Let's be honest, thats 3 hours a day and every day. On average, no casual learner who is spending 15 minutes every day will become fluent in less than a decade.
This is not true at all. If you have 3 class a week during one year and you study a little bit also you can reach B1 in 1 or 2 years in a lot of languages.
@@jimzorn3853 You way of thinking is no-sens. You will never learn 100.000 words. They connect with each other by speaking a lot. I'm fluent in 4 languages I know what I say. I never had to study 3 hours a day. You will be suprise by how small is the amount of words you use everyday
Fluent also doesn't mean anyhting. I consider myself as fluent in english but if you start to speak to me about certain topic it would probably be harder. But I"m very fluent if I speak about music or movie. Also fluent in british, irish, american english ? What does it mean ? Don't think I want to be fluent, you will never be fluent like in you mother tongue. Think about what you can do in the language. Take you time, have a good teacher and you will have good results without too much work. Short goals are amazing.
I feel like as a young adult saying “6 months from now you could speak another language pretty well” is like saying “hey if you spend an eternity learning this language you speak it a bit ok ish” But as an older person who’s a father of 3 that’s like saying “hey start today and tomorrow you’ll be speaking fluently tomorrow”
Same man, I had no idea it would be this hard but 3 years later I'm still having so much fun and it's one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had 頑張ってください！
Don't forget that these won't apply to you if your native language isn't English though! I.e. French and Portuguese are probably Category 4 for me, while Mongolian and Korean are Category 1, as a native Turkish speaker. But it'll of course be easier to learn German and Dutch after learning English either way, let alone the availability of high quality resources. Take your own language and also the ones you've learned so far into account before approaching such lists :) Lastly, don't get lost in such details, just learn whichever the one that motivates you the most!!
True! if the place you live is, for historical reason, "bilingual,"your brain will identify the other language as "not so foreign", and it will understand the logic and above all the culture of this language, even if you don't like it. This is the case in the former German-occupied zones of France.
Exactly. If you're a native English speaker who's studied German, Old English will be much easier than if you hadn't. And if you've studied those three, all the Germanic languages start to look the same.
I've been learning Chinese as my 3rd language and my friend was learning Dutch at the same time for a few years. I was always curious as to how did she manage to learn it so fast. Now I know 😂 Learning Chinese has been a struggle, but worth it
I'm truly a StoryLearning veteran now Olly. I've finished French Uncovered till B1, four books (Short Stories Simple, Intermediate, Conversations Simple and Intermediate) and am currently enjoying Subjunctive Made Simple. I also correctly guessed Tagalog and already speak two category IV languages - Hindi and Marathi. My aim is B2 Spanish post B2 French!
To be clear, Hindi's inclusion in Category IV-requiring 44 weeks or 1,100 class hours of study-is only for native English speakers who don't speak any other language. Whereas if you speak any language from the Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan) family fluently, then Hindi would be an easy Category I. Marathi is not categorized or taught by the FSI, as it's not an international diplomatic language. But I think I know what you mean. Of course, to anyone who already knows Hindi or other Sanskrit-family languages, Marathi too would be an easy Category I (or II at worst).
It was the Brahmic script. Some of the languages in the Philippines used to be written in it, and some still do. The script could be mixed up with the other languages that still use it across the Asian continent at first glance.
@@darktheme2192 The Brahmic script was widely used. Good to know that it is somewhat offered in the Philippines for people to learn Baybayin. It is too bad other systems like Kulitan, Palaw'an, Buhid, etc... It is also too bad other places like Indonesia is not using their versions as much either.
As someone who is a native speaker and who learned some German in school, French is so much harder than German to be able to have a basic conversation or to communicate with people.
honestly, don't be scared off from learning a language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet! I'm learning Ukrainian and I'm dyslexic, and it really only took me an afternoon to get a good grasp of the different letters. once you generally remember them most of the time, start reading asap and soon you'll be able to read perfectly in no time ☺️
I knew it was Tagalog because I’m a native speaker. I want to say though that in the Philippines it’s officially known as Filipino, which is the national language based on Tagalog (the biggest ethnic group and situated around Manila, the country’s capital) but which incorporates elements from Spanish,, English, Chinese and other languages. It’s a beautifully expressive language but I agree it can be a challenge for anglophones to learn. (I have C2 English and B2 French, currently learning Spanish).
I’ve been studying Hebrew for slightly over a year, and I am probably at a mid-A2 level. Some people learn languages more slowly, and some languages are naturally much more difficult to learn.
@@nsevv Can you elaborate on what makes it "better"? I paid $15 for my book which is less than a meal these days so the cost isn't an issue. I do appreciate the suggestion though as it's something to look into for continued studies. Sidenote: Paul Noble's book alone is $18.99 which is more expensive.
What a coincidence I’m learning Tagalog right now (the mystery language)😂😅 I have an advantage knowing a regional Filipino language Bisaya, but Tagalog has more complex conjugations and stricter grammar rules. I’m struggling a little bit but I’m pushing through! Thanks Olly for always coming out with motivational language learning content.
My native language is Swedish and when I was a kid we started to learn English in school at ten and the third language at 13. I was pretty tired of school by then so my choice was German since I was told it was easier than French. I didn’t really want to learn German so I later studied French for a year. During that year we had classes several hours a week and used a studio to practice speaking and listening. So in a year my French surpassed the four years of German I had studied earlier. This was in the 1980s something so I don’t speak either language today. But, I had use of both languages alongside Spanish, Italian and Latin while I was studying classical singing. And I am very grateful for my teachers in German for their persistence in teaching the importance of grammar and usage, which benefited me greatly when I later took English at university level, and when learning to understand and sing in new languages
I agree. Don't let the categories stop you. I personally am just fascinated by languages and I'm across the board learning German, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish. In the future I also want to learn Icelandic and Igbo. Unlike most people though, my goal is to have a basic understanding of the language. If fluency comes then great. I just don't want to look at a language and gloss over it because I have no clue what it says.
As a second language learner of English, I put in my best effort to learn, but I often face challenges and setbacks. Your advice is truly motivating and gives me hope. I've heard about an extension called Immersive Translate from some UA-camr's comments, and it sounds quite intriguing. I'll give it a try and hope to make significant progress in this area.
So I know Lao, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Latin to varying degrees. Currently relearning Spanish after decades back in high school. Almost like getting back on a bike. Should be back to the level I want in the next few months.
Then again, as Olly said, US diplomats don't need to learn the Navajo language, because they speak to the Navajo people in English. Hence they don't teach it at the FSI, nor have they assigned a category to it. The US government has left it entirely up to the Navajo people to preserve their language, population, and way of life-like it has with all indigenous Americans who've managed to survive till now.
@@nHans Unfortunately many indigenous groups don't see preserving their language as much of a priority. In Canada it was proposed in one province that anyone, including non indigenous people had to learn an indigenous language to work at an indigenous owned casino. The people who rejected the idea was non other than the indigenous elders. The big contributing factor was those very elders did not speak any other language aside from English.
@@Matt-jc2ml The languages with an Asterix could technically be put in their own category of difficulty. The level 4 languages such as: Estonian, Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Georgian, Thai and Vietnamese. They should be labelled as level 5. Level 6 should be Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic, Korean. Level 7 Japanese.
