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

RECOMMENDED BOOKS to get started in developing a productive approach to learning a language:
・Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition by Stephen Krashen
・Fluent forever by Gabriel Wyner
・Fluent in 3 months by Benny Lewis
◆I don't agree with everything in these books. For example, Benny Lewis has some great approaches to language, but I don't agree with "Use the Language from Day 1" unless you are entirely comfortable embarrassing yourself in front of strangers. As per Krashen's Input Theory, The affective filter hypothesis states that learners' ability to acquire language is constrained if they are experiencing negative emotions such as fear or embarrassment. I totally agree with this based on my experience and think this is why "classroom language teaching" does not work. You are risking embarrassment every time the teacher calls on you and may be in fear of failing as you study the language.
◆Also, I do not think techniques for "memorizing" words are a good use of your time, unless you are taking a language test. If your aim is to learn the language to where you can understand media in that language and have enjoyable conversations, then mnemonics are not helpful. This is because they facilitate "learning" of the language and not "acquisition." For example, if someone says "Do you know what taberu means?" You can access your mnemonic of "I eat on a table [TABEru means eat!]," but if someone says to you "issho ni gohan tabenai?" you probably won't be able to rapidly comprehend this phrase and respond in a natural way.
◆The distinction between acquisition and learning is tricky, but very important to keep in mind while you develop methods to acquiring your target language in an efficient manner.

SHADOWING
・Shadowing is simply finding a clip of a native speaker speaking and mimicking everything about their speech - pacing, intonation, cadence, and most importantly of course: pronunciation
・Try and shadow with video clips that show the speakers mouth so you can copy their mouth positioning.
・Especially if you're a beginner, do not attempt to shadow everything. For example a beginner shadowing session of an English sentence like "Hey bro I was thinking we should go grab some steak at that place around the corner when we finish work." would be like "Hey bro .... grab some... around the corner.... work." In short, you don't want to rush yourself to try and copy everything because you will mumble and that is not a good habit
・Be attentive of your frustration level. Shadowing is super hard and challenging. Let your goal be to slowly increase the amount of time you can sit in frustration. For example, one day you start shadowing, get super frustrated because you feel like you can't get more than 3 syllables right at a time and give up in 10 minutes. No problem. See if you can sit in that frustration for 11 minutes the next day. Don't overload yourself and turn language learning into a chore or you'll become more and more averse to doing language acquisition and shoot yourself in the foot.
・BEGINNERS may be especially frustrated, but even a little bit of shadowing will be very helpful. Work your way up from just 5 minutes or so.
・Get apps like "Video Speed Controller" for chrome so you can quickly adjust the video's speed on the fly. (Being able to quickly adjust the speed is helpful if you have one character in a TV show who mumbles and other characters who speak really clearly)
・RECORD yourself. This is a tip from @Dogen, and I wish I implemented this more often when I was learning Japanese, it adds more time to your practice, but really does reveal where your pronunciation is lacking.

JAPANESE

For Business inquiries:

[WhatIveLearned]

EDIT:
Points discussed in this video:
[1] We improve our language skills *only* when we *acquire* language through understanding what is being said (According to Krashen).
[2] Your brain is a massive pattern recognition device that can piece out vocabulary and grammar rules IF it gets the meaning.
[3] Dictionaries may help you "learn" words, but they do not help you improve your language skills (though it may indirectly help you "acquire" language which would improve your language skill)
[4] Input of content in the target language is so important because it rapidly exposes you to a wide variety of vocabulary, grammar and contextual clues for how the language works.
[5] NO SUBTITLES IN YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE. You can kiss any language gains goodbye if you use them. Though, subtitles in the target language can even have you learn quicker.
[6] Speaking is NOT necessary for acquiring language. (Though it is surely necessary for pronunciation and being able to speak fluidly) As per Krashen "It means talking out loud to yourself in the car in Spanish will NOT help your Spanish ability." However, speaking can *indirectly* improve your language because you can use it to elicit more speech from speakers of your target language.
[7] Use shadowing to improve your listening and pronunciation.

