Niels Iversen: A unique approach to language learning
Kris Broholm interviews Nils Iversen, who shares his unique low-tech approach to language learning. Nils details his method of using pen, paper, and dictionaries for vocabulary acquisition, achieving impressive results. Kris explores this alternative to digital tools, even adopting the Goldlist method for his own Russian studies.
July 4, 2014 · 57 min
EP 18: Niels Iversen: A unique approach to language learning
0:00 / 56:50
Guest
Niels Iversen
What You'll Hear
- 1 Episode Introduction: Nils's Low-Tech Approach
- 2 Polyglot Gathering Berlin: Learnings & Vibe
- 3 Nils's Unique Journey: Self-Taught Languages
- 4 Low-Tech Learning Method: Words, Lists, Stats
- 5 Conquering Grammar: 80/20 Rule & Examples
- 6 Latin's Role: Dead Language, Living Practice
- 7 Beyond Mainstream: Finding Your Own Way
Links Mentioned
Questions Covered in the Show
How did Nils Everson first learn languages before the internet?- 10m
What is Nils Everson's low-tech method for building vocabulary?- 22m
What are Nils Everson's views on the importance of vocabulary size for fluency?- 28m
What is Nils Everson's approach to learning grammar effectively?- 32m
Is learning Latin beneficial for improving other language learning abilities?- 45m
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On this episode of the actual fluency podcast, I'm joined by Nils Iverson, who shares his unique low-tech approach to learning languages. Welcome to the actual fluency podcast. The podcast that gives you the tools and inspiration to learn languages faster and more efficiently. And now your host, Chris Broholm.
Hello, hello, and welcome to yet another episode of the actual fluency podcast. This is episode number 18. Can you believe that 18 episodes in. Today I'm joined by Nils Everson. Actually this was recorded during the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin. And so you'll hear us talk a little bit about what we think about the gathering and and experiences from there.
But the reason I wanted to talk to Nils, and he will be familiar to many of you if you've have frequented the how to learn any language forum, is because he's got a different take on language learning that I think is a refreshing perspective. I don't think there are any kind of true ways to learn language. I think there are tons of different ways to do it. And depending on your personality, they can each work in your favor.
But the reason I brought Nils along is that he's kind of advocating a very low-tech approach where you write down word lists, you use dictionaries, you use pen and paper, which is something that I haven't really been doing and I've been, I think I've been a victim of growing up in a computer age. You know, all my school, all through my school, it's been with computers. And, you know, we just kind of looking for the easiest way to do things. And certainly flash card sites like Anki or Memrise or any of these kind of sites, definitely provide ease of use and they do make it easy and in some cases also fun to to do this kind of vocabulary training.
So what was really interesting to me is talking to people at the conference, somebody like, like Nils, who's on the show today, talking about how he uses low-tech things to kind of learn vocabulary. And he's got some amazing results and as he presents the data, it's pretty, pretty impressive, actually. How much you can learn of vocabulary using a pen and paper.
And in my kind of, let's say quest to find out more about this pen and paper low-tech approach to vocabulary learning, I also stumbled upon a Mr. David James, who I'll try and get on the podcast at a later date. I sadly was unable to record an interview during the Polyglot Gathering, but I'm sure he would be interested in coming on and talking more about him and his method, which is the Goldlist method, and I'm sure some of you have heard about it. I hadn't heard about it, but luckily through somebody called Victor, I was introduced to it and now I'm actually doing it for Russian.
And you might be saying, well, aren't you using Memrise or Anki to learn vocabulary? Yeah, I was, but now I've tried that. And as kind of the guinea pig or the, you know, lab rat of language learning, I feel like I should try both things before I kind of evaluate what I find best. So what I'm doing now with the Goldlist is I'm doing at least 50 words a day. And then, you know, just writing it by hand and and you if you've ever tried to write Russian in cursive, in handwriting, it is quite different and it's quite difficult. So for me it's also a practice to write by hand, which is something I haven't done much, understand how to read the cursive and then ultimately to learn the vocabulary.
So that's why I'm kind of bringing it back, kind of a little bit low-tech style. But today we're talking with Nils Everson, and his, his amazing kind of approach to language learning, which is vastly different from, you know, some of the more outspoken polyglots like Penny Lewis and and Luca and all these, these well-famous people that I'm sure you've heard of who kind of advocate speaking to fluency. Whereas Nils is more like, well, I'll learn how to read and then I'll learn how to speak afterwards.
But anyway, it was a really interesting interview. It's a little long, so I'm gonna cut straight into it. And and once again, I I have to emphasize that these interviews were recorded in Berlin in a hotel room. So the acoustics are not as good as they could be, but I hope you'll still manage. It's a very nice interview. Nils is a very patient and well-spoken man. So enjoy the interview and I'll see you at the next one.
So I'm joined by Nils Everson. If you say it like a little bit Danish, but not totally Danish. Okay. so Mr. Everson from Denmark, and he's joining me today because he has kind of a different philosophy on language learning to most people here like the Benny Lewises and and the other outspoken polyglots. So we'll be getting into that. But first, how do you feel about the conference? You were last year in the Polyglot conference in Budapest.
