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Steve's Language Learning Tips, How to Focus in on Content When Learning a Language

How to Focus in on Content When Learning a Language

I think it's also useful to focus at times.

It can be a focus for five days.

It can be a focus for two weeks.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here and today I wanna talk about focus.

Remember if you enjoy these videos, please subscribe, click

on the bell for notifications.

Uh, if you follow me on a podcast service, please leave a review.

I do appreciate it.

So my last video I spoke of the importance of variety.

The brain likes new things.

I've often mentioned, you know, the brain likes repetition,

but the brain likes novelty.

And so I talked about varying the nature of your activity, varying, you know,

the kind of content you're dealing with in terms of subject matter, in terms

of difficulty level variety is good.

However, it is also important to focus at times.

Uh, so right now for the last, I would say four or five days, I've been focusing

on this tremendous content that my tutor Sahra from Iran has sent me for Persian.

It's a podcast called epitomebooks.ir.

Uh, it's in Persian, of course, and he has a five part series each one 12 to 15

minutes long about the Iranian Revolution, the Islamic Revolution ... what is it?

I can't remember what he calls it, but so for the last...

and, and what I do is this, and, and it's been very, very effective in terms of

upgrading my Iranian and, or my Persian.

And tomorrow I have a, a lesson with Sahra and we're gonna talk about

uh, the, uh, 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran based on all the reading

and listening that I've been doing.

And so, so I am focusing, but I'm not gonna focus...

it's not like you have a textbook at school and you only

ever read the one textbook.

I'm doing this for a week or two, and then I'll go on to something else.

But I just thought I would review with you for those of you who are

interested, how I go, go about doing this.

So I study in sentence mode because it is just easier for me to digest the Persian

language written in the Arabic script.

If I go one sentence at a time, unfortunately, with this podcast,

uh, it's not timestamped.

So I mean, ideal scenario is it's timestamped, so I can hear the

natural voice and see the sentence.

It is the case for a lot of the content that I get, especially

from YouTube, but with this content, it's simply not the case.

Uh, another disadvantage is that at LingQ, you know, the, the text-to-speech

service that we use doesn't have very high quality Fari or Persian

text to speech, but it is there.

It's not great.

It's, it's the worst of any of the languages for whatever reason.

So those are the disadvantages, but the advantages are that I

deal with this one sentence, which might be 8, 10, 12, 15 words long.

Uh, and then I you know, I, I click on the words that I don't know, or

the words that are still yellow, that I'm still, still trying to learn.

I review them using matching pairs, which is the best type of review

because it's more forgiving, you know, you see three different words,

Persian with the corresponding English.

You gotta match them.

If it's wrong, it goes red.

Otherwise it goes blue.

Get through them very quickly.

And then I'm testing out a new activity that we have where that

sentence then uh, is scrambled for me.

So now I have to try to put it together again in the right order, uh, which again,

allows me to focus in on this sentence.

So I'm focusing on the sentence when I read it, I'm focusing

on the words as I saved them.

And I see a list of these words that I've saved.

I can go through them in other activities, but I prefer the matching

pairs becasue it's easy and fast.

And then I try to put this sentence back together.

Now I do sometimes vary the order.

In other words, in order not to disrupt the flow, uh, I'll go through, let's say

one episode, which say 12, 13 minutes long and I won't do the reassembling of

the sentences because that takes longer.

So I will go through reading, looking up words, get through the whole

thing and then circle back later on to reassemble the sentences.

But the, the assembling the sentences really gets me into the,

the words and how they're used.

But of course, I've also been working around the house

these last couple of days.

There's been an amateur golf tournament, the Canadian amateur

golf tournament at our golf club.

So I haven't been able to, uh, play any golf.

So I have more time to either work around the house or study.

And of course, all the time working around the house, I'm listening.

So I'm listening to the same material, the Iranian or the, yeah, the revolution.

So I'm actually learning about the Islamic revolution and the different

factions and the ... or the landowners or the labor group, or the ... the

Muslim extremists, or the leftists and all the different factions in

groups and how they participated in or contributed to the revolution of 1979.

Part of the confusion I'm also getting used to the Iranian years.

I figured out it's 621 years less than our Western calendar.

So you get used to that.

So a certain amount of focus here has enabled me to pick up a number

of political terms yet, a little more familiar with the years that

the Iranians use the month is still a bit of a, uh, stretch for me.

Um, And I get this, I feel that this degree of focus and concentration

has elevated my Persian in a way, uh, that it wouldn't, it wouldn't

have been possible without this degree of concentration and focus.

