Let the words overflow

[TheNonsubscribable]

I think if you memorize the words then read something with them in it you have a better chance of learning, because you already know the meaning, then all you have to do is figure out how they fit together.

the material becomes more and more comprehensible

[TheNonsubscribable]

I think you could memorize the words in a list just as easily as you could from looking at them from different contexts again and again. it's pretty much the same activity the difference is when you look at them in context you get a better grip at how they fit together. but you're still looking them over again and again getting them in grained in your head.

[lukebarnes3585]

The grammar guys make me laugh actually, I have a two year old brother who is learning his first language, and he knows nothing about grammar and his pronunciation is terrible at the moment.

But we keep overflowing him with words and he keeps picking the odd one up.

[Chezrocksall]

Steve great video!

[Chezrocksall]

@phonicsquest Stop thinking that you are better than anybody else and go get a life

[phonicsquest]

In the 1950s and 1960s, Chomsky developed the idea that each sentence in a language has two levels of representation - a Deep Structure and a Surface Structure. The deep structure was a direct representation of the semantics of a sentence, and was mapped onto the surface structure (which followed the phonological form of the sentence very

[phonicsquest]

closely) via transformations. There is a common misunderstanding that Deep Structure was supposed to be identical across all languages (thus creating a Universal Grammar), but Chomsky did not in fact suggest this in so many words. However, Chomsky did believe that there would be considerable similarities between the Deep Structures of different languages, and that these structures would reveal properties common to all

[phonicsquest]

languages which were concealed by their Surface Structures. It is arguable that the overriding motivation for the introduction of transformations was simply to make grammars more (mathematically) powerful, rather than to explain the origin of syntactic variations between languages. Though the ability of a grammatical theory to generalize across languages is fundamental to its worth in Chomsky's view, some of the definitive

[phonicsquest]

literature on early transformational grammar (e.g. Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 1965) emphasizes the role of transformations in obtaining the necessary level of mathematical power in the syntactic component of a grammar, which, in his opinion, the structuralist grammars popular at the time did not have. Chomsky also emphasizes the importance of modern formal mathematical devices in the development of grammatical theory.

[Wakako77]

I think she must have been talking about "particles" rather than "participles". Those are the really challenging things to learn in Japanese. Ex. ha, ga, no, ni, wo, and etc.

[NV417]

you said "i can't say that their way is wrong" and you can't say that their way is worse or bad either because, like you said, certain people learn certain way.

[acromel]

全く同感です。

[loki2504]

C'est vraiment une excellente vidéo !!! Il n'y a pas de méthode universelle mais je pense que tout le monde doit apprendre une langue avec comme support un contexte. En réalité, tout le monde apprends à parler sa propre langue en contexte (familial, estudiantin,...), pourquoi est-ce que les non-natifs ne le feraient pas? et s'obstineraient à apprendre à travers les bouquins de grammaire et les vieilles tables de conjugaisons...

[qzchris]

Am I the only one who doesn't like sake? Tastes like banana-flavoured vodka, warm or cold. :( Better keep drinking it...I suppose it's an acquired taste!

[yuriythebest]

definitely agree. A while back, once after english class (this is in ukraine so most can barely speak it) a fellow student inquired why I don't know any of the english "rules" yet can still speak it fluently. I was like "well do you often remember russian/ukrainian rules when conversing?" he was like "yeah, definitely", another friend barged it "ok then, say one rule"- he couldn't.

[NephilaClavata]

I also like the overflow of vocabulary thing, and Lingq helps me a lot with that actually. It's better for me to do the overflow-thing than sit down and try to force myself to learn 50 words. I just let it come naturally, some stuff I'll get some I won't. Sometimes I'll be watching TV or listening to music in a language I'm learning, and I'll suddenly understand a word that I didn't quite get before. It'll make this "magic jump" into my active vocabulary and then I'll truly have learned it.

[NephilaClavata]

I don't know what a participle is either, and truthfully, it doesn't even matter to me for what I'm doing. I can know what to do and how to say something without knowing the official name for it. You could probably even walk before knowing what you were doing was called "walking" in English. I can know to attach particle X here to make noun Y have such and such meaning to it, but whatever that process or thing is called doesn't matter as long as you know to do it in the first place.

[xnightxamex]

i dont know whether or not to thank you steve, cuz i find the more i use lingq and learn stuff in that sort of fashion, the less im able to tolerate traditional learning in school (especially vocab lists omg get them awaaaaaaay). makes it kinda hard to tolerate my classes ;D

[Theta910]

I liked the last few seconds of your video Steve! haha It made me laugh.

But I totally agree with you in this video. I link words all the time in LingQ and I find myself linking the same words the next week or in the next few days. It just reinforces my attentiveness and I find I learn them better.

P.S.: I enjoyed your posts on your blog on the introductions to Chinese, Japanese, and French. They got me interested in learning Japanese!

[ImAlwaysR1ght]

I've never heard of participles in my Japanese studies. Hell, I don't even know what a participle is in English.

[AstAMoore]

@ImAlwaysR1ght

Heh. "Have heard" is a participle.

[shearoberts]

I've already weighed in my thoughts on the blog, but I'd just like to comment that I haven't found any うに that I like yet. Now give me some うなぎ and we're in business. The 酒 sounds about right too. Steve do you prefer cold or warm 酒？

[lingosteve]

cold, definitely. Stop making me thirsty!

[ever4one]

Great video, steve. I agree that everybody has their own system of learning languages so it's not right to tell people to do follow just one way of learning, but unfortunately that's what a lot of schools and companies are doing.

[osanago354287400]

Thanks steve. There are many ways to learn a language and this one works for me too. I enjoy listening, reading, watching, writing, speaking, immersing, keeping the focus on enjoying and exploring.

When I went to rome last year I had a wonderful time communicating and learning the flows of the language as well as cultural immersion.

I just found a japanese writer that I truly enjoy and i look forward to reading more of her work now that i am enjoying kanji!

[lingosteve]

I have vague recollections of having come across the term in high school French. However, from the time I got interested in languages as a 17 year old, to this day, it is not a term that I have dealt with. I must confess I do not know what it means.

[xnightxamex]

i dont think it really matters as long as you know the equivalent in your native language. like you dont need to know what the present perfect tense is, you just have to know that its the same as "have done" in english. i dont know why they bother.

[milootis10]

You don't know what a participle is?!