As someone who is on the major of Modern Languages and already learned English and French and is currently learning German and Portuguese, I can say it is a strange journey some times a problem is not getting enough practice or just being confused and nervous trying to use the language in context. Also grammar is always a strange thing to approach even in languages close to your native language. I tried learning Japanese during the pandemic, and was doing ok, but soon enough I stopped having enough time.
I often say I am "multi-lingual" with seven languages but with exposure to more. I agree with the listening and reading a LOT. I love to listen to get my ears used to pinpointing where one word end and another begins, where the accents are within words, the flow of the language to more advanced ideas about how words are used in different situations. It's fun!
I know people talk about cases and gender being difficult to remember (and they certainly can be), but something that still gives me problems after years of studying German, is that prepositions don't really line up 1:1 in their usage, despite often having a direct English translation.
I am struggling with German. I studied it in college years ago, but now I have lived in Austria for the past however many years, taken courses, studied on my own, used apps, but still struggle remembering vocabulary and articles, including whether words are masc, fem, neuter. I have wondered if this fatty tumor near the language portion of my brain is keeping me from progressing, but mostly I feel like a failure at it all the time.
You sound biased against Korea and Koreans, not just the Korean language. If I am correct, I wouldn’t doubt you were negatively and unfairly influenced by the japanese when you lived with them. Korean grammar is almost identical to japanese grammar, and in fact, some words are exactly the same (probably from japanese colonialism).
You sound biased against Korea and Koreans, not just the Korean language. If I am correct, I wouldn’t doubt you were negatively and unfairly influenced by the japanese when you lived with them. Korean grammar is almost identical to japanese grammar, and in fact, some words are exactly the same (probably from japanese colonialism).
@@mailinglist2451 same words are most probably from Chinese. Telephone (電話 / 电话) "Denwa" in Japanese, "Dianhua" in Mandarin, "전화" (Jeonhwa) in Korean, "Điện thoại" in Vietnamese...
Feli, This was your best video that I have viewed, because my mind is not geared towards languages. I’m a retired Mechanical Engineer and my mind, still, is based on numbers and science. I think the human mind is very complicated and for some reason we personally evolve in different directions. Your guest was fantastic, he explained perfectly to me why he is so different from me, concerning learning a new language. Thank you very much for this insightful video!
You can do it man. I'm also a mechanical engineer who recently retired. I started casually studying Dutch two years ago and am already reading books and watching and understanding many films and TV shows. I like to watch Steve's videos because I almost always agree with him. It's not about formal grammar courses or tests. It's about enjoying the language and culture.
Anyone can learn a new language, I've learnt pre quick so far with German I already knew a bit prior, due to Feli and youtube channel get germanized etc, one language I'm finding harder to learn is Irish and Scottish, I'm doing ok in Spanish, and Latin but I'm finding German easier to learn... Just a matter of interest in the language and culture, and knowing a have Ancestors who were German makes it easier to learn...
I’m a fan of your both channels. Very keen to see this collaboration. I’m a bilingual Canadian and French is my first language. I’ve learned English as a teenager and I know a bit of Spanish. I relate with you both about code switching. When I’m with friends and family in Quebec City, I tend to use a more popular and vernacular accent of French closer to my Québécois culture. However, in my professional life either in Montreal or in Brussels, I use a more formal and international speech.
I worked with a Parisian colleague here in the USA. He drove to Quebec for a vacation, the Canadian border guard burst out in French when he saw their passports. He said he could not understand a word the man said, but nodded politely rather than offend him, and was then waived through. On exit, he was questioned why did he not have an entry stamp? Apparently the officer had been trying to tell him to pull over and go inside to get his entry stamp.
To all German language beginners. First lesson. the finger = der Finger the hand = die Hand the arm = der Arm the shoulder = die Schulter Start with the easy words.
Fair play to the fellah for learning so many languages. As I hitch-hiked around Europe during my sabbatical, my German and French school lessons proved themselves to be wanting. Apparently, French people rarely encounter a situation whereby there is a pet monkey in a tree, nor is their aunt's pen ever kept in the garden. Germans looked at me as though I was daft when I asked; "How many clocks is it". Don't waste your time learning Grammar, is my advice. Simply Read, talk, listen and remember. Watching TV and Movies is great prep.
Or maybe you just weren't that good a student as you think (it's not difficult to tell the difference between an hour and clocks, just keep it singular).
@@WeiszVonHH You are such an inspiration to humanity. Keep up your exemplary work. The world is much better with you in it. Generations to come will compose poems about you. I will treasure your advice always. Thank you.
