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hi guys Lewis here and in this video I'm
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going to be uh showing you and talking
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about links so this is a link review and
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I'm going to be answering the question
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of is link actually worth it can you
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actually get fluent in the language that
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you're learning using uh just link and
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by the way uh link is absolutely a tool
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that I recommend and if you want to get
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uh credits for free you can actually
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click the link in the description to get
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you know free credits so now why is link
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worth it and why is it better than some
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other tools now I should mention first
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that if you're someone who does not like
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to read uh link is definitely not for
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you and I know that a lot of uh you know
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younger people like myself uh they don't
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really like to read but so it may not be
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for you if you really like to read then
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you know this this uh link can
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definitely be a very very powerful
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option to get you to a fluent level
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depending on how much time you invest
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and I'm going to talk about sort of the
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number of hours that you should invest
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in order to you know get to a full level
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in the language uh just using link
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but so here I'm on the website and as
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you can see the main value proposition
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of link is learn languages from content
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you love and I should add some
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information here as I said link is
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mostly for learning languages by reading
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but there are a few uh articles and
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lessons that you can do on link well you
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know there's a lot of them depending on
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the language that you choose that have
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audio content as well audio alongside
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with the the written content so
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that's the mean value proposition you
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can get started for free but again
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there's a link in in the description of
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this video that and you you will be able
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to get uh credits on link for free
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all right so there are multiple
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languages available pretty much anything
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that you can imagine and
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um you can learn here it says from books
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podcasts news business you know I think
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the most common use case for link is
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actually learning from online articles
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you can certainly learn from books and
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so on and
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um if you don't want to use your own
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articles and I think most people use
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their own articles I mean I I personally
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do uh you can actually go on the link
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website and I'll show you the library in
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a second but there are a bunch of
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Articles actually I can show it to you
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right now
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here I'm on an article but I'm going to
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close it and as you can see
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um it's loading right now I think my
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internet has a bit of a problem I'm just
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gonna pause okay yeah it's back so uh
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here you have uh the link Library uh
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stuff that I started doing you know just
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for testing it's just get started in
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Japanese you know I have it set up to
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Japanese but you can definitely learn
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multiple languages with link just using
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you know the same account it's not going
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to cost you more and so you have the
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lessons you have mini stories here and
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the many many stories have audio as well
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as written content you have trending
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content which is mostly like uh articles
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that have been imported by other people
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some of them have audio some of them do
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not and
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um you know people put likes and so you
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know how trending how good it actually
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is but you know to be honest I find it
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sort of uh it's a bit misleading you
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know articles that other people have
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liked I'm not necessarily really going
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to like so
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and another useful thing as well if
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you're a power user of link if you
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become a power user of link is that on
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every single lesson here you can see the
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number of new words that you will learn
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in the lesson if you actually consume if
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you read the article and you will see
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the number of known words and the number
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of links which are you know the the
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words that you are currently learning
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that's the term that they use
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so and you have a bunch of stuff here so
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that's basically it that's the library
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you have a bunch of Articles now now
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personally what I like to do is to
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actually import my own articles because
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I like to learn languages using content
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that is you know relevant to me so
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that's essentially what it is a bunch of
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Articles I'm going to click on one of
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them
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uh let me look for something interesting
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uh uh oh yeah no this is uh this is
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YouTube okay so you need
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yeah you would need the the link
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um Chrome extension
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to import that but I'm not gonna I'm not
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gonna do this right now by the way there
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is there is a Chrome extension for link
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that you can use it's called Uh link
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importer here you can install it and if
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you have an account with link and again
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in the there's a link in the description
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if you wanna you know have free credits
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for a link if you want to sign up but
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then you'll you'll be able to actually
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uh you know download this Chrome
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extension which makes it very easy for
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you to import articles from you know
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websites like uh this one for example in
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a NHK news if you're learning Japanese
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you can import articles uh just by
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clicking the extension and it's going to
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import it in in link
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it's going to set it up for you but it's
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not 100 necessary all right so I'm gonna
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link here and I'm going to click on an
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article you know what I'm just going to
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um I'm just going to go on that one here
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it's a lesson just to show you what it
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looks like and this is basically the
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article page
