Techniques

A lot of this content, as in the case of our mini stories, has a lot of high-frequency verbs. You’re certainly going to come across the high-frequency words and verbs often and, therefore, it’s easier to get to know them. As you listen to this stuff whereas when you started everything was just noise and you think you’ll never learn this language, particularly if it’s written in a different script like the Arabic script, but with time all of a sudden you start to understand things. 

I’m driving up here with my wife and we’re listening to a podcast about the Byzantine Empire. So I’m enjoying the drive. I’m enjoying listening to the Byzantine Empire podcast. Why am I listening to a podcast about the Byzantine Empire? Because I’ve been learning Arabic, Persian and Turkish, so I’m kind of exploring that part of the world. I’ve read books now on the history of Persia or of Iran, on the history of Arabic countries prior to Islam, post Islam, the Colonial period and, low and behold, I read a book on the Byzantine Empire, which is something we learned so little about.

  Today, I’m going to talk about speaking like a native, sounding like a native, because it’s a discussion that showed up sort of in response to my latest video, which I…

  Some people will say, geez Steve, you used to say you should focus entirely on one language. I did used to say that, but a number of things have changed.  …