Yes, I was there. And now you're in Berlin at the Polyglot Gathering. So how are you feeling about the event, the vibe, the people?
The whole event is twice as big. Right. That's the first thing. There are many more lectures, there are many more people and it lasts twice as long.
But the most important thing is here they have made more to make people speak in other languages outside the lectures.
Right. And that was one thing you learned after Budapest that we have to give people who are polyglots a chance to speak in anything but English.
Of course. Yeah. And that's they succeeded in that you think with the I think with the the owl evening event. Then they have made also a lot of games and things like that in the evening where in Budapest just last year they hadn't thought about that.
Right. I don't know whether they will do anything about it in Novisad, but I think they have learned something.
Yeah, there many of the the people who are doing the Novisad are here in Novisad. Yes. Sim is here. Look is here and I have seen. Those are the main people from Budapest who have seen that it means a lot to give a chance to speak in all those languages why learn them if you don't use them.
Exactly. And socialize also.
Yes, networking. I think that's that's the fine thing and that's even more important than the size of the event.
Right. Do you think that this might be just a little a day too long?
No, I think that That's all. The one thing it could have done, they could have used the Saturday.
Right. Because most people just ran around doing in Saturday on Sunday doing everything else instead of being here speaking languages.
Yes. I just feel that that's the only thing I would have made different here.
Yeah. I just feel that you know, I wasn't at Budapest, but with that being two days. That's a little bit too short for me.
Well, they had only one lecture room. And there was not much space outside that room. Right. And they had those two days where most people stayed outside the venue. So Oh yes. We only we came listened to our lectures and tried to get a couple of minutes between lectures. And well you learn from your mistakes. I think it was a mistake not to have a few places where people could gather and speak.
And time also because there was no allocated
Yes, and it became too it became too English oriented.
Right.
So I think they've got made a really good job here but if they hadn't had Budapest, they wouldn't have made the same kind of event here maybe.
Of course. I think the idea here they've used some experience from the Esperanto.
Okay, the Esperanto shows and
Yeah, the conferences or
Conferences and all the activities I've got here in Berlin.
Right. Yeah, and I like the those things like the you said the maybe we we should just say it comes from the Esperanto word for an owl.
Yes. So it means you are sitting a long time with the lights on and candles and lights out I mean, of course.
Lights out, candles and people drinking tea while they talk. So it's like a night owl room.
It's a night night owl room. Yes. It's very interesting. And I like the the allegatory as well.
Yes. Allegatory. That's a place where you're not allowed to speak your own language and you're not allowed to speak the language of the place and English.
Right. Yeah, and I think I didn't think that Judy was being nice when she said it's English and your native language. She said it's okay to speak German if that's a foreign language for you. But it's not okay that people sit down to speak English just because it's the easiest way to do it. It's better than one one person speaks French and the other answers in German or whatever or in Russian.
Yes. Yeah, and I think that's why you put the rules that you say you have to do it and then they will do it. Otherwise they'll just sit down and speak in English because everybody else will do that. Yeah. I I love it. So that was a bit about the the conference and has there been any talks that you've been to that you were especially impressed with?
Well, I wouldn't I would prefer not mentioning single talks because I found so many good things. So we can say in general the quality of the talk. The talks have generally been fine. I a couple of people have had trouble with the the technique and things like that. But they have sorted it out and in general, it's a fine event here, well-organized.
I agree. I I'm impressed actually because it's the first I mean, they drew on some experience from previous events. But but for the people hosting it, that's their first go. I think it Kudos to those people.
Yeah, exactly. I think we owe a great deal of thanks to Judit and her team.
Yes. So, moving into kind of your story I guess if you could take a minute to kind of go back to the past and introduce when did you first start getting into
Well, we can start out with I'm now 60 years old. And that means that I've been going to school in a time without internet and with only one TV channel and things like that. And that means that we had other other frameworks for trying out methods. We could just say, okay, you can listen to another program. You can find something on the internet.
Right.
So one of the curious things is I tried to learn I tried, I succeeded in learning Italian and Spanish without ever hearing the languages.
Right.
And the first time I really got into conversations in Italian was when I arrived on my first trip to outside Denmark apart from Norway, in on an interrail tour where I arrived in Milano.
Okay.
And I had never really had a conversation in Italian and I hardly knew how it sounded.
Yeah.
Except I have read about how it should sound. And there were a few films on the on TV in Denmark. But it was very different from the way people learn it now.
Right. So you knew you knew the kind of the book Italian and you knew how it should sound based on the phonology.
Yes. And then I came and then I had to to find out how it really sounded.
Right. Was it any anywhere close or was it very different?
Yes, I found that I could use my Italian from day one. And that was funny and I think that is part of the explanation of my way of learning language. I know it can be done like that.
Exactly. It's proof of concept.
It's a proof of concept, yes.
