"Focus on enjoying the language." This really is the best advice. Thank you!

Simple extra tip: Do not hold back because you are afraid of making some mistakes. You will get better because you train.

"Focus on enjoying the language" : only when i did that i saw real improvement! Thank you, Steve❤

As a professional language teacher and language learning hobbyist (and enthusiastic Lingq user!), I couldn't agree more with this. Some very important conclusions for language teaching follow upon this attitude regarding "the basics." Over the years I've seen many teachers get exasperated when their intermediate or advanced students slip up with basic vocabulary and sentence structures, and these teachers feel that they have to revert back to lessons on "the basics" that their students then find irritating and de-motivating. I always tell new teachers to avoid this. I also tell my students not to stress out over these slips. As Steve explains here, with increasingly rich input (and I would add increasing production based on that input), "the basics" eventually fall into place. You just have to keep moving with the motivating n+1 content. If teachers and students everywhere got this message, more people would be motivated to learn languages.

Very true what u say about learning a language naturally! I'm a Spanish native speaker, and I learned English without studying, by just chatting on internet, watching movies and games, etc. Thank you very much for letting me know it's ok to make mistakes. Now my goal is to fully learn Japanese, and I will be doing the same, mixed with studying the alphabet and Kanji 😄

1 year before I saw you with Gabriel Polyglot. I always thought that learning a foreign language would be impossible for an ordinary person. And today, I can watch this video and understand what you're saying. Thank you.

This is one of Steve's best videos yet. At age 48 I moved to Germany from the UK and had to start again with the language that I had learned in school. Although some 'basics' of grammar were still there deeply buried in my brain, I had to refresh everything and certainly build up vocabulary like a beginner. And here's the thing, although I would now and again look in a grammar book to check something I did not try to memorise 'rules' or lists. Instead I did loads of reading and spent hundreds of hours listening to native speakers and analysed use of grammar in context to understand how the language works. When it came to vocabulary learning I remember the metaphor of a 'radar' that was often in my mind. At the start all words in the target language are foreign and unknown. Millions of words are flying around in that language every day, both spoken and written. Then your brain notices a particular word or phrase flying across the mind's 'radar' regularly and it begins to pay attention to that word or phrase. For example, every day I would hear Germans say "Sag mir Bescheid". I never learned that phrase in school. What does that mean? Ah, "tell me" or "let me know" in my native language. It took me another two years before I could use it with confidence myself. Now I don't even think about it. Sixteen years later at age 64 I can stand on a stage in Germany as a professional storyteller and entertain a German audience in their own language. Every time I open my mouth I still make small mistakes. It doesn't matter! Now I am learning Ukrainian and challenging myself to learn the story of Little Red Riding Hood so I can tell it to native speaker refugees here. Keep practicing. Übung macht den Meister!

Back in school, my average grade in English was a C. Later, it became an A-, but not because I had put any conscious effort into improving my English, but because I had begun to read books and comics in English. I only used a dictionary when it was necessary. Like you said, you will learn the most common words automatically if you immerse yourself in the language. I think I did pretty well without ever having been to an English speaking country.

I can't thank enough UKposts for all contents I watched all these years. I improved my english following the rules said here, i'm studying other three languages( french, spanish and german). Thankyou Sir❤️ I love UKposts's world. I learned to cook, to dance, I've listened audiobooks and podcasts, I begun to meditate and say the affirmations....I just grow so much day by day. I could go on and on... I'm so grateful!!! Thank you ...Danke ...Grazie ...Gracias ...Merci ...

So helpful! I love this more fluid approach to learning a language. It helps with letting go of the often-times frustrating 'basic' errors and focusing instead on listening/reading lots, enjoying the journey of learning and trusting that the basics will sort themselves out in time.

