in this video I'm going to take you
through the top 5 language learning
activities that you can do in a language
that you want to learn in order to do
just that learn it now these are
absolutely not the only things that you
can or should do but if I had to pick
five that everyone could do just on
repeat in order to get really good at a
language it'll be these five because
they're easy and effective now what do I
mean by activities well just like if I
said hey do you like to eat food you
might say well yeah but what kind of
food if I then said hey do you want to
spend some time in the target language
you might want to know specifically what
I meant by that and it's always easier
to spend time on something particularly
if that something is a little bit
challenging if you've got some kind of
task that you're working on something
that you're actually doing so instead of
my just saying you should spend time in
your language here are five activities
that you can put on your list so that on
the days that you feel like you should
do some of your target language you can
decide I'll do X by X I mean something
not the new name for Twitter yeah I'm
gonna jump on that bandwagon even though
I've never used Twitter or X and I never
will because there's a stupid name now
on top of everything else let's get
started
[Music]
the first task I call scratching now
it's sometimes called that anyway but
not normally in language learning
circles and it basically refers to just
listening to something or watching
something or maybe even having a
conversation but all the while taking
notes but there are no particular rules
to how you take those notes or what you
do or don't write down the aim is
basically to just keep your head in the
space of the target language so you
might watch a show or listen to a
podcast and if you hear a word you don't
know you write it down with your best
guess as to how it's spelled or maybe
it's a phrase or maybe if you're more of
a beginner it's a sound that you don't
know that keeps cropping up you
basically just write down whatever your
brain throws at you you're documenting
your thoughts about the language rather
than everything in the language itself
and the beauty of it is that it's very
good at keeping you focused even if you
can't understand very much so it works
very well for beginners but it scales
perfectly through to Advanced so I could
do this now in Swedish or even in
English for example I could write down
words that I probably do know but just
don't use very often or particular
phrases that I'll like you're really
just allowing your mind to interact with
whatever language you pick up that is
coming in this can actually be more
tiring than you might imagine so maybe
set yourself a small goal like
scratching the language for 10 minutes
or 15 minutes and even those 10 minutes
may pass quite slowly and if you're
looking for short or long videos in your
target language I can recommend lingo
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when about a month ago I said I'd be
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flashcards I discovered recently that in
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foreign
activity I recommend I call puzzle brain
and is designed to take advantage of the
fact that most people are quite
distractible by providing a minor
stimulus to block any possible intrusive
thoughts or impulses that you may have
but simply you do something that you can
do without too much intense thinking at
the same time as listening to the target
language and whenever I've suggested
this in the past I do get a lot of
people surprised by how well it works
with comments like wow I find that going
for a walk or doing a jigsaw puzzle with
a podcast on really does make me more
attentive to the language but I also
normally get some full-time shop
assistant who thinks he's David Goggins
telling me that running with an audio
book on is a complete waste of time
because you can't properly focus on the
training yes thank you I am aware that
there are some people athletes who would
want their sport to be the sole focus of
their training session but for me and 98
of people a walk or a run is just a way
to move your body and de-stress a little
and that will happen equally well with a
podcast or an audio book on maybe even
better what's more is that my listening
is often even more attentive and my
recollection of what I heard in my
target language is better than ever
meaning that it's a win not just for
time efficiency but for the language
study itself and by the way if you want
to pretend that your marathon runner
Elliot kipchoge or basketball or LeBron
James and you therefore need complete
Focus while you're working out so that
you can get the most out of your session
then that yeah that's fine you do you
don't bring me into it I don't care and
you should also know that at my gym at
least literally every single person I've
seen there ever wears headphones which
is actually good for me because I'm
always listening to Swedish which means
I count my reps in Swedish and that
would get a little bit awkward when I
got to six reps but it doesn't matter
because no one can hear me by the way to
do this one you don't have to be
exercising you can do things like jigsaw
puzzles or vacuuming or cleaning or
tidying essentially the exercise is
about not assuming that the target
language must all always have your
completely attentive Focus it's actually
good for the target language and just
the amount of time you spend in it to
split your time between attentive
listening and semi-attentive listening
foreign
but if you are after fully attentive
listening then I might suggest this
third task which I call scuba diving but
I don't mean with an oxygen tank and a
mask I mean with a book and the matching
audiobook and this one's great because
you can do it at a very early stage
assuming that the language has an
alphabet and one that you know so it's
not the same with character-based
languages but for most of the languages
that have an alphabet you can generally
learn that alphabet really quickly so as
soon as you know all or most of the
alphabet and between say 400 and 800
words it becomes really effective
