Pratique du Shadowing: How To Become Fluent Faster! Interview with Polyglot Steve Kaufmann - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo
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In this video, I interview polyglot Steve Kaufman.
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He has learned over 20 languages, and he's still learning new languages today.
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And in this interview, Steve Kaufman shares his best language learning tips, language learning advice and mistakes to avoid.
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So pay close attention because these tips will help you improve your English faster
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and have a lot more fun in the process.
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Let's start the interview with Steve Kaufman.
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So Steve, you're a polyglot who speaks 20 languages.
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What's your secret to learning languages?
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First of all, I have to caution you when I say 20.
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I have learned 20 at different times to varying degrees.
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I can't say that I'm totally fluent in 20 languages.
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I could easily switch into say a dozen of them
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and others I would have to refresh or I'm in the process of learning.
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And the secret is to enjoy the process, to simply not worry about how well I'm doing,
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what mistakes I make, just expose myself to the language.
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Every so often when I'm curious, I might look up something related to grammar, some explanation, but I don't focus on explanations.
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I focus on getting the language into me through a lot of listening and reading.
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Well, 12 languages is still extremely impressive.
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Now, do you think that anyone can become a polyglot
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or are some people just more naturally gifted when it comes to learning languages?
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I think that potentially anyone can become a polyglot.
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The more languages you learn, the easier it becomes to learn new languages.
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So the most difficult language is your first foreign language, uh, because you've never done it before.
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You're, you don't know how to go about it.
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You're not confident.
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And I think that as you learn more languages, those parts of your brain that deal with acquiring new languages,
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they become more, you know, adept at doing it.
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So, uh, I think anyone can do it.
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They have to be motivated.
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They have to put in the time and they get better and better at it.
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But for most people, I think learning one or two languages is enough.
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It just so happens that I, for a variety of reasons, got interested in learning many languages.
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And you mentioned motivation.
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If you had to boil down the qualities or personality traits of successful language learners, what would you say those are?
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Well, obviously, motivation is big.
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The motivation, I would say attitude is big.
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So motivation is one thing, uh, confidence, uh, you know, enjoying the language, enjoying the language learning process.
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All of those things are part of that positive attitude.
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And I also think it's very important not to be a perfectionist, very important to accept, you know,
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uh, fuzziness, insertitude, you know, you don't quite understand, uh, you You keep forgetting the same words.
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And all of that is fine because you're enjoying the process of discovering another language.
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And you mentioned confidence.
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I'm going to ask you a follow -up
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because many of my students tell me that they lack confidence when using their English.
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So can you speak a little bit more about the role that confidence has when learning and using a foreign language?
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Confidence is huge.
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And that's why I put a great amount of emphasis on listening and reading.
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And you sometimes hear people say, well, I can read, but I have trouble speaking.
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But most of those people don't realize just how much you need to read and listen.
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Like you have to read a book, 200, 300 pages, one book, several books.
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And the brain starts to get used to the language and reading is so easy to do.
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And when we read, it's almost as if we're speaking
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because we are sort of subconsciously vocalizing as we read and also listening.
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And so if you build up this degree of confidence with the language, the brain is used to the language.
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The brain has formed a model of the language.
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When you go to speak, of course, you're going to struggle at first, but you will gradually improve because you have all these words inside you.
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So I think part of it is being better prepared.
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Most people don't put the time and effort into reading and listening.
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They desperately try to remember some grammar rules and they try to think of grammar rules while they're speaking, which is hopeless.
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And then they have to accept that when they're speaking, they're actually practicing speaking and they will gradually get better.
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And while they're speaking, if they're speaking to people that matter to them, they're getting very valuable input,
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which is also all part of training the brain to be comfortable in the language.
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So it's all about input and understanding that all the different things
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that we're doing when we're learning a language contribute to that input.
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Well, exactly.
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Now, obviously if you have an opportunity for output, for speaking or for writing,
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you want to take advantage of it and you want to do it without worrying about mistakes, just trusting your impulses.
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But we don't necessarily, unless we live where the language is spoken, uh, we don't always have a lot of opportunity to speak with people.
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We should speak whenever we can, but we don't always have that opportunity, but it's very easy to organize listening, very easy to organize reading.
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and you know some people say well how can I read
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if there's so many words
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that I don't know well that's part of you know we have link as an example
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but if you are reading online you have online dictionaries it's
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so easy nowadays to work on getting your vocabulary up to where eventually you can read books on paper
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which is the ultimate sort of milestone
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when you read your first book from cover to cover
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and all of that is is part of getting you in a place where you're comfortable speaking.
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And coming back to that place of getting comfortable speaking when I'm working with students,
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and I'm sure all my students watching can relate to this question.