I'm Brazilian, and thus Portuguese is my native language. I learned English when I was very young, through immersion in vast English material - music, games, movies, text, etc. I don't remember studying a book or memorizing rules. Before I even knew it, I could come up with phrases which simply made total sense, grammatically, with the patterns I had been picking up on. Since then, I see immersion as the only effective way to learn a new language, one does not have to brute force one's way into a language.

Thank you for this. I've been failing in basics of english since I was a child, and everytime I failed my thoughts were always the same "You're supposed to know this already, why are you still failing at it?" but now I'm trying to forget about that and enjoy the language, not suffer with it.

What a great video! Speaking 4 different languages, after watching this video I understand better why it took me so long to learn 2 of them. Also noticing my twin daughters, 4.5 years old, speaking fluently 4 languages makes me agree with the approach that Steve proposes in this video a lot! Finally, it encourages me to keep teaching my students Greek in an immersive way, which I love. Don't be afraid to listen and speak! This is our natural way of being, learning, and expressing ourselves!

For my journey studying language outside of school and in an environment of full immersion, starting out with grammar and vocab basics on my own yielded little progress I would either forget things easily or not understand due to lack of context. Learning from a teacher gave me a better foundation for 'the basics' because he taught me things that were actually useful, and taught me how to go about learning from others(i.e. how to ask questions). Now as a more experienced speaker and user of the language, coming back to the grammar basics has helped me sharpen my skills and reinforce proper usage.

I find studying the basics (I.e., grammar) helps in somewhat unexpected ways. First it helps accelerate my noticing and understanding certain patterns. Often I find native speech “in the wild” has so much going on that I’m too overwhelmed to notice patterns. I also find that if I’m really struggling with a particular grammar concept, I realize I’m just not ready for it yet-try again later. Second it gives me confidence to speak a little earlier especially with common patterns (e.g., what to do with modal and main verbs, how to conjugate a particular tense, where do modifiers belong) . There comes a point where certain things just sound right, but studying a little grammar allows me to start playing with the pattern in my output earlier than I probably would otherwise. I’m guessing I need 70-80% input, and 20-30% “studying the basics.”

Valid points - I noticed this myself recently when I started learning Japanese. I kept repeating the first two units in my study book over and over, and at some point it felt like I was stuck. I was so focused on memorizing the “basics“, that I forgot about making any progress. After becoming aware of that fact, I remembered how I actually learned/studied English back in the days, and I noticed that back then I was actually indirectly pushing myself to make progress by reading and listening to things I didn‘t fully understand yet, but I always looked it up afterwards. The more I read and listened, the more easy stuff like grammar and vocabulary became, and at some point, I’d say, it became like second nature.

This is the first video I can watch and listen to without subtitles. Thank you for your content and your App is amazing.

Mr. Kaufmann. Good to see you're doing well. I watched a few of your videos over 10 years ago when I started learning English and now my English flucency is near native like. Just so you know you're changing the world out there, sir.

Nice to hear this. I am currently learning my 5th language, Greek, at age 67. I learnt French in school over 5 years then lived in Belgium and France for a total of 5 years. My first wife was also French which helped and so my French became pretty good. I moved to northern Switzerland where I went to night school for a semester to learn German and learned absolute basics but a) I was hearing Swiss German dialect during the daytime in my job and b) learned the rest of my German at work or in the street and later with my wife. Now after 30 years it's not bad. I went to night school for 2 or 3 semesters to learn Italian so I could talk with my father-in-law a) but they explained the grammar in terms of German so that didn't help me much. However because of my strong French I could fill in many gaps and understand and speak well enough for my needs. I am now learning modern Greek in German and the grammar explanations relate to German grammar which I still really don't know well, so it's uphill work. But although I don't know the basics very well, I feel they will fall into place as soon as I can understand more and speak more. So I'm not too worried - because at my age I know that people will probably understand what I want to say, even if it's not correct. The best way would probably to get a live-in Greek girlfriend but I don't think my wife would be too keen! 🙂 *Bottom line: I agree with Steve - get familiar with some basics but move on. They'll fall into place when you get more practice and experience listening and speaking* All the best, Rob in Switzerland

It is so encouraging to hear your this course! I have lived in English speaking countries for over 30 years, studies and work in English environment, but I still feel my English is not good enough, this really make me feel bad. I listened yours another course, you suggested spending 70% time listening! That is a wonderful suggestion, thank you !

