The app I use to learn languages -> shorturl.at/tBJV8 My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com How do you approach speaking in the language you are learning?
I play fortnite on Europe servers as I'm from England so I just made some spanish friends who had ok English and I trade practice lmao or keep asking questions in spanish
I’ve been learning Russian for about 2 years and just last week talked to a human in Russian for the first time. The wait paid off because she complimented me very generously on my pronunciation! Definitely validated the somewhat indirect and slow approach I’ve taken with this language.
@@prestokrs1 yeah especially since I'm more or less based in SE Asia. Funny enough, around the 1-year mark,, I visited Phuket for the first time (not realizing how many Russians would be there) and my condo was full of Russians. Was a bit too intimidated to talk to anyone though.
There's always lots of Russians everywhere in the world. I've noticed many times that they're willing to speak English every time they meet a foreigner, but there aren't many people who want to learn Russian. Of course there are people who can speak Russian in the countries often visited by russians, like Turkey, Thailand, Egypt, Israel and so on, but there aren't as many such people in other countries.
@@prestokrs1 Not necessarily, I made the mistake of rushing to speak Turkish after a few months and was sorely disappointed by how little vocabulary I had in my repertoire, could only talk about extremely basic things. Better to build up your listening and reading skills, gain a large repertoire of words and phrases and then try.
I have been learning English for 2-3 months. I read books and listen to podcasts nearly every day. Firstly, I listen to podcasts and then I look at the transcript, so I check every sentence in the podcast. I believe this approach will help me improve. Additionally, as I mentioned before, I enjoy reading books. I prefer mystery books, which, in my opinion, is a good choice for exploring the world of English fiction. However, I struggle with speaking. Talking is difficult for me, so reading and listening are easier than speaking.
I guess almost everybody has this problem. When I started learning mandarim, I felt like I could read quite well (for my level) but I was so afraid to talk to someone (specially to some Taiwanese friends). I could understand some words they said, but my pronunciation was horrible (mandarin can be very difficult, because of the tones). But believe me, you are doing the right thing (I always read or listen to something, even in a short time, in mandarin, even if I couldn't understand all the things I've heard). Now my friends tell me my pronunciation improved a lot. There's no secret, immersion in all ways is the key to learn a foreign language.
Oddly a year ago I was more willing to speak. I did some language exchanges and found them interesting but exhausting. Now I feel I’m at a stage where I’m becoming aware of how much I don’t know so I’m less willing to speak than when I knew less! I think it will pass and maybe it means I’m at some sort of turning point. Thank you for this and all your videos!
I have the same feeling now, after a travel to Germany. I was used to communicate in english in my work(remote meetings and emails) with my mates. But there I got strugled several times without undestarding some words or trying to find in my mind the proper Word in english that I would like to say. Now I'm trying to be more exposed to the language in my daily basis.
Speaking at first in a foreign language is exhausting. It seems to require 110% of your concentration. This experience is like learning to drive. Exhausting at first, but after a few years it's almost an automatic thing. I'm pretty sure speaking in a foreign language is like that too.
The fear of speaking is mainly connected to the manner of language instruction. Students learn quickly whether they are more likely to be rewarded for their efforts or critiqued for even their slightest errors
Perhaps yes, it somehow affects. But still, each of us must understand: mistakes are part of the process of learning a language. You don't have to be afraid of them!
After 2 years of struggling through my 1st foreign language (Portuguese br.) I've had 2 conversations now with the person whom I've been studying for. I was definitely scared to speak at first.. now I cherish it.. after the first couple minutes I began to really enjoy it and it made my day and week good.. I try not to "think" of what to say too much.. I just let whatever it is come out and if she responds.. she understands enough 😂 and I've noticed my listening comprehension has already greatly improved from the first conversation to the 2nd, and I haven't even been studying the past month. Very very little only a couple hours... For the whole month.. and yet my listening is significantly better. Speaking was the best decision I've made in my learning process. I encourage everyone, speak.. you will be nervous probably.. but you'll love it!!
Your videos have been a major boon in my teaching/language learning journey Steve. I currently run my own private teaching service for elementary school students where my curriculum centers around reading, writing, and public speaking. I've always had fun and found success when teaching ELA to kids, but 6 months ago, I decided to dedicate myself to learning Spanish. I had this sudden epiphany where I asked myself, "how can I expect to teach proper language skills to kids, if I haven't subjected myself to the simultaneously exciting and embarrassing process of learning a second language?" Last week I attended the graduation ceremony for my old students. During the ceremony the principal gave a speech entirely in Spanish--and I understood every word. A year ago I wasn't even entertaining the thought of learning a 2nd language. After 6 months of daily practice through listening, reading, and speaking, I'm able to understand a speech with ease. My speaking isn't where I want it to be yet, but that doesn't matter to me because I'm just having fun engaging the language everyday.
Estoy aprendiendo español y después de 5 años, me siento como no estoy mejorando. Tienes muchos puntos buenos en este video, y lo intentaré aplicarlos a mi aprendiendo.
*que no estoy mejorando. *e intentaré aplicarlos mientras aprendo. Disculpa que te corrija pero es mejor porque así aprenderás. Tu español se entiende muy bien! Sigue así.
Bonjour Steve, la lecture à voix haute est, pour moi, une première étape pour commencer à parler une langue. Cela me prépare à mes futures conversations. Cela me permet de faire passer les mots par mes muscles, mon souffle, mon ouïe.
Yup. The range of motivation, resources, talent and opportunities to learn and speak a new language must vary by a factor of fifteen or so across the population.
I think this is your most important recent video! Re: be prepared: you mostly addressed the larger strategic issues, but there are also lots of very specific, immediate issues to think about, such as: what are the names of the people I'll be speaking with? What have they been up to today? What are their backgrounds and priorities? (These specific sorts of questions are probably worth a whole 'nother video!)
