Thank you, Elysse!! I was just getting excited😅 about learning languages and having a schedule for this again, and your video came at the perfect time! Alsoo, me sentí tan feliz cuando me di cuenta que entendí todo lo que dijiste en español al final :))
My word of advice to anyone is to do whatever it is that you can stick to for at least half an hour a day consistently. Follow what interests you. If that means reading grammar books, do that. If it means listening to podcasts, do that. Just do something every day. Also, the CEFR scale means a LOT less than people think it does. For those who don't know- you can pass any level of the CEFR so long as you get something like 60% in 3 out of the 4 categories (reading, writing, listening, speaking). In other words, you can by any other academic standards fail the test but still pass. So, for example, if someone says they're a B1 in "x" language, you can pretty safely assume that they are more likely a solid A2. If someone is a C1, they are more likely a solid B2. And so on and so forth. Learning any language to a high level of proficiency will almost always be measured in years- not months, let alone hours. It's like going to the gym or learning an instrument. If you want to take a trip somewhere and be able to order food, ask for directions, and actually understand what people are saying back to you, that will take months. Even for languages like Spanish and Dutch (assuming you speak English natively). Remember, language learning isn't a competition and "shocking the locals" get's old really fast.
Thanks again for motivating me to invest in myself through language learning and investing my time in something useful when our world focuses so much on material matters! Frohe Weihnachten X
These are great tips and I completely agree with not measuring studies with time! I feel like a lot of people are obsessed with the amount of time it takes to learn a language but it's more fun doing it without a time limit :)
I agree, making language learning fun changed the my method from doing a bunch of grammar lessons and flash cards to a more fun method like watching a yourhbe video in my target language
Honestly with language learning just go with flow you don’t have do everything all at once sometimes you’ll have days where your fully motivated and others wether u not so motivated but it doesn’t really matter that much unless that leads you to quitting language learning is supposed to a be fun activity just go at your own pace and dont compare yourselves to others.
Hi elysse!!! I have been a huge fan of you ever since I started my language learning journey and you are truly my biggest inspiration. I have grown and learned so much over the years and it’s been amazing to see your progress too. I always savor your videos, even if they’re not about language learning. (You should totally do more vlogs!) anyways, thank you so so much and happy holidays ❤️❤️
You can get great language audio input here on youtube with bilingual stories, they will read a sentence of a story in English then read the same sentence in target language. Polyglot Beats on youtube does that well for multiple languages and there other channels for specific languages... its been helping me get passive listening and learning when going on walks... time is by FAR hardest obstacle in language learning - anything that can get us some passive learning is a plus
thank you for these tips! I'll switch to spanish so you can practice 🤪 No se me había ocurrido planificar la semana así como vos lo mostraste, voy a ver si lo aplico porque empiezo con todo el furor y después lo dejo porque me desmotiva seguir sin un objetivo fijo jaja como que pico un poquito por aquí y otro por allá. Después me canso y lo dejo 😅
Interesting video. Personally I prefer to focus on effort rather than results for goals because effort is more measurable to me. So I love goals like “read x amount of words” or “watch x amount of YT in my target language” but not “be able to understand x” because there is a huge range of understanding, like understand the gist, understand on a sentence level, understand on a word level, etc… it’s just too vague for me. I agree that time can be a bad metric for some activities but for others I think it is the best metric. For example, for comprehensible input (how I learned Spanish) I think it’s the best metric (though not perfect of course). I find a lot more value and meaning in hitting a goal of 1 hour of input per day than a goal of say 4 videos, which would be a total of 10-15 minutes or could be like 4+ hours. Reading on the other hand I prefer to use words read as the metric. I think it’s super important to tailor your metrics to the activity. Personally I do 2 languages daily right now. German is my baby language. I’m limited in what I can do and I have to do things that are meant for beginners which, since I use primarily comprehensible input, isn’t terrible or anything, it’s definitely not as fun as I can have in Spanish for example where I can watch native content I would be watching anyway. So that’s how I balance my 2 languages (well 3 if you count English but I don’t), German is my “study” language which primarily consists of just watching comprehensible input at this phase, and Spanish is the language I relax with and just watch TH-cam let’s plays. I aim for at least 30 minutes a day of German CI and 90-120 minutes of Spanish CI input. I also have iTalki classes on Saturdays (1-2) and mix in other things like reading as the mood suits.