Thanks, those are really good pieces of advice that I have been experiencing myself! Learning a language is a long-term process, but when you enjoy it, it's very delightful to learn!

you have given valid points, I have been learning English for 2 years and struggling with sentence formation and translation ..thanks for your suggestions

Such good advice! The "basics" you need to learn are the rhythm, melody and meaning of tones. This is what animals and little kids use to understand messages coming from adults. Immerse, immerse, immerse. Be sure you're immersing yourself in conversation with people who speak well. Let them know you're trying to absorb the language, not so they'll correct you, but so they'll be careful how they speak.

Great analysis. I spent 6 years ( including 3 years in university) to become decent in German. In contrast, about 18 months to acquire the same level in Russian. Russian I ‘‘studied’ for for 2 weeks to get oriented and then watched UKposts videos of pre school stories, kids cartoons, then read teen books, read books, set my Facebook , etc settings to Russian. An hour and a half or so a day but it wasn’t ‘work’ but just part of day to day living. Proper grammar, verb tenses is more of a breeze ‘after’ exposure to thr language and, to be honest, even then have no ‘need’ to be that proficient in writing Russian…it ‘comes together’ using language caps whrn I post on Russian language forums.

Thank you so much! I am learning now finnish and just got tired and watched this video. It gives me a new perspective!

Amazing video. I guess I was being over-critical of myself while I'm learning the basics. I needed this, thank you!

Great video. Learning a language is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, rather than constructing a building. With a building, the order is extremely important, whereas with a puzzle the whole thing is worked at the same time. Some areas are easier and some are harder. Tackling the easier areas first makes sense, and makes the harder areas more manageable... but it would be absurd to say that you *ought* to complete a given area before moving on to the next.

I agree with the general message of this video although the name itself is kind of clickbaity. I often say to people "don't worry about the grammar and other rules too much". Which is roughly the same as your message: "don't get obsessed with getting every detail right, even if it's basic". There is of course nothing wrong with studying per se, but as you've mentioned, the only proper way to actually master it and bring it to the intuition level is through long practice (listening, reading, speaking).

Thank you! As a nursery school teacher I’ve always thought that “natural way “ to learn is The best one. Quarelling a lot with others teachers I really appreciate your contribution, thank you thank you thank you.

Very amazing to hear! It's a lot of impressive perceptions. Thank you!!

Great points, Steve! Im learning Polish and I have been stuck with this fantasy of acquiring "the basics" of Polish before I learn something new, but I end up beating myself up all the time because I realize that its too complicated for my Norwegian ear to grasp "all the basics" without making mistakes! I think I gotta continue to learn new words and stop caring too much about making it perfect or Im not getting anywhere

Such wisdom. What you're actually saying is that you can trust the force of the language in terms of other people using the language that will guide you 'en masse' as it were to conform yourself to it - much like a road with no signage or markings, if many cars are together on that road, they accommodate one another in more or less a natural go with the flow way. Its about harmonising within extant usage and allowing it to shape you. This is how babies learn, and its about really concertedly taking the language in (as if your life depended on it).

Thank you UKposts for suggesting me this channel. You've got a new follower Professor. Greetings from Mexico! 🖖🏽

Thank you, Steve! I agree that many of us beat ourselves up unnecessarily. I have to remind myself that as a child I wasn't fluent in English from the get-go and made tons of mistakes over the years (and sometimes still do!).

Thank you for the advice. This is very encouraging. I tend to overthink and overanalyze verb conjugations and it has stopped me from taking initiative in speaking French. I will try to speak without worry about mistakes. Eventually, if I hear enough people around, I will naturally correct myself.

