_ddS3jqZksA.srt

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Hello everyone.
Welcome to the Lange focus channel.

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My name is Paul.
Thank you for tuning in.

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Today's topic is reactivating a language
that you haven't used in a long time.

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A lot of colleague lights and a lot of 
language and fuzziest.

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They'll say things like ice be 15 
languages or I speak 20 languages or you

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make your 30 or 40 or crazy numbers like
that,

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and that can be really intimidating 
because most of us think I could never 

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learn that many languages.
I'm just a normal person.

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I don't have that much talent.
But what most of those people are saying

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is that they have learned that many 
languages well during their lifetime.

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They usually can't switch between all of
those languages whenever they want 

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without taking some time to reactivate 
the language and kind of get back into 

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it.
So they kind of need some preparation 

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time before they can speak that language
again.

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Now most people usually have some 
languages that are kind of in the front 

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of their brand,
their active languages that can switch 

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between them.
I think that's usually like three or 

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four languages.
I think it depends on the person and how

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often they use all of those in their 
life.

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But in my experience it's three or four.
And in my observation of other people,

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it seems to be three or four the other 
languages aside from that kind of recede

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into the background and they'd become 
dormant.

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And in order to use those languages you 
have to reactivate them,

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get back into them.
So if somebody said to me right now,

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okay,
you're going to Israel tomorrow,

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you have to be able to speak Hebrew 
tomorrow,

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I would kind of panic because I haven't 
spoken Hebrew in about 12 years.

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So it would take me a few days,
it would take me a week to take me a 

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couple of weeks to get back into Hebrew 
to the point where I was confident 

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speaking it,
even though I would say that 12 years 

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ago I was conversationally fluent in 
Hebrew and I could read it pretty well 

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too.

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I would still need some time to refresh 
my,

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my language skills and get back into 
things because it's receded into the 

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background for sure.
So how do you reactivate a language like

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that that's become dormant?
Well,

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you basically need to just dive right 
back into it and see where your 

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weaknesses lie and see what you can do 
and see what you can to do.

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And the best way to do that is by 
interacting with someone and using the 

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language communicatively.
Now,

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recently I did that at work.
I realized that one of my coworkers is a

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native Hebrew speaker,
so I tried having a conversation with 

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him and Hebrew and I could do it kind 
of,

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but I realized that a lot of things that
slipped my mind and I wasn't nearly at 

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the level that I was 12 years ago,
which is to be expected.

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I wasn't surprised.
I was actually surprised by how well I 

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could speak Hebrew who had this point 
after 12 years of dormancy.

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But uh,
that experience was important because it

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showed me,
okay,

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these are the things I'm forgetting.
These are the things that are not such a

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problem.
The things that are usually the first to

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slip and go away.
When the language becomes dormant is the

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vocabulary.
Vocabulary goes away really quickly and 

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sometimes it's even really basic 
vocabulary.

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You know,
things like apple,

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things like car words like sleep and 
stuff like that often will just 

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disappear from your,
from your memory and it's in there 

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passively.
Usually usually your passive skills will

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kind of remain intact and when you hear 
those words you'll understand them,

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but when it's time to speak,
they won't come up.

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I would say that that's definitely true 
for vocabulary and to some extent also 

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for verb conjugations in my experience,
but in my experience it's not that way 

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for syntax or word order.

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I don't really have any trouble building
Hebrew sentences or making sentences in 

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the language.
It's mostly a problem of vocabulary and 

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to some extent the verb conjugations.
Usually there's also a kind of lack of 

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fluency and it takes you longer to get 
the sentences out.

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I don't think that's a problem with the 
grammar or sentence structure though.

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I think that's typically a problem with 
vocabulary because you have these ideas 

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you want to express,
but you don't know how to bring up the 

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words to express those ideas.
So you slow yourself down in order to 

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retrieve those words and look for the 
vocabulary to express what you want to 

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say.
And sometimes you end up paraphrasing or

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explaining it in a different way and 
that just slows down your fluency.

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I don't think it's a problem with her 
sentence structure.

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To me in my experience,
that's usually something that sticks 

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longterm.

