Don’t memorize vocabulary. Do this instead 

📲 The app I use to learn languages: tinyurl.com/2yybxh88 🆓 My 10 FREE secrets to language learning: bit.ly/3TTswWm ❓How do you like to learn vocabulary? Let me know in the comments!

1- Learn whole sentences instead of words 2 - Study conversations about your domain of interest and if possible try to recite them (it don’t have to be perfect) Words learnt this way cannot be forgotten, and you will sound much more natural by mimicking natives sentences.

I'm a police officer in Brasil, and hope to learn other languages to visit more countries and know many cultures. This channel helps me to understand how I can improve my english, thanks!

Advice: 1. Study throughout the day and not all at once. 2. If you are not mentally able to study for more than an hour, then study that one hour and spend some time watching a series (like an anime) in the target language. The latter will improve your listening skills and familiarize you with more vocabulary and expressions.

J'ai 69 ans et j ai commencé l'etude du russe. Merci pour vos précieux conseils qui me permettent de trouver les bonnes stratégies d'apprentissage.

I learn faster by experience than studying

I feel frustrated and hopeless sometimes but watching you gives me hope. thank you

Thanks man for your work! You really make me inspired. Sometimes when I'm frustrated and hopeless because of my failures I just watch your videos and understand it's just part of learning process which I need to accept.

These videos always encourage and inspire me, thanks Steve! I recently increased the intensity of my Japanese study, I have a 2-3 hour-long conversations a day in Japanese. And outside of that, I'm reading and watching things in Japanese. It's a lot of fun but burnout feels like it's on the horizon. After watching these videos about language learning, it always reinvigorates me and pushes that horizon further away.

I deeply appreciate your contribution to these conversations, Steve. I'm both a language learner and a music teacher, and your thoughts have benefitted both of those pursuits for me. Thank you!

Above and beyond the great advice, Steve just inspires me to keep going. That's why I keep coming back to his channel.

The learning vs acquisition divide is similar to how we taught AIs to use language. At first we tried to teach computers explicit grammar rules and lists of vocabulary. But language is too complicated and contextual and that approach didn’t work very well. Now we have far more complex neural networks that cannot be directly programmed - they must learn language iteratively by repeated exposure to vast quantities of training material from the real world: Input. During the training they encounter a word like “love” used in millions of different contexts, and somewhere in the network a cluster of neurons begins to ‘acquire’ the concept of “love”, linking it to related words and concepts. Each training pass shapes the model ever so subtlely, until something like understanding emerges. Every time I do some focused listening in my target language, I imagine something similar happening in my brain.

You're the best Steve! Thank you so much for all of your videos and advice. You've helped me so much on my language learning journey.

Steve tou are the reason I have loved language learning and I am learning French now

You are inspiring people. This is very precious. Thsnk you.

This is an amazing channel!! And you're work is very encouraging!!

Knowing words helps to improve pronounce them simply by detecting while hearing them.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Steve!

I memorize some vocabulary and it works for me. Thanks.

I think some deliberate vocabulary practice is really helpful for complete beginners. Learning common nouns and verbs with some flash cards can be really helpful to get started with basic reading.

Very comprehensive presentation! I received it in the context of a person who is functionally fluent in a second.language that was haphazardly acquired, and acquired through a personal relationship. Your discussion resonated with my experience and clarified my plans to learn German and Arabic, and improve my Italian. I would add that in my relatively strong second language (French), writing has been an important means of actually situating myself in the language. My greatest obstacle in French is speaking English with French words. Writing about various topics in French is an opportunity to enter into the idiomatic nuance of the language.

Just found your channel Steve, very interesting. I am learning Spanish for work and I am moving from the uSA to the Dominican this year. When I was at university studying music we use NASA accelerated learning techniques (used when a complex series of events or procedures are needed ) where you practice for 1 minute, break 30 seconds practice the next phrase for 1 minute break 30 secs etc. then after 45 mins complete break for 15 minutes. Doing that for every scale, song, riff , technique in all the different styles keeps the brain in positive learning mode. (the first and last minute of your practice, in between that does nothing) That deals with the brain needing repetition but also novelty.. Repeated every day you suddenly found you had learned.

Always a pleasure to listen to Steve

Thanks for your great video Steve. Kiitos.

Thank you so much Steve! You are literally the source of endless inspiration for me and I’m sure for others🙏❤

Another great video. The person who supports your videos with the graphics does a good job. Ngā mihi ki a koe! All the best from New Zealand.

