#AskSteve

Really enjoyed friendly Myanmar. How about meet ups in Hanoi in Mar 12 and Seoul Mar 20. Can anyone suggest a place to meet?

Here is the lesson at LingQ that covers some of these ideas on organizing your thoughts and public speaking.http://www.lingq.com/learn/en/workdesk/item/1735426/reader/ Hi there Steve here. Today I am going to take a break from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, although the series will continue, where I expound on each of these habits, but today I want to talk about public speaking. It comes up a lot and it is a wonderful way to practice your skills in a foreign language. It is in some ways related to how we organize our thoughts, even when writing. I went to Sciences Po, L’Institut d'études politiques in Paris, where they put a tremendous emphasis on how we organize our thoughts. One teacher once told me “La forme est plus importante que le contenu”, form is more important than content. When you are public speaking, I think the best the best basic approach to public speaking is to follow the practice of the old Greeks and Romans. I go into some detail on this in a lesson from our LingQ library, where you can find the text and the audio if you are learning English, and I am going to put a link to it here in the description. And to touch upon it here, very quickly, the basic principles were as follows. When you are giving a speech, and of course the old Greeks and Romans oratory rhetoric was very important, they were often defending people in court or whatever… politicians. The basic principles are: You begin by getting people to like you, so therefore it is often a good thing to kind of maybe spill your glass of water or have trouble adjusting your microphone, so that people like you, you’re human. Or you recognize someone in the audience and say “It’s very nice to be here again with my good friend so-and-so”. First thing you get people to like you. The second thing is; you establish your credentials, why should they listen to you? Because I have this experience or that experience, so you establish your credentials. The third thing is to tell a story, people like to hear stories. They don’t want to be brow-beaten with a bunch of arguments. They want a picture created for them, so you tell a story that is related to the subject at hand. Then the fourth thing is, you set out your main argument. Now they like you, they consider you credible, you have painted a bit of a picture and now you present your argument. You can then present a counter argument: “But on the other hand some of you may say something else.” And then of course you follow that up by destroying the counter argument and then you finish off with an emotional appeal, alright? These are, and you won’t remember them all, they’re described in the article that I provided a link to. Whenever I use this I am in control, almost. I am in control of the feelings and almost the reactions. It’s not manipulating, but I have some sense of knowing where I am leading my listeners. They don’t know where they are going and it is actually quite effective. You gain the sympathy and then you gain the interest because they find you credible, because you tell a story, and then you hit them with the main message. You suggest a possible counter argument, you demolish the counter-argument and you end off with an emotional appeal to action, let’s say. And that’s basically it, in a nutshell, but you can read up on it. You can Google various universities, I think Tufts University has a series on rhetoric, or you can simply go to the article that I have posted (http://www.lingq.com/learn/en/workdesk/item/1735426/reader/) here in the description. So there you have it, public speaking, and of course be confident and enjoy yourself. And it is a great way to practice your language skills. Bye for now.

In Yangon. Enjoying Asia and getting used to my selfie-bar.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. This is the third in the series of videos where I talk about how Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People applies to language learning. The third of Stephen Covey’s habits is what he calls ‘Put First Things First’. Now, this is advice to a manager and it means if you want your people to perform well you, yourself, have to be proactive and have to be a model they can follow. He says rule number two ‘Begin With the End in Mind’ is what he calls the mental creation, you’ve got this idea of where you want to get to, and rule three is the physical; that is, where you can actually make it happen. So with language learning you have this vision of what you want to be, what level you want to achieve, now rule three is put first things first. In other words, make it happen. Because language learning takes a lot of time, do it every day or as close to every day as you can and be prepared to do it for quite a while. Whenever you have an opportunity, do it. I often talk about how I always have my mp3 player and now, of course, my iPhone 6 Plus, which is a phenomenal device. I have mp3 files on there and I have my texts in ILingQ that I can read whenever I am stuck anywhere. If I’m driving I’ll listen, but if I’m sitting in a waiting room somewhere I can read. I can save words and phrases. I’m always with my language because I know in order to achieve results it’s that time with the language. I don’t have to be talking to someone on Skype. I don’t have to be in the country. I can determine that at every opportunity I’m going to connect with the language by putting first things first because that’s my goal. It’s only by doing that that I’m going to achieve that vision I have of myself speaking the language fluently. So Stephen Covey’s advice is for a manager or a businessman, but I think it has equal application for language learning. Once you’ve determined where you want to get to, you have that vision, what he calls the mental creation, now it’s the physical creation. You’ve got to make it happen, so do it. That’s the third of his Habits of Highly Effective people. Thanks for listening.

