Honestly, Mr.Kaufmann speaks nothing but the truth. I started at the beginning with serious doubts about the importance of listening/reading that Steve often hammers upon (especially reading), and I am shocked by how incredibly fundamental these two skills are. I would have never seen myself saying this at the beginning, but reading has been the single most important tool/pleasure in my journey to conquer French. The subjunctive now comes naturally, with no need to study those dreaded subjunctive tables that so many French learners despise.Thank you Steve!

As a native Spanish speaker, I've heard only a very few foreigners using the subjunctive correctly. I guess it's really tricky. Exposure is the key, as Steve says.

Great video, as always Steve! Conforming to a new language grammar system through natural exposure is always ideal like you say. I like to study vocab with intention, and then just "feel" or "pick up" the grammar as I go along. As a Spanish speaker learning Portuguese, being open to the language's differences in grammar is slowly transforming my mindset of simply adopting the way Brazilians speak, even if it seems "strange" to me (Portuguese subjunctive). Now after repeated exposure, it's normal and it's just the natural rhythm of the language!

I love Steve's teachings because I recognize so many of these things from my own path of language learning, things he essentially confirms - he expresses it and hits the core in ways nobody else does - and yet I still know there are so many ways I still can improve, not just in the languages I learn but also about the concept of language learning in general. I keep and keep listening! Very enlightening and educational

Well said! Verbs of motion were always very difficult for me when learning Russian. I have yet to perfect it. But it's okay....as long as my message was conveyed, I'll get there eventually.

I fully agree. In every language there are specific difficulties that are nearly impossible to learn. In my experience it's not a matter of learning rules but of acquiring a feeling of the language

Hey Steve, do you think writing is a good way of reinforcing good habits when speaking?

That`s kind of "feeling" a language. When I read the rule and don`t understand it, I read an example, because the example shows how this or that rule works. And at that time again I return to "learning language in the context" because it works everywhere - learning words, rules, phrases etc

Hey Steve, I wanted to ask how you deal with multiple words that all have the same meaning. Personally it drives me crazy until I can get an explanation from a native speaker showing me the difference between them(or at least telling me which is more common/formal/old fashioned). When you encounter a word that has the same meaning as a word you already know, what do you do?

thank you

Have you ever thought about learning an obscure language? If so, which one?

Subjunctive is easy. I'm a native Spanish speaker xD

Oneself can read a book and understand it completely. But that doesn't mean that you've learned the book, because as quickly as you closed it you start forgeting it. The same thing happens in language learning: you have understood several languages but you haven't really learned them.

Subjunctive is one of the easy bits about German. You simply need: wäre, hätte, würde, and six modal verb forms and you're SET forever.

even natives make mistakes in Spanish. Puerto Rican often say la agua, la calor and that's because they learned to speak that way and they don't even notice it

When I learn other languages with subjunctive, I just study the differences with spanish, and how to conjugate them. The usage is very easy for me

The subjunctive is sooooo subjective anyway. There are cases when you always use it, but there are many when it is really arbitrary, and I’ve asked some native speakers and there are some situations in which the indicative and the subjunctive are acceptable with subtle differences in meaning. Some of the rules are even broken in everyday speech. For example, they always say not to use the subjunctive if there is no change in subject but I’ve seen this time and time again.

Mood and aspect kill me :(

Easy thing to learn IF you just listen and read in Spanish.

Subjunctive still gives me problems

It's funny becasue the portuguese subjunctive is harder than the spanish.