How to Learn a Language (and Why You Should)

What's up guys, welcome back to the channel. Today's video is going to be a bit longer because this is actually the first lesson in one of our new courses

Nathaniel Drew and Johnny Harris, who you may have seen around on YouTube, came together to make a course about language

It's the Ultimate Language Learning Guide. We released this course just recently and had a ton of interest and so I wanted to give you guys a more filled out understanding of what this course is

So here's Nathaniel and Johnny introducing themselves, giving some background on their experience learning languages and what you can expect out of this course

Hi, I'm Nathaniel Drew. And I'm Johnny Harris. And we're both kind of obsessed with learning languages

For the past decade, Nathaniel and I have been teaching ourselves languages outside of formal schooling

We've been trying to find any hack we can to ingest a foreign language as quickly as possible

And a while back, we started talking to each other and realized that we had discovered a lot of the same hacks and techniques for learning languages

and that we shared the same perspective about how languages are acquired and the quickest way to actually do it

But we also recognize that we have different learning styles as well as different life circumstances and a whole range of other factors that led us down different paths and different personal discoveries

The thing that really brought us together was this shared excitement for what language acquisition can do

The doors that it can open for you in terms of opportunities, culture and experiences, in a sense

and this is going to sound hyperbolic but I really believe it. Learning a language is life-changing

Our goal in this course is to teach you everything that we've learned about the process of teaching

yourself a language and there's more that goes into it than I think most people realize. More

than anything, more than any specific technique or method, we'd like to share a way of thinking

about and approaching languages. One of the major reasons we realized we were on the same page

with language learning is that we both felt a deep rejection towards the typical standard

educational model for language, what we learned in school. The traditional way of learning a

language is often painfully frustrating and boring. You're rarely ever given a reason for

why you're learning what you're learning. This is problematic because without having a specific

and very clear why and a strategy for going about learning a language, it can quickly feel like

walking through quicksand. Furthermore, I think the biggest issue that I have

with the traditional way of learning languages is that the process is just laced with humiliation

and demoralizing messaging that has led to this extremely widespread belief that is visible everywhere in popular culture

that you need years and years of intense academic study to be able to start speaking I guess if you will to communicate in a foreign language And it doesn have to be that way Both Johnny and I refuse to believe that I just refuse to

believe that learning a language has to be this soul-crushing experience. And furthermore, I think

language in general just doesn't operate in those kinds of absolutes. There is, I have found in my

own personal experience, a better way of approaching it all. In this course, we're going to do things

a little bit differently. Instead of going about things in the traditional textbook approach that

I think we've all gone through at one point or another in school, we have laid out a series of

methods and techniques, as well as explanations for everything, that will allow you to take charge

of your own experience and your own journey of acquiring a new language. I started learning

languages in high school, like maybe a lot of you. I took high school Spanish for a couple of years

and felt like I learned nothing. It's crazy. You can spend so many years in a classroom

looking at vocabulary, looking at grammar rules, and walk away feeling like you don't speak the language

But then my last year in high school, I got the opportunity to go live in a town in Mexico

for a couple of months where I started to become aware that the language that I had learned in the classroom

was so different than the thing the people were speaking on the streets and among friends. A few years later, I went to an intensive

language program that taught me how to prioritize what actually matters. It taught the things that

you actually learn when you're on the ground trying to talk to people. From there, I went to Mexico

to live for two years. And while there, I learned just how important the intensity and discomfort

of immersion can be for learning a language. After about six months in Mexico, I felt totally fluent

and I became addicted to this feeling of being able to express myself in a different language

So while I was living in Mexico, I got my hands on some French learning materials and I started

teaching myself French outside of any schooling just while I was living in Mexico. And I started

to feel more and more of a grasp on what actually matters in a language. Having learned Spanish in

this sort of quick, rough, rogue way, I took on French and only focused on the stuff that really

mattered. From there, I went to college and I started studying Farsi or Persian. I was studying

Middle Eastern politics in school and the country of Iran, where they speak Farsi, became deeply

interesting to me. So I learned Farsi on my own. I still haven't been to Iran to use my Farsi

but it's a language that is so different than any language I've ever learned. And I was able to

apply the same principles that I applied to French to learning Farsi. So Spanish is my strongest

language. French, I can speak conversationally. I ended up getting a minor in it in college. Farsi

