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This T-shirt represents everything I'm going to say today.
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Can you see the shirt?
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Even at the back?
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It's actually, it's a match, which is here on fire,
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and there it's completely burned up.
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and this represents language learning for me.
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because when I study languages,
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I'm enthusiastic and energetic,
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then I feel like I'm on fire and burning and dying,
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and I end up frazzled and at the end I have to lie down.
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Whereas Richard, I heard him say that it's the opposite way around for him.
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He comes home after a hard day's work
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"Well, I feel on fire! I'm completely alive!"
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And at the end of hard session, he's reinvigorated.
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So, I want my language learning
to stop being like that
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and to be more like that.
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And I've always been fascinated
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with this difference,
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why some people frazzle at the end
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and some people get energised.
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OK. So my presentation touches a bit on that.
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I have to be ambidextrous
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which I'm not.
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So, the number 262 is important
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because that's how many slides I've got.
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[Laughter]
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Yeah.
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Oops! Sorry. It's not doing anything.
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[Audience member] - Try again!
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No.
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Yeah, all my slides say 262.
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[Laughter]
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Oh, is it up here?
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Where does it point?
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Oh, I was pressing the wrong button. OK.
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I'm not good at technical stuff.
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Yeah. And that's about how many minutes
I've got to do it.
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So, if you're good at numbers. That's a lot of slides.
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So I'll be talking quickly.
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Anthony Lauder.
That's me.
41
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Who?? Never heard of him.
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I'm the only person here that I've never heard of.
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This is a polyglot conference.
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Polyglots? What? Why am I here?
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[Laughter]
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I'm a "polyNot".
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I am useless at languages.
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My cats are better polyglots than me.
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If I say "food", they come running.
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If I say "tickle", they roll on their backs.
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If they say "Miaow",
I've got no idea what they're saying at all.
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[Laughter]
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I'm good at mathematics. OK?
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So, you shouldn't invite me
to a conference to talk about languages.
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Instead, I'm going to talk about
the Peano Axioms,
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which were formulated by Giuseppe Peano
in 1889.
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And the Peano Axioms, as you probably know,
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[Laughter]
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are the product of meta-mathematical research
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into fundamental questions of consistency and completeness in number theory.
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And specifically they state that all natural numbers are closed,
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under an injective and non-zero successor function. Yeah?
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And a reflexive, symmetric, transitive equality func...
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Zzzzzzz [snoring]
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[Laughter]
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Sorry.
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In other words...
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[Audience Member] It was interesting!
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Yeah, thank you.
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Think... This is what it's saying in real English.
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Think of a number.
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41
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Add one to it
and what do you get?
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42
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Brilliant. So, you're good at mathematics.
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You can apply Peano's axioms
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Because that's all they say.
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You get another number.
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And you can keep going.
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41 plus 1 is 42 and if you add one again
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you don't get 42, you get... 43.
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Is it?
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And you can keep going and going...
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And this "Add 1" is all you need.
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You can count to all the numbers in the universe, and beyond.
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And what's the lesson from this?
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When you're good at adding one,
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numbers become really easy.
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Great.
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When you're bad at adding 1,
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numbers are very hard.
[Laughter]
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So, how does this relate to polyglottery?
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Well, it actually does.
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I'm going to take my sandals off,
because they're slipping around a bit.
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So, if you can smell anything bad,
it's Richard, it's not me.
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I'm using Peano Axioms to understand
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the easiest way to be able to speak 10 foreign languages.
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I see on the forums,
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people always want to know what's the easiest way,
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what's the quickest way, what's the best method.
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I'm going to tell you now
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with my strong mathematical background
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- I have a PhD in Theoretical Computer Science.
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I'm really good at this kinda stuff. -
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And I'm gonna tell you how, using that,
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to be good at speaking 10 foreign languages.
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Are you ready?
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Step 1...
[Audience laughter]
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[applause]
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It's really easy. It's a 2 step plan.
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Who could ask for more?
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So, which is the hardest of those two steps?
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I think it's probably step 1 is the hardest, yeah?
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But once you've done that,
it's much easier to add one more.
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OK. And how do you do that?
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The way to be able to speak 9 languages is,
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because that was the hard bit, is
speak 8 and add 1.
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And you can keep going.
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And the hardest step is always step 1.
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And then adding one is easy...
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until you get here.
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Now step 2 is the hard one.
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[Audience laughter]
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Yeah?
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And this is important!
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Because for mega-polyglots, adding 1 is really easy.
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But for people like me, "polyNots",
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adding 1 is really hard.
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And my speech is going to be about why.
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Yeah, this is the big question.
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Literally. It's a big question.
[Audience laughter]
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[Applause]
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So, I don't know the answer!
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I don't know anything about languages,
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so I decided to do some research.
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And I looked into Applied Linguistics,
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and I found out that
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Applied Linguistics is the branch of linguistics
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that's actually useful to people who aren't linguists.
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[laughter & applause]
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So, the other advantage of this is
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anything I say here might be nonsense
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but all I have to do is
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- like English newspapers when they are about to say
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"That guy is a lying idiot" -
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they just put the word "allegedly"
at the beginning
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and don't have to worry about it.
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So allegedly, this is how to be good at adding one.
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So, applied linguistics isn't about theories.
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It's not some people just thinking up
something that "sounds good".
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Instead they do experiments in real life,
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find results, and publish the results.
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It's based on lots of evidence over decades.
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I've read mountains of papers
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and one great book.
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This great book.
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It's big and it's fat
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and it's boring as hell.
[Laughter]
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But it's really good, if you don't mind being bored.
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But it teaches a lot.
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It actually surveys in great detail
600 research studies.
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And it finds,
if you wade through all that,
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that the main difference between
Polyglots and PolyNots - like me -
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- so people like him, and people like me -
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is... polyglots are good at...
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[crowd makes inaudible suggestions]
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guessing.
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[Crowd laughs]
Who got that then? Ha!
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I bet Richard did!
Okay...
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And it turns out,
the reason they're good at guessing,
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- Now don't say nonsense yet, just bear with me -
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is because they have better memories.
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Now you'll say
"No, my memory is no better than anybody else's."
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And it might be true,
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because polyglots do not have
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better long term memory
than mere mortals.
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[Laughing]
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But they do have better short-term memories.
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There's some geeky words here, for linguists only,
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so I hope you can't read them.
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It's qualifying it
in case there are any linguists here.
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Short-term memories is good enough.
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Polyglots can remember things for a few seconds,
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and PolyNots forget them immediately.
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Did I say this yet?
[Laughter]
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It's "in one ear and out the other",
literally.
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So why is short term memory important?
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Why does it matter?
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You know, we learn all these things about
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how to remember words years down the line,
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but why is it important
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to remember something
for 5 seconds or 10 seconds?
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Well, it turns out that
short-term memory is essential to,
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it supports,
3 very important language skills.
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And those are
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noticing things,
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processing things, and
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guessing things.
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I'm gonna get into these in great detail.
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So, without those three skills,
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you can't use the methods that polyglots use.
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And polyNots struggle with language learning because
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they lack the three skills of...
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What were they?
[Laughter]
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noticing, processing and guessing.
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And that's great news for polyglots
and bad news for polyNots.
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Therefore,
the road from polyNottery to polyglottery
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is a process of
developing a better short term memory.
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And then you can train in the skills of
noticing, processing and guessing.
210
00:11:37,239 --> 00:11:41,239
And from that, you can apply the methods
that polyglots use.
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If you try to apply them
without having those skills,
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you're gonna burn up.
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OK. Now, interestingly, this process
is iterative and bidirectional.
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Oooh, whatever that means.
[Laughter]
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What it actually means is
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the more you improve your memory,
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the better your skills in processing,
and so on, and guessing become.
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And then you can start to use the methods.
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But, once you're using the methods,
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they actually build the skills,
which builds the memory.
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So it sort of snowballs.
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And it turns out,
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you actually only need a few weeks of training
to build these skills,
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and then you can be pretty independent.
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So, let's relate this to language learn--
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... to learning vocabulary.
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Now one reason that it's about vocabulary
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Is because the big fat book I read
is about vocabulary.
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If that book was about something else,
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this speech would be about something else.
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But it's because
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loads and loads and loads of real research
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from applied linguistics and not from theorists
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has shown that in order to comprehend spoken stuff
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and written stuff,
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vocabulary is actually far more important
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than subject knowledge ...
knowledge about the subject matter
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and far more important than grammatical knowledge.
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Now, how many words do you need?
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I guess you people
know all these kind of numbers
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that talk about things like
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"Native speakers have
20,000-word vocabulary."
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Ooh! That's a big number!
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It actually turns out that
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people learn around a thousand words a year
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pretty consistently up until around university age.
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So when a child goes to school for the first time,
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they'll know 5,000 words.
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mostly learned orally
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from their parents,
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and add a thousand words a year.
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"I haven't got 20 years
to learn some foreign language!"
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"Jesus Christ! I am an old man!
I'll be dead by then." [Laughter]
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But you need a very high vocabulary
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in order to have "pleasant free reading",
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for it not to be a frazzling experience,
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for it to be a pleasurable experience.
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If you have 95% coverage of the vocabulary
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in a newspaper
like the Guardian or something,
260
00:13:56,195 --> 00:13:58,125
You can understand it.
261
00:13:58,125 --> 00:13:59,345
It's not easy.
262
00:13:59,345 --> 00:14:03,185
If it's 90%,
understanding of the vocabulary in the Guardian,
263
00:14:03,185 --> 00:14:05,425
you really know you're studying.
264
00:14:05,425 --> 00:14:09,425
85% - it's for Richard Simcott and Luca only,
265
00:14:09,425 --> 00:14:12,365
and even those guys are defeated when it's 80%.
266
00:14:12,365 --> 00:14:15,295
Oooh, that's pretty spooky.
267
00:14:15,295 --> 00:14:19,855
So, what's the polyNot approach to vocabulary?
268
00:14:19,855 --> 00:14:24,983
Well, I didn't have to look very far to know that!
269
00:14:25,628 --> 00:14:28,488
Yikes! 20,000 words!
270
00:14:28,718 --> 00:14:31,028
That's a lot of flashcards!
[Laughter]
271
00:14:35,001 --> 00:14:37,851
PolyNots tend to believe in the existence,
272
00:14:37,851 --> 00:14:39,961
that there's one magic strategy
273
00:14:39,961 --> 00:14:41,181
that's going to be the best one.
274
00:14:41,181 --> 00:14:43,001
You see them asking this on forums.
275
00:14:43,001 --> 00:14:47,001
Actually, interestingly,
people have spoken to polyNots
276
00:14:47,001 --> 00:14:49,381
and found that
they don't really believe it
277
00:14:49,381 --> 00:14:51,051
but they kid themselves into believing it.
278
00:14:51,051 --> 00:14:55,051
They feel guilty they are not using
a wider range of strategies,
279
00:14:55,051 --> 00:14:57,961
but they're more comforted by believing
they are using the best one.
280
00:14:57,961 --> 00:15:01,021
So they seek confirmation
from people like Richard,
281
00:15:01,021 --> 00:15:03,090
to say, "Yeah, that's a really good one."