So what did you do the first time for Italian did you go to the library and find books?
I found, well, I play music and I I had words like andante and moderato and things like that. I wanted what is that language for all about. And then I found a textbook. And I started reading it and doing the exercises, all the classic things, except I I didn't have the teacher.
Right.
And I didn't hear the language. I just read what it said about how to pronounce. Then I found a book with the same author team for Spanish. And then I said, well, it was a good idea to read Italian. Maybe I should start Spanish and I had no reason, no reason to speak it. I just wanted, well, it was a good book the other one. Then I learned Spanish too.
Right.
And about the same time it was I started out learning a bit of Latin.
Right.
Because I was interested in birds and animals and the Latin names, fossil name.
Right.
So I wanted to learn why those words were like that and then I got some books about Latin. Every species is a Latin name. So I learned to learn languages by myself alongside having some in school.
Right. Yeah, you had Latin in school but by
Yes, but later, later.
Okay. So by the
The first language we have in Denmark is about the third class in our school, which starts when you're six or seven years old. So I was around 10 years old when we started English.
Right.
And that was about the same time that I my family got a television.
Ah.
The first English word I learned was Jabberwocky.
Jabberwocky.
The cartoons. Yes. Because I saw the cartoons I was a child, of course.
Yeah.
And a couple of years later we got German and then French and some Latin and then I went to the university.
Right.
Where I found out that mathematics was fun when you do it for yourself but not when you have to do it.
Right.
And I was ended up there starting French. But I sat down in the rooms where they taught Italian and a couple of other languages. And we had courses in one course half a year with two hours two hours each week in for instance old French, old Catalan and well a couple of weird languages like that. And suddenly we heard there was a Romanian teacher coming to our institute.
Wow.
Well, then I sat down with two teachers and three other two other students and we started the course. And it last three years in Romanian.
Wow.
After one year, I was the only one. So I told we then had a new teacher coming there. And I told that the man that from now on we do it on my terms.
Right.
Because otherwise I wouldn't have one single student.
Right. Yeah, you were the boss of that.
I was the boss. At that point I could express myself a little and you and I told him we are doing this in Romanian. You are welcome to explain things but it will be in Romanian. And there will be as little literature as possible because I also want to learn about the country and things. It was under Ceaușescu.
Oh right.
So there was so I got actually the best kind of teacher relation you can have, namely the one where you get exactly what you ask for.
Right. That must have been nice.
That was fine and then I got my exam and I I got a really good note in grammar and I got a just as good note for my fine report, which was about grammar. And then I discovered I couldn't get a job.
Right.
Then I said, okay, then, well, I could see French and things like that might not have much future if English was going to take over the world. I could see that already in 82.
Wow.
And I said, maybe it's better to get into something different. I took an exam in it's called HD in Denmark. It's a four-year normally. We did it in two years on special course.
Right.
And studied some economy. Later I got on with computering and I have been living on that since.
Right. So how did you apply the kind of the language buzz when you were doing sort of economics and
Not at all.
Right. So you just kind of
The only thing that I did was traveling where I got my Spanish polished a little in South America.
Right.
And Italian, I lost almost all of my Italian. I lost my Romanian totally.
Oh.
And Latin went out the drain within a half year or so.
Right.
So it was a time where I simply didn't care about languages.
Right.
And then I came back when I was going to Romania, Moldova in 2006. And I was looking for materials about and then I stumbled over that forum, which how to learn any language.com.
Right.
Where I've been writing ever since.
Yeah.
And then I decided, there were some big weeks there who learned a lot of languages. And then I thought, well, I had a past. It might be fun to get that hobby back.
Right.
And then I started relearning Romanian. I added Portuguese which I hadn't learned until then. And well, I found out how to teach myself languages. Then I I added things that I hadn't learned before. And right now I'm trying to reach as many languages as I can put into my scheme. But there are problems, of course, it takes time.
So you you have your you have your Romanian background a little bit.
Well, that's I have a criterion. I consider myself capable to speak a language if I can go to a country, stay there say a week without speaking anything but that language.
Right.
And not something you judge about buying a bread or something like that. But the conversations I would have had in German or English, that kind of conversations.
Right.
And I've done that with Romanian and other languages.
Right.
So I think it's there but in between my travels, I don't use it.
Right.
And then it becomes rusty. There's no way to deny that.
Right.
And I read it up and if I go to Romania once again, I just have to read a couple of books and write some essays and a couple of things like that. So it's in there somewhere.
It's in there and I can get it back fast. But it is not something I need at home.
Right.
No, of course not. So it is an interesting language.
Well, it's very interesting, but it's just part of a big family. And I want to know the family in its entirety.
Right.
And Romanian is a part of that. So it is not because I'm in love with one language or one culture. It's part of a total picture of all of the languages in Europe in principle.
Right.
And now I'm thinking about the rest of the world. But I start here in
Yes, sure. But you're fascinated about maybe not so much the speaking part is probably more the how you looked at the internal grammar, the words.