I was born in Hong Kong so my mother tongue is Cantonese. I learned English in school. I am not fluent in Mandarin Chinese but can get by if I travel in China or Taiwan. I tried to learn French when I was 30 but gave up immediately. I started learning Japanese when I was 39 and have been learning that since then for 13 years. I agree completely with Steve when he mentioned the writing system. The Japanese is not an easy language but for me at least I never struggle with their writing system. One less thing to worry about, more time to focus on other aspects of the language. Looking back, English was kind of forced on me and I wouldn’t say I enjoy learning it. Japanese is a whole different story. I really enjoy the language and the culture and that’s how I was able to sustain it.
This gentleman showed off both his Mandarin and Cantonese speaking skills in a Chinese youtube channel. He's impressively fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese. He said he learned to speak, read, and write in Mandarin Chinese within a year of intense study while living in Hong Kong. He did have the advantage of a daily language tutor hired by the Canadian government as part of his job in HK.
A gem of a guy- much like my son''s polyglot grand dad, a professor who 'whipped up" the language of whatever country he was going to! I haven't heard Sprachgefuhl for years!
Feli, First thanks for all the good work on you channel ! I only went into it recently, and I have to say that we share a lot of point of view and that you made me "heimweh" more than once. Long story short, I'm French from Strasbourg, living in Pittsburgh for 23 years now... Being from Strasbourg. I grew up in contact with a lot of German Culture, TV (ADR, ZDF...)and radio. Fun point in the 80's FM radio was forbidden in France and to get a good Stereo program of American and English pop I had to tune to SWF3 (SüdwestFunk) or the Canadian radio in Lahr... The Alsatian culture is really connected to the Baden-Wurtemberg and Black Forest. The dialects are quite close, the cooking shares a lot... We cross the borders even to work or justt to shop at Aldi, to relax the Caracalla Spa (sauna, hamam,etc...) and Eupopark is our preferred amusement park ! I do speak my dialect, but really poorly since my parents didn't want me to catch the accent that comes with it... Too bad it pops up when I'm to happy, and the people I speak with for the first time can sometimes think that I'm German... So lüstig, aber falch. RU-vid has some content and we can find some artist on Apple Music. Back to learning the languages. I obviously speak my mother tongue. I keep it alive with the thousand or so French of our community and try tp pass it to my kids... Netflix recently, has pushed a lot of good French shows, Apple+ seems to go that way too. Moving here, my English was at the High School level (8 years), good reading, decent writing but making a sentence was a struggle, it didn't came instantly. 20 years later, I think I can do it. I've worked it without support/classes just through the everyday use, Tv, radio, books and everyday work. Fun fact, my first job here was with Berlitz to teach French, but they had no student for me, so I went to teach German, shadowing the actual German teacher to learn the principle of the Berlitz method... On the side I have a high interest in German, learned at school as a second language (6 years), and through the German Wählen. And it went forgotten since I had no use for it. Arriving here, it came out of the attic (my brain) by connecting with other emigrants from Germany, Austria and even Scwhweitz...You know, emigrant to emigrant, we do that, without real reasons... I do try to reconnect to what I've learned via YoTube and some movies that could have the tracks in German, I've tried some Farmers Market with the Amish, but the results were quite disappointing, even if delicious.... There is a decent German community in the Burgh, and we have two Breweries with German ties : Hoffbräuhause and Penn Brewery... OctoberFest is always fun here, especially when the Band sings German with an American accent🤣. It's rather small compared to what you've seen in Chicago, but it's here ! Last but not least, I took on a mission to learn Spanish. I had one year in Highschool, it turned out to be a disaster... So now I try to learn on the go with my colleagues and friends, and the same medias that I use for German. It's not very efficient, but fun. And emigrants to emigrants... For all the languages, music is always a good support and way more available, to train the ears and try to train the brain by understanding the lyrics and context.... Learning the bases of a language, training the ears is very easy now that we have internet, the options are multiple and most are still free. Keep up the good work ! I really appreciate the fresh point of view of your videos ! Tchuss ! Chris.