282
00:15:03,090 --> 00:15:05,060
Then they feel they're doing
what the masters do.
283
00:15:05,060 --> 00:15:06,730
And they tend to stick with it then
284
00:15:06,730 --> 00:15:08,570
despite all the evidence.
285
00:15:08,570 --> 00:15:11,580
You know that definition of insanity is
286
00:15:11,580 --> 00:15:13,570
doing the same thing over and over and over again
287
00:15:13,570 --> 00:15:14,280
despite all the evidence
288
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:16,860
and expecting a different result.
289
00:15:16,860 --> 00:15:20,860
That's what we do ... us polyNots.
290
00:15:20,860 --> 00:15:22,700
So, they spend a mass amount of time
291
00:15:22,700 --> 00:15:25,880
on learning single, unrelated words,
292
00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:29,600
and you end up with things like "Anki addiction".
293
00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:32,390
I've seen on Anki forums guys saying...
294
00:15:32,390 --> 00:15:35,080
"I've spent 2 hours putting new words into Anki today...
295
00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:37,300
and 15 minutes reviewing them."
296
00:15:37,300 --> 00:15:41,300
They're just... addicted.
297
00:15:41,673 --> 00:15:44,763
And they do these lengthy cramming sessions
298
00:15:44,763 --> 00:15:47,253
when they want to be heroic.
299
00:15:47,253 --> 00:15:50,253
"Ooh. I'll get as much energy as I can
300
00:15:50,253 --> 00:15:52,963
and do a cramming session tonight."
301
00:15:53,833 --> 00:15:57,833
And they want to pin down
the one true meaning of a word
302
00:15:57,833 --> 00:16:01,833
and get that one simple definition
on their flashcard.
303
00:16:01,833 --> 00:16:04,553
They see dictionaries as authoritative,
304
00:16:04,553 --> 00:16:08,553
so that, if they think they know
what a word means,
305
00:16:08,553 --> 00:16:11,923
but they see a different definition
of the word in the dictionary
306
00:16:11,923 --> 00:16:15,923
they'll abandon their own understanding of the word
as completely wrong.
307
00:16:15,923 --> 00:16:17,373
"Oh no! I'm an idiot."
308
00:16:17,373 --> 00:16:18,073
"I've got it wrong."
309
00:16:18,073 --> 00:16:20,593
"It means something else
because the dictionary tells me so."
310
00:16:20,593 --> 00:16:23,433
And they beat themselves up
when they forget a word.
311
00:16:23,433 --> 00:16:28,283
As you can imagine,
I'm beating myself up a lot.
312
00:16:28,298 --> 00:16:30,958
The idea then is that
you either know a word or you don't.
313
00:16:30,958 --> 00:16:33,018
It's black or white.
314
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:36,280
And you stop reviewing a word
once you know it.
315
00:16:36,280 --> 00:16:37,390
"Oh, I know that word now,
316
00:16:37,390 --> 00:16:40,280
time for me to move on to another one."
317
00:16:40,280 --> 00:16:43,480
And where do they decide
what words they're gonna work on?
318
00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:45,370
Those that are given to them
in homework
319
00:16:45,370 --> 00:16:48,770
or in the textbook
are the most important by far,
320
00:16:48,770 --> 00:16:51,930
even when they know
they're not interesting.
321
00:16:51,930 --> 00:16:54,790
Things that are in thematic groups.
322
00:16:54,790 --> 00:16:57,310
I remember when I was studying French,
323
00:16:57,310 --> 00:17:01,310
and we were given a list of all the
different words for different fishes.
324
00:17:01,310 --> 00:17:03,530
And it had their English translations,
325
00:17:03,530 --> 00:17:06,720
and I'd never heard of half of
the English names for the fishes,
326
00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:09,140
but was still learning the French ones.
327
00:17:09,140 --> 00:17:10,130
What?!
328
00:17:10,130 --> 00:17:10,950
This is interesting:
329
00:17:10,950 --> 00:17:14,300
ones that "sound nice".
330
00:17:14,300 --> 00:17:15,290
Pampeliška.
331
00:17:15,290 --> 00:17:17,830
Who knows what pampeliška means?
332
00:17:17,830 --> 00:17:20,210
It's a nice sounding word...
333
00:17:20,210 --> 00:17:22,210
You should go and look up what it means.
334
00:17:22,210 --> 00:17:23,960
Vulgar or unusual words.
335
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:25,520
"Eeeee! Let's get the slang book."
336
00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:26,800
"I can learn the swear words!"
337
00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:28,520
"Won't that be good?"
338
00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:32,840
And none of this is about whether the words are useful.
339
00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:36,780
So, they shun output quite a lot
as too painful
340
00:17:36,811 --> 00:17:38,891
"Oh no, that's going to remind me
of what I don't know!"
341
00:17:38,891 --> 00:17:39,621
"I'm going to look like an idiot!"
342
00:17:39,621 --> 00:17:42,281
"I'm not going to do any output."
343
00:17:42,281 --> 00:17:45,711
One day I'll know 20,000 words
344
00:17:45,711 --> 00:17:47,381
and then I'll be fluent.
345
00:17:47,381 --> 00:17:48,421
It'll be easy.
346
00:17:48,421 --> 00:17:51,001
I won't need to go through all that output.
347
00:17:51,001 --> 00:17:54,371
It'll just be easy all of a sudden.
348
00:17:54,371 --> 00:17:56,161
So, like one of my friends,
349
00:17:56,161 --> 00:17:57,841
you can say 'octopus'...
350
00:17:57,841 --> 00:17:59,651
you can say 'hovercraft'...
351
00:17:59,651 --> 00:18:03,691
but you can't say
"Can you help me, please?"
352
00:18:03,691 --> 00:18:05,341
[Laughter]
353
00:18:05,341 --> 00:18:08,571
If only they'd learned
the word for 'helicopter',
354
00:18:08,571 --> 00:18:12,221
that would have been it!
355
00:18:12,221 --> 00:18:14,411
So, the polyglot approach to vocabulary
356
00:18:14,411 --> 00:18:16,481
according to that book
357
00:18:16,481 --> 00:18:18,541
is very different.
358
00:18:20,176 --> 00:18:24,176
Vocabulary learning is not an end goal
for polyglots.
359
00:18:24,176 --> 00:18:27,596
It's not about
"I've got 20,000 words in Anki!"
360
00:18:27,596 --> 00:18:32,026
No, it's about
effective control over vocabulary
361
00:18:32,026 --> 00:18:34,856
for confident and fluent use
362
00:18:34,856 --> 00:18:36,976
in listening, speaking,
reading, and writing,
363
00:18:36,976 --> 00:18:40,566
not just for getting high scores on Anki.
364
00:18:40,566 --> 00:18:45,276
So, knowing a word
is not an all or nothing affair.
365
00:18:45,276 --> 00:18:48,506
Words sink in over time.
366
00:18:48,506 --> 00:18:51,346
You get repeated viewings,
like on an Anki card,
367
00:18:51,346 --> 00:18:55,346
but you also get a broader,
more diverse viewing of a word
368
00:18:55,346 --> 00:18:57,656
from different contexts
369
00:18:57,656 --> 00:19:00,046
to teach you the wide meanings
370
00:19:00,046 --> 00:19:03,226
and the broad meanings of words.
371
00:19:03,226 --> 00:19:09,086
In particular, polyglots see knowing a word
as multidimensional:
372
00:19:09,086 --> 00:19:10,906
form, meaning, and use.
373
00:19:10,906 --> 00:19:11,856
Which means,
374
00:19:11,856 --> 00:19:13,096
the spelling of the word,
375
00:19:13,096 --> 00:19:15,476
the parts the word is made up of,
376
00:19:15,476 --> 00:19:16,636
... the word ...
377
00:19:16,636 --> 00:19:18,186
and the pronunciation of the word,
378
00:19:18,186 --> 00:19:19,226
what the tone is,
379
00:19:19,226 --> 00:19:20,356
where the emphasis is,
380
00:19:20,356 --> 00:19:22,116
all these kind of things.
381
00:19:22,116 --> 00:19:23,546
And the meaning...
382
00:19:23,546 --> 00:19:25,666
Maybe there's a central concept to the word,
383
00:19:25,666 --> 00:19:28,546
but there can be
very diverse meanings as well
384
00:19:28,546 --> 00:19:29,576
and you have learn all of these.
385
00:19:29,576 --> 00:19:33,406
You don't reject all of them
apart from the "one true one".
386
00:19:33,406 --> 00:19:35,716
And words have lots of associations
387
00:19:35,716 --> 00:19:37,496
- We saw this
in one of the speeches yesterday -
388
00:19:37,496 --> 00:19:39,276
If you use the wrong word
in the wrong context,
389
00:19:39,276 --> 00:19:41,856
it'll cause all sorts of
strange associations to people
390
00:19:41,856 --> 00:19:44,286
that were unexpected to you.
391
00:19:44,286 --> 00:19:45,776
And use...
392
00:19:45,776 --> 00:19:48,856
So, is this a high frequency word?
393
00:19:48,856 --> 00:19:52,196
And in what context is it high frequency?
394
00:19:52,196 --> 00:19:57,996
"How's it hangin'?"
isn't very high frequency in written form
395
00:19:57,996 --> 00:19:59,696
for example.
396
00:19:59,696 --> 00:20:01,246
How formal is it?
397
00:20:01,246 --> 00:20:05,472
"Hey man, give me five"
isn't very good at a job interview.
398
00:20:05,472 --> 00:20:07,612
[Laughter]
399
00:20:07,612 --> 00:20:09,002
Oh, medium, yes...
400
00:20:09,002 --> 00:20:11,042
Is it spoken form or written form?
401
00:20:11,042 --> 00:20:12,412
And collocations
402
00:20:12,412 --> 00:20:13,942
- I don't even know if I'm saying that correctly -
403
00:20:13,942 --> 00:20:16,822
- I've always said it /kɑləˈkeɪʃənz/ -
404
00:20:16,822 --> 00:20:19,962
is a thing that polyNots tend to ignore
405
00:20:19,962 --> 00:20:24,512
but polyglots, even without realising it
406
00:20:24,526 --> 00:20:28,526
- we'll see - place a lot of emphasis on these.
407
00:20:28,526 --> 00:20:30,256
So, polyglots cover all those by
408
00:20:30,256 --> 00:20:34,186
balancing four strands of study:
409
00:20:34,186 --> 00:20:36,496
Intensive vocabulary study
410
00:20:36,496 --> 00:20:40,976
This is the stuff that polyNots like me
over-focus on
411
00:20:40,976 --> 00:20:42,696
Extensive listening and reading
412
00:20:42,696 --> 00:20:43,556
Speaking and writing
413
00:20:43,556 --> 00:20:44,606
and Fluency development
414
00:20:44,606 --> 00:20:46,636
I'll come to these in detail.
415
00:20:46,636 --> 00:20:49,346
Strand 1: Intensive vocabulary study
416
00:20:49,346 --> 00:20:51,786
Choose words based on frequency.
