Essential language tips for immigrants

Summary

このビデオスクリプトでは、移民としての言語学習の重要性が議論されています。移民は新しい言語を学ぶ理想的な環境にあります。言語能力が仕事やサービスアクセスにおいて重要な役割を果たしていると示されている統計データに基づき、移民が新しい国に到着した際に最大限の努力を注ぐべきであるとアドバイスされています。また、既に新しい国にいる場合のアプローチや、言語学習の3つの鍵：ポジティブな態度、時間を費やすこと、言語の変化に注意を払うことについても触れています。

Takeaways

• 🌐 移民は新しい言語を学ぶ理想的な環境です。周りに必要な言語が囲まれ、学習する明確な理由があります。
• 📈 移民が受け入る国々は英語、ドイツ語、トルコ語などの言語が中心で、これらの言語を学ぶ必要があります。
• 🔍 移民は新しい国で生活するために、言語能力が非常に重要で、言語スキルの不足が仕事やサービスのアクセスに影響を与えます。
• 📚 移民が新しい国に到着した際、最初の6ヶ月間は言語学習に最大限の力を注ぐべきです。
• 🌱 初期の6ヶ月後、新しい国への馴染みや文化への不満が生じる可能性があり、言語学習へのモチベーションが下がるため、その期間に注意を払う必要があります。
• 🚫 移民が新しい国に到着した後、自分の国の人々とのコミュニティに関わるのではなく、言語学習に集中することが推奨されます。
• 🔄 もしも移民がすでに新しい国にいても、言語学習を再開し、新たな情熱を燃やし、自己チャレンジすることが重要です。
• 📈 言語学習は、肯定的な態度、時間を費やすこと、言語の変化に注意を払う能力を持つことが必要です。
• 📚 オンラインリソースやポッドキャスト、YouTubeなど、言語学習に役立つ多くのリソースがあります。
• 📘 移民が新しい言語を学ぶためには、小説を読めるレベルに到達することが目標です。
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 移民の子どもたちは新しい言語を学び、祖國の言語を維持する必要性はなく、個人の選択に委ねられています。

Q & A

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ理想的な環境とはどのような状況ですか？

移民は学習したい、実際に必要とする言語に囲まれているため、学習に成功するために必要な全ての要素が揃っている状況です。

アメリカ合衆国における移民が言語能力が不足していると感じる割合はどのくらいですか？

アメリカ合衆国では、移民のほぼ半数が仕事の機会やサービスの利用、新しい国でより良く機能するために行いたい多くのことに、言語能力の不足を感じています。

新しい国に着く際に移民が言語学習に注力すべき理由は何ですか？

新しい国に着く際は、言語学習に最大限の努力を注ぐべきです。初期の6ヶ月間は新しい国への興味と情熱が高まり、言語学習に有利な状況です。

移民が新しい国に着いてから言語学習を始めるのが遅れている場合、どうすればよいですか？

移民がすでに新しい国にいても、言語学習を再開し、情熱を再燃させることが大切です。自分に挑戦したり、30日間や90日間のチャレンジを設けることで、学習のモチベーションを高めることができます。

スウェーデンからの移民として話す人は、自分の言語学習の経験についてどのように語っていますか？

スウェーデンからの移民として話す人は、5歳の時にスウェーデン語から英語への移行を覚えておらず、後にスウェーデン語を再学習したと語っています。

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際に重要な3つのポイントは何ですか？

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際に重要な3つのポイントは、肯定的な態度を持つこと、時間を投資すること、言語の中で起こることに注意を払う能力を開発することです。

移民が言語学習に頼りすぎないようにすべきなどのような理由ですか？

移民が言語学習に頼りすぎないようにすべき理由は、政府主催のESLクラスなどでは十分な練習が得られず、効果的に言語を使うためには自分で努力する必要があるからです。

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際に、どのようなアクティビティに参加することが推奨されますか？

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際に推奨されるアクティビティには、テレビを見る、地元の人々と友達を作る、コミュニティセンターでの活動に参加することが挙げられます。

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際に、どのように自分の言葉や発音を懸念しないで話すことができますか？

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際には、自分がどれだけ上手く話せるか心配する代わりに、自分がどれだけ上手く聞くことができ、理解できるかに焦点を当てることが大切です。

移民が祖先の言語を維持することがなぜ重要だと考えられるのか、その考え方には何が問題があると話していますか？

祖先の言語を維持することが絶対的な良いこととされる考え方に問題があると話しており、学習者は自分が学びたい言語を学ぶべきであり、祖先の言語を学ぶことが義務であるという考え方は誤っているとしています。

