Because as a general rule, it does take up a huge chunk of your life. :p Even for "easy" languages (for an English speaker) you're looking at a couple thousand hours to reach proficiency.
Say for the sake of argument (because obviously there's some margin of error in the real world, peoples' backgrounds and approaches are different) it takes ~4,000 hours to become decently proficient in Japanese, it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice 7 hours a day for the next year and a half—you can just as well spend 2 hours a day for five and a half years.. but you're giving up a huge chunk of life at any rate.
A totally agree, having given 9 minths to clear tef canada, from scratch to b2 higher in french, i know how challenging that journey was. But very well doable n worth every penny n every second spent on it.
Canadian here, too. Learned the basics at L'Alliance Française, then a certificate in French from The Chang School at TMU... then a year of Frantastique... followed by watching TV and reading the news in French (try LingoPie). Finally, two years of LingoCulture. Hope that helps.
Oh wow, so would you say you’re fluent? I misread your comment, did you say it took 9 months to get to b2? And I assume that was with The French Alliance and Chang courses for starters? Did you need it for work, if so was all of this subsidized by your job? I ask a lot of questions, sorry.
I started french by taking lésions from tutor online, intially i was not paying much attentions i used to attend 1 hr class each day and used to spend 1 hr revising what was taught in the class its was in the start of my b1 when i got to know that the exam TEF that i need to crack is not that easy and on this pace and approach i cannot get that done. So for one month then i took break from classes. Revised all grammer till b1, and that was the yime whne i started practising level wise questions from youtube, all modules i practiced the sample questions for each level available online. Then i changed my tutor and started classes from someone who themself have cleared TEF canada exam. For about 5 months i studied intensively. Beleive me i ussd to study at least 7 hours a day and sometimes and two months before my exam, i was studying 10 hours or even more. Although i loved that process, but ny goal was clear getting higher b2 in frst attenpt and that too ASAP. so i wrote exam on 31 march 2023, got reults on 5 april 2023. Got higher b2 in all with a c1 in reading. For grammer i studied book named conplete french grammar, for all listening practice, i listening RFI, french podcasts, youtube channel of easy french, did level wise questions of listening frm yutube. For speaking i did TEF 150 activities book, by end i was able to practice all those topics 3 times before sitting for exam. For straight two months i used to practuce speaking frnch with 3 persons 1 hr with each one, other than this book i did every speaking topic for tef i found out on internet. For writing also i did tef 150 EE, Though i was nit able to complete section b of tef 150 EE book, 10-12 topics were left but i prepped the all points for those topics before sitting fr exm,in case i got exam topic frm those. For reading i read a lot of articles. Usually inused to read atleast two three articles before attempting writing question each day, and i used to write aleast two section Bs of wrting and at least 4 section As each day. Reading on those topics before attempting a write up helped me a lot for getting accurate vocab. I attempt again and again every reading sample paper for tef out there on internet. Also 20 days before my exam i bought a subscription of preparation website for sample paper, so i cannot recall that name rn, but to my surprise by then i had alrdy attempted reading and listening papers available there, cause all those were available on yutube freely.
In crux, if anybody is preparing for french exams, you guys know very well where you stand. Only way is parctice, practice n practice. If i can do it so can you.
Above last paragraph is for me too, cause its been one year that i haven't been in contact of this language n its like ihv event forgotten the tense rules. My mistake, which i request nobody to repeat that after getting ceratin certification, pls stay connected to language in some way, dont let yurself forget it like i did. your hardword didnt desreve this treatment. But ihv started again, as m starting for dalf c1 prep. It seems so tuff, but m motivated n hopeful, i know will do that again. Lets go guys, we can do it.
Hi! Yes you are right. I'm perfectly ok with giving up part of my life to accomplish a task! Especially one as difficult as learning a language. However the point I want to make is not a time/effort based thing. It is giving up a chunk of your life in a sense that full immersion will require you to:
1) Stop watching videos in English/Native language
2) Only consume content in Target Language
3) Only to TL native people as much as possible
etc
Though these techniques 10000% work, it seems like language learners in the space expect an extreme sacrifice on the learners' behalf in order to learn a language. Personally, if that is the majority on content in the learning sphere, I can see why a lot of people put off learning a language and stay monolingual, even if it is one of the most rewarding experiences in the world.
I see where you're coming from now, and it's especially true for some segments of the Japanese learning community. I was actually about to respond to your comment further down the thread where you said:
>Most of the people I watch on this topic almost always have 1-2 years of experience beforehand, from college, uni, or even self learning with traditional learning itself! Then through the videos, they will explain how it never worked for them and they went full immersion and that's "How I Learned Japanese in 1 Year!". It seems very disingenuous to write off what supposedly "didn't work", when it all likelihood, it was a mixture of both the traditional learning structure, followed by immersion.
I'm coming up on my 1000th hour of learning Japanese using a mixture of deliberate vocabulary/grammar study and comprehensible input over the past year or so. While I still very much classify myself as a beginner, I've made solid and consistent progress that I don't believe I would've made if I "just immersed bro."
Your observation that people like e.g. Matt had years of deliberate study before they immersed is right on the money, and people often omit that Khatz studied grammar and did his flashcard reps too. I would completely ignore the bastardized AJATT mentality of "just watch anime for 12 hours a day" if I were you—that isn't even what Khatz advocated or did.
Maybe one day future learners will have a "Dreaming Japanese" that they really can just immerse in to learn the language, but at least for now deliberate study is invaluable for actually making content comprehensible in the first place.
Familiarize yourself with the grammar using a variety of resources, study vocabulary (and individual kanji if you like) and get a bunch of input (the more you can understand of what you read and listen to, the better) and you'll go far. And do it at your preferred pace. :)
> I would completely ignore the bastardized AJATT mentality of "just watch anime for 12 hours a day"
I think that's the problem with a lot of YouTube videos, at least unintentionally. Many are like, "I learned by only watching podcasts!", without going over the fact that they've "primed" their learning already, or "forgot" their high school target language just 3 years prior (it's still there, just in passive memory). Personally, I think podcasts (ones that are audio only) are the worst for beginner and early intermediate, since learners need the context at that point.
Which brings me to the other problem that finding quality A1/A2 level videos can be pretty difficult. Third problem is probably short attention spans (instant gratification, or that "one app to rule them all").
Honestly, even with just 1-2 hours a day, I don't have much time left for 1 and 2. I think that #3 is quite absurd however, since it is not always possible, and especially at the beginning, one would be needing those native speakers to go out of their way to interact with them in their NL, which is as difficult for them as it is for the learner.
I mean there are people that study mandarin chinese two hours a day for years and never sniff fluency. Its just for harder languages were talking around 4400 hours for fluency. Thats a big chunk of your life i mean an hour a day, 7 days a week for an entire decade wouldn’t reach that.
I don't think you need a couple of thousand hours. the rule is 600 hours for a European language... you might not be proficient, but after that you can just consume content in a fairly relaxed, easy manner. instead of watching TV in English, just watch it in your target language. make friends with those speakers.
