I think this one is my favorite interview. I’m learning Spanish and this motivates me even more. This year because of Covid-19 I’ve lost 3 family members. I’ve been wanting to learn Spanish for the longest time. I’ve been immersing but for me it’s going very slow. I’m sure the loss of loved ones in 5 months time has a lot to do with it. I’ve been using Spanish also to kind of help me through this time and the grieving process to focus on. I was feeling badly because for about 7 months I am nowhere near being conversationally fluent like Nate. But when I look back to where I started and even where I am now, there is serious enough progress. I could make my thoughts and needs known, but it wouldn’t sound like a native speaker right now. This video centers me and gives me hope that by the end of next year; I will achieve my goal and become “fluent” in the language. Plus, I have Spanish speakers all around me and many of my neighbors are. So, it is a must I get this language conquered just to continue to be a viable part of my own rapidly changing community. Thanks again Matt!
Aunque me hace triste oir un parte de eso, por otro lado me alegra oir que el proceso ha sido de ayuda; My spanish was awful for a long while. If you do what is fun in the language long enough, you'll get it! ¡Tu puedes!
Normal people: "I'll learn a new language so I can speak with people from other countries in their mother tongue." Me: "I'll learn japanese so I can play untranslated visual novels..."
I've only just started watching but I feel like 2:12-2:15 is why some people have an "easy" time learning a new language. The very fact that they can say something foreign and be understood literally blows them away. That's a really powerful spark to begin with. Unfortunately, I don't have that same reaction so it's more of a slog for me.
I'm an absolute recluse, but that doesn't stop me from studying a new language. I study languages in order to be able to learn through them. For some people, it's socializing that matters. In that case, certain things are important to them, for example having as clean an accent as possible. For me, my motivation is being able to absorb the experiences contained in certain works - I love reading great fiction and philosophy books, and I don't need to have a great accent in order to do that (although I still need to know the sounds of the language and pronunciation of words well enough, or reading becomes too much of a drag). If you have a goal, but you don't focus on the aspects of the language related to that goal (or rather if you focus on the wrong ones, or less relevant ones, so to say), I think there's no way you'll be able to have much of an easy time learning it.
It's cool to hear Nate constantly reference his love for Spanish because aside from the mechanical aspects of learning there is merit in loving material and consuming it over and over again and that reinforcing what we've learned. Just like how a kid growing up in their native language might rewatch a movie three times because they love the movie, from the perspective of language learning, that repetition benefits them immensely.
Same story here! UA-cam is actually a gold mine for immersion. School made me understand the rules, youtube made me actually use them and work my brain actively. 2-3 years of immersion everyday and now I'm pretty fluent. The thing is, I didn't start watching american youtubers to "learn" english, I just watched them cuz I enjoyed them. And eventually I realised "wait, I'm watching people talk but THAT IS NOT MY NATIVE LANGUAGE, that's amazing." and that's what drove me to immerse more. That's the thing, enjoying your learning process. And before you know it, you'll start understanding many things.
@@THELEGEND-so7vs I did it with German. If you make an account just for content in the target language the youtube algorithm eventually works in your favor and you get endless entertainment. Key things: 1. ditch subtitles in your native language in favor of target language subtitles. 2. be okay with not understanding. 3. do it every day
It is very weird to speak in two different languages in one conversation, switching back and forth, and realising afterwards that you honestly can't remember which bits are in what language.
I feel passionate about learning languages too. My mother tongue is Spanish and I've been learning English for years. I love it. Now, I am trying to learn Dutch. Lovely video. You guys are so young and so wise.
Thank you for the content matt, the guest was s cool, i am learning english and i am a native spanish speaker, is so interesting to watch someone on the other side
I appreciate that you aren’t afraid to dig deeper into the why and how, Matt. Both of you are to be congratulated on your accomplishments in Japanese and Spanish. Few people achieve the level of fluency you both have.
Just now coming back to this channel for the first time in maybe a year or two. I have to say, Matt, you have impressed the hell out of me. It’s apparent to me that your understanding of second language development has attained a very respectable depth of nuance, and that you’ve matured massively since your younger UA-cam days. Congratulations, I guess! Lol people grow and stuff-so maybe I shouldn’t be so impressed with a total stranger-but I know of very few who can seriously hang (both philosophically and practically) with regards to this topic as you so deftly can. Not that anyone asked me, but the way I’ve gone about “developing myself” ever since I heard the advices and tips you and Katz (b/v)logged about (imperfect as they were, especially for me) are massively different from yours. Basically, I said ‘f*** this’ to getting my second or third languages to near-native level and simply focused all my energy and attention inwardly; figuratively, in this case, to my native tongue. After spending an amount of time doing so comparable to that of your Japanese study at around the beginning of your channel, I must inform you that it’s off the f***ing walls. To elaborate upon the analogy you made wherein speaking a second language is represented by the analog of performing tasks wearing gloves, while speaking in your L1 is like being bare-handed, I think the idea of trying to attain absurdly high levels of fluidity and sheer communicative flexibility in one’s L1 is much alike diligently exercising just your dominant hand and arm’s muscles daily... by sitting around in bed all day, too... make of that (and of this whole comment, honestly) what you will 👀
I've been watching Nate since he helped XiaoMa learn Spanish and I loveeee his videos, they're so positive and fun and energetic not to mention his Spanish is great. Definitely inspires me. Just subscribed to you, Matt vs Japan after seeing you in a video from Oriental Pearl. I can't wait to explore more of your videos!