移民が新しい社会で上手く機能するためには、どのようなレベルの言語能力が必要ですか？

移民が新しい社会で上手く機能するためには、日常生活や仕事で必要な全てのスキルを含む、包括的な言語能力のレベルが必要です。

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際に、どのように自分のモチベーションを高めることができますか？

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際には、自分が興味を持つこと、新しい言語で好きなアクティビティやテレビ番組、本を見つけることでモチベーションを高めることができます。

移民が新しい言語を学ぶ際に、なぜ小説を読むことが重要だと話していますか？

小説を読むことが重要だと話しているのは、それが達成された言語レベルの指標であり、言語学習の最終目標の一つであるからです。

Outlines

00:00

🌐 移民による言語学習の重要性と戦略

この段落では、移民が新しい国に住むことで言語学習に有利な状況にあると述べています。言語学習は必要で、移民先の国で働く上で重要な役割を果たします。移民は新しい国に着く直後に言語学習に最大限の努力を注ぐべきで、最初の6か月間の情熱を利用して日常会話が機能するレベルに到達することが推奨されています。また、移民が既に新しい国に住んでいる場合のアドバイスとして、再び言語学習への情熱を燃やし、自己挑戦を行い、新たなレベルに到達することが重要だと強調しています。

05:01

📚 移民と言語学習の現実とアプローチ

この段落では、移民が言語学習に取り組む際の現実的な課題とアプローチについて触れています。TOEFLなどのスコアは実力を必ずしも反映しないため、コミュニケーション能力を身に付けるためには、積極的に言語を吸収し、理解力と語彙力を向上させる必要があります。移民が新しい国で生活する上で、テレビを見る、友人を作る、地域のコミュニティセンターに参加するなど、様々な方法で自己のcomfort zoneを超えていくことが求められます。また、政府主導のESLクラス以外にも、自己学習が重要で、言語のレベルを全体的に向上させることがポイントです。

10:01

🏡 移民の言語維持と文化的継承

最後の段落では、移民が持つ言語や文化の維持に関する議論がされています。移民の2、3世代目に至るまで、祖先の言語を維持することは一般的に減少し、新しい社会に同化していくことが自然なプロセスとされています。移民が祖先の言語を学ぶことは素晴らしいことですが、それによって他の言語学習が妨げられるべきではないと主張しています。移民が英語を母国語として使い、子供たちは英語を周囲の人々と同じように学ぶことができると示唆しています。移民が新しい社会で成功するためには、彼らの言語スキルを改善することが不可欠であり、それによって彼らの生活の質が向上することが期待できます。

Keywords

💡移民

移民是指从自己国家移居到另一个国家的人。在视频中，移民被视为学习新语言的理想环境，因为他们被新语言所包围，并且有明确的理由去学习。例如，视频中提到，移民通常需要学习英语、德语或土耳其语等主要的接收国语言。

💡语言学习

语言学习是指掌握一种新语言的过程。视频中强调，移民在新国家学习语言是非常重要的，因为语言能力直接影响到工作机会和社会服务的获取。例如，视频中提到，根据美国的一项调查，近一半的移民感到他们的语言能力不足阻碍了他们在新国家的发展。

💡语言障碍

语言障碍是指因语言能力不足而难以进行有效沟通的情况。视频中提到，良好的语言能力在工作市场上很重要，而语言能力不足的移民则可能面临挑战。例如，视频中指出，语言能力不足的移民在就业市场上表现不佳。

💡初期适应期

初期适应期是指移民到达新国家后的前几个月，这是一个充满新鲜感和兴奋感的阶段。视频中建议，移民应该在这个阶段全力以赴地学习新语言，因为这段时间过后，可能会因为对旧国家的怀念而减少学习动力。

💡挑战

挑战在这里指的是给自己设定一个目标，以提高语言能力。视频中提到，通过设定如每天学习300个新单词的挑战，可以激发学习者的动力，帮助他们达到新的语言水平。

💡积极态度

积极态度是指面对困难时保持乐观和主动的心态。视频中强调，无论是在新环境中学习语言还是在生活中，保持积极态度都是成功的关键。例如，视频中提到，即使在面对语言障碍时，也要保持积极态度，寻找提高语言能力的方法。

