"If you want to learn a language efficiently, then you need to give that language life." I won't ever forget that sentence. I totally agree.

Tough audience

As a bilingual person I can conform that when I speak Spanish I dont think of the English translation i think of the thing

"...because Japanese is endless." God that's accurate. I'm a year into studying Japanese and I have soooo much ahead of me.

To be fair, moktor is way shorter than falehskkwjow

That's quite fair point. I've once realized that you must _understand_ the word, not _translate_ it. And from then I use flashcards (electronic only) with pictures, and with context (phrase, where I first met the word). And it's way more efficient for me. Never translate words to another language to remember them. Use images and other senses instead.

TL; DW: We learn language through context, not memorization.

"If you want to learn a foreign language you have to give that language life."

Very good TED talk. The best thing is the story about the interview in French. That says something about the school system of teaching languages - it's actually totally inefficient...

Why did no one laugh at his jokes :/

“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.” - Flora Lewis As a Spanish teacher with German and English proficiency, I totally agree with this.

Children are so good at learning languages that they make up their own language

i watched this video yesterday evening and i was surprised this morning. i was at the bus stop waiting for a bus and out of nowhere the word Moktor came to my mind, i wasnt even thinking about the video or anything and the word and the whole scenario came to mind out of the blue. am definitely going to give this method a try while am currently learning Korean

I came to Ted for advice on learning Japanese, and he literally says, it's endless... Right.In.The.Feels.

if anyone is interested, he has a book, 'Fluent Forever', which I really enjoyed

"And i became addicted to the feeling of thinking in a completely new way" that was exactly me and my spanish journey.

"Never get between a man and his moktor" Ancient Swedish saying.

moktor!

Probably one of the best Ted talks I've ever seen. It didn't even feel like 16 and a half minutes, it felt like 5. Truly enjoyable and inspiring

Language is all about immersion... After learning 6 languages, I have met so many people who study a language but never dare to speak it. That to me is the biggest pity - to miss out on the capstone and benefits of language learning!

He's spoken good speach. I go to USA tomorrow to study International relationship and languages. He taught me good things to learn them.

This guy believes in teaching the exact same way my very first french teacher taught me and my class, from when we came in the door on the first day she told us; to learn a language you have to become fully immersed in it. And it worked. there are two french classes in my year, usually one, but so many kids wanted to keep doing french in this way. you can see the difference between students of one class and students of the other, if you think about it, what's the sense in learning one language in another?

I wish I could really thank this guy. This is such an amazing TED Talk - one of my favourites. His method has really blown me away, especially learning Japanese where sentence structures are like puzzles. I have suddenly memorised over a hundred new words in half the time it took for me to learn one sentence. I will never forget those words because I have memories, feelings, sights and connections with those words. And... I will never forget the word moktor, because it reminds me of this inspiring speech :)

I am a polyglot myself and agree on every single word he said in this talk.

Tough audience... Great speaker. Superb message

The way I’ve understood what he’s said in german without having heard a single word in german before. Unbelievable. Magic.

"Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" Yes.

Tough crowd, that guy is funny!

The speaker is a genius.

He is the great narrator.

He makes some really good points such as the power of stories and context, the idea of replicating the principles by which we all acquired our native languages, and the fact that traditional grammar classes take you nowhere. However, I'm a bit tired of listening to people say that they learnt "x" language in 7 weeks, or 3 months..., that's simply not possible, there's no shorcut to learning a language, it just takes more time than that. I've actually recorded how much it took me to learn some of the languages that I speak now and he'd need around 10 hours of exposure to German daily in order to be able to communicate in 7 weeks (getting 10 daily hours of comprehensible input when you're just starting out is highly unlikely, if that's the case I apologize) , but there are just not enough hours in a day to become FLUENT in a language in 7 weeks. I'm as passionate a person on languages as you're gonna find, I speak 7 of them as of now and I can tell you without the shadow of a doubt that nobody becomes fluent in a language in 7 weeks. I do agree though on the fact that learning languages is totally possible and it's actually fun!! But I appreciate honesty and I never tell my students things like that because I believe it's misleading, so that's why I'm a bit tired of people saying you can achieve "x" in a few days, or weeks or whatever (not just for languages). Great talk overall though!!

I know 7 languages and i agree with everything he says

Fantastic talk!

Came into the video with the mindset of "here's another opinionated dude who will share bunch of anecdotal information on language acquisition and will somehow try to prove he's onto something" I have to say I'm sold. Solid arguments all throughout and heck his storytelling+delivery was on point and it's what elevates this talk to another level. Planning a video comparing this and other TED talks on language learning. Come over and watch.

I love how he bowed at the end...because he's an opera singer :)

A year and half later I am running into this video again. I see I have liked it. And to this day, I still remember the word "moktor."