The whole "bilingual" thing (since childhood) is interesting. My community has a huge number of people who grew up speaking both English and Spanish. English is technically their second language and Spanish is their native language because that is the language they learned first from their parents, but English is their dominant language (those who grew up in the U.S. or have lived here most of their life and did their schooling here). These people typically speak Spanish at a much lower level than their English. Some never develop their Spanish and others even lose it. We also have those who grew up in a Spanish-speaking country, but became fluent in English later on. These people speak Spanish better than they speak English. Now, determining what language to speak in typically depends on the other person because my Spanish is by and large more proficient than that of both the examples because although I learned it as a second language (English is my first language), I've spoken it for 36 years and have worked as a professional interpreter for 30 years (medical and court). I also teach interpreter training programs. Many of my students who are dominant in Spanish still find they have significant holes in their native language (Spanish) and like to speak to me in Spanish in order to improve their vocabulary and even grammar. I've found that those who grew up speaking Spanish at home, but are much more dominant in English also see me as someone they can practice with. Since they know that I love Spanish, teach it and am an interpreter, they often come to me with questions, ask me how to say certain things and have an opportunity to practice their Spanish. They know how much I enjoy speaking Spanish so it motivates them to appreciate it more. I have some friends who are bilingual since childhood and they tend to mix the two languages when talking to each other (siblings, for example), but have come to realize that they do a lot of that because they don't know how to say certain words or expressions in the other language, but have changed a lot now that they've become interpreters and have come to appreciate the importance of having a high level of command in both languages and try to challenge themselves to consistently fill in the gaps in their languages. This is especially important for interpreters. For anyone who is bilingual, I have a revealing test for you. I created it because the bilingual people who come to me with the desire to learn how to interpret are typically unaware of the huge gaps they have in one of the languages. Out of the 100 images in the test, they often could identity the name for 95%-100% of the things in the images in one language and only 15%-30% in the other language. It really opens their eyes with regard to disparity in their two languages. You can do the test in any two languages you want because it consists of naming things in one language (100 images) and then in the other. ua-cam.com/video/YKckORm-_kA/v-deo.html Let me know what you've discovered.
Hello Matt :) Two days ago I've been following your tutorial on how to study japanese shows on netflix and I was wondering why your video is now private. I still wanted to review some of the things but I'm glad I was able to take the time to setup everything like you showed us in this video. It was a very well made video and I'm sure it took you a lot of time to create it. I want to express my gratitude to you because I was doing this manually a while back and the words I learned really stuck in my long term memory however it was very time consuming. May I ask you why you did remove this video from your channel? Anyway, thanks for reading, have a nice day. 😊
Despite the fact that Yoga and I worked together very hard on the MIA addons, Yoga is currently claiming full credit for them. He has also made dishonest videos about me that hurt my reputation, so I've decided to remove all videos advertising the addons.
I’ve been learning French for the past 5 years. The first three were in high school, but afterwards I continued studying on my own. 6 months ago I decided to start learning German while maintaining French, as I had finally felt satisfied with my French. Throughout the whole process, I never met a French native speaker (besides italki tutors), and I doubt I’ll meet a German one either ( lets be real here, I live in Montana). It’s unlikely I’ll be able to travel to any countries these languages are spoken anytime soon. Watching this video has made me question my motives for continuing to learn these languages.... I love French, and learning German has been really rewarding, but it’s becoming increasing harder to justify spending so much brain power learning these languages, especially when I’m not really able to see the fruits of my labor in meaningful connections with native speakers. After all, what is the point of learning a language if I’m just going to speak it to myself?? I wish Montana was more linguistically diverse.... Theres also the fact that I’m currently going through college right now, and sometimes it seems that I prioritize language learning to my classes which are more relevant to my future. Anyone else have these frustrations ?
It seems you've forgotten the Internet exist.😂. What I mean is its very easy to find an app/site where there are native speakers and speak with them. Exchange languages. Intercambio idiomas. Italki,Hellotalk, Tandem. In my case, using Hellotalk I've made a couple of friends and transferred to my WhatsApp. And if you're in university I'm sure it's more diverse and you may have more option of the native speakers if you look hard enough (then again, I don't live in Montana or know the situation so....) Or even people who are bilingual. Another idea, find a restaurant or some place to work part time or something where the language is spoken. Like a French restaurant or something. (like those fancy restaurants with the French expert chefs lol) And even if you don't, if you're working you get to meet other people who might not be natives of the country and therefore speak French or German or are bilingual etc.. Anyways, hope this helps. Good luck!
I started learning japanese simply because I wanted to be proficient in a bunch of languages for the longest time and since english and japanese were the most relevant languages to my personal interests I thought that it'd make sense to "just" learn japanese first so even when I'm learning other languages later I can keep exposing myself to japanese and learn more about the language just by enjoing what I like. If only things were that simple... I was really arrogant and knew next to nothing about language learning and such basic concepts like that learning a language that's closer to your own native is far, far easier than one that has nothing to do with it, besides the obvious like the writing systems being different. I just knew I learned english on my own and that was relatively easy for me, but never thought it was so close to my native language (spanish) because I simply didn't know languages could be so different from each other (the whole metaphor about having to stack up a bunch of crates first before I can even scratch the edge of the cliff I was trying to reach really hit home). In retrospective, I should've started with an easier language for me, like italian, but I've already been doing this for a little over 2 years now so I'd rather go all the way through with this first, as I feel that I've come really far and I'm not too far from real fluency now, though at least I'm enjoying the process and appreciating the language for what it is, that is, after I got over my own antagonistic relationship with it like Matt mentioned in the video.
