Although I agree that you have to experience communication events to truly learn a language... I still learn the rules of the language when studying it. Since i can learn the rules quickly if I learn them explicitly, I can know what is going on immediately when i immerse myself in a communication event. Anyways my point is that explicitly learning the rules allows me to accelerate the language acquisition process- which I agree should be taking in a huge amount of input.
No it doesnt. Did you not listen to the scientist, he said there is no know mechanism to take make explicit learning work. What might be at work is a higher work load or motivation. If you know anything about actual linguistics you would know that there are no rules and language is far more abstract than we give it credit for. I work in language teaching and sadly every teacher but me works with grammar. This means that about 70% of the students really struggle. Only the highly motivated advance and that is mostly because they are motivated to participate when the subject, grammar, is really boring to the others.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist every language I have studied (Italian, spanish, french, Korean, mandarin) has rules. I do not know what you mean by 'it does not have rules'. Don't get me wrong, I do not really teach the 'rules' to the people I teach second languages to. I see how most people do not make the connection between the verb tenses and how knowing them allows you to say whatever you want. However, I, as a highly motivated student of the language, like to, and do, learn the rules. At the very least it is helpful for me to learn the verb charts for a new romance language. Since I know where it is going and the verb tenses are very similar to English, and almost exactly the same as other romance languages, a simple week long, enormous effort, allows me to learn the verb forms (there are only like sixty different tenses which is certainly possible for a motivated learner, and I just focus on the most important ones anyways).
@@TheCompleteGuitarist I know grammar is boring to a lot of ppl ... But for me I find it pretty interesting... Especially when I learn grammar from multiple, related languages, which allows me to see and experience the similarities (and differences) between them...
There's allegedly some people who deal with logic better than others. That is to say, you should obviously feel free to learn languages in any way that seems efficient to you. I suspect that most people are probably better served with 'acquisition' than looking at grammar books though, which was also one of the points made in this video.
I helped teach intensive (4 hours/day, 5 days/week in monthlong blocks) and immersion (living with the students for a week) English language for adults in Russia (around the time the USSR collapsed). The results of intensive classes were astounding. By the end of 2 months, the students were engaging in intelligent conversations with me on topics that they cared about. I found that the subject that got the most input was whether uniforms should be worn in school. Everyone had an opinion and felt unafraid to express it in front of the other students. This motivation gave them the energy to push themselves and put together ideas in English. The school was founded by an academic whose approach was phonetics first language acquisition: Natalia Evgenievna Shurigina. In general, USSR language training was very good, not at all like the "dead language" model we are familiar with in the US.
This is a really good interview. It's too bad it is so exhausting to listen to with all that background music. Why do youtubers insist on adding background music? Have you ever been to a lecture where there is background music? Ever heard a TED Talk with music? You have two guys talking. That's what we want to listen to. Not some random canned royalty free crap music.
At least with my Japanese, I was able to make a lot of progress just watching UA-cam and using Anki every day. In the beginning, I would mostly just read subtitles on beginner videos, and over time my vocabulary and comprehension improved so that I didn't need subtitles as much so I could watch more native level content. I had to make the language part of my daily communication habit and my brain subconsciously started to understand grammar and rules. I did have to study vocab and kanji separately, but after a while it was pretty fun to learn new kanji because I saw how much progress I was making.
Judging by a lot of the comments, many people obviously dont know how important a person BVP is in the world of language acquisition. He is not giving advice, he is telling what the science has discovered. And the science tells you that explicit learning has very short term gains if any and is likely to harm long term progress and that a second language is basically acquired the same way we learnt our first language (implicitly) because it is effectively going to the same part of the brain. Not some special place for second languages.
Great video. I would just say I like to use another metaphor about the "sea of information" that is language with my students: Think of it as a vast jigsaw puzzle, and every small piece you put down does not complete the puzzle, but it gives you an idea of the entire picture the puzzle is making. Every sound, every word, ever idiom, every little piece of language helps understand the final picture.
I had lots of imput in Romanian in the last 3 months. I had a great improvement in understanding it both in written and spoken form. For a time, I read lots of news online, then a textbook, then a youtube audio course, then youtube videos, now the bible in audio, etc... If I start to get tired with a type of content, I look for a new kind of content. I plan to watch a whole football match narrated in Romanian, for instance, as they are available for free on youtube.
Great interview! I started learning English when I was about 10 at the elemental school back in China. It took so much time but I improved very slowly. I felt I learned more English in the first 1-2 years in the US comparing to my 14 years learning of English in China.
I came to the same conclusions. You can start with some basic grammar videos on youtube, a travel phrasebook and month on an app. After that, lots of reading, lots of listening. If you don't have someone to talk to you can read aloud and look for materials that contain lots of dialogues, such as theater, detective novels, etc...
Interesting chat! I am learning Cherokee - remote with first language speaker Ed Fields - i love the music of it! His parents would say, 'yunaduliha yanadeloqua' - if they want to, they will learn.
Learning explicitly has it's place. I'm 62 years old and still recall the chart my Kindergarten teacher used to teach phonetics (English speaking country). I can even picture the "cherries" to represent the "ch" sound. (Ha ha... my parents were native speakers of German.) Explicit learning can help shape the context for acquiring more langauge and actually speed up the process. If I know upfront that the German "v" is pronounced differently than the English "v"... it helps, going forward. Things like that.
I really admire BVP, and I've benefited greatly from his "Tea with BVP" podcast. But man, his comment about Latin is very strange: Until the MID-20th CENTURY, Latin was a language widely spoken in Europe and America by educated adults, and had been such for hundreds and hundreds of years. It's fixedness was a part of the appeal, sure, because it allowed relatively consistent communication over time and geography, but it was taught largely in an immersive, active environment, even if it did spend a lot of time parsing and covering grammar.