Man, this guy is such a good storyteller! I still don't know what Moktor means though, what is it?

"If you want to learn a language efficiently, then you need to give that language life." That was so poetically but so useful at the same time.

Great video! I've been teaching English for more than 35 years and I keep telling my students that oral production comes from feelings, words have no meaning if one doesn't feel them. Memorizing vocabulary just make us a robot. If there's no feeling there's no natural oral production. Unfortunately, language courses focus on grammar. People are trained to be afraid of making grammar mistakes. The worst is that students want to be sure that they are not making grammar mistakes. And most of them are afraid of expressing feelings. Feelings connect us to sound, meaning, experience, when to use a word, live language. Learning languages from what you like in your mother tongue can make one's learning process easier. But pleasure is not related to the learning process, to the ending of it, though. While learning one needs to be a good observer, persistent, and take risks. LOVE, LIVE, LEARN n LAUGH MAC

"If you want to learn a language efficiently, then you need to give that language life", WOW!

Learning Chinese was difficult. After 3 months, i was amazed suddenly that i could recognize the pinyin word as it was spoken on the cassette. Three months later, a new shock : i could recognize a written chinese character as it was spoken. Later, another shock as i could remember what they were saying on these cassettes without looking at the book. I decided to try something new: the gospel of mark read in Chinese, 1 hour total. The first time i listen, i recognize Iesus here and there. Next time, i listen and try to follow the French translation. I could follow approximately by scaling the 1 hour time by the number of pages. The cassette is about at 25%, then it should be page 6... i watch for a name like pide or iesus... found it. Repeat a few times and i now remember that entire 1 hour reading like a long music. Here, he will get angry, here he will repeat the same word, etc After 1 month, i could tell which paragraph in the French translation he is reading in Chinese. Until today, there is at least 50% of the Chinese words that i am not sure which one it is, but i can say what the phrase translate to. Hard work, such a different language compared to all european languages which borrow so heavily from each other.

Polyglots amaze me so much. I realize I need to step up my game when it comes to learning Norwegian, but I am motivated.

I’ve learned English for years ,but still can’t speak it will.Sometimes I thought maybe I don’t have the gift.But this video gives the courage to me that there’s nothing about gift.i can do the same.thank you

This TED talk is actually one of the most informative one that I've ever seen. Thumbs up!

Living with the people experiencing their culture personally will not just teach us the language that is being spoken but we will also learned the language not spoken.. it’s the body language … gestures and

Gosh this guy is such a great storyteller. He kept every second of it interesting

I'm only here because I'm failing Spanish but this man is going to make me try to learn it and then go to another-

A really engrossing Ted talk from a very interesting guy. I bought the book Forever Fluent just over two weeks ago,read it, and have now started putting it into practice.I would highly recommend this book to anyone learning languages. One of my best purchases.

Interesting and so inspiring video. Why education systems don't use these technics in their programs?

Learning a new language gives me a chance to live a new life, so that I feel like I am in another country talking with French, Italian, Turkish and people of different nationalities.. When I speak French, I feel that I can see the Eiffel Tower in my mind, when I speak Brazilian I can smell the coffee of Brazil and Listen to their songs and see their green oases there..

This might be weird... but I cant be the only one who thinks you should be a book narrators. You are very good at using your voice to Express, stress and enhance a sentence to get a point across or add drama. Very entertaining video.

Been following fluent-forever for years now. Never disappointed me

When I learn a language it’s between work and at home. I work with Spanish, French, and Portuguese speakers. Duolingo has helped me become more fluent in Spanish, and German. I notice first hand when I hear root words from other languages I immediately envision images of those words in my mind.

Every language is endless. So wonderful statement "Every word needs to connect to sounds and images and scents and tastes and emotions" It's a great formula to learn foreign languages.

Honestly, that is the best tip about learning languages that I have ever heard: '' If you wanna learn an English efficiently, then you need to give that language life''. I'll try to use it. Thanks!

This is incredibly inspirational and honestly makes me wanna restart my French-learning immediately

Finally, Gabe gets a Ted talk! Nice.

After watching this video I ended up realising that vocabulary plays a significant role in English communication.

I have been learning English since school and used to translate English words from English into Russian instead of think of the thing. Astonishingly, recently I realized it doesn't work well so I changed my way and now I can say it definitely works much better. To learn a language faster you need not only to speak the language, but to think in the language. Speaking about children, it is really an illusion they learn faster than us - adults. They have much more time and it takes them years to learn a language and even after that there are still a wide range of words they don't know. Apparently, learning a language is a lifelong process.