The language spoken at roughly 10:30 was Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines. I have no clue what level/rating it is, but my husband is Filipino and I've heard him and his family speak their language for the past 25 years. 😁 That doesn't mean I understand much! When I rewind and listen to her again I pick up something about an older sister... and a soup called sinigang with some other food related terms.... then I'm lost again. 😂
As a native Russian and Hebrew speaker I remember English used to be crazy hard and confusing, but learning persian afterwards was a relatively smooth ride. So I guess it's influenced by the languages ypu already speak and there are many individual differences
You didn't speak much about Arabic on this video, but one thing I want to point out that makes learning it extra complicated is the difference between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and the many regional dialects - and the dialects aren't even officially written! I'm not sure to what extent universities teach Arabic dialects now, but they weren't taught when I studied Arabic, so I studied MSA for 4 years at a US university and got a minor in it. However, when I went to Morocco to study Moroccan Arabic ("darija") for 3 months, I had to go back to the beginning level. They are almost like separate languages! I lived with a Moroccan family and traveled all over the country, to places where I had no choice by to speak Moroccan. Living there and studying the dialect for a semester made me more fluent than I was after all the book learning of MSA in the US! No Arabs actually speak MSA as a first language. They have to study it too! So when you study MSA, you're great at reading, since almost everything (minus informal writing, like on social media) is written in MSA, but you are almost clueless when you step out onto the street and try to have a conversation. Some dialects are closer to MSA, like urban Jordanian/Palestinian. I was able to pick that up pretty quickly living in the Middle East. But as much as I love Morocco and the Moroccan dialect, most other Arabic-speaking countries don't understand it. As for MSA language learning materials, there aren't many. You kind of have to go from textbooks to native language materials. Forget Netflix and all the fun aspects of learning a language! The subtitles on Netflix are in MSA, and there are no movies or shows in MSA that I'm aware of. So you're watching something where they're speaking Egyptian Arabic, for example, and the subtitles are written in MSA -- not actually representing the words you are hearing. You are relegated to children's cartoons, religious programming, and the news - and they all get old fast!
When I started studying Russian, I thought the cyrillic alphabet was hard. Then I thought it was the six cases. But boy, oh boy, I was not ready for the verbs: those are probably the real beast 😂
@@yvfj155 я люблю изучать языки, а я хочу изучать один славянский язык. Also, it’s a bit more challenging than, say, spanish or italian 🤭 But holy moly, it is painful at times 🤣
I learned French to C1 level relatively quickly. It helped I got posted to Paris for 3 years. But the step up to German is so challenging. I won't let it beat me though. I'm currently battling on to get to B2.
I'm German, and I also find French to be pretty easy. But it's surprising to me that you find German so much harder than French, I would have guessed for an English speaker, they should be around the same difficulty
@@mikereisert2803 I think it is because French grammar is relatively similar to English grammar, whereas German grammar and word order is very different from English. All those cases, declensions and verbs coming at the end of sentences are quite mind-taxing. But I enjoy the challenge.
FSI really doesnt apply properly to normal people. Only thing one should take from it is that which langs are normally easier, and which ones will probably take more time. And if you know a second language, depending on what language that is, FSI chart can become very wrong. Because its designed for only English speakers.
I've studied multiple languages from Categories 1, 4 and 5 (as a native English speaker). Out of all of them, French has been the hardest for me. According to the chart, it should have been one of the easiest. There really are a lot of other factors that determine how difficult a language will be for each individual.
@@falafelbrincess I myself am learning French right now, and yes its more difficult than I thought it was. Currently 2 year + learning French, still has trouble understanding natives. I though it would be easy when I saw FSI chart for first time before learning French.
As a Dutchman, born in 1949, the educational system was provided bt the government. All schools were government schools, the books were the same and teachers were certified. We also had to learn 3 foreign languages, starting with French in the 5th. grade and followed by German and English from the 7th. grade. Final exams consisted in having read 3 books in each language and be able to have a fluent conversation about them during an hour. Yes, we really learned those languages because they "weighed" as much as maths.
My study journey was unbearably lonely without a peer. Your vlogs alleviated that, but language barriers hinder me. Now, I'm using Immersive Translate to enhance my language skills and hope to comprehend your videos independently.
As Swedes, we don't even really count English. It's just a given. It seems like our *third language* is more like your (English speakers') second language.
Been learning Japanese - appreciate your comment on what it takes to learn the category 5 languages. Basically be patient, it’ll happen eventually. Nice reminder to enjoy the process!
I'm learning Japanese right now and It doesn't matter what a chart says about its difficulty: the simple fact is, the language is incredibly foreign to someone of indo-european speaking origin, in my case Serbian and English (which are, comparatively, quite similar). Whereas if you're a speaker of a related language group, the language will be at least grammatically be similar, if not share vocab with your target language. Then again I am having an easier time with Japanese just because I enjoy Japanese media so much more than with Polish, which is a very closely related language.
Surprisingly I’m studying tagalog for my second language and when I saw the babayin script I was like oh shit no way!! I’m about a year in my journey and I’m about an A2ish level. I believe my next step is just obtaining as much vocab as possible. For the most part understood the clip as well!
There must be a structured 12-year formal schooling in a certain foreign language from preschool up to high school, not just as a language subject, but also as a medium of instruction for science, mathematics, and civic subjects. This preferred foreign language must be used as a medium in businesses, mass media, and civil service to complement compulsory schooling. I hope this approach will be considered by Filipino educators and politicians if they wish to revive Spanish as a spoken language in the Philippines.
Agreed, as a Dutch speaker, German is one of the easier languages for me. Yet so are Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, since Papiamento is my mother tongue.
I’m Italian, i already speak both English and German, and this made picking up Dutch pretty easy. I was able to have small conversations with locals without making mistakes (as the locals told me) after 2 weeks of occasional study in the Netherlands. However the 90% of the vocabs that i picked up didn’t come from interactions with natives but from TV series and spongebob.
I’m on day 204 of Italian and feel very much like a beginner. I practise between 15 mins to 3 hours a day so probably at least 1 hour everyday on average, it’s not like I’ve not been expose to it either as my mum is Italian. I also listen to Italian at least an hour a day. I do wonder if I’m too dumb to learn a language
I feel the same about Spanish. I have been learning it for three and a half years (1 hour a day). And I am afraid I am not even at B1 level. Though I still hope to reach C1 one day...
Same amount of days and I feel the same in spanish. I average 2 maybe 3 hours a day and Spanish is said to be a bit easier then italian. I've been messing around with italian too for fun, I only know a few phrases though. I really like italian. Buona fortuna per il tuo cammino!
@@halcyon733 Sólo llevo siete meses aprendiendo español. Creo que mi español ya debería ser mejor para ahora. Mi camino es largo, pero lo voy a hacer y aprender español. buena suerte en tu camino
@@thetightwadhomesteader3089 thank you, I’m going to Italy in about 6 weeks so maybe that will help. Luckily have family there that speak both English and Italian so maybe they can help. Good luck with your Spanish learning
My second language is Mandarin Chinese... I've been learning it for about 2 years, and I just started learning Russian because I love the sound of Russian, and I already know the syrillic alphabet
I'm a native English speaker. I learned German in school over 5 years. Now I'm learning Croatian on my own. I know it's a difficult language, but I think if I stay dedicated I can do it. Also a lot of the language learning skills I got from German are coming in handy.
as a chinese,it just take me four months to communicate with native english,but at present i have learned for 10months ,i still cant understant a lot of American seriers
I find it often easy to use comparative sounds between languages. I am fluent in German. A cook in German = Koch, just change the "o" to an "a" and add an english "wa" to the end, Kachwa {coffee in Arabic}. I am sure it would be easier to use an international phonetic-sound conversion tool. Do you know of any?
