The most valuable experience I had with Czech (and my motivation for learning it in the first place) was to say my wedding vows and give the whole of my wedding speech in Czech. Very few of our guests could speak English, so I prepared my speech beforehand, and spent two weeks learning it by heart. The emotional reaction from our wedding guests, and from my very surprised new-bride, was so overwhelming that it brought tears to my eyes - and it got me hooked on language learning for life.
I am a Dutch guy living in San Francisco right now and I must say that the English language has changed my life forever. Never before have I met so many awesome people, and after studying English for such a long time I am often mistaken for a native speaker. It's so nice to see that hard work really pays off!
I love that you guys talked about using the most frequent words - I just bought a language book of lists that shows the most frequent words in English and I can't wait to teach my students using this as a tool :)
Thanks a million for actually making a note of them!! Usually people just say there's a mistake and don't point out where. This made it really easy to fix very quickly, cheers! He discusses character learning in the 4 hour chef, with a visual example. Otherwise, you can check out Heisig's book.
My most valuable experience was being able to impress many Chinese speakers by introducing myself and my family in Chinese at my son's Taiwan School during the first teacher-parents meeting. My Chinese wife was unable to attend the meeting here in Yokohama, Japan. I was told I could speak in English (my first language) or Japanese (my second best language), but I took the challenge to speak in my weakest language. Many other parents told my wife they were surprised at how well I speak 中国語.
Certainly I wasn't expecting that when I was learning the language - all I wanted to do was to be able to read english books. Now I can do that and so much more :)
I never thought DUOLINGO has already been in the works as early as 2012 as mentioned by Tim Ferris. Duolingo helps a lot in learning a challenging language such as Deutsch. Dankeschon Tim.
My friend's and family's eyes all kind of glaze over whenever I talk about languages. I see in you two the spark I must have in my eyes when I do talk about it because it is FASCINATING. And I wish more people could realize that. I am currently learning Japanese and Korean and I feel a little weird because I actually really like my university language classes and learn a lot from them, but I love the many other ideas for learning you both discovered over your vastly greater learning experience.
I'm Clayton and I'm 17; I have always loved different languages. I'd spent 2 years of taking spanish in a classroom and I hadn't learned nearly any spanish. One day a few months ago a new kid showed up at my small school in Nashville TN. His name is Ian Gomez Arce and he had just come from Cabo San Lucas,Mexico. I wanted to help him communicate so I told him I would... we are now really good friends and are both learning a new language together and are becoming billingual together.
While traveling around in Costa Rica, my girlfriend and I made more memories with a simple phrasebook and struggling through pleasant conversations with natives than if we had only stuck with English. One memory was when we stopped at a fruit stand and bought some of the freshest mangos (with a splash of lime) we've ever tasted. The girl running the stand did not speak a word of English, but with the willingness to look humble, laughs, and learn some Spanish made it an unforgettable memory.
I skyped to a girl from Montreal to practice French. We would stay up all night just to talk to each other. College began. She seemed excited when we talked about college but never said where she was going. One day I was walking and saw a girl who turned out to be her! I asked her if she would like to be my girlfriend. She said yes! I would've never met her if I didn't get into French. Thanks Benny for inspiring me! I fell in love the language and a girl who speaks it.
Soo, after studying many languages in school, I gave up on language learning because I thought I was untalented and it was boring, at least the approach at school. My passion to other cultures brought me back to language learning I had the oppurtunity to visit my girlfriend in Japan Only by saying a couple of simple phrases in Japanese her family treated me like a son. Languages are now my main hobby and I study Japanese and Chinese every day Emil- Fluent in German,Russian,English and Japanese
I can understand EU Portuguese fine - I hosted many Portuguese Couchsurfers. They do comment that I sound way too Brazilian, but I meet way more Brazilians outside of Brazil than Portuguese, so it's better for me to stick to that one standard. Portuguese have no problem understanding me. My peninsular Spanish helps me understand the Portuguese, such as for verb conjugation and tendency to speak without opening their mouth as much and pronouncing things as clearly as South Americans.
this was a really great talk. i'm bilingual and have learned several languages in school but was always too intimidated to try to get over the hump of getting into conversational part of any of them. i will try these techniques next time i tackle a language.
