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I think that as long as you vary the activities there is no problem in studying seven or eight hours a day. I did so when I studied Mandarin Chinese. I would listen, read, write, work on my Chinese characters, and try to find an opportunity to speak. In fact if you can stand it, the greater the intensity of your learning, and other words the more hours per day in a short period of time, the better you will learn the language. Come to think of it maybe I will do a video on this subject.
yes，please make a video about it. i once think someone in dreams using a foreign language must master that language. however, speaking with dozens of foreigners 10 hours a day. Just that day night, in my dream I use hat language!
No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 不!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nein!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't use them! Benutze sie niemals!!!! Never use them!!!! 永远不要使用它们！Man verzettelt sich damit nur! 您只是陷入困境！You just get bogged down with it!!!! Niemals sollte man sie verwenden! 闪存卡是您可以学习的最糟糕的事情！Lernkarten sind das Schlimmste und das Schlechteste, was man zum Lernen benutzen kann! Flash cards are the worst and worst thing you can use to learn! Sie werden diese Aussagen nie vergessen, wenn sie besonders davon beeindruckt sind! You will never forget these statements if you are particularly impressed by them! 如果您对它们的印象特别深刻，您将永远不会忘记这些声明！Wiederholung ist Gift für das Gehirn! Repetition is poison to the brain! 重复对大脑有害！Wiederholungen und Lernkarten sind ermüdend! 重复和闪存卡很累Repetitions and flash cards are tiring. Man verschwendet damit nur kostbare Zeit! You only waste valuable time! 只浪费宝贵的时间...!!
@@starlite5097 Your brain can keep a one time event forever. If someone tells you something and you find it very interesting, you never forget it! You also never forget a slap in the face because it leaves a very deep impression. Everything you do for the first time is often not forgotten! If it becomes routine, you forget it! It is a question of the inner mental attitude. An adventure, a trip to a beautiful landscape will never be forgotten! But you never forget also terrible experiences. People who have had a bombing night will never forget this event, although they would like to forget, because they have nightmares about it. You can also practice this ability to hold by taking this open attitude and gaining an intense overall impression with feeling and many other impressions, which serves as a pivotal point where you can mentally reconstruct a situation. When you speak a language that is new to you with a native speaker, you collect impressions of your mistakes, of the reactions of the other person, so that you can never forget what was said or heard. The same applies to visual impressions, especially when they deal intensively with those impressions. When you see a Chinese character for the first time and you are very impressed with it, you will never forget it. Especially when they intuitively grasp the meaning! When I came to China, I couldn't speak a single word of Chinese! I was at the airport in Shanghai and had to use the toilet. Every instruction were now in Chinese language! I don't forget this arriving, because it was the first time for me, to be in a Chinese environment where I collect the first impressions with the Chinese language! My task was now, to find a toilet! Then I saw the sign WC and next to it 厕所. That was very impressive and very important for me. I went to the toilet and now stood in front of two doors. One door had the sign 女 and the other door had the sign 男。 Logically, I could guess that that would mean male and female and looked where the women went in and out and where the men did. After that I knew it! When I renember now to these Chinese characters, I renember the label WC 厕所, the two doors with 女 and 男 and also the persons, which went in or out! I renember my own feeling! All theses Impression help me, that I don't forget this very new situation! I was picked up by a Chinese person who knew my mother tongue German. We went to the exit and there I read the signs 出口。 When I walked through this gate and looked back, I saw 入口! 出口 could logically only mean exit, and 入口 entrance! I had logically and intuitively grasped the meaning of these 7 signs within 5 minutes, which was associated with joy. The Chinese escort could then explain the pronunciation of these characters to me. It was an experience for me that I could never forget! You have to experience a language as intensely as possible in order to learn it without tiring and time-consuming repetitions. We all have this ability to learn this way. We all have a great brain! Unfortunately, the instruction manual for this is missing! You write this yourself, through experiences, through joy, through frustration, etc., some of these conditions are conducive to learning, while others create mental blocks that make access to what you have learned very difficult! Observation about your own learning process is very important, to optimize your ability to learn. Ask yourself in which situations you had learn something very easily and in which situation did you ran into great or big troubles. Find it out and build your own strategy!
@@WCiossek Thanks for the long reply. Right now I'm studying german and my brother studies Japanese. We are both using the "Mass immersion effect" and we read on a website that just immersing yourself in a language and looking words up here and there can lead to fluency. It will take a long time, which can be shorted by using Anki with sentence cards for example. Anyway, when my brother learns a kanji, he learns everything about it and I'm sure he also makes a sentence card with it. In a few months he progressed a lot, that's why I started to take learning german seriously because I've been procrastinating about it for a few years already. To sum up, it seems that Anki helps *shrugs*
@@starlite5097 When I was in China, Television was for me a great help, because everything was subtitled in Chinese! I was always reading these subtitles! A half year later I was able to give lessons in a university in Chinese language! I was also able to write textbooks in Chinese for Chinese students! The Chinese environment is very helpful, because you are always be in confrontation with this language and a lot of this input is working in your subconciousness! Outside of such an environment, it becomes more difficult if you don't have partners available to use the language to be learned. It is more helpful to delve into a literature to imitate special language styles! Ich wünsche Ihnen viel Erfolg beim Erlernen der deutschen Sprache und vielleicht haben Sie das Glück, einen entsprechenden Partner zu finden, wo sie Spracheindrücke in Deutsch sammeln können!
If you focus your efforts on trying to know a few words very throughly, then you won't have the time to expose yourself to the words you have already met. We constantly need to see and hear even the most basic words, that we are always getting to know better and better. This is best achieved through listening and reading (and if I may say so, LingQing.) . There are so many words to learn, I can't imagine "struggling to recall" them all.
"The words are sitting in your brain" I can confirm this. I'm trying out this guy's LingQ program to get back to learning Japanese after a 3-year hiatus, and I was surprised at how many words I remembered, even ones I only briefly studied in Anki several years ago.
I had that experience when first going to France. I hadn't studied or spoken French in nearly 15 years by that point, but when I got to Paris, the words came back. First they kind of simmered, then there was that "ah ha!" kind of recognition. I even had a baker in one of the Patisseries ask me if I was a native Parisian. Ha!
