A lot of people are wondering how to learn English. Here is a video from Steve Kaufmann, who speaks 11 languages fluently. You can read the transcript for this video as well.

How to learn English? Be a lazy language learner

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. I’ll start off my audio recording.

Yeah, I was very encouraged to get some comments on my blog, The Linguist on Language, saying please do some more videos. I thought nobody cared. So, I’m going to do one.

What I thought I would talk about and I asked on my blog, I said, what sort of videos do people want? Do they want the general rants? Do they want the rant on language learning? Or, do they want me to talk in different languages. The response was kind of like all three. So, I don’t need much encouragement to continue.

How to learn languages when you are a lazy person

I recently put a comment on my blog, which I called Five Recommendations for Lazy Language Learners. I said for lazy language learners, which I think refers to most people, so let’s begin right there.

Most people are lazy when it comes to language learning and I say that because most people can’t be bothered learning a language, unless they need it for their job or they need it for some other professional reason. Even those people who are motivated to go to the store and buy a language learning book or cassette very often never look at it. Once they bring it home it sits on their shelf.

I know from research that I attended a conference in Germany called ‘Sprachen und Berufe’ (Languages and Professions). Research there showed that the professional, like the corporate language learner who might have an hour a week of class with a teacher, on average will spend an hour and a half on his/her own.

That’s two and a half hours a week. That is not enough to make any significant improvement in your language. So, I know that the majority of people are not strongly motivated to improve their language and so I say they’re lazy.

I think most people are lazy. Given the choice between doing something that’s difficult and hard work or doing something that’s easy and fun, most people will opt for the latter. And people very quickly say I don’t have enough time and, yet, I find that if you have the motivation, if you really want to do it, you find the time.

I had a question at a forum at LingQ on suggestions from someone who called themselves a “lazy bones”, so from this I came up with five suggestions for a lazy language learner, which I think, as I said, refers to most people.

The first point is to spend most of your time listening, because it’s easy to do. You can be listening while you’re driving, while you’re doing other chores. You can always find time. You know, while you’re standing in line at the supermarket. I do. I always have my iPod with me. It’s not hard work and so it’s something that a lazy person can do.

The second thing is that once you listen, of course, it’s frustrating if you can’t understand.
So, as I always say, read it and then go in there and find some words and phrases, but don’t try to learn things. Don’t try to remember things. Don’t get hung up. Don’t be too “Type A”, as they say, about this. Just forget it. If you forget it, you forget it. If you misunderstand certain things, if you fade out it doesn’t matter. So that was my second thing.

The third thing was with regard to grammar. Get the smallest possible book. Skim it every now and again. Don’t worry about what you can’t remember. Don’t really study it. So, I think a lazy person can cope with that.

The fourth thing was don’t force yourself to speak. Don’t feel compelled to speak, but when you do just relax and listen.

The fifth thing was don’t worry about what you don’t understand, about what you forget, about what you’re unable to do in the language, just enjoy it. So those are my suggestions.

How to learn languages when you are a hard-working person

In contrast to the four tasks that I assign to the hard-working learner and those were, of course, to be much more goal-oriented, more deliberate. You know, set weekly goals and stick to them.

Don’t miss a day in your language learning; whereas, the lazy guy can go for a couple of days and not do it.

Write – I’m too lazy to write. I’m working on my Italian, my Portuguese and my Russian, having fun with it, listening, enjoying, I don’t write. If I wrote I would do a lot better. I’m too lazy to write, but for the hard-working person – write.

Then I say connect with a tutor, because a tutor will get you working harder. Even once a week, twice a week, via Skype, nowadays you can do it. You don’t have to get in a car and go anywhere or take a bus. So for the hard-working person, get yourself a tutor.

And for the hard-working person, review your words and phrases, whether it be in flashcards or off lists. I don’t do it that often, because I’m a lazy learner. I prefer to listen. So that was my advice.

Some thoughts about language learning

Well, I get an email or not an email, but I get a comment from one of the people following my blog and this person says that I have castigated people who don’t have time to spend on language learning and that he showed it to his friends and they found it demotivating.

Here, please define lazy. You seem to be stigmatizing learners who can’t devote much time to studying learning a language. Stigmatizing…? A couple of people read this on my laptop and found it quite demotivational, he says. I’m not sure that that’s a word, but.

