Language Learning Forum: The Ultimate Accelerated Learning Exp. !

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The Ultimate Accelerated Learning Exp. !

Printed From: How-to-learn-any-language.com
Forum Name: Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies
Forum Discription: All about flash cards, LR, shadowing and other methods used to learn languages on your own.
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26062
Printed Date: 06 May 2024 at 12:44am

Posted By: Abazid
Subject: The Ultimate Accelerated Learning Exp. !
Date Posted: 05 April 2011 at 5:12pm

Hey guys ,

I'm currently in need of learning Russian because there are so many materials that I would like to research that aren't available in English , I've found many types of courses but I was wondering what would be the most efficient methods in terms of learning/understanding as well as THE fastest in learning a new language .

I've found many things that I wanted to experiment with and to see for myself if they would be of benefit .

Basically I know nothing about Russian yet .

I've found various accelerated learning techniques that sound incredible , Some I've tried before and worked and others are new and I'm willing to experiment with .

This thread will be basically my journal related to my own experimentation with this .

Here are the methods I'm going to experiment with :

Win Wenger's Borrowed Genius
Burt Goldman's Quantum Jump
Photoreading & Direct Learning
61 hour Language Immersion(Learning & speaking a language in 2.5 full days through Brainwashing)

I'll expand further on my plan with these methods in the coming posts .

If anybody is willing to join , PM me .

P.S If you don't think this "could" work , No need to add critical negative comments about it , Only healthy skepticism , This is an open-minded experiment after all ,Thanks

Replies:

I for one am healthily skeptical.

Please keep us posted on how these miracle strategies work for you in your study of Russian.
Arekkusu on 05 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

I'm currently in need of learning Russian because there are so many materials that I would like to research that aren't available in English

I'm curious what type of material are you interested in?

Sennin on 05 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Here are the methods I'm going to experiment with :
[...]
Photoreading & Direct Learning

You may want to first check out the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading#PhotoReading - Photoreading article.

Abazid wrote:

61 hour Language Immersion(Learning & speaking a language in 2.5 full days through Brainwashing)

Sounds interesting. How do you intend to do this?
Doitsujin on 05 April 2011

Here's the 61-hour deal:

http://superconscious1.blogspot.com/2008/01/61-hour-language -immersion.html

Couldn't find the actual experiment, though. Imagine that if this technique works, you'd have to place quite an
amount of trust in your instructors.
tbone on 05 April 2011

tbone wrote:

It'd be interesting to see some actual results from this - interviews from people that have gone through it. If this were indeed successful, I'm pretty sure we'd all be lining up around the planet to learn a language this way.

I'd never heard of this before your posting.

R.
==
hrhenry on 05 April 2011

When the brain learns a new ability -- physical or mental -- it needs time to create physical connections. The more you practice, the more connections you create. There is no miracle.
Arekkusu on 05 April 2011

I was trying to show healthy skepticism :-)

Again, we'd all be doing it if it worked.

R.
==
hrhenry on 05 April 2011

Popular Science, Dec 1968 mentions the 61-hour experiment:

http://books.google.com/books?
id=D9QDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=synectics+international+ Spanish+language&source=bl&ots=6KHam
4-
1Em&sig=w_YshE0ND2thyKFpCi8Av9HBoPQ&hl=en&ei=SeObTevyMoH4sAO H2aGcBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=res
ult&resnum=9&ved=0CGAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=synectics%20interna tional%20spanish%20language&f=false

as done by a Canadian think-tank on a Canadian businessman. I would think the DLI would be all over this if it
were effective. (Ooh, maybe they are...could you brainwash languages into recruits and then make them forget how
you did it?)
tbone on 06 April 2011

Assuming that fluency requires a vocabulary of at least 10,000 words, then the 61-hour
session would require you to learn and retain more than 3 words in a minute, and repeat
this more than 3,000 times in those 2.5 days. On top of this, your brain would have to
be absorbing and making sense of grammar, plus thousands of idioms. It is unclear
whether or not reading and writing abilities would be crammed in there too.

The problem, as always, is that with this 61-hour experiment we have no information on
how the success of the experiment was measured.

If your ambitions are not too great, you could simulate the experiment by getting hold
of an 8 hour Michel Thomas language course, and listen and repeat non-stop, to the
whole course, 7 times in a row. I am sure that by the end of it you would have learned
a lot. You may even be able to astonish onlookers that over a single weekend you went
"from zero to hero". However, you could have done the same course over a few weeks -
and not feel exhausted at the end. So, I am unsure what the benefit is.
Splog on 06 April 2011

As one who have struggled with Russian for a year without all that much to show for it, I am very interested in your experiment. Please let us know how you are doing. I am going to Ukraine in less than two weeks, so any method that would make me learn Russian before that is more than welcome. Best of luck!
Solfrid Cristin on 06 April 2011

I'm not familiar with PhotoReading and the Wikipedia article is pretty damning, but leaving that to one side, I'll give you the same advice I give to anyone who suggests using any speedreading or accelerated reading technique to learn a language:

All speed-reading relies on the fact that we know the language in question. Our brain doesn't need to fully process every letter or even every word to understand a sentence, because certain things go together and certain things don't. "three ~~~ ~ half" is "three and a half" -- there's really nothing else it could be.

Speed reading is at best not possible in a language you don't yet know, at worst it's damaging, because you miss out detail.

In particular, speed-reading is dangerous in terms of prepositions (speed readers often skip the prepositions, seeing only "a short word" and letting their brains fill in the gap -- in fact, many normal readers work this way too) or inflections (conjugations/declensions) -- a good example of the latter is the French past historic. A lot of French people can't write in the past historic, but they can read it. They don't need to pay attention to the full form because they have pronouns to tell them which person it is.
Cainntear on 06 April 2011

I'm curious what type of material are you interested in?

Mostly documentaries & video training programs that I can't find anywhere in Russian , Along some rare books .

Doitsujin wrote:

Abazid wrote:

Here are the methods I'm going to experiment with :
[...]
Photoreading & Direct Learning

You may want to first check out the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading#PhotoReading - Photoreading article.

Forget about this article , It's bunk , It's the first thing I've read when I wanted to learn photoreading , You should go to the forum and check out real people's experiences , You'll be baffled .

In my own experience , PR saved my ass so many times , I've passed tests that I would have never normally would pass in a very limited time(When you can only cram) , And I'm a science major , It really does work when you stick to it , And it's not really miraculous in anyway , Your subconscious mind receives 4 billion bits of information ONLY visually every single second , All this does is form a connection between the conscious & subconscious .

Direct learning is the advanced form of photoreading , Where you photograph 10-20 books in a skill you'd like to learn and going to practice anyway without any form of conscious reading , I've used this to learn drawing & painting from scratch .

Quote:

Abazid wrote:

61 hour Language Immersion(Learning & speaking a language in 2.5 full days through Brainwashing)

Sounds interesting. How do you intend to do this?

I'm real curious about the result of such an experiment , Mainly I will follow this :
http://superconscious1.blogspot.com/2008/01/61-hour-language -immersion.html

Without the instructors , I'll substitute it for 61 hours of audio learning material like Michel Thomas , Pimsleur & Rosetta Stone , Non-stop .

I'll try and expand & explain the foundation & science behind the techniques I'm going to experiment in my next post .

Here's the 61-hour deal:

http://superconscious1.blogspot.com/2008/01/61-hour-language -immersion.html

Couldn't find the actual experiment, though. Imagine that if this technique works, you'd have to place quite an
amount of trust in your instructors.

Originally this exercise was from the book "100 % Brain Course" .

We're being brainwashed already on a day to day basis whether it's on your PC , TV , School , politics..etc , But I do agree it'd have to be someone you trust if you're gonna go this far with it , I'm sticking with Audio CDs for now .

It'd be interesting to see some actual results from this - interviews from people that have gone through it. If this were indeed successful, I'm pretty sure we'd all be lining up around the planet to learn a language this way.

I'd never heard of this before your posting.

Well it was very effective in Re-education during the wars , But I've never seen it myself applied widely in learning ,I've studied Brainwashing for a while , And the communist version of it , Was to add "Shock & Trauma" to the equation to induce multiple personality syndrome , And then through Brainwashing & Hypnosis , The person would have a shattered re-educated personality of a loyal communist along with his old american personality , Sounds too far fetched ? Research it yourself along with MPD , This probably why Brainwashing had a negative connotation .

When the brain learns a new ability -- physical or mental -- it needs time to create physical connections. The more you practice, the more connections you create. There is no miracle.

I agree , But time really doesn't exist and is different from each person to the next , We distort time almost always , So it differs from one person to the next according to the flexibility of his own beliefs .

Popular Science, Dec 1968 mentions the 61-hour experiment:

http://books.google.com/books?
id=D9QDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=synectics+international+ Spanish+language&source=bl&ots=6KHam
4-
1Em&sig=w_YshE0ND2thyKFpCi8Av9HBoPQ&hl=en&ei=SeObTevyMoH4sAO H2aGcBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=res
ult&resnum=9&ved=0CGAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=synectics%20interna tional%20spanish%20language&f=false

Thanks for the link !

as done by a Canadian think-tank on a Canadian businessman. I would think the DLI would be all over this if it
were effective.

Not necessarily , A good example is how water-based fuel was invented a very long time ago , YET we're still using oil , Or the abundance of creative learning methods all over the place and yet we're still functioning in the saggy memorize type of learning .

We'll see how it works ;D .

(Ooh, maybe they are...could you brainwash languages into recruits and then make them forget how
you did it?)

Yeah , That's absolutely possible through Hypnosis , It'll feel like missing time or memories could be even suggested .

Assuming that fluency requires a vocabulary of at least 10,000 words, then the 61-hour
session would require you to learn and retain more than 3 words in a minute, and repeat
this more than 3,000 times in those 2.5 days. On top of this, your brain would have to
be absorbing and making sense of grammar, plus thousands of idioms. It is unclear
whether or not reading and writing abilities would be crammed in there too.

The problem, as always, is that with this 61-hour experiment we have no information on
how the success of the experiment was measured.

I'm not aiming for absolute fluency , It's mentioned in the link above that in 12 hours the student mastered about 1000 words of vocabulary , I think that this alone is a very good start for anyone , And continuing would be result in great improvements , And anyways I've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain =) .

If your ambitions are not too great, you could simulate the experiment by getting hold
of an 8 hour Michel Thomas language course, and listen and repeat non-stop, to the
whole course, 7 times in a row. I am sure that by the end of it you would have learned
a lot. You may even be able to astonish onlookers that over a single weekend you went
"from zero to hero". However, you could have done the same course over a few weeks -
and not feel exhausted at the end. So, I am unsure what the benefit is.

Well first of all this is not about my ego , And I dun agree that there's no benefit in this compared with the normal routine , The whole idea here is that later it would be REAL easy to solidly imprint information in the brain related to anything ,And if It worked perfectly on American soldiers for re-education in such time , I dun doubt this indeed could be as effective , So we'll see what happens .

As one who have struggled with Russian for a year without all that much to show for it, I am very interested in your experiment. Please let us know how you are doing. I am going to Ukraine in less than two weeks, so any method that would make me learn Russian before that is more than welcome. Best of luck!

Thanks for your kind thoughts =) , I will .

I'm not familiar with PhotoReading and the Wikipedia article is pretty damning

That article is actually bunk (If you're interested in a more concise explanation check Reading Genius & Zox reading system sites), But mainly PR is different from Rapid reading , It's more like mental photography , And I've used it to study material as complex as physical chemistry , It helps on many aspects of understanding & memorizing and saves a lot of time .

In this case it would be the mental photography of a dictionary , Along with many other russian language books before starting the learning process .

All speed-reading relies on the fact that we know the language in question. Our brain doesn't need to fully process every letter or even every word to understand a sentence, because certain things go together and certain things don't. "three ~~~ ~ half" is "three and a half" -- there's really nothing else it could be.

Speed reading is at best not possible in a language you don't yet know, at worst it's damaging, because you miss out detail.

In particular, speed-reading is dangerous in terms of prepositions (speed readers often skip the prepositions, seeing only "a short word" and letting their brains fill in the gap -- in fact, many normal readers work this way too) or inflections (conjugations/declensions) -- a good example of the latter is the French past historic. A lot of French people can't write in the past historic, but they can read it. They don't need to pay attention to the full form because they have pronouns to tell them which person it is.

I completely agree , I've had the same experience while using it for memorizing complex symbolic material , It becomes normal reading .

Abazid on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Mainly I will follow this :
http://superconscious1.blogspot.com/2008/01/61-hour-language -immersion.html

I don't get it. Why would you use this method when you could instead use the same site to learn to understand any spoken language? Much more useful. And you can also learn levitation and telepathy on this site.

...

So, uh, you're a science major, huh?
Ari on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Cainntear wrote:

All speed-reading relies on the fact that we know the language in question. [...]
Speed reading is at best not possible in a language you don't yet know, at worst it's damaging, because you miss out detail.

I completely agree , I've had the same experience while using it for memorizing complex symbolic material , It becomes normal reading .

If you agree, why are you even considering it?

The brain is not a camera and it generalises all input in terms of known patterns. If you don't know the patterns, it cannot process it subconciously.
Cainntear on 07 April 2011

Ari wrote:

And you can also learn levitation and telepathy on this site.

...

So, uh, you're a science major, huh?

There is a skeptic in the room, and he is interfering with the flow of my psychic energies. I urge you to believe, or begone from my sight!

Ohm....
Cainntear on 07 April 2011

Ari wrote:

Abazid wrote:

Mainly I will follow this :
http://superconscious1.blogspot.com/2008/01/61-hour-language -immersion.html

Look I'm not here to prove myself to anyone , I've already set my mind upon doing this experiment and I've decided that I should share it , Not to gain anybody's approval, So if you think it's bunk and a waste of time and you have a rigid belief related to it that's up to you ,You could simply move on .

And if that helps , YES these psychic phenomena have been accounted many times and aren't really miraculous in anyway , They've been researched & even mastered by the US Government . The quantum holographic theory of the universe and the principles of Resonance & Non-locality pretty much explains how all of these phenomena occur , Glossolalia or Xenoglossia are also possible through the scientific theories of the Morphogenetic Universe that relates to collective memory and how any species have access to it all the time , And yeah maybe I will .

Quote:

If you agree, why are you even considering it?

The brain is not a camera and it generalises all input in terms of known patterns. If you don't know the patterns, it cannot process it subconciously.

I'm not going to be using speed reading in this , I'm going to use the other methods I've listed and they're completely different .

This is not true , At any moment you're at least receiving about 4 billion bits of visual information , Their conscious access has been tested by going through them by Hypnosis , And the whole subconscious mainly operates through images(Holograms), What you're talking about is the bridge between the memory of the conscious (7 +/- bits of info) mind & subconscious mind , Which is a different story .

Abazid on 07 April 2011

It's been about 48 hours since your first post. You only have half a day left before you understand Russian.
You must be pretty excited.
Arekkusu on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

That alone is unworkable with the materials you've chosen.

If you've ever gone through even a "Complete" Pimsleur course, you would know you need 15 hours for a single listen. And you get a vocabulary of about 250 words, if that. Add another 12 hours for a single listen of Michel Thomas, which likely has overlap of vocabulary, but let's be generous and say you'll get another 100 words out of that.

That gives you maybe 350 words in 27 hours (listening once to each course). Doesn't sound very efficient. And I can guarantee you that with just a single listen to these courses, you will not retain everything long-term that's in them.

R.
==
hrhenry on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

The quantum holographic theory of the universe and the principles of
Resonance & Non-locality pretty much explains how all of these phenomena occur ,
Glossolalia or Xenoglossia are also possible through the scientific theories of the
Morphogenetic Universe that relates to collective memory and how any species have access
to it all the time.

Unfortunately, I was hoping for some actual evidence rather than mumbo-jumbo.

Up until now, I was willing to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brain will fall
out. Good luck with these beliefs and experiments.
Splog on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

This is starting to sound an awful lot like Keith's 2,000-hour TV method.

I think the problem is that you are not doing this experiment to see if it works: you've already decided that it must work. You don't want to face reality and do the hard work needed to learn a language, so instead, you turn to magic and make belief. If we are closed-minded for thinking this is nonsense, then you are oblivious to common sense and reason.

If you can demonstrate that these esoteric methods can award you more success than the rest of us have been getting through regular methods and plain common sense, you will be a model for all of us wishing to learn languages better and more efficiently. If you win, we all win.

However, if you fail -- and I think most of us have made it pretty clear that you will -- you must admit that in an effort to ignore reality, you have deluded yourself into blindedly placing your faith in methods money-seekers have hailed as miraculous.

Our eyes are wide open -- prove us wrong.
Arekkusu on 07 April 2011

Arekkusu wrote:

[QUOTE=Abazid] You don't want to face REALITY and do the hard work needed to learn a language, so instead, you turn to magic and make belief..

reality is negotiable
tmp011007 on 07 April 2011

tmp011007 wrote:

Arekkusu wrote:

[QUOTE=Abazid] You don't want to face REALITY and do the hard work needed to learn a language, so instead, you turn to magic and make belief..

reality is negotiable

Not in this case.

Feel free to remove "face reality and" from my statement if it makes you feel better.
Arekkusu on 07 April 2011

not in this case??? ok, I'm going to remove that..

"You don't want to do the hard work needed to learn a language..."

nah, it doesn't make me feel better.. somehow that reminds me of class study vs self-study instead of class study and self-study.. I'm gonna remove "hard work" too (hard-work versus productivity/hard-work and productivity.. ???)
tmp011007 on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

This thread will be basically my journal related to my own experimentation with this

...

I don't know why but I'm still waiting for it
tmp011007 on 07 April 2011

tmp011007 wrote:

Learning a language *is* hard work, especially when it comes to speaking. And it takes practice - a lot of it. You don't just wake up one day speaking.

That said, that doesn't mean you can't also have fun. Hard work and fun aren't mutually exclusive.

R.
==

hrhenry on 07 April 2011

I'll now expand on what I'm going to experiment with and some background on the techniques .

In any experiment the factor of the observer expectations & beliefs completely influences the results of the experiment which is the basic principle of Quantum Physics uncovered by the double slit experiment :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

Hence I should clear my own +ve/-ve beliefs & expectations completely to avoid influencing the result .

Here's what I believe happens when one is using a language , A thought , emotion , feeling &/or sensory impulse arises in the form of energy that needs a form of expression in response to internal needs/experiences and various external situations ,In babies they just make certain sounds and use body language ,While in Adults, Instantly a learned linguistic construct of a specifically taught language is accessed where this energy is translated into a stream of specific vocal wave expressions that could be understood by the other person .

In comparison , It seems to me that a child is capable of learning a language WAY faster than an adult because he is not building his new language based on a previous language construct , But completely based on trying to interpret all of his experiences basically all the time in complete immersion based on a completely new construct .

I haven't really tried any teaching methods yet whether it's Michel Thomas , Pimsleur or Rosetta stone , I've only learned English through the normal process in school and constant learning through movies & books through the years which developed my vocabulary quite nicely , The only time I've tried accelerated learning methods in sth close to a foreign language was with complex latin while studying Biological classification & chemistry , Mental photography seemed to make a one time reading along with simple mind-mapping & mnemonics to make memorization & retention possible .

Mainly , I've never tried most of these techniques before , I've only read about how they were discovered and the science behind them , The only one I'm experienced with and have used countless times is the Subliminal photography tech. or Photoreading , Which is basically based on NLP modeling of the man who broke the Guinness world record in reading speeds & comprehension , And it worked for me many times on various occasions .

The other techniques which are Borrowed Genius & Quantum Jumping , Are based on the research of a Russian psychiatrist & hypnotist called Dr.Vlaidimir L. Raikov , Here's an excerpt from the USA Department of Defence Intelligence D.I.A "Controlled Offensive Behaviour" report issued to the public by the US Government :

Quote:

P.53
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6429534/Controlled-Offensive-Behav ior

Artificial Reincarnation Through Hypnosis

Vladimir L. Raikov, M.D. , a Soviet psychiartrist, has claimed that hypnotic phenomenon can be utilized for what he claims to be artificial reincarnations. for example raikov claims that it's possible to hypnotically suggest to a girl who studies violin that she is the virtuoso violinist Fritz Kreilser. It is interesting to note , says Raikov , that her manner of playing at this time is reminisescent to that of Kreisler . If so desired, it is also possible to create this capacity in an awake state.

Raikov has converted persons who have no desire to paint, invent complex machines , or to play music into master through hypnosis.
Raikov reports that he is able to evoke this mental alteration only when the subject is in an exceedingly deep trance which is a new form of active trance. Existence in a state of hypnosis and simultaneous perception of individual moments of reality is usually charactersitic of light, superficial hypnosis, however, as mentioned above , Raikov claims that he uses deep hypnosis.
As opposed to normal hypnosis, the new found talents of Raikov's subjects reatin in part of their conscious equipment the ability gained by this technique . Raikov explains, "The student is thinking forming relationships and judgements , acquiring his own experinec during reincarnation. Consequently the creative potential he develops, Draws out , Becomes his own :

2- Raikov has used the EEG to prove his supposition that the trance of reincarnation is a new phenomenon . The usual passive trance of deep hynosis shows via the EEG alpha rest ryhth, In reincarnation the alpha disappears completley and the EEG shows a parttern like that normally recoreded in high wakefulness , Reincarnation appears to be the antithesis of sleep .

Apparently there is even more activity in the mind during reincarnation than there is when a person is wide awake. This corroborates the EEG findings that reincarnation is a state of "Super Wakefulness" and that it is a very different animal from regular , Passive hypnosis , According to Raikov .

Here's more :

Quote:

Dr Vladimir Raikov did research into accelerated learning and creativity during the late 70’s. He took beginner art students, you know, the ones who can only draw smiley faces , and put them into a deep hypnotic trance. He then suggested to their inner (subconscious) minds that they were Master artists – you know…like Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rign or Raphael.

The results were so astounding in fact, that the participants in the study refused to believe that they could have painted these paintings that he showed them (which were at the level of a good graphic artists). Could they really have painted like the old Masters? Well the proof was right there in front of them.

What was even more shocking to them was that they brought back with them some of the skills of that great artist, and that skill transferred itself into their personal artistic abilities. Suddenly they went from painting smiley faces to being really good artists!

What’s more, he not only did this with art, but was also able to replicate the same results in other fields such as healing, where students were given the name and personalities of great healers. Once again his results were outstanding!

Quote:

Scientists in the former Soviet Union, known as Parapsychologists, developed techniques way ahead of anything that the U.S scientist had in this area. And the soviet scientists did it with soviet government grants. One of these techniques was known as "Artificial" Reincarnation.

As documented in the book titled "Psychic discoveries behind the Iron Curtain" by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, the man mainly responsible for this technique was Dr. Vladimir L. Rainkov, psychiatrist and master hypnotist. You may also read about it in a book titled "The Einstein Factor" by Win Winger and Richard Poe, Ch. 8, pg 160-182.

Dr. Rainkov stated the following: "I am able to evoke this phenomenon of reincarnation only when the subject is in exceedingly deep trance".

In "Trance-formations", Richard Bandler and John Grinder in their book pg. 185-189, talk about Deep-Trance Identification, "a state of consciousness in which the subject assumes the identity of someone else.... one of the hardest hypnotic phenomena of all". Therefore, the subject MUST be put in an extremely deep trance in order to be able to implant these new past into the subject's mind without crashing against his previous belief system, which includes his current identity.

