Making English Effortless; Steve Kaufman

welcome to the effortless english show hi i'm aj hogue and this is the show where we teach you to speak english powerfully go to effortless english club and join my free email course what is the number one secret for success with english well my guest today is steve kaufman steve speaks over 13 languages he is the founder of link.com and i think we can say he's an expert on language learning so he's going to talk today about his secrets for learning languages so let's go ahead and go straight to steve and steve uh what is your number one secret for learning english or or any other languages for our audience well you know i could talk about all of the little things that i do the techniques that i've learned that help me learn languages but i think the biggest thing is that i like learning languages i like learning them i like the language it doesn't matter what the language is at first i may not know that much about it and the more i get into it the more i study the language the more i like it so i think that it's that that ability to to enjoy learning the language like the learning process like the language and and with that the confidence that you will end up despite all the problems all the forgetting all the difficulties you will end up being able to communicate better and better in the language so that i think that's the the attitude that i have which i think is it's not unique but people who haven't done a lot of language learning who are still struggling with their first language they don't have the perspective that i have because i've learned so many languages and you know that's not something you learn in school i mean when you're learning languages in school which is where most people start uh their first experience i don't remember enjoyment really being talked about much or you know seeming important and i think people carry that uh mentality that attitude from school into their independent learning and they see it as this you know this thing they must achieve to you know achieve a score or achieve something and there's not a lot of enjoyment or fun in that i agree 100 and what's happening now is that more and more people are going to be learning outside the classroom because there's so many more resources available now uh even in terms of technology uh you know i have a little mp3 player here my ipad everybody's called ipod nano okay when i started studying chinese i had a great big open reel tape recorder you know so that the internet the resources that are on the internet so as we have to learn more on our own it becomes more important that we take charge of our own learning so a lot of the ways in which we learned in the classroom where we had a test so you had to learn this for the test and that for the test and making a mistake in that environment was bad because you didn't get nine out of ten you got six out of ten so people are afraid of making mistakes one thing that i've learned is you have to make mistakes it's only through making mistakes you have to you know not understand very well what you're reading and listening to you have to do that and you have to put yourself in a position where you don't understand and you you can't find the words and all of this is is essential to the learning process so those things which in a classroom you know you're afraid of getting poor marks for doing those are precisely the things that you have to do when you're an independent learner and i think that's you know such a a key change for people uh to realize and everyone wants the secret method this secret little technique that will allow them to you know learn english much faster or master it much faster but this attitude this uh this psychology i found also as a as a teacher that's what i'm focusing on more and more because that seems to be what's most important this kind of the opposite attitude of school which is enjoying and realizing that mistakes are okay and being comfortable with uncertainty you know all of these things absolutely and i think that you know each person has this tremendous power potential power to learn and i think what you're doing is is very very important because you're helping people unlock this potential and that that potential that they have within themselves that attitude is far more important than any book any grammar book any stack of flash cards or any other technique that they might use if they are genuinely motivated confident driven to learn uh to learn the language but also through the language to learn other things most of my language learning is not involved in studying grammar rules uh very quickly i move to interesting content on on subjects that interest me some person might be interested in gardening and music in in anime if they're studying japanese or in history so that to get that language to where you are getting that sense of power that you are actually using this language for some practical purpose which may be listening maybe watching movies maybe any way that you are losing using the language even if you only understand 60 70 that's a wonderful achievement and people spend more time worrying about what they don't understand what they can't do what they forget where they should be encouraging themselves by giving themselves credit for what they can do you know last week we had uh teresa snyder she's a writer and on and we were talking about reading and you know the same idea you're talking about which is you know people always ask me what should i read tell me the book to read and my answer is well what's interesting to you