Yes. For most people they want to communicate with other people and I know at home I'm not going to communicate in Romanian. In Romanian, not not even in things like Italian or Spanish. I may need one Italian tourist who needs directions once a year.
Right.
Why should I care about speaking when that's my level. I keep it alive by thinking by thinking in those languages. And then I come to a country where I need Italian or Spanish or Romanian. And I know I can get it running there with without much fuss.
Right.
And in between like this conference here. I think it is worth mentioning. But I just counted how many languages I've used here.
Yeah.
And I Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian, one sentence in Greek. Modern Greek. French, English, Dutch, again, I was in to in Afrikaans but not all. Danish? Of course that comes up. German and I have not used my low German yet but
Low German?
Yeah. I said, then I'm Danish, of course, but I've spoken a lot of Swedish.
Oh, yeah. I was surprised by how much Swedish I needed here.
Yeah. And not even actually from the Swedish people. Not only people who learn Swedish.
Yeah. I I talked to, I think he was from it was England or something and he was speaking to me in Swedish, which is very interesting.
Yes. Because we tried to avoid English if we have another means of communication. And there are people here who are learning for instance Danish and Norwegian. And then I don't want to speak Norwegian because I'm not quite a few of those dialects.
Yeah.
But then I speak in Swedish and they understand it.
Yeah.
And I can speak in Danish and then they don't understand it.
Yeah. Yeah, you need experience in.
Not only that but Danish is harder to understand. Those who are just harder one. Swedish is easier for foreigners.
Right.
And we have to realize that even I'm a Danish, I'm a patriot Danish person but it is easier to understand Swedish and then I use this language even if it's just one of my latest additions finally.
Right.
Because in Denmark we can see Danish Swedish television and also Norwegian.
Yeah.
But it has always been a passive language.
Right.
But then I decided it was idiotic to have a language which is so close to being active. And then I just learned it as I learned any other language.
Right. Found some books and you started
Yes, simply and I wrote out texts and found all the unknown words and started dictionaries, everything I normally do.
Right. Well, I think that's really good actually because I think some people in Denmark or Norway might be tempted to say, well, it's so similar. I'll do it differently than if I learned a different language.
Yes, they just they should probably They just try to put on a Swedish accent.
Yeah. And say I'm guilty as charged.
And say two or three words they know in Swedish and the result is ridiculous. Swenglish. It's simply an an offense to speak like that. Anyway, I don't want to speak it. I I just say, I understand Swedish. And I can say that's about
Yes. But now I have I I'm fully aware that I speak Swedish without the perfect intonation because that's the hard part of Swedish. But as long as a Swede understand me and understand me better than when I speak Danish.
Right.
Then I have a good reason to use it.
Of course, yeah. And there are a lot of people speaking Swedish here.
Yes, and that's a surprise.
Yeah. Not so many Danish but I have
No. A couple of years. And I've also used Danish as I said because there are some people here who study Danish. And then it's giving them some training.
Yeah, that's what I did. And that's fine. I'm we have a room here called where I am not allowed to speak Danish.
Yeah.
But I'm allowed to speak it all over the place except there.
Right. Me too. So let's get into let's get into you you mentioned your method and we've touched on it a bit. But maybe let's give the you know, the five minute a little bit deeper explanation of because you learning the the book way the non kind of speaking way. But what does that actually mean for your process?
First, I look at which resources I have for language. And if I don't have enough resources, I don't do it.
Right.
And the language which I've excluded, I'm not going to learn Chinese because I don't like the writing system. Simply. And the Arabic, the same thing because they don't write the vowels then you need a teacher to teach you the language by oral method. Because you cannot read the words without knowing the vowels, which they don't write.
Right.
So there's some languages which I have to exclude for that reason and the world is full of languages. It's not a problem. There are other languages in this world. So I first find out good dictionaries, good grammars and internet sites. Well, some things are may something on YouTube, maybe.
And then the next point is I need to hear the language. Because I have to read it.
Yes.
And I have to read it maybe not in with an inner voice that is completely correct. But it has to be somewhat correct.
Right.
And at that point I don't want any teacher to teach me anything.
Right.
That's your own phase. I hate that's my head and they're not going to make it that.
Yeah.
And next point. Then I take normally a textbook or something with very simple text.
Right.
And I simply copy them. And I have a piece of paper with the right margin is research for new words.
Okay.
All the new words will then go into a word list and I can explain a little about that in detail later. But I go through a lot of texts and in the beginning I may even add a translation to keep things together in my own head.
Right.
Later I just write it down and even later I just skip the copying part and take good expressions and things like that. But I do keep my list of new words.
Okay, they go into word lists.
And there I have a principle of you don't you should not learn one language one word with its translation.
Right.
There's a simple thing that dictates that. If you keep repeating the same thing in your head, you need a lot of repetitions to make it stick.
Yeah, yeah.
If you can drag it back from just bordering on oblivion.
Okay.