Why we don't speak a foreign language fluently ? 13 - Reasons 1- Fear of making mistakes. 2-Fear of being judged and criticized . 3-Perfectionism . 4-A negative situation in the past. 5-Perceiving the target language as a mathematics lesson. 6-Lack of practice . 7- Inadequate language teacher in school. 8-The word order of your native language is different from the target language. 9-Shyness , introvert person. 10- We want to speak by translating from the native language. 11-Weak vocabulary , inadequate input. 12- Not to be exposed to the target language. 13- Lack of patience .
1, 2, 4, & 12 should be numbered 2, 4, 1, 12. Having tried to learn Spanish and quitting many times in the last 30 plus years, I finally decided to learn Spanish at age 60, due mostly to Steve's encouraging/motivational videos. But for me, I find the biggest hurdle in speaking is the criticism of native speakers (which includes my Ecuadorian born wife). If your a self-conscious introvert like me, it's very hard to get past the negative expressions, giggles, or laughter when you make a mistake. I think being and extrovert like my dad was is very helpful when learning to speak, because extroverts just don't care much what people think about them, and can laugh along with the person making fun of them over their simple mistakes. So I guess you can put number 9 in the 5th spot, or maybe even #1. Another problem I find is that, though I live in a large city that is 65% bilingual (Spanish/English), is that even with those who are Spanish only speakers, everyone wants to talk to you in English because you are a Gringo. However, the few times you can get them to talk to you in Spanish, they usually talk to fast, mumble, or use obscure words, slang, and expressions, that you have no idea what they mean. Then they get frustrated and switch to English within 2 minutes. The reason is, "they want to communicate". The average bilingual speaker is not a teacher, and they find it frustrating to speak to someone learning their native tongue, so they will eventually avoid talking to you if you keep pushing the issue. The average person who only speaks your target language, wants to learn your language (usually), so they don't want to speak their native language to you either. As an introvert, the only way I can see how to learn to speak at a faster rate is total immersion with motivation to learn, or paying someone to talk to you.
@@LanguageswithErman That's great, the key to staying with it, is motivation. That's why I like Steve, he's encouraged me more than anyone else to continue.
Yeah, in my experience with Spanish (3.5 years learning) the speaking part kinda comes along as I get more familiar with the language. As of now, I am in Spain for some time and finding that my speaking is getting better because I'm needing to speak more often. Before this time in Spain, I did very little speaking because I just thought that listening and reading would be more practical. I had a wrestling coach that said one time that day to day we get better, but it is not noticeable; it's like putting one piece of paper on top of another; over 3 days, or 10 days the stack of papers do not look much different. However, after 1 year, 2 or 3 years, that stack of paper is noticeably larger and thicker. I think this analogy fits well when we think of language learning. Like wrestling, language is a skill that requires time, effort, focus and attention. :)
I used some French at a local McDonald's with some French Canadians, a family unit from Montreal. It was a brief encounter, I spoke in french I am a little french, trying to say I speak a little french. The daughter who was about 8 corrected me, saying it's je parle un peu francais. They were generally understanding, and actually delighted an American was trying to learn their language.
I found the best way to speak a foreign language better is simply to speak it a lot with and without errors. I did this, and for the longest time I didn't improve. But one day, without realising it, I started to improve. I didn't do anything different to make this breakthrough. Also, I would add, that as my speak ability improved, my overall language acquisition and learning ability increased quite noticably.
Steve is inspirational, and without doubt has so much experience to share. I recall Steven Krashen once saying that you should not rush someone to speak, instead let them speak when they feel comfortable. I am not like Steve Kaufmann, I do have social anxiety if I try to speak with strangers in a language which I know poorly. I compensate by working hard on comprehension and pronunciation, and talking out loud to exercise the language as opposed to just passive listening.
Hi Steve, I'm a recent subscriber following the recommendation of a future German colleague. I'm moving to Germany from the UK as it's something I've always wanted to do. Only recently did I realise how critical speaking improvement was to the overall journey to fluency. I never got fluent because I was reluctant to speak, likely because of lacking humility/ focussing on perfection. I'm having more frequent and longer German spoken conversations as I prepare to move, and I can feel improvements in accuracy and confidence. You have articulated these points very well in your video
Please make more often videos where you speak the languages you have learned. It would be fun to hear conversations also about other subjects than language learning. And also good way for you to maintain the not so fluent languages :)
Skill Speaking (Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking) Not speaking (only reading and listening) You can still come up with simple words and phrases. (I have noticed from my limited 6 year experience) Speaking has not been developed enough. Cloze sentences Are easy to do. (more vocabulary based learning) Mixed sentences Think though the sentence order. (How much this helps speaking I don't know yet.)
I think if you can get your point across in your target language, it's more than enough. Even saying basic phrases in a language is good enough. Everything beyond that is like an additional bonus - good to have but isn't a requirement.
Sometimes during lessons with tutors there is of course an expectation to speak “as well as you can” for a portion of the lesson, and it’s often at the very start.
I love reading these mini stories in Egyptian Arabic! I've been struggling finding joy in reading some books that I have, but these are for sure helping me bridge the gap from where I am to where I want to go.
Thank you Steve for the encouraging presentation. Hope one day I can speak French, Chinese and Japanese at least at a level I could be understood. Can't wait for that day. I learned French for 2 years, Chinese 1 year and self taught in Japanese.
Thank you very much again! Your videos are essential for us that are learning English or another language. Your discussion removes one hard weight from our back. You can´t imagine. Thanks, thanks. You´re a really amazing teacher.
In Bezug auf dieses Thema, kommt der Sprachniveau des Gesprächpartners auf Englisch ins Spiel. Ich würde gerne mehr über Ihre Erfahrung in Kopenhagen wissen, die Sie in einem Short zusammenfassten, beziehungsweise warum die Dänen lieber auf Schwedisch sprachen, als Sie auf Schwedisch sie ankamen, aber erwiederten lieber auf Englisch, als Sie auf Dänisch zu unterhalten versuchten?
