Can I put another side? Some Glossika courses work and some don't. I have tried several of them. To be precise: Finnish, Polish, Czech, Icelandic, Swedish, Serbian, Hungarian, Slovene and Spanish. What they are good at is getting you to actually speak out loud. The first one I ever tried was Finnish and it got my mouth moving and using Finnish and improved my muscle memory to the point that I felt confident speaking it. It remains my favourite Glossika course for many reasons. But I already knew Finnish to about B1 before I even started. What they are NOT good at is teaching you a language you don't know at all. The reason they are not good at teaching you the language is the following: - The course is originally based on learning Chinese languages. These are languages with little verb conjugation or noun and adjective declension. The sentences in English that went with the Chinese have now been translated into several languages, which are nothing like Chinese. As an example, unlike Chinese, Finnish is highly inflected. All verbs, nouns and adjectives have multiple forms. There is only one way to say most Chinese nouns, there aren't even any plurals. Every Finnish noun and adjective has well over twenty forms including plurals. Therefore, the idea of 'picking up' grammar by repetition may be feasible in Chinese but not in a highly inflected language like Finnish. The amount of sentences offered by Glossika would have to be multiplied many times over to even attempt this idea. - The speakers are frequently really poor. The Polish speakers were awful. The Icelandic speaker mumbled. The Hungarian speaker has a speech defect etc. When you have to listen to these people for hours and hours it matters. The Finnish speaker was perfect by the way. - Many languages require people of different genders to use different grammatical forms when talking about oneself. So if the speaker you are imitating is of a different gender you will be happily memorising the wrong forms. In most Glossika courses it's the same speaker throughout. In the Polish course there were three speakers, which would have been a chance to get a mix but no, all three were female. - The translations are often poor. In a rush to get the sentences translated into the huge range of languages they offer unfortunately many mistakes have been made. Quite often the translators have just misunderstood the English. - There are a few problems with the original (American) English sentences. Several English phrases which have been translated correctly and make sense still sound unnatural in the translation because they are just not something that people would ever say in that language. Added to that the English phrases sometimes contain American slang and colloquialisms that even I as a native speaker of English (but not an American) struggled to understand. They should have been more aware of how region specific slang is and avoided it. - Finally, because the sentences are identical for each language there is absolutely no cultural relevance in anything you hear or say. You will spend a lot of time repeating thousands of sentences but learn nothing of the country or countries where the language is spoken. However, if you want to just speak out loud or practise interpreting in a language you already know to some extent then Glossika is great for that. But you should know this because it is VERY expensive. One last point. When I first got into Glossika you could buy a course, download it and use it as you wished. You can't do that anymore. You have to have a monthly subscription, listen online and you have far less control over what what you do.
UA-cam needs to upgrade from just having a thumbs up thumbs down to offering like the I care emoji. I completely understand what you're saying but it's also important to remember the ball has to get rolling somehow even if it is a bit rough.
Really good review and fully agreed on all the points you made. It also makes you realise that if you have a friend or two who are willing to speak out sentences for you, you actually don't need Glossika at all.
Very good points. I also used it when it was a one time purchase (for Mandarin only), and found it useful (although overpriced), but had most of the same grievances that you mentioned (except I’m American, so no problem with the English). I understand why they use the same sentences for every language, but the best way to learn the language would be to have different sentences for each language, sentences that are most relevant to that specific language and culture, rather than it all being based off English.
Over a year ago, I bought a book that had 365 sentences in my target language. I memorised all of those sentences within 3 months, and as a result, I quickly moved from an elementary level to an intermediate level.
Memorization of sentences for most people doesn't do a lot for improving language skills. Actually using sentences, especially as models from which to produce other sentences, will help most people.
@@anangelsdiaries Fair point. I had been in full immersion classes and watching TV programmes in my target language. However, it wasn't until I learnt these basic sentences did I find my ability to talk improved very quickly.
I've been a big fan of Mike for a long time, and since I started being invested in the issue of language survival in Taiwan, I love him and his work even more
I am fascinated by the work that Mike is doing at Glossika and impressed by the languages he has made available. The sentences are the same in my experience across language and the patterns can be extended ("His car is dirty" can be used to say "My car is dirty." "My car is clean." or "My shoes are dirty." Etc. His work with indigenous languages and methods would be a great top. He is a true linguist.
This is only true if it's a language like Mandarin in which nouns and adjectives have generally only one form and can be interchanged easily. In languages with multiple forms of words like my/his or in which adjectives need to agree in gender and number this is less straightforward. eg "My car is white" = "ma voiture est blanche". "His pens are black" = "ses stylos sont noirs". So "my pens are white" should be "ma stylos sont blanches" - which of course is not correct.
So interesting!! Awesome interview. I like what he said about having at least a couple of the major UN languages as 'tool' languages - makes sense. I also love the idea of knowing one language from each major language family as a way to understand human communication. So much more good stuff here...
@@artugert He doesn't go off track; because he's never ON track! He’s like a guide you’ve hired to aid you towards your destination. While he’s drags you through the underbrush, far from any clear path, his only ‘destination,’ the whole while, is to guide you to the understanding that he’s an amazing guide! He’s not a linguist, or a polyglot. He’s a businessman!
@@jeffwest2037 Yes, I think he has a genuine interest in language and linguistics, but he is a businessman first and a linguist second. You can’t blame a man for wanting to make money, but it’s sad to see.
Very cool, Mike has always been very supportive of my efforts with Chinese, so great to hear him talk so passionately about his journey, Would be great to hear more in detail about his process and the timeline as he progressed from just getting by to actually fluent in the eyes of the locals.