I'm still sort of grasping. It's a very difficult language for an English speaker. And now my new

love and the language I'm focusing on right now, I've actually just gotten started a couple weeks

ago is Italian Throughout this course I going to be using my journey of teaching myself Italian to show you what it actually looks like in real life Week two of Italian learning I am feeling my head physically there like a physical buzzing

that happens when you force yourself to speak another language. My language learning journey

was a similar blend of the traditional approach, which was unenjoyable in the extreme, to put

things lightly and self-teaching. I sort of stumbled on foreign languages as a serious

source of interest, something that really intrigued me for the first time when I was

16 years old and I did an exchange in high school in France. Academically, it was far and away the most difficult challenge I had ever faced

up to that point in my life to be going to a school where I didn't even speak the language

You know, it was just this massive obstacle that I suddenly faced precisely because of that

challenge and the discoveries that I made going through that process. That year ended up becoming

a very pivotal year in my life and taught me so much about myself as well as, you know, it left me

with this huge appreciation for what learning a foreign language can do, the impact that it can

have on you. It was the key, if you will, that unlocked the door to the French

speaking world, which was a world that I had had very limited access to

previously. Right? Like up to that point, almost no access. That was six years ago

It sort of triggered this almost inexplicable desire to acquire other languages

And so this all led into adventures in French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese

I'll leave the links below if you want to watch the previous videos

shortcut of any kind, that there's no such thing. This is more so just a simple focus on

once again, practicality and making the process as painless as possible and as enjoyable as

possible. This course is the result of both of our experiences. Many years of tinkering and trying

to figure out what the most efficient way is to learn a new language. The trickiest part

about a language is just how big it is. It's like you're trying to climb a giant mountain

It's like, where do you start? What's the best way up? There are so many ways to approach it

Our goal and our focus in this course is to give you approachable, clear, efficient steps

for taking on a language It won do the work for you There a lot of intensity and focus and motivation that comes with this journey But our goal is to make it the most approachable possible Half of these techniques are psychological It your mindset

It's how you think about language and expression and confidence. And we'll talk all about that in

chapter two. But then there's actual techniques on what words you should learn and how to approach

pronunciation and grammar and comprehension. All of these things can be done through lean

efficient methods. And that's what we're going to talk about in this course. This course is best

adapted to the learner who is open to a DIY approach to language learning that places a

focus on two things in particular, developing the ability to understand and the ability to

express yourself as quickly as possible. We're not here to teach you how to read the most advanced

literature or, you know, be able to understand advanced scientific papers, right? That kind of

thing can happen but later on. We're much more focused on getting you up and going and communicating

as fast as possible. This is not about memorizing tens of thousands of words that you will only

occasionally ever use and certainly not be of the most use when you're starting out. Boiled down as

simply as possible, this course is about getting you to use a new language in as short a period of

time as possible. We're trying to streamline the process to get you going because once you're going

it all becomes, you know, doors start opening. It becomes more exciting and the discoveries lead to

more discoveries. One of the reasons Nathaniel and I are pairing up and doing this together

is because we have different language learning styles. And instead of making our own courses on

our own styles, we decided to combine and to make a course that showcased both of our styles and both

of our approaches so that you can pick and choose what techniques and mindsets work for you. Maybe

Nathaniel's method of memorizing vocabulary with lists will resonate with you and you'll adopt that

But maybe my technique of using visuals and sounds to memorize vocabulary also resonates in some way

and you combine those to create your own method that works for your brain and your lifestyle. I

guess what I'm trying to say here is that this course is meant to be flexible. It's meant to be

a toolkit from which you can grab tools that work for your life. You will see some common themes

that are really important for any language learning journey, and we will emphasize those

across the entire course. But the specific techniques and the specific practices that

you use to acquire your language only work if they work for you, which is one of the major

problems with traditional formal schooling is that it's sort of a one-size-fits-all

This course is meant to be the exact opposite a flexible set of tools that you can pick and choose from

If you guys are interested in seeing the rest of the course head over to brightrip.com

Where we have that and a ton of other courses in our library and we'll hope to see you over there soon Peace