I hope an Irish language 🇮🇪 course can be developed for this app. It has well over a million speakers, and many more learners worldwide but lacks support, and a learning system like this would help a lot imo
My reason for being afraid to speak Italian is that I'm Italian-American. When I was growing up in New York, I was constantly told that we're in America now. We have to speak English. If I tried to speak Italian, I was ridiculed, criticized, or simply ignored. It was really difficult to get past all of that and finally begin to mutter a few words with my face red and my head down.
Many thanks indeed for the Mini-Stories in LingQ. I listen to them every day learning Turkish. It's extremely useful. I will recommend it to all my friends. Your videos are so inspiring and motivating! BRAVO!!!! 👍👨🎓
The German word for "language" is "Sprache" and "sprechen" means "to speak". Also, I'm 99% sure that the English word "language" derives from latin "lingua" meaning "tongue" (and also "language" if I'm not mistaken). That's what languages are for first and foremost - to be spoken. The printing press (and therefore our ability to read books) was invented sometime in the 15th century, until then people had been learning languages "the natural way". That's why, for me, being able to speak a language comes first. That's not to say that I didn't read a lot in my target language - I do - but the focus here is on adding new words and expressions to my vocabulary. However, I don't take notes in order to repeat them later on to memorize them, I let it happen naturally: if a word is repeated often it becomes engrained in my brain and if not, I let it fade away. As for why people are so afraid of speaking, I'd say it's the fear of making a mistake in front of someone who will - potentially - immediately notice something's off. The reason why this mainly affects speaking is, because there is very little time to reconsider when building a sentence, if you have to pause frequently, thinking of a word or the proper grammar, it shows right away. That's not the case with any of the other 3 skills (reading/writing/listening) - nobody can see what you're thinking while you read or listen and when writing a text you can take your time rephrasing and correcting - the person who's going to read the text will not be aware of your inner struggle at the time of writing.
Hi Steve and thanks for the video. In days of yore I myself sometimes struggled with speaking i.e. being afraid of mistakes, ultimately trying to avoid some kind of shame (though only in your own head). I got over it on a long solo trip but still get a relapse every now and then). Anyways I think shame or embarrassment (over the inevitable errors) is in the heart of this - I mean otherwise it seems just illogical to not speak if said person is aware that will lead to enhancement of language skills.
I have been utilizing your innovative methodologies and insightful hypotheses that you eloquently discussed. Your exceptional approach distinguishes you markedly from other TH-camrs in the realm. Recently, I stumbled upon a video where individuals were offering criticism towards Lingomarina. This disheartened me deeply, as I could never fathom you engaging in such disparagement towards fellow content creators. Please know that you have my unwavering support and affection from Armenia. ❤️
This basically applies to all the cultists in the Japanese learning community that makes such a nonsensically big deal and exaggeration for pitch accent and wanting to sound perfect. They can argue all they want ad nauseum but even natives say it's not as important as some make it out to be. A couple of arguments that I would say point out the flawed logic are the facts that quite a few words overlap and therefore will share exactly the same pronunciation, and that even in Japanese exist many words that have multiple meanings. Either way, the only way to discern the right meaning is through context. Take for example the word ロケット which can either mean "rocket" or "locket", the only way to tell is through context. This is is just one of many examples. There's also the fact that I have heard many Japanese people on TH-cam and sometimes in real life speak English...many of them make some minor mistakes. So we have a double standard where English speakers don't mind them making mistakes, but when some Japanese learners speak, they for some reason are obsessed with sounding perfect when Japanese English learners do not seem as concerned. So you cultists out there, explain yourselves to the class.
In fact, there are much more important things to pay attention in Japanese pronunciation: - the rhythm of the moras - some sounds that can be muffled - sometimes, there are contractions between to sounds. Especially the first one: if we do not pay attention to the rhythm, some words can be misunderstood (e.g. "I am president's advisor" can be misundertood as "I am president's anus"). Pitch accent is secondary (not useless, but less important).
@@Rudolphhhhhh Absolutely right. By no means am I saying it's useless, but it's just not as important as some "cultists" (as I call them) make it out to be. They just don't get it. How I sound when talking to Japanese people is none of their business; sometimes I may get the peonunciation spot on and maybe times not so, but as someone who actually has spoken to some natives, I have never had a problem with them. In my experience, it's fun talking to them. Yet the gatekeepers' philosophy is basically "if you don't speak perfectly, don't bother speaking to Japanese people at all". That once again brings us to the double standard I mentioned
Steve, have you heard of the JAM Technique [Just a minute] where you pick a topic to speak about for 1 minute without stopping. After the first minute, you write down the key points of what you talked about then do another minute. You add more ideas that you can use then speak for the third minute. I imagine this technique would be worth trying, but I think it would depend on the language level of the person. Obviously, there will be mistakes but wouldn't it be a good idea to use a microphone and transcribe the speech into text using software? One could correct the grammar and vocab, revise them, then do the three 3 minute exercises again. I think it would be worth trying. There are 100's of different topics one could use to practice. What do you think of this method Steve?
Hello dear professor Your lessons are really interesting and crucial, thank you so much for your help and advice,i do appreciate your job,i wish you peace and happiness under the sky of prosperity,all the best. Take care and have a good time.