I am learning Russian at age 72 and I agree. The noun is one word and the related adjective is another word.I also am intereasted in the literature and history. Thank younfor letting me look at my flash cards with less regularity.
I'm 72 also. Doesn't matter. Go for it. No need to rush. Just enjoy. At 72 you probably see things a bit differently than people busy with jobs, family, advancement. I do. Plodding along is not as frustrating. A little at a time adds up. Forgetting isn't a disaster. Just calmly relearn or remember. Just keep on keeping on. Enjoy. Be happy.
I learned English as a second language "like a kid", immersing myself in the language with content I like, and I have easily become fluent. I completely agree with your points. I often pick up new words that I encounter every day, then check the meaning in translate real quick; if I'm fortunate enough to see the word again in a short amount of time spaced repetition does its thing, and if not, then that's fine. After seeing that word enough times it eventually gets into my head
I am writer level in Modern English + Scots dialect + Middle English (60k to 100.000 words in all three combined) and advanced level in Dutch (over 8.000 base words) and intermediate level in Norwegian / Swedish / Portuguese (over 3.500 words) and native speaker level in Spanish (over 10.000 base words learned 100% passively in childhood by simply watching many TV series and movies and listening to music with lyrics in Spanish, because Spanish is a very easy to learn language that one can hear very well and learn without having to see it in its written form, so I learned the spelling rules more recently, since I started learning languages on my own last year) and upper beginner level in German / French / Italian and beginner level in Welsh / Gallo / Icelandic / Galician / Breton / Cornish / Latin / Irish etc and the other languages on my list of languages I want to learn or improve - I can learn up to 1.000 words a day if I spend all day rewatching the 2.000 words vocab video on full speed, like, when I first started learning Norwegian, I learned the first 1.5k to 2.5k words in the first two or three days, and I tend to memorize quite fast new words in very pretty languages such as Dutch / English / Norwegian etc, because one’s mind tends to remember the prettier and more distinctive / unique / memorable words faster, so most words in these languages take one to three repetitions and some of them three to six repetitions (over a certain period of time aka spaced repetition) to become part of my permanent memory, and each different form is a different word and also words with multiple meanings are like multiple words because one has to remember multiple meanings, and most words are technically learned after seeing them once or twice because I can immediately recognize the word if I see it again and know what it means, but there also many words in languages like English and Dutch and Spanish (that I’m already fluent and advanced in) that I only see once and automatically remember, because one can remember new words faster / easier once one becomes very fluent or advanced in a language and becomes used to its patterns and letter combinations and word endings etc, whether it’s a first or a second or a third language etc, they all become like first languages eventually, the more vocab one learns, so I would say 100 to 1.000 words is very possible to learn in a day, depending on the learner and on how motivated one feels and on how pretty and distinctive the words are etc, but one thousand words a day is not very pleasant for one’s mind tho, I must say, it is very boring and it makes me feel like pulling my hair, so I do 100 to 300 words a day most of the times, because it’s less boring and I also have time to watch entertaining videos that way, but if I had to learn a language ultra fast and I had a very strong motivation to do that, I would do five hundred to one thousand words a day for the next two weeks, and I would be able to read labels easily and understand most of what they say in subs in that language by the end of the two weeks, and after seeing the words a few more times, I would be able to automatically remember them, because some words take more repetition (over a period of time) to become part of my automatic memory, but usually 3 to 6 repetitions to become part of my permanent memory, but there are also many words I only see once or twice and automatically remember forever, so it really depends on the word and on what my mind decides to do with it, but it’s good to keep reviewing, even after learning the words, because that’s how an ‘automated mode’ in a certain language is created, so that’s what I have in English and Spanish because I noticed that the words just automatically get typed and I don’t have to think in these 2 languages at all, so I have an automatic English mode and an automatic Spanish mode, and close to having an automatic Dutch mode, but it’s a bit more limited in Dutch at the moment because I haven’t reached a native speaker level in Dutch yet, so I still have to learn a few more thousands of Dutch words, which I’m planning to do in July, because I’ve been prioritizing more German and Icelandic and French lately as I want to reach at least an advanced level in German and French hopefully before I get moved!
I think I have over 50 languages on my list of languages I want to learn and languages I know but want to improve, which is very overwhelming actually - the most difficult part about learning languages for me is the never ending flow of words, because most languages just have so many words, including English, it says on the Internet that English has 1 million words, including all technical / medical / technological etc terms, and I wish I knew all words that exist in dictionaries at least in English / Dutch / Norwegian, as these languages are very important, and I am trying to learn all sorts of rare / unknown / technical terms etc in these languages, and it’s so overwhelming, it’s like, it’s going to take ages to learn all the new concepts and stuff, and I want to know at least twenty-five thousand words in Spanish & Portuguese & French, but I want to be writer level in Welsh / Breton / Icelandic/ German / most Germanic languages, and be native speaker level in the other languages, so I must keep improving even languages I am already fluent in, though it’s more like learning new concepts rather that just learning new words, because the whole concept is new to me, and learning about some animals I didn’t even know about, like porpoises and dugongs etc, which are similar to manatees, and so many different types of birds, and every time I hear about a new type of marine animal or bird, I ask myself how come I haven’t heard about this before, so I realise most of the time, one only hears about the more known animals / things etc that all heard about, but some of them are so unknown, most never talk about them, or maybe I just didn’t watch enough videos about sea animals and birds, I suppose they talk about that type of animals in videos that are about marine animals and other things like that, but in regular entertaining videos on yt, only the most known animals / birds etc are usually mentioned!
Type the new words in a Draft, then read / repeat them once or twice every 3 days, until all new words can be remembered automatically - English and Dutch words can be memorized fast (it takes me 1 to 3 or 1 to 5 repetitions, depending on the word) and, they may take 10 to 15 repetitions, depending on the learner!
