Hello!
I am Steve Kaufmann.
Today I will be talking about how to independently learn English and other languages.
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Let's learn together using LingQ!
When learning a language, most people go to school.
At school, the teacher helps the student learn.
This is a common mindset that many people may have.
What kind of content to read, to listen,
which parts of grammar to study...
Everything is decided by the teacher.
Since the teacher knows the language,
and the student doesn't know the language,
it's obvious that the person that has knowledge teaches the other.
However,
my method is different.
After all,
language does exist.
These...
English is English,
Japanese is Japanese,
these languages exist.
Anyone can "discover", aka learn, these languages.
Whether if you went to school or not,
you personally need to want to learn.
You personally need to put those words into your brain.
That's how it works.
So,
it's true that you need to learn by studying independently someday.
Even if you went to school,
you'll need to do independent learning.
So how should you do that?
In my case, I'm using my LingQ, right?
There's so much information on there.
And every day you want to try to...
For example, there is a course.
And there is the audio, all the audio of that course,
and there's a function where you can listen to all of it.
Press it, and for that day, you just
listen to the whole audio of the course.
You can listen in order, or
you can shuffle and mix the orders up.
And once you listen to it, there's going to be words you don't know
which you then read them.
So the independent learning system I use
begins from listening.
And what independent learning means is that
you let yourself be attacked by the language.
Listening, reading, you push it all in.
However, of course, there are vocab you don't know,
so, well, if it's LingQ, then
you can search it up using the online dictionary.
You can search up words and phrases.
As for grammar, if there's a part you don't know,
well, I always buy a grammar book.
So yes, I do buy one, but it's
very thin and compact.
This one is Dutch, but
that's only what you need.
You don't need to have those long worksheets and tests.
Just easy explanations,
the explanations for the basics.
You'll forget it just reading it once, so
you need to reread it over and over again.
So for these books, read them over and over again,
read different parts, you read the same rules,
the same explanations,
and it would slowly start to stick.
What goes in is that
because of the large amounts of audio you've heard, because of the experiences,
the explanation for the words you experienced that you kinda might know is what sticks.
So that explanation functions as a confirmation and you retain that information.
For things that you don't know,
there's no point in reading the explanations.
No use.
So,
when you do independent learning,
you first, or even after,
you need to have a repetition of easy information...
For example, for LingQ there are the mini-stories
that you can listen to over and over again.
What's important in the exercises are to listen to them, read them,
and have an interesting topic.
Podcasts, books...
Things and ideas that interest you
to listen and read them.
You do both.
That's your "strategy".
Of course,
you will need to find a strategy that works perfectly for you,
but it all comes down to the contents,
you need to find the topics that you would be interested in.
When I started learning Chinese,
well, this was 50 years ago, but,
I went to a bookstore in Hong Kong,
I searched for books that had the original text
and the vocabs, the English translations, next to them.
Books about the Chinese government, Chinese history...
or modern novels, the shortest ones possible, the short stories...
I tried to look for those kinds of materials.
So, independent learning means that
you need to find your own materials and subjects.
There is no teacher that says "You need to read this".
Reading the things you find interesting are going to help you
and emotionally as well.
Listening to voices you like, etc.
you can pick them.
The teacher isn't going to decide.
And when you want to learn about a language,
your teacher isn't the only source for the meanings.
For example, English is English.
If you Google it, you can Google the exact part you want to know.
And if you have the determination and want to proactively learn,
you will probably be able to understand it.
However, if the teacher forces you to study saying it's going to be on the exam,
it is harder to study.
In either case,
you can choose to go to school or to not go,
you need to take initiative to study the language.
Listening and reading topics you like,
searching it up when you need to,
if you study like that, make it fun,
everything starts to get easier.
And when learning a language, attitude is also a factor;
the optimistic attitude saying "yes, I enjoy this, I can do this",
and time.
So if you study like this, using independent learning,
you become more optimistic,
and able to use enough time.
So, that's all for today.
How to study by yourself;
I wanted to talk about how to independently learn a language.
Well, that's it for today.
Thank you! See you next time.