I hope that one day I'll be able to speak lot of languages like Steve Kaufman. By the way, thanks for the lessons I really appreciate this video so much🙏 ❤❤
I don't know where else to message you, but I hope you check out comments. I know this isn't exactly your focus but it is related to what you are doing. What I am trying to learn is to learn to speak correctly. That might sound weird, but after years of running away (I am now 26) I am trying to solve my stuttering issue. Now before 11 yo I was speaking fluently, after an incident when I was repeating sounds while being excited, which led to me being mocked, imitated and laughed at. After that point, as a child in sensitive age, I developed a fixation on my speech. Now all this wasn't clear to me until now. Stuttering was some invisible force for quite some time, something beyond me. I don't have actual problems with speaking. When reading aloud I can do it fluently, and there are situations when saying something spontaneously I do it fluently, but majority of times I stress about speech... I think about words I am going to say, and I fear them. I've come to a point in my life that in some situations I am pretty much mute, while having no actual problems with speech.. the block I created was in my head all along, and I was also trying to fight it, I was wrestling with myself. It has really impacted my life, my career, pretty much everything bad followed it. Speaking is a basic part of life, and it is hard to imagine losing ability to do so, especially without any actual physical problems. What I am trying to do now as a first step is just turning on audio recording and speaking and trying to stop mind that was for so long trying direct and analyze everything. My perfectionism really took it's toll. While speaking I just let my natural and automatic, spontaneous speech just come through. Speech shouldn't be planned, it just happens, like breath or heartbeat happens on its own, that is how I should let myself just build confidence in my natural speech. Over time I should expose myself to various situations, and keep that part of my mind quiet and just observe without judgement or expecting things to be perfect. When speaking to a recording I stumble a lot, there seems to be some struggle inside still trying to take control, and also not being confident, but slowly I am getting better. Now, I don't know the actual question I would ask, maybe some insight from someone that has learned to speak 20 languages, there surely was problems along the way with perfectionism and doubting one's abilities. Love your videos, and I my major challenge to learning more languages is my ability to speak in my native one. English is not my native language, and I never speak it, I just learned it naturally on the internet because of my interests, and I would also like to learn another language, travel, talk to people, and actually get good at talking in English which I avoided doing.
Дякую за гарне відео, добре мотивує Thank you for the nice video, it's motivating Vielen Dank für das gute Video, sehr motivierend Merci beaucoup pour ce bon vidéo, il motive très bien 😊
Hi! Do you recommend to do, in middle of a one-language learning period, a rest? Where you can maybe learn another language, to rest the brain from the first langugage.
I have been learning this language since I was high school. However, I speak a little bit but no more, as well as I have ability to undrerstand when the people speaking it even native teachers. furthermore, I have capabilty of trying to speak alot with my co-workers and buddies. Besides, improving your speaking is crucial technique require to speak alot with out rules of English like grammar, and cohorence of sentences. Overall, I highly reccomend every learner to make more and more baractice, baractice makes perfect.
I can read and write Arabic well but I have fear to speak ..reason is there is no one to speak too..I usually speak to myself. No one around me speaks Arabic and only sometimes when I go to a Middle Eastern shop and speak a little Arabic and the shop keeper gets all excited and happy...but he speaks a Yemeni dialect and I speak Fusha( Standard Arabic)..but i still have fear, not because I lack humility or patience but because there isnt a chance to practice..no one speaks Arabic in my country unless one is a foreigner who runs a middle eastern shop. I can say it right away in Arabic.( i dont have the opportunity to speak in Arabic) ليس لدي فرصة لاتكلم باللغة العربية.
Thanks, Steve. I suspect that even when we have a reading vocabulary that far exceeds the amount that would be generally considered to underpin fluency, we may find that we are very slow to recognise words when listening. In effect, we can have a low 'listening vocabulary', which somehow needs to be raised if we are to improve our speaking. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.
So it seems like a lot of discussions like this end up focussing on the bottleneck of having sufficient amounts of comprehensible input. I was a nerdy child who read a dozen (english) books eack and somehow read at over 800 words/min. Learning Russian I struggle. I have a public library that is full of Russian books that are too difficult. I have some fairy stories about toads that want to be circus performers that are simply dull. How do we find easy content at an appropriate level that is fascinating?
I have been afraid to listen many times, too 😅. Especially when the topic is difficult. The key here I think is not to be too concerned about understanding everything.
The app I use to learn languages -> shorturl.at/tBJV8
My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com
How do you approach speaking in the language you are learning?
I play fortnite on Europe servers as I'm from England so I just made some spanish friends who had ok English and I trade practice lmao or keep asking questions in spanish
I still think about it. But I'm still undecided....😏👆
I hope when I am in my 70's, I am like Steve. 😊
I think he's almost 80.
Very true. I’m only 59.
Me too
He has lived an exceptional life.
Quand j'aurai cent ans, je veux être comme Steve.
I’ve been learning Russian for about 2 years and just last week talked to a human in Russian for the first time. The wait paid off because she complimented me very generously on my pronunciation! Definitely validated the somewhat indirect and slow approach I’ve taken with this language.
wow that's a long time. I think if you started a year ago you would be much further along. And there are so many Russians out there.
@@prestokrs1 yeah especially since I'm more or less based in SE Asia. Funny enough, around the 1-year mark,, I visited Phuket for the first time (not realizing how many Russians would be there) and my condo was full of Russians. Was a bit too intimidated to talk to anyone though.
There's always lots of Russians everywhere in the world. I've noticed many times that they're willing to speak English every time they meet a foreigner, but there aren't many people who want to learn Russian. Of course there are people who can speak Russian in the countries often visited by russians, like Turkey, Thailand, Egypt, Israel and so on, but there aren't as many such people in other countries.
@@prestokrs1 Not necessarily, I made the mistake of rushing to speak Turkish after a few months and was sorely disappointed by how little vocabulary I had in my repertoire, could only talk about extremely basic things. Better to build up your listening and reading skills, gain a large repertoire of words and phrases and then try.
Why was it indirect?
I have been learning English for 2-3 months. I read books and listen to podcasts nearly every day. Firstly, I listen to podcasts and then I look at the transcript, so I check every sentence in the podcast. I believe this approach will help me improve. Additionally, as I mentioned before, I enjoy reading books. I prefer mystery books, which, in my opinion, is a good choice for exploring the world of English fiction. However, I struggle with speaking. Talking is difficult for me, so reading and listening are easier than speaking.