Thank you for this video Steve! I'm currently learning Spanish and I've noticed that I don't really like to study the basics in the work book that I have because I don't retain much but when I'm actively listening to music or actively engaged in the language somehow like *changing my language on my phone to spanish.* *Listening to spanish podcasts/music* I feel as though I retain more. One habit I'm currently doing is purposely trying to incorporate the spanish language into my life. What I don't know now, I will eventually know. Also, it will help me to better understand how I learn things.

Great video and happy you appeared in my feed today. I have pretty much thought what you put into words for years . Thank you

This is awesome. Everyone goes at their own pace, from different angles, and no one ever speaks the same "English" or "Spanish", etc. That's how dialects form. You speak based on the things you need to communicate. With necessity comes communication. It's a journey where you encounter the same characters in different places, like the Wizard of Oz!

*_This is most helpful!_* Learning a language immersed in that society has been difficult for me because my wife speaks 90-95% perfect English and rarely attempts her own language with me. I'm still more fluent with the Spanish I learned some half century ago! In fact, most every citizen here in the Philippines learns English as a 2nd or 3rd language because it is used in all legal documents.

YOU ARE MY HERO!!!! Thank you so much for the knowledge and the ideas that you bring!!!🙏🏽

Great video! While I'm Indian, my first language is English, and when I moved back to India from abroad, I had to learn the local language, Kannada, to get around. My language acquisition was just like how you said. I heard people speak for a couple years and imitated it, got ridiculed sometimes too, but eventually, I attained moderate fluency, and I can now read (although my vocabulary is very small and I can't understand many words). Like you said, I couldn't learn the basics. I was thrown into the advanced level right off the bat, and it actually really helps.

I'm all for studying the basics. You won't learn it all at once, but if you know the idea of how to conjugate a verb it's easier to understand what you're practicing, so it becomes faster to internalize the patterns. I also recommend watching videos and reading books in your target language to see how the language is used, and practicing with a native speaker is a bonus if you can.

Your video popped up in the suggestions , and I'm glad that I clicked on it. I'm a non-native English speaker, and I never went through the basic. I actually started with listening pop music ,then Rap which was really tough to understand at the time. Now I guess my English is not that bad, but I still lose the basics from time to time. And sometimes I correct myself within seconds. It depends even on the mood. The message I got from your video prof , is that we shouldn't feel bad about our level is the key to level up. It's actually a good tip in every attempt to learn any skill. Respects from Morocco.

Your videos are by far the best language learning videos I've heard in my life.

I've followed Steve and the LingQ project for years, had it not been for LingQ, I wouldn't have passed a C2 test with confidence and every one of his insights can save you years, LingQ is just the beginning. Besides from that, when one starts learning a new language, it's very easy to fall on the trap of "mastering the basics" because you come from this place either in your own mother language or a language that you recently mastered/got to be fluent in and you somehow buy into this illusion of hyperfocusing in details. As Steve has said in other videos: "with enough exposure, the language is the teacher".

I wholeheartedly concur your words. I find, this is one of the significant concepts every language learner has to understand in order to level up their language skills. I feel sometimes it (Mastering basics) hinders me to go further too, because the feeling of incompleteness sucks my energy. And I always remember this quote that says, "Success is not the key to Happiness ; Happiness is the key to Success". Thank you for making videos frequently ☺ Happy language learning grandpa!

I speak fluent Japanese, which I learned in a traditional undergrad classroom that focused on the basics first, as usual. What ended up helping me really get good was watching subtitled anime for years, thanks to hearing the language spoken naturally in it, but the formal instruction was needed so I could differentiate between legit speech and exaggerated anime speech. There's merit to the basics, it just doesn't have to be the core element of learning is all.

