The Truth About Learning a Language

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here again to talk about language learning.

And I wanted to share a secret with you, uh, something that I consider to be a very

important secret when it comes to language learning and that is that it takes a

long time to become fluent in a language.

To even become comfortable in a language takes a long time.

And I wanted to mention this for a couple of reason.

First of all, because, uh, when I discussed ChatGPT I pointed out that one

of the useful things that can be done with ChatGPT when it comes to language

learning is to create customized learning content so that you can ask ChatGPT to

create a story for you to simulate a dialogue to, you know, explain aspects

of the grammar in the target language.

All of this is content, suitable content, maybe comprehensible content.

However, I, I kind of wanted to add that, you know, the question is,

how much time are you gonna spend creating content with ChatGPT?

Um, there is a lot of content available, particularly for beginners.

There is a lot of genuine, authentic content, but there is

a lack of intermediate content.

It takes time to find good intermediate content.

Maybe ChatGPT can be used as a way to bridge that gap, but ultimately

you need to consume so much content.

You need to consume authentic, interesting content.

You need to read so much, listen to so much that I just didn't wanna

leave people with the impression that ChatGPT was some kind of a shortcut to

learning the language we do and, and ultimately you have to engage in the

sort of language learning activities of listening, reading, writing, speak.

And so ChatGPT maybe has, you know, uh, a function to play there.

And that's gonna vary from person to person, but it's no magic bullet.

You often hear people say, you know, fluent in three months, fluent in

five days, uh, master the language in whatever, how many months.

Uh, you know, books that they sell you, you're gonna be at, you

know, B2 on the European scale when you complete this book.

All of that is not true.

Uh, you, you get a smattering, you get an introduction to the language.

There is even one person, I think it was Tim Ferris, who said, you know,

four hours to learn, although not master, but to learn any language.

Well, yeah, you can learn a few things about a language.

You can ask ChatGPT how the language is structured and you can get an overview,

but eventually to learn that language, to be comfortable, to understand,

to understand what you're listening to, to be able to use the language.

You have to consume a lot of the language, you have to acquire a

lot of words, you have to hear these words in different contexts.

And you know, in that regard, and, and this is the other reason why

I'm making this video, so I may have mentioned that I'm going to

Sweden, uh, sort of end of May.

Therefore, I'm gonna spend three, four days in Denmark, followed up by 10 days

in Poland in May, or sorry, in early June.

So in preparation for that, I've been first doing Danish,

then I'm gonna do Polish.

So I've been uh, reading and listening to this audiobook.

Very interesting audiobook and ebook about the history of

Denmark learning a bunch of stuff.

I mean, every country writes history from its point of view.

Denmark is the centre of the world for history, insofar as Denmark is

concerned, just as Iran is the centre for history, insofar as Iran is concerned,

or Great Britain is the centre or North America or the United States

is the center of China is the centre.

Wherever people write history, they put themselves in the centre.

And so it's very interesting to see world history from different perspectives.

And that's what I'm enjoying in this history of Denmark, which inevitably

involves other countries besides Denmark.

And because I speak Swedish, a lot of the vocabulary in Danish is already

familiar or recognizable to me.

Uh, but I have difficulty understanding Danish.

But nevertheless, of course, I can go through this book, both the

audiobook and the ebook quite quickly.

And so if you look at my statistics over the last two weeks, because it's

just in the last two weeks that I started doing this, you'll see how

much I have read in Danish, which I've done essentially all on LingQ.

I'm going from memory, but I think it's over 25,000.

The number of LingQs I have created, which I think is five or 6,000 LingQs.

So that's actually clicking on words that I didn't know in order to make them known.

Or of course, if I turn the page, I get credit for words that I didn't look up.

So it's not all words that I have clicked, but it's words that I

have added to my known words total.

So that's a lot of words.

In two weeks, if I look at my experience in say, Persian then you'll see that

since I began with Persian quite a while ago, just how many words I have read

and how many LingQs I have created.

What's not in these statistics is how many hours I have listened, because

at least in the case of Danish, I downloaded the audiobook, put it into

iTunes, and I'm listening on iTunes.

So I have listened a lot, but because I didn't import the audio

files into LingQ, I have no record of how many hours I have listened.

But it's quite a lot.

Uh, if I look at some of the other languages that I have on LingQ, even in a

language like Czech, I mean, I have lists.

I think I've read a million and a half words.

Um, yeah.

And every time you're reading, of course it's easier to understand

when you read because you look things up, but I'm enjoying the

time that I'm spending reading.

I'm en I enjoyed reading about Czech history.

I enjoy reading about Danish.

Uh, so it's not as if I'm in a hurry to get out of this activity.

I am enjoying it.

I will enjoy doing the same with Polish history, but I know from experience

that even when I finish this Danish history book, I will still be a

long way from mastery or fluency.

Uh, I may have to read and listen to a number of books.

I'll have to speak to people a lot.

Maybe I'll have the opportunity to do that when I'm in Denmark.

Certainly, my comprehension has improved, my vocabulary has increased.

I will be more comfortable.

I may not be able to speak Danish.

I'll probably reply more in Swedish than in Danish.

But if I understand, I'm doing fine.

Similarly, in Poland, uh, if I understand well, but I reply in half Ukrainian,

half Polish, it's not gonna matter.

Uh, I'm not there to prove anything.

It's similar to someone who, uh, you know, speaks Spanish and learns

Italian and acquires vocabulary very quickly and reads a lot in Italian.

Listens to Italian, but still, when you go to Italy, you'll be

speaking more Spanish than Italian and gradually you will shift over.

So just a secret here: language learning takes time.

So it's important that you find ways to enjoy the time you

spend learning the language.

That way, the process itself becomes the reward.

Thank you for listening, and I'll leave you a couple of

videos that cover a similar topic that I've done over the years.

Bye.