Looks to me like you’re doing really well with writing, especially for just three months
I guess almost everybody has this problem. When I started learning mandarim, I felt like I could read quite well (for my level) but I was so afraid to talk to someone (specially to some Taiwanese friends). I could understand some words they said, but my pronunciation was horrible (mandarin can be very difficult, because of the tones). But believe me, you are doing the right thing (I always read or listen to something, even in a short time, in mandarin, even if I couldn't understand all the things I've heard). Now my friends tell me my pronunciation improved a lot. There's no secret, immersion in all ways is the key to learn a foreign language.
and have you noticed results?
@@reginaf4263I'm curious about how much time had you spent on your mandarin.No offense. I'm just curious about that.
You're clearly lying, dude.
Oddly a year ago I was more willing to speak. I did some language exchanges and found them interesting but exhausting. Now I feel I’m at a stage where I’m becoming aware of how much I don’t know so I’m less willing to speak than when I knew less! I think it will pass and maybe it means I’m at some sort of turning point. Thank you for this and all your videos!
I have the same feeling now, after a travel to Germany.
I was used to communicate in english in my work(remote meetings and emails) with my mates. But there I got strugled several times without undestarding some words or trying to find in my mind the proper Word in english that I would like to say. Now I'm trying to be more exposed to the language in my daily basis.
I totally agree, same situation here
Speaking at first in a foreign language is exhausting. It seems to require 110% of your concentration. This experience is like learning to drive. Exhausting at first, but after a few years it's almost an automatic thing. I'm pretty sure speaking in a foreign language is like that too.
The fear of speaking is mainly connected to the manner of language instruction. Students learn quickly whether they are more likely to be rewarded for their efforts or critiqued for even their slightest errors
Perhaps yes, it somehow affects. But still, each of us must understand: mistakes are part of the process of learning a language. You don't have to be afraid of them!
After 2 years of struggling through my 1st foreign language (Portuguese br.) I've had 2 conversations now with the person whom I've been studying for. I was definitely scared to speak at first.. now I cherish it.. after the first couple minutes I began to really enjoy it and it made my day and week good.. I try not to "think" of what to say too much.. I just let whatever it is come out and if she responds.. she understands enough 😂 and I've noticed my listening comprehension has already greatly improved from the first conversation to the 2nd, and I haven't even been studying the past month. Very very little only a couple hours... For the whole month.. and yet my listening is significantly better. Speaking was the best decision I've made in my learning process. I encourage everyone, speak.. you will be nervous probably.. but you'll love it!!
Your videos have been a major boon in my teaching/language learning journey Steve.
I currently run my own private teaching service for elementary school students where my curriculum centers around reading, writing, and public speaking. I've always had fun and found success when teaching ELA to kids, but 6 months ago, I decided to dedicate myself to learning Spanish. I had this sudden epiphany where I asked myself, "how can I expect to teach proper language skills to kids, if I haven't subjected myself to the simultaneously exciting and embarrassing process of learning a second language?"
Last week I attended the graduation ceremony for my old students. During the ceremony the principal gave a speech entirely in Spanish--and I understood every word. A year ago I wasn't even entertaining the thought of learning a 2nd language. After 6 months of daily practice through listening, reading, and speaking, I'm able to understand a speech with ease. My speaking isn't where I want it to be yet, but that doesn't matter to me because I'm just having fun engaging the language everyday.
Estoy aprendiendo español y después de 5 años, me siento como no estoy mejorando. Tienes muchos puntos buenos en este video, y lo intentaré aplicarlos a mi aprendiendo.
*que no estoy mejorando.
*e intentaré aplicarlos mientras aprendo.
Disculpa que te corrija pero es mejor porque así aprenderás.
Tu español se entiende muy bien! Sigue así.
Bonjour Steve, la lecture à voix haute est, pour moi, une première étape pour commencer à parler une langue. Cela me prépare à mes futures conversations. Cela me permet de faire passer les mots par mes muscles, mon souffle, mon ouïe.
Stive, you are great person!!! Your assistance to people is invaluable. With ❤ from Russia.
you're very underrated and talented as well, you are amazing
Yup. The range of motivation, resources, talent and opportunities to learn and speak a new language must vary by a factor of fifteen or so across the population.
I think this is your most important recent video! Re: be prepared: you mostly addressed the larger strategic issues, but there are also lots of very specific, immediate issues to think about, such as: what are the names of the people I'll be speaking with? What have they been up to today? What are their backgrounds and priorities? (These specific sorts of questions are probably worth a whole 'nother video!)
This video fitted me like a glove!
The fact that Steve shares his valuable knowledge for free deserves applause.
Knowledge can found anywhere on the internet for free. Experience is hard to find for free, that's what he's sharing with us.
Why we don't speak a foreign language fluently ?
13 - Reasons
1- Fear of making mistakes.
2-Fear of being judged and criticized .
3-Perfectionism .
4-A negative situation in the past. 5-Perceiving the target language as a mathematics lesson.
6-Lack of practice .
7- Inadequate language teacher in school. 8-The word order of your native language is different from the target language.
9-Shyness , introvert person.
10- We want to speak by translating from the native language.
11-Weak vocabulary , inadequate input.
12- Not to be exposed to the target language.
13- Lack of patience .
1, 2, 4, & 12 should be numbered 2, 4, 1, 12. Having tried to learn Spanish and quitting many times in the last 30 plus years, I finally decided to learn Spanish at age 60, due mostly to Steve's encouraging/motivational videos. But for me, I find the biggest hurdle in speaking is the criticism of native speakers (which includes my Ecuadorian born wife).
If your a self-conscious introvert like me, it's very hard to get past the negative expressions, giggles, or laughter when you make a mistake. I think being and extrovert like my dad was is very helpful when learning to speak, because extroverts just don't care much what people think about them, and can laugh along with the person making fun of them over their simple mistakes. So I guess you can put number 9 in the 5th spot, or maybe even #1.