because some people like romance and some people like motorcycles and some people like politics and people you know a message i try to get out is trust yourself trust your interests you don't have to rely on the expert you know you can trust yourself absolutely and and i think this is crucial in all fields of education people have to become more independent and they have to decide what they want i mean people as well on my youtube channel they say should i learn japanese or spanish well how do i know you know that's entirely up to you uh so it has to be driven by the person another thing that i would say in terms of my approach to language learning compared to many other people uh i i feel that words are very important i feel that if we want to be fluent if we want to be able to discuss you know a variety of subjects we need a lot of words and we also need to have a high degree of comprehension listing comprehension reading comprehension so this also requires a lot of words when i study a language i'm much more interested in how well i'll be able to understand and eventually communicate in six months nine months twelve months from now i'm not that concerned about what i can say after one month it really doesn't matter but much to me after one month because i'm not in it for one month i'm in it for 12 months and beyond i'm constantly refreshing the languages that i've i've learned so i think that's a strategic thing uh sometimes people think well if i can only learn 10 phrases i'll be fine you won't be fine because when you use those 10 phrases you won't understand what people are saying back to you yeah i had that exact experience in in italy i had i i went on a trip this was many years ago and i just studied pimsleur so i learned a few phrases and i wrote but i was really i don't know something about italian i loved the sound of it so i really got into the sound and i when i was in rome i remember i talked to this bartender and i said something i ripped off a couple sentences in italian and then he starts talking to me and i couldn't understand anything he said there was no communication right we shouldn't underestimate the amount of time it takes to train your brain in the new language in the culture that surrounds the new language so that you end up part of why you don't understand the bartender is that you haven't been in that situation before so you can't anticipate what he's going to say to you so even if you unders theoretically understood what he was saying you still wouldn't get it because we rely so much on our ability to pick up from clues we can almost anticipate what people are going to say and to develop those habits in a new language takes a long time a long time one should never underestimate the amount of time it takes to do that you know that's a it's another topic i mean you see this online all the time people debating you know three months six months 12 months and everyone again it's a finish line idea that there's there's some line and i just got to get there as fast as possible and then i'm done uh i know you see this all the time too you know what are your thoughts on that that this schedule mentality no i think it's it's uh it's not very helpful because uh first of all it gives the p gives people the impression that they can make these dramatic strides in three months in fact when we learn a lot of the things that we're learning today aren't going to sink in until six months from now and so it's it takes a long time plus as i say you need to get get that sort of sense of the culture sense of the context context is so important this all takes time to accumulate and so the point is get back getting back to my first point if you enjoy the process and if you continue so if you enjoy it and you continue to spend the time and if you enjoy it why wouldn't you continue you're enjoying it right if you continue and if you enjoy it you will get there and does it matter whether it's five months six if you're enjoying it you want it to continue uh so and particularly for people who are learning english for many of them it's not like me who learns 12 languages and i hardly have time to use them most people learning english are learning them learning english for a very practical purpose it's something that they're going to need in their lives either they're immigrants or they're working and they need english so they will continue to use english so learn to enjoy it the more you enjoy it the more you'll use it the more you use it the better you'll get one other thing i wanted to mention which is particularly relevant i think for english learners i often hear talk about how well i want to speak like a native let me say that i know immigrants in canada who are who use the language better than most native english-speaking canadians whose use of words i sit back and i'm i have an employee he's bulgarian and when we and he's a programmer for link in our office and when we discuss things i mean the way he sets out his ideas his choice of words the way he speaks i'm full of admiration but he has an accent and he will never lose his accent and it doesn't matter and it is far more important to be precise in your use of words to have a sort of a control of natural phrasing all of these things that you gradually accumulate through using the language far more important than trying to sound like a native you know when people ask me about pronunciation i i often make the point as well that a a lot of pronunciation as you said you don't need to be perfect whatever that means but i think that the the thing that is uh most important