Finding the Right Content is More Important than Talent in Language Learning

There is a lot of learning material out there thanks to the Internet, libraries, and book stores. The trouble is finding content that suites you. In this video, I go through what content I've used in the past and things I'd like to use moving forward. Please let me what kind of content you enjoy in the comments below.

[yammmaya]

Hello there, I agree with you completely. I'm a Spanish teacher and sometimes I find difficult to spot "good" language content on the internet. Not only that but the stuff out there mostly comes from Spanish from Spain. Don't get me wrong but you know the differences from that Spanish and the Latinamerican Spanish (I'm Mexican). I try to create my own content but it is still very rudimentary. Anyhow, great content!

[TheEnglishSocialClub]

Yes, even in English it's not always easy to find content that is of interest to my more senior students. I find myself recording myself a lot, just to help them listen to real English and help their pronounciation.

[angela]

Thank you for this, Steve! I agree, creating content is something I'd really like to do for my learners in the future.

[charlespowell]

They say 90% of the world doesn't speak a foreign language(me too)! Could you imagine if 90% of the world were learning foreign languages!! When I get 'over the hump' and finally get my first foreign language 'underneath my belt', I'm going to start the 'Language Learning Revolution'! I'm going to write a letter to the U.S. Department of Education. I'm going suggest to them that they should implement language learning foundations courses in schools at all levels throughout the U.S. Hopefully, other countries follow suit! 'One small step for the school system, one giant leap for mankind' similar to the words uttered by Neil Armstrong!

[maccaj]

I've been struggling with learning Irish for an embarrassing number of years, purely because it takes so much time to essentially create my own content - find a book with audio. Buy it from overseas. Wait for it to arrive. Transcribe the whole thing by hand into the computer (so that I can look up definitions more easily than working from paper). Load the audio in. Make sure it's roughly synced. By the time I've done all that, I get so frustrated with the amount of time I've spent preparing to learn the language but not actually studying it, that I end up taking a week off. Recently I decided to see if I could solve part of my problems re: getting to grips with Irish orthography (which has been a constant struggle for me due to lack of audio) by switching focus completely and tackling Russian. Holy cow, it's a treasure trove of content! One click and I'm reading and listening. Podcasts, books, TPRS, grammar explanations when and where I need them (but not EVERYWHERE, as is often the case with Irish - since most people who teach Irish learned it themselves in school, all too often the grammar explanations swamp the content). Such a massive difference in the learning experience (and a much more positive one). I'm not giving up on Irish but it's nice to be getting to grips with Russian enough to not feel like a failed language learner.

[iamhevaniel]

Hi Steve! I learned a lot with your videos when i was learning english. Thanks!

[osamahabbas]

Hi steve. Thank you very much for sharing the information with us. next month i'm gonna use LINGQ to start learning German.I'm so excited to embark upon this journey

[Elythia]

As mentioned before, you can find YouTube videos for a lot of languages here:
You can also search for »Easy + Language« on YouTube. For example »Easy German« or »Easy Turkish«.

[JBfan]

I agree, that's why I'm trying to focus more on creating graded, interesting English content. There's two problems-if you make digital text it's a lot easier for people to pirate, and people are willing to pay a lot more for teachers than content creators.

[charlespowell]

I would like to see the explosion of people from around the world learning foreign languages. The only way to do that is to dispel the myths about foreign languages. The two biggest myths, 'you can't learn past a certain age' and 'you got to live in the country' are still being perpetuated even though we're in the 'Information Age'. We need Tom Hanks or someone to star in 'The Language Learner' as you, Steve, who is head of one of the top online language learning sites. People could see how language learning is possible and a joy to do! This will dispel the language learning myths that continue to invade our societies! Thus more language learners, thus more language creaters, thus more language content!

[memesNmusic]

I’ve just found out about the channel Italiano Automatico.
I’ll have to see if the content will keep me interested but I’m happy to see people creating content meant for language acquisition and based on Krashen’s research.

[manuelsanchezmanuelsanchez]

Muy bueno tu vídeo Steve y muy cierto, hay lenguas prácticamente desiertas mientras que en inglés o francés hay un mundo. Estoy encontrando dificultades en alemán ahora en lingq. Una vez hechos los diálogos de evgueny y de la sección lingq es más difícil encontrar material interesante. Sin embargo, el hecho de poder descargar video y subtítulos de YouTube es un avance Inmenso. Te lo digo como apasionado a las lenguas y como profesor. Un saludo jefe

[TofuFiesta]

In The Netherlands, Turkish drama's are extremely popular amongst people of Turkish decent. I have never watched them but I've heard that there are many different subtitles available, so that they can be viewed by people who speak Turkish as well as people who speak only Dutch. Perhaps this is a good source to start looking for LingQ material?

[kamhowe]

Thx Steve! I love using lingq to pull in podcasts, that’s my favourite..

[marianayldz]

Hi Steve. I just want to make a comment about my learning process of Turkish. When you learn Turkish language, you kinda become a little bit of a polyglot "by accident". The modern Turkish suffered a huge reform in the early years of the last century. They started to use the latin alphabet, language scientists made a huge search by looking to very old books to pick new terms considered more Turkish than the used ones at those times. Ataturk tried to erase some persian and arabic influence of the Turkish language, and this nationalist movement can still be noticed nowadays in Turkey. So in this moment when I listen to people talking in a religious manner, influenced by Islam and arabic, or persian, I find it difficult to memorize and learn, because I don't know thoses languages. But if I read a medical report or some other technical stuff, I can notice some latin words or English words and I find it easier to recognise them as I am a portuguese native speaker. The history of this language is very interesting.
In Turkey some people will choose if they want to speak before or after reform style. A word simple as bye bye got into the daily language. Some people will refuse to say it and choose more Turkish word. They use a lot pardon. To be ellegant they use a lot "mersi". Because I am foreinger they prefer to say it "mersi" to me instead of "teşekkürler". Learning Turkish is truly interesting. You can discover many things behind the language.

[christinep]

So excited to hear that you are learning Turkish. If you are looking for additional sources of audio with companion scripts, you might want to check out the websites Turkish Tea Time (which İ think is also available on İtunes) and Turkish Class 101. There are some Turkish series on Netflix that do have Turkish subtitles available, including Winter Sun, Gönul, and İntersection. The series Bir Çocuk Sevdim is another great show to learn from, although it does not have Turkish subtitles. For written references, İ have found The Delights of Learning Turkish by Yaşar Esendal Kuzuncu, and Turkish an Essential Grammar by Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake to be useful. Hope this helps!

[ErickInDeu]

Love to see interesting people showing their libraries

[borel]

Hi Steve, I'm from Brazil, i love your channel, i'm trying to learn english alone in my home.

[krlezg]

I loved Wolf and Yaya Chinese dialogues, Jevgenij also makes a great content for Russian and German at LingQ.

[markchavez]

I feel like LingQ should focus on finding and creating content for Languages that arn't so popular. For example French has so much intermediate content out there its crazy, same thing for German, Russian, Chinese. But Languages like Swedish, Hebrew, Arabic, Korean it is really difficult to find that intermediate content.