Yes, I agree. Time is an important metric for me because it tends to easily slip from my grasps. I could think I've done a lot in the language, but I really spent it daydreaming or whatever. The stopwatches help keep me focused on what I'm doing. I also need the visual metric in order to feel motivated and quantify my effort. I wouldn't just write "30 hours in French" but "20 hours of input and 10 hours of grammar practice" or whatever.
@ exactly. For me I have 902 hours of comprehensible input with Spanish, that tells me a lot about my journey. It’s not perfect but it’s better than saying “I’ve studied Spanish via input for 12 months and 24 days.” (which is also true but doesn’t really convey hat effort I actually put in). But then I choose not to quantify reading with hours because some days I read slow and others more quickly. For reading, words read is easy enough to quantify so I find that a more accurate measure than hours.
@@TheOneChannelToRuleThemAll I'm glad someone else gets it. My brain sees little bar go up and is very happy lol. It's easier for me to have fun in the language when I can "see" that it adds to my progress. The take it slow and have fun approach doesn't actually work for me. Maybe at a higher level? I know the way my mind works, and that means I need to get out of the beginner stages as fast as I can. Others reached A2 in 3 months? I need to do it in 1 - 1 ½. The race against time really skyrockets my progress. I know this doesn't work for everyone, but that's the beauty of learning a language. It can be specifically tailored to your needs.
love these tips, especially the shift from time to task. getting in the flow is literally top tier best feelings ever, and a time frame just gets in the way (for me). if i'm a total beginner in language A and about a B1 in language B, would you still recommend shuffling weekly or would you focus on language A for a few months then shuffle? 🤔
Elysse, thanks for your video, I appreciate your perspective on learning languages. I have a question. So, are you totally advising against Anki? OK, I speak 4 languages, I learned them all without flashcards, but I just happened to be deeply immersed in activities that went with language learning. Actually, no! Language learning was deeply immersed in the activities I was doing. So here I am, wanting to expand my brain and develop more personalities in more languages. I’ve been plotting for a while, and Anki seemed like a great tool. it just looks Hella attractive. I'm not gonna lie. I WANT it to be good. 🤣😐 I’m not familiar with the framework, since I’ve never used it, but the idea of Anki looks very tempting. I’m a little more ruthless with my process. Drafting a week plan like you did? Hellish. Writing and keeping an organized notebook with all sentences? Well, I do write, but it looks straight up schizophrenic. I output a lot, talk to myself, strive to think natively in a language, and try to capture new words in context, for sure. But my system isn’t well established. I kind of have to figure it out every time. Could I get your advice on this? Thanks again for your contribution to the language learning community. Have fun learning languages. Peace! 🫶🏼
2 - onlar yeni bir ev inşa etti. ev + i pek kullanılmaz bu kontekste 4 - bugün başka bir kitapevi keşfettim (kitabevi azerbaycan türkçesinde kullanılır, + ini gene azerbaycan türkçesinde daha çok rastlanılır) 8 - Türkiyeye ulaştım. Türkiyede at Turkey anlamına geliyor. Türkiyeye to Turkey 10 - bunu yemeye çalıştıM
Me learning Japanese (N5 to N4 lvl), German (starting out) and Spanish. Struggling w/ Spanish though since my background is Dominican but the only Spanish resources are Castilian (Spain) or Mexican 😭 My Spanish is good with listening and reading but speaking and writing are lacking.
Totalmente estoy de acuerdo contigo en el punto de tiempo. No me importa (generalmente) cuánto tiempo tardo para aprender un idioma ya que nunca dejes de aprender
Eh I personally like hyper ambitious goals that I'm not sure even doable. Like they say, I shoot at the moon and in the worst case I end up among the stars
''We are human, at least I am'' 😅❤
Can confirm, I am also a humn too
Humans don't need to say that they're humans🤔🤔
I LOVE the comparison to building a house!!! This makes so much sense to me.
Thank you, Elysse!! I was just getting excited😅 about learning languages and having a schedule for this again, and your video came at the perfect time! Alsoo, me sentí tan feliz cuando me di cuenta que entendí todo lo que dijiste en español al final :))
My word of advice to anyone is to do whatever it is that you can stick to for at least half an hour a day consistently. Follow what interests you. If that means reading grammar books, do that. If it means listening to podcasts, do that. Just do something every day.
