"English is not a special language, you are the one who is giving it a lot of attention." Do this with any language you're learning to make it stick with you - songs, articles, celebrity interviews, social media you follow, etc.
I totally agree with you. English will always be there, everywhere. So if you want to have the same level of “comfort” in another language, surround yourself with it as with English.
The only way to make a progress in a language is to maximize your intake and usage as much as possible. La seule façon de progresser dans une langue est de maximiser au maximum votre absorption et votre utilisation.
I think a lot of Europeans can relate to this. You're spot on. Even a decade ago, a Swedish friend once pointed out that she had a much easier time learning English because it's widespread and basically everywhere: she had a lot of exposure to it growing up. Then she added that for anyone studying Swedish, of course they'll have a harder time than she did with English because most people (or basically everyone outside of Swedish-speaking regions) isn't regularly exposed to Swedish for years without even trying.
I read an article about international student in Qazaqstan. They wanted to learn to qazaq, but in Qazaqstan people speak in russian more than qazaq. Books, movies, games, stores, advertisement is in russian. So that student couldn't learn qazaq, but learnt russian even if it wasn't their goal
In my personal experience, ive started studying french this year and my teacher has been amazing, she puts on french speaking shows for us to watch if we finish a chapter and it has worked great for me and all of my friends, but of course we also have the slackers who will do anything but take acountability that they're the reason they dont do well in french. They even blame our teacher as if she didnt take time to re teach me the negative form because i didn't hear it while i was sitting beside one of the disrespectful students. Attitude is one of the most important things when learning a language
That makes so much sense, especially in a world where we always think it’s either this or that when many times it’s multiple things. Acquisition and learning.
I speak six languages two, or maybe three are my “first” language, the others I learned - I read books and magazines, websites, watch movies, write, speak etc. I’ve lived in four of the six countries, which represent the language “home” - makes also, all the difference. You are correct about personal effort,and devoting the time and effort. Immersion also is highly relevant! Great video!
@@fn8772 a good question thank you. The answer is Swedish and Sweden. The reason I commented like that in response to the original poster was the comment about the fact that English is everywhere! I do speak it (English) quite well, and catch the little nuances of style and meaning most of the time but from time to time I just don’t get it, most embarrassingly when I speak and occasionally when it’s the other way round.
Tbh i thought that as well. Somehow English just spawned there. But i forgot my intense exposure to english. 14 years at school, everything is in English on social media. Books i read were in english. Movies were all in English. So yh i do agree with you
Does English (or any other language) "spawn" in your head? According to my favorite linguist (Noam Chomsky) language ability is indeed innate. That means that as you acquire or learn a language (any language) what you are doing is completing a puzzle that's already in your brain. Every time you position a piece you have a "ahah" moment, a revelation, because you are finishing the puzzle, the language model already "spawned" in your brain. All language learning is indeed intrinsic!
i'm a native English speaker, so it kind of did spawn in my head, but i think a similar experience happened to me with German. i took German classes in high school for 5 years and never really did active study outside of them, but i got so into German music and still have some of the songs memorized to this day bc I would listen to the same songs over and over again. and then i started watching German TV and then moved to Germany recently and my German skills have skyrocketed with so little effort (but after 8 years of learning the language) so now when learning new languages, i need to find new ways that actually work for me to learn these languages on my own
it didn’t spawn in your head. you didn’t just makeup the language in your head. everyone around you spoke english so you copied what they said to communicate.
Switching my phone from English to Spanish was one of the best steps I ever took to help myself learn. Increasing your exposure to a language is soooo important to learning!!!
😭 i was really starting to lose hope iclal i mean i speak advanced english as a 16 year old turk and i thought i had what it takes to learn other languages too but the media made me believe that english somehow just spawned in my head and when i started thinking that learning spanish was much harder than learning english i began to doubt myself and started to think that maybe i dont actually have the ability to learn more languages and that english is just easy and universal... thanks for helping me realize how wrong i was as a senior student i dont have the energy or time right now to keep learning spanish but i’ll start again as soon as i can seviliyorsun 💘
Hi İclal! I hope you're doing great. Thanks for the video! :) Could you also make some videos on the questions below? -How do you maintain all the languages that you have learnt or currently learning? -How do you manage your time? -Time management and consistency tips for language learning -How do you get over the B level plateau in a language? -How do you choose the right sources for learning a language? Sometimes I feel confused and distracted by the variety of the resources on the internet. Thank you in advance! Wishing you a happy new year!❤
thank you for this interesting video, iclal! you're actually so right, this can be done with virtually any language, one just has to go out of their way to find content in the language and then be consistent in consuming it (while also actively studying it at the same time, of course). thank you so much, i'm now extra motivated!! 😄🎉
Can you make a detailed guide of how you learn any given language from A0-C2? You’re the only person that I can relate to (a young female) that I know has passed multiple C level exams with flying colours. I’ve been learning Spanish (and later Portuguese and French) for 4 years now and all I can say is that I’m B2. I want to get to C1 or C2 in every language I study but I don’t know how to do it, especially getting over the intermediate plateau. If you see this, please make this video, I think it will help a lot of us who follow you.
When people ask me how to improve their English, I tell them to use their English to learn new things, read in English and do all their online research in English etc. and yet I am here whining “ when can I speak Arabic as good as my English?” It is highly time to take my own advice.
