I am half hungarian, half Romanian. I speak both and can write/read in both. I think having the possibility of growing up bilingual makes it so much easier to learn other languages. Especially when those two languages are so different.
I was surprised how easy German was to start picking up. Strange vocabulary, sure, but.. Lutheran Latin decryption, they nailed the grammar almost perfectly.
Romania is not in the Balkans, it's in the Carpathians. 😁 Anyway, I agree, one needs to move away from Central/East Europe to understand how much we have in common through history, culture and cuisine, despite speaking several different languages.
I remember playing Kingdom Come in German and the voice acting was so much better than the English version it was criminal. There was a part where you have to translate Latin text, so I was trying to decipher multiple translations at once lol
That sounds fun lol. I'm an American studying Russian, and I agree native voice overs are better. STALKER and Metro sound way cooler in Russian. You also get to pick up on small untranslated things, like the signs in game or the combat voice lines from the bandits in Stalker. As a sidenote your latin german dual translation experience makes me think of the fact that I have uncovered some really cool similarities between Russian and English through common roots. For example, sea is море (sounds like mor-yay) and it's related to the words marine or maritime through the proto indo european root "mare" meaning sea. Another one is the word for throat - Горло (Gorla) is related to the words gargle and gargoyle and ultimately the latin root word for throat or swallow. It's crazy to realize even 2 European languages as different as English and Russian share common roots and actually makes it easier to understand Russian.
I love that section. I had an easier time since my first language is Portuguese, and many words sounded similar, but I'm also trying to learn German and maybe one day visit the old country!
That first point brings me back to something my college Russian professor told us on our first day of class many years back: "If you don't like the language, then the language won't like you."
What I noticed when my English became better was that I suddenly started to understand song texts. First small bits, but then more and more. Very satisfying.
Learning a language is originally why I subscribed to you all those years ago. I stayed of course because of the content you put out and the quality of your videos! Thank you!
I came here in similar way. In similar time I started following Metatron, Skallagrim and Tom Scott. Amount of time I spent on RU-vid was a significant factor to me failing one year at uni, but after that year my english command went from "i need to check meaning of at least one word in each sentence" to "I watch movies in original and enjoy it".
I would love for you to release full guides for both Classical and Ecclesiastic Latin pronunciations. With your Sicilian heritage, and it's ties to Latin, and your training, you're uniquely qualified to do so.
Latin really needs to be taught as a mandatory subject along with English (or whatever your native latin based language is). I was told it really helps with grammar and understanding roots of words.
@@Bagginsess Now that you say this, it is not only a historical heritage that should be preserved, it was (and still is in a way) the most dominant and important lingua franca of Europe and by extention the entire World. Learning it would open the doors for dozens of languages you might be interested in and you would have a solid base for and it'd just be expremely cool to be able to speak it.
I’m glad to find your channel!!!! I wanted to search videos of learning Italian language, I watched some videos and I suscribed your channel. Thank you a lot of this video, you provide gold tips from your experience and knowledge! I’m learning English language (A2). I want to learn Mandarin, Korean, French and Portuguese language too.
I'm French and to be honest, I am not really fluent in English due to a lack of oral practice but the moment I realized I would never ever struggle again to understand English was when I didn't even notice the thing I was listening to or reading was actually in English. My brain now switches on its own, sometimes even during conversations in French and it's a bit embarrassing this moment, you know, when you're talking in your native tongue and searching for your words, and the first thing that comes out is in a foreign language. Most of the time, it's cause the equivalent doesn't exist or is rarely used. As an example : in French, there isn't anything that translates to "it's a bit of an overstatement" so I often find myself blurting it out without thinking that much and only when I see the faces of the people I'm talking to do I realize that it definitely wasn't French I spoke.
Absolutely agree with the first tip. Here in Sweden we not only learn our native language, we also start learning English at a really young age. Later, somewhere around 7th grade of elementary school, (unless you fail/fall behind in English), you will be given the option to pick a third. The options we had when I was in that grade were: French, Spanish or German. Most kids went with Spanish and based that purely on how widely used that language is over all. Meanwhile I picked German, the less picked one for the soul reason that I started to listen to a lot of German music and felt I needed to understand the lyrics. That kept me motivated and i still to this day count German as my 3'd language.
