- Hey everyone.
Benny Lewis from Fluent in Three Months.
And I have a special guest today.
I'm with Olly from I Will Teach You a Language.
- How's it going?
- And I'm very happy to be recording in London
today with Olly, because I wanted to ask him some questions.
The first of which is how do you not forget words
when you're learning a language?
- It's funny, isn't it, vocabulary and memorising words.
So I think really the key for this,
for me I take a lot of different angles to it
and kind of see what works.
So sometimes it might be a case of trying to create
some kind of word association.
Seeing what the word sounds like in that language
or in other languages.
Maybe trying to relate it to English.
And then it might be a case of sometimes
just reading it or seeing it or hearing it
more times might help it to stick.
And other times, I will transfer it over to flash cards
and I will use flash cards to kind of bring the word
back from time to time.
Because then you can let time do the work.
- Next question I wanted to ask Olly is
what do you think about reading aloud?
Do you think that's helpful when you're learning a language?
- Here's the thing.
When you're reading aloud a text,
when you've got the text in front of you
and you're reading aloud,
that has nothing to do with a real life scenario
where you're speaking a language.
Because when you're actually speaking a foreign language,
you're thinking on the fly,
you're reacting to the other person.
There are so many things at play.
And so reading aloud doesn't help you
to prepare for that at all.
But there is one thing that reading aloud
is really good for, which is to help you
with your pronunciation and your articulation of words,
because you've got to really form the words,
articulate them clearly, maybe try to bring
some good intonation into the sentences
and the things that you're reading.
So if you want to work on your pronunciation,
then it can be a really great thing to do
over and over.
But other than that, it's not something I see
a great deal of value in.
- Alright, very good.
Next question.
Can I learn two languages at the same time?
- Wow, what a question.
Well, the obvious answer is you can.
Nothing's stopping you going down to Foyles
here on Charing Cross Road and buying up 10 books
of 10 different languages and learning them all
at the same time, so you can, people do.
But the thing that it does it just takes
attention away from the primary language
that you want to learn.
And as soon as you remove attention and focus,
that's when you just start to make less progress all around.
So what I would advise is to say, okay, spend 80%
of your time on the main language,
so that that's your focus.
And then that 20% of the time, treat it as kind of play time
and you can dabble in something else at the same time.
But definitely try to think of the one language
you are most wanting to focus on and devote
your time to that.
- Yeah, and I've also found whenever I'm starting off
in a language, I'm more likely to mix it up
with other ones.
So I've not really attempted to learn new languages.
But if you're a beginner, I find that some of the words
from one language, they end up creeping up
into the next one.
- I think it is an interesting distinction,
that thing between learning a language
or maintaining a language.
I think one tip that could be useful for people
is if you ware learning two languages
at the same time, try to, if possible,
if this fits within your interest,
make sure they're from different language families.
So if you try to learn Spanish and Portuguese
at the same time, you're gonna get really confused.
But if you learn Spanish and Japanese,
they're different enough that you'll probably
find it easier to keep them separate in your brain.
- How do you maintain multiple languages.
We already mentioned how you might learn two initially.
But you've already learned a language to a certain level.
What do you do if you don't want to lose it,
and you're doing it with multiple languages?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
And something a lot of people worry about, actually,
when they're wanting to pick up more than one language.
I think that for me, I've always found that the key
to maintaining a language and not forgetting it
is to make sure that you reach a certain level
in the first place.
Once you're at a,
for me it's around a B2 level,
once I get there, B2 level for me is where
you can go to the pub with a native speaker
and enjoy chatting with them.
As they would a friend, like that's B2 level.
You're comfortable talking, have no particular problems.
You're not perfect, but you're strong
and you're comfortable.
If you can speak your language to that level,
it's actually surprisingly hard to forget it.
So even with languages I don't speak or don't practise
very often, I usually find that just
10, 15 minutes of conversation is enough
to bring it right back.
So I'd say, the number one thing is before you move on
to another language, get your primary language
to a strong B2 level.
- Yeah, definitely.
I've found the same.
I've found that there's a half life
with learning a language.
That if I get to the B1 level, it's useful,
it's great, there are many things you can do
at the B1 level.
But the catch is, after a few months,
I feel like I'm down to A2.
- Yeah.
- You know?
Whereas with the B2 level, you can lose it, but I think
you can take a longer period of time
where you might be focusing on a new language.
And so I agree, you have to push it up.
It's like you were saying before,
focus on one language, get it to a B2 level at least.
And then, it'll be easier to maintain.
- And then the second thing is,
and this is something I'm trying to do right now,
is make sure you create regular opportunities to practise.
So make time certainly every couple of weeks
to sit down with someone and spend an evening,
or spend a couple hours speaking.
And that's enough.
- Okay, so, you got started learning language,
you get your momentum up,
but then you get stuck in a plateau.
You're intermediate, and you might feel like you're going
to be there forever.
What can you do to push yourself up a notch
and get to a high level in a language.