training and it stays effective for a
long time too the first thing it trains
is recognition between written words and
their pronunciation so it's great for
languages that are not particularly
consistent in their pronunciation like
English or Swedish because even if you
don't know the meaning of a word you get
to hear it pronounced by a native
speaker in its proper context so you
don't get any wrong ideas about what it
might look like written down it also
means that you learn things that seem
really obvious to native speakers but
are actually quite hard like where words
start up and finish I remember when I
first started learning Swedish I would
often try to look up words that didn't
exist because of things like didn't
exist but the other big advantage that
reading along with the audiobook has is
that you're completely attentive to the
language and you really decrease the
chances that your thoughts will wander
because you're more fully engaged with
the two stimuli so even if you feel like
you're too much of a beginner in a
language to follow along with what's
going on in a story I would still
recommend that if you find an audio book
and the corresponding book and just read
along with the audiobook this works
really well give it a go and yes I call
that one scuba diving I won't go into
why now but if you really need to know
then leave me a comment
foreign
number four I call copycat and it is for
slightly more advanced learners but if
you're not sure if you can actually do
it then give it a try if you feel it
helps then keep it up basically it's
similar to shadowing but without the
emphasis on copying every single detail
and everything that a native speaker
does you're more trying to feel the same
emotion that they do and lock that in
with the same kinds of language that
they use and series and audio books are
both good candidates for this because
you'll notice that in series there are
often large gaps in the dialogue that
you can use to just repeat the last
thing that was said but even in
audiobooks there are often pauses
between things that are said that are
often longer than you realize so if
you're just a little bit more advanced
you can use the silence plus just the
very start of whatever is said next to
repeat all of what was just said and
pretty much go through a whole piece of
dialogue in a book like that now it's a
little bit complicated to explain
exactly what I mean so at the risk of
making a fool of myself I'm going to try
to show you right foreign
[Music]
they were perfect undone read this song
so I'm not saying it exactly the same
way as it's being said there I'm just
trying to grasp the same emotions
and again with this one the benefits are
numerous and you can adjust it to your
level you can pause the recording like I
was just then because there wasn't a lot
of Silence to work with but if the
recording has a lot of Silence then you
can just let it play and that's another
thing that sets this apart from
shadowing it's much less strict you're
not trying to catch every little detail
you're just trying to make sure that the
language doesn't just pass through your
skull completely unengaged with I'll
often do this one when I'm walking when
I get a little bit of dialogue to work
with I'll just uh yep that part that
part that part and you're just trying to
engage that little bit more with the
language that is in your ears and the
fifth activity I call eight rep which is
the word repeat but with the first three
letters at the end and it's basically
repetition but it's with a much longer
term view so still my take one piece of
material like an episode of a TV show or
a kind of cluster of material like the
entire season of a TV show but instead
of a very deliberate set of repetitions
you're going for a much more relaxed and
long-term based Target for the
repetition that will ultimately result
in the complete saturation of your brain
with that material to give you some
context of where I got this idea from
when I first started learning Swedish my
car had an ordinary CD player not an MP3
CD player or a Bluetooth or anything
like that so I just had the same 80
minutes of an audiobook it was the first
eight chapters of that audiobook on a CD
and while I was fairly convinced that it
didn't really do anything to listen to
that while driving I was also pretty
convinced that it couldn't really hurt
so I just left that same 80 minutes
playing every time I drove the car by
myself for about 10 months and when I
finally came across an input centered
approach to language acquisition and
started expanding the amount of Swedish
different Swedish that I was listening
to I discovered that Allah lot of what I
needed to know about Swedish was in
those 80 minutes and it was unreasonable
that I didn't understand anything that
was in those 80 minutes because I
listened to it so many times and I said
a similar thing in my watching
Spider-Man 50 times video if you hear
something enough times in the end it's
not really possible that you can't
understand it you will just have to and
I'm not at all saying that you shouldn't
read watch or listen to multiple things
you definitely should but I'm also
saying that there should be one thing
one novel or dialogue heavy film or
something like that that you just
overcook to the point of saturation
whether you realize it or not you
probably actually had one of these in
your native language I know I do in
English and I know that it's made my
English better so those are my top five
activities now I'm not saying to not do
anything else to learn a language you
should do as much as possible I think if
you did enough of those five things on
repeat in like 96 of languages you would
end up very so I hope that you did get
something out of this video I know that
this one was a bit more General but I do
have a very particular time consuming
video that I'm currently working on and
I think that everyone has a lot to get
out of that one I don't want to give too
much away but I'm going on the attack
I'm going to tear down a big name make
sure you're subscribed maybe even hit
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watch another video this one's really
good and until next time
thank you