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i want to share with you a different way
of looking at language learning
and an adventure that it took me on
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i feel very strongly that the way
languages are taught traditionally in
school
is immensely frustrating and it's very
inefficient
it is my belief that language learning
can be exciting
and truly mind-expanding that is the
inspiration behind all of my language
adventures
so i'm going to draw out how i visualize
this and explain as i go along
to conceptualize how i see language
learning how i see this whole process
this is a significant investment in
terms of time and energy
it is not easy to learn a language and i
think the more concrete we can turn
something that is
abstract and potentially overwhelming
the easier it becomes to break it down
to understand what's going on to make
progress
and by far the most important of all to
enjoy the process
first and foremost i think what is
lacking is
a clear explanation as to the mechanics
of language
in general how language works these are
universal
concepts that apply to all languages no
matter what you're learning or what you
speak
this is a reflection of human nature
really how we use language
it changed everything for me and how i
saw languages when i finally
saw things clearly through this lens
take it or leave it it's up to you
the way i have always traditionally
visualized
language is like a solar system where we
have concentric circles
building out now this is not new but
there's a concept essentially that we
need to
take into account here which is word
frequency some words
are used a lot more than others words
and phrases
so for example a word like the or
a or and those are very very common
words in english
and they're used a lot more often than a
random word like
dolphins or horses for that matter not
that those
nouns are not important but they're used
less often than
the can you imagine trying to have an
entire conversation without using the
word the
it'd be difficult what we're trying to
do here is rank by importance
and everything gets ranked so with this
concept of language okay
this solar system we're going to build
this out in terms of
word frequency where the most frequently
used words are at the very center
okay ranked by frequency of usage and as
you build out
it's less and less commonly used words
so this circle here
represents the top 10 percent of words
used in the english language or any
given language all the way out
to the final circle now a couple things
to keep in mind here
first of all these exact words will look
differently
depending on the language and how it's
structured and how it's used
so the top 10 of words
in english are not going to be
necessarily exactly the same as in
spanish for example and there's a level
of personalization
that's going on here in that that top
ten percent of words
that is used by any given person is
going to be a reflection of how they
think
and their vocabulary and their life and
their interests
so your top ten percent isn't
necessarily exactly like
my top 10 in english i always felt
during my exchange year in france where
i did become
fluent in the language that my
vocabulary in
cuisine in food in general was weak it
wasn't as good as it could be
it was because that year i didn't spend
a lot of time cooking so my cuisine
and food vocabulary is probably
ranked lower than somebody else learning
the french language
uh to become a chef i would imagine
their cuisine
and food vocabulary is much higher much
more important probably in the top 10 or
20 percent
now here's the thing i just built this
out this solar system
that represents a language in terms of
evenly spread out circles but that's not
actually how this works
what we need to do here is a weighted
representation of word frequency of how
often words are actually used in terms
of how much space they take up
in the solar system what this should
actually probably look like
is the inner circle is
much much larger okay takes up a huge
percentage of the total solar system
because
that top 10 percent of words actually
accounts for
well over half of all language use
in the language and then the next circle
takes up
a another large percentage of the solar
system but much smaller than the first
circle
and then smaller and smaller and smaller
this is actually how
language works this is known as the
pareto principle also commonly known as
the 80 20 rule
i've talked about this before this
applies to so many
different domains in life if you're
curious about this idea i highly
recommend you look further into it
because i've actually used this
law of the universe of nature in
how i organize my life in where my time
and energy goes
how i can sort of maximize what i'm
doing
i feel like you got to give yourself
every possible advantage that you can
so let's talk about takeaways from all
of this i think it's
very powerful to approach language
learning in terms of prioritization
what is the top one percent of most
frequently used words and expressions
what is going to take me the furthest in
terms of comprehension in terms of
self-expression
especially in the beginning to get the
boat offshore this can of course
expand out to eventually fill most if
not all of the solar system right
that's the goal but it doesn't all have
to happen at once in fact i think that's
why
it can feel so overwhelming to get going
with the language
it's actually incredible how much
coverage you can have on a language
with a very small set of very commonly
used words and expressions there's a lot
of research about this out there
that i will link to down below so that's
it you have
my secret you can now go out and apply
it to whatever language that you're
learning
really have nothing to hide here i take
such great joy
in seeing other people share my passion
for languages so please
like use this however you see fit if you
feel lost about how to go about this
i worked for four months with my friend
johnny harris to create a language
learning course
to answer all questions that you may
have we went
way way more in depth into this way of
approaching language and between the two
of us we shared all the tools and
techniques that we have
to learn to memorize to
go through this entire process to
navigate the choppy waters of learning a
new language
i'm honestly really proud of how it came
out it contains everything i know
about language learning up to this point
the reason i charge money for it
is just because of the amount of effort
and energy and research
and time that went into making this
happen so i'll link to it down below
if you're interested i made a lot of
language learning materials available
for free on my website and all you have
to do is sign up to my newsletter which
is also free and i'll send it to you the
thing that i always go back to is that
language is experiential it is something
that is meant to be used
i only learn languages to connect with
other people
and to understand their way of seeing
the world and
living life it is really not about lists
of words or tables of conjugation so in
the spirit of capturing what excites me
about
languages i wanted to share a little
adventure that i went on a few months
ago with a belgian friend of mine this
is for the love
of travel and exploration and it would
have never been possible had i never
learned
french on a road
somewhere in southern portugal the light
is just ridiculous right now i mean
ridiculous
and with my belgian friend
greg gregoire gregory just i don't know
greg that cooks
basically uh i'm gonna attempt to learn
how to drive
uh stick for the first time ever so
we'll see we'll see how that goes i
don't think it's super complicated but
i'm uh we'll see how things go before i
dive in though i do want to talk briefly
about the sponsor of this video
morning brew my new big thing is
newsletters
i think that's probably the reason why i
mention mine so often
it's because i think i'm coming to
realize that it is an amazing way to
reach people and to share ideas and that
i think is why it's growing so quickly
morning brew is like the tech finance
version of what i'm doing
i found that it's a way less intrusive
less distracting way
of getting distilled down information on
what's going on in the world
this is one of my many solutions to
spend less time on social media i feel
like i'm learning from it
it's well written interesting and free
and it helped me
follow along with the whole gamestop
saga for example
the newsletter goes out daily monday
through saturday so if you're interested
in tech
business or finance consider checking it
out it takes like 15 seconds to sign up
and i'll link to it down below i read it
so thank you morning brew for sponsoring
this video
now on to my adventure
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manual
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foreign
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um
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is
just
but
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foreign
is
wow wow
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and then came the dogs
all in all i'm gonna need a lot more
practice to feel comfortable driving
stick
but this is a really great start
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you