I guess im asking the wrong place but does anybody know a way to log back into an instagram account?? I stupidly forgot the password. I would love any tips you can give me!
@Louis Ismael Thanks for your reply. I got to the site thru google and I'm trying it out atm. Takes quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
First of all thanks for the great Interview! :) I see mass sentence learning as a good thing in the intermediate to advanced stages of language learning, because it allows your brain to pretty much automaticaly sort the vocabulary in a way where you particulary come by the most used words more often and therefore learn them easier! -> therefore faster conversational fluency. Another good thing is, that it also gives you more context to the words and how to use them like mentioned in the video. But I think that method will be very hard if you don't even know the basics of your target language because you still would have to look up every single word to make any sense out of the sentence! I for myself am starting to drift towards intermediate right now and naturally slowly shift to sentences instead of single words! ^^
Yes, I have similar feelings. I think my story learning courses and glossika are quite complimentary actually, because I tend to deal with the earlier stages, while glossika provides ample material for higher levels.
Learning Chinese to learn the Formosan languages! That is a feat indeed. I am a heritage learner of Tagalog (I'm Filipino American), and the Austronesian languages are very interesting to me. I've seen comparative lists and short vocab lists online, but to be able to learn the grammar and nuances through Chinese is mind boggling to me. Much respect!
I just went over to try the russian course at Glossika, and I was highly impressed. I am excited to try it out over the coming days to experience the full effects.
This a great interview and I’ve found the products of both of you men extremely helpful. I’ve been listening to Ollys dialogue products for a few weeks now and started Glossika a few days ago. It sounds hyperbolic but I’m quickly noticing my understand of Spanish improve already. Keep it up gents.
“I’m afraid that” (боюсь or боюсь, что) seems pretty normative in Russian. But “sorry” is definitely less common and is even used in the English form (сори) where it would be less common to ask forgiveness in Russian.
I STRONGLY believe in the sentence methodif you dont do it like that, you will forever keep making awkward sentences or directly translating from your native language
Olly, I really think that you should look at what he talked about around 11:30 about the story book having a way to listen to it being read online. I have purchased your Portuguese stories but the inability to hear them is a huge gap. Having the audio and the transcript (the book itself) would allow your books to be used for reading and listening skills similar to a podcast. It probably would not take much to do this since the hard part, which is writing the stories, has already been done.
Thanks for your comment. We do actually have audiobooks to accompany all of the story books. I think we need to do a better job of letting people know about this, though, because often people don’t realise!
I'm always amazed by westerners that managed to learn a difficult language like Mandarin. As a westerner myself, I've been unable to learn even basic Mandarin.
From watching this video I have decided to give glossika a go .....loving it actually. I was hoping Steve Kauffman would create storytelling method for Hindi or Punjabi as I also believe this is another major step to fluency alongside reading.
There are a number of real problems with the Glossika Mass Sentences books. 1. They do not begin at a true beginning level. Some of the first sentences are upper A1, but many are A2 or B1. This shows sloppy planning. Many pages are needed just for the first 50 or 100 headwords that are introduced. 2. They are arranged one on top of the other. Instead, they should be in parallel columns. Doing this would make it easier to read just the target language (TL). As it is now, the other language (English) keeps getting in the way. 3. While having some free-standing sentences makes sense, most should be part of a story or narrative. Having meaning, rather than a bunch of isolated sentences, is more useful. Some isolated sentences are good, but the books rely almost exclusively on these. 4. From what I've seen, the English sentences are the same in all books. These means that language- or culture-specific language is missing. For example, many languages have different ways to greet people (Good morning. How is your health? Have you eaten), but this is missing. Languages have different kinship words (older / younger brothers or sisters, different types of aunts and uncles, etc), but relying exclusively on a list made in English means these are missing.
In Czech, there is a similar expression like "I am afraid" 我恐怕, but it is more subtle, the verb is not the same, more like "I worry", perhaps... "Obávám se, že...." (verb obávat se, noun pl obavy)
The mass sentence method. They spent 2 minutes on it Its: listen to a sentence and repeat it until it's easy and you have the feel for it. Practice sounds like IPA etc. That's the mass sentence method.
When I was visiting Israel, one of the first words I memorized was Hebrew for “excuse me” because my English speaking brain thought it would polite. A week later, my Hebrew speaking friends chewed to me out for ever saying “excuse me” because that’s not the cultural thing to do!!!
I studied Mandarin in from primary to highschool it's the only reason I understand it now. But I speak Hokkien at home fluently and none of us know how to write in Hokkien. I speak 2 languages other than the 3 that were taught in school and those other 2 languages were learned through hearing and repeating them with my family members so I'm a 5 language polyglot and I know lots of people like me as well. So just mimicking the sounds and making associations with those sounds is how I learned those other 2 languages, also how my parents taught me those languages.
I watched the whole thing and I’m not sure I understand what Glossika is all about. Mike has some cool books and I have a great understanding as to how he learned Chinese, etc., but I now wonder if Glossika is similarly focused?? I’m gonna check it out because it’s still comprehensible input but it forces output. Hope to learn more about it when I get to his website.
Mike's pronunciation of dental consonants is similar to that of bilingual Latinos in New York City. I've never before heard them pronounced that way by someone whose native language is not Spanish.
14:22 It's funny because I learn the other way around! I get the grasp of a sentence by the nouns or subjektives! They are like the titles of the story! If you have the protagonists you know what the story is about! Clearly the verbs have all the action and energy and bring life to the act!