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all right so this is the article page
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and you have the title of the article
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here it's not really an article it's a
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lessons and there are a bunch of lessons
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so if you're really like beginning a
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little in a language you don't need to
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you know just start reading articles
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from the start there are lessons to get
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you started but you have the article and
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uh you have you can click on a word and
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as you can see the words that I
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supposedly don't know here I have a you
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know just a test account so it's showing
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me all of the words it seems like I
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don't know any of the words but I can
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click on the blue word here atarashi and
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then it's going to you know play the
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sound for me
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oh wait I need to take an action here at
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one of the popular meanings yeah hello
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okay so I'm gonna click on it
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and it should have played the sound I
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don't know what happened here but I can
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click here
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um
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there you go I think the Internet is
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slow
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all right and so then uh now that I've
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actually clicked it I can see the
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popular meanings on the right which is
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different from just Google translate
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it's you know the community essentially
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adds a bunch of translation that are
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more adapted to that particular word or
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uh you know context
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and that's basically it once I have
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clicked over a word what I can do is
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um you know just see the stage at which
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that word is and it becomes a word that
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I have saved in my link database and
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then what I can do is I can go to my uh
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flash cards and now I'm not really sure
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where where the flashcards are because
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recently link actually did this new uh
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this new interface it's a new interface
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which is much better than the previous
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one
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I'm gonna go to uh my flash cards let me
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see
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well I you know I
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you know to be honest I don't know where
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they are
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but uh I'm not gonna show them anyways
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you know what it's not really that
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interesting oh wait uh vocabulary here
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there you go due for review okay that's
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what I'd like that's what I I used to
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have due to uh do for review so here you
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can see that I actually don't have
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anything due for review so all these uh
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here would would
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um all of the words and the phrases that
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I have learned that I have clicked on in
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the lessons they would appear in this do
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for review uh sort of tab and then I can
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review them as flashcards and the good
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thing is that here you can see Dimension
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SRS it's uh space repetition system it's
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a flashcard system that is optimized for
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long-term retention
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and so that's one major drawback if
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you're just learning by you know if
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you're just reading
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um and expecting that you're going to
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learn a language with uh for example a
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Kindle and you just look up words
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and you know you just read articles
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online if you just look up words you're
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not going to remember most of the words
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long term and that is because uh 50 of
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the words for example in the book
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actually only appear once in that book
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and the problem of this is that you
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don't have enough opportunities to
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actually learn that word uh enough and
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um you know just meet that word in
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different contexts to really have it uh
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you know in your memory and so that's
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why the the SRS system the flashcard
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system here completely integrated with
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link if you click on the word you can
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add it to your flashcards this is very
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very powerful and that's in my opinion
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one of the most powerful uh features of
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Link
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all right so I'm gonna go back on the on
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the
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on the home page here to show you some
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more uh features and essentially that's
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what it says here dramatically increase
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your vocabulary that's what I talked
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about they talk about the spaced
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repetition system that you can see here
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I don't have any words uh do but you
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know I would basically have like uh
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flash cards appearing here with the
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words that that I learned in the
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Articles now if you don't know what uh
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space repetition system is it's actually
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a very well-known sort of uh you know
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scientific principle you can type it on
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the internet spaced uh repetition
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and it's going to show you a bunch of
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graphs and I'm going to explain that in
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a second but yeah so space repetition as
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you can see on this graph here I'm going
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to open it
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and here you can see that if you learn a
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word on link okay this graph is not
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necessarily for link but it's uh you
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know it's applicable to a space
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repetition in general if you learn a
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word on day one for example then you
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know it here you know it very well you
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know this is like the how well you know
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the word but very quickly on day two
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you're going to forget it and if you
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don't do anything about it the
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forgetting curve is going to make it so
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that you actually will forget about that
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word pretty quickly and this applies to
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about you know 50 of the words in any
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article or book that you read they're
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only going to appear once and even if a
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book uh if a if a phrase or a word
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actually appears just twice or three
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times that's not enough repetitions of
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the same word to really give you enough
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opportunities to understand it and
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really memorize it and really have it in
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your mind so what link does is for
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through that space repetition system
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through that flashcard system which is