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Now assuming that you learned the 
language quite well the first time 

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around,
and by well I mean conversationally 

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fluent,
then it's basically a matter of 

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refamiliarizing yourself with those 
things that you've forgotten so that 

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they can become active instead of 
passive so that you can use them 

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productively.
You can speak using those elements and 

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you can write using those elements,
not just understand them when you 

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encountered them.
Sell the two steps of that are 

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encountering those language elements 
passively with books or with videos and 

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audio and then giving yourself a chance 
to use it.

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So I have some old Hebrew materials that
are used to use back in the day that I 

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can use to refamiliarize myself 
passively with some of these language 

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elements.
So I have this one Hebrew in three 

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months.
This one I think is out of print,

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but I really liked these in three months
series by you go,

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they're all really good if you could 
find them online.

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But this is the Hebrew one.
Let me look at a sentence and just see 

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if it reminds me of things that I've 
forgotten.

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Uh,
it says here on this page and Neil 

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Patella hood's a nickel,
a chef shunted sally flatwoods.

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Key.
O'Neil have Leo or backwards.

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Uh,
so that means he's talking about a 

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marathon and he says,
I want to run and I think I need to run 

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because I love being outside.
Okay.

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Uh,
probably that's all familiar to me.

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I wouldn't have forgotten any of those 
words.

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The next sentence,
uh,

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a of Albert holds up.
We laid low [inaudible] the Shabbat.

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Okay.
So he says,

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but on the other hand when he says,
but in any case,

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maybe I shouldn't because I had a cold 
on Saturday,

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so the word [inaudible] which means in 
any case,

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I don't think I would've remembered that
unless I saw it written right here.

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But now it's coming back to me just 
seeing it once and also the word 

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Nazella,
that means like a cold.

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I haven't thought of that word in 12 
plus years,

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so I wouldn't have been able to pull 
that word up out of my memory and 

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produce it.
But now that I've seen it,

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I'm starting to remember cases when I 
used this word back in the day.

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So I think this is already being 
refreshed in my memory and I'll be able 

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to use those words in the near future.
Another book I used is this one 

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mastering Hebrew,
which is actually one of the FSI books,

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the free public domain ones that you can
get for free on the Internet in pdf 

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form.
But the Hebrew one's good.

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Let me look at something in this.
Let's see.

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Uh,
he says there's a shot,

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a middleware,
the ls there,

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Shiva,
the Shiva is,

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and look dumb again.

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And he'd say [inaudible] and they'll 
have the book.

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Okay.
So he says,

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at what time do you get up?
And the other guy says around seven and 

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the first guy says,
it's seven.

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That's early in.
The second guy says,

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yes,
I need to make breakfast for my family.

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So I'm most of those words,
we're still kind of familiar to mix.

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They're quite basic,
but the word mittal hour to get up,

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I don't think I would have been able to 
remember that.

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And now that I'm thinking about that 
word,

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I'm remembering other related works like
shown malware shut on mail order that 

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that's like an alarm clock,
a clock that wakes you up.

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So I'm remembering related words and 
it's kind of becoming like a web.

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Like I remember one word.
Then I remember related words and other 

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things.
And now I'm thinking of some sentences 

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with that word that I made a long time 
ago.

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So it all comes back when you just start
to refamiliarize yourself with some 

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things that have become dormant.
So those are two textbooks that I've 

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used in the past.
I also like to use phrase books like 

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this.
This is the lonely planet Hebrew phrase 

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book.
These ones are quite good.

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I like the lonely planet.
His books,

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they're good to just flip through and 
just read simple sentences,

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read simple phrases,
and just review basic vocabulary because

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most of the vocabulary in here,
his daily life vocabulary,

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it's quite practical.
So it's good.

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It's a good way to just to get that core
vocabulary back into your,

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your active vocabulary.
So if I just opened to a random page,

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let's see if I can do it.
It says,

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okay,
uh,

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[inaudible] uh,
can you write this down please?

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A Little Sean?
I don't know if I would have remembered 

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the word Leo Sharm without seeing it 
right here.