This is really a very encouraging lesson: Have fun on the learning curve and maintain your motivation by taking the big steps first. The details will come automatically later and the errors will be fewer.

I've really liked these explanations. It seems like just for learning from a person with such a large experience in learning languages it can make us more relaxed to go on learning and it helps us a lot , just for it. Because when we are being too hard with us, criticizing ourselves too much,it makes us give up or at least be learning in a slower way. Thanks a lot for these precious tips!

If you want to learn a language you need to practice : speaking , reading , listening. If you want learn efficently , learn the basics. Basics are not enough but practicing without basics is a pain.

Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge with us Steve, is always a pleasure to listen to you. I'm a spanish person trying to learn Norwegian. I would like you to speak a bit more about Scandinavian languages!. Thanks

Interesting point of view. As English teacher I try to combine both options, showing the "basics" and doing more natural exercises, like conversations, reading comprenhension...

Thank you. Actually, overthinking about grammar rules has prevented me from speaking English in many situations and made me feel embarrassed about making mistakes. Your words in this video will help me overcome this problem in my attempt to speak English, increase my confidence, and enhance my language proficiency through reading and listening as you advised in this video. Thank you so much.

I love this video! True to this story, I also struggled to learn most of the basics. I remember being stuck with the "I am, you are" etc table and the teacher having me stay on that chapter till I learned it. I eventually got it on a certain level and continued to take lessons till I was 13 years old and took my exams for the B2 level (barely passed). I was one of the worst students in my class and stopped the lessons altogether afterwards. Fast forward 7 years and having read a lot of books in English (I had to because the sequels of my favourite series hadn't been translated in my native language yet). I somehow became one of the most naturally speaking English people in my group of friends and peers. I didn't even put any effort into the learning process. I just acquired it. I didn't even know the grammar I was using (I still don't 🤣). I was just using it. For example, I remember I had always struggled with the difference between "through, thought, though, throughout, tough". I couldn't write them, I couldn't understand the meaning of the words if I ever saw them. But when I started reading books, the words were always in context! And that really made all the difference.

I agree with what you are saying here ,as a native English speaker living in Hungary. Hungarian is quite difficult for English speakers..but I follow the policy of giving it a go and trying to memorise the common words as I come across them without getting too hung up over the grammar. It’s a slow process but gradually it seems to bear fruit .

I grew up bilingual, English and Spanish. I learned conversational French and Dutch one year when I was in Europe. Months ago I started learning New Testament Greek. I couldn't agree more about not learning basics. There are so many words and phrases that repeat themselves throughout the Bible and I've learned to easily recognize them as I study every morning, knowing little about conjugation, grammar, etc. Learning it this way makes it much more fun.

Very helpful, thank you!

Hi Steve.Thanks for the motivational talk!I keep struggling with a German language,even after almost 3 years living in Austria.I keep watching your videos for motivation.

I think you're right. Personally, I've always been very good at the "basics" and was usually at the top of the class in my college language courses since that's what they tested for. But when it comes to actually having real life conversations, I'm terrible!

"Focus on enjoying the language" ABSOLUTELY! Higher levels of learning happen when we are enjoying whatever it is, being curious and to a lesser extent being a little frustrated (developing the desire to know more). Wonderful presentation.

On point. Thanks for the advice..

The last sentence of the video really hit the nail on the head: "Don't focus on the basics; focus on enjoying the language". The late great laoshu505000 did just that; he focused on memorizing phrases at first and would then study grammar later. I've done the same with Hebrew, and it's really helped me not get bogged down with the grammatical complexities of the language. I find that tackling difficult grammatical concepts isn't such a slog if you already have a bunch of words and phrases under your belt, derived from courses and/or natural input like movies/books/music in the language. Public school Spanish classes really killed the language by beating us over the head with too much explicit grammatical instruction.

Wholeheartedly agree! Many school systems mistake actually "teaching/learning " a language with "studying its rules as a scientific topic" at a university. - With the result of sheer frustration for many students, like me 30 years ago.

