A huge thanks to Olly for joining me in this video! You can find his channel over at ru-vid.com In case you want to go straight to the meat of a question or two you are specifically interested in, the 7 questions I asked Olly in this video are as follows - click the timestamp to go straight to that point in the video! 00:17 How do you not forget words when you're learning a language? 01:07 Is reading aloud helpful when learning a language? 02:03 How do you learn two languages at the same time? 03:35 How do you maintain multiple languages? 05:47 How do you avoid getting stuck at the intermediate level? 07:35 How do you find time to learn a language? 09:30 How do you reduce your accent in a foreign language? Enjoy! :)
Benny Lewis thanks for the invitation onto your channel Benny! It was cool to make this video, and I was especially impressed with the helipad next to the Thames you found for us to record! ;)
I am writing to you because I found series of books you have published and I have a great idea: Why don't you create audio books for your stories? It is very easy and simple - just ask a native speaker of each langauge to read the stories and record them. Then you can sell these audiobooks separately (and make profit) while learners will be able to hear how words are spoken. This is especially important for beginner learners. And if you like the idea, I can tell you that I will be the first one to buy the Norwegian audiobook. :)
This Is Great; I have been following both of you. It is kind of perfect mix for learning language. Thank for all these great answers and all your awesome job :D
Very helpful! As someone who is bilingual already and currently learning and developing two languages , this is very useful:) I am Maltese who grew up in a bilingual/trilingual household speaking the languages of Maltese, English , Italian and a bit of Arabic as well. Currently developing my Italian as I'd love to have great conversations with my Italian friends. I'd consider my Italian as b2 and I have maintained it quite well as I'm picking up on my French which I left at a1. I aspire to speak six languages : Maltese , English , Italian , French , Spanish and Arabic and hopefully gear up towards a career in languages as I'm currently in the GCSE exams season and moving to post-secondary. Looking forward to more videos like this and collaborations:)
So glad you found it useful! This was a collaboration idea I had at the last minute, since I was launching my #languagehacking books in London and managed to book the RU-vid Space there. I was so pleased that both Olly and Lindsay were able to come along, and they were very patient as I set things up. Fortunately, we had time to do another themed video, which is loads of fun and will feature all three of us. :D Working on getting that ready for the world! And next time I know I'm going to London, I'll make sure to reach out to Olly again and see what video we can do together as a follow-up!
Olly's great - another video is on the way with him (and Lindsay) pretty soon :) Next time I'm in London, I'll definitely see what else we can do together. Collabs are fun!
+Mat Carter As Olly said, I clearly rented out a helipad just for this shoot. I also used a device to make the clouds not move either, for the perfect lighting, and for all traffic to stop. It required quite the budget!
For the sequel Benny, I recommend going one step further with a MOVING green screen. Perhaps a family of hamsters burrowing, an 80's Korean or Japanese aerobic workout, or simply novices yachting on an overcast afternoon. As mundane and bizarre as poss!
Great video! With regard to learning two languages at once... At which level do you think you are more likely to be successful with studying two languages at once? For example, you guys were saying that B2 is a good level to reach to maintain a language with more ease, if I reached B2 level in, say, Spanish, do you think this would then be an acceptable level for adding another language into the mix?
Stewart Meiklejohn I don't think there are any hard and fast rules, but I find that once you reach B2 in one language, you can maintain/improve it through fairly natural means. That creates space in your head for a more devoted study to a new language. If you're actively studying two at once, I always find it hard to manage attention and energy.
I see a lot of comments on my RU-vid channel from people who don't want to check to see if I've learned a language, before presuming I didn't. Is it hard to use search? 😉
How do you guys feel about code switching when speaking a language. I am currently learning German and two of the youtubers I watch who speak German will throw in words and phrases from time to time in English. Especially curse words in English lol. Just curious your opinion on that
It's hard to know when something is actual code switching or simply flexibility with using more foreign words. What you describe isn't code switching to me, since you don't really need to speak the language you are switching to, if it's a case of only referring to words rather than full sentences. Standard German is actually incredibly flexible with using English words for certain concepts. And I know Germans who use English curse words often (and pretty much always far too frequently compared to how they'd have been used in English). It's like how in English we might say that something has a certain "je ne sais quoi" - you don't need to speak any French to use that, it's just a French phrase that is widely understood by English speakers.
+Henry Leonardi Which time stamps? I can make sure the same editing mishap doesn't happen next time - although I didn't see any disappearances when I watched it. Let me know!
Thanks for pointing it out Bob! That was actually a glitch in the matrix, and agents will be showing up at your door momentarily to begin the re-integration process... Seriously though, I've been on the road for the last 2 weeks, and working with an editor and trying to render the final version on my computer in New York, by remote controlling it from a tablet in Amsterdam and Dublin... so I knew I'd miss something (I also noticed that Q1 didn't have a nice out-animation and just disappears, whereas the other questions move out nicely). We're almost at the stage where I can have these videos ready safely ahead of time, and then have them ready to be watched by team FI3M to make sure no final errors were missed. So it'll be less likely that errors like that will creep in! :) Thanks again, and I hope the glitch didn't make it look too weird for viewers!
