This Professor Has Studied Language Learning for Decades
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- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
- I review the video by @loistalagrand titled 'Professor reveals how to REALLY learn a language (science-based)'. This one is worth the watch.
Twitter: / laevildea
Facebook: / evildeavlog
Discord: / discord
Join the Discord community :D discord.gg/tPbQTtU2Zt
I like frequency lists but based on analysing specific content I am planning to consume rather than a generic list that would work for everyone.
Yeap, that's a good idea.
Love your videos and passion for language learning! I watch everytime you drop a new one!
Thanks a lot!
his anki decks are in a huge portion AI generated, I remember he meintioned that in one of his interviews
Ugg. If I want AI I can generate it myself
Great review as always. One thing I would say about the keyword method is that - based on my experience - it's quite useful early on when you're learning the names of concrete objects, but not very useful for learning abstract concepts, verbs etc.
That makes sense
notes for myself.
1. initially learn words in context. Once the sentence patterns are down, possible to focus on just words.
2. words can be explicitly and implicitly available, i.e., recall and instant recognition. No term for words that you can remember in a minute or figure out the meaning of
3. best methodology is a mix of all of them. Evildea prefers to pick and choose content to learn. Then to fill in gaps when necessary. I just take everything as it comes because I don't know what is useful in the target language.
4. Best Anki decks created from authentic content you have found rather than those created by another. For one thing, more likely to be words you will use and reinforce.
5. Keyword technique (13:20) - just mnemonics, not roots or cognates. Evildea is not a fan because he has tried using the mental image. I do not. Say marškiniai (marsh-ki-NAY) which means shirt in Lithuanian. He would probably do something like 'marsh cinema' where I would do something like 'march in a [shirt]' neither marsh nor cinema has anything to do with a shirt, but I can picture myself marching in a shirt, i.e., the leap is far shorter. But, no, I cannot memorise a hundred words a day using any method, period. Just not that smart. Evildea points out that Chinese recycles many, many sounds and so the characters are a better mnemonic.
6. Ideal learning programme - be in country (I prefer being able to retreat to a comfort zone which I can't do as a guest abroad); 80% engaging with content, 20% flashcards (I have to work too hard with memorising, so I am the opposite, 20%-80%) + tutors for direct feedback (I don't trust the feedback.); content trumps frequency lists because lists are for all situations but your content is not, thus using a freq. list means no reinforcement in the content and the most common words (e.g., pronouns, prepositions, etc.) you are going to learn without memorising them because you will encounter them so often; Evildea points out that Chinese characters are like root words and cognates in Indo-European - the more roots you know, the faster you pick up new words.
7. In hindsight, you'll always find ways you could have learned the language more efficiently.
8. balance between doing it right (perfect pronunciation and grammar) and just doing it. (27:34)
9. Evildea likes the video aside from the Anki decks, which have problems
There's a book online which I think nails how languages are actually learnt very well. This book is actually about the design of an AI based mathematics tutor called MathAcademy.
It posits, with lots and lots of research, that learning mathematics is the result of doing the maths over and over again until it becomes automatic. I think it's the same for languages, because all both this Anki and the Comprehensible Input approaches are doing is providing the same sorts of problems over and over again until they become automatic
Yeap, learning can be boiled down to repetition until automation at the end of the day.
Hey, would you mind sharing the name of the book? Sounds fascinating!
@@Ablofluido The Math Academy Way by Justin Skycak
@@renaissanceman419 thank you!
I'm reminded of that scene in the movie _My Fair Lady_ , when the great language expert concludes that Eliza _must_ be a foreigner, because her English is just too good for her to be a native speaker.
