#AskSteve

Hi there Steve Kaufmann here. Today I want to talk about language learning and a very famous, successful book – a self-help book – by Stephen Covey called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. I read this and I will tell you why I read it. It is because I found an audio book of this "xxxxxxxxxxxxx" (Russian title) when I was in Riga, so I bought the book and I bought the audio book and I listened to it and so on and so forth. It has applications for language learning and basically the seven habits that Covey talks about are: 1. to become independent, this is extremely important for language learning and it consists of being proactive, you have to take charge of your language learning, I have discussed this before. 2. Start with the end goal in mind, so if you are starting to learn a language make sure you know exactly what you want to achieve i.e. you want to learn it to a specific degree of fluency, in fact visualize yourself reaching that goal (in my opinion). 3. He talks about doing first things first, and to me that means; if you are going to study a language and if you intend to achieve this end goal that you have in mind, do it every day and make sure you do it every day and as I have talked about before have your MP3 Player with you and have your text with you and whenever you have an opportunity: DO IT. So that gets you independent. The other thing he talks about is becoming interdependent with other people – now he talks about management and working with people and of course we’re talking about language learning and so to the extent that we’re communicating with other people and of course being interdependent is important. So to get to this interdependence the 4th thing he says is to think in terms of win-win. Alright, if you are negotiating with someone then of course win-win is important, but where I see this applying to language learning is, no matter what you do, consider it a win. You are struggling with a text, you really didn’t understand it well, it was somehow frustrating, and you don’t think you are making any progress, but you spend half an hour to an hour listening, reading, to whatever extent you understood it, it’s a win because you expose yourself to the language – it’s a win. So everything is a win, when you are studying a language. Then the 5th thing he talks about is: Try to understand and THEN worry about being understood, so if you are a Manager of course, you want to first understand your people before you can expect them to understand what you want from them. To me this is extremely important in language learning. I stress this all the time, it is more important to understand than speak. If you can have that confidence, that you understand what you hear, understand what you read, you understand the language, you have the vocabulary – the speaking will come. It’ll come through speaking, but if you don’t understand it is very difficult to have meaningful conversations. The 6th thing was: Synergy. And I think that synergy also applies to language learning because all of our activities, all of the different learning activities; reading, listening, speaking, writing – they are all synergistic, because everything we do increases our ability to notice. So there is obvious synergy in all of our learning activities. We are doing this number 6 of Steven Covey. And, the 7th thing he talks about is what he calls sharpening the saw, which means constantly developing your skills and I think building up your passive vocabulary, building up your familiarity with the language – all of this is making you potentially a better speaker of the language, so you are in fact sharpening the saw. Now in subsequent videos I’ll get into more detail on some of these “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but you can Google for it and I think look at how this applies to language learning and I look forward to your comments. Thank you for listening. http://www.change-management-coach.com/stephen-covey.html

The key to language learning success is comprehension. This requires a large vocabulary. Here I explain why this is so. Check out this article by Ernest Blum, The New Old Way of Learning Languages. Check out this article by Ernest Blum, The New Old Way of Learning Languages. http://tinyurl.com/mpm2vxg Hi there Steve Kaufmann here, today I want to talk about words. The importance of words and how many words we need. It is a subject that comes up regularly. I came across a very interesting article and in fact I am going to write a blog post about it. Might have it up next week, I have just started writing it. We need lots of words. Essentially in order to learn a language beyond the sort of very superficial social level we need a large vocabulary. The best way to acquire that vocabulary, in my opinion, is through a lot of reading and reading things that are meaningful and in fact historically that’s how people learned languages. AND… what we discover when we start reading things that are interesting to us, not just text book material is that in fact you need A LOT of words and the vast majority of language courses don’t enable the learner to acquire a sufficient vocabulary to go out and read a book. And I believe that in any of the languages that I have learned I want to get to where I can read book of interest to me; history, literature, whatever it might be that I can without difficulty and enjoyably read things that interest me. To do that you need a lot of words and there is this myth about if you have 1000 words you can cover just about any context in the language. It’s simply not true. Apparently, according to research 100-150 words will probably cover in most languages up to 50% of the words in any given context. However, once you get beyond that the words are less and less frequent. In fact the less and less frequent words appear VERY MUCH less frequently and so the example was given in James Joyce’s Ulysses for example, which apparently has a total of 250.000 words, but uses 30.000 different words. So in order for you to understand every word in Ulysses, you’d have to know 30.000 words. Now, research has shown that as long as you have about 98% of the vocabulary in any given text or book, you can read it quite comfortably unless you’re working on the internet with access to an online dictionary or using it in LingQ – as I do for my language learning, where I can cope with texts that have 20% unknown words because I am saving them and I am counting them again and the whole process is helping me learn them, but I want to get to where I can just pick a book off the shelf and read it and for that I need to have 95-98% coverage. Now, it’s been shown that in many many books, words that only appear once, twice or three times in the text may account for 30-50% of the words in that text, so you are going to be meeting a lot of rare words. So, the unfortunate or the corollary of the fact that high frequency words account for a high percentage of any given text is that you need A LOT of low frequency words in order to make sense of the text. And since reading is so important to building up our fluency and our ability to understand, especially if you combine it with listening. Therefore, the focus on vocabulary and comprehension is much more important than the traditional approach of teaching people some grammar and a few basic words and hoping that they can somehow make it in real situations. THEY CAN’T. Thank you for listening, it went on a bit long today.

