This also fits in nicely with some research I've seen, for example: ""McQuillan (Reading Matrix, 2019) examined the vocabulary used in 22 novels written for young people (e.g. Nancy Drew, Twilight) and reported that the texts included 85% of the words on academic vocabulary word lists, and many appeared frequently enough to make acquisition of these words likely: 44% appeared 12 times or more. ""
The student is the one who is in control of what they memorize by e.g. putting it in Anki. No one forces them to memorize something like "scimitar", or "potion", or "quill", or "basilisk"... Just look it up once and move on. Though when you are at B2/C1, you'd in fact appreciate works with a lot of "specific" vocabulary. And one of the benefits of reading something you already read in the past - a lot of proper names and terms are already known for you, so they can serve as "anchors" (not always though - e.g. in French Hogwarts is "Poudlard", House names are also adapted etc.)
Great video! This reinforces my motivation to read Harry Potter in Spanish. I once had a Spanish teacher and we were debating about which words were „important“. He simply told me „Everything is important“😊
I learned English by watching/reading/playing stuff that I enjoyed. You are spot on with this video, don't worry about what kind of content you are using if you enjoy the time spent.
Same! I remember convincing our English teacher in 6th grade to let us play Runescape as an English related online activity because we argued that we would learn English from it. Back then I barely understood anything but through immersion in various types of content I would now put myself close to native level English (at least in comprehension). This is also one of the things that keeps me motivated to immerse in my other target languges because I know the method works.
Reading HP in French really helped my reading comprehension and I would recommend it to everyone. The issue with the magic words was actually that you never knew whether you were staring at an unfamiliar word, or one that was made up. I also got the impression that the flow was a bit different than native books, which I think is common with translations (trying to retain a British air perhaps). Moby Dick, on the other hand, made me question if I even know English. If you’re learning the language and reading Melville you have my respect.
I love this video. I find it very relatable. It’s also a good tip in general for religious people. I myself have been kinda returning to Christianity, and I’ve found it great to read either the saints or the Bible in Latin (or French if I feel like it), which is my main TL rn. Reading in your TL doesn’t only have to be for fun! You can do nonfiction or history or science or religion, too.
Another great video. I love the research you put into these. If you don't do the math, the nay sayers will just pat you on the head and tell you why you're wrong but I've always known that you can read just about any book in your target language and come away stronger in the language. I read the Hobbit first and then Harry Potter later when I was learning German and it worked wonderfully for me. The nay sayers will probably tell you to memorize your textbook and then go practice speaking to people. Reading books in the target language comes much much later. There's so many words you won't know after all. I'm terrible at textbooks. I can only read them for about 10 minutes at a time before I get bored and have to do something else. I still think they're good but as you can imagine it takes me a WHILE to get through one cover to cover if I finish at all. If Harry Potter is your first book in the target language, retaining vocabulary may not be so easy. I remember getting teased by my classmate that I didn't know how to say 'broom' in Japanese even though I was allegedly reading Harry Potter in Japanese. I knew the word for magic though lol. (edit) I know the word now: 箒 houki. I guess it just was not very beginner friendly.
Love the video. The advice to not read Harry Potter in your target language is one that I always thought was absurd, but I never knew the actual data. Fortunately I didn't let the conventional wisdom stop me and I read the whole series through using both the text and the audio book simultaneously. I'm now reading through it a second time with no audio, but it's taking me longer because I am splitting time between Harry Potter and the first series I've ever read that was written in my target language
@@katherinep1010 I read and listened in Spanish, it was really weird because the audio and text matched 99.9% of the time. Of course, that made it REALLY weird when it was different
@thematthewkent I was also doing Spanish, and they matched about 70% of the time for mine. It was enough of a difference for me to switch to audio only just a few pages in. Sometimes it was just a word that was different, other times it was an entire sentence.
