I heard once that the left ear behave better listening to voices / words, while the right ear is better to listen to "beats". - I don't know if it's real, but actualy makes sense for me
This is so true. I was born and raised in Germany, but my mother is Chinese. Grewing up she never spoke Chinese with me, but because of her I was exposed to a lot of Chinese music, movies and TV shows. So when I really started learning Chinese two years ago, I improved like crazy. It was so easy for me compared to the other students who weren't exposed to the sound of Chinese. Especially the pronunciation, sentence structure and grammar. You can not always think about using the right grammar while speaking, you have to feel what's right.
memorise 1000 most basic spoken words, 3-4 antonyms (possesive, personal etc), the 3 basic tenses (past ,present, future) then watch a shitload of movies (for free from pirate bay whatsoever) over and over that are spoken and subtitled to the language you learn, to get used to the accents and what phrases are used to express different situations. I HAVE NEVER ATTENDED ENGLISH CLASSES IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. I became fluent in just 6 months using the above 4 steps. I am also fluent in spanish and french. I am currently learning russian and planning to learn mandarin arabic and hindi. BOOM then i can communicate with 50% of the global population. Happiness is acceptance, success and freedom. Even if you dont know what a word means, you can understand its meaning through the context. Even if you dont know how a word is translated in the language you are speaking, you can use the basic words to explain it in a different way. For example 'dog=that animal you everyone has with 4 legs' or 'hob=that thing you put your food on in the kitchen to get it cooked' According to her, how am i supposed to understand what the song says if i dont even know what the context means? You need to memorise the 1000 basic words first of course. Hope i helped (o)(o)
Define memorize. Rote memorization never worked for me. I reviewed the vocabulary once or twice, and then just listened to podcasts, movies or audiobooks. This helped reinforced what I learned. Rote memorization was tedious and killed all the joy of learning a language for me.
James Roscoe You can memorize anything, but 2 years later you’ll never be able to recall it. It’s best to listen to TV shows, songs, etc. , and if you hear words repeated, like they often say “o sea” in spanish TV shows, which is why i know what it means. Just like when you were a baby, you heard words, had no idea what they meant, used them and eventually figured out what it meant. you have to USE them. Make sentence structures with them. Pretend to describe your favorite food, etc.
+Marco Murkrow I'm so glad I saw your comment! I was scared my headphones were broken and had to take them out. I went onto another video and they're fine. Relief!
Fearofthemonster Nevertheless,that doesn't stop female polyglots from excelling in what they're naturally good at,there are more female nurses than male nurses,but that doesn't stop men from becoming nurses or midwives.
Jazzy J Why are you telling me this? I didn't claim that males are better language learners or females shouldn't bother to learn languages. You asked why they felt the need to mention her gender and I just told you the reason.
That was my first thought too! It's not like women are only recognised for their skills in comparison to other women. We are not on a separate level that needs to be pointed out in professional settings
absolutely.. mentoning that she is female makes it look like only men should be able to learn many different languages. as if women would usually be to stupid to do that... i think it is offending to every women in this world.
The best things in life are free! It's the same for language learning. Watching TV and listening to music are practically free and they can be wonderful learning tools. Unfortunately, people mistakenly think they have to suffer in a class or pay a lot of money to learn a language. Not true. I am glad you too have witnessed the awesome power of music!
I'm French and I speak English and German, and the music in these languages is very helpful to train, I use to sing sometimes in Spanish and Italian and even though I don't speak these languages I am able to say some sentences.
This is totally my take on language learning! I speak five languages and looooong before I understand everything I love to LISTEN to what people are doing in their languages, and I agree wholeheartedly with your approach!
This lady is 100% right. I learned 6 languages after high school through TV, radio, friends, etc...Agree with everything she said. Language is music, you just need to be around it;)
When you start with radio you will not be able to associate the words with objects or actions like babies do... Actually I have learned a few languages myself and I don't entirely agree with her- for me, it is easier to learn the alphabet first including the sounds of the letters, then you learn a few key vocabulary words, then the grammar/sentence structure. Once you know some key words and sentence structure you study vocabulary hard core and since you know the grammar you can put ANY sentence together. THEN you listen to the radio and read and speak as often as possible because then you will be able to pick out what they are saying and it will help you rather that going off of words by themselves.
I partially agree with you. You're right, this way you will start to understand more and more by what you listen but you won't be able to internalize phonetics properly since the beginning. If you start listening to natives speaking only after months it might be bad for you once you reach a good level of vocabulary, because you would find out that you can't really put together a sentence when speaking because you have no idea of how those words would sound clustered together..And, in order to acquire such a skill, several hours of exposure are necessary. I.e. i ve started learning Mandarin. Since it's a tonal language you truly NEED to get used to tones spoken at full speed, otherwise there is the risk that you learn manymany words without being able to pronounce them in a way natives would understand/actually use those words in everyday speaking. And if you don't listen since the beginning, those many words you have acquired through hard work won't be of any use if you are not able to recognize them
Thank you very much for your advice. I knew I had to immerse myself, but thank you for the examples you gave on how to better grasp the language. I did well in Spanish in high school (5 years in Caribbean) but never really practiced after moving to the US. I will make my goal to learn Spanish completely by this time next year.
It's like that in a lot of other countries too. Different way of living. When a country has multiple languages, locals have to learn those languages to do business.
This is actually pretty good advice and solid techniques. I had actually done all those things with Italian and I learned it pretty quickly. Especially the post-it notes. You get so used to seeing them and saying them (even if only in your head) when you see them, that eventually you start taking post-it notes down when you realize you know the words without even seeing it. As you learn new words, post-its start appearing around your house on new things, while the ones you learn slowly disappear. The internet is also a polyglot's best friend. I'll add onto what she says. Not only can you find music and movies and whatnot online, like she suggests to watch, but you should also start looking for sites in the country that speaks your language--whether it's russian mtv, news articles in french, or a video game site in italian, ect. If it's a socially-oriented site, you will meet friends who speak the language who may also be learning English. As you get better in the language and they get better in English, you'll find your conversations slipping back and forth between the two languages every now and then and your skill with definitely improve. Not only are they completely comfortable with talking in their native tongue, but you can even ask questions in English and they will understand. You may even sometimes be speaking the target language while the other person is talking to you in English LOL! That's always funny when you realize each person is speaking the language that is foreign to them and not even really realizing the other person is speaking their own language.