多阅读多听, 增加词汇量是学语言的基础。 Why we need a lot of words to learn languages and why reading is so important. Check out this article by Ernest Blum, The New Old Way of Learning Languages. .https://theamericanscholar.org/the-new-old-way-of-learning-languages/#.VMg6jHB4qos

Language-Learning Toolbox Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here again, today I want to talk about what I call a language-learning toolbox. I had a comment on one of my YouTube videos where I said that I tried shadowing, which is a method of language learning or an activity whereby you listen and speak out loud. I don’t want to go into detail on it because I tried a little bit of sort of reading and speaking out loud or whatever and I don’t enjoy doing it. You can look up shadowing in language learning and you’ll find it. A lot of people swear by it. Fine, I said, I tried it and I didn’t enjoy doing it and then people criticized me. One person said why are you so reluctant to add this to your toolbox or something? So, toolbox -- If you are a woodworker or, whatever, a stamp collector, in any hobby your tools are there in order to make the main activity, that enjoyable hobby activity, more efficient, more enjoyable, but the tool itself is not the goal. The tool is there to help you do what you like to do. So, to me, an activity which is a tool, like shadowing, doesn’t appeal to me. To me, the activity which appeals is using the language. So, listening, reading, speaking, writing, using the language, is the activity that gives me enjoyment. The tools, I could say, are the resources I find on the Internet. The podcasts I find, my mp3 player, my iPhone, my iPad, LingQ, dictionaries, these are the tools that help me do the task which I enjoy doing, which is engaging with the language. Those sort of almost deliberate learning strategy-type tools, to me, are not tools, they’re another activity. For those people who enjoy those activities then that’s a great thing to do because that’s what they enjoy doing, but the tool is not the activity. The activity, to me, is what engages me and so I do those things which I find engage me, have high resonance and so forth. So that’s my answer. By all means, people say why don’t you try this approach, that approach, use Anki, use Duolingo. Luca has a method where he translates from the language he’s learning to his own and then back to the other language. There are all kinds of things you can do. Do those things which you enjoy and then those are not tools, those are the activity. The activity should totally engage you and, if it does, you’ll end up spending the time with the language, you’ll end up with a positive attitude and you’ll start to notice the language a little better. So thank you, that’s my take on different language-learning tools. Bye for now.

Learning in the Moment Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here again, today I want to talk about staying in the moment when we learn languages. You can Google and look up living in the moment, staying in the moment. I think today it’s so easy to be distracted. It’s easy to be distracted when you’re on a computer and have access to the Internet, your email or other places you go. It’s easy to be distracted by thinking of maybe mistakes you made or things you want to do tomorrow or frustrations with your language learning, so I find that it’s very important to develop that ability to be in the moment when we are enjoying our language. For me, that might mean when I’m LingQing a Korean text or I’m reading a Ukrainian text that I want to, basically, block everything out and just enjoy it. I find now, too, now that I’m sort of semi retired. Of course I have a lot of memories of things, but I try not to spend my time on the past or the future. I like to sort of say wow, look at the colors even in this room, the texture of what I’m looking at, the sound of the rain outside. Just to cease that moment and to have that kind of an attitude. When you’re enjoying your language, listening to it or even writing or if you’re communicating with someone, just have that sense of that enjoyment of that moment. I don’t recommend that you should think about wow, I’m doing this because later on it will improve me. That’s why I’m not such a big fan on Anki or these other skills where I’m doing something which is drudgery now, but somehow I think it’s going to improve me. I don’t tend to think that way. I say I am doing this now, I enjoy it. I’m learning about Korea, I’m enjoying the sounds of Korean and enjoying that. I happen to know that this is going to help me gradually absorb the language. Just by the mere fact that I’m exposing myself to more of the language, reading and paying attention to words, I know that’s going to help me. I’m not thinking about what it’s going to do for me in the future, I’m only thinking of enjoying this task while I’m doing it. I find that I’ve become actually better in doing that because of my experience as a language learner, so even if I’m reading Spanish now where I have had trouble with verb endings, as we all do in Spanish, because I’m in the moment I tend to notice okay, this is the third person singular of the past tense, which I sometimes have trouble with I can’t notice it. Just by that little tick, I noticed, I’m in the moment, that’s going to help me. I don’t think about how it’s going to help me, I just know it’s going to help me and so I just say in that moment of enjoying the language. So just a bit of advice… I could go on much longer, but I’m trying to keep my videos short. Try to enjoy the moment for what it is rather than for what it might do for you or thinking about previous failures or anything else, just enjoy the moment. Thank you, bye for now.