Nate's spanish is pretty good but I might correct him at 16:23 when he says "you can't say I'm scare in spanish" actually you can say "yo estoy asustado" and is literally the same, obviously you can also say what he said "tengo miedo" but it's more like "I have fear" so "miedo" is more like "fear" rather than "scare" good example though.
I only have a few Japanese friends but I found it is harder to become friends with them but once you are friends it feels really close because you know they are not like that with everyone, I found similar things with some friends from HK or Taiwan at least compared to western countries that seem a lot more open and friendly when first meeting people. Really interesting conversation though, I love Nate's energy
His story is so cool. I live in metro Detroit so no one I know speaks Spanish but a TONNN of people speak Arabic and it was offered at my high school. I wonder what would have happened if I had taken Arabic in high school instead of Japanese since I heard Arabic all around me every day anyway.
As an adult you cant really acquire a language just by hearing it in the background because your brain filters it out as meaningless noise. Thats why active immersion works so much better, because your brain figures out that what you are hearing is important and starts decoding it slowly over time. If you chose arabic its likely you would have used it often but i think it is incorrect to say you would be better at it. Then again, once you start actively immersing in your target language for a little while, your brain will hear the language in the background and try decoding that at well, albeit a much slower pace.
Hey Matt. Did you delete your "how to make sentence cards in Anki" video? I just got a second monitor for that exact workflow and now I feel pretty bummed about not remembering how it works. I downloaded all of the apps needed and did all of the preparations when you originally uploaded the video, but now that I actually need to sentence mine, I don't know how to do it. Are you planning on remaking that video or does it have something to do with Yoga leaving MIA? Thanks for your help
@@HanyuuHOLO The follow the same grammatical structure of subject verb object. Switching between English and Japanese or Korean would be much more tedious because they work entirely different and use a different sentence structure (I guess I didn't mean grammar that much 😅)
@@FlowUrbanFlow Ohhh you mean the S V O thing yes you're right. I had in mind things like, the adjective comes before the noun in English but after it in Spanish, things like "John's car" vs "El auto de John", etc.
@@Mateo-et3wl It's not irrelevant because I was pointing out languages like Korean and Japanese use SOV. "I, the ball, was difficult to kick" You can't really swap to English/Spanish without having to change the sentence structure. English and Spanish are pretty interchangeable, hence Spanglish
Hey Matt, once again great video! Would you be open to interviewing viewrs who have also successfuly learned a foreign language toa very high level? I for once am a portuguese native, who has learned english and recently german to a very high level
It sucks for people at my school since I’m already fluent because I speak Spanish at my house but the course at my school I took it because I wanted an easy class but it was harder than it should have been because teachers didn’t know what they were talking about even my parents said that the Spanish they were teaching wasn’t correct
Awesome video Matt, I always enjoy these interviews. What do you think about interviewing George Trombley? You two have different, yet effective philosophies for learning, specifically Japanese
Nope. Despite the fact that Yoga and I worked together very hard on the MIA addons, Yoga is currently claiming full credit for them. He has also made dishonest videos about me that hurt my reputation, so I've decided to remove all videos advertising the addons.
Hi, how are you I hope you are safe and healthy I have a question about shadowing and adopting a language parent l think it is much better to focus on one speaker to imitate but how Can I choose a good speaker who speaks with an accent which l wanna learn if l am still an intermediate learner so l can't know if that person speaks well cause you know being a native speaker doesn't mean you speak so well or your vocabulary are great for Example in Arabic which my native language l do not recommend people who wanna learn it to choose any person, So what do you think?
A question for Nate: Have you ever read Don Quixote in Spanish? If not, it's absolute gold, I'd recommend it to you a thousand times. It's a book so great it was even included in the Great Books of The Western World collection.
@@JHuatuco surely not 100%, but it's one of those books worth learning from. I've read it in English once and then in Portuguese once more. I'll definitely reread it again once my Japanese gets high enough haha
@@The1234hgj That explains it all. Reading the Spanish version of Don Quijote is a completely different experience, and I mean the traditional version, as Cervantes wrote. It is full of old Spanish. That is the one teachers make us read in highschool in most of latin american schools. I had a very hard time reading it back then
@@JHuatuco Oh, I know what you mean. The translator of the Portuguese edition that I have comments on this aspect of archaism and how he tries to mitigate it in his translation - for example in the sentence "no con quien naces, sino con quien paces", since pascer, meaning to graze, is very uncommon in Brazil, he modified it to be "não a casta, mas sim com quem pasta". I particularly don't mind it, since the comedic aspect is kept as well as the general structure of the sentence and even the sonority. But I mean, wow, I din't know you had to read the original at school in Spain.
btw the thing where bilingual people will switch between languages mid conversation is a phenomenon known as code switching en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
@@ED-cl7nl Yeah, MIA split up and Yoga is currently claiming full credit for all the addons (despite the fact that we worked together on them very closely)
@@mattvsjapan Oh wow, this sucks... I hope you guys manage to sort this out in the best way possible. I'm fairly new to your content but I looked forward to learning using your resources. I guess the time is right to say that I really appreciate your content, hoping for the best ..!