417
00:20:51,786 --> 00:20:55,786
Frequency really means usefulness.
418
00:20:56,894 --> 00:21:00,114
You need 20,000 words to get 98% coverage.
419
00:21:00,114 --> 00:21:02,494
"Ha! No! I've got to learn all of them!"
420
00:21:02,494 --> 00:21:06,784
No. Because even just knowing 10 words,
you can get 24% coverage.
421
00:21:06,784 --> 00:21:14,874
So, learn those 10 words first.
[Laughter]
422
00:21:14,874 --> 00:21:19,394
[applause]
423
00:21:19,394 --> 00:21:21,916
So, it's been shown in research
424
00:21:21,936 --> 00:21:25,936
that you should study quite intensively the first
425
00:21:25,936 --> 00:21:28,406
highest frequency 2,000 to 4,000 words
426
00:21:28,406 --> 00:21:30,076
That's worth putting time in.
427
00:21:30,076 --> 00:21:31,766
That's worth sticking into Anki.
428
00:21:31,766 --> 00:21:33,606
In fact, it's very interesting,
429
00:21:33,606 --> 00:21:36,706
polyglots, perhaps from their vast experience,
430
00:21:36,706 --> 00:21:38,886
have a general sense
for what's high frequency,
431
00:21:38,886 --> 00:21:40,646
for what's worth knowing.
432
00:21:40,646 --> 00:21:41,536
PolyNots don't.
433
00:21:41,536 --> 00:21:44,046
They see every word
as equally worth knowing
434
00:21:44,046 --> 00:21:46,176
so they just take other people's lists.
435
00:21:46,176 --> 00:21:48,486
So, they should probably use frequency dictionaries.
436
00:21:48,486 --> 00:21:49,466
There are some brilliant ones
437
00:21:49,466 --> 00:21:50,556
With the most 4,000 ...
438
00:21:50,556 --> 00:21:54,556
4,000 most important words
in Spanish, or French, or German, ...
439
00:21:54,556 --> 00:21:55,876
Just go with those.
440
00:21:55,876 --> 00:21:59,036
Make that your order
rather than randomness.
441
00:21:59,036 --> 00:22:05,166
But then, rather than learning the next 2,000
high-frequency general words,
442
00:22:05,166 --> 00:22:07,386
it's far more useful to you to focus on
443
00:22:07,386 --> 00:22:09,706
the 2,000 most frequent words
444
00:22:09,706 --> 00:22:13,706
in your specialist field
of personal interest.
445
00:22:13,706 --> 00:22:15,206
So, for example,
446
00:22:15,206 --> 00:22:17,486
there's something called the "Academic Word List"
447
00:22:17,486 --> 00:22:19,966
which has got about 350 words.
448
00:22:19,966 --> 00:22:20,766
If you learn those
449
00:22:20,766 --> 00:22:22,676
- There are books on this actually,
things like
450
00:22:22,676 --> 00:22:24,826
French for Reading,
or German for Reading -
451
00:22:24,826 --> 00:22:26,856
and they train you to be very good
452
00:22:26,856 --> 00:22:32,226
with the academic vocabulary
for reading scientific papers.
453
00:22:32,226 --> 00:22:34,116
You'll learn a few hundred words
454
00:22:34,116 --> 00:22:36,176
that'll be really useful in that field.
455
00:22:36,176 --> 00:22:37,786
Conversational vocab
456
00:22:37,786 --> 00:22:38,186
This is what ...
457
00:22:38,186 --> 00:22:39,056
- I don't know if anybody knows
458
00:22:39,056 --> 00:22:40,326
what my "conversational connectors" are -
459
00:22:40,326 --> 00:22:42,416
This is focusing on stuff that
460
00:22:42,416 --> 00:22:44,056
you say a lot in conversations
461
00:22:44,056 --> 00:22:46,726
but you never see in written form.
462
00:22:46,726 --> 00:22:49,076
So, a lot of people just read textbooks
463
00:22:49,076 --> 00:22:50,566
or study literature or something,
464
00:22:50,566 --> 00:22:52,176
and they can't hold a conversation
465
00:22:52,176 --> 00:22:53,416
because they've never been exposed to
466
00:22:53,416 --> 00:22:55,116
conversational vocabulary.
467
00:22:55,116 --> 00:22:58,586
Journalism - It turns out there are
just a few hundred words
468
00:22:58,586 --> 00:23:00,406
that appear constantly across journalism,
469
00:23:00,406 --> 00:23:02,936
and you need to know them
to work in that area.
470
00:23:02,936 --> 00:23:07,546
Fiction.
Fiction has its own vocabulary.
471
00:23:07,546 --> 00:23:09,786
Shoe selling
472
00:23:09,786 --> 00:23:12,776
It's worth knowing the word "shoelace"
473
00:23:12,776 --> 00:23:14,336
if you're doing shoe selling,
474
00:23:14,336 --> 00:23:18,746
but not if you're reading Tolstoy.
475
00:23:18,746 --> 00:23:21,586
There was a personal stab
at a specific person there
476
00:23:21,586 --> 00:23:23,326
I won't say who.
477
00:23:23,740 --> 00:23:24,980
OK
478
00:23:26,311 --> 00:23:30,311
Now, some researchers
looked at this whole field
479
00:23:30,311 --> 00:23:33,021
and they found, for example,
there's a very important textbook
480
00:23:33,021 --> 00:23:34,431
with 300,000 words.
481
00:23:34,431 --> 00:23:36,931
- It's a big, fat
telephone directory kind of book
482
00:23:36,931 --> 00:23:38,451
for macroeconomics -
483
00:23:38,451 --> 00:23:41,571
and they found that
just 34 specialist words
484
00:23:41,571 --> 00:23:45,571
covered 10% of that textbook
485
00:23:45,571 --> 00:23:48,211
Learn those
486
00:23:48,211 --> 00:23:52,211
if you are interested in macroeconomics.
487
00:23:52,986 --> 00:23:53,566
Has it stopped? OK.
488
00:23:53,928 --> 00:23:57,208
Then, beyond those 6000 words,
489
00:23:57,208 --> 00:24:02,478
"Ankimania" is probably not worth it.
490
00:24:02,478 --> 00:24:05,678
The words are going to come up too rarely
491
00:24:05,678 --> 00:24:08,158
to make that intensive study worth it.
492
00:24:08,158 --> 00:24:11,688
Just let yourself get exposed to them
naturally,
493
00:24:11,688 --> 00:24:13,928
through [Strand 2] Extensive listening and reading.
494
00:24:13,928 --> 00:24:16,228
Again, according to the book, not according to me.
495
00:24:16,228 --> 00:24:19,498
So, extensive listening and reading
does three things.
496
00:24:19,498 --> 00:24:24,158
It helps you encounter
low frequency words.
497
00:24:24,158 --> 00:24:27,322
It helps you enrich and deepen
- This is so vital! -
498
00:24:27,322 --> 00:24:30,362
enrich and deepen
your knowledge of high frequency words.
499
00:24:30,362 --> 00:24:33,242
It's not, "I know that now.
It's a waste of time me seeing it again."
500
00:24:33,242 --> 00:24:34,892
It needs to be enriched and deepened.
501
00:24:34,892 --> 00:24:36,472
And it helps you to master collocations.
502
00:24:36,472 --> 00:24:38,212
I'm going to come back to those.
503
00:24:39,002 --> 00:24:42,342
So, unfortunately
to learn words from context,
504
00:24:42,342 --> 00:24:43,972
from reading and listening,
505
00:24:43,972 --> 00:24:47,152
you need about 95 to 98% coverage.
506
00:24:47,152 --> 00:24:52,202
Supergeniuses...
of which there are many in this room
507
00:24:52,202 --> 00:24:55,282
but none standing up here on the platform
508
00:24:55,282 --> 00:24:59,282
can manage with 90%.
509
00:24:59,282 --> 00:25:00,542
So does that mean you've got to have
510
00:25:00,542 --> 00:25:03,302
20,000-word vocabulary before you start?
511
00:25:03,302 --> 00:25:04,852
No. It turns out that polyglots
512
00:25:04,852 --> 00:25:06,912
have this fantastic ability
513
00:25:06,912 --> 00:25:10,052
at sniffing out manageable material:
514
00:25:10,052 --> 00:25:14,007
Things they can handle.
Things that don't intimidate them.
515
00:25:14,007 --> 00:25:17,277
I say,
and many other people have said actually,
516
00:25:17,277 --> 00:25:20,257
that one of the best things a teacher can do,
is not lecture you on grammar,
517
00:25:20,257 --> 00:25:22,937
but point out to you
518
00:25:22,937 --> 00:25:25,057
appropriate material
for you to be working with.
519
00:25:25,057 --> 00:25:26,517
"You're ready for this now."
520
00:25:26,517 --> 00:25:28,047
"Go and look at that, now."
521
00:25:28,047 --> 00:25:31,583
"You won't be overwhelmed and
you won't be underwhelmed."
522
00:25:31,583 --> 00:25:33,023
An example: graded readers.
523
00:25:33,023 --> 00:25:34,973
Great, if you are learning English, by the way,
524
00:25:34,973 --> 00:25:39,673
bad if you're learning
Dzongkha from Bhutan.
525
00:25:39,673 --> 00:25:41,443
Unfortunately there aren't any.
526
00:25:41,443 --> 00:25:45,443
But the Oxford Bookworm series
has 6 levels
527
00:25:45,443 --> 00:25:49,343
each introducing 400 words only.
528
00:25:49,343 --> 00:25:52,728
Level 1 requires a vocabulary
of only 400 words.
529
00:25:52,728 --> 00:25:55,498
And by the end of the 6 levels,
530
00:25:55,498 --> 00:25:57,348
about 10 books in each level,
531
00:25:57,348 --> 00:26:00,828
you've learned 2,500 high frequency words.
532
00:26:00,828 --> 00:26:02,498
And they are not baby books.
533
00:26:02,498 --> 00:26:06,498
It's not "Spot the Dog" or
"Here is Peter and Jane".
534
00:26:06,498 --> 00:26:09,668
It's things like "Mutiny on the Bounty"
and "The Phantom of the Opera"
535
00:26:09,668 --> 00:26:11,418
and stuff like that, stuff that adults...
536
00:26:11,418 --> 00:26:13,428
stuff that's not going to
bore the pants off you.
537
00:26:13,428 --> 00:26:16,848
And the aim here is not to make it easy.
538
00:26:16,848 --> 00:26:20,848
The aim here is to help you
develop vocabulary control
539
00:26:20,848 --> 00:26:26,688
by eliminating the deleterious superfluity
of very low frequency vocabulary,
540
00:26:26,688 --> 00:26:30,038
such as "deleterious superfluity".
541
00:26:30,038 --> 00:26:32,978
[Laughter]
542
00:26:32,978 --> 00:26:36,608
[Applause]
543
00:26:36,608 --> 00:26:38,598
The idea here is that you hit words
544
00:26:38,598 --> 00:26:41,928
from many, many, many different angles.
545
00:26:41,928 --> 00:26:45,192
And you deepen and broaden
your knowledge of it.
546
00:26:45,192 --> 00:26:45,822
OK?
