Steve Kaufmann: My Method for Learning Languages from Scratch
Hi, Steve Kaufmann here. Today I'm gonna talk about... I often get this question like, how do you start a language from scratch? What is your process to learn a language? Uh, by the way, if you enjoy my, uh, podcast or at least uh, videos about language learning, please subscribe. All right. How do you start from scratch? Obviously, right now I'm focusing on four Slavic languages. I've studied all those four languages to varying degrees before, so I'm not starting from scratch. In fact, the last language I started from scratch, I guess was Ukrainian, but I had had Slavic languages before. Romanian maybe. How do I start from scratch? All right. Let's say I was gonna study Turkish, all right, or Arabic, and I do intend to do that. One day I would go out and buy a starter book. A starter book is like a teach yourself Assimil, uh, Colloquial, any of those. It almost doesn't matter. I just find it's comfortable to have a book, a little book that gives you a bit of an overview of the language. There's typicaly, you know, 20 or 12 chapters that introduce some aspects of the language. In each chapter, they have a dialogue, some audio, uh, some explanations, and I kind of go through them predominantly to get a sense of the language, to read some, to get an overview of the grammar, not expecting to remember. It's just kind of an introduction. Get my feet wet, so to speak. Then as soon as I could, I would get into interesting content. How soon I can get into interesting content will depend on the language. Uh, but I would start trying, and I would do it at LingQ, obviously, because there I can look up every word. I can save words. I'm used to that. That's my favorite sort of learning environment. But my, my sort of modus operandi is to get into a situation where I can listen and read, because listening in combination with reading is so powerful. And so for an initial six months or so, uh, I would only... and so then people say, well, how can you listen to things you don't understand? I get that all the time.
How can you listen if you don't know the words? Obviously when you start out, you have to listen to short bits of content because you don't understand, and you have to listen to content where you have the transcript. And again, it should be 30 seconds long because you're gonna be looking up words, you're gonna be struggling. You don't understand. You're in that early process of discovering the language. But to listen to something, you have to have the transcript so that you can look up the words. All right? Also listening and reading go together. Why? Because we listen to something that has been recorded. All right. That's a record. It's an audio record of something that someone said. But writing is a written record. Before they had, you know, tape recorders or MP3 files, all they had was writing. That was the only way to record what was said. And the writing is a visual representation of the words. I find that I need both. If I just hear it, I won't remember it, not a chance. Uh, if I'm talking to my tutor and she gives me a new word in Ukrainian, if I don't see it written down, I haven't got a chance of remembering that word, but if I hear it often enough and see it often enough, that's the visual representation. If I combine the two, I have a chance of accumulating those words. So in order for that to work in the initial period, which might be 1, 2, 3 months, you've gotta listen more than once to the same content, and so that's what I would do. Therefore, it has to be short and you have to, even though the content is boring, it's the challenge of trying to make sense out of this new language that makes it interesting enough stimulating, challenging enough that I can actually listen over and over because I'm still not getting certain parts of it, even though I read it and I've looked up the words and I've kind of pieced together what it means when I listen to it, it's still a blur. So therefore there's that challenge that keeps you focused.
You're gonna listen to it again, read it again. And also in the beginning, I'm more likely to review words and phrases, uh, using my flashcards or other of the activities that we have at LingQ ,closed tests or multiple choice or whatever, to try to somehow, because I have to very sort of intensively work this stuff because it's so new to me now. Gradually as I progress and, and remember again, I'm listening to content that's short, for which I have the transcript, and hopefully it's relatively easy because it's designed for the begin. And we ha uh, you can get that out of your, uh, beginner book. You can find lots of such content at LingQ for different languages. Some languages have more than others. And then, but as early as possible, I wanna get to interesting content because after a while it becomes boring to listen to stuff that's essentially boring. So I have to move to a stage where I'm now motivated by my interest in the content. And for me, very often that means books related to the history, uh, of the country where the language is spoken, and then it continues. It's that combination of the, the sound and the visual representation of the words repeated, repeated, repeated. Now, some people say, well, you should, uh, you know, try and first learn the most important 1000 words of the language. They will show up. That you need to worry about. Um, the main thing is, is to get hooked, hooked on the language, get enough of a start with the beginner material that, that you've got a bit of a toe hold on, more interesting material. And initially it's a tough grind, but I find that in that early period where it's very difficult and I'm looking up a lot of words, I'm excited by the fact that I'm actually reading and listening to authentic material. Turns me on. Wow. Look at me now. I've got say, a Turkish, uh, newscast with transcript, and I'm listening to it, not really understanding it, reading it, listening again, but it's real stuff. And then sort of, without even realizing it, all of a sudden, three months later, I'm able to understand more and more of these podcasts or whatever they might be.