This is great and just what I am looking for. I don't want to do the same thing. Rather than 'teach' I want to be able to 'convey' a language. Using non text book methods. Listening and visual associations seem to be the main keys. I devised 6 week courses for people about 5 years ago. You can't learn the whole language but you can learn to communicate. I focus on patterns in the language and what I also call, 'pick and mix'. But what most students struggle with is comprehension. The more you comprehend the more you learn. I am going to focus on videos for teaching that are not teaching per se, but they will require the learner to listen, to day to day subjects. Instead of feeding them one word at a time. To communicate simply in a language, you do not need all the tenses to begin with. Present, past and basic future will suffice, in the beginning. I left school at 15, no further education and I learned Portuguese in about 6 months, I don't consider myself a genius or anything. I hardly spoke in those six months! But when I did start speaking people couldn't believe how much I knew. Because I LISTENED A LOT :) Great video, sorry for going on.
@@Passiony-r They don't teach how to say the words though. So without enough listening practice you might say the words incorrectly. It is harder trying to change the way we have learned later on too.
We do not pluralize maths in British English. It has an s on the end because it's a truncated form of mathematics. It's not short for mathematic. That's why we say maths
American English speaker here. Your point is well taken. However, I would dare say that both truncated forms (of mathematics) are equally legitimate. The shortened form used in the UK (maths) is correct because "mathematics" does indeed have an s at the end, but the shortened used in North American English (math) is equally legitimate because the "ematics" portion of the original word is being lopped off altogether. (I bring this up only because I think arguing about "correctness" in this instance is unnecessary.) Still, you're 100% right. "maths" is a truncated form, not a plural.
@@paulgutman-o2c I only made the point because the speaker said we pluralize it and that is not necessarily so. That is the only thing I'm speaking to. In fact, I live in the US now and do say math. I don't think I mentioned correct.
@@kanthonysmith You didn't mention correct at all. I just wanted to explain to other speakers from the UK the logic behind both abbreviations, but you and I are actually very much on the same page.
Once again, I’m minding my own business and eating breakfast with my family when I see Matt has uploaded a new video. And, once again, I had to excuse myself and let them continue without me so I could watch this immediately. No regrets. They knew what this was. Need Matt’s insights so they’ll deal. 😏
I wish I could relate to what you see in Matt. I honestly did not understand anything on how he helps to learn a language. I have been struggling to learn Spanish for two years and have not found the way to properly learn and even have a conversation of two sentences. I feel I need structure. The suggestion he gave at the end is to read and stay away from the crap! What is crap? Apps, video, games? What? Wish he helped. Glad he works well for you.
I like his calm and thoughtful demeamor. He is not like "THIS is the ONLY way to aquire language...everything else is a waste of time! (buy my courses)".
Good interview here. Main take-away: language acquisition takes TIME. A lot of time. I'm four years into Russian and feel like I'm on a 10-year journey (minimum).
I was surprised to find this out last year, but actually VanPatten is correct about the section on tones. I am a native speaker of both English and Swedish, and well, Swedish is a semi-tonal language. The word 'anden' means either spirit or mallard. For me, I thought this was just stress, but tones are part of it. I also think in regards to the languages we often think are the hardest, like Chinese or Arabic, those principles that make them so difficult can not too rarely be found elsewhere too. Such as tones in Chinese being present in Vietnamese and Thai. Perhaps not the easiest languages either, but the principles are the same. Arabic with its difficult alphabet has that same alphabet used by the significantly closer languages of Urdu and Farsi.
"Their brains have matured because of content." Yes, that is a real gem of a phrase. It's so sad to meet people whose development has been perceptibly stunted due to lack of content.
BVP !!! Yes!!! I’m a die hard fan and it is amazing to see this interview! Showing it to my students next week to help them feel more confident! I explain a lot of this to them but hearing it from BVP 20:06 will hopefully make more of an impact! Thank you!!!
Correction on learning Latin in grammar schools: it was learnt as an active spoken language, not just for reading or writing. The move away from spoken Latin came as it declined in use from about 1650 onwards. It was still spoken in many universities until the 1800s.
It would be great if you interviewed Dr Errapel Mejías Vicandi Ph.D.from the University of Nebraska. He lectures Spanish linguistics completely in Spanish. He is exceedingly well published for his linguistic investigations. He made the Spanish subjunctive ridiculously simple. He only assigned one homework assignment per week that took us about 30 - 45 minutes to complete. I learned so much from him so effortlessly that I almost felt guilty. The other interviews you have posted are from natural approach advocates but go out and expand your scope to linguists who studied a broader range of linguistics. The natural approach has been around Luke 30 - 40 years, and when universities started to adopt the textbooks that used this approach learning declined severely. I watched it happen as did many others who all basically just threw in the towel and were resigned to the future of language acquisition.
What a great down-to-earth summary of the essentials of language learning (and how different these are from what we have been put through at school). Completely in line, I think, with what the videos by Lingosteve (the maker of LingQ) tell at greater length. Guess I was quite lucky to have learned 6 or 7 languages by exposure and hunting for more input. Btw, I’m pretty sure that his language classes do not use background music…
FWIW, one of the yogic siddhis (perfections) is the ability to understand (jñaanam) the sound (ruta) of all (sarva) beings (bhuuta), sarvabhuutarutajñaanam (sarva-bhuuta-ruta-jñaanam).
Correction doctor: In the UK, 'maths' is not used as a plural. Even though it has an 's' at its end, it takes a singular very form, e.g. 'Maths is my favourite subject.'
Around 11:34 where he begins to speak about 3 Broad Stages and the 1st is where you're dependent on the other person. Q: @ 12:40 Does it matter if you try to speak in that 1st stage? His answer is that it causes you to lose interlocutors. My question: What if we're using AI for conversation? At stage 1, does it help or hinder us to speak with all the rambling, searching, stumbling ?
Hello. Very informative video. Thank you. One criticism: the bg music is too loud compared to your voice. I was listening in a noisy environment, had to blast my phone's speaker on almost 100%.