547
00:26:45,822 --> 00:26:47,822
Then after those graded readers,
548
00:26:47,822 --> 00:26:50,082
then you are ready for authentic materials
549
00:26:50,082 --> 00:26:51,792
in your specialist area.
550
00:26:51,792 --> 00:26:52,582
You can dive in.
551
00:26:52,582 --> 00:26:54,472
They've prepared you.
552
00:26:55,818 --> 00:26:59,818
Now, unfortunately, it takes a long time.
553
00:26:59,818 --> 00:27:03,818
To learn 1,000 low-frequency words a year
554
00:27:03,818 --> 00:27:06,338
needs massive amounts of exposure.
555
00:27:06,338 --> 00:27:10,338
You need - Oh My God! -
one million words
556
00:27:10,338 --> 00:27:13,998
reading or listening, or a combination
557
00:27:13,998 --> 00:27:15,888
to give you sufficient repetition
558
00:27:15,888 --> 00:27:18,278
to absorb 1,000 words a year.
559
00:27:18,288 --> 00:27:19,998
So, I think that's a realistic goal.
560
00:27:19,998 --> 00:27:25,298
People want to become masters in days.
561
00:27:25,298 --> 00:27:27,658
Be realistic.
562
00:27:27,658 --> 00:27:29,246
OK, that means you have got to read
563
00:27:29,246 --> 00:27:30,676
one or two books a month,
564
00:27:30,676 --> 00:27:33,496
or read a magazine like Newsweek
every week,
565
00:27:33,496 --> 00:27:35,296
to steadily increase your vocabulary
566
00:27:35,296 --> 00:27:38,526
rather than just maintain your current level.
567
00:27:38,526 --> 00:27:43,196
OK, so how do you deal with
unknown vocabulary?
568
00:27:43,196 --> 00:27:47,501
Well, polyNots - like me - rely on a gloss
569
00:27:47,501 --> 00:27:49,179
that's some kind of cheat-sheet
570
00:27:49,179 --> 00:27:50,439
with the words in it,
571
00:27:50,439 --> 00:27:51,779
which is good for textbooks,
572
00:27:51,779 --> 00:27:53,519
bad when you're reading Harry Potter.
573
00:27:53,519 --> 00:27:54,819
There isn't a cheat-sheet.
574
00:27:54,819 --> 00:27:56,489
So then you jump to the dictionary
575
00:27:56,489 --> 00:27:57,349
and look every word up
576
00:27:57,349 --> 00:27:59,379
and it's bloody slow.
577
00:27:59,379 --> 00:28:01,899
It doesn't half make the book far less interesting
578
00:28:01,899 --> 00:28:05,079
But polyglots, though...
579
00:28:05,079 --> 00:28:06,909
guess!
580
00:28:07,615 --> 00:28:09,615
And this is the central thing.
581
00:28:09,615 --> 00:28:11,895
Guessing is what it's about.
582
00:28:11,895 --> 00:28:14,065
Guessing, it has been shown
583
00:28:14,065 --> 00:28:18,065
- with probes in the brain, apparently -
584
00:28:18,065 --> 00:28:22,065
[Laughter]
- I've had probes in many places, but not yet in my brain. -
585
00:28:22,065 --> 00:28:26,065
- But that's enough bedroom talk. -
[Laughter]
586
00:28:26,065 --> 00:28:28,215
So, guessing, it turns out,
587
00:28:28,215 --> 00:28:30,295
gives longer-lasting and
deeper meaning over time.
588
00:28:30,295 --> 00:28:31,765
You remember things for longer
589
00:28:31,765 --> 00:28:34,755
and your understanding of them gets much deeper,
590
00:28:34,755 --> 00:28:38,755
because you've... thought it through.
591
00:28:38,755 --> 00:28:40,835
And, yeah, there you go
592
00:28:40,835 --> 00:28:42,805
and repeated encounters with the words
593
00:28:42,805 --> 00:28:43,985
in different contexts
594
00:28:43,985 --> 00:28:46,745
mean you think my guess was probably wrong before
595
00:28:46,745 --> 00:28:48,605
because now the word means something else
596
00:28:48,605 --> 00:28:49,325
in this context.
597
00:28:49,325 --> 00:28:51,285
Oh! That doesn't mean you
reject the old meaning.
598
00:28:51,285 --> 00:28:56,015
That means enhance it, enrich it,
elaborate it, and broaden it.
599
00:28:56,015 --> 00:28:57,835
Now good guessing, how does it happen?
600
00:28:57,835 --> 00:29:00,325
It's not... random guessing.
601
00:29:00,325 --> 00:29:03,015
It's based on good clues.
602
00:29:03,015 --> 00:29:05,015
Now knowing similar languages can help.
603
00:29:05,015 --> 00:29:08,235
"Ah! It's easier for him.
He already speaks... whatever."
604
00:29:08,235 --> 00:29:09,575
Because, you know, it's easy
605
00:29:09,575 --> 00:29:11,635
'cause that language has got cognates in it
606
00:29:11,635 --> 00:29:12,775
- words that are similar.
607
00:29:12,794 --> 00:29:14,474
But it can also hinder
608
00:29:14,474 --> 00:29:16,134
due to interference between languages.
609
00:29:16,134 --> 00:29:18,864
And polyglots, though, are aware of this
610
00:29:18,864 --> 00:29:21,564
and they have mechanisms for managing it
611
00:29:21,564 --> 00:29:23,724
and that awareness comes from
612
00:29:23,724 --> 00:29:24,774
guessing lots of times
613
00:29:24,774 --> 00:29:27,824
and learning when to be careful.
614
00:29:28,614 --> 00:29:31,324
They rely far more
615
00:29:31,324 --> 00:29:33,924
on a wide variety of contextual clues
616
00:29:33,924 --> 00:29:36,154
to make their guesses sensible,
617
00:29:36,154 --> 00:29:38,764
rather than just on their backgrounds.
618
00:29:38,764 --> 00:29:41,434
And they evaluate these clues
against each another.
619
00:29:41,434 --> 00:29:42,774
There've been loads of studies
620
00:29:42,774 --> 00:29:43,534
looking at eye movements
621
00:29:43,534 --> 00:29:45,874
and all these kinda things
622
00:29:45,874 --> 00:29:47,494
showing people broadening out
623
00:29:47,494 --> 00:29:48,794
and narrowing in
624
00:29:48,794 --> 00:29:50,734
to look for new guesses...
625
00:29:50,734 --> 00:29:52,304
- And it's an automatic process. -
626
00:29:52,304 --> 00:29:55,974
- You don't even know you're doing it,
once you're doing it. -
627
00:29:55,974 --> 00:29:58,535
... until they feel that their guess
628
00:29:58,535 --> 00:30:00,115
is sufficiently well founded,
629
00:30:00,115 --> 00:30:01,345
or at least as well founded
630
00:30:01,345 --> 00:30:04,145
as they can make it now.
631
00:30:05,059 --> 00:30:06,769
So they don't guess randomly.
632
00:30:06,769 --> 00:30:08,359
They're actually inferring things
633
00:30:08,359 --> 00:30:09,259
from the context.
634
00:30:09,259 --> 00:30:11,029
It's informed guessing,
635
00:30:11,070 --> 00:30:14,710
which increases the chance
that the guessing is sensible.
636
00:30:14,710 --> 00:30:17,514
And, importantly,
they're happy not to know everything!
637
00:30:17,514 --> 00:30:20,084
They will leave things for another time.
638
00:30:20,084 --> 00:30:21,944
Happy with partial understanding.
639
00:30:21,944 --> 00:30:24,524
PolyNots hate that.
640
00:30:25,248 --> 00:30:26,638
All the research, though, shows
641
00:30:26,638 --> 00:30:28,525
that to notice clues,
642
00:30:28,525 --> 00:30:30,705
and to evaluate them against one another,
643
00:30:30,705 --> 00:30:32,345
and then to make good guesses,
you need...
644
00:30:32,345 --> 00:30:35,025
a very strong short term memory.
645
00:30:35,025 --> 00:30:37,075
And without it,
you don't notice the clues.
646
00:30:37,075 --> 00:30:38,694
You can't remember them.
647
00:30:38,694 --> 00:30:40,564
You forget them
as soon as you've seen them.
648
00:30:40,564 --> 00:30:42,414
And so you can't evaluate them
against each other
649
00:30:42,414 --> 00:30:45,864
And so your guesses
are absolutely useless!
650
00:30:45,864 --> 00:30:47,444
Like my guesses.
651
00:30:47,444 --> 00:30:51,444
Thankfully, short term memory
can be trained.
652
00:30:51,444 --> 00:30:52,354
The downside, though,
653
00:30:52,354 --> 00:30:54,754
is that it gets a lot harder
as you get older.
654
00:30:54,754 --> 00:30:57,274
There's been research by neurologists
655
00:30:57,274 --> 00:30:59,755
that shows that old guys like me
656
00:30:59,755 --> 00:31:04,524
have an ever-decreasing
short term memory.
657
00:31:04,524 --> 00:31:08,489
I'm just hoping to hold on to
the bits I've got left!
658
00:31:08,489 --> 00:31:09,739
If you're young like half the pe---
659
00:31:09,739 --> 00:31:11,389
90 percent of the people here,
660
00:31:11,389 --> 00:31:14,259
compared to me, are very young.
661
00:31:14,259 --> 00:31:16,728
Train your memory now, if you need to.
662
00:31:16,728 --> 00:31:18,385
So, the idea though,
663
00:31:18,385 --> 00:31:22,415
is to gradually increase
your reading span, with recall.
664
00:31:22,415 --> 00:31:24,485
Just start on a couple of words,
665
00:31:24,485 --> 00:31:25,725
look away
666
00:31:25,725 --> 00:31:27,995
and recall what you've just read.
667
00:31:27,995 --> 00:31:30,595
It doesn't have to be word-for-word,
but close.
668
00:31:30,595 --> 00:31:32,698
Then broaden it, broaden it,
and broaden it.
669
00:31:32,698 --> 00:31:34,148
And it has been found that just doing this
670
00:31:34,148 --> 00:31:36,928
for 10 minutes a day for 6 weeks
671
00:31:36,928 --> 00:31:40,718
will make you into a good guesser.
672
00:31:40,718 --> 00:31:42,404
I guess.
[Laughter]
673
00:31:43,714 --> 00:31:44,724
And then...
674
00:31:45,404 --> 00:31:49,404
So, once you've got the
noticing and recall bit,
675
00:31:49,404 --> 00:31:53,214
then you can start to apply guessing.
Yeah?
676
00:31:53,214 --> 00:31:55,004
You can now recall the clues
677
00:31:55,004 --> 00:31:56,994
and then you can guess based on them.
678
00:31:56,994 --> 00:31:58,704
And again, go back to going small,
679
00:31:58,704 --> 00:32:01,464
expand it out again
680
00:32:01,464 --> 00:32:04,544
until the guessing becomes automatic.
681
00:32:04,544 --> 00:32:06,484
And this is what's important:
682
00:32:06,484 --> 00:32:09,024
automaticity,
doing things without thinking anymore.