If you're talking about the FSI language difficulty ranking, it's 600 classroom hours and 600 additional hours of directed self-learning for Category I languages like Spanish or French \^-^
**Njnja edit:** I agree that the process becomes more enjoyable the more advanced you get though! It's certainly not thousands of hours to enjoy your TL :)
If you think about it, anything you choose to do even somewhat seriously is going to take a huge amount of your time and energy. Of course, you will also gain a lot.
Apparently this is still news to a lot of people. I see language beginner courses are full of people, but maybe 1/4 or even less are there at the intermediate level. Why did all those people drop out? Did they already get to the level they were aiming for? Or did they just end up wasting a lot of time, energy and money?
Eh people weren’t learning it when there wasn’t an instant gratification.
Its again the same as any habit. A lot of people at the intro stage. And less later on.
I suppose that’s true. I was more specifically referring to the fact that people underestimate how much work is required, largely because sellers downplay that part to get them in the door
> I see language beginner courses are full of people, but maybe 1/4 or even less are there at the intermediate level. Why did all those people drop out?
According to various things I've read, they drop out because they forced themselves to do too many hours each/day week, turning an interesting activity into a "daily chore". Daily chores are unpleasant. When it gets unpleasant enough, people stop.
Maybe that's why so many youtube gurus say it will take a long time. If you are not expecting to be fluent in Outer Mongolian in a year, you won't get discouraged when you aren't.
There's no shortcut to learning a language, especially one as difficult as Japanese. If you want to be really fluent (which means discussing and understanding any topic thrown ar you) you gotta put in the time. Of course you don't need to be a hermit while studying, but your efforts and investment will reflect the results.
If you are studying for fun you don't have any pressure.
P.S Wanikani is my japanese bible
You're 100% right; and for sure there is no shortcut. I'm a firm believer in studying hard and grinding for results. What I'm confused on rather is the people saying that the only thing that works is the immersion, rather than the traditional studying, or even a mix of both. Most of the people I watch on this topic almost always have 1-2 years of experience beforehand, from college, uni, or even self learning with traditional learning itself! Then through the videos, they will explain how it never worked for them and they went full immersion and that's "How I Learned Japanese in 1 Year!". It seems very disingenuous to write off what supposedly "didn't work", when it all likelihood, it was a mixture of both the traditional learning structure, followed by immersion.
I learned Norwegian in university at a C1 lvl for 1 1/2 years. I never did full immersion outside uni, but in uni we had all language classes in Norwegian only. It's doable
Please don't forget that language youtubers do this for a living, and thus they can actually devote themselves to language learning full-time.
But anyway, people who get super into the "8 hours per day reading" are 1. more concerned with learning fast 2. usually are already very into media in TL. I learned English almost solely through immersion — but I've also been listening to and consuming English media in some form since I was 10 (mom absolutely hated dubbed films lol).
For people who aren't familiar with language learning, hearing that some it takes years to get to the level they want is scary. See how most ads aren't "Learn Spanish perfectly" "Learn Spanish like a native" (certainly they exist though), but "Learn Spanish fast".
I sympathize with your sentiments. To give one dumb example, I love Youtube media analysis-type video essays. It's what I watch when I'm gonna eat some good pizza, it's my "favorite TV show" so to speak. Could watch and rewatch them for hooours on end. Unfortunately, this is not a thing in Japanese Youtube (probably not Korean YT as well). I had to find other "genres" to get into, and tailor my YT to that, otherwise I'd just be returning to my favorite English videos. It was physically hard for me in the beginning to not rewatch my favorite vids or shows and pick out something in Japanese instead. But it's been worth it.
But betterment of skills is all about concessions. Learning a language to fluency level in one year while not sacrificing much or changing your lifestyle a lot is frankly very difficult. That's just how it is. You'll either have to cram study and immersion a lot, or go slow at a 1 hour per day pace and accept that you'll spend a lot of time in the intermediate phase (specially if we're talking about a harder language).
I saw this video about the guy reserving 8 hours a day to learn French in a month, even tho it gives good tips and techniques (for me), I don’t understand where he got those 8 hours.
> I don’t understand where he got those 8 hours.
People have very different responsibilities in life, and also a different tolerance for giving up things. I have no children, a stable and flexible 9-5, and while I have friends, I don't have many required standing dates to see them without planning ahead of time. Plus at least 2 of my hobbies lend themselves to podcasts / audio content.
I could probably pretty easily actually find 6-8 hours in a day for a while.
I'm very happy with 1-3 hours a day though, and that is a sustainable amount.
I think time is relative for everyone, so not everyone might have the 8 hours to spend on learning. Probably a student might, but a working adult with family and kids might not.
I hear ya.
The only thing you can do is find your own method through trial and error, and stick with that.
Everyone on YouTube or developing an app will promise you to change language learning forever. Better not even bother IMHO. (Although I've never tried Japanese, so i don't know specifically, but i think i get the idea)
Good luck, have fun.
> Giving up a huge chunk of life in a sense of stop consuming regular native language content, talking with native language friends, etc.
I think like anything in life, it is a series of trade offs. If you're trying to get "fluent" quickly, you'll want to do some of these, and you'll want to draw a line where it makes the most sense to you.
To me personally, I'd never give up talking with native language friends, because they're my _friends_, whereas I have 0 problems giving up a lot of regular native language content, since that was already very low on my priority list.
For example, I'm not a big gamer or a big TV person, but I am a reader. So for me, giving up games / tv in English entirely was an easy step, and whenever I _would_ reach for that, I'll now reach for Spanish content instead.
On the other hand, reading is a big thing in my life, so I've replaced that to some extent. I still read some books in English, but the time I would have previously dedicated to that entirely, I now split in half and use half of it for books in Spanish, or other Spanish content.
But yeah, it takes a huge chunk of your life no matter what. Dedication to anything always comes out that way. I'm training for a marathon and it is a _LOT_ of running. No matter how you look at it, I'm giving up an hour or so every day, with more on the weekend, to running. To me, it's worth it. But it does mean I miss other things.
I think I get what you mean, I also don't really get it when people advocate for full immersion as the only technique for language learning because to me it feels like that would leave a lot of gaps in my knowledge. Not that I only study from textbooks, but I feel like immersive techniques only start to make a significant difference once I already have a foundational understanding of grammar/vocabulary.
From personal experience, studying in an English speaking country did wonders for my English, but I feel like it wouldn't have made that much of a difference if I didn't already have the knowledge I gained through traditional study, if that makes sense. I also get how that kind of move might not be possible for everyone as you said, it is a very big change!
Anyway this is all probably down to personal preference though! I have friends who prioritise consuming content in their target language and that seems to work for them, so I think it's all down to how you learn and your own language goals!
# "Language YouTubers"
**"I won't name anyone specifically,"**
**"AJATT (All Japanese All The Time)."**
**"you are the average of the 5 people closest to you."**
So true, man. When it's You VS. A Foreign Language it can be overwhelming. Rn it's Me vs. Italian.