First of all, why would a person find it demotivating? They either consider themselves lazy or they don’t and I don’t think there’s any great sense of stigma attached to being lazy. It’s a fact. The majority of people are not that motivated to learn languages. Even people who think they are if they think it’s going to be hard work they soon lose interest.

It’s the way the languages are taught with the emphasis on grammar and so forth that makes it seems like hard work so people quit. So, I always try to encourage people. Even if you’re lazy, even if you don’t want to confront hard work, you can still learn. Here’s how you do it. I don’t think there’s any stigma there and I don’t see how that can be demotivating.

I think there’s a tendency now that we have to spend so much time fluffing people up and being nice to them. I thought I was being nice, you know? You can consider yourself lazy or not lazy and I made the point that most people are naturally, I think, a little bit inclined to find the easy way of doing things.

Now, there is an easy way of learning languages. It needn’t be hard work. So even if you’re lazy you can do it, put in the time. And, as I often say, it’s like so many other things, you find the time.

People say I don’t have time to exercise. I don’t have time to be fit. I don’t have the time to, whatever it might be, take out the garbage. Once it becomes a habit then you continue doing it.

So, in summary then, I don’t see…Well, like the previous commenter, Chris, here. He said I consider myself to be an active learner who tries to learn in the laziest way possible, which for most people would be the most enjoyable.

And so, yeah, I mean I don’t see where I stigmatized anybody. I was hoping to actually encourage people to believe that it’s really not such a difficult task. It doesn’t necessarily require tremendous discipline and hard work, but it does require the time. This is the point. You can’t do well in languages if you don’t put in the time.

So, again, I definitely agree with Chris’ comment here. Yes, put in the time. Yes, be motivated and be active, but find ways to do it that suit a lazy personality, which is more enjoyable and that’s how you’re going to succeed. You can achieve success and still study in what’s essentially a lazy way.

So, Charles, I didn’t mean to stigmatize anyone. I didn’t mean to demotivate anyone. I mean everything I do here is to try to motivate people to learn languages. I’m curious if anyone else reacted the same way. Certainly that wasn’t the intention.

All right, this will be my first video rant here after a bit of a hiatus, as I was away enjoying the sunshine of the California desert.

Thank you and bye for now.

Technorati Tags: How to Learn English, How to Learn English Online, Learn English, Learn English Vocabulary

Steve talks about how to learn English vocabulary.

Learning words and the use of the dictionary

Hi there, Steve here again. Today, I have my beret that I picked up when my wife and I were in Pau in southwestern France in 2007. The World Rugby Cup was on and I got this beret from the Basque Country. So, I’m going to wear it today and I’m going to talk about words, the use of the dictionary and some rambling about language learning. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to say.

What triggered this was on my blog, The Linguist on Language, we had a little bit of an exchange about the seal hunt, which is something that takes place in Canada regularly. It’s been under a lot of international media scrutiny. The Europeans have banned Canadian seal products so that the Norwegians and the Russians can provide those services and do exactly the same things as the Canadians do.

I said that it’s hypocritical for someone who eats meat. Most of the meat we get is produced in circumstances that we wouldn’t want to see firsthand, but because people have gone and filmed the seal hunt everybody is up in arms about the seal hunt, but they don’t film the slaughterhouses and so forth and so on; anyway, enough said.

One of the people there said I can’t use the word “hypocrisy” because the dictionary defines hypocrisy as this…whatever the definition was. I said I’m not bound in my use of words by some dictionary definition that someone might find somewhere. This person came back and said that he had never heard anyone say anything quite as ridiculous as what I had just said.

So, to me, the dictionary comes after usage. The dictionary doesn’t dictate usage. The dictionary has to constantly add definitions to reflect how words are being used and there’s often more than one definition. When I use a dictionary, nowadays I only use online dictionaries. I don’t like flipping through a dictionary and I never have.

To me, the meaning in the dictionary is just kind of a beginning, just a hint and until I have seen that word in many contexts, I won’t really know what the word means or how it’s used. Even after I’ve learned a few usages, I’ll still be surprised to find yet another usage of that word. So, the dictionary is just the beginning.

