The Most Important Thing in Language Learning

CC subtitles available in English.

What is important in language learning is whatever is important to you. You learn best from content that is important to you. You notice things that are important to you. You remember things that are important to you.

0:00 What's important in language learning is whatever is important to the learner.
1:30 I have recently noticed something new in my Persian studies.
3:28 Many teachers try to teach language students what is important to them.
5:41 If learning your target language isn't important to you, you won't learn.
7:20 The ability to notice when learning a new langauge is vital to your success.
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#languagelearning #languages #polyglot

[FitProVR]

Thanks for all the great motivational content Steve!

[TopDogIK]

My impression is that the single most important thing in language learning is: How badly do you want to know what is being said in your immersion?

Babies for example are extremely interested in knowing what their parents are saying, since it might have to do with food, water, or other needs. More than noticing or anything else, your interest level in your immersion content is the single most important factor. For example, if you have a strong emotional connection to a show, this will make you more interested to learn what the characters are saying.

[PolyglotSecrets]

So true! We are long overdue to break away from cookie-cutter teaching... Learn what you want to learn in your target language :)

[yaylalascar]

I think that we learn what is interessing to us

[内田和哉-js]

I'm a 58 year old Japanese. When i was young, I wanted to be a bilingual, so I learned English, Italian and Russian. Actually, I lived in Italy and visited Russia several times. As you know, our language has nothing in common with European languages. As a result, unfortunately I was not a genius of learning the foreign languages and all 3 finished unsatisfactorily. Looling back now, I should have put all efforts and time into only one, that is, English true universal language.

[sugarly]

This is the correct way to learn. I think Steve is a polyglot because he’s really good at utilising his approach to learning. I guess what Steve is saying here is also to make contextual learning more important than rote learning and learning by grounding rules. The most natural way to learn is by doing, by using. I wish traditional institutions would do this, but not me.

[btrook]

Love my lingQ membership and love all of these videos. Thanks for making all of this content it really helps me stay motivated!

[theymademepickaname]

I am a straight man, but I am attracted to Steve because he's a hyper polyglot and a athlete.

[Tighris]

So true. In school I struggled so much with language learning because I just wasn't interested at all. I had nothing related to languages in my daily life (except for my native language of course). Only when I started to notice that a lot of cool content is only available in english, I started learning it "by accident", because it interested me. Same goes for french that I'm learning right now.

[StoryLobby]

Very great Important lesson as usual, Thank you so much.

[annmcewan]

Hi yes I agree, I find at the beginning there are aspects of languages that I don't find interesting and it is good to hear you say this because I feel as though I am fault.

[papaoangelo]

Ângelo, from Belém, Amazon, Brazil! ❣️

[douglasmendes]

The best ever polyglot on YouTube I watch all his videos, thank you for help me.

[retireditguy]

Some time ago you mentioned that Vietnamese would be added to LingQ. Is there any update?

[speakrussian]

The most important thing in language learning is to have fun. In science, it's called aesthetical perception. 😀

[luisfernandoespinal]

I for one, the most important things is to enjoy what you’re learning and you’ll take off

[nadiapullig]

Probably I caught your idea. The most important thing when learning a language may be to bring it into your life and, gradually, to build it up with your routine. Am I right? Good video, many thanks.

[lorenzgluck]

An anecdote on the ability to notice:

I've been listening to a lot of Japanese music, as I developed a strong liking for it learning Japanese since January. Most of the time, however, in music the lyrics are impossible to make out for me, Japanese lyrics where more like a musical instrument to me.

Recently I have made a step towards more difficult listening content, that is, content for natives. I was graduating from mostly listening to a podcast for learners to watching primarily relatively beginner friendly anime as my listening practice. All the sudden, within 2 days of quite intense listening for maybe 2-3 hours, when I put on some of my favorite songs, I could make out and understand much more of the language than before, even though I had known most of the words already for months. I think I cultivated some unconscious infrastructure that was necessary to understand the words I had already known, this ability to notice them, by encountering them in my listening practice that was challenging but bearable at my level.

[dmsosa]

Hi Steve. I really appreciate any time you talk about the learning process. I have to tell you that these concepts are really useful to jump to a wiser and more effective way to learn. But more importantly is any time you explain that and these three factors that you mentioned in this video are vital and useful to learn anything you want... I mean an instrument, music, programming.. the ability to notice is what feed your necessity of knowledge and make you advance.. Merci beaucoup pour touts tes astuces pour apprendre une langue... Voilà...🍷Trinquons!.. Santé... Tchin Tchin!

[Akaashi__]

One of the best videos, Steve! Amazing!