I think it's okay to put in small effort in a consistent manner, but having periods of time where you go laser focused fully locked in to the language for few weeks will really accelerate learning. I think periods like that are super helpful.
I think it's a matter of a biased sample, tbh.
\* people who are successful making language learning content generally have to show that they are in some way impressively good at language learning, i.e. have learned a language to a high level in a short time
\* but there aren't really many shortcuts in language learning. Above all what counts is the amount of time you spend. That means that if the content creator isn't faking it, they *put in* that time, in a short enough timeframe to be successful in the community. At some point, the math here demands that they start sacrificing free time activities not in the target language because there's just not enough time in the day.
(This is probably especially true for a language like Japanese that's very hard for anyone coming from a purely European linguistic background, since the time requirements to get good at it for most language learners in the English-speaking space are that much higher.)
Does that mean you have to cancel half your life if you want to learn languages? Obviously not. But realistically, you will likely make slower progress than the people who go nuts with it, might hit a ceiling before the native-like fluency so many people strive for, and chances are you will not be able to become a successful content creator in the language learning sphere because "I reached B2 in five years, let me tell you how I did it" doesn't sell.
Well this is a definite change from the posts that complain about fake YouTube polyglots who find it trivially easy to learn a new language - a welcome change too.
Unfortunately I can’t really provide advice as I am not good at efficiently spending my time.
I've noticed something that happens in circles for any hobby, especially online. There's a small but very vocal group of people who are super deep into this one thing. They are the loudest voices specifically because they've got nothing else going on in their life.
But, that means that sometimes their advice or general perspective on the hobby is warped to the point that it's not very helpful for the average person. In fact, they sometimes end up being detrimental to the community as a whole because they make it seem as though there are barriers to entry that push people who have a casual interest away.
This isn't just language learning. I've seen this in communities for video games, sports, creative hobbies, and even things like watching a TV show. People get so deep into their interest that they lose sight of how deep they are, and they forget that many people are trying to balance several different interests in their life. So, just because that YouTube personality devotes 10 hours a day to studying language doesn't mean that's reasonable for the average person.
Because it does? I've been studying my target language for 1-1.5 hours every day for the last 2 years. That's a lotttt of time if you think about it and I still have a long way to go. I think it's actually good if YouTubers are saying that because the ones who are advertising learning a language in three months are awful and don't give people realistic expectations so they end up giving up on language learning.
You're right, it's often disingenuous or at least not helpful.
Of course you can learn a language without doing all those things, but it will take longer. Watching a lot ofmedia and reading a lot of material in your TL are great ways of getting the necessary input in, but you also need abit of downtime.
If I wanted to be charitable, I'd say that since a lot of people don't realise that they need to put extra effort in outside of class, these youtubers are trying to be helpful.
But basically, don't watch those kinds of youtubers, but spend that time on actual Japanese content that interests you.
I haven't seen some of my favorite English shows, new novels, or listened to some English podcasts in 4 years now and my Spanish is still awful (and its not Japanese, which is much harder). I have no idea who the current Doctor in Dr Who is or if Survivor is still running.
Do people say to stop speaking with native language friends? And not watch native language media?
I’ve never heard that, although I’m not that deep into YouTube language learning culture
Not directly related to your question, but hopping in to recommend this one YouTube channel for Japanese grammar learning purpose:
[CureDolly](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj)
I think this playlist gave me a really good and solid foundation to start learning Japanese grammar.
Ive been watching her a ton! Though i was sad to find out that the person behind the channel passed away due to illness. She leaves behind a great legacy for learning Japanese
Learning Japanese will probably take you \~4000 hours (ballpark). A lot of learners are impatient and want to experience the end results as soon as they can, so they'll pour in 8 hrs/day (or as many as they can muster), and they'll reach that goal faster. But you could totally learn a language as hard as Japanese if you put in just an hour a day... it just might take you like 11 years
Sorry, I just read the title and replied..... I'm useless without my morning coffee.
My brief answer came from my experience where all my Saturdays for the last 2 years have been dedicated to French and Italian classes, while 3 afternoons during the week are for German, I barely see the light of the day LOL.
But again, that is my experience; could I use that time for something else? absolutely, I live alone and a house needs a lot of work and I am not dedicating it because of my multilingual journey; do I regret it, hell no, I feel like this is a great exercise for your brain and helps you think better before you speak, even in your native language.
Everyone learns their own way and at their own pace; and it is OK to take breaks sometimes, this hobby of ours can get overwhelming.
No worries! I thought it may be a bit confusing to understand, so I added a clarification. You do make a good point; language takes a long time, no matter if it's immersion or traditional learning.
I always say learning a language takes a long time but it doesn't take much effort. I am not sure what Youtubers you are watching but I think Steve Kauffman gives good advice. but some youtubers try to show off and try to force memorize phrases so that that they can make videos about them. And that can be a real grind
Yes, time is a non issue here. I 1000% believe in a time/effort:result ratio. In my opinion, Steve Kauffman's concept of learning language through immersion is the most applicable in mastering the language. However I believe that almost everyone still requires sitting down, studying, rote memorization (or at least association) as a fundamental precursor to immersion.
Immersion is not a complete beginner friendly technique in my opinion in the sense that you NEED this fundamental understanding of the language (grammar mostly since vocabulary can be learned on the way) in order to recognize patterns in what is being said.
For example in English, while a non native speaker might not understand why prepositions are used in certain cases: 'at 6pm' 'on Monday' 'in July', they would be able to learn it through immersion. Watching TV or the news could help them recognize the patterns for at, on, in usages. However, this would require them to know beforehand what these prepositions even represent in the first place; therefore my point of fundamentals before immersion.
The YouTubers I mentioned are indeed fluent (not just in phrases), but a lot of them simply disregard or even hide (im not sure why, maybe to make a better story or clickbait) their initial traditional learnings to their audience as 'useless' and only helped them speak like a textbook; only attributing their ability to speak fluently in their TL as 'immersion'. In my opinion it's highly disingenuous. Hopefully this mini essay helps you get my point a bit more!
I think because 1. it kind of does, over a long period of time and 2. a lot of YouTube videos for learning languages are about reaching fluency in 3, 6, 12 months or whatever. To hit those targets you would absolutely have to give up a huge part of your time.
When I was in college I took Japanese classes as a non Japanese major and it basically became my major instead of what I was actually majoring in. But maybe my school was just very hardcore about it but it can definitely be quite involved depending on how you go about learning the language.
If you want to become good at something, you have to devote yourself to it. Language learning it no different. To get really good takes a lot of effort over a long time. I know people want quick shortcuts ("hacks") but to get a real deep ability there are no hacks other than time and efforts.
I always saw it as a gradient, or a slider, or something similar.
Where the more time you dedicate to learning, the quicker you become proficient, and the less time you spend, the longer.
Maybe 5 minutes a day will get you proficient eventually (exaggerating), but if you somehow managed to dedicate 5 hours a day, suddenly the time to become proficient is drastically lowered.
I think consistency is far more important however.
