When I make a mistake speaking a foreign language, I know I'll probably make the same mistake again. Even if I get it right, that doesn't mean I won't get it wrong the next time. This doesn't bother me, since I'll eventually start to get it right more often than not. --- FREE Language Learning Resources 10 Secrets of Language Learning ⇢ www.thelinguist.com LingQ Grammar Guides ⇢ www.lingq.com/en/grammar-resource/ My blog ⇢ blog.thelinguist.com/ The LingQ blog ⇢ www.lingq.com/blog/ My Podcast ⇢ soundcloud.com/lingostevepodcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learn-languages-with-steve-kaufmann/id1437851870 --- Social Media Instagram ⇢ instagram.com/lingosteve_/ TikTok ⇢ www.tiktok.com/@lingosteve Facebook ⇢ facebook.com/lingosteve Twitter ⇢ twitter.com/lingosteve LingQ Discord ⇢ discord.gg/ShPTjyhwTN
Hi Steve, I am a subscriber not only to your RU-vid channel but to the LingQ platform. In this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3vAKzpbtNGk.html you mentioned at the beginning that learning Russian was a kind of "challenge" since they told you that due to the Russian grammar your "approach" would not work, however, I never managed to hear if you proved them wrong or if you had to supplement your input based method with others. Would you confirm? Thanks!
Great tips Steve! I learned English years ago and still make mistakes. I make sure to acknowledge them and to improve my speaking ability. Now I am learning German and hopefully, I can reach a high level! I wish everyone success with their target languages!
The beautiful thing about the language journey I’ve been on is that it has reframed the way i see learning in general. Just like what you were saying, i began to extrapolate the way school taught me how to learn into all areas of my life. Noticing that it’s not about marks and grades anymore has given me so much more clarity and passion.
That was rule number 4 in my ESL classroom - make mistakes! It’s so much easier to advance when you’re actively using it (especially as you get feedback and see people model it in response to you). Plus, most people don’t realize that mistakes are (often) a sign of advancing, because they happen a lot more once you break the mold and move away from memorized chunks and phrases.
People vary so much in their attitudes towards having, for instance, their pronunciation corrected by other people. I've had people tell me how horrible it was to be corrected when they were out travelling, but that's part of the learning process. I'm eternally grateful to those who correct me. That's how I remember things. I have quite a few memories of this kind where, in addition to having learnt the correct pronunciation, I now have both a reference (metadata, if you like) I can point to and memories of people I've met and places I've been.
Well said! We all make mistakes even when we speak our native languages. When we try to speak a foreing language for the first time, we all make mistakes or misunderstand something. We all must walk, before we can run.
I once went to a lecture where a guy presented how his toddler said the past tense of irregular verbs. At first she said all the verbs correctly, 6 months later, she started saying, “goed” , “seed” , “doed “ etc. Another 6 months later, she said them correctly again. His theory was the first time, she just repeated what she heard. The second stage was her finding the ed pattern for past and using it everywhere. And finally, she was able to internalize the irregular verbs so that she use them. She NEEDED to make the mistakes in the middle to be able to own the language. If this theory is correct, then it’s possible or reluctance to make mistakes could mean we never get to the stage where we OWN the language, and all we can do is regurgitate.
@@coryjorgensen622 elaborate? I'm familiar with Krashen i just aquire language as i comprehend the messages. I do so through massive input. It's different than memorizing. Patterns become ingrained in you.
My key takeaway from this lesson is that we don't have to be upset when making mistakes. However, we cannot ignore reality: most of us feel anxious in conversations because we don't understand some words. And this fact can hold us back. Therefore, we have to work hard and get used to breaking out of our comfort zone. We need to throw ourselves into the idea of connection, not perfection. Of course, we have to record ourselves to pick our mistakes up. Perhaps you find yourself making the same mistakes again and again. That's normal. Take it easy. You will eventually pull it off. Keeping in mind that I'm still not comfortable making so many mistakes, I'll practice my speaking only if I feel joyful that day. Otherwise, I will focus on my input.
I don't mind making mistakes when having a conversation in my second language, however my target language puts a big emphasis on public speaking in formal occasions. If you make a mistake in front of a room full of people who are listening to you, you have to be wearing a emotional suit of armor.
I started out as a grammar nerd, with my technical knowledge outpacing my having actually fully absorbed those forms in my memory - and because I mostly studied epic poetry dead languages, those habits were reinforced. It has been a process, changing my orientation toward being able to communicate in real time, and mistake tolerance was definitely one of the bigger obstacles I faced.
Thank you Steve for sharing this great insight that when you make mistakes through your learning process of a language, this could be a sign of moving out the comfort zone of what you already know into a new level of learning more..
Hello, Steve! I just wanted to tell you that first of all you are a big inspiration for me as a language learner, and secondly the LingQ have been the biggest breakthroughs on my language learning journey. I've tried many different apps, but LingQ is perfect, the rest are just garbage. But I want to draw your attention to the pricing policy. This is unacceptable for the residents of Russia. I earn good money and in no case do not want to devalue the work of developers, but I just want to highlight two points: the price of an annual subscription is 7000 rubles, the average salary in Russia is 30,000 rubles. My wife and I decided to learn Turkish and we want to buy an annual subscription for two of us, it will cost 14,000 rubles, this is much higher than the psychological barrier, even taking into account the good income of our family, not to mention the average salary in Russia. С уважением, Евгений Струков.