The two languages I am studying are Japanese and Spanish. I spend majority of my time with Japanese, it’s my passion. Spanish is more of a skill that would be beneficial with customers.
@@cressmoon340 very nice. I suggest building up your French to an intermediate level before starting Japanese. Starting two languages from scratch at the same time isn’t ideal. I also took French in high school. My friends and I had an inside joke, “Je suis un velo”. We understood so little and this was kinda a joke about how bad our French was. Lol
Hey Matt, i have a quick question about anki. What Steps do you reccomend? I was trying to get some information, but pretty much every where i asked, i got a different answer
I honestly don't recommend listening to music as an effective way of building listening comprehension. Especially in Spanish when the bulk of the music most people listen so is some of the hardest to understand (reggaeton, trap).
I'm new to studying Spanish and I have shows in Netflix with both English and Spanish dub and sub. With your method, should I watch shows in English dub with Spanish sub or should I watch it with Spanish dub with English sub?
I mean, that's not wrong if your target accent is Mexican, standard European Spanish or some Andean Colombian/Peruvian/Bolivian. It's them that properly pronounce those final /s/; the rest of us just do that trusty final /h/ instead 🤭
I'm learning English bc I am BR, so Spanish is the 50% easier for me (not necessarily easy, but English now and in the future Spanish, why "portunhol" doesn't work, right? lol) (portunhol = portuguese + spanish)
This was so much fun Matt. Thanks for chatting with me! You the man
As a native speaker of the Spanish language I have to say that Nate has a native level. Period.
@@spectorven as a non-native non-spanish speaker, I can't say much on this matter so I will refrain from making any judgements of his spanish level.
I think this one is my favorite interview. I’m learning Spanish and this motivates me even more. This year because of Covid-19 I’ve lost 3 family members. I’ve been wanting to learn Spanish for the longest time. I’ve been immersing but for me it’s going very slow. I’m sure the loss of loved ones in 5 months time has a lot to do with it. I’ve been using Spanish also to kind of help me through this time and the grieving process to focus on. I was feeling badly because for about 7 months I am nowhere near being conversationally fluent like Nate. But when I look back to where I started and even where I am now, there is serious enough progress. I could make my thoughts and needs known, but it wouldn’t sound like a native speaker right now. This video centers me and gives me hope that by the end of next year; I will achieve my goal and become “fluent” in the language. Plus, I have Spanish speakers all around me and many of my neighbors are. So, it is a must I get this language conquered just to continue to be a viable part of my own rapidly changing community. Thanks again Matt!
you’re going places!! :)
Tu puedes! 😊
Aunque me hace triste oir un parte de eso, por otro lado me alegra oir que el proceso ha sido de ayuda;
My spanish was awful for a long while. If you do what is fun in the language long enough, you'll get it!
¡Tu puedes!
Where did u learn this language
- In my room
By* my room 🤣
@@mkstlz ⇁
@@mkstlz Sorry for my bed ingurish
@@Bonapartinha NOOO man u wrote right way lmao.it was a joke xD
@@mkstlz Bro hashah don't hurt my feelings
I swear that Matt's analogies are something else. He is really really good at explaining stuff with analogies.
Yeap
Normal people: "I'll learn a new language so I can speak with people from other countries in their mother tongue."
Me: "I'll learn japanese so I can play untranslated visual novels..."
Ayyy i'm not alone. I'm sure VNs are much better in their original languages anyway.
Same but with the novels of Hibike Euphonium and Monogatari
I learned french so I could understand the lyrics in the songs because the translations are so shitty.
Me: I want to learn Japanese so I can translate all 300 doujinshis that I have and the otomes
If it motivates you it’s worth it!!!
I've only just started watching but I feel like 2:12-2:15 is why some people have an "easy" time learning a new language. The very fact that they can say something foreign and be understood literally blows them away. That's a really powerful spark to begin with. Unfortunately, I don't have that same reaction so it's more of a slog for me.
I believe some people have an easier time learning languages. My wife is one of them. I believe being a good listener makes a big difference
I'm an absolute recluse, but that doesn't stop me from studying a new language. I study languages in order to be able to learn through them. For some people, it's socializing that matters. In that case, certain things are important to them, for example having as clean an accent as possible. For me, my motivation is being able to absorb the experiences contained in certain works - I love reading great fiction and philosophy books, and I don't need to have a great accent in order to do that (although I still need to know the sounds of the language and pronunciation of words well enough, or reading becomes too much of a drag). If you have a goal, but you don't focus on the aspects of the language related to that goal (or rather if you focus on the wrong ones, or less relevant ones, so to say), I think there's no way you'll be able to have much of an easy time learning it.
Two of my favourite language learning youtubers in one place! Love it.
It's cool to hear Nate constantly reference his love for Spanish because aside from the mechanical aspects of learning there is merit in loving material and consuming it over and over again and that reinforcing what we've learned. Just like how a kid growing up in their native language might rewatch a movie three times because they love the movie, from the perspective of language learning, that repetition benefits them immensely.
I got kinda fluent in English in middle school. I just watched a lot of UA-cam videos in English
nauka How do you mean? Can you please elaborate?
@@THELEGEND-so7vs Idk, Ive watched too much UA-cam to the point that I'm decent in English
Since what age u were and now ?