Extra tips:
RECOMMENDED BOOKS to get started in developing a productive approach to learning a language:
・Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition by Stephen Krashen
・Fluent forever by Gabriel Wyner
・Fluent in 3 months by Benny Lewis
◆I don't agree with everything said in these books. For example, Benny Lewis has some great approaches to language, but I don't agree with "Use the Language from Day 1" unless you are entirely comfortable embarrassing yourself in front of strangers. As per Krashen's Input Theory, The affective filter hypothesis states that learners' ability to acquire language is constrained if they are experiencing negative emotions such as fear or embarrassment. I totally agree with this based on my experience and think this is why "classroom language teaching" does not work. You are risking embarrassment every time the teacher calls on you and may be in fear of failing as you study the language.
◆Also, I do not think techniques for "memorizing" words are a good use of your time, *unless you are taking a language test.* If your aim is to learn the language to where you can understand media in that language and have enjoyable conversations, then mnemonics are not helpful. This is because they facilitate "learning" of the language and not "acquisition." For example, if someone says "Do you know what taberu means?" You can access your mnemonic of "I eat on a table [TABEru means eat!], " but if someone says to you "issho ni gohan tabenai?" you probably won't be able to rapidly comprehend this phrase and respond in a natural way.
◆The distinction between acquisition and learning is tricky, but very important to keep in mind while you develop methods to *acquiring* your target language in an efficient manner.


SHADOWING
・Shadowing is simply finding a clip of a native speaker speaking and mimicking everything about their speech - pacing, intonation, cadence, and most importantly of course: pronunciation
・Try and shadow with video clips that show the speakers mouth so you can copy their mouth positioning.
・Especially if you're a beginner, do not attempt to shadow _everything._ For example a beginner shadowing session of an English sentence like "Hey bro I was thinking we should go grab some steak at that place around the corner when we finish work." would be like "Hey bro .... grab some... around the corner.... work." In short, you don't want to rush yourself to try and copy everything because you will mumble and that is not a good habit
・Be attentive of your frustration level. Shadowing is super hard and challenging. Let your goal be to slowly increase the amount of time you can sit in frustration. For example, one day you start shadowing, get super frustrated because you feel like you can't get more than 3 syllables right at a time and give up in 10 minutes. No problem. See if you can sit in that frustration for 11 minutes the next day. Don't overload yourself and turn language learning into a chore or you'll become more and more averse to doing language acquisition and shoot yourself in the foot.
・BEGINNERS may be especially frustrated, but even a little bit of shadowing will be very helpful. Work your way up from just 5 minutes or so.
・Keep in mind certain types of clips will be more useful to shadow than others. For example, since most people in Japan don't speak much like a newscaster or anime character at all, that's not a really good shadowing target.
・Get apps like "Video Speed Controller" for chrome so you can quickly adjust the video's speed on the fly. (Being able to quickly adjust the speed is especially helpful if you have one character in a TV show who mumbles and other characters who speak really clearly)
・RECORD yourself. This is a tip from @Dogen, and I wish I implemented this more often when I was learning Japanese, it adds more time to your practice, but really does reveal where your pronunciation is lacking.


JAPANESE
・JLPT - If you're aiming to pass the JLPT, don't waste any time on WRITING Kanji. It's 100% not necessary for the test (As of 2012). Which, honestly I think is a good thing, because I can get everything I want to done in Japan without being able to write a lick of Kanji. To clarify: I would say I am fluent in written Japanese, I can read newspapers, books and can type and read most Kanji. *However, * I can hardly _write_ Kanji. Then again, I don't need to. The only time I do is when I have to fill something out on a tax form or address a letter - but there's no rules against referring to your phone when filling forms in. Just make sure you know the stroke order behind Kanji.

[dixiiid]

There is no better feeling than when a new language starts to click

[spanishafterhours]

People pretend to learn a language in 3-6 months, when kids are still making mistakes at age 5. Patience and dedication is the answer.

[john]

I am currently 17 years old, not a native English speaker, and have been speaking English fluently since I was 11 just from watching a bunch of YouTube videos. Ever since I won some competitions, I have been an advocate for learning from consuming media.

[Mohjo]

As a Brazilian, all my knowledge about English came from everything but english classes. All the content I really liked to watch/consume back then was in english, so I did to learn it in the "hard way", watching videos without subtitles or with just the native language subs. At some point I just acquired knowledge enough that the English classes I had in school just seemed trivial, aaand here we are today.

[victorgrazziani]

Learning a new leanguage is like unlocking another part of the internet you didn't had access before

[adde]

"I learned English through magic, like every other baby." Word.

[aikuisviihteenarkkipiispa]

I talk to myself in English all the time. It's a fun way to practise pronunciation and it helps with getting used to actually using the language for more than just watching stuff online. Making comments like this one is also really helpful for the same exact reasons after reading out loud what I've written.