Then you will learn a lot more. If you get it back from memory, it's like getting the word repeated from scratch and you can do that many times if you look at something else in between.
Yeah.
And then I found the simplest way to stop me from thinking in one word is thinking about some other words.
Right.
So next. So I said, okay, let's learn words in groups of five to seven. And seven, that's because about the amount of information you can keep in your head at one time.
Right.
And then I write on a list of with five words. I look at them and make sure I can translate them into Danish or English or something. And then I write the translations of those five.
Right.
Then I look at that and when I decide I can reconstruct the first column without seeing it.
Oh, wow.
Then I cover the first column and write a third column with the original words.
The five original.
Yes, because then I get it both ways.
Of course.
And doing that process I can of course use all the normal mnemonic techniques like associations to weird ideas or pictures or whatever and other translations. For instance, if I don't think the Danish translation is clear, then I may use an English translation.
Right.
But then I do that and I on with my tiny handwriting. I can do a column with 30 words. And I do maybe three columns in a day or in one sitting. And that means I can really confidently say I have learned 100 words in an hour or two hours.
Right.
And I can prove it afterwards because then there is a repetition ground. Number one, that comes maybe a day later where I there are different methods, but I check at that I still remember the words.
Right.
And if I don't, I can do something about it then. And I'm I have made some statistics because I'm trying to learn a little bit of Serbian now.
Yeah.
And then it occurred to me that now at this point of time, I have a good way to check whether my function, whether my method functions.
Mhm.
I'm in the middle of the the alphabet as the Serbian alphabet is called, the Cyrillic one. Not the one with Latin letters, but the other one. And I have done things before this project. But I take a dictionary.
Yeah.
A dictionary with around 12,000 Serbian words. Use about half of those in my word list.
Right.
And if I then count do my word list and go back one day later after I've done my repetition and things like that. See how many words do I know from the dictionary that that dictionary. From the part of the alphabet I've been through and from the part I've not been through. Then it shows up with extremely good results because I can see that I know about two thirds of the words in the dictionary in the part I've worked with.
Right.
Which is more than I have had on my word list.
Yeah, that's fair.
But I've just seen them while I made it.
Yeah.
And from the other part about a third. That means a boost of 30% by just doing a word list.
Right.
And then of course I had to check, will it stick because people say, oh, it doesn't stick when you make word lists. I can prove that.
Yes.
Because here at the event it's now I've not done word lists for some days. It's about two weeks since I made the first part of the alphabet. And I've just been back to it. And I can see that right now I know about 80% of the words on my word list. I've lost about 20% in two weeks. That's okay. And I would have done that with any other method.
Of course.
Except that with this method, I know what I have lost and I can get back and get it.
Of course, yeah. So people who try to tell me they doesn't function and they will you have the stats.
I have the stats.
I have the stats. But people I know I know people are scared of losing not remembering, but in in a sense when you're saying, if you've learned 10,000 words.
Yeah.
If you only remember 8,000 by the end of it, that's still 8,000 more than 8,000 words. And then we have to discuss how many words you need. We can do it very briefly.
Yeah.
If you take about the first 1,000 words of well, let's say head words dictionary entries.
Right.
to be a little specific.
Yeah, they want to be a lot of words. But head words as in the dictionary.
Right.
Then the first 1,000 or so will cover maybe 90%.
Right. Exactly.
But all the interesting content is in the last 10%.
Sure. That's what makes you an expert or a high-level speaker.
Yes. And it's also if you read a book about gardening and you don't know what a potato is, then it's not very fun. It's a big problem. But then there's a problem after those words there is not really a shown where you can see you repeat the words again and again and again. The next words are very much dispersed in the way that if you take two samples I have I have made a check on things I have written on that forum. Two samples with 37 I think words 37,000 words in each sample.
Yeah.
Which after that or start that must be enough. And I found very little overlap.
Right.
Which means that you cannot say you just learn 1,000 words more.
Right.
And then you are twice as good. No, after the first 1,000 words, the next target is 10 or 20,000 words.
Yes.
And it's there's no point in saying you can do 2,000 words.
Right.
You can say you can survive on 1,000 words.
Right.
After that it's a sky and it's 10 or 20,000 words unless you are willing to just buying bread and in the supermarket and stuff like that.
Sure. I mean and I'm sure a lot of people would be very happy with 1,000 words, you know, starting out as a just
Yes, when you started out. But after that you must realize you need to add a lot a lot of words. And if you just take an ordinary novel or something like that, even a newspaper. If you don't know at least 10,000 words, you will have to look up several words from each sentence.
Right. Of course. Or you don't understand it. Yeah. Yeah. And I I I I think you probably if you had a few thousand words, you would probably understand the meaning but you wouldn't necessarily
No, because you won't see those couple of thousand words you added. You'll see some other thousand words. And that's the point. You have to cover a really vast area of words in order to be lucky to find those you have learned.
Right.
So you can just as well see the realities. You need the first 1,000 words and you have to learn those.
Right.