for pronunciation that i've seen with english it's just is sort of getting the rhythm right and speaking in sort of natural phrases it's not obsessing about an accent you know that i found that when people focus so much on you know oh i can't say r and l perfectly but they they kind of miss just the overall rhythm and natural phrases and that's i think the lack of the natural you know use of natural phrases is what often causes problem with understanding that i've seen absolutely and i often say this even though i i say that that one shouldn't be uptight about one's pronunciation in any situation when you are speaking in a way you're performing the more you more relaxed you are the more confident you are in performing anything in playing a tennis game and in watching a tightrope the more relaxed you are the better you will do so point number one is don't get stressed out about pronunciation however point number two with regard to what people can do who to improve their pronunciation i fully agree with you intonation is the key so practice getting the intonation if you practice the intonation and if you have the correct phrasing other things will start to fall into place and there may be some sounds that you will never master there are languages that i speak where i'm quite good and so far as intonation is concerned but there are sounds that i cannot produce cannot and that doesn't matter you know this uh when i started effortless english uh that that name effortless english it was inspired by a kind of taoist idea and you know in your book the linguist you open it with a taoist quote and so the idea was not you know lazy english or you know oh don't do anything and it just it the idea was this idea of effortless effort which is basically that when you thoroughly love and enjoy something it doesn't feel like effort it doesn't feel difficult even though you may be actually working quite hard it's a very big difference when you're just when you love something and you're thoroughly enjoying it compared to when you have this willpower idea of i must learn 100 words in this week you know or something like that i agree and uh i think there is a again people can google this that called flow theory and the idea is that when you are doing something that is a little difficult for you just to but still within your reach and there therefore you achieve it that gives you a great sense of achievement if we're doing something that's very easy we don't achieve that and and i think that's very powerful powerful for the brain it makes the brain feel good and want to do more so when i read something now i'm doing ukrainian when i read and there's lots of unknown words and i'm not really 100 sure of the meaning and i'm slogging my way through it saving words i mean that's work let's face it that's work it's easier for me to read english however the sense of achievement that it was difficult but i kind of got a sense of the meaning i saved a bunch of words there were more words now that i recognize so you have that sense of mastery in other words it's difficult but you're coping and so that is is it it's so therefore it's not it's it's it's enjoyable getting back to the first point it's not necessarily effortless but in a taoist sense yeah it's it's not something that you're forcing against your nature you're doing something that you essentially want to do i compare sometimes to that that you know the runner's high that people talk about i used to be a runner right and uh you get into a point you know when you're you know maybe you're five six miles in and suddenly you get this great feeling it feels wonderful you're moving along everything feels fantastic now if you look at you know biologically you're you're using a lot of effort a lot of work is happening and yet psychologically it feels it feels almost effortless it's the flow state you're talking about you're gliding along and you feel like you could go forever it's a it's an amazing feeling and we can get that in lots of areas exactly exactly and and i think it's important to um as i say enjoy the process and have that that sense of of what it is you're going to achieve you are going to achieve a higher level of competence understanding ability to communicate and all of the satisfaction that that's going to bring you so not only is there enjoyment in hopefully you're you're reading or listening to something of interest or you have an interesting conversation in english uh but at the same time you in the back you might say wow you know i'm this good now and i was only this good six months ago i'm now this level and if i continue for another six months i'll be at this level and with that will come many advantages in my life culturally socially professionally so i think to keep that goal which in the case of the runner is the finish line but in the case of language learning is to achieve that next level that breakthrough keep that in mind and keep just keep everything positive i think i think what you have achieved is to give and i get many comments from people who come to link who come to my youtube channel and say that they one of their favorite sources of english is is your podcast and your material because not only do you speak clearly and so forth but you also inspire people and i think that's extremely important and we've all had teachers at school who either didn't inspire us and or who inspired us and i remember the ones who inspired us yes those are certainly the ones that are the most positive impact you know in fact i sometimes i call myself a coach instead of a teacher just