Regarding specificity: we do not realise it, but have use micro specificity in our daily lives. The words used to communicate as a cleaner wont help much at the hair salon, even if the cleaner can engage in non cleaning chit chat. Maybe it is more an idiomatic thing at that point? Like "a little off the side" is totally idiomatic and not at all literal. Turn on the light is different to Turn the corner, and "turn it up" can have a couple meanings. Turn the page. Turn it around. One word, different meanings depending whose turn it is. Now i turn it over to you 😁
Really loved this video and definitely agree overall. Seeing the data itelf is amazing! You mention it near the end, but it's been true in my experience that this "read what you enjoy" does break down a tiny bit when it comes to specific goals. I love reading fantasty and watching video game content for example (and immerse in that content a lot since it's so fun) but I find that it doesn't really help much when it comes to things I NEED to know like goverment documents, medical appointments, and just modern daily real life niche vocab that I can do in English. I think it's because in our native lang we get a lot of "involuntary immersion" growing up, but as adults we're more selective. The upside is that learning new vocab is certaintly easier when at a high level due to that strong foundation from following what I enjoy and am able to get by with the high to mid frequency stuff. There's an interesting arguement out there that one is excluding other people's interests by immersing in what you enjoy most. That it is almost too much of an "egotistical approach", which I'm not certain I fully agree with. But I do find I can hold a conversation in things outside my interests in English well, but can't in my TL and it feels like it's due to living in a content bubble doing what's fun, but that ends up working against my goals which is to have high comprehension with other people in real life who certainly will talk about niche things outside my preffered content sphere that the majority of natives of that TL will know. It's interesting for sure...
Can you do one about Anime? It's a common thought that Anime Japanese is not real Japanese, but as someone who watches a lot of anime and actually learned the language to an advanced level I have the thought that it is almost the same, but I'm curious how close it is.
Anime Japanese is real Japanese, the problem is that Japanese has many registers, and it's hard for a beginner to pick a right register for the given situation. It's like someone learning English from GTA and then trying to use it in a business setting, except worse.
yo this channel is super dope how did i just now find this channel a few days ago this is really motivating me to stay on task with my language learning! :D
thanks! encouraging people to actually spend time with the language they're learning is exactly my goal, instead of getting you to just watch more content about language learning. Happy studying :)
@@OneWordataTime1 yessssssss a lot of the time it’s a lot of minutiae about the ins and outs of learning, and while that is valuable, it often times leaves me wanting more assurance! Your videos are like “here are some statistics that show you you can watch just about any genre and not fail! It’s a matter of time and effort, not picking the right genres! Read and watch what you want and you’ll learn the words as you go” and to me that really motivates me cuz I’m really analytical and to know now in MY MIND at least that language learning is “fool proof” keeps me going cuz it’s like…I can’t fail Understanding is only a matter of time if you stay consistent
I’m really interested in your idea of the frequency sweet-spot bucket. I’m not sure about the legend for the chart at 6:47, it seems #mentions should be along the x axis, and the number of words in the bucket along the y. The sweet spot bump feels like an artificial result of combining 10-19, 20-49 into mega buckets. Yet I agree intuitively with the idea that omitting the most frequent and rarest words is a good strategy, as those middle-ground content words will get you the most bang for your buck. I wonder if there is a way to define it more rigorously; one way I do it is to consider what percent of the text each frequency bucket of word accounts for. It feels like a logarithmic problem. On another note, my concern isn’t getting over specific vocabulary, as like you I enjoy it. Instead, nowadays I avoid reading translations, since I feel they are less authentic input than a text written in the language, despite the familiarity benefit. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on translations vs material written in the language.
Definitely a logarithm problem but even if you aggregate the 1-10 bars into a mega bucket the frequency is still lower than the 20-50 (which on second review is really more like 10-50). But yeah it was a cool pattern to notice
I'm learning Thai as I'm moving there with my wife. I've decided to learn a foundational level of words (basic nouns, verbs, etc.) with Anki, and then start reading Harry Potter and watching Thai TV shows. Your channel is great. I've subscribed! Is your main job in data analysis by any chance?
Data is just data to infer what you will so I take this with a pinch of salt. I think the reality is you need to be experiencing language to get proper coverage. Books definitely improve skill though!
