in brief : The video provides a comprehensive guide on studying foreign languages from the very beginning to achieving fluency. Phoenix uses examples from English, Chinese, Spanish, Korean, and Japanese to illustrate his points. 1. **Starting with the Basics**: Begin with learning the alphabet. Some alphabets are easier (like Korean Hangul), while others are more complex (like Arabic or Chinese characters). Understanding the basic phonetics and pronouns is also crucial. 2. **Tackling Grammar**: Start with simple grammatical concepts like present tense, gender in languages like French or Spanish, and basic case particles in languages like Korean, Japanese, and Russian. Gradually move to more complex grammar like past and future tenses, and expressing location, direction, or time. 3. **Overcoming Challenges**: Many learners give up when they can understand and express sophisticated ideas but still find native conversations and reading difficult. This stage requires patience and practice. Phoenix suggests grammar exercises, memorizing phrases, and internalizing grammar to make it natural. 4. **Accumulation and Improvement**: This stage involves familiarizing yourself with grammar and building vocabulary. It's important to be patient and keep studying. Use resources like videos, audio clips, children's books, or books for teenagers. Practice speaking through shadowing dialogues or talking to yourself. Ensure a solid grammatical foundation to avoid fossilizing mistakes. 5. **Enjoying the Language**: Once you've accumulated enough knowledge and experience, you'll start understanding more and making longer, complex sentences. Engage with the language by watching movies, reading books, and immersing yourself in the culture and people behind the language. Phoenix emphasizes that while some languages have unique grammatical structures, the general process of language learning is similar across different languages. The key is to enjoy the learning process and immerse oneself in the language and its culture. The video concludes with an encouragement to continue the journey of language learning, highlighting the joy and cultural insights it brings.

Method I’ve used that’s helped me progress rapidly: - Learn alphabet - Learn top 1000 words (spelling, pronunciation, contexts used in, etc) - Use the best translator software you can find to memorize at least 50 sentences that describe who you are as a person and what you do (learning the top 1000 words first helps this step a lot) - Listen to music and watch movies in the language (stick to at least 30 minutes of music a day and 2-3 movies a week) It’s an overload strategy and can seem overwhelming, but as soon as you master the first two steps, the rest becomes way easier. Trust me, you’ll be amazed at how fast you make progress.

Babe wake up new Phoenix Hou video just dropped

I learned to speak and read Japanese without studying. I studied Mandarin for 9 years starting from primary school. Can't speak nor understand anything in Mandarin today. I grew up watching manga and anime, so I'm familiar with the sounds, but still can't understand Japanese anyway. Started playing VALORANT in Tokyo server and spoke to Japanese people around July last year. I can't understand anything, they can't understand anything either, but it was fun. In November, I befriended my first ever Japanese friend (who couldn't speak English) and we survived by using google translate. In December, he taught me the alphabets. Then I started speaking to him everyday, and befriended more Japanese people, and more, and even more..... 3 months after that, I could speak Japanese more fluently and understand conversations better than my friends who took courses in Japanese, and it's only getting better and better :)

In the middle of thousands of videos saying grammar can be neglected at first, and just listen and engaging in the language, i really agree with you that in an initial phase, the grammar is very important to build a strong foundation! What a good and realistic video! Congrats

This video is kind of like a motivational for me, the part of giving up where you think the effort isn't enough is spotted on with my current situation. Thank you

The Latin alphabet also has a cursive version. I know there are several countries where it's not used so much anymore. But in France everyone writes in cursive.

Thank you for the video, and for your thoughtful insights.

Thank you so much! This was very helpful in my language learning process. I felt like I had come to a complete stand still and wasn't learning to a point of fluency, but this really helped me overcome some of those things.😊

Thanks for this! I always find your videos refreshing becausw they describe a language learning process similar to the one I stumbled upon by accident when learning Korean several years ago.

Thank you for the motivation man!!!

I wrote a long note, but it disappeared. 😂😂 Learning the languages is just as different as listening to music from different eras. I love Bach and I love BigBang, but they are quite different. And you will never mix up 안녕하세요? 你好吗？ I enjoy learning and it is quite fun. Plus, I have met some great friends along the way. Take your time. Enjoy the journey. Even if you learn one sentence or able to write one word. You will be closer to your goal each day. 😅😅 Believe and you shall achieve.

Thanks so much for this video! You are right about reaching that certain point then many giving up, I am always encouraged at the very beginning, because I can actually see my progress so clearly week by week. It progressively becomes less visible to see the progress once you hit intermediate or even lower-advanced level, and falling behind when conversing with natives can be discouraging. This video was on the shorter side, but super informative, and I totally agree about the emphasis on grammar. Such a necessary step. Learning phonetics and grammar has been one of the best things I did for the languages I learn.