Thank you! In my lifelong effort to learn Spanish and a recent trip to Mexico I noticed that I can clearly remember situations from decades ago when I learned phrases (buying tickets when my friend said “somos tres” for example). If I had to sort through my old grammar lesson memory I’d never get there. And now I can easily use somos in other situations.

it’s easier to learn vocabulary directly than to continually look for ways to learn vocabulary

I don't know who needs to hear this today but Duolingo teaches scripts in Arabic Chinese and Hebrew. This is essential.

Looking forward to learning Russian and German ❤🇷🇺🇩🇪

Great video. Now back to immersing.

Incredible video. Even at Master´s and PhD levels, and definitely across the language learning world, many of these accepted ideas continue to persist.

I also bought Lingualism's Levantine Arabic audiobooks and ebooks (I don't have the paper versions). I don't just listen and read them but I also write one sentence per day from the ebooks. I do it like a dictation. I use the ebooks to correct my mistakes. I find that by carefully writing down every sentence, I really “dig” the meaning (“dig” for the lack of a better word). Also, it has the added advantage of making a physical paper copy in my own handwriting. I read from it instead of reading the ebooks.

Your knowledge is well articulated, I gave you a thumbs up. I would suggest you present each ideal with a transition of silence, or another type of separator to prevent the run-on effect.

Yes - I like the idea of reading a variety of content to increase exposure to the same or related words, and approaching either a given text or the language learning process generally in a variety of ways. I like to listen both with and without the text in front of me, read slowly on LingQ, listen to audio at full speed, speak with natives, write messages on social media. I also really like Steve's comment about finding it harder to read non-Arabic words in Arabic script. I still trip over non-Russian or non-Ukrainian words in Cyrillic, and conversely, I just sit and stare at Russian or Ukrainian written in something other than Cyrillic.

Thank you for the guidance

I wasn't an emigrant but I learned English and my native language together because of the English courses, games and films. To this day, I remember the English alphabet better than in my language😅. And yes, I received many compliments about my reading skills.

Thanks for sharing tips and tricks about English Language

But Chomsky has never said we don't need to learn. The idea of instinct and innate ability we all have seems quite solid. Of course, we need to learn and expose ourselves. I think you're approaching different concepts.

I've always been a good speller, but I always had to write it down first. I would then look at it and know if it was right or wrong. I'm sure many people have similar experiences, whether it be music or dress sense. Once you've had enough meaningful interaction with something, you just know when something is off.

This is great advice, I'm currently working on Arabic. I'm learning classical so I can speak to anyone then I will work on local dialect depending on where I'm at in the world. So if learning has a lot to do with exposure would it be beneficial to learn words and phrases and listen to podcasts in Arabic to increase my exposure?

Thank you for this great advice

“It is far more difficult for me to read a word written in the Arabic alphabet which is not a word…it might be a foreign word….” I can definitely relate to this with Japanese. Reading words in Katakana is sometimes a pain and I find it kind of a drag…it’s not because I don’t know Japanese, but it just clearly feels like borrowed words don’t belong to the language….because they don’t…they feel, no pun intended, foreign…. (Of course, Katakana is used for more than just borrowed words like onomatopoeias and emphasis) As far as low vs high frequency vocab, also feel high frequency is just as important as low frequency vocab…the way I see it is: if I find it in my reading or listening, chances are I’ll see it again. Exposure is always more important than rot memorization…but when you’re a beginner in a language that is extremely different to your own, anki just becomes a necessity to do it at least for very few words daily….but a learner has to be conscious enough to know when anki isn’t effective anymore…as nobody can learn an entire language, at some point anki needs to be dropped. After you’re advanced enough, you will pick up new words from context and sometimes you can even infer the meaning based on the context and won’t even need to look it up.

Oh my gosh, I'm an English language teacher who grew up in an environment where people said, "Would have went." and "Should have went." I love that you used that example. My partner is also a language teacher and despite frequent corrections and my knowledge of grammar and modals, I STILL slip into this regional grammar usage.

well said as always

la disciplina y disfrutar un nuevo idioma me han ayudado más que la técnica. Algo cierto es que me gusta escuchar el nuevo idioma mucho aunque no lo entienda todavía.

Thank you Mr Steve

Great video and tips! I would be interested in your tips when first starting on getting to a point where you have enough of a base learning to start more enjoyable activities to reinforce passive learning, or even when you have an early understanding ways to get to a better understanding so i can engage in more enjoyable activities. I'd also be interested in ideas of these more enjoyable activities, thanks.