The bit at the end reminded me of a story I heard from a scholar who's a native Rromani speaker. Apparently when they first tried to study the language, the Rroma community had fun messing around with the linguist who went to live with them and compile knowledge about the language. The guy later published a bilingual dictionary for Rromani. But a few of the entries were completely wrong. I forget the exact word, but say for something as innocuous as "road", the Rromani equivalent in the dictionary was some cuss word. ^^ Of course Rromani is still a living language, so someone eventually caught it and corrected it. But man, if I'm the last speaker of a language and my language is gonna die along with me anyway, I'd totally mess with the linguist ^^
Just a warning to anyone interested, you probably need quite a high level of Finnish to read Kalevala, it’s so old filled with words that are rarely used today, the poetic meter makes the language differ from everyday speech pretty drastically, and it’s basically written in a dialect. So it’s not a light read even for a Finnish person!
Fascinating to see language geeks talk. ( Me too. ). The idea that the interplay between culture and language is interesting. ... Inexplicably, only languages geeks get it... ( Broh love moment 😂)
Glossika is a great resource, but.... I spent two years going thru it for Russian and it did not pay off as much as I had hoped. I had a fair level of Russian to start with but the sentences did not stick as much as i hoped they would. Another horrible issues was the spacing. The narrator would say a sentence that took him 7 seconds to say but they would give you less than a second which is ridiculous. I had to spend tons of time going thru adding the spaces and finally had to give up on the GSR files as it was just to time consuming of a process. Looking back I should have dropped it immediately as time would have been better spent doing almost any other method.
If i start to learn Chinese, what textbooks is better to choose? I have a great textbooks, called "A course in contemporary Chinese" Taiwanese edition and ChinesePod..... It's difficult to choose((((
@@AfroGelXT my Thai wife makes fun of me... in a nice way... learning the phrase..."the flowers in the garden are beautiful" just seems a bit irrelevant for practical life in Thailand... lets just say I made strong effort for 2 months... then lost the motivation...
@@NJM4444 wow! I'd love to spend about a year there myself. I hope you do it in the end man. Hopefully I can encourage you...I was reading Glossika's main blog post where they break down their method, and it looks like the point of Glossika is to train your ears and mouth so you have a level of familiarity with the language - which then allows you to go further on your own, engage with real Thai content and learn how to say the things you actually wanna say without as much struggle (although they admit there will still be some struggle). If you never want to return to Glossika though, I recommend you have a look at a blog post on a site called Autolingual called How To Learn To Speak Thai By Yourself (From Beginner To Advanced) cause they recommend some other resources and lay out realistically what you need to do to learn. It's a really inspiring post
I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're not entirely right about the apology in Russian. The phrase "Я боюсь, это не совсем так" sounds absolutely normal in Russian. This is usually a polite expression of disagreement.
wow ive heard of his mandarin which is quite a taiwanese style hahaha but i cant understand the squashy squishy sound----i dont hear these! is that how other language speakers perceive our mandarin sounds??
@Olly Richards since Glossika is all input and there are no grammar explanations, would you say that using Glossika counts as acquiring a language vs learning it?
I’ve been learning greek by myself for a few years. I’m at B level and I am reading the diary of a wimpy kid series out loud without translation. The material is targeted to elementary/middle schoolers. I don’t really have a speaking partner. Do you think this is good enough practice for me to improve to C? There are 14 books and it seems to parallel your method of stories quite well. compared to your Brazilian Portuguese story book for example I say my books have a lot more slang and new vocabulary.
Interesting video. I miss to be able to buy and carry Glossika, they do not have an app with the new format. Their Chinese pronunciation book is free and amazing, together with the FSI and/or the course from Outlier Linguistics I think their tone training book is one of the best phonetical trainers out there. Ollie, your '101 German conversation' books are fantastic as well, and can be read in an afternoon as a practice tool if one desires. I wish I would have had them when I started learning the language long time ago but they are serving me now to recover it after many years without speaking nor reading in German. Have you ever thought about interviewing Beniko Mason? You being so interested in language learning through stories - that are so powerful - I think knowing about her research findings - if you don't already - will give you an amazing boost, and maybe help you discover powerful ways to even making them more effective. Not that they are bad, I hope you understand what I mean.
Hi there.. im learning Turkish for about 3 and a half months.. im learning all the verbs and how to make sentences but cant get to the next step.. any advice please
I wear hearing aides. I am not able to hear everything being said. No matter what method I've used in trying to learn several languages such as French, Spanish or German....Each of these languages have sounds that not even my hearing aides are able to convert to audible sounds that make sense or in other words -- intelligible sounds. What now? What can I do to overcome hearing deficits. I found that writing helps me learn a language but, to speak it is completely something different in reality. This guy to say he can hear a complete sentence and know its meaning and the phonics thereof is terribly alien to me. He must have alien hearing (beyond human) or alien in terms of -- are some humans really dogs in reality? Dogs can hear better than every person I have ever met. If dogs could speak everything or every word they hear -- wouldn't that make them absolutely intelligent and more so if they were able to convey what they hear into intelligent actions. Just how far must a animal go to in its extent of brain processing to convey intelligence? Is it purely a mechanical issue? Animals have shown they know colors, tonality and shape recognition. They understand smells, tastes and much more than just the five human senses. If a human suffers a brain injury and degrades their hearing or speaking senses to the level of a dog -- shouldn't we consider them to be a sort of dog?
