Dont Feel Discouraged By Unrealistic Language Learning Trends You See On Youtube (audio, Sub Ita)

Tutorial Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to my channel. Or welcome, if this is the first video you watch on my channel! My name is Lucrezia and I am an Italian teacher on YouTube, online, on the internet in general, but also in real life. Here in front of me I have my computer, because I have written notes to make this video. Because obviously I want to follow a logical thread of things. I had no intention of commenting on the fashion of “I learned Italian in 27 seconds” videos, because being a YouTube trend, it speaks for itself. But then, a few weeks ago, I received a comment, underneath my recent video, which made me think about how these videos can have a negative impact on people who study languages ​​or who would like to start doing it. I'll read the comment, so you can understand better what I'm talking about. The comment is as follows: I'll start by saying that there's no such thing as learning a language in 24 hours, nor in 7 days, nor in a month for that matter. Unless it's about memorizing a few phrases to survive as a tourist and order something at a restaurant. Learning a language, whatever it is, takes time and effort, if you want to learn it well, of course. So, in my opinion, saying “I've learned Italian in 24 hours, in 7 days, in a month, in 5 seconds” diminishes the work and commitment that real students put into practice every day. And it diminishes the language itself, in my opinion, because it is as if a language could be boxed into a list of words, verbs, phrases to be learned by heart and then you know that language, magically. It is impossible, it is reductive and it is superficial, from my point of view. So we agree that these are sensational headlines to attract audiences and rack up views. These videos are also fun to watch in the end, I've seen a few, and they're fun to watch precisely because they're surreal, they 're light years away from what's going on in real life. When you really learn a language. I also realize though, making videos on YouTube, working on my channel, that it's very easy to get sucked into the happy bubble that is YouTube, where everything seems easy, where everything looks beautiful, where everything seems within everyone's reach. But it's not like that, it's not always like that. You have to think that what you see on YouTube, on Instagram, on other platforms, is not - how can put it - 100% true all the time. These are sweetened and curated contents, designed to be published. As spontaneous as a video may be, you know you will record that moment and therefore, yes, you will be spontaneous, but you will never be as spontaneous as you would be in real life. Do you understand what I mean? So, watch YouTube, enjoy YouTube videos, of course, but when you see these things that are so sensational, so unattainable ... Eh, just stop and think it about for a second, right? Because there is always a context behind it that the viewer does not know. I then went to read some comments under these videos and I realized that even the audience of these videos is not made up of people who really learn a foreigner language. And so somehow, they can be made to believe a little bit of everything, right? Imagine if one day I said to you: "Yes, you can learn Italian in one day". You would think "But Lucrezia, are you crazy? Have you gotten mad?", Obviously you are a very specific group of people, who learn a foreign language, and as well as other groups of people who watch other channels to learn English, to learn Spanish, to learn Greek, Turkish, etc. They are specific groups of people who really want to learn a language. Those videos, on the other hand, are uploaded by channels that have productivity and lifestyle as their main theme and therefore you will notice that often this type of video also occurs for other languages. So that audience, it's not an audience of people who have ever really studied - from the comments I've read, then I don't know for sure, of course - I didn't seem to read comments from people who have ever learned, studied a language. That is, the comments you leave under my videos and under the videos of other people teaching a language are very different from the comments I have read under these videos. So even there, there is a whole context to consider behind these videos. The message I would like to convey is that this type of video achieves excellent results in terms of views and interaction, and therefore also of earnings. It is also very interesting in my opinion, to try to understand why these videos go viral. The reason I have given myself is that perhaps people would like to achieve that great goal, like learning a foreign language, but they don't have too much desire to study, to practice, to be constant in the practice, etc. It's kind of like those people who want to have abs and buy vibrating belts, because they think abs come out that way, but no! To get abs you have to go to the gym every day to train, to exercise, you have to exercise your abs, it's not like they come out like this, magically, right? So, some people always want to achieve a big goal, but in a short time and with zero effort. You know very well that learning a language is quite the opposite of this. One thing that I always say and that I will repeat even now is that you cannot and must not compare yourself with what a person you do not know (especially on the internet) does or says. Because each of us has their own path, each of us learns differently, with different times, the most important thing is that we will never know what the real context of that video or those videos in general is. Often these people don't start from scratch to learn, maybe they already have a foundation, right? They don't start from scratch, as the title seems to imply. They are