet, you're good to go!
Ahh I do love the sound of Turkish 😍 Great point about the phonetic alphabet!
I agree with you guys
We read how we write something ,after you know the alphabet you will not have a big problem
Greetings from Turkey. 😊
speaking as someone who is a native in bulgarian, which is the same in its phonetics I can definitely agree on that statement. Makes life easier =D
Hungarian too.
Haha 🤣 you think so
I really feel the connection of acting and language learning.
I was doing some read throughs (first reading along while listening, then minicking, then followed by listening with eyes closed an translating it) to improve my English accent.
And it felt like I was rehearsing for a play, which makes it such a fun experience.
:)
I practically had to reteach myself english just to be able to learn another language. I didn't realise how much I didn't know about even my own langauge.
How you did it? Im fucking (sorry for my french) in New York , but even in this country even english is native language i cant learn 😫 give me hint plsssssss
@@hfarida8466 so for me, I could spell. and I knew a decent amount of words, Since I read a lot. but I had no idea what a noun, predicate, verb, adjective, subject, object or anything of the sort was. So before I could even start learning another language. I had to reteach myself what all of that (and more) was just to be able to understand simple sentence structures.
@@berryblumoon I think you don't need to learn all grammar before you start learning a new language, just learn it as youre going.
Learning Spanish taught me a lot about object and indirect objects and it also made me notice my own language. I already knew about subject-verb link
Korean has taught me about adjectival phrases and adverbial phrases but it's screwed me up on subject because they use the term slightly differently. It's also made me more conscious of transitive and intransitive verbs (but I'm only intermediate at Korean, so I think I'll learn more)
Lately I've been dabbling in Filipino and it looks like I'm going to finally ave to get my head around what the predicate is, which I've tried to learn before but simply couldn't understand. So yeah, I'm learning grammar STILL
I only went to primary and secondary modern. INn England they stopped teaching grammar to sec mod kids in the early 1960's. I find grammar fascinating now , I'm still learning english grammar now and it helps me with understanding the italian and spanish that I'm learning. If you try and build a house on mud it will sink, you need foundations !
@@solea59 exactly! That's what I ended up realizing in the end. 😂 every time the lesson I was studying said anything about grammar, I was just lost. So I had to go back to my roots and make sure, I understood that in the first place.
Great video! I’m a researcher and at our lab we study different aspects of the psychology of bilingualism, and I would say that the way you develop your speaking skills is totally based on what we know regarding deliberate practice and expertise (specially when you mentioned that you produce output based on input - that might be an audio or text produced by a native speaker). Everything we say (in our L1 or L2) is a result of a mental representation of how something is supposed to be said, and we get that out of the input. This kind of purposeful speaking practice you do leads to building more efficient mental representations regarding how things are supposed to be said (because the input you are using gives you constant feedback, as much as a tutor would give you... and you could say that your “chunks of language” - the sentences in your file - are those more efficient mental representations you have been developing with this kind of deliberate practice. That would be one of the reasons why it works so well. Congrats on your great job!
I just found out this channel and I am in love with all your content! Thank you so much, this video was really helpful and I know that it will boost my speaking ability. Keep it up with your good work!
Thanks so much for the support, Jimmy! I'm really glad you found my channel and love the content!! 🙏🏼
My man you are a living gold mine 🤩 thanks for the wisdom that you bestowed upon us.
A Non native English trying to learn French.
moi aussi! je suis indonésienne et en train d’apprendre le français ^^ d’où venez-vous?
I recently discovered your channel after TH-cam recommended it to me and the timing is absolutely wonderful! I’m currently learning Italian right now and I’m really enjoying it, but I have been quite worried about the speaking part and, after seeing your previous video about being an independent conversationalist and then now this, I’m really grateful. I’m so grateful that you’re sharing all your advice with us and your channel is amazing! You’re gonna be a great resource in this language journey of mine! 🤍
8:12 I'm Australian (native English speaker), and I'd say "on the weekend"
American English speaker. I didn't know "at the weekend" was a thing.
That's interesting. So "on the weekend" is an 'Australianism' as well as an Americanism.
As a Scottish English speaker, I'd say "at the weekend". Guess it's mainly a matter of custom what you say but to my ear there seems to be a subtle difference in meaning. "At the weekend" implies at the end of a period of time as in "I'll do it at the end of the month", whereas, "on the weekend" kind of treats 'the weekend' like a specified day of the week as in "I'll do it (on) Friday".