Also, the CEFR scale means a LOT less than people think it does. For those who don't know- you can pass any level of the CEFR so long as you get something like 60% in 3 out of the 4 categories (reading, writing, listening, speaking). In other words, you can by any other academic standards fail the test but still pass. So, for example, if someone says they're a B1 in "x" language, you can pretty safely assume that they are more likely a solid A2. If someone is a C1, they are more likely a solid B2. And so on and so forth.
Learning any language to a high level of proficiency will almost always be measured in years- not months, let alone hours. It's like going to the gym or learning an instrument. If you want to take a trip somewhere and be able to order food, ask for directions, and actually understand what people are saying back to you, that will take months. Even for languages like Spanish and Dutch (assuming you speak English natively).
Remember, language learning isn't a competition and "shocking the locals" get's old really fast.
well said!!!
Thanks again for motivating me to invest in myself through language learning and investing my time in something useful when our world focuses so much on material matters! Frohe Weihnachten X
These are great tips and I completely agree with not measuring studies with time! I feel like a lot of people are obsessed with the amount of time it takes to learn a language but it's more fun doing it without a time limit :)
your humor is so funny omg you deliver the lines so drily it’s hilarious
i’m honored thank you 🌟
I agree, making language learning fun changed the my method from doing a bunch of grammar lessons and flash cards to a more fun method like watching a yourhbe video in my target language
Honestly with language learning just go with flow you don’t have do everything all at once sometimes you’ll have days where your fully motivated and others wether u not so motivated but it doesn’t really matter that much unless that leads you to quitting language learning is supposed to a be fun activity just go at your own pace and dont compare yourselves to others.
well said!!
Hi elysse!!! I have been a huge fan of you ever since I started my language learning journey and you are truly my biggest inspiration. I have grown and learned so much over the years and it’s been amazing to see your progress too. I always savor your videos, even if they’re not about language learning. (You should totally do more vlogs!) anyways, thank you so so much and happy holidays ❤️❤️
You can get great language audio input here on youtube with bilingual stories, they will read a sentence of a story in English then read the same sentence in target language. Polyglot Beats on youtube does that well for multiple languages and there other channels for specific languages... its been helping me get passive listening and learning when going on walks... time is by FAR hardest obstacle in language learning - anything that can get us some passive learning is a plus
i love my bilingual books!! you don’t have to keep looking up the words you don’t know
thank you for these tips!
I'll switch to spanish so you can practice 🤪
No se me había ocurrido planificar la semana así como vos lo mostraste, voy a ver si lo aplico porque empiezo con todo el furor y después lo dejo porque me desmotiva seguir sin un objetivo fijo jaja como que pico un poquito por aquí y otro por allá. Después me canso y lo dejo 😅
Interesting video.
Personally I prefer to focus on effort rather than results for goals because effort is more measurable to me. So I love goals like “read x amount of words” or “watch x amount of YT in my target language” but not “be able to understand x” because there is a huge range of understanding, like understand the gist, understand on a sentence level, understand on a word level, etc… it’s just too vague for me.
I agree that time can be a bad metric for some activities but for others I think it is the best metric. For example, for comprehensible input (how I learned Spanish) I think it’s the best metric (though not perfect of course). I find a lot more value and meaning in hitting a goal of 1 hour of input per day than a goal of say 4 videos, which would be a total of 10-15 minutes or could be like 4+ hours. Reading on the other hand I prefer to use words read as the metric.
I think it’s super important to tailor your metrics to the activity.
Personally I do 2 languages daily right now. German is my baby language. I’m limited in what I can do and I have to do things that are meant for beginners which, since I use primarily comprehensible input, isn’t terrible or anything, it’s definitely not as fun as I can have in Spanish for example where I can watch native content I would be watching anyway. So that’s how I balance my 2 languages (well 3 if you count English but I don’t), German is my “study” language which primarily consists of just watching comprehensible input at this phase, and Spanish is the language I relax with and just watch TH-cam let’s plays. I aim for at least 30 minutes a day of German CI and 90-120 minutes of Spanish CI input. I also have iTalki classes on Saturdays (1-2) and mix in other things like reading as the mood suits.
Yes, I agree. Time is an important metric for me because it tends to easily slip from my grasps. I could think I've done a lot in the language, but I really spent it daydreaming or whatever. The stopwatches help keep me focused on what I'm doing.
I also need the visual metric in order to feel motivated and quantify my effort. I wouldn't just write "30 hours in French" but "20 hours of input and 10 hours of grammar practice" or whatever.