Great video! Yeah -- debunks what a few polyglots have said. I've seen two that say they don't recommend the Harry Potter book for two reasons: 1) fiction is harder than non-fiction and 2) lots of genre specific words. I think your analysis proves them wrong. Most polyglots do say HP is a good method -- so just a few polyglots voicing their opinions. One thing that I recommend is do NOT start with HP!! I recommend that people build a vocab of maybe around ~2000 words first using easier material and then use HP. Otherwise, that start with HP is going to be super rough and non-motivating for many. Also, not much talk about this and people vary on using "parallel texts" but I personally think some use of parallel texts is a good method with Harry Potter. For me can help you look up (or see the meaning of words) much faster than typing them in your computer.
This is what I've been trying to figure out. I've mainly done duolingo for years on and off, and am doing one university class in spanish and think I'll be about A2 ish level by the end of it. Is that a good time to try something like HP or watching friends in spanish? What about my partner who has just started a few months ago with duolingo? We have a goal of travelling in latin America next year. What are your thoughts?
@@codypiper7252 Yes, I agree you should be close to A2 with a university course (I would say a weak A2). I think of it more in terms of "hours". In my way of thinking everything give you a certain number of hours. I don't know exactly but my rough estimates are that it takes ~40-50 hrs to reach A1, ~100-150 total to reach A2, ~200-300 total to reach B1, ~600-700 hours total to reach B2, ~800-900 hrs total to reach B2/C1, and around ~1200 hours total to reach C1. Your mileage will vary +-20% from these numbers depending on how "efficient" you are with your language learning methods. A college class, and this is rough, for me is worth about 80 hours (this assumes that you're putting about 10 hours a week into it for 8 weeks). So, for Duo Lingo I'd thing in terms of hours -- which might help. So, if you do 80 hours of Duo Lingo that's 80 hours. I finished the entire Rosetta Stone Basic course in Portuguese (took me about 80 hrs). This was a great start and basically gave me 80 hours (so about the equivalent of taking a university level course). Rosetta Stone -- got me from zero to what I felt was a very strong A1 with a vocab I estimated of around 1200-1500 words. RS was a great start. I then moved to reading books to build up my vocab (the reading method the author of this video describes -- although I don't use flashcards very much - no right or wrong just flashcards are not my thing) and slowly started adding watching videos with subtitles, and now also sometimes watch some videos without subtitles. I'm about 200 hours in and am at the point that I estimate my vocab is now somewhere around 4K (after a little over a year) and I can understand about 95-97% of what people are saying if they speak slowly. My goal for the next year is put in another ~200 hours to get in the ~7K vocab range and should be a very strong B1 -- and then one more year away from B2 (and a ~10K word vocab). If you can log in a productive/efficient ~200-300 hours (that's around 2-3 hours a week for 2 years) before you go to Latin America -- you should be at the worst a weak B1. If you can do ~600 hours (in 2 years) you will probably be a B2, a weak B2 at worst IMO. Depends on where you want to be in 2 years by how much time you put into it. It is all about staying motivated and putting in the hours.
What about historical fiction though? I watch many historical dramas or read similar stuff. And I feel like in that case more archaic words might be use (while common words still are most likely repeated tho)
Totally a possibility, which may also happen in some fantasy (Brandon Sanderson, Eragon etc.) where it feels set in the Middle Ages. Edit: that’s actually a fascinating idea to look at how OLD a word is and how that relates to how often it shows up. Or looking at word usage over time
Tip for the next video. Compare translation vocab breakdown with native speaker breakdown. To learn a language, I prefer my first book to be a translation into that language because far fewer words are rare. For the same reason, I want to read modern content instead of something from the 'classical' period of literature when vocabulary diversity was the gold standard. If I cannot do that, then my next choice is a condensed book as the condensation eliminates many of those rare words and descriptions.
@@OneWordataTime1 Basically, the vocabulary taught in English class. These will be mainly Greco-Roman words like tryst and repast. Swiss Family Robinson had many.
