How to Learn a Language: INPUT (Why most methods don't work) — Transcript

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1. 0:00Language.
2. 0:01It’s a pretty cool thing, quite useful.
3. 0:04I can still remember back when I was a toddler, about 2 years old learning my first language,
4. 0:08English.
5. 0:09My Mom taught me how the order in English is subject verb object, and helped me make
6. 0:13flashcards so I could memorize vocabulary and helped me for hours and hours to get the
7. 0:17different verb tenses right.
8. 0:19Fast forward several years and In college I came over to Japan on a foreign exchange
9. 0:23program where I would learn another language.
10. 0:26About two years after arriving in the country, I took and passed the highest level of the
11. 0:29Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
12. 0:31To be fair, I did live in the country, but the concepts I’ll discuss in this video
13. 0:36will be effective even if you don’t have access to native speakers.
14. 0:39Lately there are all kinds of great resources and techniques on language learning.
15. 0:43In particular, spaced-repetition system-based virtual flashcard programs like Anki are popular
16. 0:49and very useful, but… is that really the most efficient way to sink language into our
17. 0:55brains so it can be used on the fly?
18. 0:59After all, how many parents have to give their child a deck of flashcards for review to help
19. 1:03their kids reach fluency in their mother tongue?
20. 1:06Of course I was kidding earlier and I learned English through magic like every other baby.
21. 1:13In this video I’d like to discuss four not too often discussed points that I think are
22. 1:17important when it comes to language learning.
23. 1:20Acquiring language efficiently through context Two is Maximizing input
24. 1:25Three is Practicing your listening and pronunciation at the same time
25. 1:30And four is Making sure the experience of learning is positive
26. 1:34First allow me to take a moment to demonstrate something, so just listen for now.
27. 1:38If you already speak Japanese, it might be harder to get my point, but hopefully you’ll
28. 1:43still see what I mean.
29. 1:45Timu o shoukai shiyou.
30. 1:47Timu wa neko janakute kaeru janakute hito da.
31. 1:51Hito no karada ha ironna bubun ga aru.
32. 1:54Tatoeba atama, mune, ude, ashi ga aru.
33. 1:56Ok, so Just listening to me, how much Japanese did you learn from this?
34. 2:01Maybe 0%.
35. 2:03What if I repeated it or spoke slower, would you learn more Japanese?
36. 2:07Most likely not.
37. 2:08Let’s try it one more time, but pay attention to the screen.
38. 2:12Timu o shoukai shiyou.
39. 2:14Timu wa neko janakute kaeru janakute hito da.
40. 2:17Hito no karada ha ironna bubun ga aru.
41. 2:20Tatoeba atama, mune, ude, ashi ga aru.
42. 2:23Mushi ja nai kara me wa mutsu toka janakute futatsu ga aru.
43. 2:28Ude mo futatsu, Ashi mo futatsu, Mimi mo futatsu ga aru.
44. 2:35How about now, maybe 10%, 20% or even just one word?
45. 2:40This is the simple difference between acquiring language and not.
46. 2:43What I’m trying to demonstrate is the concept of comprehensible input, as did second language
47. 2:49acquisition scholar Stephen Krashen did in this lecture of his.
48. 2:52"das ist meine Hand. fristenzidast hand(??)"
49. 2:55"In my opinion, we all acquire language the same way.
50. 3:01We acquire language in one way and one way only, when we understand messages, or when
51. 3:07we understand what we read.
52. 3:10We call this comprehensible input.
53. 3:14We've tried everything else, we've tried grammar teaching, drills and exercises, computers,
54. 3:18but the only thing that seems to count is getting messages you understand, comprehensible
55. 3:24input.
56. 3:25So anything that helps make input comprehensible - pictures, knowledge of the world, realia,
57. 3:32helps language acquisition."
58. 3:33In the 1970s and 80s Krashen put forward a group of hypotheses about language learning.
59. 3:39The first claim of his we’ll look at is that there is acquisition and learning and
60. 3:44Krashen says improvement in language ability is only dependent on acquisition and not learning.
61. 3:50The difference between acquisition and learning is tricky but it’s kind of like the difference
62. 3:55between getting a joke and having someone explain the precise reasons why that joke
63. 3:59should be funny.
64. 4:01For example, a horse walks into a bar and the bartender says...