I often get asked questions like: ‘Which is easier to learn language a or language b?’ or variations of that such as ‘How long will it take me to learn xxx?’ Today I am going to talk about whether some languages are easier to learn than others. The short answer is: Yes, some languages are easier to learn than others, but it all depends… It depends on the languages you already know, as well as your interest and motivation in learning the new language. I studied Korean before I studied Russian, Czech, Ukrainian (and Romanian, which I only did for two months). I spent 6 months on Korean before we had it on LingQ. I was listening to it for an hour or more every day, bought lots of books etc. I later went through another bout of Korean language learning later on when it became a supported language on LingQ. I understand 95% Russian, 85% Czech, Ukrainian and even Romanian, which I, like previously mentioned, only spent 2 months on. No matter how long I have spent on learning Korean, there is no question in my mind that I understand all these languages much better than Korean. Why? There are a number of reasons: Once I had put a lot of time into Russian, Czech became a lot easier, and so did Ukrainian. I have looked briefly at Polish and think it’ll be a piece of cake due to my knowledge of the other Slavic languages. Romanian is also easy to learn, as 70% of the words are similar to Italian words, the alphabet is the same, the pronunciation is similar and the rest of the language has Slavic roots, so again, it was easy for me to learn. Korean, even though 50% of the vocabulary is close to Chinese, it is not immediately obvious what those words are because the pronunciation is very different. A number of things make Korean difficult, but the thing I have found most difficult is that the material that I can find to motivate me is very limited; there isn’t much interesting content to read. The interesting stuff is very difficult, the easy stuff is of no interest to me and there hasn’t been any sort of urgency or anything that’s driving me towards that particular language. However I am going to visit Korea in March and that may turn things around. To summarize: Yes, there are languages that are easier to learn than others, depending on the languages you already know, your opportunity, your motivation, and what other stimuli there might be. It is therefore difficult for me to answer questions like: ‘How long it takes to learn a language’ or ‘Which language should I learn’ as it entirely up to the individual and their situation.

The three golden keys “All that really matters in language learning” Attitude Time Attentiveness In my language learning over the past 10 years, I have spent thousands of hours reading and listening to content that fascinated me. This was content that I chose and which maintained my interest in conquering the language. If you want to go into further detail - read my New Years Blog, where I talk about The Three Golden Keys in more detail http://blog.thelinguist.com/ Timelines: 0:01 Happy 2015. 0:26 The three keys are so important I have even made a slide show for them. 1:27 The three golden keys. 2:06 Your Attitude. 2:46 Spend the time with the language. 3:30 Attentiveness. 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