I admire MIke's commitment to language restoration. But the Glossika method won't be for everyone - I was an early beta tester and found it deathly boring. If you don't mind learning in a way that is totally divorced from the history, arts, politics and culture of the target community, then it might suit you. Three sentences taken at random from Italian 1: "The weather's nice today" followed by "These bags are heavy" followed by "I'm not rich". And more disconnected sentences, ad-infinitum. Once I'm past the A1 level, I much prefer to learn from authentic native materials that have actual meaning and interest. Much more fun. Language is about meaning and communication, and this is lacking in the Glossika method.
People, does enyone know of a place to download free pdf books / translations of books in italian, german or french? I would like to dowload Harry Potter, for example in each of these languages to use as a way to practice or get into one of said languages. Please help!
Glossika seems to be working only when paid for...being someone with little financial means this is so frustrating. I have only myself to teach myself, using books and youtube. I understand that they ask money. I really do. It's just...people having the means get more means, and people who don't have them do not get them...
The legacy system. That's because they didn't think before developing it. Using Japanese names, constantly. Using female first person all the time. All these detracts from the effectiveness of the result
I wonder where some things we say come from and how they catch on and stick when really they don’t do much other than make people sound dumb. Like starting a sentence with “I mean” and then a few sentences later starting another sentence the same way, and so on and on and on…. Any English teacher who teaches something like that should be locked up!!
you won't acquire the sounds of a native speaker if you speak from the beginning it's impossible because you can't even hear all the sounds as you begin so what you're acquiring is your way of pronunciation... and later it will be extremely hard to undo those connections in your brain
You can't suddenly produce the same sounds as a native speaker just because you understand the language. People never talk about muscles but they are very important, your mouth needs to get used to produce those sounds but it takes time, try to produce French, R, the Spanish R, the Chinese tones for first time, i remember my throat hurting a lot with the French R but now I can do it naturally, i even remember not being able to pronounce 2 sounds in my mother tongue when I was 6. Our brain likes to take its time to connect with your mouth once you start speaking. If you don't like having an accent... well good luck with that.
@@ZipfelmannKD You can acquire it once you start talking to people though. I'm my experience I would speak the best I could but I always notice if someone doesn't understand something I said so I'm like "is it different?" Then I can change it until everyone understands, even if you do what you say it's hard to distinguish if you're doing it correctly, i think.
@@blascantu7221 seems like more of a harsh criticism, it is very expensive and mostly unhelpful since you can just find sentences for most languages from actual immersion material.
I really admire how some UA-camrs like Olly are open to show different methods and channels...it shows the passion for what they do...hands down.
Can I put another side?
Some Glossika courses work and some don't.
I have tried several of them. To be precise: Finnish, Polish, Czech, Icelandic, Swedish, Serbian, Hungarian, Slovene and Spanish. What they are good at is getting you to actually speak out loud. The first one I ever tried was Finnish and it got my mouth moving and using Finnish and improved my muscle memory to the point that I felt confident speaking it. It remains my favourite Glossika course for many reasons. But I already knew Finnish to about B1 before I even started. What they are NOT good at is teaching you a language you don't know at all.
The reason they are not good at teaching you the language is the following:
- The course is originally based on learning Chinese languages. These are languages with little verb conjugation or noun and adjective declension. The sentences in English that went with the Chinese have now been translated into several languages, which are nothing like Chinese. As an example, unlike Chinese, Finnish is highly inflected. All verbs, nouns and adjectives have multiple forms. There is only one way to say most Chinese nouns, there aren't even any plurals. Every Finnish noun and adjective has well over twenty forms including plurals. Therefore, the idea of 'picking up' grammar by repetition may be feasible in Chinese but not in a highly inflected language like Finnish. The amount of sentences offered by Glossika would have to be multiplied many times over to even attempt this idea.
- The speakers are frequently really poor. The Polish speakers were awful. The Icelandic speaker mumbled. The Hungarian speaker has a speech defect etc. When you have to listen to these people for hours and hours it matters. The Finnish speaker was perfect by the way.
- Many languages require people of different genders to use different grammatical forms when talking about oneself. So if the speaker you are imitating is of a different gender you will be happily memorising the wrong forms. In most Glossika courses it's the same speaker throughout. In the Polish course there were three speakers, which would have been a chance to get a mix but no, all three were female.
- The translations are often poor. In a rush to get the sentences translated into the huge range of languages they offer unfortunately many mistakes have been made. Quite often the translators have just misunderstood the English.
- There are a few problems with the original (American) English sentences. Several English phrases which have been translated correctly and make sense still sound unnatural in the translation because they are just not something that people would ever say in that language. Added to that the English phrases sometimes contain American slang and colloquialisms that even I as a native speaker of English (but not an American) struggled to understand. They should have been more aware of how region specific slang is and avoided it.
- Finally, because the sentences are identical for each language there is absolutely no cultural relevance in anything you hear or say. You will spend a lot of time repeating thousands of sentences but learn nothing of the country or countries where the language is spoken.
However, if you want to just speak out loud or practise interpreting in a language you already know to some extent then Glossika is great for that. But you should know this because it is VERY expensive.
One last point. When I first got into Glossika you could buy a course, download it and use it as you wished. You can't do that anymore. You have to have a monthly subscription, listen online and you have far less control over what what you do.
Great review and as a user of Glossika for years I think is spot on.
UA-cam needs to upgrade from just having a thumbs up thumbs down to offering like the I care emoji.
I completely understand what you're saying but it's also important to remember the ball has to get rolling somehow even if it is a bit rough.