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So,
uh,

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I probably would have said like half 
Shah [inaudible] is it possible to rate 

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this?
I probably would have said let's solve 

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instead of real sean.
But when you're writing something down,

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like on a list,
you just show them is the better word to

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use.
So it's good that aside here,

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another example,
let's see.

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Um,
[inaudible] at the bank.

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Ah,
okay.

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When do they open the bank?
When does the bank open?

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Probably those words are okay.
I would have remembered those materials 

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when [inaudible] comes from pat 
documents to open.

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So I would've remembered these words,
I think.

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But let's see if Shar Lao viola guns 
[inaudible] uh,

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can I transfer money here from my bank?
So that one,

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I think I would've remembered most of 
those words except Leah via,

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which is to transfer.
Um,

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but now that I've seen it,
I'm remembering a speech that they saw 

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by Benjamin Netanyahu on tv like 12 
years ago where he said something like,

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uh,
uh,

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good luck.
Bye.

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[inaudible] new [inaudible]. [inaudible]

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means like,
uh,

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this is his Zionist philosophy you said 
on there by bringing all the vast 

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majority of Jews to Israel,
can we fulfill the dream of Zionism?

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So she was saying bring,
he said they hired via ems to transfer 

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them here.
So I just remembered that after seeing 

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the word in this,
this phrase book right now.

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So that's the kind of thing you can do.
It just refamiliarize yourself with 

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those language elements.
And then you start to connect them with 

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other elements that you've learned with 
other situations.

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You've used the men,
and then you start to get that snowball 

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effect.
So that's one of the things you can do.

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Also,
in recent months with Hebrew,

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I've been watching some,
some youtube videos in Hebrew.

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Uh,
that wasn't planned.

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It was just that I stumbled upon some 
interesting videos.

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There were street interviews done partly
and Hebrew.

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So listening to the Hebrew passively 
reminded me of some of those language 

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elements.
So remember it a lot of vocabulary and 

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it improved my listening skills again,
but that's,

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I'll just riff familiarization.
It's also important to produce the 

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language,
right?

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So I'm going to take some Hebrew lessons
to get back into producing Hebrew 

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verbally and we'll see how it goes.
I'll probably just start practicing 

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those elements that I've been reviewing 
and all of these books.

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But sit,
uh,

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Num Sheer Laguna Bezalel Oh,
I'd see lockers or legal claims.

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Uh,
I need any hot say,

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let's say l there's metal at the palm of
our last shelf money and this amount.

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[inaudible].
So basically in conclusion,

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I just want to say don't feel that you 
have some kind of pressure to learn to 

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be fluent in multiple languages and to 
always be able to speak them all the 

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time.
Most people who are language and 

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fuzziest are polyglots there can't do 
that.

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They need to actually prioritize certain
languages.

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Those are usually the ones that they're 
currently using,

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the ones that are currently relevant to 
their life.

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They're focused on using those ones and 
keeping them active.

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And the other ones they have learned in 
the past received them become dormant.

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But that's okay because if you ever need
them,

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you just need a bit of notice and then 
you can reactivate them by re 

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familiarizing yourself with some of the 
things that have slipped out of your 

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memory and then producing them so you 
can get them back into your active 

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language ability.

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So don't sweat it.
Don't feel any kind of pressure.

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Don't take on some kind of ego identity.
Like,

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I need to speak all these languages 
because I'm a polyglot or whatever.

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It.
Don't do that to yourself.

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Just relax and have fun.
Enjoy the languages.

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No,
that there will always be there.

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Especially if you've learned the 
language quite well,

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then it will always be there.
You just need to re activate it,

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so don't even worry about it.
All right,

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this is Paul.
Thank you for watching.

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Have a good nights.
When you're an infant,

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you spend about a year just sitting 
there listening to the language before 

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you actually see anything.
Just absorbing the salads.

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You're internalizing the phonology 
before you actually produce it as an 

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adult that you have a year to sit around
doing that.

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I know I don't.
So I've been talking about focusing the 

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grand sense,
like in terms of your large goals and 

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that kind of thing,
but of course the focus is also 

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important in the moment because we live 
in such a distraction prong world.