I find that becoming fluent in a language is easier when you use it to write creative prose. This causes you to both use the language, and think of words you otherwise wouldn't think of, as well as gives you ample time to look up. Thesaurus and explanation dictionaries are useful too. I don't know what you call the explanatory dictionaries in English but essentially they're the ones that actually explain the words. I find those explanations translated work better than regular dictionaries. Once you have enough of a vocabulary a cool way to polish it is to journal in that language.
In films if you put on the subtitles and hear the actors the meaning is allways the same but the subtitles sometimes have a shorter forms with either shorter words or delete unneed words that are still said.
I speak 5 languages fluently Arabic, Berber, French, English, Spanish Aswell as a basic understanding of Portuguese, German, Turkish & Latin about 5 years ago i encountered the Metatron's channel & i can really relate to these tips
You are one of the few people that say how important pronunciation is. I always try to learn the pronunciation to the best of my ability, because I think it's a sign of respect towards the language. Also, even people who learn click languages develop the same growth in the throat like natives do. So in my books - we can pronounce things the way natives do, we just need to practice facial muscles and our vocal chords to pronounce certain sounds.
My first language is Spanish and is even for me a native sometimes fun finding what local words are spoken in other Spanish countries. Playing video games in English with subtitles also helped much. The moment I reach the peak of the mountain I was not even aware of how better I got to speak and understand until my English teacher choose me to do a theater performance in English. It was fun and daring to do that and succeed. Will try out these tips to learn a 3rd language, still deciding for Italian or any of the Nordic languages or take on indigenous people languages.
I do a similar thing with video games, except I’m leaning French and English is my native language. But I’ve been playing with French subtitles, watching French audio Movies/TV Shows and listening to French music. Writing is very important in my opinion, I find it the best for solidifying that knowledge. Whether one wants to learn French or not, ‘La Femme’ and ‘Grand Blanc’ are incredibly good bands.
Very nice channel! I have always thought that learning a language is like opening multiple windows towards different cultures and amplify your sight of this world. As an Italian native speaker that teaches Italian to foreigners, I never lose a chance to show the multiple aspects of Italian culture and history during the lessons.
On subtitles: I am italian as you, and I did learn english mainly from watching english TV series with italian subtitles, slowly I enlarged my vocabulary from understanding from context by listening while reading, after that I switched to english subs, and not long after I got a pretty high proficiency in the reading and listening. The problem is that if you just ignore the audio and read the subtitles you wont get any improvement to your vocabulary, tbh i had a very bad experience when trying to learn english in middle school, I did get basically zero grammar and vucabulary from it and I studied only french in high school, after some years I noticed that the translations of jokes in tv series was made better in the subtitles than in the dubbing, so I started first with a funny series, then just out of curiosity I tried to start all new series and continue all series I was already watchin in english with subs, that was actually a better way to learn grammar an vocabulary than studying on a book, and I wouldn't have had any advantages by starting with english subtitles before knowing enough words (and in english where spelling and sounds are wildly different because of the GVS even more), in this specific scenario I wouldn't advise the younger me to watch without subs. Now I am starting to study japanese, the link between written and spoken it's much more strong, and I am also interested in be able to read some simple text, in this case I am trying to study enough kana and grammar to be able to have an intellegible input and probably a furigana subtitle can be great to learn more japanese, also because the logic with which japanese it's built it's wildly different from Italian and english, so I believe it's also largely dependent on how close the two language are and how different is the pronounce from the spelling, like if you started with a language that is both very far from the spelling in it's spoken form and also very far from your native language (like for example a japanese trying to learn english) I believe that before getting a lot of knowledge and vucabulary even in the best condition with or without subs an english tv series would be mostly a loss of time and you would be better off studing a lot more to compensate the gap. If instead one starts from a language very close to its own it might be better to learn words from sounds by keeping subs in his/hers native language, and learn only after how they are spelled and formal grammar, like for italian and french or spanish, also the subs will be probably more accurate and will enable that person to learn words by their translation, that makes the learning way faster. Also as you said it probably comes to how much one enjoys learning that language of course, and that might be the most important point overall.