Haha, that’s amazing. I’ve never seen that movie but now I want to lol
When you said the method can cause you to overlap, the term I know that as would be "Bleeding through" In memory competitions we use Mind-Maps or Memory Palaces to help reduce it. Doesn't mean concepts wont bleed through one another, but it can keep you on track when studying. After a while I'd assume finding those words in context better. Might be better to use this concept for a sentence. So the 10 words would be a phrase, which you'd place it in a Memory Palace as 1 set of 10words. So take your house. The doorway to enter could be "Seek truth, embrace change, learn deeply, love fully, live wisely." for a philosophy learning style or "Could you please help me carry these bags inside today?" Using this with a memory palaces seem to reduce the "overlap"
You're definitely in the Paul Nation camp and no doubt he believes his research is correct, but Jeff McQuillan has also been doing the rounds and he's also been saying the research has been done and pure incidental learning is the way to go. Who to believe?
Got any good videos to recommend from this Jeff McQuillan guy. Im always open to listening to totally different points of view.
@Evildea
Here are a few videos I watched about Jeff's approach on the Future Multilingual channel:
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Here's one from Lois:
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@@Evildea He did one with Future Multilingual talking about the efficiency of flashcards. I can't leave a link for some reason.
@@Evildea Here, a couple of those:
Fundamentals of Second Language Acquisition: A Crash Course (READ NOTES).
Global Expert Explains Comprehensible Input- Dr McQuillan.
Expert reacts to UA-cam language learning advice. (Dr McQuillan).
Flashcard learning is NOT efficient.
Flashcards develop knowledge you can't use.
The white girl you’re talking about who speaks Chinese is Oriental Pearl
Yes! She’s the one I was thinking about. Thanks for that!
Ugh, Oriental Pearl... Used to watch her, until she moved to Japan. It's surprising for me, that she lived 10 years in China and she still applies her American views on Japan. It shows you can learn a language and still suck at cultural approach. :/
@@marikothecheetah9342I haven’t seen much of her content. What’s she do regarding American values in Japan?
@@Evildea she: was surprised Japanese people in Tokyo won't come up to her and chat, she was surprised that hafus (half Japanese) aren't widely regarded as full Japanese, that in trains or subways Japanese may not sit next to her as a gaijin.
These are inherently Japanese cultural aspects, not that I praise them - they just are, like American loudness. It's just she focused so much on negative aspects, and is surprised she isn't welcomed with open arms, like she would be in the U.S.
@@marikothecheetah9342 Having watched her content myself I think you are blowing that a little out of proportion
And a third comment because why not.
25:00 I've been at japanese for around six years, and I only started to properly learn characters around two or three years ago... And I feel that knowing the words for the characters I'm learning and just having to connect the word with the character has sped the process up a lot, and it's been way less painful... Though I'm only now nearing the critical 2000-ish characters, and up until now actually reading was annoying as balls (I learn in bursts, so it's not like I've been consistent with it).
To contrast though, I learnt a bit of chinese some years ago and I did it through LingQ, and I found that the way the system works with audio + text + popup definitions + marking which things you've seen before, made getting used to the characters a pretty quick process, and I was around 600 after a few months... (That kind of workflow could also probably work without LingQ, you'd just need a few different tools)
But in any case, as vital as characters are in Chinese and Japanese and as much as I love them and wouldn't change them for a phonetic system by any means, they are also annoying af to learn, lol. Google Lens and popup dictionaries are a godsend though.
I agree. I love them. They make the language unique as hell. But by god are they a pain in the ass.
Listening to this one as I got ready for the gym this morning I decided to try an experiment that I'll pitch in the Evildea discord in a bit.
To answer your question, for me, frequency lists are really boring. Ugh. I really like doing fun apps that teach you the basics, and I listen to beginner level podcasts. Once I'm in the upper beginner level, I enjoy playing games I've played before in English (I try to always choose games like Skyrim and Detroit Byeond Human and ones who have localized voices in the target language). And I keep doing flashcard like apps alongside that. I personally never get around to making my own decks, but premade decks help me actually fill in vocab I didn't learn through other means. Once I'm intermediate, like I am in Spanish, I really get into native level content and choose games I haven't played in English before.
Yeap! That all sounds way more fun then slowly consuming an entire frequency list haha
As the truism goes: for learning a language, ten or fifteen minutes of study/practice every day, is far more effective than a three or four hour session once per week.
(Applies to many other things as well, from mathematics to physical fitness)
Yeap 100%
The only thing you Have to do, is to do what you are Willing and Able to do.