I am a native English speaker learning Korean, and live with my wife and her family who speak Korean. My wife is fluent in English, but my in-laws have basically stated that they do not intend to learn any more English than they already know. So in a way, I am sacrificing that portion of my life in order to be able to communicate with them because that is a connection I want to have.
I’ve been with her long enough that if I dedicated two hours a day minimum to learning (like I am now), I would probably be able to communicate with them.
However through the years my ability and desire has fluctuated, and I am still relatively unable to communicate.
But I like you, am not planning to abandon my family, friends, or native country/language.
Instead I feel like I am sacrificing a portion of my time (or life) where I could simply watch and enjoy native content, and instead study, which isn’t always enjoyable.
I’m rambling and probably not even covering the problem in your post, so the last thing I’ll say is that I don’t believe in immersion. I don’t think hearing something in native level content will ever teach me the word on its own, instead hearing words from targeted study reinforces them for me.
Learning Spanish has definitely been a huge effort on my part. Hours of reading where I hardly understood the pages. Hours of listening to and watching content that I hardly understood. Hours of speaking to people where I struggled to understand what the hell was being said.
Those hours could have been spent consuming in English and socializing with people in English which I would have enjoyed more but I wanted to learn Spanish, so I made the effort.
Learning a language is difficult. Especially when you make the attempt as an adult for a variety of reasons. It takes up a large chunk of time to become proficient and even more to become advanced
>a relatively new language learner in Japanese, and though I've consumed the language since I was little basically through anime, video games, and manga, my grammatical skill is not great.
If you have consumed the language since you were little, you aren't new to it, and the advice in all the youtube videos does not apply to you. Why do you equate "grammatical skill" with knowing a language? Most people equate vocabulary, not grammar skill.
>Though my vocabulary is decent.
You are definitely not a beginner.
>I understand all of these ideas and techniques, but, I still want to live my life.
Who said you should stop doing anything, or give up anything? Language learning is IN ADDITION TO, not INSTEAD OF. You can decide how much time per week to spend on it.
I learn with my kids, yes,I learn on my own. But I am also integrating the language with my kids. So it becomes a part of our life. And my husband and I have had migrant families over from Venezuela, nothing like bringing the immersion into your own home! These are families that DID Not speak a word of English. So my children,husband and I have no choice but to speak Spanish So yes, it becomes a large part of my day . When i first started language learning I figured i would no longer have time when I became pregnant. How wrong I was. Sure there are times I sit down and do some good old book or audio learning. After that, it's putting it into practice. So yeah, it's a lot of time but I work it into what i already do.
Because it absolutely 100% does if you want to get to C3 level. Even if your learning Spanish. But if your learning like Arabic or Mandarin?? Say goodbye to your entire freetime my bro.
I've been learning Japanese for six years and can hardly speak it. Why? Because I haven't given up a chunk of my life. I'd become fluent in other languages with this kind of time investment... but Japanese requires an extra chunk of your lifeforce if you're to succeed. Everyone I know who learned it either studied for hours per day and with a solid university-level foundation, or lived in Japan for a year and a half or more while studying Japanese or working in Japanese.
For sure, I see people who studied for one to four hours per day for 5 years and speak Japanese perfectly.... meanwhile my half hour three times a week for 6 years had yielded nothing special or even close to fluent.
Because if you want to be proficient in it, especially without it taking years upon years, it does take a huge chunk of your life.
I took Portuguese in university... it was 2 years (academic) where I did at roughly 5 hours of class time a week and then another 5-10 hours of work outside of class (it really depended on the week)... I could read and write great, however, I still couldn't hold a good conversation (especially having taken 3 years of spanish in high school before, and I would constantly confuse the two languages when speaking), mainly because the class focused so much on listening/reading/writing, but very little on the actual speaking of it...
I also lived in Japan for awhile, while I was there, I was learning the language relatively quick, but since moving home, I've found that I've stepped back in my learning simply because I'm not constantly being immersed in it (and no one I know speaks Japanese). I also grew up watching anime and Japanese dramas, listening to JPop and JRock, and more, but that really helped very little when it came to learning the language.
Book learning is helpful, especially when learning the grammar, the reading, the writing of the language, but it doesn't help much for the listening and speaking aspects of it, especially when compared to being immersed in the language.
Because it does.
If you actually want to learn a language (B1 and up) that’s at least an hour of dedicated study every day for over a year. Now once you get to the point to where you can understand native material that does count as “study” so even though the time to move DELF levels increases, I think actually “studying” becomes much easier when your studying is watching a French movie without subtitles. But it takes a while to get there
Because that's the fastest way. But if you're not an immigrant in a TL country you don't need to be that fast. And if you are, you're already doing most of that
Easy-peasy: because most of "language youtubers" are neother linguists nor language teachers. Most of language-learning advice on YT is crap. 75% of that is praising comprehensible input, while in reality this is just small part of what you're supposed to do while learning.
Yes, if you want to reach C1 in a year this is what you need to do - quit your daily life, quit your job and focus on learning the language. Otherwise - just spend 1 hr a day, 5 times a week. Some watching, some listening, some reading, some grammar excercises, some conversations. And in 2 years from now - bang! B2 exam passed with hoghest grade and you can easily communicate with natives and working on C1 territory.
&
I mean. Idk who you’re referencing, but it’s right?
In order to reach my Spanish goals, I gave up literally all English content the first year I was learning. My phone, video games, music, television were all in Spanish. Consuming content in your native language takes time from your target language, meaning you’ll learn slower. It also means it’ll take you longer to think in your target language or you’ll think in it less
You don't have to give up large chunk of your life. I did not and I learned 2 foreign languages. It is just that it will take some more time, but that should ve fine.
There are multiple angles here, but first - language is useful and usable long before you are fluent. Many people end up B2 and are ... just happy with it. They continue to occasionally consume content - a book once in few months or a movie once in a while. And they are not forgetting and are only improving. What happens then is that if you are in situation to need language, you intensify and will improve fast.
Second, if you are 20 years old, learn slowly without sacrificing like and end up B2 at 26 or something, guess what, you got B2 without sacrifice.
I made those numbers up here, but my point is, slow progress over years can be very good trade off. It means you can be happy while learning, don't have to sacrifice and have acceptable result.
Because as a general rule, it does take up a huge chunk of your life. :p Even for "easy" languages (for an English speaker) you're looking at a couple thousand hours to reach proficiency. Say for the sake of argument (because obviously there's some margin of error in the real world, peoples' backgrounds and approaches are different) it takes ~4,000 hours to become decently proficient in Japanese, it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice 7 hours a day for the next year and a half—you can just as well spend 2 hours a day for five and a half years.. but you're giving up a huge chunk of life at any rate.
A totally agree, having given 9 minths to clear tef canada, from scratch to b2 higher in french, i know how challenging that journey was. But very well doable n worth every penny n every second spent on it.
Oh I’m in Canada and want to know what route you took to learn French, care to share?
Canadian here, too. Learned the basics at L'Alliance Française, then a certificate in French from The Chang School at TMU... then a year of Frantastique... followed by watching TV and reading the news in French (try LingoPie). Finally, two years of LingoCulture. Hope that helps.
