I was about to go outside, right?
But I tried to sit down out there and it's just too windy. It's just too much noise
so, I was worried this microphone was gonna pick that all up so, I had to come inside and
Sit down on the couch here, guys. How you going?
I wanted to chat to you today about how deep you should go when learning English.
So, I... this came up,
I recently put up a video saying that I was interested in learning Italian, Spanish and French
As well as Portuguese at the same time. Now, looking back, that was probably very, very
ambitious in fact
over-ambitious and
It really ties in with
how deep I want to go in those languages, so
For a long time I've been watching guys on YouTube who are polyglots, right?
You guys have probably seen those polyglots who
Like to learn a lot of different languages and they tend to learn them for a year or two
Intensively, and then they move on to the next language,
but something I've always wondered with these guys is how deep they get into each language, to what level they get
in each language
You know, if you were to talk about the different levels A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C 2
At what level can you can you get to in those languages?
when you just spend 1 or 2 years studying that in your own time, and I guess
the biggest thing is that
Every time I saw these guys speaking my assumption was always that they are a native level, right? When you've got no background in
The language that you're hearing someone else speak
It's quite easy to overestimate their abilities in that language
Right? That happens to me sometimes with Portuguese where I'll be speaking with Kel or with other Brazilians and I can speak
Moderately, well, I would consider myself basically
Fluent, very basically in that I can communicate, I can talk to people who don't speak English and I can get my ideas across
Although it's very clunky. I make a lot of errors and it's not as, it's nowhere near as good as my English, right?
But I often have people ask me
How did you get so good at Portuguese it seems like you speak like a native?
When that is so far from the case, so made me realize that a lot of these polyglots
You would imagine, and again I can't tell you, maybe they are freaks who do speak
Every single language as fluently as they speak their mother language
But I really doubt it and I would say that a lot of them tend to
Overplay it, show off a bit and
Whether or not they explicitly tell other people that their levels are very high
They allow other people to think that their levels are very high
in all of the languages that they're learning, right? Or at least more so than they probably think themselves and
So I noticed that at least with French more recently that I spent years learning at school and then I spent another few years recently
Maybe two years ago learning intensely on my own. I got it to a pretty good level, but it quickly
Diminished and I lost the ground that I had
Sort of made in that language really quickly, but I found that it
Speaking has diminished a lot
I can't express my ideas anywhere near as well as I used to be able to, but I can hear and listen to things
Incredibly well and I still understand the majority of what's going on, you know, although I need practice, obviously.
So, what am I talking to you about this today? I was reassessing my sort of plan with learning Italian,
French
Portuguese and Spanish at the same time and there were two things that I sort of came up
I was chatting to a friend, Shana, about this and she's like one; these languages are too similar and you're gonna confuse yourself and
Two; if you're learning so many at once, you may be able to sort of, you know, learn a little bit from each one
But you won't get very far with them
So, made me sit down and think what do I really want out of the languages that I'm learning?
Do I want the same thing from all of the languages that I'm learning and
When will I be happy and what level in each of these languages
Am I aiming for and I had to sit down and I was thinking ok,
Portuguese is the primary language for me. My wife speaks Portuguese, our son who is going to be born in three or so months
will hopefully be learning Portuguese from birth
Hopefully, will be learning Portuguese from birth, and I want to be able to speak to him as effortlessly as possible
I'm never going to be native
But I want to aim
To be as good as possible
So, straight off the bat. It's obvious that I need to spend the majority of my time
focusing on Portuguese and not
Focusing on the other languages that may be useful in other realms, other areas of my life at some point in the future,
but current, you know, currently they're not anywhere near as useful as
Portuguese is which I'm speaking on a daily basis, so I want to get a very, very, very, very good level of
Portuguese, alright? So
aside from that so, that's sort of shifted me to now focusing effectively 80% of my time on
Portuguese, and I dabble a little bit with the others thinking that you know
I'll just expose myself to Italian and Spanish a little bit over time
And when I have more time and when my Portuguese is at a much higher level, maybe I'll focus on them more heavily
What was I going to get on to with Portuguese? But yeah, I really
reassessed it, it's so funny, I speak with Kel every day in Portuguese and
For probably five six hours a day
But it's always the same stuff, right? So, I've really noticed recently when I catch up with other friends who are Brazilians
Especially with a group of them
Every time I do that, it's a bloody strong
reality check
Every time I feel like I'm gaining a lot of ability in Portuguese
I can speak with Kel
Naturally about the things we're always talking about which tend to be the same things, which is why I'm getting good at saying
The phrases that I'm using all the time, but whenever there's a group of them
it's like the difficulty level goes from what I'm used to, to hardcore mode and
I get a reality check and realized that my Portuguese is horrible
Compared to what
I thought it was when I was just speaking one-on-one with Kel and so, that you could go either way
Right? You could use that to be a bit
Demotivated and not feel good about yourself, but I use that to be like, alright,
I'm going to push harder, I'm gonna try and learn even more. I'm gonna try getting even deeper into
this language and
That's why I sort of wanted to make this video today. I wanted to ask you guys when you're learning English
How deep do you want to go? What level do you want to get to? And
What is your plan for getting to that level? Because I found with myself with learning Portuguese and French and Italian and Spanish
quite often
It's pretty easy to think you're doing a lot
When you're playing around with duolingo, when you're watching YouTube, when you're reading a book, you know, but you're not really
actively
studying
Right? So, it's easy to get distracted and it's easy to think you're doing a lot when you may not really be doing a lot
And it's the same. Maybe you're in Australia. Maybe you're living in Melbourne. You're from China. You're from Japan
you're from France you from Brazil and
You go out and you can sort of kind of talk with people, your levels sort of basic fluency, right?