I agree with you on reading and listening being very powerful in acquiring languages but I think you greatly unvalue writing Steve. Writing for me helps consolidate words in a context and develops my speaking and reading skills at the same time as I go over it. I find it difficult to memorize 100 words without a context, 700 + words a week? No chance of retaining it long term. I think if you can learn to write/speak 10 phrases a day, incorporating a number of words, so it's maybe around 50 words, in one year that would go a very long way and make it more likely you'll remember them. Obviously everybody is different but reading and writing out some sentences from what you read is one of the most powerful tools.
I'm currently learning Japanese. I have a very primitive method for learning over 100 words/day I sit down with a list of words, usually a list related to the JLPT, like currently I'm on the N3 list And I just start memorizing the words. First I read the word in Japanese, and look at the English translation. Then memorize the Japanese word so that I don't have to look at the English translation anymore. I go through the whole list, 100 words, over and over until I can remember what each and every word means in English. And then I flip around and read the English translation first and try to remember how to say it in Japanese. I do this back and forth, up and down the list until I can remember everything. It also helps a lot if I break them down into groups of 5. This whole process takes about 2 hours, maybe more if there are a lot of abstract concepts on the list and I have to look up example sentences.
My problem is that if I even read 1 page in English I easily get 6-7 new words , then on even reading 20 pages I acquire 130+ new words . How to memorize so much words ? What should I do ??
I usually look for the 50 or 100 "most used" words and practice before digging into texts. I'm slowly learn Greek and knowing those basics that have made their way into English really helps.
My problem is that if I even read 1 page in English I easily get 6-7 new words , then on even reading 20 pages I acquire 130+ new words . How to memorize so much words ?
You mentioned "scratching your brain to try to remember the meaning of a word" ... I.S.P. Nation has quoted many studies that show "struggling to recall" (rather than giving up if you don't know immediately) is one of the most important aspects of getting vocab to stick.
he is referring to the issue of time management. Using that energy to remember words in singles is what he is arguing a waste of time. Better off reading a content rich short story that will expose you to new words and phrases (building creativity). His belief at the core is about exposure.
@@kennethbucsko8159 As an English teacher I'm very aware of how many words i happen to use (and use correctly) that i couldn't define to my students. Spanning is a word that came up. I could use this word or understand it but out of context it was a real struggle.
I think we look for roots in learning vocabulary in all languages. In my view though it is still not the main activity. The main activity is reading and listening.
I learned Chinese as well. I wrote my characters daily. I started with 10 a day, and eventually upped it to 30 a day, writing them over and over. I expected to forget about half of what I was learning. I combined this with lots of reading and listening. But I was a full time student of Chinese. I had the whole day to spend on it. I still had lots of time for reading and listening.
Мой академический опыт изучения английского, немецкого, древнегреческого, древнееврейского и латыни показал мне, что Ваша методика LingQ позволяет возрождать интерес к языкам. Большое спасибо!
سيد كوفمان انت رااااائع . استفدت منك كثيرا أنا وابني . Mr. Kaufmann you're really amazing 👏 Me and my son benefits a lot . I'd like to hear you speaking Arabic.
This resonates so much with me. Studying a language like we were taught at school doesn't feel good to me. I tried it many times as I fell into the trap of thinking that that is also a good way of learning. Even though I had the experience with learning english just by getting in contact with it on a regular basis and in situations where I really wanted to know what was going on. (my boyfriend watched english movies without subtitles as he already knew english well enough and it was easier to find the movies without the subtitles then to have to go and look for them), In a short amount of time I became fluent in english. while I have been getting french lessons at school from when I was ten (obligatory in dutch speaking belgium) and at 18 still wasn't able to have any conversation in french. And still... when I wanted to tackle mandarin, I started with lessons thinking that that was the good way to start. I've finally been able to let go of the structure more and just look for all kinds of interesting material in putonghua and I have been making heaps of progress after dabbling in it for years and not really getting anywhere. I should have known and actually knew that just immersing yourself in a language and just focus on trying to understand it, is so much more effective in the long run (if you keep up with it) then deliberately trying to memorize words and rules. But the whole idea about learning another language and how to do it is so misshapen in this society that it is easy to go along with it without thinking about it. It's by the way the same for math, which is also a kind of language even though it is very highly structured and logical. I found that it was made that much more easy and felt so much more comfortable after reading lots of proofs. You get a feel for how it is and it becomes much faster to spot logical mistakes or errors in proofs or also how to start or tackle a new problem. Just by reading a lot of different proofs trying to just understand and not directly replicate the proof (as long as you do that with a lot of them), you will be get better at math in a more organic way instead of having to cram in the rules. Our brains are very good at distilling meaning out of input, our brain is less good at decoding input with rules. Your brain tends to actively use more parts of the brain when it's just trying to understand in a natural way what's going on (with which I mean: when you curiously try to take in something new or something that is happening that you'd want to understand or take part in; as opposed to the unnatural way of sitting at a desk trying to cram in as much information as possible ), then when you deliberately focus on getting a certain thing - often times ripped out of context - into your brain. It's why all the memorization "hacks" work as they often are ways to get to use more parts of your brain into memorizing the thing you want to learn.
I totally agree with you about maths. I discovered this too but too late to salvage my degree. After discovering this, I went back to my failed course work and re-learned a lot of stuff.
It all just snowballs. People are too impatient. You'll forget, forget, forget and then BOOM you just randomly come to the conclusion that you know an awful lot. It comes out of nowhere after incubating in your brain.
Beta Vulgaris My experinece too in learning Arabic :) Steve is 100% right. I remember even in my early stages I found memorising word a waste of time. I would have a vocabulary list and the accompanying passages and just keep reading. The words eventually stuck and I enjoyed the experience.
@@John-cm3yo Thank you for this comment, i actually find that a week into studying German that its hard to memorize but when i dont actually 'Try' then it eventually goes in.
9:38 This makes so much sense to me, I'm investing this year so much time to develop english and I feel much atracted to learn Japanese/Chinese too, this means I'm the right path, Thanks for the tips Steve !
