hello my name is beatrice
hello welcome back to the bliss bean
i moved to the united states from Lithuania when I was about 4 so pretty early on I had to learn
how to switch from different languages and I started to notice how this introduces you to new
ways of thinking, helps you better understand the culture that speaks that language and also just
better understand the diversity of cultures in the world overall so I'm really passionate about language
learning and i think that it's amazing that these days you can pretty much learn a language
on our own for free or almost for free without ever having to do like a formal sit
down class or anything like that i think a lot of people have been interesting in language learning
because we're all stuck at home now or maybe you're watching this for the future and hopefully you're still interested
in language learning so i hope this helps so first, pick a language that you're
genuinely curious about or that you have some sort of practical use for you'll need something to motivate you
when the learning gets difficult so you can either remind yourself of why you got excited about
that language in the first place or if you're planning on moving to the country or something
then you have a deadline motivating you because you wanna get fluent before you go there if you don't have an
interest in the language don't pick it just because it's statistically wildly spoken around the world
maybe it's not personally useful to you and on the flip side even if you have no practical purpose for
a language but you're just really curious about it go for it it's your life learning a language can't
really hurt and who knows? maybe sometime in the future you will have a practical opportunity to
use that language next you might wanna set some sort of a clear objective for what level of
language fluency you want to reach and by when so if you're not really in a rush I don't think this is necessary
you can just enjoy the learning process for how ever long it takes but if you do want to reach fluency
by a certain time then you might wanna set some sort of goal like I want to be able to read
harry potter in my target language or by this month I want to be able to converse with a native speaker
aside from a clear objective like something that you can mark as done once you've completed it
i think it's also very important to remind yourself in some way of your commitment to language learning
wether it's just writing a few inspirational messages on post its and sticking them where you can see
them every day or setting one of those aesthetic study blur quotes as you're phone wallpaper
for me one of my 2020 intentions that I read out loud every single day morning was about language
learning so i wrote i'm making time to study languages every day, diversifying my study
goals and challenging myself to use this languages even when it's difficult alright now that we've got
your mindset in place it's time to gather your resources first of all you'll want a
notebook or a binder to keep all of your notes organized in one place it does not hut
to get organized from the beginning second I think it's really important to have some sort of a go-to
resource that's just gonna be like your holy grail of grammar you know cause if you just watch
some youtube videos here and there look up some vocabulary list here and there it's just going to be
a very disjointed process you'll pick up some vocabulary you'll pick up some phrases but it's really
nice to have a solid foundation of grammar where you can trust that it will teach you all the
basics that you need to know and in an order that makes sense where it builds on your current knowledge
so this can be a website a textbook or like some sort of video series
on youtube if you're learning a fairly common language it won't be too difficult to find some resources
i would go online and see what other people are recommending language learning forums or sub-redits
are a great place to do that I would also recommend having at least two different resources for grammar because
i find it very helpful to have the same things explained two different ways
so like i use howtostudykorean.com for learning Korean grammar but my tutor will also use a
lessons of this textbook and i find that when those lessons overlap in topics having two diferent
explanations helps me understand the concept so much more deeply and usually if one explanation
is missing something the other one will fill in whatever information that I need recently
i noticed that howtostudykorean covered a few grammar topics completely separately like
spaced really far apart but then in the textbook it went over all of them at the same time
and i didn't realize until then how they were all connected so it can help you see connections as well for
other resources having a reliable translator and a dictionary is definitely important so
for spanish i like using spanish dict for translating both words and sentences and then for
korean for sentences i use naver papago and occasionally I will use that for words
but i actually prefer learn with oliver if i have a specific word that i want to look up for
vocabulary i used to use this little tiny paper flashcards that were so annoying to work with so I don't
recommend that method but i've since switched to doing digital flashcards with anki
and omg i cannot recommend it enough with digital flash cards it's so easy to input a new
word you can put in an image, an audio file, you can type in some extra notes
that you learned about how to use that word or like examples of sentences it doesn't take out any room