Moin! I think Steve nailed it about the interest part. When I was in high school in Ohio, I wanted to take German, but my mother made me take Spanish. I got decent grades but hated every minute of it. I never really learned that language though I can still pick out certain words 35 years later and can read it a little. During Uni at Ohio State, I kept trying to get into German classes, but it never worked out with my schedule. I gave up somewhat and nearly got a minor in Japanese. I enjoyed learning about the culture of Japan, but I never became anything above an A2 sort of level. Finally, after many years, as I reached my late 30s, I was determined to finally learn German. I found it surprisingly easy and dare I say almost natural. By the time I was six months into learning German, I was better able to basic conversation in German than I ever had been in Spanish or Japanese. I think a large part was the fact that I would attend many German language events. Then, I began listening to Deutsch Pop (Silbermond, Juli, Luxuslärm, etc.) and German Industrial Metal (Eisbrecher mostly). I then got the chance to work with Germans and eventually go on a work exchange for six months to Hamburg. It has been eight years since I returned to the States, and I miss Germany and the people so terribly much. I know I am not as proficient as I once was, but I still listen to German music, about half of my Instagram Reels feed is auf Deutsch. I do work trainings in German when it is available in German. I do all of that in hopes that I don’t lose more of my proficiency that I have.
I learned 5 foreign languages so far, English, German, French, biblical Hebrew and Finnish, but only use the first 2 of them. I started English at school when I was 8, then French as an afternoon activity (so nothing serious, just small stories, songs and games), then German in high school and French again as a second foreign language, then Hebrew at university (I was able to read but I failed with the conjugation tables, they just made no sense to me), and lastly Finnish at work from a Finnish guy. My biggest challenge was with English and German when I started to learn them on a much advanced level and speed than previously, and I had to work on the "gap" myself to keep up with the group. There was a Hungarian polyglot, Kató Lomb, who lived in the 20th century (she died in 2003), she was one of the first simultaneous interpreters of the world and she spoke/understood about 22 languages. She had very similar methods as Steve Kaufmann in the video, she said that being interested is key and reading original novels in the language to get a sense of its system.
I can perfectly relate to what both of you said about learning a foreign language enjoyably and with increasing success and gratification: 1st, you gotta have a certain interest in a language/ country/ native-speaker (in my case having had a crush on an American girl during a student exchange) and 2nd, go with the flow (rather than studying, for instance, a language's grammar like crazy) -- which, in my understanding, is just like a young child does it: humans don't learn their mother tongue by learning grammar, but the grammar comes naturally as you listen, learn, practice and make mistakes. In a nutshell, as Steve Kaufmann put it: you gotta embrace it! Best to both of you from Germany
Foreign language study has been a life long interest and hobby, since I was about 13 (I'm almost 60 now) when i tried to teach myself German (our junior high only has Spanish and French and I didn't want to study those). When I got to graduate school, I had the opportunity to take a language and it came down to Spanish or German. I tried testing out of German 101, but missed it by a small amount. Since I'd have to start either language from the beginning, I decided on Spanish since i live in the Southwest. Since then, I've picked up Japanese (From living there), and can understand slowly spoken Italian and Portuguese, as well as read a reasonable amount of those two languages + French. I'm now in the process of teaching myself Swedish because, why not? :) I definitely notice that I 'code switch' between languages. I'm pretty introverted, so I have to know you before I really speak to you in English. Spanish, though, I'll talk to anyone and I actually use my hands when I talk. Japanese, I was somewhere between the two. Finally, the best tip I can give it do NOT be afraid to make mistakes. Communication has always been my goal, so as long as my mistakes don't make it impossible, I'm good. I try not to make them, but I know I will and I don't sweat it. Thanks for connecting with Steve. He's been a great resource to the language learner community and it's nice to see him expand outside the standard "polyglot" channels. 🙂
I 100% agree with Kaufmann that majority of language learning begins with input. But eventually, you should include grammar because it helps build foundation.
I think the best way to learn a new language is to think about how you learned your language as a kid (simple words and phrases) and that it’s ok to make mistakes. Also try speaking out loud in the language that you’re trying to learn or getting books that is in the language you’re trying to learn.
I think the most difficult languages to learn is the ones that aren’t similar to your language. For example English and Japanese because of the writing system.
Liebe Feli, 20 Sprachen zu sprechen klingt für mich schon unglaublich. Aber als ich 20-30 Jahre jünger war, kam eine Geschichte hoch, dass der Chefübersetzter der EU 30 Sprachen flüssig spricht. Keiner konnte/wollte das glauben. Ein TV-Sender wollte ihn testen und er hat die Herausforderung angenommen. Was soll ich sagen. Er wurde gatestet in 29 Sprachen und die Natives bestätigten ihm, das es gut war. (Hier mein Respekt.) Was war mit der dreisigsten Sprache? Er sagte, dass es eigentlich eine tote Sprache sei. Sie würde nur noch von einem Japaner, einem Südamerikaner und von ihm selbst gesprochen. Er würde sie aber nicht häufig sprechen, wegen der Zeitzonen. Das wäre doch eine tolle Grundlage für eine Deiner nächsten Videos über Sprachen. Ich bin zwar ein Deutscher, der nie in den USA war, aber ich hatte viele Amerikaner in D. erlebt. Eine hatte sich sogar in mich verliebt and so on ... 🙃
The great thing about learning German in Germany is the people. The Germans will cheerfully and helpfully correct gross errors. When I was studying at the Goethe Institut I lived in a student accommodation I shared with a lovely young Czech woman. Over time we became great friends and would take some vacations in the Czech republic to sightsee in cities like Prague and meet her family. So, I told her I planed to learn Czech. She just laughed and said it was highly unlikely, that Czech was extremely difficult.