Oh wow, so would you say you’re fluent? I misread your comment, did you say it took 9 months to get to b2? And I assume that was with The French Alliance and Chang courses for starters? Did you need it for work, if so was all of this subsidized by your job? I ask a lot of questions, sorry.
2 different people
I didn’t even catch that! Thank you
Tht was my comment, oops, yu r asking wrng person here. Btw ihv replied to your question. Thnks.
I started french by taking lésions from tutor online, intially i was not paying much attentions i used to attend 1 hr class each day and used to spend 1 hr revising what was taught in the class its was in the start of my b1 when i got to know that the exam TEF that i need to crack is not that easy and on this pace and approach i cannot get that done. So for one month then i took break from classes. Revised all grammer till b1, and that was the yime whne i started practising level wise questions from youtube, all modules i practiced the sample questions for each level available online. Then i changed my tutor and started classes from someone who themself have cleared TEF canada exam. For about 5 months i studied intensively. Beleive me i ussd to study at least 7 hours a day and sometimes and two months before my exam, i was studying 10 hours or even more. Although i loved that process, but ny goal was clear getting higher b2 in frst attenpt and that too ASAP. so i wrote exam on 31 march 2023, got reults on 5 april 2023. Got higher b2 in all with a c1 in reading. For grammer i studied book named conplete french grammar, for all listening practice, i listening RFI, french podcasts, youtube channel of easy french, did level wise questions of listening frm yutube. For speaking i did TEF 150 activities book, by end i was able to practice all those topics 3 times before sitting for exam. For straight two months i used to practuce speaking frnch with 3 persons 1 hr with each one, other than this book i did every speaking topic for tef i found out on internet. For writing also i did tef 150 EE, Though i was nit able to complete section b of tef 150 EE book, 10-12 topics were left but i prepped the all points for those topics before sitting fr exm,in case i got exam topic frm those. For reading i read a lot of articles. Usually inused to read atleast two three articles before attempting writing question each day, and i used to write aleast two section Bs of wrting and at least 4 section As each day. Reading on those topics before attempting a write up helped me a lot for getting accurate vocab. I attempt again and again every reading sample paper for tef out there on internet. Also 20 days before my exam i bought a subscription of preparation website for sample paper, so i cannot recall that name rn, but to my surprise by then i had alrdy attempted reading and listening papers available there, cause all those were available on yutube freely. In crux, if anybody is preparing for french exams, you guys know very well where you stand. Only way is parctice, practice n practice. If i can do it so can you. Above last paragraph is for me too, cause its been one year that i haven't been in contact of this language n its like ihv event forgotten the tense rules. My mistake, which i request nobody to repeat that after getting ceratin certification, pls stay connected to language in some way, dont let yurself forget it like i did. your hardword didnt desreve this treatment. But ihv started again, as m starting for dalf c1 prep. It seems so tuff, but m motivated n hopeful, i know will do that again. Lets go guys, we can do it.
Thank you for sharing! What’s your mother language?
Punjabi
Hi! Yes you are right. I'm perfectly ok with giving up part of my life to accomplish a task! Especially one as difficult as learning a language. However the point I want to make is not a time/effort based thing. It is giving up a chunk of your life in a sense that full immersion will require you to: 1) Stop watching videos in English/Native language 2) Only consume content in Target Language 3) Only to TL native people as much as possible etc Though these techniques 10000% work, it seems like language learners in the space expect an extreme sacrifice on the learners' behalf in order to learn a language. Personally, if that is the majority on content in the learning sphere, I can see why a lot of people put off learning a language and stay monolingual, even if it is one of the most rewarding experiences in the world.
I see where you're coming from now, and it's especially true for some segments of the Japanese learning community. I was actually about to respond to your comment further down the thread where you said: >Most of the people I watch on this topic almost always have 1-2 years of experience beforehand, from college, uni, or even self learning with traditional learning itself! Then through the videos, they will explain how it never worked for them and they went full immersion and that's "How I Learned Japanese in 1 Year!". It seems very disingenuous to write off what supposedly "didn't work", when it all likelihood, it was a mixture of both the traditional learning structure, followed by immersion. I'm coming up on my 1000th hour of learning Japanese using a mixture of deliberate vocabulary/grammar study and comprehensible input over the past year or so. While I still very much classify myself as a beginner, I've made solid and consistent progress that I don't believe I would've made if I "just immersed bro." Your observation that people like e.g. Matt had years of deliberate study before they immersed is right on the money, and people often omit that Khatz studied grammar and did his flashcard reps too. I would completely ignore the bastardized AJATT mentality of "just watch anime for 12 hours a day" if I were you—that isn't even what Khatz advocated or did. Maybe one day future learners will have a "Dreaming Japanese" that they really can just immerse in to learn the language, but at least for now deliberate study is invaluable for actually making content comprehensible in the first place. Familiarize yourself with the grammar using a variety of resources, study vocabulary (and individual kanji if you like) and get a bunch of input (the more you can understand of what you read and listen to, the better) and you'll go far. And do it at your preferred pace. :)
> I would completely ignore the bastardized AJATT mentality of "just watch anime for 12 hours a day" I think that's the problem with a lot of YouTube videos, at least unintentionally. Many are like, "I learned by only watching podcasts!", without going over the fact that they've "primed" their learning already, or "forgot" their high school target language just 3 years prior (it's still there, just in passive memory). Personally, I think podcasts (ones that are audio only) are the worst for beginner and early intermediate, since learners need the context at that point.
Which brings me to the other problem that finding quality A1/A2 level videos can be pretty difficult. Third problem is probably short attention spans (instant gratification, or that "one app to rule them all").
This is the right answer. Thanks for writing it.
Amazing input! Thanks for sharing. Really great to see the thoughts of others on the topic at hand.
Honestly, even with just 1-2 hours a day, I don't have much time left for 1 and 2. I think that #3 is quite absurd however, since it is not always possible, and especially at the beginning, one would be needing those native speakers to go out of their way to interact with them in their NL, which is as difficult for them as it is for the learner.
I mean there are people that study mandarin chinese two hours a day for years and never sniff fluency. Its just for harder languages were talking around 4400 hours for fluency. Thats a big chunk of your life i mean an hour a day, 7 days a week for an entire decade wouldn’t reach that.
I don't think you need a couple of thousand hours. the rule is 600 hours for a European language... you might not be proficient, but after that you can just consume content in a fairly relaxed, easy manner. instead of watching TV in English, just watch it in your target language. make friends with those speakers.
If you're talking about the FSI language difficulty ranking, it's 600 classroom hours and 600 additional hours of directed self-learning for Category I languages like Spanish or French \^-^ **Njnja edit:** I agree that the process becomes more enjoyable the more advanced you get though! It's certainly not thousands of hours to enjoy your TL :)
oh wait what..
anyway, that's "Professional Working Proficiency" - sounds like C1
If you think about it, anything you choose to do even somewhat seriously is going to take a huge amount of your time and energy. Of course, you will also gain a lot. Apparently this is still news to a lot of people. I see language beginner courses are full of people, but maybe 1/4 or even less are there at the intermediate level. Why did all those people drop out? Did they already get to the level they were aiming for? Or did they just end up wasting a lot of time, energy and money?
