I like it. Someone being a talking head, no matter how engaging, gets old rather quickly. Combing with other elements or even talk over screenshots is good too. Nice work.
Yay! I'm glad you like the style :) In the RU-vid Space New York, I get to use a studio with a big green screen behind me. So I'll try to do a bunch of videos where I get to talk and share some language hacking tip, but do so in a way that's more visually engaging. I'm glad people are liking this first test! Is there anything else you'd like to see, or other animations, that would go behind me? I want to make sure to keep it interesting ;)
Hey, Benny! I'm so glad to see you getting back into RU-vid again. It's really nice to see more activity on your channel. I really enjoyed this video. I think the idea of doing short, simple tips that apply to nearly every language is great. As someone who's followed your videos for a long time, I'm surprised that you went with the whiteboard drawing style. I feel that your charm and charisma have really grown over the years, and you've become a natural for the camera. So, I don't think this style is really your best fit. I enjoyed the clips you spliced in of your other videos and material from the past. You have so much material from the past, I think it's okay to be a little self-referential. My favorite videos of yours are your interviews, like the one you did with the Spanish-speaking nanny in the Netherlands or even the Skype interviews with Luis Von Ahn and Tim Ferris. I also really love your apartment tours. Maybe you could do some "A Day in the Life Videos" again. You could make them general like "A day in the life of a language blogger" or "A day in the of an Irishman living with an American" or more language-specific like "A day in the the life of a beginner Mandarin learner" or "A day in the the life of am advanced French speaker." To me, it's more interesting to see your face with your goofy facial expressions and grand gestures than a CG pencil or marker doodling. There are lots of videos like that. I mean, isn't one of your all-time most popular videos the one with all the little figurines and flags? You've become so respected in the language-learning community, but I think one of the reasons for your street cred is how you show people your day-to-day experiences with the languages. We don't get to see that as much now that you're a famous author and everything.
Thanks for the very thoughtful comment! I really appreciate the feedback :) Yeah, I was thinking that the animation style (especially with the hand drawing) may be more appropriate for RU-vid channels where the video creator prefers to just voice it and not be seen, which doesn't work with my style as easily. Was worth testing out just in case though! I have a great video editor I can work with now, and so he can help me splice together different footage, and I do think it's probably more convincing to demonstrate a point with a video of me doing something relevant, since I have plenty of footage to use. Thanks for that advice :) More "a day in the life" series are a great idea! I'll definitely add that to my idea bucket (a Google doc I have with videos I need to get on top of making asap). Great thought! I was sad to have taken such a long break from making RU-vid videos, as it's one of my greatest passions (I've been doing that since long before I ever started blogging), but I'm glad you like parts of my style that I enjoy most. I don't want to feel to distant from subscribers to the channel, so I'll definitely bring some more looks into my daily life into the mix. You'll see some prepared videos discussing a topic (like I did with this one) too, since I want to share specific thoughts via video like this, but I'll be happy to get back to my other style videos asap :) Thanks again!!
I agree with what you said completely. After having spent 7 months in Europe, it really did pay off to know the languages to a conversational level before visiting. I was able to enjoy myself and get more out of the places I traveled to than I would have if I had only spoken English. You really don't have to go to the country to become fluent! It's all about creating the environment and not giving up (:
I know, it's great isn't it! Whenever I think about my travels, and I compare the times when I arrived knowing absolutely nothing, and needing to spend so much time on the language learning project itself, I feel sad to think of all the opportunities for cultural investigations and making friends that I had to miss. Comparing this to times when I knew the language ahead of time and could truly appreciate the country without extra work because I did it before going, is the difference between night and day!
I agree 100% with this point! In fact, I just did an interview on my RU-vid channel, GringoGlot, with the youtube channel Português Pra Fora all about how I immerse myself in a language at home, and why that is better than moving to the country. I could have just referred them to this video. You said it very well 👌🏻
Yes, Yes and yes. Skype for me was the secret, speaking with a native language person in the language I was / am learning. I also used other learning sources but speaking, speaking speaking was the real booster. I recently went to the country and immersion - there, (I spoke very little English whilst in that country) boosted my fluency!