I really think that the difficulty of a learning a new language is determined by people's mindset, and the capacity of being challenged in our certainty and vision of the world. The time it takes to master a new language will depend on how resilient our minds are to accept these different ways of perceiving the world, our motivation (what for) and personal organisation.
During COVID I picked up Russian and Japanese. Use the "grow" method. Little kids learn by listening all day every day. Then they try speaking small words and adults correct them. Then once they have a handle on speaking, then they learn the alphabet and reading...and writing last. It's the BEST WAY to learn. It takes a bit longer, but you'll truly understand the language
15:12 I understand that the content creator wanted to show how different Russian alphabet is, but its the old Russian alphabet. The writing reform 1708 dumped 15 letters (3of which were later added back and added one extra letter which didn't exist before) the Soviet government in 1917 dumped 3 more letters and simplified the rules to make them closer to the actual pronunciation. back in the day.
My favorite way to learn a language is too read lots of children books and cartoons because Many native kids are probably just as a beginner as you are.
I’m currently learning Japanese and it hasn’t been the hardest. The only thing hard for me has to be the writing and reading. Speaking has been an easier experience for me.
Japanese speaking has levels to it. It depends on if you want to speak words and phrases in a good pitch accent or not. If you just speak without a pitch accent, you'll probably still be understood by native speakers, but you'll sound very foreign. It took me a good year of careful studying of the standard pitch accent to be able to hear it clearly and replicate it consistently in my own speech. It's much better to study it earlier than later so you don't develop bad pronunciation early on you'd have to unlearn.
nice you learned French and Icelandic like I did. (though I'd love to have a proper course on Icelandic as I learned it on my own in an unconventional way)
10:29 That's Tagalog since the vast majority of my co-workers are Pinoy. I'm Mexican-American btw so this was due to exposure and not my ethnic identity
Learn about 800 words well in any language and you can get along i think. I learn best when im forced to use the language. Im hoping to spend about a year in several countries when i retire and learn several languages at the most basic level. Not a tremendous goal i know but for me it will be fun.
9:17 You forgot a comma there. The correct sentence would be: "Ich denke, dass ich es verstehe" or to sound more natural while speaking "Ich denk(e), ich versteh(e) es".
Russian truly isn't as hard as people say it is. I've been learning Russian for only a year and I'm already almost past A2. I would be happy to help anyone learn the beautiful language of Russian for free!
lol the fact that i was so excited for the mystery language and it was just my mother tongue.. it made me happy that my language is mysterious but i also wanted to try and guess😂😂
I wanted to cry when I saw Korean was Cat V. Always wanted to understand the interviews I watch every week without having to have it translated. Don't need to speak it though. Would that cut the hours down?
You can do it if you have the enough motivation, I'm studying Korean, I know will be a long journey but I love the language, I like it a lot and is not as difficult as people said, of course have some details like different endings depending the formality a lot of particles and some details with certain grammatical points but if you want you can.
You can do it! Even if you get to only a b1 b2 level, you can understand most words in an interview / song. C not being too necessary. Plus with these kind of languages, Koreans are very thankful that you even took the time to learn it. With French, my third language, I find interesting content to be hard to find. But Korean has a lot. I recommend TTMIK and How to Study Korean as your textbooks. Good luck!
Telling people learning a language takes a certain number of weeks is really unrealistic, and it will frustrate a lot of people. It took me close to 3 years to be fluent in English even though I lived in an English speaking country. You need a lot of patience, motivation and prepare yourself to make tons of mistakes
As a native Arabic speaker and a university teacher of Arabic speakers, I believe that for non-native speakers to master it, serious study for a period of no less than ten years is required.
So this guy is selling his revolutionary inventive language learning method? At least he is smart! I discovered the same thing myself, ages ago in high school: my English improved radically once I started reading books in English. What helped also was watching films and TV in English since nothing was ever dubbed in my country. But I still did not dare speak! My understanding of the language was perfectly fluent but I could not speak: I was incapable of uttering a word! Only when I moved to England, I dared say a word because the English were so kind and understanding of my discomfort. Then I went to France, speaking barely ten words of French and learned it the same way (reading and TV with a 3 month course taken at Alliance Française) and still it took me two years before I spoke a word in French (French are not as understanding of the people butchering their language!)! I understand Italian perfectly (again, tv and books!) but cannot speak to save my life! Conclusion: according to my own experience, there are drawbacks to your method but it should be a part of classical language learning alongside total immersion!
I think the bit that everyone misses about the listing is that its 'classroom hours', with the assumption that study is extra. I think the general rule that to get to B2 will take around 3,000 hours, +/- 40% is a good one - with the category 1 languages being the minus 40%, and category 5 being +40% is pretty reasonable. The good news is though that with category 5 languages it gets easier to learn some if you already know one - even though they are not linguistically connected, you do have some advantages, such as knowing kanji/hanzi or the similar syntax of Korean and Japanese.
Dutch is actually very complex for english native speakers. When they think they're good, they still make a lot of mistakes in the word order. And I mean, a lot. They just got it wrong all the time. They need to listen more. It's like in German here 9:17 'Ik denk dat ik het versta'.
I didn’t realize but I made a goal to learn Portuguese, German, Russian, and Mandarin and they are all in different categories. Almost C1 in PT I suppose German is next!
Been a bit over a year learning Finnish and I’m not even B1. Sitting around A2.3. Not easy. The 16 grammatical cases aside, the vocabulary is probably the most difficult thing. The only saving grace is the alphabet being Latin letters. This is also the first language I’ve decided to learn outside of English.
people often mention hiragana and katakana as a barrier to learning Japanese, but they don't take that long to learn. this is like saying English is hard because you have to learn 104 characters (26 letters in cursive and print, in uppercase and lowercase. 26 x 2 x 2 = 104). i mean, yea many characters look similar in cursive vs print, but you get the point.
I’m taking a German class right now that’s 20hrs a week. A1.1 first month, A1.2 next month, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1, etc so B2 fluency would be in about 8 months. It was tough in the beginning trying to get a grasp on the grammar but once that started to click, you do feel like you’re making progress but so much still to learn
Just to be clear: Imho japanese is quite easy to learn to speak... Very easy pronounciation, Easy grammar, but with some cultural quirks. It has something like tnes, but you can completely ignore it, as it has no impact on the meaning of the sentence. Great... But where are the problems? They totally messed up their writings. But here is the 1st misconception: The problem is not the existence of three writings. Katakana and Hiragana are quite easy to learn and you will be happy for every Katakana and Hiragana you see in the text. TIn one week you can easily read both writings. The problem is only the japanese version of Kanji. Kanji are from China and there they are working perfect. you see a kanji and you know its meaning and its pronounciation. Ok, you have to learn a bulk of them, but it is just a second set of vocabulary... But in japanese the fun really begins. You see a kanji and then you have to guess the reading. At least every kanji has its meaning, what should give you a hint. In some rare cases it can be easy like for 汽。Its only reading is "ki" and it means steam. For example, you can find this kanji in 汽車 (車 stands for car) which is read "kisha (ki + sha)" in this cas and means "steam train". Quite easy, or? But then we have kanji like 生. Possible readings are "sei", "shou", "ha", "i", "ki", "o", "u". And we just ignore all readings, which are used only for names... At least the meaning is normally something like life or growing. Have fun, guessing the reading. But it got worse. For example there is this really important kanji "子". It can be read "shi", "su", "ko" or "ne" (The last one I didn't know until now). And it means child. For example it appears in "扇子". This means hand fan and ist read "sensu". You can try to guess, why 子 is used here, or you can just accept, that the only reason, it is used here, is the fact, that one of its readings is "su". To sum it up: Japanese is not hard to speak, but an absolute monster to read and write. (P.S.: I am still learning japanese and therefore I didn't possibly chose the best examples to make my point clear)
it's actually crazy how well I remember things from stories I've read. I still after like 8 years if not more remember what whale is in italian because I read a story about a whale and a seagull in italian. for those wondering it is balena
As a Thai, I'm so glad that our language is being mentioned here . I just took french a month ago, and I'm struggling with the conjugation and genders. I can't believe that Thai is at the IV level in FSI ranking. We have no tenses, no articles, no genders, and most importantly no conjugations.