Really good review and fully agreed on all the points you made. It also makes you realise that if you have a friend or two who are willing to speak out sentences for you, you actually don't need Glossika at all.
Very good points. I also used it when it was a one time purchase (for Mandarin only), and found it useful (although overpriced), but had most of the same grievances that you mentioned (except I’m American, so no problem with the English).
I understand why they use the same sentences for every language, but the best way to learn the language would be to have different sentences for each language, sentences that are most relevant to that specific language and culture, rather than it all being based off English.
Over a year ago, I bought a book that had 365 sentences in my target language. I memorised all of those sentences within 3 months, and as a result, I quickly moved from an elementary level to an intermediate level.
What's the name of the book?
@@MMmk1 A Māori Phrase a Day.
Memorization of sentences for most people doesn't do a lot for improving language skills. Actually using sentences, especially as models from which to produce other sentences, will help most people.
No way 365 sentences is enough to get you to an intermediate level.
@@anangelsdiaries Fair point. I had been in full immersion classes and watching TV programmes in my target language. However, it wasn't until I learnt these basic sentences did I find my ability to talk improved very quickly.
I've been a big fan of Mike for a long time, and since I started being invested in the issue of language survival in Taiwan, I love him and his work even more
Thanks for checking in Israel!
Glossika has definitely got its strengths. I really admire their efforts to cover less commonly studied languages.
Glossika guy has more information and energy than one UA-cam video can cover...loved this interview.
Duolingo is sentence after sentence. I feel like it's effective. New words and grammar is always given in a sentence context.
Mike is so passionate about this topic. I love his passion
Thanks for the interview. It was really interesting.
Thank you!
I am fascinated by the work that Mike is doing at Glossika and impressed by the languages he has made available. The sentences are the same in my experience across language and the patterns can be extended ("His car is dirty" can be used to say "My car is dirty." "My car is clean." or "My shoes are dirty." Etc. His work with indigenous languages and methods would be a great top. He is a true linguist.
This is only true if it's a language like Mandarin in which nouns and adjectives have generally only one form and can be interchanged easily. In languages with multiple forms of words like my/his or in which adjectives need to agree in gender and number this is less straightforward.
eg "My car is white" = "ma voiture est blanche". "His pens are black" = "ses stylos sont noirs". So "my pens are white" should be "ma stylos sont blanches" - which of course is not correct.
So interesting!! Awesome interview. I like what he said about having at least a couple of the major UN languages as 'tool' languages - makes sense. I also love the idea of knowing one language from each major language family as a way to understand human communication. So much more good stuff here...
I wish Mike had actually answered the question about how he learned Chinese. Very curious.
Sounds like immersion, innit?
@@3_up_moon innit bruv
I thought the same. I’ve seen several of his interviews, and he has a habit of going off track and not actually answering questions.
@@artugert He doesn't go off track; because he's never ON track! He’s like a guide you’ve hired to aid you towards your destination. While he’s drags you through the underbrush, far from any clear path, his only ‘destination,’ the whole while, is to guide you to the understanding that he’s an amazing guide! He’s not a linguist, or a polyglot. He’s a businessman!
@@jeffwest2037 Yes, I think he has a genuine interest in language and linguistics, but he is a businessman first and a linguist second. You can’t blame a man for wanting to make money, but it’s sad to see.
Very cool, Mike has always been very supportive of my efforts with Chinese, so great to hear him talk so passionately about his journey, Would be great to hear more in detail about his process and the timeline as he progressed from just getting by to actually fluent in the eyes of the locals.
Always love to check out a new Olly video and with Glossika's founder, a real bonus...
Cheers Daniel!
This is much closer to the way children learn their mother tongues! Great idea, never heard of glossika before ty
I guess im asking the wrong place but does anybody know a way to log back into an instagram account??
I stupidly forgot the password. I would love any tips you can give me!
@Henry Caspian instablaster :)
@Louis Ismael Thanks for your reply. I got to the site thru google and I'm trying it out atm.
Takes quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
@Louis Ismael it did the trick and I now got access to my account again. I am so happy:D
Thank you so much you saved my ass :D
@Henry Caspian No problem xD
Glossika is absolutely amazing! it is the best for sure
thanks a lot!!!!
First of all thanks for the great Interview! :)
I see mass sentence learning as a good thing in the intermediate to advanced stages of language learning, because it allows your brain to pretty much automaticaly sort the vocabulary in a way where you particulary come by the most used words more often and therefore learn them easier! -> therefore faster conversational fluency. Another good thing is, that it also gives you more context to the words and how to use them like mentioned in the video.
But I think that method will be very hard if you don't even know the basics of your target language because you still would have to look up every single word to make any sense out of the sentence!
I for myself am starting to drift towards intermediate right now and naturally slowly shift to sentences instead of single words! ^^
Yes, I have similar feelings. I think my story learning courses and glossika are quite complimentary actually, because I tend to deal with the earlier stages, while glossika provides ample material for higher levels.
Learning Chinese to learn the Formosan languages! That is a feat indeed. I am a heritage learner of Tagalog (I'm Filipino American), and the Austronesian languages are very interesting to me. I've seen comparative lists and short vocab lists online, but to be able to learn the grammar and nuances through Chinese is mind boggling to me. Much respect!
I just went over to try the russian course at Glossika, and I was highly impressed. I am excited to try it out over the coming days to experience the full effects.
Inspirational man , I'm currently using Glossika to learn Russian and enjoying it very much.
The verb is the anchor of the sentence. 100% agree.
