Transcription
[Music] Hey everybody, happy Wednesday morning! Look at my blue mug. I love this color so much. So today, we're going to be talking about comprehensible input. But I do want to focus specifically on what I think is often a missing piece of the conversation around comprehensible input. And I think that this has led to an expansion of perfectionism in the language learning community. And I think it's led a lot of people to feel maybe lost or even frustrated at, you know, understanding how they can use this magical idea of comprehensible input for themselves. So that's what we're going to be talking about. Without further ado, let's jump in.
Okay, so I'm not going to spend too much time today talking specifically about what comprehensible input is. But I will just quote Stephen Krashen directly from one of his earlier presentations on the topic, so that we have sort of a basic, broad definition to work from. "We acquire language in only one way. When we understand messages. That's it. We've tried everything else. We've tried teaching grammar. We've tried having students memorize vocabulary. We've had people memorize dialogues, sit in front of machines. Next, we'll try the electric shock." He's joking. "We've tried everything. But the only thing that works, the only thing that counts is giving people messages they understand." What we now call comprehensible input. We acquire language when we understand what people tell us. What is said, not how they say it, but what they say.
So, okay, there's this idea that we need comprehensible input to learn a language effectively. But the thing that I think is often missing is that we then sort of talk about, well, how can we find content like graded readers, right? Graded readers might allow us to engage in extensive reading, perhaps at this sort of 98% level of comprehension. Or, you know, we might look for these nice podcasts that have like a transcript, and they speak more slowly for us. And there are all these wonderful pieces of content that you might be able to find. But the thing is that I think there are two problems here. One is that, well, not every language has such a wealth of materials available for learners. And so this can lead people to feel quite frustrated. Combined with the second problem, which is that we need to talk about how there are so many different ways to make content more comprehensible to you, right?
So I think that very often, people get the idea that you have to find a piece of content that is ready and packaged, you know, as comprehensible input in its initial form, right? So let's say you pick up a children's book, just as a random example. And there's this idea that, well, to be comprehensible input material, you should open it, and you should be able to understand like, let's say, 98% or 95%, whatever you want to say, right? Or maybe you should listen to a podcast and immediately it should be comprehensible to you. And I think that lots of people have this idea. And so what happens is you get this perfectionism of people desperate to find the perfect content, right? The perfect piece of reading material, the perfect listening material, the perfect, you know, television show or whatever it might be. People trying to find content that is right now comprehensible for them. And again, the thing is here is that that is very limiting, in my opinion.
And so, you know, in my experience, while yes, I am now using graded readers for Mandarin Chinese, it's wonderful that those are available to me, right? And I have used graded readers also for German. But I did not use graded readers for French, for Spanish, you know, for Japanese, for example. These are all languages that I actually went directly into reading novels once I was finally ready to engage in reading. But if I think about Japanese and about how I used some wonderful podcasts to learn Japanese, or even the same thing in French, or if I think back to so many examples from my own language learning, Swedish is another example where I had a really hard time finding like simplified materials for myself. They might be out there, but at the time I couldn't find them. These are all cases where I couldn't find, you know, the perfect packaged, amazingly comprehensible materials for myself. But I found ways to make them comprehensible, or at least make them more comprehensible for myself.
Now, one of the fascinating stories that I have not only told on this channel, but I actually documented it in real time, was when I began trying to read my first novel in Spanish. And I have a whole series on this channel. I had to cut it off a bit short, unfortunately. But I documented diving into my first Spanish novel. And when I read the first chapter, it was very, very difficult for me. So I think I understood about 50% of the story. It was very, very challenging. And you can see in one of those videos how I'm just, you know, exhausted. It was very difficult. But the thing is, I then took a day or two, and I really studied it inside and out. I made all these notes, and I sort of drew out a map of the story. I knew who all the characters were, where the story took place, all the basic plot lines that were set in that first chapter. And then when I read the second chapter, this completely blew my mind. My comprehension level jumped to like 80 or 85%. It seems like it was incredible how much more comprehensible the rest of the book became to me. Because now I wasn't spending so much time just trying to grasp the context, grasp who the characters are, and why are we here, where are we?
I also found that lots of words did indeed repeat from the first chapter. Because in the first chapter, there are quite a lot of specialized words. I was reading a book called "El Tiempo Entre Costuras," so it's like "The Time Between the Seams," I think, is the English translation. There were several words that were specific to being a seamstress, you know, and sewing and textiles, right? So once I learned those words in the first chapter, it helped me sort of, you know, block out all those terms in the second, third, fourth chapters. The point here is that by engaging in a particular way with the first chapter of that book, I actually made the entire rest of the book a lot more comprehensible. And so that helped me then continue pushing through.
