Hi there! Steve Kaufmann here.
I haven't done a video in a long time. I feel a bit guilty, so I've decided to do one.
I've got my cross-country skiing shirt on here.
It's been warm, but I went in for a swim in the ocean
and it was pretty chilly in there.
Bracing, maybe 17 degrees Celsius.
I'm not sure quite how cool, but it sure cools you off, so...
Sitting here in the evening I've got my extra little sweatshirt over my t-shirt.
Today, I want to talk about efficiency in language learning.
And... Because I've been thinking about what,
you know, my learning activities here in Czech.
I started Czech about 5 weeks ago.
I've been working primarily at LingQ. I did find some material at home.
An old phrase book which I listen to.
You know, I find once you get going in the language you tend to .. buy things.
I was in a bookstore, I saw this small
book on learning Czech - I don't have it around here - but it was actually
from a group called the "Hippocrene Books",
it's "Beginner's Czech - with 2 Audio CDs".
So, I went through that.
And... So I had an interesting sort of...
You know, observation.
On the one hand, if I listen to the easy content in this beginner's Czech,
and they read the text once at normal speed,
and they read it very, very slowly
and then they record all the vocabulary, you can listen to that.
And, of course, the first time you listen to it,
it's wonderful to be able to understand everything, because most of my listening,
I guess it's been divided into two types:
I have the kind of material that has been created by our members at LingQ,
most of which is, I would say, half of which is easy and half of which is not easy;
and then I've been listening to radio Praha - "Rádio Praha";
and I've been listening to this audiobook "The Good Soldier Švejk".
And, of course, the radio Praha is difficult, "The Good Soldier Švejk" is also very difficult.
But I have text for that, so I read it on LingQ, I save my linQs.
I can review them on my iPad,
I can sit down and go over them in iLingQ many, many times and then I listen when go running.
So, all of this is just kind of letting all the language wash over me,
occasionally reviewing them in flashcards, so...
And I've been doing mostly that.
And plus, also reading this Czech newspaper, which I have online here.
Which I go to everyday and read.
I use the lingQ bookmarklet, and bring it in.
This is "ČeskéNoviny"
And so, here is an article:
"Pařížská konference žádá odblokování zmrazených libyjských fondů".
Yeah, I understand that all.
And I read the article and there's words that I don't understand
but they want to unblock the frozen funds and so forth.
But...
And that is just text that I read,
but I find now that I'm able to read these newspaper articles, you know, not too bad.
You know, my text in LingQ is covered in yellow
highlighted words, because these are the words that I've looked up
and I've seen again and again and again
and they gradually starting to stick.
But in "Rádio Praha" when I listen to those articles,
even though I read them and save the words and study them
when I hear it, you know, I understand 30-40%.
So, when I got back to this
"Czech for beginners" - whatever it was here -
with 2 CDs, the "Hippocrene Books",
of course, I understood just about everything.
But there's still a few words that I didn't understand.
And then I would read the text.
And I: "Ahh, now I understand. Yeah, it's that word,
I didn't quite make it out when I was listening
and now I listen again and I still listen.
So, then I started saying to myself:
Am I better of to spend a lot of time
trying to nail down everything in this 10 lessons,
in this beginner book?
Or, am I better of to continue
listening "Rádio Praha", reading the transcripts,
saving the words and phrases,
going of to the Czech newspaper "ČeskéNoviny",
and reading more articles about Václav Klaus
and his latest outrageous statements or whatever?
And, doing a bit of "Švejk" and just letting the words wash over me.
Because on the one hand, doing that
has seen my vocabulary really, really increase.
Where I... It's... I feel that I've done...
I've achieved greater progress in Czech in 5 weeks,
than I can't remember in any other language.
Now, it helps that I did Russian, the structure is very similar.
The vocabulary is surprisingly, you know,
50% Russian, or similar to Russian, 50% quite different.