After selecting the genius most appropriate to the area in which the subject wants to excel, he/she would read and learn as much as possible about this genius. Then, Dr. Rainkov would hypnotize him/her, not only once but many, many times during a period of weeks, using many "reincarnation" sessions.

While in a VERY deep trance state, he would give him/her instructions to the effect that he/she is that genius, that he/she thinks, sees, acts, produces like and has all the talents and abilities of that genius. After a few of these sessions the subject started to incorporate to his/her own personality, and in varying degrees, those talents and abilities that supposedly belonged to that particular genius. There was no substitution of personality.

Even though when under hypnosis the subject thought that he/she was that genius, he/she did not forget who he/she was when returned to full awakening consciousness. But his/her new talents and abilities started to explode.

Notice that the subject must FIRST learn everything possible about the personality he/she wants to reincarnate, so that his/her Subconscious mind stores enough information on how that personality used to think, see and act.

It would be totally useless to put you in the deepest possible trance state and tell you that you think, see and act like Einstein and that you are Einstein. And then I bring you out of trance only to find out that you do not have the slightest idea who this Einstein person was and you never heard of him in your entire life. And how can your Subconscious mind make you think, see and act like somebody IT has no previous history about?

In Win Wenger's "The Einstein Factor", he presents a couple of methods that do not go through a FORMAL hypnotic induction. Winger's method is a more sophisticated version of the one used by Napoleon Hill.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1237208

Dr.Win Wenger which is professor and pioneer in the field of creativity & learning then developed a more sophisticated technique without the need of DEEP hypnosis that created similar results :

Quote:

Or in the same sense that in our very first 1977 experiment which launched Project Renaissance, a secretary starting to take violin lessons leaped from raw beginner to advanced student in two lessons by our special way of "putting on the head" of great violinists. She came by to visit our second experiment three weeks later and gave us a very nice concert. (ALL of us were getting similar results in our chosen areas even before we perfected this method!)

http://www.winwenger.com/archives/part9.htm

Quote:

Borrowed genius:

Soviet psychiatrist Dr. Vladimir Raikov developed a method called artificial reincarnation in which he used deep hypnosis to make people think that they had virtually become some great genius in history. The reincarnated subjects could, under hypnosis, produce creations that were far superior to that which they had produced prior to their reincarnation. Even after the sessions, the residual effects left a positive impact in their talents. The borrowed genius technique of Wenger & Poe does not involve hypnosis, but relies on the Raikov effect to improve creativity. The subject puts on a genius in imagination, and then debriefing back to self. This leaves a positive measurable impact on his creative talents. The success of this method is the product of the infinite capacity of the human mind for dissociation – splitting of into discreet personalities within the same brain. Geniuses have long used this technique of symbolically borrowing other people’s identities as a tool for sparking creativity. Disney became Mickey & General George S Patton considered himself the reincarnation of great generals of the past.

http://www.chillibreeze.com/bookreviews/TheEinsteinFactorRev iew.asp

http://www.winwenger.com/borrow1.htm

Basically the method by which Einstein discovered the relativity theory was through a deep though experiment similar to this one (Now teachable called Image streaming) in which he imagined himself to be a light ray and going with it , Tesla also made all of his own inventions using his own imagination to go through journeys inside his mind.

How such information could be possible to collect specifically , The holographic universe hypothesis in Physics & Biology by Bohm & Pribram respectively seems to explain many of these mysterious phenomenon ,Here's the basics for those interested in understanding the physics background behind it "The Secret Beyond Matter" :

http://www.harunyahya.tv/videoDetail/Lang/4/Product/1271/THE _SECRET_BEYOND_MATTER

Then here's a lecture about the Holographic universe which is v.interesting :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHe5C_Gzgvk

To expand on its applications in Quantum physics , This doc. "What the bleep do we know" does it best :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT50SV3W5K0&feature=player_em bedded

Scientifically speaking the explanations above are very plausible , And the techniques mentioned above are also used in a more technical & complex manner in Advanced NLP to model people , Anybody's whose seen Anthony Robbins make people walk on hot coal is completely based on a modeling(Uncovering the internal patterns that constitute certain abilities to create the same results) , This technique is more advanced , If it could be used to learn these highly complex skills up there , I'm sure it could be of help in one way or another in learning a foreign language , But I'm sure many will remain skeptical , Which is fine by me , I am also skeptical coz it seems to good to be true , But I'm willing to see how it goes as it's plausible .

Direct learning is the use of mental photography/eidetic memory to photograph a great number of books with a certain intention & purpose towards learning a single skill/language..etc , In normal photoreading you have to activate the information by conscious reading/learning , In this case you activate it through doing , This helped me develop drawing & painting skills without any reading , I'm sure it could be of help as well during the 61 hour .

For those interested in how it works , Watch this video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVy0jk4fBY8

Finally , The 61 hour immersion method , It seems very interesting , I'm currently still researching whats the best courses that fit within the 61 hour time frame ,Here's what I'm currently downloading :

Michel Thomas Russian Foundation, Advanced & Vocabulary .
Pimlseur Russian I,II,& III .
Rosetta Stone Russian 3 levels .

Quote:

If I'm not mistaken the Michel Thomas vocabulary cd contains more than 1000 new words that build up on the previous ones , And Rosetta stone as well , Do you have any more effective course in mind that I could use along , After all I intended to have continuous new material bombarding me in the 61 hours , Or maybe I could use both of the courses twice .

P.S the degree of retention differs from one person to the next depending on one's memory & understanding capabilities , So It's a factor that's variable rather than fixed .

I can't predict what would happen or what would be the effect of this on my brain , Because in my life I've never studied ANYTHING for 61 hours straight , I dunno if it will work or not , But currently I'm still downloading all the material & books that I'm gonna listen to , And they're a lot ! .

Abazid on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Can't speak for Rosetta Stone, but Michel Thomas get nowhere near 1000 words with its Foundation and Advanced courses combined. Don't know about a separate vocabulary course (I believe one is available for Russian).

But leave vocabulary numbers aside for a moment. Have you gone through any Pimsleur or MT course at all? Neither one are rapid-fire learning. They need to be done in sequence and you need to be relaxed.

If your plan is to just go through the MT vocabulary course, I'm afraid you'll be fumbling your way through it.

R.
==
hrhenry on 07 April 2011

hrhenry wrote:

Abazid wrote:

Why not speed up the recording?
Arekkusu on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Here's what I believe happens when one is using a language , A thought , emotion , feeling &/or sensory impulse
arises in the form of energy that needs a form of expression in response to internal needs/experiences and
various external situations ,In babies they just make certain sounds and use body language ,While in Adults,
Instantly a learned linguistic construct of a specifically taught language is accessed where this energy is
translated into a stream of specific vocal wave expressions that could be understood by the other person .

In comparison , It seems to me that a child is capable of learning a language WAY faster than an adult because he
is not building his new language based on a previous language construct , But completely based on trying to
interpret all of his experiences basically all the time in complete immersion based on a completely new construct

This is complete rubbish. In what way do children learn a language WAY faster than adults? If it took someone
here the same amount of time it took a child to reach basic fluency, their method would be branded a complete
failure.

I've never understood the glorification of learning like a child. You've spent your entire life accumulating a whole
body of knowledge, and yet some people want to try to lock all of that away and pretend to be a mute illiterate
again.

These pseudoscientific theories will take your language learning nowhere. If they could, you'd be practicing them
instead of defending them here. The reality is that there is a huge evolutionary advantage to learning other
languages, and on a more basic level, a very practical advantage too in business, travel, etc. And yet, over these
however many years and years, no one has come up with a "method" that doesn't involve hard work and
perseverance. It simply doesn't exist.
AndrewW on 07 April 2011

AndrewW wrote:

Abazid wrote:

In comparison , It seems to me that a child is capable of learning a language WAY faster than an adult because he
is not building his new language based on a previous language construct , But completely based on trying to
interpret all of his experiences basically all the time in complete immersion based on a completely new construct

I was just about to ask -- how long does it take a Russian baby before she can read scientific texts in Russian?
Arekkusu on 07 April 2011

Arekkusu wrote:

Why not speed up the recording?

I think that would be about as helpful as speed-reading a very large document with many, many errors. What'll get engraved on the brain are the errors from the one student with the really bad pronunciation and grammar.

MT doesn't lend itself to that kind of learning, IMO.

R.
==
hrhenry on 07 April 2011

hrhenry wrote:

Arekkusu wrote:

Why not speed up the recording?

Oh come on, now, have you no faith?!? These are revolutionary methods we're dealing with! I'm pretty sure one could go through MT at 1.5x speed and retain everything.
Arekkusu on 07 April 2011

You could even break the experiment into 3 stages: Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and Bourne Ultimatum. :)
Teango on 07 April 2011

Teango wrote:

You could even break the experiment into 3 stages: Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and Bourne Ultimatum. :)

I call the whole trilogy the Bourne Delusion.
Arekkusu on 07 April 2011

Arekkusu wrote:

Teango wrote:

You could even break the experiment into 3 stages: Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and Bourne Ultimatum. :)

I call the whole trilogy the Bourne Delusion.

Just make sure you don't forget your name! ;)
Teango on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

I'll now expand on what I'm going to experiment with and some background
on the techniques

I really cannot understand why you keep making inaccurate references to physics to
justify your experiments. Not only are they irrelevant to the discussion, but they
undermine the credibility of the methods you intend pursue. We don't need any pseudo-
science pre-justifications. Rather, I suggest it is better to let the results speak for
themselves.
Splog on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

OK, so I only did an elementary course in vision processing, but I suspect you haven't done any.

First of all, the cones and rods in the eye are analogue, so "bits" is an totally inappropriate measure. There are only 120 million nerve endings in each eye, so you're assuming equivalent to 16-bit accuracy in each nerve ending. Why? I don't know and I don't really care.

Why don't I care?
Because what goes into the eye doesn't matter. I said earlier that the brain isn't a camera, not the eye.
There are less neurones in the visual cortex than nerve endings in the eye. The brain cannot take a "bitmap" of viewed information -- it has to filter the data. It does this in the first instance by identifying so-called primitives in the image -- basic shapes like lines and curves. It then looks for known patterns built up of these primitives. What we remember isn't the photographic depiction of a scene, but the elements within it. When we recall the memory, we don't view an image, we recall the elements. But because we experience vision in this way, it feels like viewing the image.

This leads to interesting quirks. If our generalisations change, the image changes. So our earliest childhood memories of our mothers will have the wrong haircut, for example. And when we think of childhood games with our brothers and sisters, our image is normally of their adult appearances rather than their childhood appearances.

The bonus of this is that as Alzheimer's sufferers lose their memories further and further back, their images of familiar people don't regress. So an 80-year-old woman who tells the nurse that her kids are doing well at school will still often recognise the 50-year-old son who comes to visit her after work.

Long story short:
The brain is physically incapable of capturing photographic images.
The fewer familiar patterns in an image, the harder it is to memorise.
Cainntear on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

In any experiment the factor of the observer expectations & beliefs completely influences the results of the experiment which is the basic principle of Quantum Physics uncovered by the double slit experiment :

I think you have the wrong model of what is going on here.

First, this isn't really a double-slit experiment, but rather Schrödinger's cat. And you are not the observer. You are the cat.

You previously existed in a superposition of the states "knows Russian" and "doesn't know Russian". But by starting this thread you effectively opened the box and allowed us to peer inside. Thus your waveform will collapse into one state or the other.

And if you are correct that "observer expectations & beliefs completely influence the results of the experiment", then you are doomed. We don't believe the experiment will work, so you will end up in the "doesn't know Russian" state. So you might as well not even waste your time trying.

It is just simple science.
rapp on 07 April 2011

Quote:

Unfortunately, I was hoping for some actual evidence rather than mumbo-jumbo.

Up until now, I was willing to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brain will fall out. Good luck with these beliefs and experiments.

Quote:

I really cannot understand why you keep making inaccurate references to physics to justify your experiments. Not only are they irrelevant to the discussion, but they
undermine the credibility of the methods you intend pursue. We don't need any pseudo-
science pre-justifications. Rather, I suggest it is better to let the results speak for
themselves.

You're very much generalizing here out of belief rather than knowledge ,For me to take your words seriously in anyway , You'd better be accurate & specific yourself about what looks to you as pseudo-science in relation to quantum physics , Until then , I respect your opinion , But it's just an opinion .

Quote:

This is starting to sound an awful lot like Keith's 2,000-hour TV method.

Never heard of it , How does it work ?

Quote:

I think the problem is that you are not doing this experiment to see if it works: you've already decided that it must work.

It's interesting how you could read my mind and my hidden intentions , But even if that's true what is exactly the problem with that ?

Quote:

You don't want to face reality and do the hard work needed to learn a language, so instead, you turn to magic and make belief.

Reality is pretty much a very flexible concept , So in this case it's your "Own" reality rule-set which is based on your own beliefs and life experiences , Meaning that this is the only viable way for you to achieve this , Because you've collapsed your own reality to such outset through such observation .

And obviously anything that seems to be extraordinary to the outsider can sure seem like Magick .

Quote:

If we are closed-minded for thinking this is nonsense, then you are oblivious to common sense and reason.

Common sense has been defied countless of times in Science , Pretty much if you were sent back to the past and told people that you could talk to people from foreign countries in your own home through your wireless phone or computer , You would be burned for the practice of sorcery/heresey/quackery..etc .

Yet if you're talking about science & knowledge here , Show me plausible evidence that this is bunk and I'll be glad to take you seriously as well .

Quote:

If you can demonstrate that these esoteric methods can award you more success than the rest of us have been getting through regular methods and plain common sense, you will be a model for all of us wishing to learn languages better and more efficiently. If you win, we all win.

However, if you fail -- and I think most of us have made it pretty clear that you will -- you must admit that in an effort to ignore reality, you have deluded yourself into blindedly placing your faith in methods money-seekers have hailed as miraculous.

Our eyes are wide open -- prove us wrong.

Well it seems to me that you've pretty much believe that it must fail as well , So there's no point in talking about whether it would work or not with you , In either case to me it doesn't matter , It's just an experiment that's meant to be fun , It's not a challenge .

Quote:

I agree that learning anything new needs lots of time & effort , But there are lots of mental strategies that save a lot of time & effort , And could cut one's learning time in half or even more .

Quote:

Yeah , It's mentioned that there's more than 1000 words of vocabulary , I still need to figure out roughly how many hours each would take .

Quote:

But leave vocabulary numbers aside for a moment. Have you gone through any Pimsleur or MT course at all? Neither one are rapid-fire learning. They need to be done in sequence and you need to be relaxed.

If your plan is to just go through the MT vocabulary course, I'm afraid you'll be fumbling your way through it.

This is not meant to be rapid-fire learning/rapid reading..etc , It's meant to be communicative just like in the description of the exercise , And I've got 61 hours or more to go through each of them with relaxed ease , My tiredness later on might either help imprint the info more easily as I stop analyzing the info or vice versa , I'm not sure what's going to happen .

Quote:

Probably because they've have no beliefs pretty much about anything yet and they're curious & non-judgemental , And they tend to have lots of imagination which activates both brain hemispheres , Increasing learning effectiveness and making the absorption of information to be very easy .

Most of adults not only have lost their imagination skills due to no use , But they have learned left-brain learning skills that decrease learning & understanding to great measures and all their beliefs account to lots of blocks in learning new things rather than being open, curious & experimental .

There was a study related to this , But I dun remember the reference :

"According to the National Education Association statistics, people’s learning curve rises almost exponentially from birth to the age of five, then drops inexorably from that time on. Before school, children take in life with a dynamic, whole-brain processing, naturally and easily retaining all that they are exposed to in the long-term ."

Quote:

These pseudoscientific theories will take your language learning nowhere. If they could, you'd be practicing them instead of defending them here. The reality is that there is a huge evolutionary advantage to learning other
languages, and on a more basic level, a very practical advantage too in business, travel, etc. And yet, over these
however many years and years, no one has come up with a "method" that doesn't involve hard work and perseverance. It simply doesn't exist.

This thread was meant to be my journal for scribbling down my thoughts and observations based on my own reality model , But it seems that it turned into a controversy & was hijacked into what "Would" & "Wouldn't" work based on what ?

Beliefs & Opinions based on biased experiences of people probably emotional about the fact that there's a possibility that they could have wasted a lot of time while they could have done something different that would have taken half the time , Which I could totally identify with , Yet like I said in the beginning it's not helpful because we're not discussing it in active skepticism , But in a judgmental & critical manner .

The funny thing is that I didn't even start the experiment yet =D !?

Quote:

I never said that this is a "double slit" experiment , I wanted to point out to the observer-created subjective reality model that pretty much determines how the wave collapses into particles , Hence objective reality .

And Yes ,This would be true anyways If I believe in the disbelief expressed by some of you, But it's based on nothing but common-sense based on your own realities, Hence there's no reason to believe it or disbelieve it , I'd rather be neutral .

Abazid on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Others have mentioned it earlier, and I guess it bears repeating: When you have results, post back. We'll then be able to see if you were successful or not.

Until then, all we're seeing is posturing on your part, in spite of what many people are trying to tell you. But if you manage to come back with proof/pudding/eating, you'll get a "Bravo, well done!" from all of us.

Remember how this thread started. You are asking us to believe in what you are doing, not the other way around. We have nothing to prove to you.

So show us you can do it, instead of just talking about it. BTW, when do the 61 hours start?

R.
==

hrhenry on 07 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Quote:

I never said that this is a "double slit" experiment , I wanted to point out to the observer-created subjective reality model that pretty much determines how the wave collapses into particles , Hence objective reality .

And Yes ,This would be true anyways If I believe in the disbelief expressed by some of you, But it's based on nothing but common-sense based on your own realities, Hence there's no reason to believe it or disbelieve it , I'd rather be neutral .

Oh, I think you're going wrong in a couple of ways here.

First, there's no reason to believe that something in a superposed state, as you are, can observe itself and thus collapse its own waveform. Matter can't be self-observing or superposition of states would be impossible, thus undermining quantam physics and the whole rationale for you experiment. Schrödinger's cat can't keep itself alive by not looking at the geiger counter. So your belief is irrelevant.

Second, even if your belief did matter, then if it could override ours, that would mean you're in a privileged position as an observer. Somehow our observations would get averaged together, and then yours would trump that if it were different than that average. But doesn't the theory of relativity tell us that there is no privileged frame of reference? All frames have equal standing and it is just their relative values that are important. And when you've got a whole bunch of frames pushing in the direction of "it won't work", I don't see how your one frame of "yes it will" can overcome that relative force.

Sorry dude, I just think you've got the science working against you. You're pushing on the short end of the lever going "why won't this thing budge?!"
rapp on 08 April 2011

Gentlemen, may I suggest that you take it down a notch? I understand your sceptiscism, since what he is trying to do is incredible, in all senses of the word, but give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

I for one will be interested to see the results. Do I think it is probable that he will succeed - maybe not. But history is full of examples of people who were ridiculed, and then made a great discovery.

If he succeeds with just a fraction of what he sets out to do, it may be something which will be beneficial and useful to us all. May I respectfully suggest that we allow him to do what he set out to do, and then give our positive critiscism, support, or whatever we feel appropriate then?
Solfrid Cristin on 08 April 2011

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

I disagree. This site is for sensible discussion about languages and language learning.
It is not a place to make blatantly erroneous connections between quantum physics and
language acquisition. Until we see compelling evidence the approach works, these claims
will certainly benefit from all of my doubt.
Splog on 08 April 2011

Making claims in a public forum exposes you to criticism. As forum members, it's our responsibility to point out the absurdity of a claim, so those who perhaps are more enclined to believe it are at least warned.

In no way does our criticism prevent him from trying to prove his claims; in fact, doing so is his own responsibility and we don't owe him encouragement.
Arekkusu on 08 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

It's interesting how you could read my mind and my hidden intentions , But even if that's true what is exactly the problem with that ?

Why do you doubt that he could read your mind and know your hidden intentions? The blog that you linked to teaches telepathy, you know.
josht on 08 April 2011

I fear that his experiment will lead to a Total waveform collapse, splitting the universe in two. In one universe, Abazid will reside speaking his languages fluently, while the rest of us remain in the old slow learning fact-based universe.

DaraghM on 08 April 2011

DaraghM wrote:

In one universe, Abazid will reside speaking his languages fluently, while the rest of us remain in the old slow learning fact-based universe.

So basically, you're saying that we'll still be firmly grounded in reality, the one in which learning languages is extremely hard work. Abazid will be in his own world, where he can make up whatever rules he wants, whether they're actually correct or not.

Yeah, that sounds about right...
josht on 08 April 2011

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Note that very little of the criticism here is against the 61-hour "brainwashing" technique. Some of it is, most of it isn't.

I can see why it might work, although I am personally skeptical. I would be interested in the results of this, even though one man's experience wouldn't be statistically significant.

However, if his experiment starts on demonstrably false premises, I feel the most sociable thing to do is point this out. If he attempts this with photoreading, he will fail, because even if photoreading in a familiar language is possible (and I consider this unlikely), photoreading in a foreign language is scientifically impossible. Any "preconscious processing" cannot occur without familiarity with the presented visual stimulus.

So using photoreading dooms his experiment to failure, and we won't see any benefit from his research.

Regardless, it is unscientific to attempt to prove two unrelated theories by a single experiment.

He would be better to consider individual experiments to establish the efficacy of a) 61-hour "brainwashing" and B) photoreading as language learning techniques.

If you
Cainntear on 08 April 2011

Quote:

First of all, the cones and rods in the eye are analogue, so "bits" is an totally inappropriate measure. There are only 120 million nerve endings in each eye, so you're assuming equivalent to 16-bit accuracy in each nerve ending. Why? I don't know and I don't really care.

Analouge to Digital :

Quote:

Ref:Scientific American

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:HSKlEYfZhrwJ:dbbs. wustl.edu/dbbs/website.nsf/forms/forms/%24file/Ances_Raichle %2BScientific%2BAmerican.pdf+sciam+The+Brain%27s+Dark+Energy +pdf&hl=en&gl=eg&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjut2gYaz26hniSqKwzFF90SX zB4FRMd9xV7iWPmusNzopyZ53iUufZ1hnWS7ZQwKKAxdlkXEtoF2Ph_r2PLK ZDCPruLEM_I107yPfX_a13Q11q-yvZfm142f-WxxYX9wrDZ-o5&sig=AHIEt bRtiqv6F3w8vuoFIq9Ny75dRKf7XQ

Visual information, for instance, degrades significantly as it passes from the eye to the visual cortex.

Of the virtually unlimited information available in the world around us, the equivalent of 10 billion bits per second arrives on the retina at the back of the eye. Because the optic nerve attached to the retina has only a million output connections, just six million bits per second can leave the retina, and only 10,000 bits per second make it to the visual cortex.

After further processing, visual information feeds into the brain regions responsible for forming our conscious perception.

Surprisingly, the amount of information constituting that conscious perception is less than 100 bits per second. Such a thin stream of data probably could not produce a perception if that were all the brain took into account; the intrinsic activity must play a role.

Yet another indication of the brain’s intrinsic processing power comes from counting the number of synapses, the contact points between neurons. In the visual cortex, the number of synapses devoted to incoming visual information is less than 10 percent of those present. Thus, the vast majority must represent internal connections among neurons in that brain region.