💡资源

资源是指可用于学习新语言的各种材料和工具。视频中提到了多种资源，如YouTube、播客、在线电子书和有声书等，这些都是移民可以利用来提高语言能力的资源。

💡语言环境

语言环境是指一个人被某种语言所包围的情境。视频中提到，移民处于一个理想的语言环境中，因为周围都是他们需要学习的语言，这有助于他们更快地学习和适应。

💡母国语言

母国语言是指一个人出生或成长的国家的语言。视频中讨论了移民是否应该保留他们的母国语言，以及这是否对第二代或第三代移民有益。例如，视频中提到，第二代或第三代移民通常在家中说当地语言，这是社会整合的正常部分。

💡语言技能

语言技能是指使用一种语言进行有效沟通的能力。视频中提到，移民需要提高他们的语言技能，以便在新国家中更好地生活和工作。例如，视频中强调，语言技能不仅包括说和听，还包括阅读和写作。

💡语言水平

语言水平是指一个人掌握某种语言的程度。视频中提到，移民应该努力提高他们的语言水平，以便不成为感觉被语言技能不足所阻碍的那50%的人。

Highlights

移民是学习语言的理想环境，因为周围充满了需要学习的语言。

移民国家通常是英语、德语或土耳其语等语言环境，拉丁美洲的移民通常已经会说目标国的语言。

移民普遍认为语言能力不足限制了他们在新国家的工作机会和获取服务。

移民到达新国家时，应全力以赴学习当地语言，利用最初的兴奋感。

初期6个月是学习新语言的关键时期，之后可能会因为怀念故国而减少学习动力。

如果未能在最初6个月内学习，可能会因为对新国家的不满而更难学习语言。

即使不是新移民，也应该重新启动学习语言的计划，挑战自己。

作者通过学习土耳其语的例子，展示了如何通过挑战自己每天学习300个新单词来提高语言水平。

儿童移民能够快速适应新语言环境，而成年移民可能始终感到语言能力不足。

作者分享了自己作为移民的经历，以及父母如何成功地在新国家使用多种语言。

LingQ的创立与一位移民的故事有关，这位移民虽然TOEFL成绩高，但实际沟通能力有限。

学习语言的三个关键要素是积极态度、投入时间和注意语言中发生的事情。

即使在语言环境中，也需要通过大量听和读来提高语言能力。

现代技术如YouTube和播客为语言学习提供了丰富的资源。

作者通过使用匹配的电子书和有声书学习土耳其语，展示了如何利用现代资源。

移民应该利用所有可用的资源，如播客和有声书，来提高语言能力。

移民应该尝试走出舒适区，通过观看电视、交友和参与社区活动来提高语言能力。

不要担心自己的发音和说话方式，我们总是比想象中要好，但永远不会像理想中那样完美。

依赖政府赞助的ESL课程是不够的，移民需要自己采取行动来提高语言能力。

语言教学行业构建的复杂结构并不总是有帮助，应该全面提高语言能力。

作者反对过分强调商务英语和学术英语，而应该根据兴趣全面提高语言水平。

找到新语言中你喜欢的事物，如活动、电视节目、书籍，并享受其中。

能够阅读一本小说是达到一定语言水平的标志。

移民不应担心失去遗产语言，后代通常会说当地语言，这是正常的社会融合现象。

作者认为，如果移民家庭在家说英语，这对孩子是有益的，因为他们最终会像其他人一样说好英语。

作者鼓励移民学习他们感兴趣的语言，而不是感到有义务学习遗产语言。

Transcripts

Today, I want to talk about learning languages as an immigrant.

Now, to me, being an immigrant is the ideal environment in

which to learn a language.

You are surrounded by the language that you would like to learn,

that you in fact need to learn.

So there are very clear reasons why you should be learning the

language and you are surrounded by everything you need to be successful.

The main sort of receiving countries for immigrants are either English speaking, or

they're German speaking, or maybe they're Turkish speaking, or in the case of Latin

America, I think a lot of the immigrants are in fact people who speak the language

of the country they're moving towards.

But in any case, there are certain things that are common to an immigrant

needing to improve in the local language.

First of all, it is usually very important.

According to one survey in the U.

S., Close to half of all immigrants feel that they are held back by

their poor language skills in terms of job opportunities, in terms of

accessing services, in terms of many things that they would like

to do in order to function better.

In their new country.

So it is a serious problem in looking at some German sites.

It was the same people who have good language skills do well on

the job market and people who don't have good language skills don't.

So that's pretty obvious, but it is borne out by statistics.

So it is important to do well in your new language.

Now, one of the things I think that is important as an immigrant is that

when you arrive in the new country, that's when you should put the maximum

effort into learning the language.

Now, I realize a lot of immigrants are already there and struggle with the

language, and I'll get to that later, but if you are just arriving in a new

country, that's when you need to totally focus on getting as good as you can be.

