How to Succeed in the First 3 Months of Learning a Language
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- 🔥 Learn languages like I do with LingQ: bit.ly/3TEoL4k
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When you start in a language, nothing is comprehensible. So then how do we get a toehold? Some advice for the key first three months.
0:00 Nothing is comprehensible in the beginning, so here's how I get a toehold in a new language.
2:06 With enough time spent with the language and sustained motivation you will learn.
2:58 The content I always start with when learning a new language.
5:04 Listen before reading langauge learning content.
6:52 Repetitive listening is key in the first few months of learning a new language.
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#languagelearning #languages #polyglot
Not only you provide us the knowledge to be more productive in language learning, but also you transmit us a strong energy, pasion, and motivation to us.
It's a pleasure to hear you again Steve.
Greets from Argentina
Steve is right! Listening before reading! I started to listen Japanese stories for kids ,even though I wasn’t able to recognize all the Hiragana and katakana alphabet ! Now I do another uphill journey-grammar😅
I happen to come upon your comments just reading through and see if i found anything helpful. I used to know both Hiragana and Katakana which are the two easiest of the three Japanese Alphabet. While i don't remember them as much as i had learned them over 20 years ago while i was in the U.S. Navy stationed in Yokosuka Japan. While i did take Japanese-speaking classes for 2 semesters on base back then I didn't learn much that way. But i did have a Japanese GF at the time who spoke also fluent English and was quite good. She ended up teaching me Japanese slowly, daily and it was how i learned to speak Japanese where i could get by going places or doing things. My GF taught me one at a time Hiragana and Katakana which aren't that extensive alphabetically just starting with writing out the characters as they can be easy to identify looking at words as they do not look like Kanji which looks complicated in all their strokes.
What i then used to do everyday when i spent 2 hrs each time on the train going back and forth to Tokyo to visit my JN GF was to just try to practice reading signs and advertising on the train to help me remember seeing the alphabet over and over and trying to determine what the sign said with the few words characters i could identify. It was a lot of practice, but that helped me to learn both those alphabets and slowly get better at Japanese. Maybe my experience can help you gain some confidence in learning Hiragana and Katakana. I only wished i had continued to keep learning what i had learned back then. But it was in the 90s and before the internet became what it is today. Today, I'm slowly relearning Japanese and Spanish, both of which i have history having learned it in the past. I still remember many words in both languages, but some fun relearning and i do still have real-life Japanese friends for aid, just not close by. But you can and will make it learning if you keep at it.
I would like to know though where and what books did you find as Japanese stories for kids for reading.
@@ardentdfender4116 www.youtube.com/@kidstube_ch
www.youtube.com/@punapuchi_channel1107
The two links are my fav sources of Japanese stories for kinds ,and I do hope they are helpful for you!
I write down the transcripts first , when I listen to the story, I imitate their pronounciation ,although I don't understand the content fully. This is how I learnt the Japanese alphabet!
My first serious attempt at a foreign language was Japanese. I lived with a Japanese family for six months which was so much fun. People in intensive courses in Japanese could not understand why I was so good; I could not understand why they could not understand what I thought were very basic things. Mind you they were much better at Kanji and reading than me. Later in life I went back to Japan as a researcher. It was a very different experience as I was on my own a lot. I did not feel my language was getting much better. I used to read Japanese a lot for my work, but much less often spoke it, and very rarely wrote in it. But after a long plateau I got to a level where I was more than happy with my level. I realised I knew enough to do achieve my immediate objectives. I finished my project and I found out what I needed to know and I did need Japanese to do that. To go deeper into the subject (and believe me there is no end to that) it would take another level of commitment in the language and more years working on the subject in Japan. But I was happy with what I achieved and wished to try something else not related to Japan..
I am now in France. Funnily I have found acquiring French more difficult than Japanese, even though Japanese is supposed to be much harder for me (a native English speaker). I went about learning French pretty much the way I went about learning Japanese in the beginning, working through a basic text book. Why the difference. I think it is because the reasons I had to learn Japanese and the environment was different. First I had the homestay, but secondly, and very importantly, when I went back it was very specific what I needed Japanese for. And I simply focussed on that. I don't need French, except in a very general way eg shopping or asking questions at the local tax office.