The method you described is how I learned Polish and I think it works great! I also learned some Swedish in the same manner and I've always suggested to people to use music as a language tool. I am so glad to find someone else who practices the same way I do
This is true. This is how I learned English (my mother language is Malagasy). School wasn't useful, so when I started to listen to music and find the lyrics translations, watch tv shows with subtitles and stuff, it became better and now I am fluent ! I speak Malagasy, French, English, German and Korean :)
Jordan dupree There is a super website called Talk To me in Korean where you can find lessons, videos audio files, it is basically the best on the net as the teachers really break everything down. And for Hangul, you can download an app to practice :)
I watch Korean TV with eng subs and listen to Korean music where I often research the lyrics. Apart from that I am yet to study any Korean and yet I reckon I am at the point where I understand maybe 500 words in the language. My problem is, I could understand them easily enough when I hear the words. But put on the spot and being asked what a certain word is in Korean? I often find myself with problems. :(
I am 14 and I am fluent in 5 languages too! I am French and I've been learning English for 3 years, Italian for 1 year, Dutch and Spanish for 8 months and I can speak all these languages :) I am currently learning German and I have an intermediate level (B1). I began japanese 3 months ago too and a professor (who is not my professor as I learn on my own) said I already had a A2-B1 level. :) I would like to learn Russian and Japanese next, maybe Mandarin someday...
Si. J'ai commencé l'espagnol quand j'ai emménagé à la frontière donc ça aide énormément de parler avec des natifs, quand au néerlandais c'est facile quand on comprend le fonctionnement et qu'on parle déjà anglais.
Mais la vocabulaire hollandaise c'est proche de celle d'allemande. La structure de la langue est aussi tres differente (grammaire, syntaxe.) Kannst du zufaellig auch Deutsch lesen (wegen deiner Niederlaendischkenntnisse)?
i think this is true. just from watching italian films i can pick up what they're saying because i already know french/watched a few italian grammar videos on youtube. plus i live with an italian and sometimes ease drop on his convos with other italians. now i can translate italian youtube comments after only having watched literally 3 italian grammar videos! but i think it is only due to its similarities to french
simplyshama Je ne pourrais jamais comprendre l'italien si je n'avais pas etudie la prononciation italiene. A mon avis la prononciation d'italien est tres differente de celle de francais. Si je dois lire un texte, je peux lire francais, portugais, italien, et espagnol a cause de savoir la langue francaise (et un peu de latin).
Jeff Polyglot latin is super helpful for every romantic language. Despite a few similarities between the two languages, like a silent h, italian and french pronunciation is completely different, yes. Although italian words are often longer, I think they're easier and more fun to pronounce
I was fluent in 5 languages by the age of 15. Now I am up to 9. For me it was from my parents who spoke 2/3 languages each. Also from TV, on the internet etc it all helps. Obviously Latin based languages overlap so they are easier. You learn French then Portuguese and Spanish will follow quickly. We are all different. I would advise you start young though.
Marília Diniz I'm planning on starting my language learning process and my idea of maintaining these languages will be by reading and writing a lot since that's what I like to do
Well getting yourself immersed in a language and seeing it and hearing it and being able to practice it, helps a lot. Also I try to compare languages that are similar, and I suggest recognizing most languages you want to leran, then master them one at a time. After you master a second language, it gets a bit easier learning other languages.
My surname is Russian. I speak Russian and not Polish and German. Listening to a language to pick up its prosody is SUPER important. Passive listening plays a role here when you are learning a language, not when you already know it. But I do not only talk about passive listening, I also emphasize many active listening techniques in my book.
This is so true. I'm Dutch and I've learned English when I was little by watching tv. And later English spelling in school. I've had French, German and Spanish in school. But I can only say a few sentences these languages. After Dutch English is my best language, I think that's because learned it through listening first, and I keep hearing and reading English constantly.
post it notes around the house is such a good idea!! I can't believe I didn't think of that. I found that learning my verbs really well made a big difference because then I could casually pick up nouns and grammar like a did when I was a kid. Knowing your verbs also helps you put the unknown words into context and you can guess a lot of them. I try to only learn grammar as I notice it and look it up as opposed to sitting down and learning random rules. I also mix up french/spanish so much.
It helps to read the lyrics as you hear them so that you get a visual imprint tied to what you are hearing. You can find song lyrics online, as well as their translations. If they are in a non-Latin script like Arabic or Russian, you can also look for a transliteration of the words in Latin script.
Thanks for explain the techniques of learning the language on your own. It really makes a big difference whether you are on your own or in the classroom.
This is amazing! She shares the same thoughts that many of us in the language community share. Listening to the language naturally is the best way to learn as opposed to the classroom methodology. Keep up the great work.
This is so true!! I mean, how does a baby/ child learn a language (or to speak at all)?? Definitely not by learning the grammar first, but by listening to what the surrounding people are talking. Initially, babies listen to what sounds the surrounding people are making ;)
I always here this from experts everywhere, but the thing is, I'm not an audio learner. I listen to Japanese everyday for hours and I don't really think its helping me. Then again, I'm more of a visual learner than an audio. Maybe I'll try the Post-Its...
Try watching movies and TV shows in Japanese. I used to watch a lot of anime and gradually started picking it up and it stuck! I haven't really lost the ear more than two years after my anime binge! It also brings the language to life.
then try and read and write as much as possible! post-its are fine but you may wish to write a diary- you are forced to write full sentences, use new words,phrases and idioms...it doesn't really matter if you don't remember the phrase straightaway, you can always read and re-read it (or write it down) until it will stick to you...and later it's so much easier to recall a word in a conversation when you can visualise it!...TV shows are also helpful but maybe you would like to speak to another learner or to a (patient) native speaker?
I bet when you hear Japanese you recognize it instantly, you probably recognize a lot of the words and sounds even though you don't know what they mean, some word you probably recognize are things like, gozaimasu, desu ka, chan, kun, san, sumimasen, genki, gomennasai. You will also be very familiar with how most of the words are said. All you need to do is learn what each word means and you're on the right tracks. Although the woman on the video does not say this, i highly recommend learning to read and write a language, you'll pick up words a lot faster that way, but that's just me. You don't really need to learn to write Spanish as it already uses the same characters as English. But with Japanese it's a whole different thing. You need commitment more than anything else.
***** I have asked the same question. Basically Kanji is split into components (different parts). In the dictionary, the Kanji are listed based on parts, similar to how ours is listed in A-Z. In Japan, if you go to school, after secondary school it's pretty standard to have learned about 2000 Kanji. If you come across a Kanji which you don't know, you will be able to recognize part of the Kanji, (most of compromised of parts of Kanji that you learn in school) then you can look up that part in the dictionary and easily find the Kanji you are looking for. If you look up "Joyo kanji", you will see an example of what students have to learn in school, most Kanji are made up of the parts you learn in school making it easy to look up a Kanji you do not know.
You have to look up the words. Start small with books that have short sentences and move your way up. You can't just sit and listen and expect to understand.
I never discount the need to learn grammar and I make this very clear in my book. Music and other media help us reinforce and understand grammatical rules when we hear and see language being used in conversations and in verses. It's easier to remember a grammatical rule from verses in a song because of the way music activates our brain than by just reading a grammar explanation in a book.