@@kevingeoghegan294 yeah, when I say "on" the weekend, it means the same in my head as "on" Friday. We do say "at" the end of the month.
I love this method. It makes you comfortable thinking in a foreign language. Excellent and creative
This is gold, thanks Robin!
I have intuitively been doing something similar, but just less complete and elaborate. And just the other day, I came across a teacher of Italian who also speak about these "reference frases". I have always collected frases I knew I would likely use, but I haven't collected proper reference frases as a mold to say something similar but not quite the same. So thanks, this enforces something important.
You're very welcome @EFoxVN! I'm really glad that you found this to be helpful in reinforcing what you were already doing intuitively!
English is not my native language. I was trying to learn it at school, but it failed. I'm still struggling with grammar, but i really like to speak and English is my favourite foreign language now. There is one thing that helped me. Wanna share the story to prove every word in this and previous videos. I joined a speaking club. There were couple students and a teacher. We had different topic every day and it was nice. But the case is.. The teacher was not correcting us. Just sometimes he could do it but with so much typical mistakes (like "to" after "can"). All the strategies of this speaking club were:
1. make students speak and feel comfortable
2. do it every day.
Results were amazing. In 2 month people were impressed how good my speaking skills are. Now i follow this method with other languages, free and by myself. I'm glad that many people are able to use the method thankful your videos. I got some useful tips how to improve it as well. Thank you so much and i'm really glad to subscribe the channel.
Cool
Your written English is amazing, as a native speaker, I can't see any errors, except for capitalization, but we don't really pull people up on that unless it's in a formal sense.
Thank you for telling us your story, it's amazing, I myself am learning Icelandic, I've only just started and I find listening to music and shadowing it with lip-syncing really helps with internation, so I'm hoping to be able to speak it fluently enough that people can understand me and I just like the language in general.
Your English is really good, by the way.
@@stardustfury1180 thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Wish you luck with learning Icelandic and all the best.
Alexa A Thank you, I wish you luck with learning more of English if you ever need to learn more.
I believe you never stop learning and English in my personal opinion is by far the weirdest Language.
@@stardustfury1180 Thank you one more time for all nice words. And why do you think that English is the weirdest Language?
this is kinda what i do too with korean! one of the most important things i believe is: never learn something out of context, always find useful sentences... for example, the word for "idea" is much more useful than the word for "apple", at least if you wanna have real life conversations; but also learn "i have an idea" and " that's a bad idea" etc
U r learning korean?
Ich freue mich immer total, wenn Leute Deutsch lernen und davon begeistert sind 😊 Ein Video in dem du zeigst wie du es lernst, wäre wirklich toll 😁
I really enjoy your videos. They helped me a lot when I struggled with learning Chinese. Thank you 😊
This is such a powerful video Robin. I have been doing this for ages. I think it's exactly as you say, I think that people get hung too hung up on accuracy , it's just not necessary. The people we are trying to communicate with will be delighted that they are being asked " in their language ! " and won't worry about mistakes !
I second that🤗
My two target languages in one video! Faszinierend
your videos are blowing my mind, I know this topic my be debatable, however, this bring back memories of the first time I tried to speak english with a native speaker I've never felt more demoralized in my life, I can tell you it was such a mess, I'm currently using this method with english and Portuguese and it's working perfectly. you're such an inspiration for me. Muchas gracias
This database idea is simply brilliant :)
That's why I really like your videos, you always taught us how to become independent in the learning process.
Excellent follow up. I can also recommend something very similar to what you’re doing using the service/app/site Reverso Context. For each translation it will give you multiple real world uses of the word or phrase in context. I save the one I like the best, or the ones I like the best, to my favorites. This then gives me a list that I can search as you do, I can print it out, and revise and use as desired. Thanks again.
The idea of making your own textbook like this is exceptionally powerful. Great video as always!
Thank you. Much appreciated.
*cries happy tears in broken french* merci beaucoup :)
Nice information man. Keep up the good luck and always the best
Great channel (although I've never been a coffee-lover :))
The energy, optimism and kindness you show are absolutely infectious, something everyone needs to learn a new language.
Saludos desde España.
Every time you post a video, all I can say is thank you! The information is totally useful and valuable. The only time I take a break from listening and learning German and Dutch (yes, at the same time😂) I watch your videos. I love the insight you have!