65. 4:05"Hey, why the long face?"
66. 4:07Or a whale walks into a bar and the whale says “Woo...oooo...woooo”.
67. 4:13If you thought this was funny, you didn’t have to consciously work out why it was funny.
68. 4:18the processing was done on a subconscious level.
69. 4:21In Krashen’s book Principles and Practice in Second Language acquisition, he says “Acquisition
70. 4:26of language is a natural, intuitive, and subconscious process of which individuals need not be aware.”
71. 4:32Similarly, you can learn words by having someone tell you “The Japanese word for Persimmon
72. 4:38is kaki.”
73. 4:40On the other hand, what’s necessary for acquisition is sufficient comprehensible input.
74. 4:46Something like this: Ringo o taberu.
75. 4:52So, even though you might not know any of the words I just said, you could comprehend
76. 4:57the pictures I supplied, and based on that context, you could acquire the meaning of
77. 5:02Ringo and Taberu.
78. 5:06When I provide you with another example, Biiru o nomu, you may have deduced something about
79. 5:11Japanese grammar as well.
80. 5:13That’s right, the verb comes at the end.
81. 5:17The point is, you have this massive pattern recognition device jammed into your head and
82. 5:21when you understand the meaning of the message, your brain will naturally pick out vocabulary
83. 5:26and deconstruct grammar patterns based on the context - and this is not something you
84. 5:31actively and consciously perform.
85. 5:34Okaikei senroppyaku nanajyuu hachien ni narimasu.
86. 5:43Kane aru Kara! Kane Nee yo...
87. 5:52This leads me to one of the most helpful things - simply watching television series without
88. 5:57English subtitles with focused attention even though I couldn’t understand most of it.
89. 6:02"And today, I wanna talk about dictionaries.
90. 6:05You can look up the word 'get' in the dictionary and you get 8 or 9 different definitions...
91. 6:12and you can read that, close the dictionary and you won't remember much of what was there.
92. 6:17Before I went to Vietnam, I got this phrasebook and dictionary.
93. 6:21I came away able to use one word.
94. 6:24Kaman, which means thank you.
95. 6:25Nothing else stuck, zero.
96. 6:28This was essentially useless."
97. 6:30A bit later on, I tried my hand at plenty of books but refrained from looking up every
98. 6:34word.
99. 6:35This is a really simple but important concept, how many new words, phrases and grammar structures
100. 6:41can you feed your brain when you’re looking up every word as you read a book?
101. 6:45You’d take about half an hour to get through one page.
102. 6:48For the same amount of time, a television show can blast you with far more words, phrases
103. 6:54and grammar.
104. 6:55A book can too if you’re not so trigger happy with the dictionary.
105. 6:58And, it might not feel like it, but these bits of cloudy information can stick in your
106. 7:03head at the subconscious level just waiting for the right context to reveal their meaning.
107. 7:09Engineering Professor Barbara Oakley explains here that we have two modes of thinking - the
108. 7:13focused mode and the diffuse mode.
109. 7:16The focused mode is where you’re racking your brain trying to use your focused awareness
110. 7:20to figure something out, whether it be a math problem or what’s going on in a TV show
111. 7:25in a foreign language.
112. 7:27The diffuse mode works in the background where you’re relaxed and not straining on one
113. 7:31thing, it can see the big picture and make connections.
114. 7:35This is thought to be why people so often get ideas in the shower - you’re relaxed,
115. 7:40probably not focused on anything in particular, so your subconscious starts turning its pattern
116. 7:44recognition gears to give you insights your conscious mind couldn’t see.
117. 7:49You might not have any luck picking up many words or phrases while watching or reading
118. 7:53something, but when you go off and do something else, your brain relaxes into the much more
119. 7:58flexible diffuse mode and uses its powers of pattern recognition to piece out some meaning
120. 8:03from the heaps of language information you were just exposed to.
121. 8:07Now I’m not saying that the fastest way to become fluent in a language is to never
122. 8:11open a dictionary, but you’ll want to invest a majority of your time on inputting a bunch
123. 8:16of content into your head from media, books or just paying attention to people around
124. 8:21you.
125. 8:22Earlier we saw that according to Krashen, acquisition, but not learning can trigger
126. 8:26improvement in a language.
