How to REALLY learn a language in 2024 (a linguist explains)
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses effective strategies for learning a new language, debunking common myths and misconceptions. It emphasizes setting clear, achievable goals tailored to how you intend to use the language, focusing your study on relevant skills like listening comprehension or conversational ability. Creating an efficient study plan matters more than the number of hours invested. The speaker advocates active recall and generation of the language versus passive methods, spaced repetition of vocabulary, and accountability through shared goals.
Takeaways
- 😀 Set specific, realistic goals aligned with how you intend to use the language
- 👍 Tailor your study method and materials to your goals, interests and learning style
- 🚀 Focus on actively generating the language instead of passive activities
- 🧠 Use techniques like spaced repetition and mnemonics that leverage how memory works
- 📈 Consistent daily practice for short periods is more effective than long inconsistent sessions
- 🎯 Identify gaps in your knowledge and target those weak areas
- 🔁 Interleave new material with review of old material for better retention
- 🤝 Consider finding an accountability partner or community to support your goals
- 😊 Don't stress if you forget things - make connections and the words will stick over time
- 👂 Listening comprehension and pronunciation benefit passively from hearing a lot of the language
Q & A
What are some of the benefits of learning a new language?
-Learning a new language provides benefits such as opening yourself up to new cultures, cuisines, ways of thinking and experiences. It also provides mental health benefits by combating mental aging and decline.
What are some good first steps when deciding to learn a new language?
-Some good first steps are: decide why you want to learn the language; set a realistic short-term goal like 3-6 months; determine what aspects of the language you need to focus on to meet your goals.
What are some effective language learning methods?
-Effective methods involve active work like writing down words from memory and correcting mistakes, attempting to generate your own sentences, and identifying gaps in your knowledge to target practice.
How can you incorporate memorization techniques?
-You can use pneumonic devices, tap into sensations and emotions to activate the amygdala and hippocampus, and use spaced repetition to review vocabulary over increasing intervals.
How much time per day should you dedicate to language learning?
-Experts recommend at least 20 minutes per day. One lesson within an app may not be enough. Build a habit of short (20 minute) but frequent practice sessions.
How do you choose the right language learning program?
-Consider your goals, personal preferences and needs. Programs like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone work for some but not others. Find something you enjoy and can do consistently.
What makes for an effective study plan?
-An effective plan has realistic goals tied to a timeframe, accountability checks, scheduled breaks, a combination of new material and review, and extra activities on top of main coursework.
What adjustments can you make for neurodivergent learners?
-Play to your strengths and don't set impossible expectations. Build in dopamine rewards. Recognize hyperfocus benefits but the need to understand social language cues.
How can you track and meet your language goals?
-Set SMART goals, timed checkpoints, measures of progress, and accountability through peer or community support. Reflect on effectiveness of current approach.
What is the role of forgetting and reminding in language learning?
-Forgetting and being reminded reinforces memorization - don't beat yourself up. Create sense connections when relearning words to lock them in.
Outlines
😀 Setting goals for language learning
The first paragraph discusses the importance of setting clear goals when learning a new language. It talks about different reasons for learning a language, like enjoying media, traveling, studying or teaching. It emphasizes defining what "fluency" means to you and aligning your studying methods with your goals.
😊 How to actually learn a language
The second paragraph examines effective language learning techniques. It states that passive studying like flashcards or short lessons is not enough - active practice like writing sentences or describing things in the target language leads to better memorization. It also discusses how techniques like mnemonics, spacing out review sessions, and reducing stress can improve learning.
📚 Choosing the right language course
The third paragraph gives recommendations for selecting a language course aligned with your goals and learning style. It states that consistency with short daily lessons works better than long occasional study sessions. It talks about the pros and cons of popular programs like Duolingo, Rosetta Stone and italki based on different learner needs.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡goals
💡fluency
💡active learning
💡comprehensible input
💡mnemonics
💡neurodivergent
💡hyperfocus
💡social cues
💡accountability
💡iterative
Highlights
Diving in without clear goals means aiming at nothing. If you aim at nothing, you're certain to hit it.
