Emily's Blog Posts - 1: Learning Languages Without Thinking
When I started using LingQ, it was just a brand new way for me to memorize vocabulary. In fact, I was not really enjoying the process of learning languages. To be honest, my motivation is meeting more people from the world and having fun with them through the languages that I've learned. But before I can do that, I have to cram so much vocabulary, phrases, grammar rules and so on into my limited brain. Sometimes I think I'm learning, but it's not true. Temporary memory will not stay with me forever of course, so the time I've spent isn't proportional to the result. The first time I saw Steve he was talking about learning languages on YouTube. I was like WOW, his pronunciation was quite clear, and understand almost every word that he said. But it was nothing special for me until I saw another video in which he was speaking Mandarin to explain Japanese language, then I realized he is a really linguist. How can he move to a different language so easily? I especially wondered this when I saw that he can express his thoughts in very standard Mandarin. That's the main reason I want to improve my language skills as well, and why I decided to try the method he recommended us to learn. During these three months, we will have countless opportunities to chat with Steve face to face. In this interview, we discussed how to start a new language.
Don't make a daily learning plan For many students who need to take language level exams, they probably make a regular study plan before starting. For example, how many new words I have to memorize, how many pages of a grammar book I have to read or how many exercises I have to finish every day.
Although Steve doesn't need to take exams, I still thought he must be an orderly person who must plot out his time properly for each language every day. But in fact, he doesn't have a specific schedule of learning languages. He just listens on LingQ when he is making breakfast, driving to the office, doing chores or doing exercise. He said, “I spend most of the time learning. I spend about 70% of my time listening and 30% of my time reading.” Basically, it doesn't affect his daily life. Don't rush to speak For me, my learning motivation is to communicate with my foreign friends. So I try to ask them some simple sentences, which I learned when I just started knowing the language. They can understand what I'm saying, but there is another problem, I can't understand their reply because I don't have enough vocabulary. Unfortunately, our conversation ends in a few seconds, actually this isn't even a conversation. Anyway, it makes me frustrated many times. So I asked Steve, “when is the best time to start speaking?” He said,“ for the first three or six months I don't speak, I just listen and read. My experience is that reading helps a lot for vocabulary but listening is very good for speaking.” And his words really make sense. I believe that after inputting enough information in your head, then you'll know how to use it naturally. Don't take notes or start with grammar books Everyone hopes they will have a good beginning when they start to learn something, including learning a new language.
First, I would find a systematic grammar book, and then start reading it, taking notes and doing exercises, trying to be diligent. It sounds great, but it is also really hard for me to keep going. Normally, I will not read the book anymore after finishing the first part, because those tough grammar rules and vocabulary could kill my initial motivation. I was surprised Steve also hates them when I shared my experiences with him. “ I don't want to think. I just want the language to come at me.” he explained.
So, how can we do that? “Just look for books with text and audio, still listening and reading, that's all!” Steve says. After meeting with Steve, I realized that learning languages is so much fun. You can learn a lot from your interests. Remember not to put too much pressure on yourself. Don't force yourself to absorb tons of information in a short term. Just look up the meaning in the dictionary when you read a new word, and you will remember it eventually. Now, I'm excited to study languages at LingQ by using this simple method.