So, and then in the end, I ended up saying to myself, you know,
it's very satisfying to try to nail stuff down.
Listen to this... this video here... or this video...
This audio CD here.
And listen and listen and listen, until I nail down every word,
and I nail down every expression and I listen to it over and over.
But at the end of that I haven't learned many words.
Because I know most of the words in this book.
This whole beginner book, basically I'm there.
You know, there aren't many words that I don't know,
even though I don't necessarily pick them up every time when I listen.
So I, you know, I kind of think you need to do a bit of both.
So, I don't mind doing a bit of the simple whatever.
Listening to it a few times, it helps pick up on some pronunciation issues,
it helps on some structure issues.
But I'm inclined to spend more and more of my time
simply exposing myself to the language through interesting content.
LingQing it, seeing the number of yellow words increase,
and of course, in LingQ the yellow it's a dark yellow
and as you've known a little better
it becomes a lighter yellow and a lighter yellow still.
I think that process is bringing me more words.
And it's bringing me more familiarity with the language.
And so... And then...
I remember when I studied Chinese,
I basically convinced myself that
the most important thing in language learning was efficiency.
Because efficiency means intensity.
The more efficiently you learn, the more intense your learning is.
And I felt that 40 years ago when I was studying Chinese that...
And I did my Chinese... Did the "British Foreign Service Exam" whatever in...
After 9 months of studying. The other people took 2 years.
But I did it, you know, completely like a fanatic.
I was at it 5, 6, 7, 8 hours a day.
And I felt that I learned it better.
Because I did it so much more intensely
than these other students who were taking their time at it.
And so, I got hung up, really started to think about efficiency.
I developed my efficient way of learning characters.
And what I thought was an efficient way of learning the language,
which was to ignore the grammar explanations,
which was to notice the patterns and get enough content in me
so that these patterns start to become natural.
This was my way of becoming efficient in Chinese.
So, talking about efficiency.
When I think of what... how I did it. What I had to do
when I started with Russian at LingQ, 3-4 years ago.
It was so slow and clunky and...
At times it took 7, 8, 10 seconds to save, you know,
go to the dictionary, get the meaning, bring it back.
And now it's all there with a mouse over.
Like, LingQ itself has become so much more efficient.
And, so therefore in the older less efficient LingQ
I did relatively more listening, because
A- it's easier to do, it's more pleasant;
because it was a bit of a chore to save lingQs in LingQ.
Whereas now, I find myself doing more and more reading in LingQ.
Because I'm able to cover interesting content,
it's the challenge of reading something new and interesting.
I still listen when I go running, I listen when I'm in my car.
But I'm doing relatively more reading.
So...
I mean, everybody...
It's going to depend on what you like, what you like to do.
But I find it quite efficient to go after new content.
Especially if I'm familiar with the context,
because it's almost easier to understand something that talks about,
I don't know, Libya and the meeting in Paris about Libya,
when you understand the context, than to read some
artificial content that has been written about so and so visiting
their new found friends in Prague and what they are having for dinner
and all kinds of... The names of the Czech dishes and stuff
which is too early for me. I'll worry about that when I get to Prague
and I want to order something in a restaurant.
So, I think it's more efficient to, again, to focus on content of interest,
meaningful content and to push yourself to acquire more and more words.
And to allow this words and phrases and structures
to become natural through a lot of exposure.
With LingQ, maybe sliding a bit more towards the reading that I have done in the past.
And then occasionally to go back to something very simple
to kind on get some grounding in some very basic structure,
very basic vocabulary that you might have
maybe not, you know... Really, you know,
learned it properly as you could have on the first or second pass over, so...
It's just a general rant here on efficiency and
also to update you on my Czech learning.
I'm going to continue my input activities in Czech.
And perhaps in a month or so, maybe start talking
and see where I end up after 3 months.
See if I'm able to hold up my end of the conversation
in a few months from now.
So, thank you for listening.
Bye for now.