Knowing your goals allows you to tailor your study and get the most value aligned with your intentions.
Set a 3-6 month goal, then revisit to determine what linguistic subdomains to focus on.
If your goal is listening to music but you practice restaurant small talk, you're setting up a struggle.
Active learning like attempting to generate sentences works better than passive studying.
Hearing a lot of the target language helps with pronunciation even without practice.
Memory is a process of forgetting and being reminded. Don't beat yourself up.
Review vocabulary after a day or two rather than a bunch in one sitting.
DuoLingo provides good structure and spacing if you can do an hour a day.
Find a course meeting your goals and personal preferences. Consider enjoyment.
YouTube crunched numbers showing shocking progress from one easy German video a day.
Languages are huge but finite - one textbook covers all possible grammar.
Set a realistic goal and timeframe with breaks built in.
Interleave old and new material. Study actively by generating language.
Add conversations once you have a foundation. Explain your goals and struggles.
Transcripts
by now you've had a month to try your
New Year's resolution of learning a
language you've watched all the YouTube
videos you've probably purchased an app
or a course and you've had four weeks or
five how's it going now that the
honeymoon's worn off are you ready to
learn how to really do it so here's the
deal maybe it's your New Year's
resolution maybe it's something you've
always wanted to do maybe it's something
you've started on a whim and you're
getting serious about it whatever your
reasons learning a language is a
wonderful experience with tremendous
benefits not just opening new cultures
Cuisines ways of thinking and
experiences but also providing benefits
in terms of mental health and well-being
and combating mental aging and decline
but there's an overwhelming and
bewildering flood of choices for a new
learner and it's only gotten more
overwhelming especially with the
addition of AI powered apps what's best
textbooks teachers apps AI when should
you study how often my goal in this
video is to use my experience as an
academic linguist and a recreational
lingu file and language learner to
demystify language learning if you're
just starting out this video is for you
but it's also for those of you who maybe
have some study or even a few languages
under your belt you can always refine
your skills and get more efficient and
effective this video might not make you
fluent in three months but it will give
you a better understanding of how to get
to your goals in a realistic amount of
time without spending your wheels and
going in circles and making no progress
I'm Dr Taylor Jones I've got a PhD in
linguistics and I speak a handful of
languages this is language
Jones real quick this video is about how
to think strategically about language
learning and how to execute a straty to
achieve your goals it's not going to
tell you which app on the market is best
or why the answer is never an AI tutor
whose ads feature grammatical errors in
English in this video I'm going to
discuss setting and managing achievable
goals the subdomains of language
learning learning science memory
analyzing language and developing a
program that meets your goals in a
finite amount of time before you set new
goals anyone should be able to
communicate effectively in a target
language especially the most common ones
you are statistically likely to be
interested in in about a year you should
be able to shock natives with your
amazing skills in a few months and a few
years of study should put you at the
level of an educated confident speaker
but almost everyone you talk to will aim
for fluency and everyone will Define
fluency differently stick around to the
end and I'll discuss language learning
for neurod Divergent folks too before I
forget please take a moment to like And
subscribe if you haven't already a lot
of us Dive Right In without any clear
goals in mind and that's fine but it's
worth recognizing that what we're doing
is aiming at nothing if you aim at
nothing you're certain to hit it
dabbling just to get a feel for a
language and see if you like it want to
study it more seriously is totally fine
it's like skimming a book but let's say
you've decided you want to learn I don't
know Vietnamese an important question to
ask yourself before you start is why is
it just to enjoy music movies and other
media to read books at home to go visit
in country and successfully navigate
booking a hotel or ordering a meal or
planning tourist outings and so on to
study in a university to teach in a
university for those of you learning a
language right now can you say what your
goals are go ahead and leave me a
comment and tell me what they are then
at the end of this video maybe reflect
