First of all, most people don't realize how long it takes to learn a language.
Hi there, this is Steve Kaufmann from Palm Springs.
Uh, today I'm going to talk about problems, problems people
have in language learning.
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First of all, why am I talking about problems?
Because I, my whole filming set up has, is giving me nothing but problems.
Last video, I had this reflection on those prints that I have in behind me.
The time before that I filmed in front of the curtain, which didn't look very nice.
I've ordered some hanging sort of backdrops, but I haven't figured
out how to pin them up yet.
And then it'll at least looked like some fake bookshelves.
Uh, Or I got another one that's fake wooden planks.
Uh, but then I've ordered little skinny bars so that my wife can sow a little
thing and we can hang it up there.
And then the lighting is all messed up and it's not working.
And my filmic pro is giving me problems.
So I just got fed up with it all, all my problems.
And I said, I'm just going to go out in the garden and do it and
I'm going to talk about problems, language learning problems.
What are the main problems that I see amongst language learners?
I'm going to try to center myself here again, problems.
First of all, most people don't realize how long it takes to learn a language.
So people get frustrated.
They get particularly frustrated when they get to that first level where
all of a sudden they know a bunch of words and they realize just how little
they know of the whole language and people get frustrated and they have
the sense that they're not progressing.
And maybe they think that everyone else is learning and I'm not learning.
And I think that's where it's so important to realize A that it's a long
process and B that you have to find a way of doing it that is enjoyable.
So I don't worry about the fact that I've been at Arabic and Persian
for a long time and there are other people who learn faster than me.
I'm enjoying it.
I was listening to my Egyptian Arabic mini stories that have been now rerecorded
by Adel of Alexandria and I was going through the texts again and it's fun.
I enjoy it.
And I know that trickle, trickle, trickle I'm improving.
So the first thing I find is a lot of people don't have the patience.
Second problem is a lot of people, and I find this myself too, you know?
So I'm doing the mini stories, Adel's mini stories and I've gone
through two or three of them.
Uh, it's not like instantly I've done something like I've built
something or made something happen.
I'm just doing this and I have to remind myself that it is actually slowly,
the language is trickling into me.
So don't worry about doing something else, continue doing what you're doing
and do as much of it as you want.
If you do 15 minutes, that's good.
If you do a half an hour is good.
You don't have to say I have to do two hours a day, every little helps.
So I think that's an important part of, you know, making sure that the
time you spend with the language, you don't begrudge yourself that time.
You're happy doing it.
And if it's 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour or two hours, it's all good.
Third problem people have with language learning is they don't
like to make mistakes and therefore they are intimidated, intimidated.
So, you know, I always stress input, but of course we all want to speak.
All, most people want to speak, and we want to speak with as few
mistakes as possible of course.
However, I like speaking with mistakes...
not that I don't want to improve, but I know that if I speak
with mistakes, I'm speaking.
And I had a conversation this morning in German.
I made so many mistakes.
It's been so long since I spoke German and I speak it so seldom.
In that conversation I was getting feedback.
I was getting input.
We were communicating.
If I were to do that more, my German would improve.
Not only because I'm speaking, but also because I'm getting input back.
And so mistakes are a good thing.
Mistakes are not a bad thing.
Unfortunately, too often, uh, the traditional language teaching,
you know, instructional methods teaches us to be afraid of mistakes.
Well, there's nothing wrong with mistakes.
It's not like we're building a bridge and we might design it wrong and
the bridge is going to collapse.
It's not like that.
If we're communicating, we're already achieving the main goal
and if we want to improve, but we're not afraid to make mistakes.
That's the ideal attitude to have.
So, you know, you know you're speaking with mistakes.
It doesn't bother you to speak with mistakes.
The other person isn't judging you, but at the same time, You're
listening to what they're saying.
You're listening to how the language is used.
You're continuing your input activities.
And so you therefore are gradually improving.
So I think those would be three major problems that language learners face.
In other words, they don't realize that it's a long process.
Number two, they sometimes begrudge themselves the time
they're spending with it.
Three they're afraid of making mistakes.
And I guess the fourth one, which kind of summarizes all those three is they're
not finding ways to enjoy the process.
They shouldn't be measuring how well they're doing.
They should be saying, wow, I'm enjoying what I'm doing.
And so whatever, however you do that because you choose content that you
like, or you activities that you like.
If the emphasis is placed on enjoying the process, you will gradually improve.
So just a brief chat.
And I realized too, and it makes me happy that many people use my
videos to work on their English.
So I try to speak as clearly as possible.
Okay.
Thanks for listening.
Bye for now.