Quote:

Why don't I care?
Because what goes into the eye doesn't matter. I said earlier that the brain isn't a camera, not the eye.
There are less neurones in the visual cortex than nerve endings in the eye. The brain cannot take a "bitmap" of viewed information -- it has to filter the data. It does this in the first instance by identifying so-called primitives in the image -- basic shapes like lines and curves. It then looks for known patterns built up of these primitives. What we remember isn't the photographic depiction of a scene, but the elements within it. When we recall the memory, we don't view an image, we recall the elements. But because we experience vision in this way, it feels like viewing the image.

This leads to interesting quirks. If our generalisations change, the image changes. So our earliest childhood memories of our mothers will have the wrong haircut, for example. And when we think of childhood games with our brothers and sisters, our image is normally of their adult appearances rather than their childhood appearances.

The bonus of this is that as Alzheimer's sufferers lose their memories further and further back, their images of familiar people don't regress. So an 80-year-old woman who tells the nurse that her kids are doing well at school will still often recognise the 50-year-old son who comes to visit her after work.

Long story short:
The brain is physically incapable of capturing photographic images.
The fewer familiar patterns in an image, the harder it is to memorise.

Yes this is true in this elementary model , But the current model shows that this is completely inaccurate :

Quote:

Memory is not the only thing the brain may process holographically.
Another of Lashley's discoveries was that the visual centers of thebrain were also surprisingly resistant to surgical excision. Even afterremoving as much as 90 percent of a rat's visual cortex (the part of the brain that receives and interprets what the eye sees), he found it could still perform tasks requiring complex visual skills. Similarly, research conducted by Pribram revealed that as much as 98 percent of a cat's optic nerves can be severed without seriously impairing its ability to perform complex visual tasks. "3"
Such a situation was tantamount to believing that a movie audience could still enjoy a motion picture even after 90 percent of the movie screen was missing, and his experiments presented once again a seri-ous challenge to the standard understanding of how vision works.
According to the leading theory of the day, there was a one-to-one correspondence between the image the eye sees and the way that image is represented in the brain. In other words, when we look at a square, it was believed the electrical activity in our visual cortex also possesses the form of a square .
Although findings such as Lashley's seemed to deal a deathblow to this idea, Pribram was not satisfied. While he was at Yale he devised a series of experiments to resolve the matter and spent the next seven years carefully measuring the electrical activity in the brains of mon-keys while they performed various visual tasks. He discovered that not only did no such one-to-one correspondence exist, but there wasn't even a discernible pattern to the sequence in which the electrodes fired. He wrote of his findings, "These experimental results are incom-patible with a view that a photographic-like image becomes projected onto the cortical surface. " "4"
3. Karl Pribram, "The Neurophysiology of Remembering" Scientific American 220 (January 1969), p. 75.
4. Karl Pribram, Languages of the Brain (Monterey, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1977), p. 123.
Source:" The Holographic Universe BY Michael Talbot"

This completely deals a death blow to the extremely limited view of a supposedly "Physical" brain and it's incapability of saving a mere photograph .

Not including the fact that I said Subconscious "Mind" , Which is a different entity from the supposedly physical brain .

Quote:

I never asked anybody to believe in any part of what I'm doing and certainly the merry expressions of approval of any of you is obviously of zero value to me ,And this thread is my own journal , I have the freedom to go in any style or direction I want ,If any of you don't like how or where I'm going with it , You could simply leave .

Quote:

So show us you can do it, instead of just talking about it.

You do realize that this is going to span about 80 hours(67 hours without 10 min breaks) which means more than 3 days ,Not including that major missing aspect of the experiment which is substituting the instructors with my own material ,Meaning that not only I have to free a lot of time in a busy schedule , But I have to work out specifically which material I'm going to be using and would be effective in this type of experiment .

You can't just jump into things without proper planning .

Quote:

BTW, when do the 61 hours start?

Tomorrow

Quote:

First, there's no reason to believe that something in a superposed state, as you are, can observe itself and thus collapse its own waveform. Matter can't be self-observing or superposition of states would be impossible, thus undermining quantam physics and the whole rationale for you experiment. Schrödinger's cat can't keep itself alive by not looking at the geiger counter. So your belief is irrelevant.

Too bad "I am" not matter .

If I could observe anything , It doesn't take much reflection to realize that it's impossible for me to be part of it .

Quote:

Second, even if your belief did matter, then if it could override ours, that would mean you're in a privileged position as an observer. Somehow our observations would get averaged together, and then yours would trump that if it were different than that average. But doesn't the theory of relativity tell us that there is no privileged frame of reference? All frames have equal standing and it is just their relative values that are important. And when you've got a whole bunch of frames pushing in the direction of "it won't work", I don't see how your one frame of "yes it will" can overcome that relative force.

You're all theory , First of all you're operating from the limiting belief/part(-icle) that there's such a thing as Duality/Polarity , As in "Positive" & "Negative" , While in the core everything interpenetrates eachother , They're all energy , And since in my own reality I observe things as they really are as just energy , Your whole belief only operates & limits your own subjective experience , Not mine .
Whether I succeed or fail , There's a lot to learn from both especially failure , So I dun mind =) .

Quote:

Sorry dude, I just think you've got the science working against you. You're pushing on the short end of the lever going "why won't this thing budge?!"

There's no lever ;)

Quote:

Just to show you dunno what you're talking about , QP has a direct relation every single thing we percieve in our reality , Especially consciousness.
For all the hardcore skeptics in the "Possibility" of an ability like information acquisition out of nowhere and its relation to Quantum Mechanics , Here's my final word on it :
http://blog.learnremoteviewing.com/scientific-research/

If this is possible , Then there's a possibility that an ability like Telepathy or Glosslalia is available to all of us , Not impossible like most think , Thats what I believe , That's all .

Quote:

If he attempts this with photoreading, he will fail, because even if photoreading in a familiar language is possible (and I consider this unlikely), photoreading in a foreign language is scientifically impossible. Any "preconscious processing" cannot occur without familiarity with the presented visual stimulus.

So using photoreading dooms his experiment to failure, and we won't see any benefit from his research.

I haven't tried PR before with a foreign language I never knew , But this research study is what I intend to experiment with as it has proven successful , This form of very fast Rapid Reading is very close to PR :

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_ nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED056830&ERICExtSear ch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED056830

Quote:

Regardless, it is unscientific to attempt to prove two unrelated theories by a single experiment.

He would be better to consider individual experiments to establish the efficacy of a) 61-hour "brainwashing" and B) photoreading as language learning techniques.

This is what I intend to do , I'll start with Brainwashing .

Abazid on 10 April 2011

Update :

I'm going to do this 81 hr brainwashing experiment tomorrow .

After lots of research related to what the best material to go through and in what order, I've decided to drop Rosetta stone , It's supposed to take more than 150 hours and the russian edition has been criticized hard as ineffective , I'll go only for MT & Pimsleur for now , Both should give me 2 facets of the language , The speaking & listening facets , Then I'll have to go through writing & reading in another time .

Basically Michel Thomas Foundation, Advanced & Vocabulary spans about 19 hours combined + Pimsleur 3 levels span about 48 hours = 67 hours .

If I'm going to have about 67 hours purely without the 10 min breaks in each hour that would mean I need exactly about 81 hours as a total .

I'm going to work with MT first (As it needs more thinking rather than repeating) & Pimsleur in a parallel way , As in finish MT Foundations and then go through Pimsleur lv I , And then do the same with the rest , This should flow better than finishing each 3 levels of each program first .

Replacing instructors with Audio seems to result in a problem , Staying awake without passing out !

I'll do some mental programming to prepare myself & support myself with less foods/drinks that induce sleep , And I'll keep myself by moving around whenever I feel sleepy , Obviously lots of coffee & maybe physical exercise in the 10 min breaks .

I'm pretty excited about this though =D !

Abazid on 10 April 2011

Good luck! Three times in grad school I hit 51 hours (programming, double all-nighters), and, man, I was a wreck
by then.

Look forward to your post later in the week. You should wake up by Thursday.
tbone on 10 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

And I'll keep myself by moving around whenever I feel sleepy , Obviously lots of coffee & maybe physical exercise in the 10 min breaks .

I still think that this is a bad idea, but if you're really going through with this, at least make sure that you stay hydrated and don't consume too many caffeinated drinks. Otherwise you might end up like http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm - this guy .
Doitsujin on 10 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

This completely deals a death blow to the extremely limited view of a supposedly "Physical" brain and it's incapability of saving a mere photograph .

Read this again, from the text you quoted:
"These experimental results are incompatible with a view that a photographic-like image becomes projected onto the cortical surface."

Incompatible with photographs in the brain. Incompatible. Incompatible. In com patible.
Cainntear on 10 April 2011

Good luck, abazid. Don't forget to take some notes as you go along.
apparition on 10 April 2011

You sound very committed to this programme. I'm looking forward to the results. Удачи (good luck)!
Teango on 10 April 2011

a note on skepticism: there are better ways to utilize your energy.

:)
aerozeplyn on 11 April 2011

aerozeplyn wrote:

a note on skepticism: there are better ways to utilize your energy.

:)

That would mean you are wasting your own energy on being skeptical about the value of
skepticism.
Splog on 11 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Quote:

Too bad "I am" not matter .

Then what is typing at your keyboard?

rapp on 11 April 2011

Splog wrote:

aerozeplyn wrote:

a note on skepticism: there are better ways to utilize your energy.

:)

That would mean you are wasting your own energy on being skeptical about the value of
skepticism.

if you are speaking towards me, then by the definition of "being skeptical" that would not apply to me. for i have not
questioned anything in my comment ;)
aerozeplyn on 11 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Update :

I'm going to do this 81 hr brainwashing experiment tomorrow .

After lots of research related to what the best material to go through and in what
order, I've decided to drop Rosetta stone , It's supposed to take more than 150 hours
and the russian edition has been criticized hard as ineffective , I'll go only for MT &
Pimsleur for now , Both should give me 2 facets of the language , The speaking &
listening facets , Then I'll have to go through writing & reading in another time .

Basically Michel Thomas Foundation, Advanced & Vocabulary spans about 19 hours combined
+ Pimsleur 3 levels span about 48 hours = 67 hours .

If I'm going to have about 67 hours purely without the 10 min breaks in each hour that
would mean I need exactly about 81 hours as a total .

I'm going to work with MT first (As it needs more thinking rather than repeating) &
Pimsleur in a parallel way , As in finish MT Foundations and then go through Pimsleur
lv I , And then do the same with the rest , This should flow better than finishing each
3 levels of each program first .

Replacing instructors with Audio seems to result in a problem , Staying awake without
passing out !

I'll do some mental programming to prepare myself & support myself with less
foods/drinks that induce sleep , And I'll keep myself by moving around whenever I feel
sleepy , Obviously lots of coffee & maybe physical exercise in the 10 min breaks .

I'm pretty excited about this though =D !

The Michel Thomas materials will take much longer to go through as you have to pause
the recordings to think of your answers. One of the points in the MT method is the
thinking it through and actively trying to recall the information you have been given
to help to solidify it memory. If you just play it through without doing this then you
are not going to learn it properly. The time it will take to get through a CD can take
more than an hour and a half to around two hours.

Good luck with the experiment, it will be interesting to see if you end up retaining it
all at the end.

jazzboy.bebop on 11 April 2011

jazzboy.bebop wrote:

Actually the MT method isn't really supposed to require you to stop the recordings, but I have heard from others that the Pimsleur method needed to be stopped to properly remember what had already been taught. I didn't need to do that with the Pimsleur course I used for Turkish, but I also listened to it more than once each lesson. That was my original concern - that listening to a recording just once wouldn't be enough, especially considering the number of hours he'd need to stay awake.

Even in college, I don't think I could ever manage to stay awake non-stop for more than 48 hours. And the last 12 hours of those would have been useless.

R.
==
hrhenry on 11 April 2011

hrhenry wrote:

jazzboy.bebop wrote:

Actually the MT method isn't really supposed to require you to stop the recordings, but
I have heard from others that the Pimsleur method needed to be stopped to properly
remember what had already been taught. I didn't need to do that with the Pimsleur
course I used for Turkish, but I also listened to it more than once each lesson. That
was my original concern - that listening to a recording just once wouldn't be enough,
especially considering the number of hours he'd need to stay awake.

Even in college, I don't think I could ever manage to stay awake non-stop for more than
48 hours. And the last 12 hours of those would have been useless.

R.
==

In Pimsleur you don't necessarily need to, but in Michel Thomas it is actively advised
both on the CDs and in their accompanying booklets.

Michel Thomas Booklets wrote:

• Give yourself time to think. The students on the
recordings had all the time
they needed to think out their responses. On the recordings their ‘thinking time’
has been cut in order to make full use of the recording time and to give you all
the time you may need (by pushing your pause button). The pause button is the key to
your learning!

jazzboy.bebop on 11 April 2011

I suppose this would now be about 48 hours into the project... Any news?
Arekkusu on 12 April 2011

If the whole project takes 81 hours, I assume we won't be hearing from him until that time period is up... plus at least an extra 24 hours to catch up on sleep, I'll bet. ;)

(Re: this thread, a voice in the back of my head keeps asking "What if he just DIED from exhaustion? We'd be on tenterhooks waiting for the results for the rest of our lives!")
Jinx on 12 April 2011

I fondly recall reveling for 5 days without any sleep after the first year of summer uni exams and then passing out when I finally returned to my own room. I remember putting a "do not disturb" note on the door, hitting the pillow just after 9am, and waking up around 11pm, not realising until later when I met up with the same friends again that I'd slept over into the next day (46 hours forward on the clock and 1 massive thirst)! I can safely bet that after 81 hours or more of Michel Thomas and Pimsleur, Abazid will need to catch up on his 135 winks too (at least 40 for each day). ;)
Teango on 12 April 2011

I can't imagine anyone doing 12 hours of Pimsleur and still be able to absorb any of it, never mind 81 hours. Then again, I didn't hypnotize myself or anything like that.
Arekkusu on 12 April 2011

Arekkusu wrote:

I can't imagine anyone doing 12 hours of Pimsleur and still be able to absorb any of it, never mind 81 hours. Then again, I didn't hypnotize myself or anything like that.

The first 10 hours of a Pimsleur course, I can see breezing through. It's pretty elementary stuff up until about the last 1/4 of a 30 lesson course. But those last 5-6 or so lessons need some time to sink in, at least in my admittedly limited experience with the course.

R.
==
hrhenry on 12 April 2011

hrhenry wrote:

Arekkusu wrote:

I can't imagine anyone doing 12 hours of Pimsleur and still be able to absorb any of it, never mind 81 hours. Then again, I didn't hypnotize myself or anything like that.

I meant 12 hours straight.
Arekkusu on 12 April 2011

First off, i would like to state that rapid learning is my PASSION. i wrote and had my exercise workbook published, and i am still writing my method book (which has no medical warnings by the way lol). i have experience with VERY similar learning techniques. Spoiler: i've never done the 61-hour thing. it just sounds cruel to your body and your normal daily routine, especially when other methods exist... ;)

Arekkusu wrote:

Abazid wrote:

Arekkusu, I can see that you want to help Abazid, and your information should be respected. :) Just a little suggestion: how about also respecting his willingness to share this experiment with others? :)

Remember: we are all using language to share different ideas, not to mention the sane human's natural impulse is to help others with information. This, of course, is a big behavioral difference that sets us apart from...like...apes. But you know how inaccurate language can be to reflect the EXPERIENCE--after all, this IS a language forum. Let's stay away from anything ironic.

If you're inclined for something to fail or be debunked, and you do not change your attitude towards a piece of information... no one will ever be able to "prove you wrong". In your mind, as long as you carry this same attitude when you are listening to new information, their language won't be processed by you trying to find the positive elements in what they are saying, rather...you'll focus on the negative elements. Well, you cannot have the positive if you only focus on the negative drawbacks. Regardless, because of this attitude the situation no longer becomes a learning, sharing, or helping experience: it then becomes a challenge, and you unconsciously close your mind to new information and new points of view. As open as you think your mind is, none of these statements are open-minded. They're some-what negative, aggressive, and challenging. Therefore, they are much less reasonable than they could be.

I hope you can appreciate this tip; as I know you'd rather learn more from the universe than allow your attitude to prevent you from obtaining other positive pieces of information :)

==========
- Abazid -
==========

If your intention is to shut off the logical areas of your brain, there are similar methods rather than spending 40-something hours of your time to reach a 20-hour point of learning in the subconscious. This is a lot like drummers (such as Mike Mangini) spending 2-3 hours on a drumming exercise because they realized they would "learn better" and continuously perform better and better as the week went by. The purpose: exhaust yourself in order for other areas of your body and mind to reach a state of RELAXATION. This causes you to waste less energy and to learn more efficiently.

Example Possibilities (related to drummers learning rapidly):

* Did this huge improvement happen because the drummer spent 3 hours of practicing? Or did it happen because it took about 2.5 hours of previous practice in order for them to condition their mind to efficiently learn for the next 30 minutes?

* For drummers that swear by "warming up", does the act of "warming up" really prepare their muscles for playing? Or is it actually the act of preparing their mind--the central system for commanding their limb motions--before performing the actions?

So my question to you Abazid is:
Why would you spend 40 hours for the sake of preparing your mind for a better state of rapid learning, when you can spend 30 minutes to an hour?

My suggestion:
Spend 30-minutes to an hour with a meditation or mind exercise that will help calm your mind. The calmer your mind, the less energy you will use for logical thinking. The calmer your mind, the better your mind can pull in new information. I personally utilize and swear by a technique called "Pangu Shengong".

=================
- My Experience -
=================

I do a similar method that is a total of 8 hours: each hour having a 15-20 minute meditation rest and maybe some water; the 4th hour (in the middle of the session) having a longer break for anything else maintenance-wise (toilet, snack, etc). My goal was not learning a spoken language, but it was muscle memory to initiate my experience of obtaining a HUGE array time/event coordination with my limbs. One time I was effectively aiming to learn to what I believed would've been 3 months worth of information INITIATED in 1 day. I say initiated because throughout the next 3-5 days, my body would still be changing due to the "initial" learning experience. No matter what, your body will still need the time to grow, and you cannot give your body that time while you are performing other tasks.

So did my method work? For one thing, I only did the method because it made a lot of sense, AND I was prepared to spend the whole day doing it. I've only done this 8-hour method a few times in my life with huge success, and what I've learned in the process is: why the rush? just enjoy the process. That became my mentality anyways.

I guess you could always take LSD and hire 2-3 baby-sitters to make sure you don't do anything crazy or harmful lol. Buttt then again, you might get totally distracted by other things... like where the audio engineer cut pieces of audio within the tape/MP3 :)

Welp, it was fun writing...I hope this is at least a positive experience for others to read :)
aerozeplyn on 12 April 2011

btw, when i say "rapid learning is my PASSION" i am not referring to 8 to 61 hour sessions :) i am referring to making the best and most efficient use of your practice time.
aerozeplyn on 12 April 2011

The problem with all this audio is that there's a great temptation to drift off after a while. It's like being in infant school again and taking a short post-lunch doze on the mat whilst the teacher reads out a story. It's a completely different story if you have 6 teachers working round the clock to keep you actively engaged and awake all the time.

It's hard to stay awake through a favourite tv series marathon, not alone 3-4 continuous days of Michel Thomas and Pimsleur where there's no accompanying visual input to keep the listener alert. Ahmed's going to need a lot more than coffee to keep this going - I hope he'll be ok.
Teango on 12 April 2011

aerozeplyn wrote:

If you're inclined for something to fail or be debunked, and you do not change your
attitude towards a piece of information... no one will ever be able to "prove you wrong". In your mind, as
long as you carry this same attitude when you are listening to new information, their language won't be
processed by you trying to find the positive elements in what they are saying, rather...you'll focus on the
negative elements. Well, you cannot have the positive if you only focus on the negative drawbacks.
Regardless, because of this attitude the situation no longer becomes a learning, sharing, or helping
experience: it then becomes a challenge, and you unconsciously close your mind to new information and
new points of view. As open as you think your mind is, none of these statements are open-minded. They're
some-what negative, aggressive, and challenging. Therefore, they are much less reasonable than they
could be.

If you present an idea publicly and it contradicts common sense, expect it to be challenged and met with
skepticism. The onus is then on you to demonstrate your point. Asking you to do so is not a sign of
agressivity, it's plain common sense.

Abazid is looking for magical ways to avoid the hard work involved in learning languages and I believe in
earnest that he will fail. He deserves to be told.

While I have concluded that he will fail, what I believe is irrelevant. Ultimately, it's the results that will speak.
Stating that no results can change my mind is rather arrogant on your part as I've clearly stated that I'm
awaiting his results.

In turn, I ask you: has your desire and Abazid's desire that these magical work-arounds be real fueled your
propension to believe it?
Arekkusu on 13 April 2011

Arekkusu,
I have no answer to your question, as I have no desire for any "magical" work-around substitute, and neither would I recommend or sponsor a 61-hour brain wash. If you believe I ever stated "no results can change" your mind, you either read incorrectly or you did not read all details I have communicated. This is exactly what I meant by your attitude affecting your ability to acquire information :) Good luck with that!
aerozeplyn on 13 April 2011

Teango wrote:

My personal experience agrees with you.

I've taken classes and I've done self-study.

On an intensive course, I can work productively for a full day, and still do evening activities in the language.

In general, I find it hard to give 100% attention to even one Pimsleur lesson. I generally need to be doing something else to keep at it (walking, travelling, washing dishes). The longest all-audio session I've ever done was half the Michel Thomas German Foundation in a morning. But I started in the flat, went out for a walk by the sea and through the town, then went home and lay on the sofa half asleep but still pausing and muttering answers to myself.

I didn't remember much.

Although it wasn't bad -- it was quite relaxing and after that my Spanish and Gaelic were the best they've ever been. (Weird -- linguistic "cross training" perhaps?) I don't know what would have happened if I'd gone back to the course soon after -- I was living in the Basque Country at the time, so German wasn't a priority.
Cainntear on 13 April 2011

Arekkusu wrote:

If you present an idea publicly and it contradicts common sense...

Asking you to do so is not a sign of agressivity, it's plain common sense.

common sense?.. that reminds me of this:

"whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect" samuel langhorne clemens (mark twain)

Arekkusu wrote:

Abazid is looking for magical ways to avoid the hard work involved in learning languages and I believe in earnest that he will fail. He deserves to be told.

magical ways? you mean like uri geller's or james randy ones?

"hard work" means that you have to put forth effort in order to get something done?.. yeah, it's true and yeah, it's not that true.. sometimes effort, sometimes time.. sometimes both of them.. sometimes "lucidity" (sorry queensryche lyrics xD)

btw those "tricks", the ones Abazid is trying to test, consume effort too. somehow, according to this hard works def, hard work is implied

Arekkusu wrote:

Ultimately, it's the results that will speak.

oh yeah, we're still waiting

tmp011007 on 13 April 2011

tmp011007 wrote:

Arekkusu wrote:

If you present an idea publicly and it contradicts common sense...