on whether what you're currently doing
is aligned with them knowing what your
goals are will allow you to tailor your
study to how you intend to use the
target language and get the most bang
for your buck right up front you can
re-evaluate and adjust later but if your
goal is to listen to pop music and you
choose a course that's focused on
teaching you how to make small talk in
order in a restaurant you're setting
yourself up for a struggle once you know
your goals just set a three or six-month
goal and then revisit you can then
determine what linguistic subdomains you
need to focus on I'm planning a trip to
a place where I can speak Persian I've
dabbled in Persian off and on out of
general interest but now I want to speak
it notice I didn't say I want to read it
I didn't say I want to write calligraphy
or read poetry maybe I will later but
right now I want to be able to speak
politely to strangers order food and
make small talk this means I need to
focus on listening comprehension of
spoken Persian how it's actually spoken
not formally I'll link a video at the
end about the difference and I need to
focus on being able to actually generate
my own sentences for Persian there's an
added layer since communicating directly
is not communicating effectively and I
will need to learn T politeness
formulations that are largely routine
often metaphorical and always dramatic I
hope your hand doesn't hurt may your
head if I spend my time analyzing the
grammar of formal written Persian and
focusing on reading the Persian script
like with this book I will not reach my
goal in the couple of months I've given
myself even if I study Persian every day
this is a great textbook it's just not
the right approach for me I'll discuss
selecting a course in just a few moments
whatever you decide once you decide you
still have to actually learn and there's
so much misinformation out there about
learning my favorite genre is someone
who's neurod Divergent lecturing viewers
about how their approach is the best
when it works for them and only them
bonus points if they describe it as
dominating or crushing their target
language sure dedicating 8 hours a day
to a Fugue state of likely autistic
hyperfocus will absolutely provide you
with results just like someone else is
clearly providing you with room and
board but don't recommend that to
others like it's a realistic approach
and you just cracked the code on
language learning a combination of
neurod Divergent Sant hood and a life of
leisure is not exactly an actionable
recommend a for most people engaging
though it is to watch so how do we
actually learn it's not by rereading and
highlighting a textbook or mindlessly
going over flashcards or doing a single
two-minute lesson on Bird app once every
3 days if we remember to do so the
learning part has two components
language learning specific and general
domain learning and I'll address
memorization as well there are arguments
about how we actually learn languages
since the 1970s or so the older grammar
translation method has been on the outs
but it's still inarguably quite
effective for some you'll hear Arguments
for shadowing which is just repeating
out loud after native speaker as much as
possible you'll hear Arguments for just
getting a high volume of comprehensible
input where you can get the gist of
what's going on and there's only one new
thing you'll hear Arguments for sitting
down and dominating French for eight
hours a day with targeted speaking
practice followed by detailed
self-criticism for every day for two
months the truth is that the jury still
out and different approaches work for
different people what we do know is that
there are certain things that definitely
work it's clear for instance that a
large volume of of things you're
interested in in your target language
help with passive memorization and
confidence in the language it's clear
that hearing a lot of your target
language helps with pronunciation even
in the absence of targeted pronunciation
practice but also if you want to produce
the language Say by speaking then it's
also clear that the kind of learning
that is active work rather than passive
mindless activity really works this
means not just looking at your word list
over and over again I'm talking to me in
college studying Mandarin but instead
walking away back to a blank sheet of
paper and writing down all the words
then comparing seeing what you forgot or
got wrong correcting and doing it again
this means taking sentences you hear or
learn and either adding to them or
swapping out words in the same sentence
frame this means attempting to generate
sentences especially if your goal is
involve speaking that use what you've
learned or that identify gaps in your
knowledge and then filling in those gaps
and attempting to use the new words or
structures as much as possible so for