You are absolutely correct,as a person who has taken a class on language acquisition in English language literature,yes it is 50-50 .English “spawns” in your head as a result of months of accumulated data aka words ,phrases and grammar.I think of it as a thread 🪡 .The spawning is the end result of threading along the way.
i thought about this exact topic today bc I kept thinking how English was so easy to use for me as a language and how I am struggling to get stuff together in my 3rd language now. Though you are absolutely right, the amount of fan fictions I've read, books that I've consumed, music that I've listened to, movies that I've watched and the translations of those interviews of my fav celebrities literally provided me all i needed.. Though sadly I'm having a hard time finding similar resources on my other target language nowadays… It doesn't click as well as English content, which frustrates me… Wishing I was a 15-year-old me again with the interest of boy bands and writing fan fictions in another language again 😅
Kesinlikle katılıyorum , İngilizce öğrenmek en tembel insan için bile mümkün çünkü istesek de istemesek de İngilizce ye maruz kalıyoruz . Öğrenmek istediğimiz bir sonraki dil için bu boyutta bir maruziyet için o dilin en fazla konuşulan dil olduğu bir ülkede yaşamamız veya eğitim görmemiz gerekirdi ki bu pek çoğumuz için mümkün değil , o yüzden İclal in tavsiyesi kesinlikle yerinde , sosyal medya ve internet hayatımızın en fazla alanını kapsıyor nerdeyse, neden kendimizi maruz bırakarak bir sonraki öğrenmek istediğimiz dil için zemin hazırlamayalım ki . Mantıkla harmanlanmış bir eleştirel çözümlemeydi , çok teşekkürler İclal 🙂
personally, i feel that revision is so important and actual using of english or other languages. as a native russian speaker i can confirm that english didn’t spawn in my head. i had tutors for some years and these days, i’m studying english at the university. when i did lots of grammar exercises, when i heard all of those grammar rules for a thousand times, when i saw all of those words and expressions everywhere and i used them in my daily conversations only then i really improved my skills. i’m also studying spanish and it’s a bit hard for me because i’m still looking for content even if it’s various i’m so used to english 😭
Hello! I feel so related to your video, you are so right and your way of communicating is amazing. I’m a native Spanish speaker from South America and I had this ‘English Realization’lol too at a young age too, my English is far from perfect but I recognize that I have both learned from media and school, bilingual percents here are so low so you are always seen like a genius when you can speak English so freely. Nowadays I’m focusing more in languages like Chinese or Japanese because the language learning is something that really intereses me and also the addition of characters and a whole new alphabet, Japanese is particularly easy coming from Spanish because many of the pronunciation and some words are very similar or the same, also a good mouth of Asian population where I live also contributed to this, but it’s right that I haven’t really dedicated the time to it like you mentioned in the video. So yeah, I will follow your advice and do my best to learn the most I can from languages I love! Thank you so much for such great video🩵
I totally agree. I learned English and French in school. Now 40 years later my English is at C1 while I made no effort. It's all around and also I need it on the job. French on the other hand is at a B1 level. So I have to make an effort to keep it or to make it better.
When you said your native language was Turkish I was really impressed cuz many of us can’t get the pronunciations as well like you do as you probably know, so I went to check your account and I really love your content! I’ll be following on your videos and will be hoping your channel gets the recognition it deserves ˆˆ best wishes
Hello Icla, I resonate a lot with your presentation. I am a Spanish speaker, and believe me, here the American language is quite overrated, and we stop learning other languages, maybe like French or Italian, just to name a few. I’m 26 years old and I went through the inevitable process of trying to learn English at school, only focusing on grammar, which isn’t bad but it basically delays our learning. Until today, I still don't master English. Since 2020, I discovered the input-output system, which helped a lot, and I felt happy to know I was progressing and really understanding dialogues. Now, I don't need to use subtitles when watching English vlogs, except when there's a sophisticated word or a phrasal verb I don’t know. I would like to stop learning English and start with another language, for example, Japanese, which I love. I would also like to learn German. Icla, I realize you enjoy what you do and put a lot of heart into it, and that maybe makes it easier for you to learn in some way. What I suggest for acquiring a language is to buy literature books in the language you want, summarize and highlight them in a notebook, and read them out loud, without neglecting, of course, consuming audiovisual content. Greetings, Icla, from Perú.
the same is true for me in Turkish, to the point that i feel comfortable speaking in Turkish that I do in English or even my mother tongue. its all about how much effort you put in and how much exposed you are. Its so lit to know any other language on a deep level.
tbh because ive been consuming almost everything in english i didnt realise i was learning it. one day i was listening to the radio in car and realised i understand the lyrics of the song. it was really cool.
im turkish born and raised in turkey, and by the first grade i already had (nearly perfect) pronounciation and could (nearly) speak like a native english speaking kid my age, all while being self taught. still to this day english is the language i know and understand the best :) (edit: i still do make mistakes ! everyone does !)
I totally agree, English is not a special language. Growing up in Ukraine I knew so little people who could speak English. And they would find it really hard to learn this language because we were not surrounded by it like the rest of Europe for example. We would watch movies in Russian (dubbed versions) or search for any information online in Russian and there literally would be no need for people to interact with English. As I moved to Europe I notice that almost everyone can speak English to some extent. Their movies are not dubbed, there are a lot of international students or tourists, and many other things that immerse them into this language. So it all depends on how often you expose yourselvf to the language whether it’s English or any other language.
Hi Iclal 🙋♀️ Thanks for the video!!🙏 I am also waiting for you to create content in German please. You speak really well I have just watched a video today!! Also it’s one of the languages that I speak and improve as well!☺️
Oh this is such an interesting video! English is my dominant language, but normally I don't hear any words in any language in my head... However, while spending a few weeks translating Lithuanian (my second language) to my French partner in Lithuania I found myself thinking to myself in Lithianian!! It spooked me out SO much to randomly catch a voice crop up out of nowhere, let alone in a language I normally use like 5% of the time lol. I'm hoping if I can get any language to consistently spawn in my head it will be French, I will definitely try to tune my feed to get more French content on social media, thank you for the recommendations in this vid!
Ben de senin gibi bir Türküm ve çok sevdiğim bir arkadaşım sayesine seni buldum. Bu videonun tamamını altyazı ile anlayabildiğimi söyleyebilirim. Sadece bir kelimeyi bilmiyordum: acquisition. Ancak bunu da "acquire"dan geliyordur diye düşündüm. Doğru düşünmüşüm. Sanırım bizim en büyük sorunumuz, yeterince vakit ayırmadan herhangi bir şeyi öğrenebileceğimizi düşünmek, kısa yol bulmaya çalışmak. Her şeyin de kısa yolu yoktur be. O yüzden adım adım hedefe doğru. Hayatında başarılar..
