Flashcards Are Holding You Back From Fluency - with Lucas McCracken (Migaku Interview)

0:00 Hello everyone, I'm here with a very special guest

0:03 today and his name is Lucas from co-founder of Migaku.

0:09 Ciao Lucas, how's it going?

0:11 It's going pretty well tonight, how about you?

0:13 Doing fine.

0:14 I'm fairing from Rome and I guess you are in Tokyo, right?

0:20 Yeah, currently in Tokyo, that's right.

0:22 That's one place I'd like to visit but currently here.

0:25 Yeah, it's not too shabby.

0:27 Not too shabby.

0:28 Today we're going to talk about a lot of things.

0:31 Obviously Sebastian Deer,

0:33 we're going to talk about language learning and Lucas path,

0:37 techniques, strategies, language learning philosophy and everything in between.

0:42 Are you Are you ready Lucas?

0:45 I [snorts] guess I'm ready.

0:46 I'm born ready for this.

0:47 So let's get into it.

0:49 First of all, can you please introduce yourself?

0:52 Like who who are you?

0:54 Like co-founder, etc.

0:56 etc.

0:57 Sure, I'll try to do a quick like like 2-minute introduction.

1:01 So basically long story short,

1:02 I was born in Brazil adopted at 9 years old to American speaking parents.

1:07 I think this is really important because it

1:08 kind of shaped my philosophy on language learning.

1:11 I moved to the United States,

1:14 learned English to a native level just through pure immersion.

1:18 I later completely forget my native language Portuguese.

1:21 Around 19 years old, I decided hey, you know,

1:24 there was a moment there where I was bilingual.

1:26 So I was like hey, you know,

1:27 it'd be nice to be bilingual again for various reasons.

1:30 Definitely did not decide on Portuguese at that time.

1:33 Decided on Japanese.

1:34 It was between Arabic and Japanese, went with Japanese.

1:37 Studied that for again 3 years.

1:40 Um reached I would say very respectable level of fluency

1:43 in that language that I still maintain to this day.

1:46 Later studied and and part of that time was in Japan as well.

1:51 Studied Chinese Mandarin in China.

1:55 I reached what I would also call

1:57 very respectable level of fluency in that language.

2:01 Later I did, you know, return to the homeland so to speak, return to Brazil.

2:06 While in Brazil actually, I started my own input learning language school.

2:13 And Basically as a result of a lot of the things that I discovered there,

2:18 I decided hey, it's time to learn programming.

2:20 I might talk about this a little bit later in the interview.

2:23 It's time to focus on programming because this school

2:25 is not going to go well without the accompanying software.

2:28 Basically, so I had I had previously attended university for engineering.

2:33 So I had some experience with programming

2:36 from there and always had an interest but I

2:38 went hardcore on programming with the express intent

2:41 to make my own language learning um you know, software at at some point.

2:49 Eventually that did become Migaku the the The original plan wasn't

2:54 the exact form of Migaku but it ended up being Migaku.

2:57 It's very similar to Migaku.

2:59 But yeah, anyways, you know, me and some you know,

3:02 what Several other people who I would

3:06 all consider my friends ended up founding Migaku.

3:09 And yeah, I guess we're here now.

3:11 There's a lot left out there but that's the basics I'd say.

3:14 And that was about 5 years ago.

3:17 Yeah, Migaku was founded in 2020 so yeah, 5 years ago.

3:20 Got it.

3:21 Yeah, exactly 2026 but it was late 2020 so yeah.

3:24 Thank you for the the introduction.

3:25 Gives me gives me and the audience much more insight into a lot of things.

3:29 I just want to say one thing too.

3:30 I dabbled in about 10 different languages total

3:33 in between while actually studying four three seriously.

3:37 So Got it.

3:37 That was very solid reasons too.

3:39 That's a that's an important thing to stress.

3:41 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

3:42 Yeah.

3:42 So you were saying your input based language school, very interesting concept.

3:47 So let's talk about that, right?

3:48 Input is important, everybody knows about that but there are some, you know,

3:52 different schools of thoughts of thought when it comes

3:55 to whether you should do a lot of input before speaking,

3:58 you should speak from the get-go, etc.

4:00 So What what is your stance on on early output?

4:05 So my stance on early output, let me give a little bit of um of my thought

4:11 on input first then it will relate to my thoughts on output.

