The Lazy Method that got him fluent insanely fast? - Metatron Reacts

Evildea produced a video exposing Spencer's lies regarding how long Spencer had actually been learning Mandarin for.

I have seen people learning my language in an incredibly short period of time, both speaking from day one, and spending months listening before attempting to speak.
There is no magic rule that works for everyone.

Slowly learning. Getting pronunciation down from pin yin. Watching Chinese dramas. I have Chinese room mates. Free lessons Monday at my library (Canada).
I also have "Little Apple" by Chopstick Brothers stuck in my head.

I have reached a much higher level than average in 2 extra languages. I didn’t necessarily identify TV as being the big difference. I was spending time reading, singing, speaking with people, studying and watching movies and TV. I thought my “secret” was I made the languages part of my life. But I definitely can recognize speaking was critical because I am from an indigenous family. In my family my grandparent’s generation was highly encouraged to speak only English, so my family lost our heritage language. I lived near fluent speakers for many years when I was young. Yet most people my age and younger have lost the language.

They always say don't use textbooks and just immerse youraelf a bunch but WITH QHAT BROOO. IM LITERALLY A0 AND TRYING TO LEARN RUSSIAN WHAT THE FREAK AM I SUPPOSED TO START WITH💀 "Watch tv shows! Read books!" WHAT BOOKS??? WHAT TV SHOWS????? Dawg i cain't even watch peppa pig without my brain exploding because these people are speaking in SUPER SPEEEEED😢

That pause when trying to translate what you want to say before you speak is part of the learning process. When your brain makes the connection of correctly saying the sentence, it figuratively gets hardwired into your mind and is immediately accessible from that point.
It's very similar to learning a song on guitar by ear.

I personally use games, outside my lessons. Game Gengo has a great tier list for Japanese.

Hey there.
I used this technique (if I’m not mistaken it’s called “shadowing” in non-scientific language) to study English. And I really was just absorbing the language first couple months. After that I started to use English in texting with friend from another country. She is my wife now🎉. After about half a year of texting with my future wife, continuing to watch a lot of videos in English, I got into the discord English speaking only server of the online game I was playing then and started slowly training the pronunciation and accent. Today, about seven years later, I’m speaking English relatively well. Im reading books only in English. Books that I wanted to read for years without using translation versions. Jack London is my favourite author and the language in his books is a bit difficult, but I enjoy it a lot and it helps me to learn more and more. I’m b2+ now and hope to get to the c1 soon.
You said correctly that it really depends on the person. For me it worked this way, for one of my friends that tries this method too, it didn’t work this way, but when he started to practice on the spot without waiting like I did, and he added to it analysis of the structure of the sentences he learned from the videos- he started to progress fast.

He's saying shit that has been said a million times. It's kind of a no brainer that watching things in one's target language is a good tool to learn. "Strategic entertainment learning"... Dude, it's not that deep.

Hopefully he was blessed by God with the ability to learn a language while sleeping 😅, otherwise it will be really embarrassing when professionals judge "his methods"

The insanely quick method built on half a year of intensive study 😅 After a while, it becomes second nature. TV is correct. I have used in Spain and Croatia. I recommend sitting in a cafe and listening to the actual rhythm and intonation of the spoken language in a live context. This is pointless if one hasn't done the book work beforehand

This video popped up on my feed and never had any intentions to watch it. It sounded like nonsense from the very beginning. I was actually ready for you to rip him a new one but some of his points are valid. When he mentioned watching TV in the target language. I was like "I do that", I am currently using Lingopie and Netflix to learn Spanish (Mexican dialect). But I am also speaking with many locals here in Southern California who speak Spanish. Love your videos.

so another comprehensible input bro

You call your friends in Teinei?

People's brains are different.
What works for some may not work for others.
Some people can hear something and then just say it. Others have to practise making the right sounds before they can say it.
I wonder if perhaps he actually just has a brain that can learn this way.

I once told a Chinese that I, of course, am not able to tell which Chinese a person speaks. He did not quite agree with the concept that there are different Chinese languages. 🤷‍♂ I chose to change the topic.

I tried once to replicate a Chinese name the way I heard it talking to another Chinese which repeated the name entirely differently from what I had tried to say and remembered. I guess that was not quite a success 😀

I cannot take him seriously. He uses a lot of random buzzwords like his “neurological alignment method” and “natural”. All of these words are a part of the zeitgeist of western culture.

I wouldn't be surprised if he actually practiced without noticing, by repeating the words while listening and henc got it into muscle memory, before he started forming his first own sentences.

His discussion on declarative and procedural memory isn’t exactly correct. He argues that declarative memory doesn’t lead to automaticity. The problem with this though is that many things learned through declarative means (explicit learning) does lead to automaticity, like riding a bike, doing multiplication tables, etc. There is also evidence showing that some things in language learning are learned differently in adulthood compared to childhood. For example grammar in childhood language acquisition is procedural (implicit) compared to adulthood. There are a plethora of studies on this that are up to date. Looking at studies from over 40 years ago will give insight but not provide good evidence. Now with technological advances we can actually look at what the brain is doing during language learning.

That is more or less the method I use to learn Mandarin (I also use some apps). But the sole reason I am learning Mandarin is that I really love watching Chinese TV-series. However, since my favorite genre is fantasy, I now can say and understand sentences like "Grind ink!", "This is a dragon egg, not a chicken egg" and "Do you want to kill me?". In addition, I know which form of "I" I should use when talking to the emperor and how to address an eunuch. 😂But in real life I wouldn't be able to book a hotel room or ask for the way in Mandarin. And that's okay. It is only my hobby. But I must says there is a ton of content in Mandarin out there. For a lot of other languages this kind of content doesn't exist, so the method suggested in the video istn't really feasable.