I found my experience learning Spanish was the opposite, I had studied it really throughly and understood the grammar super well but struggled with actual comprehension and day-to-day use, but then when I started listening to Spanish music, watching Spanish media and after spending time living in Spain and making local friends I found I was comfortable in most situations within a few a months. So you're totally right you need learning and acquisition, they go hand in hand. And actually what I found most helpful about immersion and acquisition was I was able to let go of overthinking all the complex grammar rules I'd been taught, and most importantly, relax my pronunciation. People think Spanish is such a precisely articulated language because it never notes deletions in writing but in spoken Spanish in most regions quite a lot of sounds don't get pronounced. I spent most of my time in Seville so my S got completely obliterated 😂
I really want to learn korean! everything I consume is in korean but I still don't understand it, I feel like it would be easy for me if I tried cause, as you've said, I learned english that way (my first language is spanish and I live in Argentina, far away from any english speaking country) now I feel encouraged :) this will be my goal for this year
Im from azerbaijan so i always felt like turkish spawned in my brain. In reality people here consume turkish tv and media all the time that I didn't have to create the environment in that language it was already there
You're totally right, no matter where you travel around the world, English is always gonna be the hegemonyc language around the world and it's always gonna be there waiting for us, but if we wanna learn another language than that, we should put more effort on it.
I agree with this so much! I remember when I became fluent in English it felt like it was overnight, because I suddenly started consuming content in English for hours every day, it felt like night and day. But I had had years of instruction before that! And then basically bathed my brain in English, and it was still not perfect at the time when I look back on it. I've learned not to expect the same results from learning any other languages unless the conditions are made to be the same. It also feels like I wanted to be fluent in English so bad and it opened up such a world for me that there's way less motivation to be creating that world in other languages. Less "this content is better in English and now I can have excess to it, yay" and more "I wanna speak French so I seek out content made in French but I would be just fine consuming stuff like this in English". I feel like you gotta find motivation that's similar in strength
im native english speaker but im learning spanish and russian and my two favorite shows and comics are in those languages with no dubs/offical translations for the majority of the content and it really motivates me to learn as i CANT get that content in english
It was similar to me, one day I was just reading a random post on Facebook and I only realized it was in english when I found a word I didn't know, but before that I spent an entire year consuming english with songs, manga, fanfics, etc
As a very big swiftie taylor swift mentioned made me really happy i'm like over the moon i've got a good hunch that taylor swift was the one who taught me english growing up when i was little i would listen to taylor swift songs but obviously i wasn't understanding any of the words she was saying in her songs and one day it clicked in my head that i wanna grasp her lyrics i just wanna understand what she's mentioning in her songs so that's how my english learning journey has begun and in fact so far i think i've made a good progress
İclal bununla alakalı türkçe bir videon vardı o zaman biraz sanki sinirle azarlıyorsun biz türkleri gibi hissetmiştim 😅 ama hak vermiştim gerçekten o zamandan bu zamana sadece önce İngilizceyi halledeyim dedim ama bu sene ingilizcem artık yettiği kadar diyip yeni bir dile yelken açıyorum... 🎉
as someone who "had english spawn in their head" im using the same technique to learn italian because i love an italian singer and it works really wekk :D i got to A2 in a few weeks
Başka polyglot Türk buldum ya çok mutluyum Im not even fluent in English and Turkish but im learning like 3-4 languages at the same time smh (not rlly possible tbh lol) So my progress in all rn: Turkish: idek anymore ana dilim zaten oldu bi sekil English: social media mostly like I didn’t even try lol. b2-c1 but EXTREMELY informal Spanish: escuela. Yo entiendo pero no se cómo responder (¿?) kinda useless. a1-a2 (?) Korean: I can read and ik some basic stuff but thats it. a1/2 (?) Japanese: can read some hiragana and ik 2 kanji s (rain and moon), ik some basic stuff Tagalog/Indo/Canto/Mandarin/etc.: a-537389 haven’t even started yet js wanna learn lmao.
Exactly, i "acquired" english by learning grammar and simple words in school and when i got to around A2 level i started watching youtube gaming channels in english. Things in english were simply more accessible so i got used to watching videos that i didn't completely understand. By time, i started to grasp more and more of those phrases and expressions from context clues and sometimes by looking up their meanings in a dictionary. And I have to add english learning starts from 4th grade in public schools and it was the same for me, but i totally SUCKED at it in 4th grade so i hated it, next year i switched to a private school that put more emphasis on teaching proper english and i was seated on the front so i had no choice but to pay attention to the teacher. Our teacher made it so learning english would be fun for us which influenced me to become an eager student. When it came to english lessons i was at the top of my class. And it was there that i learned 90% of my english grammar.
idk, i'm 33 and I have a special interest for the English language (my fire language is English) and I think that's why I have a greater grasp than my peers. That comment at the start about how people think they understand English without doing any learning is a statement I hear a lot. Putting aside the fact that everyone around me took English classes at school, they don't have a grasp on it. A current example is pronouns - people in my life ofc have shit to say about pronouns, and they roll their eyes when I try to explain it to them. Someone asked me what happens if they don't want to use them and I my brain just broke for a moment and I asked why the would want to stop using them. Anyway, this has happened with a lot more than that, I just thought everyone here might understand that example. Continuously learning English is what has made me like this, and, at least in the case of English, 'use' is not the only facet in being fluent. (**maybe i'm completely off thenmark, as i've struggled to learn other languages)
Sono completamente d'accordo. Al momento cerco di imparare francese e cinese con l'inglese, ma inizio ad usare il francese per imparare il cinese. Poi mi guardo tonnellate di documentari in francese e drama cinesi. Però eccomi qui ad ascoltarti, in inglese. Dai molti spunti di riflessione, grazie. Buono studio e Buon 2025!!❤❤❤
so many good points here.. babies take AGES to learn a language. they just dont end up with a weird accent because they dont have any other languages in their brain to start with. i think english is genuinely SOoo much easier to learn today but only because of how extremely easy it is to come across it without seeking it out. if you basically live on the internet theres no way you wont come across english and end up picking up bits of it at the very least. i made a whole new youtube account just for non english content but even just switching accounts is too much for me apparently. 80% of my time spent on youtube is still just english i wish i had more choice in what languages i use while not sacrificing anything but i guess at this point ive been fully colonized. not complaining, im glad i can speak it, but i never chose it. ive been trying to get faster at typing recently and i noticed just how much faster i type in english compared to any other language, even ones i do speak, even ones that are written in latin, even without diacritics. i just have way more muscle memory for english its funny though, when speaking english i might still get asked where im from even though its by far my best language, while in portuguese which is a language i only learned when i was about 15 im more likely to be asked what city im from. apparently accents are a big factor in fitting in and not being seen as an outgroup, even more than how well you can actually speak the language