@@OneWordataTime1 There is another problematic topic, namely colloquial and dialectical language. A cowboy is going to misuse grammar and use alternative words like 'Reckon so.' These can also be an obstacle to reading. A good example is the original Uncle Remus stories.
How far into learning a language should we try to read Harry Potter or watch a TV show. I feel like at the beginning it would be way too hard? For example, I'm considering it in spanish after getting to around A2 level of Spanish, but would you recommend it for my partner who has just started Duolingo (75 days in) and that's all the spanish they've ever done? Am I even ready to try at my level or should I keep going with other methods for a bit longer?
Ah, Moby Dick, the most hated book I ever read! I was probably too young to read it at the time but I can't say I've hated too many books. Probably not a good choice for language learning for me
But i disagree. As a beginner these words really get in the way. Try playing Final Fantasy in Japanese (I did). From intermediate onwards, yes, good, but before that it's just too hard and specific and you can't through anything.
Magic specific words like "broom" or "midnight" haha
Very fair pushback 😂. My point in including them is that even with words only tangentially related, it’s such a minute proportion
This also fits in nicely with some research I've seen, for example:
""McQuillan (Reading Matrix, 2019) examined the vocabulary used in 22 novels written for
young people (e.g. Nancy Drew, Twilight) and reported that the texts included 85% of the
words on academic vocabulary word lists, and many appeared frequently enough to make
acquisition of these words likely: 44% appeared 12 times or more. ""
The student is the one who is in control of what they memorize by e.g. putting it in Anki. No one forces them to memorize something like "scimitar", or "potion", or "quill", or "basilisk"... Just look it up once and move on. Though when you are at B2/C1, you'd in fact appreciate works with a lot of "specific" vocabulary. And one of the benefits of reading something you already read in the past - a lot of proper names and terms are already known for you, so they can serve as "anchors" (not always though - e.g. in French Hogwarts is "Poudlard", House names are also adapted etc.)
My favorite thing about reading HP in Icelandic is watching how they translate all the exclamations and mild British vulgarities.
Great video! This reinforces my motivation to read Harry Potter in Spanish. I once had a Spanish teacher and we were debating about which words were „important“. He simply told me „Everything is important“😊
did you end up reading it? i am learning Spanish and planning to do the same
I learned English by watching/reading/playing stuff that I enjoyed. You are spot on with this video, don't worry about what kind of content you are using if you enjoy the time spent.
Same! I remember convincing our English teacher in 6th grade to let us play Runescape as an English related online activity because we argued that we would learn English from it. Back then I barely understood anything but through immersion in various types of content I would now put myself close to native level English (at least in comprehension). This is also one of the things that keeps me motivated to immerse in my other target languges because I know the method works.
Reading HP in French really helped my reading comprehension and I would recommend it to everyone. The issue with the magic words was actually that you never knew whether you were staring at an unfamiliar word, or one that was made up. I also got the impression that the flow was a bit different than native books, which I think is common with translations (trying to retain a British air perhaps). Moby Dick, on the other hand, made me question if I even know English. If you’re learning the language and reading Melville you have my respect.
Harry Potter + language learning is like a fusion of the dream concept on youtube 🌸 keep it up 👍
Thanks a lot 😊
This is way better than I could have hoped. This will definitely be changing what I use to learn Spanish. Thank you for your time!
I love this video. I find it very relatable. It’s also a good tip in general for religious people. I myself have been kinda returning to Christianity, and I’ve found it great to read either the saints or the Bible in Latin (or French if I feel like it), which is my main TL rn. Reading in your TL doesn’t only have to be for fun! You can do nonfiction or history or science or religion, too.