@ exactly. For me I have 902 hours of comprehensible input with Spanish, that tells me a lot about my journey. It’s not perfect but it’s better than saying “I’ve studied Spanish via input for 12 months and 24 days.” (which is also true but doesn’t really convey hat effort I actually put in). But then I choose not to quantify reading with hours because some days I read slow and others more quickly. For reading, words read is easy enough to quantify so I find that a more accurate measure than hours.
@@TheOneChannelToRuleThemAll I'm glad someone else gets it. My brain sees little bar go up and is very happy lol. It's easier for me to have fun in the language when I can "see" that it adds to my progress.
The take it slow and have fun approach doesn't actually work for me. Maybe at a higher level? I know the way my mind works, and that means I need to get out of the beginner stages as fast as I can. Others reached A2 in 3 months? I need to do it in 1 - 1 ½. The race against time really skyrockets my progress. I know this doesn't work for everyone, but that's the beauty of learning a language. It can be specifically tailored to your needs.
love these tips, especially the shift from time to task. getting in the flow is literally top tier best feelings ever, and a time frame just gets in the way (for me).
if i'm a total beginner in language A and about a B1 in language B, would you still recommend shuffling weekly or would you focus on language A for a few months then shuffle? 🤔
Thank you for this!! Needed that boost 😊
Bahasa terhubung dengan orang orang, languages connect people, le lingue connettono le persone.
Thank you, this was very helpful! Muchas gracias ❤
Elisse good night, happy holidays and merry Christmas.🇧🇷🎀🎁🧨🤝🌟🎄🍇
One of the best videos on language learning habits I've seen lately. I resonate a lot with your mindset.
Happy to hear that!! happy learning in 2025
Elysse, thanks for your video, I appreciate your perspective on learning languages. I have a question. So, are you totally advising against Anki? OK, I speak 4 languages, I learned them all without flashcards, but I just happened to be deeply immersed in activities that went with language learning. Actually, no! Language learning was deeply immersed in the activities I was doing.
So here I am, wanting to expand my brain and develop more personalities in more languages. I’ve been plotting for a while, and Anki seemed like a great tool. it just looks Hella attractive. I'm not gonna lie. I WANT it to be good. 🤣😐
I’m not familiar with the framework, since I’ve never used it, but the idea of Anki looks very tempting.
I’m a little more ruthless with my process. Drafting a week plan like you did? Hellish. Writing and keeping an organized notebook with all sentences? Well, I do write, but it looks straight up schizophrenic. I output a lot, talk to myself, strive to think natively in a language, and try to capture new words in context, for sure. But my system isn’t well established. I kind of have to figure it out every time.
Could I get your advice on this? Thanks again for your contribution to the language learning community. Have fun learning languages. Peace! 🫶🏼
⭐️⭐️⭐️
You seem like a cool human *subscribed*
2 - onlar yeni bir ev inşa etti. ev + i pek kullanılmaz bu kontekste
4 - bugün başka bir kitapevi keşfettim (kitabevi azerbaycan türkçesinde kullanılır, + ini gene azerbaycan türkçesinde daha çok rastlanılır)
8 - Türkiyeye ulaştım. Türkiyede at Turkey anlamına geliyor. Türkiyeye to Turkey
10 - bunu yemeye çalıştıM
I want to listen your turkish playlist
I hope to reach a good English level soon.
Your Spanish is better than mine, my mother tongue is Spanish
Me learning Japanese (N5 to N4 lvl), German (starting out) and Spanish. Struggling w/ Spanish though since my background is Dominican but the only Spanish resources are Castilian (Spain) or Mexican 😭 My Spanish is good with listening and reading but speaking and writing are lacking.
Totalmente estoy de acuerdo contigo en el punto de tiempo. No me importa (generalmente) cuánto tiempo tardo para aprender un idioma ya que nunca dejes de aprender
Eh I personally like hyper ambitious goals that I'm not sure even doable. Like they say, I shoot at the moon and in the worst case I end up among the stars
i don’t like guess work hahaha
So, am I the only one that's been using roleplays on Character AI to practice one of my languages? 😂
Marry cramess
Wait it's 2025 already 😅
for australians in the southern hemisphere theres still a week or so
Oi, listening to "For real" by Athena is not Turkish practice. I guess it is if you dance like a Turkish.
Moen