How to Learn Languages so NATURALLY it feels like CHEATING

what is the secret to poly Lots these people learn four eight 16 languages like it's nothing well when I learned Japanese I cracked the code and it was actually easier than I thought because in the past I tried everything to learn Spanish and I still failed but that was the problem I wanted a shortcut but the secret to polyglass is not some cheap trick they simply know how to use their time for maximum results so in this video I'll reveal the seven-step formula I found that gave me the best results this works so well that

when I was living in Japan I had Japanese people tell me which basically means yeah you're already Japanese so I'm going to jump right into this and it starts easier than I think you'd expect Step One is simply watch media with captions in your native language Yes you heard that right captions in your native language because this phase is not about learning it's about enjoying yourself first because the biggest problem language learner's face is simply finding content you enjoy because it's hard to enjoy something if you don't know what the heck is going on so

this step is to free yourself from feeling like you have to learn something from every piece of media you watch just enjoy and the next step will take it up a notch so when you find something you enjoy watch the same content with no captions it's a small change and we're not really studying just yet but it makes a big difference and I'll tell you why when I was learning Japanese I watched a lot of shows I even watched them with Japanese captions but I still found my listening skills suffered why is that well for

me whenever there's some text flying across the screen I just have to read it even if I don't understand it I have to read it so I might read the caption I want to eat a candy apple but I wouldn't hear the actual Japanese words even if the Japanese words were on the screen I would still just try to read the captions even if I didn't understand a thing I was using the captions as a crutch that's a big mistake because there's no captions in real life so this step forced me to sit and listen

and every now and then I'd hear words that I've been learning that said I'd still miss 99% of everything said because they were just talking way too fast and I know I'm not the only one who's experienced this so in the next step we'll go even deeper and hone our listening skills this practice is what made it easy for me to listen and understand Japanese speakers at their natural speed so what is it listen and write what you hear with no captions and it's an easy Three Steps step number one play a small clip enough

for someone to speak one sentence step number two pause write down the sounds you hear it doesn't have to be perfect you can replay the same clip as many times as you need until you can write down all of the sounds step number three repeat keep going until you finish the entire video or you could set a stopwatch for a half an hour an hour whatever you want only after compare what you wrote with the real language and and I say only after because this is not about writing practice and this is not about being

correct this is about honing your listening so rather than comparing sentence by sentence chunk it out focus on listening first then compare if there's only one practice you do in this entire video do this this will level up your listening dramatically which will make language learning 10 times easier because listening is the most important skill for language learners but it's also the most neglected so don't skip it that said you shouldn't only focus on listening there are a total of four core skills to learn a language listening Reading Writing and speaking if you want to

master a language you have to practice all four skills and this next practice we do just that and yes we use the same piece of content again at this point you might be getting tired of the video I get it but think about when you were a kid and you found a movie you liked you'd watch it over and over and over over and over You' repeat lines and drive your parents crazy that repetition is the key to language learning but I will say this if you stop enjoying the video it's fine to move on

I didn't study from every single video I came across I picked the videos I knew I could watch over and over then I went deep into that content and if you want to go in deep to learn a piece of content as well this next practice well it's something so what you'll do is listen read write and speak with captions in your target language now I don't want to sugarcoat this this practice is mentally exhausting but it's oh so good the first time I did this was with an anime called new game I studied the

entire series and when I was done I watched the show again and I couldn't believe it it was like I understood everything so here's what I did in Five Steps step number one listen to the phrase while reading the captions step number two look up any unknown words or any unknown grammar step number three speak the phrase aloud step number four handw write the phrase by copying the captions step number five repeat this with the same phrase for a total of three times and then you just keep on going you either finish the entire video

or you set a timer to end your study session now imagine doing this for an entire TV series that has a total of two seasons 12 episodes per season and about 24 minutes per episode that's almost 10 hours worth of content and to count up all the study time I'd say multiply that by four or five times so that's like 40 to 50 hours of study time call me crazy but it's effective you cover all the four core skills you listen and read you speak aloud then you write this is by far the number one

practice you could do no doubt but you might be wondering really three times s per phrase isn't that tedious well yeah but there is a good reason why and here's what I found happens to me the first time I'm just too focused on copying that I'm not really learning anything the second time I actually start to pick up on the words and grammar and how they fit together the third time it actually starts to feel familiar do this enough and you pick up on a lot of the language and I'll tell you I only did

this level of practice for like four or five series with Japanese after that I learned so much that I felt like I didn't have to do this anymore that's how good this practice is but even after I stopped this practice there was one practice that I absolutely did not stop and that's clip audio for review the best way to build real fluency is through constant exposure so instead of watching the same videos over and over I pick out phrases and save them to review cards and here's how I lay those out on the front I

have the sentence in my target language just the sentence no audio just yet because I want to challenge myself to read and fully understand it with no support then on the back I have the translation just to give myself a way to check if I was right plus I have the audio clip attached so I can play the audio and connect the spoken phrase to what I'm reading this is a perfect low stress way to revisit everything we've learned in the past and if you want to do this on your own you could use a

combination of share X and Anki if you want that's what I did when I was learning Japanese or if you're interested you can try out a web app that I've been working on I've built a feature that allows people to clip audio directly from videos although audio clipping is a desktop only feature right now or you can save audio clips from our public database if that sounds interesting to you please check it out but it's not required as long as you have a way to review what you've studied you'll do just fine now on to

the next step now this one I'm only going to give a basic overv because I already made a video titled perfect your accent with this musician's trick so you can go there to watch that video for a more in-depth video and this is a practice you don't need to hire a tutor for you don't even need to find a native speaking partner you could do this on your own simply put mimic what you hear it's the same idea as when we were kids and we copied characters on TV as we copy we improve it's super

simple but it's easier said than done it could be hard to pick up on new sounds and copy them so if you want a deep explanation on how to do just that you could go watch that video I promise it's worth your time now we do have one more step left and this is the most important step of them all so what you're going to do with the same piece of content that you've been using throughout this entire practice you're going to watch it one more time and you're going to sit and enjoy it that's

it just sit and watch no captions no studying this is the most important step because it allows you to pull back and see how far you've come like I said before with the anime series that I studied and studied by the end I was kind of wondering if it was even worth it but then I watched it one more time and it clicked I was shocked I it was like just a week ago I didn't understand any of this but now I understand more than 90% of it it was an incredible feeling but I do

have to say it's not like I understood 90% of the entire language I simply understood 90% of the language that was used in that one show but even then that's what makes this the most important step many language Learners get stuck feeling like they're not improving at all when in reality they've actually improved a lot so you need to have these moments where you can relax and see your progress so these are the seven steps that allowed me to learn Japanese naturally and I'm sure they'll help you as well that said I only did Cover

a portion of Step number six that was all about practicing pronunciation so if you wanted to continue on with that you could click over there to watch that video right now