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When I'm working with students, the number one concern that they have is that they don't feel confident speaking.
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They feel like they're being judged by native speakers.
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They're worried about their grammar mistakes,
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they're worried that their accents are too thick and all of this prevents them from speaking confidently.
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So what advice would you give to these students?
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Okay, well, you mentioned several things there.
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First of all, thick accent.
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As long as you are comprehensible, your accent is fine.
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We have to accept that.
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Obviously, if we can get closer to sort of native pronunciation,
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We have to want to in a way we want to imitate the way the native speak, but we have to realize.
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And I realize that I will never be mistaken for a native speaker in the languages that I have learned.
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Uh, so accept the fact that you have an accent also accept the fact that you're going to forget.
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I mean, we know if, if we're, if I'm in a someplace and somebody shows up whom I know and,
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but what's his name or her name, the more pressure I put on my phone myself to try to remember that person's name,
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the more likely I am not to remember.
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And later on when there's no pressure on me, oh yeah, that was George or Sally.
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Uh, so obviously there is a certain amount of pressure, tension when we speak because it's, it's always more comfortable to speak in your own language.
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So you're speaking in another language, there's a little more tension.
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And so it's a little more difficult to remember things.
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We just have to accept that.
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All of that is normal.
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It's normal not to understand.
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It's normal to forget.
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And if we simply keep going, we will gradually improve.
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The more pressure we put on ourselves, or if we try to avoid speaking because we're afraid, then we aren't going to improve.
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So, I mean, it's easy to say, but I have experienced it in many languages where I struggle.
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And sometimes we think we did more poorly than we in fact did.
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And we just have to give ourselves credit.
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Trust the brain.
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The brain will gradually learn given enough experience and you just have to keep going.
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And of course, you're very active in the polyglot community.
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Now, I'm curious, what would a polyglot think about making a mistake?
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When a polyglot is learning or using one of their languages, what do they think when they make a mistake?
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I think the one common trait to the polyglots that I've met is that they aren't concerned.
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They are not, they accept uncertainty.
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They accept uncertainty.
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That's it, it, if you want to be totally safe and comfortable, you don't learn another foreign language.
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Once you are learning another foreign language, you are now into this territory where there are going to be mistakes
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and there's going to be things you don't understand and things that you don't pronounce properly.
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And people say, I beg your pardon, what did you say?
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And that's all part of the territory and polyglots accept this.
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Uh, yeah, I've been to a number of polyglot conferences and by the way, the overwhelming majority of polyglots grew up in unilingual families.
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So the idea that somehow polyglots are people who grew up with a Spanish speaking mother
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and a French speaking father or whatever, that's not true.
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The polyglots are people who got interested, who are confident that they can learn and who accept the fact
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that fuzziness and not understanding and forgetting is all part learning another language.
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And we've already talked about the mistakes that students make when they're learning a language,
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but what would you say are the biggest mistakes that language learners make?
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Well, ah, the biggest, so not specifically with reference to...
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English, but I think, um, this, this desire to be perfect, you know, I got to sound like a native.
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I've got to, you know, get, you know, just the right tense.
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It doesn't matter.
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Like tense is a big item for people learning English.
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And honestly, whether you say in many situations, it's optional.
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You can go, I go, or I am going, I went, uh, you know, I was going very often.
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It doesn't matter.
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It may matter on a grammar test, but in reality, there are a lot of tenses in English, probably more tenses than we need.
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And so if you just go with the simple, whatever, the simple present, the simple past, in many cases that's going to work.
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Don't try to be perfect.
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Don't, when speaking, try to think through your grammar rules.
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That's not going to work.
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You have to sort of have an attitude
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that you're going to develop certain habits in the language and you're going to trust those habits.
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And when you speak, it's going to come out.
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And you will pick up on what other people are saying.
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And if there are sort of rough edges, if you have an open mind, gradually those rough edges will become, you know, less frequent.
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So I think a big mistake is to expect that right now I'm as good as I'm ever going to be.
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No, right now you're in the process of improving.
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So keep going and you'll get better.
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Sounds like exactly what you said about attitude being one of the most important personality traits.
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Absolutely.
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There are two things in language learning, attitude and time.
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So the attitude portion of it is, you know, you like the language, you want to learn, you enjoy the learning process.
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That's difficult to do.
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You can't force yourself to like something.
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However, you can force yourself to get active.
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So if your attitude is not that keen on, say, English, if it's English,
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and I've looked around for TV programs or things that I might get interested in or cooking shows,
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the thing is, try to find something that interests you and vary it so you're on to something that relates to business,
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something that relates to history, that relates to cooking shows, gardening, whatever, a variety of content.
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Try to get interested and then put in the time.