But you know that every time you're in a group you find it incredibly difficult or every time you watch movies
You get a bit lost because there's still a lot of vocab you don't know
What is your plan to learn that stuff, right? To learn that
Vocabulary, to learn those expressions, to be able to understand when multiple people are speaking all at once in a group
what is your plan to get from where you currently are to get to the point where you can understand those people and,
I guess more importantly, is that your goal, right? Because for me in
languages like
French, Italian and Spanish, it would be cool. It'll be amazing to speak them close to natively,
but I'm pretty aware of the the chances of that happening are incredibly, incredibly small
Right? So, I have to sort of decide, ok
I have to give myself a reality check and say I'm just gonna study those languages to try and get a bit of exposure
Because I just want the ability to sort of be able to communicate if I'm on holiday
Right? So, I know, I don't want to go too deep in those languages because it would mean sacrificing
How deep I can go in Portuguese and that is my primary goal, right?
So, if you're learning English, I want you to be thinking about how deep do you want to go?
Do you want to get to the point where you speak like a native speaker? You know, if that, if that is the
Highest goal possible, whether or not the average person can do it, if you imagine that is the extreme and
say at the bottom of that the
The basic ability is being able to ask for directions, you know, basic, basic, basic fluency, communicate when you're on holiday
Where between those two extremes do you want to go?
Firstly, how deep do you want to go in the language? And
Secondly, how are you going to get there?
Ok?
So, that's basically why I wanted to do this video today
To chat you about that and get you thinking about these things in English because maybe you don't
Want to get to a point where you sound
Like a native speaker when you're speaking English, right? Maybe that's not your interest at all
Maybe your basic,
your basic fluency in that language is all that you're after, you just want to be able to travel and
communicate with people even if you can't understand conversations about
Astrophysics with ten people talking in a group. Maybe that's not what you want, right?
And so, if that's not what you want, you shouldn't give yourself a hard time for not achieving that, right?
But if it is something that you want, you should also, you know,
pull your thumb out, pull your finger out, get off your ass and
work out a plan of how to
Approach that goal, that sort of destination, whether or not you'll ever get there
You need to be aiming for it and at least moving in that direction as quickly and as efficiently
As possible. Ok, so that's probably enough from me rabbiting on today,
But it's what I'm thinking about with Portuguese at the moment. I want to get deep in the language
I want to reach as higher level of fluency,
Of proficiency as I can as soon as I can so it means doing more, more, more, more more
Every day listening to podcasts, watching movies with subtitles on without subtitles
multiple times
Going to parties with brazilians, speaking for eight hours. I did that last weekend
We had four people come over to have dinner with us, have lunch with us. They stayed from 12 until 8 or 9 p.m
And we just spoke Portuguese the whole time
I was so exhausted after that, but it was such a good experience
And every time I noticed how much my Portuguese jumps up a little bit, right? It's it's that
Those little gains where you've learned a bunch of vocab. You've done a lot of exercise, right?
And so yeah, I don't know where I was going with that point
But that happened to me recently and that's kind of what's motivated me and shown me how much I still have to learn
It's made me want to work out a plan to get to that
That goal
And it's also made me see that I want to get to that goal
Ok? And how I need to treat the other languages that I'm also interested in learning
In the future. Ok. Anyway, thank you so much for joining me, guys!
I am Pete from the Aussie English podcast
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