Disagree on the idea that all languages are equally difficult *for an english speaker.* The thing that makes spanish easier than chinese - as a person fluent in the former and a student of the latter - is the *huge* number of cognates that spanish shares with english, as well as the exceptionally difficult writing system of chinese Are all languages equally difficult for a child to learn as a native tongue? Sure I could see that argument. But as a second language learner, the closer the second language is to a language you already know, the easier it will be to learn.
I agree with you completely. It’s also worth noting that there’s a research out there that shows what languages are easier and harder for native English speakers to learn. I think that I read somewhere that the easiest language for a native English speaker with no prior language, learning experience to actually learn is Italian where is the hardest are languages like Chinese and Arabic. Also, I would personally say that the idea that all languages are difficult for English languages to learn is kind of form of prejudice, because it assumes that native English speakers just inherently have a hard time, learning another language, and that people who are not native English speakers are just better at it without taking into account that most native English speakers are constantly surrounded by English and spend most years of their life, surrounded by English without the need to learn another languageand that the majority of the world of these English speaking societies operates with two or more languages at a time. It’s almost like a prejudice.
I absolutely think that the pressure of grades is not helpful at all for language acquisition-- or the acquisition of any kind of knowledge. Assessment, on the other hand is useful for teacher feedback. I think that many people balk from the idea of formal schooling because of the grades (for example, language acquired in college). What I find is that those students who make high grades stick with something, and those who make poor grades run away and do not continue because the resulting grade can damage their entire GPA, which could lead to detrimental effects.
I get waht he's SAYING IS TRUE re: kids takes 4-5 years to almost resemble adults still lots of mistakes halting speech etc, but I saw a Russian woman who in 2 years? passed C1 exam in Italian and truly spoke fluidly...so what is it with THOSE FOLKS?
You can have two years of 15 minutes of Duolingo a week vs hours of immersion per day. It’s the hours rather than the years that count. I would also say passing an exam isn’t the same as fluency (a Spanish teacher told passing the DELE is about exam skills rather than proficiency in the language)
You said it, it's a C1 exam. It's an exam that measures how well you can take a test, not how well you can use a language to communicate. I often meet people who can pass tests who are not particularly good at communicating.
He didn't actually answer the question about explicitly studying the tones in mandarin. Which is obviously essential, as well as explicitly studying the hanzi with smart memory techniques.
> It was not for the chinese. Why should it be for anyone else? You learn a second language the same way you learn the first. By participating in communicative events.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist because you can not go back to a baby like state where you have no responsabilities, someone looking after you 24/7, no concept of what language is, and about 7 years to spend in that state before you are able to make sense. Sure you can learn some languages without focusing too much on actually studying, but that's not the case with languages that are much different than your native language.
Respectfully, as someone who speaks Spanish pretty proficiently and is learning Chinese, I would actually say Chinese is easier. Yes the pronunciation is very difficult, there are almost no similar words at all, and there’s a lot of vocabulary to memorize, but the grammar in Spanish is what really gets you. Chinese has no verb conjugations instead you use adverbs and sometimes endings on sentences to denote whether or not something has happened in the past or if you’re making a command or asking a question. It’s really common to use adverbs when talking about past or future actions. So there’s no verb conjugations to memorize. Whereas in Spanish, you have like 15 different verb tenses and then the conjugations to memorize, and then all of the separate conjugations for irregular verbs to memorize. So that can be very difficult. Spanish also has some fluid when it comes to sentence structure, such as putting the object that you’re talking about at the very front of the sentence versus how we’re used to doing it in English more near the back of the sentence, where is in Chinese there’s a set sentence structure that every sentence follows. And when you just accept that, there’s a sentence structure, it’s actually a little bit easier to construct a sentence in Chinese in spanish
From 9:13 is Professeur referring to programs such as the likes of michel thomas, pimsleur, language transfer, Paul noble method? Because what you're saying from 9:25 - 9:50 sounds familiar to the promotions these programs claim or am I wrong?
My gooooood! So cool 😚 Btw, the moment I heard *Rosetta Stones*, I was like whaaat, because I just listened to Cinderella by Future and Metro Boomin, haha 😂
You need real world interactions to learn a language. Nothing is as effective for learning a language as having to use it in real life situations to solve real problems. To most foreign language learners that real-world interaction is a sort of a luxury, you only get it a few times on a vacation, etc., and believe me, those situations that arise when you need the language will not fit neatly into your progress. They will require words and grammar that are outside the scope of what you have already internalized. In Portuguese, which I am currently learning, there are over 60 forms of each verb, that’s only counting the simple forms that require conjugating the main verb, not composed forms where you only have to conjugate an auxiliary verb. What is the probability, in the early stages of the learning process, that the situations you get into will only require those forms of the verb you have already internalized, and not another one of the 60 plus forms? ZERO. So bite the bullet, and MEMORIZE THAT VERB TABLE. That means that when you actually get a chance to use the language for real, you don’t have to pass up on the opportunity, because you’ll know the verb form or vocab, even if you’re not going to use it effortlessly. When you have used it in a real world situation, even just once, you are SO much closer to internalizing it. Believe me, I know form experience.
I know how you feel. For Spanish make a point of watching a Dreaming Spanish video every day. If you 43 struggling with consistency start small. Build up the habit from there and you’d be surprised how far you can get. I’ve got some other videos to help people in exactly your position. Start with a small daily habit and then build on it
Waaa this is a big help, thank you so much! Philippines was also colonized by Spain a long time ago so I should adapt their language hahahaha thank you for this! ❤
I choose fluent u for Spanish and I've spent at least 30 minutes everyday for about 500 days now. I might be at intermediate 2 to advanced 1 level IDK but I've have fun with it all along and I can now enjoy books in Spanish on Audible not 100% understanding yet but acquiring more language anyway.
from the same channel, another video’s comments section; a quote by Alec72HD: “If you are using your NATIVE language (in any way) in the process of learning a foreign language, then you are "learning". When you are using a second language EXCLUSIVELY, you are acquiring a second language.”
