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Steve's Language Learning Tips, Don't Just Learn a Language, Get Familiar With It.

Don't Just Learn a Language, Get Familiar With It.

Getting to where we are familiar with the language, with the intonation, with the pronunciation, with the word choices. This is all part of learning language. It's all part of our brains getting used to the language. Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here and today, I want to talk a little philosophically about language learning.

I want to talk about how we get to know a language, how we become familiar with them. Uh, not necessarily how we learn the language, because that's a big part of learning the language. So remember if you enjoy these videos, please subscribe, um, click on the bell for notifications. And of course, if you follow me on, uh, any of the podcast, um, websites, then please leave a re uh, you know, uh, review.

So, you know, I like to talk here about language learning. I know that many of my videos are used by people who are learning Enlgish so I try to speak clearly. Uh, I think my Canadian accent is a somewhat neutral, so it's probably easy for people to understand. And I talk about language learning because I want to encourage people to learn languages.

And I want to sort of, uh, make language learning seem less of a difficult thing. Uh, I think if you follow these videos, you'll know that I sort of, um, encourage people to treat language learning as sort of a natural activity. Something that if we put in enough time, we will improve. Uh, we don't have to get everything right.

We don't have to get a big, you know, a high score on the test. As I do try to avoid tests, try to avoid drills exercises, try to just learn the language. And a big part of that is this sense of becoming familiar with the language so that the language becomes like a friend. So you get to know the language, just like you get to know, you get very familiar with people in your family, familiar family.

You get to know your friends, you get to know their characteristics. Um, when you see them. You know how they behave, you know, what their character is like. So you become very sort of intimately connected with them. And I feel the same way with the languages that I've learned. Uh, maybe it's because I do a lot of listening.

So, you know, I'm not deliberately trying to learn anything I do when I'm, you know, after listening, I review it on my iPad and look at words and stuff, but I'm not deliberately trying to learn anything. I'm more trying to become friends with the language I'm trying to start to get in the mood to enjoy the language.

And I think that helps in terms of pronunciation, for example, in terms of intonation, in terms of using the right phrase, Uh, as we start to become familiar with the language, even if we don't fully understand it, a lot of these things are kind of penetrating us. I noticed this in my Arabic and my, and my Persian, uh, not paradoxically.

And remember, again, that many of you are studying languages at school, or you may be studying them for professional reasons, which was my case when I was learning Chinese 50 years ago, that was my job. I was doing it seven hours a day, but now I'm doing it as a hobby. I'm doing it out of interest. I'm doing it because I'm interested, not only in the language, but in the history and the culture behind that language and possibly travel and food and meeting people.

And that whole sense of being able to participate in another cultural media. So that's what motivates me. And what I found recently is that my strategy of, you know, and, and this is this whole issue of studying more than one language, say two languages at the same time, you know, what's the best way to combine languages.

Should we be doing two languages the same day or alternating days? And I'm beginning to find that if I go one week on one and one week on the other, then when I come back to the first one, I'm sort of reconnecting with an old friend and that's a nice feeling. And I mean, even finding, and as I said before, this is a business of benign neglect.

If you leave one language, go to the other one for awhile, come back to the first one, all of a sudden things are clearer. Um, maybe because you've pushed your brain to work this other language. And maybe because if we stay with the one language and we're trying to learn and we're disappointed that we're not doing better in a certain way, frustration, creeps, creeps in.

Whereas if we leave it for awhile, do this other language and then we come back to the first one we rediscover an old friend, everything is fresh again. And I do find that I hear things more clearly. Uh, I I'm a little more aware of, of, of the language and getting to where we are familiar with the language, with the intonation, with the pronunciation.

Word choices. This is all part of learning language. It's all part of our brains getting used to that language. And if we can develop this sort of natural, getting to know the language, we're going to speak more naturally, as opposed to trying to learn it through rules and tests and things of that nature.