Asking you to do so is not a sign of agressivity, it's plain common sense.

common sense?.. that reminds me of this:

"whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect" samuel langhorne clemens (mark twain)

And just how did you conclude that I didn't pause and reflect?
Arekkusu on 13 April 2011

I wonder what Mark Twain thought about brainwashing.
carlonove on 13 April 2011

Any word on results/findings yet?
apparition on 16 April 2011

Update :

Where to begin ?! This was full of surprises , And way harder than I thought it would be !

WARNING :This is going to be a long post

Lets begin with my initial skills with Russian as a reference before doing this :

Listening: zero , Sounded like a bunch of gibberish raspy voices .

Speaking : zero , Couldn't utter one word .

Reading: Zero , language looked like a code or sth .

Writing: zero

Just before the Exp. :

The day before starting with the experiment , I had a feeling that I should learn the Russian alphabet quickly before starting with it , So I looked around for mnemonics for the alphabet and then when I found them , It was real easy to memorize their shapes & their pronunciation , And that interactive mnemonic exercise showed me that Russian could be way more fun than I expected it to be (Most say it's hard) , So I was curious & intrigued , And certainly this helped give me a push way more than I expected later on .

I already set up my Mp3 player & my pc as well , got everything arranged to avoid losing time , And sleep-programmed myself into retaining & understanding the info in my exp. for future use .

The Exp:

I woke up at Tuesday about 3 am , Very enthusiastic , And then I started with MT foundations 8 hr course .

I really loved the teacher & the students pace & attitude(I had to look at their video to get a mental image of them to stop thinking how they all looked like http://www.play.com/Books/AudioBooks/-/4568/3835/-/3436779/N atasha-Bershadski-Michel-Thomas-Method-Russian-Foundatio ;n-Course/Product.html?fb=0&ob=price&ptsl=1 - Video ) , And it was a very active type of learning coz I was repeatedly testing myself throughout in layers, What I didn't put into account though was , That I paused the tracks so many times throughout , To think an answer , Maybe rewind a bit that I wanted to understand..etc , Which made the course take WAY more than I expected it to take .

It took about 2.5 the time I thought it would (Also took more time along with 10 min breaks e.g ritual prayer)

The first 8-10 hours passed by real fast and I was having fun with it , Yet I thought I never spent that much time concentrating on doing one thing in a so collected way unless it was an emergency like an exam or sth and I was beginning to feel a lil bit tired , But I thought that I want to continue with this to see where it goes .

I avoided all types of food that induced sleep like Milk & Cheese , And kept taking in more & more coffe , They helped a little bit in the beginning but were of no use later .

At the 13-14th hour mark , Sitting down on my pc while listening would make me feel sleepy , More like "why don't you go take a nap or sth ?!"
So I had to walk all over the place while listening and sit for a little while to avoid feeling like that , And more coffe .

At the 18-20 hr mark ,My understanding & concentration were still working okay but I losing more & more of it , I was getting more & more tired , And what kept me up was walking around & physical exercise (coffe was no use now) , If I sat down it means that SURE enough I would get into micro-sleeps/passouts , So I sticked to this , Which was REAL hard that I even thought of not doing this and getting some sleep, But I was determined to continue .

At the mark of 23-24 hour , I was at the last cd , Listening to the last tracks , I was dead tired , Very very sleepy , I almost completely lost my focus , I had to rewind a track about 3-4 times to understand it and I'd feel there was time slips (lost time) , And even walking seems to have no effect in waking me up , It was more of a struggle at this time to wake up , But I felt a great sense of achievement coz I understood & retained most of the information and I was becoming real good at making sentences slowly but correctly .

And something clicked , I felt a fulfilling inspiring & enlightening sense of favorable language saturation as I've been listening to them for about 18 hours and I've gotten so used to the terms & way of talking , That it seemed very natural for me to say them now .

At the 25th hour , My vision turned hazy & very sleepy , And I had micro-sleeps even when I was walking , And mainly I was sleep-walking ,I wanted to sleep SO badly, That I passed out and slept on my sofa !?

30 mins later , My mother woke me up , I felt that I basically failed the experiment , But I was really surprised coz normally when I spent time of my computer I was capable of spending much more time and not feeling that sleepy so fast , But I realize now that It's because there was no visual stimulation and no instructors .

I also realized that If I was listening to a "Repeat after me" type of programs that are WAY less active & communicative than MT , I would have felt WAY sleepy earlier .
I thought that I've learned and knew a lot and it would be a loss if I didn't continue as I was too invested with the 25 hrs I already spent and it was only about 30 mins, So I had a "Whatever it takes" type of attitude .

2 hours of repeating about 3 tracks many times and micro-sleeping through many parts of it and repeating it again to see what I've missed (I should have just let it play) .
Obviously , I passed out again on my bed and slept for what seemed to feel like years( about 4-5 hours) and woke up at about 4 pm .

I thought what the heck , I will still continue until I finish MT 3 levels at least but I'll try to use more means of keeping myself awake this time , More physical exercise , More coffe ,Cold water..etc , Whatever as I continue with the materials (I realized that I'll have to drop Pimsleur and ONLY stick to Michel Thomas for now coz it seemed to take a LOT more time than I expected ) .

I started listening to the tracks that I repeated so many times and didn't get once , But this time they were so easy to understand & to listen to , That I finished these last tracks in the foundation so fast .

At that point I've already canceled Pimsleur out , And started thinking whether I repeat the Foundation course or continue with the Advanced , I felt that I should go with the Advanced , And I was right .

All the basics I've learned through the Foundations were reinforced so strongly and I became capable of making up sentences WAY faster & more natural than before even in complex sentences ( I had to think of the mnemonics Natasha mentioned to remember in the foundations) , But the Advanced opened up many more structures that I understood , But I felt like that they needed more exercises to reinforce them .

This time I was capable of spending more than 24 hours with more wakefulness & concentration .

from about 9 pm until about 12 am the second day (I paused the audio more than the foundations course , More complex), I was done with the advanced course , I basically went through similar cycles but I did more physical exercise , more strong coffe , sometimes checked the forum around here all in my 10 mins , And that seemed to keep me up more , Still my concentration was going down as time passed .

At the end of it , The foundations stuck real good inside my head and the advanced took my skills to the next level , But I also though whether I should do it again or go through the vocab level .

I thought that I should go through the Vocab course and like the Advanced did with the foundations , I'm sure it will cement the Advanced as it becomes more complex .
At the time ,I reached the deteriorated level of concentration I've reached during my first day .

The Vocab level had 2 different students and they were REALLY faster & skilled than the previous ones that seemed to be slow & beginners , And with my delayed concentration , It was a struggle to pause the audio like so many times to try to figure out what were these words they were saying so fast , At the rate , I thought "Less" of my russian skills , Maybe I needed to cement my Advanced level by listening to it once more .

But I persisted , I decided to revise what I already knew , I will write down everything I remember so far from both of my courses in a mind map , And then go through the user guides for both levels and correct what wasn't correct .
And so I did , And found I remember many things , But also wasn't capable of coming up with all of them on the spot .

After revising the guides , It was about 8 pm now , I decided that It's now time to go through the vocab course whatever it takes to understand it .

I still had the same experience of having a hard time understanding them as they spoke real fast and made up Very complex sentences for me , So I still did the same , But took notes this time to help me every time I paused .

I did this for about 3 hours , finished the first CD of four with understanding but with a LOT of effort coz At the time I was losing all concentration again & starting to feel more sleepy .

And then when I got into the 2nd one , I couldn't do ALL this thinking anymore , So I did what was supposed to be the aim of the experiment unknowingly lol .
I stopped thinking or trying to answer , And just listened to the CD and then half the other .

I was getting WAY too sleepy , I was at the 33 hour mark and was getting many micro-sleeps , I went to pray , And then continued for more into the 3rd CD , At that time I reached the sleep-walking stage again , Hazy vision , DYING to sleep , At the time it was 8 am , About 38 hours . And I was pissed I didn't finish the rest of the Vocab course .

BAM , My body forced me to pass out again on bed .

4 hours later , I thought "LOL , This is the second time and I didn't even finish the 3rd level" , But then I was thankful later that this happened later , When I decided to finish the course anyway .

When I listened to the 3rd CD in the vocab course I was amazed , This time I was capable of listening to the fast & complex sentences of the students and the teacher with ease & understanding as if I knew them , And I was also real fast with sentence creation that I felt that most of the information in the advanced course were also cemented as I progressed into the last cd .

This made me think that at the time that I only listened to the information without thinking many of it were added to long term memory that my understanding of them was so efficient.

I finished it completely at about 1 am that day , And the end felt that I was capable now of making way more complex words and If I was in Russia as a tourist I'd be able to manage through pretty well .
After calculating how much it all took , It all spanned about 72 hours as a total but not connected though (25+38+9)

I do think that I'll need to re-listen to the Vocab level once more coz there was a lot of words (1000 and more in the user guide) and lots of exercises .

I spent about 3 years in school learning french and I don't remember much of it ,Yet I feel that I know more about Russian WAY more than I know about french , I think it's the saturation and exposure to a lot of material & exercise that could be the reason .

Current Russian skills :

Listening: Intermediate , I could recognize & understand words in native convos that don't have complex & sophisticated vocab .

Speaking: Intermediate , I could speak and pronounce the language correctly and express myself when I need to , But I still need lots more vocabulary to fill the gaps.

Reading :Beginner , I could now read the language through my learning of the alphabet and merging it with my listening experience , To work out meanings .

Writing: Beginner , I could write based on what I listened to using my knowledge of the vocab but definitely BAD spelling .

Currently I changed my windows language into paroski to add more vocab and make my reading better , And downloaded many dual language novels along with movies to start practicing more & more of it .

Was this all worth it ???

Are you kidding me , Definitely , I never thought I could be able to speak a language & understand this fast , And I realized that I WASTE TOO MUCH TIME on BS , By messing so many things at the same time instead of doing only one thing with complete focus , And so yes even though I failed the main experiment guidelines , I gained a LOT .
I think that the effect of brainwashing was reinforced the 2nd time when I couldn't keep up and just listened , TO find out the second day that I could keep up and understand REAL good , I don't think that it only has to do with deteriorated concentration because of the fact that my listening skills improved two-fold & my vocab recognition as well .

Also , It seems to me that the time needed for each person to reach that state of no-thinking differs from one person to the next according to his body .

And yes even though it was REAL hard , It was lots of fun as well !?

Cheers
Abazid on 16 April 2011

Cool, thanks for the report. And congratulations on sticking it out.

So, it seems like your short naps after 24 and 38 helped your comprehension a lot.

What are your plans now?
tbone on 16 April 2011

Thanks for this detailed account of your hours. It's interesting to read how you progressed throughout the experiment, and it's good to hear you had some fun whilst learning Russian too.

One of the things I noticed is that you seemed to experience a big improvement after longer periods of sleep, where I imagine your brain had more time to integrate everything and work its magic:

"I passed out again on my bed and slept for what seemed to feel like years (about 4-5 hours).....I started listening to the tracks that I repeated so many times and didn't get once , But this time they were so easy to understand & to listen to , That I finished these last tracks in the foundation so fast ."

"BAM , My body forced me to pass out again on bed...4 hours later.....When I listened to the 3rd CD in the vocab course I was amazed , This time I was capable of listening to the fast & complex sentences of the students and the teacher with ease & understanding as if I knew them , And I was also real fast with sentence creation that I felt that most of the information in the advanced course were also cemented as I progressed into the last cd."

I'm interested to learn what you plan next with Russian, after a good long sleep of course ;) , and wish you the best of results. It's a great language!

@tbone
Lol - by the time I'd made myself a cup of tea and posted this, I noticed your more succinct reply as the page refreshed. Great minds think alike, eh?!
Teango on 16 April 2011

Great minds think alike, eh?!

Yeah, but look at how much better a writer you are!

These experiments and techniques I'm discovering via this site, including your own experiments, Teango, are just
fascinating.
tbone on 16 April 2011

@tbone
Thanks *blushing* (double embarrassment now) :)
Teango on 16 April 2011

Not to be a D-bag or anything, but it sounds like you're someone who has roughly done about 72 hrs of studying. Maybe less, as just getting through a M.Thomas alone isn't going to get someone very far in a language. I do think it's nice that it only took a few days though instead of a few weeks, but I'm not particularly convinced this is anywhere near as efficient on a per-hour basis as doing 2 hrs a day for 36 days instead.
Sandman on 17 April 2011

It all depends on your constraints. If, like me, you're gainfully funemployed, something like this is attractive. I can
devote big blocks of time right now, but maybe later on I won't have the luxury. Maybe you're being sent overseas
in a few weeks. Again, good to know ways to get ahead of the curve.

tbone on 17 April 2011

Just curious, based on the cefr language ranks, what would you rate your current
speaking/listening/reading/writing at? Also, how many words would you say you know?
Cowlegend999 on 17 April 2011

I'm still not convinced you wouldn't do better doing a 16 hour day and 8 hours of sleep (perhaps 8 hrs work, siesta, 8 hrs work, night sleep).

If extreme brainwashing works, I would imagine it probably works best for vocabulary anyway as a single item of vocabulary is far easier to learn than a single point of grammar, so switching to "not thinking" earlier probably still wouldn't have been very useful.

You're still going to have to catch up on sleep afterwards, so the time spent constantly repeating because you were too tired to take it in is time you've lost.

Maybe you'd be better working to the point of "can't concentrate" then setting your alarm for a 3 hour sleep (two complete sleep cycles) then getting up and pushing through to "can't concentrate" again.

Also, caffeine isn't recommended for continuous use. Caffeine works by encouraging the body to burn energy reserves quickly. It gives a short-term boost in energy and alertness, but at the cost of your long-term endurance. In sustained use, it can also lead to poor blood circulation, which impairs both mental and physical function.
Cainntear on 17 April 2011

Sandman wrote:

Based off this statement I would like to remind everyone that if you spend 72 study hours total, the real question is, "how many of those 72 hours made am impact on your body? how many of those 72 hours physically changed you?" For example, you can study 72 hours worth of material over 2 months, over 2 weeks, or over 3 days. The purpose of you studying this material is to change how your mind works, and changing how your mind works IS a physical change: your body needs to adjust to this change. If you want your body to adjust quickly, it needs the proper elements (obtained from food, the sun, the moon, water, air, whichever you bring in...)

Cainntear wrote:

I'm still not convinced you wouldn't do better doing a 16 hour day and 8 hours of sleep (perhaps 8 hrs work, siesta, 8 hrs work, night sleep).

Abazid, there is a lot of truth to what Cainntear is saying here. However, I strongly believe you achieved better learning results during your "exhausted" state with many naps. Unfortunately, a normal 16-hour session alone--with your current techniques--will not prepare you for the state of learning you want.

But before I go any further, Abazid I want to thank you so much for the detailed post. We appreciate it :)

A couple points from my own experience:

1) Personally, I think there were better choices than coffee. Of course the type of coffee and how the coffee was made play a big part, and really to an extent to where even your own environment can have a huge effect on how your body responds to this coffee; however, regardless...coffee does not relax you. it stimulates you. this is very obvious, but for rapid learning your mind MUST be relaxed. there's nothing wrong with the stimulation, but a relaxed state has always had very profound results in myself and my students. I am sure you GREATLY realized this during your venture :)

My suggestion: definitely drink something you enjoy, but also go for something relaxing like peppermint tea or chamomile. If you want stimulation then you'll need the proper oxygen / blood flow associated with it: chew some spearmint gum (it is 'oxygenating') and drink oxygenated water. Oxygen = good for learning :)

2) The naps were completely necessary, so do not feel bad about them :) Even if you were truly "awake" 50 hours later, your brain would be pretty much in sleep mode. Especially when you awake for a moment and realize you were either hallucinating or being delusional :) The sleep gives your body important maintenance time. When you are awake, your body is obviously using energy to support your consciousness; however, when you sleep, your body can now utilize this energy to its maximum potential with performing maintenance tasks. Like I stated earlier: your mind needs time to adjust.

While exhausting your mind will obviously put it in a more vegetative state, the long process of exhaustion i find rather inefficient because the method to get to that state takes much time. The fact that a relaxed / vegetative / "alpha-waved" mind is extremely effective for learning is only surprising at first to people who normally don't pay attention to their own process of learning. The more relaxed and mindful you are of your experience: the better your body will internalize that experience information AFTER your body has had the proper maintenance time. Perhaps this maintenance time ("sleeping") is the body's chance to adapt to the new environment. (Please note: what you learn in 1 day is also part of your sensory environment.)

Abazid, if you or anyone else finds interest in an 8 hour learning technique that I have used with great success, I would be more than happy to write an article sharing this method. The 61-hour method you described reminds me of this; however, I think everyone here including yourself would agree that 8 hours with a lack of sleep is safer and healthier than 61 hours with a lack of sleep :) BUT...remember: the 8 hour method does have significant differences from the 61 hour method you described; however, the basic principals appear to have the same goals and purposes. Just like the 61-hour method, it is enlightening.

The only pre-requisite is that you know how to exercise Pangu Shengong (a type of qigong that is technically a shengong). Surely you could utilize another practice that is similar and accomplishes the same result, but unfortunately I do not know of an official name for an alternative practice :(

For you: find a qualified instructor on http://www.pangu.org/english/instructor/index.html , learn the method, and then you'll be able to initiate yourself to acquire all sorts of information in 8 hour sessions :) Is this something anyone would be interested in for rapid learning?

Thank you again for sharing your information.
aerozeplyn on 17 April 2011

I'd like to see you write that article. I read up a bit on Mike Mangini after you mentioned him and have been thinking about whether it's possible to adapt his 90-minute practice regimens to language learning.
carlonove on 17 April 2011

Congratulations on having the stamina to go through with this! I found your result interesting. Personally I would have preferred the model which included 8 hours of sleep at regular intervals, but I am a middle aged woman who need my sleep in order to function.

You have however inspired me to try and set up longer study periods. I just need to find a freezer big enough to hold two teenagers and a large husband while I do it :-).
Solfrid Cristin on 17 April 2011

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

I just need to find a freezer big enough to hold two teenagers and a large husband while I do it :-).

I understand you. I have a small wife and three large teenagers.

slucido on 17 April 2011

This has been a very intriguing read. I would be interested to know how learning via this method affects retention. The number of times in my life I've "panic revised" for an exam the night before - got decent marks but - after only a few weeks have forgotton aspects in areas I was not daily utilising.
I can't help thinking it's rather like acquiring a decent suntan. You can rush into it and be a bronzed god after a week but it will wash away all the more quickly, as opposed to the slow methods.

Congratulations & good luck in your further progress anyway.
HMS on 17 April 2011

HMS wrote:

HMS this is very true. Especially when you rapidly acquire information in a short time, you are also better off taking the time to exercise information that you will readily USE. Using this information readily can consist of actually speaking the language OR by continuing your studies. For example, the information on how your mouth/throat/etc needs to move in order to create new language sounds is very important information. Of course, if you do not use these muscles because you are not using the newly acquired information ("if you do not speak the new pronunciations because you are not speaking the language,") then your body will eventually change to accommodate what you do more often. Therefore, even the physical aspect of speaking the language will require more energy from your body--thus slowing you down.

The same holds true with a suntan: if you want a suntan, then you have to be the person who has a suntan. You have to have the same habits as they do in order to have that suntan quality. If you want to speak a new language, you have to have the same habits as that language speaker in order to speak at their quality. Obviously, suntans and language learning have their differences...especially since they affect different organs. (I am including human skin as an organ. In fact, it is the body's largest organ anways soo....)

So I believe a root question is: Since Abazid gained what he gained in less than 60 hours, will he also lose this knowledge if he does not use the knowledge for 3 days?

I strongly doubt it. As Abazid posted earlier, he went in knowing very little--i believe absolutely nothing--about the Russian language. In 3 days of study abstinence, how likely can one expect that Abazid will remember nothing about the Russian language?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if his language initialization has brought him to a point where he can continue to acquire more Russian language information in the future even easier than your exceptional beginner. Abazid, how do you feel? :) Or maybe you should tell us in a week. I will be following this thread.
aerozeplyn on 18 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Update :

I spent about 3 years in school learning french and I don't remember much of it ,Yet I feel that I know more about Russian WAY more than I know about french , I think it's the saturation and exposure to a lot of material & exercise that could be the reason .

Current Russian skills :

Listening: Intermediate , I could recognize & understand words in native convos that don't have complex & sophisticated vocab .

Speaking: Intermediate , I could speak and pronounce the language correctly and express myself when I need to , But I still need lots more vocabulary to fill the gaps.

Reading :Beginner , I could now read the language through my learning of the alphabet and merging it with my listening experience , To work out meanings .

Writing: Beginner , I could write based on what I listened to using my knowledge of the vocab but definitely BAD spelling .

Currently I changed my windows language into paroski to add more vocab and make my reading better , And downloaded many dual language novels along with movies to start practicing more & more of it .

Was this all worth it ???

Are you kidding me , Definitely , I never thought I could be able to speak a language & understand this fast , And I realized that I WASTE TOO MUCH TIME on BS , By messing so many things at the same time instead of doing only one thing with complete focus , And so yes even though I failed the main experiment guidelines , I gained a LOT .
I think that the effect of brainwashing was reinforced the 2nd time when I couldn't keep up and just listened , TO find out the second day that I could keep up and understand REAL good , I don't think that it only has to do with deteriorated concentration because of the fact that my listening skills improved two-fold & my vocab recognition as well .

Also , It seems to me that the time needed for each person to reach that state of no-thinking differs from one person to the next according to his body .

And yes even though it was REAL hard , It was lots of fun as well !?

Cheers

Brainwash or Hogwash?

After following this very interesting thread, and with due respect to the OP, my conclusion is that this experiment is not really about learning a language but more about jump-starting the learning process. For many of us who have been working on our target languages over the years, to read that a marathon session of Michel Thomas can produce an intermediate level speaker of Russian in a few days is downright ludicrous. Just exactly what does intermediate mean? I'm not familiar with the MT Russian course, but the Spanish and French versions that I have listened to are at about a CEFR A1-A2 level. Frankly, I do not believe that spending a few days holed up with some MT cd's and lots of coffee will actually generate any permanent or long-term ability to interact with native speakers.

That said, what I do believe is that the true value of this experiment lies in the fact that it did provide a quick introduction to the language. This is what I call jump-starting the learning process. It's a quick introduction to the sounds and the grammar. It provides a base on which to build. And this is something to be cultivated or it will disappear quickly, as happens so often with skills that are not used.
s_allard on 18 April 2011

Thanks you all for your kind words =) .

Quote:

So, it seems like your short naps after 24 and 38 helped your comprehension a lot.

Quote:

One of the things I noticed is that you seemed to experience a big improvement after longer periods of sleep, where I imagine your brain had more time to integrate everything and work its magic:

There are three possibilities , One which is well-known and almost everyone has experimented with countless of times is Sleep-learning/Incubation , Or just the increase of my concentration which I believe may not be so , Or maybe due to the wealth of info sucked in during my state of deteriorated concentration , The obvious is the incubation/sleep learning , But which of the two is in the equation , I can't find out for sure .

Quote:

Thanks for this detailed account of your hours. It's interesting to read how you progressed throughout the experiment, and it's good to hear you had some fun whilst learning Russian too.

You're welcome , I hope it helps , It's definitely a fun language =D , I love the fact that you can throw words all over the place and they'd still make sense , Such simplicity is very sophisticated .

Quote:

What are your plans now?