No way out from that. You will need to learn those. But after that, then you just have to learn as many words as possible. And that's why I try to do my formal word list studies. And I there are other methods there's Anki, there is Goldlist and but something.
Right. Exactly. So so what you're saying is that get good at vocabulary training. Get good at that. That's actually after hearing the sound of the language. That's the next most important thing. That's get a really big vocabulary.
Yeah.
And then grammar.
Okay. There may be say 10 ways to construct the sentences. There are maybe 10 ways to construct a sentence inside another. And you have in even the worst language we can speak about. Let's say something like Russian or Latin or something like that. There are a couple of hundred forms you have to learn.
Yeah.
And compare that to the number of words you need.
Yes.
And then you see that grammar is something you have to be good at. But there's not really much learning material in it.
Right. The amount of things you need to learn is compared to the amount of things you learn as words. Of course, yes. You have to you have to, you know, the essential grammar books. Yes. But they're not that, I mean, they're usually quite small and
Yes. And I one I made a lecture here at the conference here where I told you you should use the Pareto principle. Use 20% of the time and get 80% and then do something else.
Yeah.
And, you know, in any single language, if you don't know a very specific like in German, you don't know that. They understand you anyway.
Yes.
The I one of the things I mentioned is that if you really want to learn grammar and you find it totally intolerable. Then choose some area. It could be one single form, the genitive, say like that. And start a collection and try to to find out a system in it.
Right.
And then you get desperate because that's a big trouble to find a system and then you get back to your grammar because you get it for free. And now you're happy. Now you have a reason to read your grammar.
Yeah.
You didn't have that while you're only reading your grammar. But when you come back from that mess, you've got from making your own collection.
Right.
Then you'll discover how nice it is that somebody has given you all the correct answers.
Yes. I like the I like the recommendation of taking a text in your the language you're learning and then say, I want to find all the grammar, all the genitive, all the genitive forms. I want to find all the accusative. Go through the text because then you're applying
Yes.
What most people see as boring to
And there's one thing more, you see everything that is common.
Right.
And you skip all things that are not common. So you get a feeling for what you really need and what you can skip.
Yeah. But but how what do you think about people's obviously you talked about grammar how to survive it was the time.
Yes, that's my title. And I could also have said how to cheat your way out of the grammar. If you don't like it, but
But I find it interesting that you you you're very kind of passionate about the structure and, you know, you you work out of books and you have you write it down. So that's kind of a a very, you know,
Yes, I have a well, I have a past at the university. And I use some of the methods I have used while I was studying. I well, you can say I've halfway polyglot, halfway linguist in the sense we normally use this in Europe and not the sense to use in the US.
Right.
But I don't think doing this study is relevant for language learning.
Yeah.
It's something I do because I have halfway linguistic That's interesting in the construction. I think people who are going to learn the language should be more interesting in gathering details.
Right.
And examples.
And 80/20, you know, get as much out of as little time.
Yes.
Right.
Try to find the low-hanging fruits as I say and pick those. It will be totally idiotic to learn 100 verbs that have a strange feature. And then lose 100 ordinary expressions you could use.
Exactly. So look at the look at the No hanging fruits that I know.
Right. If there are few exceptions, well, learn the exceptions because then you know that everything else falls under this. I think that's beautiful. Nobody have ever told me that in school at the university. Don't I don't say they are have a well taught me badly. No. But they have not really had the courage to say most of the grammar you see in a grammar book can wait.
Right. Well, it's true, isn't it? I mean, some of the constructions are so rarely you might not see it in
Well, there are three ways to make forms of a French word like That's because even the French cannot understand the system. And well, why should I then?
Yeah, exactly. You need to know the most common exception and that's work like words like to be or something like that.
Exactly. And as I said, if you count how many forms you need to learn there, it's a few hundred.
Yeah.
And compare that to learning a few hundred words of other kinds.
Right.
Then and get learn them through examples.
Yeah.
It's not enough to say, we have one feature here. We have say infinitives that are in and then there's a long list of those in with that infinitive form. The important thing is what is different. I just put an e, well, I can see that.
Yeah.
What is different about this?
Right.
And then I find, okay. There are a few forms where that's really important to know that. And the rest, well, it's just you just combine things.
Exactly. So you wouldn't learn words, well, you would learn words but you would attach something to the single kind of the example.
I would learn a simple rule a couple of single rules. And I also shown some I call my green sheets.
Right.
Green sheet that's in essence a sheet where I try to mention the things I think are worth learning as rules.
Right.
That's the most regular verb forms and subjective forms, active forms. And if you do that, then most language can be summarized on two sheets.
Right.
And the rest The rest are exceptions and there you have to look at examples to learn them.
Right.
And then it doesn't doesn't help you to know that these 35 verbs are different in some way. At least you could show the points where they are different.
Yeah.
And now I can say a little concrete thing. With Polish my grammar book says if you know the first person and the second person in the singular.
Yeah.
Then you know all you need to know about almost every single verb in Polish, which is reputed as one of the most difficult languages in the world.
Wow.