Music is a fantastic way to familiarise yourself with a language. I was singing in a foriegn language before I understood the words, when I went to learn the language, a part of it was already known!
I actually started learning English this way (with music, movies, tv and radio). So this is a very effective method (of course, we all are different, we all learn things differently). I'm learning french the same way. Nice interview!!
Latin languages are not that complicated as soon as you already know one of them... I am Romanian and i learned Italian in one month then i picked up Spanish and French without even learning it...Brazilian Portuguese is easier than the native Portuguese because of the accent...i speak English and some German so i can understand some Dutch ( television dutch since in the streets in Nederland people use to much HHHHHHHHHH )
I agree the more you are exposed to different laguages the easier it is to learn. French- Spanish are similar. so if you known french then Spanish will be easy just like you say you picked up Italian :)
Puedes aprender somente olvido pero la parte escrita vai ser comprometida. Mi grafia es pessima pero me comunico perfectamente com qualquer nativo en español. Aprendi a hablar el francés en 6 meses pero estou certo que tengo que perfectionar much mi gramatica. Aprendi 3 idiomas en dos años.
Hey CreateYourWorldBooks, I just watched Female polyglot explains how to learn languages (CBS) and thought it was great. I'm looking forward to seeing your next one. Thanks again Rob Summers
This is true. Learning languages outside of the textbooks through music and television is great, as well as constant immersion. I've been learning French in school for four years in the traditional classroom style, and it's amazing how little I understand when turning on the French news. Sometimes you need more than just pounding grammar and rote memorization to learn a language (though that's definitely a part of it).
wow, Fist time I find someone explaining the way I learnt English, French and Portuguese. That is very true. That is my method to learn languages, and I freely recomend this to everyone trying to learn a new language. :)
The interview looks a little bit skeptical about her method:) hopefully she will be able to learn French. I think there are many ways to learn. Everyone has their own better way that works well for themselves.
Read Paul Sulzberger's PhD thesis on the benefit of listening to a foreign language BEFORE formally learning it and how listening helps students recognize sound patterns and words in a language. I do not have dual citizenship or dual language parents.
awww beauty and the beast at the end! ^^ oh my, well you are so good! I speak english, french spanish and a little bit of portuguese (but I understand it very well) and I want to learn swedish so hopefully your tricks will help me to achieve my goal! thank you very much!
Im really good with languages and these methods mentioned in this videos are real. Im a native spanish speaker, I speak english and now Im learning korean. I started watching korean shows with english or spanish subtitles. I also listen to Kpop and at first I didn't understand what they were singing but I at the same time I was listening to the different sounds so now when I search for the song with translation It is easier to connect the korean words and Know what they mean. Im so happy!!
I listened to Korean music (not just K-Pop, but Korean indie too) and watched all sorts of Korean shows before even studying the language seriously. I've found that it's really helping with learning, because after a while I was able to recognize words and phrases without even studying. :)
Thank you very much for your time and answer!!! so i will give a try to the multilingual learning process!!! and you are right about Italian and Portuguese!!! so really nice of you to keep people on the track and give such an inspiration to learn!!!!! the best of luck to you!!! by the way i am from Venezuela and your Spanish is brilliant!!! like a Mexican woman......really good Spanish...well done..you can play with all the accents from Latin America..try Venezuelan words!!! :-)
I can't agree more. I noticed that listening to language before learning it helps a lot. Moreover I noticed that just listening to language and getting used to it is far more important than just normal classes. After I listened a lot of Korean over the past few years, learning it is so much more natural than learning Spanish for me, which I never heard much. Although many people would assume that Spanish is a lot easier to learn than Korean.
i speak 7 languages as well: english, spanish, french, thai, arabic, t'wahka [sumu], and bahasa, i never even considered myself a polyglot. i have a good friend who speaks 14 languages extremely well. the way that i learn languages is to first get the pronunciation perfect for a certain limited number of words, and then expand from there. it's very important for me to speak the few things perfectly. my favorite method is to pay a child 5-10 yrs old to answer all my questions in the language.
This would possibly work for any language except if you are learning a language which utilizes 'specific tones' such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese etc, because listening to the language in music or a song, you are in no way going to be guaranteed to learn the correct intonations that certain words have to be spoken. There are specific tonal changes that the words 'must' follow, otherwise you will not be completely understood. And if you had learned a sentence from a song melody, it may not be correct at all.
She is right. I memorized songs in about 20 languages, maybe even more. But actual ability to speak a certain language requires more work than just memorizing songs (though it's very helpful). Try thinking in the language you are learning, it is a brilliant and useful advice.
I so agree with what you have said here... only wish that the educational establishment would catch up to what you figured out intuitively! Congratulations, friend!
My native language is Spanish. I'm learning English watching tv shows and reading everything in english. I've been doing this for 9 years and it works. I still have problems with my grammar but Im up for the task.
bro, you have done more than 99 percent of the people who wanted to learn a foreign language but were too lazy to actually put some effort into learning it. give yourself a pat on the back.
In summary: simulate immersion. I've been doing that with Arabic and I'm learning 10x faster than I learned (or rather failed to learn after 6 years) Spanish. However, it seems a little ridiculous to suggest taking classes at the end. Might as well pair your simulated immersion with classes, even if once a week free night classes.
Bravo à toi Su', je parle moi même couramment 9 langues et je suis vraiment heureuse découvrir ton livre online, dès demain je vais essayer de me l'acheter sur le net (en espérant qu'on puisse recevoir ça où je vis ...en Chine!) Grosse bise
Tip from me - staying in the same language family makes learning multiple languages very easy as vocabulary and grammar changes only slightly. if you speak old norse as example you can master swedish, norsk, danish, faroese, bokmal and icelandic very quickly as you dont need to learn vocab and grammar from the scratch again but only need to memorise the changes done from one to the other. If you got those learning german and english wont be hard either as its quite familiar
Sure. If I don't have a vocab list from a book, I could see that making a list would be a good idea. I don't have a list of all of the words I know in any given language because that would be too time consuming. But when you're just beginning, it can be helpful.
FWIW if you want the specifics on how to do exactly this, look up something called "The Telenovela Method", it's really good and much more of a specific "how-to" kind of thing than this.
It's common for people to say that they don't hear the lyrics in songs in their own languages. It can be quite hard, especially when the instrumental part of the songs is louder than the vocal. In this case, I suggest you read the lyrics at the same time as you listen. Languages don't lose their musicality after I learn them.
I speak English, Gaelic, Irish, French and Spanish fluently, and I'm learning Russian, but it is taking me a lot longer to learn Russian that it has my other languages, using the same (if not better) methods. I know that persistence is key. In your experience, do some languages just take longer to learn than others?
so cool! i saw that you live here or were in the Bay Area with Benny ..... Do you always write in the language as well as speak it or are there some languages you speak but don't write in? thanks!
