Review of Easy Languages YouTube Channel

Have you ever struggled finding authentic learning material for your target language, or have spent countless hours trying to find material worth using? If you answered yes, then I would strongly recommend checking out the YouTube channel called Easy Languages, which is currently produced in over 30 languages. What is great about each language is that you learn it from the streets, allowing you to hear natives speak at their normal pace about whatever is on their mind. Instead of simply watching a 4-minute video completely in Russian when you are a beginner, English subtitles and a transliteration are provided as the host asks a question to people on the street. Thanks to this method of language-learning, you slowly start to associate sounds with words and words with meanings.

Before finding this YouTube channel, I had spent more hours than I am willing to admit trying to find a free resource that was more challenging than a textbook, but still understandable for Russian. Since I have only been taking it for two semesters, I wanted to find a YouTube channel whose goal was to find native speakers without translating everything that was being said.

I recently started seriously and religiously watching Easy Russian, but have found it to be extremely effective. The main reason why I like using it over other channels is, because each episode is based on just one question, such as "what makes you happy?", which allows you to focus your full attention on a specific topic, or to use thematic vocabulary. Instead of being all over the place, I can learn words such as "любовь" (love), or "жизнь" (life). Not only are these words useful and are used in everyday conversations, but I can also associate words in specific phrases, or in idiomatic expressions. In other words, you can slowly start expanding your vocabulary by associating words with meanings instead of learning words by themselves without any context on how they can be used, as you would typically do in high-school.

How I recommend using Easy Languages:

As I have already mentioned many times, what is most important is consistency and quality versus quantity when studying a language. Since Russian is the furthest removed from my native languages, it makes sense to spend the most amount of time on it, so that I can continue picking up its rhythms, its sounds, and its pronunciation. Since each episode is approximately 4 minutes, I would recommend watching it more than once.

When you watch it for the first time, make sure to write down any important, or unfamiliar words or phrases on a piece of paper, or in a noteboo­­­­k (the more organized you are, the faster you will eventually progress). After being satisfied with a good-sized list, re-watch it as many times as you feel necessary. Make sure to read the English subtitles, and transliterations as little as possible each time that you watch it, and try to focus on understanding entire phrases instead of individual words (ex: the ones that you wrote down that were new to you).

Remember that this channel can be used for any level. Whether you have no prior knowledge of your target language, or are close to native-sounding, you are bound to learn something new, considering that there is always room for improvement. I hope that you found this post helpful. Feel free to let me know what you think about it in the comments down below. 

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•  Easy Languages Website

Using Google Translate for Language Learning

As many of you know, I am currently a college student who is hoping to study three languages at the college level, which is a huge undertaking. There are times in which I wonder whether or not I will be able to understand a passage well, or read an entire novel in a foreign language without stumbling across too many unknown words. Thankfully, Google has a feature called Google Translate that has helped me make this transition much smoother and easier.

Before I explain how I specifically use Google Translate, I want to mention that it is by no means an application on which you should always rely. It will not always give you correct translations and sometimes creates more communication barriers and confusion than it will help you. On that note, if you keep this in mind and know how to use it wisely, it can be very useful throughout your language-learning journey. In my experience, Google Translate has been most accurate in Romance languages, specifically in Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, and has been very inaccurate in German. In most cases, when I use it for Russian, I can get an overall gist of what a paragraph or sentences mean.

How exactly do I use Google Translate to help me learn languages? This semester, I have used it to look up individual words, idiomatic expressions, and to type up full sentences to try and decipher overall meanings. If you need to look up words, it will give you most translations of them in bold, along with their synonyms. If you are wise and look at all of the words below the bolded words, you can easily tell which translation is the one that conveys the meaning closest to the word of you which you are thinking. Keep in my that online dictionaries that are made in the countries of your target languages will most likely be more accurate; however, Google Translate will help you in this regard most of the time.

Not all idiomatic expressions will be translated with this application, but most of the commonly used, everyday expressions will be translated correctly (I can testify to this because I am a native Spanish speaker, and have been impressed by its ability to provide you with correct translations of expressions that cannot and should not be directly translated from one language to another). Using Google Translate to translate full sentences or paragraphs can get messy, but it is possible. This semester, I have already had to translate many sentences from French, Italian, and Russian to English, and have found it a lifesaver. I often use this application to double-check the general meanings of sections of readings and to make sure that I am understanding the majority of what I read, as opposed to guessing and solely relying on my memory for comprehension.

Another important question to ask is: When do you know when you can trust Google Translate as opposed to when it causes you more harm than good? Generally speaking, you should have a good enough grasp on a language to know what sounds and is grammatically correct. Whenever I am in doubt, I type a sentence on Google in quotes to verify if it exists and if it used in my target language. For example, if I want to know how to say “thank you for your help” in Spanish, Google Translate translates it as “gracias por tu ayuda.” If you type up “gracias por tu ayuda” in quotes, many results will show up on Google in a matter of seconds, which confirms that it is correctly translated. If you know that a translation is incorrect, or is far from the actual translation by simply reading the translation that it provides, try looking up individual words or phrases by using trusted online language dictionaries, or by using the above method.

After reading this post, I hope that you learned how to effectively use a free application that Google provides for anyone who owns a computer, or a cellphone. Do not forget to download the application onto your phone if you think that you will need it, or benefit from it.