The biggest mistake people make in language learning.

People stay with the beginner book or course too long. They think they have to stay with it until they understand it or can remember everything. Forget it. Believe me you will. You will need to keep on going back to the beginner book. In the meantime, get into interesting authentic content. Do it as soon as possible, even if you don't understand it very well. Don't even use graded readers.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• language learning
• graded readers
• learn languages online
• LingQ
• input based language learning.

[StarduskLP]

What does one when one works all the time and doesn't have the time? I imnagine you are retired. So what do you do when you are tired, coming home from work?

[lingosteve]

@StarduskLP 70-80% of my language learning time is just listening while doing other tasks, doing the dishes, driving, jogging etc. So an input based approach to learning is ideal for busy people. The important thing is motivation.

[jjay75]

I find this true with everything but Chinese, which I'm learning now. The seperation of written and spoken forms requires a different approach in my opinion, but then it seems that everyone who has learned Chinese has used a completely unique system!

[lingosteve]

@jjay75 In my experience, there was no grammar to speak of in Chinese. Yes I had to spend a lot of time on learning characters, but still my main thrust was to get as much reading and listening exposure as possible.

[barsorrro]

Great video and great advice. I think everything boils down two two main things: 1. languages don't bite (... even tongues don't do that :)), 2. you should be learning a language only if you want to have some use of it (and passive use is still a use), so why put that off for some indefinable future and satisfy yourself with the boring repetitions over and over again! :)

[lingosteve]

@barsorrro Yes, passive use is a great use, and often the most practical if we are studying away from where the language is spoken. And if our passive, (comprehension) skills are strong we will be able to speak when we need to.

[mefunny]

How many hours should we stay in beginner material till we move on?

[ninthyaga]

Great advice, strong finish. The last couple sentences stood out for me:

"The objective is not to fully understand something after one or two months. The objective is to understand a lot after eight/ten months. And in order to do that, you've got to push yourself past that comfort level of the beginner book."

I often wonder if I should be completely internalizing all the material before moving on, but feel it's too time-consuming and boring to not progress through the material.

[fncischen]

I vouch for the interesting content, as I practice my Chinese character memorization/recognition with books within my profession written in Chinese and English (side to side!). It really makes it much more memorable.

[saesuicide]

This is so true! Our Russian teacher forced us to read 100 pages for the semester. It forced us to actually LEARN the language! Going back and forth from the dictionary and the book annoyed the hell out of me but guess what? Those words or certain phrases stuck in my head so I eventually didn't have to keep referring to the dictionary! I was so happy and loved that method!

[LifeFirst]

This is basically what I did. My Japanese learning was restricted to only textbooks, and I wasn't learning much cuz they're godawfully boring. So one day I just bought a 500 page detective novel and read the whole thing. It was hard as hell at first. But I managed to finish it, and from there.....reading novels now are just a breeze.

[junonfraserst]

Thank you sir! This is the most useful video ever!

[StarduskLP]

@maths82 I think it is, of course it is desire as well, but some people have a knack and others don't. I wish to improve my beginner's level Korean so I will probably join his site in a few days and see how it goes.

[maths82]

@Imyirtseshem

Yes, it probably is better to use the correct words and say what you actually mean.

[maths82]

@StarduskLP

Well, I'll admit that people most likely get better at learning languages, or anything, the more that they do it... But I'm not totally convinced about innate gifted ability. But yes, check out the website.

[StarduskLP]

@maths82 That is more a sign of his own individual ability than it is for anything else. I am willing to try his website for a while to see if it is worth it.