Very helpful, thanks

Love from Pakistan🇵🇰! Sir, I highly admire your patience and consistency with the languages. Can't wait to see you start hindi. Learning hindi will give you extra advantage to understand my native language urdu, since both languages are mutually intelligible and both pakistanis and Indians can communicate with each other without any difficulty.

Hello Stive it's sensational your video and i gonna learning more languages.

6:31 The dominant hemisphere processes language, it is the left hemisphere in 97% of cases. Visuospatial skills such as mental rotation or perception of faces seem more linked to the right hemisphere, while processes involved in numbering involve the left hemisphere more than the right.

Congrats on your progress in the Arabic language!

Мое почтение, уважаемый Стив! Дай Вам Бог здоровья!

INTERESTING about difficulty reading non-Arabic words written in Arabic. I find the same thing with Greek. A word like cellotape( on Hary Potter's glasses). written in Greek letters totally stumped me, whereas I can read real Greek words with ease, even if I don't know what they mean.

I feel a motivated for learn more words and improve my skills in this language I to consume more videos in english , podcast and I listen many songs

this video changed me in a positive way :)

Dear Mr. Kaufman. I think I read a mistake in French subtitles at 12:32. I think the translation of "eventually" is not "éventuellement", but "finalement". But I may be wrong myself.

Hey Steve you are a great person

Thanks Steve 👏

Thank U. Steve

I think what you said about consuming a great variety of content to make learning languages effective and enjoyable is correct. But I think that is only true once you have reached a certain level, e.g. B1. When I only have A1 or A2 level in a language, I find vocabulary drills a necessary and efficient duty to learn the basic vocabulary. I find example sentences related to the vocabularies also very useful. Furthermore, pronunciation audio and possibly images for each vocabulary are useful in my opinion.

Steve, u are really the best! My life studying languages became thousands better after I started to apply your advice. Thank u so much!

Good morning Steve, I really enjoyed your talk, and I shared it with my wife, a former pre-school teacher who is always interested in language formation in young children. I was drawn to your content because I am almost 72 years old and I'm trying to learn German. I recently watched a German language show on Netflix, once with subtitles in German and once with subtitles in English. I was planning to watch it again, maybe a couple of times (as well as watching other German language shows). I was wondering if you had any suggestions re: using subtitles? Thanks in advance, Mike

Very good video Steve

Thanks!

Totally agree.

Thank you so much

I've been studying Dutch for almost six years, and have just started learning German. I also have a very limited knowledge of some other foreign languages. If you want to acquire the essential vocabulary in a foreign language, I can give you the following advice - Everyone has a very good audio memory, as you know all the words to a number of your favourite songs. So you can pick up the basics of a foreign language, by repeatedly watching youtube videos. But what youtube videos should you watch? - If you want to learn a romance language (French, Spanish, etc) or a Germanic language (Dutch, German, etc) it'll have a number of 'false friends', words that appear to have the same meaning as in English, but actually means something completely different. So you should start learning your preferred language, by watching youtube videos, on the subject of false friends. - To ensure that you don't cause offence, the next youtube videos I'd advise you to study, should be on the subject of swearwords, so you know the words that you shouldn't use. - Then you should watch youtube videos about the alphabet of the language you want to learn, so you know how to pronounce it properly. - There are six levels of language learning, from A1 to C2. If you're starting to learn a foreign language, you should be focused on the A1 and A2 level. Learning a language to A2 level requires a vocabulary of only 1, 500 words. If you've been watching videos about false friends, swearwords and the alphabet, you'll have acquired some of this essential vocabulary. Then you should watch youtube videos on the subject of A1/A2 vocabulary in general, to learn all the other words that are essential, for basic communication. - Studying grammar is also important, for learning a new language. But if you already have learnt the essential vocabulary, then learning the grammar will obviously be a lot easier.

Makes a lot of sense. The LLM like GPT is trained just by predicting next word with given context. They don't know any grammar and yet they can master language like any human being. Maybe our brain works the same way? I don't know but this is definitely intriguing.

Love ❤from morocco

I'm speak spanish for if someone wanna learn and I wanna learn English , Say for practice , sorry for my mistake

Amazing advices! Insightful and open-minding. Learning from Steve Kaufmann about language learning is probably similar to learn about physics from Einstein.

How do you immerse yourself in the language to begin with though? If you only know a few phrases and words how can you watch TV etc in that language and get anything from it? I'm learning arabic as well BTW

Your English is really good, to me you sound almost native.