And it's surprising. I was, uh, I spent a while with, with, uh, Persian. Then I started listening to my, um, Arabic, uh, podcast again. And I find that, you know, I recognize my old friend, I recognize some of the personality of the Arab speaker. He's sort of very intent on getting his view across and he uses certain expressions in a, uh, certainly in the, uh, in the standard Arabic, which I'm listening to from, you know, these political podcasts.

Uh, the Egyptian Arabic has a different personality and I have a very good tutor who's creating content for me in Egypt. And so I can get familiar with and get to know and get to feel the personality of Egyptian Arabic. And then I'll leave that and then I'll go to my Persian again. And on each of these occasions, it's staying fresh for me.

And then I'm rediscovering an old friend. Picking up where we left off and I find that I'm progressing perhaps or enjoying it more or less frustrated by my lack of progress and more aware that I am becoming more familiar with the language. It's becoming more familiar to me. It's becoming more of a friend to me.

I'm recognizing characteristics. Therefore intonation, pronunciation, turns of phrases. And in that way, the language is gradually penetrating. And this normally, and I found this when, after an absence, I started speaking again with, with my tutor, all of a sudden, all of this familiarity, this comfort level with the language as being, you know, converts itself into being able to speak more fleet freely and speak more, I wouldn't say fluently yet in those languages, but more comfortably in those languages. So, you know, learning languages is not just learning the rules, although it can help to review the basic patterns of the language. It's it's becoming, you know, emotionally connected to the language, becoming more familiar with the language, making the language your friend.

So I find a strategy of alternating languages works for me, but some people may prefer to stay with one language, but ultimately we want to sort of get that language. And so I think learning language includes this sense of making these languages your friend, making them familiar to you. So a little bit of a vague thought, but it's something that's been running around and in my mind, and I'd be interested in, in any reaction.

Maybe what I had to say there is, is just a lot of nonsense. I don't know. Anyway, thanks for listening.

Don't Just Learn a Language, Get Familiar With It. Lernen Sie nicht nur eine Sprache, machen Sie sich mit ihr vertraut. Don't Just Learn a Language, Get Familiar With It. No se limite a aprender un idioma, familiarícese con él. Ne vous contentez pas d'apprendre une langue, familiarisez-vous avec elle. Non limitatevi a imparare una lingua, ma familiarizzate con essa. 言語を学ぶだけでなく、それに慣れてください。 언어를 배우는 데 그치지 말고 친숙해지세요. Não se limite a aprender uma língua, familiarize-se com ela. Не просто выучить язык, а познакомиться с ним. Bir Dili Sadece Öğrenmekle Kalmayın, Ona Aşina Olun. Не просто вивчайте мову, а знайомтеся з нею. 不要只是学习一门语言,要熟悉它。 不要只是學習一門語言,而是要熟悉它。

Getting to where we are familiar with the language, with the intonation, with the pronunciation, with the word choices. Getting to where we are familiar with the language, with the intonation, with the pronunciation, with the word choices. 言語、イントネーション、発音、単語の選択に精通している場所にたどり着きます。 Chegar onde estamos familiarizados com a linguagem, com a entonação, com a pronúncia, com as escolhas de palavras. This is all part of learning language. It's all part of our brains getting used to the language. 言語に慣れるのは私たちの脳のすべての部分です。 Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here and today, I want to talk a little philosophically about language learning.

I want to talk about how we get to know a language, how we become familiar with them. I want to talk about how we get to know a language, how we become familiar with them. Uh, not necessarily how we learn the language, because that's a big part of learning the language. So remember if you enjoy these videos, please subscribe, um, click on the bell for notifications. And of course, if you follow me on, uh, any of the podcast, um, websites, then please leave a re uh, you know, uh, review. E, claro, se você me seguir em, uh, qualquer um dos podcasts, hum, sites, então, por favor, deixe um comentário, uh, você sabe, uh, review.