Another problem I find is that, though I live in a large city that is 65% bilingual (Spanish/English), is that even with those who are Spanish only speakers, everyone wants to talk to you in English because you are a Gringo. However, the few times you can get them to talk to you in Spanish, they usually talk to fast, mumble, or use obscure words, slang, and expressions, that you have no idea what they mean. Then they get frustrated and switch to English within 2 minutes. The reason is, "they want to communicate". The average bilingual speaker is not a teacher, and they find it frustrating to speak to someone learning their native tongue, so they will eventually avoid talking to you if you keep pushing the issue. The average person who only speaks your target language, wants to learn your language (usually), so they don't want to speak their native language to you either.
As an introvert, the only way I can see how to learn to speak at a faster rate is total immersion with motivation to learn, or paying someone to talk to you.
@@originaldanman i agree with you man , i am learning Spanish too.🙋♂️👍
@@LanguageswithErman That's great, the key to staying with it, is motivation. That's why I like Steve, he's encouraged me more than anyone else to continue.
Yeah, in my experience with Spanish (3.5 years learning) the speaking part kinda comes along as I get more familiar with the language. As of now, I am in Spain for some time and finding that my speaking is getting better because I'm needing to speak more often. Before this time in Spain, I did very little speaking because I just thought that listening and reading would be more practical. I had a wrestling coach that said one time that day to day we get better, but it is not noticeable; it's like putting one piece of paper on top of another; over 3 days, or 10 days the stack of papers do not look much different. However, after 1 year, 2 or 3 years, that stack of paper is noticeably larger and thicker. I think this analogy fits well when we think of language learning. Like wrestling, language is a skill that requires time, effort, focus and attention. :)
I used some French at a local McDonald's with some French Canadians, a family unit from Montreal. It was a brief encounter, I spoke in french I am a little french, trying to say I speak a little french. The daughter who was about 8 corrected me, saying it's je parle un peu francais. They were generally understanding, and actually delighted an American was trying to learn their language.
I found the best way to speak a foreign language better is simply to speak it a lot with and without errors. I did this, and for the longest time I didn't improve. But one day, without realising it, I started to improve. I didn't do anything different to make this breakthrough. Also, I would add, that as my speak ability improved, my overall language acquisition and learning ability increased quite noticably.
Steve is inspirational, and without doubt has so much experience to share. I recall Steven Krashen once saying that you should not rush someone to speak, instead let them speak when they feel comfortable. I am not like Steve Kaufmann, I do have social anxiety if I try to speak with strangers in a language which I know poorly. I compensate by working hard on comprehension and pronunciation, and talking out loud to exercise the language as opposed to just passive listening.
Steve and Lindie both are my biggest inspirators in the world of the language learnings ❤
thank you for this video and greetings from Poland :)
Hi Steve, I'm a recent subscriber following the recommendation of a future German colleague. I'm moving to Germany from the UK as it's something I've always wanted to do. Only recently did I realise how critical speaking improvement was to the overall journey to fluency. I never got fluent because I was reluctant to speak, likely because of lacking humility/ focussing on perfection. I'm having more frequent and longer German spoken conversations as I prepare to move, and I can feel improvements in accuracy and confidence. You have articulated these points very well in your video
Please make more often videos where you speak the languages you have learned. It would be fun to hear conversations also about other subjects than language learning. And also good way for you to maintain the not so fluent languages :)
Skill
Speaking
(Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking)
Not speaking (only reading and listening)
You can still come up with simple words and phrases. (I have noticed from my limited 6 year experience)
Speaking has not been developed enough.
Cloze sentences
Are easy to do. (more vocabulary based learning)
Mixed sentences
Think though the sentence order. (How much this helps speaking I don't know yet.)
I think if you can get your point across in your target language, it's more than enough. Even saying basic phrases in a language is good enough. Everything beyond that is like an additional bonus - good to have but isn't a requirement.
I think one of my problems in speaking is simply having nothing to say. Also, I am never one to initiate the conversation.
Pozdrawiam z Polski :😊uczę angielskiego znalazłem Twój kanał, jest super, dzięki za rady!
Dear Steve, every time you bring interesting topic. No more space for comments. I just agree
Sometimes during lessons with tutors there is of course an expectation to speak “as well as you can” for a portion of the lesson, and it’s often at the very start.
You re the one of the person who really inspired to me congratulates . You re genius
You are giving inspiration to youth and elders
I love reading these mini stories in Egyptian Arabic! I've been struggling finding joy in reading some books that I have, but these are for sure helping me bridge the gap from where I am to where I want to go.
Thank you Steve for the encouraging presentation. Hope one day I can speak French, Chinese and Japanese at least at a level I could be understood. Can't wait for that day. I learned French for 2 years, Chinese 1 year and self taught in Japanese.
This vídeo shared by you is a masterpiece. Pure wisdom and common sense. Thanks for sharing Steve!
Thank you very much again! Your videos are essential for us that are learning English or another language. Your discussion removes one hard weight from our back. You can´t imagine. Thanks, thanks. You´re a really amazing teacher.
Just keep swimming and you'll be well on your way... Be consistent... Watch out for your weeknesses and work on them.... Be patient
Patience and Humility.
In Bezug auf dieses Thema, kommt der Sprachniveau des Gesprächpartners auf Englisch ins Spiel. Ich würde gerne mehr über Ihre Erfahrung in Kopenhagen wissen, die Sie in einem Short zusammenfassten, beziehungsweise warum die Dänen lieber auf Schwedisch sprachen, als Sie auf Schwedisch sie ankamen, aber erwiederten lieber auf Englisch, als Sie auf Dänisch zu unterhalten versuchten?
From dominican republic good job My brother God bless You
Świetne rady, bardzo konkretne, dzięki 😊
Absolutely perfect. Many thanks.
I hope an Irish language 🇮🇪 course can be developed for this app. It has well over a million speakers, and many more learners worldwide but lacks support, and a learning system like this would help a lot imo
All we need is for someone to translate and record our mini-stories.