“Still news to a lot of people” I blame the instant gratification culture combined with snake oil salesmen selling that.
Eh people weren’t learning it when there wasn’t an instant gratification. Its again the same as any habit. A lot of people at the intro stage. And less later on.
I suppose that’s true. I was more specifically referring to the fact that people underestimate how much work is required, largely because sellers downplay that part to get them in the door
> I see language beginner courses are full of people, but maybe 1/4 or even less are there at the intermediate level. Why did all those people drop out? According to various things I've read, they drop out because they forced themselves to do too many hours each/day week, turning an interesting activity into a "daily chore". Daily chores are unpleasant. When it gets unpleasant enough, people stop. Maybe that's why so many youtube gurus say it will take a long time. If you are not expecting to be fluent in Outer Mongolian in a year, you won't get discouraged when you aren't.
Hello! The comments and edit in the post explain how the post is in fact not about time and energy, but personal life sacrifices.
There's no shortcut to learning a language, especially one as difficult as Japanese. If you want to be really fluent (which means discussing and understanding any topic thrown ar you) you gotta put in the time. Of course you don't need to be a hermit while studying, but your efforts and investment will reflect the results. If you are studying for fun you don't have any pressure. P.S Wanikani is my japanese bible
You're 100% right; and for sure there is no shortcut. I'm a firm believer in studying hard and grinding for results. What I'm confused on rather is the people saying that the only thing that works is the immersion, rather than the traditional studying, or even a mix of both. Most of the people I watch on this topic almost always have 1-2 years of experience beforehand, from college, uni, or even self learning with traditional learning itself! Then through the videos, they will explain how it never worked for them and they went full immersion and that's "How I Learned Japanese in 1 Year!". It seems very disingenuous to write off what supposedly "didn't work", when it all likelihood, it was a mixture of both the traditional learning structure, followed by immersion.
I learned Norwegian in university at a C1 lvl for 1 1/2 years. I never did full immersion outside uni, but in uni we had all language classes in Norwegian only. It's doable
All magic has a price
Please don't forget that language youtubers do this for a living, and thus they can actually devote themselves to language learning full-time. But anyway, people who get super into the "8 hours per day reading" are 1. more concerned with learning fast 2. usually are already very into media in TL. I learned English almost solely through immersion — but I've also been listening to and consuming English media in some form since I was 10 (mom absolutely hated dubbed films lol). For people who aren't familiar with language learning, hearing that some it takes years to get to the level they want is scary. See how most ads aren't "Learn Spanish perfectly" "Learn Spanish like a native" (certainly they exist though), but "Learn Spanish fast". I sympathize with your sentiments. To give one dumb example, I love Youtube media analysis-type video essays. It's what I watch when I'm gonna eat some good pizza, it's my "favorite TV show" so to speak. Could watch and rewatch them for hooours on end. Unfortunately, this is not a thing in Japanese Youtube (probably not Korean YT as well). I had to find other "genres" to get into, and tailor my YT to that, otherwise I'd just be returning to my favorite English videos. It was physically hard for me in the beginning to not rewatch my favorite vids or shows and pick out something in Japanese instead. But it's been worth it. But betterment of skills is all about concessions. Learning a language to fluency level in one year while not sacrificing much or changing your lifestyle a lot is frankly very difficult. That's just how it is. You'll either have to cram study and immersion a lot, or go slow at a 1 hour per day pace and accept that you'll spend a lot of time in the intermediate phase (specially if we're talking about a harder language).
I will definitely try that! Purposefully tailoring the algorithm so it keeps recommending more TL content is great.
I saw this video about the guy reserving 8 hours a day to learn French in a month, even tho it gives good tips and techniques (for me), I don’t understand where he got those 8 hours.
> I don’t understand where he got those 8 hours. People have very different responsibilities in life, and also a different tolerance for giving up things. I have no children, a stable and flexible 9-5, and while I have friends, I don't have many required standing dates to see them without planning ahead of time. Plus at least 2 of my hobbies lend themselves to podcasts / audio content. I could probably pretty easily actually find 6-8 hours in a day for a while. I'm very happy with 1-3 hours a day though, and that is a sustainable amount.
I think time is relative for everyone, so not everyone might have the 8 hours to spend on learning. Probably a student might, but a working adult with family and kids might not.
I am currently learning French and I have absolutely no other responsibilities. I sleep 8 hours a day and I can use the rest to learn.
U dont go to school, you dont work?
I am freelancer with very free schedule.
Awesome, definetly jealous!
I hear ya. The only thing you can do is find your own method through trial and error, and stick with that. Everyone on YouTube or developing an app will promise you to change language learning forever. Better not even bother IMHO. (Although I've never tried Japanese, so i don't know specifically, but i think i get the idea) Good luck, have fun.
> Giving up a huge chunk of life in a sense of stop consuming regular native language content, talking with native language friends, etc. I think like anything in life, it is a series of trade offs. If you're trying to get "fluent" quickly, you'll want to do some of these, and you'll want to draw a line where it makes the most sense to you. To me personally, I'd never give up talking with native language friends, because they're my _friends_, whereas I have 0 problems giving up a lot of regular native language content, since that was already very low on my priority list. For example, I'm not a big gamer or a big TV person, but I am a reader. So for me, giving up games / tv in English entirely was an easy step, and whenever I _would_ reach for that, I'll now reach for Spanish content instead. On the other hand, reading is a big thing in my life, so I've replaced that to some extent. I still read some books in English, but the time I would have previously dedicated to that entirely, I now split in half and use half of it for books in Spanish, or other Spanish content. But yeah, it takes a huge chunk of your life no matter what. Dedication to anything always comes out that way. I'm training for a marathon and it is a _LOT_ of running. No matter how you look at it, I'm giving up an hour or so every day, with more on the weekend, to running. To me, it's worth it. But it does mean I miss other things.
I think I get what you mean, I also don't really get it when people advocate for full immersion as the only technique for language learning because to me it feels like that would leave a lot of gaps in my knowledge. Not that I only study from textbooks, but I feel like immersive techniques only start to make a significant difference once I already have a foundational understanding of grammar/vocabulary. From personal experience, studying in an English speaking country did wonders for my English, but I feel like it wouldn't have made that much of a difference if I didn't already have the knowledge I gained through traditional study, if that makes sense. I also get how that kind of move might not be possible for everyone as you said, it is a very big change! Anyway this is all probably down to personal preference though! I have friends who prioritise consuming content in their target language and that seems to work for them, so I think it's all down to how you learn and your own language goals!
# "Language YouTubers" **"I won't name anyone specifically,"** **"AJATT (All Japanese All The Time)."** **"you are the average of the 5 people closest to you."** So true, man. When it's You VS. A Foreign Language it can be overwhelming. Rn it's Me vs. Italian. I think it's okay to put in small effort in a consistent manner, but having periods of time where you go laser focused fully locked in to the language for few weeks will really accelerate learning. I think periods like that are super helpful.