Oh fella, I'm stuck to english, I'm focusing much of my time into it and I'm improving a bit each time I study it but I feel there is a long way yet to go through
"I learn most of the word accidently" this really struck me. I'm learning Japanese, and I really feel I can't remember the word. But when I watch a Grammar video, I note some new words, and I record theses better than the word from vocabulary list! But I couldn't say I realized this by myself
Try to link the words you learn with emotional things of yours or some association in your own language Let's say, I am trying to learn Hebrew word for red - Adom. In my country of origin red color is pretty much I trend, trend or fashion in my native language is moda, seems like adom but reverse adom - moda. So this is how I memorize new words. It will take time for you to find an association, like a connection, but the word will stuck in your brain till the end of the time.
I find that a lot of polyglots suggest that in order to learn words you should read plenty and learn words in context. I find it very hard for a beginner to learn in context without first establishing a vocabulary of a maybe 500 - 1000 words common to the target language. Currently I'm learning my first language (other than english) and I finding it very difficult to read books, magazines and what not because I know very few words (less than 300). I think, in my opinion, flash cards are great when starting off so you build up your vocabulary. After graduating then can you really start learning in context, because only then do you even know what you're reading about. Mind you I'm 16 years old, so maybe learning from flash cards have become like second nature to me. (I am learning French by the way) What do you think ? Also when you start learning a language from scratch, where do you begin ?
Totally agree with you. I think that learning a language from scratch just by being exposed to a stream of text and audio (with no basic vocabulary and no basic knowledge of the grammar) can be ok for polyglots but not for those who are dealing with their first foreign language. Polyglots are just more experienced and skillful in learning languages, they know well how the things work. For your first foreign language it's better to learn, like you said, 500-1000 or more words just from flashcards or\and a regular textbook (language manual) where the words are normally given in some context. Then try reading\listening something simple. I believe that flashcarding words works great for establishing some basic vocabulary, you learn 90% words from flashcards and 10% from working with a text. But then you shoud switch and change the ratio to 90 from reading\listening and 10% flashcards (just if you want to memorise something specific, like job-related terms) It's also good to get at least the very basic knowledge of grammar in the beginning of your journey. Уважаемый ***** ! Could you give you opinion on my comment, please? Do you think that if I learn my first foreign language I should start with reading and listening a lot or it's better to get some basic vocabulary (and grammar) first? Immanuel Tiwari I'd start with pronunciation, trying to pronounce something, especially if it's French:) If you mean longer perspective than: 1) getting basic knowledge of vocabulary (like 500-1000 maybe 2000 words) and grammar (it's hard to deal with French when you never heard of etre conjugation and don't know they have 2 genders on nouns). 2) A lot of reading, listening (understanding skills, expandind vocabulary), writing, speaking (communicating skills). Note: Step 1 is almost useless without Step 2, Step 2 is extremely hard (which you have noticed) without Step 1. That's how I learned English actually (my mothertongue is Russian). Step 1 took about 3-4 months, Step 2 is a lifetime hobby.
Hi Steve Kaufmann, I'm portuguese native speaker (Brazil) and I'm learning English as a second language for about 1.2 years. My language learning approach is: read some text, find in the text some interesting word/expression, then I write it down on a vocabulary book followed by several phrases I made up. I also add these same expression to Anki and keep reviewing then over the next days and months by Anki and by turning over the pages of the vocabulary book. I already filled up three vocabulary books this way. I've been looking for a better and more efficient language approach. I used to spend several hours at the computer to learn few expressions and then have to memorise them as a math table. I learn on average of 8 expressions daily. So I think you are really sure when saying the key is acquire vocabulary by context and reading+listening over and over again... But incredible as it may seem, even though the long time learning isolated expressions I spent, I achieved great listening and speaking skills. Thank you Steve Kaufmann.
The first and most important point I can make is that we have short term and long term memory. Short term memories fade out in a matter of minutes while long term memories can last a lifetime. Furthermore, to transfer short term memories into long term memory takes review sessions and the most efficient way to review is by using spaced repetition where the spacing gets larger between sessions. Typical spaces between review sessions might be zero days, one day, two days four days, one week, two weeks, a month, two months, four months, eight months and you are finished for life. Thats 10 review sessions to put short term memories into long term memory after an initial study session of new words and the review sessions occur over a period of time that is more than a year. Actually 16 months or a year and a third to be exact. Steve talks about learning and forgetting, and learning and forgetting because he is actually putting short term word memories into his long term memory by using an inconsistent, rambling, as needed manner, as opposed to using a specific repetition pattern such as the spaced repetition as described above. Since he admits to learning a word and forgetting it, and relearning it, clearly he does not actually learn the word in the first session but actually learns the word after many learning and forgetting iterations. That said, he needs to recognize that he doesn’t actually learn any words in one day ( learn for all time, that is) but actually learns words (for all time) after many learn, forget, then relearn experiences. So to suggest that one can learn a specific number of words in a day, perhaps a hundred or so, is meaningless. Do you understand this Steve? It would be more ccurate to talk about how many words one can learn over a year plus a few months! Considering that it takes one initial session followed by 10 review sessions or 11 total sessions to learn a word for life. Memorizing and reviewing/relearning words takes a lot of mental energy so yes, working with a hundred or so words per day is likely a reasonable maximun but keep in mind that you won’t have memorized those words for life until you have had another ten review sessions with those words. If you work on a hundred words a day, every day for a year, with most of that time being review sessions, when you do the math, that amounts to 3600 words a year learned for ever. Because of the scheduling difficulties required to keep the workload to 100 words learned new or reviewed, its likely that you will only learn between one and two thousand new words a year. Thats just the way it is. Keep in mind that if you learn and review ten times, a thousands words, you have actually worked with 11thousand words, i.e., a thousand words, each worked with 11 times. That is probably how Steve comes up with such a large number of words learned. In effect, he is counting relearning a word the same as initially learning it, in which case his numbers make sense but it means that he is actually learning much fewer ACTUAL new words. Thats just the way it is. Sorry Steve but when you suggest that you learned ten or twenty thousand words in a year, you are using smoke and mirrors and likely deceiving yourself.
Note: conscious verses unconscious learning is a whole other ball game so to speak. Can you learn words, i.e., remember their meaning for life, by reading and looking up their meanings once and then letting your unconscious take care of the rest? Not unless you are one of the special people who have an idetic memory. On the other hand you can learn how to hit a baseball with a bat without memorizing the complex muscle pattern required so some unconscious learning does occur. The key is to learn how to turn off the automatic erase button in our mind and so far, no one has figured out how to do that.