I’ve been picking up French on my own often on for probably two years total. I never had any formal French classes. I never had any foreign language classes in high school. I found French to be extremely challenging, especially because I can only get it in dribs and drabs. But lately it’s starting to click a lot more, and that is rewarding. I’ve yet to have a single French conversation, this is all watching videos essentially. But I’m picking it up better and better.
@@NewCastleIndiana For French I would really recommend the CCube Academy short videos on youtube.
Thank you, this was very helpful. I am working on German independently and I remember when I first started listening to it and it was one big, giant, garbled mess that just ran together. I knew I was making progress when I noticed that I could differentiate separate words and it didn’t just run together! I might not know what the words meant, but I could differentiate them as individual words. Small steps that help you to understand that although the learning is slow, you are making progress.
Same here.
Same here, German is very daunting at first with so many unrecognizable words.
Thank you Steve. Your videos motivate me to keep going.
You are learning
Thank you. I needed this today.
Thank you Steve!
As always you gave big piece of motivation. I really pleased that I've learned much in English through listening your regular video/audio.
Wish you endless curiosity and health for aquaring new knowledge ✌️🙂
I keep going to learn a language. Steve, you're an influencer and instigator to this. Thank you for this.
Me watching a video in English to know how to succeed learning English in the next 3 months:
x2
Actually most natives speak like 💩
@@mcmerry2846 omg really?
You're listening to a native speaker and you've posted a comment in almost perfect English, so if you really are in your first three months of learning, I'd say you're doing well lol
@@sk8_bort oh no, I’m not on my first three months but I still watched it because I wanna keep learning English and improving it, I’m barely English B1 (plus I’m interested on learning more languages than just English yk)
Hello, Mr. Steve. I am from Ukraine, from Kharkov. When I lived at home i learned English of myself. Your video help me very much too. Now i am in Cheh because of war. When i came here I am be able to understand much and could speak at first. I thought that all people in EU can speak English but not. I live in the town where nobody almost knows English. I start to learn Cheh. From the first I learned on my own and then with the help of your system LingQ- thank you very much. Then despair came to me because new language have erased my English from my head almost at all. I have lost it. And I don't know what to do. I can read but can't speak.
Marina, I once attended a polyglot conference in Bratislava. To prepare, I put a lot of effort into learning Slovak. At the conference there were some Ukrainians. I just couldn't remember any Ukrainian, although my Ukrainian was in fact much stronger than my Slovak. However, when I started reading and listening in Ukrainian again, the language came back stronger than ever. This is normal. Right now you have a greater need for Czech. Continue learning and using Czech and do the occasional lesson on LingQ in English. Do the mini-stories to reinforce the key verbs and patterns. When you go to speak English you will struggle at first but then it will come back stronger than ever. Trust me.
Thank you for answering me. I will try to. I will hope to.
by myself*
Czech*
Hello, Steve! I'm from Brasil (Bacabal-MA). Your knowledge and your wisdom in learning languages are very huge. For sake of milions of students around the world, you need to write a book about this theme. Think about this and toast us with your written wisdom, please. Think about it fondly. Thank you for all!
Great tips! Thank you Steve!
Thank you ,Mr Kaufmann .I am a Chinese. I just started learning Japanese a week ago on Linq . Your video today does give me a lot of cknfidence and motivation. Good luck to my New language journey.😁
祝你好运！
Your videos are very motivating and they are super helpful - i learnt Spanish due to your videos and now I am learning Italian - and as you said - Italian was such a jumble of words and now 3 months later the Jig Saw starts falling in to place - Thank you immensely
The app I use to learn languages -> bit.ly/3TEoL4k
My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com
What is your strategy for getting started in a new language?
