How To Overcome The LANGUAGE-LEARNING BARRIER?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 พ.ค. 2018
- This is the first videos in a new series, where I will be dedicating entire videos to specific language-learning topics :)
We will be talking about the elusive "barrier" in language-learning, that separates us from feeling secure in our target language.
I hope you enjoy it and find my analogy helpful!
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First barrier is day 3...
Second barrier is A2
Third barrier is B2 (this is the one you're describing)
After this the learning curve gets longer and longer for new stuff as you get closer to C1; but the gains tend to be permanent.
The best analogy I've heard so far. I am 68, I am not competitive. I have never liked exams, although I do see why people want them to see what level they've achieved. But surely having the satisfaction of knowing that you have learned a language when thousands of other people can't be bothered is enough to spur you on. I don't have to prove anything at my age !
I'm really glad that this analogy resonated with you so well, Brian! I totally agree that the satisfaction of having learned a language and the many, many wonderful benefits it brings to enrich your life is more than enough for me 😊
Super!!! Thank you! I'll remember this for years to come and look forward to sailing.
In every of your videos I'm focused on the mug and I'm watching if you'll elbow it but you don't. :) I'm precise like that too hehe.
Now on topic - I think you can break through the barrier with overlearning. Great waves analogy btw.
Btw check this out th-cam.com/video/F8xj_zO3hu0/w-d-xo.htmlm57s
about B2>C1, I watch that awesome video from time to time
Ivan B Glossika does seem pretty great! I've used it but I'm not ready for it yet.
I like the way you visualize the concept and this learning journey! I can't wait to watch next one of this topic!!
Brilliant analogy Robin! I have been really busy with work but am going to binge watch your videos now to catch up. Please keep posting as frequently as you want to. People can always pick the content that they like or watch your videos later if they want.🙋
Besides the phenomenon you're describing, there's also the tendency to forget things that you learn quickly and remember things that you learn slowly. Because I tend to learn languages slowly, I actually retain an amazing amount after a long break--but of course, with so much to learn in order to master a language, I also forget a lot.
Also, some things are easier to retain long-term than others (even after a long break). For me, grammar is the easiest to learn and to retain, almost permanently. Once I learn a grammar point well enough to use it comfortably, I never seem to forget it. If I forget it, I relearn it with almost no effort. This has been my experience with all of my languages. But I don't think most people experience this with grammar, partly because they don't learn grammar well enough to have internalized it--or are still confused about it after learning it. This might partly have to do with the ways grammar is usually taught or it might be a question of personality. Among experienced language learners, though, it's much more common, so maybe it's just a matter of practice and experience.
The second easiest thing for me personally to retain is pronunciation. I can forget to be consistent with a sound (phoneme) or the language's intonation when I resume it after a long gap, but I haven't forgotten it entirely. I just have to relearn to use it consistently, or relearn when to use that sound or intonation pattern. For example, in Spanish, the letter "d" is pronounced like the "th" in "the" sometimes, but I often forget when and pronounce it at the wrong times. Spanish is a language that I study/practice very inconsistently. Likewise, I learned that in Russian, one or two of the hard sounds are pronounced by putting the tip of the tongue against the back of the bottom teeth and another part of the tongue against the back of the top teeth, but after a one-year gap, I've forgotten which sounds: the t, d, or n, or all three? Yet I was getting pretty good at it a year ago.
Vocabulary is much harder for me to retain unless it's really high-frequency.
Words written in Chinese characters (kanji) are even harder to retain and take a long time to relearn because I forget so many of them. I'm afraid to take any breaks from Japanese reading practice longer than a week or two because of this.
But the active skills (speaking and writing) atrophy the most. Even if I seem to remember a lot of vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar, I'm still tongue-tied when I start speaking a language again. Speaking and writing are where the boat analogy seems to fit me the best--also reading Japanese or Mandarin Chinese.
But all of those except kanji come back quickly if I practice listening and speaking. If I hear a word I've forgotten, I start to remember it again, almost as if by magic. If I forget a pronunciation rule, it gradually comes back to me as I speak the language. Maybe I should do more listening and less reading than I currently tend to do in my languages, especially when I resume them after a break. It has to be comprehensible input, though, not content for native speakers.
Andy, this is an amazing comment! 🙄
Thank you for giving a very detailed answer to my question and with such a brilliant explantation and metaphor :D I really hope I can get past these waves
Your channel is basically the most useful polyglot channel I've ever seen, thank you so much.
