Can You Really Learn a Language Without Speaking It?

Timestamps:
00:36 - The Big Four
01:50 - The story that gave me the answer
04:25 - The 3 Language Learning Archetypes
04:38 - The Reader
05:24 - The Listener
06:29 - The Speaker
07:14 - The Language Learning Formula
08:05 - Recap

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[thedavidguy]

In my experience many language learners whose primary goal is to have conversations focus almost exclusively or at least very heavily on speaking. A common result is that they can speak reasonably well but they can’t understand well. It’s frustrating to have a conversation with them because you’re forced to repeat yourself and speak unnaturally slowly. So, I agree that you must speak a lot in order to speak well, but input is always fundamental. In any language, including ones native language, listening is underrated.

[Maidaseu]

The benefit of loads of input first will make speaking less frustrating as you'll perfectly understand the conversation and only have to focus on the actual speaking.

[Nhamilton]

I think it’s important for people to remember that a good conversationalist is someone who listens and asks questions, not the person who does all the talking. People find you much easier to talk to when you aren’t just waiting for your turn to speak. For this reason, input is the most valuable IMO. There is no point asking a question if you can’t understand the answer!

[DaiNghia-isov]

Combine them. Massive input helps you get the language faster. Nobody can speak without input.
Spend almost your time on input, then practice speaking. That’s my opinion

[Aadrian]

As someone who learnt English entirely by listening to a massive amount of cartoons, Youtube videos, movies, etc. I can attest to this. When I first spoke English, 5-6 years after considering myself fluent (input-wise), my accent was really noticeable and it felt like I couldn't use my full knowledge of the language. Luckily, if you already know the language like I did, adapting yourself to be able to speak happens really fast in comparison to learning the actual language. I was forced to use English at my workplace and started being more confident and a lot less rigid in 2-3 months. That's why, I consider speaking sort of like the icing on the cake; the cake itself takes years to prepare.

[Luna________]

The biggest factor for me is that getting a lot of imput before speaking just makes the learning curve when you actually practice speaking sooo much quicker and smoother. I basically had never had a full a conversation in english even though i was completely able to understand every type of media i consumed. So when i first started speaking regularly it only took me a few weeks to get to a comfortable conversational level about all topics

[davidcarrasco]

This has not been my experience... My native language is Spanish. I learnt English "by accident" (by watching Youtube videos, TV shows, movies, etc.), and after many years, I had a job interview where they wanted to check if I knew English, so they asked me a few questions in that language. I was able to answer as easily as if I was using Spanish (but with bad pronunciation). I realized after the interview that it was the first time that I had spoken in English. So in my experience, speaking a language is not necessary to learn to speak it; although it helps with pronunciation, but I find pronunciation mostly unimportant, as long as they understand what you say.

[MovieRiotHD]

I learned English without speaking it, just with massive input (as you naturally get living in the Netherlands).

[RadicalPersonalFinance]

Your points are well-made and I agree with it. There's a more interesting corollary to this question that relates to the "Activation Hypothesis." My question is this: is extensive reading and listening without any significant effort to speak/write a more efficient pathway to full fluency (with all input/output skills) than trying to practice input and output from the very beginning?

My hypothesis is that yes, it's a more efficient process. I tested this with my French skills. I read 1 million words from books while simultaneously listening to the audiobooks and using LingQ to look up unknown words over a 3-month period. I did not speak or write the language. Then I hired a French tutor to spend 3 days with me to practice conversation. After a few hours it seemed like my brain "activated" the language and I was able to converse comfortably with him. (Obviously I made many mistakes; I was also already fluent in Spanish.) After 3 days I took an official language exam and scored B2 on my speaking ability and B1 on my writing ability.

This persuaded me that there's something to the "activation hypothesis." But more importantly for me is simply that I was able to do the language activities I wanted do (listening and reading) rather than the ones I didn't want to do (conversation and writing). This helped me spend more time with the language, which is obviously the fundamental metric to track.

Great video!

I'd love to hear from anyone else who has tested this "Activation Hypothesis."

[mairovergara]

Great vid! At the end of the day, learning languages is a matter of putting in the hours in the specific abilities you want to develop. Want to read well? Read a lot. Want to speak well? Speak a lot. It really is a lot of work when you think that you need to read + listen + speak every day to become good at a language.

[undekagon]

I am a reader, very much and mainly. a copyist monk. loving to see and feel language on paper. speaking and writing skills only went up in english out of necesity to use it as a reference language for learning other languages. it took me 20 years or more to get my mouth open, in all other languages I more or less plainly refuse to have spoken conversations at all.