4:15 So basically, I think that at the end of the day,

4:18 what we do when we learn languages we build a neural network that you know,

4:23 slowly refines itself to represent something like the Well,

4:29 I guess there's no true model of the language but something resembling

4:32 the model of the language that everyone else has in their head.

4:35 I think in order to do that, you

4:37 absolutely just need to expose yourself to very,

4:40 you know, unique ways that words that you are familiar with are used,

4:47 many unique ways that different words that you are familiar

4:49 with are used to build this kind of network, right?

4:51 Like these words are used this way and they connect in this way.

4:54 I think there is no there's no way that you can build like

4:58 a refined accurate model of the language

5:00 without going through a process of, you know,

5:03 building this network and I think how you build that network

5:05 is by just slowly like etching it in through exposure.

5:10 So now with that as as the baseline,

5:15 when it comes to output I think that early output there are I

5:21 personally wouldn't do a lot of early output except in a couple situations.

5:27 And one situation is need and the other situation is just

5:37 that it's a it's a good social situation to output in.

5:40 So I basically draw the distinction and generally speaking I

5:44 do call it social output versus like dedicated output practice.

5:49 I believe someone needs both of them to really get good at output.

5:53 Um but that social output is something if someone finds it enjoyable,

6:00 doesn't find it discouraging I think it's fine for them

6:04 to output at any stage in the learning process.

6:08 And the reason I feel that way is because

6:09 I've personally encountered many people on the internet as well

6:14 and but some of my close friends who are

6:16 some of the best language learners I've ever met,

6:19 they actually output from day one.

6:21 So I believe that it's definitely possible if someone is a dedicated language

6:27 learner to output from day one and become an excellent speaker of a language.

6:30 So I can't say, you know,

6:31 so as a result of that I I can't make a blanket statement that you

6:34 can you just should never output from day

6:36 one because it depends on your personality.

6:38 If you're going to if you're going to pay attention to your mistakes,

6:41 you're going to pay attention to, you know, um how your accent might be off,

6:46 your grammar might be off and you're going to continue to improve that.

6:49 So it doesn't really matter if you output from day one in my opinion.

6:51 But I would say that everyone eventually does need to inspect.

6:57 That's why I talked about that dedicated output practice.

6:59 They need to inspect their own output to see that it

7:03 matches not only the sound system accurately and if it matches,

7:07 you know, grammatically accurately to you know,

7:10 the language as it exists, you know, in the world basically.

7:14 So that's what I was saying.

7:16 There's a lot of interesting points.

7:17 The first one is there's no one-size-fits-all solution meaning

7:22 that everyone is different and I completely agree with you.

7:24 My friend Stefan who's an excellent polyglot,

7:26 he likes starting to he likes really producing output from the get-go.

7:30 Maybe not from day one but maybe from day three.

7:33 While I'm more like an inputter meaning that I really

7:36 like getting in a lot of input before I start speaking.

7:39 Another example, glaring example of the speak

7:42 from day one school of thought is Richard Simcott.

7:45 I'm pretty sure you've heard about Richard Simcott.

7:47 He was one of the most accomplished polyglots in the world.

7:49 He likes speaking from the get-go, used what whatever he has.

7:53 That's the first one.

7:54 The second point that I think is important to touch upon

7:59 is the fact that it's true that output is important to produce.

8:05 Now you you made an interesting distinction between What did you call it?

8:10 It was like dedicated output like practice and this is social output.

8:14 Although sometimes it's from necessity too, right?

8:16 Like you need to get something done out of the office, yeah.

8:19 If I understand correctly,

8:20 social output is basically using the language like when you go out and you talk,

8:24 you go to a shop or you meet friends, etc.

8:26 While the output practice is what you can do at home for example

8:30 or maybe you can talk to a tutor or you can talk to yourself.

8:32 Necessarily with you.

8:33 It's just paying attention to your output

8:35 in a way that you're trying to improve.

8:38 It's it's like outputting with a dedicated focus in improving your output.

8:42 There are various ways.

8:43 We're not going to talk about the techniques

8:44 here but there are various ways you do this.

8:46 You can actually do this while you're out.

8:47 It just means being like cognizant you know,

8:50 cognizant of your mistakes basically.

8:53 And there are certain techniques that you can

8:54 use in order to actually catch the mistakes, etc.

8:57 etc.

8:58 But there are various various forms of this, yeah.

9:01 We use two different names for the same thing.