And, and then as I'm getting more and more of the meaning, then I try to notice expressions or words that are kind of key words for the meaning or key words that I would like to use. And so I think it's useful once you are comfortable, uh, with a meaning that you try to focus on certain expressions when you notice them certain phrase. All right. Uh, the great thing about listening is you can do it wherever you are. I find that, and I've said this before, if I just sit down and listen, I lose focus. However, if I'm listening while driving, if I'm listening while doing the dishes, then I seen people focus in better on the meaning. And, uh, once you are able to kind of get the meaning fairly well, that's the time where you start focusing. Expressions and phrases so that you notice it here, you notice it there, and pretty soon it starts to become part of your, uh, uh, of your vocabulary. Now in my different people start speaking at different times. I, if I were doing Turkish, I would imagine that my initial period with the beginner material might be three months because it's a totally different language. Then I might go another 3, 4, 5 months with a lot of listening and reading, getting into more and more interesting content, and then I would need to start speaking because when you start speaking, you see things that are missing. You get a report back, hopefully from your tutor, which I can import. And this increases your attentiveness so that when you're listening, you're listening for some of the things that you have had difficulty with and, and as you progress, you're able to speak more. But even when I'm speaking a lot, like right now with my Ukrainian, because I'm doing four languages, I'm doing Ukrainian for six weeks, then I'm gonna do maybe polish and maybe Czeck. So I'm speaking once a day, an hour a day.
That's a lot. I think it's sufficient to do it once or twice a week. That's all the speaking you need in order to, um, kind of maintain that level of focus when you're listening and reading. And basically that's what I do if I have dedicated learning time. I sit down with my iPad and I read and I create LingQs. Uh, the listening ends up being the biggest part of my learning activity because I can, I can do it whenever I want, but that basically is what I would do. So when I undertake Turkish or Arabic, when I get around doing that, I would expect that it would take me a year. On, you know, using mostly listening time, maybe 45 minutes a day, an hour, another half hour, uh, with my iPad, uh, on LingQ. On that basis, I would think within a year I would be able to, uh, present to you some videos of me, uh, speaking, uh, Turkish, uh, that's for the future. Anyway, that's, uh, a brief description of how I go about learning languages. I hope this was of interest and I'd be interested in answering any questions. Bye for now.
How can you listen if you don't know the words? Obviously when you start out, you have to listen to short bits of content because you don't understand, and you have to listen to content where you have the transcript. And again, it should be 30 seconds long because you're gonna be looking up words, you're gonna be struggling. You don't understand. You're in that early process of discovering the language. But to listen to something, you have to have the transcript so that you can look up the words. All right? Also listening and reading go together. Why? Because we listen to something that has been recorded. All right. That's a record. It's an audio record of something that someone said. But writing is a written record. Before they had, you know, tape recorders or MP3 files, all they had was writing. That was the only way to record what was said. And the writing is a visual representation of the words. I find that I need both. If I just hear it, I won't remember it, not a chance. Uh, if I'm talking to my tutor and she gives me a new word in Ukrainian, if I don't see it written down, I haven't got a chance of remembering that word, but if I hear it often enough and see it often enough, that's the visual representation. If I combine the two, I have a chance of accumulating those words. So in order for that to work in the initial period, which might be 1, 2, 3 months, you've gotta listen more than once to the same content, and so that's what I would do. Therefore, it has to be short and you have to, even though the content is boring, it's the challenge of trying to make sense out of this new language that makes it interesting enough stimulating, challenging enough that I can actually listen over and over because I'm still not getting certain parts of it, even though I read it and I've looked up the words and I've kind of pieced together what it means when I listen to it, it's still a blur. So therefore there's that challenge that keeps you focused.