The problem is your dictionary won't give you the second form.
Right.
It's in. It'll give you one form and that's an infinitive and then maybe tell you something about the first person. But it doesn't give you the rest.
Right.
So what do you have to do? You have to be aware every time you see a form of a verb. You just make a mental note.
Right.
That's in this category. You need to know the categories, the things to look for. But learning the concrete words, the concrete verbs in this case. It's a waste of time. You cannot learn 100 verbs unless seeing them on paper or on the internet. And in my case looking at some text where I find them. And if you don't find a verb then it's not important.
Right. Yeah, of course. I read a study about writing with the hand compared to the computer. So obviously when you were at university, there won't be any computer.
For me it's always writing by hand because I'm too old to have integrated the habits of a modern user.
Yeah, maybe that's a good thing.
Because they're saying what the study is that you remember more if you write by hand. But you have to separate those who have been living with their phone in their hand all their life may have another learning profile.
Sure.
Than I have because I've already learned to write in by hand. For them it may be something that keeps them from doing it.
Yes. That's probably So I think we should be very careful about this. What is important is to slow down the process.
Right.
So that you look at things instead of just think about it. Don't copy text.
Right.
Write it. If you write it on a keyboard, then write it on a keyboard by all means, but don't copy it.
Right.
Think about every word.
Think about the word. Think about the words. And stop caring about the hero in and lover and all that stuff. Facebook things. Look at the language. Then you can read it once again to find out what happened in the story line.
Of course. You cannot concentrate on both language and the content.
Right.
Um, well, we could probably talk for days about this subject but
Now I've said the most important.
Yes. 80/20 again. But before we end here I promised that we would just talk a little bit about the role of Latin.
Yes.
In both when you want to learn languages. But also learning perhaps Latin itself. I think there are two different concepts. Yes. As a language learner, I don't know any Latin. I had it in in high school a very brief course. So I I know the concept of the cases, but I couldn't say anything. No. I know the how the endings kind of changed the meanings and this is a famous sentence where it's like there's two names and then there's a verb and, you know, there's 10 different ways to say there's something, 10 different meanings. That's not important. But if I'm a language learner and I want to learn languages, is there a benefit big enough in learning Latin for improving my learning going forward?
No. I would say if you have already learned two or three romance languages.
Right.
Then it's the right time to learn Latin.
Okay.
It's idiotic to learn it before.
Okay.
Because well, it may be the mother of Italian for instance. But it's much more efficient to learn Italian and then you can find out why Italian is like Italian.
Come back to it.
And come back to your Latin, but it's even better if you can do it after having had Spanish and Romanian and a couple of other languages because then you have a reason to read learn it.
Right. You have to see the roots.
You have to see the roots maybe if you feel like that. But there's no way no well if you're very interested in Roman history. But who wants to learn about the Roman society without knowing the modern society.
Right.
So for most people it's more relevant to learn Italian or Spanish now.
Right.
Which can put you into contact with millions of people then to learn something which is spoken fluent by 10 professors and a couple of priests.
Yeah. So But then the next question is, why do we do it?
I did it because it was offered.
Yeah.
And the next thing is to learn French. I had to have a course in Latin. And I had courses in Latin.
Yeah.
But I also found out that as soon as I stopped using it, then it disappeared.
Right.
Just I had no reason. The only thing I used it for was to read on grave monuments what they had written there.
Yeah.
And that was not interesting.
No.
So, when I went back to my language studies. I started of course Latin in the old-fashioned way with grammar translation.
Yeah.
When I went back around 2010, maybe. Then I discovered I actually remembered most of my grammar.
Wow.
Because there's one thing those grammar translation people can do. That's put grammar in a consistent and logical way.
Right.
So then you can learn it.
Yeah.
The thing they don't provide is a reason to do it.
Right.
And they don't provide a way to keep it alive.
Right.
So I decided then that it had to be an active language.
Right.
So I started thinking in Latin and writing in Latin and I even made a couple of videos in Latin.
So you made it alive.
I made it alive even if it wasn't a language which I could use with other people. But what's the difference? I don't use my Romanian with other people. So what's the difference? There's no difference. It's actually the same situation with Esperanto.
Mhm.
Because if you have to learn Esperanto and speak it then you have to find some people. And there's no country.
Right.
There's no country for Latin. Well, even the Vatican speaks Italian.
Yeah.
And there's no country for Esperanto. You have to go to conferences or be member of clubs or something.
Yeah.
So what's the difference? And if I sit at home, I can I start using the same methods I used for any other language.
Right.
So I didn't use it. I didn't learn it as a dead language.
Yeah.
I learned it as a modern living language, which even has its own internet newspaper.
Right.
There's something called where they write about modern things and sometimes invent the words.
Wow.
But that's the kind of Latin I want to know.
That's interesting. Yeah. I mean that would be a good motivator to learn.
That's a good motivator and also I found a dictionary purely by accident in Manila in the Philippines. I just bought it, which have given me really good words for things that exist now like say computer or something like that.