I disagree on this debate. I still remember studying English as my first foreign language. After graduating from high school as was very proficient with grammar and my repertoire of PASSIVE vocab was very decent making me able to understand almost 95% of everything I heard but speaking was big struggle for me since I was constantly running out of words. However, as I started attending university I needed to ACTIVELY use English more and more as our lectures started to be held in English and we would also have an increasing number of foreign students in our year. I then realized that I urgently need to extend my active vocabularies because "recognizing and understanding" was simply not sufficient for me any longer. And the only way I achieved this was by doing the exact opposite of what you just mentioned in your video. I used flashcard and tried to stubbornly memorize them and furthermore I also tried to actively incorporate these words when I was talking in english (e.g. deliberately using synonyms for words I recently learnt etc...). I think it always depends on what your actual goal in learning the language is. Mine was not to be able to talk and understand but rather to diversify my speech and also being able to just name things with a straight word rather than relying on descriptions and paraphrases.
Thanks for the thoughts. I think this is gonna help me for my learning english. I spend a lot of my time to read and listen in passive way. and i also understand what native or someone talking in english. But im stumbled with how can i output the language. Sorry for my bad english
I think it is more of a personality trait, but I find that with structured and consistent flashcard practice that I can learn 50-100 new Russian base words everyday. This takes about 30 seconds/word on the first day. So 50 words takes about 25 mins per day. Accounting for the review process over the next few days or weeks it averages out to putting a new word in long-term memory, from start to finish, about 1 min/word. And that's remembering the words from the native language to the target language (active vocabulary). Also, I didn't increase the number of words to 50+ per day until I already hit 1000 words. During the first 1000 I did about 20 words per day and that took me about 45 mins/day. After a few thousand base words this process becomes even easier as you start to pick up on roots/prefixes/suffixes and so on. I don't understand why people bash flashcards so much. I also want to point out that doing flashcards can easily be done while commuting to/from work. So it's making the best use of time that would otherwise have been wasted (unless you use this time listening to your languages). You can't get any more efficient than that. Edit: coming back to this post from two years ago I've had some slight changes of opinion. I think flashcards can be really good for nouns and some adjectives, but not really for verbs. Verbs are better learned through reading so that you get a "sense" of the verb instead of memorizing a definition because that definition will not help you use the verb correctly when speaking/writing. Also, reading teaches so much about grammar and it's more enjoyable than just flipping through flashcards. I've been using LingQ on and off for 2.5 years now and I've been really impressed with how easy it has been to learning new languages. I never thought I would have not only learned so much Russian, but made really good progress in Spanish, and even started French and Arabic. It's been a great experience.
I used ones from russianpod101 because they have audio but it costs a little. I would use memrise but the courses that I found require typing and that doesn't work well in the car. Actually I started creating my own memrise course that uses someone else's deck and it won't require typing.
Hey, this is really interesting to me. I'm trying to learn Russian too and the process has been really hard. How did you learn the grammar? And how did you learn to speak, since you say you managed to get the words into active vocabulary.
I have never found that to be the case. I also think that a lot of these established opinions are based on classroom study. I would like to see some research comparing people LingQing furiously while listening and reading on the one hand, versus those who "struggle to recall" from lists or tests or flash cards.
I agree. Trying to acquire a precise definition for a word is actually impossible anyway. If you have ever studied analytic philosophy you will have noticed that people do PhDs on the meaning of a word. Meaning and symbols are in constant flux so the best we can hope for is a reasonable approximation. Even native speakers, when pressed, are unable to give a precise definition of most of the words they use. The only time a precise definition is useful is when a scientist needs an operational definition when formulating a hypothesis - or when some technical definition is required such as in law or formal debates.
Imagine reading the most famous English novel and on the same page is "complacence" and "complaisance" (pronounced the same, with same French origin). If you don't look up the precise definitions, you'll likely never understand the major difference in meaning between these two words.
True, but this is where we enter the ambiguous field of nuance and context. Unless we are dealing with predefined technical jargon, the meaning of these words can only be established by their usage by normal people who don't use words analytically. Indeed, dictionary definitions of words are derived from their rather varied usage. Consider the Cambridge dictionary's definition of a very basic word "shoe": . . . one of a pair of coverings for your feet, usually made of a strong material such as leather, with a thick leather or plastic sole... This may seem precise but I would argue that this definition only seems precise because we already know what a shoe is intuitively. We fill in some of the infinite amount of blanks that the definition does not fill. We know for example that a shoe does not necessarily need to be one of a pair in order to be a shoe. We know from our intuition that shoes are usually made in pairs but they can exist individually (certainly for amputees). Yet the definition appears to incorrectly say the opposite. It's like a map. We know a map is useful even though the difference between it and the territory it represents is immense. You could have two very different maps representing the same territory equally well. This becomes more evident when you try to teach someone English. You give them a "very precise" definition of a word. Then you notice them using it in some funny ways - ways which conform to your definition (however detailed) yet which are not ways that a native speaker would use the word. Definitions only point to the territory. Unless you have been to that territory (that is, lived the language/culture or experienced what the words are being used to point to, then a definition will not have the precision required to give you the richness of the meaning of a word).
It's a great vid, getting recommended lingosteve is what made me come back to self studying a language. Steve is very honest, a great teacher and motivates me to enjoy learning the language! I say this as someone who has always been fairly pessimistic, too
Hearing it as much as possible is key. Listen to newscasts on RU-vid. They often have a summary below. Look up the ones you don't know, then listen two or three times. They'll be yours. It's like the way kids learn, but you have a leg up because you can look things up. It works
I have to admit I have always been the type of linguist who doesn't really feel a word is known unless you know it actively. Passive doesn't really count. You have actually managed to change my mind. The more vocabulary you know passively the quicker you can dive in and actually start using material that is interesting but a bit hard for beginners. That way you can keep repeating the word by meeting it in context so it becomes active that way. It does make sense and makes learning a bit less stressful to be honest.