I love all your videos. Learning English sounds fun. You are very nice. My English class today was frustrating, but when I watch your video, I can relax.

This video is a treasure for language learners, I loved the idea of indulging myself in a language without worrying about the basics and I have made incredible progress in one of the most hardest languages which is Japanese. Thank you.

The stages of foreign language learning are : acquaintance, practice and immersion. They can be done simultaneously. It is not easy, but watching subtitled movies is a great way of immersion. 😁Cheers ☺️

Looking back at my journey of English learning as a non-native speaker, I can't agree more with Steve. It's very true that while the basics are important, what is more important is actually Using the Language as much as possible as you go! Speak it, listen to it, and write it... MORE! That's the key and the ONLY way to get better at picking up a new language and there is no other secret to it! How I wish to have an English teacher like Steve back in my school days who is so realistic and practical on the learning process, and I can't believe that I haven't subscribed to this great teacher yet (and just done so!). Those bad teachers in the school should just be fired right away!

I just stumbled upon this video, and I found it fascinating. This is the way I have been teaching myself, and I kept thinking I was going about it all wrong. I learned some French vocabulary and pronunciation. I then started to watch some French language TV shows, and very quickly I was able to recognize some words and phrases. Before long I was able to stitch a few words together and make some sense of it. Long way to go, but I feel better about my approach after seeing this video. Thanks Steve!

I learned Dutch from tv subtitles on shows in english. I found when I eventually bought a book that I knew some advanced grammar but didn't know the basics at all. They followed quickly. Great advice.

"Focus on enjoying the language" I loved that reflection

Different people might have different learning styles. I find it easier to learn grammar as well as I can, and add vocabulary as I go along. I found it immensely frustrating that my Japanese teachers not only seldom would teach the grammar - at times they did not even know it. For learning the kanji characters: they never told us that there were basic components which would recur over a wide range of kanji. Instead, we were instructed to learn the stroke order, though it is easier just to recognize and assemble known components. If you know the common components, you at least have a chance at guessing the meaning of an unknown character.

Great advice and much appreciated! Based on my own experience, these words are true! Thank you 🙂

So basically it says that the most determinant thing is the habit. However you can acquire the rules with insistent exercises and “forcing the door in”. Which basically comes back to the idea of practicing. Thats how’ve learned German B2 in 2 years. I had to do an exam so I just forced myself up (not comfortable at all) to get it done and I never forget what I learn unless I spend too much time not touching that language.. I also believe that the fastest way to learn a language is just to forcefully embrace the learning with discipline. I think that also no one can learn a language with some quality without going through sweat and experience. The only way to acquire that -> fast

I am a non-native ESL teacher and Intermediate French speaker, and I can agree with this strategy for myself and for most of my adult students, as well as for most of kids. However, there are some of my both adult and kids students, who are desperately incapable of noticing language patterns with whatever material you give them. They're just waiting for the teacher to give them certain grammar and vocabulary to learn. And only after they're familiar with all the vocabulary and grammar, after they've learnt it by heart, they can watch or read something with this grammar or vocabulary, because now they're not afraid of it. I believe, it might be the Soviet Union heritage, but that's a fatal fear of anything unknown and a fear of independent action which doesn't let such people learn naturally.

Great video. Agreed, but not by consciously ignoring learning them when necessary at various points in time as we go along. Meanwhile it has to be said the basics of many or the majority of languages can be studied and got familiarised with in a matter of days. So no harm in going over them let say by reading a book picking up whatever one can and then putting the book back on the shelf, perhaps referring to it occasionally later when needed.

Thanks alot! i learned Turkish exactly the way you described sir, i am as good as native speaker & got a TYS certificate C2 Grade. that is very simillar to what i thought and your video has given me confidence about the way i think about learning or teaching a language. i had an idea that i will develop it through implementing it i have been doing it actually pretty similar to what you expressed. thanks again best regards

I totally agree. I am a language teacher and because a love learning languages, I communicate it by just enjoying and having fun with it. Immersion by listening, singing, and just saying it, and have fun with it.