I would love to meet up with language enthusiasts in Yangon Mar 3-9, Hanoi Mar 10-18 and Seoul Mar 19-22. Let me know if you are interested.

Lykke is doing the 90-Day Challenge on www.lingq.com. We are having a chat about her progress. Give her blog a read. Transcript: Steve: Hello Lykke Lykke: Hi Steve Steve: Lykke from Denmark, you’ve been with us for a little while now and you are looking after our marketing and communications. Lykke: Yes Steve: But also you have been learning Spanish Lykke: I have, yes Steve: You are doing a 90-Day Challenge Lykke: I am, yes. I have been at it for a month tomorrow Steve: A month tomorrow, that’s 30 days, right? Lykke: Yes Steve: So here we have – we took the trouble of printing out the progress snapshot Lykke: I think I am doing well, no? Steve: Well, I think so. Certainly the known words total exceeds your target, but the big number to me is the lingqs you have created. You have created 1100 almost 1200 lingqs, which is like 3 times your target. Lykke: How many am I supposed to create? Steve: Well 400 – or 390 – so almost 1200 and to me that’s the most important indicator. If you are creating LingQs that means you are looking at words you are trying to notice things and you are also covering a lot of content. Lingqs learned to me is less important because eventually you’ll learn them that is something that comes almost incidentally. I gather you are not recording all your listening, very often the listening recorded is not accurate because you are not able to, and the other one is your words of reading. You have read 11.000 words, so here again that is like more than 4 times your target, so very good. Lykke: Thank you, thank you – I try, I try. Steve: How are you finding it? Lykke: I really like it, last week I wrote about using flashcards and all those little tests and I really enjoy that I feel like I am learning a lot from that. Steve: These are… just to interrupt… these are 4 different ways of reviewing the words and phrases that you save? Lykke: Yes, and I think that’s fun because it’s kind of like a game because I get a little bit bored reading the same stuff again and again and then I think that’s fun and then I go back to reading and listening and then I have picked up more, I think. Steve: You know, this is the thing variety makes everything more fun Lykke: Yes, I think that’s what it is. Steve: Absolutely, and I think particularly too, at the beginning, I think that flashcards like that are particularly helpful because you are reviewing these words and everything is so strange to you later on when you become more comfortable in the language you will be happy to just listening and reading. Lykke: Yes, I like the repetition of it, you see the flashcards more than once and in the end you actually start to understand them a little bit. Steve: Absolutely Lykke: And then when you go back to the text then you are like: Ooooh I recognize that from my flashcards. That’s why I like those, that combination. Steve: Do you review your flashcards before a lesson or after a lesson or not at all connected to a lesson. Lykke: I actually, when I get the email every day 25 lingqs or something – daily lingqs – I actually go in on that day and click that and then just do that whole section Steve: Wow Lykke: So that’s probably why I am doing so well. Steve: How is your comprehension? Lykke: That is sort of up and down. I have good days and bad days and when I have a good day I get very excited, like Yaaay I understand some of it, but then there are days where I don’t understand any of it. Steve: Is that when you are reading or when you are listening Lykke: I think… Well I am listening to very early beginner stuff, so I think when I am reading and listening at the same time I kind of understand a lot of it. If I just listen then I don’t really get it. Steve: If it’s any conciliation to you in Korean which I have been doing now for many many many months, easy simple content I can understand, but the difficult, like the broadcast, if I read and listen at the same time I understand, but when I go away and I listen without reading, I don’t understand. My comprehension goes down to about 15% Lykke: Wow Steve: So it just takes time. Lykke: I think that’s the thing – it’s the patience – I don’t have much of that, but I think I am learning to have some more patience. Steve: Exactly I was going to say, you are not only learning Spanish, you are learning to be more patient as well. Lykke: I think so. Steve: Anything else? Lykke: No, that’s about it I think. Steve: Well, we will check in in about a month from now and we’ll see how things are going. Lykke: Thanks. Read Lykke's blog about learning Spanish: http://www.lingq.com/blog2015/