I'm currently learning Turkish and to learn I'm doing the same I did to learn English: study grammar and my reward for studying as well as my "let's take a rest" is watching series with Turkish subs which I would translate and dissect until I just understand. So far is working just like it worked with English but I'm just starting so let's see. Right now I'm focusing more on understanding than talking
o kadar katılıyorum ki.. iki ay önceye dek ingilizceden başka bir dil öğrenemeyeceğime inanıyordum. ama italyancaya ilgi duymaya başladım ve söylediklerin yaşandı, kendimizi öğrenmek istediğimiz dil ile çepeçevre sarmadıkça olmuyor bu iş
1:31 my first language is dutch and i started 'learning' (just hearing it everywhere not doing actual learning XD) english when i was 4 so thats why XD i don't remember learning any words i just knew them XD
As someone who has learnt Dutch on an off for the last 7 years, Sometimes the social media landscape is not enough in terms of media for some smaller languages. Sometimes you just need to switch the media that you use, and personally I highly recommend books for that, but for other people it might be something different
Awesome, helpful thoughts you shared with us. I found myself comparing what you were saying about the processes and seeing the truth of it in my own experiences. For example, if you JUST acquire the language WITHOUT stdying,… cool. It’ll take you years longer than if you do study. If you ONLY study without taking in content, cool… it’s gonna take years longer than if you utilize acquisition methods. Both seems to be the way 😎
i struggle to put effort into actively learning a language, so i end up just watching things and consuming media to pass the time, but that doesn't help that much bc i can't even string up a sentence properly however my comprehension skills are pretty high so now i can understand multipule languages but the speaking part is another story it just becomes super boring after a little while, and i just move one with another language ig i crave the novelty i should be more consistent and focused, but it's especially hard with my attention spam
This video made me realize how many hours I spent watching American youtubers when I was 13 yo. And when I was in highschool, I could watch Friends and understand so many jokes, even tho I still didn't know a lot of words. When I was in university my friends were like "how's your English so good" It's all thanks to13 yo me who kept watching English videos even tho she did not understand a word. I guess I should start watching German youtubers now.
Having grown up bilingual german & english I don't feel either of them spawned in. I'm aware that my english is a mix of UK and US since I learned it from german teachers and british media as well as americans. Makes it hard to overlook how I acquired it thru exposure and study
I like to read a lot of manga so what I normally do is restrict myself to read manga only in my target language, so I choose a manga I really want to read and that is only available in my target language (normally japanese or chinese) that way I have no choice but to read it in my target language
the easiest and fastest way to learn a language is to learn something identical to a language that you've learnt before. you're not supposed to acquire a brand new language in a short amount of time
I'm learning arabic and I tried to compare how I'm learning it to how I learned English and noticed that I learned the majority of my English bases by videogames but unfortunately there are very few games which offer an arabic translation and when this is available, many times it is just for text and not for audio ...
Hi, at first all the best in new year and i have a question, but not regarding to this video, which is great by the way. I didn’t see in any videos (maybe i jist missed it) how u learn grammar. So my question is, do u have any grammatical exercises on Lingoda? I am learning German and because i am book loving leaner i can’t imagine to learn German without many and really many German exercises from books and i saw u have some German books, but between ur notebooks i didn’t catch any for just grammar exercises… thanks for answer 😉
Hi iclal ! I have been watching your videos for a long time and you are such an inspiration for me in my journey. So i need your advice about a thing. Recently I am trying to learn english and it is the first language that I have ever tried to learn. So now I wanna learn a different language along with English but I can't decide which one to start. What do you recommend about it ? Which language would be kinda easy to learn along with English ?
Thank you for a wonderful video. I was wondering if you think I would be able to learn Japanese and Russian at the same time? I haven't learned a language before (other than my native language, of course) and I have the basic down for Japanese, but I also would really love to start learning Russian during my gap year. What would your advise be? Could it be potentially detrimental to my learning progress to start learning two completely different languages at same time?
"English is not a special language, you are the one who is giving it a lot of attention." Do this with any language you're learning to make it stick with you - songs, articles, celebrity interviews, social media you follow, etc.
excatly
But the language i wanna learn IS special and cool and awesome 😔
for real
I totally agree with you. English will always be there, everywhere. So if you want to have the same level of “comfort” in another language, surround yourself with it as with English.
The only way to make a progress in a language is to maximize your intake and usage as much as possible.
La seule façon de progresser dans une langue est de maximiser au maximum votre absorption et votre utilisation.
I think a lot of Europeans can relate to this. You're spot on.
Even a decade ago, a Swedish friend once pointed out that she had a much easier time learning English because it's widespread and basically everywhere: she had a lot of exposure to it growing up. Then she added that for anyone studying Swedish, of course they'll have a harder time than she did with English because most people (or basically everyone outside of Swedish-speaking regions) isn't regularly exposed to Swedish for years without even trying.
I read an article about international student in Qazaqstan. They wanted to learn to qazaq, but in Qazaqstan people speak in russian more than qazaq. Books, movies, games, stores, advertisement is in russian. So that student couldn't learn qazaq, but learnt russian even if it wasn't their goal
My Swedish friend said basically the same thing to me. And I’m studying Swedish too lol.
In my personal experience, ive started studying french this year and my teacher has been amazing, she puts on french speaking shows for us to watch if we finish a chapter and it has worked great for me and all of my friends, but of course we also have the slackers who will do anything but take acountability that they're the reason they dont do well in french. They even blame our teacher as if she didnt take time to re teach me the negative form because i didn't hear it while i was sitting beside one of the disrespectful students. Attitude is one of the most important things when learning a language
That makes so much sense, especially in a world where we always think it’s either this or that when many times it’s multiple things. Acquisition and learning.