9:03 I call it deliberate practice and simple practice where

9:05 simple practice is just using language while deliberate is just

9:08 like this deliberate work that you do in order

9:10 to create a feedback loop that allows you to improve.

9:14 Don't you think that speaking too early though

9:16 can damage your potential for a native-like accent?

9:18 What about your experience and also your polyglot friends?

9:22 Have you ever met someone who started speaking

9:24 from day one and still got a native-like accent?

9:28 That's what I was going to say like I would you

9:29 see It's it's similar to the whole output point in general.

9:34 I would have leaned if I wouldn't have seen real

9:37 life examples that prove it to not be the case,

9:40 I would say that hey, don't output from day one, you know, just Yeah,

9:43 don't output like very early on in the process at all because that's

9:46 what my intuition that feels so right to me to not do that.

9:49 Although I do do it like on a necessity basis.

9:52 It feels so right to me for me not

9:53 to do that that I would have thought the same thing.

9:56 You know, I would have My intuition would have told me,

9:58 "Hey, it might, you know,

10:01 damage someone's output." And I think, generally speaking,

10:04 if someone isn't studying a language very seriously, it can.

10:09 But, if you're talking about a dedicated language learner

10:11 who's going to inspect their own production of the language,

10:15 I don't think that it it it does in practice because,

10:20 like I said, I've seen some of the most talented

10:23 language learners that I've ever met, and I've you know,

10:26 there's a particular example I've actually talked about about him

10:30 in one of my old um in one of my old videos,

10:33 but I had this Moroccan friend in um China,

10:37 and basically his his he got to a Chinese

10:41 level that was indistinguishable from someone you know, from a Chinese person.

10:46 People would not be able to tell on the phone.

10:48 Mind you, you know, Chinese has a little bit of um you know,

10:51 they have more wiggle room because there are various different accents,

10:54 but his accent was definitely excellent.

10:56 He spoke from day one, and he he really improved predominantly through you know,

11:04 a lot of speaking practice while at the same

11:07 time taking back what he's learning and, you know,

11:10 making sure that he reviews it and and then

11:11 keeps moving forward and then working on his mistakes, right?

11:15 So, yeah, I'd I'd say it really depends.

11:17 If someone's not going to take it very seriously,

11:19 and not going to be very um and is not going to inspect their own output,

11:25 I think it can be damaging.

11:26 But, if someone is analytical enough that they're going to inspect their output,

11:31 I don't think it has to be at all.

11:33 I I just I haven't seen it to be the case.

11:35 Yeah.

11:36 I like your stance because it's very flexible.

11:39 I've heard, you know,

11:40 the sometimes the problem is that a lot of people don't think in a flexible way.

11:44 And there's again schools of thought, "Oh,

11:46 I think you only need output for like X X months and years,

11:49 and then you don't have to speak." While others people other people say,

11:53 "Oh, you have to speak." But, so it's important to take into account

11:56 that it's not the case, right?

11:57 And I've seen proofs that both ways, so I can't say that.

12:00 It would be it would be dishonest of me to say that.

12:02 Exactly.

12:03 So, input is important, output is also important,

12:06 but what really makes a difference,

12:08 I think, is your mindset and also your attention to detail, right?

12:11 And mindset has to do with main thing.

12:14 How serious are you about acquiring this language and using it, right?

12:18 I think that's very important thing.

12:21 All right.

12:21 So, input, output, let's talk about the intermediate hell, intermediate plateau.

12:26 Want to talk about that?

12:28 So, you know, the most learners quit at the intermediate stage,

12:32 sometimes even earlier than that.

12:34 They don't even Earlier, I'd say earlier.

12:36 I'd say earlier.

12:36 Earlier than that, right?

12:38 Intermediate plateau, let's say.

12:40 So, when you were when you were learning

12:43 Japanese or or other languages for that matter, how do you deal with that?

12:48 And how did you Did you and do you measure progress when, for example,

12:53 the inevitable plateau happens and you feel like you stopped seeing daily gains?

13:00 I'd say, well, in this case, like I have a really apt analogy for this.

13:04 I think the problem with um you know, and I've talked about I think I've talked

13:08 about this in the videos as well, potentially.

13:10 But, I have a really apt analogy.

13:12 The problem with it with um you know,

13:16 the problem that people have when it comes to this topic

13:19 is that they like to measure their progress at such regular like,

13:24 you know, such small intervals that it

13:26 becomes kind of almost impossible to notice.