Ich spreche Deutsch as a 2nd language from English, taking awhile but I'm learning 😅 I might need to watch some German news etc to help a bit more 😅 I'm learning German on Duolingo, I'm going to expand on that a bit so I can get better I may suck at grammar but it happens I'm making the effort, I have German Ancestry, the ancestors came to Australia in the 1870's from Hamburg, in the days when it was Prussia, I'm proud of my German roots, my German ancestors who were alive during ww 1 were pre much POW's in their own country of Australia because they had connection to Germany... And some of them were born in Australia too it was crazy times, learn from the past to make a better future...
Man sagt normalerweise ,,Ich spreche Deutsch." oder ,,Ich bin Deutsch am Sprechen.", wenn man den niederländischen Satzbau verwendet (und betonen will, dass man momentan Deutsch spricht). :) (Der zweite Satz ist nur umgangssprachlich, nicht formal.)
I spent over 3 years in Germany in the late 80’s with the USAF. I used to say I was comfortable speaking German but NEVER fluent. I probably butchered the syntax among other things, but I usually got my meaning across. I describe German as a language you can wrap your tongue around. Sorry to say I have forgotten most of my German. Thank you for showing me how to spell Tschuss, sorry I do not have an umlaut on my keyboard. A funny story about languages follows: My wife is from the Philippines and speaks several of their dialects. She is a nurse; and one time she was working in a hospital Emergency Room. Someone called her to come to room so and so immediately. When she arrived, there was and Asian family sitting there. The doctor asked my wife what they were saying. After listening she told them, “I don’t know, they are Korean. They all assumed all Asians speak the same language.
There a lot of lang corses on YT for free . Some are from people offering a free basic and charging a more advanced corse . Lots on Spanish , French , German , not much on Espranto . Just not enough people speak Espranto . For me the fun way to learn German is with Schlager music .
I am German and think I can say that I am rather fluent in english. I learned the language a long time ago, of course learning it at school but that was rather technical. What did the trick for me was when I started to work for an international company based in the US. The company language was english, each conversation and phone conferences were held in english. Back then I took part in a company project for which I had to spend 4 months in the UK and 2 months in Ireland, where i had to work with people from all over Europe and from California. Living and working abroad in an english speaking country did the final trick. One day I realised I was fluent and didn't even know exactly how it happened. It just happened. Although I am not working for this company anymore I am still able to think in both languages, can switch in mid-sentence from one language into the other, don't really realise whether the book I am reading is written in english or german or if someone talks to me in english or german. I just react in the right way in the right language. Both languages are just there and availabe in my head. Now I started to learn the italian language a few months ago, because I love all things Italian and that is my motivation. But I can tell the road is a hard one right now. All the tons of italian grammar rules are overflowing my brain in the moment and never are availabe when i want to start speaking.😂 As your guest said, one must come to a place where the languange starts to run naturally. Apart from attending a language course I read every A2 level italian book I can get my hands on in the moment, listen to a podcast in easy italian which I found through Google, watch italian YT channels, watch each Italian movie and TV-Series available on Netflix with undertitles. I will get there...eventually...it'll just take a bit of time and effort - and a long vacation in Italy.😊
You’re definitely more than fluent in English! Your grammar is better than mine and I’m a native English speaker. All of these comments motivate me to try and learn another language.
I am fluent in German, French, Italian, English and Spanish. I personally think it is easy to learn languages, if you spend some time in that language area.
Hi Feli. Have you seen this video entitled "What makes some languages sound HORRIBLE?". It includes the results of a study done in 228 languages with 80,000 people as subjects (I think). Check it out. It's pretty enlightening.
I would suggest that all (not native English speakers) allows foreigners to speak our language to us... and not automatically switch to English.... We do that to be kind, but if the "foreigner" wants to learn your language it is VERY annoying to them.... I have heard that from many, not Danish speakers, who try to learn the Danish language.....
I just learned that hot dogs and hamburgers were invented by Germans! Without you we would have no 4th of July! Does Germany have a 4th of July where they celebrate their independence from someone? If yes, who and what do you eat? Also, do you eat the American or German version of hot dogs and hamburgers on 4th of July? Which is tastier?
