Why most BEGINNERS fail to learn a new language 

Good point. I would argue that someone getting consistent daily input even in a language totally different to theit native language would progress quicker than that. If someone can't put in the hours consistently then it's important to reframe I thing and just accept that perhaps life is too busy at the moment to commit as much as they would like. It depends on priorities and we are all different

Thanks Lily-Tree. I don't do anything to check my progress but do often notice material that is increasingly more comprehensible due to my progress. For Chinese I really enjoyed zanmen jiehun ba 咱们结婚吧

Yeah, very true. Compelling input that is comprehensible is the holy grail of language learning!

Oscar... are you a carpenter?

Because you absolutely nailed it 🤣

Sadly for Chinese I think the easiest thing is to do some spaced repetition like Anki flashcards to get your first few hundred characters. After that you can use Pleco to read easy books and look up new words you don't know

@@matt_brooks-green I honestly cannot figure out Anki.

Hey Komatik. So I used flashcards alongside reading very, very easy dialogues for the first 300 or so characters. After that just reading and extensive reading. Mandarin has characters divided by level (HSK) and so I would generally read material at one HSK level and constantly listen to the audio when I was out and about. I would do at least 30 minutes reading a day and whilst my brain struggled at first I started to get used to it over time. Keep the reading easy though so you don't have to look up every 5th word. Personally flash cards bore me to death but many swear by them with sentences. For me reading a story is more enjoyable and fulfils the same purpose (with the sentence itself also in context within the story)

Thanks Jeffrey! I'm certain it's not the most efficient way but it certainly keeps me progressing with minimal effort. I mix it up between stuff that is very comprehensible to me as that way I learn new words and grammar from audio alone; and, stuff that I would listen to in English because it's a podcast about a topic I am interested in. People have different definitions of active and passive: I am actively listening whilst I am doing tasks that take minimal mental effort. I do also sit and watch Spanish RU-vidrs if I am having a cup of tea or something so it isn't solely listening but the vast majority is. I don't do any study currently, though again, I may be more adept at noticing if I spent more time studying. It's nice to be able to pick up the language without making a huge amount of effort though!

@@matt_brooks-green Appreciate the feedback-thank you! I’ll try to be more Matt and fill my dead time between study sessions with some podcasts like you’ve done. Really impressive that you’re north of 700 hours in (I think?) under a year. Really inspiring-thank you! Not sure about everyone else, but I’d definitely like to see a video of what a regular day is for you. I think I saw nearly 4 hours of time logged in Dreaming Spanish in this video so seeing a day in your life would be helpful-at least to me. Thanks again-looking forward to the next video!

@@jeffreybarker357 if you have the habit to add in listening regularly you can really backup the hours. My commute is 45 minutes each way and the dog needs at least 1 hour of walking so that's a good start!

It's the mobile site for Dreaming Spanish

@@matt_brooks-green I took several years of Spanish in high school, probably got to a B2 level. Haven't really used it for 20 years, so next year I'm going to try to get closer to fluency. There are other languages I'd rather be working on, but I eventually had to ask myself, if I can't get to fluency in Spanish with such a headstart, what makes me think I'll be successful with other languages? So hoping to tighten up Spanish and then move to German.

Doesn't have to be complicated - just has to be consistent!