683
00:32:09,024 --> 00:32:13,024
By the way, this is where
you cannot compress experience.
684
00:32:13,024 --> 00:32:14,044
You can go through the motions,
685
00:32:14,044 --> 00:32:15,494
but you can't compress experience,
686
00:32:15,494 --> 00:32:18,684
because it's automaticity of guessing
that you really need.
687
00:32:18,684 --> 00:32:21,634
Strand 3: Speaking and Writing
688
00:32:21,634 --> 00:32:24,674
Activation is really hard!
689
00:32:24,674 --> 00:32:29,624
Learning thousands of words does not mean
you'll be able to speak them.
690
00:32:29,624 --> 00:32:30,848
It doesn't happen magically.
691
00:32:30,848 --> 00:32:35,458
And polyglots are very good at feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
692
00:32:35,458 --> 00:32:37,832
This is a Benny type of thing here:
["Benny" = Benny Lewis, a well-known polyglot]
693
00:32:37,832 --> 00:32:40,052
Speak early; speak often!
694
00:32:40,052 --> 00:32:45,324
10 words is enough to have a good conversation.
695
00:32:45,324 --> 00:32:48,924
Thankfully for me!
[Laughter]
696
00:32:48,924 --> 00:32:56,484
2,000 words is considered a mature adult vocabulary
for colloquial conversations.
697
00:32:56,484 --> 00:32:58,201
You don't need 20,000.
698
00:32:58,201 --> 00:33:01,451
You might for reading literature, but not for talking.
699
00:33:01,451 --> 00:33:03,521
So how do you activate?
700
00:33:03,521 --> 00:33:06,041
You saw my big fat book there
on vocabulary,
701
00:33:06,041 --> 00:33:07,831
which is dull and boring.
702
00:33:07,831 --> 00:33:11,831
Here's my favourite book on activating.
703
00:33:11,831 --> 00:33:18,411
"How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately"
by Boris Shekhtman
704
00:33:18,411 --> 00:33:22,828
You can search on my name and
I've got a video about it.
705
00:33:22,828 --> 00:33:25,478
Why is that book so thin?!
706
00:33:25,478 --> 00:33:28,958
I want a fat book that... tells me how to activate!
707
00:33:28,958 --> 00:33:31,258
But there's very little research on this
708
00:33:31,258 --> 00:33:33,618
and one reason is thought to be
709
00:33:33,618 --> 00:33:34,508
that historically,
710
00:33:34,508 --> 00:33:39,008
language teaching is about
keeping the student quiet,
711
00:33:39,008 --> 00:33:41,818
so that they can focus on
what they're being taught.
712
00:33:41,818 --> 00:33:44,398
And there's a load of research
in teaching vocabulary,
713
00:33:44,398 --> 00:33:49,428
very little in the student
actually becoming active.
714
00:33:51,788 --> 00:33:53,660
Richard...
715
00:33:53,660 --> 00:33:56,852
[Laughter]
716
00:33:56,852 --> 00:34:00,822
Rehearsing at home helps!
717
00:34:00,822 --> 00:34:01,554
Just talk to yourself,
718
00:34:01,554 --> 00:34:03,634
make a fool of yourself,
laugh at yourself in the mirror.
719
00:34:03,634 --> 00:34:07,144
Actually, talking to yourself
in front of the mirror
720
00:34:07,144 --> 00:34:10,704
is one of the best ways
to get over the fear of talking in public,
721
00:34:10,704 --> 00:34:11,634
it turns out.
722
00:34:11,634 --> 00:34:13,694
Seeing another face.
723
00:34:13,694 --> 00:34:16,784
Looking yourself in the eye.
724
00:34:16,784 --> 00:34:17,965
OK.
725
00:34:17,965 --> 00:34:19,583
Self-talk
726
00:34:19,583 --> 00:34:22,923
Just repeating everything you see in your daily life
727
00:34:22,923 --> 00:34:26,943
and these are things
that polyNots do not do.
728
00:34:26,943 --> 00:34:30,310
Polyglots, it turns out,
often do these things
729
00:34:30,310 --> 00:34:32,070
without even realising
they're doing them.
730
00:34:32,070 --> 00:34:34,520
When they are studying vocabulary,
very often,
731
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:36,050
automatically in the back of their head
732
00:34:36,050 --> 00:34:38,180
they'll be thinking of
how to apply the vocabulary
733
00:34:38,180 --> 00:34:39,460
and just using it automatically
734
00:34:39,460 --> 00:34:42,360
rather than thinking,
"I've just learned it."
735
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:44,020
And this is
- perhaps the number one thing -
736
00:34:44,020 --> 00:34:46,710
is to summarize things.
737
00:34:46,710 --> 00:34:48,447
We've seen you can use 400 words
738
00:34:48,447 --> 00:34:51,037
to write Moby Dick
and these kinds of books.
739
00:34:51,037 --> 00:34:54,487
So you can use 400 words to summarize
pretty much anything.
740
00:34:54,487 --> 00:34:56,917
Simplify, simplify, simplify!
741
00:34:56,917 --> 00:35:00,647
Please practice,
to all the PolyNots out there,
742
00:35:00,647 --> 00:35:02,425
and just... do it.
743
00:35:02,425 --> 00:35:05,665
And this is another one, "Islands" mean...
744
00:35:05,665 --> 00:35:08,999
- this is from here -
something very important.
745
00:35:08,999 --> 00:35:10,929
And I'm not going to tell you
what it means.
746
00:35:10,929 --> 00:35:12,929
I want you to buy the book.
747
00:35:12,929 --> 00:35:15,959
That author deserves it.
748
00:35:15,959 --> 00:35:17,939
Ok, there you go.
749
00:35:17,939 --> 00:35:21,939
For writing, again, you only need 400 words
to write some pretty good stuff.
750
00:35:21,939 --> 00:35:25,049
You can write Phantom of the Opera.
751
00:35:25,049 --> 00:35:28,022
And then you keep elaborating
what you've written
752
00:35:28,022 --> 00:35:29,712
as your vocabulary grows.
753
00:35:29,712 --> 00:35:31,382
So you could write Phantom of the Opera
754
00:35:31,382 --> 00:35:32,793
with a 400-word vocabulary,
755
00:35:32,793 --> 00:35:33,963
and then come back to it
756
00:35:33,963 --> 00:35:36,433
and write a better version.
757
00:35:36,433 --> 00:35:38,363
This is what "islands" are about.
758
00:35:38,363 --> 00:35:42,345
Write loads of things;
keep elaborating them.
759
00:35:42,345 --> 00:35:44,655
Strand 4: Fluency Development
760
00:35:44,655 --> 00:35:46,455
Oh, what's "fluency"?
761
00:35:46,455 --> 00:35:49,375
I'm going to go with a really simple definition.
762
00:35:49,375 --> 00:35:51,485
Fluency is not a magical process
763
00:35:51,485 --> 00:35:53,135
of sounding like a native. No.
764
00:35:53,135 --> 00:35:55,995
Fluency is not about a big vocabulary.
765
00:35:55,995 --> 00:36:02,225
Fluency is about being quick,
and smooth, and in control...
766
00:36:02,225 --> 00:36:04,680
with what you already have.
767
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:09,740
You can be fluent with your 10-word
vocabulary in conversations.
768
00:36:09,740 --> 00:36:12,770
And it's training for automaticity.
769
00:36:12,770 --> 00:36:14,170
People have asked me in the past,
770
00:36:14,170 --> 00:36:16,320
"How do you think in a foreign language?"
771
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:17,810
And my answer is always:
772
00:36:17,810 --> 00:36:20,810
The aim is to learn not to think at all,
773
00:36:20,810 --> 00:36:24,306
for the words just to
come out automatically.
774
00:36:24,306 --> 00:36:31,326
Because, it's shown that thinking is
too slow for real life. [Laughter]
775
00:36:31,326 --> 00:36:35,539
And 4 practices have been shown as
essential to gaining fluency
776
00:36:35,539 --> 00:36:38,677
without needing to think
when you're having conversations.
777
00:36:38,677 --> 00:36:40,581
So the first one: Overlearning
778
00:36:40,581 --> 00:36:42,461
Learn and learn and learn and learn.
779
00:36:42,461 --> 00:36:44,911
Just because you know a word,
you don't know it.
780
00:36:44,911 --> 00:36:47,744
Keep hitting the word from different angles.
781
00:36:47,744 --> 00:36:49,524
It'll get deeper inside you.
782
00:36:49,524 --> 00:36:51,974
Do things at a higher speed
than you're comfortable with.
783
00:36:51,974 --> 00:36:54,014
PolyNots will listen to the radio
and think,
784
00:36:54,014 --> 00:36:56,044
"I can't understand it.
It's too quick."
785
00:36:56,044 --> 00:36:59,014
put it aside, and go back to something
really slow in the textbook.
786
00:36:59,014 --> 00:37:01,584
They never expose themselves
to the hard stuff.
787
00:37:01,584 --> 00:37:03,854
You need to.
788
00:37:05,191 --> 00:37:08,031
Do "time-boxed" reading and writing:
789
00:37:08,031 --> 00:37:10,611
"I'm going to read as much as I can
in five minutes".
790
00:37:10,611 --> 00:37:12,201
And you're going for speed.
791
00:37:12,201 --> 00:37:13,771
Speak. Speak quickly.
792
00:37:13,771 --> 00:37:15,611
And try not to make stupid errors,
793
00:37:15,611 --> 00:37:17,049
but mostly go for speed.
794
00:37:17,049 --> 00:37:17,839
And writing...
795
00:37:17,839 --> 00:37:20,809
Write an essay as long as you can
in five minutes.
796
00:37:20,809 --> 00:37:22,939
And these prepare you for real life,
797
00:37:22,939 --> 00:37:25,219
even though you're going to make mistakes.
798
00:37:25,219 --> 00:37:27,389
And then - another Benny thing -
799
00:37:27,389 --> 00:37:29,379
get out there in real life
800
00:37:29,379 --> 00:37:32,269
and have lots of real-life encounters.
801
00:37:32,269 --> 00:37:36,684
Because that is where all your theory
comes into practice
802
00:37:36,684 --> 00:37:38,722
and you realise you're tongue-tied.
803
00:37:38,722 --> 00:37:41,152
And the only way to not be tongue-tied
804
00:37:41,152 --> 00:37:43,082
is to get out there and do it.
805
00:37:43,082 --> 00:37:46,402
However, even gaining
automaticity with words,
806
00:37:46,402 --> 00:37:48,182
you're still not fast enough.
807
00:37:48,182 --> 00:37:50,262
Thinking's too slow.
808
00:37:50,262 --> 00:37:54,262
Automaticity with words is too slow.
809
00:37:54,262 --> 00:37:59,022
You need automaticity
with clusters of words.
810
00:37:59,022 --> 00:37:59,962
And it's been shown ...
811
00:37:59,962 --> 00:38:01,612
In other words, these are collocations
812
00:38:01,612 --> 00:38:02,972
I'm going to use this word
"collocations" to mean
813
00:38:02,972 --> 00:38:08,312
to mean "clusters of words
that tend to go together in real life".