Hello everyone. I made video this a couple of days ahead of time because some people celebrate Christmas on the 24th and some on the 25th. Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. I promised to make my videos shorter going forward, but it’s not going to happen this time. Today I’m going to talk about Christmas, traditions, and ramble on a bit. Christmas is an amalgamation of a number of ancient traditions from all over the world, for instance; the idea of a virgin giving birth stems from Middle Eastern traditions, whereas lights on the Christmas trees come from Northern European countries, where big bonfires used to be a part of celebrating the winter solstice. Everything in this wonderful cultural human tapestry in which we live today, is the accumulation of what people did before us. Without even realizing it, much of our current traditions come from everywhere around the world; Everything from technology that wouldn’t exist without Hindu mathematics, Chinese and Arab technology to the food we eat such as a typical Irish potato dish or the Italian cuisine’s use of tomato both of which came from the new world. Everything that we enjoy today is a part of this increasing globalization; a fusion and mixture of traditions. The phenomenon of Christianity is quite spectacular. It started in the Middle East, but today the number of Christians in that area is relatively small. Today Christianity represents 1/3 of the world, speaking a variety of different languages. There’s a very heavy presence of Christianity in the Americas speaking English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. There has been a tremendous growth of Christianity in Africa where people speak a wide variety of languages, as well as in Asia and the Pacific Islands. In that sense Christianity (and religion) unites a lot of people from all over the world. And although I am not a religious person, the basic message of Christmas is a very positive one; it’s about peace, helping the less fortunate, being tolerant and being forgiving. This message of Christmas really is a message that is common to all religions whether it is Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism etc. In all these religions people are expressing the same need for human solidarity. Sometimes people fight because of religions, the religions are not at fault rather it is part of human nature to find things to squabble about. All this relates to my favorite topic of language learning because Christianity – and therefore Christmas - is celebrated by so many different people all over the world, which means that the range of languages spoken by Christians is enormous. To learn about religion and languages is to learn about human beings. Finally, Christmas is an opportunity for families and loved ones to get together. Christmas is a message of peace. Whether you are celebrating Christmas or any other holiday at this time – I hope you enjoy it and think of the year to come with optimism and enthusiasm, I know I do. Happy Holidays everyone.

Hello everyone As promised; here's an early video from The Linguist days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEOUmBYrjuw I have decided that it is time for a change, first of all my videos are going to be slightly shorter. I am going to talk about language learning in more detail and give specific advice, and I will do this in various different languages. I would also like to start providing you with a transcript and/or a translation when the videos are in other languages. I have been doing videos since 2007, that is a long time and I think a change is due. My involvement with the language thing came about when I started learning Cantonese at the age of 55. I was learning by listening to the radio. Later on a Cantonese immigrant came to help me and together we came up with The Linguist – a predecessor to LingQ. I wrote a book in 2002 called The Linguist – it was later published in Chinese. It is about my experience in language learning. It is about my experiences me as a language learner, and what has worked for me. Since the book was written, I have learned three Slavic languages; Russian, Czech, and Ukrainian. As well as Portuguese, some Romanian and some Korean. In my videos I will continue to talk about how I have used the method from LingQ and the book to learn these additional 6 languages. I am looking forward to turning over this new leaf, and I hope that with this new approach I will get to interact more with everyone. Thank you and see you soon.

Get LingQ's free Russian grammar guide: https://www.lingq.com/en/grammar-resource/russian/ We had a discussion at our Forum at LingQ on whether it was possible to achieve fluency at LingQ, starting from scratch. Much depends on your definition of fluency, but here is what I have achieved. Timelines: 0:07 Can you learn a language from scratch only through lingQ? 1:20 Am I capable of speaking on topics other than language learning? 2:04 Я выучил русский через сайт LingQ. / I have learned Russian through LingQ. 3:13 Что значит свободно владеть языком. / What does «fluency» imply? 4:21 Я могу говорить на разные темы. / I can talk on various topics. 5:10 Россия и Украина по-разному понимает ситуацию в восточной Украине. / The perspective of Russia and Ukraine on the conflict in Eastern Ukraine differs. 6:47 Моё решение для этой проблемы. / My solution for the problem. 8:52 Майдан - мнение Украины и России. / Maidan - vision of Ukraine and Russia. 10:44 Участие России в конфликте. / Russia’s participation in the conflict. 11:45 Нужно обосновывать любое заявление. / Any statements must be backed up with facts. 14:17 Нужно искать точки соприкосновения. / One should seek for common grounds. 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

Language meet-ups, online language resources etc. can all help, as long as we take charge of our own learning.

How I use modern technology to improve in multiple languages. Timelines: 0:02 Modern technologies enable me to learn 3 languages at once. 0:52 Sources I use for learning Korean. 2:35 How I read Korean with different gadgets. 3:45 Idle waiting helps me out with doing flashcards. 4:46 Speakers, earphones and other gadgets. 6:09 Sources I use for learning Ukrainian. 7:22 Sources I use for learning Russian. 7:59 The way I listen differs. 8:58 Minor listening. 10:17 In order to progress one needs not only audio but a transcript. 10:56 Dedicated time is for reading, not listening. 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