For example, some people love dictionaries. They value them. They read them. They read all of the 10 examples that are given and stuff. I never do that. I’m not interested in the examples that are given in a dictionary. I’m interested in when I’m going to meet the word in different contexts when I’m reading.

When I used to study languages, before the online dictionary, before LingQ, I would only read content that had a glossary or a vocabulary list behind each lesson because I hated looking things up in a dictionary. It took forever and as soon as I closed the dictionary I had already forgotten what I had looked up. So, it was a tremendously time consuming and discouraging type of thing to do and it also distracted me from my reading.

The word list was somewhat better because I could kind of look at it ahead of time in the hope that I would remember those meanings when I read the lesson. Of course, most of the time you don’t, because you read the list, you think you’ve learned it and then you come across the word and you’ve forgotten again. So, sometimes I would read and look at the word list, but that’s very distracting because you’re disrupted.

Often they give you a little indication that this word is in the word list and even though you know the word you look it up and then you realize that in fact you knew it, but then the words that you don’t know aren’t on the word list. So, it’s very unsatisfactory and that’s where we got into LingQ.

Let me say that I consider the learning of words to be the biggest task in language learning. You go through that initial period where you overcome the strangeness of the language. You start to hear it. You can tell where the words begin and end. If you want to you can even say a few things. You feel very proud of yourself. Now you can say hello, how are you, my name is so and so, but then there is that long process of acquiring enough words so that you can follow a lot of different discussions because, after all, to me, primarily, language learning is about understanding.

If I struggle saying something it doesn’t bother me. You know, some people are concerned. I know people who speak English who make lots of mistakes, who have maybe accents, but when I speak to them they understand everything I say. Those people, to my mind, are fluent. They’re totally with it. They’ve come up with a manner of speaking that’s influenced by their native language, which is full of accents or whatever. It doesn’t bother me, as long as they can understand and in order to understand you need lots of words.

To me, the learning of words is like the milestones. It’s like I’ve often mentioned in talking about LingQ where we track the number of words that you’ve learned, that you know and, of course, it’s not totally scientific, but it helps. This is like the mechanical rabbit at the dog races. You know, they have dog races and they have a mechanical rabbit and the dogs chase the mechanical rabbit.

So, the learning of words, the desire to increase your vocabulary, that’s the driver. You have to get more and more and more words. How do you get the words? By doing a lot of listening and reading and the occasional review through flashcards, through reviewing lists, looking at words, you know, all the things that I do in my vocabulary section at LingQ.
I compare words — see how they’re similar.

In fact, as again I have pointed out on LingQ, when I read away from the computer, which is more pleasant, I read away from the computer if I have no more than five percent, certainly under 10%, preferably under five percent new words. So then I read a chapter and I underline and I highlight all the words and phrases in there that I want to learn. Then when I’m done, I go to Google Documents and I write out all these words and phrases.

The great thing about Google Documents is that they have spellcheckers there because, inevitably, as you type in from a text or from a list you’re going to make spelling mistakes. Furthermore, I’m learning Portuguese, even if it’s in Spanish, not to mention Russian, I’m going to make spelling mistakes and I’m going to be missing accents. I’m going to do all kinds of stuff. I don’t want to switch keyboards all the time.

I mean, for example, the French keyboard is just hopeless because the Q is where the A should be and the M isn’t there and a whole bunch of stuff. I like to type in English, even my Russian. I use a virtual keyboard. I type in English, fill in with the odd missing letter in the case of Russian by having the keyboard up on my screen, but if I do it in a spellchecker environment like the Google Documents then I just check for spelling, make sure everything is correct, put in the accents, the cedillas, whatever it might be.

I then take that paragraph, which might be 100-150 words, if you’re not on LingQ then you just go to an online dictionary or if you come into LingQ I import them and then I go through. Any words that I have already been trying to learn in LingQ will be highlighted in yellow, because many words that you think you don’t know you’ve already been trying to learn them. Then I go through and I save them to LingQ. I get the meaning and then I get my flashcards and so forth and so on.

But, in all of this the dictionary is not some great bible. The dictionary, whether it be online or whether it be a book, but I prefer online because it’s fast. Like Google Translate is an excellent dictionary. It covers a lot of the words. It covers phrases. I have it available for words and phrases. It doesn’t do as good a job on longer paragraphs. It gives you a hint. It might be a little funny sometimes, but it kind of gives you a hint. I don’t worry about it. I just put that in. That’s the hint. In LingQ I’ll see it again. I might refine the hint. The main thing is I know I’ve got to see the word again.