สวัสดีค่ะ I'm learning Thai right now (as a native English speaker), and I love it! I definitely appreciate the "no tenses, no articles, no genders, and no conjugations" aspect! 😆 I've actually had a lot of fun learning & practicing the writing system, and the tones start to feel more accessible & instinctive as my listening improves. I really encourage people interested in learning Thai to not let those aspects intimidate them! สู้ๆ
I agree on the last point, learning korean alphabet took me less than two hours and I wasn't only focus on this task at the moment (reading fluently took me more time tho)
Thanks Olly! สวัสดีค่ะ I’m Thai and I feel very well represented here 😊. (Actually the sentence ending for politeness for a guy is “ครับ“ with the character above included. I guess the English only keyboard might not be able to handle that.) In terms of language learning experience, you’re so right about German. I was a one academic year exchange student when I was in high school, then college workload got better of me for years. After about 8 years of almost no exposure I just wrapped up some courage to talk to a random German speaking person on public transport 😂😂😂. I was still conversationable to some extent. I’m afraid if I didn’t dare to get some practice that day there might not be another chance for years to come and I might lose my ability altogether.
Icelandic is not as easy as I thought it would be, or as fast to learn as I thought, but I'm hanging in there. I'm using LingQ and the Story Learning book for it, which is awesome.
I'm pretty sure you know and someone has pointed out that chocolate is a Nahuatl word, not Latin, but it did probably pass through a Romance language or two before getting into English.
I started learning Mandarin recently. I just finished A1-A2 and before this I was studying japanese... All I could say is whenever I saw kanji like for example 水 山 火 I forgot the japanese pronounce lol 😭 everytime I see these or other ones I only remember chinese pronounce now. Well Ill start Hsk-3 soon and I hope everyoen will succeed! 谢谢你！
I would like to see where Cherokee fits on the list. I have been studying Cherokee casually for a short time. It is quite difficult to find resources, but not impossible if you are dedicated. The grammar is crazy hard though, and since it is an endangered language close to extinction, it is almost impossible to find native speakers.
I studied russian long ago. I recall that the alphabet wasn't a hurdle. You can learn the alphabet in 1 day, and then you're off. In the end the alphabet helps because you are not tempted to pronounce russian words with english phonetics.
What's your language level right now? 👉🏼 ua-cam.com/video/yBTjkYoQj4E/v-deo.htmlsi=JhFAPhzQqm1BDZNC
Mystery language is Tagalog at cat 4 if I remember correctly. I have B2 Tagalog, C2 English, A1 Hungarian + currently learning German.
Im learning turkish and i think im between A2 and B1 level
Very low lol. Not even A1 in Hungarian. Could probably scrape A1 in German if I get my brain into gear.
I am dying with Swahili it's 5 category because it has no content at all
C2 English C2 Bulgarian B2 Spanish A1 Greek and Italian and Portuguese
Let's be honest, thats 3 hours a day and every day. On average, no casual learner who is spending 15 minutes every day will become fluent in less than a decade.
In reality it will take a decade or more to really be fluent even with multiple hours of practice per day for years on end.
This is not true at all. If you have 3 class a week during one year and you study a little bit also you can reach B1 in 1 or 2 years in a lot of languages.
@jimzorn3853 no it doesn't, conversational fluency can be achieved with a much smaller amount of words than that
@@jimzorn3853 You way of thinking is no-sens. You will never learn 100.000 words. They connect with each other by speaking a lot. I'm fluent in 4 languages I know what I say. I never had to study 3 hours a day. You will be suprise by how small is the amount of words you use everyday
Fluent also doesn't mean anyhting. I consider myself as fluent in english but if you start to speak to me about certain topic it would probably be harder. But I"m very fluent if I speak about music or movie. Also fluent in british, irish, american english ? What does it mean ?
Don't think I want to be fluent, you will never be fluent like in you mother tongue. Think about what you can do in the language. Take you time, have a good teacher and you will have good results without too much work. Short goals are amazing.
"Do you recognize... THIS language?"
*says "easy Italian" in the upper right hand corner*
But did you recognise it?
@@alphonsoelm5652 no
222nd like.
I feel like as a young adult saying “6 months from now you could speak another language pretty well” is like saying “hey if you spend an eternity learning this language you speak it a bit ok ish”
But as an older person who’s a father of 3 that’s like saying “hey start today and tomorrow you’ll be speaking fluently tomorrow”
Playfully speak it to your kids during daily routines, and you’ll all be speaking it faster than you would otherwise!
Im a native arabic speaker and i can confirm that even us arabs face difficulties in our language 😂
We Arabs, ;-)
I've been studying Arabic for a little over a year and can only do basic conversations in Fusha.
Spend time with native Arabic speakers as they live their daily lives.
@@rollizle
@@antonboludo8886but the don’t really live their daily lives completely in fusha, mostly dialects
Yes. I suppose you are wanting to learn Classical Arabic and not one of the dialects.
@@m_ron2742
Currently learning Japanese and I'm having a blast! It's a journey, not a rush :)
Wanikani is awesome for Kanji if you didn't already know
So desu ne?
Same man, I had no idea it would be this hard but 3 years later I'm still having so much fun and it's one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had
頑張ってください！
Good. It is supposed to be fun.
@@dethswurl117
Same, although at times that journey can feel like having your tires stuck in a mud in the middle of nowhere and having to call emergency help.
Once you have learned a few you know what to look for in a new language, even if it is completely different from the ones you know already.
Don't forget that these won't apply to you if your native language isn't English though!
I.e. French and Portuguese are probably Category 4 for me, while Mongolian and Korean are Category 1, as a native Turkish speaker.
But it'll of course be easier to learn German and Dutch after learning English either way, let alone the availability of high quality resources.
Take your own language and also the ones you've learned so far into account before approaching such lists :)
Lastly, don't get lost in such details, just learn whichever the one that motivates you the most!!
True! if the place you live is, for historical reason, "bilingual,"your brain will identify the other language as "not so foreign", and it will understand the logic and above all the culture of this language, even if you don't like it. This is the case in the former German-occupied zones of France.
omg someone needed to say this.. the whole chart is just if you speak european languages
Exactly. If you're a native English speaker who's studied German, Old English will be much easier than if you hadn't. And if you've studied those three, all the Germanic languages start to look the same.