Thank You for answer. Well curently I am learning old church slavic, classic latin and ancient greek. The problems I have is- I always want to sound authentic ( which is usually a success, but just with slavic languages since my mother tongues are both slovene and croatian), but I have problems with reading some greek sounds like "fi" (phi) which is suposed to be read as P-H-ilosoPHia and not wiht an F, and then greek accent system...May I ask which is your other slavic language except russ.? :)
This is so true, at least for me it is. I wasn't remotely interested in German until I got to listen to Rammstein. It's also true for accents; English isn't my first language, so when I got the hang of it, I started to develop an ear for different versions of it.
My Portuguese is a mix of both Brazilian and Continental Portuguese. I started with Spanish before Portuguese. I don't know which is easier for an English speaker. The nasal vowels in Portuguese are really hard for English and Spanish speakers.
You can always go back to Spanish language media when you feel comfortable. But even if you don't understand what you hear, listening and watching Spanish language TV, music, radio and movies will help you immensely in getting used to the sounds of Spanish and the melody of the language, something you will never get from a book.
Omg this is exactly how I'm learning Swedish and French. I totally agree. I can't remember some words to save my life so I find songs that use them and when I sing the melody in my head I can remember. Also music is very useful to just appreciate how beautiful other languages are.
I speak 3 foreign languages (English, Spanish and French, but my French is not completely fluent yet, I'm still learning) besides Portuguese which is my mother language. In my case, English came with the English course in which I studied for eight years. Spanish came naturally with songs becase it is very similar to Portuguese, so I didn't need any classes at all. I've been studying French for 2 years now, and I'm trying to learn some basic Korean but I think this will be more difficult.
Same with me i am also learning Korean. I am learning it gradually and slowly i think. I watch Korean Variety Shows, movies, drama's, listen to the music and everything. I just wish i was born in Korea. I would like to be a polyglot but i would like to start with Korean first. and i think i am doing it backwards too... because i can read it, like the syllables and stuff and understand how they are put together but i cannot translate...
Hi Susanna! nice interview! i have a question a have the basic for polish and Finnish but i would like to learn French ,Italian and Portuguese,but i want to keep learning Finnish and Polish so what do you think go one by one language or multilingual learning.....by the way i am Spanish native speaker!!!! all the best for you!!! you are an inspiration for all of us
It's easy to confuse Italian and Portuguese. I still confuse them! So I don't suggest learning them at the same time. French sounds different than Italian and Portuguese and you may be able to study French along with one other Romance language without too much confusion. But if it gets to be too much, then delay one of the languages until you have a solid level in the other.
Keeping several languages organized in your head can get tricky if you are in an environment where you are communicating with different people speaking different languages. Over a period of years, I studied Spanish, German, Russian, Swedish and French and I was able to carry on conversations in all of them. However, if I was in an office where I was using one language with one person (Spanish for example) and another language with someone else (German), I might catch myself using a Swedish verb or a Russian noun. I realized that I had done this when I would get strange looks from the other person.As far as the effect of a learner's age, I have found that the younger you are when you study a language, the better you are able to internalize it. The languages that I studied earlier in life are still with me. Speaking them feels more "natural". The later languages seem to require more effort. I've been told that the same thing holds for learning to play a piano.
very smart woman... i learned my languages in the same way, well mostly. And i m very astonished that the interviewer is prepared so well, you dont see that often in tv. I speak only 4 languages, but all of them at a almost native speaker level. My mothertongue is swissgerman and i know it is not an official language, but it should be one. because the differences from swissgerman to standard german are bigger than the differences from standard german to dutch... and dutch is an official language.. my other languages are of course german, which i speak perfectly, because in switzerland we learn swissgerman and standard-german, english and french
i find that all langages are more or less equal to learn to speak. the hump is getting used to making the new sounds. once that is over, it's all fairly easy. the fantini's told me that many years ago. bea and alvin fantini hold the records for fluency in numbers of languages. they speak something like 40 and 50 languages each.
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My left ear now knows 20 languages...
haha my also
Jack Phill i don't beleve yu
Hahahhahahaha
lmao fck
i just want to comment it,
I heard once that the left ear behave better listening to voices / words, while the right ear is better to listen to "beats". - I don't know if it's real, but actualy makes sense for me
The journalist is lovely. So natural and sweet.
+CZ shit den
And giant boobs. Don't lie.
@@enkibumbu You are the worst kind of person
This is so true. I was born and raised in Germany, but my mother is Chinese. Grewing up she never spoke Chinese with me, but because of her I was exposed to a lot of Chinese music, movies and TV shows. So when I really started learning Chinese two years ago, I improved like crazy. It was so easy for me compared to the other students who weren't exposed to the sound of Chinese. Especially the pronunciation, sentence structure and grammar.
You can not always think about using the right grammar while speaking, you have to feel what's right.
So true. Exposure can make so much difference.
Languages are not pointless. Languages are about communication. If you limit yourself to English, you limit yourself to a section of the world.
Actually technology will eliminate the need to speak any other language than English.
@@Big-guy1981 shut up
@@Big-guy1981 Yeah because everyone wants to use Google Translate every time they want to say something basic.
He buscado tu libro y no aparece en ningún lado
memorise 1000 most basic spoken words, 3-4 antonyms (possesive, personal etc), the 3 basic tenses (past ,present, future) then watch a shitload of movies (for free from pirate bay whatsoever) over and over that are spoken and subtitled to the language you learn, to get used to the accents and what phrases are used to express different situations. I HAVE NEVER ATTENDED ENGLISH CLASSES IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.
I became fluent in just 6 months using the above 4 steps. I am also fluent in spanish and french. I am currently learning russian and planning to learn mandarin arabic and hindi. BOOM then i can communicate with 50% of the global population. Happiness is acceptance, success and freedom.
Even if you dont know what a word means, you can understand its meaning through the context. Even if you dont know how a word is translated in the language you are speaking, you can use the basic words to explain it in a different way. For example 'dog=that animal you everyone has with 4 legs' or 'hob=that thing you put your food on in the kitchen to get it cooked'
According to her, how am i supposed to understand what the song says if i dont even know what the context means? You need to memorise the 1000 basic words first of course.
Hope i helped (o)(o)
How Many languages do u speak now?
Define memorize. Rote memorization never worked for me. I reviewed the vocabulary once or twice, and then just listened to podcasts, movies or audiobooks. This helped reinforced what I learned. Rote memorization was tedious and killed all the joy of learning a language for me.
James Roscoe
You can memorize anything, but 2 years later you’ll never be able to recall it. It’s best to listen to TV shows, songs, etc. , and if you hear words repeated, like they often say “o sea” in spanish TV shows, which is why i know what it means.
Just like when you were a baby, you heard words, had no idea what they meant, used them and eventually figured out what it meant. you have to USE them. Make sentence structures with them. Pretend to describe your favorite food, etc.