I speak both Chinese and English. I am learning Spanish now. I found it might be easier for an English speaker to learn Chinese than Spanish, as long as you do not focus on the tones. I can never pronounce " "rr" properly in Spanish, and I cannot distinguish the pronounciations between "bed" and "bad" in English, nor I can tell the difference between "sh" and "s" in Chinese. But people still understand me. I can also understand some Chinese speakers who uses only two tones instead of four. I can understand English with Indian, Chinese, Japanese accents etc. Actually, Chinese had the same order of phrases as English. For instance, green shirt is " lv (green) chenyi (shirt)" in Chinese and "camisa (shirt) de verde (green)". The form of verb does not change at all in Chinese. NO male or female for nouns as well. A good thing for English speakers to learn Spanish though is the simiarity of vocabulary. A native speaker of English can learn spanish words much faster than Chinese.
@BloodyPandas I have seen how long it takes for an English native speaker to learn a Romance language compared to the ones who don't have a Latin Alphabet, it takes much longer. By the way, I love your content.
Great video. I am learning a foreign language using your methodology. It took me only 3 months. So far I already know three languages. And I think the next 3 languages will take me 2 months. My goal is 3 languages per month. Thank you very much.
Can someone please tell me what was the actual word he used? Was it ,,bone and fire" or "bondfire" ua-cam.com/video/1TeBYMIAYDQ/v-deo.htmlsi=4woGUiMlEe0VdvnB&t=938
I disagree. It took two hard years of conscious studying for me to became fluent in Chinese. I memorized a lot of vocabulary by practicing by speaking and writing, both traditional and simplified characters. Writing is key to learning a foreign language. You can't just speak, listen and read it.
“Learning Chinese and Spanish are equally difficult.” As a fluent speaker of both I can testify that this is false to the point where I laughed out loud at the absurdity. No, you can pickup Spanish in 6-12 months and be totally fluent in 2 years. Chinese takes years longer to even begin to feel competent.
@@christiankreps5920 Possibly, but in the video he said Chinese and Spanish were equally difficult for a native speaker of English. And Lao and Chinese are worlds apart, much further apart than English and Spanish. Thai and Lao are close.
I started speaking English, Italian, French, German, Spanish after about 20-30 hours of exposure to them (each language). Comprehensible input + alpha relaxation and mine is not the only viable approach BTW. I achieve similar results with my students. Thus, I have to respectfully disagree with the professor. I would give very different answers to all those questions.
It takes a baby at least ten or twelve years to accumulate language passively. Also in the very early years they have not a lot to do but learn language. So a busy adult learning passively is the best way??? Are you kidding me? I learned enough Hindi to get by in a few months twenty years by STUDYING. If I was learning passively I would still be hanging around India. I've read too many people who said immersion just don't work. I am sick and tired of these bozos with their stupid ideas. Plus you ALL contradict yourself. No more of this crap for me - I'm just going to go learn the language and forget these dumb ideas.
maybe you're just dumb that it took you twenty years? I didn't even have to study English and I'm already mainly because I've listened to it passively day in and day out for a couple of years.
Hahaha. Bill’s spent about 40 years studying second language acquisition. I’ve watched some of the sorts of videos videos you mention, and whilst in 30 days they have memorised a lot of words of phrases (which is very impressive by the way), they are nowhere near fluency. I learned a bit of a language in 30 days isn’t much of a title though
Although I agree that you have to experience communication events to truly learn a language... I still learn the rules of the language when studying it. Since i can learn the rules quickly if I learn them explicitly, I can know what is going on immediately when i immerse myself in a communication event. Anyways my point is that explicitly learning the rules allows me to accelerate the language acquisition process- which I agree should be taking in a huge amount of input.
No it doesnt. Did you not listen to the scientist, he said there is no know mechanism to take make explicit learning work. What might be at work is a higher work load or motivation. If you know anything about actual linguistics you would know that there are no rules and language is far more abstract than we give it credit for. I work in language teaching and sadly every teacher but me works with grammar. This means that about 70% of the students really struggle. Only the highly motivated advance and that is mostly because they are motivated to participate when the subject, grammar, is really boring to the others.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist every language I have studied (Italian, spanish, french, Korean, mandarin) has rules. I do not know what you mean by 'it does not have rules'.
Don't get me wrong, I do not really teach the 'rules' to the people I teach second languages to. I see how most people do not make the connection between the verb tenses and how knowing them allows you to say whatever you want. However, I, as a highly motivated student of the language, like to, and do, learn the rules.
At the very least it is helpful for me to learn the verb charts for a new romance language. Since I know where it is going and the verb tenses are very similar to English, and almost exactly the same as other romance languages, a simple week long, enormous effort, allows me to learn the verb forms (there are only like sixty different tenses which is certainly possible for a motivated learner, and I just focus on the most important ones anyways).
@@TheCompleteGuitarist I know grammar is boring to a lot of ppl ... But for me I find it pretty interesting... Especially when I learn grammar from multiple, related languages, which allows me to see and experience the similarities (and differences) between them...
There's allegedly some people who deal with logic better than others.
That is to say, you should obviously feel free to learn languages in any way that seems efficient to you.
I suspect that most people are probably better served with 'acquisition' than looking at grammar books though, which was also one of the points made in this video.
Other people feel the earth is flat.
I helped teach intensive (4 hours/day, 5 days/week in monthlong blocks) and immersion (living with the students for a week) English language for adults in Russia (around the time the USSR collapsed). The results of intensive classes were astounding. By the end of 2 months, the students were engaging in intelligent conversations with me on topics that they cared about. I found that the subject that got the most input was whether uniforms should be worn in school. Everyone had an opinion and felt unafraid to express it in front of the other students. This motivation gave them the energy to push themselves and put together ideas in English. The school was founded by an academic whose approach was phonetics first language acquisition: Natalia Evgenievna Shurigina. In general, USSR language training was very good, not at all like the "dead language" model we are familiar with in the US.
