Effortless Language Learning: Myth or Reality?

Timestamps:
00:00 - What’s behind Krashen’s Comprehensible Input?
01:12 - Input Hypothesis
03:30 - Can You Really Learn a Language Effortlessly?
06:58 - How to Speed Up Your Language Learning
09:07 - My Take on the Input Hypothesis

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[nadinerose]

I completely agree, and this aligns really well with my experience learning Italian so far. The vast bulk of what I do is CI based (listening and reading), but sprinkling in some explicit study of the grammar and getting feedback from native speakers about my pronunciation is absolutely essential and speeds things up. A technique I've found that works really well for me (and I realized watching this video it combines explicit and implicit learning) is simply to read explanations of a grammar concept I'm not quite getting, watch a few videos/maybe do some activities in a textbook, and then just start trying to occasionally notice it during my CI activities. For example, reading an explanation of when to use the imperfect past, and then just trying to notice verbs in the imperfect past while listening or reading in Italian. And sometimes stopping to ask myself why it was used. If I just focus on one grammar topic at a time it doesn't interrupt the flow or the enjoyment of my reading/listening. I tend to think that as adults we have all these mental tools for understanding language that children don't have, so why not use them to speed things up?

[le-gadp]

As a language teacher, I do totally agree with Luca. Very reasonable view on how to learn languages. Thank you for this great video.

[zczlpye]

I'm currently learning Hungarian and I have listened a lot of Hungarian tales and stories before I start dive deeper in very hard grammar)
And I could say that's approach give me really big results)
So Luca Thank you for your work on you tube) you give me a lot of motivation and guide to embody my dreams in language learning)

[GandalfTheWise]

Nice video. One challenge I find is that explicit learning can be misused as a shortcut to "understanding" where I am actually thinking in my native language *about* what something means rather than *reacting directly* to the new language. For me, explicit learning often becomes a form of a crutch or training wheels or scaffolding that never seems to fall away. I find I need a lot of implicit exposure to build the brain structures that react to the new language before a lot of explicit exposure. Sort of like listening to a song over and over until it is familiar and I can imperfectly sing along; and then reading the lyrics later to correct my understanding. I cannot imagine learning a language without the quick explicit explanations for things that don't make sense, but if I am not careful, my mind gets filled with native language explanations and descriptions which overwhelm my processing of a new language.

It's like my experience in music. I learned improvisation for lead guitar (and later piano) in an explicit manner based on music theory, practice scales, and rules. I plateaued many years ago because of the mental processing load of thinking note by note and phrase by phrase of what is allowed or not. A couple years ago, I approached jazz/blues improv on piano in an implicit manner. I literally closed my eyes, put my hands on the white keys, and played without knowing what notes I was playing. It was completely different mentally in that the feedback loop became what I liked to hear rather than rules about what was allowed. Within a few weeks, I was playing things of a complexity I'd never been able to do before. It was also weird in that I could literally hold a conversation while improvising because the skill was loaded into procedural memory much more than declarative memory. It's now hard for me to play lead guitar because the mental load seems painful compared to the ease of improv on the piano now. This lesson caused me to utilize more implicit methods in language learning than I had been and significantly reduced the subjective feeling of work and stress involved with explicit learning.

[Ballykeith]

What Luca is saying puts me in mind of the positive learning experience I had with a Linguaphone course way back in the 1980s. The course was input-focused, but gave grammar explanations throughout of the material I was listening to and reading from, which I feel did accelerate my language acquisition.

[adriantepesut]

I definitely feel passive listening is a superior but not ideal activity in my language learning, what I do when I’m not motivated.

Another thing to consider about passive listening is you probably at least want something subtitled in the target language so you have something to ensure you stay focused on the content when it’s not the rare video or podcast which is a little above you level whose subject matter alone keeps you perfectly engaged throughout


Ideally I am listening and reading the content at the same time and looking up words I don’t know no matter what my level is. Looking up words is unavoidable in the beginning stages and important for low frequency words in the advanced stages for optimal progress in my experiences and then I at least do passive listening on days I’m feeling lazy

[romaaeterna]

I'm a language teacher (Latin, ancient Greek & Spanish) in the U.S. Luca gets it 100%. Krashen is right, but his theory is not applicable to the actual 'teaching' of language. Luca got it and explains it wonderfully. Two of Krashen's S.L.A. hypotheses need serious adaptations in the pragmatical (pragmatics!) application of SLA to actual language 'teaching': the 'natural order' hypothesis and the 'monitor' hypothesis. 'Professor' (rather über-Professor) Lampariello is definitely on the right track about these issues.

[thenaturalyogi]

either way you learn, but doing both makes you really good at the language. I grew up multilingual so at home my parents taught me our heritage language, with correction but no grammar explanation, picked up a local language and spoke that after roughly 5 years of exposure, then learned 3 in school from nursery through high-school (explicit learning). English is my strongest language because its the one language that I got everything of, explicit learning from school, comprehensible learning from TV and books.

[obvv]

My mental metaphor is this:
“comprehensible input is exercise
and deliberate learning is steroids”

(People on steroids actually do have to be very dedicated to a fitness routine to get those extreme results, they don’t just inflate. You cant just shoot yourself up (rote memorization) and expect good results to just happen like magic)

The deliberate learning gives you more opportunity to notice things and make connections faster within your comprehensible input.
Personally I prefer a ratio of more comprehensible input to deliberate learning because I think you don’t need gross amounts of deliberate learning to multiply the efficiency of your comprehensible input since The brain can only notice and connect so many things at the same time anyway, so pre priming your input with too much deliberate learning could even potentially waste time.