13:28 So, you know, what I like to say to people is, first of all, for example,

13:31 you wouldn't If you're filling up a swimming pool,

13:33 you're not going to check every 30 seconds.

13:35 Like, you're not going to notice a difference, right?

13:38 At the beginning, it's very similar.

13:39 When you start filling up a pool, you're going to see the water going up.

13:42 You're going to make You're going to really quickly notice,

13:44 "Hey, it's filling up.

13:45 It's filling up." It's just like that at the beginning.

13:46 Like, as a beginner, you begin to like, you know, feel the language again,

13:50 and you can see that water spreading out and filling up the pool.

13:52 But, at a certain point, you're not going to really make You're not

13:55 going to give a really notice the difference, right?

13:57 Because it's just going up a little bit at a time.

13:59 So, I really say it's really important, first of all,

14:01 to to find a solid metric that you go

14:06 back to to actually measure your progress, first of all.

14:09 And I'll talk a little bit about that in just a moment.

14:11 But, the the more important thing is just

14:13 to measure that metric at a sufficiently large interval,

14:17 that way you actually have a chance

14:18 to notice the difference when you actually measure it.

14:21 So, for example, like now with me,

14:24 Gakku makes it much easier cuz there's the known word count.

14:26 But, when I originally learned my languages, there you know,

14:29 I didn't have a way to exactly track the words that I knew,

14:31 but I had the way had a way to had a concrete metric of like,

14:34 "How many flashcards have I made?" Which kind of points

14:37 to the words as well in in in in a similar way, right?

14:40 So, I could always know like, "Hey,

14:43 as long as I'm learning new words, I am, you know,

14:46 becoming able to understand more." I know that I'm reviewing these flashcards,

14:49 and I'm understanding, you know, something like 90% of them.

14:52 Obviously, there's a there are retention rate rate issues.

14:55 I don't know if you're familiar with space repetition.

14:57 I don't remember them all, but over the long term,

14:59 you remember, you know, a ton of information, right?

15:02 You just retain a ton of information.

15:04 And I know I'm doing that.

15:04 So, basically, I'm very like um you know,

15:10 if it's it's provable that I am gaining more knowledge.

15:15 And I already know that native speaker, you know,

15:18 knows 30,000 words or like an educated native speaker knows 30,000 words.

15:22 To understand a language like at a very high level, you need 20,000 plus.

15:25 I know this, right?

15:26 You you see what I'm saying?

15:27 And I know that every day I'm making progress towards that.

15:30 So, I don't really personally get this kind of I know it's a long process,

15:36 and I know um that the methodology that I use

15:40 to retain the vocabulary that I learn and what I'm learning works.

15:43 So, I know it's just a matter of just continuing to act.

15:47 But, I would say um one more thing is

15:51 like a a useful technique is to take a particular

15:54 piece of content that you're interested in, and just view

15:57 that content or read that content at a given interval.

16:01 Take that content, read it, you know, on day one,

16:03 then read it again in maybe 4 months, 6 months.

16:06 Give it enough sufficient time, and you will notice a difference.

16:09 Yeah, so that's right.

16:11 Thank you, Lucas.

16:12 That's exactly what I do and what I recommend

16:14 students my students at the Smart Language Learning Academy.

16:17 What we basically say is that how do you measure your progress?

16:19 It's really difficult.

16:20 You can measure the amount of words maybe,

16:23 but then the best way is just take a rather podcast that you did 3 months ago,

16:27 and then you will notice the difference.

16:28 Podcast, video, whatever.

16:30 Um and I also agree with you, you know,

16:33 that measuring fluency is not an easy feat,

16:36 but I always say you should focus on the process rather than the goals.

16:39 People are fixated, "When am I going to get fluent?"

16:41 But, fluent is very is a very blurry and fuzzy concept, and you learn in spurts.

16:46 But, I agree with you.

16:47 You should trust the process, and if you're putting in the work every day,

16:50 then you will improve, and you will get there eventually.

16:55 Okay, so this is all very interesting.

16:57 Now, let's talk about a little bit about AI.

16:59 I'm big on AI AI tools to learn languages and software programs.

17:03 It depends.

17:04 There's so many tools.

17:05 So, from your developer's perspective,

17:09 I want to hear your opinion about AI, how it's changing language learning.

17:14 Are you using AI?

17:15 And do you see a a future where learning, you know,

17:19 this is a classic question becomes

17:20 obsolete because you got real-time translation,

17:23 and you know, maybe the desire to connect

17:26 without a device maybe will save the industry.