Same story here! UA-cam is actually a gold mine for immersion. School made me understand the rules, youtube made me actually use them and work my brain actively. 2-3 years of immersion everyday and now I'm pretty fluent. The thing is, I didn't start watching american youtubers to "learn" english, I just watched them cuz I enjoyed them. And eventually I realised "wait, I'm watching people talk but THAT IS NOT MY NATIVE LANGUAGE, that's amazing." and that's what drove me to immerse more. That's the thing, enjoying your learning process. And before you know it, you'll start understanding many things.
@@THELEGEND-so7vs I did it with German. If you make an account just for content in the target language the youtube algorithm eventually works in your favor and you get endless entertainment. Key things: 1. ditch subtitles in your native language in favor of target language subtitles. 2. be okay with not understanding. 3. do it every day
It is very weird to speak in two different languages in one conversation, switching back and forth, and realising afterwards that you honestly can't remember which bits are in what language.
That happens me to
For all intents and purposes, United States is a Spanish speaking country. I wish more of us took advantage of that fact like Nate
Yep, the second largest Spanish speaking country after Mexico in fact 😃
Spanish is so common in fact that a lot of Americans want to learn something else
I'm from the Philippines and we're moving to the U.S in two years. I started learning Spanish with the hopes of speaking with natives there!
@@jamesmccloud7535 don't some Filipinos also speak Spanish?
Due to the Spanish colonization of the Philippines
I feel passionate about learning languages too. My mother tongue is Spanish and I've been learning English for years. I love it. Now, I am trying to learn Dutch. Lovely video. You guys are so young and so wise.
Thank you for the content matt, the guest was s cool, i am learning english and i am a native spanish speaker, is so interesting to watch someone on the other side
I appreciate that you aren’t afraid to dig deeper into the why and how, Matt. Both of you are to be congratulated on your accomplishments in Japanese and Spanish. Few people achieve the level of fluency you both have.
I really enjoy your interviews, Matt. Thanks for the content!
Just now coming back to this channel for the first time in maybe a year or two. I have to say, Matt, you have impressed the hell out of me. It’s apparent to me that your understanding of second language development has attained a very respectable depth of nuance, and that you’ve matured massively since your younger UA-cam days.
Congratulations, I guess! Lol people grow and stuff-so maybe I shouldn’t be so impressed with a total stranger-but I know of very few who can seriously hang (both philosophically and practically) with regards to this topic as you so deftly can.
Not that anyone asked me, but the way I’ve gone about “developing myself” ever since I heard the advices and tips you and Katz (b/v)logged about (imperfect as they were, especially for me) are massively different from yours. Basically, I said ‘f*** this’ to getting my second or third languages to near-native level and simply focused all my energy and attention inwardly; figuratively, in this case, to my native tongue. After spending an amount of time doing so comparable to that of your Japanese study at around the beginning of your channel, I must inform you that it’s off the f***ing walls. To elaborate upon the analogy you made wherein speaking a second language is represented by the analog of performing tasks wearing gloves, while speaking in your L1 is like being bare-handed, I think the idea of trying to attain absurdly high levels of fluidity and sheer communicative flexibility in one’s L1 is much alike diligently exercising just your dominant hand and arm’s muscles daily... by sitting around in bed all day, too... make of that (and of this whole comment, honestly) what you will 👀
Such a great interview. Thanks Matt and Nate!
That interview was cool. I am looking forward next interview with Stephen Krashen. It’s gonna be amazing 😍
I've been watching Nate since he helped XiaoMa learn Spanish and I loveeee his videos, they're so positive and fun and energetic not to mention his Spanish is great. Definitely inspires me.
Just subscribed to you, Matt vs Japan after seeing you in a video from Oriental Pearl. I can't wait to explore more of your videos!
The whole "bilingual" thing (since childhood) is interesting. My community has a huge number of people who grew up speaking both English and Spanish. English is technically their second language and Spanish is their native language because that is the language they learned first from their parents, but English is their dominant language (those who grew up in the U.S. or have lived here most of their life and did their schooling here). These people typically speak Spanish at a much lower level than their English. Some never develop their Spanish and others even lose it. We also have those who grew up in a Spanish-speaking country, but became fluent in English later on. These people speak Spanish better than they speak English. Now, determining what language to speak in typically depends on the other person because my Spanish is by and large more proficient than that of both the examples because although I learned it as a second language (English is my first language), I've spoken it for 36 years and have worked as a professional interpreter for 30 years (medical and court). I also teach interpreter training programs.
Many of my students who are dominant in Spanish still find they have significant holes in their native language (Spanish) and like to speak to me in Spanish in order to improve their vocabulary and even grammar. I've found that those who grew up speaking Spanish at home, but are much more dominant in English also see me as someone they can practice with. Since they know that I love Spanish, teach it and am an interpreter, they often come to me with questions, ask me how to say certain things and have an opportunity to practice their Spanish. They know how much I enjoy speaking Spanish so it motivates them to appreciate it more. I have some friends who are bilingual since childhood and they tend to mix the two languages when talking to each other (siblings, for example), but have come to realize that they do a lot of that because they don't know how to say certain words or expressions in the other language, but have changed a lot now that they've become interpreters and have come to appreciate the importance of having a high level of command in both languages and try to challenge themselves to consistently fill in the gaps in their languages. This is especially important for interpreters.