127. 8:29But, it seems deliberate “learning” can trigger language “acquisition” - for example
128. 8:36let’s say you had watched this before: "omae, ore no keeki kuttaro."
129. 8:44"iya" and you knew that "ore no keeki" just means
130. 8:47“my cake,” but for the life of you couldn’t figure out what kuttaro means.
131. 8:51You were guessing it means steal.
132. 8:54Then you learn from a textbook or dictionary that kuu is a very casual way to say eat!
133. 9:01Then it all clicks, you realize kutta would be the past tense of this verb and you figure
134. 9:06kuttaro must be the same as kutta darou.
135. 9:09Now you’ve acquired a new word and a new colloquialism and put all the pieces together
136. 9:14to fully understand what this guy was saying.
137. 9:17"Omae, ore no keeki kuttaro."
138. 9:21"iya."
139. 9:22This is the “Aha!” moment indicative of new language acquisition - similar to a joke,
140. 9:27it just happens at the subconscious level.
141. 9:32Another key to this is watching television without English subtitles.
142. 9:36A study from Barcelona looking at Spanish speakers trying to learn English found that
143. 9:39the worst way to learn was by putting Spanish subtitles on an English movie.
144. 9:44This resulted in 0% improvement in their English ability.
145. 9:48Watching with no subtitles provided a 7% improvement, but watching the show in English, with English
146. 9:53subtitles provided a 17% improvement.
147. 9:58Now You might be thinking how are you ever going to learn anything if you do all this
148. 10:02input without any any speaking practice?
149. 10:05This is where another part of Krashen’s theory comes in.
150. 10:07"And this may come as a bit of a surprise to some of you.
151. 10:10Certainly came as a surprise to me.
152. 10:13Talking is not practicing.
153. 10:15It means if you want to improve your spanish, it will not help you to speak Spanish outloud
154. 10:21in the car as you drive to work in the morning.
155. 10:24I used to think those things help, now I think they don't."
156. 10:27You don’t technically have to open your mouth to acquire the language.
157. 10:31This was demonstrated in 1962 when E. Lenneberg described the case of a boy who could not
158. 10:36speak due to congenital dysarthria.
159. 10:39When Lenneberg tested the boy, he found that the child was able to understand spoken English
160. 10:43perfectly.
161. 10:44With that said, ...you should open your mouth at some point.
162. 10:49Pronunciation is of course very important.
163. 10:51But pronunciation is… hard.
164. 10:53Some noises in the language you’ll notice you just can’t make because you never have
165. 10:57before.
166. 10:58"That's not tool bro.
167. 10:59That's n...
168. 11:00That's not tool bro."
169. 11:02This brings me to a technique called Shadowing: What you do is basically listen to some audio
170. 11:08of a native speaker talking and you just mimic their pronunciation and intonation.
171. 11:13Not every word though - depending on your level it could be two syllables at a time,
172. 11:16three at a time or two words at a time and so on.
173. 11:19Shadowing is generally thought of as an advanced technique you should use to master intonation
174. 11:24and polish up your accent.
175. 11:25But, even from Day 1 it can be a super efficient way for improving your pronunciation and at
176. 11:31the same time your ability to recognize phonemes in natural language.
177. 11:35That is to hear natural language.
178. 11:38And being able to hear natural language is important.
179. 11:41Because when people speak naturally, there are certain phrases where their speech gets
180. 11:45run together.
181. 11:46Like “What are you doing” becomes “W’t’ya’doin’”
182. 11:50Watch how in this scene, Abe Hiroshi turns tokoro ga kou yatte into "tocolocuerte" "tocolocuerte..."
183. 11:57A 2015 study from Japan looking at two groups of English learners found that indeed, shadowing
184. 12:05made a statistically significant improvement in phoneme perception for both groups.
185. 12:10Look in the description for some tips on shadowing so you can get more out of it without frustrating
186. 12:14yourself into hating the language.
187. 12:17So That’s it - Three things.
188. 12:20Focus on learning from context, Load up on the input and get plenty of content in the
189. 12:24target language and you can use the same audio source to practice listening to natural speech
190. 12:29and pronunciation.
191. 12:31I realize this leaves many questions regarding language learning and that this there’s
192. 12:35tons of useful techniques and approaches for learning a language that I haven’t addressed
193. 12:39here.
194. 12:40So please leave a comment if you have any questions and and check the description for
195. 12:44more information .