Another great video. I love the research you put into these. If you don't do the math, the nay sayers will just pat you on the head and tell you why you're wrong but I've always known that you can read just about any book in your target language and come away stronger in the language. I read the Hobbit first and then Harry Potter later when I was learning German and it worked wonderfully for me. The nay sayers will probably tell you to memorize your textbook and then go practice speaking to people. Reading books in the target language comes much much later. There's so many words you won't know after all. I'm terrible at textbooks. I can only read them for about 10 minutes at a time before I get bored and have to do something else. I still think they're good but as you can imagine it takes me a WHILE to get through one cover to cover if I finish at all. If Harry Potter is your first book in the target language, retaining vocabulary may not be so easy. I remember getting teased by my classmate that I didn't know how to say 'broom' in Japanese even though I was allegedly reading Harry Potter in Japanese. I knew the word for magic though lol. (edit) I know the word now: 箒 houki. I guess it just was not very beginner friendly.
Thanks man. These a fascinating enough topics that are a lot of work but I think still worth it
Love the video. The advice to not read Harry Potter in your target language is one that I always thought was absurd, but I never knew the actual data. Fortunately I didn't let the conventional wisdom stop me and I read the whole series through using both the text and the audio book simultaneously. I'm now reading through it a second time with no audio, but it's taking me longer because I am splitting time between Harry Potter and the first series I've ever read that was written in my target language
Awesome awesome. It’s staggering how much growth you can see with reading and listening when you find something that keeps you hooked
I tried to read and listen at the same time, but my translations didn't match. 😢
@@katherinep1010 I read and listened in Spanish, it was really weird because the audio and text matched 99.9% of the time. Of course, that made it REALLY weird when it was different
@thematthewkent I was also doing Spanish, and they matched about 70% of the time for mine. It was enough of a difference for me to switch to audio only just a few pages in. Sometimes it was just a word that was different, other times it was an entire sentence.
Regarding specificity: we do not realise it, but have use micro specificity in our daily lives. The words used to communicate as a cleaner wont help much at the hair salon, even if the cleaner can engage in non cleaning chit chat. Maybe it is more an idiomatic thing at that point? Like "a little off the side" is totally idiomatic and not at all literal. Turn on the light is different to Turn the corner, and "turn it up" can have a couple meanings. Turn the page. Turn it around. One word, different meanings depending whose turn it is. Now i turn it over to you 😁
Modern poetry 😂
Really loved this video and definitely agree overall. Seeing the data itelf is amazing! You mention it near the end, but it's been true in my experience that this "read what you enjoy" does break down a tiny bit when it comes to specific goals. I love reading fantasty and watching video game content for example (and immerse in that content a lot since it's so fun) but I find that it doesn't really help much when it comes to things I NEED to know like goverment documents, medical appointments, and just modern daily real life niche vocab that I can do in English. I think it's because in our native lang we get a lot of "involuntary immersion" growing up, but as adults we're more selective. The upside is that learning new vocab is certaintly easier when at a high level due to that strong foundation from following what I enjoy and am able to get by with the high to mid frequency stuff.
There's an interesting arguement out there that one is excluding other people's interests by immersing in what you enjoy most. That it is almost too much of an "egotistical approach", which I'm not certain I fully agree with. But I do find I can hold a conversation in things outside my interests in English well, but can't in my TL and it feels like it's due to living in a content bubble doing what's fun, but that ends up working against my goals which is to have high comprehension with other people in real life who certainly will talk about niche things outside my preffered content sphere that the majority of natives of that TL will know. It's interesting for sure...
Love your videos! Would you mind share the spreadsheet of the Harry Potter word list?
Can you do one about Anime? It's a common thought that Anime Japanese is not real Japanese, but as someone who watches a lot of anime and actually learned the language to an advanced level I have the thought that it is almost the same, but I'm curious how close it is.
Anime Japanese is real Japanese, the problem is that Japanese has many registers, and it's hard for a beginner to pick a right register for the given situation. It's like someone learning English from GTA and then trying to use it in a business setting, except worse.
That was fantastic, thank you for your hard work! It's so interesting to see data about these things :)
Great video as always.
STOP EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NEW ONE WORD AT A TIME VIDEO JUST DROPPPEDDDDDDDD (I love your stuff my man)
Thanks for all the work that you put into your videos.
Incredibly great video! Thank you for the work you put in!