instance I try to describe the world
around me or my thoughts or a story or
whatever and my target language when I'm
away from my study materials on a walk
or on the subway that is attempting to
actively generate your target language
identifying your gaps and weaknesses and
then filling those with targeted
practice that enables successful
memorization some people benefit from
pneumonics I hate them and I hate that I
benefit from them because they really do
work they're like deadlifting one thing
that's known to work is skipping the
prefrontal cortex and activating your
amydala and hippocampus you do this by
tapping into Sensations like smell fear
and more generally arousal sexual or
otherwise sex violence fear and
physicality help lock in new words and
Concepts I've sometimes joked about
naughty neonics on my live streams I
remember words like nazq nearby tanho
alone and shalvar trousers with
obviously pureal associations is it dumb
yes is it potentially offensive
absolutely does it work 100% for those
wondering the trousers thing is a
strained pun relating to a character and
Foundation whose No Nonsense attitude
General capability and inventiveness
ability to defend herself and Grace
Joneses features make her a Sci-Fi Crush
I'm talking Sor Harden and you can
figure out the association on your own
time paradoxically a lot of evidence
also points toward language learning
happening best when we're not stressed
self-critical or cognitively taxed this
is the principle behind Michel Tomas
whole shtick which is deeply ironic
since he learned four languages while
literally surviving the Holocaust
breaking out of concentration camps and
fighting in the French Resistance and
later hunting Nazis so clearly not being
stressed as a bonus but not a total deal
breaker leave me a comment if you want
me to talk a little bit more about
Michel doma's insane life story and how
it affects his language learning method
by the way lastly and I'll recap in just
a moment memory is a process of
forgetting and being reminded so don't
beat yourself up for forgetting a word
just savor it and make some connections
whether sense emotional pneumonic or
otherwise it's better to review
vocabulary after a day or two than to
come back to it a bunch in the same
sitting so I'll learn vocab in one short
sitting test myself on it later
sometimes just mentally walking around
like I said before revisit later in the
day then go back and review it trying to
generate everything I've learned first
the next day I might hit the same vocab
in 3 days after that 5 days after that
you can Outsource this with spaced
repetition software but the learning
still needs to be active you make a
flash card with a missing piece and you
generate the missing piece on your own
before you look at the back of the card
you hear me before you look at the back
of the card that's also for college me
some resources do this for you dualingo
does if you're doing at least a skill a
day 5 to 10 a day is better but that
could take up to to an hour one lesson
within a skill per day you're not seeing
enough material or reviewing frequently
enough to retain anything up to this
point I haven't said which program is
best by the way that's because you'll
need to figure out what meets your goals
and your personal preferences for some
doing an hour of dualingo a day is a
breeze and the organization of the
course and spacing of the material is
taken care of for you for some that's
excruciating torture and they'd rather
eat glass and for some dualingo doesn't
even have the language you're interested
in I've recommended dualingo tentatively
Rosetta Stone I talkie and lingo pie in
the past but the key is to find find
something that you enjoy and can do a
little of ideally 20 minutes minimum
every day if that's Asim Miller pimsler
more power to you most of the Chinese I
know in reverse order is from a
specialist degree in East St in studies
at the University of Toronto from doing
Rosetta Stone while working at one of
their kiosks and the overwhelming
majority is from Reading grammars like
EFA Link in the description and hanging
out at pretty angel nail salon and spa
shout out to n with that thick fanf
accent one word at a time on YouTube
recently crunched the numbers and
demonstrated that you can get shocking
far in 3 months of just watching a
single easy German video a day on
YouTube for 100 days if you're learning
German that is the keys to pick a course
that meets your goals so for my Persian
goals that's the rootage colloquial
Persian and an an deck of my own making
with their audio and not the root fary
shittin ass course and definitely not
thaxton's Grammar of Persian and
probably not Rosetta Stone but I could
make an argument for it especially if
their format appeals to you and you want
to speak more formally for Italian I'd
probably just speedrun dual lingo and