I found your channel today and I love it .
Congrats Robin!
I totally agree with you! I did it the same way for the last few years/languages.
But with my latest language (Quechua) I started to talk to tutors from the beginning. And am very happy with both strategies.
I guess everyone should try both ways to see which one suits them better.
I totally agree. I just realized now that ive been learning English without really being unaware that im using the same technique. And i appreciate sharing with us your experiences. This is very helpful as im learning Deutsch at the moment.
This looks like a fantastic method. While watching this, I realized that I've been doing a very similar thing in my studies of Dutch. The only difference is that I've just been jotting down phrases and sentences in a notebook. I love the idea of using a Word program. That makes it so much easier to look up phrases when I need them. I don't know why I didn't think of this before! Thanks for sharing.
I used to have a lisp a few years ago, It started getting pretty bad so i wanted to get rid of it. I started walking around doing very quiet beat boxing, paying extra close attention to getting my teeth to touch when doing a 'ss' sound and found that was really effective on getting rid of it
I did something similar to learn to roll my r's. Practiced walking around town, exaggerating the heck out of it in words. You can imagine me saying "brrrrrrrook" over and over till I learned that. Then slowly adding in other sounds before and after the rrrr.
I've got to say. I've seen several polyglot vids but I don't always subscribe. This one, boy I couldn't resist. I subscribed right away (on the previous video). It's rare I subscribe to a video on first watch.😂 Schön, dein Video zu sehen. Die Qualität ist super.
Great content really. Your interview on easy German won me over😂
I do something a little different. I sit down in front of the laptop and start talking about something random, and every time I come across a word that I can't say I check on the google translator and keep talking after knowing how to say the previous word, and ok. After that section of conversation, I take all the words or phrases I didn't know and put in Anki. That's it! Ps > Hell yeah, my English is totally rusty, that's why you can realize a ton of grammatical mistakes, im Brazilian but currently im living in Finland and I'm focusing on improving my Finnish and Swedish, but as soon as possible I'll start studying English again. Thanks for the video!
Great follow up video, I had been writing useful phrases in a book but makes sense to have them in a searchable database.
AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!! You, and I share the same ways of fast-tracking linguistic retention!!!!!!!!!! This is my favorite video of yours!!!!!!!
Thanks for the tip! I'm gonna create my own database of things I would actually say in a spreadsheet.
Your style in talking is really enjoyable
Ican't close the video until it end 👏🌸
Very interesting , thank you very much .
In Japanese I’ll often know the sound (the character sound doesn’t change) but I won’t know the pitch-accent.
Hey Robin! I'm not questioning you and I know you have more knowledge than me about language learning.. But I truly believe in learning through output. I know input is king, but output is a fundamental part of the genuine language learning process. I believe you learn languages without tutoring, but I guess a tutor can boost your learning journey. I have once per week Spanish tutoring and I always make the same mistakes and it sounds a bit dumb.. But I'm aware of my main flaws because of my tutor. Once again, I really admire you as one of the most respectful and charismatic polyglots that I follow and I will keep following you hehe! Great video buddy! Thanks for sharing!
Hola me parece curioso que siempre cometas los mismos errores semana tras semana, no dudo de tu tutor pero definitivamente algo está pasando... saludos!
@@alobo_78 pues es algo muy simple... yo digo muchas veces por ejemplo "lo hombre he dicho..." y el correcto es "el hombre".. yo estoy casi superando ese error pero eso es algo que viene de mi lengua materna (portugués) entonces a pesar de parecer algo sencillo no lo es para mi, porque el portugués está siempre en mi cabeza para esas trampas jeje
Hey @Professor X! Thanks for sharing your perspective! I agree that output is an important part of the process (for some people earlier, for others later), and I believe that part of the method I described here is also learning through output.
I do want to say that I'm not against talking to tutors or native speakers at all. I think my main hope with these two videos was to show people that if you are in a situation where you either can't talk to another person or perhaps don't feel comfortable doing so (if somebody is very introverted or shy, for example), it is still totally possible to learn the language 😊 This is just how I personally enjoy learning and I have seen a lot of people say things like "I want to learn Portuguese, but I don't have anyone to talk to and I can't afford a tutor, so I can't learn it". I want to help those people understand that they can still be successful!