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integrated with all of the lessons all
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of the Articles even those that you
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would import then you know they make it
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you're going to learn you're going to
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read that word so you're going to learn
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it and then using the flashcard system
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you're going to review it and then
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forget it a little bit and then review
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it again and then the curve is going to
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get you know flattened out and so on but
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thanks to that space repetition system
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thanks to that flashcard system
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you're pretty much guaranteed that
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you're going to remember the words and
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the phrases that you read in link which
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is very very powerful
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all right so this is definitely true you
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know you will dramatically increase your
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vocabulary and if you're if you're
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wondering how long does it take to
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actually get fluent with link and you
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can definitely get fluent with link
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um you know according to Dr Paul pimsler
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you need to understand you need to
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um you know Master the 5000 most common
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words in language if you want to be
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considered uh
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um you know fluent in a conversation
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because with the five the five thousand
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most common words that's going to
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represent about 98 of all the words that
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you can find in in the language in you
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know the daily use the daily use of a
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language and so 5 000 words
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if you read an article every single day
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I think it's fair to say that there are
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going to be about 10 new words or even
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more if you're a beginner so you make
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sure that you read one article a day
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unblink and you make sure that uh you
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know you do the flash cards on link as
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well so that you remember those words in
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the long term and you know 10 new words
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a day so just one article a day for a
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year and a half that's going to add up
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to 5 000 words you know after a year and
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a half if you do that you know if you
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read that one article a day and you do
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the flashcards now I don't want you to
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underestimate this this is actually a
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pretty this is actually a pretty big
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task because you know on link you know
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reading articles is fun and all but once
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you get to the flash cards it's going to
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be a lot less fun but it's going to be
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very effective which is why I recommend
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that you actually do it so this is sort
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of to you know give you a timeline of
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um how long it it could take potentially
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if you were to learn a language
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exclusively using link
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now I'm still on the home page here and
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they talked about vocabulary they talk
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about what's your comprehension and
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confidence grow uh yeah certainly stay
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organized and focused all the way to
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fluency and this is one good aspect of
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link as well is
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um as I showed you you know when you
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have the lessons you know sort of your
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stats how many new words you can learn
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in that article how many how many links
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you know how many uh words that you're
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currently learning are in this article
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how many known words are in the article
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and so you keep a sort of
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a very good overview of your stats and
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you can actually uh go here in your I
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don't really know what it is with this
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new interface but you know in your
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profile here and you can certainly see
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uh it used to be you could see the
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number of words that you knew in the in
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the language that you're trying to learn
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yeah so I'm on the website here I'm on
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on my profile and I can see the number
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of known words and uh you know the
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lessons completed links created uh learn
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words listening hours so it's a very
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very powerful way of tracking your
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progress you will know if you use Link a
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lot if you're a power user you will know
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your stats and this is a very very good
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indicator of your overall progress I
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would say if you're if you were to use
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Link to get fluent in the language keep
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track of the you know known words here
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and whenever you reach you know the
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objective the first objective should be
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2 000 at which point you can have you
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know conversations with native speaker
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with relative ease and after you know
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having five thousand words you should
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definitely be able to have very very
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good conversations with native speakers
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and you know link can help you to keep
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track of that and stay motivated which
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is a good thing now I'm going to to talk
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about about one last thing here which is
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um tutors and this is a relatively new
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feature it's not completely new but now
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you have the possibility of going on the
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link website and if I go to the tutors
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tab here depending on the language that
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I have selected I will be able to see a
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bunch of uh you know Japanese people
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willing to uh tutor me yeah so here I
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have a bunch of Japanese tutors and uh
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you can actually book them they have a
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video introduction and you can see their
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availabilities you can talk with them on
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uh you know Skype or whatever you're
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using it's pretty similar to
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um you know italki and pre-ply if you're
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familiar with those uh websites you can
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also the difference here with italki and
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pre-ply is that they can correct
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whatever you write so that you're not
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just learning through really reading and
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listening you can actually write and you
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know get your stuff corrected or you can
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have conversations with those tutors and
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you can see the availability not really
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sure why it's written in in Arabic here
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but yeah you can see their
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availabilities and book uh and book
00:17:01
lessons with those tutors so that's
00:17:03
pretty much it I think
00:17:05
um this was a pretty thorough link
00:17:07
review again if you want to get free
00:17:09
credits uh and get a free trial for a
00:17:12
link you can click the link in the
00:17:14
description
00:17:16
um and that's pretty much it I'll see
00:17:18
you in the next video