That's exactly how I became the best English speaker among all my friends who were living in the UK at the time I was learning it. . The curious thing is that what took them about 3 or 4 years to acquire, I did it in 9 months. . When they all asked me, one and half year after arriving in London, how I got my CPE certification, coming from almost zero English (the basic level we all come out from the school system in my country), I would just say the same thing over and over, which only my wife would believe and confirm, as she had been there with me the whole process. My answer would always be: all this language came to me automatically, I taught myself everything I know. . They couldn't understand it, neither could I profoundly, but after having become a poliglot and a teacher I got it. I did exactly what Steve says and it's the core of his method. That's why it's been working so well for me. I go even beyond Steve, cause he only focuses on Comprehensible Input. I don't, I mix the whole thing up. Wether I'm understanding or not. . I noticed just now what I actually do, and the students I have that are more successful are exactly the ones who do the same. Here is a glimpse of what my day looks like when approaching a language for the first time. . I have in mind that exposure is key throughout the entire process. I listen to content I like almost two hours every single day. 80% of this listening is done with text. I practice speaking (for fun) from day one. Inicial understanding of my audios and texts are between 30 to 50. I don't give a monkey, I just want "to feel" the language (I create deeper connections to how the language sounds) I pay an extremely close attention to the rythm of the language. Some people don't get this last step, but I feel the phonems and sentences creations more like a music. That's why, in my opinion, I sound so much like a native. I can mimic the accent really well. After a month or so, my understanding of the audios are between 50 to 70% on the same material and continues lower on new materials. The reason for thata is because I don't like feeling as if I wanted to control the process, I let it flow steady and focused at the end result. Don't really care very much about vocabulary. I just pay attention to them, notice them, but don't scrutinize them, cause I'd lose pace if I did that. I record my speaking and compare to the narrator's. That's something Steve doesn't do (speaking from day one -his wife likes it, though) and so do I. I record and compare my intonation with the original (the narrator's). I pay attention where I'm tripping and fix my speech with repetitive exercises {the ones natives (children) do in their own language when they can't speak certain words correctly}. I do that till I reach B2. It normally happens between 7 to 9 months. I call this level independency. Here I can now study the language like a native does. At this point I enter forums where native and linguists talk about the advanced nuances and some particularities of some really important terms, sentences, jargons (sometimes, extremely advanced and used only in industrial or business contexts). Next level stuff, ar this point natives notice in you an interest for their language that even they don't have. I then study origin, influence, get the classics, discover and uncover a veil for that language. It all takes me about three more months of hard work and research. During this period, I keep a journal to improve my writings. I subject it to correction every now and then. For me, that's definitely my Achilles' heel (write and keep yourself at an advanced level). But it's hard for most natives as well, isn't it? Finally, I choose a proficiency test that is famous in that language, study extremely hard (maybe 4 hours a day) during two or three more months and celebrate victory. Then, I start the process over with other languages. I've already done that with Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian and English. The next one up will be either Hebrew, Latin or Greek. I haven't chosen it yet. Good luck to all of you, lot! Thanks for reading.
It makes sense!! God! I have always believed that the best way to effectively learn vocabulary is by flashcards and writing them down like 10 times a day.. but it is true that this will take soooo much time and it is true that we are better off! It’s not that I’m impatient, but when you are studying the language you want to read more and watch things like movies or news in this language, and this will come only if you have enough vocabularies to understand and not be bored. So the best way is Not to focus on learning 5 words a day rather to be exposed to 100 words that can be passive.. Thank you so much! It really does make sense!
I am learning Czech right now using flashcards. I have been living in the Czech Republic for 1,5 years, and previously used to manually write my vocab and grammer down. It was such a slow process and I did not enjoy it at all. I had an absolute lack of motivation and got very little learning done during my first year here. I also had very little time to practise due to spending a lot of hours at work. (I was working 12-18 hours a day on average) I recently discovered Anki and it made learning way more enjoyable for me, I have it everywhere I go so when I have a bit of time to spare, I would always open up the Anki app on my phone. I am noticing a lot more progress with this method than with my old one, possibly because I'm actually enjoying learning now as opposed to before. Because 95% of the people in my environment only speak Czech, I have a great daily exposure to hearing conversations. Yet I still struggle with understanding and especially with speaking. My goal is to read more stuff in Czech and continue using my flashcards to finally achieve what I should have achieved in the past 1,5 years. Any other advice or methods for learning Czech are highly appreciated. I haven't heard of lingq before, but I will check it out soon. Thanks for the video! Ps: All my vocabulary flashcards include additional sentences to put the words in a context.
@@Thelinguist Thanks for your reply, I will be subscribing to Lingq very soon.! May I ask about your opinion for methods to learn Czech grammer, in particular the cases? How do you combine studying grammer while learning in Lingq? I also plan on buying a tablet for learning purposes, could you verify that the Lingq browser extension to import material into the program also works on a tablet? Thanks in advance.
I tend to use online dictionaries.At LingQ we use number of dictionaries. When our members go to one of these dictionaries the definition they choose, for their language, is cached in our system.
Would agreed with steve, when you see a word often while reading you will learn the vocab automatically ..thank u steve, this is the first time I have seen a podcast of a hoary handsome old man til the end 😁😉🤗
I am so incredibly thankful that I found your channel... I had completely given up and now I'm doing better than ever before! (My first language is German, but I'm also quite good at English, the languages I used to struggle with a lot were Spanish and Korean. Latin is a very different story xD I'm still stuck with that one)
I also use flash cards at LingQ but more sporadically, and not so systematically. It all helps. It also depends on how much time you have and how you like to spend that limited time.
Go to LingQ. We have lots of Mexican audio and text content available for free download. In the Spanish library there is a filter for accents. You can select Mexican.
You are right. Learning a word doesn't mean that after having learned it you'll be able to retrieve it right away. Words that I consider as "known" to me are those I can recognize, retrieve, even hear or see without knowing what it means sometimes. My definition: a leanred word: A word that has been viewed heared or seen somewhere, whether you can retrieve it or not. Thanks for the video!!!!!!1
this is true, I won't commit the same mistakes learning Korean than I did learning English. My English grammar is still really bad, but I'm able to at least understand and speak, and it took me so much time to reach this level because I wasn't exposing myself enough to the language. I have a lot of interest in Korean content, on the internet, it says that it will take me like 7 years to reach a good level, but I know I can do it in less time than that, I will just throw myself to the content without wasting my time trying to learn all the vocabulary and grammar I tried to learn french, but since I was not interested in the culture or the content, it was difficult so I dropped, interest is the most important!