Now, tomorrow I will have my lesson with my tutor and we will talk about

these events and we'll see how I do.

Um, my hope is that my tutor will say, wow, you've improved.

Maybe she won't, maybe I'll be worse.

I don't know, but I just thought I would share with you that having

talked about variety, that I think it's also useful to focus at times.

It can be a focus for five days.

It can be a focus for two weeks, uh, and to stay with one, um, content

item, but maybe vary the way you do it.

So, you know, I'm in sentence mode.

Sometimes I do the, you know, putting the sentence together after each sentence.

Sometimes I save it up to do it later on.

I listen to it.

Another thing I did was I printed them out on paper.

And so I read them on paper, which is again, introducing some variety

because if I read it on paper, I'm now unable to look up the word, uh,

rather than doing sentence by sentence I'm now doing the whole story.

So that's introducing some variety while I remain focused on

this bit of, you know, content.

I should add as well that, uh, Sahra is an outstanding tutor.

Uh, she doesn't spend a lot of time explaining the language to me.

She finds me interesting content.

She encourages me.

Uh, she has just been an unbelievable guide to Iranian culture, food

history, uh, language learning content.

And as I learn things of interest to me, I don't really notice the

fact that I'm learning the language.

Although, in fact, I am learning the language.

So I just thought I would share that with you my experience over the last

few days, which I intend to continue until I really feel that I've got a

good grasp on this, uh, particular series, uh, you know, and I'll leave a

link to it, uh, in the description box.

And, uh, I mean, it is part and parcel of this whole idea of input based learning.

So I'll leave a couple of videos as well that that touch on related subjects.

Because even though what I say sometimes seems to contradict what I said earlier,

in fact, it's all part of more or less the same message, uh, which I

try to present in different ways to see if I can stimulate people to have

more interest and more confidence, uh, in their language learning.

Thanks for listening.

Bye for now.

How to Focus in on Content When Learning a Language Wie man sich beim Lernen einer Sprache auf den Inhalt konzentriert Cómo centrarse en el contenido cuando se aprende un idioma Comment se concentrer sur le contenu lors de l'apprentissage d'une langue ? 言語を学ぶときにコンテンツに集中する方法 Jak skupić się na treści podczas nauki języka? Como concentrar-se no conteúdo ao aprender uma língua Как сосредоточиться на содержании при изучении языка Kako se pri učenju jezika osredotočiti na vsebino Dil Öğrenirken İçeriğe Nasıl Odaklanılır? 学习语言时如何专注于内容 學習語言時如何專注於內容

I think it's also useful to focus at times. たまに集中するのもいいと思います。 Myślę, że czasami warto się skoncentrować. Mislim, da se je včasih koristno tudi osredotočiti.

It can be a focus for five days. 5日間集中できます。 Może być skupiony przez pięć dni. Lahko je fokus pet dni.

It can be a focus for two weeks. 2週間は集中できます。 Lahko je fokus dva tedna.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here and today I wanna talk about focus. こんにちは、Steve Kaufmann です。今日はフォーカスについてお話したいと思います。 Pozdravljeni, Steve Kaufmann tukaj in danes želim govoriti o fokusu.

Remember if you enjoy these videos, please subscribe, click Ne pozabite, če so vam všeč ti videoposnetki, se naročite, kliknite

on the bell for notifications. 通知用のベルに。 na zvonec za obvestila.

Uh, if you follow me on a podcast service, please leave a review.

I do appreciate it. 私はそれを感謝します。

So my last video I spoke of the importance of variety. En mi último vídeo hablé de la importancia de la variedad. 前回のビデオでは、多様性の重要性について話しました。

The brain likes new things. 脳は新しいものが好きです。

I've often mentioned, you know, the brain likes repetition, 私はよく言いましたが、脳は繰り返しが好きで、

but the brain likes novelty. pero al cerebro le gusta la novedad. しかし、脳は目新しさが好きです。

And so I talked about varying the nature of your activity, varying, you know, それで私はあなたの活動の性質を変化させることについて話しました。 Mówiłem więc o zróżnicowaniu charakteru twojej działalności, zróżnicowaniu, wiesz, 所以我談到了改變你的活動的性質,改變,你知道,

the kind of content you're dealing with in terms of subject matter, in terms 主題に関して扱っているコンテンツの種類 rodzaj treści, z którymi masz do czynienia pod względem tematycznym, pod względem 就主題而言,您正在處理的內容類型

of difficulty level variety is good. 難易度のバラエティが良い。

However, it is also important to focus at times. しかし、時には集中することも重要です。 Jednak ważne jest również, aby czasami się skoncentrować.