If somebody enjoys talking to native speakers at an earlier point in their journey, or they can afford to pay for a tutor and enjoy it, I think that's wonderful 😄 Personally, I would love to have a tutor once I reach that basic fluency level and I can really get lots of incredible value in improving how naturally and accurately I speak, and I can also enjoy the conversation with them! But I can definitely understand that you would prefer to do that earlier in the process. Thank you again for sharing and supporting me!
@@o_felipe_reis ahhh entiendo.... "El hombre ha dicho" .. . Recuerda la conjugación del verbo haber en tercera persona ... Yo he, Tu has, Ella / El ha. Se que no es fácil. Yo entiendo portugués cuando lo escucho pero se que es fácil confundirse al escribir... Ánimo!
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms Thanks for your response! Yeah I also think that studying alone is way better than don't study at all due to the lack of tutors. We can learn alone I agree with you and yeah I do prefer having a tutor to identify my main mistakes and correct them earlier on. Thanks again and one more time: amazing video! Stay safe!
Without speak to Native we can learn with talk to our self, to make it accurate, many things from this video, thanks
This was very interesting, normally I write down the vocabulary, I don't think to write down the grammatical structures. That's clever, I don't know why I didn't think of it, but I'm going to give it a try, thank you!
This is old-school Berlitz technique that was popular in the 50s-80s. You develop an inner database of phrases and then learn to mix and match them. I found it a very powerful technique, and I'm sorry it went out of fashion in favor of input methodology.
This is great advice, Robin. Thank You very much. ✌
The point here is that speech is a SKILL; not a knowledge collection. Some people have large vocabularies they cannot use. We need words but words don't equal speech! Bricks don't become skyscrapers because you have enough of them. You develop the SKILL by making a box or a doghouse, and once you have enough blocks, building a house will not be hard. Good thoughts!
Merci beaucoup Robin, encore une super video! Je te suis tres reconnaissante.
Thanks for the follow up from the other video. This is helpful.
This is great! Really. I love the approach. Besides, I think when you do this kind of thing, the input help you fix and correct the things you've been using wrong (songs, TV, and the like). Thanks for the video!
Keep it up with the content! I love how you put into words many concepts about learning languages that I wasn’t even aware of!
I am on the same path, collecting useful sentences from different ressources and trying to understand the pieces to reuse them for my own purposes. And it is really nice to be an independent, following your own interests and tastes. thanks for sharing
Which language r u learning?
I like the way he says "tutor" 😃
Excellent advice. Thank you.
I can less effort and then i understand thanks for this board or advice
Robin. I was wondering if you could do a video of a day in the life of. And feature what your study day looks like from wake up to bed time. Including time spent doing each study.
I think that would be useful. Many of us wonder around in the dark.
yeah I wanna hear Robin talking to himself in his target language, practicing modifying and extending sentences while he's in the shower [er... no camera required ;)] or washing up.
Yeah, of course there is always risk of making mistake, but it is good! Because you can think it over and check out the right answer. Because it is all about you who learns. It makes you are the best, independent tutor for yourself!
Really amazing stuff. Can't wait to get started. The one thing I wasn't sure about is - Should you be sat with a computer whilst doing the speaking alone task? So that if you don't know how to say something you can look up in the data base and ensure you then are saying correctly?
Happy monday!
Feliz lunes Annieeeeee, abrazos!! ☀️
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms abrazos! Si quieres practicar español y sacarle el óxido me avisas 😎
Hi Robin, Can you show in short video how did you create a notion page ? Your method is amazing and am trying to create the same for my language learning
Happy monday too Robin 😊
Thanks Mia! 😊🌻
Lately with Japanese I have been making little "cheat sheets" of quick grammar and vocab so I can check quickly if what I'm saying/writing is okay.
Good idea
This is brilliant.. i'll try this method..thank you so much for sharing..❤❤❤
Here in Brazil we've that amazing way of learning by the phrase "the book is on the table", but, unfortunately, most of the learners don't understand how useful this method is
This was very helpful for me. I've been stuck on learning to speak more than simple sentences. Thank you!
ME2..I also get stuck🤦,
This method that you have explained applies so great to learning Chinese, because its grammar is so simple and modular that you can really do a lot with few words. On the contrary, for Japanese I find this quite more difficult because its grammar is so complicated, that you will find yourself learning new grammatical structures for ever and ever...
Oye who r ya dude?