Thank you for this. Although the reasoning may be different and the level of immersion, I can resonate with this as you put it sort masochistic way of learning a new language complete immersion is amazing. It is sort of intoxicating in a way even if you can't respond to what has been heard or can only make out bits and pieces of the conversation. I think I am very slowly starting to really enjoy learning to think in a completely different way and the feeling a different language seems to have on my brain. Long story short, I'm a US Soldier that 6 months ago got stationed in Korea. The first time I went off post, seeing Hangul everywhere bothered me because I could not read it. This pushed me to learn to read Hangul but I quickly learned reading is not the same as translating or understanding. Then when learning a few words the grammar started to fascinate me becuase of how different it is to my native language. This lead to me watching tons of videos, reading books, and writing loads of notes on the Korean language during the majority of my free time. On the weekends I like to situate myself in places where there is very little English and attempt to communicate with the native speakers of this country or just listen to see what I manage to understand. Although before arriving I did not have much of an intention on learning Korean, in the six months I have been here I have learned how to read everything in Hangul (although not quite as fast as some scrolling displays move but almost), at least 400 Korean words, and a lot about particles, and grammar. I also have spent a ton of time visiting museums and learning about the culture as a whole. Not sure how far I will get during the remainder of my time here but I really hope that it continues to capture my interest after I leave and maybe I can find friends back home to help learn more.

finally someone who knows what they are talking about

Brilliant talk. Thank you. Bloody tough audience though.

First time watching a full Ted talk and man it's awesome

So maybe this is why I wasn't able to write in proper english even though I learned it since elementary school..not until college where I read so many novels in english. Then I could write an essay for my english class without much difficulties. The grammar stick to me through the novels and not the hours I spent on memorizing the structure from a grammar book

He's absolutely right that the efficient way to learn a language is through multi-sensory webs of meaning, but I think that his phobia about translation is misplaced. The Grammar/Translation method didn't work for him at school because it was poorly taught and in particular, because he was never given the opportunity to use what he learned in meaningful and motivating contexts. Many effective approaches make use of translation, such as Assimil or Luca Lampariello's bi-directional translation method. Serious pedagogues such as Michael Lewis are urging a reevaluation of the role of translation in language learning. Our native language is a key advantage we have over children, and understanding how to use it as a bridge into a new language can only help. Gabriel's method involves jumping through a lot of time-consuming hoops in his drive to avoid any translation at all costs - time that might be better spent interacting with the language.

The best TED-talk about learning languages I've ever watched!

I very much agree. I've been teaching English for 8 years now and speak 4 languages (learned one of them on my own at home). With the skills I obtained plus the experiences, I came to this conclusion that you MUST NOT depend on your first language to learn a new one. That would waste your money, time and energy and would just discourage you. Learn as a baby would learn. Don't think about "what does this mean in my language? why is there no equivalent?" etc. I learned English in 9 months at the age of 15. Learned Swedish in 9 months when I was living in Sweden at the age of 16 and managed to pass a test that none of my classmates that have been living there for more than 2-3 years had passed. I entered the Swedish high school where all the lessons were in Swedish and none of my classmates even thought I hadn't obtained a permanent citizenship. That blew their minds when they found out when I was saying goodbye to them before going back to my homeland. Started learning Korean on my own at the age of 28 and I've managed to learn quite well with the crazy schedule I have. I'm now teaching those languages for free :) Loved the lecture. Thanks a lot

This guy is my inspirational. Thank you so much. I have been making slow progress with Korean the past year and forget vocabulary for abstract concepts all the time. My new teacher is amazing but I need new methods for my vocab learning. You have given me hope.

The feeling of thinking in a new way

This talk has greatly improved my language learning. One thing that I have begun to use is music. If I'm learning French, I will turn on music that reminds me of France, and the same for Japanese, or Spanish. So thank you, Gabriel!

"If you want to learn a language efficiently, then you need to give that language life." That's absolutelly true. That's why I use music to learn better and always learn something new.

This has to be one the 5 best ted talks I've seen, really motivates me to learn a new language and describes how to do it in a good way

Key words! - “It needs to connect to real life”. Undoubtedly, that’s how it naturally works, how we all have learned our first language. Regrettably, not everybody has realised it yet and still struggles with that ;( and also like the words about fear. We all need to be more fearless :D

I've listened to this talk the third time now and it just gets better.

Because of we don't know how to focus to English so we won't 4 phases that's to learn this language If you want to language focus four options 1: to more listen 2: to more ready 3: to more speak and 4: to more written

That was fantastic and captivating! I’m learning Korean right now, and this talk has been so inspiring and helpful. Thank you so much

Gabriel, you just changed my language acquisition LIFE!

The way that you explained how do you learned languages was amazing to me. You give life to sentence, words and even every small letters. Outstanding speech.👏

His speech tells the way of how we learnt our native language but didn’t realize it because it was just natural. It’s a great reminder of how we can acquire the culture and the words.