because of all those you know the the experiences people have with school and they think teacher you know a lot of people have kind of negative feelings about that word so i like to say coach sometimes it's a little more inspiring um we should mention by the way your website link.com lingq.com right why don't we why don't you talk about that for a minute and would you like to uh answer some twitter questions too absolutely okay so talk about link and then we'll go to the questions okay well link is a project that my son and i started about seven or eight years ago uh basically it's a place where you can learn 21 22 languages we recently added ukrainian um utilizing the resources of the internet and utilizing the uh contributions of other members so all of the members help each other learn each other's languages a major emphasis on listening and reading to build yourself up to a level where you can now engage with some of the members in you know talking via skype or you can have your writing corrected so there's a lot of interaction between the members but the main main and people use it in different ways but i use it mainly for reading and listening so that uh i either go to the library where members have deposited lots of resources in spanish chinese english english is the largest library and then i read and i save words to a database which creates differential highlight there's a bunch of functionality that i won't go into in detail but the net result for me is that after three weeks of ukrainian i can understand much of the ukrainian radio i can understand much of what i read now i put in a lot of time but so and i welcome people to come and and we can explain and have further discussion uh there and people could import you know if they had effortless english material they could import that into your system right absolutely and then it'll keep track of how many words they know how many words they've learned it creates a whole sort of statistical uh underpinning for what they're doing because very often people have the impression they're not progressing so if they they can bring in material from effortless english i mean i think we have some of your material you do you have some of my podcasts yes there's some of your podcasts but people can import from the new york times from you know the guardian from their email messages whatever they want and and then they'll immediately see how many words there are new to them how many words they already know they save words generate statistics the whole thing so anything that's in digital form can be brought in and becomes a lesson so to that extent it's an unlimited format an unlimited platform oh fantastic fantastic let's go to questions there for both audio and text yeah oh yeah audio in text and that's one of the key things i think one of the key advantages is you can read along as you're listening in the system or in the app which is fantastic and we have a ipod ipad app and shortly we'll have a very good android app we had two older apps which weren't quite as good but the new ones are actually very very good will shortly be released also for android yeah i just started using the uh uh ipad one and it's for spanish it's great that's great let's go to questions so it's question time on twitter so my twitter is aj hogue so twitter.com a-j-h-o-g-e type your question steve's gonna answer questions too so you can ask me a question you can ask a question to steve as usual anything you like let's read see what we got here uh okay may the fourth be with you charlie and oh but i should mention the little opening credits we had with uh uh i hope you saw those and you guys hear the music good that that was from our member charlie in france he did the music and he also did the whole video wow yeah cool so hey thanks charlie okay let's see what we got here in questions okay here's a good question uh steve i'll let you answer this this is from milky way i believe it's in saudi arabia he says do you think that reading and listening are enough to be fluent in english no no no no to speak well you have to speak a lot make no mistake to speak well you have to speak a lot so if you already have a certain level of vocabulary and you're going to understand you should start speaking more and more in fact the whole issue of when we start speaking in my opinion is a matter of personal choice and opportunity so if if you have the opportunity to speak with people by all means speak so the short answer is it's not enough but it's a very efficient way to build up your vocabulary and your comprehension because if you don't have good comprehension you won't be able to have a very good conversation because you have to understand what the other person is saying and i agree and i what i tell people is with speaking is that uh basically just don't force it so you know when you feel ready to speak when you're eager to speak and there always will come a time when you're excited to do it then then do it find the opportunities get online or in person and but when you speak maybe you could talk about this too when you i tell people when they speak just focus on communicating don't be worrying about mistakes or grammar rules just do your best to communicate ideas even if you're doing you know a quote bad job absolutely and don't go and analyze how poorly or well you did you normally usually do better than you think you did and and in speaking to context is so important in other words if you're with someone that you like someone who doesn't put pressure on you if you're talking about a familiar subject all of these