This is a really good interview. It's too bad it is so exhausting to listen to with all that background music. Why do youtubers insist on adding background music? Have you ever been to a lecture where there is background music? Ever heard a TED Talk with music? You have two guys talking. That's what we want to listen to. Not some random canned royalty free crap music.
I totally agree. Es agobiante!!!
It used to be called elevator music, can we now call it youtube music ? I hate it. Please loose the ting ting ting. Love the video.
@clownhydro Some people may have hearing impairment. I do. Glad you are so good.
Websites removed music 20 years ago but it's a proven fact visitors leave
OMG, yes. Exactly why I stopped the video mid way through. It's distracting as heck.
At least with my Japanese, I was able to make a lot of progress just watching UA-cam and using Anki every day. In the beginning, I would mostly just read subtitles on beginner videos, and over time my vocabulary and comprehension improved so that I didn't need subtitles as much so I could watch more native level content. I had to make the language part of my daily communication habit and my brain subconsciously started to understand grammar and rules. I did have to study vocab and kanji separately, but after a while it was pretty fun to learn new kanji because I saw how much progress I was making.
Judging by a lot of the comments, many people obviously dont know how important a person BVP is in the world of language acquisition. He is not giving advice, he is telling what the science has discovered. And the science tells you that explicit learning has very short term gains if any and is likely to harm long term progress and that a second language is basically acquired the same way we learnt our first language (implicitly) because it is effectively going to the same part of the brain. Not some special place for second languages.
please, no background music
Great video. I would just say I like to use another metaphor about the "sea of information" that is language with my students: Think of it as a vast jigsaw puzzle, and every small piece you put down does not complete the puzzle, but it gives you an idea of the entire picture the puzzle is making. Every sound, every word, ever idiom, every little piece of language helps understand the final picture.
Same for the teething one..
I had lots of imput in Romanian in the last 3 months. I had a great improvement in understanding it both in written and spoken form. For a time, I read lots of news online, then a textbook, then a youtube audio course, then youtube videos, now the bible in audio, etc... If I start to get tired with a type of content, I look for a new kind of content. I plan to watch a whole football match narrated in Romanian, for instance, as they are available for free on youtube.
That's a language on my list!
See?
Latin's not quite dead, after all.
@@jimmlygoodnessKudos from Romania. See you in Bucharest. Spor la studiu!
Dang... What an eye opening video. Amazing interview, thank you for sharing
Please turn UP the background music-it’s sometimes hard to hear because two dudes keep trying to talk over it 😅😅😅
Great interview! I started learning English when I was about 10 at the elemental school back in China. It took so much time but I improved very slowly. I felt I learned more English in the first 1-2 years in the US comparing to my 14 years learning of English in China.
I came to the same conclusions. You can start with some basic grammar videos on youtube, a travel phrasebook and month on an app. After that, lots of reading, lots of listening. If you don't have someone to talk to you can read aloud and look for materials that contain lots of dialogues, such as theater, detective novels, etc...
Interesting chat!
I am learning Cherokee - remote with first language speaker Ed Fields - i love the music of it!
His parents would say, 'yunaduliha yanadeloqua' - if they want to, they will learn.
Learning explicitly has it's place. I'm 62 years old and still recall the chart my Kindergarten teacher used to teach phonetics (English speaking country). I can even picture the "cherries" to represent the "ch" sound. (Ha ha... my parents were native speakers of German.) Explicit learning can help shape the context for acquiring more langauge and actually speed up the process. If I know upfront that the German "v" is pronounced differently than the English "v"... it helps, going forward. Things like that.
I really admire BVP, and I've benefited greatly from his "Tea with BVP" podcast. But man, his comment about Latin is very strange: Until the MID-20th CENTURY, Latin was a language widely spoken in Europe and America by educated adults, and had been such for hundreds and hundreds of years. It's fixedness was a part of the appeal, sure, because it allowed relatively consistent communication over time and geography, but it was taught largely in an immersive, active environment, even if it did spend a lot of time parsing and covering grammar.
he was talking specifically about high school teaching of it.
This is great and just what I am looking for. I don't want to do the same thing. Rather than 'teach' I want to be able to 'convey' a language. Using non text book methods. Listening and visual associations seem to be the main keys. I devised 6 week courses for people about 5 years ago. You can't learn the whole language but you can learn to communicate. I focus on patterns in the language and what I also call, 'pick and mix'. But what most students struggle with is comprehension. The more you comprehend the more you learn. I am going to focus on videos for teaching that are not teaching per se, but they will require the learner to listen, to day to day subjects. Instead of feeding them one word at a time.
To communicate simply in a language, you do not need all the tenses to begin with. Present, past and basic future will suffice, in the beginning.
I left school at 15, no further education and I learned Portuguese in about 6 months, I don't consider myself a genius or anything. I hardly spoke in those six months! But when I did start speaking people couldn't believe how much I knew. Because I LISTENED A LOT :)
Great video, sorry for going on.
Text books are good. They just have to be interesting enough to read.
@@Passiony-r They don't teach how to say the words though. So without enough listening practice you might say the words incorrectly. It is harder trying to change the way we have learned later on too.
Please, stop background music. it gets in the way. UA-camrs should stop using background music... they do not help at all.
We do not pluralize maths in British English. It has an s on the end because it's a truncated form of mathematics. It's not short for mathematic. That's why we say maths
American English speaker here. Your point is well taken. However, I would dare say that both truncated forms (of mathematics) are equally legitimate. The shortened form used in the UK (maths) is correct because "mathematics" does indeed have an s at the end, but the shortened used in North American English (math) is equally legitimate because the "ematics" portion of the original word is being lopped off altogether. (I bring this up only because I think arguing about "correctness" in this instance is unnecessary.) Still, you're 100% right. "maths" is a truncated form, not a plural.