My reason for being afraid to speak Italian is that I'm Italian-American. When I was growing up in New York, I was constantly told that we're in America now. We have to speak English. If I tried to speak Italian, I was ridiculed, criticized, or simply ignored. It was really difficult to get past all of that and finally begin to mutter a few words with my face red and my head down.
Cieszę się, że ci się podobało. Pozdrawiam 🙃
I have listend your spechs in Spanisch. Please Talk in Spanisch for your Fans. You do that Well.
*I have listened to your speeches in Spanish. Please talk in Spanish for your fans. You do that well.
Have a nice day.
@@sotosynwa Thanks.
Many thanks indeed for the Mini-Stories in LingQ. I listen to them every day learning Turkish. It's extremely useful. I will recommend it to all my friends. Your videos are so inspiring and motivating! BRAVO!!!! 👍👨🎓
The German word for "language" is "Sprache" and "sprechen" means "to speak". Also, I'm 99% sure that the English word "language" derives from latin "lingua" meaning "tongue" (and also "language" if I'm not mistaken). That's what languages are for first and foremost - to be spoken. The printing press (and therefore our ability to read books) was invented sometime in the 15th century, until then people had been learning languages "the natural way". That's why, for me, being able to speak a language comes first. That's not to say that I didn't read a lot in my target language - I do - but the focus here is on adding new words and expressions to my vocabulary. However, I don't take notes in order to repeat them later on to memorize them, I let it happen naturally: if a word is repeated often it becomes engrained in my brain and if not, I let it fade away.
As for why people are so afraid of speaking, I'd say it's the fear of making a mistake in front of someone who will - potentially - immediately notice something's off. The reason why this mainly affects speaking is, because there is very little time to reconsider when building a sentence, if you have to pause frequently, thinking of a word or the proper grammar, it shows right away. That's not the case with any of the other 3 skills (reading/writing/listening) - nobody can see what you're thinking while you read or listen and when writing a text you can take your time rephrasing and correcting - the person who's going to read the text will not be aware of your inner struggle at the time of writing.
Hi Steve and thanks for the video. In days of yore I myself sometimes struggled with speaking i.e. being afraid of mistakes, ultimately trying to avoid some kind of shame (though only in your own head). I got over it on a long solo trip but still get a relapse every now and then). Anyways I think shame or embarrassment (over the inevitable errors) is in the heart of this - I mean otherwise it seems just illogical to not speak if said person is aware that will lead to enhancement of language skills.
I have been utilizing your innovative methodologies and insightful hypotheses that you eloquently discussed. Your exceptional approach distinguishes you markedly from other TH-camrs in the realm. Recently, I stumbled upon a video where individuals were offering criticism towards Lingomarina. This disheartened me deeply, as I could never fathom you engaging in such disparagement towards fellow content creators. Please know that you have my unwavering support and affection from Armenia. ❤️
I'm learning Bengali, but none of the best language learning platforms offer it. Despite the fact there are nearly 300 million speakers!
This basically applies to all the cultists in the Japanese learning community that makes such a nonsensically big deal and exaggeration for pitch accent and wanting to sound perfect. They can argue all they want ad nauseum but even natives say it's not as important as some make it out to be. A couple of arguments that I would say point out the flawed logic are the facts that quite a few words overlap and therefore will share exactly the same pronunciation, and that even in Japanese exist many words that have multiple meanings. Either way, the only way to discern the right meaning is through context. Take for example the word ロケット which can either mean "rocket" or "locket", the only way to tell is through context. This is is just one of many examples.
There's also the fact that I have heard many Japanese people on TH-cam and sometimes in real life speak English...many of them make some minor mistakes. So we have a double standard where English speakers don't mind them making mistakes, but when some Japanese learners speak, they for some reason are obsessed with sounding perfect when Japanese English learners do not seem as concerned. So you cultists out there, explain yourselves to the class.
In fact, there are much more important things to pay attention in Japanese pronunciation:
- the rhythm of the moras
- some sounds that can be muffled
- sometimes, there are contractions between to sounds.
Especially the first one: if we do not pay attention to the rhythm, some words can be misunderstood (e.g. "I am president's advisor" can be misundertood as "I am president's anus").
Pitch accent is secondary (not useless, but less important).
We native english speakers are wiling to put up with a lot of mistakes, aren't we?
@@Rudolphhhhhh Absolutely right. By no means am I saying it's useless, but it's just not as important as some "cultists" (as I call them) make it out to be. They just don't get it. How I sound when talking to Japanese people is none of their business; sometimes I may get the peonunciation spot on and maybe times not so, but as someone who actually has spoken to some natives, I have never had a problem with them. In my experience, it's fun talking to them. Yet the gatekeepers' philosophy is basically "if you don't speak perfectly, don't bother speaking to Japanese people at all". That once again brings us to the double standard I mentioned
Steve your videos are so helpfull - You are a perfect in your explanations.Tks a lot for your job. It's making all the diference to me.
hi steve ! i discover you and what you learn is impressive ! i have a question : how start learn a new alphabet for reading and listening ?
Steve, have you heard of the JAM Technique [Just a minute] where you pick a topic to speak about for 1 minute without stopping. After the first minute, you write down the key points of what you talked about then do another minute. You add more ideas that you can use then speak for the third minute. I imagine this technique would be worth trying, but I think it would depend on the language level of the person.
Obviously, there will be mistakes but wouldn't it be a good idea to use a microphone and transcribe the speech into text using software? One could correct the grammar and vocab, revise them, then do the three 3 minute exercises again. I think it would be worth trying. There are 100's of different topics one could use to practice. What do you think of this method Steve?
Not something I would do but sounds like a good idea.
Hello dear professor
Your lessons are really interesting and crucial, thank you so much for your help and advice,i do appreciate your job,i wish you peace and happiness under the sky of prosperity,all the best. Take care and have a good time.