Quote:

I'm interested to learn what you plan next with Russian, after a good long sleep of course ;) , and wish you the best of results. It's a great language!

My goal after all from this was understanding a documentary in Russian which is very complex in terms of scientific terms , So I need to step up to achieve fluency to be able to get to the point of understanding everything they say .
Currently I'm revising the third MT course and working the exercises & extra vocab .
Next up : I've researched many people experiences with Photoreading whole mind system & Foreign language/vocabulary acquistion on the PR forum and other places , And I've found that it's accelerates the process of understanding & memorization , The best among them was:

Quote:

Paul Scheele :When you PhotoRead to learn a second language there are a few good tips:
1) PhotoRead the translation dictionary weekly for the first few months. This will give you visual recognition of words.
2) Listen to audio tapes with conversations in the target language, ideally with music from the culture playing in the background. This will help activate the language. Learning Strategies has a good EasyLearn language course that can really help.
3) PhotoRead common parlance or phrase dictionaries to pick up the idiomatic expressions that are in vogue.
4) Use your whole mind to read current periodicals.
5) Get a variety of texts from grade school and college level texts on grammar. Use the PhotoReading whole mind system on a chapter at a time.
6) Immerse in the culture. Be playful. Re-engage the naturally brilliant learner that you were before you knew better. That's how you acquired your native language...before you ever went to school. Remember that.
7) There are a few excellent Paraliminal tapes that you might consider using...Personal Genius and Memory Supercharger. If you feel stuck, try the Belief recording.

And I think I'm gonna use this next to acquire more vocabulary .
But this time I'm gonna do "Syntopic Reading" which is going through many books , Say about 10-15 , And activating(Going through them consciously) the best of them , I'm talking many grammar books ,Translation/picture dictionaries...etc .

Quote:

Actually it's about 54-60 hours without the 10-15 min breaks .
I would totally agree with you if I've only did the Foundation course which is indeed basic , But the Advanced & Vocabulary course are comprehensive in terms of Grammar & vocabulary build-up and If I indeed needed to use the language to converse with people around Russia , I'd be able to manage pretty well .
In regards of efficiency , I think I agree that small chunks distributed on a month with constant practice & revision would be indeed better as it gives time to the brain to process everything at ease and the time to practice as well , Which would be ideal , But it still takes a lot of time and there's also the factor of boredom with the slowness of the pace & the huge factor of procrastination (Making one get lazy )
An interesting thing I've noticed in this , Is that (Particularly with MT) as you continue with the building block approach , Even though I was progressing fast , Each extra building block/layer seemed to reinforce the one before it and solidifty it especially with the constant practice , That at the end . I felt they're all connected/associated together making them stick as a whole , And as I went to the more advanced course , That new structures reinforced the older ones solidifying them further , In my experience this form of constant extended reinforcement is probably why I feel very familiar with all that I've learned , Which is unique to this .
But generally , I think that such format work hard till you're tired , Rest & continue , Saves time and would be great for developing a solid initial foundation and then developing it later on with time .

Quote:

I totally agree , It also would be best if you tend to procrastinate a lot , Which I believe sth most people do anyway , But still it needs a very good purpose to keep on going on without giving up .

Quote:

Just curious, based on the cefr language ranks, what would you rate your current
speaking/listening/reading/writing at? Also, how many words would you say you know?

I'm totally new to the whole CEFR ranking , So I'm not sure if this is true , I'd say just at the beginning of B1 at both listening & speaking , And at the End of A1 in Reading & Writing , If it helps , I could show you the MT third level to see for yourself if you'e knowldegeable in Russian .
Regarding Vocab , I can't possibly know how to even answer this even if it was toward my English Vocabulary , But I still got many gaps .

Quote:

I'm still not convinced you wouldn't do better doing a 16 hour day and 8 hours of sleep (perhaps 8 hrs work, siesta, 8 hrs work, night sleep).

I don' think that most of people need the default 8 hrs of sleep , It's different for every person , But 5-6 hours is more than fine at least for me , I think it would be best described as work hard until you're tired, Rest & then continue .
I think it's a good time saver to jump start anything but it also depends on the material used , But if mixed with other systems like Photoreading & memory techniques , It could work wonders .

Quote:

If extreme brainwashing works, I would imagine it probably works best for vocabulary anyway as a single item of vocabulary is far easier to learn than a single point of grammar, so switching to "not thinking" earlier probably still wouldn't have been very useful.

I thought so before going with the experiment , This is why I've positioned MT in the beginning as my research pointed out that it completely depends on understanding , And I think this is still true .

Quote:

You're still going to have to catch up on sleep afterwards, so the time spent constantly repeating because you were too tired to take it in is time you've lost.

I thought so as well , That I'd sleep like 24 hours or more , But the weird thing is that I found myself sleeping for about no more than 5 hrs , But in the following days , What I've noticed is that my eyes tend to be stressed easier when I'm spending time on my PC , I think that if one is going to do this , It should be done more like once a month or done with the "Natural" sleep period .

Quote:

Maybe you'd be better working to the point of "can't concentrate" then setting your alarm for a 3 hour sleep (two complete sleep cycles) then getting up and pushing through to "can't concentrate" again.

Yeah I think this what would sum it up as best , Because each one's body is different .

Quote:

Also, caffeine isn't recommended for continuous use. Caffeine works by encouraging the body to burn energy reserves quickly. It gives a short-term boost in energy and alertness, but at the cost of your long-term endurance. In sustained use, it can also lead to poor blood circulation, which impairs both mental and physical function.

Thanks for the advice , It's just that I'm already used to drinking 3-4 cups a day , And I just increased it to about 4-6 but in the next 38 hours of the exp I cut down on it because it made me feel bad and it wasn't doing much in keeping me up anyway .

Quote:

Not only it's exhausted , It's also very hard to continue through with as well , I was DYING to get some rest , So yes I agree that when one feels in need of rest , He should listen to his body's signals .

Quote:

But before I go any further, Abazid I want to thank you so much for the detailed post. We appreciate it :)

You're welcome =) .

Quote:

1) Personally, I think there were better choices than coffee. Of course the type of coffee and how the coffee was made play a big part, and really to an extent to where even your own environment can have a huge effect on how your body responds to this coffee; however, regardless...coffee does not relax you. it stimulates you. this is very obvious, but for rapid learning your mind MUST be relaxed. there's nothing wrong with the stimulation, but a relaxed state has always had very profound results in myself and my students. I am sure you GREATLY realized this during your venture :)

Thankfully I've developed the skill of knowing how to relax myself in most of conditions however stressed , Which helped a lot , But indeed it had a bad effect on me in the beginning as I increased the dose , And later it lost its effect completely , I felt like I was "Drunk" .

Quote:

My suggestion: definitely drink something you enjoy, but also go for something relaxing like peppermint tea or chamomile. If you want stimulation then you'll need the proper oxygen / blood flow associated with it: chew some spearmint gum (it is 'oxygenating') and drink oxygenated water. Oxygen = good for learning :)

Thanks for the advice , And yep , diluted h202 water/oxygenated water is great for helping with many things.

Quote:

2) The naps were completely necessary, so do not feel bad about them :) Even if you were truly "awake" 50 hours later, your brain would be pretty much in sleep mode. Especially when you awake for a moment and realize you were either hallucinating or being delusional :) The sleep gives your body important maintenance time. When you are awake, your body is obviously using energy to support your consciousness; however, when you sleep, your body can now utilize this energy to its maximum potential with performing maintenance tasks. Like I stated earlier: your mind needs time to adjust.

I agree , It definitely could be sleep learning as well .

Quote:

While exhausting your mind will obviously put it in a more vegetative state, the long process of exhaustion i find rather inefficient because the method to get to that state takes much time. The fact that a relaxed / vegetative / "alpha-waved" mind is extremely effective for learning is only surprising at first to people who normally don't pay attention to their own process of learning. The more relaxed and mindful you are of your experience: the better your body will internalize that experience information AFTER your body has had the proper maintenance time. Perhaps this maintenance time ("sleeping") is the body's chance to adapt to the new environment. (Please note: what you learn in 1 day is also part of your sensory environment.

I'm usually functioning from Alpha when I'm studying (Silva & Photoreading Training led to that after a long while) , Yet I think at the time I was losing my concentration completely I was probably functioning from Deep theta or even Delta coz when I closed my eyes for a second , I could see "Clear" vivid imagery like as if I was dreaming while awake , I bet this is probably why this had to do with brainwashing , One is wide open to suggestions , I also bet that this would be a TOTALLY different experience with talented instructors .

Quote:

Abazid, if you or anyone else finds interest in an 8 hour learning technique that I have used with great success, I would be more than happy to write an article sharing this method. The 61-hour method you described reminds me of this; however, I think everyone here including yourself would agree that 8 hours with a lack of sleep is safer and healthier than 61 hours with a lack of sleep :) BUT...remember: the 8 hour method does have significant differences from the 61 hour method you described; however, the basic principals appear to have the same goals and purposes. Just like the 61-hour method, it is enlightening.

Please do , I'm always interested in new systems and after all , One doesn't have free time as much as he wants , I had to free all this time to do this and it wasn't easy as well .

Quote:

The only pre-requisite is that you know how to exercise Pangu Shengong (a type of qigong that is technically a shengong). Surely you could utilize another practice that is similar and accomplishes the same result, but unfortunately I do not know of an official name for an alternative practice :(

For you: find a qualified instructor on http://www.pangu.org/english/instructor/index.html , learn the method, and then you'll be able to initiate yourself to acquire all sorts of information in 8 hour sessions :) Is this something anyone would be interested in for rapid learning?

You've mentioned sth about having information that would be learned in 3 months in one sessions , Could you elaborate further on your experience with this and what did you use it in , What happened..etc ?

Quote:

Congratulations on having the stamina to go through with this! I found your result interesting. Personally I would have preferred the model which included 8 hours of sleep at regular intervals, but I am a middle aged woman who need my sleep in order to function.
You have however inspired me to try and set up longer study periods. I just need to find a freezer big enough to hold two teenagers and a large husband while I do it :-).

Thank you Solfrid =) , I do think you should stick to sleeping "only" when your body begins to show you signs of stress , Pre-defined periods only lead to inflexibility , I thought I was going to do 81 hrs and ended up with 72 hrs and not even connected .
One important thing I've also learned is that I was capable of arranging & managing my time to fit into this , Finding out that there's a lot of wasted time I've already had in between different periods and that I could definitely endure longer periods of learning if I'm willing to , Which surprised me , I bet you have time in between the main daily tasks as well .

Quote:

This has been a very intriguing read. I would be interested to know how learning via this method affects retention. The number of times in my life I've "panic revised" for an exam the night before - got decent marks but - after only a few weeks have forgotton aspects in areas I was not daily utilising.
I can't help thinking it's rather like acquiring a decent suntan. You can rush into it and be a bronzed god after a week but it will wash away all the more quickly, as opposed to the slow methods.
Congratulations & good luck in your further progress anyway.

Thanks HMS , I'm very familiar with Panic revising or more like Hardcore cramming , And I also lost many of what I was studying back then , Because mainly I didn't want to study it , I was "Forced" to ,And so It felt more like torture , Hence my brain dumped all the info coz I've had no extra purpose for it , Or more like it was dumped in the exam lol .
In this case , I had a clear purpose which I still do , It was the understanding of material I need in my current research and my excitement for it , And when you sit down for 72 hours without being forced in anyway to do sth you don't want , Somehow this shows the importance of such information to your brain , Hence it's retained.
Revising the user guides of the courses & testing myself, Almost all of the material comes up naturally , Yet I do believe that MT has a big part to do with this coz it seems like a mnemonic build up course with understanding .

Quote:

So I believe a root question is: Since Abazid gained what he gained in less than 60 hours, will he also lose this knowledge if he does not use the knowledge for 3 days?
I strongly doubt it. As Abazid posted earlier, he went in knowing very little--i believe absolutely nothing--about the Russian language. In 3 days of study abstinence, how likely can one expect that Abazid will remember nothing about the Russian language?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if his language initialization has brought him to a point where he can continue to acquire more Russian language information in the future even easier than your exceptional beginner. Abazid, how do you feel? :) Or maybe you should tell us in a week. I will be following this thread.

I've already immersed myself through changing my Windows language into Russian (At least 3 months), So that I'd add up more vocab I'm already used to and show my brain that this information is still wanted & needed , And I'm having fun with it , I'm using it to think and make up words whenever I'm free , And I've downloaded many great russian movies to increase my recognition of what I already know and what I don't , So I think it's all about how you feed your brain back and how important sth is to you .

Quote:

Brainwash or Hogwash?
After following this very interesting thread, and with due respect to the OP, my conclusion is that this experiment is not really about learning a language but more about jump-starting the learning process. For many of us who have been working on our target languages over the years, to read that a marathon session of Michel Thomas can produce an intermediate level speaker of Russian in a few days is downright ludicrous. Just exactly what does intermediate mean? I'm not familiar with the MT Russian course, but the Spanish and French versions that I have listened to are at about a CEFR A1-A2 level. Frankly, I do not believe that spending a few days holed up with some MT cd's and lots of coffee will actually generate any permanent or long-term ability to interact with native speakers.
That said, what I do believe is that the true value of this experiment lies in the fact that it did provide a quick introduction to the language. This is what I call jump-starting the learning process. It's a quick introduction to the sounds and the grammar. It provides a base on which to build. And this is something to be cultivated or it will disappear quickly, as happens so often with skills that are not used.

This is exactly why I wanted to do this experiment , Because I thought it was too good to be true , I've seen some genius memory man do sth similar (search Learn Icelandic in a week "Tammet") , And it made me think that it could be possible for us through such means .
As to the complexity of the MT course , I believe that the vocab. course is pretty advanced not only with the grammar but also with the amount of vocabulary that could be developed from it , I'm new with the whole CEFR ranking thingie , I still do believe that I'm probably at the beginning of the B1 rank , If it's helpful to you , I could provide the 3rd course guide to someone who knows Russian and after analyzing it he could rank it based on its complexity .
Abazid on 19 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Quote:

Just curious, based on the cefr language ranks, what would you rate your current
speaking/listening/reading/writing at? Also, how many words would you say you know?

How are you measuring your levels? I think you're overestimating your B1 level for speaking, at least. You can't just listen to a language and come out speaking it. Speaking is a learned skill and takes practice. Lots of it. It's not much different from any other muscle training. You may have the words and sentences all formed in your head, but I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more work to actually get them out of your mouth in a non-halting, stuttering manner without a lot of practice.

R.
==
hrhenry on 19 April 2011

hrhenry wrote:

Abazid wrote:

Quote:

Just curious, based on the cefr language ranks, what would you rate your current
speaking/listening/reading/writing at? Also, how many words would you say you know?

Like I said I'm new to the whole CEFR ranking ,I mentioned I'm in the "first" degree of B1 because my experience matches their description :

B1 - Intermediate level - Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest.

And if you've done MT , It's all about Listening & testing oneself in speaking , And yes coming up with the words used to take much effort in the beginning , But as I've progressed the time needed decreased and the whole translating process decreased , In the 3rd course it became natural to come up with words without thinking , But I still got a lot to learn anyways .

I've mentioned that I could provide the 3rd course manual to someone who has far superior language skills in russian as ways for ranking the material that seems advanced for me , I could be wrong after all =) .

Abazid on 19 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

B1 - Intermediate level - Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest.

You forgot the last sentence: "Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans."

Quote:

And if you've done MT , It's all about Listening & testing oneself in speaking , And yes coming up with the words used to take much effort in the beginning , But as I've progressed the time needed decreased and the whole translating process decreased , In the 3rd course it became natural to come up with words without thinking , But I still got a lot to learn anyways .

I've mentioned that I could provide the 3rd course manual to someone who has far superior language skills in russian as ways for ranking the material that seems advanced for me , I could be wrong after all =) .

I've done the Polish Foundation and Advanced courses, and I would not have been able to place myself at a B1 level after completing them. Extra vocabulary wouldn't have helped much in that regard either. Maybe the Russian Vocabulary course also has more grammar - I don't know as I've not done the course.

But the sentence which you omitted is really what bumps your level up from A2 to B1, in my opinion.

R.
==
hrhenry on 19 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Have you spoken to people in a work or school environment in Russian? Can you really deal with "most situations likely to arise whilst travelling"?

Others here may be willing to grant you A2, but I'm not that generous. If you're going to claim that you've reached B1 in a weekend, you'll need to back it up.
Arekkusu on 19 April 2011

Quote:

You forgot the last sentence: "Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans."

Yes ,Briefly & in a generally predictable manner I could ,But I can't go in lots of sophisticated adjectives in regards of intricate details like I do with English , If that means that my skill level between A2 & B1 , That's fine by me , That was never my goal ,I can't be sure where exactly I am with a ranking system that I don't understand

Quote:

Yes it does have more grammatical structures and it fills the gaps in the previous programs in regards to situations , Here's part of the description :

Quote:

Learning vocabulary is notoriously difficult if attempted in the traditional way – with long lists and hours of memorisation. However, with the Michel Thomas Method, new words and phrases are presented in such a way that they cannot be forgotten. They are interwoven with what has gone before so they are imprinted in your knowledge bank for ever.

The vocabulary in the courses is carefully chosen from a relatively small number of ‘power words’ which open up an amazing range of expression and comprehension.

Building and expanding on the language structures taught in the Foundation and Advanced Courses, these new Vocabulary Courses give you all you need to enjoy travelling in the Russian-speaking world, be it for business or pleasure.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michel-Thomas-Vocabulary-Course -Russian/dp/0340983248/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c - Source

Quote:

I'm very satisfied with my effort & my results and whether granted A1 or B1 in anybody's opinion , It doesn't matter much to me , Whatever I'll do anyway won't change your strong disbelief & constantly skeptical attitude of what is & isn't possible anyway , So whatever you say about me is true ;) .

Abazid on 19 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Oh come on -- there is a huge difference between claiming A1 or B1 after a few days and you know it. If we are reading this thread, it's because we want to know that you did X and it yielded Y. As it stands, what Y is is still a mystery.
Arekkusu on 19 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

The reason for the skepticism is because what you've done was done in a vacuum. It's really easy to overestimate your abilities with nothing external telling you how far you've progressed other than the Michel Thomas Method's own course.

The real test comes when you start using the language with people. Get on Skype, find a language partner - you said you have a lot more to learn anyway. Once you start speaking the language with native speakers, you'll have a much more honest assessment of your abilities and where you need to improve.

This isn't about you succeeding or failing. It's about fairly assessing your progress.

R.
==
hrhenry on 19 April 2011

hrhenry wrote:

Abazid wrote:

I'm not quite sure if you're aware that the teacher in MT Russian course is a native speaker , Not including the fact that the whole premise of the MT course is the confidence resulted from constant layered testing of oneself and then correction if wrong through the voice of a native speaker (Not true about the courses done by Michel Thomas himself) , So I'd say that "Learning in a Vacuum" is pretty much not true in anyway .

And basically ,I don't really have much time right now to look around for people to socialize with in Russian and to "test" myself , I can pretty much understand the clear general words pronounced in most of the movies I've downloaded , But not the harder ones especially as they have different accents and they're very fast and they seem to take back some of the endings as well , The best I can do right now is to show you the user guide of the 3rd level as a gesture of sharing my own progress not as proof of anything for you to see , I've mastered most of what was in the audio and currently working on the extra exercises included inside .

http://ifile.it/z3gp4w0 - MT User Guide
Abazid on 19 April 2011

Whatever level you achieved, the main thing now is to review and build on your passion for learning Russian. It would be a shame to forget up to 80% after all the effort you've put in.
Teango on 19 April 2011

I think the way to dispel this skepticism here is to do a Youtube video just like many polyglots and language learners have done. Nothing fancy. Just a few minutes talking about any subject such as daily activities or family. What would be nice would be to have another speaker to interact with, but that may be asking too much.

The point of all of this is that we have to look at objective facts and not get bogged down in vague discussions of what means what. Who cares about the curriculum of MT level 3? Show us the facts. I say that if a person claims to be at a B1 level, then the onus is on them to demonstrate it.
s_allard on 19 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Of course I'm aware the MT Russian teacher is a native speaker. Who cares? It's still not external feedback, so yes, what you did was indeed in a vacuum.

If you're unwilling to take your language to the next level by actually using it with native speakers (because that's what you'll need to do - reviewing the MT course over and over won't advance you any more), just do as s_allard suggests and post a youtube video. You'll get external feedback soon enough.

R.
==
hrhenry on 19 April 2011

Just a quick note to clarify my last post. Although I am very skeptical about the results of this experiment, I am keeping an open mind. By and large the regular contributors to HTLAL are a curious, helpful and open-minded crowd. Despite our differences and disagreements, we share an interest or a passion for foreign languages and intercultural communication. In addition, we are certainly interested in novel or more effective ways of language learning. I would also add that most of us have realized that mastering a language to a high level of proficiency tends to be a long and often arduous but satisfying process.

When I see someone claiming to achieve B1 proficiency in Russian after 3 days of intense study, I am doubtful but intrigued. This is because I'm currently looking to have a go at Mandarin. As I survey all the usual options including classes at some local schools. I'm not too thrilled because I find classes tend to be a bit of a gamble and learning Mandarin by myself seems a bit daunting. So, I'm curious to see what could be accomplished by the Accelerated Learning technique. Maybe I could do something similar and jump-start my Mandarin. But I want to see some results.
s_allard on 19 April 2011

Nice experiment!

Abazid, why don't you go to the Russian Cultural Centre in El Dokki (near Dokki metro station) and try to find a native Russian to speak with?

There is a friendly lady who teach piano to children, and I think she will not hesitate to talk with you.

Tell us how the conversation goes.

Hashimi on 20 April 2011

It seems that there's a form of a big misunderstanding going on here , I wanted to do this from about 2 years ago , But I've always put it off for whatever reason , But around lately I've decided to do it and see where it goes once and for all , I thought that like usual starting a public journal would be a fun thing to do , A great way to share whether it's beneficial and at the same time it would be useful for me to stick to doing it .

But what seems to be going in here feels like as if I'm doing Internet marketing and I'm trying to make you believe something for you to buy my product , Or I'm trying to reach a super-star status or some superficial BS trivial pursuit .

I'm not here to be judged or graded by the revered know-it-all "Arm-Chair" skeptics that would rather in their extreme close-minded skepticism talk for hours rather than get on their asses and get their feet wet and try it for themselves and see if it works for them or not and then talk with authority & experience .

If you're SO confident in your own experience & learning methods , Why are you lurking here trying to prove me wrong everytime I utter my own beliefs or experiences ?
If you don't trust my experience details and results then it bears repeating , Leave and stop wasting my own time .

My main goal with this was to learn the amount of Russian that would make me understand the material I wanted to learn for my own research , I've never mentioned grades in the beginning until someone asked what I would think , And even then I mentioned I might be completely wrong , And till now I didn't succeed with my own goal , I still need more training to understand this.

The only extra thing that I came out was that in my own experience I could use this if I were to go to a foreign country , And If I did the same for more than a week , Fluency would definitely take less time especially if I had more memory skills , If you think that's not possible , Then I respect that , But before you tell me so , Try it for yourself first .