814
00:38:08,312 --> 00:38:10,352
Because research has shown
815
00:38:10,352 --> 00:38:11,742
that in real-life speech
816
00:38:11,742 --> 00:38:14,642
- they've recorded native speakers, and so on -
817
00:38:14,642 --> 00:38:15,922
in authentic speech ...
818
00:38:15,922 --> 00:38:19,922
and found that they are speaking at rates
819
00:38:19,922 --> 00:38:21,212
faster than the ...
820
00:38:21,212 --> 00:38:24,782
[video skipped; see slide: "...brain could possibly recreate..."]
just building it on grammar and individual words.
821
00:38:24,782 --> 00:38:26,958
So you need to be able to say things like,
822
00:38:26,958 --> 00:38:33,768
"You need to be able to say things like".
[Laughter]
823
00:38:35,778 --> 00:38:38,175
But collocations are about far more
824
00:38:38,175 --> 00:38:39,565
than just speed.
825
00:38:39,565 --> 00:38:41,506
It's not just speed training.
826
00:38:41,506 --> 00:38:43,336
They deepen our understanding
827
00:38:43,336 --> 00:38:45,726
of the rich meanings of individual words.
828
00:38:45,726 --> 00:38:47,886
So, learning chunks
also teaches about individual words.
829
00:38:47,886 --> 00:38:50,806
For example, the word "cause".
830
00:38:50,806 --> 00:38:53,946
This is just a pretty
neutral-sounding word.
831
00:38:53,946 --> 00:38:56,356
Does "cause" sound positive,
or negative, or neutral?
832
00:38:56,356 --> 00:38:57,366
I'd say neutral.
833
00:38:57,366 --> 00:39:00,401
But, actually, it turns out it collocates
834
00:39:00,401 --> 00:39:02,391
with undesirable situations.
835
00:39:02,391 --> 00:39:04,971
You very rarely say,
"That causes happiness."
836
00:39:04,971 --> 00:39:06,331
But you would say, things like
837
00:39:06,331 --> 00:39:08,131
"Ooh, that causes concern."
838
00:39:08,131 --> 00:39:10,041
"He's causing trouble."
839
00:39:10,041 --> 00:39:11,854
"Oh, that's are real cause
for embarrassment."
840
00:39:11,854 --> 00:39:15,344
"Cause" tends to collocate
with negative stuff.
841
00:39:15,344 --> 00:39:19,344
So don't use it talking about
positive stuff so much.
842
00:39:19,344 --> 00:39:21,234
"Signal" - This is a good word.
843
00:39:21,234 --> 00:39:23,304
Who knows what "signal" means?
844
00:39:23,304 --> 00:39:27,304
Oh, nobody?
[Laughter]
845
00:39:27,304 --> 00:39:28,404
"Thank you for the signal."
846
00:39:28,404 --> 00:39:30,464
What does it mean?
847
00:39:30,464 --> 00:39:36,514
[muffled answer from the audience]
848
00:39:36,514 --> 00:39:39,916
"She sent the king a signal."
849
00:39:39,916 --> 00:39:43,326
A message! It's a noun, isn't it?
850
00:39:43,326 --> 00:39:46,966
"Then saw him signal back."
851
00:39:46,966 --> 00:39:49,886
Oh, it's a verb!
852
00:39:49,886 --> 00:39:51,486
Oh, I was wrong!
853
00:39:51,486 --> 00:39:53,196
Here's a very good one
854
00:39:53,196 --> 00:39:53,986
that you probably don't know
855
00:39:53,986 --> 00:39:55,456
unless you're a native speaker.
856
00:39:55,456 --> 00:39:57,726
"It was a signal honour."
857
00:39:57,726 --> 00:39:59,196
It's an adjective!
858
00:39:59,196 --> 00:40:02,996
It means "significant or important".
859
00:40:02,996 --> 00:40:05,036
And only by hitting the word
860
00:40:05,036 --> 00:40:07,106
through massive exposure in many contexts
861
00:40:07,106 --> 00:40:10,326
and understanding
the various meanings of things.
862
00:40:10,326 --> 00:40:13,184
Like, "signal honour" is a collocation
863
00:40:13,184 --> 00:40:14,574
you see all the time
864
00:40:14,574 --> 00:40:18,574
if you... read books about signal honours.
865
00:40:18,574 --> 00:40:22,514
[Laughter]
866
00:40:23,674 --> 00:40:28,304
And collocations are necessary
to sound authentic,
867
00:40:28,304 --> 00:40:30,414
because a great many things
868
00:40:30,414 --> 00:40:32,114
that are grammatically correct,
869
00:40:32,114 --> 00:40:35,874
even if you know
all the grammar and the vocabulary,
870
00:40:35,874 --> 00:40:37,621
well, we just don't say it that way!
871
00:40:37,621 --> 00:40:39,721
"I want some speedy food."
872
00:40:39,721 --> 00:40:40,851
"I've not got time,
873
00:40:40,851 --> 00:40:43,371
I'm gonna get some quick food for lunch."
874
00:40:43,371 --> 00:40:45,251
Why do they only say "fast food"?
875
00:40:45,251 --> 00:40:46,871
Because they do!
876
00:40:48,979 --> 00:40:54,339
And many collocations are grammatically incorrect,
877
00:40:54,339 --> 00:40:56,995
and you might not even realise it.
878
00:40:56,995 --> 00:40:58,415
"Go to bed."
879
00:40:58,415 --> 00:41:01,127
That's grammatically incorrect.
880
00:41:01,127 --> 00:41:05,761
You don't say, "Go to kitchen."
881
00:41:05,761 --> 00:41:08,781
It's "Go to the kitchen".
882
00:41:08,781 --> 00:41:10,151
Why isn't it "Go to the bed"?
883
00:41:10,151 --> 00:41:15,491
Because it isn't!
[Laughter and clapping]
884
00:41:15,491 --> 00:41:17,350
Some are just weird...
885
00:41:17,350 --> 00:41:18,750
"hell for leather"
886
00:41:18,750 --> 00:41:21,440
Who knows what that even means?
887
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:24,300
It means "go fast".
888
00:41:24,300 --> 00:41:25,950
"He's running hell for leather."
889
00:41:25,950 --> 00:41:27,410
Quite a rare one,
890
00:41:27,410 --> 00:41:31,730
but you'll sound bloody authentic
if you use it!
891
00:41:31,730 --> 00:41:33,580
Plenty of them are fossilised...
892
00:41:33,580 --> 00:41:34,740
"by and large"
893
00:41:34,740 --> 00:41:37,900
You can't say "by and big".
[Laughter]
894
00:41:37,900 --> 00:41:38,780
"Law and order"
895
00:41:38,780 --> 00:41:39,890
"Bird's eye view"
896
00:41:39,890 --> 00:41:42,342
If you say "Ooh, let's take
a bird's eye look at this,"
897
00:41:42,342 --> 00:41:44,632
it won't quite sound the same will it?
898
00:41:44,632 --> 00:41:48,502
"raise an eyebrow" [Laughter]
899
00:41:48,502 --> 00:41:49,822
But if you say "lift an eyebrow"
900
00:41:49,822 --> 00:41:50,982
it means the same thing,
901
00:41:50,982 --> 00:41:53,757
but people will think you're a weirdo.
902
00:41:53,757 --> 00:41:55,817
That was a very good
eyebrow raising there.
903
00:41:55,817 --> 00:41:57,627
(Audience member) Thank you very much.
904
00:41:57,627 --> 00:42:01,077
He's got really good eyebrows.
905
00:42:01,077 --> 00:42:04,207
But as well as understanding fossilisation,
906
00:42:04,207 --> 00:42:06,720
these ones are the hardest ones
to deal with:
907
00:42:06,720 --> 00:42:08,670
Flexible collocations
908
00:42:08,670 --> 00:42:11,090
This is the real mark of authenticity.
909
00:42:11,090 --> 00:42:13,090
You can "entertain an idea".
910
00:42:13,090 --> 00:42:15,600
You can also "entertain a belief",
911
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:17,560
a bit less frequently.
912
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:19,430
Entertain a thought,
913
00:42:19,430 --> 00:42:21,260
a bit less frequent.
914
00:42:21,260 --> 00:42:23,600
You can say it.
915
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:25,870
But these are all collations you'd see.
916
00:42:25,870 --> 00:42:28,380
And why are you saying "entertain"
related to these words??
917
00:42:28,380 --> 00:42:30,280
You're not doing a song or dance,
918
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:32,560
but it's what people say.
919
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:35,390
Now, polyglots, then, actually focus
920
00:42:35,390 --> 00:42:38,050
and favour, often without realising it
921
00:42:38,050 --> 00:42:40,120
high-frequency collocations
922
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:43,150
over low-frequency words.
923
00:42:43,150 --> 00:42:46,020
Don't bother learning
the rare names of fish
924
00:42:46,020 --> 00:42:47,150
when you can learn things like
925
00:42:47,150 --> 00:42:48,730
"raise an eyebrow".
926
00:42:48,730 --> 00:42:49,560
This is important,
927
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:51,370
because research has shown repeatedly,
928
00:42:51,370 --> 00:42:53,970
over about thirty years of research,
929
00:42:53,970 --> 00:42:57,970
the greatest increases
in fluency and authenticity
930
00:42:57,970 --> 00:43:00,390
come when learners switch their focus
931
00:43:00,390 --> 00:43:02,354
from yet more low-frequency words
932
00:43:02,354 --> 00:43:05,264
to automaticity of
high-frequency collocations.
933
00:43:05,264 --> 00:43:07,494
And again, polyglots seems to know this
934
00:43:07,494 --> 00:43:08,774
and do it automatically.
935
00:43:08,774 --> 00:43:12,544
PolyNots don't.
They add more words to Anki.
936
00:43:12,544 --> 00:43:15,334
In short, more than 30 years of research
937
00:43:15,334 --> 00:43:17,874
tells us that native speakers know
938
00:43:17,874 --> 00:43:20,834
around 20,000 individual words
939
00:43:20,834 --> 00:43:23,574
but several hundred thousand collocations.
940
00:43:23,574 --> 00:43:24,634
Can you believe it?
941
00:43:24,634 --> 00:43:27,144
That's what they're doing
all the rest of the time.
942
00:43:27,144 --> 00:43:28,884
That's what their
24-hours-a-day exposure
943
00:43:28,884 --> 00:43:30,814
for their whole adult life
is teaching them.
944
00:43:30,814 --> 00:43:32,704
Not more vocabulary, but richer, deeper
945
00:43:32,704 --> 00:43:35,784
meaning in collocations.
946
00:43:35,784 --> 00:43:37,524
So, to be highly functional in a language,
947
00:43:37,524 --> 00:43:38,804
whatever that means,
948
00:43:38,804 --> 00:43:40,184
a learner needs to have
949
00:43:40,184 --> 00:43:42,964
gained automaticity with about
950
00:43:42,964 --> 00:43:45,894
4.000 general high-frequency words,
951
00:43:45,894 --> 00:43:49,894
2,000 specialist words
in whatever their area is,
952
00:43:49,894 --> 00:43:53,674
and tens of thousands
of high-frequency collocations.