Bu arada bu kanala denk geldim. Ufak Ufak İngilizce. İngilizce öğrenmek isteyenlere rahatlıkla önerebilirim
I speak six languages two, or maybe three are my “first” language, the others I learned - I read books and magazines, websites, watch movies, write, speak etc. I’ve lived in four of the six countries, which represent the language “home” - makes also, all the difference. You are correct about personal effort,and devoting the time and effort. Immersion also is highly relevant! Great video!
what was the fourth one, which is not among your first three languages but was spoken in one of the countries you lived in?
@@fn8772 a good question thank you. The answer is Swedish and Sweden. The reason I commented like that in response to the original poster was the comment about the fact that English is everywhere! I do speak it (English) quite well, and catch the little nuances of style and meaning most of the time but from time to time I just don’t get it, most embarrassingly when I speak and occasionally when it’s the other way round.
Tbh i thought that as well. Somehow English just spawned there. But i forgot my intense exposure to english. 14 years at school, everything is in English on social media. Books i read were in english. Movies were all in English. So yh i do agree with you
this felt like a slap (in a good way) thank you. I love your attitude! the background in this video also looks really cozy and nice
Does English (or any other language) "spawn" in your head? According to my favorite linguist (Noam Chomsky) language ability is indeed innate. That means that as you acquire or learn a language (any language) what you are doing is completing a puzzle that's already in your brain. Every time you position a piece you have a "ahah" moment, a revelation, because you are finishing the puzzle, the language model already "spawned" in your brain. All language learning is indeed intrinsic!
i'm a native English speaker, so it kind of did spawn in my head, but i think a similar experience happened to me with German. i took German classes in high school for 5 years and never really did active study outside of them, but i got so into German music and still have some of the songs memorized to this day bc I would listen to the same songs over and over again. and then i started watching German TV and then moved to Germany recently and my German skills have skyrocketed with so little effort (but after 8 years of learning the language) so now when learning new languages, i need to find new ways that actually work for me to learn these languages on my own
it didn’t spawn in your head. you didn’t just makeup the language in your head. everyone around you spoke english so you copied what they said to communicate.
KRALİÇEMMMM, so right gerçekten.
Switching my phone from English to Spanish was one of the best steps I ever took to help myself learn. Increasing your exposure to a language is soooo important to learning!!!
😭 i was really starting to lose hope iclal i mean i speak advanced english as a 16 year old turk and i thought i had what it takes to learn other languages too but the media made me believe that english somehow just spawned in my head and when i started thinking that learning spanish was much harder than learning english i began to doubt myself and started to think that maybe i dont actually have the ability to learn more languages and that english is just easy and universal... thanks for helping me realize how wrong i was as a senior student i dont have the energy or time right now to keep learning spanish but i’ll start again as soon as i can
seviliyorsun 💘
Hi İclal! I hope you're doing great. Thanks for the video! :) Could you also make some videos on the questions below?
-How do you maintain all the languages that you have learnt or currently learning?
-How do you manage your time?
-Time management and consistency tips for language learning
-How do you get over the B level plateau in a language?
-How do you choose the right sources for learning a language? Sometimes I feel confused and distracted by the variety of the resources on the internet.
Thank you in advance! Wishing you a happy new year!❤
thank you for this interesting video, iclal! you're actually so right, this can be done with virtually any language, one just has to go out of their way to find content in the language and then be consistent in consuming it (while also actively studying it at the same time, of course). thank you so much, i'm now extra motivated!! 😄🎉
Can you make a detailed guide of how you learn any given language from A0-C2? You’re the only person that I can relate to (a young female) that I know has passed multiple C level exams with flying colours. I’ve been learning Spanish (and later Portuguese and French) for 4 years now and all I can say is that I’m B2. I want to get to C1 or C2 in every language I study but I don’t know how to do it, especially getting over the intermediate plateau. If you see this, please make this video, I think it will help a lot of us who follow you.
To get to the C levels you have to read and write a lot.
I cant believe how much wisdom you have. truly mesmerizing.
She’s right folks, time to study some more languages
When people ask me how to improve their English, I tell them to use their English to learn new things, read in English and do all their online research in English etc.
and yet I am here whining “ when can I speak Arabic as good as my English?” It is highly time to take my own advice.
I just thought about this recently so thank you for this video!💕 currently learning spanish
Yo actualmente estudio inglés, if u want we can study together🫶🏻
Mee tooo
You are absolutely correct,as a person who has taken a class on language acquisition in English language literature,yes it is 50-50 .English “spawns” in your head as a result of months of accumulated data aka words ,phrases and grammar.I think of it as a thread 🪡 .The spawning is the end result of threading along the way.
My inspiration ❤
Best notification ever✨✨✨❤️
thank you for this. i think this will help when i have a grasp on any other language 😅
Als een Nederlander ben ik blij te zien dat je een Van Gogh hebt hangen // As a Dutch person I am happy to see that you have a Van Gogh on the wall 🧡
i thought about this exact topic today bc I kept thinking how English was so easy to use for me as a language and how I am struggling to get stuff together in my 3rd language now. Though you are absolutely right, the amount of fan fictions I've read, books that I've consumed, music that I've listened to, movies that I've watched and the translations of those interviews of my fav celebrities literally provided me all i needed.. Though sadly I'm having a hard time finding similar resources on my other target language nowadays… It doesn't click as well as English content, which frustrates me… Wishing I was a 15-year-old me again with the interest of boy bands and writing fan fictions in another language again 😅
Kesinlikle katılıyorum , İngilizce öğrenmek en tembel insan için bile mümkün çünkü istesek de istemesek de İngilizce ye maruz kalıyoruz . Öğrenmek istediğimiz bir sonraki dil için bu boyutta bir maruziyet için o dilin en fazla konuşulan dil olduğu bir ülkede yaşamamız veya eğitim görmemiz gerekirdi ki bu pek çoğumuz için mümkün değil , o yüzden İclal in tavsiyesi kesinlikle yerinde , sosyal medya ve internet hayatımızın en fazla alanını kapsıyor nerdeyse, neden kendimizi maruz bırakarak bir sonraki öğrenmek istediğimiz dil için zemin hazırlamayalım ki . Mantıkla harmanlanmış bir eleştirel çözümlemeydi , çok teşekkürler İclal 🙂
omg i loved your channel!!