Now, again, it's a valid argument to perhaps say that, you know, based on research on extensive reading, in this case, that may not be the optimal way of reading. All I'm trying to say here is that it can be done. And that there are circumstances when you just don't have the perfect materials. And I don't want people to feel discouraged and feel like, well, that's it, this is useless. And again, especially if you're learning a language where you just might not have the best materials available to you, you might not have graded readers or, you know, news in slow X, you know, all these different things. You can still totally do it, right?
And so another example is, I used to have these podcasts in French. Um, and I also remember doing this with Brazilian Portuguese, where a friend of mine had recommended a YouTube channel to me. And I really liked these YouTube videos, but they were a bit too difficult for me. I couldn't quite understand them. They weren't exactly comprehensible input for me. But so what I did is, I asked my friend to help me transcribe them. So I did my best, I tried to transcribe the best I could. My friend who's from Brazil filled in all the gaps, and together we built this transcript. And all of a sudden, I was able to read what was being said. And it boosted my comprehension. And it made it actually quite comprehensible to me. And then I found that the next episode was even easier, and so on and so forth.
So I could tell you a thousand stories of different ways that I have taken materials. I'll give you one more. Now, there was a movie that I watched in French called "Pattaya." And I remember that at the time, I was quite frustrated because I couldn't find subtitles in French. I had gotten used to the luxury of being able to find movies in French with French subtitles, which for me is solid gold, right? If I can find a movie or a TV show or drama with subtitles in the language I'm learning, I love it. So powerful. But this movie, I couldn't find a version that had the subtitles. So what I did is, I watched the film. And I again, I understood like 50%. There were some very important parts of the story that I missed, right? Some of the main characters, I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. And, you know, it was a bit frustrating. But I was so incredibly curious, right? I was just like desperate, I wanted to know what was happening. It was quite exciting. I was like a detective, right? I wanted to uncover the missing pieces.
And so the next day, I watched that movie a second time. And it was unbelievable. My comprehension jumped. I mean, maybe it's a 70, 75%. I don't remember the exact numbers, you know, I'm guessing, of course. The point is that through repetitive listening, repetitive input, right? I was able to boost my comprehension. Because the second time through, I was mostly focused on filling in the gaps, right? I wasn't, you know, overwhelmed by new language, new context, a new story. I was able to focus on those gaps. And I actually watched that movie three times. And by the third time, I felt pretty sure that I understood all the major components of the story. If we think about what Krashen said, I understood the messages in that story. And it was a wonderful feeling. And that's when I realized that again, repetitive consumption of the same piece of content is another way to make it more comprehensible.
Another example is talking to people, right? So when you talk to a person, it's very often a lot easier than watching a movie, right? And when you talk to a person, there's this opportunity for them to perhaps talk a bit more slowly, maybe they repeat things, maybe they can explain things to you. It gives them the opportunity to make what they are saying more comprehensible to you, versus watching a film where you have no control whatsoever. Or you may notice that when you watch two native speakers talk to each other, it's so much more difficult to understand than when someone is talking directly to you. Also, you can look at visual cues. There's so many things. I think you get the idea.
The point here is that I really believe we should try to avoid this idea of perfectionism when it comes to seeking out language content. And I just don't want people to feel frustrated or lost. I've had so many comments over the last few weeks, especially based on the videos I'm doing with the amazing Jared Turner, who has kindly sat down to have five conversations with me all about extensive reading. And even Jared will say himself, you know, yes, we talk about reading at a 98% level of comprehension as being ideal. But he'll tell you, you know, that's just the ideal, right? It doesn't mean it's the only way to learn. So yes, if you can do that, it's wonderful. And we have that whole series on extensive reading to really set you up for success with that method. But again, the key here today is that that is just what's optimal, right? When we do these kind of research studies and we try to figure out what is optimal, well, that's just it. They're not saying that's the only way you can learn. They're saying that based on this research, we have found that this seems to be what works best.
Anyway, I hope you get the idea. I just, I really wanted to express that because I've had a lot of comments over the last few months where maybe I had some materials and there was a mistake or it wasn't quite perfect. It's okay. I don't think that the absolute perfect material exists all the time. And we just have to be able to adapt and be comfortable with a little bit of ambiguity and a little bit of imperfectionism. That's it for today. I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Of course, if you like this content, please do subscribe, and I'll see you on Friday for another awesome video.
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