953
00:43:53,674 --> 00:43:56,374
And this is what reading
all that literature is doing,
954
00:43:56,374 --> 00:43:59,374
listening to all those materials is doing.
955
00:43:59,374 --> 00:44:02,280
And then continually enriching
through exposure
956
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:08,050
the breadth and depth of their knowledge
of all that stuff.
957
00:44:08,050 --> 00:44:11,296
There you go, through life-long exposure.
958
00:44:11,296 --> 00:44:14,726
And the key to achieving all this
959
00:44:14,726 --> 00:44:17,266
is to be able to ...
960
00:44:17,266 --> 00:44:19,986
Guess!
961
00:44:19,986 --> 00:44:21,796
That's it!
962
00:44:21,796 --> 00:44:27,596
(applause from the audience)
963
00:44:27,596 --> 00:44:33,746
(cheers from the audience)
964
00:44:33,746 --> 00:44:36,746
I'm afraid there's no time for questions.
965
00:44:36,746 --> 00:44:44,912
(applause and cheers from the audience)
966
00:44:44,912 --> 00:44:54,992
(continuing applause)
967
00:44:54,992 --> 00:45:01,772
More!
[Laughter]
968
00:45:01,772 --> 00:45:04,400
I can't hear my wife clapping!
[Laughter]
969
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:05,980
(Richard) I don't think there's going to be any questions.
970
00:45:05,980 --> 00:45:12,280
I don't think that was a very popular speech, to be honest.
[Laughter]
971
00:45:12,280 --> 00:45:18,130
(Richard) Fantastic! I've just realised that I'm a polynot.
[Laughter]
972
00:45:18,130 --> 00:45:21,118
I'd never have guessed!
973
00:45:21,118 --> 00:45:23,678
(Richard) And proud!
974
00:45:23,678 --> 00:45:26,228
So, no, thank you very much.
975
00:45:26,228 --> 00:45:29,758
I've got to say, just in preface to this,
976
00:45:29,758 --> 00:45:31,948
we're friends on Facebook
977
00:45:31,948 --> 00:45:35,948
(Anthony) Oh no! Don't tell them about my Facebook posts, please!
978
00:45:35,948 --> 00:45:38,368
I'm keeping everything secret.
979
00:45:38,368 --> 00:45:40,108
But I did see one post saying
980
00:45:40,108 --> 00:45:43,836
"I've got three hundred and twenty slides"
981
00:45:43,836 --> 00:45:46,766
(Anthony) "[unclear] ... and I'm only half way through!"
982
00:45:46,766 --> 00:45:47,346
And I just thought...
983
00:45:47,346 --> 00:45:51,216
"Oh my God. What the hell is he going to talk about?"
984
00:45:51,216 --> 00:45:52,726
(Anthony) So I trimmed it right back down to
985
00:45:52,726 --> 00:45:55,746
the bare minimum of 262.
986
00:45:55,746 --> 00:45:58,409
So, um, yeah, imagine my relief
987
00:45:58,409 --> 00:46:03,629
when I saw it was just 262.
[Laughter]
988
00:46:03,629 --> 00:46:05,328
So, I didn't see any of this before
989
00:46:05,328 --> 00:46:06,528
you saw it today.
990
00:46:06,528 --> 00:46:08,858
It's all new to me too.
991
00:46:08,858 --> 00:46:11,633
So, I'm looking forward to questions.
992
00:46:11,633 --> 00:46:13,003
I'll start at the front.
993
00:46:13,003 --> 00:46:15,013
Less for me to walk.
994
00:46:15,013 --> 00:46:17,353
(Q1) First of all, Anthony, that was fabulous.
995
00:46:17,353 --> 00:46:19,193
- That was absolutely fabulous.
- Thank you.
996
00:46:19,193 --> 00:46:22,293
Second of all, I just wanted to add maybe,
997
00:46:22,293 --> 00:46:23,883
I have a comment more than a question.
998
00:46:23,883 --> 00:46:28,943
just... Mezzofanti and Emil Krebs both
999
00:46:28,943 --> 00:46:32,313
did a lot of this stuff through parallel texts.
1000
00:46:32,313 --> 00:46:33,753
When Emil Krebs died,
1001
00:46:33,753 --> 00:46:38,463
they found a gazillion different copies
of the New Testament in his chambers.
1002
00:46:38,463 --> 00:46:42,463
And it is said that Mezzofanti also learned different languages
1003
00:46:42,463 --> 00:46:47,073
through these chunks, these collocations as you're talking about.
1004
00:46:47,073 --> 00:46:50,283
He would perform the last rites and hear confessions
1005
00:46:50,283 --> 00:46:53,133
from soldiers from all over the world.
1006
00:46:53,133 --> 00:46:58,743
- Anyway, it sounds like it was good research.
- Thank you.
1007
00:47:00,628 --> 00:47:01,688
(Q2) Hello, Anthony.
1008
00:47:01,688 --> 00:47:03,778
First of all, I want to say thank you for your presentation.
1009
00:47:03,778 --> 00:47:07,257
You were one of the first people that I encountered on YouTube, when I
1010
00:47:07,257 --> 00:47:12,393
- you know - first started to learn languages, and you provided me with some inspiration.
1011
00:47:12,393 --> 00:47:15,259
And so, I'm interested in... I can relate to your experience
1012
00:47:15,259 --> 00:47:18,369
because I believe that when I,... my first encounter with langauge learning
1013
00:47:18,369 --> 00:47:20,305
was when I was at school trying to learn German
1014
00:47:20,305 --> 00:47:24,809
and I believed I had absolutely no talent whatsoever.
1015
00:47:24,809 --> 00:47:30,567
And, I've made significant progress with my Spanish.
1016
00:47:30,567 --> 00:47:32,276
And now I'm living in Madrid.
1017
00:47:32,276 --> 00:47:34,907
I want to hear about your experience
1018
00:47:34,907 --> 00:47:39,387
going from or being a "polynot", as you describe it,
1019
00:47:39,387 --> 00:47:41,667
and - you know - how your process of learning languages has changed,
1020
00:47:41,667 --> 00:47:44,527
and do you feel that you have grown as a language learner
1021
00:47:44,527 --> 00:47:50,357
and that - you know - there's potential for you to become a polyglot one day?
1022
00:47:50,357 --> 00:47:52,362
Um, ok.
1023
00:47:52,362 --> 00:47:54,582
I'm an old man.
1024
00:47:54,582 --> 00:47:58,342
Now, you are supposed to say "Noooo..."
1025
00:47:58,342 --> 00:48:00,139
[Laughter]
1026
00:48:00,139 --> 00:48:04,819
Huh! Thanks!
1027
00:48:04,819 --> 00:48:06,659
Um, yeah.
1028
00:48:06,659 --> 00:48:09,269
I have a twin brother.
1029
00:48:09,269 --> 00:48:13,675
And he saw a very beautiful woman around 18 years old working in a pub.
1030
00:48:13,675 --> 00:48:17,675
And he was speaking to this young woman and flirting a bit and she was flirting back.
1031
00:48:17,675 --> 00:48:22,325
And it hit him. She could be my granddaughter.
1032
00:48:22,325 --> 00:48:26,325
And he said, "Do I seem like a dirty old man to you?"
1033
00:48:26,325 --> 00:48:30,325
And she said, "Yes, but you're a customer so I've got to be nice."
1034
00:48:30,325 --> 00:48:32,685
[Laughter]
1035
00:48:32,685 --> 00:48:33,945
Yeah. And, um...
1036
00:48:33,945 --> 00:48:37,825
I feel a little bit like that with language learning in a way. That...
1037
00:48:37,825 --> 00:48:42,975
I'm sort of the dirty pervert, the peeping tom,
looking at all you people
1038
00:48:42,975 --> 00:48:46,919
and enjoying it vicariously. There's a good word.
1039
00:48:46,919 --> 00:48:51,319
But I think I'm getting a little bit better in language learning,
1040
00:48:51,319 --> 00:48:55,129
mainly through learning to be patient.
1041
00:48:55,129 --> 00:48:58,474
But I think I'm too old to ever be fantastic.
1042
00:48:58,474 --> 00:49:01,904
I recently saw some videos by a man who,
1043
00:49:01,904 --> 00:49:07,134
I won't name him, but you may know who he is because of what I'm about to say.
1044
00:49:07,134 --> 00:49:11,559
And he had a list of something like 80 languages he wants to learn in the next 10 or 20 years.
1045
00:49:11,559 --> 00:49:14,423
And he said, "I realise that's unrealistic.
1046
00:49:14,423 --> 00:49:20,173
I've trimmed it down to 72." [Laughter]
1047
00:49:21,628 --> 00:49:23,528
It's great to be ambitious.
1048
00:49:23,528 --> 00:49:26,548
But I don't have time to be ambitious.
1049
00:49:26,548 --> 00:49:29,618
So, I am reasonably good in Czech now
1050
00:49:29,618 --> 00:49:32,538
so that I'm not studying it anymore
and I can just live the language.
1051
00:49:32,538 --> 00:49:35,368
And I do study a several other languages
1052
00:49:35,368 --> 00:49:39,028
and if I can get anywhere with them before I die, I'll be happy,
1053
00:49:39,028 --> 00:49:45,128
because now I'm enjoying the journey, not just focusing on the destination.
1054
00:49:45,128 --> 00:49:46,182
Yeah, that's it.
1055
00:49:46,182 --> 00:49:48,082
- (Q3) Hello.
- Who's that?
1056
00:49:48,082 --> 00:49:49,732
(Unlear) Iversen and I'm
1057
00:49:49,732 --> 00:49:58,652
And I'm so probably your best example of [... unclear ...] gone mad.
1058
00:49:58,652 --> 00:50:01,532
Because you may know that I have made word lists
1059
00:50:01,532 --> 00:50:07,032
that I've made about... I've counted how many Russian words I've printed on word lists
1060
00:50:07,032 --> 00:50:11,582
since I started my holiday, 14 days ago, that's about 1500.
1061
00:50:11,582 --> 00:50:14,949
But, I have the idea.
1062
00:50:14,949 --> 00:50:18,079
I think that I know what I am now. I'm not a polyglot.
1063
00:50:18,079 --> 00:50:21,069
I'm a polynot, but in 12 different languages.
1064
00:50:21,069 --> 00:50:27,399
- Yeah.
- Because everything I see hear and read, I forget.
1065
00:50:27,399 --> 00:50:31,519
But I note it down.
And once I've written it down, I remember it.
1066
00:50:31,519 --> 00:50:33,899
And that's why I write all my words down,
1067
00:50:33,899 --> 00:50:36,179
because then I can start guessing.
1068
00:50:36,179 --> 00:50:38,796
And I can't start guessing just because
1069
00:50:38,796 --> 00:50:42,636
I really learned one thing from all your, what was it, 200
1070
00:50:42,636 --> 00:50:46,636
slides, and that was the word polynot.
1071
00:50:46,636 --> 00:50:50,636
[...unclear...] but that's enough.