After researching CEFR in more detail :

https://www.teachers.cambridgeesol.org/ts/exams/CEFR/A2
https://www.teachers.cambridgeesol.org/ts/exams/CEFR/B1

From what I've studied and what I "remember" from the MT course , At best I'd probably would rank A2 , Probably more advanced A2 , As I'm capable of expressing myself a little more this description , Yet my listening skills aren't very advanced yet , And there would be still some situations in which I wouldn't know what would be the exact vocabulary to use and I would be at loss for words to put on my English language background .

Yet , I withdraw my assumption completely back in regards of ranking .

First of all , No ranking system is EVER accurate & perfect enough to reflect a person's level of skill not including the so many factors entwined in the process , Sometimes even the supposedly most complete language tests wouldn't be very accurate as a reflection of a person skill at the time .

Not including the fact that I'm a single person , My concentration , memory skills , processing skills are completely different from every person , Hence what I could achieve is different as well .

Hence even if I was lenient enough to comply to be graded in a 2 min video because my words aren't trustworthy & vague , It'd wouldn't make much difference with a video that I made myself .

Finally , When I offered the study guide , It's not rocket science to realize that it was very obvious that for those that went through MT before that anyone even of average ability could learn what's within the curriculum (and end up remembering the material with varying retention rates depending on his own skills) and to show the rank of material for those that are obsessed by ranks , That's all .

Quote:

Of course I'm aware the MT Russian teacher is a native speaker. Who cares? It's still not external feedback, so yes, what you did was indeed in a vacuum.

This is ridiculous , I've learnt English and I now speak it fluently with an American accent without having to speak to "One" native speaker , Only through learning the basics & advanced materials and then reading books & watching tons of movies until WAY later that I started to use it with people online , in Job interviews and with Native speakers and I was already very good at it .

The amount of constant testing I did alone on MT Russian and then finding the exact same patterns while reading & in the movies I've watched and continue to , Is very much external feedback ,And that very much works for me as it did before .

And in the end this wasn't my goal , You could simply assume that I'm lying about my progress if I come off as a Hypey dishonest person .

Quote:

If you're unwilling to take your language to the next level by actually using it with native speakers (because that's what you'll need to do - reviewing the MT course over and over won't advance you any more), just do as s_allard suggests and post a youtube video. You'll get external feedback soon enough.

R.

Maybe I'll do that in the future , But when I feel like doing it for learning , Not to prove your own point and demonstrate myself to you .

Abazid on 22 April 2011

Update :

I've been looking around & researching for the best memory techniques to use along with Photo-Reading in extra grammar & vocabulary acquisition .

Note:I have to mention that PR doesn't give you photographic memory , It seems to make any form of information very familiar & easily understandable to process that when you try to read through or memorize it's very easy to perform so , And once you stop thinking & trust the process and shut down your constant left brain nagging ,You find many intuitive nudges related to your purpose surface subtly , Like where to look , what to read and the main ideas the book..etc , But even though it cuts down tremendously on memorization time if thats your aim , You STILL have to memorize in the activation process ,This is why I'm looking for the best memory techniques to use along .

After researching around for a while , The best that came up was "Phenomenal Memory" and what was intriguing(Synchronicity at hand) was finding that there's a part about Language and it specifically had to do with "Russian" , I then went around all over the place to check the authenticity of the testimonials through the forum and many other places (Including this forum) ,And I was intrigued to find the incredible results of many people from 15 yr old teenagers to even an 80 year old student =D .

After lots of research in what the difference between their methods and the other mainstream memory methods , I've found out that theirs was incredibly systematic, very flexible & practical in every aspect and by far complete , And the students found it hard especially at the first 12 intensive lessons and then after getting to the 24th lesson all was incredibly satisfied that they wished they learned it from a very long time(There's a test at the end of the 24 lesson that comprises all the blocks of information they memorized since the start which is a lot and it shows TRUE progress) , At the 59th lesson , Most say that they have WAY stronger visualization , concentration & focus and can start to memorize books word for word verbatim ,Even one of the graduates won the 129 position in the memory competition (I've seen his name and confirmed it myself)

One of the graduated students that later on became an instructor claimed (inside the forum posts) he already has memorized about 12 books and learned to speak very good Italian in 2 intensive weeks (200 or more words per 4 hours a day)..etc .

Intrigued by so many reports all over the place ,I wanted this for myself ,So I decided to test this for myself and go through the 60 lessons and see where would my Russian go with this as I go through it .

So I downloaded the course , And I'm going to start reading the manual tonight before starting with the lessons , I'm basically going to work daily at it and I will post my results later .
Abazid on 22 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Quote:

Of course I'm aware the MT Russian teacher is a native speaker. Who cares? It's still not external feedback, so yes, what you did was indeed in a vacuum.

I still maintain that what you did was in a vacuum.

See, when you get too cocky, people will generally be more than willing to find your faults, because you're just cocky enough to ignore the faults.

Sorry, but I can tell from your writing that you're not a native-like speaker. You're writing is quite good, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't have a native/native-like feel to it.

I've not heard you speak English, but I'm willing to wager that I'd be able to hear non-native characteristics in your speech and accent, especially if you've not spoken with "One" native speaker.

Now, back to your intensive Russian weekend. If you don't like the word "proof", then let's rephrase the request to asking for "results". If you've obtained the results you claim, you should have no trouble producing tangible evidence. Hell, if I obtained the results you claim to have obtained, I'd be pretty damn proud of it and show everyone I possibly could, not just talk about it.

R.
==

hrhenry on 22 April 2011

Abazid,

ignore people like hrhenry; they're obviously no help anyways. who cares if what you did was in a vacuum?

The point is, you attacked a large dataset of information, much of that is surely still in your short-term memory, and
best of all, you can now continue your studies and experience many connections with the Russian language MUCH
better with that larger dataset in your short-term memory. These connections will bring many positive results, which
in-turn will have a deeper mark on your new self.

Personally, I have a deep recommendation for you. You need to use everything activated in your short-term memory
to experience positive language connections. The more fun and discovery you have--and the better re-enforcement
of these new experiences--the less likely you will ever forget them. People forget random sets of data all the time
(ie- the information you studied in your 3-day period); however, people seldom forget experiences. And your
experience will ease your memory into all of the additional elements (words, phrases, etc) involved in the experience.
This is why people use mnemonics. This is also why when people learn phrases or words in a particular order, they
are better likely to recall those words and phrases when they work through the same or similar sequence.

You have all experienced this; it should be no magical mystery.

So in conclusion, I would strongly recommend that you use the valuable time you have left of your intensely activated
study. Don't worry so much about acquiring more learning / memory techniques; however, focus on using this current
language with native speakers.

Also, this entire thread has inspired me to write a thread on rapid improvement. I've already written many articles on
my computer here... and i'll just have to post them a little at a time. (It is far too much information to understand all
at once.)

Unfortunately for some people in this thread, when you are busy looking for faults, that leaves you with less focus to
find the valuable information in someone's message. No communication is 100% correct; language is just too
insignificant to explain the experience. With a site dedicated to studying languages, you would think that language
learners would understand that....
aerozeplyn on 22 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

It seems that there's a form of a big misunderstanding going on here , I wanted to do
this from about 2 years ago , But I've always put it off for whatever reason ,

2 years ago? You wouldn't by any chance have had any contact with or introduction to the language during
that time, would you?

Abazid wrote:

I'm not here to be judged or graded by the revered know-it-all "Arm-Chair" skeptics that
would rather in their extreme close-minded skepticism talk for hours rather than get on their asses and get
their feet wet and try it for themselves and see if it works for them or not and then talk with authority &
experience .

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the "know-it-all armchair skeptics"; I'm sure you realize that many of them
have studied way more languages than you, and tried out way more methods than you. As romantic as the
idea of being the illuminated one against a crowd of closed-minded non-believers may seem, the general
wisdom of other members shouldn't be ignored.

Abazid wrote:

If you're SO confident in your own experience & learning methods , Why are you lurking
here trying to prove me wrong everytime I utter my own beliefs or experiences ?
If you don't trust my experience details and results then it bears repeating , Leave and stop wasting my own
time .

Because "uttering beliefs" is not proof. You make a claim, we react. That's what forums are. Would you
prefer that only people who agree with you read this thread?

Abazid wrote:

My main goal with this was to learn the amount of Russian that would make me
understand the material I wanted to learn for my own research , I've never mentioned grades in the
beginning until someone asked what I would think , And even then I mentioned I might be completely wrong
, And till now I didn't succeed with my own goal , I still need more training to understand this.

It seems armchair skeptics weren't all that wrong in the end.

Arekkusu on 22 April 2011

carlonove wrote:

I'd like to see you write that article. I read up a bit on Mike Mangini after you mentioned him
and have been thinking about whether it's possible to adapt his 90-minute practice regimens to language
learning.

yes, it is absolutely possible. Have you read Mike Mangini's book Rhythm Knowledge? I can't remember if it's
Volume 1 or Volume 2 that talk more about the 90+ minute exercises, but I have experience with his
improvement techniques. Some of my drumming friends--as well as many of my students--also have
experience with these techniques.

Personally, with the collective observation of many of my students, comparing with past students, some current
students that don't find certain methods as something they want to practice, etc...

I have realized that Mike Mangini's long-period exercises are indeed very very effective, and it is true when he
says you DO continue to improve throughout the week even when you don't practice. I believe this is because
your body is continuing to grow to accomidate the proper body for your recent actions.

However, I have also realized that the process of doing a 90-minute (or 180-minute!) exercise does not need to
be this long to be effective. During most of the time of the exercise, you are also putting your mind into a
meditative state. As your muscles get tired and more relaxed, your body is also searching for ways to perform the
same actions using less energy. The less energy you use on your technique, the more energy you have for many
other tasks. This is also true with language: the less energy you use on your pronunciation or phrase making, the
more energy you have for constructing other lines of communication. I have successfully--along with countless
students of mine--received these improvements in a shorter period of time. The first 15 minutes are spent using
a relaxation / oxygenating exercise, and the next 30 minutes are used for mindful, relaxed practice.

This is exciting stuff, but YES it is completely possible to adapt Mike Mangini's method for language learning.
You just need to find the most effective exercises and not give up. And the truth boils down to the fact that you
just have to learn how to relax better, and instead of THINKING about how to do every rudimentary language
element, you must REMEMBER. Memory takes much less energy than thinking, and memory is much more
immediate.

Abazid wrote:

You've mentioned sth about having information that would be learned in 3 months in one
sessions ,
Could you elaborate further on your experience with this and what did you use it in , What happened..etc ?

Sure Abazid :) I will also let you all know when I have posted a thread on this. The "3 months in one session"
thing involves improving on the language of drumming. Keep in mind that "3 months in one session" refers to
old, traditional learning techniques that take about 3 months to acquire, when using the new methods only takes
1 session to acquire. This 1 session activates the information into your short term memory, and then you
reinforce it with positive experiences into your long term. It is a long of fun and very fulfilling :)

I have done this plenty of times for myself and ESPECIALLY plenty of times with my students. You see, it is really
difficult to "prove" to someone that a method works, especially when this person is not going to try out the
method for themselves. Basically, proving the method is a waste of time. Use that time on yourself, and let their
skepticism limit their experience. I just want to mention that, because it is rare that you will have the opportunity
to validate a method unless you are also experiencing the improvement of your students and comparing these
improvements with other learning techniques.

Abazid do you have Skype? I would much rather explain this method to you--and preferably other people at the
same time--over voice than typing it out. I will show my students these methods over 4 weeks. These are mainly
students who want to make their school drum line within 3-6 months and actually get a non-flag or non-bass
position. (It takes a good chunk of time to understand the discipline of the method.) It is common if you're a
drum teacher to get students who want to make drumline by the next school year (which is about 6 months
away), but at the same time it used to be very uncommon to find a student to actually accomplish getting a snare
or quad position with only 6-9 months of study. When using techniques based on relaxation and experiencing a
large dataset of information related to the desired skill (such as drumming), it is common for me to coach
students going into 9th or 10th grade for 1-3 months…and these students make significant positions in their
school's drumline. The students who manage to acquire this experience by visiting me 4 times (one visit each
week) are the students that I say, "Look, drumline try-outs are coming very soon. If you really want to
accomplish this I can definitely help you, but you will need to do the methods exactly as I explain them. We'll
also do them together. OK?"

However, once you understand the method, you can easily apply it to your feet and then play the bass drum (with
your feet) as if you would play the snare. This is one example where you realize the possibility of an 8 hour
practice session accomplishing what takes others--using traditional improvement techniques--3 months or
even a year! There's nothing magical about it; you just need the patience to understand that an array of new
knowledge can be out there, and unfortunately, you must also accept that it probably won't take a 10 minute
conversation for you to understand. Then again, it can also come easily depending on your experience :) Heck, it
might even come easily like elementary knowledge.

Anyhoo, for anyone who is interested: feel free to private message me with your Skype id. I will leave anymore
talk about this in another thread, as really the subject matter of this thread should involve Abazid's journey :D
And for now... time to work on my own practice :)
aerozeplyn on 22 April 2011

I detect animosity, and dare I say it - jealousy. Here we have somebody who has chosen to conduct an experiment and share the experience. There is no doubting there has to be some form of personal accomplishment achieved here. The original poster is not trying to claim something that he is not - he is merely trying to answer posed questions using the benchmarks set by the questioner. In this case which level he deems himself to be at.

This is rather like when a lottery winner moves house into an affluent area and they are regarded with suspicion, and denigrated as "new money" by those who consider themselves to have gained wealth "the proper way".

Stop being so defensive just because somebody has had the temerity to put an alternative, unconventional method to the test and allude to some form of positive result.
HMS on 22 April 2011

HMS wrote:

I detect animosity, and dare I say it - jealousy. Here we have somebody who has chosen to
conduct an experiment and share the experience. There is no doubting there has to be some form of personal
accomplishment achieved here. The original poster is not trying to claim something that he is not - he is merely
trying to answer posed questions using the benchmarks set by the questioner. In this case which level he deems
himself to be at.

This is rather like when a lottery winner moves house into an affluent area and they are regarded with suspicion,
and denigrated as "new money" by those who consider themselves to have gained wealth "the proper way".

Stop being so defensive just because somebody has had the temerity to put an alternative, unconventional
method to the test and allude to some form of positive result.

i agree that there are some unreasonable negativities here. Abazid is sharing ideas and information...be calm.
there are going to always be people who have a hard time accepting new information and techniques, especially
when that item is not easily expressed with words, graphs, pictures, statistics, etc. Imagine the pioneers that led
to the development of radio trying to share their ideas--with insignificant resources--on how radio waves could
be used to control objects from a massive distance. oh well, some people just don't respect other people's
information; they don't account for the fact that other people may have been fortunate enough to have
experienced wildly different things compared to their own life; and they don't appreciate others trying to share
something with them. it's just life. :)

rapid learning is my PASSION. it is also something where i have had the opportunity to find many different
techniques and methods proven to me time and time again. This has been proven to me through my own studies
(compared with past studies), and from constant observation of my students.

the point is: there is always room for building a better learning strategy and environment. you simply close your
mind when you dismiss the smallest feature just because it doesn't make sense to you. demanding "proof" before
you even consider what elements may make something possible will also only prevent your mind from opening
further, as "proof" is not always readily available in the form of some dogmatic procedure that one assumes will
qualify as proof. Besides, when you watch a science fiction movie, do you find yourself writing letters to the
production company demanding for proof of the elements in the science fiction movie? Of course not; but the
lack of proof--and the fact that you KNOW it is fiction--does not prevent you from discovering new ideas.

For a semi-related example, what is the use trying to convince the individual in the 1500's that something such
as "radio waves" exist and can be harnessed? If they only believe in what they can see, hear, smell, etc, then the
idea of something invisibly moving objects makes no sense, especially when someone claims they might be able
to do it! --unless maybe that 1500s individual is very religious, you may try suggesting to them that "radio" is a manifestation of their religion. hehe.

These people will only limit their own mindset and discourage others from investigating into new possibilities.
Thankfully, their attitude is a model and inspiration to help us improve ourselves, to help us respect others, and
to help open our minds further.
aerozeplyn on 22 April 2011

I'm kind of puzzled about what the fuss is about. In the end, the original poster used MT, got the kinds of results you'd expect from investing dozens of hours into MT, and that's that. He was a bit short of sleep during, and crammed it into a short number of calender days, and he's clearly not deeply familiar with the CEFR, but on the whole, his results seem fairly reasonable.

Aside from that, this thread has mentioned a number of valuable techniques for accelerated learning (I don't consider every technique mentioned valuable, but several are).

Abazid: congratulations on running your experiment.

Those of you interested in intensive and rapid learning may want to look at http://learnlangs.com/Listening-Reading_important_passages.h tm - Listening-reading .
Volte on 22 April 2011

Volte wrote:

I agree totally. This has been a very interesting experiment, and Abazid has to be commended. I look at this as an experiment and nothing more. This is why I would be curious to hear and see the actual results. It's not because I want to poke holes in some outlandish claim of a magical learning system. I'm just curious to see what can be done in three days.

This whole debate reminds of the claims that one can read on the covers or boxes of many self-study methods. No boring grammar, no exercises, no memorization, no homework, learn the natural way, speak fluently like a native in three months.

I've always felt that many of the proponents of supposedly superior learning techniques are long on the theory and short on the results. I'm tired of people telling me what their system can do. Show me.
s_allard on 22 April 2011

s_allard wrote:

I'm tired of people telling me what their system can do. Show me.

Exactly. That "tired of" is where the animosity is coming from. Every other month there will be someone here telling us how they've done something incredible, and then when called on for a demonstration, shout down everyone else as "haters", "bashers" or just plain "negative". And then we're told not to knock it without trying it -- are we supposed to try every kookie idea that comes along? If so, it's not going to leave us a lot of time.

As Volte says, he did an MT course quickly -- there's nothing really special about that.

And yet this thread is called The Ultimate Accelerated Learning Exp.! as thought it's something new and totally different.

From reading this thread, all I know is that the OP sat through a whole MT course while depriving himself of sleep. He completed it.
What I do not know is whether this was more effective than if he had done the course over a five day period. And the OP doesn't know this either, for that matter -- after all, he hasn't tried it himself.

And as has been pointed out, a beginner does not have enough knowledge to assess the extent of his own knowledge. Only an external assessor can quantify the success of the experiment.
Cainntear on 22 April 2011

Cainntear wrote:

s_allard wrote:

I'm tired of people telling me what their system can do. Show me.

Careful. I do fully agree that some things get tiresome. However, I've also seen way too much bashing of people who do show their results. Most feedback that people who aren't already extremely solid polyglots get seems to be resoundingly negative, no matter how modest the level they claim to have obtained in an interesting way.

And, frankly, there is a lot of nonsense with people supporting or bashing products or techniques they've never used. No one has to try every kookie idea that comes along - but silence is also an option. A lack of attempts, or a trail of failed attempts, is worth looking at; ramblings by people with second-order ignorance usually are just a waste of everyone's time. 'Obvious' kookery is a special case here - but it's also a call a lot of people get wrong surprisingly often, in both directions.

There's a difference between "show me" and "you need to jump through every hoop any random stranger on the internet suggests" - and, honestly, most feedback I've seen to new members of this forum has been in the latter category.

If this forum is to be a reasonable place for sharing experience and experiments, there needs to be a balance. No one needs to try out ideas they consider kooky, and no one is obligated to fulfill anyone else's demands or requests. Both could be helpful at times, but raging on about people not going above and beyond in this way is futile and counterproductive. And, as always, not shutting your mind off is a good idea - knee-jerk belief or disbelief in the absence/presence of any particular proof usually doesn't do much good.

Cainntear wrote:

As Volte says, he did an MT course quickly -- there's nothing really special about that.

And yet this thread is called The Ultimate Accelerated Learning Exp.! as thought it's something new and totally different.

From reading this thread, all I know is that the OP sat through a whole MT course while depriving himself of sleep. He completed it.
What I do not know is whether this was more effective than if he had done the course over a five day period. And the OP doesn't know this either, for that matter -- after all, he hasn't tried it himself.

The thread is badly-titled. It happens. His original idea for an experiment was a good deal more interesting than what actually happened - but what actually happened is still an interesting data point.

If someone cares about whether it's more effective to do experiment X changing parameter Y, they're free to do so, but the person who did X has no reason to be chagrined about not already knowing, and has no obligation to do Y himself.

Personally, I consider the OP's experiment more interesting than MT in 5 days. MT over longer periods of time is more mapped terrain; seeing someone compress it further helps map out the edges of what can be done with it.

Cainntear wrote:

And as has been pointed out, a beginner does not have enough knowledge to assess the extent of his own knowledge. Only an external assessor can quantify the success of the experiment.

Depends. I wouldn't trust a beginner with the CEFR or language learning to be able to successfully quantify his acquired knowledge entirely accurately. On the other hand, this forum has plenty of experienced polyglots who know the CEFR well, and who I'd be inclined to consider qualified to quantify the successes of their own experiments. If any of the regular posters here with 6 or more languages under their belts said that they'd hit B2 in a new language, and didn't say anything ridiculously implausible, I'd be inclined to believe them.

Volte on 22 April 2011

With respect Cainntear,

Yes, the OP has essentially just completed a marathon session of MT but - he has stated quite comprehensively his preparation, his aspirations, the theories and basis behind the experiment,and that this is an online log of his progress - NOT an online claim to have demonstrated something as being successful. Regardless of which level he would now score on the CEFR index, do you not think there has been some value in reading (learning) about how it went for somebody else?

I think the learning progress is something that should be cherished by the learner - not something that always requires an external assessor to validate. I have not seen any comment where the OP has expected (or demanded) validation for the self-assessed results he posted.

I think the bottom line is - He never claimed to have discovered a brand new methodology in the first place. Several people have however constructed a somewhat flimsy 'Strawman' argument against him based on him being unable to satisfy criteria they set for him to answer to. Like he has said - this is not about us or our opinions, it's about him and his experience, which he just happenend to share with us. Whether he has been successful or not when judged against CEFR standards and predicted time to achieve is neither here nor there. The fact he has taken the time to put himself through this and then take the time to offer as detailed explanation and description as he could is something I think should be applauded.

I have learned something from this thread. I have learned a few things actually.
HMS on 22 April 2011

HMS wrote:

He never claimed to have discovered a brand new methodology in the first place.

He didn't claim he discovered a brand new method, but he did claim he was going to brainwash himself by studying for 61 consecutive hours, completely depriving himself of sleep, because that state of mind is somehow a better condition for acquiring new information. For real. He then backed it up with a lot of pseudoscientific nonsense, which is what I and I think a lot of other people take issue with. Working intensely for extended periods of time is one thing, and a thing I've experimented with myself, brainwashing is another. Apart from being incredibly unhealthy and unproductive, I don't see anything wrong with the experiment Abazid performed, but the "kooky" introduction he provided did not reflect what he actually did.
carlonove on 22 April 2011

carlonove wrote:

HMS wrote:

He never claimed to have discovered a brand new methodology in the first place.

Largely agreed; quite a lot of assumptions the poster had going into this are very likely to be entirely ungrounded. I do laud him for actually posting the details of what he did, despite it diverging to far from his original plans, and despite the feedback he received; that kind of follow-up is valuable.

His experiment doesn't seem to have been unproductive, though - and I'm glad he posted about it.