@@kazukusto be fair, Olly did say this
@@PapaGabo ive seen countless videos not mentioning it at all
One never really finishes learning any language even your native one.
That is precisely correct.
I've been learning Chinese as my 3rd language and my friend was learning Dutch at the same time for a few years. I was always curious as to how did she manage to learn it so fast. Now I know 😂
Learning Chinese has been a struggle, but worth it
I’m 14 years old and learning Finnish for 50 days now. I can see the progress!
You are young! That helps!
Same, I'm 14 turning 15 in Jan, I've been learning German for 82 days now 😃
I'm truly a StoryLearning veteran now Olly. I've finished French Uncovered till B1, four books (Short Stories Simple, Intermediate, Conversations Simple and Intermediate) and am currently enjoying Subjunctive Made Simple. I also correctly guessed Tagalog and already speak two category IV languages - Hindi and Marathi. My aim is B2 Spanish post B2 French!
amazing!
To be clear, Hindi's inclusion in Category IV-requiring 44 weeks or 1,100 class hours of study-is only for native English speakers who don't speak any other language. Whereas if you speak any language from the Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan) family fluently, then Hindi would be an easy Category I.
Marathi is not categorized or taught by the FSI, as it's not an international diplomatic language. But I think I know what you mean. Of course, to anyone who already knows Hindi or other Sanskrit-family languages, Marathi too would be an easy Category I (or II at worst).
I initially thought Tagalog but the different script threw me off and stumped me 🤣 good one, Olly!
That's a script that used to be used for Tagalog. Now it's written in Latin.
It was the Brahmic script. Some of the languages in the Philippines used to be written in it, and some still do. The script could be mixed up with the other languages that still use it across the Asian continent at first glance.
That script is called Baybayin. It's not used but taught in sort of elective classes at uni level I believe.
@@darktheme2192 The Brahmic script was widely used. Good to know that it is somewhat offered in the Philippines for people to learn Baybayin. It is too bad other systems like Kulitan, Palaw'an, Buhid, etc...
It is also too bad other places like Indonesia is not using their versions as much either.
This is an EXCELLENT video. I enjoyed it immensely. I hope people from all around the world watch it!
As someone who is a native speaker and who learned some German in school, French is so much harder than German to be able to have a basic conversation or to communicate with people.
honestly, don't be scared off from learning a language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet! I'm learning Ukrainian and I'm dyslexic, and it really only took me an afternoon to get a good grasp of the different letters. once you generally remember them most of the time, start reading asap and soon you'll be able to read perfectly in no time ☺️
I knew it was Tagalog because I’m a native speaker. I want to say though that in the Philippines it’s officially known as Filipino, which is the national language based on Tagalog (the biggest ethnic group and situated around Manila, the country’s capital) but which incorporates elements from Spanish,, English, Chinese and other languages. It’s a beautifully expressive language but I agree it can be a challenge for anglophones to learn. (I have C2 English and B2 French, currently learning Spanish).
I speak tagalog, bisaya, and also english.
Kababayan
I've been studying Finnish every day for hours for 5 months and I'm barely A2...
Focus on high frequency vocabulary and grammar only.
A2 in Finnish is not even remotely bad if you've only studied for 5 months. Keep going, you have this native speaker's support. :)
Babadum Clozemaster Busuu Drops Duolingo
Babadum Clozemaster Busuu Drops Duolingo
I’ve been studying Hebrew for slightly over a year, and I am probably at a mid-A2 level. Some people learn languages more slowly, and some languages are naturally much more difficult to learn.
I've recently picked up your Short Stories in French book! Looking forward to implementing that read & practice into my studies. Great video!
Paul noble book and audio course is better and cheaper.
@@nsevv Can you elaborate on what makes it "better"? I paid $15 for my book which is less than a meal these days so the cost isn't an issue. I do appreciate the suggestion though as it's something to look into for continued studies. Sidenote: Paul Noble's book alone is $18.99 which is more expensive.
What a coincidence I’m learning Tagalog right now (the mystery language)😂😅 I have an advantage knowing a regional Filipino language Bisaya, but Tagalog has more complex conjugations and stricter grammar rules. I’m struggling a little bit but I’m pushing through! Thanks Olly for always coming out with motivational language learning content.
My native language is Swedish and when I was a kid we started to learn English in school at ten and the third language at 13. I was pretty tired of school by then so my choice was German since I was told it was easier than French. I didn’t really want to learn German so I later studied French for a year. During that year we had classes several hours a week and used a studio to practice speaking and listening. So in a year my French surpassed the four years of German I had studied earlier. This was in the 1980s something so I don’t speak either language today. But, I had use of both languages alongside Spanish, Italian and Latin while I was studying classical singing. And I am very grateful for my teachers in German for their persistence in teaching the importance of grammar and usage, which benefited me greatly when I later took English at university level, and when learning to understand and sing in new languages
I agree. Don't let the categories stop you. I personally am just fascinated by languages and I'm across the board learning German, Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish. In the future I also want to learn Icelandic and Igbo.
Unlike most people though, my goal is to have a basic understanding of the language. If fluency comes then great.
I just don't want to look at a language and gloss over it because I have no clue what it says.
As a second language learner of English, I put in my best effort to learn, but I often face challenges and setbacks. Your advice is truly motivating and gives me hope. I've heard about an extension called Immersive Translate from some UA-camr's comments, and it sounds quite intriguing. I'll give it a try and hope to make significant progress in this area.
So I know Lao, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Latin to varying degrees. Currently relearning Spanish after decades back in high school. Almost like getting back on a bike. Should be back to the level I want in the next few months.
One of the best long educative videos I've seen in a while.
25 minutes and I wish it didn't stop. You're good, man. Kudos.
I think they should create a category VI just for Navajo. That language is completely insane.
Then again, as Olly said, US diplomats don't need to learn the Navajo language, because they speak to the Navajo people in English. Hence they don't teach it at the FSI, nor have they assigned a category to it. The US government has left it entirely up to the Navajo people to preserve their language, population, and way of life-like it has with all indigenous Americans who've managed to survive till now.
@@nHans Unfortunately many indigenous groups don't see preserving their language as much of a priority. In Canada it was proposed in one province that anyone, including non indigenous people had to learn an indigenous language to work at an indigenous owned casino. The people who rejected the idea was non other than the indigenous elders.
The big contributing factor was those very elders did not speak any other language aside from English.
Lots of languages would be level 6 but they aren't major languages. Bantu languages, North Caucasian etc
@@Matt-jc2ml The languages with an Asterix could technically be put in their own category of difficulty.
The level 4 languages such as: Estonian, Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian, Georgian, Thai and Vietnamese.
They should be labelled as level 5.
Level 6 should be Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic, Korean.
Level 7 Japanese.
Put Chinese there too
The language spoken at roughly 10:30 was Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines. I have no clue what level/rating it is, but my husband is Filipino and I've heard him and his family speak their language for the past 25 years. 😁
That doesn't mean I understand much!