Uh, so right now for the last, I would say four or five days, I've been focusing ええと、今のところ最後に、私は 4 か 5 日間、私は集中してきました

on this tremendous content that my tutor Sahra from Iran has sent me for Persian. イラン出身の家庭教師サーラが私にペルシア語を教えてくれたこの素晴らしい内容について。 關於我來自伊朗的導師 Sahra 發給我波斯語的大量內容。

It's a podcast called epitomebooks.ir. epitomebooks.ir というポッドキャストです。

Uh, it's in Persian, of course, and he has a five part series each one 12 to 15 Uh, es en persa, por supuesto, y tiene una serie de cinco partes cada una de 12 a 15 もちろんペルシャ語で、12 から 15 までの 5 つのシリーズがあります。

minutes long about the Iranian Revolution, the Islamic Revolution ... what is it? イラン革命、イスラム革命についての数分...それは何ですか?

I can't remember what he calls it, but so for the last... No recuerdo cómo lo llama, pero así que para el último... 彼が何と呼んでいたか思い出せませんが、最後に...

and, and what I do is this, and, and it's been very, very effective in terms of そして、そして私がしていることはこれです、そして、それは非常に効果的です 而且,我所做的是,而且,它在以下方面非常非常有效

upgrading my Iranian and, or my Persian. 私のイラン語、または私のペルシャ語をアップグレードします。

And tomorrow I have a, a lesson with Sahra and we're gonna talk about Y mañana tengo una, una lección con Sahra y vamos a hablar de そして明日、サーラとのレッスンがあります。

uh, the, uh, 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran based on all the reading uh, la, uh, Revolución Islámica de 1979 en Irán basado en toda la lectura ええと、ええと、すべての読書に基づくイランの1979年のイスラム革命

and listening that I've been doing. そして、私がやってきたことを聞いています。

And so, so I am focusing, but I'm not gonna focus... それで、集中していますが、集中するつもりはありません...

it's not like you have a textbook at school and you only 学校に教科書があるわけではなく、あなただけ

ever read the one textbook. 1つの教科書を読んだことがあります。

I'm doing this for a week or two, and then I'll go on to something else. Haré esto durante una semana o dos, y luego pasaré a otra cosa. これを1、2週間続けて、それから別のことに取り掛かります。

But I just thought I would review with you for those of you who are しかし、私はあなたと一緒に見直したいと思った.

interested, how I go, go about doing this. interesado, cómo voy, hacer esto. 興味がある、どうしよう、これをやってみよう。

So I study in sentence mode because it is just easier for me to digest the Persian ペルシア語を消化するのが簡単なので、センテンス モードで勉強します。

language written in the Arabic script. アラビア文字で書かれた言語。 用阿拉伯文字書寫的語言。

If I go one sentence at a time, unfortunately, with this podcast, 残念ながら、このポッドキャストでは、

uh, it's not timestamped. uh, no tiene marca de tiempo. ええと、タイムスタンプがありません。 呃,它沒有時間戳。

So I mean, ideal scenario is it's timestamped, so I can hear the つまり、理想的なシナリオは、タイムスタンプが付けられているので、

natural voice and see the sentence.

It is the case for a lot of the content that I get, especially

from YouTube, but with this content, it's simply not the case. 來自 YouTube,但有了這個內容,情況就完全不同了。

Uh, another disadvantage is that at LingQ, you know, the, the text-to-speech

service that we use doesn't have very high quality Fari or Persian 我們使用的服務沒有非常高質量的法里語或波斯語

text to speech, but it is there. texto a voz, pero está ahí.

It's not great.

It's, it's the worst of any of the languages for whatever reason. なんらかの理由で、どの言語よりも最悪です。 無論出於何種原因,它都是所有語言中最糟糕的。

So those are the disadvantages, but the advantages are that I

deal with this one sentence, which might be 8, 10, 12, 15 words long.

Uh, and then I you know, I, I click on the words that I don't know, or

the words that are still yellow, that I'm still, still trying to learn.

I review them using matching pairs, which is the best type of review 我使用匹配對來審查它們,這是最好的審查類型

because it's more forgiving, you know, you see three different words,

Persian with the corresponding English.

You gotta match them.

If it's wrong, it goes red. 如果錯了,它會變紅。

Otherwise it goes blue.

Get through them very quickly.

And then I'm testing out a new activity that we have where that

sentence then uh, is scrambled for me. 那句話呃,是給我打亂的。

So now I have to try to put it together again in the right order, uh, which again,

allows me to focus in on this sentence.