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. Today is the second in this series of short videos about Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His second habit was what he calls ‘Begin With the End in Mind.’ This is very important. I’ll give you an example. I had a meeting with about 50 Chinese immigrants, here in Vancouver, who were complaining about the difficulty they had in speaking English. They claimed that they could read, perhaps didn’t understand quite a well when they were listening, but they had real trouble saying something. My question to them is: What is their vision of what they would like to be able to do in English? If their vision of what they want to do in English when suddenly confronted with an English-speaking person is to be able to say something in English. I should point out that these were housewives, wives of wealthy Chinese immigrants who don’t have much interaction with Canadian society, but then when they are confronted with the need to speak English, of course, can’t do so. I said, what’s your goal and they weren’t really clear. I said that if I were you, if I had immigrated to another country, because I’m an adult and I can communicate as an adult in my own language, my goal in this new language, especially if I’m living there, is to be able to communicate as an adult in the new language on a wide range of subjects without struggling, without seeming to be foolish. That’s the goal. You have to have a clear idea of that goal. If you have a clear idea of that goal you will achieve it. If you don’t have a clear idea of that goal, if you think you’re just going to learn some words and try and learn some grammar rules and then wonder why you can’t communicate properly you will probably not succeed. I always make the case if you don’t know where the top of the mountain is, if you can’t visualize yourself reaching the top of the mountain you probably won’t make it to the top of the mountain. So I think the second of Covey’s habits, insofar as language learning is concerned, is this habit of saying here’s what I want to achieve. I can visualize myself achieving this and, therefore, I will work as hard as I can to achieve it. So that is habit number two. Thank you for listening, bye for now.

On Saturday February 14 - Steve hosted a webinar on 12 basic Spanish tips. Watch this to see what went down and maybe learn a few things while you watch. 1. Buenos Días! 2. Questions? Join the conversation on Twitter. @Lingosteve #spanishwebinar 3. Why learn Spanish? ● Widely spoken ● Easy to learn ● You will be bilingual ● It will be easier to learn a third language ● Fun, sun, music dance ● So many different cultures ● Easy to read ● Makes it more fun to travel ● May help you get a job ● Makes you smarter ● Good for the brain 4. It is important to read and listen! 5. Paella! Piña Colada 6. Sergio García Different Pronunciations 7. Cuando calienta el sol Quiero una cerveza Hasta la vista Perro Ramón 8. Una Vaca Besa me mucho 9. Buenos días ¿Cómo está usted?¿Cómo estás? ¿Qué es eso? 10. Learn to notice 11. Train the brain 12. 12 Core patterns- Things & People - Verbs - What? - What kind? - Where? - Whose, to whom, for whom, by whom, with whom? - How? - How many? - Which/who? - Whichever, whenever, whatever. - When? - Tenses 13. Things you want to express- Probability - What if - Reason/purpose - Opinions - Feelings - Connector words 14. Keywords Review- Give and take - Come and go - Start and stop - Know and be able - Have and be - No way José - Hello and goodbye 15. Things and People Most nouns that end in “A” are feminine and most nouns that end in “O” are masculine. A O El cigarro El coche El doctor El zapato Un coche La casa, La puerta, La universidad, La conversación Una casa Las casas Unas puertas Los coches Unos coches The plural of nouns is usually formed by adding S. 16. Verbs ● Hablar ● Comer ● Vivir 17. What? ¿Qué es eso? What is that? ¿Qué quieres? What do you want? ¿Qué hora es? What time is it? ¿Qué pasa? What's up (doc)? 18. What kind? La Casa Blanca Una casa grande Un Gran Coche Los chicos altos Mucho Dinero Muy bueno 19. What kind?(continued) El es más grande que ella Lo más grande La más hermosa 20. Esto, Eso, Aquello Estos son los libros Aquellos coches Este libro Esa casa 21. Where…? Dentro Fuera Arriba Aqui Alli Abajo Yo sédonde... ¿Dónde está tu coche? 22. Whose, to whom, for whom, by whom, with whom ¿Por quién doblan las campanas? ¿A quién es el coche? ¿Con quien hablas? Es el mío ¡Por mi! ¡Este es para mí! 23. How? ¿Cómo estás? ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿Cómo se hace? 24. How many, how much ● Cantidad ● Cuanto cuesta ● Cuesta mucho ● Cuantas veces ● Muchas veces 25. Which/who El hombre que vive en esta casa La mujer que yo quiero La mujer con quien hablo 26. Whichever, whenever, whatever. ● Cuando quieras Cualquiera! 27. When...? cuándo, siempre,ahora, nunca, normalmente, antes, después, hasta, desde Cuando calienta el sol ¿Cuando...? ¿Qué día es? 28. Tenses Don’t be scared..notice and train the brain (Puntos de vista) 29. Lessons in LingQ 30. Resources: Focus on Basic Spanish Patterns: http://www.lingq. com/learn/es/library/courses/189655/ Puntos de vista: http://www.lingq.com/learn/es/library/courses/50858/ www.lingq.com 31. Adiós Chau Hasta luego Hasta pronto Nos vemos Hasta la próxima Links to resources: Focus on Basic Spanish Patterns: http://www.lingq.com/learn/es/library/courses/189655/ Puntos de vista: http://www.lingq.com/learn/es/library/courses/50858/ Ser Vs Estar: Get It Right Every Time: https://www.lingq.com/blog/2018/04/30/ser-vs-estar/ Here are some great Spanish podcasts too: https://www.lingq.com/blog/2018/11/07/spanish-podcasts/

Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3945344952934418433 Do you want to learn Spanish, but not sure where to start? Do you know Spanish, but want to brush up on the basics? Or do you have a general interest in language learning? If any of these questions apply to you or if you enjoy free, fun stuff then we have a great surprise for you: On Saturday February 14th we will have a free webinar hosted by Steve Kaufmann, he plans to share 12 Tips on Basic Spanish with you. This practical webinar will: • Look at the underlying principles of Spanish grammar. • Explore how to use it in ordinary everyday situations. • Include a session, where you'll be able to ask Steve your very own questions about Spanish. We hope to see you there. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Hope to see you there.

Hi there Steve Kaufmann. This is going to be the first in a series of 7 videos where I deal with each of the seven habits of highly effective people that Stephen Covey covers in his book (of the same name) which I made a reference to in my video last week. First of all I’ll go over very quickly the 7 habits and this is advice for people in their lives, advice for Managers, advice for business people and for people generally. You can Google Stephen Covey’s 7 habits and you will get a lot more information, but there are 7 habits. The first 3 have to do with Independence. The next 3 have to do with interdependence and the 7th one has to do with constantly renewing yourself and constantly improving. So the first one today, I am going to talk about the need to be proactive. I think it’s true in many things in life, if we wait for things to happen to us, some things may have, I mean, many things will happen to you. However by being proactive and taking initiatives and by pursuing your goals, it is more likely that good things are going to happen to you. And certainly I found in language learning that as long as I was a passive learner in school with a Teacher teaching me and as long as I waited for the Teacher somehow or the text book to teach me, I was not making very good progress. Once I took control of my learning, once I went out – and this meant looking for things in the language that interested me; books, in the case with Chinese, in those days before the internet, books with vocabulary lists behind each chapter. Taking the initiative in terms of what I wanted to learn about, what aspects of the language I needed to work on. Taking the initiative not to stay with the program that the Teacher is leading you into in the classroom. Many Teachers don’t like this. They don’t want the students to get ahead of them, this is so wrong because the language isn’t just chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3. The language is basically a whole package and we learn different parts of it again and again and again and so for the student to go out and find things of interest to him or her and then go back and then go back and do what they are doing in class, all of this is good. You have to take the initiative, you have to take responsibility. There are people who say that there’s no bad learners, only a bad teacher. I don’t believe that at all. I think whether you are in a classroom, or whether you are studying on your own, only those learners who take the initiative, who are motivated to take charge of their learning, are going to be successful. And we have amble evidence of this in our school system in Canada, and I am sure in other language schools where a small percentage of the learners actually improve and equally large numbers can improve on their own if they are motivated, so that the important point is not the number of instructional hours, but rather the important point is; to what extend are you prepared to be proactive and take charge of your own learning. So that is the first of the 7 habits that Stephen Covey talks about and it might even be the most important. Be proactive. Take charge of your own learning. And that is the first of the 7 habits of highly effective people. Thank you for listening.