Good advice as always to expose yourself to as much of a language is far better than spending tons of time rewriting sentences with the word in a notebook or flashcard and as we get older time starts to squeeze us.
that was very useful learn the max words, even if you will forget them, its more efficient to learn them again than to learn them isolated without context very well the first time.
I was skeptical of this but I've come to realise that constant input is essential. I'll do some really focused analysis of some passages but for the most part, allowing the language to sit comfortably in my brain with repeated listening and reading has worked wonders with my Czech and French comprehension.
Hi~I'm old (72) and didn't grow up with electronics. I looked up LinkQ and only found IT references. I've loved languages since pre-school. I'm an American female military veteran with issues and fairly severe PTSD, so I'm a recluse. Also, I'm vulnerable-- if I got covid I'd probably die, so I'm sort of house-bound. I typically touch nobody in a week or more, and see nobody, have no friends, but do have family I see sometimes. I don't use my phone. Am not electronic savvy. Don't belong to any social media. Yeah, kind of a hermit. But I do surf the net. Came upon you talking at a polyglot gathering. If one can use LingQ to learn a language, that would be great. But I don't understand the terms on the... I don't know enough to sign up. Also, I'd like to learn Navajo, and they don't offer that. I used to be fluent in a number of languages, and was a linguist in the military, but now almost forgot everything. I keep a low level of use by doing all the languages offered on Duolingo, but as you said, it is mostly just like using flashcards. I'm writing to learn more about using LingQ and I just like to hear you talk about linguistics. I'll follow your channel and blog awhile and come back later. Glad to meet you.
The real problem with this aproach is the fact that we aren't chidren anymore! I will try to follow your recomendations, but for me, to learn some very strange and dificult words, I really need to write it down, and try to remember.
I use Anki to reinforce things I learn in context and to learn the most common words in my target language. I can pull up the context when I have a minute in line at the grocery store. It’s quite helpful! However, reading is my number one engine in language learning. I’m at a B1 level in French, so I make flash cards for phrases I hear in town and at language school that I find useful, or figures of speech in books that I wouldn’t find much exposure to elsewhere. (Especially words I can see myself using in my B2 oral exam where we have to give a very professional-sounding speech and write formal letters without references.) So, basically, I use it to recreate context interactions to emphasize the words/phrases and remember my mnemonics. However, I’ve been following your channel since my first week at language school and using LingQ since then. I was bumped up to the class for students who have already lived in French-speaking countries and have fooled native speakers into thinking I’m French! Thank you!!! I’m now using it to relearn Japanese, since some organizations we work with here are spreading to Japan. Flash cards help me with kanji mnemonics, and I take screenshots of anime with Japanese subtitles to re-see the context.
Our brains our even better because we can learn things for different contexts and situations, and we can intuitively assume meanding of new words and phrases, etc
I find the best part of learning any language basically in struggling and trying again and again if learn language was as simple as you said the enjoyment of learn won’t be exist
I had no idea what you were saying about saving something until I searched your comments and found LingQ. Downloaded. Looks good. Not so happy of the price per year considering I have little income now but certainly may be worth it by it's style.
I'm all for combining methods which works for me of course. Sometimes after seeing new Jpn words in a flashcard app and then reading them in context in a reading material helps me remember it more. Then I just review it but I don't put so much focus on the flashcards as in I don't try to think of the exact meaning. I just try to quickly picture the main idea and also try to figure out the reading since Kanji is what's holding me back in my literacy. I use StickyStudy app by the way.
hey steve im using your videos constantly to pick up new expressions and words and i really find it handy like...nail down ..you're far better off . i hope that you will take that into account
Steve pointed out somewhere that learning a language is a matter of learning and forgetting and learning and forgetting, etc. to break that cycle you have to engage in learning and reviewing and learning and reviewing, etc.
As for learning a hundred words a day, if you don’t review these words at regular intervals you will forget a hundred words a day. The brain is hard wired to forget what isn’t used and that is a good thing. If you do review these words at regular interrvals, pretty quickly you will have more words to review than you have time for, so don’t bite off more than you can chew.
Well, I like to combine Steve's approach and also use Flashcards, but mostly listen and read, and vary my activities. Steve, great video you made there! :) I like your videos because they greatly motivate me in my language learning.
For now on Im going to start learning my words in sentences and phrases through comprehensible input. I do listen to my vocabulary first before i start creating my flashcards. I really do believe that way is more effective to me than using flashcards for vocabulary without listening to the vocabulary.
I have to say that, with an advanced level of Spanish, I still feel I am lacking words. However, I have no plans to trawl word lists and struggle with flash cards, because my short term memory/recall is terrible. However, I have a note book in which I write down any words I hear/see while reading/watching something in Spanish that I think are impeding my progress OR will be useful in several situations. There's nothing better than recognising and understanding a word you previously didn't know.
Thanks for sharing your opinions! I personally can deeply connect with what you said about resonance. For me, learning Spanish was a pleasure. Now I've been learning Norwegian for about a year and I'm already quite fluent when talking to people, but the process is so much lesser enjoyable for me, especially because there are not too many materials I can rely on.
I believe when he speaks of flashcards what he means by that is classic flashcards which is a word on one face and the picture on the other face, I agree with him on that matter because you can't learn the pronunciation this way, so whenever you hear the word you think you know, you won't understand because you learn it with your eyes not your ears, but not many people know that you can create flashcards with videos on Anki.This method has helped me a lot in learning Russian words, because for example when you create a flashcard with video, say, which is 15 seconds long, you not only repeat the word you intend to learn or repeat but also another words in it, you learn it in its context and very realistic and enjoyably way.My method works like this, I watch a movie, or series in Russian, whenever I encounter a word which I think is very important, I record the part (at least 10 seconds) containing the word with a video recording app, add it to Anki, and that's it, as I've already written before, there are lots of other words in that recorded video you can learn and repeat beside the word you don't know
I can remember 5-10 words per day long term. But it sure helps to be exposed to 100+ words per day. I will see them, I will remember them, I will forget them, I will see them again, I will forget them again, and eventually I will remember them. And in my experience it is better to learn 200 words per day and forget 90% of them than to learn 10 words and forget 10%...