I was stationed in Germany with the Army. They gave us a week of Head-start German. I met a girl and when we hung with her friends, I got tired of asking her what they were saying. I went to the PX and both a book that I think was something like German in 10 Minutes a day. 🤣🤣 That got me to where I could understand about fifty percent. I listened a lot and watched German TV and eventually was able to put it together. And yes, I Gedutsed a lot of people. It helped a lot because her family understood, but didn’t speak a lot of English. We’ve now been married almost thirty years and I still love to speak German!
Most of my assignment top Germany we only had German TV We were told to watch sesame street to help us learn the language. BY the way, Abbott and Costello movies are hilarious in German.
As a German learner, who’s been truely practicing Learning German for about 3 months, I don’t think it too hard of a language to learn as an English speaker. Like I listened to the German segment of this video, same as I do with Easy German podcast, and I understand about 40% (at 0.75 speed). There are definitely much harder languages to learn, including my 1st language (Persian). Definitely agree with the fact that you have to accept that you will make grammatical mistakes.
What are you using to learn German. My grandfather moved to the US after WWII but most of my family is still there in Bottrop. My talks go through my cousin because he serves in the German military which has taught him to speak English really well. My wife and I are visiting Germany in the next couple years to visit my family there and I want to be able to talk with them in German. I knew a little bit of a German years ago but forgot most of it. What’s the best books or apps to use?
@@Bowhunterohio I’m also originally from Iran and when I moved here to US, I didn’t know English that well, but I watched a lot of cartoon on PBS, sports, tv, and of course school, all helped me learn English. So I’m trying to use those methods now for German
I am learning persian and now I am around B1 Level and persian isnt a difficult language when you managed to learn the alefba and writing. It remembers me a lot of english language. German is way more difficult than persian (genders, times, Dativ, Genitiv….)
@@Bowhunterohio Just do as Mr Kaufman said. For example watch German RU-vid videos, watch movies with a German audio file, find free German literature, articles, books, etc, to improve your reading, connect to native speakers somehow and have convos with them (maybe online). Hope that was helpful. Greetings from a German
I just finished learning my German lesson tonight and your notification pops up. What a coincidence and it's amazing listening to you guys speaking in German. Ich liebe Deutsch Sprache. It will be my Fourth language if ever I become fluent. Für mich Deutsch Sprache ist schwerig aber schön und toll. 😊😊😊😊 25:54
As someone that loves to learn languages by listening and speaking to native speakers I found it very interesting what Steve had to say in this video. And thanks Feli, you make some of, if not the best language/german related videos on yt
I am an Indian,a south asian and my mother tounge is Bengali although I am quite proficient in English. I am learning Czech just for fun. It is a slavic language and it is very different from English. Gender and cases are very complicated and the way of saying things are also different. I am struggling but enjoying a lot also.
I personally think theres a huge difference between learning a language, that is somehow connected to your mothertongue in their roots and learning languages, that almost share nothing with your mothertongue. As a german, i tried learning russian and its pretty hard.
Yeah as a Spanish speaker who is currently learning German and Portuguese, I can definitely second this, I have had an easier time learning Portuguese than German and an even harder time when I tried to learn Japanese.
@@davidz3879 You can master the Cyrillic alphabet in two hours. What makes Russian difficult are the verbal aspects. And Russian has 6 cases, the initial grammar barriers are high.
"the odd word in Swedish" - when Steve was talking with Gabriel the Brazilian, he threw the odd word in Italian (dopo) in a sentence. Depuis, después, dopo, depois, macht nichts!
I studied German in high school, but didn't really have to use it as an American. I started learning French last year for my trip to France, and I found that as I was beginning that journey, a lot of my German would pop into my head when I was trying to do French. I think my mind just goes into "translation mode", as I also find myself sometimes using American Sign Language when I am working in another language. Loved this interview. Thanks.
I'm from Cincinnati. Your English is flawless. I detect no hint of a German accent at all. You sound like a native Midwesterner to me. How did you accomplish that?
Thank you Feli and Steve, that was a great interview! ❤ I speak German and English fluently. At the age of over 70 I am still dabbling in French. I took 3 years in high school. Every time I plan on going to France I rev up my French learning on RU-vid. There are several really great French teachers who not only teach the language but also talk about French culture. I love French culture and the language. While I will not be able to engage in an everyday conversation, I know just enough to get by. French people really appreciate when you try speaking their language. It makes interactions with them a lot more pleasant when you show respect for their language.