You're gonna listen to it again, read it again. And also in the beginning, I'm more likely to review words and phrases, uh, using my flashcards or other of the activities that we have at LingQ ,closed tests or multiple choice or whatever, to try to somehow, because I have to very sort of intensively work this stuff because it's so new to me now. Gradually as I progress and, and remember again, I'm listening to content that's short, for which I have the transcript, and hopefully it's relatively easy because it's designed for the begin. And we ha uh, you can get that out of your, uh, beginner book. You can find lots of such content at LingQ for different languages. Some languages have more than others. And then, but as early as possible, I wanna get to interesting content because after a while it becomes boring to listen to stuff that's essentially boring. So I have to move to a stage where I'm now motivated by my interest in the content. And for me, very often that means books related to the history, uh, of the country where the language is spoken, and then it continues. It's that combination of the, the sound and the visual representation of the words repeated, repeated, repeated. Now, some people say, well, you should, uh, you know, try and first learn the most important 1000 words of the language. They will show up. That you need to worry about. Um, the main thing is, is to get hooked, hooked on the language, get enough of a start with the beginner material that, that you've got a bit of a toe hold on, more interesting material. And initially it's a tough grind, but I find that in that early period where it's very difficult and I'm looking up a lot of words, I'm excited by the fact that I'm actually reading and listening to authentic material. Turns me on. Wow. Look at me now. I've got say, a Turkish, uh, newscast with transcript, and I'm listening to it, not really understanding it, reading it, listening again, but it's real stuff. And then sort of, without even realizing it, all of a sudden, three months later, I'm able to understand more and more of these podcasts or whatever they might be.
And, and then as I'm getting more and more of the meaning, then I try to notice expressions or words that are kind of key words for the meaning or key words that I would like to use. And so I think it's useful once you are comfortable, uh, with a meaning that you try to focus on certain expressions when you notice them certain phrase. All right. Uh, the great thing about listening is you can do it wherever you are. I find that, and I've said this before, if I just sit down and listen, I lose focus. However, if I'm listening while driving, if I'm listening while doing the dishes, then I seen people focus in better on the meaning. And, uh, once you are able to kind of get the meaning fairly well, that's the time where you start focusing. Expressions and phrases so that you notice it here, you notice it there, and pretty soon it starts to become part of your, uh, uh, of your vocabulary. Now in my different people start speaking at different times. I, if I were doing Turkish, I would imagine that my initial period with the beginner material might be three months because it's a totally different language. Then I might go another 3, 4, 5 months with a lot of listening and reading, getting into more and more interesting content, and then I would need to start speaking because when you start speaking, you see things that are missing. You get a report back, hopefully from your tutor, which I can import. And this increases your attentiveness so that when you're listening, you're listening for some of the things that you have had difficulty with and, and as you progress, you're able to speak more. But even when I'm speaking a lot, like right now with my Ukrainian, because I'm doing four languages, I'm doing Ukrainian for six weeks, then I'm gonna do maybe polish and maybe Czeck. So I'm speaking once a day, an hour a day.
That's a lot. I think it's sufficient to do it once or twice a week. That's all the speaking you need in order to, um, kind of maintain that level of focus when you're listening and reading. And basically that's what I do if I have dedicated learning time. I sit down with my iPad and I read and I create LingQs. Uh, the listening ends up being the biggest part of my learning activity because I can, I can do it whenever I want, but that basically is what I would do. So when I undertake Turkish or Arabic, when I get around doing that, I would expect that it would take me a year. On, you know, using mostly listening time, maybe 45 minutes a day, an hour, another half hour, uh, with my iPad, uh, on LingQ. On that basis, I would think within a year I would be able to, uh, present to you some videos of me, uh, speaking, uh, Turkish, uh, that's for the future. Anyway, that's, uh, a brief description of how I go about learning languages. I hope this was of interest and I'd be interested in answering any questions. Bye for now.