often very influenced by what they think a language is. For example: I have heard some for Italian and I must be honest, what I have heard is not Italian. Because they spoke with a strong Spanish accent and created sentences that had nothing to do with the Italian sentence structure, but that looked a lot like the sentence structure in Spanish. So, even there, as if Italian and Spanish were the same language. Obviously I understand that it's easy to fall under the spell of these viral videos, right? But I assure you that that is not speaking Italian. There are also other elements of these videos that leave me a little perplexed, for example the conversations that are practically always with friends, of course, even if you only know a few sentences, you feel more at ease with friends. But then talking to someone you don't know is very different in a foreign language. We will never know if that conversation was prepared before the video or not. There is a whole context behind those videos that we will never know. And it is important, however, to consider all this information before judging a video positively or negatively, but above all, before letting ourselves be influenced by these videos. For a video, in general, you prepare to make a good impression, right? I too, when I make videos, I prepare myself, I have the examples, I have my key points to discuss. I will never post a video where I can't explain something, right? I will never put myself in that position. Each video is thought of first and is always made to look good in the eye of the beholder. In the case of that type of video, they prepare to make a good impression in that video and say " I speak Italian" or any other language. So they don't study those four sentences and then actually use them in real life. They study those four sentences to make the cool video "uuh it took me 7 days", "it took me 25 minutes". Got it? You have to consider these videos in this light. You watch them, you have fun, but then those are just some videos on YouTube. So, take everything with a grain of salt, anything! Furthermore, I would also like to say that it is not a bad thing to take some time to learn a language. Taking a long time - then, a long, long time, let's say a few years, that is, in the sense - I have students who started studying Italian 4-5 years ago and already speak very well. So, if you want, 4-5 years is not a lot, right? But of course, compared to 7 days, 5 years seems like an eternity. But that's the timing, that is, in the sense - I don't know how to say, there's no shortcut. I have been studying English since I was 10. I started when I was 10 years old, I made a journey, and now I don't feel like saying I have finished learning English, because it's not like that. Every day there is something new that I learn. Of course, at this point I feel comfortable saying "I speak English", I am able to deal with many situations in English. But, you know, it's a path, isn't it? During this journey I have had intense periods of study, I have lived through periods in which I have not done anything. Simply. I've had times when I really thought I wouldn't be able to speak English, that I would never be able to. And I instead had beautiful conversations in English with many people, I immersed myself when I could in the language and culture, I still immerse myself today when I can. It's a long journey, really. It is not bad if it takes you years to learn a language, because taking a long time does not mean being stupid, it means doing things at your own pace, going into detail when you can. And just enjoy these moments of study. On the contrary, taking a short time does not mean being a genius, it could mean facing certain situations in a superficial way. I don't want you to feel disheartened about these things, because there's really no need to, it's not worth it. They are videos on YouTube. There is another very important thing, in the life of a student there is also something else, in the sense, people work during the day, they work, they have to look after the family, the children, if they have any. That is, there are so many things that happen in life that it is obvious that something takes time, especially the acquisition of a skill takes time, of course. It is not feasible to think that a person, in real life, can take a month, a week or whatever it is and study that language every day , memorize that language every day. No, because our brains also want a break at some point. There are days when you don't feel like doing anything and if a day happens that week when you don't want to do anything, what happens? I mean, forcing yourself like that doesn't make any sense, in my opinion. I'll end my talk now.. With this video I want to assure you that learning a language seriously is not easy at all and it takes time to do it, sorry, there are no shortcuts. And I really admire people who manage to find the time in their days full of work to study, to devote themselves to the language and who have fun doing it, without thinking about the time it will take. Think if we let ourselves be influenced in real life by all the trends that are popular on YouTube, it would be a nightmare. I don't know if you've ever seen those videos of people getting up at 5, 4, 3 in the morning, competing to see who gets up first. Well, it's the same with foreign languages, soon there will be videos where people will tell us that they were born speaking 47 languages! Well, that's what I think. Obviously there will be people who will agree with me, there will be others who will disagree with me. Oh well, that's okay. I have my own way of seeing things and dealing with them, which is reflected in what I say and what I do. I thank you for listening to me, I don't know, let me know what you think in the comments below. I wish you a very nice day and see you in the next video! See you soon, bye!