So, you know, I like to talk here about language learning. I know that many of my videos are used by people who are learning Enlgish so I try to speak clearly. Uh, I think my Canadian accent is a somewhat neutral, so it's probably easy for people to understand. And I talk about language learning because I want to encourage people to learn languages.

And I want to sort of, uh, make language learning seem less of a difficult thing. そして、私は、言語学習をそれほど難しくないように見せたいと思っています。 Uh, I think if you follow these videos, you'll know that I sort of, um, encourage people to treat language learning as sort of a natural activity. Something that if we put in enough time, we will improve. Uh, we don't have to get everything right.

We don't have to get a big, you know, a high score on the test. As I do try to avoid tests, try to avoid drills exercises, try to just learn the language. And a big part of that is this sense of becoming familiar with the language so that the language becomes like a friend. そして、その大部分は、言語が友達のようになるように、言語に精通するというこの感覚です。 So you get to know the language, just like you get to know, you get very familiar with people in your family, familiar family. ですから、あなたは言語を知るようになります。あなたが知るようになるのと同じように、あなたはあなたの家族、なじみのある家族の人々に非常に精通するようになります。

You get to know your friends, you get to know their characteristics. Um, when you see them. You know how they behave, you know, what their character is like. Você sabe como eles se comportam, você sabe, como é o caráter deles. So you become very sort of intimately connected with them. Таким чином, ви стаєте дуже тісно з ними. And I feel the same way with the languages that I've learned. Uh, maybe it's because I do a lot of listening.

So, you know, I'm not deliberately trying to learn anything I do when I'm, you know, after listening, I review it on my iPad and look at words and stuff, but I'm not deliberately trying to learn anything. Então, você sabe, eu não estou deliberadamente tentando aprender nada do que eu faço quando eu, você sabe, depois de ouvir, eu reviso no meu iPad e olho as palavras e outras coisas, mas eu não estou deliberadamente tentando aprender nada . I'm more trying to become friends with the language I'm trying to start to get in the mood to enjoy the language. 私はもっと言語を楽しみたい気分になり始めようとしている言語と友達になろうとしています。 Estou mais tentando me tornar amigo do idioma. Estou tentando começar a entrar no clima de gostar do idioma.

And I think that helps in terms of pronunciation, for example, in terms of intonation, in terms of using the right phrase, Uh, as we start to become familiar with the language, even if we don't fully understand it, a lot of these things are kind of penetrating us. E acho que isso ajuda em termos de pronúncia, por exemplo, em termos de entonação, em termos de usar a frase certa, uh, à medida que começamos a nos familiarizar com a língua, mesmo que não a entendamos completamente, muito dessas coisas estão meio que nos penetrando. I noticed this in my Arabic and my, and my Persian, uh, not paradoxically. Percebi isso no meu árabe e no meu, e no meu persa, uh, não paradoxalmente.

And remember, again, that many of you are studying languages at school, or you may be studying them for professional reasons, which was my case when I was learning Chinese 50 years ago, that was my job. I was doing it seven hours a day, but now I'm doing it as a hobby. I'm doing it out of interest. 私は興味を持ってそれをやっています。 Estou fazendo isso por interesse. I'm doing it because I'm interested, not only in the language, but in the history and the culture behind that language and possibly travel and food and meeting people.

And that whole sense of being able to participate in another cultural media. そして、別の文化メディアに参加できるというその全体的な感覚。 E toda aquela sensação de poder participar de outra mídia cultural. So that's what motivates me. それが私を動機付けるものです。 And what I found recently is that my strategy of, you know, and, and this is this whole issue of studying more than one language, say two languages at the same time, you know, what's the best way to combine languages. そして私が最近見つけたのは、私の戦略です。これは、複数の言語、つまり2つの言語を同時に学習するというこの問題全体です。言語を組み合わせるための最良の方法は何ですか。 E o que eu descobri recentemente é que minha estratégia de, sabe, e, e essa é toda essa questão de estudar mais de um idioma, digamos dois idiomas ao mesmo tempo, sabe, qual é a melhor maneira de combinar idiomas.