Thank you every much! This lesson is superior, I've been learning English for 3 months now. Your suggestion suits me perfectly, and I'll follow your lessons on UA-cam in the future. 😄
I know this comes 8 months later but as a native speaker of English let me just say your English is amazing from what I see based off of this one comment. I almost don’t want to believe you. Lol
@@joseph3225 haha, I learned basic English at school about 20 years ago. And I began to learn English again from last year .
@@minilucky1886 Oh okay, lol. Good luck in your future studies of the English language and other languages if you are learning more.
@@joseph3225 thank you very much🤞
I don't how to congratulate you. It's always a great to hear you. I wanna be like you M. Kaufmann😊 After English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Swahili now I'm trying to learn indic languages. U're my inspiration sir.
you piqued my interest in learning languages, many thanks!
Great advice! Thank you for sharing
The ending was so BEAUTIFUL
This guy accidentally found the fountain of youth: Learning languages.
I think that starter book comment is the key here. If you get some overview of the grammar before you jump into mini-stories “which are fantastic” you’re going to pick up so much more so much faster. I’m not saying learn grammar first. Like with Spanish knowing okay when I see hablé/aste/ó…it’s this, when I see hablaba/abas….it’s this etc. So if you’re brain already has some idea of the patterns it’s going to see it’s obviously going to recognize them faster and will be able to distinguish a little more nuance…..but the deep reality is if your goal is to be “fluent” meaning you can turn on whatever movie or take a class or listen to your favorite books, it’s going to take thousands of hours. But also important to realize, conversations with ppl come a good bit before those other things I mentioned. Just keep going and don’t quit and if you do that there is a you somewhere in the future that has the language skills you currently want. It’ll change your life.
Yeah +1 to the starter book idea. In my case I started learning German because I watched a German dubbed anime episode as a joke and then shortly thereafter i began to learn German. I read through a book on basic German phrases and grammar and after I was done then I started rewatching the thing and realized that I could pick up words and even sentences, whereas before it was a complete gibberish that made 0 sense. I feel without getting a slight feel for the structure and basic vocabulary it makes it tough to get started.
@@derwalter866 exactly. It’s better to start inside parameters then expand those parameters as you go than to start with no real parameters and then try to figure out what they are.
Pretty Good. one thing that i do, I like to listen while I'm sleeping, to me it works. I know many people dont believe, so Why sleeping, cause you are deep relaxing sure you need to study when you wake too. Thanks. peace for all From Brazil!
I intend to start learning Spanish as my third language, in about one year's time. I'll come back to this video for future reference!
Thank you very much, Steve! I’m Vietnamese and I’m living in Japan for my graduate school, so I’m learning Japanese. It’s hard but interesting for me, and I really admire that you can speak so many languages so fluently, including Japanese. Thanks so much for your advice! ありがとうございます! Cảm ơn ông rất nhiều!
Hello, I’m Daisy( my English name). I’m from Việt Nam, am living in Japan and learning German. It’s was nice to see a VietNamese person here
@@duyentran5554 hello
These tips are very valuable, thank you very much
您说的很对，完全同意！我在学习西班牙语，您介绍的方法很有帮助，谢谢！
Thank you so much. I have been doing this: i have been believe it's possible for me, i make many repetitions and i listen before read.
Thank you so much for your video ☺️
It's been 3 years iam learning English and know i can understand your video, iam not fluent but , iam so happy about it and know want to start learning Korean.
Thank you Steve for again all your precious advices. I have a question : May you do a video of what you do or at least of what you advice to do after this three-month period in the language learning process ? Thank you very much !! Goodbye from France 👋🏼🇫🇷
There's a very interesting comment you made - how when you don't understand lesson 1, you move on to lesson 2. I recently witnessed someone refusing to do that and repeating lesson 1 until they get it. Well, still no luck and they keep repeating it. It's so important to move on. That is a very valuable message that you shared, Steve. Eventually, it will all click - but it can't, if you keep pushing yourself too hard.
That’s been my problem, pushing to hard and thinking that in three months of learning I should be able to say sentences. I’m at the three month mark and frustrated I can’t speak sentences. This was good timing in hearing this. Thank you for your wisdom.