I wasn't good enough in English lessons in school and so my parents and my teacher decided to 'dump' me to an English guest family in Hastings, south England. This family coundn't speak a single word in German language and so I had to learn their language using hands and feet. I learned much faster and more than I ever would in school, as well as useful stuff like jokes, culture and behavior. I had so much fun learning and practicing English that I made appointment after appointment. 2-3 times a year for 3 years in a row I went either to Hastings, Cambridge or Sheffield always for 2-3 weeks. And after that I could switch between both languages as if there where a button in my head. 2009-2011 I worked on a cruiseship and there where no other German speakers in my department and my switch fell in place after 10 minutes of smalltalk. Thx to the guest families and my teacher. cheers
I started learning German just about a year ago and 5 months ago went to Germany and had the best time. Servers in restaurants and others who were very busy (and in big cities) would sometimes reply in English but most of the time if I spoke German, so did the people. Which was a challenge! And they were absolutely LOVELY about it. They were patient and kind. I think if you love a language and work hard, it will show when you talk to native speakers. My German is far from fluent. ❤ This interview is so great!!
My native language is American English. My undergraduate major was French and I had a minor in Spanish. I have a doctorate in applied linguistics from Georgetown University. One of the requirements of degree was to be able to converse in two foreign languages. Although my conversational Spanish was stronger, I had an easier time in French because it was a chat. I passed the Spanish but struggled some because it was basically a grammar test and I was a long way away from studying Spanish grammar. My wife is native German and we spoke to our four kids in German when they were young. What I could say was not very sophisticated because it was things like "Be quiet" and "Did you brush your teeth?" This was all spoken and I have not clue as to how to write them. I think I can now say a lot of things in German with a passable pronunciation. When I have to read text in German, I basically read it to myself out loud and it becomes somewhat understandable. I find spoken German to be somewhat easy because so much of our English vocabulary comes from German. My Spanish is very fluent because we lived two years in Nicaragua (Senior Fulbright Hays Lecturer) and one year in a Peace Corps training center in Puerto Rico (we were staff). To this day if I am trying to speak French and can't come up with the right word, I go to the Spanish equivalent and that often triggers my memory of what it is in French. Steve Kaufmann just blows me away with what he has done in learning different languages.
Wow, that's a combo I didn't expect. The language learning community on RU-vid was always my favourite part of the platform and Steve was always a big part of it
I absolutely loved this episode of your channel. I grew up in a home where German was spoken often, mostly around food and dinner, but all other interactions were in English. I learned Spanish in High School and had an opportunity to spend time in Mexico at that same time. I studied Japanese post Bachelors at a local community college. Through business I had the opportunity to live and work in Taiwan learning Mandarin and lived and work in Japan learning Japanese. My experience was to immerse myself in the place where I was and absorb as much as possible like Steve. I would go on walks through the community and engage as many people as possible shopping, asking for directions, figuring out public transport, and experiencing the local culture as much as possible - that helped to build my vocabulary and my comfort in the languages. It was amazing to me how many people would take the time to help you learn their language and they always appreciated your effort to learn their language. Off to learn German now to get back to my family’s roots. Thank you for the encouragement!!!
Incase anyone wants to learn German bytheway, I recently found "Nico's Weg" on RU-vid. I already knew German before, so I cannot vouch on how helpful it is for the basics, I've read from others that it is quite a fast story, immediately goes into German. But the storyline is entertaining and I watch it unironically as a normal movie nowadays, I just like it. There's 4 video's I think. And again, the story is really captivating.
The biggest problem with learning German is remembering which nouns are each of the three genders. Some are puzzling & even ridiculous, such as girl being neuter!
You shouldn't think about that too much and just go and wing it. People are most often just delighted that you're trying :) P.s. Girl is a neuter in many other languages too like in Polish.
I guess all languages with gramatical gender are hard, and even for speakers of one language with gramatical gender to another it can be somewhat of a challenge as words change gender from language to language.
It's because it's a diminutive, and diminutives (word that end in -chen or -lein) are always neuter in German. Of course the fact that they use a diminutive for girl but not for boy (der Junge) is very questionable to put it mildly.
When talking about what language is hard to learn you ALWAYS have to consider one's mother tongue. For a Polish native speaker, Czech is quite easy to learn, for a German - not as easy. So it is impossible to rank languages in terms of difficulty, because it always depends on your native language and the language group the language you want to learn is in.
@thatclonetrooperintheback Well, the German influences in Czech are not that helpful to a German learning Czech - maybe some in the vocab, but the grammar is still vastly different from German, especially when you consider things like the 7 cases, or even more difficult for a German native speaker the perfective and imperfective aspect of verbs...