I seriously agree with the sentence learning method, which is how I learned Arabic at university in the 1980s. Glad to find this resource.
This a great interview and I’ve found the products of both of you men extremely helpful. I’ve been listening to Ollys dialogue products for a few weeks now and started Glossika a few days ago. It sounds hyperbolic but I’m quickly noticing my understand of Spanish improve already. Keep it up gents.
Kudos to you for all the hard work!
“I’m afraid that” (боюсь or боюсь, что) seems pretty normative in Russian. But “sorry” is definitely less common and is even used in the English form (сори) where it would be less common to ask forgiveness in Russian.
I just signed up with Glossika to learn Tagalog. Thank you Mr. Richards. Respectfully
Thank you for your work you are appreciated. That last bit we're glossika is adding new languages I like that.
I STRONGLY believe in the sentence methodif you dont do it like that, you will forever keep making awkward sentences or directly translating from your native language
Very inspirational and motivational. Thank you both!
Olly, I really think that you should look at what he talked about around 11:30 about the story book having a way to listen to it being read online. I have purchased your Portuguese stories but the inability to hear them is a huge gap. Having the audio and the transcript (the book itself) would allow your books to be used for reading and listening skills similar to a podcast. It probably would not take much to do this since the hard part, which is writing the stories, has already been done.
Thanks for your comment. We do actually have audiobooks to accompany all of the story books. I think we need to do a better job of letting people know about this, though, because often people don’t realise!
@@storylearning I had no idea and would like to find out more. I will look into this. Thanks!
@@storylearning where can I Buy a ministory in ENGLISH that includes the AUDIO???
I'm always amazed by westerners that managed to learn a difficult language like Mandarin. As a westerner myself, I've been unable to learn even basic Mandarin.
From watching this video I have decided to give glossika a go .....loving it actually. I was hoping Steve Kauffman would create storytelling method for Hindi or Punjabi as I also believe this is another major step to fluency alongside reading.
There are a number of real problems with the Glossika Mass Sentences books.
1. They do not begin at a true beginning level. Some of the first sentences are upper A1, but many are A2 or B1. This shows sloppy planning. Many pages are needed just for the first 50 or 100 headwords that are introduced.
2. They are arranged one on top of the other. Instead, they should be in parallel columns. Doing this would make it easier to read just the target language (TL). As it is now, the other language (English) keeps getting in the way.
3. While having some free-standing sentences makes sense, most should be part of a story or narrative. Having meaning, rather than a bunch of isolated sentences, is more useful. Some isolated sentences are good, but the books rely almost exclusively on these.
4. From what I've seen, the English sentences are the same in all books. These means that language- or culture-specific language is missing. For example, many languages have different ways to greet people (Good morning. How is your health? Have you eaten), but this is missing. Languages have different kinship words (older / younger brothers or sisters, different types of aunts and uncles, etc), but relying exclusively on a list made in English means these are missing.
OLLY! You are the best!
Love your books and your method!
This man's mind rly moves a mile a minute
I don't think living with just one language would have been possible for him
He didn't say much about the mass sentence method.
Thanks a lot 😊 Such an exciting interview 👏
👌🏼 Thank you Olly! 👌🏼
In Czech, there is a similar expression like "I am afraid" 我恐怕, but it is more subtle, the verb is not the same, more like "I worry", perhaps... "Obávám se, že...." (verb obávat se, noun pl obavy)
The mass sentence method. They spent 2 minutes on it Its: listen to a sentence and repeat it until it's easy and you have the feel for it. Practice sounds like IPA etc. That's the mass sentence method.
Hmm...many Podcaster do this. They call it marketing. Little like the old days when the used car salesman up sold you. I don't like it.
Olly asks pretty good questions.
When I was visiting Israel, one of the first words I memorized was Hebrew for “excuse me” because my English speaking brain thought it would polite. A week later, my Hebrew speaking friends chewed to me out for ever saying “excuse me” because that’s not the cultural thing to do!!!
palstain*
So what was the cultural thing to do, then?
fantastic insights and motivation!
Wow. This is the first approach since pimsleur that has me excited.
I studied Mandarin in from primary to highschool it's the only reason I understand it now. But I speak Hokkien at home fluently and none of us know how to write in Hokkien. I speak 2 languages other than the 3 that were taught in school and those other 2 languages were learned through hearing and repeating them with my family members so I'm a 5 language polyglot and I know lots of people like me as well. So just mimicking the sounds and making associations with those sounds is how I learned those other 2 languages, also how my parents taught me those languages.
I watched the whole thing and I’m not sure I understand what Glossika is all about. Mike has some cool books and I have a great understanding as to how he learned Chinese, etc., but I now wonder if Glossika is similarly focused?? I’m gonna check it out because it’s still comprehensible input but it forces output. Hope to learn more about it when I get to his website.
Mike's pronunciation of dental consonants is similar to that of bilingual Latinos in New York City. I've never before heard them pronounced that way by someone whose native language is not Spanish.
Mike, I'm Finnish and I need a dictionary to read the Kalevala (for a good reason, it's basically Karelian).
14:22 It's funny because I learn the other way around! I get the grasp of a sentence by the nouns or subjektives! They are like the titles of the story! If you have the protagonists you know what the story is about! Clearly the verbs have all the action and energy and bring life to the act!
Hey Olly, do you know if Glossika plans on releasing an app through which you can practice its content?
Not sure. I think they’re happy with the web app.
Wow, glossika is a really nice name. In Greek it means "language related things". Cool!
