Can Writing By Hand Help You Learn A Language Faster?

But I'm quite convinced that writing them out by hand helps me learn them. Aber ich bin ziemlich davon überzeugt, dass es mir hilft, sie von Hand aufzuschreiben.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann, and today I want to talk about writing,

uh, but I want to talk about the importance of writing by hand.

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So I did a video recently about writing and I pointed out, Uh, many people Так что я недавно сделал видео о писательстве, и я указал, э-э, многие люди

want to improve their ability to write in a language, and I gave some

suggestions, uh, on how we can improve our ability to write and to write well.

I also talked about the importance of writing as a strategy to

improve in a language, to improve our comprehension, to improve our

ability to, to express ourselves even orally, our ability to speak.

Writing is, is a strategy, is a, is an activity that helps us learn.

In that video, I said that it's very important in any language learning

activity that that activity be meaningful to say, me, the learner to us as learners.

And I always find it difficult to uh, in the languages that I've been

learning recently at any rate, because I don't like to maintain a diary.

I don't maintain a diary in my own language, so it would be a

bit unnatural for me to maintain a diary in the language I'm learning.

Although people maybe who don't maintain a language in their own, uh, a diary

in their own language may be, you know, uh, motivated to start a diary

in the language that they're learning.

I, I admitted, or I, I stressed the fact that writing is good for,

you know, language skills, it's a good thing to do, but you have to

do it in a way that makes sense.

So if I have, uh, say email communication with someone, then I might be inclined

to write uh, to be honest, I might still rely on Google Translate because ええと、正直に言うと、私はまだGoogle翻訳に頼っているかもしれません。

it's, it's available as a tool.

Uh, all I want to do is communicate.

I might just write something up in English, get the translation, and read

it over, uh, and then send it along.

So again, it's difficult to get yourself in a situation where you do something

that you feel you should be doing in the language and that is natural to you.

I have found that I very rarely write in the languages that I'm learning today.

However, that wasn't always the case.

Two of the, let's say that the languages that I speak the best are, besides

English, French, and Japanese and Chinese, so I have very rarely written in Japanese.

But I have written a lot in French and Chinese, and in both cases

I wrote by hand because in those days there were no other options.

I wrote my Chinese by hand and I wrote...

I was a student in France for three years.

I had to write, you know, exams in French.

I wrote by hand in Chinese.

Uh, after one year of study, we had to write the, I had to write

the British Foreign Service Exam.

I had to compose a diplomatic note in Chinese. 私は中国語で外交文書を書かなければなりませんでした。

I had to translate uh, newspaper editorials from English into Chinese.

I had to be able to write, and so I did a lot of writing and I'm quite

convinced that writing by hand helped me learn Chinese characters.

If I were learning Chinese characters today, would I write them all by hand,

uh, out by hand, as I did then or would I rely on some computer system?

I don't know because I'm not in the position of having to learn Chinese

characters today, 50 years later.

But I'm quite convinced that writing them out by hand helps me learn them.

Yet I know that I rarely, if I, I do not write by hand in any

language other than English today.

I write, I can write Chinese, Japanese, Russian, whatever.

I will either type or I will use dictation on my iPhone.

I don't write by hand.

Uh, in Russian I can hardly read the cursive version of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Uh, basically everything I do is on the computer.

That's the world that I live in.

So if I were even today, I, I, I have never tried to write Persian or Arabic. もし私が今日でさえ、ペルシア語やアラビア語を書こうとしたことは一度もありません。

So, uh, as I said, I don't write very much in the languages that

I have learned or I type on the computer, but I don't write by hand.

But writing is a great way to improve your skills in the language, your

comprehension, but particularly your ability to output to speak 'cause

you look words up, so it's kind of like an assist to get to speaking.

Well, I'm gonna show you an even further, more helpful

assist to getting you to output.

It's what we call the integrated review, which is a new activity. It's what we call the integrated review, which is a new activity.

I have it on my iPad and iPhone.

It'll be available on all platforms in the new year.

So in Turkish, for example, if I go to my mini stories and I just pick a

mini story here, doesn't really matter.

Uh, whatever here.

So obviously I've gone through this.

A number of words in yellow.

I may have forgotten some of them.

I go to my sentence view... センテンス ビューに移動します...

the story about son and, uh, dog Max.

Uh, let's go to a longer next sentence.

So, um, you know, let's say I don't really remember ... is my son, so

I often move, you know, uh, words back to, could be to not known.

And then if they don't show up, I have to go hide and show. そして、彼らが現れない場合、私は隠れて見せなければなりません.

Now I can do this review ... was, uh, is when he was a, a cub,

like a small dog, A puppy.

Uh, my son ... so now I have to put the story together.

So A goes to the front. だからAは前に出る。

This is a story uh, a story of my, uh, son and his dog, Max

... okay, so good.

I can review these again if I want.

I close it.

I go to the next sentence.

So ... was before, so we again study the sentence earlier before is

... and now I have to put the sentence together again.

Again, I have a capital O obviously starts the sentence

... correct.

Okay.

Now this might seem simple.

Uh, mini stories are easier.

If I go to, let's say, for the fun of it, let's go to a language

that I haven't been doing.