@@paulgutman-o2c I only made the point because the speaker said we pluralize it and that is not necessarily so. That is the only thing I'm speaking to. In fact, I live in the US now and do say math. I don't think I mentioned correct.
@@kanthonysmith You didn't mention correct at all. I just wanted to explain to other speakers from the UK the logic behind both abbreviations, but you and I are actually very much on the same page.
Once again, I’m minding my own business and eating breakfast with my family when I see Matt has uploaded a new video. And, once again, I had to excuse myself and let them continue without me so I could watch this immediately. No regrets. They knew what this was. Need Matt’s insights so they’ll deal. 😏
Thanks Jeff! Hope you enjoyed it!
I wish I could relate to what you see in Matt. I honestly did not understand anything on how he helps to learn a language. I have been struggling to learn Spanish for two years and have not found the way to properly learn and even have a conversation of two sentences. I feel I need structure. The suggestion he gave at the end is to read and stay away from the crap! What is crap? Apps, video, games? What? Wish he helped. Glad he works well for you.
I like his calm and thoughtful demeamor. He is not like "THIS is the ONLY way to aquire language...everything else is a waste of time! (buy my courses)".
Good interview here. Main take-away: language acquisition takes TIME. A lot of time. I'm four years into Russian and feel like I'm on a 10-year journey (minimum).
I was surprised to find this out last year, but actually VanPatten is correct about the section on tones. I am a native speaker of both English and Swedish, and well, Swedish is a semi-tonal language. The word 'anden' means either spirit or mallard. For me, I thought this was just stress, but tones are part of it. I also think in regards to the languages we often think are the hardest, like Chinese or Arabic, those principles that make them so difficult can not too rarely be found elsewhere too. Such as tones in Chinese being present in Vietnamese and Thai. Perhaps not the easiest languages either, but the principles are the same. Arabic with its difficult alphabet has that same alphabet used by the significantly closer languages of Urdu and Farsi.
That was an amazing video, Matt. I have just finished watching it, and I am going to sit and watch it again right now. Epic video. Well done, Matt.
I'm so glad you found it helpful. I've got more like this coming out in the future!
You don't need music for this :((
Good interview. I’ll check out his other videos. Thank you.
Why the distracting background music? Great interview though.
Thank you for the video! Great Interview and information.
Yes! Just what I needed, some wise advice from Professor Ex
This is a great interview. 👌
"Their brains have matured because of content."
Yes, that is a real gem of a phrase.
It's so sad to meet people whose development has been perceptibly stunted due to lack of content.
Great video, Matt!
you are an amazing teacher. I wished I could have your knowledge.
Thanks for the video Matt
Great interview! Thanks ❤
BVP !!! Yes!!! I’m a die hard fan and it is amazing to see this interview! Showing it to my students next week to help them feel more confident! I explain a lot of this to them but hearing it from BVP 20:06 will hopefully make more of an impact! Thank you!!!
Daaaamn look at you playing in the big leagues now with one of the OG CI researchers! 🙂 Way to go!
Hahaha, thanks!
Hey, Matt. Great video. The "Diva" is one of the best references in English acquisition, besides Stephen Krashen, of course. Keep it up!
what do you mean by the "Diva"?
@@parastoopiadeh That’s how Bill is called by many.
Really good interview!
Correction on learning Latin in grammar schools: it was learnt as an active spoken language, not just for reading or writing. The move away from spoken Latin came as it declined in use from about 1650 onwards. It was still spoken in many universities until the 1800s.
Great video and interview :)
It would be great if you interviewed Dr Errapel Mejías Vicandi Ph.D.from the University of Nebraska. He lectures Spanish linguistics completely in Spanish. He is exceedingly well published for his linguistic investigations.
He made the Spanish subjunctive ridiculously simple. He only assigned one homework assignment per week that took us about 30 - 45 minutes to complete.
I learned so much from him so effortlessly that I almost felt guilty. The other interviews you have posted are from natural approach advocates but go out and expand your scope to linguists who studied a broader range of linguistics.
The natural approach has been around Luke 30 - 40 years, and when universities started to adopt the textbooks that used this approach learning declined severely. I watched it happen as did many others who all basically just threw in the towel and were resigned to the future of language acquisition.
Is there somewhere you've posted the full interview? This is fascinating!!!
What a great down-to-earth summary of the essentials of language learning (and how different these are from what we have been put through at school). Completely in line, I think, with what the videos by Lingosteve (the maker of LingQ) tell at greater length. Guess I was quite lucky to have learned 6 or 7 languages by exposure and hunting for more input. Btw, I’m pretty sure that his language classes do not use background music…
FWIW, one of the yogic siddhis (perfections) is the ability to understand (jñaanam) the sound (ruta) of all (sarva) beings (bhuuta), sarvabhuutarutajñaanam (sarva-bhuuta-ruta-jñaanam).
Correction doctor: In the UK, 'maths' is not used as a plural. Even though it has an 's' at its end, it takes a singular very form, e.g. 'Maths is my favourite subject.'
Around 11:34 where he begins to speak about 3 Broad Stages and the 1st is where you're dependent on the other person.
Q: @ 12:40 Does it matter if you try to speak in that 1st stage? His answer is that it causes you to lose interlocutors.
My question: What if we're using AI for conversation? At stage 1, does it help or hinder us to speak with all the rambling, searching, stumbling ?
Hello. Very informative video. Thank you.
One criticism: the bg music is too loud compared to your voice. I was listening in a noisy environment, had to blast my phone's speaker on almost 100%.
Fantastic interview! Do the learning tools used at school or in language courses (e.g. tetbooks) support or hinder the implicit learning process?
Can someone please get to the point and say how to learn a new language for example there are 5 steps to learn a new language: do this and that ...etc
Exactly, this talk isn't to the point! Useless!
Look at FSI data report about language learning, that's a fact guyz! There are level difficulties in language!