Going to the country is better, as long as you're actively studying and trying to learn and are speaking. I speak as someone currently in a foreign country
Cute little video :-) Totally agree with the idea, as I experienced exactly the same in Hungary. Took me about a year to get my act together and actually improve.
I do, but "abroad" isn't out-of-country. I'm in columbie-brittanique and my first stop for learning French once I'm emotionally ready to actually speak it and perhaps be rendered a different person would be some nearly zero-English enclave in Quebec. Not France, but Quebec.
great video! you and other polyglots like Tim Donor inspire me to want to learn more. I didn't even realize it but ur method of immersion and speaking from the beginning worked for me when learning sign language. now I just make it harder by being shy or losing the confidence. I wanted to ask, what are some of the things you do to try and fully immerse yourself or can suggest to keep things fun and intreasting while learning a target language? thank you so much for you're time and you're such an inspiration. happy learning
Isn't it amazing that speak from day 1 actually does transfer over into sign from day 1?! I was astounded to find that this approach worked for me too with ASL. In general, making friends is the best thing you can do by far to keep things fun and interesting :) For spoken/written languages, watching funny TV shows, reading comic books and changing your technology and gaming interfaces are really handy to make the language immersion experience more enjoyable. For signing though, I'd probably recommend watching signing music videos and trying to mimic them (as a beginner, it's easier to do this if you set the video to slow motion in RU-vid's play options). I hope that helps!
+Benny Lewis Hey, cool that you suggested switching gaming and tech interfaces to the language you're trying to learn! :D I actually thought of this on my own a couple months ago, and now my Facebook is in Swedish and my entire phone is in Spanish (the two languages I'm currently working on). Nice to see you suggest the same thing!
The best thing to do as someone who is studying to be a sign language interpreter is watch Deaf signers on youtube and go hang out with the Deaf community as much as possible.
Honestly I'd be careful about watching signed music videos as some of the people who upload them are not the best language role models for ASL. They actually have youtube channels in ASL.
To learn a language you have to be immersed (atleast a little bit) and you should show interest But there's one thing: You don't have to use Skype, italki, etc to learn your target language and definitly not about, what i like to call, "typical language learning topics". It's a bit emberassing but I learned english by running a fan account on instagram and communicating about the things i used to love. I mean at the moment my english is a bit crumbling but still. It helped me and would probably help others, especially teenagers since you start to communicate about the things you love but with almost giving no afford at all and it's really encouraging and most people won't point at your mistakes;)
Heyy ben I'm really a big fan of you're my inspiration 😄😄😄 I wanna ask is listening to videos to a turkish people teaching phrases and starting to repeat it a right way to learn language in 3 months ?
:) No, I have to say that repeating phrases from videos isn't the way to learn a language in 3 months... The 3 months from my blog/book title is a milestone in my language learning journey and never the end, but I get a large part of the way to fluency by speaking with people LIVE. Find a partner on Skype and chat to them! Interact with your language!
maybe some screen casts showing interaction on Skype or how you set up.What to talk about, some sites etc that give you resource of talking to native speakers
The only way to really master a language is to speak it, obviously, but don't neglect the importance of formal grammar practice and drills. You will never reach proficiency (levels C1-C2) without grammar practice. Both approaches (academic and conversational/content based) are necessary.
Yes, I agree. I always say the same to people - I have a spoken focused approach to get me to intermediate level, and then I switch to a more studious approach to continue progressing.
Porque os subtítulos também estão em português! Pode assistir e entender tudo assim, né? Na verdade - RU-vid me deixa colocar os títulos em outras línguas no mesmo video, e queria ajudar brazucas também com esses conselhos. O meu RU-vid está tudo em inglês, então eu vejo o título etc. em inglês. Infelizmente, não posso fazer o video mesmo em cada língua (falando em cada língua) porque não tenho tanto tempo, mas é muito fácil colocar o texto em outras línguas. Melhor assim que nada em português, vc acha? :)
Ivan Gabriel Não dá tanto trabalho. O "time Fluent in 3 months" me ajuda bastante. O título etc. está também em francês, espanhol, italiano e alemão! Eles traduzem e eu coloco ;)