Right.
The funny thing they call it because a computer is a human who computes things.
Right.
So that was okay, that's just a detail. But I try to consider it as any other language.
Right.
And learn it as any other language. And now I have a little little love. I'm not sure I could speak it today, but I could learn I could revitalize it. It is there. And this time it's an active language.
Right.
But then there are a couple of other languages. I could in principle also learn old Greek.
Right.
But there's a difference. I know the romance languages. But I had to learn the Greek language before it made sense to learn old Greek.
Yeah.
And that means it has been postponed until I'm really good at modern Greek.
Right.
And you're working on that sort of.
I'm working on that. I'm working on that. Fantastic. Then we have a couple of old languages like old and old French, old Occitan and old Norse, things like that.
Yeah.
Where I don't have the resources to make them active. In Latin there are actually resources. There are people who speak it on the internet. There are real fluent and there are courses, there are books, there are texts and there's a newspaper as I said. And there are dictionaries in both directions if you choose the right ones. There's much rubbish because there are many most dictionaries in Latin only cares about the Roman, maybe the medieval period.
Right.
But I need modern words. I need words for hotel and Do you know there's not really a good word for teacher in Latin?
No, that's surprised me.
Because the wealthy people had a slave to do it.
Right.
Mostly a Greek slave.
Right.
And then they have schools for gladiators and things like that. But they didn't have a school system.
Right.
So if I want to write about schools, then I have to search for a good word. And luckily there are people who make a dictionary where they have understood that.
Right.
But most just turns the direction of the Latin dictionaries where they take old Latin words and find a translation.
Right.
And they are not useful if you want to make a language active.
Right.
And I have not found anything for old French and old Occitan and old Norse and things like that which has that active element.
Right.
It's a little bit too dead. So those will for me remain passive.
Right.
Well, it's still interesting I feel like. And there's not many people here who talk of Latin.
Well, there are a couple of people who know some Latin.
Yeah. Yeah, I've seen a few. A few of those. them in there. I mean, I think it's just really exciting. And when I was doing it in school I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I think that's pretty common probably when you're about 15.
But the point is I actually liked Latin even back then. But I found out I didn't get the things I needed after I had left the courses.
Right.
So now when I see, I had the same teacher for German and for Latin, he used the same methods.
Oh, really. Actually. Well, well, the point is he learned he taught me German and I could speak German.
Right.
But his focus was different with Latin and therefore we never got to use Latin.
Right.
Fluently. But maybe that's not the point of those courses.
Well if you have to point but it is a way to make them relevant. Historical tool.
Yeah.
Well, the idea is of course they should be used as historical tools or to read the classics but who cares about the classics? I do. no problem. I read in my I've got Livy, the history of the Roman kings.
Right.
For heavy reading in the evenings and things like that. But you cannot just limit a language to something which happened 2,000 years ago. You need to use when you think about things, you need words for your daily life. Here in this year.
But then so isn't Esperanto perfect because it's there's hardly any classics. There are no there's very limited literature but it's all about speaking.
The problem with Esperanto for instance, if you take that. There's they speak about in Esperanto all the time.
Yeah.
they sometimes translate works, fiction.
I've heard that. Yeah.
I I have read actually I have read most of Tolkien in Esperanto. And it's very nice. But when it comes to for instance articles about dinosaurs or let's say the way to construct musical instruments in the Renaissance.
Right.
Things astronomy. Things that I'm interested in. There's nothing. Or it's very very very superficial.
Right.
So I have not really had the pleasure of learning Esperanto that it needed.
Right.
And therefore it has become a little rusty because when I don't use a language, I don't think in a language. Then I lose it.
Yeah.
That's a very natural process. And then back to it and it comes back. Well then I can get back now I've got a boost here at this conference. But people there are lots of Esperantists.
Yeah.
And I've got back to the point where I saw more or less can speak it. But I know if I sat down just a couple of days at home then I could really boost it.
Right.
But why?
Yeah.
It's all right. You have to find the one. They have to find something interesting to write about. And then I'll be interested. Right now it's just a second order language which I keep because well I've used time to learn it and it's an interesting language in itself. But it's not one that has given me as much as for instance learning Romanian.
Right. So Well that's incredible and I just want to say thank you for taking the time to share your your side of the coin because I I I've told you this a few times already but I'll I'll just repeat that a lot of the people who come to these events those are they are very publicized and and all over the the kind of the community. They always go by this, you know, speak by day one and you should do it this, this, and this way. It's really refreshing to hear another way. And like you say, you have you've proven it. It's not you it's just not it's not just theory, you know. So you've not only have you proven it, you're also proving that you need to find the way that works for you and you don't don't just take any piece of advice as true.
Of course I respect I know who you're speaking about. And I admire many of those enormously for the things they can do just walk up and find the people who speak to them in Kazakh or whatever.
Yeah.
But we have to realize not all of us are that gregarious.
Exactly. Well, thanks so much, Nils, and I'm sure you will enjoy the rest.