Regional variations are also important. Spanish spoken in Madrid is very different than in Mexico or the Philippines. Still compressible but different. The longer a subgroup is separated from the parent tongue the more variation typically occurs.
This is really exciting! Me and my brother and mother want to learn Mandarin Chinese this year. We've already got a teacher who is a native speaker and teaches languages for a living and along with this channel I'm stoked to start learning!
I learned one semester of Spanish in Texas and then i was thrust into pure Mexican Spanish at work, home and with friends. (yes in Texas this is completely possible). But I have often needed to turn on Spanish subtitles for some movies from Spain. Such a difference in both accent and idioms! Right now I plan to learn both Russian and Latin at the same time. I studied both in college, but spoken wasn't dealt with at all. I'm 52 now, so I figure really turning on these parts of my brain will be the best strategy. I'm retired for health reasons, so I just realized from your video that I can get books in both English and Russian or Latin on the same subjects that I am already working on! Thanks.
Having spent 20+ years learning three languages. Latin, Spanish, and Russian. I’ve come to the conclusion as I believe you may have stated before that the biggest factor is your capacity to remember vocabulary. I can get the grammars with no problem. My biggest setback is the volume of vocabulary required to be remembered
Thanks a lot, that was very helpful. Im making another attempt at learning Italian and have been unsure of the best way to support my learning, thanks to you I now have a broader range of strategies - wish me luck!!
“PREGO” is almost - almost to me an American used as a salutation in Italy. I was floored by how much the phrase is used as the sort of dry definition of it is “ your welcome “ but is almost can be used to mean “welcome! No problem! Come on in! Sure! Interacting with natives definitely is key to understanding your own limitations. It’s one thing to do lessons on your own and quite another to understand a native posting on Facebook, and still further to go to the country and hear it spoken
All these tips are great. The first tip is essential. Also, having a pretty concrete reason to speak the language will mean you stick with it over the years it will take to become fluent. I speak Italian and nearly every person I meet here in the U.S. who speaks Italian fluently both love Italian culture and spend time in Italy every year. I think people often underestimate how difficult it is to become fluent in a foreign language and the motivation needed to get there, especially if you are learning the language outside the country in which its spoken natively. In this case, it takes a years-long commitment to expose yourself to the language ideally, as you say, daily. I'm talking about getting to a level where you can have nearly every conversation you want to have in the language, at native speed, not just being able to navigate the country as a tourist. I often listen to Italian music while working and Italian podcasts and Italian audiobooks while cooking or doing the laundry. I read Italian books almost every day. And I watch Italian movies (never with English subtitles). Fortunately for me, my husband is from Italy, so I also get the chance to speak Italian, even though our primary language is English. And still, it's taken me years to get to where I am with the language. Even now, I struggle with tip 4, but I agree is it very important. The people whose spoken language improves the fastest are those who are willing to make mistakes. Be kind to yourself. The only part of the video that, for me, was different, is that I didn't experience the "downhill" feeling. Instead, the grade of the slope just became less and less steep. But it's still not totally flat, like my native language.
I was born and grew up speaking Russian (even though that's not my native language) and eventually learned and picked up English. Right now learning Japanese and tbh, I actually feel like speaking part of Japanese is coming so much easier to me than English (which I still speak with a bit of an accent). And I have booked my trip to Japan already, so I am excited to "go into the field" :)
@@ChadKakashi I hardly speak my native language (Armenian), but I can understand it at least based on the local dialect that I grew up in. But because I was born in USSR I was brought up to speak Russian, cause my parents didn’t want me to speak with an accent when I would have gone to school, so I wouldn’t get picked on. Nobody at the time knew that the whole thing was gonna go down the toilet lol So, technically it is 4 as you correctly noted, but I am fluent only in 2 of them and pretty decent in Japanese, but trying to catch up with my native one as well.
I'm just starting to learn Italian. It is an incredibly daunting process but it helps to remember, when I'm watching this channel or Metatron's main channel, that English is not his first language. So if you want to know what fluency in a foreign language looks like, there you go. That's far more inspirational than any of these fake 'I learned language x in 30 days' videos.