@@georgebender7519 There is actually another of his videos that focus on that aspect. If I remember correctly the title should be something about the impossibility to master the basics (or something similar). I don't know if you still need it, but anyway...
Good luck with learnings languages
@@alessandrorocci1416 I do!
Muito Obrigado também Steve por disponibilizar a legenda no seu vídeo
Thanks Steve!! Started reading and listening 5 months ago now, probably listened to mini stories 10x each to begin with and now reading and listening to some intermediate content. However I do feel had I stuck to the mini stories more that would have helped me now more, rather than moving to tougher more interesting content. Do you think it is better now to re-go over the mini stories and ‘grin and bear it’ as can get a bit boring….or just stick to the intermediate content and keep moving ahead? Thanks for the content! Always really good
u can do both !
You are my paradigm sir...thank you..
thank you very much
I would always say keep a diary: it helps you be realistic. If you get down and say I don't seem to be getting anywhere, when you check you've only studied 3 hours this week.
what do you write in the diary, vocabulary? grammar?
Yes. I'm about to begin my Japan class by Monday for a 4-month learning long
All I can say is that it is really hard to get good material in my mother tongue (Romanian) needed to learn harder languages. Many times I’ve used the English language apps as a mother tongues, but it has its limitations. For example, not like English, we do have the letter î which is - in Korean. Sometimes it is frustrating not to have a direct linkage between your mother tongue and the new one. But hey, I have to adapt. Love your work and videos, always inspiring!
Actually l started by watching movies in the first l understand 10 or 20 percentage but when l continue with watching movies for 1 month l noticed my comprehension become better than before and become understand 30 to 40 percentage of this movies and that gave me more motivation
Hello!! May I ask how you’re going ? I’m starting this week and kinda in the same exact position , I can barely understand what’s being said but i feel like im evolving
First, what you have to do, is to develop your own learning strategy and a timing plan. Just open any textbook for beginners and study the context. When you determine your steps, set you the timeline for all steps. Good luck!
Brilliant video, exactly what I wanted. And secondly, do you have any video on what to do after the 3 months period? Or can someone please share the link or title with me to look for? Thanks in advance
Hello, thank you so much for the valuable information.
Do you have material for learning Sanskrit in linkQ ?
It does make sense first three months. I might experiment with German in 2023 and listen to all the mini stories on Lingq and just listen and read and not speak at all. I didn't do that with Portuguese and Russian because I got excited and wanted to speak right away. 🤣 Either way Im getting better at both.
目前在lingQ學習西班牙文己經快兩個月了，的確一些學習過的mini story 仍然忘了是很
沮喪，聽了老師的建議又提起信心，希望再過十個月可以去墨西哥旅遊？
Thank you
thanks you are the best
Different writing systems -- "or like Punjabi, gurmukhi script." Steve, any sense of when Punjabi will be added? Lots of potential in the Lower Mainland. Thanks :)
Please adopt me! 🙈😂 Looking forward to renewing my subscription. 💪
I Love you best channel Men thanck you excelent Class.
Hello, Steve
I have been learning Arabic on my own for 6 weeks.
I am watching some UA-cam channels about Arabic.
I don't have a starter book.
I am s Japanese and I live in countryside , Japan.
Book store in my town doesn't have Arabic starter books.
Could you recommend the starter books for Japanese , please ？
Thank you Language Grand Pa.
I Just loved the picture of curiosity
Hello Steve, I would like to improve my English speaking skills , how can I develop more confidence in my self. Have a great day!!
I agree with you but the extent that you told that repetition is the most important thing in language learning would be vocabulary, phrases it's ok we can remember and we used in a sentence but when it comes to actually speaking then we forget because we mostly learn the conservative way I think we have to learn realized the situation like water move this corner to another corner just flow however people generally learn a lot list of vocabulary but it doesn't sence rather than the situation native never use one word again and again they understand the situation what words should I use they have network prefixes and suffixes
Es bueno que me gusta armar rompecabezas. Pero los idiomas son mucho más utíl, y mucho más divertido también. Llevo más de 2 años aprendiendo español.