Should we be doing two languages the same day or alternating days? 2つの言語を同じ日に行うべきですか、それとも交互に行うべきですか? Devemos fazer duas línguas no mesmo dia ou dias alternados? And I'm beginning to find that if I go one week on one and one week on the other, then when I come back to the first one, I'm sort of reconnecting with an old friend and that's a nice feeling. そして、ある週と別の週に行くと、最初の週に戻ったときに、古い友人と再接続しているような気がし始めています。それはいい気分です。 E estou começando a descobrir que se eu for uma semana em uma e uma semana na outra, então, quando eu voltar para a primeira, estou meio que me reconectando com um velho amigo e isso é uma sensação agradável. And I mean, even finding, and as I said before, this is a business of benign neglect. つまり、見つけることでさえ、前に言ったように、これは良性の怠慢のビジネスです。 E quero dizer, mesmo descobrindo, e como eu disse antes, isso é um negócio de negligência benigna.

If you leave one language, go to the other one for awhile, come back to the first one, all of a sudden things are clearer. 1つの言語を離れ、しばらくの間他の言語に移動し、最初の言語に戻ると、突然のことがすべて明確になります。 Um, maybe because you've pushed your brain to work this other language. ええと、多分あなたがこの他の言語を働かせるためにあなたの脳を押したからでしょう。 Hum, talvez porque você empurrou seu cérebro para trabalhar essa outra linguagem. And maybe because if we stay with the one language and we're trying to learn and we're disappointed that we're not doing better in a certain way, frustration, creeps, creeps in. そして、おそらく私たちが1つの言語にとどまり、学習しようとしていて、特定の方法でうまくやっていないことに失望している場合、欲求不満、忍び寄る、忍び寄る。 E talvez porque se ficarmos com um idioma e estivermos tentando aprender e ficarmos desapontados por não estarmos indo melhor de uma certa maneira, a frustração se arrastará.

Whereas if we leave it for awhile, do this other language and then we come back to the first one we rediscover an old friend, everything is fresh again. しばらく放置すると、この他の言語を実行してから、古い友人を再発見した最初の言語に戻りますが、すべてが再び新鮮になります。 And I do find that I hear things more clearly. そして、私は物事をよりはっきりと聞いていることがわかります。 E acho que ouço as coisas com mais clareza. Uh, I I'm a little more aware of, of, of the language and getting to where we are familiar with the language, with the intonation, with the pronunciation. ええと、私は言語についてもう少し気づいていて、言語、イントネーション、発音に慣れているところにたどり着きました。 Uh, eu estou um pouco mais ciente da, da, da língua e chegando onde estamos familiarizados com a língua, com a entonação, com a pronúncia.

Word choices. This is all part of learning language. これはすべて言語学習の一部です。 It's all part of our brains getting used to that language. その言語に慣れるのは私たちの脳のすべての部分です。 And if we can develop this sort of natural, getting to know the language, we're going to speak more naturally, as opposed to trying to learn it through rules and tests and things of that nature. E se conseguirmos desenvolver esse tipo de naturalidade, conhecendo a língua, vamos falar com mais naturalidade, ao invés de tentar aprender através de regras e testes e coisas dessa natureza.

And it's surprising. E é surpreendente. I was, uh, I spent a while with, with, uh, Persian. Eu estava, uh, eu passei um tempo com, uh, Persa. Then I started listening to my, um, Arabic, uh, podcast again. And I find that, you know, I recognize my old friend, I recognize some of the personality of the Arab speaker. そして、私はあなたが知っている、私は私の古い友人を認識している、私はアラブの話者の個性のいくつかを認識していることがわかります。 He's sort of very intent on getting his view across and he uses certain expressions in a, uh, certainly in the, uh, in the standard Arabic, which I'm listening to from, you know, these political podcasts. 彼は彼の見解を広めることに非常に熱心であり、私が聞いている標準的なアラビア語で、ええと、確かに、ええと、これらの政治ポッドキャストで特定の表現を使用しています。 Ele está muito empenhado em transmitir sua visão e usa certas expressões em um, uh, certamente no, uh, no árabe padrão, que estou ouvindo, você sabe, esses podcasts políticos.