17:33 There's a couple questions there.

17:35 If we're going to talk about like real-time translation,

17:37 if I I can maybe briefly mention that, then I can

17:40 talk about my own experience with that, how I'm using it.

17:42 But, real-time translation, I think you know, it And I will I have a caveat.

17:48 If we have a If we have a future where AI is beneficial to humanity,

17:54 then I think that even if it were the case that you know,

17:59 there are universal translators,

18:01 there should be such wealth in the world that there

18:03 will still be more language learners than ever before.

18:06 I really believe that because people will want to learn an actual language.

18:09 It's it's not going to be the same thing until we get

18:11 to the point where we can install language and actually speak it fluently,

18:16 we can talk about, you know, then maybe people don't Technically speaking,

18:19 they are language learning,

18:20 but that's the newest latest method of language learning.

18:23 But, I don't think translators will you know, replace language learning.

18:28 I think people have uh you know,

18:30 particularly in uh you know, more prosperous AI society,

18:35 I think people ultimately have this interest in you know,

18:40 they'll they'll have more capacity to interact with the world, right?

18:43 And I think language learning will be an increasingly large part of that.

18:47 But, the form that it will take, like I said,

18:49 I'm not sure, but I don't see I don't see, you translation being like like like

18:56 a barrier to people's interest in language learning.

18:58 You don't understand it the same.

19:00 And I think, you know,

19:01 more and more people would understand that as they go out into the world.

19:04 And yeah, and I think they'd have

19:05 a desire to really communicate with people one-on-one.

19:08 Now, about AI, of course, I mean,

19:10 I use AI in many aspects of my life, my own work.

19:15 Of course, I use it um in my own language learning.

19:18 And of course, we use it in Migaku.

19:20 There are various AI features, and we keep adding more.

19:23 Now, we are careful to not um use AI in the areas that we don't think it's,

19:27 you know, particularly best at, but like,

19:31 for example, it will make mistake like, "Hey,

19:36 let's use purely AI for tokenization of text." It's getting to the point

19:40 where we're about ready to to move over to that kind of methodology,

19:43 but we've had so many problems trying to integrate that.

19:46 But, when it comes to definitions, it's um explaining a word in context.

19:50 As long as the word is not very uh like archaic and obscure,

19:56 it does a pretty good job.

19:57 We've noticed that like for some

19:59 obscure particularly Japanese and Chinese terms,

20:02 it doesn't do a good job at it kind of makes things up quite freely.

20:06 But in most cases the most the general language learning scenario,

20:12 it's very helpful, I think.

20:13 Yeah, I I don't know if there's anything if I'm answering the question,

20:17 but yeah, I would say it's very useful for sure.

20:20 I think AI is changing the landscape but it enhances

20:24 your skills and your activities if you know how to use it.

20:26 Of course, you should have the basics in place, but yeah, I absolutely agree.

20:31 And speaking of tools,

20:32 AI tools and uh you're the co-founder of Migaku as you said at the beginning.

20:38 So first of all, what is Migaku and why does it exist?

20:41 What pushed you as a learner to create a tool like that?

20:46 What was the Were you experiencing any frustration when it comes to learning

20:50 and and and why did you end up

20:52 creating Migaku and what's what's its main purpose?

20:56 I mean the uh moment was definitely trying to do you know,

21:00 trying to do my own immersion learning school without software that was

21:05 specifically tailored for language learning trying

21:08 to adapt even software like Anki,

21:10 you know, Anki is a popular flashcard application.

21:12 I'm sure many of the listeners are familiar with it.

21:15 It's not tailored to language learning and you have to kind

21:18 of adapt it to language learning and it's and it's very technical.

21:21 There there are nothing but issues in trying to you know, you know,

21:28 basically This is a real issue like with learning languages

21:32 effectively is that there are a bunch of good resources, right?

21:37 You kind of have to like someone like you, you know,

21:40 you've you've also done the interview on my channel and you know,

21:46 it was very interesting to see how you're just you know,

21:48 you know exactly what to do like I need this.

21:51 I need this.

21:51 I'm going to combine it into this, you know,

21:54 language you know, into my own language learning method.

21:56 I'm going to utilize all these resources well.

21:58 I think I can do the same thing.

22:00 However, most people can't do that.

22:02 They immediately get lost in this plethora of resources.

22:04 They don't know what to use and I think

22:06 that's a really big part of the issue as well.