I really enjoy your kind of content, please keep it up! ^^
yo this channel is super dope
how did i just now find this channel a few days ago
this is really motivating me to stay on task with my language learning! :D
thanks! encouraging people to actually spend time with the language they're learning is exactly my goal, instead of getting you to just watch more content about language learning. Happy studying :)
@@OneWordataTime1 yessssssss a lot of the time it’s a lot of minutiae about the ins and outs of learning, and while that is valuable, it often times leaves me wanting more assurance! Your videos are like “here are some statistics that show you you can watch just about any genre and not fail! It’s a matter of time and effort, not picking the right genres! Read and watch what you want and you’ll learn the words as you go” and to me that really motivates me cuz I’m really analytical and to know now in MY MIND at least that language learning is “fool proof” keeps me going cuz it’s like…I can’t fail
Understanding is only a matter of time if you stay consistent
I’m really interested in your idea of the frequency sweet-spot bucket. I’m not sure about the legend for the chart at 6:47, it seems #mentions should be along the x axis, and the number of words in the bucket along the y. The sweet spot bump feels like an artificial result of combining 10-19, 20-49 into mega buckets. Yet I agree intuitively with the idea that omitting the most frequent and rarest words is a good strategy, as those middle-ground content words will get you the most bang for your buck. I wonder if there is a way to define it more rigorously; one way I do it is to consider what percent of the text each frequency bucket of word accounts for. It feels like a logarithmic problem.
On another note, my concern isn’t getting over specific vocabulary, as like you I enjoy it. Instead, nowadays I avoid reading translations, since I feel they are less authentic input than a text written in the language, despite the familiarity benefit. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on translations vs material written in the language.
Definitely a logarithm problem but even if you aggregate the 1-10 bars into a mega bucket the frequency is still lower than the 20-50 (which on second review is really more like 10-50). But yeah it was a cool pattern to notice
I'm learning Thai as I'm moving there with my wife. I've decided to learn a foundational level of words (basic nouns, verbs, etc.) with Anki, and then start reading Harry Potter and watching Thai TV shows.
Your channel is great. I've subscribed! Is your main job in data analysis by any chance?
That’s a great recipe to learn. And yep i work full time with data 🤓
Data is just data to infer what you will so I take this with a pinch of salt. I think the reality is you need to be experiencing language to get proper coverage. Books definitely improve skill though!
Thank you for the great content! Always very inspiring to engage more with target language (:
What a crazy work that must have been! Thank you so much for your videos :). They are really useful.
Great video! Yeah -- debunks what a few polyglots have said. I've seen two that say they don't recommend the Harry Potter book for two reasons: 1) fiction is harder than non-fiction and 2) lots of genre specific words. I think your analysis proves them wrong. Most polyglots do say HP is a good method -- so just a few polyglots voicing their opinions.
One thing that I recommend is do NOT start with HP!! I recommend that people build a vocab of maybe around ~2000 words first using easier material and then use HP. Otherwise, that start with HP is going to be super rough and non-motivating for many.
Also, not much talk about this and people vary on using "parallel texts" but I personally think some use of parallel texts is a good method with Harry Potter. For me can help you look up (or see the meaning of words) much faster than typing them in your computer.
This is what I've been trying to figure out. I've mainly done duolingo for years on and off, and am doing one university class in spanish and think I'll be about A2 ish level by the end of it. Is that a good time to try something like HP or watching friends in spanish? What about my partner who has just started a few months ago with duolingo? We have a goal of travelling in latin America next year. What are your thoughts?
@@codypiper7252 Yes, I agree you should be close to A2 with a university course (I would say a weak A2). I think of it more in terms of "hours". In my way of thinking everything give you a certain number of hours. I don't know exactly but my rough estimates are that it takes ~40-50 hrs to reach A1, ~100-150 total to reach A2, ~200-300 total to reach B1, ~600-700 hours total to reach B2, ~800-900 hrs total to reach B2/C1, and around ~1200 hours total to reach C1. Your mileage will vary +-20% from these numbers depending on how "efficient" you are with your language learning methods. A college class, and this is rough, for me is worth about 80 hours (this assumes that you're putting about 10 hours a week into it for 8 weeks). So, for Duo Lingo I'd thing in terms of hours -- which might help. So, if you do 80 hours of Duo Lingo that's 80 hours.