The bit at the end reminded me of a story I heard from a scholar who's a native Rromani speaker. Apparently when they first tried to study the language, the Rroma community had fun messing around with the linguist who went to live with them and compile knowledge about the language. The guy later published a bilingual dictionary for Rromani. But a few of the entries were completely wrong. I forget the exact word, but say for something as innocuous as "road", the Rromani equivalent in the dictionary was some cuss word. ^^ Of course Rromani is still a living language, so someone eventually caught it and corrected it. But man, if I'm the last speaker of a language and my language is gonna die along with me anyway, I'd totally mess with the linguist ^^
Haha 🤣
That's a funny story.
I tried glossika, but in phone the play back kept switching to phone mode instead stereo so couldn't hear anything
Just a warning to anyone interested, you probably need quite a high level of Finnish to read Kalevala, it’s so old filled with words that are rarely used today, the poetic meter makes the language differ from everyday speech pretty drastically, and it’s basically written in a dialect. So it’s not a light read even for a Finnish person!
I started with duolingual Chinese and was doing basic chat 2nd week at stores and online chat, but I'm always looking for better ways to learn
It works extremely well for me.
"how do you apply this to a begginer level?" - 15:17
That's a great question.
wow, im going to watch it all
Hope you enjoy!
Fascinating to see language geeks talk. ( Me too. ). The idea that the interplay between culture and language is interesting. ... Inexplicably, only languages geeks get it... ( Broh love moment 😂)
Glossika is a great resource, but.... I spent two years going thru it for Russian and it did not pay off as much as I had hoped. I had a fair level of Russian to start with but the sentences did not stick as much as i hoped they would. Another horrible issues was the spacing. The narrator would say a sentence that took him 7 seconds to say but they would give you less than a second which is ridiculous. I had to spend tons of time going thru adding the spaces and finally had to give up on the GSR files as it was just to time consuming of a process. Looking back I should have dropped it immediately as time would have been better spent doing almost any other method.
Great, great video. Thanks.
Is Duolingua an example of the "mass sentence" approach ?
Extremely interesting !
Very informative!
Love how you just casually said that he was the founder of Glossika
How else would he have said it? Formally?
If i start to learn Chinese, what textbooks is better to choose? I have a great textbooks, called "A course in contemporary Chinese" Taiwanese edition and ChinesePod..... It's difficult to choose((((
Thanks a bunch
Bonne vidéo ! I never associated the word "cœur" with core. C'est tellement simple.
also il cuore - the heart in Italian is the same idea.
Am using Glossika now to learn Thai… am A1… but wonder if they will include some collab. with Olly’s Reading Stories method?
How's it going? I'm considering Glossika for Thai and would like to know the ins and outs
@@AfroGelXT my Thai wife makes fun of me... in a nice way... learning the phrase..."the flowers in the garden are beautiful" just seems a bit irrelevant for practical life in Thailand... lets just say I made strong effort for 2 months... then lost the motivation...
@@NJM4444 yes that makes a lot of sense 😂 do you still want to learn Thai?
@@AfroGelXT yes… I’ve been living here 8 years…
@@NJM4444 wow! I'd love to spend about a year there myself. I hope you do it in the end man. Hopefully I can encourage you...I was reading Glossika's main blog post where they break down their method, and it looks like the point of Glossika is to train your ears and mouth so you have a level of familiarity with the language - which then allows you to go further on your own, engage with real Thai content and learn how to say the things you actually wanna say without as much struggle (although they admit there will still be some struggle). If you never want to return to Glossika though, I recommend you have a look at a blog post on a site called Autolingual called How To Learn To Speak Thai By Yourself (From Beginner To Advanced) cause they recommend some other resources and lay out realistically what you need to do to learn. It's a really inspiring post
really want to hear this glossika guy speaking mandarin hahaha
I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're not entirely right about the apology in Russian. The phrase "Я боюсь, это не совсем так" sounds absolutely normal in Russian. This is usually a polite expression of disagreement.
wow ive heard of his mandarin which is quite a taiwanese style hahaha but i cant understand the squashy squishy sound----i dont hear these! is that how other language speakers perceive our mandarin sounds??
@Olly Richards since Glossika is all input and there are no grammar explanations, would you say that using Glossika counts as acquiring a language vs learning it?
Well Glossika is a very unique method, which I think definitely promotes acquisition, yes.
I’ve been learning greek by myself for a few years. I’m at B level and I am reading the diary of a wimpy kid series out loud without translation. The material is targeted to elementary/middle schoolers. I don’t really have a speaking partner. Do you think this is good enough practice for me to improve to C? There are 14 books and it seems to parallel your method of stories quite well. compared to your Brazilian Portuguese story book for example I say my books have a lot more slang and new vocabulary.
It’s great work, but I think you will need to read more widely to broach higher levels.
At the very least it will help you get comfortable hearing your own voice in Portuguese.
Mike Campbell is a hyperpolyglot , according to his UA-cam channel and can speak 100 languages , according to one of his UA-cam shorts.
I would say children learn the alphabet after speaking, but not from sentences. So for English, we would learn ABC etc..
"more easier"
Interesting video. I miss to be able to buy and carry Glossika, they do not have an app with the new format. Their Chinese pronunciation book is free and amazing, together with the FSI and/or the course from Outlier Linguistics I think their tone training book is one of the best phonetical trainers out there.
Ollie, your '101 German conversation' books are fantastic as well, and can be read in an afternoon as a practice tool if one desires.
I wish I would have had them when I started learning the language long time ago but they are serving me now to recover it after many years without speaking nor reading in German.