As a native Slavic speaker I've never actually tried to learn another Slavic language. I can understand some of them quite well, but I don't feel confident to speak them. I'm the best at English as a foreign language. I can understand Spanish very well, but I never learned it. I just picked it up while watching TV. The same could happen with German, but at some point, I stopped watching German channels. It also didn't help there weren't subtitles. I'm learning German now living in Austria. I also wanted to learn a different script so I've been learning Greek on Duolingo. But as mentioned in the video, if you're not listening to people speak it with context and with subtitles, your progress is significantly hindered.
Terrific video, loved the conversation! I've started learning Spanish ten years ago by myself and not really consistently, like from vacation trip to another, _poco a poco_ . The major progress started to occur with conjugation drills in a Spanish-learning app just a couple of years ago, so when I arrived to Spain in Oct '22 I was capable of forming sentences with decent grammar. Last year my interest to German was ignited as I had met some great people from Germany, Austria and Switzerland in Spanish language school. I only had half a year of German 21 years ago in school so I was feeling bad about my knowledge at that moment and our convos were in English or Spanish. Needless to say that learning Deutsch isn't easy when you're in your thirties but the most challenging thing is to actually *start speaking* . Ich glaube dass ich mehr Übung brauche. Or something.😅 So, learning German since August '23 and getting stuck here and there, probably lack of motivation happens too. Maybe I'll also get to learn French since speaking Spanish at Intermediate-Upper Intermediate level might make it easier, but who knows.
"Different personalities in different languages"! That's interesting, because when playing a musical instrument, the playing style changes with the instrument, even when you just switch to a different instrument on a keyboard and you have the exact same keys to play it. It's a different feeling if I play the same melody for example with a piano voice or with an organ voice on the keyboard, with an organ I often feel like I could hold some notes longer to make the melody sound better, to get into the feeling of the music, but with a piano voice instead, it does not make sense to hold a note longer, it's over very soon - of course there is s difference with the pedal or when you gold a note, you hear it decline softly, it does not end abruptly, but it does not stay at the loudness as you hold the key like on an organ. So it's a different acoustic feeling and it reflects back to the style of playing the different instruments. And this way I can understand that it changes you a bit depending on what language you speak. The elegant france for example, oh it sounds magnefique ;-) And other languages are inherently by itself not twisted in this way, you can make it a bit, if you move and shape it, you can always shape what you say, but different languages bring you in different speaking vibes... It's fantastico, fantasique (the complicated written french endings are silent, you just know, they are there...), fantastic, fantastisch!
Beyond memory requirements, being able to make the unfamiliar sounds associated in some languages would be the most difficult part of all. Learning to be multi-lingual at a young age would be extremely helpful in accomplishing this goal..
I tried to encourage my grandsons to learn Spanish when they were young because they were living with their abuelo and abuela but they didn't want to because the kids at school didn't speak Spanish.
Native Turkish speaker, speak English and Japanese at a good level, Russian and Indonesian in a beginner level, took German in middle school but it stopped there after graduation. I've tried learning others but for now,, I'm sticking to building up on Russian and Indonesian, age: mid 40s. Something interesting, Russian also has all those case endings like German, along with the word genders but it seems easier for me than German because...most probably there's no article. I have to worry about one less thing. Turkish doesn't have articles as well. Actually Steve is my reason that I haven't given up on language learning. When I started this Russian course I was over 35 and the oldest person in the classs, even older than the teacher! After I passed 40 I was like, "OK you're officially old now, it's too late for you to learn a new language", then saw Steve's channel. This guy is older than my dad and yet he still tries new languages. After that, I started Indonesian.
I have to disagree with him. German might not have been hard for him to learn, but German is a very difficult language. He even said he doesn’t try to remember all of the Artikel’s because it’s hard…….So he admits the language is hard lol. If he can remember 4,000 Chinese characters, why can’t he remember German Artikel’s? No disrespect, he just kind of contradicted himself 😬😬😬😬
Feli, I just watched your video about German stereotypes, and you mentioned that it is hard to get good Italian food in the United States. That is absolutely not true! What IS true is that it is hard to get good Italian food in Cincinnati, LOL, or most of the midwest. I lived in Cincinnati for seven years and still have friends there, and Cincinnati folks think that Larosa's is Italian food. (Hint: it's not, and neither is Olive Garden.) In the northeast, good Italian food is mandatory. So you will find excellent Italian food especially in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, etc. Chicago also has some great Italian food, (although deep dish "pizza" isn't really pizza, LOL. It's still good, though).