@@derp4317 all 8 above...currently learning Italian and planning to move to Ticino, Swiss italian speaking part for the big fat salary
@@Kochos buona fortuna
Lol, I spent a minute trying to fix my headphones, then I went into the comments and saw I wasn't the only one...
The video was great though! ;)
+Marco Murkrow I'm so glad I saw your comment! I was scared my headphones were broken and had to take them out. I went onto another video and they're fine. Relief!
Aw, haha :D
Glad I could help
+Marco Murkrow This video means that language is like listening to music from one speaker of the headset.
Marco Murkrow 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Why do they have to say "Female polyglot". Just say Polyglot.
You wouldn't say male make up artist,so why say female polyglot.
+Jazzy J that's the first thing i thought when i clicked on this
It is said that male polyglots vastly outnumber the female polyglots
Fearofthemonster Nevertheless,that doesn't stop female polyglots from excelling in what they're naturally good at,there are more female nurses than male nurses,but that doesn't stop men from becoming nurses or midwives.
Jazzy J Why are you telling me this? I didn't claim that males are better language learners or females shouldn't bother to learn languages.
You asked why they felt the need to mention her gender and I just told you the reason.
Fearofthemonster Because of what your comment implied,implications and intentions are different of course but..........yeah.
"There's a reason you have two ears but just one mouth."
That is a gooood point.
but one ear is not working in this video.
I’m guessing that was sarcastic.
Lmao she thought she was spiting some very inspirational shit
"so you can listen to this interview with your left ear"
Six ears ago, uau
My left ear really enjoyed this video....
My right ear also enjoyed it
Brandy Larsson so my earbuds aren't broken XD
😂😂😂
Mentioning her gender like it was shocking that there is a not-male polyglot, like the standard is male, was unnecessary.
Yo Casa
Absolutely
That was my first thought too! It's not like women are only recognised for their skills in comparison to other women. We are not on a separate level that needs to be pointed out in professional settings
absolutely.. mentoning that she is female makes it look like only men should be able to learn many different languages. as if women would usually be to stupid to do that... i think it is offending to every women in this world.
Yo Casa Exactly!!
So true.
The best things in life are free! It's the same for language learning. Watching TV and listening to music are practically free and they can be wonderful learning tools. Unfortunately, people mistakenly think they have to suffer in a class or pay a lot of money to learn a language. Not true. I am glad you too have witnessed the awesome power of music!
I'm French and I speak English and German, and the music in these languages is very helpful to train, I use to sing sometimes in Spanish and Italian and even though I don't speak these languages I am able to say some sentences.
***** if you search on Internet, you can easily know what it means.
Christophe MARTINEAU Thank you
She's Russian and speaks amazing English
She moved to the U.S. at 3. Not really a stretch for her English to be that good.
But I didn't hear speak ANY other language.
This is totally my take on language learning! I speak five languages and looooong before I understand everything I love to LISTEN to what people are doing in their languages, and I agree wholeheartedly with your approach!
This lady is 100% right. I learned 6 languages after high school through TV, radio, friends, etc...Agree with everything she said. Language is music, you just need to be around it;)
Really, 6 languages? How old are you now?
I'm 16 year old and I can speak 4 languages, in my country you must learn 4 languages if you want to get works.
What country?
What country?
***** Curacao?? Why you are so corious? xD
Rajiv Sporkslede Curacao? really? well ok.
Victor T. Do you know about it? Hablas espanjol?
I can now understand 10 different languages but only in one ear
@MissMelonblue ear*
When you start with radio you will not be able to associate the words with objects or actions like babies do... Actually I have learned a few languages myself and I don't entirely agree with her- for me, it is easier to learn the alphabet first including the sounds of the letters, then you learn a few key vocabulary words, then the grammar/sentence structure. Once you know some key words and sentence structure you study vocabulary hard core and since you know the grammar you can put ANY sentence together. THEN you listen to the radio and read and speak as often as possible because then you will be able to pick out what they are saying and it will help you rather that going off of words by themselves.
+1
I partially agree with you. You're right, this way you will start to understand more and more by what you listen but you won't be able to internalize phonetics properly since the beginning. If you start listening to natives speaking only after months it might be bad for you once you reach a good level of vocabulary, because you would find out that you can't really put together a sentence when speaking because you have no idea of how those words would sound clustered together..And, in order to acquire such a skill, several hours of exposure are necessary. I.e. i ve started learning Mandarin. Since it's a tonal language you truly NEED to get used to tones spoken at full speed, otherwise there is the risk that you learn manymany words without being able to pronounce them in a way natives would understand/actually use those words in everyday speaking. And if you don't listen since the beginning, those many words you have acquired through hard work won't be of any use if you are not able to recognize them
Do you know how someone could learn the grammar/ sentence structure in a language?
Thank you very much for your advice. I knew I had to immerse myself, but thank you for the examples you gave on how to better grasp the language. I did well in Spanish in high school (5 years in Caribbean) but never really practiced after moving to the US. I will make my goal to learn Spanish completely by this time next year.
two words: total immersion. Immerse yourself in tv, music, reading, etc.
in a counry like kenya almost everyone knows 3 languages
and they can't even afford crisis some of the time
It's like that in a lot of other countries too. Different way of living. When a country has multiple languages, locals have to learn those languages to do business.
In Finland we know 3 languages too.. Finnish, Swedish & English :)
They may know languages but niggas cant even afford food
@@bangtanarmy_girl3521 and apparently Korean
This is actually pretty good advice and solid techniques. I had actually done all those things with Italian and I learned it pretty quickly. Especially the post-it notes. You get so used to seeing them and saying them (even if only in your head) when you see them, that eventually you start taking post-it notes down when you realize you know the words without even seeing it. As you learn new words, post-its start appearing around your house on new things, while the ones you learn slowly disappear. The internet is also a polyglot's best friend. I'll add onto what she says. Not only can you find music and movies and whatnot online, like she suggests to watch, but you should also start looking for sites in the country that speaks your language--whether it's russian mtv, news articles in french, or a video game site in italian, ect. If it's a socially-oriented site, you will meet friends who speak the language who may also be learning English. As you get better in the language and they get better in English, you'll find your conversations slipping back and forth between the two languages every now and then and your skill with definitely improve. Not only are they completely comfortable with talking in their native tongue, but you can even ask questions in English and they will understand. You may even sometimes be speaking the target language while the other person is talking to you in English LOL! That's always funny when you realize each person is speaking the language that is foreign to them and not even really realizing the other person is speaking their own language.