Han Chinese here. Since what you're calling 普通話is the variety of Guan/Mandarin which won official language by vote during ROC, "Chinese" is understood to be 普通話 tbh. I also speak 閩南語, and while it's also a Sinitic language, I specify since it's not the official one. The vast majority speak standard Chinese precisely because it's official.

Also, 兒音 not existing in the South is not true, and the number 2 is not 兒音.

"Spencer's method" (that in fact, didn't invent anything), sounds compelling and reasonable but the reality is that this method can only be used after having reached a certain level, and even to understand something out of a cartoon you need at least "high-A2" level, especially for a language like Chinese. It sounds harsh but for a good amount of time the "traditional method" is compulsory if you really want to progress at a good pace, of course you can rely on some exposure to comphrensible input, but it has to be something artificial, because there isn't really much for you at the begginer level. People who prefers this approach, usually started to use it after having reached a certain level in the target language and reached a point where they couldn't progress any further, then they discover this method and see how effective it is, forgetting all the progress they made it before without using it and which made possible to exploit it. Not to mention the advice of not speaking, that is quite harmful, as you could be convinced to be a good speaker because you never had actual conversations.

The reference of 300 hours goes back to Dr. J. Marvin Brown. He found that his students improved at speaking the longer they waited before using what they learned. The 300 hours is, according to Dr. Brown, the lowest hours someone should wait. He recommends 500 to 900 hours. Disclaimer: I did not take Dr. Brown's course.

I hate it when video are structured like his.
Explain the new term you bring in first before selling it.
If 80% understanding is a requirement then there is literally nothing on regular TV for adults that qualifies as good study material for beginners. Don't try to fool people into thinking that watching shows for toddlers will be fun and engaging. (it won't be for most)
So in the end you still have to put in the hard work of building a good foundation. (which is definitely faster done the regular way then with immersion btw, especially in Japanese)
Immersion like this is really only a good study method for intermediate or better learners. It's not fast at all if you count the hours. (he is not counting the hours at all lol)
But it is great to reach good natural fluency in the end, since textbook based content is just too much like a textbook to get natural language ability.

Why do I even bother, that guy is just one of those extremist Krashen guys. Just regurgitating stuff without thinking about it. (you should watch his other videos that make this even more clear)
I learned English in school, by my calculation that was maybe 400 hrs of active learning, including speaking a lot. Immersion after school really only made it better.

Wouldn't calling Cantonese, Chinese be more like calling Sicilian, Italian, instead of calling it an Italian language? Or calling Basque or Catalan, Spanish...instead of them being Spanish languages, that is languages spoken in Spain?

I found it useful to watch media in your target language, but I also learned quite a bit watching media in my native language with subtitles in my target language. The latter is so enjoyable that it doesn't even seem like studying. It's especially useful for picking up slang, I learned a lot a common slang from watching sitcoms in this format.

Each to their own, I guess. To me, Cantonese sounds better as I have a much closer personal association with the language through former British HK culture than I do with Mandarin through modern Mainland China or Taiwanese culture. The growth of Mandarin in the West - both spoken and particularly written (simplified), rapidly displacing Cantonese Chinese from previously once majority Cantonese speaking ethnic enclaves saddens me deeply.

I guess I learned English as child watching the Muppet Show in English on Dutch television with Dutch subtitles.

You're right. There is no way that you can use all the words you read or heard of if you don't use them frequently in conversations or in writing. It just doesn't work like that, since there is passive and active vocabulary. Knowing passive vocabulary doesn't mean you can put the words out easily -- it takes practice.

Aside Evildea, I'd recommend watching Psycholingo's videos about Spencer

Metatron if i practice output via texting will that get me the benefits of speaking minus the benefit of pronunciation?

Also metatron do you maintain the languages you learned like .aybe reading 10 pages in that language or something?

I love how you said you used childrens material to learn. I learned largely by immersion, but one of my best resources in the early stages was Crayon Shin Chan on TV. I graduated to watching loads and loads of comedy shows, first with Tokyo comedians and then even the Kansai comedians. All the sketch comedy and drama tv shows were immensely helpful in learning by immersion, but of course this was all paired with lots and lots of attempting to speak, and a basic knowledge of the rules of grammar to start. Once you know enough to be able to ask "what does that mean?" in THAT language, and somehow understand the answer without resorting to a translation, the floodgates are open. Relying on the language you already know as some kind of base for ideas will prevent you from ever being fluent in your target language.

Never use children media to learn russian. It's not easy, it's extremely more difficult. 😅 Because they like to make words sound "cuter" or "smaler", especally if it is for children (like блины becomes блинчики and such stuff). It's not made for beginners at all. Go for material designed for language learners and than move over to teenage stuff. Skip the childbooks and childmovies.

@Metatron I don't know if you know the footballer Trent Alexander Arnold, who played Liverpool and went to Real Madrid, at his press conference he spoke only in Spanish, there was only news of him moving to Spain at the end of the season.

What about for people that don't have their voice or literally have a disease that prevents them from speaking, is it impossible for them to learn a language properly? Or are they going to be a lot slower to learn if they can only listen/read/write etc?
I have excruciating pain when I speak (have been this way for 10+ years now/autoimmune related)
so I can't speak more than a minute a day on average. I guess I just need to listen 2x more than everyone else? idk

He's so full of s.... he said in his video that he could not speak at all when he met his chinese language friend first time, and 6 month later he speaks like B2.

I can't wait for VR Language learning games that allow for AI enhanced open dialogue. for example you go to a market where you try to talk to a NPC without feeling awkwardness you would have with a real person.

The best way to translate Mandarin is 官話

I do not get how this could possibly work unless you'd have to watch Chinese Barney.....