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Race is irrelevant to language learning. At every polyglot meeting I find people of every race and gender speaking lots of languages. Yet some people are surprised that people who look a certain way can speak certain languages.

*In reviewing this video I realize that I talk too much. Also our trip to Japan was cancelled because of coronavirus.

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We have to stay with it to succeed in language learning. It is too easy to be frustrated at our lack of progress. In this video I talk about three things that keep me going.

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Languages surround us wherever we are and wherever we travel, like a limitless buffet of delicious morsels of food. We can choose to limit ourselves to a few or to sample many. Here Moses Mccormick and I talk about the fun and challenges of learning many different languages.

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I'm really enjoying short biographical monologues, followed by "circling questions", in Persian. I would love to see the same in Arabic, and in fact for all languages. If you want to help develop this kind of intermediate contents for other languages, please watch my video and contact me: [email protected].

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Moses McCormick, polyglot extraordinaire, has a humble good natured approach to languages and people that probably belies the concentrated effort needed to crack the code of so many diverse languages. We talk about it here.

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Listening is the most strategic activity in my language learning.

I am confident that if I can understand what I hear, in movies, podcasts, conversations, etc., my ability to speak will develop, and I will become better at reading and writing as well. Understanding what you hear gives you momentum.

Going from easy content, full of high frequency words and repetition, to authentic content with more elusive low frequency vocabulary, requires an intermediate step.

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It may seem that Chinese and English language are worlds apart. When I started learning Chinese, this exotic quality was part of its appeal. Once you get into the language it becomes familiar & not so distant. Ari of New York (Xiaomanyc) is an enthusiastic YouTuber connecting the two worlds.

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Listening is the biggest part of my language learning by far. I am only able to do it while doing other tasks, otherwise I lose focus and feel like I want to do something else.

Listening to my languages not only helps me learn them, but makes me more likely to work out and clean up around the house. Listening to languages is good for you.

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When do we start speaking naturally in another language without translating from our own language? I think this is a gradual process. I discuss this topic with Robin MacPherson, another enthusiastic online polyglot.

Learn a language using content you love at LingQ: https://www.lingq.com/

Do you ever get frustrated when learning a language? I know I do. Usually it is a matter of managing expectations. We are learning, however slowly, and the end goal is elusive but still worth it.

How we study and what we expect of ourselves has a great influence on how we view our success and failures in learning a new language.