As a new member, I can't help but express how much I value the content on your channel. I'm reaching out for some specialized guidance. I'm an English-only speaker, retired, and not in a position to travel abroad for immersive study. Despite these limitations, I'm eager to enrich my life and keep my aging brain active by learning a new language. Specifically, I'm captivated by the allure of Latin and its connection to the ancient world, as well as the vibrant culture of Italy. I am especially interested in learning Latin as it relates to root words in my own language and in the sciences and also in understanding it in a historical perspective. Could you recommend a learning program or system tailored for someone in my situation? Your advice would be invaluable as I embark on this enriching journey. Thank you!
I'm learning a bit of Spanish. Most of my coworkers are Hispanic and are working on their English. Most of the Spanish I know is from work. That's why I know how to ask for 2 fish. McDonald's experience. And in highschool Spanish class, we watched An American Tale in Spanish. A movie about a family of Russian mice who speak Spanish immigrating to America, where everyone else speaks Spanish. Quite fun.
I've noticed that when I have been studying a language and I am getting to that "peak" I will start to dream in the target language. And then sometimes it just pops up in dreams when I'm not studying. For instance, I dreamt that I was in a café in Paris ordering breakfast in French for myself and my husband
Thanks for the advice. I want to learn Japanese cause my wife and i are planning a trip for our anniversary and we love the culture. This was helpful thanks.
The most important is to learn a language and enjoy it. You will definately need textbooks and dictonaries, but don't miss the exciting part. I highly recommend Karaoke (especially for Japanese) because a song's lyrics is a small piece of text that you can practice again and again. Movies can be a useful learning material. Finally, combine your hobby with foreign language learning. For example, I like chess, so I try to read books about chess or watch videos about chess in various languages. Checkmate!
I've been learning Modern and Ancient Greek and Latin since 2019. I've decided to focus on just Modern Greek for this year or more, before moving backwards to Koine and Attic, and then eventually taking up my Latin, again, sometime in the near future. I'm taking Joseph Conlon's advice from his channel Deka Glossai and believe that modern, living descendants of an ancient language and or culture should be learned and assimilated first before going in reverse chronological order.
Without being an expert I would go for ancient greek and then modern because if you learn the structure of the ancient greek you can easily go for most Slavic languages. They say that German is structured in line with ancient Greek but I'm not familiar with it. Modern greek is easier than ancient and has differences. Of course if you want to visit Greece, go for modern. I'm Greek by the way.
Ευχαριστώ. Για μένα, πρέπει να μάθω πρώτα τα νεοελληνικά. Είναι η ζωντανή ελληνική γλώσσα που μιλούν οι ζωντανοί Έλληνες. Μετά, μπορώ να κάνω βόλτα στο παρελθόν μαθαίνοντας με την αρχαία. Ήδη καταλάβω πολύ τής κοινής διαλέκτου και της Αττικής. 😉🇬🇷
Also: Slavic languages are not a priority for me, now. I'm centered on the Mediterranean side of things and hope for that to be my cultural specialty, which will eventually lead to me getting into the South Slavic/Baltic side of things.
Lastly, I'm a native Spanish speaker and notice that Greek not only has a lot of similarity to Spanish in terms of gramnar and idioms and phonology (minus the case system, of course) but also that it translates very well into Spanish.
I think some languages can be gateways to other languages. My first language is Afrikaans. So for instance I can follow spoken Dutch quite easily (depending on dialect ... Andre Rieu is very easy for me to understand) Some words are also the same as in German. Even some Scandinavian languages contain understandable words.
Great tips! Another point I would make is to assure a learner than even though it is never easy, it is always possible. Part of my introduction to my beginning German students goes something like this: "Think about it: there are over 100 million native German speakers -- do you really believe they're ALL smarter than you?" Of course, the continuing motivation you talked about is even more important than simply believing you can do it, however it helps a beginner to understand that the process is similar for all.
the dramatic indicator that I was there was my first dream where I asked somone else to speak yn Gymraeg to me. Then I knew my subconcious spoke Welsh too. My daughter got there at 4 and reported her first dream in her second language, she went on to learn a dozen
As for the importance of pronunciation.. I must agree. For a certain meaning of pronunciation. If you're not a native speaker and you have an accent, or a limited vocabulary, or those you speak to aren't fully confident in your vocab or grammar, the correct pitch or intonation becomes even more important. More than for natives, even, because wrong pitch, stress, or intonation can tip the listener into not understanding or starting to think that you mean to say something else than what you're actually saying. I've seen that a lot of times. I have also managed to not understand foreigners due to such apparently simple things like intonation. Which, as Metatron says, doesn't mean that you need to be without an accent, or sound like a native. Not at all. Just get the stress, pitch, and intonation (where applicable) as good as possible, and nobody will care about how you pronounce your R's or whatever.