things are going to help you if you're in a situation where you're rushed you're buying a ticket at the train station the person blurts something out at you you don't understand what it is you're ten stop you won't do very well so context matters yeah good point you know i get comments sometimes people say oh aj i i feel really relaxed with you i understand you easily or i can chat with you easily but then in another situation i can't and it's usually a stressful situation they've got to stand up and give a english presentation to a class or something and it's like well yeah i mean you know native speakers are stressed in those situations too right and and the class situation is not always a natural situation so sometimes you have role playing or giving speeches in class that's not real if you meet someone over a cup of coffee and you're talking about a subject that's interesting mutually of interest you'll do better good point here i've got another good question from twitter here from uh jakub jaworski 10. how is it possible to find time to learn so many languages i just don't believe it how do you do it well i mean i have more time now because i'm semi-retired but i would say that i put in an hour to two hours a day most of my learning time is listening so i listen in the car to and from work i all i play old-timers hockey three times a week so i drive to the rink and back i work out at home i listen while i work out while working out i have one of these elliptical steppers i also use my ipad and i study on my ipad so you have to try to use a lot of what we might otherwise call dead time you have to develop the ability to multitask i'm responsible for cleaning up in the house so whenever i have to clean up the kitchen or i have to whatever i have to clean up i'm listening so listening is a big part of it i do 60 70 percent of my time is listening and then i work at link you know saving words and phrases so that what i'm listening to because i only understand 60 70 of it at first then i go and read it and review the words and so forth so you have but you have to put in you have to find the time some people are into playing tennis they fishing whatever i don't fish if i fished i'd be there with my earphones on yeah exactly you know one thing i recommend a lot is uh to just you know go for a walk you know so you can get some exercise and listen at the same time and it also keeps you more awake and alert sometimes people get sleepy when they're just sitting so yeah i agree just finding those that extra time and that we have lots of it if you really look most people have a lot of that time any time i've tried to sit down just to listen unless i was very interested in what was being said i can't focus i am better able to focus while i'm doing something else and bear in mind that you won't be able to focus a hundred percent of the time it you're gonna fade in and out it doesn't matter when you're listening got another uh question uh possibly from vietnam i'm not sure do hing jiang uh twitter name uh uh says to both me and to steve i haven't got many opportunities to practice english with native speakers so what should i do to improve my speaking i mean nowadays there's all there are a number of these language exchange sites on the internet um i don't use them because we have linked where we offer some of the same but uh you know for example i'm learning ukrainian i've got no one with whom i can speak ukrainian so i focus on listening and reading and i'm building up my vocabulary and if i i'm quite comfortable that now if i met a ukrainian person i could say a few things this was my experience with russian i spent a good two years just listening and reading so but i had no need to speak so if you have a need to speak you have to find people with whom to speak and and if you don't have uh native speakers around you use skype get on and find these uh you know uh language exchange sites talk to you you know i think these are the things you kind of have to do but don't underestimate the power of listening and reading if you don't have the opportunity to speak yeah good point i would agree you know i think that yeah if you don't have that opportunity you use all that time you have listening listening listening and reading and then when you do have a chance which could be uh you know we have our vip webinars every month we uh there's italki i mean there's so many of them yeah and so you know you can or even talking to other members even talking to other non-natives speakers it's still communication you know so i think yeah their opportunity especially for english that there's so many opportunities so many people speak it um and the fact that you speak to a non-native speaker is not going to bother you because you're working on saying what you have to say you're not going to be influenced by that person's pronunciation as long as the that most of your listening should be to native speakers which can be listening to your program or other news or things we have at link so that's going to be the bulk of your input so if you're speaking to a non-native speaker another vietnam if that person is vietnamese another vietnamese person if you have a an english club wherever you live it's not going to harm your pronunciation as long as the bulk of your listening is to native speakers uh that's a great point so yeah if you're spending most of your time is listening listening listening to native speakers with so many audios out there and then yeah when you speak then just speak to who you know whomever you can so i've met many people in vietnam