22:09 Another big part of the issue is that most beginning learning materials

22:14 are kind of made arbitrarily like something that Migaku really you know,

22:20 we really recognize that.

22:21 For example, to If you take two people with a certain vocabulary size,

22:28 say that's 20,000 words.

22:30 Um they're going to know the same subset of like 5,000 words probably for sure.

22:36 But those 15,000 other words that they know,

22:39 they they can differ so widely depending on those persons you know,

22:44 those individual people's interests that it's kind of like you know,

22:50 it's kind of impossible to just teach someone a language like in a way that is

22:56 going to appeal to them unless you

22:58 take this frequency-based approach which our you know,

23:01 our platform does basically.

23:05 You know, we have language learning courses

23:07 that teach you the first you know, well,

23:10 it depends on the language some something like

23:12 1,300 to 1,700 words that make up 80% of the most common words that you're going

23:17 to encounter in common media in that language.

23:20 So we think it's really important to learn these core words first

23:23 and we do it in such a way that it's one it's one unique

23:27 grammar point other kind of concept

23:31 in a language usually grammatical concept or word

23:34 per sentence and that way you you're going to teach yourself you know,

23:38 about 300 of the most common most useful grammar points

23:41 in a language and then you're going to teach yourself that base vocabulary

23:44 and from there from there we think it's really important to begin

23:49 to expose yourself to the content you're actually interested in because yeah,

23:53 like I said like the vocabulary doesn't actually match.

23:57 Do you see what I'm saying like people's vocabularies are actually

24:00 quite different when you get down to to the details basically.

24:04 You like cooking, you like sports, you know, it's just different worlds.

24:08 So basically yeah, we just recognize that and we think that language learning

24:13 needs to be a lot more tailored to an individual's interest and just

24:17 similarly like you said AI is a great tool in that toolbox

24:22 as well that can help to tailor the learning to an individual learner.

24:26 And I think that's what we do, you know,

24:28 we take that very seriously basically at Migaku.

24:31 That's an excellent point that I think the basic vocabulary maybe

24:36 is similar for everybody because it's really the high frequency vocabulary,

24:40 but then when you get into mid frequency and low frequency,

24:43 then it really depends on on the the learner maybe someone verbs crazy.

24:47 We've actually looked into it.

24:48 The verbs is wild.

24:50 Yeah, someone who's interested in engineering will come across vocabulary

24:54 that is different from say if they're interested in in medicine.

24:57 Absolutely true.

24:59 I had a couple of questions.

25:01 I made an infamous video about flashcards and people some people didn't take it

25:05 well because my stance on flashcards is that you basically do not need it.

25:09 However, I know that you I know I'm not sure.

25:12 I'm making assumptions here, but I've I've um I've seen that Migaku uses

25:18 of course flashcards and space repetition which is quite important.

25:22 Um what do you think?

25:23 Do you provocative question.

25:25 Do you really need flashcards?

25:26 But once again, you met people who have learned a language to fluency who

25:30 have used them and who have used flashcards and who haven't used them at all.

25:34 So what's your stance on that?

25:35 What do you think?

25:37 I would say that the success rate in learning a language that is

25:41 sufficiently different from your native language goes

25:44 up with flashcard usage like quite remarkably.

25:49 Now if a language is very similar to your native language,

25:51 it gets much easier cuz much easier to remember the words,

25:53 but if you're trying to remember you know, I I did some Arabic before.

25:56 I've done Korean.

25:57 I've done some Icelandic.

25:59 I've done a little bit of French.

26:01 I've you know, I've done various languages a little bit of German.

26:04 Italian, the languages that are are similar infinitely

26:08 easier to remember the vocabulary of, you know, it's infinitely easier.

26:12 So I think flashcards just provide such a valuable tool to lock in you know,

26:21 what you know, particularly if it's sufficiently different.

26:25 Once you get further along, you don't need it.

26:28 You don't need that you don't need flashcards.

26:30 You I'd say you don't need them regardless.

26:33 If you're going to make sure that you're studying in an effective way

26:36 where generally speaking you're going to re-expose

26:39 yourself to the words you've been studying, then you wouldn't need flashcards,

26:42 but most people's studies don't actually take that path.

26:46 Flashcards, what they do is they allow you to relax about the retention

26:50 of what you've already learned and really follow your interest because hey,

26:53 I was I was interested in engineering this week,

26:55 but now I'm interested in medicine.