The method you described is how I learned Polish and I think it works great! I also learned some Swedish in the same manner and I've always suggested to people to use music as a language tool. I am so glad to find someone else who practices the same way I do
This is true. This is how I learned English (my mother language is Malagasy). School wasn't useful, so when I started to listen to music and find the lyrics translations, watch tv shows with subtitles and stuff, it became better and now I am fluent ! I speak Malagasy, French, English, German and Korean :)
I wanna learn Korean so bad but I have no support at all! I'm only 13 so I can't buy any books or tutor help and my mom doesn't care
Jordan dupree There is a super website called Talk To me in Korean where you can find lessons, videos audio files, it is basically the best on the net as the teachers really break everything down. And for Hangul, you can download an app to practice :)
I watch Korean TV with eng subs and listen to Korean music where I often research the lyrics. Apart from that I am yet to study any Korean and yet I reckon I am at the point where I understand maybe 500 words in the language.
My problem is, I could understand them easily enough when I hear the words. But put on the spot and being asked what a certain word is in Korean? I often find myself with problems. :(
I am 14 and I am fluent in 5 languages too!
I am French and I've been learning English for 3 years, Italian for 1 year, Dutch and Spanish for 8 months and I can speak all these languages :)
I am currently learning German and I have an intermediate level (B1). I began japanese 3 months ago too and a professor (who is not my professor as I learn on my own) said I already had a A2-B1 level. :)
I would like to learn Russian and Japanese next, maybe Mandarin someday...
Mally Jot Tu ne parles pas couramment une language si tu ne l'apprenais que pendant 8 mois.
Si. J'ai commencé l'espagnol quand j'ai emménagé à la frontière donc ça aide énormément de parler avec des natifs, quand au néerlandais c'est facile quand on comprend le fonctionnement et qu'on parle déjà anglais.
Mais la vocabulaire hollandaise c'est proche de celle d'allemande. La structure de la langue est aussi tres differente (grammaire, syntaxe.) Kannst du zufaellig auch Deutsch lesen (wegen deiner Niederlaendischkenntnisse)?
+Mally Jot Hola Mally, Me podrias explicar como es que has aprendido 5 idiomas?
Jeff Polyglot ja aber Deutch ist härter für mich, rechtschreibung und grammatik nicht sind meine stärken.
(C'est *le* vocabulaire)
i think this is true. just from watching italian films i can pick up what they're saying because i already know french/watched a few italian grammar videos on youtube. plus i live with an italian and sometimes ease drop on his convos with other italians. now i can translate italian youtube comments after only having watched literally 3 italian grammar videos! but i think it is only due to its similarities to french
simplyshama Je ne pourrais jamais comprendre l'italien si je n'avais pas etudie la prononciation italiene. A mon avis la prononciation d'italien est tres differente de celle de francais. Si je dois lire un texte, je peux lire francais, portugais, italien, et espagnol a cause de savoir la langue francaise (et un peu de latin).
Jeff Polyglot latin is super helpful for every romantic language. Despite a few similarities between the two languages, like a silent h, italian and french pronunciation is completely different, yes. Although italian words are often longer, I think they're easier and more fun to pronounce
simplyshama I always found Italian to be a bit like French pronounced in a Spanish way.
Jeff Polyglot very true!
I was fluent in 5 languages by the age of 15. Now I am up to 9. For me it was from my parents who spoke 2/3 languages each. Also from TV, on the internet etc it all helps. Obviously Latin based languages overlap so they are easier. You learn French then Portuguese and Spanish will follow quickly. We are all different. I would advise you start young though.
This is totally, completely, 100% the realization I came to when I started to want to learn Japanese. Nice to know I'm on the right path!
Your comment is 4 years old and yet it's only now that people are starting to really make use of this method. How did you get on?
I love the tips on how to maintain multiple languages!
Marília Diniz I'm planning on starting my language learning process and my idea of maintaining these languages will be by reading and writing a lot since that's what I like to do
Well getting yourself immersed in a language and seeing it and hearing it and being able to practice it, helps a lot. Also I try to compare languages that are similar, and I suggest recognizing most languages you want to leran, then master them one at a time. After you master a second language, it gets a bit easier learning other languages.
My surname is Russian. I speak Russian and not Polish and German. Listening to a language to pick up its prosody is SUPER important. Passive listening plays a role here when you are learning a language, not when you already know it. But I do not only talk about passive listening, I also emphasize many active listening techniques in my book.
That is how I learned English by listening to music ,now I will start Spanish.
Susanna you are right on.
Thanks
This is so true. I'm Dutch and I've learned English when I was little by watching tv. And later English spelling in school. I've had French, German and Spanish in school. But I can only say a few sentences these languages. After Dutch English is my best language, I think that's because learned it through listening first, and I keep hearing and reading English constantly.
I definitely agree... I am learning some songs in Hebrew... I do not know what it says but I can sing about 8 songs already... I am so happy!
post it notes around the house is such a good idea!! I can't believe I didn't think of that. I found that learning my verbs really well made a big difference because then I could casually pick up nouns and grammar like a did when I was a kid. Knowing your verbs also helps you put the unknown words into context and you can guess a lot of them. I try to only learn grammar as I notice it and look it up as opposed to sitting down and learning random rules. I also mix up french/spanish so much.
It helps to read the lyrics as you hear them so that you get a visual imprint tied to what you are hearing. You can find song lyrics online, as well as their translations. If they are in a non-Latin script like Arabic or Russian, you can also look for a transliteration of the words in Latin script.
Thanks for explain the techniques of learning the language on your own. It really makes a big difference whether you are on your own or in the classroom.
This is amazing! She shares the same thoughts that many of us in the language community share. Listening to the language naturally is the best way to learn as opposed to the classroom methodology. Keep up the great work.
This is so true!!
I mean, how does a baby/ child learn a language (or to speak at all)?? Definitely not by learning the grammar first, but by listening to what the surrounding people are talking. Initially, babies listen to what sounds the surrounding people are making ;)
I always here this from experts everywhere, but the thing is, I'm not an audio learner. I listen to Japanese everyday for hours and I don't really think its helping me. Then again, I'm more of a visual learner than an audio. Maybe I'll try the Post-Its...
Try watching movies and TV shows in Japanese. I used to watch a lot of anime and gradually started picking it up and it stuck! I haven't really lost the ear more than two years after my anime binge! It also brings the language to life.
then try and read and write as much as possible! post-its are fine but you may wish to write a diary- you are forced to write full sentences, use new words,phrases and idioms...it doesn't really matter if you don't remember the phrase straightaway, you can always read and re-read it (or write it down) until it will stick to you...and later it's so much easier to recall a word in a conversation when you can visualise it!...TV shows are also helpful but maybe you would like to speak to another learner or to a (patient) native speaker?