So, what I’m driving in all of this is language learning is about increasing the number of words you know; that is passively that you understand. Eventually, if you know enough words passively you’ll start to use them. (B) If you speak poorly but you understand everything that’s not a problem, in my opinion. That means you can get your meaning across. (C) The dictionary does not define the meaning of words. It gives us hints. The dictionary is just a tool amongst many, but you are not going to learn words from the dictionary, in my opinion. You’re going to learn them from meeting them in different contexts.

Yeah, basically that’s what I had to say. Words, that’s what it’s all about. Get many words. Don’t treat the dictionary as a bible. Use it as infrequently as possible, because it’s hard to spend so much time flipping through a dictionary when you know you’re going to forget the word. That’s where online dictionaries come in and the advantage of doing your dictionary searching online is that you can then create lists, whether you’re in LingQ or whether you’re in Anki or some other program.

So, again, staying within my 10 minutes that’s what I had to say and look forward to hearing your comments. Bye for now.

A lot of new words you can learn at LingQ easily.

Technorati Tags: How to Learn English, How to Learn English Online, How to Learn English Vocabulary, Learn English Vocabulary

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Hopefully this week that will be up on the site, so I’ll get even more out of the flashcards.

Alex: Yeah, I think what’s great too is that an interesting thing for me in Korean was for a long time I just listened and I didn’t do very much reading. I was a very lazy reader and so I found when I would read texts that you have this sub-voice that every time you read something you’re saying it in your head and when I would say a word in my head I’d be like oh, that sounds really familiar. I would recognize it from some other phrase that I’d heard or something. But I think inversely if you don’t have that listening experience or exposure or the years and years of constant exposure to the language then it’s a huge benefit to be able to hear it and then match that. It allows your brain to much more easily remember it.

Steve: Absolutely. I mentioned on my blog there’s research now that shows that people who have dyslexia that that is connected to their inability to hear well or to distinguish certain things about language. There is no question in my mind that listening is very much connected with reading. I mean, from an evolutionary perspective, we were listening and telling stories and listening to stories for tens of thousands of years before writing was invented and so naturally we’re more sort of programmed to understand things that we hear.

To me, writing is just like having a recording machine.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It’s just like before they had Dictaphones or mp3 players they wrote. So it’s just a recording like we record something by hand in writing, so there’s a very strong connection. Certainly, the more I listen to something before I read in a foreign language the more I’m able to vocalize, the better I’m able to vocalize, the more familiar I am with the text, so there’s a real connection.

The other thing you mentioned too, which was interesting, is as you’re sub-vocalizing, which we certainly do when we read in a foreign language much more so than in our own language, you sub-vocalize it, or even in reading it, you’re more conscious of the connections between different words. I think a big part of building vocabulary is recognizing these connections.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: That enables you to acquire a lot of words incidentally, words that you haven’t even deliberately tried to learn, but you’re becoming more attentive to the connections between words.

In fact, for me when I do flashcards, I do them mostly to see connections between words. Like I’ll often go into our vocab section at LingQ and I’ll deliberately review them in alphabetical order because then you’re going to see words that are variations on the same or a similar core root. That’s so important to build up that attentiveness to the connections between words and reading does that. I mean reading is very powerful when it comes to vocabulary building. There’s no question.

Alex: Yeah. I think, too, with that, I know when I read in Korean, for instance, I do way more sub-vocalizing, as you said, than I do in English. I can do it without kind of that conscious sub-vocalizing, but I find that then I kind of miss something to it. One process that I enjoy is the process of sub-vocalizing or, if I can, reading aloud because then I hear my own voice and then those phrases and those words stick better than just the meaning of what it’s saying.

Steve: Oh, absolutely. It’s just that sometimes whatever we’re doing we have like five different goals and so we have to decide which one we’re going to focus on.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So, reading out loud is good because it helps to engrain. It’s that sense of repetition, of getting the neurons to fire, so to speak, you know, so that’s good. Yet, you’re anxious to move ahead in the book so you want to read for meaning.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: And you want to focus on certain language patterns, so yeah…

Alex: It’s tiring. It is.