I hope that one day I'll be able to speak lot of languages like Steve Kaufman. By the way, thanks for the lessons I really appreciate this video so much🙏 ❤❤
I don't know where else to message you, but I hope you check out comments. I know this isn't exactly your focus but it is related to what you are doing. What I am trying to learn is to learn to speak correctly. That might sound weird, but after years of running away (I am now 26) I am trying to solve my stuttering issue.
Now before 11 yo I was speaking fluently, after an incident when I was repeating sounds while being excited, which led to me being mocked, imitated and laughed at. After that point, as a child in sensitive age, I developed a fixation on my speech. Now all this wasn't clear to me until now. Stuttering was some invisible force for quite some time, something beyond me. I don't have actual problems with speaking. When reading aloud I can do it fluently, and there are situations when saying something spontaneously I do it fluently, but majority of times I stress about speech... I think about words I am going to say, and I fear them. I've come to a point in my life that in some situations I am pretty much mute, while having no actual problems with speech.. the block I created was in my head all along, and I was also trying to fight it, I was wrestling with myself. It has really impacted my life, my career, pretty much everything bad followed it. Speaking is a basic part of life, and it is hard to imagine losing ability to do so, especially without any actual physical problems.
What I am trying to do now as a first step is just turning on audio recording and speaking and trying to stop mind that was for so long trying direct and analyze everything. My perfectionism really took it's toll. While speaking I just let my natural and automatic, spontaneous speech just come through. Speech shouldn't be planned, it just happens, like breath or heartbeat happens on its own, that is how I should let myself just build confidence in my natural speech. Over time I should expose myself to various situations, and keep that part of my mind quiet and just observe without judgement or expecting things to be perfect. When speaking to a recording I stumble a lot, there seems to be some struggle inside still trying to take control, and also not being confident, but slowly I am getting better.
Now, I don't know the actual question I would ask, maybe some insight from someone that has learned to speak 20 languages, there surely was problems along the way with perfectionism and doubting one's abilities. Love your videos, and I my major challenge to learning more languages is my ability to speak in my native one. English is not my native language, and I never speak it, I just learned it naturally on the internet because of my interests, and I would also like to learn another language, travel, talk to people, and actually get good at talking in English which I avoided doing.
Confidence doesn’t come for free.
That is why preparation before speaking is important (without overpreparing as well, or else, we never start speaking).
@@Rudolphhhhhhyou're right to the point. I have been overpreparing for so long
Pozdrowienia z Krakowa😀
Speaking is how grammar error habits are formed. That’s the fear. My Czech speaking grammar is deplorable and people walk away from me or hang up.
Thank you very much to help me.😊
Thank you Sur! 😊
Jesus christ bless you 😊😊😊😊 from Egypt ❤❤❤❤
Very usefully, thank you!
I have very much trouble to speak in English with young people(
Дякую за гарне відео, добре мотивує
Thank you for the nice video, it's motivating
Vielen Dank für das gute Video, sehr motivierend
Merci beaucoup pour ce bon vidéo, il motive très bien
😊
Great video; thanks! 😊
Thanks for your knowledge
Hi! Do you recommend to do, in middle of a one-language learning period, a rest? Where you can maybe learn another language, to rest the brain from the first langugage.
Obrigada
I have been learning this language since I was high school. However, I speak a little bit but no more, as well as I have ability to undrerstand when the people speaking it even native teachers.
furthermore, I have capabilty of trying to speak alot with my co-workers and buddies.
Besides, improving your speaking is crucial technique require to speak alot with out rules of English like grammar, and cohorence of sentences.
Overall, I highly reccomend every learner to make more and more baractice, baractice makes perfect.
Thank you for this video
I can read and write Arabic well but I have fear to speak ..reason is there is no one to speak too..I usually speak to myself.
No one around me speaks Arabic and only sometimes when I go to a Middle Eastern shop and speak a little Arabic and the shop keeper gets all excited and happy...but he speaks a Yemeni dialect and I speak Fusha( Standard Arabic)..but i still have fear, not because I lack humility or patience but because there isnt a chance to practice..no one speaks Arabic in my country unless one is a foreigner who runs a middle eastern shop.
I can say it right away in Arabic.( i dont have the opportunity to speak in Arabic)
ليس لدي فرصة لاتكلم باللغة العربية.
Dear Sir
How do you make a second language learner speak? How long does it take?
Where can I find examples of this method being applied? When does the student speak?
Jesus christ bless you ❤❤❤ from Egypt 😊😊😊
Thanks, Steve. I suspect that even when we have a reading vocabulary that far exceeds the amount that would be generally considered to underpin fluency, we may find that we are very slow to recognise words when listening. In effect, we can have a low 'listening vocabulary', which somehow needs to be raised if we are to improve our speaking. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.
So it seems like a lot of discussions like this end up focussing on the bottleneck of having sufficient amounts of comprehensible input. I was a nerdy child who read a dozen (english) books eack and somehow read at over 800 words/min. Learning Russian I struggle. I have a public library that is full of Russian books that are too difficult. I have some fairy stories about toads that want to be circus performers that are simply dull. How do we find easy content at an appropriate level that is fascinating?
Thanks. Guys, don't forget to comment.
Eu entendo bem o ingles, mas tenho dificuldade pra falar porque o cerebro fica fazendo pausas pra penssar se a ordem das palavras está correta.
Nice sir, ❤
Cómo entro a las clases para aprender inglés, quién puede ayudar por favor.
Lingq is very difficult to use. You have to figure out everything by your own
Speak to someone every week on italki. Make your mistakes with them then go native
You’re like the internet’s language learning grandpa
Hello
❤❤❤
Yes, sometimes you must think you're a Rapper, always right when babbling (Speaking) 😂
i'm afraid to listen 🤣it's my weakness.
I have been afraid to listen many times, too 😅. Especially when the topic is difficult. The key here I think is not to be too concerned about understanding everything.
💯💯💯💯💯💯🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💥💥
231019
You have to speak alot
❤❤❤