there are a lot of these these uh uh english clubs and they all just talk to each other and when i go there i mean many of them speak very very very well yeah so it's yeah good good point okay let's take one more question before we finish up okay why not ill maestro uh let's is asking steve do you think that russia the russian language is the hardest one you've learned you know every language has its difficulties uh i would say that the the grammar for slavic languages is very difficult because if i compare it to korean uh the different endings in korean are based on some logic if it ends this way then it means this in russian the different endings there's no particular logical reason why a word is either masculine feminine neuter why the genitive ending is uh ah or there's nothing to help you so it's just a matter of getting used to it and i find myself at times in russian afraid to speak because i'm afraid i'm going to get the endings wrong and i think there you really just have to let go and trust that you have assimilated it well enough that you're going to hit 70 80 it's the same with tones in chinese i mean that's difficult and i think that my tones in chinese are probably 70 80 they used to be 40 50 and the more you use it the better you get but yeah i mean every language has its difficulty japanese i mean english has so many idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs and stuff i think every language has its difficulties but is is russian are slavic languages difficult yes i must say they're difficult ah right and then of course it matters which language you're coming from as well absolutely right slavic language speaker russian is not difficult for a polish person or you know right right well steve thank you so much again it's dot link.comlingq.com check out the app check out you can you can import effortless english material uh into the system i'm using it for spanish right now it's fantastic so yeah come and visit us come and chat on the forum i'd be very happy to exchange ideas with all of you thank you so much steve it's great talking to you very much aj i really i really enjoyed it thank you bye-bye bye-bye all right great well that was very interesting always great to talk to steve check out link.com and especially the app i'm really enjoying the app myself as i learn spanish so last few things effortless english news what's happening in effortless english well uh you know first of all we we have our website effortlessenglishclub.com we currently have three courses or programs there's the original course which starts at a low intermediate level and focuses more on cultural topics we have our central course which is power english that's on our homepage that starts at about a middle intermediate level and up and focuses on topics connected to motivation and success and then finally we have the vip program that starts at kind of a high intermediate level focusing on topics of success and leadership so go to effortless effortlessenglishclub.com and you can check that out now as part of effortless english news we are currently uh doing an upgrade on our website uh the website crashed last night because of that i think it's back now so hopefully it's all working well we'll be gradually improving the design of the site over the next several months so in terms of my book my book is uh still almost finished i i need to add about 30 to 50 more pages i'll be focusing on that in the next week or two and we'll be doing an audio book as well i'll it'll be my voice i'll read the book myself in english and as part of that audio book i'm thinking of doing uh like adding some extra materials making an audio book course it'll be really cheap uh you know like a dollar or two dollars just as kind of an introduction to the effortless english system and uh just an inexpensive way for people to get a lot of input so that will be coming sometime later in the year takes a while even after the book is finished it takes a while to you know to format it to design it and then to publish it so patience patience all right i think that's it what do you guys oh and of course we got to end with our code and our mission uh the code of effortless english it's just the way we act in our community it's how we treat each other so that we maintain we keep a very positive community so the code has three parts part number one we do the best we can we don't worry about mistakes we do our best but we'll make mistakes we're not perfect number two we do the right thing i think most of us know what that means and number three we show each other we care so we actively help each other in our community that's the code our mission is to explore new opportunities for growth to bring confidence vitality and happiness to people all over the world and to boldly go or we have never gone before if you're a star trek fan you'll recognize the rhythm of that mission uh that's our mission thank you so much as always go to effortlessenglishclub.com and join my free email course that's the foundation it's the beginning of the system it's free effortlessenglishclub.com the free email course thanks so much to my guest steve kaufman thank you to everybody on on twitter all the effortless english members and fans the whole community the whole crew out there thank you so much we'll see you next time until then have a great day bye for now

Channel: A.J. Hoge

Views: 223,310

Keywords: #hangoutsonair, Hangouts On Air, #hoa, steve kaufman, effortless english, listening, reading, lingq

Id: owy16KP7XKA

Length: 35min 50sec (2150 seconds)

Published: Sun May 04 2014