Steve: Yeah, sometimes. Tat why I think you can read more than once the same text and focus on different things.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: And, for sure, repeating what we hear. Like I know at an early stage in any language it’s often useful to walk around doing stuff at home repeating phrases that you’ve just heard. All of this helps to engrain these words and phrases in your mind. The problem is that we can’t do it for every word and every phrase that we have to learn.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Like I’m a great believer in sort of a random approach.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So if you randomly repeat certain words and phrases that’s going to do it. Like if I have to learn 30,000 words in Czech — I don’t know what the number is — I’m not going to repeat them all to myself. I can’t possibly do that.

Alex: Right.

Steve: Similarly, I can’t possibly review all the words and phrases that I’m saving, but even if it’s done on a random basis and even if it’s not scientifically-programmed spaced repetition. I’m sure that’s very effective, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I think it’s also quite helpful to do things on a random basis.

Alex: Right.

Steve: To me, the main thing is just to do things that you enjoy doing that are convenient for you to do. If I had to sit down every day for one hour and religiously review all my words I wouldn’t do it after a while.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So I think it’s important to tell people, if you are disciplined enough to do that, go for it. I’m sure that’s very effective. But if you’re not disciplined enough or if you don’t have the time to do it, don’t worry about it.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Even if you’re doing it sporadically it’s going to help you. The main thing, though, is to make sure you spend the time. So, today you’re more motivated to read on because you’re interested in the subject, some other day you’re more motivated to read out loud, the third day you’re motivated to do your flashcards. As long as you’re spending time with the language you are, in fact, going to improve.

Alex: Yeah. And I think that’s touching on a good point, too, of the accessibility of language learning. I think in a traditional approach you think you need to spend concentrated time on it every day and a lot of people think well I can’t really juggle that many things in my life. If they have a family, they have kids, they have work, they have other things that they have to attend to they think well I can’t possibly learn another language. But I think that very fact of five minutes here, five minutes there, reading on the way to work or listening or something, just getting it in. It’s a random approach, but I think the exposure is absolutely beneficial.

Steve: Well, yeah. I mean we see there are people on YouTube who talk about how they spend six hours a day learning languages. And they do learn them. And they’re good at it. And that’s commendable.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I know that when I studied Chinese I went at it very intensively, as many hours as I wanted. I was paid. That was my job. I could spend five-six-seven-10 hours at it every day. I did very well. I learned very quickly. I mean in eight months I had learned Chinese. Russian has taken me four years at an hour a day. But, realistically, most people have trouble patching together an hour a day.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: But if you’re a full-time student, obviously, you can be much more methodical, thorough, you should be more disciplined, all those things, but people who aren’t in that position can still learn.

Alex: Yeah. I think that’s it. The joys of language learning are not reserved just for the few elite who have four hours free a day, right?

Steve: Exactly. So, insofar as learning a language from scratch, I’m very happy with my Czech and I have the impression now that we have…well, we have Arabic, Polish and Dutch up there as well. The Dutch I think would be a breeze. I’ve had a look at some of the Dutch text. I don’t think it would take very long between German, English and Swedish, whatever, it’s pretty close.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: The Polish looks a little bit daunting. I think I might do that after Czech, if I feel motivated, but I’ve still got to slide my Korean back in there. But the one that scares me is Arabic.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: The biggest thing with the Arabic is the writing system. There again, everything that we don’t know scares us.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Anything. Like I drove down to California, I’ve never driven down to California. It seemed like an awfully long way to drive. Now that I’ve driven down to California once — my wife and I went down and enjoyed ourselves there in Santa Rosa — it’s no big deal now because I’ve done it.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I think if I got started with Arabic and started writing those little squiggles from right to left, once I get used to it…

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It’s just the fear of the unknown and I think that’s a big factor in language learning. It’s that fear of the unknown. Czech is a breeze, I’ve done Russian. I’ve overcome the first hurdle. Chinese, having done Chinese, Japanese was a breeze. Even Korean was no big deal because I had done the Chinese, the characters. I was into Asian languages, although they’re not related languages. Arabic now is like from nowhere. Like it’s wow! It’s just a matter of getting started; getting started doing it.

Alex: I think that’s the thing, too, of having the confidence. Like you said before, you read a text in Czech you know three words. You listen to it five more times and then you read it again and you know seven words.

