hey guys i just finished recording a
podcast with john from language mastery
he has a really cool podcast about
language learning and one of the
questions he asked me at the end of the
interview was do you have any advice for
people who are
at the beginning stages of their
language learning journey
and also for people who have kind of hit
the intermediate plateau
so i thought i'd share it with you for
those two kinds of groups of language
learners
now let's start at the beginning when
you're just starting to learn a new
language
advice that i have for beginners and
i've been there
so much is you kind of look at everyone
who is so
sort of successful and fluent in their
language learning journey and you become
a little disillusioned and you think oh
my goodness like how am i ever going to
reach that level of fluency
and you start comparing yourself to
someone who's already way up here and
you're like
looking to this person it's good to have
them as your inspiration but don't be
comparing yourself like
you know this person is speaking so
fluently and i need to get to that
you are at page zero you know of your
book they are at page one thousand
don't compare is my number one piece of
advice for for beginners
another thing that beginners do is being
very overwhelmed by
um the amount of resources that is out
there
and by creating the most effective study
plan
i have changed my method of studying for
languages over the years a lot
how i started learning korean 10 years
ago is completely different to how i'm
learning hungarian now
because over the span of 10 or so years
i've realized what works for me and what
doesn't
where i used to memorize like vocabulary
lists out of context and find like the
100 most common words in a language and
just study those
now i sort of ignore that and i start
taking conversational lessons for
instance or i start
reading articles a bit above my level
because i'm learning stuff
in the context of phrases and i'm
learning stuff that i can really use in
daily life
rather than just learning words
completely out of context from a list
what i'm trying to say is that my method
changed over the years a lot and that's
okay
so don't try and you know create for
yourself this really
robust study plan and be so focused
about what is the best way the most
effective way to learn because you are
going to change over time
and remember there are people out there
who are trying to sell you their way of
learning like this is the best way to
learn
japanese or this is the best way to
learn chinese no there there really is
no best way there are
good ways good methods but everyone is
different
so rather start somewhere than
overwhelming yourself with all of these
resources and plans
summary general advice is also just stay
positive focus on your end goal it is
it is hard and you are going to hit this
plateau maybe the beginner's plateau
where you
you start from zero not knowing anything
and you learn so much at the beginning
and you're like on top of the world
you're like wow i can introduce myself
and then suddenly you're like oh there's
actually so much to learn in this
language it's really hard i don't know
where to go from here
don't get discouraged focus on your end
goal which is to be able to converse or
to be able to watch a movie in another
language
and keep that in mind and always look
back and be like hey
look how far i've come it's okay to have
bad days
let me keep going and then a little
piece of advice for intermediate
learners is you're probably at the stage
where
any textbook like a beginner textbook is
way past your level
and you're feeling a little stuck like
you're okay to help yourself but you
really need that extra push
what i like to do is to try and think
how do native speakers live
so the podcast they listen to is in
their language their phone
you know their search engine if i have
to look something up for
work why don't i do it in spanish or
korean or french
try to live like how native speakers do
uh move away from those beginner
resources
and really use your language if you put
yourself in situations where you use
language you'll actually learn very fast
so if you're trying to explain a concept
to someone and you don't know the word
for something
you can try and talk around it and
instead of saying you know
the gym if you don't know the word for
that you can say
the place where people run and there are
many people and it is in a building and
the person
oh yeah it's a it's a gym and that's how
you learn a new word you're putting
yourself in context you're moving away
from your books and you're reading and
writing and you're really using the
language like native speakers do
and that's how people learn new like
advanced vocabulary in their language as
well it's really from exposure
i don't know any native speakers who sit
and study like
frequency lists of words in their
language it's really from
interacting with stuff like how native
speakers do consuming the content
in the language and keeping your
language in maintenance mode
in the intermediate plateau it's
actually very easy to lose your language
if you don't practice it for a few
months because you get a bit complacent
you're like okay you know i'm
i'm good enough if i if i don't practice
it for a year or so it won't go away
might not go away completely but it can
get very rusty
so even if you're not studying every day
which i definitely don't do
one of my most common questions is how
many hours do you study and i'm like um
zero on some days but at least i am
always listening to a language in the
shower i always listen to podcasts i
have good acoustics
like waterproof speakers um when i when
i'm washing the dishes i'm listening to
language lessons
um my phone is in another language i'm
always exposed to the language to some
extent
even if i'm not studying every day and
also on that note of asking how many
hours you study that is
again a mindset of what is the best
method like how many hours do i need to
study to get food no no
it's a lot more of a natural process to
get to
speaking a language fluently it's the
little bits that you do each day
not the solid blocks of hours try not to
think in this
academic mindset if you if you think of
school for example you do like
one hour of math then you do an hour of
history and then you do an hour of
english then you go home
and then it's uh an hour of studying
french
no it's it's a lot more natural than
that don't give yourself the strict
guideline of oh i must do this
rather give yourself maybe habit
stacking like when i
brush my teeth i'm going to to review
the french vocabulary sticky notes i put
or
when i um cook breakfast i'm going to
listen to this podcast or every day i'm
going to read one article
give yourself these small actionable
goals rather than saying study for x
amount of
hours i hope that was useful for you uh
just some insights that i had while
they're fresh in my head
and remember i'm also still learning
like i'm also still trying to find the
method that is good for me
so if you have any types of advice let's
share them in the comments
i hope you have a wonderful weekend and
i will see you in the next video
bye