So I'm focusing on the sentence when I read it, I'm focusing

on the words as I saved them.

And I see a list of these words that I've saved.

I can go through them in other activities, but I prefer the matching

pairs becasue it's easy and fast. 對,因為它簡單快捷。

And then I try to put this sentence back together.

Now I do sometimes vary the order. Теперь я иногда меняю порядок. 現在我有時會改變順序。

In other words, in order not to disrupt the flow, uh, I'll go through, let's say 也就是說,為了不擾亂流程,呃,我會通過,比方說

one episode, which say 12, 13 minutes long and I won't do the reassembling of

the sentences because that takes longer.

So I will go through reading, looking up words, get through the whole

thing and then circle back later on to reassemble the sentences. 事情,然後再繞回來重新組合句子。

But the, the assembling the sentences really gets me into the,

the words and how they're used.

But of course, I've also been working around the house

these last couple of days.

There's been an amateur golf tournament, the Canadian amateur 有一個業餘高爾夫錦標賽,加拿大業餘

golf tournament at our golf club.

So I haven't been able to, uh, play any golf.

So I have more time to either work around the house or study. 所以我有更多的時間在家里工作或學習。

And of course, all the time working around the house, I'm listening.

So I'm listening to the same material, the Iranian or the, yeah, the revolution.

So I'm actually learning about the Islamic revolution and the different

factions and the ... or the landowners or the labor group, or the ... the

Muslim extremists, or the leftists and all the different factions in 穆斯林極端分子,或左翼分子和所有不同的派別

groups and how they participated in or contributed to the revolution of 1979.

Part of the confusion I'm also getting used to the Iranian years. 我也習慣了伊朗的歲月。

I figured out it's 621 years less than our Western calendar.

So you get used to that.

So a certain amount of focus here has enabled me to pick up a number 所以這裡的一定程度的專注讓我拿起了一個號碼

of political terms yet, a little more familiar with the years that

the Iranians use the month is still a bit of a, uh, stretch for me. イラン人が月を使うのは、私にとってはまだ少し無理があります。 伊朗人使用這個月份對我來說仍然有點,呃,伸展。

Um, And I get this, I feel that this degree of focus and concentration

has elevated my Persian in a way, uh, that it wouldn't, it wouldn't 以某種方式提升了我的波斯語,呃,它不會,它不會

have been possible without this degree of concentration and focus. 沒有這種程度的專注和專注是可能的。

Now, tomorrow I will have my lesson with my tutor and we will talk about

these events and we'll see how I do.

Um, my hope is that my tutor will say, wow, you've improved.

Maybe she won't, maybe I'll be worse.

I don't know, but I just thought I would share with you that having

talked about variety, that I think it's also useful to focus at times.

It can be a focus for five days.

It can be a focus for two weeks, uh, and to stay with one, um, content

item, but maybe vary the way you do it.

So, you know, I'm in sentence mode.

Sometimes I do the, you know, putting the sentence together after each sentence.

Sometimes I save it up to do it later on.

I listen to it.

Another thing I did was I printed them out on paper.

And so I read them on paper, which is again, introducing some variety

because if I read it on paper, I'm now unable to look up the word, uh,

rather than doing sentence by sentence I'm now doing the whole story.

So that's introducing some variety while I remain focused on

this bit of, you know, content.

I should add as well that, uh, Sahra is an outstanding tutor.

Uh, she doesn't spend a lot of time explaining the language to me.

She finds me interesting content.

She encourages me.

Uh, she has just been an unbelievable guide to Iranian culture, food

history, uh, language learning content.

And as I learn things of interest to me, I don't really notice the

fact that I'm learning the language.

Although, in fact, I am learning the language.

So I just thought I would share that with you my experience over the last

few days, which I intend to continue until I really feel that I've got a

good grasp on this, uh, particular series, uh, you know, and I'll leave a 好好把握這個,呃,特別系列,呃,你知道的,我會留下一個

link to it, uh, in the description box. 鏈接到它,呃,在描述框中。

And, uh, I mean, it is part and parcel of this whole idea of input based learning. 而且,呃,我的意思是,它是整個基於輸入的學習理念的一部分。

So I'll leave a couple of videos as well that that touch on related subjects.

Because even though what I say sometimes seems to contradict what I said earlier,

in fact, it's all part of more or less the same message, uh, which I

try to present in different ways to see if I can stimulate people to have

more interest and more confidence, uh, in their language learning.

Thanks for listening.

Bye for now.