its portable it just lives in your computer and the best thing about it is that it makes your studytime so
productive because when i was using the paper flashcards I had them all organizes by lesson
so i would take out a group of lessons at a time and go through all those cards but the
problem was that i really only needed to review like 2 or 3 of those words and the other words I knew
perfectly well so i think the best part of digital flashcards is that it solves that problem
it basically designs a study schedule for you it introduces new words mixed with old words
and then it schedules spaced repetition of that word based on how you rate your abilities
to recall it so that way you spend the most time on the words that you need to brush up on the most
and then the words that you know really well you might not see them for months at a time and that doesn't mean that
you forget about them just means you know them well anki is free for the computer but if you want it on your iPad
it's gonna need 25$ it's also a little bit of a learning curve because it's not as intuitive as
like quizlet but i also think it's a lot more powerful than tools like quizlet so spending like a half
hour learning the features and doing a little bit of an initial setup I think it's totally worth it
because it makes your study like a million times more efficient so those are the basic resources I would
say you need a notebook a good source for grammar maybe vocabulary lists, translator,
dictionary and a tool for learning flashcards you're all set so once you're excited
about learning a new language and you got all your language learning weapons at the ready you gotta
make it actually happen so in the beginning you might feel super duper inspired to study but
eventually that might wear off a little bit so I do think that establishing some sort of a
study routine is a really helpful way to ensure that you'll actually stick with it so when you take a language
class in a physical classroom setting you have to show up at a certain time you have to get your homework
done and when you're learning by yourself I think it's a good idea to make some sort of a commitment with yourself
that you are going to be as dedicated as you would be if someone were forcing you
to learn that language so be realistic when creating your schedule about how much time you actually
have to dedicate to this so my schedule currently because I'm on a gap year and we're all stuck at home
and i really want to take advantage of this time that I have now I'm doing Monday to Saturday first
thing in the morning 2h sometimes 1h of studying Korean followed by 30min
of spanish if you've got less time maybe you're schedule will be Monday Wednesday
friday a half hour after lunch try not to go for too long without any studying because
consistent review is really important for your brain so like Monday Wednesday Friday is good
because then the longest that you go without any studying is 2 days on the off days just take like
3-5min honestly any bit matters while you're riding the bus or you're standing in the line in the grocery store
just look over your new vocabulary or the new grammar that you've learned a little bit will
really go a long way in keeping that information fresh in your mind I know a lot of language learning
apps will say that you can actually learn and become fluent in a language by
doing just 5min a day i just don't buy into that I think that
in order for your brain to really get into learning mode to grasp the complicated grammar and to untangle all the
confusing questions that you're gonna have you need to have a solid chunk of studying time
like at least 30min or something obviously I'm not a professional educator that's just what I
think these 5min sessions can be a great supplement but you should definitely block out
longer study sessions to really see progress so how to learn a language
the basic importance of any language are vocabulary grammar reading writing
speaking and listening so when you're just starting you're probably cover all the
basics with whatever website or textbook you choose for example with
howtostudykorean.com it has really detailed grammar lessons a vocabulary list
that goes through each lesson example sentences that you can quiz yourself on translating and then
read audio files for each word and sentence and then for the speaking part you can just
talk to yourself so as a begginer you're studying might look something like reviewing
all the cards that you have in anki and then moving onto the website or textbook
going through the next lesson taking notes on the grammar and putting new vocabulary
translating all the practice sentences reading them reading the dialogue out loud
etcetera as you progress you might want to start introducing new methods of learning so this is the
fun section of the video i think i've compiled some ideas for language learning that will fit
all of those 6 categories so number 1 this is something that I get questions about all
the time "why is your phone in Spanish?" "are you spanish?" i am not but setting
your devices to your target language is a fantastic way to pick up new vocabulary because you're probably so
familiar with your phone that you probably already know just by heart what all of the buttons
and the settings say so you probably won't get completely lost if you switch the language and
you'll start learning new words that are actually relevant because we talk a lot about technology
and the internet and our phones these days journal in your target language
it could just be like a sentence a day to start with but because you're writing about your life