The deliberate learning of vocab etc gives you the opportunity to understand more of what you’re exposed to but the true internalization comes from understanding during the comprehensible input.

[mattstone]

I suspect CI is the most efficient and best way to learn a language in theory. It's just that most input people are taking in isn't very comprehensible!

[jb_]

I think the problem is this. The language learning experience most people had in school was frustrating. Then they hear about Krashen and discover the missing piece: huge amounts of comprehensible input. So they get huge amounts of comprehensible input, they get better, and so they conclude that everything they used to do in school was useless. But it simply does not follow. Yes, the activities they did could not produce true fluency by themselves, but it does not mean that they are not helpful ON TOP OF input. People feel like they were lied to, because no one had ever told them about the importance of immersing themselves in the language, so they reject everything other than immersion altogether. The fact that using MOST of one's time to do something is not optimal does not mean that the optimal approach doesn't include SOME dose of this thing. The first hour of CI might be a better use of time then the first hour of grammar study, but how about the first hour of grammar study vs the 1000th hour of CI?

[sqh]

The first time you answer a question in your 2nd language without even thinking about it you will understand exactly why CI is all you need. I write this from experience. Aside from new vocabulary words, specifically those outside of ordinary conversation (technical terms for instance), my fluency is 100% derived from CI.

[Shibbyify]

This is basically Refold's emphasis.
Well, they go against some of the CI hypothesis that the material has to be "just above your level" where you can immerse, but the intensive learning on the side makes the immersion possible

[jonathanferrante]

I do find that words, structures, and sayings that I come across while reading and speaking and listening in real life situations are the things that tend to stick solidly in my brain. But I do like asking my teacher in my lesson about those structures for greater context and understanding. This tends to reinforce their place in my brain and gives me the opportunity to then experiment with those structures and even make guesses about new structures I come in contact with. Luca, thank you so much for your videos. You don't know how often I will go back and listen to them again for advice and encouragement - especially when I hit those rough patches in language learning. Thank you!

[imamfawaid]

When I was in high school I kept memorizing vocabulary and then I forgot everything the next other days. About 3 years ago, when I had A LOT of time because of the pandemic, I started to focus on listening to authentic content in English on youtube, one of the videos I watch every single day was Luca's youtube videos. And now, I don't really remember when did I learn every single word that Luca is saying in this video, I just simply understand it. Input is really the key to having solid comprehension skills. :)

[Hofer]

Explicit learning is a means to make implicit learning easier. You don't need to master it, just a vague idea is already helpful.

[DLusby]

Hi Luca! Thanks for the excellent video and for tackling this sometimes challenging but important topic.

I also value comprehensible input for language learning and feel Krashen's contribution is important, but discussions of Krashen's theories can quickly get... Muddled? I'm not sure which word I should use here.

For example, there is as you say the idea that learning (as described by Krashen) is effortless and automatic, but Krashen himself says that input should not only be comprehensible but also engaging... even compelling. He even described a 'flow state' in one lecture posted to Youtube as being good if it could happen. Yet other things Krashen says would seem to imply that it's effortless.

So there can be activities which may appear 'passive' to some from the outside (the person isn't speaking), which may even be enjoyable to the person doing it if they are very interested, but which are in truth very active and involved. For me anyways, finding something of interest and sustaining concentration itself can sometimes be taxing, let alone listening to native speakers (in a recording or otherwise) speaking at full speed and actually trying to understand it as much as I can. I think that is one of the more demanding cognitive tasks we can engage in and when one is truly engaged it is truly 'active listening'.

Also, in one conversation when Krashen claimed he wasn't against grammar, he spoke in favour of a beginner language class he attended where they used, as he described it, "Pop-up grammar". Brief explanations and then back into it as it were... OK...

He seems to have mellowed in his responses a bit in some recent interviews online. I don't remember now exactly what was said in one talk with Matt versus Japan, but Matt was saying something about using various methods to supplement a little... which could help make material more comprehensible, some of which would fall into the intentional-learning category. Krashen didn't seem to object, saying words like, "Sure..."

Maybe he's adjusted in recent years to conversations with people who aren't other academics trying to build their career by attacking his.

[Philoglossos]

I really recommend talking to someone with a linguistics background because there's a lot of misunderstandings about Krashen in this video.

[tezzavision]

What you've described is a common-sense approach to language learning. I totally agree that it's essentially a mix of both approaches that yields the best results - this is from my own experience of learning Spanish. It's not as comforting as the thought of sticking on Netflix and soaking up language but neither is it as daunting as sitting down to dry and frustrating traditional language learning that puts off so many young people. Thanks for another great video!

[jantelakoman]

I did a video series #opetp for people to experience pure CI for themselves in the shortest possible time. 30 videos of 20 minutes each is enough to get you conversational in Toki Pona, so far I've interviewed 9 individuals who watched them all. It's all on my channel.

I'm not saying conscious knowledge does nothing, but I'm trying to show people that it's a turbocharger at best, and CI is the actual fuel.