For anyone who is bilingual, I have a revealing test for you. I created it because the bilingual people who come to me with the desire to learn how to interpret are typically unaware of the huge gaps they have in one of the languages. Out of the 100 images in the test, they often could identity the name for 95%-100% of the things in the images in one language and only 15%-30% in the other language. It really opens their eyes with regard to disparity in their two languages. You can do the test in any two languages you want because it consists of naming things in one language (100 images) and then in the other. ua-cam.com/video/YKckORm-_kA/v-deo.html
Let me know what you've discovered.
Another interesting video! I've been learning Japanese thanks to you for almost 14 months now.
Hello Matt :)
Two days ago I've been following your tutorial on how to study japanese shows on netflix and I was wondering why your video is now private. I still wanted to review some of the things but I'm glad I was able to take the time to setup everything like you showed us in this video. It was a very well made video and I'm sure it took you a lot of time to create it. I want to express my gratitude to you because I was doing this manually a while back and the words I learned really stuck in my long term memory however it was very time consuming. May I ask you why you did remove this video from your channel? Anyway, thanks for reading, have a nice day. 😊
Despite the fact that Yoga and I worked together very hard on the MIA addons, Yoga is currently claiming full credit for them. He has also made dishonest videos about me that hurt my reputation, so I've decided to remove all videos advertising the addons.
@@mattvsjapan Oh okay, I'm sad to hear that. Thank you for replying. 😊🙏
I’ve been learning French for the past 5 years. The first three were in high school, but afterwards I continued studying on my own. 6 months ago I decided to start learning German while maintaining French, as I had finally felt satisfied with my French. Throughout the whole process, I never met a French native speaker (besides italki tutors), and I doubt I’ll meet a German one either ( lets be real here, I live in Montana). It’s unlikely I’ll be able to travel to any countries these languages are spoken anytime soon.
Watching this video has made me question my motives for continuing to learn these languages.... I love French, and learning German has been really rewarding, but it’s becoming increasing harder to justify spending so much brain power learning these languages, especially when I’m not really able to see the fruits of my labor in meaningful connections with native speakers. After all, what is the point of learning a language if I’m just going to speak it to myself?? I wish Montana was more linguistically diverse....
Theres also the fact that I’m currently going through college right now, and sometimes it seems that I prioritize language learning to my classes which are more relevant to my future.
Anyone else have these frustrations ?
It seems you've forgotten the Internet exist.😂.
What I mean is its very easy to find an app/site where there are native speakers and speak with them. Exchange languages. Intercambio idiomas.
Italki,Hellotalk, Tandem.
In my case, using Hellotalk I've made a couple of friends and transferred to my WhatsApp.
And if you're in university I'm sure it's more diverse and you may have more option of the native speakers if you look hard enough (then again, I don't live in Montana or know the situation so....) Or even people who are bilingual.
Another idea, find a restaurant or some place to work part time or something where the language is spoken.
Like a French restaurant or something. (like those fancy restaurants with the French expert chefs lol)
And even if you don't, if you're working you get to meet other people who might not be natives of the country and therefore speak French or German or are bilingual etc..
Anyways, hope this helps. Good luck!
Nice interview ! Thank you
I started learning japanese simply because I wanted to be proficient in a bunch of languages for the longest time and since english and japanese were the most relevant languages to my personal interests I thought that it'd make sense to "just" learn japanese first so even when I'm learning other languages later I can keep exposing myself to japanese and learn more about the language just by enjoing what I like. If only things were that simple... I was really arrogant and knew next to nothing about language learning and such basic concepts like that learning a language that's closer to your own native is far, far easier than one that has nothing to do with it, besides the obvious like the writing systems being different. I just knew I learned english on my own and that was relatively easy for me, but never thought it was so close to my native language (spanish) because I simply didn't know languages could be so different from each other (the whole metaphor about having to stack up a bunch of crates first before I can even scratch the edge of the cliff I was trying to reach really hit home).
In retrospective, I should've started with an easier language for me, like italian, but I've already been doing this for a little over 2 years now so I'd rather go all the way through with this first, as I feel that I've come really far and I'm not too far from real fluency now, though at least I'm enjoying the process and appreciating the language for what it is, that is, after I got over my own antagonistic relationship with it like Matt mentioned in the video.
Nate's spanish is pretty good but I might correct him at 16:23 when he says "you can't say I'm scare in spanish" actually you can say "yo estoy asustado" and is literally the same, obviously you can also say what he said "tengo miedo" but it's more like "I have fear" so "miedo" is more like "fear" rather than "scare"
good example though.
Eso iba a decir!
@Xeuron yes of course, but I'm just making a literal translation of the Spanish sentence.
Fantastic questions Matt! Thanks a lot for this.
I only have a few Japanese friends but I found it is harder to become friends with them but once you are friends it feels really close because you know they are not like that with everyone, I found similar things with some friends from HK or Taiwan at least compared to western countries that seem a lot more open and friendly when first meeting people. Really interesting conversation though, I love Nate's energy
His story is so cool. I live in metro Detroit so no one I know speaks Spanish but a TONNN of people speak Arabic and it was offered at my high school. I wonder what would have happened if I had taken Arabic in high school instead of Japanese since I heard Arabic all around me every day anyway.
