How I Use Textbooks to Learn Languages

I love using textbooks to study new languages. Here’s how I do it!

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The textbooks used as examples in this video are Teach Yourself Complete German, Teach Yourself Further German, and Colloquial Bulgarian.

[internetandlifehacks]

This video is gold! It looks like everyone only trusts language apps and online language courses these days, but we believe that they should always be complemented with textbooks.

[AfroLinguo]

I totally agree with you. When learning a language, I use two main resources... a textbook and a language teacher and it has helped me get fluent in two languages already. I just think that it is a very good and easy to follow method, especially if you have never learned a language before.

[OpheliaVert]

I’m finding your videos just so inspiring!! They’ve given me a new excitement about language learning strategies. Thank you!!

[candidakang]

I find your talks highly intelligent and insightful. Always interested to hear what you have to say.

[mluzu]

for korean, i condense the important info and sometimes add a few sample sentences in my digital notebook.

also i’ll have a page for particles and put them together, other things like numbers/ days of the week, that kind of info have another section.

this was super helpful! i need to start listening to the audio that comes with my textbook because i always forget!

[Frenchie]

Interesting video, I like the way you see language learning

[akinwale]

This is solid information. I am from the era of textbooks. There were no cellphones, Internet, or language apps; yet we learned. I find textbooks have always been a great help to me. Thanks for this video!

[annap]

I love highlighters; however, I have some terrible experience. When I was fourteen, I collected all my german notes and rewrote them into one notebook. I used a lot of highlighters and started some review. That was in June, and in September, all verbs disappeared. I highlighted all verbs with a yellow highlighter... Fortunately, I didn't throw my old notes away. Since then, I don't use highlighters for important notes. I use colour pens instead. And yes, I always omit the chapter about pronunciation. When I don't know any grammar or sentence structure, I don't like to learn single words by heart.

[deecee]

The first time I tried to learn Spanish was in 1989 by correspondence. There was no internet back then so I had cassette tapes, a textbook, and a dictionary. I had to call my instructor to complete my quizzes and exams. I live in western Canada so there were no additional resources anywhere near me. That’s all I had and yet I did learn. My 2nd time with beginner Spanish was in the mid 90s. I had videotapes and books and a tutor to call. Yes more distance learning! I’ve started again this spring at level 2 with online classes. I find it so much easier now. There are library books and tv shows and YouTube channels. I am really hoping to get to at least an intermediate level. But the only way I’ll get there is by reading and learning more vocabulary so I can’t practice speaking with others. Just taking the class isn’t enough IMO. And yet that is all some people are willing to do. Thank you for showing how you do it. I feel vindicated 👍🏼

[dyskr]

It’s like 1am here but I just know tomorrow’s gonna be a great day starting off with one of your videos 😭😭

Edit: It was

[JonathanOlelo]

Usually, I don't use textbooks
But, for some languages, it can be more useful
For example, "Lingua Latīna Per Sē Illūstrāta" for Latin (it's much easier to learn Latin using this textbook)

[daniellean]

I know this video is a year old bt if been self-taught (using solely Youtube and language apps) and been considering getting a textbook. This was extremely helpful.

[tullochgorum]

Refreshing to hear someone that isn't pushing their "one true way". There is so much negativity on YouTube for any kind of systematic study of grammar, but many people (like me) find it's the only way they can pick up the more complex patterns in a language. As you say, people vary greatly in their abilities and preferences.

[СергейКомаров-мг]

If you ever want to learn Russian after Bulgarian it will be very easy, as 70% of the vocabulary is almost the same. ;)

[bhutchin]

My own language-learning methods have changed throughout the years. My school offered only Spanish. To learn French, I got a phrasebook, a dictionary, a verb tables book, and a French pen-pal. I pretty much copied everything from the phrasebook into a notebook. That took a year to do. During that time, I wrote to my French pen-pal in French.