[marceloprevedi]

Totalmente de acuerdo Luca !!! Se que hablas un excelente castellano. Yo hablo 8 idiomas ( quizás 9 o 10, depende de cómo los contamos). Cuando necesito un alto nivel en determinado idioma trabajo sobre los cuatro fundamentos : leer, escribir, escuchar y hablar. Cuando no necesito hablar muy fluidamente y lo fundamental es poder leer con eficiencia y entender muy bien lo que se dice en televisión o en un vídeo de Youtube ( y eso es suficiente para el momento), trabajo muy duro en lectura y listening. Es por ello que logré avanzar muy rápido en lectura y listening en portugués, valenciano, catalán y gallego. Mi nivel allí es muy bueno, pero aún hablando catalán y valenciano reconozco que en ese punto mi nivel es muy inferior. Actualmente estoy estudiando ruso y Lengua argentina de señas para sordomudos y si consigo un buen material quiero ver algo de occitano, el único idioma que aparece en La divina comedia del gran DANTE ( Aparte del italiano por supuesto). Como siempre, haces un excelente trabajo.Un enorme saludo Italo - argentino .

[Rudolphhhhhh]

Since there are people learning extinct languages, yes, it is possible to learn languages without speaking (although I think it is far from ideal). In my case, I learn languages essentially in order to read, but I try my best to develop the four skills.
But I think writing is a skill that we should not underestimate, especially if we want to speak. Indeed, by writing, we have all the time we need to think about what we want to say, so that it is a good output training. By doing that, it helps the learner to learn how to use what he had read or listened to, before being able to use it directly without thinking when speaking.

[RhillEnglish]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🗣️ There are two main ways to practice a language: input (listening and reading) and output (speaking and writing).
01:09 🎯 Your language learning goals determine whether you can learn a language solely through input practice.
02:18 🤯 Skilled inputters may not necessarily be skilled outputters; you can have perfect input skills but zero output skills.
03:52 🔄 You will only develop the language skills you actively practice; you can't rely on one or two skills to magically develop the others.
05:02 📚 Readers, who focus on written language, can effectively learn a language through input practice without the need for speaking.
06:09 👂 Listeners, primarily interested in spoken language, benefit from a balance of reading and listening to improve language comprehension.
07:05 💬 Speakers, aiming for conversational skills, must practice both input and output skills to become comfortable and confident in speaking.
08:16 📖🎧 While it's possible to learn through listening and reading alone, it depends on your language goals; speaking requires a combination of input and output practice.

[Nicofr]

I have learnt english through reading and listening 90% of the time, and at some point, through writting on online forums, social networks like youtube, and through text conversations with some acquaintances made along the way online. As long as you can read (if you do it out loud, you will train your accent), that you understand speech and are able to produce your own sentences (which can be trained through writing), speaking is not really necessary (or at least, it can be practiced alone, together with reading). It's not always easy to find people who have time and motivation to talk to you, unless if you pay a tutor. I rarely even find people on dedicated language exchange apps who will stick to the conversation after barely introducing themselves: some of them quickly losing focus & motivation, while the others didn't have the basics of their target language in the first place and were only able to write a few words with google translate before giving up out of frustration.

[RicardoSilvaTripcall]

I usually read and listen a lot, but have neglected my writing and speaking skills for several years, but I'm working on it right now.

[diegofiumarella]

My method is the following:
1. Listening webradios and watching YouTube videos
2. Enriching my vocabulary through reading and translating texts from the language I want to learn into my mother tongue
3. Writing a diary directly in the language I want to learn
4. Catching every possible chance to speak in conversations (travels, phone calls, friends and relatives that already know that language, and so on)

[mariorestrepojcg]

Lucca, you're the Jedi Skywalker of languages. I hope to become your Padawan.

[evancolby]

I think you definitely need to practice speaking to become highly proficient, but, in my experience, just listening and reading can take you to an intermediate level in speaking. I taught myself Greek for a year on my own and did almost no speaking practice. Then, I went to Greece for a month and found that I could speak Greek reasonably well. It improved with practice of course, but I was already able to communicate effectively from day one.

[stacey]

I started learning Spanish 10 months ago.
I changed my phone, computer, search engines and all social media to Spanish about 4 months ago. I was told to read as much as possible in Spanish to learn it. Well it worked for reading. I started to focus on listening by listening to short stories, music and random Youtube videos in Spanish. I'm doing ok with comprehension. When it comes to actually speaking, I pretty much can't speak a word. I'm advanced in reading, I'm A2-B1 in comprehension, depending on the context and how clearly someone speaks. I'm a beginner in actually speaking. 🤦‍♀️ I'm starting with a tutor to help me with my speaking.