Great advice, thank you for sharing

Hi Phoenix, thank you for sharing! I think in this video you mainly answered the question of WHAT to learn in the language rather than HOW to learn a language. We all know that these things (alphabet, grammar, vocabulary) should be learned. We‘d like to hear more about your practices and learning routines!

Exactly what I needed, thank you so much! ❤

Beautiful video. Thank you for sharing

Thank you man, your videos are really helpful to me

I really enjoyed this and found it really motivating. I’ve been learning Thai for about 5 months (not long I know), sometimes it can be demotivating when you hear native speakers and it’s just a blur of words, but I do think I am improving slowly. I have many friends there and I want to improve so I don’t plan on quitting. I usually find if I put it aside for a couple of days that break gives me renewed motivation. Thanks again and I’ll subscribe for more vids :)

Very insightful as always👏👏👏

Simple, practical, insightful. How you explained why we have a hard time understanding a sentence in an unmastered language near the middle of the video was very interesting. I'd suspected it was something like that just from experience, but hearing it explained so well is just nice so that I know there really is some kind of logic behind it. I'm studying Vietnamese right now and I definitely got past "the hard part" as described in this video. Learning so much new vocabulary definitely takes a lot of time but since I'm past learning the alphabet and the tones -- by far the most arcane part of the language for a native English speaker -- I think I should take heart in the fact that someone as experienced as yourself calls where I am "the easy part." My life is delightfully busy with things right now and that made me take a big step away from learning Vietnamese in the last 1.5 months or so, I hate to say. But this video put things into perspective for me again and gave me the reminder that I probably needed most right now: since I only intend for my life to get more busy in the future, I just need to adapt and hop back into Vietnamese with a spring in my step. I can afford to make the time for it and it's going to be fun and easy so long as I don't talk myself out of that mindset. :P Thanks for this video!

I think this is a good high level overview of how to learn languages, but glosses over the detail that everyone gets stuck on, which is how to efficiently look up words prior to acquiring enough familiarity with the language to be able to guess words, and how to find reading or listening material that is appropriate to their level. Particularly in languages where looking up words in a paper dictionary is infeasible (languages where a "word" is too western of an idea or which use chinese characters). Once you solve those problems, if you actually like the process you can make the long climb from B to C.

such a well made video, thank you :)

Thank you. You're an inspiration to me.

I just had such a stand-still-phase in my language learning, but I think I overcame it now and it feels like I am making progress again. I would even venture out and maybe visit the country where this language is spoken and see what happens.

Your korean is just perfect. So impressive!

Your the best mate. Thanks!

❤❤❤👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾💯💯💯. I am learning Korean and Mandarin right now. I love both languages. And you are correct. It just takes time. And understanding anything is so great, because you know your studying is paying off. 😂😂😂 Korean is easier as I have more experience. Chinese is quite fun. I have friends who help me with both.. Thank you!!!

I have realized that some people are just better at learning languages than others. I'm not one of them, but I keep trying. Congratulations. Some folks can run or ride horses or jump better than others. Others can draw or sing. Good that working at it that you are able to learn so well, particularly as an adult. That's a skill!

I would love to see you discuss this with Steve K or Matt v Japan. This explanation is the most common sense approach I've seen.

Great and inspirational video, I'd like to learn more language besides French and my mother tonge, Spanish, and I find your advice, realistic and practical, a strong grammar foundation is very important, we as adults should take advantage of it, that we can understand it in a better and fast way than kids.

Just like Steve Kaufmann said during a zoom interview with Steven Krashen: before you speak it grammatically right, you need to get it right with meaning first, most started with just separated words linked together and the gap between slapping words together to a functional sentence can be very long, so don’t fret over it, keep learning, keep practicing and you get there!

jeez u r such a Genius ，i literally had experienced all this studying phases u mentioned heree ， somedayyy my french level would reach out to the nexttt levellll ，thx for ya contenttttt

I admire how you enunciate youself. I speak english for about 7 years now, but now is the time I'm looking into the details, a higher language register. Además apredí las palabras "counter-intuitive", "gradually" y "accumulate". I think you are great.

Dear Phoenix 您是這世上少有的奇才!! 我來自台灣，在美國拿了商業學位，也在那裡生活六年。 你是我遇過講英文講得最好的一位...用句遣詞十分精鍊。 相信你一定讀破萬卷書又行過萬里路，才能有如此英文造詣。 把你當成學習英文的榜樣! 謝謝你辛苦製作，讓我受益非淺的影片。

Impressive....good analysis.

