How to ACTUALLY learn a language from scratch

I have studied a dozen of languages in my life  and now I can confidently say that I speak four   or five of them with a quite decent level  fluency so I'm often surprised how learning   a new language seems impossible to so many  people and how people give up halfway through   the process when the hardest parts are actually  behind them today I want to share with you how   I go about studying a language from scratch and  some of the challenges you might be facing when   studying a language and how you might want to  go about overcoming them so first let's start   with the basics you would obviously start with  the alphabet from my experience there are some   alphabets that are easier to learn like the  Korean hunger but some are more difficult   like the Arabic alphabet in which the shapes of  the letters change according to their positions   in the word or like Hebrew or the celic alphabet  which have basically two sets of alph alphabets   printed and cursive there's the Chinese writing  system which is actually not an alphabet but a   system composed of an enormous amount of local  graphs and you will have to remember hundreds   if not thousands of local graphs before you  are able to read a passage but you can always   start with P an alphabet created for beginners  or children to study Chinese characters it's   the same in in Japanese if you run into kzi  you could always start with or KAG you would   also be exposed to the basic phones of the  language when studying the alphabet as well   as some some basic pronouns like I or you or  he or she or this or that some languages like   Mandarin uh or Vietnamese or or taii have are  tonal languages they have different tones that   my takes some getting used to at the beginning  you will have trouble telling the differences   between those tones but after a while your  brain will get used to it it after that there's grammar besides subject pronouns like  we mentioned um there's also going to   be we normally start with the present tense  and other simple grammatical Concepts like   gender like in French or Spanish there's the  the masculine gender and The Feminine gender   and other basic case particles like in Korean  and Japanese and as well as in Russian um wiger   that I've studied there are cases some are more  complicated some are are easier and after that   you will be able to say an enormous amount of  things like he is a professor she is a doctor is or things like they make dinner and adding on to that you will  start studying more complicated grammar like other tenses for example past tense  or the future tense and also to Express location   or direction or time and in some languages there  are more complicated case structures in English   it's really simple it's just like I and me  but in languages like German or Russian the   case system is way more complicated so this part  might be a little challenging some grammatical   structures might be counterintuitive a little  bit hard to understand and hard to memorize   but remember practice makes perfect do the  grammar exercises in the textbooks memorize   some phrases and sentences with these grammatical  structures if you do enough of these the grammar   will be internalized and will become natural  so at this point you will be able to express   way more sophisticated ideas like he was  walking to school and got hit by a car and despite of how how many things you're able  to understand and Express at this stage this is   where most people actually quit the efforts you're  spending are not paying off as much as during the   stages before like youve spent so much time and  energy in this but conversations between native   speakers is still indecipherable and whenever  you try to read something there are always an   enormous amount of things you don't recognize  and every time you try to have a conversation   with someone in that language you still have  trouble making full grammatical sentences this   is because you're uncertain about M grammatical  details so when you when you hear a sentence your   brain can automatically dissect the sentence into  grammatical components so sometimes all you hear   is blurred sounds for example let's assume your  studying English you've studied the grammatical   structure of the second conditional but you don't  know it very well so if I say something like if I   were to go to your place when you hear it you  fail to recognize the verb were is this second   conditional conjugation of the verb to be so you  fail to recognize that verb and as a result of   that the I before it the two after it the whole  thing blurs into a meaningless sound so all you   hear is go to your place the same thing happens  when you don't know certain words especially verbs   in a sentence but remember if you get to this  stage the hardest parts of studying language   already behind you and now you have most of the  tools you need to use and enjoy the language   all you need to do is to practice and familiarize  yourself with the grammar and to accumulate your   vocabulary in other words you need to be patient  and keep studying find some videos or audio clips   in a friendly speed read some children's books  or even books for teenagers you can also work   on your speaking through shadowing dialogues or  speeches or simply talking to yourself just make   sure you have laid a solid grammatical Foundation  before you rush into the speaking part because if   you don't some of the mistakes both grammatical  and pronunciation might fossilize and will be   very hard to correct later on okay this stage  of accumulation and slow Improvement may take a   while you'll still have some trouble understanding  native speakers especially when they're talking to   each other you you might still find it difficult  to read content written for native speakers as   well but gradually if you keep doing this at  some point you'll suddenly realize that you   could understand way more things than you could  before and you're making longer and more complex   sentences and from there on it's really just  about going out there and having fun with the   language watch whatever movies or TV shows you  might like that you can get your hands on read   some books that interest you in the language and  I think this is the stage where you actually get   to enjoy the language it is actually during this  stage of accumulation and then you actually go   get to know the culture and the people behind  the language and that is the beauty of language   learning there are some languages that are quite  special that some of the rules that I've mentioned   don't apply to them they have quite bizarre  grammatical structures comparatively but I   think language learning for most people follows  the same logic and it's like I said it's all   about having fun and going out there enjoying the  language learning process okay that's pretty much   all I have to say and don't forget to like  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Channel: Phoenix Hou

Views: 125,534

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Id: xBrl8EQotK8

Length: 8min 2sec (482 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 14 2023