Been watching shows/movies with Spanish subtitles. Only thing is that you might get the same phrase subtitled different ways. Was thinking okay it’s context. But then you’d get it when a person repeats themself.

I’m currently learning Brazilian Portuguese. 🇧🇷

this makes so much sense

4:23 My dutch niece still does this. She says 'valde' instead of 'viel' ('falled' instead of 'fell')

Steve, I think you have misunderstood Chomsky's universal grammar. It's not that every child automatically knows what's correct or not (which is obviously false), but rather that every child has an innate set of grammatical possibilities from which to choose those that are most likely to fit the language he is learning. This means that he has a very restricted set of options from which to build his own internal grammar. Something I discovered is that everybody reinvents the language he is learning, whether it's his first or not. He creates a version of the language which is unique to himself, although extremely similar to those of other speakers of the same language. I accept as evidence of this reinvention the rebracketing of some words, e.g., "a napron" to "an apron" or "a nadder" to "an adder".

Even when I do have the words I sometimes can't understand. Often.. actually

That does it! I’ve quit learning the seven languages I was working on….. is it still April 1?

Reading Loanwords in korean is also extremely challenging. Once I realize this probably isn't a korean word I have to verbalize it for my ears to recognize what the word is!

A very rich discussion of this.

Thank you for this video. But I have a question, what is meant by low and high frequency words? I've never heard that term before. Maybe someone can give me an answer. Greetings from Germany

Is it possible, to find Monsieur Botilieaú??

The problem is that learning vocabulary takes time and effort and most studenta these days lack the time and the methods to learn/memorise new words...

I use flashcards, when I meet completely new words for me. When I watched this video, I did't meet such words at all. There might be videos with a lot of rare words and idioms.

This is wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing. I consider myself lucky to do well in many subjects, but despite many years of language-learning as a hobby, I've never reached a level of success I could be proud of -- or rather, I've found that measurable success only occurs over very long periods of time. I'm increasingly convinced of what you said here, that exposure (over a period of time) is a more effective component than lessons and drills. Thank you so much for the wisdom and encouraging words.

This is a very interesting and informative video. It does raise some questions. For example, Steven Kaufmann is the language equivalent of a star NHL player. Would a beginner skater wish to copy the methods used by a star NHL player?

The second myth is not actually a myth. It is absolutely true that the huge amount of language data children acquire drives most of language acquisition, but correction is actually very common. The idea that correction is uncommon has been taken basically for granted in linguistics for decades (ironically mostly to support Chomsky's arguments about universal grammar), but more recent research that actually collected large corpora of child-directed speech discovered that correction is actually pervasive. It's so common and normalized that people don't even realize how often they do it. That said, Chomsky's universal grammar theory is not so stupid that he didn't realize that certain things are correct in some languages and not others.

I’ve been studying Portuguese for 9.5 years now and I’ve visited Brasil 18 times but I can’t read or converse yet and I have to translate everything into English to understand. Even basic words that I’ve known for years don’t mean anything to me until I translate them one at a time. It prevents me from understanding and conversing. I practice every day with my girlfriend who only speaks Portuguese and we’ve been practicing for 6.5 years now but I can only make out an occasional word which I then have to translate. I need to find a way to learn and understand Portuguese without translating everything. Tests show that I know over 20,000 words but they all need to be translated.

Absolutely true , master,the goat , great video Steve

السلام عليكم يا ستيف، إذا يمكنك قرأت هذه العبارة إعتبر نفسك ممتاز في اللغة العربية.

what would be an ideal 1 hour / 2 hour routine , i am considering changing my routine as i think it is not as effective ( i am learning fusha )

Any form of prediction, including a quiz activates it and triggers learning when failed to recall it. But reading or speaking costs each a lot of time to look up the word. And if I don't look it up it just gets nowhere.

Я получила ответ из данного видео материала на свой вопрос, "как Вы запоминаете слова?" Спасибо

My problem is that listening to input does not teach me the details. I learn to understand that ‘Ich fahre’ means I drive, but when I want to use it, I can’t remember if it’s Ich fahre or Ich fährt or whatever. Flash cards help teach me the details.

Learning Thai is very difficult because Thai teachers rarely correct a students pronunciation. I learn and know a lot of words but I don't pick them up when Thais are speaking and using the same word. It's frustrating, for sure.

Studying words in isolation does work, though. This is widely known and accepted among experienced language learners. You learn incomparably faster when you combine deliberate learning with naturalistic methods.