personally, i feel that revision is so important and actual using of english or other languages. as a native russian speaker i can confirm that english didn’t spawn in my head. i had tutors for some years and these days, i’m studying english at the university. when i did lots of grammar exercises, when i heard all of those grammar rules for a thousand times, when i saw all of those words and expressions everywhere and i used them in my daily conversations only then i really improved my skills. i’m also studying spanish and it’s a bit hard for me because i’m still looking for content even if it’s various i’m so used to english 😭
Hello! I feel so related to your video, you are so right and your way of communicating is amazing. I’m a native Spanish speaker from South America and I had this ‘English Realization’lol too at a young age too, my English is far from perfect but I recognize that I have both learned from media and school, bilingual percents here are so low so you are always seen like a genius when you can speak English so freely. Nowadays I’m focusing more in languages like Chinese or Japanese because the language learning is something that really intereses me and also the addition of characters and a whole new alphabet, Japanese is particularly easy coming from Spanish because many of the pronunciation and some words are very similar or the same, also a good mouth of Asian population where I live also contributed to this, but it’s right that I haven’t really dedicated the time to it like you mentioned in the video. So yeah, I will follow your advice and do my best to learn the most I can from languages I love! Thank you so much for such great video🩵
you look so cute in that outfit iclal
I was wondering why it seems easier for native Spanish to learn english, rather than vise versa. This makes sense. English is everywhere.
I totally agree. I learned English and French in school. Now 40 years later my English is at C1 while I made no effort. It's all around and also I need it on the job. French on the other hand is at a B1 level. So I have to make an effort to keep it or to make it better.
Good evening! Thanks for the video, God bless you. By the way, it's good that you posted since I was procrastinating listening to a Russian Podcast
good reminder!! i was listening to a russian podcast in the background when i posted this video!! 😄
When you said your native language was Turkish I was really impressed cuz many of us can’t get the pronunciations as well like you do as you probably know, so I went to check your account and I really love your content! I’ll be following on your videos and will be hoping your channel gets the recognition it deserves ˆˆ best wishes
Hello Icla, I resonate a lot with your presentation. I am a Spanish speaker, and believe me, here the American language is quite overrated, and we stop learning other languages, maybe like French or Italian, just to name a few. I’m 26 years old and I went through the inevitable process of trying to learn English at school, only focusing on grammar, which isn’t bad but it basically delays our learning. Until today, I still don't master English. Since 2020, I discovered the input-output system, which helped a lot, and I felt happy to know I was progressing and really understanding dialogues. Now, I don't need to use subtitles when watching English vlogs, except when there's a sophisticated word or a phrasal verb I don’t know. I would like to stop learning English and start with another language, for example, Japanese, which I love. I would also like to learn German. Icla, I realize you enjoy what you do and put a lot of heart into it, and that maybe makes it easier for you to learn in some way. What I suggest for acquiring a language is to buy literature books in the language you want, summarize and highlight them in a notebook, and read them out loud, without neglecting, of course, consuming audiovisual content. Greetings, Icla, from Perú.
the same is true for me in Turkish, to the point that i feel comfortable speaking in Turkish that I do in English or even my mother tongue. its all about how much effort you put in and how much exposed you are. Its so lit to know any other language on a deep level.
Amazing take İclal!
Great topic, this is a widespread phenomenon which you covered very well!
tbh because ive been consuming almost everything in english i didnt realise i was learning it. one day i was listening to the radio in car and realised i understand the lyrics of the song. it was really cool.
ilham vericisin ❤sayende dil öğrenme konusunda kendimi ciddiye almaya başladım
im turkish born and raised in turkey, and by the first grade i already had (nearly perfect) pronounciation and could (nearly) speak like a native english speaking kid my age, all while being self taught. still to this day english is the language i know and understand the best :)
(edit: i still do make mistakes ! everyone does !)
I already knew this but I it is nice to be reminded that yes I should be doing THAT thing... Thank you!!!
Hallo! Mijn moedertaal is Nederlands (Dutch), deze video was echt super! Veel succes met het leren van Nederlands!
I totally agree, English is not a special language. Growing up in Ukraine I knew so little people who could speak English. And they would find it really hard to learn this language because we were not surrounded by it like the rest of Europe for example. We would watch movies in Russian (dubbed versions) or search for any information online in Russian and there literally would be no need for people to interact with English. As I moved to Europe I notice that almost everyone can speak English to some extent. Their movies are not dubbed, there are a lot of international students or tourists, and many other things that immerse them into this language. So it all depends on how often you expose yourselvf to the language whether it’s English or any other language.
turkce ogreniyorum, bu video icin cok tesekkur ederim canimmm
Hi Iclal 🙋♀️ Thanks for the video!!🙏 I am also waiting for you to create content in German please. You speak really well I have just watched a video today!! Also it’s one of the languages that I speak and improve as well!☺️
Same here 😊
Hi Iclal, Thank you so much for your kind words 😊.
Thanks alot for your great contribution dear İclal. Wish you all the best...
Sizi görmek güzel oldu, yine sıcacık bir video olmuş 🌻💛
Oh this is such an interesting video! English is my dominant language, but normally I don't hear any words in any language in my head... However, while spending a few weeks translating Lithuanian (my second language) to my French partner in Lithuania I found myself thinking to myself in Lithianian!! It spooked me out SO much to randomly catch a voice crop up out of nowhere, let alone in a language I normally use like 5% of the time lol. I'm hoping if I can get any language to consistently spawn in my head it will be French, I will definitely try to tune my feed to get more French content on social media, thank you for the recommendations in this vid!
Ben de senin gibi bir Türküm ve çok sevdiğim bir arkadaşım sayesine seni buldum. Bu videonun tamamını altyazı ile anlayabildiğimi söyleyebilirim. Sadece bir kelimeyi bilmiyordum: acquisition. Ancak bunu da "acquire"dan geliyordur diye düşündüm. Doğru düşünmüşüm. Sanırım bizim en büyük sorunumuz, yeterince vakit ayırmadan herhangi bir şeyi öğrenebileceğimizi düşünmek, kısa yol bulmaya çalışmak. Her şeyin de kısa yolu yoktur be. O yüzden adım adım hedefe doğru. Hayatında başarılar..