Steve: Right.

Alex: I think a lot of people get very discouraged at that, but I think it takes the know how to understand every little step counts and every little bit that you do is going to help you in the long run.

Steve: Absolutely. Just to finish off with this whole issue of speaking, everyone wants to speak and people have different sort of objectives in terms of how they want to use the language. So if your objective is simply to go to Mexico and be able to say a few things with the locals that’s one thing, in which case, yeah, you start doing that.

I must say in the case of my Russian, I know from experience now, I manage quite well in Russian in speaking and, yet, overwhelming my activity has been passive. Not because I don’t want to speak, but because there’s no one to speak to here.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I can’t program my day around finding people to speak Russian to. There’s no guarantee that at a point in my Russian where I can’t communicate very well that some guy I meet in a shopping center is going to want to sit down and have a cup of coffee with me just to amuse me, you know?

So, I’m confident that in this process in my Czech that as long as I keep letting the words flow in. I don’t have anyone to speak to, but I’m building up my vocabulary. Passive, but it’s going to start converting itself to an active vocabulary and when I have the opportunity and when the need arises I will stumble and stutter and struggle, but I will eventually be able to use many of those words and, of course, the more I speak the better I get.

So, obviously, people should speak when they have sufficient confidence in their vocabulary or when they have the opportunity. Or if their goal is to use it for simple social situations, by all means, speak. But I have the confidence, in terms of what I am doing in Czech now that what I am doing is going to enable me to speak. I don’t feel a need to speak now. Right now I probably couldn’t say anything, but I would say in a month if I hear someone speaking Czech in a store I may just say my three words of Czech and then run because I won’t understand what he’s saying. Anyway…

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Okay, Starting from Scratch. There we go.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Okay.

Alex: All right.

Steve: Thanks Alex.

Alex: Thanks for listening everyone.

Technorati Tags: Beginners, How to Learn English, How to Learn English Vocabulary, Language Learning

Alex: Hi there Steve.

Steve: Well, you know what I would like to talk to you about this morning?

Alex: What is that?
Steve: About my experience in learning Czech, because it’s really the first time that I’ve started a language completely from scratch at LingQ.

Alex: Interesting.

Steve: Because Russian I started before we had LingQ.

Alex: Right.

Steve: So I did the Teach Yourself and colloquial and those starter books before I started at LingQ and, of course, all the other languages. I mean my most recent languages, Portuguese or Cantonese. Cantonese we don’t have at LingQ.

Alex: Right.

Steve: Portuguese I did a fair amount before we started at LingQ. I think it went more quickly once we had it at LingQ, but… So Czech is the first one that I’m starting from scratch.

Alex: Oh, very interesting.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: So, how long have you been then studying Czech for?

Steve: Well, you know you quickly lose track of when you started, but I know that I had my Cantonese radio interview on the Friday, whenever it was, 23rd or 25th. I didn’t do any Czech before that because I was listening to Cantonese podcasts in order to get my Cantonese up to the level where I wanted it to be. So, basically, I would say at this point it’s a little over a week.

Alex: Wow.

Steve: A little over a week.

Alex: So, in this say call it a week and a half, what have you noticed? I mean how has it been on LingQ?

Steve: Well, it’s been great. First of all, of course, we’re lucky in that some of our members have created content for us. I mean LingQ is a beta language, so we at LingQ Headquarters…

Alex: Czech. Czech is a beta language.

Steve: What did I say?

Alex: LingQ.

Steve: Yeah, I’ve got to watch it. Czech is a beta language at LingQ; therefore, we at LingQ Headquarters aren’t putting any effort into finding content. Fortunately, Jarda, one of our Czech members, has created a mountain of content and, also, one other member, Pandora from Brazil who’s studying Czech, has also uploaded some good content and now Makacenko, another one of our members from the Czech Republic, has uploaded some content. So there’s a fair amount of stuff there.

Alex: Excellent, ha?

Steve: So, I essentially started with greetings and goodbyes, which is one of the three items that we have in all languages or at least in all of the supported languages. But, thanks to Yarda, we also have it Czech now. And, of course, you know what it’s like. If you listen without reading you don’t understand a thing. It’s just noise. If you go through it and read it and save words and phrases and if you’ve done that a few times then, for example, if I listen and read on my iPad, I can understand what’s being said, if I’ve been through that text a few times.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: If I go back to listening without the text, I still don’t understand. You know what I mean?