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It takes time.
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It takes time.
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So I see immigrants to Canada, for example, who go home at night and, uh, they only watch television programs in their own language.
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Okay.
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That's relaxing maybe, but that's not going to help you.
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You have to be willing to put in a lot of time, not only let's say classroom time, but also if you're, uh,
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you know, in the evening, especially if you live in Canada or the United States, uh,
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watch local television, put the time in with a lot engage with the language
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so attitude and time and speaking about putting in the time
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when you're learning a language is there ever an end point
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when you say yep learn that language and you move on
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or do you feel like learning is more of a process
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and you'll always be learning a new language yeah i mean
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we're always more comfortable in our own language although there are people who let's say, say again, immigrants who spend, who genuinely learn the language,
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who work in English, who have friends with whom they speak uh,
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English, who always have a bit of an accent and they've kind of reached the point where it's, it's more than good enough.
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And in many cases, even say immigrants who speak with an accent may in fact
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use the language better than many native speakers.
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So they're at a stage where they're as good as it's going to get.
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But by and large, it's always an unfinished process.
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If I say that I speak 20 languages, even the languages that I speak very well, like French or Japanese, I can always get better.
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You know, I can always get better.
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So we're never, you know, it's never completed.
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It's an ongoing process.
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Now, previously you said that it's normal to forget your words.
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For example, in our native language, we might be having a conversation and we forget the name of a restaurant,
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even though we went to that restaurant last week, and that's just normal.
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But this is a concern that my students have because they tell me that every time they go to speak, they forget all their words,
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even simple words that they know really well, when they're speaking their mind goes blank and they forget their words.
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Do you have a strategy for overcoming this when you're learning languages?
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You have to remember, first of all, very often you hear people talk about, you know, I'm gonna master the basics.
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We forget even the most basic words.
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We forget the most basic structures.
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We forget things that we used to be able to do and now we can't do all of a sudden.
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We may be able to do it the next time.
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So the first thing is to accept that.
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That is absolutely normal.
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And it's part of the process of communicating, but gradually, even the process of forgetting and relearning is solidifying the,
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that capability in your brain that the, you know, research into the brain, we need to see something, notice something, forget it for a while,
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go back to it, forget it again, go back to it.
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And slowly that is how we accumulate words that we can comfortably use.
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So forgetting is part of the process and shouldn't make us feel uncomfortable.
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We say, good, I forgot, good, and now I relearn it.
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And maybe I forget it again, good, and then I relearn it.
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And gradually we improve.
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That's an amazing attitude to have.
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By forgetting, you are in fact learning.
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Not only is it normal to forget things, but it's beneficial.
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So changing your attitude around it.
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I hope all my students remember that lesson.
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What a powerful lesson.
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Now, Steve, you've shared so many lessons so far,
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but if my students were to only do one thing this week to help them improve their fluency in English,
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what should they do?
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Well, you know, it's not one thing.
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I would say put in the time, Uh, which in most cases is going to mean input activities because that's easy to organize.
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You know, I carry my iPhone with me.
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I use LingQ.
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I've got my lessons there.
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I can listen to them.
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I have a playlist.
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Uh, if I'm sitting in the doctor's office, I can look up words and read something.
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So I'm, I'm engaging with the language in that way.
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So wherever you have an opportunity, input.
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However, when you have an opportunity,
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the output to speak, absolutely take advantage of it and don't worry about how you do and trust your instincts.
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Come out with whatever you got.
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That's what you have.
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Let it come out.
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Interact with people.
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You'll get some feedback and you just keep going.
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So input activities wherever you have the opportunity and output activities wherever you have the opportunity.
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Amazing advice.
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Thank you so much for sharing that, Steve.
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I'm sure all my students have learned a lot already.
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And you share a lot of resources on your YouTube channel.
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You have an amazing app that you've developed called Link.
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So can you quickly tell my students how they can find you, how they can learn more about Link as well?
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Okay, so my YouTube channel is called Lingo Steve, all one word.
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And I put a video out once a week on different aspects of language learning.
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I even speak in different languages, Japanese, French, Chinese, you name it.
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And link, L -I -N -G -Q .com is a website that my son and I developed, which is where I learn languages.
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And it basically enables people to use the resources of the internet.
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You can import YouTube videos.
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You can import e -books.
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There's stuff in our library with a lot of repetition for people getting started.
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And there's a bunch of functionality there to help you learn words and phrases.
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So certainly that's what I like to use, but it doesn't matter.
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You know, people can do whatever they want to do as long as they put in the time
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and they have a positive attitude.
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Well, you heard it, everyone.
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Put in the time.
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Have a positive attitude.
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Thank you so much, Steve.
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It's truly been a pleasure.