感谢分享！英文讲得好好听！

No words can describe how useful this video is to me, your videos help me connect my lines of information. Cảm ơn anh rất nhiều nhé ♥♥ Thank you very much 🥰🥰 Hontoni arigatou ❤❤ ¡Gracias mucho! 😍😍

Watching this made me understand, this is just like learning English from scratch and understanding the basics

خیلی ممنون برای ویدیوهات امیدوارم یک روز مثل تو بشم ❤

1.字母表 拼音 2.文法 3.各種時態 4.讀兒童/青少年讀物 5.多說

Thanks

This is great content

由衷感謝你的影片

Hola ¿como estas?, extrañaba ver tus videos saludos desde mexico

What helps me with grammar is learning the basics properly and then ignoring learning grammar until I'm at a higher level (around B2), at which point I'll learn the more complex concepts, but never memorize the rules, I just apply them because they now feel natural thanks to immersion. Not sure if this is something that can help you though.

My learning path is the same with you, grammar and vocabulary go first, then skills :Đ. I find this way is way more faster than the "learning like the way we learn our mother tongues" way.

정말 도움이 많이 되었습니다. 한글을 공부하고 싶어하는 중국인 친구에게 Phoenix Hou님의 영상을 공유했어요. 영어를 잘하고 싶은 저에게도 큰 동기부여가 되었습니다. 고마워요^^

Now i know why English is most popular due most easy grammar and writing system to learn and use and pronounce too esply some big countries too like US UK Canada.

Hola, mi nombre es Juan, soy de Colombia y he de decirte que tienes un muy buen nivel de español, veo además que tu acento es muy castellano, pero no obstante suena muy bien. Saludos desde Colombia 😀

yes, yes, yes. to be patient and accumulate the languages enjoying the relationship back in the language. :)

5:36 5:38 如果到了这一步已经度过了最困难的阶段😅可能是对学习了一定阶段原地打转最大的鼓励😂，的确语言不是学懂而是不断扩充熟练运用的进阶过程

好厉害！！我是爱学语言的泰国人！现在正在学俄语，冰岛语，葡萄牙语。有很多东西我能向你学习！我们一起加油:) 以后还有什么好的学习方法请跟我们分享

1、字母； 2、基础单词； 3、基础语法； 4、跟读，矫正读音； 5、看书，刷剧，享受

👏👏👏

5:10 so true... I only recognized 'to ur place' 😂

0:35 2:02 3:06 5:54

目前我的英语就卡在一个不上不下的位置。多谢大神的鼓励，看来我的问题还是在输入不够上，今年目标是看一本青少年读物的英文小说😊

你的分享真的很激勵人心耶~!!真的覺得花時間了，但還是聽的很模糊很像在水裡聽人家講話XDD CHAO

There's so much good information in this video that i forgot the time is passing

what do you think about starting learning Russian and Korean after having achieved an advanced fluency of Japanese and English? should I avoid learning more languages at the same time?

Great vid! I was wondering if you had any thoughts on something I read that you should learn subsequent languages in the last language you learned. For example if I learned Arabic with books designed for English speakers, I should learn my next language in Arabic to reinforce Arabic. Is there any truth to this? Thanks.

Thanks for making this! What resources have you been using to study arabic?

Super helpful and inspiring video, felt wholesome and motivating to me to keep pursuing my goal to learn several languages, don’t mind the garbage comments on here.

Hi, Could you maybe please share with me the Russian case table (3:27) which is the clearest one I've ever seen. Appreciates!

I'm studying Korean, how much time could take to internalize intermediate grammar? idk if it's worth giving a shot for Korean... 5:56 seems the way but how to do it in the best efficient way? I don't have much time anyways so I'd like to know more :)

I want to learn Japan language now in vocational high school, hopefully I can do that😁

Alphabet Grammar Grammar (more complex) Personalization - Actualization

The final boss in every language for me is vocabulary 🤣😭

Thanks for sharing this! Just out of curiosity, can I ask what your first language is? you're obviously very fluent in English, but I just wondered which is more of your first language among many different languages. Thanks!

可以提供影片裡用到的表格嗎~謝謝

Ugh I just want to cry and hug you. Where's the Superthanks when I really want to use it😂

❤

How do you feel about Steve Kaufman's method? It promotes comprehensible input

大哥最有才了🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Hi, Phonenix. I have some question related to language learning. I am learning both English and French, but my language level has been stuck between B1 and B2. I found it really hard to get any further, is there any way that I can improve that.