When I rewind and listen to her again I pick up something about an older sister... and a soup called sinigang with some other food related terms.... then I'm lost again. 😂
As a native Russian and Hebrew speaker I remember English used to be crazy hard and confusing, but learning persian afterwards was a relatively smooth ride. So I guess it's influenced by the languages ypu already speak and there are many individual differences
You didn't speak much about Arabic on this video, but one thing I want to point out that makes learning it extra complicated is the difference between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and the many regional dialects - and the dialects aren't even officially written! I'm not sure to what extent universities teach Arabic dialects now, but they weren't taught when I studied Arabic, so I studied MSA for 4 years at a US university and got a minor in it. However, when I went to Morocco to study Moroccan Arabic ("darija") for 3 months, I had to go back to the beginning level. They are almost like separate languages! I lived with a Moroccan family and traveled all over the country, to places where I had no choice by to speak Moroccan. Living there and studying the dialect for a semester made me more fluent than I was after all the book learning of MSA in the US! No Arabs actually speak MSA as a first language. They have to study it too! So when you study MSA, you're great at reading, since almost everything (minus informal writing, like on social media) is written in MSA, but you are almost clueless when you step out onto the street and try to have a conversation. Some dialects are closer to MSA, like urban Jordanian/Palestinian. I was able to pick that up pretty quickly living in the Middle East. But as much as I love Morocco and the Moroccan dialect, most other Arabic-speaking countries don't understand it. As for MSA language learning materials, there aren't many. You kind of have to go from textbooks to native language materials. Forget Netflix and all the fun aspects of learning a language! The subtitles on Netflix are in MSA, and there are no movies or shows in MSA that I'm aware of. So you're watching something where they're speaking Egyptian Arabic, for example, and the subtitles are written in MSA -- not actually representing the words you are hearing. You are relegated to children's cartoons, religious programming, and the news - and they all get old fast!
When I started studying Russian, I thought the cyrillic alphabet was hard. Then I thought it was the six cases. But boy, oh boy, I was not ready for the verbs: those are probably the real beast 😂
Как долго вы учите русский?
@@erturtemirbaev5207 я начал изучать русский язык шесть месяцев назад, I’m just a beginner 🤣
I tried to learn Russian once but gave up it s really really hard I don't understand how people learn this language they must be a genius.
Чисто из любопытства, зачем вообще учить русский? Смысл в этом какой?
@@yvfj155 я люблю изучать языки, а я хочу изучать один славянский язык. Also, it’s a bit more challenging than, say, spanish or italian 🤭
But holy moly, it is painful at times 🤣
I learned French to C1 level relatively quickly. It helped I got posted to Paris for 3 years. But the step up to German is so challenging. I won't let it beat me though. I'm currently battling on to get to B2.
I'm German, and I also find French to be pretty easy. But it's surprising to me that you find German so much harder than French, I would have guessed for an English speaker, they should be around the same difficulty
@mikereisert2803 yes actually french s harder than german unless u re a romance language speaker
Go to Berlin. ;)
@@mikereisert2803 I think it is because French grammar is relatively similar to English grammar, whereas German grammar and word order is very different from English. All those cases, declensions and verbs coming at the end of sentences are quite mind-taxing. But I enjoy the challenge.
FSI really doesnt apply properly to normal people. Only thing one should take from it is that which langs are normally easier, and which ones will probably take more time. And if you know a second language, depending on what language that is, FSI chart can become very wrong. Because its designed for only English speakers.
I've studied multiple languages from Categories 1, 4 and 5 (as a native English speaker). Out of all of them, French has been the hardest for me. According to the chart, it should have been one of the easiest. There really are a lot of other factors that determine how difficult a language will be for each individual.
@@falafelbrincess I myself am learning French right now, and yes its more difficult than I thought it was. Currently 2 year + learning French, still has trouble understanding natives. I though it would be easy when I saw FSI chart for first time before learning French.
As a Dutchman, born in 1949, the educational system was provided bt the government. All schools were government schools, the books were the same and teachers were certified. We also had to learn 3 foreign languages, starting with French in the 5th. grade and followed by German and English from the 7th. grade. Final exams consisted in having read 3 books in each language and be able to have a fluent conversation about them during an hour. Yes, we really learned those languages because they "weighed" as much as maths.
My study journey was unbearably lonely without a peer. Your vlogs alleviated that, but language barriers hinder me. Now, I'm using Immersive Translate to enhance my language skills and hope to comprehend your videos independently.
As Swedes, we don't even really count English. It's just a given.
It seems like our *third language* is more like your (English speakers') second language.
Been learning Japanese - appreciate your comment on what it takes to learn the category 5 languages. Basically be patient, it’ll happen eventually. Nice reminder to enjoy the process!
Haha, you got me there. I hear Tagalog but I was confused by the old script. Wow, that was their old writing system. Very cool.
I'm learning Japanese right now and It doesn't matter what a chart says about its difficulty: the simple fact is, the language is incredibly foreign to someone of indo-european speaking origin, in my case Serbian and English (which are, comparatively, quite similar). Whereas if you're a speaker of a related language group, the language will be at least grammatically be similar, if not share vocab with your target language.
Then again I am having an easier time with Japanese just because I enjoy Japanese media so much more than with Polish, which is a very closely related language.
Surprisingly I’m studying tagalog for my second language and when I saw the babayin script I was like oh shit no way!! I’m about a year in my journey and I’m about an A2ish level. I believe my next step is just obtaining as much vocab as possible. For the most part understood the clip as well!
Vocab is the key. Seriously, you can skip conjugations for a while but if you miss words - no conjugation will tell you what that word means... :/
There must be a structured 12-year formal schooling in a certain foreign language from preschool up to high school, not just as a language subject, but also as a medium of instruction for science, mathematics, and civic subjects. This preferred foreign language must be used as a medium in businesses, mass media, and civil service to complement compulsory schooling.
I hope this approach will be considered by Filipino educators and politicians if they wish to revive Spanish as a spoken language in the Philippines.
And Tagalog spoken by the lady
Imo there is no such thing as a "difficult language", the difficulty depends on your mother tongue (or the languages you have already learned)
Agree, as a Korean myself, Japanese is the easiest language to learn because we share very similar syntax and ways of thinking
Exactly as for me russian s much harder than Japanese for example
Agreed, as a Dutch speaker, German is one of the easier languages for me. Yet so are Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, since Papiamento is my mother tongue.
I love learning the alphabets of other countries, super easy and when you get to use it it’s fun :)
Studied French for 2 years in high school and lost it all. Trying to jump back into it in my 40s pray for me
I’m Italian, i already speak both English and German, and this made picking up Dutch pretty easy. I was able to have small conversations with locals without making mistakes (as the locals told me) after 2 weeks of occasional study in the Netherlands. However the 90% of the vocabs that i picked up didn’t come from interactions with natives but from TV series and spongebob.
Ive started with portugese a couple of days ago. I have learned 600 words in 6 days according to my flashcards.
I’m on day 204 of Italian and feel very much like a beginner. I practise between 15 mins to 3 hours a day so probably at least 1 hour everyday on average, it’s not like I’ve not been expose to it either as my mum is Italian. I also listen to Italian at least an hour a day. I do wonder if I’m too dumb to learn a language
I feel the same about Spanish. I have been learning it for three and a half years (1 hour a day). And I am afraid I am not even at B1 level. Though I still hope to reach C1 one day...
Same amount of days and I feel the same in spanish. I average 2 maybe 3 hours a day and Spanish is said to be a bit easier then italian. I've been messing around with italian too for fun, I only know a few phrases though. I really like italian. Buona fortuna per il tuo cammino!