As an adult you cant really acquire a language just by hearing it in the background because your brain filters it out as meaningless noise. Thats why active immersion works so much better, because your brain figures out that what you are hearing is important and starts decoding it slowly over time. If you chose arabic its likely you would have used it often but i think it is incorrect to say you would be better at it. Then again, once you start actively immersing in your target language for a little while, your brain will hear the language in the background and try decoding that at well, albeit a much slower pace.
as always another cool story with awesome guest,,muchas gracias chicos ❤❤
Hey Matt. Did you delete your "how to make sentence cards in Anki" video? I just got a second monitor for that exact workflow and now I feel pretty bummed about not remembering how it works. I downloaded all of the apps needed and did all of the preparations when you originally uploaded the video, but now that I actually need to sentence mine, I don't know how to do it. Are you planning on remaking that video or does it have something to do with Yoga leaving MIA? Thanks for your help
Wayback machine
@@nauka7565 Yeah I already got the video from a guy
@ジョジョの不合理な冒険 I see
This was really amazing! Cheers from Brazil!
Opa
Loved the cliff metaphor. Makes a lot of sense.
13:53 There goes Matt being a master of analogies yet again.
you can see the khatzumoto inspiration lmao
I feel like that's because of being bilingual
I've seen the English/Spanish flip a LOT in Puerto Rico. That's a cool feature of Spanish and English sharing the same grammar
As a native Spanish and having learnt English as 2nd language I can tell they don't share the same grammar... why do you say that?
@@HanyuuHOLO The follow the same grammatical structure of subject verb object. Switching between English and Japanese or Korean would be much more tedious because they work entirely different and use a different sentence structure (I guess I didn't mean grammar that much 😅)
@@FlowUrbanFlow Ohhh you mean the S V O thing yes you're right. I had in mind things like, the adjective comes before the noun in English but after it in Spanish, things like "John's car" vs "El auto de John", etc.
Spanish has flexible word order. It's sort of irrelevant that it might be classified as a SVO language.
@@Mateo-et3wl It's not irrelevant because I was pointing out languages like Korean and Japanese use SOV.
"I, the ball, was difficult to kick"
You can't really swap to English/Spanish without having to change the sentence structure. English and Spanish are pretty interchangeable, hence Spanglish
I'm applying MIA to my japanese studies and so far its been great.
Glad you got some sleep Matt. You look much more rested.
I was never not rested. I only looked "tired" in previous videos because I messed up the lighting.
Hey Matt, once again great video! Would you be open to interviewing viewrs who have also successfuly learned a foreign language toa very high level? I for once am a portuguese native, who has learned english and recently german to a very high level
By the way! Pretty cool video!! Awesome! Super helpful!
It sucks for people at my school since I’m already fluent because I speak Spanish at my house but the course at my school I took it because I wanted an easy class but it was harder than it should have been because teachers didn’t know what they were talking about even my parents said that the Spanish they were teaching wasn’t correct
Awesome video Matt, I always enjoy these interviews. What do you think about interviewing George Trombley? You two have different, yet effective philosophies for learning, specifically Japanese
Matt, is there a rightup on the steps for setting up your learning process with Language Learning with Netflix since the tutorial video went private?
Nope. Despite the fact that Yoga and I worked together very hard on the MIA addons, Yoga is currently claiming full credit for them. He has also made dishonest videos about me that hurt my reputation, so I've decided to remove all videos advertising the addons.
@@mattvsjapan shit dude sorry to hear that. Such a waste... Please tell me he's ateast trying to cash in and not doing it for clout...
You are both incentivizing ☺️
Hi, how are you I hope you are safe and healthy I have a question about shadowing and adopting a language parent l think it is much better to focus on one speaker to imitate but how Can I choose a good speaker who speaks with an accent which l wanna learn if l am still an intermediate learner so l can't know if that person speaks well cause you know being a native speaker doesn't mean you speak so well or your vocabulary are great for Example in Arabic which my native language l do not recommend people who wanna learn it to choose any person, So what do you think?
A question for Nate: Have you ever read Don Quixote in Spanish? If not, it's absolute gold, I'd recommend it to you a thousand times. It's a book so great it was even included in the Great Books of The Western World collection.
I don't think he would be able to understand it
@@JHuatuco surely not 100%, but it's one of those books worth learning from. I've read it in English once and then in Portuguese once more. I'll definitely reread it again once my Japanese gets high enough haha
@@The1234hgj That explains it all. Reading the Spanish version of Don Quijote is a completely different experience, and I mean the traditional version, as Cervantes wrote. It is full of old Spanish. That is the one teachers make us read in highschool in most of latin american schools. I had a very hard time reading it back then
@@JHuatuco Oh, I know what you mean. The translator of the Portuguese edition that I have comments on this aspect of archaism and how he tries to mitigate it in his translation - for example in the sentence "no con quien naces, sino con quien paces", since pascer, meaning to graze, is very uncommon in Brazil, he modified it to be "não a casta, mas sim com quem pasta". I particularly don't mind it, since the comedic aspect is kept as well as the general structure of the sentence and even the sonority. But I mean, wow, I din't know you had to read the original at school in Spain.
Here in Brazil we only had to read a few tales by Machado de Assis, and not even the best ones. Schools here are a big piece of sh*t.
I listened this video at the same time that I cooked my lunch
Very cool hahaha, it could be a podcast
Why is half of the MIA site missing??