How many languages r ya learning?🙄,,,I didn't finished leaning English yet,n u r leanin'chinese , japanese 😞😫😭
Your basic idea is an interesting and useful one, but it has pitfalls. Checking out your German page in Notion, I see that you have "Lass uns gehen" for "Let's go". In my time living in Germany, I never heard that. People say "Gehen wir". "Lass uns gehen" is a word-for-word translation from English rather than a German idiomatic phrase. Actually, I suspect you can find "lass uns gehen" somewhere in the German corpus, but it sounds archaic and formal, like Biblical language. Also, you have "See you on the weekend!" correctly translated as "Bis zum Wochenende", but then you suggest using this phrase as a way to build other constructions meaning "on the weekend". It doesn't work that way. "Bis zum Wochenende" literally means "until the weekend", or idiomatically in English "See you this weekend" or "See you on the weekend". It's kind of a promise. You can't use the same construction to describe something you did or will do on the weekend. For that narrative sense of "on the weekend", you need "am Wochenende". This kind of incorrect extrapolation could be another pitfall of your method.
Thanks!! Really helpful
So nervous about that cup vs. hand gestures.
Straight up stole a considerable amount of your list to get mine started xD so I figured I at least owed you a comment =D
U seem good in English...u r still learnin'english?
Serpent Devil haha no, thank you! But English is my native language (well...”Scots” Bein from scotland) but I’m learning German :)
I use somewhat the same method for Turkish. I don't care so much about the sentence in and of itself, but I do care very much about the structure. Many times, I take the sentences from Turkish soap operas, noting how these sentences are employed.
Yes this is exactly what I do as well! I wanted to also show how I grab sentences from places like books and TV shows in this video but it was getting long. I also do this with podcasts, basically any authentic content I can get my hands on!
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms I noticed that I take sentences from books also. I just came across a couple of sentences from the Teach Yourself series in my notebooks. This is a great method! I am able to construct an entire conversation from my notes.
@@taino20 could be bad for things like french. French does inversions when written and uses nous a lot. But spoken you use inflection more and "on" instead of nous.
@@muttlanguages3912 Yes, you cannot depend solely on the written word in French. That is why it is important to watch movies and soap operas to learn how people really talk in everyday life.
Great video as always!! I hope you talk about Learning German in particular in one of your coming videos. Thank you
Thank you Dhay! I'll be happy to talk more about learning German soon 😄 I also have the new "Reviving My German" series playlist here just in case you haven't seen that yet: th-cam.com/play/PLuIhQdwUVqqoHpBI5yAX8yfbc2ap7SkFX.html
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms yessss, i love your german videos!!
This points out the fact why language teaching at school is so ineffective. You need to do the language EVERY day at school to make it work. It's totally pointless the way it's set up. One lesson per week is so useless. The kids might do the homework when they get home and then forget it all for the following week ! I would have prefered an extra lesson of carpentry than french !
that's will help me alot 😄 because in my country it's really rare to find and speak to a native speaker...so yeah I mostly talk to myself in secret 🙃 cause if my family 👀 talk to myself 💯 they will say our son is crazy 😂😂....thanks 😊 🙏
I'm glad this is helpful for you! Which country are you from? And which language are you learning? 😄 hahaha hopefully one day your family will understand, once you can speak the language you are learning really well 😂 You're welcome!
Thanks 😊 I'm kurd from Iraq..I'm learning English...actually my goal is bigger but right is only English ..to be honest I never learned English from the school 😅..I acquired from 👀 movies and videos from TH-cam and of course music ...but this year I will go to a university to study more 😃...I ✍ alot 😂 sorry 😁
@@ryanrex3473 R ya searching for any conversation buddy?
@@serpentdevil5251 oh 👋 devil ..yeah that will be great 👍.. but I think my English still bad especially when I talking ..I think cause I never talk with anyone in English...but yeah this year everything will change...sorry for all ✍ I'm still 👎 😅
Great video Robin, thanks for this
Thank you for your useful content and the nice comfortable way you explain. I am studying German and I have to reach the C1 level by next juli and I am not good enough yet. My native German tutor corrects every single sentence I say and makes it more complicated and daily I have a lot to study. She always compares me with my fluent classmates. I nearly hated the language and hated all that chaos in my notebooks . So, I started following your tips, made notion account and started revising everything and I will try to speak to myself. Your videos revived me XD Vielen Dank für Ihnen Hilfe ^^
It's been a year now and after using his method did it help ??