Ditto on the music complaint. Very distracting and totally unnecessary
Disagree on the idea that all languages are equally difficult *for an english speaker.*
The thing that makes spanish easier than chinese - as a person fluent in the former and a student of the latter - is the *huge* number of cognates that spanish shares with english, as well as the exceptionally difficult writing system of chinese
Are all languages equally difficult for a child to learn as a native tongue? Sure I could see that argument. But as a second language learner, the closer the second language is to a language you already know, the easier it will be to learn.
I agree with you completely. It’s also worth noting that there’s a research out there that shows what languages are easier and harder for native English speakers to learn. I think that I read somewhere that the easiest language for a native English speaker with no prior language, learning experience to actually learn is Italian where is the hardest are languages like Chinese and Arabic. Also, I would personally say that the idea that all languages are difficult for English languages to learn is kind of form of prejudice, because it assumes that native English speakers just inherently have a hard time, learning another language, and that people who are not native English speakers are just better at it without taking into account that most native English speakers are constantly surrounded by English and spend most years of their life, surrounded by English without the need to learn another languageand that the majority of the world of these English speaking societies operates with two or more languages at a time. It’s almost like a prejudice.
I absolutely think that the pressure of grades is not helpful at all for language acquisition-- or the acquisition of any kind of knowledge. Assessment, on the other hand is useful for teacher feedback. I think that many people balk from the idea of formal schooling because of the grades (for example, language acquired in college). What I find is that those students who make high grades stick with something, and those who make poor grades run away and do not continue because the resulting grade can damage their entire GPA, which could lead to detrimental effects.
Wow! How practical.
Great watch, thanks!
Rosetta Stone is working well for Chinese. You're not going to learn things fast, but you'll learn it the right way if you pay attention.
Genial seguro, muy bueno profesoro. Maravilloso.
Interesting! But I didn't like the background music. Very disturbing when I try to learn English from your videos.
I get waht he's SAYING IS TRUE re: kids takes 4-5 years to almost resemble adults still lots of mistakes halting speech etc, but I saw a Russian woman who in 2 years? passed C1 exam in Italian and truly spoke fluidly...so what is it with THOSE FOLKS?
You can have two years of 15 minutes of Duolingo a week vs hours of immersion per day. It’s the hours rather than the years that count. I would also say passing an exam isn’t the same as fluency (a Spanish teacher told passing the DELE is about exam skills rather than proficiency in the language)
Furthermore it is just C1 that the person attained... Not c2.
You said it, it's a C1 exam. It's an exam that measures how well you can take a test, not how well you can use a language to communicate. I often meet people who can pass tests who are not particularly good at communicating.
Interesting interview
Love the baby teeth analogy!
Just read madrigal magic key to spanish
He didn't actually answer the question about explicitly studying the tones in mandarin. Which is obviously essential, as well as explicitly studying the hanzi with smart memory techniques.
>
It was not for the chinese. Why should it be for anyone else? You learn a second language the same way you learn the first. By participating in communicative events.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist because you can not go back to a baby like state where you have no responsabilities, someone looking after you 24/7, no concept of what language is, and about 7 years to spend in that state before you are able to make sense. Sure you can learn some languages without focusing too much on actually studying, but that's not the case with languages that are much different than your native language.
@@gee8883 Not knowing the tones is not knowing 汉语，so I don't believe you.
I'm pretty sure Spanish is easier than Chinese *for an English speaker*. Lots of similar words, and also similar grammatical structures
Respectfully, as someone who speaks Spanish pretty proficiently and is learning Chinese, I would actually say Chinese is easier. Yes the pronunciation is very difficult, there are almost no similar words at all, and there’s a lot of vocabulary to memorize, but the grammar in Spanish is what really gets you. Chinese has no verb conjugations instead you use adverbs and sometimes endings on sentences to denote whether or not something has happened in the past or if you’re making a command or asking a question. It’s really common to use adverbs when talking about past or future actions. So there’s no verb conjugations to memorize. Whereas in Spanish, you have like 15 different verb tenses and then the conjugations to memorize, and then all of the separate conjugations for irregular verbs to memorize. So that can be very difficult. Spanish also has some fluid when it comes to sentence structure, such as putting the object that you’re talking about at the very front of the sentence versus how we’re used to doing it in English more near the back of the sentence, where is in Chinese there’s a set sentence structure that every sentence follows. And when you just accept that, there’s a sentence structure, it’s actually a little bit easier to construct a sentence in Chinese in spanish
From 9:13 is Professeur referring to programs such as the likes of michel thomas, pimsleur, language transfer, Paul noble method?
Because what you're saying from 9:25 - 9:50 sounds familiar to the promotions these programs claim or am I wrong?
My gooooood! So cool 😚
Btw, the moment I heard *Rosetta Stones*, I was like whaaat, because I just listened to Cinderella by Future and Metro Boomin, haha 😂
You need real world interactions to learn a language. Nothing is as effective for learning a language as having to use it in real life situations to solve real problems. To most foreign language learners that real-world interaction is a sort of a luxury, you only get it a few times on a vacation, etc., and believe me, those situations that arise when you need the language will not fit neatly into your progress. They will require words and grammar that are outside the scope of what you have already internalized.
In Portuguese, which I am currently learning, there are over 60 forms of each verb, that’s only counting the simple forms that require conjugating the main verb, not composed forms where you only have to conjugate an auxiliary verb. What is the probability, in the early stages of the learning process, that the situations you get into will only require those forms of the verb you have already internalized, and not another one of the 60 plus forms? ZERO. So bite the bullet, and MEMORIZE THAT VERB TABLE. That means that when you actually get a chance to use the language for real, you don’t have to pass up on the opportunity, because you’ll know the verb form or vocab, even if you’re not going to use it effortlessly. When you have used it in a real world situation, even just once, you are SO much closer to internalizing it. Believe me, I know form experience.