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It’s extraordinary. You’re listening to it and reading and it all makes sense. Take away the crutch of the reading, I can’t understand it. Except that every time you listen there are more words that you understand. As I say, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle, right?

Alex: Right.

Steve: So, the first time you hear it there are two words you understand. Then you read it again. You review it. You listen and read at the same time. You look up the words that you’ve forgotten again and again and you listen again and now there are six or seven words that you understand. So that’s been part of the process.

I also found a little phrase book at home. So I have that by my bedside, because I don’t like to have my computer by my bedside or even my iPad. Bedside is book. So I kind of flip through that and that helps. I like the idea of doing it from different directions. So the phrase book is kind of not connected to anything. The stuff at LingQ is within a meaningful context. I mean I’m doing ‘Who is She?’ I’ve been through ‘Who is She?’ from one to 26 a couple of times. I know the story, so that helps.

I really recommend people do stuff where they already know the story. I mean, the more familiar you are, obviously, with the context the better you’re going to do. That’s one less thing to worry about.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: So now you’re just looking at words. So, this morning I went to a Czech newspaper and used our bookmarklet to copy and past and import an article from a Czech newspaper and, I mean, I can make my way through it. So, I feel that I have gone faster in Czech at LingQ than I have ever gone before in starting a new language from scratch.

Alex: Wow. And you’ve done what, 12 languages now?

Steve: Yeah. Now, to be fair, you can say well in Czech the structure is very similar to Russian. I haven’t yet looked at tables for case endings, but I can tell if it’s the instrumental it ends in an “m” if it’s masculine and neuter like in Russian. There are a few funny things that happen. I haven’t bothered looking at it yet, but I know when I’ve had enough exposure I’ll go to those tables and it will make sense, so I’m not worrying about them. But it’s much easier than when I did Russian because I now know how a Slavic language works.

Alex: Right.

Steve: I don’t know. I shouldn’t say all Slavic languages, but at least Czech works a lot like Russian. I’m surprised at the number of words that are different and I think as I get into it perhaps there will be a higher and higher percentage of words that are similar. In a lot of languages the very common words will be more different. The more seldom used words are more similar, right?

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: That’s why we have irregular verbs. It’s never the rare verb that’s irregular. It’s the frequently used verb that’s irregular. So, the more common language tends to be developed differently in different languages within the same family; whereas, the more call them sophisticated or less frequently used words are going to be more similar. So, yeah, I’m encountering a lot of different vocabulary, but yeah, I’m really enjoying it.

Alex: Yeah. So, what is different in your mind say when you started Russian? I mean how is your approach different now than it was then?

Steve: Well, I mean there are a number of things. First of all, even though the Russian alphabet is a lot easier than Chinese, Korean or Japanese it’s still different alphabet, right? So reading in Czech, which is in a Roman alphabet, is a lot easier.

Even though I read Russian quite comfortably, it’s easier. It’s less of a strain to be able to do it in the alphabet that you’re most familiar with. That’s number one. Number two, a lot of the patterns that seemed very strange in Russian now are already familiar to me. So (A) I’m with a familiar alphabet (B) I’ve got a familiar structure and a good percentage of the words are recognizable based on similar words in Russian, so it’s a lot easier. It’s a lot easier.

But, I must say, if I think of when I started into Portuguese, I have made more progress, I think, in my Czech than I had in Portuguese. And the reason for that is with Portuguese I started again with Teach Yourself or Living Language, didn’t have LingQ, so you’re relying on listening to these texts and reading through the textbook and there’s a lot of English and English explanation, which I find distracting.

I found the process of reading on our screen, saving words and phrases, being able to review them a little bit, listening, reading, listening, reading, that concentrated interaction with words that is basically what the LingQ System is, I find that moves you along faster. Particularly as adults, we don’t have to always be learning the language around things like “Hello, how are you? My name is… That’s a green pen. That’s a blue shirt.”