I took that attitude when I moved to Japan.

First six months, I said, I'm going to become functional in Japanese because once

I get functional in Japanese, then I can.

Coast from there on, take advantage of being in a country

where everyone speaks Japanese.

Sometimes you hear people say, well, first little while I want to get used to the

country, uh, connect with a local, uh, community of, of expats from my country.

Not a good idea.

There are various reasons for this, but one of them is that

there is this phenomenon, which doesn't necessarily always apply.

But which is based on a pattern where in an initial sort of six months or

so, when we arrive in a new country, everything is new, different,

exciting, unreal, like a dream.

It's fun.

That's when you want to start in on the language because very often after

those initial six or nine months, there's a reaction that sets in.

Where we miss the old country.

We're annoyed by some aspects of the local culture.

And so we're less motivated to learn.

And this apparently can go on for a year or for 18 months.

And after that, we sort of settled into a period where we accept life in the new

country just is, that's the way it is.

It's neither exciting nor does it annoy us.

It's just is.

And, uh, that's how we live.

So.

The danger is that if you don't make that special effort in the first six months

to take advantage of the excitement of being in a new country, you might be

then turned off learning the language because of the negative things or the

things you miss about your old country.

And then you settle into a pattern where you are living perhaps with community of

expats of people who speak your language and you're no longer making that effort

to improve because make no mistake, it takes a lot of consistent effort to

improve in the language to get to a level.

where you are not amongst the 50%, for example, in the United States of

immigrants who feel that they are held back by inadequate language skills.

So what if you're already in the country?

You're no longer in the situation of having just arrived or you can take

advantage of that initial period of enthusiasm that I talked about.

What do you do then?

Well, my advice is start again, restart, refresh, try to generate

some enthusiasm, much like I do at LingQ when I have like a 30 minute 30

day challenge or a 90 day challenge.

Right now I've challenged myself to learn 300 new words a day in Turkish.

And I'm doing it.

I'm maintaining that level.

I started with 8, 000 words and I'm now at 16, 000 words after six weeks.

And I hope to get over 30, 000 words of Turkish before my

wife and I travel to Turkey.

Challenge yourself and you will get to another level.

In that language.

Don't accept that you're forever going to be in that group of people

who, you know, suffer from facing language obstacles in the new country.

I am also an immigrant.

I emigrated with my family in 1951 from Sweden, and you can

see me here in Sweden and then on the boat, and now I'm in Canada.

And I have no recollection as a five year old of transitioning

from Swedish to English.

And I promptly forgot my Swedish, although I've relearned it subsequently.

And my parents, of course, they lived in Canada with their accent, with

their less than native like accent.

English language skills, but they also spoke French and other

languages and they did just fine.

So it's obviously easy for the child to quickly sound like a local.

And the sort of adult immigrant is always going to be feeling inadequate

in their language skills, but they can be at a level where that

needn't be an obstacle for them.

And it wasn't an obstacle for my parents.

Link has always had a connection with.

Immigrants.

I was very interested in the situation of immigrants.

Back when we started LingQ, I was learning Cantonese.

I heard about an immigrant who had his money stolen at the airport.

We hired him because we were doing IT work.

He was an IT person.

We thought, at the very least, we'll help him out for a few months.

And then a If it turns out that he's a good employee, well, then

we've found a good employee.

And, uh, in the end he went back to China, but we developed LingQ.

And we realized at that point that all the TOEFL scores and other

scores are relatively meaningless.

He had high scores in TOEFL, but he couldn't really understand

what people were saying.

He couldn't really communicate effectively.

He wasn't connecting.

Now, in terms of how to learn, essentially.

It doesn't change.

It's the same three keys.

You have to have a positive attitude, you have to put in the time, and you

have to develop that ability to notice what's happening in the language.

So even when I was in Japan, surrounded by the Japanese language, I had to put

effort into making sure I could take advantage of being in that environment.

So, Lots of listening, lots of reading.

I was always listening in my car.

I was always reading.

And of course nowadays, you can access so many more resources than I had in Japan.

There's YouTube, there's all kinds of podcasts, there's all kinds

of resources available online.

Like here I am, I'm learning Turkish now, in Vancouver, and I went to an

e-book, audiobook website, worked my way through their Turkish.

Signed up, created an account and bought myself an e-book audio book.

So it's matching e-book audio book, okay?

I don't know how long it's going to take me to get through that book.

It'll take me a long time.

It's not ideal because the audio of that whole book is not going to match the

e-text that I've imported into LingQ.