I’m studying Spanish for almost 1 yr and 6 months, on and off or not that consistent so I don’t think I’m already conversational. It’s just too hard 😢
I know how you feel. For Spanish make a point of watching a Dreaming Spanish video every day. If you
43 struggling with consistency start small. Build up the habit from there and you’d be surprised how far you can get. I’ve got some other videos to help people in exactly your position. Start with a small daily habit and then build on it
Waaa this is a big help, thank you so much! Philippines was also colonized by Spain a long time ago so I should adapt their language hahahaha thank you for this! ❤
You just doing discouraged me 😊
"When they have something to say" That's when they should start speaking
I think 30 days is too short. For instance, I never learn a new language in June.
So what are the apps and the courses for acquiring a language?
UA-cam and italki
Time, discipline, daily practice..... Of whatever method you choose
I choose fluent u for Spanish and I've spent at least 30 minutes everyday for about 500 days now. I might be at intermediate 2 to advanced 1 level IDK but I've have fun with it all along and I can now enjoy books in Spanish on Audible not 100% understanding yet but acquiring more language anyway.
What's the difference between implicit and explicit?
from the same channel, another video’s comments section; a quote by Alec72HD: “If you are using your NATIVE language (in any way) in the process of learning a foreign language, then you are "learning".
When you are using a second language EXCLUSIVELY, you are acquiring a second language.”
Learning Spanish and Chinese are equally hard to learn for an English native speaker? I don't think so.
I speak both Chinese and English. I am learning Spanish now. I found it might be easier for an English speaker to learn Chinese than Spanish, as long as you do not focus on the tones. I can never pronounce " "rr" properly in Spanish, and I cannot distinguish the pronounciations between "bed" and "bad" in English, nor I can tell the difference between "sh" and "s" in Chinese. But people still understand me. I can also understand some Chinese speakers who uses only two tones instead of four. I can understand English with Indian, Chinese, Japanese accents etc.
Actually, Chinese had the same order of phrases as English. For instance, green shirt is " lv (green) chenyi (shirt)" in Chinese and "camisa (shirt) de verde (green)".
The form of verb does not change at all in Chinese. NO male or female for nouns as well. A good thing for English speakers to learn Spanish though is the simiarity of vocabulary. A native speaker of English can learn spanish words much faster than Chinese.
@BloodyPandas I have seen how long it takes for an English native speaker to learn a Romance language compared to the ones who don't have a Latin Alphabet, it takes much longer.
By the way, I love your content.
I speak both fluently, Chinese is MUCH harder. The grammar and usage are harder than Spanish, too, contrary to what this professor asserts.
Do you speak a foreign language yet, or you still hammering away at learning Spanish?
Spanish is easier for English speakers after all it's related Chinese is not
Great video. I am learning a foreign language using your methodology. It took me only 3 months. So far I already know three languages. And I think the next 3 languages will take me 2 months. My goal is 3 languages per month.
Thank you very much.
The music wasn't even that loud. Too much UA-cam shorts for you!
Can someone please tell me what was the actual word he used? Was it ,,bone and fire" or "bondfire" ua-cam.com/video/1TeBYMIAYDQ/v-deo.htmlsi=4woGUiMlEe0VdvnB&t=938
It's 'bonafide' 👍
I disagree. It took two hard years of conscious studying for me to became fluent in Chinese. I memorized a lot of vocabulary by practicing by speaking and writing, both traditional and simplified characters. Writing is key to learning a foreign language. You can't just speak, listen and read it.
Funny how what he says about learning math isn't the best way to learn math (according to the science of math teaching).
👌👌💯💯
I have no problem listening to music in the background hahaha that forced me to be more attractive.
Definitely a Chomskyan
Erm, should I be surprised by a professor describing Latin as a dead language without quotation marks?
annoying music
: You can't learn a language in 30 days.
: Okay.
: You might get it in ten years.
: Uh...
“Learning Chinese and Spanish are equally difficult.” As a fluent speaker of both I can testify that this is false to the point where I laughed out loud at the absurdity. No, you can pickup Spanish in 6-12 months and be totally fluent in 2 years. Chinese takes years longer to even begin to feel competent.
I suspect that the reverse would be true for, say, a native speaker of Lao.
@@christiankreps5920 Possibly, but in the video he said Chinese and Spanish were equally difficult for a native speaker of English. And Lao and Chinese are worlds apart, much further apart than English and Spanish. Thai and Lao are close.
Lose the music.
I started speaking English, Italian, French, German, Spanish after about 20-30 hours of exposure to them (each language). Comprehensible input + alpha relaxation and mine is not the only viable approach BTW. I achieve similar results with my students. Thus, I have to respectfully disagree with the professor. I would give very different answers to all those questions.
It takes a baby at least ten or twelve years to accumulate language passively. Also in the very early years they have not a lot to do but learn language. So a busy adult learning passively is the best way??? Are you kidding me? I learned enough Hindi to get by in a few months twenty years by STUDYING. If I was learning passively I would still be hanging around India.
I've read too many people who said immersion just don't work. I am sick and tired of these bozos with their stupid ideas. Plus you ALL contradict yourself.
No more of this crap for me - I'm just going to go learn the language and forget these dumb ideas.
maybe you're just dumb that it took you twenty years? I didn't even have to study English and I'm already mainly because I've listened to it passively day in and day out for a couple of years.
Maths is also an language. How would you recommend people learn such an abstract language which is never spoken ?
.
10,000 years? no
I could only stand 3 minutes of this interview. Music is so annoying. Why do you disturb the content with it ???
I don't agree with you maybe I lerent lot of thing
He's talking not relevant with the reality that we have many polyglots, and hundreds of years of language practice. Good advice though 😁
You hate me
Pure lies.
Wrong.
Plenty of UA-camrs have documented their high level of almost fluency in 30 days. It can be done, many videos uploaded here
Hahaha. Bill’s spent about 40 years studying second language acquisition. I’ve watched some of the sorts of videos videos you mention, and whilst in 30 days they have memorised a lot of words of phrases (which is very impressive by the way), they are nowhere near fluency. I learned a bit of a language in 30 days isn’t much of a title though