Have you ever thought about interviewing Beniko Mason?
You being so interested in language learning through stories - that are so powerful - I think knowing about her research findings - if you don't already - will give you an amazing boost, and maybe help you discover powerful ways to even making them more effective. Not that they are bad, I hope you understand what I mean.
I don't understand what these levels are - like A1 or B2
It’s the CEFR system - A1 is total beginner, B1 is low intermediate. Look up Common European Framework of Reference for Languages on Wikipedia.
Are the GMS products for sale again? 😯
I bought the German product when it was available.
No, as far as I know Glossika is only available as a website, but it's the same material as the original course (maybe even more sentences).
💙💙💙
Hi there.. im learning Turkish for about 3 and a half months.. im learning all the verbs and how to make sentences but cant get to the next step.. any advice please
Next step... give it another 3 months!
@@storylearning thanks so much..
good
Wow Mike likes Kalevala😆.
I wear hearing aides. I am not able to hear everything being said. No matter what method I've used in trying to learn several languages such as French, Spanish or German....Each of these languages have sounds that not even my hearing aides are able to convert to audible sounds that make sense or in other words -- intelligible sounds. What now? What can I do to overcome hearing deficits. I found that writing helps me learn a language but, to speak it is completely something different in reality. This guy to say he can hear a complete sentence and know its meaning and the phonics thereof is terribly alien to me. He must have alien hearing (beyond human) or alien in terms of -- are some humans really dogs in reality? Dogs can hear better than every person I have ever met. If dogs could speak everything or every word they hear -- wouldn't that make them absolutely intelligent and more so if they were able to convey what they hear into intelligent actions. Just how far must a animal go to in its extent of brain processing to convey intelligence? Is it purely a mechanical issue? Animals have shown they know colors, tonality and shape recognition. They understand smells, tastes and much more than just the five human senses. If a human suffers a brain injury and degrades their hearing or speaking senses to the level of a dog -- shouldn't we consider them to be a sort of dog?
Thank you! 👍
I admire MIke's commitment to language restoration. But the Glossika method won't be for everyone - I was an early beta tester and found it deathly boring. If you don't mind learning in a way that is totally divorced from the history, arts, politics and culture of the target community, then it might suit you.
Three sentences taken at random from Italian 1: "The weather's nice today" followed by "These bags are heavy" followed by "I'm not rich". And more disconnected sentences, ad-infinitum.
Once I'm past the A1 level, I much prefer to learn from authentic native materials that have actual meaning and interest. Much more fun. Language is about meaning and communication, and this is lacking in the Glossika method.
I was waiting for "I would invest £3.99/month in a VPN..." Haha
I'm loving your videos, by the way. Thank you!
People, does enyone know of a place to download free pdf books / translations of books in italian, german or french? I would like to dowload Harry Potter, for example in each of these languages to use as a way to practice or get into one of said languages.
Please help!
For me, it doesn't work. Too many strange sentences that don't make sense and that I would never, ever use.
Glossika seems to be working only when paid for...being someone with little financial means this is so frustrating.
I have only myself to teach myself, using books and youtube. I understand that they ask money. I really do. It's just...people having the means get more means, and people who don't have them do not get them...
I bought Arabic Glossika, and I can say, it was a failure.
The legacy system. That's because they didn't think before developing it. Using Japanese names, constantly. Using female first person all the time. All these detracts from the effectiveness of the result
I wonder where some things we say come from and how they catch on and stick when really they don’t do much other than make people sound dumb. Like starting a sentence with “I mean” and then a few sentences later starting another sentence the same way, and so on and on and on…. Any English teacher who teaches something like that should be locked up!!
Cantonese Glossica is full of printing mistakes and the sentences are not in any sort of context. Did not find it useful.
you won't acquire the sounds of a native speaker if you speak from the beginning
it's impossible because you can't even hear all the sounds as you begin
so what you're acquiring is your way of pronunciation... and later it will be extremely hard to undo those connections in your brain
You can't suddenly produce the same sounds as a native speaker just because you understand the language. People never talk about muscles but they are very important, your mouth needs to get used to produce those sounds but it takes time, try to produce French, R, the Spanish R, the Chinese tones for first time, i remember my throat hurting a lot with the French R but now I can do it naturally, i even remember not being able to pronounce 2 sounds in my mother tongue when I was 6. Our brain likes to take its time to connect with your mouth once you start speaking. If you don't like having an accent... well good luck with that.
@@frakorS all I'm saying is that if you want a good accent in the long term, begin with lots of listening and start to speak later
@@ZipfelmannKD You can acquire it once you start talking to people though. I'm my experience I would speak the best I could but I always notice if someone doesn't understand something I said so I'm like "is it different?" Then I can change it until everyone understands, even if you do what you say it's hard to distinguish if you're doing it correctly, i think.
@@frakorS being understood and a good pronunciation are two different things
but whatever, not everyone is looking for a great pronunciation 🤷
@@ZipfelmannKD いい発音だと言うのは何？
What is the difference to Duolingo?
Pretty much everything
Go to a bus with local people! 😅
Hello
I personally find glossika terrible for language learning. It's very boring, slow, tedious, ridiculously expensive and zero grammar explanations.
Hater
@@blascantu7221 seems like more of a harsh criticism, it is very expensive and mostly unhelpful since you can just find sentences for most languages from actual immersion material.
Have you completed a Glossika course from start to finish?
I wonder what extinct languages nowadays he knows 😅
Glossika was a good (but overpriced) supplementary resource, until it became AI and subscription based.