This approach really helps with the languages not so distant from your own. That's exactly the way I, bilingual Ukrainian, learned Polish to ~B2 without any formal training. I absorbed it with different intensity for more than a decade before I had got a feeling that I would need to master grammar to be able to write and speak. And so, upon obtaining that knowledge, along with listening to their radio, I became fluent surprisingly fast. No idea, how would it work with the language I'm learning know, German... English is not my native tongue, certainly....

I use frequency lists if available to narrow down to the words you MUST know in a foreign language. While it is true that the common words may show up anyway, oddities can arise, depending on what texts you encounter. For example in learning German I naturally learned Gesicht ("face") quite early but it was not long after that I encountered Antlitz, which means the same thing but is poetic and literary, and found in a work of 19th century literature. But Gesicht is a lot more useful to learn.

Thank you for your sound advice, which, listening to you, seems almost as obvious to us as it is to you.

How does this man speak straight no camera cuts? A born pro. 😲Also great point. As an English teacher, I want to incorporate this into my methodology. Awesome vid!

I'm a native English speaker learning French and this video makes a lot of sense to me. I have had many tutors all of whom correct my mistakes, either during the class or via an email after the class. The latter is a better idea as I can browse through them later and try to take note of them. But as Steve says I go on making the same mistakes again and again. So this focus on basic mistakes is largely a waste of time. None of my tutors have ever told me this, I presume its because they don't know any better. Before I take on a new tutor I now plan to ascertain their attitude to this concept. It should make for an interesting conversation.

In fact now I do learning French, I learn it by two different languages, exactly English and Spanish, two different orders indeed. It really helps me to learn French really fast. I will keep on learning different languages using different languages orders to learn. In fact my mother tongue is Chinese, but I use the English order to teach a kid Chinese, who is an English speaker, and which is super effective. For example: 爐火純青, I teach him “stove, fire, pure, light green”, put a sword on the stove to burn until light green, which means really familiar with something.

Yep. I agree with you teacher. Thank you so much for said it

Thank's Steve. Excelent tips

Can only agree. From my own experience of learning German (in Germany) as a native English speaker. In the early stages I did take a free language course but actually, although some things did stick in my memory, most of the grammar completely overwhelmed me and I had the feeling too much information was actually holding me back. At this time I also cut off nearly all ties with British expats, and made the conscious decision to learn the new language very much as a baby would. I should point out that I was in my late twenties at the time. In my school years I had to study French, and for various reasons I was absolutely terrible, they said it was a waste of time and money me even attempting an O level, although I had a few years previously without difficulty passed the Oxford/Cambridge University English entrance exam. (Sounds impressive, but all the kids in my Grammar school took it and everyone passed, regardless. Not a big deal. I also had spent time previously in Spain, mostly 2 to 3 months at a time, and had noticed I felt 'comfortable' with the language, picking up on the rhythm of the spoken language, and while very little understanding of the grammar, I had subconsciously picked up an relatively extensive vocabulary and was confident enough to attempt to communicate. And all the time due to my school experience in French, I was completely convinced that learning foreign languages was beyond me. To cut a long story short, I'm still living in Germany after 50 years, can speak fluently, I complete daily a German crossword in the local newspaper, I can normally pick out most of the German and Austrian dialects, (can even imitate some of the easier ones), occasionally attempt (via UKposts) to improve my grammar, but I never put myself under pressure, and only learn new grammar topics when I feel I've mastered what I've learnt and can can use it intuitively, meaning without thinking. Oh, I should mention that in my initial years in Germany ( West Berlin) it took me about 5 years before I trusted myself, without feeling very self conscious, to actually string a sentence together, actually nearly all my German friends were happy to be improving their English at my expense. But once I did start, and if course I was told often I was making mistakes, I never reverted back to speaking English. Later my parents told me I was speaking English with a German accent. Can you believe.