I actually know 3 different languages and as an Indian you can say that I was born with it so I can't really say anything about difficulty in learning languages. I do have to beat my mom who knows 6 languages so this video was really helpful for me and yeah I subscribed to his channel 😁
19:37 I disagree with learning mathematics as a "subject". To learn math effectively, you need to practice math like learning a spoken language! Internalized the Principles, not just memorize every tedious procedures and pushing abstract symbols. When math is learned "naturally", it becomes what I call "the exact science of abstract relations"; it becomes beautiful art; it becomes the language of nature and the cosmos!
Meiner Meinung nach, Deutsch ist keine schwieriger Sprache. Die Deutsche Sprache ist eine germanische Sprache und hat viel mit Englisch gemeinsam und eine Verbindung mit anderen indo-germanischen Sprachen, wie Niederlaendisch, Swedisch, Norwegisch und so weiter.. Der Kultur Unterschied und wie die Leute denken ist NICHT so anders..
I learned Spanish 22 years ago when I moved to the Dominican Republic. After many years I reached a level of fluency at which I could fool Dominicans into believing I was a Dominican. Often, after letting them know I was not from their country, nor a native speaker, many expressed that they assumed I was of European ancestry but born and raised in the Dominican Republic. One of the biggest challenges was that they spoke very different that what I was taught in my Spanish classes in school. They drop the s and d often times, and nearly always when the s is at the end of the word. They use a large variety of African and Native American words and a lot of slang. A pet peeve of mine is that I am somewhat hard of hearing. There are times at home in the United States, when I am speaking with someone who I have just met from Latin America, and I have a hard time hearing something they say. They will usually assume that I didn't understand and try to switch to English. I usually just beg their pardon and explain that if they repeat what they said, I can understand, I just don't always hear well.
I really doubt I would learn much from someone who speaks 20 languages. Watching Steve, would be like me watching Pele training and then thinking I could play like him.
When I was a kid I was fluent in Italian (my background) and English but as I got a littler older I spent more time around my English speaking side of my family and lost most of it. I can usually sort of understand if I hear a conversation by pulling out words and then figuring out what is being talked about but I couldn't speak, write or read it at this point. I should really get back into it.
hahaha personalities in different languages. Yes, my native language is Spanish. I had a girlfriend who stoped liking me when she heard my English because apparently my personality was too snobish LOL
It's really simple--it's constant work and application, like learning a sport or instrument. You'll get good if you really want it, but only then. You have to be patient and turned on by the little triumphs along the way.
Wanted to learn german for so long. Finally I did..till cv19 send us all home, and online is not for me. I will return this year, in September. Starting all over again. Doesn't matter.
He sounds biased against Korea and Koreans, and not just the Korean language. He lived in japan do that undoubtedly influenced him negatively. Korean grammar is almost identical to japanese grammar.
German is actually not the most difficult language for Americans to learn.English is actually a Germanic language and has enough similarities for Americans to pick up more easily than other languages.
I have been learning Hungarian for the past 10 years. I used to go there on holidays with my family as a child a lot and it is certainly a special place to me. Been there lots of times since aswell. It always feels great to see the look in the face of Hungarians when me as a foreigner speaks their language and converse with them not in German, not in English, but their own native language. They are always blown away about the surprise and that a foreigner made the effort to learn their language. I try to watch Hungarian movies every now and then and also a Hungarian soap opera on youtube and I noticed every time I pick up a few more words where I know the meaning /translation of. However I still do feel that I speak pretty basic and still lack vocabulary, despite my teacher thinking I know more than comes to mind spontaneously. Possible. Grammar wise it is also quite difficult with 26 cases and different endings, depending on definite/indefinite/what person etc. but as you mentioned you will develop a feeling/intuition for it and at some point it becomes -I don't know how- kind of automatic or you feel which is the right word/ending/word order whatever. What comes quite easy for me is to have an ear for sounds and to emulate them. My reacher is always happy with my pronunciation and says it is very good. Not sure bout that, some sounds are still tricky to pronounce. Also because of my history with the country or that I like few aspects of it, that kept me motivated to keep going with it. Next month I have my 10 year anniversary of learning the language. Unbelievable! I think passion is a very good base point for learning a language, cause then you do it for your passion, not because you have to. Learning a language with a teacher or program is good and fine, but try to immerse yourself as much as possible into it. Maybe try to find a dubbed version of a movie you already know inside out (so you know the story) and watch it in your desired language. That is one good tip. And go to the country for a holiday and be dependent on speaking it every day. In the shops, in the hotel, getting around. Don't worry about making mistakes. Regular live practice is the best People may correct/help you, but also you will get lots of respect for learning the language and that again is a great motivator