@@halcyon733 Sólo llevo siete meses aprendiendo español. Creo que mi español ya debería ser mejor para ahora. Mi camino es largo, pero lo voy a hacer y aprender español. buena suerte en tu camino
@@halcyon733 sorry to hear that. Well done for sticking it for so long
@@thetightwadhomesteader3089 thank you, I’m going to Italy in about 6 weeks so maybe that will help. Luckily have family there that speak both English and Italian so maybe they can help. Good luck with your Spanish learning
My second language is Mandarin Chinese... I've been learning it for about 2 years, and I just started learning Russian because I love the sound of Russian, and I already know the syrillic alphabet
Удачи в изучении)
Is Chinese your native language but you're better at English?
I'm a native English speaker. I learned German in school over 5 years. Now I'm learning Croatian on my own. I know it's a difficult language, but I think if I stay dedicated I can do it. Also a lot of the language learning skills I got from German are coming in handy.
as a chinese,it just take me four months to communicate with native english,but at present i have learned for 10months ,i still cant understant a lot of American seriers
You're doing good, just keep going and it will come naturally.
I can understand how it is difficult for non-native speakers to understand native speakers
I'm reasonably good at picking up bits of languages, but tried Gaelic and lasted ONE lesson 😮
Hello 👋 Angie
I knew it was Tagalog! Right from the influences. I started learning that; it’s so beautiful and cute. But now I’m on to German.
I find it often easy to use comparative sounds between languages. I am fluent in German. A cook in German = Koch, just change the "o" to an "a" and add an english "wa" to the end, Kachwa {coffee in Arabic}. I am sure it would be easier to use an international phonetic-sound conversion tool. Do you know of any?
I really think that the difficulty of a learning a new language is determined by people's mindset, and the capacity of being challenged in our certainty and vision of the world. The time it takes to master a new language will depend on how resilient our minds are to accept these different ways of perceiving the world, our motivation (what for) and personal organisation.
During COVID I picked up Russian and Japanese.
Use the "grow" method. Little kids learn by listening all day every day. Then they try speaking small words and adults correct them.
Then once they have a handle on speaking, then they learn the alphabet and reading...and writing last.
It's the BEST WAY to learn. It takes a bit longer, but you'll truly understand the language
15:12 I understand that the content creator wanted to show how different Russian alphabet is, but its the old Russian alphabet. The writing reform 1708 dumped 15 letters (3of which were later added back and added one extra letter which didn't exist before) the Soviet government in 1917 dumped 3 more letters and simplified the rules to make them closer to the actual pronunciation. back in the day.
My favorite way to learn a language is too read lots of children books and cartoons because Many native kids are probably just as a beginner as you are.
same
My current watch is SpongeBob and bluey in Italian 😂
Couldn’t be happier to know that we’re on the top of the world
10:40 My guess: Hindi (because Indus river). FSI 3 or 4 (hard, but not the absolute hardest).
I’m currently learning Japanese and it hasn’t been the hardest. The only thing hard for me has to be the writing and reading. Speaking has been an easier experience for me.
Japanese speaking has levels to it. It depends on if you want to speak words and phrases in a good pitch accent or not. If you just speak without a pitch accent, you'll probably still be understood by native speakers, but you'll sound very foreign. It took me a good year of careful studying of the standard pitch accent to be able to hear it clearly and replicate it consistently in my own speech. It's much better to study it earlier than later so you don't develop bad pronunciation early on you'd have to unlearn.
@@coolbrotherf127 I'm studying japanese thanks for the tip
@@coolbrotherf127 I’ll have to keep that in mind thanks!
Wanikani is so helpful for Kanji. Happy learning!
@@Bmonkeygurl kanji is easy
I speak English. Je parle français. Ég er að læra íslensku! 🙂
Is the last one, Icelandic?
@@darktheme2192 Yes, it is! 🇮🇸
nice you learned French and Icelandic like I did. (though I'd love to have a proper course on Icelandic as I learned it on my own in an unconventional way)
10:29 That's Tagalog since the vast majority of my co-workers are Pinoy. I'm Mexican-American btw so this was due to exposure and not my ethnic identity
Learn about 800 words well in any language and you can get along i think. I learn best when im forced to use the language. Im hoping to spend about a year in several countries when i retire and learn several languages at the most basic level. Not a tremendous goal i know but for me it will be fun.
9:17 You forgot a comma there. The correct sentence would be: "Ich denke, dass ich es verstehe" or to sound more natural while speaking "Ich denk(e), ich versteh(e) es".
Russian truly isn't as hard as people say it is. I've been learning Russian for only a year and I'm already almost past A2. I would be happy to help anyone learn the beautiful language of Russian for free!
Help me learn Russian faster 😢 I study/practice/immerse 3 hours per day
@marlalabounty4292 give me some way of communicating with you and I'll help you out
Thankfully i grew up with English and Spanish
Olly, can you make a video about different alphabets? 😊
Tagalog. Lived in the Philippines for 3 years. I love how flexible it is. Once it clicks, it is very fun. I would guess category 3-4
lol the fact that i was so excited for the mystery language and it was just my mother tongue.. it made me happy that my language is mysterious but i also wanted to try and guess😂😂
I've only been learning German for four years and I'm almost over A1. Maybe in another two years!
Nicht aufgeben! Es lohnt die Mühe.
I wanted to cry when I saw Korean was Cat V. Always wanted to understand the interviews I watch every week without having to have it translated. Don't need to speak it though. Would that cut the hours down?
You can do it if you have the enough motivation, I'm studying Korean, I know will be a long journey but I love the language, I like it a lot and is not as difficult as people said, of course have some details like different endings depending the formality a lot of particles and some details with certain grammatical points but if you want you can.
You can do it! Even if you get to only a b1 b2 level, you can understand most words in an interview / song. C not being too necessary. Plus with these kind of languages, Koreans are very thankful that you even took the time to learn it. With French, my third language, I find interesting content to be hard to find. But Korean has a lot. I recommend TTMIK and How to Study Korean as your textbooks. Good luck!
Telling people learning a language takes a certain number of weeks is really unrealistic, and it will frustrate a lot of people. It took me close to 3 years to be fluent in English even though I lived in an English speaking country. You need a lot of patience, motivation and prepare yourself to make tons of mistakes
As a native Arabic speaker and a university teacher of Arabic speakers, I believe that for non-native speakers to master it, serious study for a period of no less than ten years is required.
Bro it feels good to be Arabian you have a category v language in the bag by default
And english comes passively as well
So this guy is selling his revolutionary inventive language learning method? At least he is smart! I discovered the same thing myself, ages ago in high school: my English improved radically once I started reading books in English. What helped also was watching films and TV in English since nothing was ever dubbed in my country. But I still did not dare speak! My understanding of the language was perfectly fluent but I could not speak: I was incapable of uttering a word! Only when I moved to England, I dared say a word because the English were so kind and understanding of my discomfort. Then I went to France, speaking barely ten words of French and learned it the same way (reading and TV with a 3 month course taken at Alliance Française) and still it took me two years before I spoke a word in French (French are not as understanding of the people butchering their language!)! I understand Italian perfectly (again, tv and books!) but cannot speak to save my life! Conclusion: according to my own experience, there are drawbacks to your method but it should be a part of classical language learning alongside total immersion!
