To Improve Comprehension DON'T Try to Understand

I think this advice can apply to any area of study, and I do love the lawn-mowing metaphor. Be easy on yourself and enjoy studying.

Mark Twain once said "German is a dead language. Only the dead would have time to learn it". He was wrong. Not even the dead would have time. But l found Latin worse. I kept going but never learned it. They tell me Chinese Hungarian and Russian are the worst however. When l first got my tablet years ago l found it appeared to translate everything I posted into Polish. I thought this very clever but wondered why, nobody in my household speaks Polish. I looked for the 'Polish off' button without success. Then l realised what had happened. I had set my fingers too low on the keyboard such that l accidentally hit some of the letters on the row below, every second or third letter. I raised my fingers a couple of millimeters and, lo, problem solved, the Polish disappeared.

thanks mrs

Дякую!💙💛

Thank you very much Mr. Steve, your idea of comprehension is really true that I've never thought of before. I will try to apply what you teach from now on my English learning journey. I'm going to be back to tell my result after the next three months of studying. Thank you.

🙏🏽🛐🤲🏽🧎🏽

Este vídeo es muy útil por las consideraciones del señor Steve Kaufman.

Who do you speak to? English speaking people?

Haha, you are reading my mind sir, i figured out the the best way to learn, and the fastest way to learn, something new is to keep going while pretending that you understand, or otherwise as you call it, while accepting the uncertainty of not understanding.

To improve comprehension dont try to understand
Just go forward to new source and come back again with content before
Accept uncertain and will be better

"Experienced language learners accept uncertainty." Merci Steve!

40% 60% comprehension and move on to the next (the brain need novelty and repetition)

You are great grandpa😊

Thank you very much sir
It's really useful. I'm a beginner in english and I forced myself to understand fully but I can't it created a great frustration and here after I will follow your technique 😀

Great!Thanks a lot for your work....Your pieces of advierte are great!

Very useful! Thank you!

So the suggested numbers of repetition is around 30 times? I could never managed to repeat any material for that many times….I get bored way much quicker…maybe the 3 time already.

the most diffidult part is how to move on when you subconsciously want to stop. the theory is there, but the real practice involves attention control. so that is to say to use one's conciousness to beat the subcounciousness.

I always have this problem and I wish people had subtitles so I could understand what they said!😅
I moved to Scotland 23 years ago but at first was completely lost with the dialect.
After my neighbour kept repeating "Dinnae greet aboot it" the penny dropped😊
Now "Haud yer wheest", "skelpit" , "glaikit" and "smirr" are 2nd nature in my vocabulary!

Steve, your pieces of advice are really helpful and importantly straightforward for me. In this case, trying to comprehend the language in question can be pointless and it could hold me back from absorbing my target language further in order to be confident when listening to it. It's crucial to maintain the concentration when the language is spoken rapidly and natively and trying to get familiar with the natural rhythm of it is key without the need to live in a country where the language is spoken. Listening and reading are such practical skills to skyrocket my solid knowledge of English in my case. Moreover, let's be honest, we can't understand everything we hear from a foreign language, this happens to us even in our native language depending on many factors such as the unusual words used in a specific situation, the given area of learning, the high-quality speaking rate and stuff like that.

in other words repetition is the key

Where were you when I was in school?????? I love your channel so so much :)

Thx, thank you very much

Comrprehension means to understand.

Having spoken english my entire life I still look up words because I don't know the entire dictionary. In context all is fine but ask me to explain the definition sorry to say I can't, but i do know what it means on the page.

Really love your videos, it makes you feel more calm about learning. 你的视频能帮助我的理解，感谢你了。也许我试一试LingQ看起来很好啊。我同意你的办法，语言的学习很玩，我们都有感兴趣。

Thank you this is very helpful for me👏

I'm going to try to apply\ this to learning anything!

A4

A very good advise👍

In order to understand don't understand. What kind of advice is that?

Thank you prof, for the great analogy. It truly enlightens me.

William James has a lovely remark in his Psychology that when children read they make "flying leaps" over the parts of a sentence they don't understand. This is absolutely why children should NOT be prevented from reading books beyond their so-called 'level'. It doesn't matter if they don't get all of it at once. That is a source of pleasure. Always more to discover! Language is a fountain, as Augustine said of scripture.

Very interesting. Thank you.

Very interesting approach to comprehension which seem to apply to much more then learning about a language. To lawn mowing for one. 😁😁😁 thank you for that great advice on how to improve our comprehension!

Thanks, it was very useful
this topic is really essential for learning
These kind of videos show the path and give the light to find out how to learn foreign language
Thank you so much

💜✌🏻🕊️☝🏻

Thanks for advice. I am afraid if i do a mistake of my skill about to understanding the context that makes me more lack to study in english. I realize if i still focus in one word that i dont know, it makes me more confused then i feel completely fail to learn about english. Thank you.

Also, if you read my comment, please correct my writing. Thank you

Good one 🙌

I have been studying English since four years but I don't learn terrible now, it is difficult.

Bit like
Alice in Wonderland!
You have to understand what is being said, or written.

I think this also applies to other life situations. You cant understand by foraing yourself.

😮

Great Video!! I find myself doing this with notes. I usually find myself wanting to write every word if I take notes the first time, but if I go through once and then take notes on the 2nd pass they are definitely more developed and worth referencing.

I do a lot of processing. And then it comes out. Like today for example. I went to my corner store and I was looking at things. I see houses. I named them in my head singular and pleural. I saw cars. I named in my head he word for car singular and pleural and the color. I just learned those words like a week ago and suddenly it pops in my head. I saw trees. Well yesterday I saw a video on plants. But the only word I remembered was tree and trees. I see tree or trees and name it in my head. I see color and name them in my head. If I listen to a children’s song maybe 10 percent I understand some have subtitles some don’t. I look up words all the time. Consciously I forget. But my brain is munching on it and suddenly I see something and that word pops up in my head. I can now understand one children’s song after about ten times playing it. I even dream Spanish. Words and sentences float around, break apart, come back together. It’s my brain’s way of processing. Or I’ll listen to a Spanish children’s video I fall asleep, dream the words, wake up and the video is still playing. So it’s getting through. It happens when it happens. I may not be consciously thinking but my brain is working on it without me realizing so I turn on a Spanish learning kid’s video and what I didn’t understand a day ago I understand a couple more words. And now I can understand one whole song. And in that song it’s repeated faster and faster and I can understand. Adult fast Spanish it’s a blur of sound. But that fast children’s song no problem. And I don’t need to translate in my head. I just know it. Each song has new words. Each new children’s video say on colors that’s I’ve played a dozen times I play it again and I name it before the video does. I see address numbers and name them in Spanish in my head. And I discovered that rest was very important. I’d do Spanish until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. A tired brain remembers nothing. Spanish gets stuck in a tired brain. You know it’s there but you can’t retrieve it. Well rested helps a lot.

I've learned English and Japanese for years, and I still suck at them. The biggest obstacle I have is trying to understand everything. It stops conversation and it stops me from getting more information. Even if I finally understand a specific word after hours of effort, learning that specific word is pointless without learning a sentence -How to use it, which you will learn automatically after getting a lot of conversation/information.
I'm a quality-over-quantity guy. But after years of frustration, I believe quantity beats quality when it comes to language learning. You should accept the fact that you won't understand everything. Just ignore them for a moment (you still need to learn it someday tho) and keep getting new information. You beat the challenge that matches your level, then do the harder one. That is what it is.

That was an excellent analogy. Thank you for sharing.