I love listening to you, I love what you do, and your passion for languages ! you motivate me , Thank you so much !!
This is always how I want to learn but I just usually don't have my notebook with me. Definitely something I need to change!
I really like your approach of learning languages thanks a lot for your videos they are really helpful I applied your tips on word order conjugation they work wonders 👍👏
Very interesting method. Thank you. I wonder about your comprehension in real world interaction. My experience living in France and speaking French is that,, even after 9 years here, I still have a lot of problem with comprehension because of accents, or speed of speech, etc. How do you overcome that? EDIT: I just listened to your video on Podcasts where you discuss comprehension. It answers my questions. Feel free to add anything new, if you like :-)
"On the weekend" is perfectly natural English! It's how it's said in North America. You would likely never say "at the weekend" if you were from the U.S., unless you watch a lot of shows from across the pond. :)
Yeah before I knew British people said "at the weekend" I woulda considered it a non-native mistake 😂 it sounds so weird
Gracias por tu gran contenido, me animas a retomar mis estudios que había dejado de lado :)
Very useful advice 😊 谢谢你
Hi Robin! First of all, let me say your content is amazing :) I came across your channel last week and have been binge-watching since haha. I'm currently learning Japanese and I'm planning to start using some of your techniques. But my question today is about English, I'm a native Spanish speaker and have been living and working in England for 5 years now. I can convey all my ideas in English, however, I'm aware I still make many mistakes and don't sound natural sometimes when it comes to idioms or some basic expressions. I've noticed I have many bad habits in terms of grammar and pronunciation due to the way I was taught English (traditional school methodology), I really want to achieve a very high level and feel confident when talking especially to native English speakers. But I don't know where to start, shall I tackle grammar books? do shadowing? use anki? more reading? more listening? and also what sort of materials shall I use? I feel there are so many gaps to fill that only thinking about it demotivates me : (...Do you have any advice to fix these bad habits? I'd really appreciate any help.
Interesting question, I will be also waiting for an answer.
Just what I needed ❤
Tatoeba sentences are another good way to get phrases. I also like to write simple stuff into Google Translate and see how it comes out in German. Might not always be perfect, but probably would be understandable to a German speaker.
I'd recommend using Deepl instead of Google translate. The translations are usually way better :)
Great video this is very helpful I’m going to try this for a year wish me luck 😀
Thank you man. That's great.
You are disciplined tidy and hard working talented
Awesome😯
hola profesor, es la primera vez que veo tus videos, son geniales gracias, mi pregunta es cuando escucho otros videos y el tuyo entiendo mas los otros videos, tal vez porque ya estoy acostumbrada a sus acentos y como tu sabes varios idiomas podrías tener un acento mezclado, gracias por tu respuesta.
This is gold!
This is one of the best videos of language learning i have ever seen. just wondering where the search bar that you used to find words in your table was, i couldn't find it.
Where do you live that you would say "at the weekend"?? So curious! In my dialect of English (West Coast Canada) we definitely exclusively say "on the weekend"!
By the way, thanks for your great videos! You are really relatable and have been motivating me a lot in improving my French. :)
I am English. We would say something like, ' I am too busy now but I will do it at the weekend'
As far as I know, "AT the weekend" is used in British English..."ON the weekend" in American one, amirite?!☺️
Havent listened yet so curious to see what you say but my initial thought is if you are consuming native content, mistakes will iron themselves out eventually.
Loved the video. I have just been starting to set up sentences with a SRS and its been very helpful in my recalling and making sentences faster when speaking. I think from your video i should also put my sentences in some kind of table and document that I can search because so many times I think "Oh I have seen a similar sentence or what did I write before" and I am flipping through my notebook searching way too long. Thanks for the video.
Robin what is your first language?
I enjoy listening, do you have any tips that going to make listener people comfortable also with speaking?
btw I found your method encouraging and also interesting by speaking with ourselves :)
try to speak about topics you enjoy or you are familiar with. it might help
What do you think of my english?
An instructor should be able firstly to have the student try to produce a concept, then later he can correct it or give the correct example. Then he should help the student apply that pattern to different concepts/words and repeat it to gain some muscle memory. It's not just that a tutor would correct you, that's the use of an instructor. Anyway the basics can be applied independently if you have a good method.
It's a great way to get that foundation. Then you can speak to native speakers to continue improving.