watch TV on lingo Pai for anything I
want to speak I definitely use it talkie
or some similar platform unless I had
friends I could practice the language
with in real life and who didn't mind
that but really take a moment to
evaluate your options and consider
whatever you learn while doing so part
of getting a taste of the language the
final thing to keep in mind is that
languages are simultaneously huge and
finite I recreationally read grammars of
languages and they're all a few hundred
pages and cover everything you could
possibly want to know about the grammar
of a language literally any possible
sentence structure you could ever
imagine or ever be confronted with and
it all F in one book get yourself the
right vocabulary for your goals and a
consistent study method that works for
you and your golden lastly I promis I'd
mention a few things for the neurod
Divergent among us this is obviously not
going to be a one-size fits all solution
if you have a diagnosis or even a self-
diagnosis play to your strengths don't
set yourself up for failure if you have
ADHD don't make impossible plans and
imagine hyperfocus will get you there
the process of actually memorizing
things is tedious in a way that can be
physically painful for ADHD folks so you
have to build in a dopamine hit while
you're doing it and a consistent habit
maybe it's 4 p.m. study with coffee and
a cookie and you ensure you get at least
one new word in even if you're just
reviewing that day have a loved one
drive the bus in terms of sitting you
down to actually study just get that
dopamine if you're more on the autism
side of things recognize that your
hyperfocus will allow you to blast
through memorizing a tremendous amount
of language or in the case of academic
linguists a lot of declarative knowledge
about language but you're going to need
to put in more effort to really
understand the unspoken social cues when
someone says your Chinese is good
paradoxically that means your Chinese is
not good if it were they wouldn't be
commenting on it at all when a farsy
speaker responds to a generic compliment
with offering you their belongings it is
not a real offer there's a social script
they're following and expect you to
follow too we sometimes forget that
there's more to language Than Just Words
so to recap if you want to make fast
progress here's what I would do I'd set
a realistic goal that won't burn me out
for a realistic time frame with breaks
built in for instance I want to be able
to know the basics in chaten Persian in
two months as I mentioned this is doable
for me because I've already studied some
I already know how to read but I'm also
working in transliteration to make it
easier for myself I'm working through a
17 chapter textbook at the rate of two
chapters per week I'm doing this by
setting aside at least 20 minutes a day
for study and review I'm interleaving
old and new material I'm actively trying
to generate language whether by
answering exercises or attempting to
come up with my own with the exception
of my live streams I'm not studying for
more than 20 minutes at a time but if I
can squeeze in a few 20- minute chunks
at different times in the day I will
I'll be adding ey talkie lessons once I
have a foundation and I'll explicitly
tell my tutor my goals what resources
I'm using and what is giving me
difficulty I've also given myself a
challenge speak in toneles and I have
accountability a weekly live stream in a
community that knows my goal and is
supporting me to meet it if I feel like
trying out a different approach
listening to Chai and conversation for
instance listening to Persian music
playing farsy language podcasts in the
background these are in addition to my
main course of study and I do not count
them as anything other than icing on the
cake so to speak I'm going to see this
textbook through completely before
moving on but that's because I've
determined it's a great resource for me
and my needs and my personality in this
moment and if I totally fail at
communicating in two months I've still
learned a ton of the language and that
challenge will let me know where to
refocus my energy if I want to continue
if you have the time and the energy you
can set outrageous goals Lord knows I
know that I've been doing it on my
channel but whatever you do don't make
your goal I want to be fluent in French
and go to France someday make it I want
to reach B2 and go to Paris next summer
so I can visit the Eiffel Tower and get
a croissant at the specific buong I saw
on Instagram thank you to all my patrons
you can become a patron at patreon.com
language Jones you can also support the
Channel with super thanks right here on
YouTube or super chat in my live streams
if you like this video YouTube is very
confident you'll probably enjoy this one
as well until next time happy learning
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