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Thank you very much.
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I enjoyed it.
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What was your favorite part of this interview?
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Put that in the comments.
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And let's also say thanks, Steve.
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Thanks, Steve, in the comments to show our support and appreciation.
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Thanks, Steve in the comments.
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And I actually did another lesson where I reviewed a news article about Steve Kaufman.
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And in this lesson, you learn a lot of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, so you can click here to watch that lesson now.
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Vocabulaire et conseils d’expression pour cette leçon
Cette leçon d’expression orale s’appuie sur la vidéo « How To Become Fluent Faster! Interview with Polyglot Steve Kaufmann ». Les mots qui reviennent le plus souvent : language, learning, speaking, speak, polyglot. Cette vidéo contient 229 phrases et 3186 mots à répéter en shadowing. La partie parlée dure 19:08. Le locuteur parle à un rythme naturel d’environ 167 mots par minute, proche d’une conversation courante. 87 % des mots font partie des 3 000 mots les plus courants en anglais, le vocabulaire est donc facile à suivre.
Vocabulaire clé de cette vidéo
15 mots de la vidéo à retenir, avec leur prononciation et leur sens :
| Mot | Prononciation | Sens |
|---|---|---|
| lesson nom | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | leçon |
| grammar nom | /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/ | grammaire |
| accent nom | /ækˈsɛnt/ | accent |
| motivation nom | /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/ | motivation |
| tense nom | /tɛns/ | temps, temps verbal |
| output nom | /ˈaʊtpʊt/ | sortie |
| wherever | /(h)wɛɹˈɛvɚ/ | où, là où |
| immigrant nom | /ˈɪmɪɡɹənt/ | immigrant, immigrante |
| organize verbe | /ˈɔɹɡənaɪz/ | organiser |
| trait nom | /tɹeɪt/ | trait |
| thick adjectif | /θɪk/ | épais, gros |
| curious adjectif | /ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/ | curieux |
| explanation nom | /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/ | explication |
| resource nom | /ɹɪˈzɔːs/ | ressource |
| engage verbe | /ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/ | attirer l'attention |
Les verbes à particule que vous entendrez
| Mot | Prononciation | Sens |
|---|---|---|
| come out verbe | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | sortir |
| boil down verbe | se résumer | |
| build up verbe | s'accumuler, s'entasser | |
| show up verbe | apparaître, se montrer se pointer |
Des phrases à répéter
Des phrases courtes et complètes de la vidéo, à réutiliser dans la conversation de tous les jours :
- What's your secret to learning languages?
- You're you don't know how to go about it.
- You know you don't quite understand.
- Do you have a strategy for overcoming this when you're learning languages?
- What was your favorite part of this interview?
La grammaire de cette vidéo
Les structures que le locuteur utilise le plus, avec les mots exacts de la vidéo :
| Structure | Dans la vidéo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participe passé — une action passée qui compte encore maintenant | has learned · have learned · you've never done |
| Propositions relatives who / which + proposition — une précision sur une personne ou une chose | speaking, which is · people who grew · people who got |
| Voix passive be + participe passé — l’accent est mis sur ce qui arrive, pas sur qui le fait | is spoken · being judged · be mistaken |
Prononciation à surveiller
Le locuteur utilise 92 contractions et formes réduites, comme don't, I'm, you're. Prononcez-les sous leur forme courte, telles que vous les entendez.
- Les sons « sh » et « zh »: motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, tension /ˈtɛnʃən/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
- Mots longs — placez bien l’accent: motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, uncertainty /ʌnˈsɜːtənti/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/
Les sons difficiles pour les francophones :
- /h/ — il se souffle, il n’est pas muet: wherever /(h)wɛɹˈɛvɚ/, habit /ˈhæb.ɪt/, hopeless /ˈhoʊplɪs/, comprehensible /kɒmpɹəˈhɛnsɪbəl/
- /tʃ/ et /dʒ/ — à ne pas adoucir en « ch » et « j »: gradually /ˈɡɹæd͡ʒuəli/, engage /ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/
- /r/ anglais — langue recourbée, sans frotter la gorge: gradually /ˈɡɹæd͡ʒuəli/, grammar /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/, relate /ɹɪˈleɪt/, wherever /(h)wɛɹˈɛvɚ/, immigrant /ˈɪmɪɡɹənt/
Comment s’entraîner avec cette vidéo
- Écoutez la vidéo en entier une fois sans parler et notez les mots que vous ne connaissez pas.
- Commencez à la vitesse 0,75×, répétez phrase par phrase, puis revenez à la vitesse normale quand cela devient facile.
- Enregistrez-vous et comparez avec l’original, en faisant attention à des mots comme lesson, grammar, accent.
Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?
Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.