Volte on 22 April 2011

I think it's unproductive to study while struggling to keep yourself awake for hours and hours rather than just sleeping for 6-8 hours, for the purpose of compressing 5-6 days of brutally introductory material into 3. Since all of this is material that's going to be repeated over and over again anyway during (assumed) continued study and exposure to the language, I don't think the benefits outweigh the physical cost. It's subjective of course so I'll leave it at that.
carlonove on 22 April 2011

There's an outfit http://www.fluencyfast.com/ that claims that it can teach the basics of a language in four days. Their site has quite a bit of video of people actually speaking after a couple of days. Of course, we have to be modest in our expectations. Honestly, nobody is going to become a B1 in four days. I think the company tends to exaggerate the actual results, as most language training companies do, but we do get a chance to see some results. I'm actually impressed. At least people are opening their mouths and saying things that are somewhat comprehensible. It's a starting point, and as long as everybody is honest in their claims and expectations, I really don't have a problem with an approach like this.
s_allard on 22 April 2011

Whoa,interesting experiment! Though I would have been much more excited if he would have completed the original goal, however unhealthy that was.

And while I understand how horrible it could be to read such negative feedback, it's still a forum, a medium for open discussion, and saying that you think an idea is silly is within everyone's rights.
Delaunay on 22 April 2011

szastprast wrote:

carlonove wrote:

He then backed it up with a lot of
pseudoscientific nonsense

He reminds me of a person 'with wheels' I read about somewhere on these boards (I
cannot find the link now). He wanted to learn vocabulary by rotating wheels at high
speed.

The mind portal guy - fun times!
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=11384&PN=12 - Mind
portal
Spanky on 23 April 2011

s_allard wrote:

Well, I'm not really convinced by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPRS - TPRS methodology in general, and in that video they weren't really called on to make any innovative sentences -- they were just recycling language.

Also, any "learning by listening" method always relies on content/lexical words, which goes counter to the claim that the course teaches the most frequent vocabulary because the most frequent items of vocabulary are generally function words.

In fact, this is the weakness of almost every class in the world -- whether they're teaching through explicit grammar instruction or "leading-by-the-nose" with the target language, they always use too many lexical words.

Cainntear on 23 April 2011

Cainntear wrote:

... in that video they weren't really called on to make any innovative sentences -- they were just recycling language.

How could one expect more, after four days?

Cainntear wrote:

In fact, this is the weakness of almost every class in the world -- whether they're teaching through explicit grammar instruction or "leading-by-the-nose" with the target language, they always use too many lexical words.

Almost every class? In the world? wow ...
lingoleng on 23 April 2011

I'm wondering about the point at which we can stop our hand-holding and open-mindedness B.S. with this experiment. I'll play along for a few more weeks if folks really want to, but I don't think there's anyone here than really thinks he's learned more than about 60 hours (as that seems to be roughly what he did) worth of the language. And I'm almost positive I won't see more than that proved.

Sandman on 23 April 2011

Sandman,

How incredibly presumptious and arrogant of you!
HMS on 23 April 2011

Just going back through the thread, I noticed you had this to say:

Abazid wrote:

I agree that learning anything new needs lots of time & effort , But there are lots of mental strategies that save a lot of time & effort , And could cut one's learning time in half or even more .

Do you believe you've saved any time - "cutting your learning time in half or even more"?

Oh wait. I found this later in the thread:

Abazid wrote:

It took about 2.5 the time I thought it would (Also took more time along with 10 min breaks e.g ritual prayer)

and

Abazid wrote:

After calculating how much it all took , It all spanned about 72 hours as a total but not connected though (25+38+9)

Abazid wrote:

This is what I intend to do , I'll start with Brainwashing .

Do you still consider this brainwashing?

Abazid wrote:

I'm going to do this 81 hr brainwashing experiment tomorrow .

HMS asked this:

HMS wrote:

I'm curious to know how much you (Abazid) believe you've retained, now that you've had a few days.

And aerozeplyn had this to say:

aerozeplyn wrote:

The point is, you attacked a large dataset of information, much of that is surely still in your short-term memory, and
best of all, you can now continue your studies and experience many connections with the Russian language MUCH
better with that larger dataset in your short-term memory.

I have a different opinion. The MT course is not a large dataset of information.

Volte wrote:

In the end, the original poster used MT, got the kinds of results you'd expect from investing dozens of hours into MT, and that's that.

Exactly.

Cainntear wrote:

As Volte says, he did an MT course quickly -- there's nothing really special about that.

Exactly. But because of the combination of speed and tiredness, he probably missed things.

HMS wrote:

I think the learning progress is something that should be cherished by the learner - not something that always requires an external assessor to validate.

Hopefully what he took away from this is that it really didn't save him any time. Going through the MT course - and that's all he did - would have probably produced more solid results by spreading it out over more than 4 days, with little sleep.

HMS wrote:

Several people have however constructed a somewhat flimsy 'Strawman' argument against him based on him being unable to satisfy criteria they set for him to answer to.

These weren't strawman arguments. They were warnings by people who have gone through MT courses before.

So, how about it, Abazid, what do you believe that you've gained from this over taking the requisite usual amount of time to complete the MT course (I personally think you could have taken your time and gone through everything in two to three weeks, without all the pain)?

And, to reiterate: now that you've had some time, how much do you think you've retained?

I maintain that you should try and converse with native speakers to get a true sense of what you've learned and retained.

R.
==
hrhenry on 23 April 2011

Arekkusu wrote:

Abazid wrote:

It seems that there's a form of a big misunderstanding
going on here , I wanted to do this from about 2 years ago , But I've always put it off
for whatever reason ,

2 years ago? You wouldn't by any chance have had any contact with or introduction to the
language during that time, would you?

Can you please confirm that despite wanting to learn Russian for 2 years, you had no
previous exposure or study of the language prior to doing this "experiment"?
Arekkusu on 23 April 2011

hrhenry wrote:

Just going back through the thread, I noticed you had this to say:

Abazid wrote:

I agree that learning anything new needs lots of time & effort , But there are lots of mental strategies that save a lot of time & effort , And could cut one's learning time in half or even more .

Do you believe you've saved any time - "cutting your learning time in half or even more"?

Oh wait. I found this later in the thread:

Abazid wrote:

It took about 2.5 the time I thought it would (Also took more time along with 10 min breaks e.g ritual prayer)

and

Abazid wrote:

After calculating how much it all took , It all spanned about 72 hours as a total but not connected though (25+38+9)

Why ask the question if you try to answer it for him? Also, does he actually know how long it would have otherwise took him to do what he did? If not, he doesn't really have a way to answer this meaningfully.

hrhenry wrote:

Abazid wrote:

This is what I intend to do , I'll start with Brainwashing .

Do you still consider this brainwashing?

A more interesting question; I'd like to see what he says to it.

hrhenry wrote:

HMS asked this:

HMS wrote:

I'm curious to know how much you (Abazid) believe you've retained, now that you've had a few days.

I'm also curious.

Personally, I find how deeply I internalize information to be a key factor in retention. If I learn it shallowly, it's soon gone, whether I crammed it or learned it over the course of years.

hrhenry wrote:

And aerozeplyn had this to say:

aerozeplyn wrote:

I have a different opinion. The MT course is not a large dataset of information.

Matter of definition, I suppose. I don't consider MT a particularly useful or deep set of information, but I think it's reasonable to call it 'large' - if you'd call a regular university class 'large', or any other body of information which takes several dozen hours. It's not the work of a year or lifetime, but I don't think 'large' is an entirely inaccurate term.

hrhenry wrote:

(... elided quotes about it being a typical MT course)
Exactly. But because of the combination of speed and tiredness, he probably missed things.

People don't generally have perfect retention of courses; he almost certainly missed things. Whether he missed more than otherwise is an interesting question, but one which I'm not confident he could answer.

I find speed often helps; tiredness always hurts.

hrhenry wrote:

HMS wrote:

I think the learning progress is something that should be cherished by the learner - not something that always requires an external assessor to validate.

This experiment did not contrast doing MT quickly and slowly. He can believe what he reads other people say, or conclude that he didn't like studying this way, but he has absolutely no grounds to assume another way of doing it would work better based on this experiment.

hrhenry wrote:

HMS wrote:

Several people have however constructed a somewhat flimsy 'Strawman' argument against him based on him being unable to satisfy criteria they set for him to answer to.

You're asking leading questions, which the experiment explicitly didn't address. Doing one experiment doesn't magically make information appear about how it compares to other ways of doing things that the experimenter hasn't done.

How much he's retained is an interesting question. Abazid: do you have a way to assess this? If so, would you answer it?

hrhenry wrote:

I maintain that you should try and converse with native speakers to get a true sense of what you've learned and retained.

I don't find MT particularly useful for conversing with native speakers. What's the point of asking "What do you think of the economic and political situation in France?" when you won't understand the answer and can't reply anyhow?

After 3 or 4 days of any method I'm aware of, people simply aren't going to get good results talking to native speakers. It's a useless assessment tool in this context, in my opinion.

Volte on 23 April 2011

Volte wrote:

hrhenry wrote:

Just going back through the thread, I noticed you had this to say:

Abazid wrote:

I agree that learning anything new needs lots of time & effort , But there are lots of mental strategies that save a lot of time & effort , And could cut one's learning time in half or even more .

Do you believe you've saved any time - "cutting your learning time in half or even more"?

Oh wait. I found this later in the thread:

Abazid wrote:

It took about 2.5 the time I thought it would (Also took more time along with 10 min breaks e.g ritual prayer)

and
[QUOTE=Abazid]
After calculating how much it all took , It all spanned about 72 hours as a total but not connected though (25+38+9)

He himself used the phrase "cutting learning time in half or even more", so I think it's a valid question and don't believe that it's leading.

The fact that he may not be able to meaningfully answer is sort of the point and what much of the discussion has been about.

R.
==
hrhenry on 23 April 2011

I must say, I was hoping for a little bit more interaction from the OP on this subject he started. He seems to have gone quiet. It would be nice for more feedback.

I will be compiling my list of apologies meanwhile.
HMS on 23 April 2011

HMS wrote:

Sandman,
How incredibly presumptious and arrogant of you!

I think Solfrid Cristin was right. This forum is in dire need of smiley faces. Some little red hearts would be nice too.
Ah well, what can one expect from someone who forgot the name of his dingy.

As for this experiment, hopefully those of you who have been following it closely have learned something. This
technique doesn't work very well. Sleep normally, with no electronic interference, and overall you will be much more
efficient.
leosmith on 24 April 2011

As this debate comes to a close and the dust is settling, I think it would be nice to conclude on a positive note. I think Abazid deserves kudos for daring to expose his experiment to the HTLAL community. A lot of us have pooh-poohed this contribution as another flash-in-the-pan kooky idea from some hyperventilating newbie hot on the trail of the silver bullet for instant language learning. That's not my opinion. I've said all along that I see the whole thing as an attempt to jump-start the learning process. I would not attempt to go without sleep for three days and try to learn a language at the same time. It's totally counterintuitive for me, but, what the heck, maybe it can work for some people.

My hope is that Abazid has not been scared off by some of the reactions here. There is no single way to learn a language. And we are all looking for more effective methods and tools. I do think that one can significantly reduce the time to learn a language. Brainwashing may not be the best method, but at least we've all learned something.
s_allard on 24 April 2011

HMS wrote:

I've already decided to move on and continue my experiments privately , My presumption was that this forum is VERY open-minded , But If I've known that I'd be wasting my time dealing with this type of BS arguments instead of focusing on what matters the most , I'd have definitely gone somewhere else or privately , Seeing that posting here has become more about dealing with BS hoops/arguments rather than the goals I originally had in mind , It's a waste of precious time and it cuts back on my productivity , Hence I decided to eliminate it .
Anyways before I go , To those genuinely interested , I will summarize my own thoughts & my conclusions related to my experience with this type of immersion and I hope it will provide more insights and be of some help in your language learning endeavors .

Thoughts :

Originally , After reading about the exercise in 100 % Brain Course , I wanted to spend about 61 hours studying any new language to see if the effect of brainwashing is for real in relation to language learning , As I already have a solid background in NLP,Hypnosis & Psychology and their use in Mind Control , I knew it was done many times before for coercive uses , Hence possible anyhow .

A very important element was missing , Which was the instructors , In my own mind I'd say they were a very important for various reasons :

First of all , I knew nothing about the language , Which was the reason it took me a while to start , Because I had to research what would be the best material that would fit in with my 61 hour arrangement and at the same time flow with "Brainwashing" , meaning that the thinking material should be in the beginning as I'd have more concentration and the more "Memorize" type of material in the end supposedly at the time when the brainwashing effect would start .

Then the realization that the presence of 3-6 instructors along with many forms of visual stimulation would make the experience easier to go through and endure , The Auditory channel according to what I know is about 38 % Only , Hence it was going to be harder .

And so I realized that this is a new type of experiment totally different from the original , But the best one could do to mimick it if he's on his own .
After deciding on MT & Pimsleur and realizing that I'd need about 81 hours to finish both (forgetting to put the pauses between each exercise in mind for each program ) .
I started with a certain aim in mind , I wanted to understand what was said in a Russian Documentary which felt quite advanced , And see if I could talk in Russian easily like the exercise claimed .

On first day , I failed to continue after 25 hours , It was almost impossible at least for me even though .

What would may count as very light Brainwashing(AKA BW) on that first day would be the listening of a couple of tracks for many times , As understanding of these tracks became solid next time .

I'm assuming that this may be BW before the 61 hour period because I realized that every single body's endurance & concentration stamina is different from every body else .

Same happened 2nd time after 38 hours(And it was only MT now) , I couldn't endure anymore , And went into passive listening mode for 2-3 hours in the Vocab Cd , That could also count as brainwashing , Next time in the 3rd day I understood the CD really well .

Was that BW or just the return of my own concentration , I'm not completely sure , I did feel a very familiar feeling when listening to these last CDs and an ease when I used the vocab , Thats all.

Since I've failed to undergo more than 2-3 hours in that Listen only BW state of deteriorated concentration , I can't say for sure if Brainwashing is effective because I would need to spend more time in that state and preferably the instructors , But I'm quite sure that doing this on your own with Audio only is very hard and take a lot of effort .

My goal of understanding the documentary (listening skills) didn't happen , But I was capable of listening to many patterns that I've learned , But lots of new vocabulary that I dunno yet (it's a doc about science & parapsychology) , Meaning that I still need more training .

In terms of speaking , In comparison with my initial skills ,All I can say now is that I'm quite satisfied with my progress in 3 days , That's all .

In regards to results & retention , Here are some of my conclusions :

First of all , Since I'm not sure about the BW effect till now , I advise against doing this until you reach such state of tiredness without sleep , If you start your concentration deteriorating , Take a nap or sleep , Whateever works for you , And continue .

What I mainly took from this was "Amazing" at least to me , Because I always thought a Language is a very hard thing to go through , And the idea of 3 days to get ANY where with any language is just too good to be true ,Making the initial start with language learning very tough , Seeing that in 3 days(Whether BW worked or not) I did this and was capable of reading & writing lightly in Russian , And talking & listening as I translated many of the words that came up in my mind in English , It made me realize that with enough focus & dedicated effort I could go through any language and maybe with smart, intensive ,curious & playful type of learning , I could reach mastery in less time , And that was the best thing about this ,Yet at the same time I felt really bad because I realized HOW MUCH TIME one wastes all of his life and what could one achieve if he sets his mind to .

In regards of Retention , What happened was very inspiring to me :

From what I've read and researched in regards to memory , I've found that retention completely has to do with forming associations/connections and then going through them many times seems to reinforce them more & more to the point that they're retained for a long time , Here's an interesting quote from the PMemory Manual based on Neurophysiology on the the subject of Electric Memory :

Quote:

Time of connection fixation varies from 0.8 seconds per connection (the officially registered speed memorization record) – to 6 seconds per connection (standard for those who completed a GMS® training course). In theory, the minimal time for creating a connection in electric memory cannot be under the human reaction time (about 0.14 seconds).

Connection storage time without repeated activation (memorization at one take) is about 40-60 minutes. Connection storage time with repeated fixation over a period of 3-4 days is approximately 1.5 months. Repeated fixation is performed by repeated activation (remembering information).

If created and fixed connections are activated at least once every 6 weeks, one can store these connections for a lifetime.

These characteristics of electric memory can be obtained through various ways:
empirically, through experience (experimental), and are also proved by neurophysiological and psychiatric data.

Basically , If you go normally through a course in Chunks in this case for a week for example , If you actually DO persist in the schedule you set without any procrastination , And use the material you learned and deepen the connections more & more , And then continue on with the lessons adding more & more layers of complexity to the foundations , Even though it needs a "LOT" of time ,dedication & self-discipline , Everybody know that this the most efficient way even though it's slower , And also like mentioned in the above quote leads to retention due to constant activation .

In my experience most of people though have a problem with following through with most of courses and just buying them gives a sense of accomplishment without even starting or stopping in the middle..etc , Which was also my own experience with some courses .

The inspiring part of this in relation to retention was this .

The format of Michel Thomas courses feel completely like a journey of forming associations or more like a mnemonic journey , Where you're making a house , A mental matrix of mnemonic associations .

And so when I went through this building process , All in one sitting , One after the other , Something clicked .

When I went through the foundations , The initial associations I made were constantly getting activated and reinforced so many times , That they came up so naturally .

But at the end of the foundations I felt a little worried that I might lose them , Hence thought maybe I should listen to it once more to solidify it , But thought that if throughout the foundations my associations were reinforced , The Advanced would definitely reinforce it even more .

When I went through the Advanced I was right , Even though the EXPANSION of grammatical structures was rather too much , All of the foundation material were reinforced to the point that they felt like child play and already part of my memory , And then I felt the same with the expansion in the Advanced course , Will I lose it ?
So I went with the Vocab , This one cemented almost everything in the Advanced , And expanded on it even more , Adding like they say "Decoration" to the solid house .

But I felt like I needed to "Only" listen to the Vocab once more to solidify it which I'm currently doing and adding more advanced material .

It seems that the more you get your feet wet and expose yourself to more new material and use more of what you know and expand , The more you reinforce what you know , This is why in my own opinion makes doing this very effective if you're following a program that uses lots of associations and reinforces them constantly like MT , And would be great as a start as long as you follow through with the normal method of chunking .

I consider doing this is more like an effective form of a crash course .

Summary on Retention:

Going with the normal way of chunking is the most efficient yet WAY slower and needs strong self-discipline , It activates associations on an expanded period of time hence makes the process of retention last longer & with ease with constant use of the material , Yet if you miss out on activation/reinforcement , You could lose a lot of your own work and you'll need to go through material once again .

While this form of intensive crash coursing with effective mnemonic material , Creates a ton of associations in WAY less time (YET it's also over-whelming , ain't easy and needs strong focus) , Yet with the building block approach in record time , All these associations are reinforced too many times that they become solidified and available naturally in one's memory , And allow the progression into more and more advanced material .

Conclusion :
I can't say for sure if Brainwashing was the case here , That would need more experiments with this hopefully with 3-6 instructors , But I'm definitely taking what I've learned from this with me, Esp. if I want to break through a lot of foreign material fast , And along with Photoreading & PMemory methods , It would become even more effective .

Thats all

Abazid

@aerozypln

Whats your email , So we could talk about that method in more detail ? ( I dun have Skype)
Abazid on 25 April 2011

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us, Abazid. Sorry you ran afoul of the experts. You gave me some good
ideas and info about MT Russian and Pimsleur Russian that I didn't know.

I guess all of us self-experimenters will keep to ourselves for a while.

Good luck with your investigations into language acquisition.
tbone on 25 April 2011

Thanks Abazid.

Too hostile around these parts I think. It would appear that some established members are too defensive and too quick to pounce on anyone they view as 'arriviste'. Almost as if they are petrified of being upstaged by a pesky new-comer.
I have learned from your experiment and conclusions, as I'm sure many others have.

Thankyou.

HMS on 25 April 2011

HMS wrote:

Too hostile around these parts I think. It would appear that some established members are too defensive
and too quick to pounce on anyone they view as 'arriviste'. Almost as if they are petrified of being upstaged
by a pesky new-comer.

If I was new to language learning, I'd be thankful for more experienced members protecting me from
snake-oil methods.
Arekkusu on 25 April 2011

Some interesting statistics on the subject of establishing and fixing connections in the brain. I might just have to browse through the GMS ("Giordano Memorization System") manual you recommended (although unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a bibliography or any footnotes for the experimental data in the copy I found just now).

I think it's a good strategy to review what you've learned through the Michel Thomas courses over the next few days, and with continued progress, hope it won't be too long before you're able to follow the Russian documentary with ease.

How are your plans going for the next experiment - I recall you mentioned trying out photo-reading and syntopical reading?
Teango on 25 April 2011

I certainly don't want to prolong a debate that is about to end, but I would like to briefly outline what I take away from this interesting experiment.
First of all, it has become clearer in my mind that learning a language for active performance, i.e. speaking and writing, is a long, complex and cumulative process. This can be speeded up for sure, but there is a major effort of memorization and muscle retraining that takes time.

Secondly, using a language is for most people a social experience. At some point, most learners want to interact with other speakers, preferably natives. This is the real test. How can you use the language?

Thirdly, I think the reason many people here were very critical is not because they are evil and close-minded but simply because no one ever saw any tangible results, how modest they were. To call something the Ultimate Accelerated Learning Experiment and then produce a ton of discussion but not a single word of Russian is really asking for trouble. I think most people here are open to new ideas. But this one seemed doomed from the beginning because the premise for most people was so preposterous. I'm very supportive of this experiment, but I think it could have been handled much better.
s_allard on 25 April 2011

And with the turning of another winter's cold into a fragrant bounty of spring, another
batch of new members band together to protect each other from the harsh and cynical long-
timers of the tribe....

And so it goes... ;)
apparition on 25 April 2011

When I started to read this topic I couldn't believe the scepticism. 61 hours of learning is 61 hours of learning, I've done some cramming in my live at uni and I know it is extremely underestimated, and most of the time it was beneficial for me, and all the myths of it not staying in your memory after this are made by bunch of lazy people who never made any effort to repeat information that they crammed. I must mention here that I wasn't ever learning for 61 hours and I consider it exaggeration but that was my only doubt about whole idea.

I must also mention that I was learning languages in small chunks as most of you, but at some point of my life when my English was already fluent I decided to go for about 8-12 hours learning a day for quite a while and I noticed that it was far more beneficial then small chunks (usually 15-90 minutes a day) as my thinking in English moved to a whole new level, so does my reading and listening skills. I think my brain forced to deal with such a massive piece of information in different language , droped a guard at some point and started to absorb knowledge faster. So when I read about whole idea I was very curious will that work on a very basic level, as I'm approaching Spanish now the same way I used to do with English - small chunks, lots of translations, some audio resources and bilingual text, because I thought that learning 8-12 hours a day will be pointless at this point. So I even considered changing my attitude at this point and I couldn't believe how most of users react to whole idea.

Of course whole that pseudo-science put me off a little bit but I decided to ignore ridiculous theory and some overstatement as I did liked the idea.