In an ideal scenario, that book would be in five minute segments, all time stamped,

where I can focus in on the vocabulary from each of those five minute segments.

And we may one day at LingQ get to the point We're using AI, we can

break all imported content into five minute segments, or the user can

determine whether he or she wants three minute or eight minute segments

and somehow tie the audio to it.

We're not there yet, but I can go through the book in LingQ, Saving Words and

Phrases, and I can listen on my iPhone where I have this app from Storytel,

Turkish source for audio and eBooks.

It's just a small example, but someone who's in an English

speaking environment has audible.com, has

you know, unending resources, podcasts on every imaginable subject.

And so there's so much more in the way of resources that the immigrant

can use to improve because the focus still has to be on getting

the language in you, increasing your comprehension level and vocabulary level.

the language.

All the good things that we talk about on this channel and of

course which are embodied in LingQ.

Of course once you're in the country you can watch TV, you can try to make friends,

you can go to the community center, get into activities where you have common

interests with some of the local people.

All of these things to push yourself outside of your comfort zone.

Remember, don't worry about how you sound and how you speak, we are

never As good as we would like to be.

Never.

If you're waiting for that moment, when you're going to be so good

that you can just confidently speak, you'll never get there.

You're always kind of not as good as you'd like to be, but never

as bad as you think you are.

We're better than we think we are, but we're never quite as good as we

would love to be in an ideal world.

I also would caution people against being too reliant on sort of government

sponsored ESL classes twice a week.

That's not going to do it.

I see so many immigrants

who go to their ESL class twice or three times a week.

It's a nice social situation.

They make friends from their same language background.

It's comforting maybe, but it's not going to get them out of their comfort zone into

being able to use English effectively.

You have to do that on your own.

That ESL classroom is not going to do it.

You have to do the kinds of things that I talk about doing in order to

get to where you operate comfortably in the language again, so much of the

sort of language teaching industry builds up complicated structures

that in my mind are not very helpful.

One of these is the Canadian Language Benchmarks System, which divides language

levels into 12 levels defined so finely that I can't tell the difference between

level 4 or 5 And you can check the link that I'll leave here and see if you can

make sense of what that difference is.

You cannot define the level that's required to be a bank teller or a checkout

clerk in a supermarket or any other job.

It's always Less than that and more than that.

You need an overall level in the language.

You have to build up all your skills.

By the same token, much of this emphasis on business English and academic

English, I'm very much against that.

You have to improve your whole level in the language,

following things of interest.

And this is another important thing.

Find things you like in the new language.

Find things you like in the new community, activities or TV programs

or books, and spend your time with things that you enjoy doing.

And you do have to be able to eventually read a book, because that's an indication

of the level that you have achieved.

I often hear people say, I have trouble speaking, but I understand, or I can read.

But most of those people will never read a novel.

You have to get to where you can read a novel.

As an immigrant, if you really want to not be in that lower 50 percent,

you have to bring your whole level up.

Another thing that comes up with immigrants is this idea of not wanting

to lose their heritage language.

And statistics show that by the second or third generation, the

children of immigrants, or the children of children of immigrants,

speak the local language at home.

And this is held out as such.

Somehow a bad thing.

I don't see it as a bad thing.

I see it as a normal thing.

That's what happens.

That's what North American, for example, society is.

People integrate.

If the third generation immigrant wants to learn the ancestral language, fine.

But if that person doesn't speak the ancestral language, that's also fine.

I forgot my Swedish.

Then I went after French.

I was very keen on French for a while.

Then I learned Mandarin and Japanese.

All these other languages.

And I eventually got back to Swedish.

And even my parents who came from Czech and Slovakia, I got back to Czech.

In other words, people will learn the languages that they want to learn.

There shouldn't be some kind of an obligation to learn the ancestral language

as if this is some sort of absolute good.

Even here, I often hear Persian speakers tell me that I speak Persian better

than a lot of young generation children of immigrants here in Vancouver.

So be it.

I think to put so much emphasis on maintaining the

ancestral language is wrong.

Nothing wrong with learning the ancestral language.

If that's what the learner is motivated to do.

But if the learner is more motivated to learn another

language, go for that as well.

And I always consider it a good thing when the immigrant family

speaks English at home, because the children are going to do fine anyway.

They will learn to speak English as well as all the other people.

People surrounding them, but the parents are the ones that face difficulty

with their poor language skills.

And if they get in the habit of speaking English at home, at least

some of the time, I think that also helps them and improves their

prospects in the new society.

So I hope that was helpful and, uh, look forward to hearing your comments.

Thank you.

Bye.