[Music] in just two and a qu years I learned 2,497 words across eight languages but what if I told you that learning the words wasn't even the most surprising part along the way I uncovered some amazing lessons that changed not only the way I approached languages but the way I approach life so stay tuned I'm going to go over the top five lessons that I learned from learning this man words you don't want to miss number four let's Dive Right In lesson one consistency over intensity have you ever tried to learn a large number of
words and put in lots and lots of time only to come back the next day and forget all of them I've been there when I tried to learn languages I would try to learn many many many words in many many hours in a day but I found that I burnt out and then I couldn't remember any of them so what I decided to do was I decided to learn just a little bit each and every day even if that just meant learning words for only 5 minutes as long as I did a little bit of
study time that day and I continued to do that day after day after day after day I found that I began to progress and I didn't forget them over time so if you want to reach a mountain of a high number of words like I did with 2,497 words I recommend that you do it a little bit each and every day and don't try to just force yourself to do a lots in one study period lesson two contextual learning over rope memorization if you can believe it I used to make paper note cards for foreign
language vocabulary so I would have one word on one side and the translation on the other side now I was able to learn quite a few words this way but I found that when I went to speak or use the words they just didn't it it didn't click and so even though I was able to remember the words when I looked at my flash cards I couldn't actually use them in real life and for this I decided to use Link and later migaku which makes flashcards that are contextual based so it has the story or
the sentence that the word appeared in on the flash card itself and this helps me to use the words in a context based environment so that I could remember them and also be able to use them myself when I went to use the words so if you are learning through rope memorization words to word I highly recommend you start looking at the context of the words as well and this is going to Aid you because then you'll remember the story that appeared in you remember similar words you remember the words that are around the word
you're trying to remember all of this helps you to remember the words and helps you to be able to use them actively and not not just passively when you look at your flashcards lesson three active usage solidifies memory now I used to learn many many words and I was unable to use them in a foreign language conversation the goal that I wanted was to be able to speak effortlessly as if I weren't even speaking a foreign language as if I were speaking English as I am now that sounds great but it was hard to do
that when I was just studying flashcards so I found that besides passively consuming my flashcards I needed to have an active component as well and so what I did was I signed up for an AI conversation tutor which I will link in the description below and this allowed me to be able to practice speaking it gave me feedback immediately on any errors I made in my speech and then it allowed me to continue the conversation so that I could keep speaking I did this especially for German because I had learned three German books the awesome
meal manuals but I couldn't speak very well I couldn't use the vocabulary I had learned so by speaking just 15 minutes each and every day with the AI tutor I was able to practice speaking learn new words and vocabulary through my conversations as well as just get used to having a back and forth with something even if it wasn't a real person the AI allowed me to correct my speech immediately and improve so now I'm able to speak German with a better pace and I'm able to use the words that I spent so much time
Learning lesson four embracing mistakes as learning opportunities nobody likes to make mistakes I don't like to make mistakes you probably don't like to make mistakes but learning a foreign language is a skill that requires us to make a lot of mistakes so when you make a mistake you shouldn't feel badly about it because this is actually an opportunity to see what you need to focus on to improve every time you mess up a grammatical structure or use an incorrect word or even forget the word this is an opportunity to see that that's what you need
to work on in order to get your language skills higher so my advice to you is don't get upset don't let it affect you emotionally when you make a mistake instead you should be happy or at least you should be able to accept that you made the mistake because the more mistakes you make the faster and easier it is to get to a place where you don't make a mistake where you've achieved Mastery where you're able to use the language without error so be happy when you make a mistake because this is an opportunity a
chance for you to be able to learn better learn more and be able to reach Mastery in your foreign language lesson five connecting with culture culture enhances language learning so when we learn a language sometimes we tend to take it apart from the culture we want to study words we want to study grammar but actually the language is interconnected with society and we are social beings so if we can make a bond with the culture and be able to engage with it it will actually Aid Us in learning the language you can do this through
many ways it could be through reading the literature watching movies watching television shows my personal favorite way is to make a connection with the real life human being right now for my Chinese language Partners I have two that I meet with each and every week for about an hour and we just have a conversation where I get to know them I get to know their perspective on life I get to understand Chinese culture and I get to improve my language abilities in Mandarin so this is a great way for you to be able to improve
your language make a connection with a real person or the culture and that will help give you feedback to invest you further into the language improving your skills if you don't engage with the culture then the language might just seem lifeless and this will prevent you from achieving Mastery so there you have it the Five Lessons that I learned from learning 2,497 words across eight languages and as I said in the beginning the most surprising part was it changed my approach to life not just language learning but the way that I actively engage in my
life for example connecting with others and being able to live the language instead of just study it so I hope this helped you if you enjoyed the video give it a thumbs up subscribe because I'll be putting out more content to help you learn faster and learn better and I hope this helped you a lot thank you so much