True, although if you’re only willing to do something for an hour a week you’re probably going to make no progress. Which is why I advocate for the grind.
Nouns in isolation (fine)
Fruits, Vegetables, Family members, Room items etc.
Tricks
Various tricks and grammar rules and methods (depending on the language)
They can make languages much easier.
Little discussed subject.
Similar words
Some languages have similar words
dry (English) / droog (Dutch) but means nothing to someone inexperienced in the language.
Exposure (in translation)
rustig / calm
restful (English) / rustig (Dutch) but translated as calm (in your text or subtitles)
Old obscure words
Some languages have words that are more obscure old fashioned versions
doll (English) / pop (Dutch) poppet
Indonesian root words and affixes
Affixes are used a lot
Knowing this makes it a lot easier (like Esperanto)
Yeap all good ways of approaching it.
Paul Nation has some wounderfull lectures that are on UA-cam. He talks a lot about extensive reading using the most common words. Going from the top 100 and progressing to the top 5000 words in a language.
Man that’s quite the grind he does there!
If I couldn't use mnemonics I wouldn't bother... Meanwhile not one single person ever who sings along to any song they know, sat down and learnt the song with mnemonics. ... I can sing along to the song Boa Sorte by Ben and, um, Vanessa? Half english half Portuguese. I cannot speak Portuguese and only know she sings Good Luck and Special people. Only due to many listens. I can sing fully to the song Oracao by Bando Mondo Cidade or whatever. All I know is that Oracao means prayer and Coracao means heart. But I learnt the song because the film clip give me such good vibes I have watched it probably over a hundred times. .. I think a distinction needs to be made between conscious use of a word and subconscious. Mnemonics is a conscious trick. We do not do that in our native tongue.
Listening to music you love is definitely an excellent way to learning. There’s a couple of Chinese songs I haven’t learned yet but I’m slowly starting to pickup as I’ve listened to them so much.
Respectfully, I think you’re missing one key aspect of useful loci / mnemonics methods.
The goal of mnemonics is *not* to recall that silly story for every word every time you encounter it while using a language. Ugh. The goal of mnemonics is to move a word from short-term memory into long-term memory, where the mnemonic story isn’t needed any longer!
The way one does that with the loci method is by something called “the rule of fives” (if I recall the name correctly, lol). One doesn’t just make a silly story for each word, one then places that story in a specific location, and revisits that location at bare minimum five times (say, one hour, one day, one week, one month, three months, something like that), but likely more times.
Once a word has been recalled via loci between 5-30 times, depending on the word and how “sticky” it is, it’ll move, as if by magic, one day to long-term memory, and you can erase the silly mnemonic. It’s no longer needed. Implicit recall has arrived.
This revisiting-the-location method is exactly the SRS forgetting curve thing that Anki does. The only difference is that whereas Anki or paper flash cards require physical devices or objects, loci can be practiced entirely in the mind, while doing other things (like driving).
Using this method, I’ve learned ~300 Esperanto words and ~500 Latin words in the past couple months! I also use it for Chinese characters, but the method is slightly different for that (I’m at 350 characters so far), and I do use an SRS system to test myself on those, since characters are visual as well.
Anyway, just passing that along.
I used to be an actor and used this method along with many others such as memory palaces to memorise stuff before. Esperanto is probably a language where realistically you wouldn’t need to put in much effort to memorise word lists due to how similar it is to English and other European languages. A simple etymological lookup usually does the trick. Where this method falls over massively is with languages that have very divergent sounds. Check out some of the people learning Chinese in the comments here. They pointed out the same issue I did. So it’s very language dependent.
@ Fair enough. My “encoding” speed for EO is double that of LA (more complex words, plus I encode colors for conjugations, props for gender, et al.).
Based on your aside, if you haven't heard of it, you'd appreciate the Feynman technique.
Got any video recommendations?