Hi there, here mario. Coming a mindful topic for your chanel: i understand 90% of words in medias, but i don't retain the ideas, what to do? Thky Steve.
As i saw you learning the arabic language throughout the qurân
I am dare to say that Mr.Kaufmann is one of the precious treasure in human history.
I remember when I was first learning Portuguese (I'm at a year and a half now but just discovered lingQ a week ago. Already learned a lot btw) but the first year and especially the first 6-8 months I remember being soooo tired from beating a new language into my brain (I only speak English). Wish I had known about lingQ this whole time.. I started with Duolingo and then found Pimsleur and decided to try that and then went "wow Duolingo suuuucked" now being at a year and a half I still don't really understand much.. but I can read a little..I probably can't speak.. although if I tried maybe.. it would be ugly.. but I maybe could.. I write to Brazilians every day and they understand me and I somewhat understand them. Not every word but I get the idea of what they're saying. Very hard when it's a room of 29 natives that speak how they normally speak so there's lots of abbreviations and slang 😂 but I hope this immersion helps my reading and I hope lingQ helps everything. i feel like I have the edges of a puzzle complete and maybe some pieces right inside the edge but now It's time to fill it in. 😊
Hello, Mr Steve. I have recognised you by AJ Hoge. You and AJ are keeping fantastic role in language learning 😊. I want to be an English coach in my country could you please give me some suggestion about that?
Regards
Rony Bangladesh
what is a good starter book for Spanish?
Hey Steve, what is your opinion on writing words and phrases to learn them? In your videos, you usually mention reading and listening but not writing.
From my experience do it and don’t stop, it’s like speaking, u gotta drag it out of your brain
When you have conversation, you need to make sentences quickly, but when it comes to writing, you can look up unknown words and expressions, so I recommend it.
I think it depends on language, 3 months of learning Spanish and I was already able to visit Spain and start having conversations with people, I've been learning Arabic for a few months and not even close to that.
Because some languages are relatives to each other while others are not. For example I can understand almost everything in some language though I didn't learn it at all. :)
Both English and Spanish have many Latin and Greek words. :)
I understand Arabic language and French but I want understand English language well cause I want be a translator sometimes I watch movies I understand sentences my but is to improve my English level
I am learning a new language. My teacher asked me to understand at least 75% of one video material (with subtitle) before moving to the next one, which is quite hard to achieve and boring in my opinion. However, I also understand that if I just run through it without any repetition and understanding, it just lost so easily.
How to make a balance between repetition and curiosity?
Find your own balance.
I would like to learn English language and Arabic language.
Don't look at where you are, look at where you were.
Steve, can you give a rough estimate of how many hours per day you are spending in those first 3 months? is 5 minutes a day typical?
Steve, at what stage does the intermediate plateau start? Is it between B2 and C1 ? Or does it start from B1 ?
B1. You have finished the early climb from not understanding anything to being able to say a few things. Now the long road begins.
Steve kaufman .
The Arabic pic you put up .
The wording means
“ a book with has absolutely no doubt “
It’s from Quran
For the Arabic is it better to learn the words or the arabic caligraphy? Because i went to your app for arabic and i had difficulty understansing i.e it was only tge caligraphy.
@@nhltrk words**
You reference LingQ and the features available in the app often in your advice on language learning. Do you have any advice - or how would you modify your existing advice - for people wanting to learn a language that is not in regular use anymore (and not in the apps) such as Old English?
The principles are the same, lots of listening and reading. Depends on what is available for Old English.
@@Thelinguist
Where can one get proper audios for rare or dead languages?
Question, I get headaches when I study too much in Spanish. Like watching a Spanish UA-cam video.
How do I prevent that?
Mars Curiosity. Hahaha. Love it.
Hi Steve I don't see that you have any video how effective is Learn with music.
I remember him saying in one of his videos that he doesn't like the idea of learning a language with music because there is too much poetry.