Hi there, Steve here. Today I’m going to do a video out of schedule. I’m trying to be more regular in my videos so that we can prepare transcripts and those will continue to be there every Thursday, but sometimes I have something on my mind that I just want to talk about and today is such a day. A friend of mine sent me an article from a Czech website saying that Bill Gates apparently wants to learn French. The one thing he wants to do in his life is to speak foreign languages and he feels unhappy that he can’t do so. Then I Googled and I found the original interview in English. I’ll put both links in the description here. The important thing is that Bill Gates, with all the money he has, the one thing he wants to do is to speak foreign languages. For those of us who study foreign languages, of course, sometimes we see these extremely wealthy people who have yachts, expensive cars, five homes and can go to expensive restaurants and stuff. It’s important to remember that we are happy inside ourselves and all these other things we can buy with money, cars, yachts and expensive meals, those are only props. Those are tools that we hope are going to make us happy, but we’re only happy inside, really. Just having a car doesn’t necessarily make us happy. We might be happy when we sit in the car, but we don’t live in the car. So if we look at the opportunity to become happy through learning a language, the amount of time that we actually enjoy the language while studying, while reading, while visiting the country, while speaking with people, I suggest that that gives us more happiness than owning a Lamborghini or a yacht. So for those of you out there who are keen language learners, you have a chance to do something that Bill Gates wants to do but so far hasn’t been able to do. Apparently, he studied some Latin and Greek at school and was doing Duolingo and didn’t continue for whatever reason. Of course, I would like to suggest that Bill Gates study at LingQ. I think it’s ideal for someone like him. I think he’s an intellectual. He’s a reader. He wants to not just learn French so like Mike Zuckerberg he can go and answer a few questions in Beijing or in Paris, but I would imagine that he would like to discover French civilization, French culture, achieve a level of vocabulary so he can go to Paris and have intelligent adult conversations with French people. In which case, I humbly submit that the best place for him to learn French is at LingQ. Pardon the plug. At any rate, even without that, those of you who study languages, all of us who study succeed to some extent. We are achieving something that at least two very wealthy people in the world, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, want to achieve. So there you have it, I just wanted to throw that one in. Maybe we’ll get a transcript up next week, but I’m going to put this one up today because it’s topical right now. Thank you and thanks for listening. Bill Gates wants to speak foreign languages. He should learn French at LingQ. Here are the links to the original articles. In Czech; http://www.novinky.cz/muzi/360190-nejbohatsi-muz-sveta-bill-gates-lituje-jedne-jedine-veci.html In English; http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/28/technology/bill-gates-regret/

7つの習慣という有名な本の教えは言葉の勉強に活用できます。http://amzn.to/1DOwXlj Timelines: 0:28 みんなさん、僕のビデオを英語を勉強するためにつかえろう。/ You can use my videos for learning English. 2:07 7つの習慣は言葉の勉強に何の関係？/ How «The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People» are related to language learning? 2:57 僕はどういう風に忘れた日本語を回復するのか。/ How do I revive my Japanese? 5:56 どうして僕は日本人向けの英語の本を信じらないのか？/ Why I don’t trust Japanese textbooks for learning English. 　 7:31 好きなものをたくさん読むと聞くこと。/ Listening and reading a lot to the things of interest. 8:23 言葉の強い基盤があれば話す能力がすぐ開発。/ Speaking develops fast on the basis of a solid vocabulary foundation. 8:54 言葉の勉強を包括的に取り組まないとだめ。/ You must have a holistic approach to language learning. Visit https://www.LingQ.com My Blog: http://blog.thelinguist.com/ My Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/lingosteve My Twitter: https://twitter.com/lingosteve Follow the new LingQ channel: https://goo.gl/WVnzRS Follow "Steve's Cafe" channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/SteveKaufmann