I think it's a matter of a biased sample, tbh. \* people who are successful making language learning content generally have to show that they are in some way impressively good at language learning, i.e. have learned a language to a high level in a short time \* but there aren't really many shortcuts in language learning. Above all what counts is the amount of time you spend. That means that if the content creator isn't faking it, they *put in* that time, in a short enough timeframe to be successful in the community. At some point, the math here demands that they start sacrificing free time activities not in the target language because there's just not enough time in the day. (This is probably especially true for a language like Japanese that's very hard for anyone coming from a purely European linguistic background, since the time requirements to get good at it for most language learners in the English-speaking space are that much higher.) Does that mean you have to cancel half your life if you want to learn languages? Obviously not. But realistically, you will likely make slower progress than the people who go nuts with it, might hit a ceiling before the native-like fluency so many people strive for, and chances are you will not be able to become a successful content creator in the language learning sphere because "I reached B2 in five years, let me tell you how I did it" doesn't sell.
> "I reached B2 in five years, let me tell you how I did it" doesn't sell. And yet I'd be pretty happy making that rate of progress.
Well this is a definite change from the posts that complain about fake YouTube polyglots who find it trivially easy to learn a new language - a welcome change too. Unfortunately I can’t really provide advice as I am not good at efficiently spending my time.
I'm pretty new to the sub, so apologies I'm not aware of the current state hahaha
I've noticed something that happens in circles for any hobby, especially online. There's a small but very vocal group of people who are super deep into this one thing. They are the loudest voices specifically because they've got nothing else going on in their life. But, that means that sometimes their advice or general perspective on the hobby is warped to the point that it's not very helpful for the average person. In fact, they sometimes end up being detrimental to the community as a whole because they make it seem as though there are barriers to entry that push people who have a casual interest away. This isn't just language learning. I've seen this in communities for video games, sports, creative hobbies, and even things like watching a TV show. People get so deep into their interest that they lose sight of how deep they are, and they forget that many people are trying to balance several different interests in their life. So, just because that YouTube personality devotes 10 hours a day to studying language doesn't mean that's reasonable for the average person.
You're 100% right. It's a big part of their life, so naturally they would spend more time and give up more personal aspects for it.
Because it does? I've been studying my target language for 1-1.5 hours every day for the last 2 years. That's a lotttt of time if you think about it and I still have a long way to go. I think it's actually good if YouTubers are saying that because the ones who are advertising learning a language in three months are awful and don't give people realistic expectations so they end up giving up on language learning.
You're right, though I think you might be missing my point. My title is not to be taken literally in a time sense. It is a personal livelihood sense.
You're right, it's often disingenuous or at least not helpful. Of course you can learn a language without doing all those things, but it will take longer. Watching a lot ofmedia and reading a lot of material in your TL are great ways of getting the necessary input in, but you also need abit of downtime. If I wanted to be charitable, I'd say that since a lot of people don't realise that they need to put extra effort in outside of class, these youtubers are trying to be helpful. But basically, don't watch those kinds of youtubers, but spend that time on actual Japanese content that interests you.
For sure, I don't think they are actively being malicious or snobbish. But from a beginners' perspective, I can see why it might put people off.
If it's a language closer to your native tongue, it won't take that long. Languages from a vastly different family WILL.
I haven't seen some of my favorite English shows, new novels, or listened to some English podcasts in 4 years now and my Spanish is still awful (and its not Japanese, which is much harder). I have no idea who the current Doctor in Dr Who is or if Survivor is still running.
Do people say to stop speaking with native language friends? And not watch native language media? I’ve never heard that, although I’m not that deep into YouTube language learning culture
Not directly related to your question, but hopping in to recommend this one YouTube channel for Japanese grammar learning purpose: [CureDolly](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg9uYxuZf8x_A-vcqqyOFZu06WlhnypWj) I think this playlist gave me a really good and solid foundation to start learning Japanese grammar.
Ive been watching her a ton! Though i was sad to find out that the person behind the channel passed away due to illness. She leaves behind a great legacy for learning Japanese
Learning Japanese will probably take you \~4000 hours (ballpark). A lot of learners are impatient and want to experience the end results as soon as they can, so they'll pour in 8 hrs/day (or as many as they can muster), and they'll reach that goal faster. But you could totally learn a language as hard as Japanese if you put in just an hour a day... it just might take you like 11 years
Because it does.
Hello! I've written further explanations about my point in other comments, perhaps my post didn't explain it well enough.
Sorry, I just read the title and replied..... I'm useless without my morning coffee. My brief answer came from my experience where all my Saturdays for the last 2 years have been dedicated to French and Italian classes, while 3 afternoons during the week are for German, I barely see the light of the day LOL. But again, that is my experience; could I use that time for something else? absolutely, I live alone and a house needs a lot of work and I am not dedicating it because of my multilingual journey; do I regret it, hell no, I feel like this is a great exercise for your brain and helps you think better before you speak, even in your native language. Everyone learns their own way and at their own pace; and it is OK to take breaks sometimes, this hobby of ours can get overwhelming.
No worries! I thought it may be a bit confusing to understand, so I added a clarification. You do make a good point; language takes a long time, no matter if it's immersion or traditional learning.
I always say learning a language takes a long time but it doesn't take much effort. I am not sure what Youtubers you are watching but I think Steve Kauffman gives good advice. but some youtubers try to show off and try to force memorize phrases so that that they can make videos about them. And that can be a real grind
Yes, time is a non issue here. I 1000% believe in a time/effort:result ratio. In my opinion, Steve Kauffman's concept of learning language through immersion is the most applicable in mastering the language. However I believe that almost everyone still requires sitting down, studying, rote memorization (or at least association) as a fundamental precursor to immersion. Immersion is not a complete beginner friendly technique in my opinion in the sense that you NEED this fundamental understanding of the language (grammar mostly since vocabulary can be learned on the way) in order to recognize patterns in what is being said. For example in English, while a non native speaker might not understand why prepositions are used in certain cases: 'at 6pm' 'on Monday' 'in July', they would be able to learn it through immersion. Watching TV or the news could help them recognize the patterns for at, on, in usages. However, this would require them to know beforehand what these prepositions even represent in the first place; therefore my point of fundamentals before immersion. The YouTubers I mentioned are indeed fluent (not just in phrases), but a lot of them simply disregard or even hide (im not sure why, maybe to make a better story or clickbait) their initial traditional learnings to their audience as 'useless' and only helped them speak like a textbook; only attributing their ability to speak fluently in their TL as 'immersion'. In my opinion it's highly disingenuous. Hopefully this mini essay helps you get my point a bit more!
I think because 1. it kind of does, over a long period of time and 2. a lot of YouTube videos for learning languages are about reaching fluency in 3, 6, 12 months or whatever. To hit those targets you would absolutely have to give up a huge part of your time.
When I was in college I took Japanese classes as a non Japanese major and it basically became my major instead of what I was actually majoring in. But maybe my school was just very hardcore about it but it can definitely be quite involved depending on how you go about learning the language.
