Hey everybody, hope you're having a good day
If you're new to the channel, my name is Daniel Guaba
I am a private tutor from New York City and the main thing I do
is teach World Languages
So today I'm going to be giving you guys 5 tips
when you're starting out learning a new language and
getting you started on the right track. So the first tip I'm going to give you guys
is to do some research.
Now what I mean is basically you're going to want to figure out
where is your target language spoken
and who speaks your language or who is learning your language.
The reason I think it's a good idea to do some research when you're thinking about
learning a new language is that you can
build more of a connection with the language itself
learn about the people who speak it and their culture
and really appreciate the language more. Another thing is
you might have ideas about the language already or you might
know something about the country it's spoken in or the people who speak it
and you might want to learn to learn more, so this is a good opportunity
to start getting your foot in the door and learning more
about the language and its people.
So an important thing is to stay curious.
Number 2 is to start thinking in your
target language as soon as possible
now I know what you're probably thinking
how could I possibly think in a language I don't know yet
So what I really mean when I say
"Learn how to think in your target language"
What I mean is you should be thinking about how your
target language orders their words. So
let's take a look at an example. In English, we have
Subject, Verb, and Object
word order. So Subject is the
person or thing doing the action
the Verb is the action they do, and the Object
is the thing that is affected by
our action. So if we take a look at
the example we have "I drink water."
I am the Subject
the "drink" is what I'm doing
and "water" is my object, it is the thing
that I'm affecting with my drinking. Now if we take a look
Japanese for example, the word order isn't
SVO like in English, it's actually SOV
so a sentence in English like "I drink water" becomes
"I water drink"
Now of course this is a really simple example
and there are only three words it's important to get that
foundation started where you are
thinking about where the main, those key words
go in a sentence in your target language so you start
using English words
to think about how you would say things in your target language
Now I know when you get into a new language it's really exciting
and you want to try to learn as much as you can as fast as possible
but it's important to remember that you should not bite off
more than you can chew.
Now the reason for this is the number one reason
that I tell you not to try to take on too much at first is because
you don't want to overwhelm yourself.
Now if you open up a textbook you might see a lot of words that you'll be
tempted to learn, a lot of different grammatical constructions
the important thing is to pick out things that are important
and relevant to you. So find
phrases and words that you think are going to be useful for when you're speaking
and things that you're going to want to hear and understand
and focus on those. Pace yourself
think about how much time you want to use a day
to study your language, and another thing is you want to go into it
with a critical thinking lens. You want to be
looking for patterns so when you find some new material
and encounter new contexts
and sentences, you can
look for things that you already know or have seen before
and try to figure out how new things work.
Alright guys, step number 4, we touched on this a bit in the last slide
but this one is: find your key phrases
So as I said before, you want to find things to say that
are going to be useful and relevant to you
Maybe you're a student and you want to know how to say
you're a student and you're studying a language in school. Or maybe you're a worker
and you want to be able to say that you're looking for
new partners to do business with. You have to
find things that are going to be important for you.
Now something that's always important regardless of what language is
going to be introducing yourself. So I'm going to go ahead and
give you guys a quick way to introduce yourself and
where you're from, in the 4 different languages
that I use most of the time.
So we're going to start off with English where we have
My name is Daniel, I'm American.
In Spanish, Yo Soy Daniel
Soy Americano
Then we have Japanese
Watashi wa Danieru Des.
Amerika Jin Des.
And finally we have Chinese.
Wǒ jiào Dān
Wǒ shì měiguó rén
So all you gotta do to be able to use those sentences
for yourself is replace "Daniel"
"Daniel" "Danieru" or "Dan"
in the sentences that I said with your own name
and you'll be able to say
your own name and that you're American. Now, if you need to know
how to say a different country, we might get into that
in later videos so stay tuned.
Alright guys tip number 5 is pretty important, it is:
Track your progress. What I
mean by this is remember where you started and where you've come from
and have a way to compare your current
level to your past level. Now I know
there are some situations where it might be impossible not to
compare yourself with others but I want to encourage you to
compare yourself mostly to yourself.
Try to think about where you were, a few days
a few weeks, or a few months ago, and how far you've come along
Everyone's going to be learning at a different rate
so you don't want to compare yourself with
someone who might be putting a different amount of time, maybe they just
happen to be in a place where they can hear the language more
everyone's going to have their own situation, so you want to think about
what is the best for you, and how much progress are you making.
Now speaking of progress, I also wanted to mention that it's a good idea to get
into the habit of studying everyday.
Now, it doesn't have to be same time of day,
it doesn't have to be studying the same material, but
you should try to make a schedule for yourself because this will help you stay committed.
Finally, having a study partner can be really useful.
Now, this could be someone else who is also studying the same language as you
Or maybe it's a language parent, someone who is a native speaker of your language
that you can check in with and who can check your pronunciation and grammar or you just try to have
regular daily conversations. Another added benefit is that
someone who is studying with you or watching your
progress will be able to give you feedback and will be able to
see how much progress you're really making.
when you're not sure of yourself.
So that's it for this video, just 5 quick tips helping you guys get
started on a new language journey. So, what do you think?
Have you used any of these strategies before? Did you learn something new?
Let me know in the comments below, what has your experience
with language learning been so far?
Of course, hit the subscribe button so you get a notification
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and I look forward to seeing you there.