It is not from an article, but from a book, called "Learning Vocabulary in another Language". It is quite a thick book, which analyses the results of about 600 studies on how to learn vocabulary, finding common patterns across many of the studies (as well as quite a few controversies).
The way I'm used to learn new vocabulary is by watching language teachers on RU-vid and looking up to new vocab videos they made, then I write down the entirely vocab with the examples they taught. I just make notes about vocabulary and just forget I made it, however overtime I watch English content it has specific words I learned before and I remember that one word and its meaning, as I'm watching this video I remembered I learned the word "dichotomy" recently in about 1 week ago. Or I notice I learned that word but can't remember its meaning then I go searching for the note I wrote, so that I can definitely learn that one
There is a lot of sense here, except flashcards part. They are really good as an addition, plus the ones you can buy in stores mainly contain words along with sentences to memorize them better, many releases have images too. So it's not bad imo, but as I mentioned should be used as an extra way of learning, not the main or the only one.
How can you learn and retain so many words each day (300 in a slavic language??) That dipends on your memory... your are blessed, but we normal guys do needs flashcards. I do them by myself, with pictures that I like. That helps me retain them through repetition. Off course spend I also time with listening, reading and if possible speaking.
The problem with linking or context clues is that when you have forgotten the clue, you have forgotten the meaning of the word. When you have truely memorized the meaning of a work, that meaning is in your long term memory and you don’t need a clue to call it up. The meaning is simply there to be called up and used at any time and under any cirsumstances. That takes constant exposure to essentually make knowing the meaning of the word a habit. Using flash cards and flashcard programs conveneintly provides that constant exposure. Memorization gimmics can help you in the short term to remember a difficult to remember word but are not the solution for the longterm, i.e., remembering vocabulary for years or for a lifetime. Reading helps to the extent that it provides repetition for particular words allowing them to be placed in long term memory.
Learn 100 word a day must be feasible for a beginner but I swear once you've got fluent learning 3 a day is great, the more you know the more difficult it gets to recall the word you learn the day before especially if the word doesn't have (or at least you think it doesn't have) that much of usefulness. from a guy learning English for 5 years ( i just started reading and speaking to some folks in that language a year ago...)
Forgetting occurs with time and a lack of use. Reverse that process to remember. Try this. The next time you see a new word whose meaning you don’t know, look up the words meaning and say the word and its meaning one hundred times. Then see if you remember the words meaning a week later.
When you have truly learned a word, you have memorized it and it becomes a part of you and you don’t need any cues or hacks or gimmics to remember it. Anything less is self deception and when you speak, the words come out in an automatic fashion because you truly learned them and they are a part of you. Just keep working at it over and over again until there is no more need for the repetition that linked you with all those words.
I like your video very much the method of learning 100 a day by using flashcards. It is interesting to know the tips to recognize, link, function, association, linking pronunciation and the word, guessing synonyms and antonyms one can easily learn new words and enjoy using in a context. Thank you. V.Chandra Sekhara Rao
I agree with your opinion at all. But as a stressed Chinese high school student i have no time and no chances to listening and reading everyday. So i use a notebook which i would write down the new words and it’s explanation on it. And then remember them in free time(such as after classes, and in the dormitory before nap….) i know it’s useless compared to your own way. But it’s the only way i can do as a high school students. Because the English classes are more useless, I don’t wanna listen. And i do listening and reading on vacations. Could anyone suggest me a better way? Thank you all!
I find it a bit problematic when people become to fixated on one method. I use Anki every day. That doesn't mean it is the bulk of my language-learning time, it just means that it is one of many tools I use. To be honest, I'm not really all that interested in languages as such, more in what I can do with them as tools. So I use languages to learn more about life, science, art, really anything that happens to interest me. My primary languages are Ga and Japanese. I have a few others that I dabble in, but those two languages are really important to me. With the case of Ga, I gave up whatever career I supposedly had going for me and moved to Ghana. So I'm exposed to the language on a daily basis. Since I could care less about learning a language just for the sake of learning it, I now try to use the language as a tool to gain more interesting insight: what is the history of the Ga people, where did they originate from, what is there belief system, etc. I find such things much more gratifying than learning a language, just that the language becomes the tool through which to gain this insight. I got into Japanese largely because of an interest in volcanology. As everybody knows, Japan one of the countries that sees a lot of seismic and volcanic activity and it became the one I chose to focus on. I spent a year in northern Japan about 25 years ago, learned a lot of Japanese and got to satisfy some, if not all, of my curiosity with regards to volcanos. I obviously do come from one of the more volcanic regions of Europe so I had a bit of chance to study "at home" as well. I read a lot of books and articles. I watch a lot of documentaries and news (as well as some movies to relax). I also happen to use Anki. I'd stop using it if I didn't think it gave me something. I mostly use it once I've heard a new concept over and over. Then I decide to create a card to capture that. If it is something that can be represented with a picture, that's the type of card I will create. Otherwise I have several other card types to choose from, most of them involving a sentence or phrase where I have to fill something in, conjugate something, or other similar activity. I don't know why some people are so quick at pointing out that "such and such doesn't work". Yes, I'm certainly no expert on languages, but I have spent most of my almost 50 years using about 8-9 languages (I moved around quite a bit as a child and was exposed to several languages growing up). I think we need to be careful with the distinction between "I don't like X" and "X is useless", especially when we are in a position where other people listen, unless of course we are ready to provide supporting facts along with that assertion. I know you are not making any strong assertions, but there are others that do, without properly backing their claims up.
IMO, drilling the first couple of thousand core words using an SRS is fine. Steve's method of picking up words organically makes a lot more sense once you're past that phase because you're at a point where it just makes more sense to learn vocabulary that's interesting or important to you from the vast sea of words out there.