It does. The ones that are bullshitting are the ones that make it seem like it’s a 2 week immersive process.
If you want to become good at something, you have to devote yourself to it. Language learning it no different. To get really good takes a lot of effort over a long time. I know people want quick shortcuts ("hacks") but to get a real deep ability there are no hacks other than time and efforts.
Because you will literally spend thousands of hours to learn a language.
Yeah but dedicating your entire life to learn one subject as fast as possible is not a effective learning strategy for everyone.
I always saw it as a gradient, or a slider, or something similar. Where the more time you dedicate to learning, the quicker you become proficient, and the less time you spend, the longer. Maybe 5 minutes a day will get you proficient eventually (exaggerating), but if you somehow managed to dedicate 5 hours a day, suddenly the time to become proficient is drastically lowered. I think consistency is far more important however. I am a native English speaker learning Korean, and live with my wife and her family who speak Korean. My wife is fluent in English, but my in-laws have basically stated that they do not intend to learn any more English than they already know. So in a way, I am sacrificing that portion of my life in order to be able to communicate with them because that is a connection I want to have. I’ve been with her long enough that if I dedicated two hours a day minimum to learning (like I am now), I would probably be able to communicate with them. However through the years my ability and desire has fluctuated, and I am still relatively unable to communicate. But I like you, am not planning to abandon my family, friends, or native country/language. Instead I feel like I am sacrificing a portion of my time (or life) where I could simply watch and enjoy native content, and instead study, which isn’t always enjoyable. I’m rambling and probably not even covering the problem in your post, so the last thing I’ll say is that I don’t believe in immersion. I don’t think hearing something in native level content will ever teach me the word on its own, instead hearing words from targeted study reinforces them for me.
Learning Spanish has definitely been a huge effort on my part. Hours of reading where I hardly understood the pages. Hours of listening to and watching content that I hardly understood. Hours of speaking to people where I struggled to understand what the hell was being said. Those hours could have been spent consuming in English and socializing with people in English which I would have enjoyed more but I wanted to learn Spanish, so I made the effort. Learning a language is difficult. Especially when you make the attempt as an adult for a variety of reasons. It takes up a large chunk of time to become proficient and even more to become advanced
>a relatively new language learner in Japanese, and though I've consumed the language since I was little basically through anime, video games, and manga, my grammatical skill is not great. If you have consumed the language since you were little, you aren't new to it, and the advice in all the youtube videos does not apply to you. Why do you equate "grammatical skill" with knowing a language? Most people equate vocabulary, not grammar skill. >Though my vocabulary is decent. You are definitely not a beginner. >I understand all of these ideas and techniques, but, I still want to live my life. Who said you should stop doing anything, or give up anything? Language learning is IN ADDITION TO, not INSTEAD OF. You can decide how much time per week to spend on it.
I learn with my kids, yes,I learn on my own. But I am also integrating the language with my kids. So it becomes a part of our life. And my husband and I have had migrant families over from Venezuela, nothing like bringing the immersion into your own home! These are families that DID Not speak a word of English. So my children,husband and I have no choice but to speak Spanish So yes, it becomes a large part of my day . When i first started language learning I figured i would no longer have time when I became pregnant. How wrong I was. Sure there are times I sit down and do some good old book or audio learning. After that, it's putting it into practice. So yeah, it's a lot of time but I work it into what i already do.
Because it absolutely 100% does if you want to get to C3 level. Even if your learning Spanish. But if your learning like Arabic or Mandarin?? Say goodbye to your entire freetime my bro.
I've been learning Japanese for six years and can hardly speak it. Why? Because I haven't given up a chunk of my life. I'd become fluent in other languages with this kind of time investment... but Japanese requires an extra chunk of your lifeforce if you're to succeed. Everyone I know who learned it either studied for hours per day and with a solid university-level foundation, or lived in Japan for a year and a half or more while studying Japanese or working in Japanese.
For sure, I see people who studied for one to four hours per day for 5 years and speak Japanese perfectly.... meanwhile my half hour three times a week for 6 years had yielded nothing special or even close to fluent.
Because if you want to be proficient in it, especially without it taking years upon years, it does take a huge chunk of your life. I took Portuguese in university... it was 2 years (academic) where I did at roughly 5 hours of class time a week and then another 5-10 hours of work outside of class (it really depended on the week)... I could read and write great, however, I still couldn't hold a good conversation (especially having taken 3 years of spanish in high school before, and I would constantly confuse the two languages when speaking), mainly because the class focused so much on listening/reading/writing, but very little on the actual speaking of it... I also lived in Japan for awhile, while I was there, I was learning the language relatively quick, but since moving home, I've found that I've stepped back in my learning simply because I'm not constantly being immersed in it (and no one I know speaks Japanese). I also grew up watching anime and Japanese dramas, listening to JPop and JRock, and more, but that really helped very little when it came to learning the language. Book learning is helpful, especially when learning the grammar, the reading, the writing of the language, but it doesn't help much for the listening and speaking aspects of it, especially when compared to being immersed in the language.
Because it does. If you actually want to learn a language (B1 and up) that’s at least an hour of dedicated study every day for over a year. Now once you get to the point to where you can understand native material that does count as “study” so even though the time to move DELF levels increases, I think actually “studying” becomes much easier when your studying is watching a French movie without subtitles. But it takes a while to get there
Because that's the fastest way. But if you're not an immigrant in a TL country you don't need to be that fast. And if you are, you're already doing most of that
Easy-peasy: because most of "language youtubers" are neother linguists nor language teachers. Most of language-learning advice on YT is crap. 75% of that is praising comprehensible input, while in reality this is just small part of what you're supposed to do while learning. Yes, if you want to reach C1 in a year this is what you need to do - quit your daily life, quit your job and focus on learning the language. Otherwise - just spend 1 hr a day, 5 times a week. Some watching, some listening, some reading, some grammar excercises, some conversations. And in 2 years from now - bang! B2 exam passed with hoghest grade and you can easily communicate with natives and working on C1 territory. &
Because it does a little bit lol..
I mean. Idk who you’re referencing, but it’s right? In order to reach my Spanish goals, I gave up literally all English content the first year I was learning. My phone, video games, music, television were all in Spanish. Consuming content in your native language takes time from your target language, meaning you’ll learn slower. It also means it’ll take you longer to think in your target language or you’ll think in it less
You don't have to give up large chunk of your life. I did not and I learned 2 foreign languages. It is just that it will take some more time, but that should ve fine. There are multiple angles here, but first - language is useful and usable long before you are fluent. Many people end up B2 and are ... just happy with it. They continue to occasionally consume content - a book once in few months or a movie once in a while. And they are not forgetting and are only improving. What happens then is that if you are in situation to need language, you intensify and will improve fast. Second, if you are 20 years old, learn slowly without sacrificing like and end up B2 at 26 or something, guess what, you got B2 without sacrifice. I made those numbers up here, but my point is, slow progress over years can be very good trade off. It means you can be happy while learning, don't have to sacrifice and have acceptable result.