26:57 If I stay interested in medicine long enough,

26:59 soon I'm not going to know what was going on in engineering again, right?

27:02 So that's that's what it allows you to remember what

27:05 was going on in engineering as you shift over to medicine.

27:08 I think it's it's a valuable tool particularly when you know,

27:13 people can't go into learning a language at such a you know,

27:17 they don't have the time investment required to make sure you know,

27:20 hey, I'm going to make sure that I you know,

27:22 also check out these domains I've already studied before before I you know,

27:27 or while at the same time exploring new domains.

27:29 It's it's just it's when it comes to retention,

27:33 I don't think there's really a replacement in the you know,

27:38 most people's busy schedules and I would also say at a higher level,

27:42 they also have a usage for maintaining extremely rare vocabulary.

27:46 Now whether someone wants to do this or not, you know,

27:48 there's can be an argument like why would you maintain

27:50 vocabulary that you you don't actually ever come in contact with.

27:55 Now that is you know,

27:57 a question for that individual who would be interested in in that to answer.

28:04 However, it works very well for that purpose as well.

28:06 So so it depends on your own personal goals if you want to use it or not,

28:11 a language is sufficiently different from your own.

28:14 It's it's it's night and day the the level of success people have

28:18 based on whether they use flashcards

28:19 or not if a language is sufficiently different.

28:22 I I agree with you that I think the principles of space repetition

28:25 does count and does make a huge difference in how you apply it.

28:28 Flashcards, there's different ways of applying them.

28:31 apply it in different ways.

28:32 Of course, that that counts.

28:34 I think though to I think the most important thing

28:37 to stress is that it's true that it's probably very useful.

28:43 The only thing is that I've heard a lot of people

28:45 complain about the the fact that they find it boring.

28:48 I tried a couple of times and I didn't like it.

28:50 So I always think that you should combine

28:53 something you like with something that is efficient.

28:55 Without a doubt, I think flashcards can make a difference,

28:58 but if someone says I don't like them, maybe they can apply space repetition

29:02 in a different way that maybe is less efficient,

29:05 but they keep doing it because they like it.

29:07 So I think this is not in contradiction meaning that space repetition

29:11 is a very important principle

29:13 for learning anything anything to long-term memory.

29:15 How you do it and whether you like it or not also is something is a factor.

29:20 Let me mention one thing though here.

29:22 Not everything that's good for you always going to like, right?

29:26 So it depends and some things are efficient that you know,

29:30 for example, it's okay.

29:31 You could you could um you know,

29:35 figure out another way to do space repetition and think a lot more about it

29:39 or you could do an activity that you don't like for 10 minutes and you know,

29:42 like it's something you can do.

29:43 You know what I mean?

29:44 So it's a it's a it's a calculation depending on the you know on the person.

29:48 It's something that probably affected that you don't like that much

29:51 but maybe you know you can do it at a lower dosage, right?

29:54 You can do it at a dosage that you accept.

29:56 Sure thing.

29:57 It's dependent.

29:58 Makes total sense.

30:01 Lucas, great stuff.

30:02 Um one last question I wanted to ask you.

30:04 You said you learned uh quite a few languages.

30:06 Are you currently learning a a new language?

30:09 Are you what what techniques are you using?

30:11 Of course with Migaku, what other tools um are you using or you you

30:16 would use if you were to start learning a new language?

30:21 Well, I'm actually I actually just very recently started

30:23 learning a new language and that language is Thai.

30:26 Um I'm actually um you know like I said I'm temporarily here in in Tokyo

30:32 right now but actually I've it's it's not going to be a permanent settlement

30:36 but I I I am for for time being settling in Thailand and and basically

30:41 I've recently started learning Thai and we

30:45 don't actually support Thai on Migaku yet.

30:50 So that's something that I'm working towards adding support for myself.

30:55 But as a result of that I am using some you know other

30:59 tools some other space repetition software at the moment to learn that alphabet.

31:03 I learned the alphabet recently.

31:05 Um what are the There was there were some other elements of your question

31:08 that I wanted to touch upon but if you could refresh me on that.

31:12 What did you say?

31:13 Sorry.

31:13 The the There were some other elements of the question

31:16 you just asked that I wanted to touch upon.

31:19 If you could refresh me on what what your question was one more time.

31:22 I was just asking what language are you

31:25 learning but also what tools are you using

31:28 and Or how would you what tools would you

31:32 use to move from zero to B1 for example?