- Yeah, so I think the important concept
to understand about the intermediate plateau,
as they call it, is that you can't keep doing
the same things that you were doing
when you were a beginner.
Right at the beginning, you feel like you're making
tonnes of progress every day.
At an intermediate level,
that feeling of progress has stopped,
but it's still going, it's still occurring,
you're still making progress.
So the key is you've got to have this larger,
wider, longer term mindset.
And you've gotta say, right, now is the time
to dig my heels in.
I'm gonna keep going, whatever I feel like,
and I'm just going to spend as much time
with the language as possible.
And for me, that means moving slightly away
from the concept of studying and more formal
sit down desk time, if you like,
and more towards an attitude of, I'm gonna take this
language and integrate it in my life.
I'm gonna find friends, I'm gonna listen to music.
I'm gonna watch movies.
I'm gonna read books.
Spend as much time as possible with the language
and then you will just find that you adopt
the language as your own, and you will just learn naturally,
as long as you give it time.
- Yeah, definitely.
I totally agree that you need to change your approach.
So for me personally, I'm all about speaking,
you know, speak speak speak, to get up to that
intermediate stage.
But I find that I make better progress when I'm reading.
Or if I am speaking, I'm not just going to a social event,
and saying, how was your week.
I'm pushing myself to get on Italki with a teacher
and actually have a debate, you know?
So what can you do if you don't have time
to learn a language?
- Well, clearly the more time you have,
the more time you're going to be able to devote
to language learning.
But what I often find is that when you have
this conversation with people, and they say,
oh I really don't have time.
When you did deeper into what they're actually doing,
you often find that this panic about not having
enough time means that you don't actually end up
spending any useful time on the language at all.
The first thing to say is, I find it helpful to have
one fixed time every day, what I call my core study time.
So that's language learning time every day,
that's nonnegotiable.
Like that's my time to study.
Personally I like to do it first thing in the morning,
before the day starts, so I study fresh
and don't get distracted.
And if you've only got 15 minutes, so be it.
But you can probably work out a bit more time,
like 30, 45 minutes maybe.
And if you can do that, if you can get to the point
where you've got say 30 minutes, 45 minutes every day
where you are really concentrated and focused
on the task of learning, that is plenty of time.
And then from then on, it's just a question
of looking at your day and thinking,
where do I have time?
Do I commute?
Most of us commute, right?
What can I be doing on the train?
Can I be listening, can I be reading?
Do I have 15 minutes at lunch to go over some flash cards?
With a combination of that core study time
in the morning or whenever you like to do it,
plus finding these little pockets of time
throughout the day, with a bit of thought and attention,
you can carve out a surprising amount
of time in your day.
It takes a bit of work, and it takes a bit of thought.
- Yeah, you can do simple things.
You can change your Facebook language.
Even if you're playing computer games to relax,
you could change the language on your gaming system,
so you'll see all of the notifications.
There are so many ways you can fill
up your day with the language.
- And stop watching TV in English.
Watch it in the target language instead.
- Okay, so let's say you've got your conversational
stage up and you're confident enough,
but you still have a strong accent.
How can you reduce it?
- Yeah, I think there's a few things.
Accent is important, or I guess we should say pronunciation,
really, because this is the first step.
Even if you're starting a new language,
you've gotta get your pronunciation right
from the beginning.
Try not to get the point where you've been learning
for years and you still haven't paid attention
to your pronunciation.
It's a lot easier to learn it properly upfront,
than it is to unlearn bad habits later on.
But beyond that, the thing about accent,
is that accent is not really a case of speaking correctly,
or like a native speaker.
Because as you're listening to us speaking now,
I don't speak the same way as Benny.
Benny has a charming Irish accent.
I've got a kind of posh BBC English accent.
We both speak different ways, right?
But which is correct?
Obviously mine.
(laughing)
But the point is that you can speak differently
and be completely fluent in every way.
And I think the number one rule
for all things to do with accents and pronunciation,
is that you have to be able to hear it,
before you can actually say it and produce it.
The other thing, you can take what we're saying here,
and 10 people could get very different results.
The people who will get the best results,
I think, are those people who go out and really listen,
and really pay attention.
That Brazilian guy when he's speaking,
how does his voice go?
What does he do with his intonation?
How does he speak?
Pay attention and try to adopt that
into your own language.
That's really I think what it's about.
- And I think that's the kind of thing
that you can get great help from a native speaker.
It could be an experienced teacher.
But try it, and get feedback,
because there's a lot of sounds that you might not
be as used to distinguishing.
But it's something you can learn.
You can definitely learn to reduce your accent.
So, great answers to those questions.
And if you want to hear more from Olly,
then click him right now to go to his channel.
You'll see a link to his Youtube channel.
He's got loads of great videos there.
And he's also got an excellent podcast.
Search for iwillteachyoualanguage on the usual
iTunes and so on.
And yeah, thanks a lot for coming over Olly.
And I will have to pop over to your channel.
- Let's do it.
- Okay. - Can't wait.