I think I reached the peak so to speak with Japanese when I realized I didn't have to quick quick write stuff down natives said that I didn't understand before I forgot... or even worse, ask them to repeat it over and over or write it down for me. I finally reached a point where my brain actually remembered the words they said that I didn't understand without trying for the rest the day and maybe even the next day or longer until I had the opportunity to look it up. I remember talking to a Japanese friend about language learning and my brain was ultra focused like always (because I abused it the poor thing and had it cowed against its will) and she commented that she couldn't repeat back to me the exact words she just said, just the gist, for some reason I forget now but I was like.. oh I don't need you to remember. I got you. And I repeated back to her word for word the exact words she just said. And she looked at me like she hadn't seen before. I think she actually respected me for the first time then. I had reached the peak baby.
Glorious. I learned how to say thank you and a few more phrases in Farsi, Hebrew, Japanese, Mandarin, French, Italian, Spanish and German. Hopefully this channel will reignite my love for learning.
My first success with a language was Italian, so absolutely tip number 10! Pretty much this has been my driver for my most recent successes in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian and even Georgian. I looked through my DVD collection and yes, plenty of examples from each language. I failed at Turkish because I didn’t have the same obsession as I did for Yugoslavia or Georgia. As an end note, a prominent internet polyglot told me 6 years to reach fluency meant I was studying wrong 😑
So excited about this channel, you recently inspired me to take up a second language and this channel will be nice to follow along with during my learning process.
I agree a great way is to watch stuff in your target language with subtitles in that language, not your native language. Even if you don't yet understand it completely, by reading the words as you hear them you will learn proper pronunciation. For example while learning Russian, a few of their prepositions are just single letters. "In" is "в" pronounced like a V, "with" is "с" pronounced like an S. I would pronounce "Я в доме" like "Yah vuh domyay." When watching Russian films I learned they pronounce it more like "Yav domyay" Another example is the common phrase "С новым годом!" Or "Happy new year!" I would say it like "Sss novym godom" or "suh novym godom" with a pause in between, but they say it like "Snovym godom" with no pause between. Just simple things like that make you sound way more native. Another is the word for "today" is spelled like "Segodnya" but they say "sevodnya", "now" is spelled like "say-chas" but they say it more like "schas" when speaking quickly. Another small detail I picked up on by doing this is you can often tell if someone speaking Russian is from Ukraine (many Eastern Ukrainians speak Russian as a first language although many are switching to Ukrainian in response to the invasion) because Russian speaking Ukrainians often pronounce their G's like hard H's. The Luhansk republic that Russia annexed from Ukraine is spelled Lugansk but pronounced Luhansk for example.
The bit about pronunciation and native speakers pretending not to understand - it can happen if that person is an English learner. They may well see you as an opportunity to practice English. I had many Japanese friends who wanted to speak English and the moment I made any mistake they switched the conversation to English (and then they made mistakes galore). I had many other Japanese speakers act like they didn't understand and I think it was more half true. They lacked experience speaking to foreigners and unless they were completely sure of what I was saying they didn't want to proceed with the conversation. Being able to rephrase the same idea using different words worked wonders here. Obviously it meant leveling up my Japanese a little. Most beginners can only say things one way and they're screwed if their opponent acts like they don't understand.