@@pauld3327 👌🏻
❤❤❤
I can’t imagine you learning Japanese like this
Oke steve i'm still study speak languages..
Aren't the stories the same in each language? Are they still effective if you know the story already from the other language you're learning? I'm learning Portuguese and Norwegian and would like to be sure I can use the same stories in each language. Thank you!
The fact that the stories are the same is an advantage. When you learn something new, it is helpful to have as much familiar stuff around to help you. You can focus on the language. It works, believe me.
@@Thelinguist Thanks for the response Steve! I believe you :)
Hi, just in case you need someone to practice portuguese, I would be glad to help
After 12 years and a few months of grammar with many books then storytelling over 1,500 hours I failed. I added LingQ and was devoted with the daily streaks. What happened? Failure once again.
Geez 10 languages after 60....so inspiring!
for some reason I can clearly understand when polyglots speak in their native english, and it's much more difficult to comprehend when non polyglots speak. why so, whether it because polyglots got more poor native language after learning so much languages, or on the contrary they use native language more right? or they just trying speak not too hard?
Those first few weeks are pretty tough . You have to acquire enough words to be able to do some reading.
It's just because the reading is unproper. Even a hundred words are enough to many mini stories.
Terima kasih
Sema sema! 😂
@@tttyuhbbb9823 sama sama
Theres only two rules for learning a language.
You start and
You dont stop.
And thats all. If there are other rules I would only add: "It' not a race or competition". And "enjoy the journey above all "
But you may crowl or run. ;)
@@putinisakiller8093 I refer you to my other rules.
@@andyharpist2938
I want to have learned before I die. 😊
👌❤❤❤❤
Why do you recommend initially listening to the audio a text with only limited understanding? I don’t enjoy reading or listening if don’t fully understand. My natural tendency is to read first looking up all words and expressions that I don’t know and also sticking the sentence in Deepl or Google-Translate if I have the slightest doubt about the meaning. Only then do I listen (repetitively)
What language do you study? There is a huge difference in pronunciation of languages. So some of them don't demand much listening though others do. If you can pronounce a word correctly you may not listen to it a lot.
The second languages I've learned to a good level have been: French, Spanish, German and Hungarian. The pronunciation of Hungarian is quite different than English... but I'm not sure what this has to do with the recommendation that one initially listen to the audio associated with a text straight through without stopping, even if one doesn't understand it fully, and only afterwards look things up. I always have the impulse to look up everything I don't understand the first time I go through a text/audio recording, in Hungarian as in my other languages.
I find it frustrating and not enjoyable to initially listen to the audio without looking things up, and given that I don't really understand the point of it, I'm not motivated to force myself to do it.....but if I understood the reason for this extremely popular recommendation a bit better, maybe I'd try harder at it! @@putinisakiller8093
👍
🤣 Steve repetitively said "repetitive" 8 times in the video. 🤣
First
I watch this video to learn how can i speak English fluently in three months 😅
ok going back 30 to 40 times is a lot. But don't you run at the risk of marking words as known that you only know because of that story and it's context ?
Well, if you see it again and you don't understand it then, mark it as unknown again. It's like a ping pong match.
Talk about hungarian , please !
the impregnable language 😮
I now next to noting about Hungarian, unfortunately.
B1 ENGLISH, ESPANISH B1, FRENCH, A2, ITALIAN, B1, KOREAN A1, JAPANESE, A1 , MANDARIM ZERO AND GERMANY ZERO.
is there anything for beginners 😑
Mini-stories
@@Thelinguist thanks a lot
Can you speak hindi? Steve
Not yet
@@Thelinguist if you want to learn hindi i can teach you because i am a native speaker in this language 😊😊😊
To learn a language, you need the correct material. There are many books out there but most of them are crap, well intended but not effective. I am a 62 year old man who studies every day. save trouble, buy Berlitz. Their language material is above all
I have a lot of words I know how to pronounce, write and Understand from the listening...but do I Know the meaning??? Clearly not. 😂
You don’t need to believe in yourself to learn
WOW,,,you are 77?! You are like 56 or so