1072
00:50:50,636 --> 00:50:53,466
Have you thought about different ways
1073
00:50:53,466 --> 00:50:56,366
of getting to the guessing stage...
1074
00:50:56,366 --> 00:51:01,956
apart from being a born polyglot or somebody who works through paper like me.
1075
00:51:01,956 --> 00:51:07,846
But for instance, people who live in places where they have to guess
1076
00:51:07,846 --> 00:51:11,566
because they never know what the next person is going to say to them.
1077
00:51:11,566 --> 00:51:12,996
India, places like that.
1078
00:51:12,996 --> 00:51:16,996
What do they do in a situation where they cannot read,
1079
00:51:16,996 --> 00:51:20,996
they cannot write everything down, and they are not polyglots?
1080
00:51:20,996 --> 00:51:26,276
Yeah. So, I have... sometimes people say,
1081
00:51:26,289 --> 00:51:31,369
on these forums they say, "What language should I learn next?"
1082
00:51:31,369 --> 00:51:33,494
How do I know?!
1083
00:51:33,494 --> 00:51:36,054
The two reasons to learn a language are
1084
00:51:36,054 --> 00:51:37,594
because you have to,
1085
00:51:37,594 --> 00:51:42,424
which provides masses of external force on you to do it,
1086
00:51:42,424 --> 00:51:44,394
or because you want to,
1087
00:51:44,394 --> 00:51:48,604
which provides lots of internal force on you to do it.
1088
00:51:48,604 --> 00:51:52,604
And I think with those pressures, internal and external,
1089
00:51:52,604 --> 00:51:54,404
you'll find a way.
1090
00:51:54,404 --> 00:51:56,874
But when you're at school,
1091
00:51:56,874 --> 00:51:58,284
and somebody's telling you,
1092
00:51:58,284 --> 00:52:00,044
"Now you're learning German."
1093
00:52:00,044 --> 00:52:04,044
There's no actual need.
1094
00:52:04,044 --> 00:52:07,354
So I don't think the automatic - all the antennas are up
1095
00:52:07,354 --> 00:52:11,354
and your guessing abilities will become automatic - will be there.
1096
00:52:11,354 --> 00:52:12,564
Now,
1097
00:52:12,564 --> 00:52:16,511
I am no expert in all this... in this guessing game.
1098
00:52:16,511 --> 00:52:20,691
So you asked what are the different ways of being good at guessing. And I can't guess.
1099
00:52:20,691 --> 00:52:24,557
I don't know. I got most of what I talked about,
1100
00:52:24,557 --> 00:52:29,537
especially the jokes, from this boring textbook.
1101
00:52:29,537 --> 00:52:31,947
But now that I know that guessing is important
1102
00:52:31,947 --> 00:52:34,797
- and I think it's a pretty convincing argument -
1103
00:52:34,797 --> 00:52:39,417
the next stage for me is, how can I transform myself into a good guesser.
1104
00:52:39,417 --> 00:52:40,550
And I don't know.
1105
00:52:40,550 --> 00:52:42,510
If I come to another conference, hopefully I will.
1106
00:52:42,510 --> 00:52:44,730
Maybe I'll be able to give a presentation
1107
00:52:44,730 --> 00:52:50,520
on how a useless guesser became a good guesser in a year.
1108
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:56,562
[Applause]
1109
00:52:57,549 --> 00:52:59,409
(Q4) Hi. Um...
1110
00:52:59,409 --> 00:53:03,362
I suspect many people may know the answer to this question in the room,
1111
00:53:03,362 --> 00:53:08,762
but I'm curious about how do you quantify how many words you're fluent in.
1112
00:53:08,762 --> 00:53:10,392
You speak about 2000, 4000...
1113
00:53:10,392 --> 00:53:14,742
I have no idea what my vocabulary is even in my native language.
1114
00:53:14,742 --> 00:53:16,072
One very interesting thing is,
1115
00:53:16,072 --> 00:53:17,972
there were a lot of studies
1116
00:53:17,972 --> 00:53:20,972
in the 80s and before that
1117
00:53:20,972 --> 00:53:24,194
about people's vocabulary knowledge.
1118
00:53:24,194 --> 00:53:25,954
And that's because, as I said,
1119
00:53:25,954 --> 00:53:29,254
the main aim of languages then
1120
00:53:29,254 --> 00:53:31,864
was about language teaching
and language testing
1121
00:53:31,864 --> 00:53:33,804
rather than language using.
1122
00:53:33,804 --> 00:53:36,744
And they constantly invented tests
1123
00:53:36,744 --> 00:53:39,864
for judging people's vocabulary.
1124
00:53:39,864 --> 00:53:42,444
And, I think it was as late as 1980,
1125
00:53:42,444 --> 00:53:46,444
it was estimated that native speakers at an adult level
1126
00:53:46,444 --> 00:53:50,444
would have a rich vocabulary of around 90,000 words.
1127
00:53:50,444 --> 00:53:54,444
And now that's realised that's a massive overestimate.
1128
00:53:54,444 --> 00:53:59,334
And the tests of vocabulary have become much much much better.
1129
00:53:59,334 --> 00:54:01,493
So that now they estimate it's 20,000.
1130
00:54:01,493 --> 00:54:05,083
And the way they have tested it,
1131
00:54:05,083 --> 00:54:08,793
is by applying lots and lots and lots and lots
of different tests
1132
00:54:08,793 --> 00:54:12,553
to find tests that give consistent results.
1133
00:54:12,553 --> 00:54:13,608
Know what I mean?
1134
00:54:13,608 --> 00:54:17,008
So, and then that tells them what the good tests are
1135
00:54:17,008 --> 00:54:19,208
and gives them confidence that their measures are correct.
1136
00:54:19,208 --> 00:54:22,338
And so there are actually papers that test things,
1137
00:54:22,338 --> 00:54:25,438
they show you a shape and say,
1138
00:54:25,438 --> 00:54:30,808
"If this one is smaller than this, then the other one is ...."
1139
00:54:30,808 --> 00:54:33,919
...bigger. Or something like that.
1140
00:54:33,919 --> 00:54:37,609
And I would put "shoe lace". I don't know.
1141
00:54:37,609 --> 00:54:39,779
So, but, there were many many tests, and
1142
00:54:39,779 --> 00:54:41,089
in the back of that book
1143
00:54:41,089 --> 00:54:43,479
it actually has a couple of sample tests
1144
00:54:43,479 --> 00:54:46,629
and refers to loads and loads and loads of others.
1145
00:54:46,629 --> 00:54:53,619
So there were people whose whole career is working out good tests, yeah.
1146
00:54:53,619 --> 00:54:57,636
- (Q5) Um, I was wondering what is the
- Who is that?
1147
00:54:57,636 --> 00:55:00,739
- I was wondering what's the title of that thin book that you recommend
1148
00:55:00,739 --> 00:55:03,329
because I didn't get it when you were talking about it.
1149
00:55:03,329 --> 00:55:07,329
Yeah. It's called "How to Improve..."
1150
00:55:07,329 --> 00:55:09,979
Now, the polyglots will remember this title
1151
00:55:09,979 --> 00:55:15,959
and the polynots will have forgotten the first word already,
[Laughter]
1152
00:55:15,959 --> 00:55:20,699
"How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately"
1153
00:55:20,699 --> 00:55:24,963
by Boris Shekhtman. It costs around $10.
1154
00:55:24,963 --> 00:55:28,963
The guy, actually, um...
1155
00:55:28,963 --> 00:55:32,653
is Russian by birth. And he was
1156
00:55:32,653 --> 00:55:35,173
employed by the Foreign Service Institute
1157
00:55:35,173 --> 00:55:37,403
to teach Russian.
1158
00:55:37,403 --> 00:55:40,240
He was the head of teaching Russian
1159
00:55:40,240 --> 00:55:43,390
for diplomats in the US.
1160
00:55:43,390 --> 00:55:45,610
And he taught there for many many many years.
1161
00:55:45,610 --> 00:55:49,610
And he realised that certain practices
1162
00:55:49,610 --> 00:55:52,940
were common to the students that were doing the best.
1163
00:55:52,940 --> 00:55:55,280
And so, when he left the FSI,
1164
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:56,910
he made his own company
1165
00:55:56,910 --> 00:55:58,290
teaching some of these practices.
1166
00:55:58,290 --> 00:56:01,686
And the main part of it is activating vocabulary:
1167
00:56:01,686 --> 00:56:04,076
how to get passive knowledge into active knowledge.
1168
00:56:04,076 --> 00:56:05,186
And this book,
1169
00:56:05,186 --> 00:56:07,216
there's actually a second edition,
1170
00:56:07,216 --> 00:56:10,066
which apparently has a few more wisdoms in it
1171
00:56:10,066 --> 00:56:13,126
- I don't have that - um...
1172
00:56:13,126 --> 00:56:14,460
But this captures
1173
00:56:14,460 --> 00:56:16,250
practices that you can do
1174
00:56:16,250 --> 00:56:18,370
on your own or with a friend or with a teacher
1175
00:56:18,370 --> 00:56:19,980
on how to activate vocabulary.
1176
00:56:19,980 --> 00:56:22,600
So, "How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately".
1177
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:26,600
Please buy it and support him.
1178
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:30,600
I learned of him, by the way, from...
1179
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:34,600
what's his name? Harold...
1180
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:36,670
who did the Chinese
1181
00:56:36,670 --> 00:56:38,220
- course.
- for Michel Thomas.
1182
00:56:38,220 --> 00:56:39,100
Michel Thomas Chinese course.
1183
00:56:39,100 --> 00:56:41,160
- Goodman. Harold Goodman.
- Harold Goodman. Yeah.
1184
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:42,870
So he liked some of my videos
1185
00:56:42,870 --> 00:56:44,790
and said, "Oh, I like your videos."
Blah, blah, blah...
1186
00:56:44,790 --> 00:56:47,920
And started... so I had some email exchanges with him.
1187
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:53,050
And, he was taught languages first by Michel Thomas,
1188
00:56:53,050 --> 00:56:57,050
and said "Michel Thomas died, so I needed a new teacher."
1189
00:56:57,050 --> 00:56:59,860
And he searched high and low and he found Boris Shekhtman,
1190
00:56:59,860 --> 00:57:03,590
and he said, "This guy is phenomenal."
1191
00:57:03,590 --> 00:57:05,180
That got me into buying that book.
1192
00:57:05,180 --> 00:57:07,230
And I agree.
1193
00:57:07,230 --> 00:57:12,015
- Yeah.
- (Q6) Hi. So, going back to 'seppe Peano,
1194
00:57:12,015 --> 00:57:13,215
my question is
1195
00:57:13,215 --> 00:57:18,795
which is the influence
of the Axiomatic Theory of 'seppe Peano
1196
00:57:18,795 --> 00:57:21,485
on the Axiomatic...
1197
00:57:21,485 --> 00:57:24,785
No, just joking.
1198
00:57:24,785 --> 00:57:30,622
- That's a very interesting question because...
- 'seppe Peano invented... No, I'm not finished.
1199
00:57:30,622 --> 00:57:33,542
'seppe Peano invented a language you know....