31:35 Uh can you give me a combination of three tools you

31:37 would use or content that you would that you go through?

31:40 Ideally speaking I would want to do a course

31:44 just like the one I talked about earlier.

31:46 But I'm kind of creating one myself again using AI using some

31:50 existing resources on on the internet I'm kind of creating my own course.

31:54 For me that's very similar to the Migaku courses again.

31:57 Mhm.

31:57 Where possible one new concept or um unknown word per um per sentence.

32:03 It's much harder to do this myself right now when I don't know

32:07 the language but I'm making the best um of it as I can.

32:13 But you know I do I am using flash cards particularly to learn the script.

32:18 It's it's actually quite There's some unique

32:21 um complications in learning the Thai script.

32:26 It is is quite unique how the the tones aren't written down but it's

32:29 depending on the class of the letters how they combine with each other.

32:33 It's it's very unique.

32:34 It's it's been a lot of fun.

32:35 But um Yeah.

32:37 Yeah, basically I'll be honest it's a lot of flash cards at the beginning.

32:40 I really believe in just building that base um vocabulary.

32:44 Yeah, I think it's really important

32:45 building that 80% vocabulary because that's what

32:48 frees you to learn a language however you you kind of choose to.

32:52 So it's really important.

32:53 So basically stories or dialogues or you just use mainly flash cards?

32:57 What's the what's the what's the percentage

32:59 between content like that and flash cards?

33:03 Right now the intent is to get into content um a lot more.

33:08 Right now life's a little bit busy so I've fallen back into not learning a lot

33:14 of I I can't learn too much actively right

33:16 now so I am relying on the flash cards.

33:19 However, I am actually experimenting a little bit

33:22 more with comprehensible um input content um and starting

33:26 my input from that basis of you know hey

33:31 apple I eat the apple that kind of thing.

33:33 It's kind of interesting.

33:37 But it's I will say it's a bit dull.

33:39 It's a bit dull.

33:41 But it is it is it does become quite comprehensible which is nice.

33:45 I I'm surprisingly learning to understand more and more but it's

33:48 extremely dull so I'm having some challenges um pushing through but I

33:52 I I do see the I do see um the effectiveness there

33:57 but I think combined with flash cards it's it's much more rapid.

34:01 I I know a lot of people who prefer comprehensible input they they

34:04 push for only learning um to understand um like you never look any like

34:10 no lookups or something they they push for that and I'm much more um

34:14 malleable in in in the strategies I take where some people are quite dogmatic.

34:19 But yeah, I think um comprehensible input has a nice place at the beginning

34:23 while building up that um you know that core vocabulary that I talked about.

34:27 Great.

34:28 I like the That's why I'm trying to stick with comprehensible.

34:31 I like the word malleable especially if as an experienced language

34:34 learner you know what works for you so you can take

34:36 a language and say okay this is strange or peculiar quirks

34:39 or features I will adapt that and I will choose my own way.

34:42 So I completely agree with you.

34:45 Thank you Lucas.

34:46 So where can people find you?

34:48 Oh first of all just one last thing we have made as Lucas was

34:52 alluding to before we made a video on his channel where he interviews me about

34:56 language learning and you can check that in the link below cuz I provided

35:02 it in the description box and also in the comment section I pinned the comment.

35:06 And Lucas and in the comment we will also put something else.

35:09 Lucas, where can people find you?

35:13 You can check out the website migaku.com.

35:16 Um actually I don't know when this video is going

35:17 out but we have a Lunar New Year sale coming up.

35:19 You guys can check that out if you'd like.

35:22 Also of course we have YouTube um I

35:27 think it's Migaku Official on YouTube and Instagram.

35:31 Check You can check us out there.

35:33 I'm not that active on our social media in myself but you can find

35:37 a lot of our team there and on occasion I do make an appearance as well.

35:41 I'd like to make more appearances um soon when I get a little

35:45 bit more free time and I'm a little bit deeper into learning Thai.

35:48 I might talk about my experiences there as well.

35:51 Excellent.

35:51 Thank you so much Stay Lucas.

35:53 All the links once again in the description box and in the pinned comment.

35:57 Check Migaku.

35:57 It's pretty cool.

35:58 Thank you Lucas and uh I guess we'll I'll see you later.

36:02 Ciao ciao.

36:03 Yeah, fantastic.

36:04 Yeah, cheers.

36:06 Bye-bye.