@@Evildea Hey! Not sure the Feynman technique really fits your jam. It's better for learning complex concepts than language. The short of it is really simple - explain something in simple terms to find your gaps in understanding. I think it would need heavily adapted for language study. Probably better for learning a complex topic in a foreign language, and the focus becomes puting the concept into simple terms. I recently started doing research in my foreign language, and I find it really helpful. Here's a video if you want one: ua-cam.com/video/IDB_3S1ezsc/v-deo.htmlsi=UFIZKkQdq2lxjcbG
Good review
Thanks!
I subscribed!! we at a million yet ???
Just a few more subs yet haha
15:25 I agree. By the way, Evildea's voice is echoing. Please attach your mouth to the Sure SM7B like Joe Rogan does.
I’m getting a proper mic
His decks are also $200 lol, absolutely outrageous. AI or not, they look very poorly designed with way too much info on the back imo.
$200??? That just seems like whale bait
Jesus balls on fire that’s expensive as hell!
If you get to a million subs, I want you to learn High Valyrian (constructed language from Game of Thrones). 🙂
Haha, I still remember my video on Dothraki I did ages back :)
Re: frequency lists:
Well really -- I have to ask... just how far are you going to get in your chosen language _without_ learning the most common words?
In fact, isn't practically every beginners and intermediate course / text book going to have been quite consciously and deliberately put together with that 30% or 50% of most common vocabulary firmly in mind? And aren't you going to encounter those words repeatedly while "consuming massive input"?
Frequency lists work to a degree. First 1000 words are good after that they generally become domain specific. However, even those initial 100 words usually represent specifics of grammar like “the”, “a”, “an” which are better to learn in context.
@@Evildea The five most important words for any traveler to learn are 'yes', 'no', 'please', 'thank-you', and 'bathroom'...
... Of course, it _might_ also be wise to also learn some basic number words and two-three dozen other essential words and useful phrases 🤔
@ if you’re single you might want to throw in a few flirtatious words in their :p
@ Both essential _and_ useful 😉
Why would you want to use "keyword" to name this method? Very strange. I've tried it too, but with q and j as the starting sounds in Chinese, I can't map it to anything in my languages, so I gave up. And I think mapping words directly to their meaning while exploring them in context is much more sustainable.
There is another video from this channel that inspired me much more to add to your grind method:
ua-cam.com/video/9Jpsk-9ttAo/v-deo.htmlsi=OXf7gQ6jWHWZUUeO
You probably might not agree, but at least it's some new insight.
Im not sure wither why it was called keyword, maybe there’s some linguistic reason. Your experience is exactly my own.
I've got a frequency list for Greek still on my phone. First it's organized alphabetically. Why wouldn't they organize it by frequency. It's like, "A, an, and, as" They're all too similar at this point to keep straight so I dropped it pretty quick.
I had written my own program to gauge "comprehenisble input" I have a database of words I know, then I can copy in say an article. It'll say "You know 85%" of the words. Here's the words you don't know, organized by how often they show up.
Kaj mi memoris ke vi promesis (menacis) ion al Esperantujo kiam vi atingos milionojn da abonantoj. Haha ua-cam.com/video/0p7iZriQTAY/v-deo.html
Us programmers all be out here writing our own systems haha. A long time ago I wrote something similar to what you wrote as well :D and that also sounded like the worst frequency list ever haha
PS: Holy shit I totally forgot about that Esperanto video. Bahahaha.
Now yoyr starting to discover language UA-camrs i do not know lol
I go based on recommendations so we are both discovering them together :D
And yes, both frequency lists and word lists for tests are insanely boring beyond the 1000-1500 most common words. For those first ones you'll get great bang for your buck and they are VERY useful... But after that, the words usually become specific to news or sports or politics or all sort of stuff I'm not interested in and that would naturally come for me way later, so they become a chore.
Even this dude's Anki decks are 8000 words... And I swear that after the 2000th word you'll probably meet a word that's useful for you once every five or ten cards, and that just sounds excruciatingly boring.
Yeap 100% agree.
Hi, can you react to "10 Myths About Language Learning DEBUNKED" By Metatron's Academy. Would love to see you react to it.
I’ll add it to the list :)