I think the bit that everyone misses about the listing is that its 'classroom hours', with the assumption that study is extra. I think the general rule that to get to B2 will take around 3,000 hours, +/- 40% is a good one - with the category 1 languages being the minus 40%, and category 5 being +40% is pretty reasonable. The good news is though that with category 5 languages it gets easier to learn some if you already know one - even though they are not linguistically connected, you do have some advantages, such as knowing kanji/hanzi or the similar syntax of Korean and Japanese.
Dutch is actually very complex for english native speakers. When they think they're good, they still make a lot of mistakes in the word order. And I mean, a lot. They just got it wrong all the time. They need to listen more. It's like in German here 9:17 'Ik denk dat ik het versta'.
I'm german and learned English in school. Now I jumped right into japanese. Yes I love a challenge, but it is also so fun. =)
I didn’t realize but I made a goal to learn Portuguese, German, Russian, and Mandarin and they are all in different categories. Almost C1 in PT I suppose German is next!
Been a bit over a year learning Finnish and I’m not even B1. Sitting around A2.3. Not easy. The 16 grammatical cases aside, the vocabulary is probably the most difficult thing. The only saving grace is the alphabet being Latin letters. This is also the first language I’ve decided to learn outside of English.
people often mention hiragana and katakana as a barrier to learning Japanese, but they don't take that long to learn. this is like saying English is hard because you have to learn 104 characters (26 letters in cursive and print, in uppercase and lowercase. 26 x 2 x 2 = 104). i mean, yea many characters look similar in cursive vs print, but you get the point.
I’m taking a German class right now that’s 20hrs a week. A1.1 first month, A1.2 next month, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1, etc so B2 fluency would be in about 8 months. It was tough in the beginning trying to get a grasp on the grammar but once that started to click, you do feel like you’re making progress but so much still to learn
I think it's interesting how the rolling "R" is called an "R" when technically it's a repeating "D" sound.
Just to be clear: Imho japanese is quite easy to learn to speak... Very easy pronounciation, Easy grammar, but with some cultural quirks. It has something like tnes, but you can completely ignore it, as it has no impact on the meaning of the sentence.
Great... But where are the problems?
They totally messed up their writings.
But here is the 1st misconception: The problem is not the existence of three writings. Katakana and Hiragana are quite easy to learn and you will be happy for every Katakana and Hiragana you see in the text. TIn one week you can easily read both writings.
The problem is only the japanese version of Kanji.
Kanji are from China and there they are working perfect. you see a kanji and you know its meaning and its pronounciation. Ok, you have to learn a bulk of them, but it is just a second set of vocabulary...
But in japanese the fun really begins. You see a kanji and then you have to guess the reading. At least every kanji has its meaning, what should give you a hint. In some rare cases it can be easy like for 汽。Its only reading is "ki" and it means steam. For example, you can find this kanji in 汽車 (車 stands for car) which is read "kisha (ki + sha)" in this cas and means "steam train". Quite easy, or?
But then we have kanji like 生. Possible readings are "sei", "shou", "ha", "i", "ki", "o", "u". And we just ignore all readings, which are used only for names... At least the meaning is normally something like life or growing. Have fun, guessing the reading.
But it got worse. For example there is this really important kanji "子". It can be read "shi", "su", "ko" or "ne" (The last one I didn't know until now). And it means child. For example it appears in "扇子". This means hand fan and ist read "sensu". You can try to guess, why 子 is used here, or you can just accept, that the only reason, it is used here, is the fact, that one of its readings is "su".
To sum it up: Japanese is not hard to speak, but an absolute monster to read and write.
(P.S.: I am still learning japanese and therefore I didn't possibly chose the best examples to make my point clear)
it's actually crazy how well I remember things from stories I've read. I still after like 8 years if not more remember what whale is in italian because I read a story about a whale and a seagull in italian. for those wondering it is balena
As a Thai, I'm so glad that our language is being mentioned here . I just took french a month ago, and I'm struggling with the conjugation and genders. I can't believe that Thai is at the IV level in FSI ranking. We have no tenses, no articles, no genders, and most importantly no conjugations.
Yes thai grammar s easy But strange alphabet and tones make your language hard to learn 😊
@watermelon3679 Yeahhh, I forgot to mention about the tones and alphabet. Learning other languages other than your mother tongue is hard anyway.
สวัสดีค่ะ
I'm learning Thai right now (as a native English speaker), and I love it! I definitely appreciate the "no tenses, no articles, no genders, and no conjugations" aspect! 😆
I've actually had a lot of fun learning & practicing the writing system, and the tones start to feel more accessible & instinctive as my listening improves.
I really encourage people interested in learning Thai to not let those aspects intimidate them! สู้ๆ
Interesting about the duplication of words for plural in Indonesian. Australian Aboriginal languages do the same.
I agree on the last point, learning korean alphabet took me less than two hours and I wasn't only focus on this task at the moment (reading fluently took me more time tho)
Thanks Olly! สวัสดีค่ะ I’m Thai and I feel very well represented here 😊. (Actually the sentence ending for politeness for a guy is “ครับ“ with the character above included. I guess the English only keyboard might not be able to handle that.)
In terms of language learning experience, you’re so right about German. I was a one academic year exchange student when I was in high school, then college workload got better of me for years. After about 8 years of almost no exposure I just wrapped up some courage to talk to a random German speaking person on public transport 😂😂😂. I was still conversationable to some extent. I’m afraid if I didn’t dare to get some practice that day there might not be another chance for years to come and I might lose my ability altogether.
Interesting seeing portuguese as Level 1, as many fellow Brazilians seem to struggle with it
Um falante nativo nunca tem dificuldade com o próprio idioma. Norma culta e língua escrita não são a mesma coisa que língua falada.
9:30: It should be "Die Katze". Katz' is a word in some southern spoken dialects.
Icelandic is not as easy as I thought it would be, or as fast to learn as I thought, but I'm hanging in there. I'm using LingQ and the Story Learning book for it, which is awesome.
😂Somehow happy to see Haitian Creole here🇭🇹 I would say if you speak french, it won't be really difficult to learn it😊
I'm pretty sure you know and someone has pointed out that chocolate is a Nahuatl word, not Latin, but it did probably pass through a Romance language or two before getting into English.
I started learning Mandarin recently. I just finished A1-A2 and before this I was studying japanese... All I could say is whenever I saw kanji like for example 水 山 火 I forgot the japanese pronounce lol 😭 everytime I see these or other ones I only remember chinese pronounce now. Well Ill start Hsk-3 soon and I hope everyoen will succeed! 谢谢你！
This is mutual. For Hungarians, English is a tremendous challenge. After 20 years of learning, I still haven't mastered it.
بصفتي ناطقا بالعربية أصلا ومدرسا للناطقين بها بالجامعة أعتقد أن إتقانها من الناطقين بغيرها يتطلب الدراسة الجادة لمدة لا تقل عن عشر سنوات.
i had done some tagalog studying and watched videos about it before watching this so I got it riht away!
I would like to see where Cherokee fits on the list. I have been studying Cherokee casually for a short time. It is quite difficult to find resources, but not impossible if you are dedicated. The grammar is crazy hard though, and since it is an endangered language close to extinction, it is almost impossible to find native speakers.
I studied russian long ago. I recall that the alphabet wasn't a hurdle. You can learn the alphabet in 1 day, and then you're off. In the end the alphabet helps because you are not tempted to pronounce russian words with english phonetics.