After 10 days I uploaded this newspaper article about political developments in the Czech Republic. I’m interested in the subject. I have that vocabulary in other languages. It’s interesting to me and I don’t mind picking my way through the text. Also, I’m not looking to master anything and I think that’s where a lot of language learners have difficulty. I don’t mind the fact that the article is not completely clear to me. I don’t mind the fact that I looked up every third word and can’t remember any of them. That doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

Alex: Right.

Steve: I know that if I keep washing these words over me, listening to them, reading them, reviewing them, that they will eventually stick because that has happened to me in all these other languages, so I’m confident. Like I’m climbing up this mountain, I know I’m going to reach the peak.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: Someone who hasn’t done this before is gee, I wonder how far it is. Am I going to make it? I’ll never get anywhere. I’ll get stuck. I’ll get lost. So they have all these kinds of apprehensions, which I don’t have.

But, yeah, with Portuguese it took me forever, listening to Living Language, listening to Teach Yourself. I went to Portugal and I really couldn’t understand what people were saying. Although, I could read the newspaper, it’s largely the same, right? Whereas, now I feel after 10 days I’m very confident that in a year from now if I go to Prague I’ll be able to communicate.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I would also advise learners if you have that degree of confidence you’ll do it, you know? I think one of the biggest problems language learners have is that they have no confidence that they’re going to get there and so they’re constantly doubting themselves and therefore not committing enough. If you doubt yourself every day you’re not going to continue.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: I studied today, I didn’t understand. I forgot my words. I’m no good. All of this kind of negativity discourages you.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s definitely a problem. You touch on quite a few interesting points. First off, one is that you study stuff that you’re interested in. I think that’s huge, too.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: I’m reading a book in Korean now, which is quite difficult. Without a dictionary it’s fairly difficult to navigate through, but the benefit is I’ve read the book in English already.

Steve: Yeah.

Alex: I have this background and I have an interest in the topic, so I go onto LingQ and I save these words. I see them the next time and have no idea what they mean, but again it’s that process of seeing them over and over that really solidifies my understanding of those words.

Steve: And as an experienced learner, you’re not bothered by the fact that you looked this word up, you saved it as a link, you reviewed it in your flashcard and you still can’t remember what it means.

Alex: Yeah.

Steve: It doesn’t bother you.

Alex: Right.

Steve: You know? It doesn’t bother you.

Technorati Tags: Beginners, How to Learn English, Language Learning

Summary:
1. You must train your brain to react differently to similarities in different languages
2. Review lists of words to improve your retention of certain types of words
3. Take mental notes and underline constantly to help yourself remember new patterns and endings better.

Technorati Tags: Grammar, Language Learning

Summary:
1. It’s quite challenging to memorize cases by simply looking at tables.
2. Look for similarities and patterns in the texts that you are reading.
3. Do review, but don’t expect to memorize the cases and verb endings.

Technorati Tags: Grammar, Language Learning

Summary:
1. It is helpful to understand the basic concept behind the cases and verb endings.
2. The problem is that there are a lot of exceptions to these rules that make it complicated to remember them.
3. It takes time to learn and understand these concepts in detail, and it is often difficult to grasp them as a beginner.
4. Start with a general idea of how the language works and then slowly review more complex concepts as your ability in the language increases. It helps to have lots of exposure as examples of these concepts.

Technorati Tags: Grammar, Language Learning

Summary:
1. Many people find it difficult to start learning two languages at the same time.
2. It is good to study a language intensely for an extended period of time (3 months, 6 months, etc.) so that you will improve significantly.
3. If you want to learn two languages at once, try studying one language 80% of the time and another language 20% of the time.

Technorati Tags: Grammar, Language Learning

Summary:
1. Reading is one of the best ways to increase your English vocabulary and your ability to comprehend.
2. Once you are past the beginner stage, try learning with authentic English content, whether it be audiobooks, blog posts, etc.
3. The goal is to be able to read English without having to constantly use a dictionary, but it takes time to achieve this.
4. When you read, try to underline words and phrases to help your brain become more familiar with English words and phrases.

Technorati Tags: Language Learning, Reading

Summary:
1. Don’t put pressure on yourself to be perfect in English. Language learning takes time!
2. It is common to forget English words and phrases that you just read, studied, learned and reviewed.
3. Remember the golden triangle of language learning: Attentiveness, Attitude, Time on Task
4. Be patient!

Technorati Tags: Forgetting, Language Learning