Beautifully done video; thank you!
Thank you so much, Robin! This helped me so much! I'll keep this metaphor with me for all my language journeys to come 😍😊🙄
Kuma Brand Robiiin, Hiii 😊 thats so nice of you!! Its great to know that some people out there look out for each other 🙄
I am so sorry I havent been commenting as much. I've been super busy these past few weeks and didnt really get to be on youtube, thats why i have sadly not been able to keep up with all the content you keep posting, but to watch all of them is on my 'to do list' actually 😀
Kuma Brand Dear Robin, i find it amazing how much you are able to post while doing all these other things! I do find it hard to keep up, but all of your videos have really important and thoughtful messages and i wouldn't wanna miss out on anything because you somehow decided to post less. It's just my busy scedule, not the amount of videos you're posting 🙄 Keep up the good work! Posting consistently is really important with chanel growth i guess so you're doing the perfect thing to help grow your brand! 😊 So keep up the great videos! Even though there are so many to chatch up with for me now I am excited about every single one of them! 🤗
And no, you did not do anything wrong at all. I am shocked that you would think that, don't worry it really is just me being super busy 😅 i'm happy to hear that you think i'm doing great with my studys, i'm really trying my best! 🙄
Super. I really like your videos. Best analogy ever.
.
This video is absolutely outstanding.
"Vague", nice term, and very applicable to most L.L. buzzwords like "speak", "fluent", etc. People have got to vet over the idea that with a few Spanish lessons, they can go out and tslk to any José or Josefina that they meet on the street. Really speaking a second language requires years of use. You can learn vocabulary, and phrases, but to make it become part of you you will have to use it alot, far after "School's Out".
Great analogy, I’ll keep rowing. 😎👍
Glad you liked it! 🛶Don't stop rowing!
Great work on your vid's!!
Thank you very much for your videos! They are really useful for me especially when I start to lose my motivation in learning. But please, put away your mug! I think you'll end up flicking it away)
Handsome and inviting lol good content, too. Neat analogy. Thanks for the insight.
Haha thank you for the kind feedback, Phil! I'm really glad you liked the analogy 😄
I know it is not about memory it is about acquiring the language over time i would say..
I agree with one of the comments below, there are a number of “barriers” or, probs,by it would be more accurate to say that there are a number of stages, each of which could defined by a frustration specific to that stage. I don’t really resonate with the boat and wave analogy presented here; for me, the primary experience is of attempting to put together a massive 3D jigsaw that has no edges. I experience one of the first stages to be that of constantly trying to pull together pieces in a fog of not knowing. One knows so little! And it’s very uncomfortable indeed. But one day, after constant daily study, there’s a shift, things somehow come together, and suddenly you experience it getting easier to form whole sentences in a string of them, and there are less gaps of not knowing. A sort of critical mass has built up to a tipping point. Anyway this is what I have just experienced after a year of studying Greek. And I don’t consider myself to be further along than A2, probably. What do others think? Have you noticed a number of distinct stages in your learning process?
thanks Robin! It seems Swedish is one of the most common languages people learn. lol I am learning it too.
Haha yes it does seem to be getting more common among language enthusiasts! Are you enjoying learning it so far?
@@RobinMacPhersonFilms Yes I am. I am quite good at reading and writing. Speaking and listening not so much.
From what you said I think I am at a high B2 in Russian. I just have to maintain it now and move to C1.
If you really want to speak another language, you need to keep things short and sweet....simple. No need to learn every verb in the book, or memorize phrases. Language (for a beginner) is all in front of us. Anything else will come later, once you begin to speak and converse.
I find the boat metaphor very British 🤓
10 weeks into learning Swedish, I've been having fun
How many hours you learn a day?
@@marcofluijt2331 I'm unemployed right now so I kinda float between apps, watching Swedish videos, and watching my regular videos. Maybe 2 hours studying, 3 hours of listening/ reading subtitles? I also hang out on Reddit in the languagelearning, svenska, and sweden subreddits, so half of what I read there is in Swedish.
That's my best guess, my days have almost no structure right now.
@@sharonoddlyenough Sounds good.. Keep up going that energy 💪🔋🔋
@@marcofluijt2331 Thanks, I hope to be independant of subtitles in a month or so, when I'll be back to work with a long commute. Good luck on your own studies! Lykka till!
Hi Sharon, am learning Swedish too, about a year into it. Beautiful language, loving it.
Today I went to learn about languages and instead learned about boats
About boat it is good compare