[chikokishi]

Im am an english teacher in Japan with no formal english training... Im an engineer grad. But over the years, i have slowly learned this as well so my teaching is 90% focused on situational cues and understanding more than exact grammar.

[verybarebones]

I learned English by playing videogames that were untranslated. All the years of English classes in middle school were useless compared to 10 hours of pokemon with a dictionary.

[Dixxi]

In short: learn like a child would. Lots of listening with pictures and things for context, then try to mimic sounds.

[nathanielcolbert]

Conversation is also very important. I have plenty of friends that grew up with parents that spoke another language to them, but my friends only responded in English. As a result, they are able to understand everything perfectly but are unable to speak the language back because they aren’t used to thinking about responses in that language. It’s really strange, but speaking and listening skills are two separate things.

[nicholaswise]

Shadowing made a lot of sense to me when I started Japanese. As a Jazz musician, I often "Lift" solos, in which I learn a solo by ear and try to match the tone, time, and other characteristics of the solo as closely as possible. Music really is a kind of language acquisition!

[nfxcwwm]

Dyslexia is fun too. I kept calling my teacher 생선님 instead of 선생님. She was wondering why I kept calling her the "honourable fish" instead of "(honourable) teacher" 😋

[SuperOnigiripanda]

“And in two years I was able to pass the highest Japanese proficiency test”
-throws all my textbooks out the window-

[SparklesNJazz]

when i was in Greece, i hardly knew any, but this little girl came up to me who knew zero English and started talking to me. by the end of our conversation i knew the words for milk, cup, and table. one of my best memories, and i realize now, taught me everything i need to know about language.

[Nosttromo]

I am a natural portuguese speaker, and I learned english without noticing it, through a method that this video basically described almost perfectly step by step. I had english classes at school, and learned some things about the structure, and many words in english are similar to portuguese, because english takes a lot from latin. For example, "prepare" in portuguese means "prepare" in english. It's that similar.

My dad bought me a PS2 game called Ace Combat 5 and I started playing it. I didn't understand a thing about anything so I started blasting planes, but I got stuck at a particular mission. At this time, I started looking up what I should do in the mission, and started paying attention to everything, without understanding anything, of course. Then, I started paying attention to the words I knew, together with the words that I thought similar to my natural language, and then deduced the meaning of the rest of the words, based on context. Once in a while, some word's meaning would get confusing and contradictory, so I looked it up on a dictionary. Not an english to portuguese dictionary, an english dictionary, that tells the meaning of words in english. Usually the same cycle would repeat 2 or 3 times, until I found something that would make the entire chain click, and then i would learn not only my target word, but many other similar ones.

When I started playing the game, I didn't understand a thing. The campaign lasts for 5 hours, and by the end of it, I didn't need the dictionary anymore. Of course, i didn't learn everything in 5 hours, beause I would fail missions a lot and repeat others to learn the context and plot.

It's so curious to see the video describing very precisely the things that I did alone by myself. Needless to say, it worked.

I'm now learning japanese because I like to watch a lot of anime. And it's going through the same process.

[thatredheaddan]

I think this is basically how I gained most of my knowledge in English. I would just consume every bit of American media I could find during middle and high school. I still remember how I mostly didn’t understand about 40% of the words but overtime I learned the meaning only by context.
Turns out, now I can’t give u a precise translation in my mother language because I never learned it. In my head certain words are saved like a feeling of what the word actually means.

[nenufae]

Shadowing is great technique until you learn japanese by mimicking anime and you end up speaking like jojo characters

[harktischris]

I did a ton of flash cards at the beginning, basically just to scaffold my way up to the point where I *could* start consuming media in my target language (German) without having to look up every word. Then language "practice" became listening to podcasts, watching shows (consciously trying to avoid subtitles when I could), playing video games in German, reading books (esp ones that I knew I would enjoy, like the German Calvin & Hobbes), etc. It felt really effective, but felt like, i dunno, "dirty", given that my german grammar worksheet book was going unused. Glad to find this video that puts words to what I was dancing around, and even provides some studies validating this approach towards focusing on input! (I took some tests and I'm apparently now ~B2 overall in German, w/ C1 when it comes to reading/writing. Compared to years of me failing to learn French in school, focusing on input is the only approach that has actually worked for me. I was beginning to comprehend content well before I even know what grammatical structures were at play)