My current method is to listen to a lesson in my Assimil course without looking at the book. Assimil has many courses where they have individual MP3s for sentences and paragraphs. Thanks to pau's channel, I use Anki to have the target language (L2) on the "front" side and the language of instruction (L1) on the "back side" (I think pau does it both ways, but I don't); this is good for spaced repetition. While I use Assimil, I don't use the Assimil method which involves starting over from the first lesson after lesson 50 or so, and translating from the L1 to the L2. After inputting the text and audio into Anki, I'll listen to the entire lesson again while looking at the text. Then I'll read through the lesson's notes. Finally, I'll listen to the lesson's audio again without looking at the text.

Most of Assimil's courses don't have vocabulary lists to learn. They do go over the grammar in the lesson notes and in every 7th lesson, but they don't overwhelm you with it. The goal is to "assimilate" the language, thus the name Assimil. I do it my own way based on the methods I've learned from others. They have C1 courses in French (English is an option for French only), German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. The audio is in the target language only. I'm almost done with their German B2 course. It has increased my confidence with producing the language in writing and speaking. It has also helped me with Duolingo, which I use for practicing grammar and acquiring new general vocabulary.

Of course, I'm going to concentrate on the grammar per se, but I'm no longer starting off with it (unless absolutely necessary). I may try using Walter Coudewener's first 200 words to get a foothold in the vocabulary and grammar of a new language, maybe for Old English or Bulgarian (which still has aorist verb forms). We're always going to have more passive vocabulary than active vocabulary. There are words we're going to forget simply because we rarely use them. The more exposed we are to a word, the more likely we're going to remember it, and that might be why people use methods like the Gold List for remembering vocabulary. I tend to favor spaced repetition myself. Out of all the books about learning languages, Barry Farber's *How to Learn Any Language - Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and On Your Own* has influenced me the most, especially the "Multiple Track Attack" method he outlines. While I no longer use it, it shows one how to use more than one resource to learn a language. It is a grammar-first method, and he recommended going through 5 grammar lessons before even listening to audio, which I don't agree with anymore.

While I do agree that writing things out helps one to memorize better, it does involve a lot of time. When I was learning Esperanto, I filled out an entire notebook with things I was learning in 3 textbooks. With the method I use now, it takes me less than an hour or two to complete, and that includes doing a daily lesson in both Duolingo and Memrise. In addition to what I already said about Duolingo, it also provides feedback with the daily streak. If you miss a day, Duolingo will let you know. And even if you don't do anything else language-related for a day or so, spending 5-10 minutes a day on Duolingo will help you keep your daily streak. And of course I recommend Netflix, but unfortunately here in the US they offer nothing in Bulgarian, at least not when I use their browse-language search engine. In the past it took me a long time to get through a textbook, especially if I wrote down vocabulary words and grammar tables in a notebook, and that slow growth can be very discouraging, so that's why I've looked at other methods, including Gabriel Wyner's, but I've found out I can acquire the same amount of vocabulary with a good course providing about 3, 000 words.

I was first exposed to spaced repetition by using Pimsleur. I learned about Pimsleur from the Barry Farber book I mentioned, and I agree with his assessment of the method. Pimsleur's great for a car commute (each lesson being 30 minutes long, audio only) and for pronunciation (it did wonders for my Russian pronunciation), but it doesn't teach a lot of vocabulary. And nowadays, you can no longer download the audio. With that said, their Ukrainian course is free up until the end of 2022.

[esta]

Thank you so much. This for me is the perfect video on language learning. Really detailed with such brilliant advice/ different ways to learn a language!
I would love it if you could go through in more detail how you memorise your vocabulary 💕

[brandylatriecereads]

i think my biggest problem is using the words i just learned in a diary entry. i'm always focused on how to form the sentences that i never actually form a sentence.

[robrobbins]

I create help files for the language I am studying. Most of the help file will be one page on a verb, adjective, adverb, or preposition. The rest is vocabulary lists and material on grammar often copied from a textbook. My method is great for learning how to read a language but it does fail to teach me how to speak the language or listen wel. Currently I am studying Spanish and I have 260 pages of notes.

[deecee]

Thank you! This was helpful to me. I also learn mainly by reading and looking up new words and drilling it into my brain LOL. I am in my late 50s though so I have to work a little harder to remember the new words 😄

[carlamercedesrivas]

Hii. 😄😄
I want to know if you have tutors for all the languages you're learning. 🙂☺️