I did kind of poke around in say, Dutch.

And, uh, so here's one and, uh, view sentence.

Okay.

Now this is more difficult here.

Uh, let's see.

Okay.

Here is a shorter sentence.

So, uh, ... is after ...let's listen to it.

... okay, now study it.

Okay.

Only, uh, ...really for the first time ... correct. ただ、ええと、...本当に初めて...正しい。

And, um, let's see, そして、ええと、見てみましょう、

... ... is after as though, as if, wasn't in the sentence, but they throw a. ... ... は after であるかのように、まるで、文に含まれていませんでしたが、 a. をスローします。

You know, ringers in there. あなたが知っている、そこにリンガー。

So in, uh,

... is after

... uh, Belgium.

uh,

... uh, okay, so the ... from Belgium in 1830. ...ええと、それで...1830年にベルギーから。

I forgot that guy. 私はその男を忘れました。

Put him in there. 彼をそこに入れてください。

Uh, ... there we go.

So then I can look at the words again. そうすれば、言葉をもう一度見ることができます。

Anyway, that gives you an idea of how useful this, uh, uh, integrated review とにかく、これで、この統合レビューがどれほど役立つかがわかります。

can be in getting you to start to kind of, you know, assist the output with the つまり、出力を支援するようなものを開始することができます

training wheels on in languages, even ones that you're not that familiar with. 慣れていない言語でも補助輪が作動します。

I hope that was useful, but if I really wanted to improve in those languages, お役に立てば幸いですが、これらの言語を本当に改善したい場合は、

probably I should write by hand. おそらく私は手で書く必要があります。

And there is research that shows that not only for learning languages, but for そして、言語を学ぶためだけでなく、

learning anything if we write by hand and we're cultivating those motor skills in 手で書くことで何かを学び、それらの運動能力を養っています。

our brain to enable us to write and to to write about a subject or to write in a

language that we are learning, doing it by hand is more effective than typing, more 私たちが学習している言語は、タイピングよりも手で行う方が効果的です。

effective than just listening and reading.

So I, I'm quite convinced that there is significant benefit in writing by

hand in order to improve our skills.

But it's also a matter of say, choice.

If I spend a lot of time writing by hand, then that's time that I'm

not spending listening and reading.

So my, the, my vocabulary growth is more limited.

Uh, it's a, it's kind of the, the way I feel when I'm say on LingQ and I'm doing

sort of vocabulary in sentence mode.

We have these matching pairs now in the, uh, certainly the iOS app,

followed by the sort of assembling of words in a sentence, which I love 次に、私が大好きな文の中での単語の組み立てのようなものが続きます

doing and I find very addictive.

But all the time I'm spending doing that and nailing those things down. しかし、私は常にそれを行い、それらのことを明確にすることに費やしています.

That's time that I'm not acquiring more words and getting my brain used to hearing

the language and reading the language.

So there's, it's always a matter of, of what you wanna do. だから、それは常に、あなたが何をしたいかの問題です。

Obviously when I was learning Chinese, it was a full-time job.

I had the whole day to devote to learning Chinese.

I could spend an hour or two writing, I could spend an hour

or two listening or reading.

So there was, I, I didn't have to decide as I do today, how am I gonna spend

the hour, hour and a half a day that I have available for language learning? 語学学習に使える 1 時間、1 時間半。

However, if you have the time, I'm quite convinced that writing by

hand is a very good discipline, uh, to improve your language skills.

But overall, I think writing it's something that's perhaps neglected today

and, and maybe is really only necessary if we are in a, a situation where we need

to be able to write in a foreign language for academic or professional reasons.

And then, uh, you can refer to the videos that I did on writing to see what my

recommendations are with regard to, you know, how to improve your writing, but

insofar as writing by hand is concerned...

oh, and that reminds me when I did my video about writing and I said

that, you know, keeping a diary is not something that I would do because

it's not something I'm used to doing.

Somebody commented that somehow, uh, I was misleading people, uh, and that I saw,

you know, the writing practice, uh, or the writing of a maintaining of a diary.

It wasn't clear what the reference was to, but that I saw this as competition 何を参照しているのかは明確ではありませんでしたが、私はこれを競争と見なしていました

to LingQ and that therefore I was discouraging people from doing it.

That's not the case.

No learning activity, let's say a learning activity that is totally unrelated 学習活動はありません。まったく関係のない学習活動としましょう

to LingQ is a competition to LingQ. to LingQ は LingQ との競争です。

Different learning activities are all complimentary. さまざまな学習活動はすべて無料です。

You don't have to only have one learning activity, one learning app,

one approach to language learning.

Whatever you do, uh, is beneficial.

Uh, remember, language learning is a matter of your attitude and the

time you spend with the language.

Whatever gets you involved with the language is good. あなたが言語に関わるものは何でも良いです。

That's not competition. それは競争ではありません。

That's basically synergy from my point of view. それは基本的に私の観点からの相乗効果です。

So again, I refer you to the two videos I did on writing or a few years ago, and

I hope that this is of interest to you. これがあなたに興味があることを願っています。

Thanks for listening.

Bye for now.