Uh, the Egyptian Arabic has a different personality and I have a very good tutor who's creating content for me in Egypt. And so I can get familiar with and get to know and get to feel the personality of Egyptian Arabic. そして、私はエジプトのアラビア語の個性に精通し、知り、感じることができます。 And then I'll leave that and then I'll go to my Persian again. And on each of these occasions, it's staying fresh for me. E em cada uma dessas ocasiões, continua fresco para mim.

And then I'm rediscovering an old friend. Picking up where we left off and I find that I'm progressing perhaps or enjoying it more or less frustrated by my lack of progress and more aware that I am becoming more familiar with the language. Continuando de onde paramos e acho que estou progredindo talvez ou gostando mais ou menos frustrado pela minha falta de progresso e mais consciente de que estou me tornando mais familiarizado com o idioma. It's becoming more familiar to me. It's becoming more of a friend to me. それは私にとってもっと友達になりつつあります。

I'm recognizing characteristics. Therefore intonation, pronunciation, turns of phrases. したがって、イントネーション、発音、フレーズの順番。 Portanto entonação, pronúncia, voltas de frases. And in that way, the language is gradually penetrating. E dessa forma, a linguagem vai gradualmente penetrando. And this normally, and I found this when, after an absence, I started speaking again with, with my tutor, all of a sudden, all of this familiarity, this comfort level with the language as being, you know, converts itself into being able to speak more fleet freely and speak more, I wouldn't say fluently yet in those languages, but more comfortably in those languages. そして、これは正常であり、不在の後、私が家庭教師と、突然、このすべての親しみやすさ、言語に対するこの快適さのレベルが、あなたが知っているように、自分自身を存在に変えると再び話し始めたときにこれを見つけましたより多くの艦隊を自由に話し、より多く話すことができるので、私はまだそれらの言語で流暢に言うことはありませんが、それらの言語でより快適に言います。 E isso normalmente, e eu descobri isso quando, depois de uma ausência, eu comecei a falar de novo com, com meu tutor, de repente, toda essa familiaridade, esse nível de conforto com a linguagem como sendo, sabe, se converte em ser capaz de falar mais livremente e falar mais, eu não diria fluentemente ainda nessas línguas, mas mais confortavelmente nessas línguas. So, you know, learning languages is not just learning the rules, although it can help to review the basic patterns of the language. It's it's becoming, you know, emotionally connected to the language, becoming more familiar with the language, making the language your friend.

So I find a strategy of alternating languages works for me, but some people may prefer to stay with one language, but ultimately we want to sort of get that language. Então, acho que uma estratégia de alternar idiomas funciona para mim, mas algumas pessoas podem preferir ficar com um idioma, mas no final das contas queremos meio que obter esse idioma. And so I think learning language includes this sense of making these languages your friend, making them familiar to you. E então eu acho que aprender uma língua inclui esse sentido de tornar essas línguas suas amigas, tornando-as familiares para você. So a little bit of a vague thought, but it's something that's been running around and in my mind, and I'd be interested in, in any reaction. 少し漠然とした考えですが、それは私の頭の中で走り回っているものであり、どんな反応にも興味があります。 Então, um pensamento um pouco vago, mas é algo que está correndo ao redor e na minha mente, e eu estaria interessado, em qualquer reação.

Maybe what I had to say there is, is just a lot of nonsense. たぶん私が言わなければならなかったのは、多くのナンセンスです。 Talvez o que eu tinha a dizer é apenas um monte de bobagem. I don't know. Anyway, thanks for listening.