I just decided to do a video on the joys of language output, as long as it happens when the learner wants it, and when it is not forced.

Michel Thomas is very successful with his learning material. I think that a major reason is the relaxed way he introduces each language. People are often afraid of a new language, and even resist learning it at some level, perhaps subconsciously. They have no confidence that they can learn for reasons that diovende explaines below. Michel Thomas allows them to overcome their fear.

I am probably the exception in that I know that I can learn, and that I will enjoy learning. I am happy starting with the target language only, using material such as we have at LingQ. We now call the series  LingQ Beginner and it includes about 44 episodes of easy, relatively interesting, although artificial, learner content. It exists in parallel in 6 or 7 languages.

So I am looking for ways to make people feel comfortable and yet get a sense of what they are going to get into.I have experimented here with what I hope is a calm and encouraging monologue about 4 languages, English, French, Mandarin and Japanese. The idea is that this format could be a brief introduction to new languages that would give people a sense of what to expect and reduce the fear level.

Never mind that I made mistakes here, that I mixed 4 languages when 2 at a time would be better. And this is only the start of something that should have about 10 episodes.

My question is, could this be useful in getting people started? Here is a draft of the kinds of sentences that I would cover in a variety of bilingual or multilingual recordings. I look forward to people's comments and suggestions.

Here is what diovende said in a comment to my previous post
"I think when people say "just enough to get by", it's commonly a reflection of their low self-confidence about language learning. Perhaps they've had it destroyed by being forced to take useless "language classes" in school, such as high-school french, where they are "taught" for years and years but never gain any real ability in the language. If it takes you 10 years of french classes in school to "just get by", then no wonder you can't commit yourself to learning a language, because it must logically take more than 10 years to speak it."

I recently had the chance to talk with Clint Schmidt of Livemocha. We exchanged views on the opportunities and challenges of bringing language learning to the Web.

The Prime Minister had a message on Canada Day, in English and French. So I decided to have one too.

The first article of three on language learning appeared on Pick the Brain today. If you are interested please have a look. If you like the article a Digg would always be appreciated. Thank you.