博主想请教一个问题：二外语言学习到什么程度，才能进行三外语言的学习呢？我能想到的方法是参加语言考试，达到一定目标分数再进行学习。我目前在精进的是英语（从小学到大学一直在学，但是没到能做工作语言的程度）。下一步想学韩语，看了一些经验，同时学多门语言会有些消极影响，韩语里也有很多英文读音类似词，我猜读音上会有些干扰，所以希望英语学得差不多再进行韩语的学习。那么怎么衡量英语学习水平，继而进入下一步的韩语学习呢？ 🤓

我觉得充满母语者的环境也很重要. 我在墨西哥两周学的西班牙语就比自己一学期学的要多. 以及, 什么时候能再安排和女朋友的对谈😜

What's the best process for learning the alphabet? Is it just repetitiveness until you're able to memorise and is it fine if you don't know how to make a sound 100% correctly? Like for example, I don't know how to properly trill my R's (learning Swedish)

I am trying to learn Polish because I want to be able to have conversations in Polish with my relatives (aunts, uncles, cousins) in Poland who don't speak English.

May i ask one thing? Do you recommend learning one language at a time or two or more is doable? (if so what do you think is the "maximum number" not to get too confused?)

so watching media with target language subtitles will help my listening get better than watching without, is that it ? what would you recommend ?

从b站来油管了哈哈，我是问你SK输入理论那个👀 想问一下博主 在看书的时候要是有很多词不认识 你是全都查词典还是直接换一本书 我现在在学西语🇪🇸 SK说的方法好简单 但你掌握了好多语言 学习语言的经验很丰富 不过我很怕做题🤣 就想问问博主 在学习语言时你是怎么平衡做练习和输入感兴趣的内容的 还有就是 感觉按照SK的理论 找到合适的材料很重要 既要符合i+1 又要有趣 所以感觉在学一门语言时 我还在到处找合适的材料 你这样的大佬已经冲到老前面去了😀 所以想问一下博主觉得i+1的学习材料重要吗

老师，啥时候你能出个教材或者论著之类？

lovely video as always!! fyi 4:07 There seems to be a typo in the Korean sentence. It should be 치였습니다 not 차였습니다.

This actually motivated me to start again to learn the language I started to learn. I was at exactly this point and eventually just gave up. Thank you 🙌🏾 Do you have some advice for learning Russian and Spanish ?

Tank you so much sir , I'm like at the stage of familiarization with the language, I currently have enough studies in English grammar so now I'm exposing myself to the culture by watching videos and reding cómics haha I know that I still need to peek at Gramma cuz I keep making mistakes while taking or trying to express myself, it's hard but I'm enjoying it , also it's taking me more time than expected becouse I'm learning Japanese too , now that I have experience learning and studying a language (English) it's been actually really easy so Im hopping to get to the point where I have enough knowledge of grammar and kanji to read comics / mangas / まんわ and watch アニメ without subtitles (⁠つ⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)⁠つ

My problem is the dialect. Ive been studying spanish for years but the dialect in school (south american/spain) and the dialect here (Mexican spanish) seems totally different and there's not a whole lot of learning materials to learn a specific dialect but i think thats very important

很好的视频，爱来自陶瓷！说起来，学语言到底怎么入门啊除了刷多邻国之外就不知道该干什么了（重复性太高，也很没意思）。背词汇？看语法书？想知道phoenix是怎么保持学语言的习惯和动力的

Thanks for the tips! That's me with French. I know I know the rules but I can't understand what they say and I know I'm missing some things because of my lack of truly internalizing the grammar. But I'm getting more and more familiarized with the language, watching French TV and starting to read French books. Your video was the incentive I needed to keep on doing so. Can I ask you something kind of unrelated? Do you believe on learning more than one language at the same time - or even more than two?

哇，刚看完B站的视频，这边也来支持一下

Hello Phoenix，请问通过英语来学第二外语（例如法语）怎么样？ 我的想法是加强英语水平的同时又可以学其他的语言，你是否建议这么做？

请问，你学习语言时期每天都会用这些语言吗？会用这种语言思考吗？从零开始的话，从哪里开始呢？从什么用语开始？求解答。谢谢🙏

Sir will people learn a foreign language and foreign culture in future mostly in ai era?? ..I mean will there be any scope for people trying to build a career in these fields?? ..please kindly reply ..

Try with easy language like toki pona.

Bro just told me to just have fun and study grammar in the same minute 😂

在西班牙语里面一般日常对话里我一般听到的都是El es un profesor, 当然这个un不是必须说的，但一般这边人会加上

for me i learned so much grammar but almost no vocabulary so i ended up reading a dictionary all day

Can someone recommend a UKposts channel in French or something similar so i do a little listening input?

3:52 the example caught me so off-guard 💀