Certainly a lot of things are right. However, it’s also a simplification. It works in total immersion e.g. when you move to the country of the language. “At home” it is difficult to get the necessary level of immersion. It sounds easy to “learn as a child” but children take - almost literally - ages to master a language. And they are fully immersed expressing a lot of frustration very loudly when they do not succeed. Adults usually cannot…

love this!! thank you! very helpful.

From what I've seen, this way of learning a language (English in my case) proves to be one of the best to start communicating more or less naturally, fluently and without translating in your head. Especially, if you get a chance to go abroad for the studying. But, personally, I'd do much worse and longer without Murphy grammar books and detailed grammar explanations by native speakers with tons of spoken English examples on You Tube. I'm so grateful to you Steve and all the teachers on this platform! You've made learning English so affordable and comprehensive that there can be no more excuses for not doing it❤

Good video. I personally believe it’s a combination of both….not 100% mastering the basics and not 100% obtained from input initially. Before reading (depending on the language), you may need to learn it’s alphabet or script…..otherwise you will probably not be able to read the language….also, if you don’t know at least basic grammar it will be very hard to consume input…even after basic grammar it will be hard initially…but I think it would be just a bit less hard…..doesn’t have to be particularly a different forms of a verb…but just basic enough grammar…to maybe at least recognize the dictionary form of the verb so it can be, for example, found in a dictionary…things like that….in my opinion help a lot…..

This really helped. I wanted to come up w/ a learning plan. Which still might kind of happen as far as time wise. But now I know its something I don't have to build knoledge structurally like math from basics. I think this also makes sense bcuz every persons "set" of vocab is different. I saw a video once I think by Nathanial drew. He explained it like I think like what topics orbit the sun. as if ur the sun & u have main interests & thoughts that usually surround u. Where as say someone like a docotor for example has entirely different "set" of vocab. 😎

Thank you so much for this video! ♥️

Great explanation. There may be "basics" that need to be acquired in the early stages, but they certainly aren't the basics that are covered in most traditional language courses in our schools.

This makes a huge amount of sense to me. I abysmally failed to master French, German and Latin at school here in the UK but learned Spanish to a basic level in a few weeks using my own approach. After this experience, my wife and I decided to ensure our children should learn Spanish to fluency level by sending them to Spain to live with Spanish families plus a bit of language school in Spain - it was the biggest payoff as it is the second most widely spoken European language in the World. Our sons did also learn it at school to pass exams but really mastered it by having to converse in a natural way with real people in Spain. They then quickly went on to learn Italian to fluency in a few months using the same approach of living in Italy with a few hours of language school each day just to speed up the process. We really do teach languages wrong in schools.

Lingq exploded my romanian reading comprehension but i realised too late that i was not developing my listening or vocal abilities. To the point that the romanians i work with pull faces when i speak. I have started learning arabic now using lingq to shadow each line as i learn it. Only now do i realise that half using lingq (only reading) is so restricting. Love the software, love the channel.

The greatest advice I've ever heard on learning. THANKYOU.

You summarised by exact thoughts on language acquisition perfectly

Amazing content, thank you so much Steve!

Great advice,now I feel less presure about learning language.

To me 'natural order' starts at the very beginning: the first things infants do when learning to speak is hone their ear and speech to phonetics. I've found it very helpful to study the IPA and the relative phonology of the language I am learning (I like going between a few). I couldn't even grasp anything in many of the Asian languages until I took the time to understand the sounds, to then understand the letters, to the morphemes, to the words, and eventually sentences. It doesn't matter what my mind can parse if the interpretation is stops at my ears. Maybe it's not reasonable to teach that to students in public school, yet it would be so much more useful to me now than the few years of German and French that I have completely forgotten.