I bet when you hear Japanese you recognize it instantly, you probably recognize a lot of the words and sounds even though you don't know what they mean, some word you probably recognize are things like, gozaimasu, desu ka, chan, kun, san, sumimasen, genki, gomennasai. You will also be very familiar with how most of the words are said. All you need to do is learn what each word means and you're on the right tracks. Although the woman on the video does not say this, i highly recommend learning to read and write a language, you'll pick up words a lot faster that way, but that's just me. You don't really need to learn to write Spanish as it already uses the same characters as English. But with Japanese it's a whole different thing. You need commitment more than anything else.
***** I have asked the same question. Basically Kanji is split into components (different parts). In the dictionary, the Kanji are listed based on parts, similar to how ours is listed in A-Z. In Japan, if you go to school, after secondary school it's pretty standard to have learned about 2000 Kanji. If you come across a Kanji which you don't know, you will be able to recognize part of the Kanji, (most of compromised of parts of Kanji that you learn in school) then you can look up that part in the dictionary and easily find the Kanji you are looking for. If you look up "Joyo kanji", you will see an example of what students have to learn in school, most Kanji are made up of the parts you learn in school making it easy to look up a Kanji you do not know.
You have to look up the words. Start small with books that have short sentences and move your way up.
You can't just sit and listen and expect to understand.
I never discount the need to learn grammar and I make this very clear in my book. Music and other media help us reinforce and understand grammatical rules when we hear and see language being used in conversations and in verses. It's easier to remember a grammatical rule from verses in a song because of the way music activates our brain than by just reading a grammar explanation in a book.
Such good advice! I will be initiating this soon as
This is very useful and as a learner of more than one language, I agree with most of what is said.
Music is a fantastic way to familiarise yourself with a language. I was singing in a foriegn language before I understood the words, when I went to learn the language, a part of it was already known!
I actually started learning English this way (with music, movies, tv and radio). So this is a very effective method (of course, we all are different, we all learn things differently).
I'm learning french the same way.
Nice interview!!
Latin languages are not that complicated as soon as you already know one of them... I am Romanian and i learned Italian in one month then i picked up Spanish and French without even learning it...Brazilian Portuguese is easier than the native Portuguese because of the accent...i speak English and some German so i can understand some Dutch ( television dutch since in the streets in Nederland people use to much HHHHHHHHHH )
I agree the more you are exposed to different laguages the easier it is to learn.
French- Spanish are similar.
so if you known french then Spanish will be easy just like you say you picked up Italian :)
No creo que aprendistes español sin estudiar.
Wow,nice
+The Dude Hayas aprendido* :v
Puedes aprender somente olvido pero la parte escrita vai ser comprometida. Mi grafia es pessima pero me comunico perfectamente com qualquer nativo en español. Aprendi a hablar el francés en 6 meses pero estou certo que tengo que perfectionar much mi gramatica. Aprendi 3 idiomas en dos años.
Hey CreateYourWorldBooks, I just watched Female polyglot explains how to learn languages (CBS) and thought it was great. I'm looking forward to seeing your next one. Thanks again Rob Summers
Yes, Lanuguage is music 0:42
This is true. Learning languages outside of the textbooks through music and television is great, as well as constant immersion. I've been learning French in school for four years in the traditional classroom style, and it's amazing how little I understand when turning on the French news. Sometimes you need more than just pounding grammar and rote memorization to learn a language (though that's definitely a part of it).
I wonder if she would be able understand different accents of French (Quebec - Acadian). :3
I bet it would be like a Chinese person who learns English, and travels the US. I think that she would have some trouble, but not a whole lot.
I also speak several languages including French, English, Spanish and some Italian ;)
wow, Fist time I find someone explaining the way I learnt English, French and Portuguese. That is very true. That is my method to learn languages, and I freely recomend this to everyone trying to learn a new language. :)
This is great stuff. I thought as much without being able to articulate it properly.
Great information ❤️
Very motivational. I'm on my third language now Italian. Music helped me a lot with Spanish
The interview looks a little bit skeptical about her method:) hopefully she will be able to learn French. I think there are many ways to learn. Everyone has their own better way that works well for themselves.
Read Paul Sulzberger's PhD thesis on the benefit of listening to a foreign language BEFORE formally learning it and how listening helps students recognize sound patterns and words in a language.
I do not have dual citizenship or dual language parents.
awww beauty and the beast at the end! ^^ oh my, well you are so good! I speak english, french spanish and a little bit of portuguese (but I understand it very well) and I want to learn swedish so hopefully your tricks will help me to achieve my goal! thank you very much!
Thanks! I will stick with it... and learn it (sooner or later) Thanks for taking the time to respond to me!
Im really good with languages and these methods mentioned in this videos are real. Im a native spanish speaker, I speak english and now Im learning korean. I started watching korean shows with english or spanish subtitles. I also listen to Kpop and at first I didn't understand what they were singing but I at the same time I was listening to the different sounds so now when I search for the song with translation It is easier to connect the korean words and Know what they mean. Im so happy!!
I listened to Korean music (not just K-Pop, but Korean indie too) and watched all sorts of Korean shows before even studying the language seriously. I've found that it's really helping with learning, because after a while I was able to recognize words and phrases without even studying. :)
Thank you very much for your time and answer!!! so i will give a try to the multilingual learning process!!! and you are right about Italian and Portuguese!!! so really nice of you to keep people on the track and give such an inspiration to learn!!!!! the best of luck to you!!! by the way i am from Venezuela and your Spanish is brilliant!!! like a Mexican woman......really good Spanish...well done..you can play with all the accents from Latin America..try Venezuelan words!!! :-)
I can't agree more. I noticed that listening to language before learning it helps a lot. Moreover I noticed that just listening to language and getting used to it is far more important than just normal classes. After I listened a lot of Korean over the past few years, learning it is so much more natural than learning Spanish for me, which I never heard much. Although many people would assume that Spanish is a lot easier to learn than Korean.
i speak 7 languages as well: english, spanish, french, thai, arabic, t'wahka [sumu], and bahasa, i never even considered myself a polyglot. i have a good friend who speaks 14 languages extremely well. the way that i learn languages is to first get the pronunciation perfect for a certain limited number of words, and then expand from there. it's very important for me to speak the few things perfectly. my favorite method is to pay a child 5-10 yrs old to answer all my questions in the language.
This would possibly work for any language except if you are learning a language which utilizes 'specific tones' such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese etc, because listening to the language in music or a song, you are in no way going to be guaranteed to learn the correct intonations that certain words have to be spoken. There are specific tonal changes that the words 'must' follow, otherwise you will not be completely understood. And if you had learned a sentence from a song melody, it may not be correct at all.
She is right. I memorized songs in about 20 languages, maybe even more. But actual ability to speak a certain language requires more work than just memorizing songs (though it's very helpful). Try thinking in the language you are learning, it is a brilliant and useful advice.
This is absolutely true... is how i learned English and Italian and how I'm learning other languages. My native language is Spanish.
Speak to me in Italian please.
I so agree with what you have said here... only wish that the educational establishment would catch up to what you figured out intuitively! Congratulations, friend!