People have a fear of making mistakes because of the school system I believe. These fears have grounding in the manner that USELESS teachers have instilled in pupils. All because of the stupid " one size must fit all " system. My school days at sec modern school were a disaster because of that idiocy. Thank heavens that's all behind me. I WON'T DO TESTS even now, I don't need them, I have my own method and it works !
Yesterday I made a video on how I speak Korean after one month of learning and was concerned by the fact that I don't know for sure whether I've composed/pronounced it properly or not but after this video I feel like the taken approach is correct. OMG! Korean is MUCH more difficult for me compared to English I've learned back in the day! Mr. Kaufman, your general tips videos are really helpful! Thank you so much for sharing your experience!
There was a lot of refreshing info that I knew to be true but didn't quite know how to put into words, which you did quite well. Thank you for taking the time to make these
Great video. I completely agree. Mistakes are part of our learning. We shouldn't avoid speaking a foreing language just because we are afraid of making mistakes. We have to understand that it's okay if you habe some of them, since that'll help you in your learning la guage process. On doit se jeter a l'eau et parler la langue. Gracias por tu video.
Everytime i use flashcards, I sometimes make mistakes. I don't speak much to people in real time. But I do record myself and listen to sentences, etc. When I do happen to speak my second language to a real live person, speed would be a problem i suppose. I would probably ask them to slow down or repeat what you just said.
I don't use flashcards. I watch Easy Italian on youtube. I write down short ( snippets ) useful short phrases you can remember and link together. Also I strongly advise listening to as much as possible, it's surprising how much/ how many words you recognise in a short space of time. Good luck !
Love this video! I made a video very similar about how to prepare for an oral exam in Spanish class. Being open to mistakes (and learning from them) is the key to leaning any skill! And yes, recordings help :) Great content!
It this makes your day Steve I am master of making mistakes. In fact mistakes are all I make. I have stopped making anything else including pancakes for breakfast!!
Mistakes are an experience. A person cannot progress without making mistakes. It's like with technique in sports - even world record holders make mistakes in the technique of performing the exercise regurarly, even though they have been doing it for decades. Mistake correction is a additional reserve for progress.
Even native speakers make mistakes. I know someone who consistently says "puédamos" as the subjunctive of "poder" (I haven't heard her talking about pruning). It doesn't confuse anyone. I've put the pronoun on the wrong side of a verb in Spanish (French interference); I doubt anyone else noticed. But once I told someone that someone "robió" my computer; she thought it was broken, not stolen.
Much impressed, you way of explaining in a very nice way , we can exchange poetry of Urdu of great poet Ghalib ,if you wish , I am a PhD Medical Doctor living now in Montreal , 🌷
this has been demonstrated in studies over and over. when you think something is A and then later you find out it is B you have a much higher chance of retaining the new correction, i think because the brain will notice more A to B en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection_(psychology)
I'm curious to know what you think about stating that you speak a language. Would you say: "I speak German" if you were to know very little German, and couldn't hold a fluent conversation? Or if you spoke with a lot of mistakes, or maybe no mistakes.
My personal definition of “speaking a language” or “being fluent” is to understand most of what a native says at full speed. Once you are at that level, you are past the overwhelming feeling of not understanding. You still have a lot to learn of course, but the rest of the journey is more enjoyable and you can finally say your skill is usable
@@SaturatedCat Perfectionists accomplish essentially nothing significant so they boast their goal of speaking perfectly to place themselves above others. Somebody made a big deal about perfecting pitch accent in Japanese to "sound like a native" even though it differs between varieties so it's not universally possible. In any case, speaking perfectly is impressive for 5 seconds, but with an attitude as ridiculous as his, people are out of there fast, no matter how good one is in the language.
Really interesting! Personally I'm really slow to call myself a speaker of a language. But I have however met people who could barely speak and they say:"yes, I speak this language".
Let's talk about recording a video of yourself speaking the foreign language you want to improve. What would that video be about ? Reading a newspaper ? A poem ? Imitating some lines in a tv series ?
For once I agree with many points here, but the title seems a tiny bit misleading. It implies making mistakes is obligatory even though they're mostly accidental and not intentional. Yes, mistakes are an opportunity to learn so that we make them less often, but by making them repeatedly, it means we're not learning anything new, didn't learn from last time and are just likely to make them again without challenging the brain. Some mistakes won't be fixed by listening and reading, just as you won't learn everything about a language just by listening and reading - I mean look how deaf children learn sign language; It's more active learning than passive. For them, listening and speaking is futile. I also agree about the schooling point yet we don't learn everything from parents and peers. I'm certain we all develop our first language skills in primary and maybe high school where we learn more sophisticated vocabulary and refine our grammar. What I'm saying is, mistakes are fine at a minimum, but critical thinking comes from challenging the brain, to learn from mistakes and identify them may help because the point is to make as few mistakes as possible since too many or too big of one can cause the native to misunderstand you completely. And hoping that listening and reading will fix the issue which may not cause change. Even if it does, why take the long solution? Many children don't use dictionaries yet speak until what, 5 or 6 years old and don't make that many mistakes, but it still takes a while. As adult learners, some things are easier to remember than others which stick faster.