I found my experience learning Spanish was the opposite, I had studied it really throughly and understood the grammar super well but struggled with actual comprehension and day-to-day use, but then when I started listening to Spanish music, watching Spanish media and after spending time living in Spain and making local friends I found I was comfortable in most situations within a few a months. So you're totally right you need learning and acquisition, they go hand in hand.
And actually what I found most helpful about immersion and acquisition was I was able to let go of overthinking all the complex grammar rules I'd been taught, and most importantly, relax my pronunciation. People think Spanish is such a precisely articulated language because it never notes deletions in writing but in spoken Spanish in most regions quite a lot of sounds don't get pronounced. I spent most of my time in Seville so my S got completely obliterated 😂
Thanks for the video!! Love from Turkey 💓
I really want to learn korean! everything I consume is in korean but I still don't understand it, I feel like it would be easy for me if I tried cause, as you've said, I learned english that way (my first language is spanish and I live in Argentina, far away from any english speaking country) now I feel encouraged :) this will be my goal for this year
Thank you, Iclal ❤
Im from azerbaijan so i always felt like turkish spawned in my brain. In reality people here consume turkish tv and media all the time that I didn't have to create the environment in that language it was already there
I’ve been learning Russian for 5 years and I look forward to going to Azerbaijan 🇦🇿 one day and speaking Russian while I’m there! ))
Konuşulan gramer aynı değil mi?
Also these two languages are very much mutually intelligible, like almost two dialects of the same language.
They were nearly same language to me, thus wondering that could be another azerbaijan that i havent seen
Merhaba sizin ülkede yaygın olarak rusça konuşuluyor mu. Yani türkçe konuşabildiğimiz gibi rusça konuşabiliyormusunuz. ❤
You're totally right, no matter where you travel around the world, English is always gonna be the hegemonyc language around the world and it's always gonna be there waiting for us, but if we wanna learn another language than that, we should put more effort on it.
I agree with this so much! I remember when I became fluent in English it felt like it was overnight, because I suddenly started consuming content in English for hours every day, it felt like night and day. But I had had years of instruction before that! And then basically bathed my brain in English, and it was still not perfect at the time when I look back on it. I've learned not to expect the same results from learning any other languages unless the conditions are made to be the same. It also feels like I wanted to be fluent in English so bad and it opened up such a world for me that there's way less motivation to be creating that world in other languages. Less "this content is better in English and now I can have excess to it, yay" and more "I wanna speak French so I seek out content made in French but I would be just fine consuming stuff like this in English". I feel like you gotta find motivation that's similar in strength
im native english speaker but im learning spanish and russian and my two favorite shows and comics are in those languages with no dubs/offical translations for the majority of the content and it really motivates me to learn as i CANT get that content in english
It was similar to me, one day I was just reading a random post on Facebook and I only realized it was in english when I found a word I didn't know, but before that I spent an entire year consuming english with songs, manga, fanfics, etc
Abla kanalını keşfedeli bir hafta ya oldu ya olmadı ve beni dil öğrenmeye özendiriyorsun.
As a very big swiftie taylor swift mentioned made me really happy i'm like over the moon i've got a good hunch that taylor swift was the one who taught me english growing up when i was little i would listen to taylor swift songs but obviously i wasn't understanding any of the words she was saying in her songs and one day it clicked in my head that i wanna grasp her lyrics i just wanna understand what she's mentioning in her songs so that's how my english learning journey has begun and in fact so far i think i've made a good progress
Omg I loved this video!
İclal bununla alakalı türkçe bir videon vardı o zaman biraz sanki sinirle azarlıyorsun biz türkleri gibi hissetmiştim 😅 ama hak vermiştim gerçekten o zamandan bu zamana sadece önce İngilizceyi halledeyim dedim ama bu sene ingilizcem artık yettiği kadar diyip yeni bir dile yelken açıyorum... 🎉
as someone who "had english spawn in their head" im using the same technique to learn italian because i love an italian singer and it works really wekk :D i got to A2 in a few weeks
Başka polyglot Türk buldum ya çok mutluyum
Im not even fluent in English and Turkish but im learning like 3-4 languages at the same time smh (not rlly possible tbh lol)
So my progress in all rn:
Turkish: idek anymore ana dilim zaten oldu bi sekil
English: social media mostly like I didn’t even try lol. b2-c1 but EXTREMELY informal
Spanish: escuela. Yo entiendo pero no se cómo responder (¿?) kinda useless. a1-a2 (?)
Korean: I can read and ik some basic stuff but thats it. a1/2 (?)
Japanese: can read some hiragana and ik 2 kanji s (rain and moon), ik some basic stuff
Tagalog/Indo/Canto/Mandarin/etc.: a-537389 haven’t even started yet js wanna learn lmao.
Exactly, i "acquired" english by learning grammar and simple words in school and when i got to around A2 level i started watching youtube gaming channels in english. Things in english were simply more accessible so i got used to watching videos that i didn't completely understand. By time, i started to grasp more and more of those phrases and expressions from context clues and sometimes by looking up their meanings in a dictionary. And I have to add english learning starts from 4th grade in public schools and it was the same for me, but i totally SUCKED at it in 4th grade so i hated it, next year i switched to a private school that put more emphasis on teaching proper english and i was seated on the front so i had no choice but to pay attention to the teacher. Our teacher made it so learning english would be fun for us which influenced me to become an eager student. When it came to english lessons i was at the top of my class. And it was there that i learned 90% of my english grammar.
idk, i'm 33 and I have a special interest for the English language (my fire language is English) and I think that's why I have a greater grasp than my peers.
That comment at the start about how people think they understand English without doing any learning is a statement I hear a lot. Putting aside the fact that everyone around me took English classes at school, they don't have a grasp on it. A current example is pronouns - people in my life ofc have shit to say about pronouns, and they roll their eyes when I try to explain it to them. Someone asked me what happens if they don't want to use them and I my brain just broke for a moment and I asked why the would want to stop using them.
Anyway, this has happened with a lot more than that, I just thought everyone here might understand that example. Continuously learning English is what has made me like this, and, at least in the case of English, 'use' is not the only facet in being fluent.
(**maybe i'm completely off thenmark, as i've struggled to learn other languages)
In 2025 everyone here will speak fluently🎉
We'd love to see you post your favorite singers, books, etc, in your languages...
Thanks İclal!