Keep this channel going want to start with italian just in honor of my family and grandmother and then russia just because I like the culture and the history
I was trying to buy an alarm clock in Italy. An alarm clock is a sveglia. I thought I was pronouncing it correctly, but the store clerk didn't understand what I was asking for. I had to over enunciate the word. When there is an s and a v together it makes a z + v sound. I had to focus on that z sound, and as soon as I did that the clerk new exactly what I wanted. I knew my pronunciation wasn't exact, but I didn't think that it was so far off that I wouldn't be understood. After that I really tried to make sure that my pronunciation was better. I did get good enough to use the voice dialing on my friends cellphone. He was honestly surprised when the phone actually started dialing when I told it to call casa. None of his other American friends could get it to work.
Wow you're English is so good, I thought you were British, I'm Mexican born and raised in Mexico but I have an American accent, If you hear speak English you'd never think I'm from Mexico
I'm so happy you opened this new channel! That's what I've been waiting for ages 😁 I think another good tip for language learners is the one you actually talked about some years ago. I'm referring to the daily solo-chat in your target languages, where you list all the pieces of clothing you wear, the foods you're eating, etc. Maybe this method deserves a reboot on this new project 😋 Btw, I hope in this channel you'll tackle linguistic themes, because I'm sure you'll do a great job. Much love for you Metatron and keep up the good work!
Nothing makes you learn a language quicker than having a boyfriend/girlfriend that speaks the other language and you're living in the country. I went full native in France and my French skills exploded in 2 years, compared to what I'd learned in 4 years of school.
I feel like my only interest towards learning another language would be games. Japanese or Korean are two very common languages I've seen games either locked by or have strong modding scenes in. So I haven't really gone for learning them yet, but ive wanted to, to some extent.
Great initiative, Metatron! I'm really excited for the next videos. I've always been keen to different languages and cultures, and this new channel will surely be a boost of knowledge.
Yeah; as I’ve said, before; and I’ll say it, again: Language immersion, when you have 0 knowledge of the language, is like solving an equation with 0 constants; an equation, where all the numbers are variables; like: ”x + y = z; Solve for x, y, and z.”. Because you have 0 reference points. You have nothing to grab, to help you tackle the problem. 🤯
TBH I always get quite envious when listening and reading about other people's progress and experiences with learning other languages. I can use (read/write/understand/speak) three languages: slovenian (my native tongue), english (from when I was 4-6 years old) and german (when I was between 8 and 10 years old). I'm horrible with rules so I couldn't even remember the ones for my mother tongue at school let alone for the two other languages but for me I could always tell the sentences correct because they "sounded correct" - unfortunately I haven't used german at all for 7 years in between so assigning gender in german got terrible so there is a drawback when you don't have rules to fall back on. I learned both english and german from TV but then I wasn't able to learn Japanese that way... And now learning new languages is just brute force repetition and hope for the best (got bad memory in the meantime so I have to map words to different words that I know just to retain them in my head). It'd be interesting to hear what you can do and how you should approach learning of new languages in such cases.
I am studying... a number of languages, because I find it fun. However, I know it's probably too many. So, I'm really only focused on learning one at the moment - Italian. I also practice translating from my non-native languages to Italian (i.e. Spanish to Italian), I play Skyrim and Fallout 4 in Italian, and I find myself looking up words I think I might want to know throughout the day. But I'm having trouble recalling those words (and using them with the correct grammar and sentence structure), that I know I know, spontaneously. Like if I want to say a sentence I have to prepare it beforehand and by the time I have prepared to say it the moment has passed, it's no longer relevant to the conversation, and I don't say it at all. Seems a bit like a confidence problem, but I'm not sure. Not to say that this is the only thing standing between me and fluency - I'm a ways off from that regardless, but this stands out as my current issue. Anyway, looking forward to more videos, maybe they will help me get passed my problem.
Subtitles can be really good a little way into your language of choice. When you get to the point where you are screaming at the TV "that's not what was really said " then you're getting there...
Just a little thing I will point out about the video´s sections, It starts at 10, then counts down to 9, then goes back to 10, and keeps going up to 17.
11. Realize that language is an expression of culture. As a result languages they're not consistent. There's all kinds of exceptions because languages aren't designed rationally, but grow from accident.
1 - fluency takes time 2 - use subtitles correctly 3 - tackle pronunciation early on 4 - embrace mistakes 5 - Practice daily 6 - have fun 7 - interact with natives 8 - visit the country 9 - correctly access the difficulty of the language 10 - Choose a culture you like