I finished the entire Rosetta Stone Basic course in Portuguese (took me about 80 hrs). This was a great start and basically gave me 80 hours (so about the equivalent of taking a university level course). Rosetta Stone -- got me from zero to what I felt was a very strong A1 with a vocab I estimated of around 1200-1500 words. RS was a great start. I then moved to reading books to build up my vocab (the reading method the author of this video describes -- although I don't use flashcards very much - no right or wrong just flashcards are not my thing) and slowly started adding watching videos with subtitles, and now also sometimes watch some videos without subtitles. I'm about 200 hours in and am at the point that I estimate my vocab is now somewhere around 4K (after a little over a year) and I can understand about 95-97% of what people are saying if they speak slowly. My goal for the next year is put in another ~200 hours to get in the ~7K vocab range and should be a very strong B1 -- and then one more year away from B2 (and a ~10K word vocab).
If you can log in a productive/efficient ~200-300 hours (that's around 2-3 hours a week for 2 years) before you go to Latin America -- you should be at the worst a weak B1. If you can do ~600 hours (in 2 years) you will probably be a B2, a weak B2 at worst IMO. Depends on where you want to be in 2 years by how much time you put into it. It is all about staying motivated and putting in the hours.
Ok, tell me the truth how many languages do you have a copy of Harry Potter in?
What about historical fiction though? I watch many historical dramas or read similar stuff. And I feel like in that case more archaic words might be use (while common words still are most likely repeated tho)
Totally a possibility, which may also happen in some fantasy (Brandon Sanderson, Eragon etc.) where it feels set in the Middle Ages.
Edit: that’s actually a fascinating idea to look at how OLD a word is and how that relates to how often it shows up. Or looking at word usage over time
Tip for the next video. Compare translation vocab breakdown with native speaker breakdown. To learn a language, I prefer my first book to be a translation into that language because far fewer words are rare. For the same reason, I want to read modern content instead of something from the 'classical' period of literature when vocabulary diversity was the gold standard. If I cannot do that, then my next choice is a condensed book as the condensation eliminates many of those rare words and descriptions.
That’s a good idea, though I’ll have to do some digging for what body of words to use as a “native speakers vocabulary.”
@@OneWordataTime1 Basically, the vocabulary taught in English class. These will be mainly Greco-Roman words like tryst and repast. Swiss Family Robinson had many.
@@OneWordataTime1 There is another problematic topic, namely colloquial and dialectical language. A cowboy is going to misuse grammar and use alternative words like 'Reckon so.' These can also be an obstacle to reading. A good example is the original Uncle Remus stories.
How far into learning a language should we try to read Harry Potter or watch a TV show. I feel like at the beginning it would be way too hard? For example, I'm considering it in spanish after getting to around A2 level of Spanish, but would you recommend it for my partner who has just started Duolingo (75 days in) and that's all the spanish they've ever done? Am I even ready to try at my level or should I keep going with other methods for a bit longer?
Ah, Moby Dick, the most hated book I ever read! I was probably too young to read it at the time but I can't say I've hated too many books. Probably not a good choice for language learning for me
Hahahaha this is one of the reasons I've been hesitant to read it
Have you thought about making some videos just in german?
I have, thought it feels less general to the audience I imagine for myself. Maybe I’ll do one in the next few months 🤷♂️
But i disagree. As a beginner these words really get in the way. Try playing Final Fantasy in Japanese (I did). From intermediate onwards, yes, good, but before that it's just too hard and specific and you can't through anything.
If you used the correct microphone you would not need to hold it near your mouth all the time. It is really annoying to watch.
I see you are willing to make a donation towards a new microphone, how kind of you!
If that's rlly a problem for you just dkt watch the video lol
Interesting. I was listening to his video while doing the washing up.
i literally didn't even notice it haha
It is a good example of how stupid some comments can get on youtube. There is nothing wrong with that mic.