Sono completamente d'accordo. Al momento cerco di imparare francese e cinese con l'inglese, ma inizio ad usare il francese per imparare il cinese. Poi mi guardo tonnellate di documentari in francese e drama cinesi. Però eccomi qui ad ascoltarti, in inglese. Dai molti spunti di riflessione, grazie. Buono studio e Buon 2025!!❤❤❤
Ah, mentre faccio il bricolage o le pulizie, ascolto la radio in francese. 😅
so many good points here.. babies take AGES to learn a language. they just dont end up with a weird accent because they dont have any other languages in their brain to start with. i think english is genuinely SOoo much easier to learn today but only because of how extremely easy it is to come across it without seeking it out. if you basically live on the internet theres no way you wont come across english and end up picking up bits of it at the very least. i made a whole new youtube account just for non english content but even just switching accounts is too much for me apparently. 80% of my time spent on youtube is still just english
i wish i had more choice in what languages i use while not sacrificing anything but i guess at this point ive been fully colonized. not complaining, im glad i can speak it, but i never chose it. ive been trying to get faster at typing recently and i noticed just how much faster i type in english compared to any other language, even ones i do speak, even ones that are written in latin, even without diacritics. i just have way more muscle memory for english
its funny though, when speaking english i might still get asked where im from even though its by far my best language, while in portuguese which is a language i only learned when i was about 15 im more likely to be asked what city im from. apparently accents are a big factor in fitting in and not being seen as an outgroup, even more than how well you can actually speak the language
I'm currently learning Turkish and to learn I'm doing the same I did to learn English: study grammar and my reward for studying as well as my "let's take a rest" is watching series with Turkish subs which I would translate and dissect until I just understand. So far is working just like it worked with English but I'm just starting so let's see. Right now I'm focusing more on understanding than talking
Definitely true, i started getting better at russian when i started watching media in russian
Needed this haha thank u
o kadar katılıyorum ki.. iki ay önceye dek ingilizceden başka bir dil öğrenemeyeceğime inanıyordum. ama italyancaya ilgi duymaya başladım ve söylediklerin yaşandı, kendimizi öğrenmek istediğimiz dil ile çepeçevre sarmadıkça olmuyor bu iş
videolarını izlemek almanca çğrendiğim şu sıralarda çok motive edici oluyor teşekkürler
Thanks for the video - wise words! I totally agree.
Thank you for making this video, I totally agree with you on this point.❤
Thank you so much for this video! I think the same both is the best!
1:31 my first language is dutch and i started 'learning' (just hearing it everywhere not doing actual learning XD) english when i was 4 so thats why XD i don't remember learning any words i just knew them XD
i want to learn dutch 😭
As someone who has learnt Dutch on an off for the last 7 years, Sometimes the social media landscape is not enough in terms of media for some smaller languages. Sometimes you just need to switch the media that you use, and personally I highly recommend books for that, but for other people it might be something different
that's so true! 😭❤
This is so inspiring
Awesome, helpful thoughts you shared with us. I found myself comparing what you were saying about the processes and seeing the truth of it in my own experiences. For example, if you JUST acquire the language WITHOUT stdying,… cool. It’ll take you years longer than if you do study. If you ONLY study without taking in content, cool… it’s gonna take years longer than if you utilize acquisition methods. Both seems to be the way 😎
i love how you just tell it how it is, i feel everyone needs that mindset
i struggle to put effort into actively learning a language, so i end up just watching things and consuming media to pass the time, but that doesn't help that much bc i can't even string up a sentence properly however my comprehension skills are pretty high so now i can understand multipule languages but the speaking part is another story
it just becomes super boring after a little while, and i just move one with another language ig i crave the novelty
i should be more consistent and focused, but it's especially hard with my attention spam
I agree with you. 100%
This video made me realize how many hours I spent watching American youtubers when I was 13 yo. And when I was in highschool, I could watch Friends and understand so many jokes, even tho I still didn't know a lot of words. When I was in university my friends were like "how's your English so good" It's all thanks to13 yo me who kept watching English videos even tho she did not understand a word. I guess I should start watching German youtubers now.
Having grown up bilingual german & english I don't feel either of them spawned in. I'm aware that my english is a mix of UK and US since I learned it from german teachers and british media as well as americans. Makes it hard to overlook how I acquired it thru exposure and study
I like to read a lot of manga so what I normally do is restrict myself to read manga only in my target language, so I choose a manga I really want to read and that is only available in my target language (normally japanese or chinese) that way I have no choice but to read it in my target language
@iclaliano Can you post a video about the easiest and fastest way to learn languages (learning in a natural way) in more detais?
the easiest and fastest way to learn a language is to learn something identical to a language that you've learnt before. you're not supposed to acquire a brand new language in a short amount of time
اين قمر زمان ؟❤@@iclaliano
Thank you so much dear Sister and i really appreciate your hardwork and Talent
I'm learning arabic and I tried to compare how I'm learning it to how I learned English and noticed that I learned the majority of my English bases by videogames but unfortunately there are very few games which offer an arabic translation and when this is available, many times it is just for text and not for audio ...
Hi, at first all the best in new year and i have a question, but not regarding to this video, which is great by the way. I didn’t see in any videos (maybe i jist missed it) how u learn grammar. So my question is, do u have any grammatical exercises on Lingoda? I am learning German and because i am book loving leaner i can’t imagine to learn German without many and really many German exercises from books and i saw u have some German books, but between ur notebooks i didn’t catch any for just grammar exercises… thanks for answer 😉
Wonderful teaching!
👏👏👏 on point
Hi iclal ! I have been watching your videos for a long time and you are such an inspiration for me in my journey. So i need your advice about a thing. Recently I am trying to learn english and it is the first language that I have ever tried to learn. So now I wanna learn a different language along with English but I can't decide which one to start. What do you recommend about it ? Which language would be kinda easy to learn along with English ?
Thank you for a wonderful video. I was wondering if you think I would be able to learn Japanese and Russian at the same time? I haven't learned a language before (other than my native language, of course) and I have the basic down for Japanese, but I also would really love to start learning Russian during my gap year. What would your advise be? Could it be potentially detrimental to my learning progress to start learning two completely different languages at same time?
love your attitude!!