and having to look up words that pertain to your daily life you're gonna learn a ton of new vocabulary
that is super applicable podcasts i love the Spanish duoling
podcast they do like a real-life story in half Spanish half english
this is a great way to fit language practice if you have a busy life because you can do it
on your commute you can do it while exercising while cooking anytime
listening to songs so to start with you can just play the song in the background and just kind of enjoy
it immerse yourself in hearing the language and then once you've heard it once or twice you can
start to really pay attention and see if there are any words that you can pick out from it and then a great
last step is to actually sit down and look at the full lyrics pick up any new words that you don't know
any grammar you don''t understand and then you can listen to the whole thing again with your new understanding
of the song you can find tons of youtube videos out there for listening
practice these are the ones that i really like to use for Spanish there were a bunch of people in the comments
saying that the speakers were talking too fast or they were really difficult to understand but like that's how
people talk in Spanish in real life so don't be discouraged if its difficult to understand in the
beginning it will get easier but it is very important to start practicing with those native
speakers so for a few weeks now I've been taking korean
lessons with a tutor about every one or two weeks and it has made such a difference
you can find a tutor that will just practice conversation with you or a tutor that will prepare a lesson
with grammar or reading practice whatever you want but it is so valuable
to actually have to apply what you've been learning form your textbook to a real life conversation
you can listen to listening exercises and you can speak out loud by yourself to your wall
but nothing compares to when you're facing that little bit of stress where you have to
understand what someone is telling you in real life in the moment and then have to respond
really quickly that stress paired with being able to receive instant feedback and instantly
be corrected just helps you grow so much as you go about
your day just make a sentence in your target language so you can start by setting a reminder on your phone
to remind you to do this and then eventually hopefully it will become a habit so maybe you're making
coffee in the morning and you just want to try saying I bought a new brand of coffee
in your target language
after you've gotten some basic vocab down you can try
learning some themed vocabulary so like if you're interested in photography and you want to
be able to talk about aperture and shutter speed and focal length and things like that
your textbook probably isn't gonna have the vocab that's that specific but what you can do is you can do make
your own list of words that you want to earn and then go find the translations yourself
you'll probably need subtitles in the beginning and that's totally fine that can be really helpful
to learning in the beginning actually you just have to make sure that you're actually actively watching
and participating so it's not gonna be as fun as just watching tv for relaxation
but if you really take the time to understand everything that you're hearing look up any new words
any new grammar that you encounter then watching tv shows can actually be a a very educational
experience you can watch vlogs in that language or follow some
instagram accounts either accounts that are like Spanish phrase of the day or Spanish word of the day or something
like that or accounts from celebrities who are just sharing their daily lives but in your
target language so then you can get reading practice from reading their captions and maybe
they post instagram stories or something so that you can see how a native speaker speaks and try to understand
them when you study vocabulary once you've learned some basic
grammar you can kind of take it to the next level and everytime that you learn a new vocab word you can try
incorporating it into a few example sentences right away
just saying things out loud while you're studying I think is really helpful so it's awesome if you can find a place
to study where you're alone and that just helps you get more comfortable with the pronounciation
a lot of times the first time I read a sentence I will pause a lot and stumble over a bunch of words
so i like to challenge myself to repeat the sentence over and over until I can smoothly say it
from memory and lastly this isn't really tied to any specific category
but i think language learning is just more fun if you can find friends who are also learning the same language
you can motivate each other maybe ask each other questions but I wouldn't trust that
person too much because they're also just learning but just having someone who understands
the struggles and the exciting parts of learning that language I think really helps you keep
going with it as you progress your studying notice which areas you're struggling in
so that you can devote more time to them for example if you're doing really well with reading and writing
and grammar but whenever you have to speak you just freeze up try to dedicate more time to practicing speaking
because if one category is lagging behind that can really hold you
back in your language learning overall so I hope this video was helpful let me know in the comments what language
you're studying or what language you would like to study so thank you for watching this video please give it a like
if it helped you and subscribe to my channel and I will see you next week bye