I love the reverse learning technique. Very clever :) As for the most valuable experience, since I've learned english I now have an ongoing day after day, week after week thought exchanges with people all over the world - on blog posts, forums etc. It feels like the world has opened up for me and I find many people who were influential for me are just real cool persons you can talk to and exchange your points of view.
ok, to answer your challenge (I know I'm late, but it's a good challenge). I went to Denmark last year and just speaking a few Danish sentences made a huge impact on my stay there. Just being able to say "I don't speak Danish" (Jai teler ikke Dansk if I remember correctly) and do you speak English ("Versto du Engelsk") made conversations so much easier. Sure almost everybody there speaks English, but still to greet someone in their own language is a big thing.
FSY, at 5:31 6:06 9:07 12:32 13:51 16:43 28.16 31:56 the subs were copy & pasted more than once so they're stacked on top of each other. Wow! I'm seriously impressed, this guy is no joke. How do I know? He nerded out just as much as I do when talking about languages. Seriously awesome. He has a very infectious attitude. Wished he would have talked a little bit more about character learning though. Thanks Benny!
To learn a language, one has to speak it. Don't be afraid of making mistakes and making a fool out of yourself :) That's my advice. More important than buying lots of books and dictionaries. Thanks to the internet there are many free resources available.
I'm learning German through french with Assimil. I'm also using other ressources which are in english. French is my mother tongue, actually. Assimil really is great, I incorporate it along other ressources.
I really need to get to Québec to practice my French! I'm not that far away. Congrats for gathering enough courage to do something that most people can't do.
Japanese is not hard. Yes the syntax is very different so you have to get through that at the beginning. Whereas russian for example starts with a syntax resembling more most european languages, but then you find out it is complicated in it's endless grammar.
I don't like it either. You'll see most videos on my channel (over the last year and a half) are in 1080p. However, recording a Skype conversation has to take into account 1) Internet connection speed 2) Webcam quality 3) Ability of recorder software to record video at a particular resolution per second. 240p is the norm. What can you do? It's why my other videos "on Skype" have actually been using two real videocamera feeds that I got them to send me, but I didn't want to annoy Tim with this
You're lucky then! :) My portuguese friends say that Spanish people and Brasilians find it hard to understand them, but I think that's just their generation - it's very typical for them to cut off the beginning and ends of many verbs/words, which can be very confusing!! Anyway, I just love the idiosyncrasies in languages and indeed cultures and I love watching your videos. Very inspirational! :)
Is there some reliable resource for finding a top 2-300 words for a given language? I'm looking for Thai primarily. I've only been able to find top 1000, which is useful, but not as practical as say the top 300 that is used in every day language.
as far as I'm concern whoever tells you that you have to be able to talk about politics in order to be proficient in a language is simply off his rocker. Anyone if you do wanted to speak about it you just need to learn the following words in today's world: crisis, liar politicians, eviction, bail-out, MEP, PIGS, BRIC , tax haven , and money laundering. looking forward to seeing your vids in Egypt. Éirinn go brách!!!
I've just started learning Russian recently and it has already opened up so many doors in my life. I'm now travelling to Russia early next year and i'll spending some time with people I would have never spoken too or even known existed before. Do you have any tips for Russian as it's hard to memorise words, as there is so many variations of each word in different cases/tenses etc?
Learning Spanish was the best decision I've made in life. I live in Miami, Florida so the Hispanic influence is very much here. It wasn't until I gained a passion for the culture and began to love the language that I actually began to make progress. So the most valuable experience I've had from speaking a language other than English is simply being able to communicate with my community and being accepted by both anglophones and the Spanish speakers.
Benny.. Just a question,, why did u decide to speak Brazilian Portuguese and not European? I live in Portugal and have been learning European Portuguese for 2 years and I love it! :)
@Irishpolyglot He sorta sounds like he is trying to do a Rick Mercer impression! like he really sounds like it! I'm not sure anyone know's who that is, but check him out, and its not a bad thing.
Benny, thanks for all the motivation. Please help me with a not-directly related question: what software do you use to record Skype video conversations? I'd really appreciate your taking the time to tell me. Thanks.
Does he contradict himself? 25:14 - "What's the difference between A and B?" - this is not a good question to ask... 25:46 - "One of the first questions I learned to bike without training wheels is 'What is the difference between...?'" HUH?
É mole-mole sacar as vertentes de linguagem, ibérica e tupiniquim, sem crise. Basta que os interlocutores baixem a bola e peguem leve. Vó dorva, brejeira parida no Crato, dizia: devagar com o andouro que santo é de barro. Na moral, leki, respeitada a malemolência brasileira e a sisudez ibérica, mamão com açucar. Aftaszar demdoem .
The quote in the book was more like this "Learning is like driving at night in the fog with headlights on...eventually you will get there" its along those lines