I'm trying to learn German right now, I will have to put some of these ideas in practice.
My native language is Spanish. I'm learning English watching tv shows and reading everything in english. I've been doing this for 9 years and it works. I still have problems with my grammar but Im up for the task.
bro, you have done more than 99 percent of the people who wanted to learn a foreign language but were too lazy to actually put some effort into learning it. give yourself a pat on the back.
In summary: simulate immersion. I've been doing that with Arabic and I'm learning 10x faster than I learned (or rather failed to learn after 6 years) Spanish. However, it seems a little ridiculous to suggest taking classes at the end. Might as well pair your simulated immersion with classes, even if once a week free night classes.
Bravo à toi Su', je parle moi même couramment 9 langues et je suis vraiment heureuse découvrir ton livre online, dès demain je vais essayer de me l'acheter sur le net (en espérant qu'on puisse recevoir ça où je vis ...en Chine!) Grosse bise
Looking for grammatical patterns in songs and other media is an excellent way to reinforce what you've studied.
Tip from me - staying in the same language family makes learning multiple languages very easy as vocabulary and grammar changes only slightly. if you speak old norse as example you can master swedish, norsk, danish, faroese, bokmal and icelandic very quickly as you dont need to learn vocab and grammar from the scratch again but only need to memorise the changes done from one to the other. If you got those learning german and english wont be hard either as its quite familiar
Wow!!! What she said was exactly what I thought about how to learn new languages.
Sure. If I don't have a vocab list from a book, I could see that making a list would be a good idea. I don't have a list of all of the words I know in any given language because that would be too time consuming. But when you're just beginning, it can be helpful.
FWIW if you want the specifics on how to do exactly this, look up something called "The Telenovela Method", it's really good and much more of a specific "how-to" kind of thing than this.
It's common for people to say that they don't hear the lyrics in songs in their own languages. It can be quite hard, especially when the instrumental part of the songs is louder than the vocal. In this case, I suggest you read the lyrics at the same time as you listen.
Languages don't lose their musicality after I learn them.
I speak English, Gaelic, Irish, French and Spanish fluently, and I'm learning Russian, but it is taking me a lot longer to learn Russian that it has my other languages, using the same (if not better) methods. I know that persistence is key. In your experience, do some languages just take longer to learn than others?
There are only slight differences between the two, so I think it's not a big problem if you count them as one language.
so cool! i saw that you live here or were in the Bay Area with Benny ..... Do you always write in the language as well as speak it or are there some languages you speak but don't write in?
thanks!
For old languages, you have to learn using books. There is a Sanskrit newspaper in India that still publishes in Sanskrit.
I'd like for the book to be available in German but it hasn't happened yet.
Thank You for answer. Well curently I am learning old church slavic, classic latin and ancient greek. The problems I have is- I always want to sound authentic ( which is usually a success, but just with slavic languages since my mother tongues are both slovene and croatian), but I have problems with reading some greek sounds like "fi" (phi) which is suposed to be read as P-H-ilosoPHia and not wiht an F, and then greek accent system...May I ask which is your other slavic language except russ.? :)
Really good point of view. Where can I get your book?
This is so true, at least for me it is. I wasn't remotely interested in German until I got to listen to Rammstein. It's also true for accents; English isn't my first language, so when I got the hang of it, I started to develop an ear for different versions of it.
My Portuguese is a mix of both Brazilian and Continental Portuguese. I started with Spanish before Portuguese. I don't know which is easier for an English speaker. The nasal vowels in Portuguese are really hard for English and Spanish speakers.
Glad to be an inspiration!
You can always go back to Spanish language media when you feel comfortable. But even if you don't understand what you hear, listening and watching Spanish language TV, music, radio and movies will help you immensely in getting used to the sounds of Spanish and the melody of the language, something you will never get from a book.
Eu estudo portugues com Susanna! Abraco i beijo pra voce, menina! :)
sedeslav eu falo español
não beijo
Omg this is exactly how I'm learning Swedish and French. I totally agree. I can't remember some words to save my life so I find songs that use them and when I sing the melody in my head I can remember. Also music is very useful to just appreciate how beautiful other languages are.
I speak 3 foreign languages (English, Spanish and French, but my French is not completely fluent yet, I'm still learning) besides Portuguese which is my mother language. In my case, English came with the English course in which I studied for eight years. Spanish came naturally with songs becase it is very similar to Portuguese, so I didn't need any classes at all. I've been studying French for 2 years now, and I'm trying to learn some basic Korean but I think this will be more difficult.
Same with me i am also learning Korean. I am learning it gradually and slowly i think. I watch Korean Variety Shows, movies, drama's, listen to the music and everything. I just wish i was born in Korea. I would like to be a polyglot but i would like to start with Korean first. and i think i am doing it backwards too... because i can read it, like the syllables and stuff and understand how they are put together but i cannot translate...
Hi Susanna! nice interview! i have a question a have the basic for polish and Finnish but i would like to learn French ,Italian and Portuguese,but i want to keep learning Finnish and Polish so what do you think go one by one language or multilingual learning.....by the way i am Spanish native speaker!!!! all the best for you!!! you are an inspiration for all of us
It's easy to confuse Italian and Portuguese. I still confuse them! So I don't suggest learning them at the same time. French sounds different than Italian and Portuguese and you may be able to study French along with one other Romance language without too much confusion. But if it gets to be too much, then delay one of the languages until you have a solid level in the other.
Keeping several languages organized in your head can get tricky if you are in an environment where you are communicating with different people speaking different languages. Over a period of years, I studied Spanish, German, Russian, Swedish and French and I was able to carry on conversations in all of them. However, if I was in an office where I was using one language with one person (Spanish for example) and another language with someone else (German), I might catch myself using a Swedish verb or a Russian noun. I realized that I had done this when I would get strange looks from the other person.As far as the effect of a learner's age, I have found that the younger you are when you study a language, the better you are able to internalize it. The languages that I studied earlier in life are still with me. Speaking them feels more "natural". The later languages seem to require more effort. I've been told that the same thing holds for learning to play a piano.
very smart woman... i learned my languages in the same way, well mostly.
And i m very astonished that the interviewer is prepared so well, you dont see that often in tv. I speak only 4 languages, but all of them at a almost native speaker level. My mothertongue is swissgerman and i know it is not an official language, but it should be one. because the differences from swissgerman to standard german are bigger than the differences from standard german to dutch... and dutch is an official language.. my other languages are of course german, which i speak perfectly, because in switzerland we learn swissgerman and standard-german, english and french
Words of wisdom!:)
i find that all langages are more or less equal to learn to speak. the hump is getting used to making the new sounds. once that is over, it's all fairly easy. the fantini's told me that many years ago. bea and alvin fantini hold the records for fluency in numbers of languages. they speak something like 40 and 50 languages each.