This is a great talk. I speak Japanese as an intermediate. The words I will never ever forget are actually from experiences in Japan. Of course, I'm still learning and having just been in the hospital I have learned words for bleeding and examination that are not the casual/laymen words I already knew. My son, OTOH, has been growing up in Japan. He sort of surpassed me by 2nd grade. *But* he had about 10K hours of exposure in daycare and grandma's house before he even started school.

If you want to learn a language efficiently, you need to give that language life. I absolutely agree! Many people had different language classes at school. But how many of them can use these languages now? If you don't have a good reason for learning you'll never be able to speak fluently. You need to feel this language with all your heart. And definitely, we have to do something with our fears and embarrassment because they are brakes on learning.

Languages are abilities that we all can master as long as we focus and practice.

I really like your thoughts and totally agree with you. I felt the same while learning English and Korean, I mean, I had no self confidence to speak and I didn't know how to make a little conversation until I had an experience of speaking to natives without a chance to have a translator and that was awesome. It helped me a lot. Still I wasn't in an environment of languages that I speak but I hope that one day I'll do it!

Thank you for your talk. I’m currently learning English, Spanish and Mandarin. It inspires me a lot on the way to be fluent at those languges

I like this talk. Memory is exactly what is needed to learn a language, that is obvious. I know it is memory. And exactly that is my problem: having a bad memory. I understand how Spanish is build up and I can learn it from English as a base, just as I can learn German from a Dutch base (which is my first language btw). But memory is what strucks me. After 10 years teaching myself Spanish I can only hold a basic conversation, but only if the other person is speaking slow Spanish. It's rather frustrating really.

Leaning anything is possible using this model 1. Context ( what you have around you == massive exposure ) 2. Repetition ( doing it nonstop == practice, practice, practice ) 3. Feedback ( check yourself regularly == if did not work go and fix the Context part )

I needed to see this. I moved to france 6 weeks ago and my french learning has been quite slow and i needed a new perspective on things.

Surprisingly, this story touched me to the heart. If I heard it a few years ago, I would never believe in it cause how could anyone learn how to talk on language for three months! But now I understand that the key factor is to give a language life. Moreover, I absolutely agree with the statement about close connection between our feelings and words that we want to internalize.

The older i get the more languages I am learning. The myth is a BS

wow!! so much respect for him, i loved his stories and the way he told them 💯💯

Totally agree with Gabriel. At the begin learning language I put a lot of effort into memorizing lists of the words. Some years later I totally changed internalizing word's model to the way, where I connect the expression with literal and figurative meaning.

This is the best TED TALK I have ever seen, and believe me, I've seen a lot, Thank you for the magical message

I have watched a lot of content of UKposts on language learning and this is by far the best video on the platform!!

Such an inspiring talk. I totally agree that every word have to be connected with out feelings and emotions. Since you start to internalise words this way, they won’t be just “writing that means some kind of word in other language”. They’ll be part of yourself and your own story. You’ll speak using them and every time you’d remember that new word that you’d learned recently, you would remember all the emotions in the past that are associated with this exact word.

Assign meaning, images, feelings, experiences to words; that’s how you give life to language. And when you do that, it becomes intuitive.

Wow, I never even imagined this method to learn another language! Thanks Gabriel!

Ooooh! Thank you for this!! Thank you so much for this!! I am fluent in English and Tagalog, and after watching this TED talk I realized a lot of things. Currently studying French (in the app called Duolingo). I sometimes find it hard to remember the words but... I feel like the reason why it isnt that difficult is because I sometimes daydream when learning French. I dont translate it I... remember the images, the things I daydream about. Like for example "Ou est la gare, s'il vous plaît?" While typing that, I wasnt thinking of the English or the Tagalog translation of it, I was remembering the time where I daydreamed about me, wandering around French then asking someone, "Ou est la gare, s'il vous plaît?" Even if it didnt happen, there was an image, and it stuck with me. The sentence stuck with me. It like, connected. While watching the video, I was trying to remember the English of "Where is the train station, please?" When I remembered the image in my head, the sentence greeted me like "yo, lookin for me?" Its magic. Its so cool. Even if you arent in France, even if you dont have a friend or relative who speaks in French, it is possible to learn it, and possible be fluent in it. And I find it very cool. Again, thanks for this TED talk. Merci beaucoup!

The idea of the connection between language and meaning, even identity, is something I thought a long time ago. As a person who spent 4 years in the international school, I totally agree with him.

It actually works! It worked for me with English. You have to live the language.

This is what I did when I learned English. Literally have never been to an english speaking country, didn't take english classes, and by the age of 17 I was already fluent, and probably started at 13. Now I'm learning french, korean and starting with japanese, but didn't exactly figure out the key to what I did to learned english the way I did. This works, like a 1000%. I am a living proof of that.