He’s making a new website
btw the thing where bilingual people will switch between languages mid conversation is a phenomenon known as code switching en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
Matt: natives won’t correct your every mistake.
Nate: 👀
But then again, it depends on every individual learner. You cant really expect someone to correct your mistakes every single time.
I'm struggling with applying the tenses in spanish.
Matt, pls make a video about your JLPT experience, what level do you have now?
I've never taken it, but I'm confident I could pass N1 in my sleep. My friend who's at a similar level literally got a perfect score.
Why did you set the Learning Japanese with Netflix + Anki to private ? :( I can't even view it again to remind myself of the keyboard shortcuts :(
I no longer want to be associated with the MIA addons.
@@mattvsjapan wait, why? Did something bad happen?
@@ED-cl7nl Yeah, MIA split up and Yoga is currently claiming full credit for all the addons (despite the fact that we worked together on them very closely)
@@mattvsjapan Oh wow, this sucks... I hope you guys manage to sort this out in the best way possible. I'm fairly new to your content but I looked forward to learning using your resources. I guess the time is right to say that I really appreciate your content, hoping for the best ..!
@@ED-cl7nl he has new site refold
The two languages I am studying are Japanese and Spanish. I spend majority of my time with Japanese, it’s my passion. Spanish is more of a skill that would be beneficial with customers.
Me too I'm in high school so I'm focusing my years on high school with French but my passion is Japanese.
@@cressmoon340 very nice. I suggest building up your French to an intermediate level before starting Japanese. Starting two languages from scratch at the same time isn’t ideal. I also took French in high school. My friends and I had an inside joke, “Je suis un velo”. We understood so little and this was kinda a joke about how bad our French was. Lol
@@gravyhippo yeah that my plan.
私はメキシコくそ雑魚です soy de tacolandia that means "im learning spanish" both in Japanese and spanish
Hey Matt, i have a quick question about anki.
What Steps do you reccomend? I was trying to get some information, but pretty much every where i asked, i got a different answer
Default steps are fine.
I honestly don't recommend listening to music as an effective way of building listening comprehension. Especially in Spanish when the bulk of the music most people listen so is some of the hardest to understand (reggaeton, trap).
I personally never found music very helpful either.
Yeah, my first language is spanish and even I sometimes don't understand what they sing 😂
@@montseglz3242 Yeah. I guess some people learn differently but I've never gotten much improvement out of music.
Try listening to Bad Bunny, I'm Spanish and sometimes I don't even know what he is singing about
Music could be seen as being good for vocabulary as it's repetitive but the words are hard to understand
Hola Nate como estas hablando en Espanol me qusta Su Espanol Lindo te Amo mucho Nate gracias su videos
I'm new to studying Spanish and I have shows in Netflix with both English and Spanish dub and sub. With your method, should I watch shows in English dub with Spanish sub or should I watch it with Spanish dub with English sub?
I would say audio in spanish with sub in english and after some time spanish with spanish sub
nice video. thank you
yes
Did you watch fullmetal alchemist brotherhood?
I'm not as good as Nate but I learned a good amount in high school. But people always shit on high school language education.
why do i love matt's eyelashes tho 👁👄👁
Matt you should try learning Spanish, I think you could get to Nate's level in a year
LETS GOOOO
Lol already a dislike after 2 min of publication wtf
Gotta hate fast
2 dislikes :(
I wonder who that could possibly be. Someone with a vendetta, a business vendetta perhaps? 🤔
@@futurez12 🤫
@@futurez12 Hmmmm.... I wonder who could it POSSIBLY be...
Omg same my “Mexican” accent I always just feel like I sound like a gringo... pronouncing every single S 😔😂
I mean, that's not wrong if your target accent is Mexican, standard European Spanish or some Andean Colombian/Peruvian/Bolivian. It's them that properly pronounce those final /s/; the rest of us just do that trusty final /h/ instead 🤭
メキシ姦 accent LOL ( I mean its a joke )
25:09 No, Japanese people are especially cold, I could've saved you the trouble, Everyone else is especially kind.
Can Matt have a conversation with somebody with our being insecure about Japan being the bigger challenge?
I want to talk to Matt hahah
I'm laughing in both languages. Haahah jajaja Seriously I'm laughing xD jajaja haah
FUCK! just lost my anki streak cuz somehow i completely forgot for one day that anki even exists -_-
I feel ya
I'm learning English bc I am BR, so Spanish is the 50% easier for me (not necessarily easy, but English now and in the future Spanish, why "portunhol" doesn't work, right? lol) (portunhol = portuguese + spanish)
It works often, you just need be aware on false cognatos between pt and es
@@jorge-lv3oq yes .. for me this is the main obstacle between similar languages
"Sure"
Im sorry I couldn't resist
Holy crap I learned Spanish for 3 years and it's like I don't know nothing lol
Never been so early
As a native Spanish speaker I think this is going to be a very interesting video.
I know no one will believe me but the Spanish and Japanese language have some similarities.
How so?
Maybe only phonetics, they are closer to japanese than english's are, but it doesn't make that big of a difference to be honest.
I love you hehe
Spanglish! Hahaha jajajaja
I think 'I'm scared` would be more faithfully translated as `I have fear`, which is [tenho medo] ou [estou com medo].
The no sabo community should be ashamed LMAO
Hey Matt im native spanish speaker and im learning Japanese let me know if you wanna do lenguaje exchange lol for real