But after reading 19 pages of it I can certainly say that it was waste of my time reading through it. Because of forum members constant attacks author became emotionally attached to expected results defending ideas and theory before he even started. Ok fair enough, I would became defensive in similar circumstances as well if I would like to share some idea with others and without waiting for results whole world (forum=world :D ) would jump to my throat. At the end author published he's subjective ideas about he's level of Russian. If he would record some movie, audio, or connect with someone on skype and record it I would consider this as publishing results. However author never did that, that's why I consider whole that topic as a waste of my time, as I cannot trust judgement of someone who get some much involved into it, however I'm not denying that author might be satisfied with he's results and that's all what's important for him, however for me this topic is completely useless. I would consider satisfying any results which will lead to being communicative with native or being able to read some simple texts. It will actually make me jump to booking holiday and staring my adventure with Spanish from 7 days of 12 hours learning a day because from there my small chunks can be more beneficial then from where I am now!

However as there was no results published I will stick to what I'm doing as I see no reasonable arguments to try any idea if I have pretty good experience with learning languages, so if I know I'm doing something correct I'm not going to try unproven methods. Some people did mention that they have learned few things from that topic. I've learned three things: I don't know what some of you guys are smoking, but I know I would love to get some. I would also recommend you halve the doses as it is far to strong for you. If you will ever consider levitation course from one of those websites I will certainly recommend changing your dealer without hesitation.
leyus on 26 April 2011

leyus wrote:

But after reading 19 pages of it I can certainly say that it was waste of my time reading through it.
Because of forum members constant attacks author

So it had nothing to do with the poor results? I personally don't care about the quality of BS a poster spits out. We've
witnessed some newbies really lay it on, then come up with some excellent ideas. It's rare, but it happens. In this
case, there was quite a bit of wheel spinning but nothing worth taking home.

leosmith on 26 April 2011

leyus wrote:

Of course whole that pseudo-science put me off a little bit but I decided to ignore ridiculous theory and some overstatement as I did liked the idea.

Really? What was so intriguing about the idea? Because the pseudo-science is the part that annoyed me the most.

When you cut right through all the BS Abazid was spewing, all he was talking about was immersion for 61 hours without sleep.

Now pretty much everyone agrees that immersion is a good technique for learning a language. Some people take it to extremes, with success. I'm thinking about Katz at All-Japanese-All-The-Time. He apparently became fluent in Japanese in a little over a year if I recall correctly by immersing himself in the language 24/7 during that period, including having audio going during sleep. He himself says that there is no reason to believe that the sleep-learning attempt really accomplished anything, rather he just didn't want to leave any opportunity to learn untested. So yeah, if you clearly define your goals and work really, really hard on accomplishing them, you can succeed, maybe in less time that you'd expect.

But Abazid spouts nonsense about holographic universes and morphogenetic whatevers and how you can brainwash a language into your head in 61 hours? What is magical about 61 hours? Why not 37.5? Why not an even 100? If the universe is holographic, we're all still living in that same universe. Other learners haven't mastered a language in 61 hours. Nothing in his study program seemed specially designed to take advantage of that fact of a holographic universe, so why would his simple knowledge of that fact allow him to accelerate his learning?

So really all I see out of this is an epic cram session. Nothing more.
rapp on 26 April 2011

The opening page of this website has a dedication to Mezzofanti the polyglot. It seems somewhat ironic that the content within contradicts the claims of Mezzofanti's alleged linguistic prowess.

He could 'hold his own' in Cingalese after only a few days study.
HMS on 26 April 2011

HMS wrote:

First, how do you know that he could "hold his own" in Cingalese? Everything written about him and his relation to this particular language says that he was aware of the linguistic system, not "holding his own". The one person that could account of his knowledge of the language (in the book "The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti" states that he himself was not at a level to properly judge.

R.
==

hrhenry on 26 April 2011

"When I left Ceylon for Rome," he writes, August 29, i855, "I knew but very little of the Cingalese language; a very small vocabulary of domestic words, and a facility in reading in Cingalese characters, without understanding the written language, was the full stock of my knowledge when I reached the college of the Propaganda. From such a master you might be disposed to augur badly of the scholar. Still it was not so.

A few days after my arrival in college, I was introduced to his Eminence in his polyglot library and study room in the college itself. Cardinal Mezzofanti knew nothing of the Cingalese before I went to the Propaganda, vet in a few days he was able to assist me to put together a short plain discourse for our academical exhibition of the Epiphany.

My own knowledge of the language, nevertheless, was not at that time such as to warrant my saying that he knew the Cingalese, or that he spoke it well. This, however, lean assert confidently, that, after a few conversations with me, (I don't recollect having been with him above a dozen times for the purpose,) he thoroughly entered into the nature and system of the Cingalese language."

Not bad for only a 'few days' would you not say?

I think Mezzofanti would have been ripped to pieces if he could have posted on here!

HMS on 26 April 2011

HMS wrote:

Not bad for only a 'few days' would you not say?

Certainly not bad for a few days. But that's not "holding his own", unless you have a very different meaning to that phrase than I do.

R.
==
hrhenry on 26 April 2011

That's very possible. I would interpret entering thouroughly into the nature and system of something as that.

Maybe I should have said 'progressively proficient'

Regardless, how do you think Mezzofanti's alleged prowess would fare when judged against the criteria required here?

HMS on 26 April 2011

HMS wrote:

Regardless, how do you think Mezzofanti's alleged prowess would fare when judged against the criteria required here?

Singularly successful. I also notice he was willing to demonstrate his skills.

rapp on 26 April 2011

Quote:

Too hostile around these parts I think. It would appear that some established members are too defensive and too quick to pounce on anyone they view as 'arriviste'. Almost as if they are petrified of being upstaged by a pesky new-comer.
I have learned from your experiment and conclusions, as I'm sure many others have.

Thanks HMS , It isn't mostly about hostility that doesn't appeal to me but rather the fact that when you stay in an environment with people that are completely result-oriented , negative and are seeing the world through tunnel vision , It really cuts down on your creativity & productivity .

Quote:

If I was new to language learning, I'd be thankful for more experienced members protecting me from snake-oil methods.

I agree and I would do the same , But unfortunately in this case , The methods I'm tackling or were going to tackle were completely new territory to almost everyone here as I believe , So your so called advice/protection is based upon nothing but pure presumptuous speculation & your extremely limited view that all learning methods has to take incredible amounts of time & effort for it to go somewhere .

Quote:

But...
if you publically write some 'scientific' nonsense, you cannot expect to be exempt from criticism, even harsh one.

Ignorant criticism based on speculation & pure belief based on no science is also non-sense , Once someone raises a supposedly scientific argument , Those who criticize such an argument has to use the same logic to disprove it , Did anyone do so , I don't think so .

Quote:

Teango:
Some interesting statistics on the subject of establishing and fixing connections in the brain. I might just have to browse through the GMS ("Giordano Memorization System") manual you recommended (although unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a bibliography or any footnotes for the experimental data in the copy I found just now).

Check page 97 , It has more information in relation to that , In regards of refernces , They seem to be scattered inside the book , But it seems like most of these effects as I've checked the forum to be very true .

Quote:

I think it's a good strategy to review what you've learned through the Michel Thomas courses over the next few days, and with continued progress, hope it won't be too long before you're able to follow the Russian documentary with ease.

I'm always trying to use the material on the go everywhere whenever I'm working so that I'd be able to retain more & more of it , And I'm learning new vocabulary through many means , Mainly daily russian flashcards by email and the like .

Quote:

How are your plans going for the next experiment - I recall you mentioned trying out photo-reading and syntopical reading?

I'm currently completely focused on the GMS system as it seems it would be very very helpful with language learning not including too many more applications , It has about a 60 page about Russian that's to be memorized using the method which contains grammar & vocabulary ,So hopefully it will really come in handy .

Quote:

major effort of memorization and muscle retraining that takes time.

I think that this completely depends on person ability to memorize & retain information through mental associations , So time is a very flexible factor in such case .

Quote:

I think the reason many people here were very critical is not because they are evil and close-minded but simply because no one ever saw any tangible results, how modest they were.

Tangible ?! The whole thing around here is all about trust , Almost every single person in here claims to have a certain level of profieciency with every known language , It'd be ridiculous to ask every single person to prove it , If you don't trust a person coz you believe they aren't honest about what they're doing , Then you're simply wasting your time because nothing is going to be reasonable in anyway on the long run .

As much as a video could say , If you don't trust my current words or call it subjective , If what I've achieved in it doesn't match what is possible in your own beliefs , It's very simple to label it as a lie or that I prepared or made it up..etc, And nothing will ever suffice , As I'm very sure probably some people experienced this around here as well , So you could simply believe me or ignore me , And in both cases it's fine by me .

Finally , This is my "Journal" thread as I've clearly mentioned in my first post , It's not a debate, It's not a democracy so that every single person would lead it in the direction he thinks it should , It's primarily about me and what I choose to experiment with & share .

Quote:

To call something the Ultimate Accelerated Learning Experiment and then produce a ton of discussion but not a single word of Russian is really asking for trouble. I think most people here are open to new ideas. But this one seemed doomed from the beginning because the premise for most people was so preposterous. I'm very supportive of this experiment, but I think it could have been handled much better.

Preposterous ? When I called it so and mentioned such techniques , It was MEANT to defy common sense because 90 % of people follow the very slow method of language learning through rote memorization and the like , I didn't ask them to believe what I did , But it seems that my helpful attitude said otherwise .
And unfortunately I'm not a show-off .

abazid wrote:

Quote:

and similar nonsense.

It's amusing how it seems almost no body understands pretty much anything of what he calls non-sense , And can't disprove why it is, Which I believe is non-sense myself

In regards to Glossalia :

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia
Learned behavior
The material explanation arrived at by a number of studies is that glossolalia is "learned behavior".[17][21] What is taught is the ability to produce language-like speech. This is only a partial explanation, but it is a part that has withstood much testing. It is possible to train novices to produce glossolalic speech. One experiment with 60 undergraduates found that 20% succeeded after merely listening to a 60-second sample, and 70% succeeded after training:

Our findings that glossolalia can be easily learned through direct instruction, along with demonstrations that tongue speakers can initiate and terminate glossolalia upon request and can exhibit glossolalia in the absence of any indexes of trance[…] support the hypothesis that glossolalia utterances are goal-directed actions rather than involuntary happenings.[22]

That glossolalia can be learned is also seen in the traces left behind by teachers. An investigation by the Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn showed that the influence of a particular leader can shape a group's glossolalia: where certain prominent glossolalists had visited, whole groups of glossolalists would speak in his style of speech.[23]

Now that's really impossible eh .

What about Morphogenetic Universe & learning new skills/patterns of information :

Quote:

http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-moreonmorphgnicflds.html

More on Morphogenetic Fields

Experiment 1: In the 1920s Harvard University psychologist William McDougall did experiments for 15 years in which rats learned to escape from a tank. The first generation of rats averaged 200 mistakes before they learned the right way out; the last generation 20 mistakes. McDougall concluded that, contrary to accepted genetic science, such acquired knowledge could be inherited.

Experiment 2: In later efforts to duplicate McDougall's experiments in Australia, similar rats made fewer mistakes right from the start. Later generations of rats did better even when they were not descendents of the earlier rats. This wasn't genetics at work. It was something else. Nobody tested it further.

"Experiment" 3: In the 1920s in Southampton, England, a bird called the blue tit discovered it could tear the tops of milk bottles on doorsteps and drink the cream. Soon this skill showed up in blue tits over a hundred miles away, which is odd in that they seldom fly further than 15 miles. Amateur bird-watchers caught on and traced the expansion of the habit. It spread faster and faster until by 1947 it was universal throughout Britain. In a parallel development, the habit had spread to blue tits in Holland, Sweden and Denmark. German occupation cut off milk deliveries in Holland for eight years -- five years longer than the life of a blue tit. Then, in 1948 the milk started to be delivered. Within months blue tits all over Holland were drinking cream, a habit that had taken decades to take hold before the war. Where did they get this knowledge?

Experiment 4: In the early sixties psychiatrists Dr. Milan Ryzl of Prague and Dr. Vladimir L. Raikov of Moscow hypnotized subjects into believing they were living incarnations of historical personages. Such subjects would develop talents associated with their alter egos. A subject told she was the artist Raphael took only a month to develop drawing skills up to the standard of a good graphic designer.

Experiment 5: In 1983 Sheldrake showed two difficult-to-discern patterns to a group of test subjects to establish a base line for how easily the hidden picture in each could be recognized. Next he showed 2 million viewers of British TV what one of the hidden pictures was. He then tested thousands of people all over the world. By significant percentages, they recognized the image shown on television; the percentage recognizing the control picture didn't change.

Experiment 6: Psychologist Dr. Arden Mahlberg of Madison, Wisconsin, created a variation of Morse Code that should have been no harder to learn than the standard variety. Subjects learned the real code much faster than his invented one, not knowing which was which.

Experiment 7: Gary Schwartz, Yale professor of psychology, selected 24 common 3-letter words in Hebrew and 24 rare ones, all from the Old Testament, all in Hebrew script. For each word, he created a scrambled version (as, in English, one might do by scrambling "dog" to spell "odg"). Then he rearranged all 96 3-letter Hebrew words (half real, half fake) in a random order and showed them, one at a time, to subjects who didn't know Hebrew. The subjects were just told these were Hebrew words and were asked to guess the meaning of the word in English by writing down the first English word that came into their head. After guessing each word, they were asked to estimate, on a zero-to-four scale, how confident they felt in their guess. Professor Schwartz then discounted all subjects who got any guesses rights (since that meant they may have known some Hebrew). Then he analyzed the confidence ratings from subjects who'd gotten every answer wrong. Not only was the confidence significantly higher with the real words than with the false words (regardless of subjects, words, or experiments), but the common words got higher confidence scores than the rarer words. Finally Schwartz repeated the experiment telling the subjects that half the words were real and half were false and asked them to guess which was which; the results of that were purely random. The patterns the subjects had recognized unconsciously, they could not recognize consciously.

What is going on here?

Sheldrake has hypothesized a field of morphic ("pattern-related") resonance in which patterns of knowledge, structure or behavior of a certain kind of thing (whether a salt crystal or a human mind) become increasingly embedded as a "habit," an ingrained pattern of information which influences and is accessible to other members of that category of thing. In commenting on the rat experiments, Sheldrake said: "If rats are taught a new trick in Manchester, then rats of the same breed all over the world should show a tendency to learn the same trick more rapidly, even in the absence of any known type of physical connection or communication. The greater the number of rats that learn it, the easier it should become for their successors."

A minority of biologists have been suggesting the possibility of morphogenetic (form-generating) fields for decades. Sheldrake's unique contribution has been to create a testable hypothesis regarding such fields. Despite the fact that it seems to violate all broadly-accepted principles of science, the experimental evidence is rapidly mounting that, indeed, something of this kind is at work.

Sheldrake has ventured some guesses as to the relationship between morphogenetic fields and our individual memory and intelligence. He suggests that our brains may not contain memories and knowledge, per se, but may be devices for tuning in to relevant sections of the morphogenetic field for human memory, much as a radio tunes into radio waves. Our own personal memories would naturally be more accessible than those of other people or cultures (since, in morphogenetic resonance, like resonates with like), but theoretically the memories of every human (and other entities?) would be available to anyone capable of tuning in.

Sheldrake further wonders if natural laws are the evolving habits of the physical universe. An increasing number of scientists are believing that, ever since the Big Bang, the contents and processes of the universe have been evolving, and are evolving still. Sheldrake notes that it is an act of incredible faith to believe that all the laws governing the universe are so eternal and immutable that they existed prior to any of the contents of the universe. It is much more "natural" to believe that the readily-observable evolution of life, culture and our own selves are merely manifestations of an evolutionary tendency deeply embedded in the very nature of things.

In short: We are all learning. Not just we people -- but we, everything in the universe. And our learning is shared. That's the bottom line of Rupert Sheldrake's work.

We can't get much more co-intelligent than that.

Quote:

But Abazid spouts nonsense about holographic universes and morphogenetic whatevers and how you can brainwash a language into your head in 61 hours
If the universe is holographic, we're all still living in that same universe. Other learners haven't mastered a language in 61 hours. Nothing in his study program seemed specially designed to take advantage of that fact of a holographic universe, so why would his simple knowledge of that fact allow him to accelerate his learning? ?

If you've bothered to read my own posts , You'd understand that I didn't spend 61 hours continuously , And also BW & the other theories are completely unrelated , The other methods I intended to tackle had these elements , And I'd be interested in having a wise scientific answer as to why exactly they're non-sense if you're making a lot of sense .

Quote:

So really all I see out of this is an epic cram session. Nothing more.

It is all about that .

Quote:

I would consider this as publishing results. However author never did that, that's why I consider whole that topic as a waste of my time, as I cannot trust judgement of someone who get some much involved into it, however I'm not denying that author might be satisfied with he's results and that's all what's important for him, however for me this topic is completely useless.

Mainly , It's very well-known even before starting this what would exactly result from Michel Thomas training(Watch The Language Master if you haven't) in regards of results as of it's very systematic layered approach and anybody can tell you that , This is why I thought that posting the manual would be very much show the level I believe I've reached as very plausible , Seeing that no one trusts my words even though most know so , I have no reason to prove anything further , Like I said , It's all about trust anyway .

Not including the fact that my own goal clearly was different from what most seems to aspire to .

Quote:

However as there was no results published I will stick to what I'm doing as I see no reasonable arguments to try any idea if I have pretty good experience with learning languages, so if I know I'm doing something correct I'm not going to try unproven methods.

How open-minded is that !

Quote:

And with the turning of another winter's cold into a fragrant bounty of spring, another batch of new members band together to protect each other from the harsh and cynical long-timers of the tribe....
And so it goes... ;)

lol , You guys seriously got superiority issues

Abazid on 26 April 2011

Yaaa, someone mentioned earlier that this thread became very distracting due to the hostility and skepticism. Whether one person was right or wrong, the core message was definitely distracted. However, I have learned a lot from this thread: if you want to share information with people, focus your energy on updating the progress of your current information. Once you put energy into responding to people that are distracting your message, your focus is no longer your message, and your original intent to share information to help others is then lost.
aerozeplyn on 26 April 2011

szastprast wrote:

aerozeplyn wrote:

and your original intent to share information to help others is then lost.

He should have done his brainwashing experiment quitely first, see what happened, then deliver results. Then,
probably, he would have helped himself, and helped the others.

i am typically not one to disagree with information, but if the act of posting about an experiment BEFORE you
actually execute it helps motivate you to follow through.... then pre-posting is likely a good motivator :)
aerozeplyn on 26 April 2011

rapp wrote:

leyus wrote:

Of course whole that pseudo-science put me off a little bit but I decided to ignore ridiculous theory and some overstatement as I did liked the idea.

Really? What was so intriguing about the idea? Because the pseudo-science is the part that annoyed me the most.

I don't personally consider immersion as a best idea for learning at the very beginning. So the whole idea was interesting. In my opinion Immersion should be mixed with other methods of learning English and at the very beginning translations are actually the best. So I was curious how will that workout for him because it was different approach then one that I'm using. About pseudo-science? Read last three sentences of my post and you will know what I'm thinking about, but I don't let myself judge not a bad idea based on stupid theory, not to mention that if there will be any satisfying results posted I would go for 5 x 12 h sessions instead of what I'm doing now (everyday 15-30 minutes with Anki + busuu + some bilingual texts with audio). As there was no results provided I'm not going to waste my time over it as theory on which it was based was rubbish, so I don't believe that it worked as well as author trying to convince us.
leyus on 26 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Quote:

How open-minded is that !

Well I consider myself open-minded to whole experiment, I expected good results of cramming session even if I didn't consider going to lack of sleep necessary, also after modification I was willing to try it myself (without part of sleep deprivation). However you didn't published results, and after seeing yours attitude I don't think that any of your words are objective. I anyway gave you more credit then I suppose to by reading topic on which every second page is about telepathy, levitation and other subjects connected with results of DMT overdosing.

After this subject I have two options:
1. Stick to something what worked for me well with English learning. And which other people have done thousand times and published there results.
2. Try something (cramming+immersion at the point where I have 0 knowledge of Spanish) that was published by guy who recommends telepathy and time travelling as a second choice for language learning and he fights like a lion against publishing results of his experiment.

Sorry, if choosing former is being closed-minded, then I guess I just made my mind, because background of whole idea doesn't sound realistic, whole experiment was like example from a book of bad science methodology and results wasn't published.
leyus on 26 April 2011

leyus wrote:

After this subject I have two options:
1. Stick to something what worked for me well with English learning. And which other people have done thousand times and published there results.
2. Try something (cramming+immersion at the point where I have 0 knowledge of Spanish) that was published by guy who recommends telepathy and time travelling as a second choice for language learning and he fights like a lion against publishing results of his experiment.

Well, in fairness to him, he did sort of publish his results - he said he failed in much of the experiment. But, he still considers it valuable experience and maybe this will be reflected in his continuing studies.

As others have said here, it was probably a good jump-start to learning the language, but I personally don't believe it was brainwashing as he suggests and certainly not revolutionary. The one positive I've seen from it really came after his experiment, and that is that he's continuing on with his studies.

R.
==
hrhenry on 26 April 2011

When I look at the time and energy that the OP has spent writing about this failed experiment, I think he would have done better to study a good Russian grammar book. Frankly, I have had enough of this mumbo-jumbo about esoteric learning techniques. I still have no clue as to how much Russian was actually learned. Maybe we could have a sentence or two on some feature of Russian grammar or vocabulary that was actually acquired.
s_allard on 26 April 2011

s_allard wrote:

The OP is in a bit of a no-win situation here. He's getting hammered by various people for:
a) Spending time writing instead of studying.
b) Not writing exactly what whoever's posting wants to hear about.
c) Not demonstrating competence via other means, such as video.
d) Not knowing things that this one experiment didn't even begin to address.
e) Not writing things out in Russian, despite having used an entirely-audio course.
f) Wasting time addressing/not spending enough time addressing every critique which comes his way.
g) Trying to explain what he thinks, and why.

I really wish that people wouldn't pounce so much on every newbie who's a bit flamboyant. It doesn't help the posters, the newbie, or anyone reading this... Most of the posts seem to be beating dead horses, too.

Is he drastically wrong about some stuff? I think so - but I don't have anything worthwhile to add to what's already been said in that regard. I still think it was an interesting experiment, I'm still glad he wrote it up, and I'm still boggling at many of the attitudes in this thread (including some of the ones supporting the OP).

He clearly also realizes that a lot of this has been a waste of time - not the experiment itself, but the energy used to reply to people here, and the sheer negativity involved. I don't mean saying that he's wrong, or that technique X would be better - most of the negative feedback here hasn't been even ostensibly constructive.

For an experiment like this, the first thing that matters is recording what one does, and the results of that. This remains useful information, no matter how wrong the explanations about why something does/does not work are - and I think some posters would do well to bear this in mind.

Volte on 26 April 2011

Can we stop being so apologetic?!

The OP learned a humbling lesson, period. There is nothing to apologize for.
Arekkusu on 26 April 2011

Abazid wrote:

Quote:

I have read them. It was your original intention to do it in 61 uninterrupted hours, but you couldn't as you fell asleep twice. But so what? I don't see your point here.

Moving on, how does glossolalia fit into this? You've mentioned it a couple of times now. According to the same wikipedia link you gave:

Samarin found that glossolalic speech does resemble human language in some respects. The speaker uses accent, rhythm, intonation and pauses to break up the speech into distinct units. Each unit is itself made up of syllables, the syllables being formed from consonants and vowels taken from a language known to the speaker.

...

Samarin found that the resemblance to human language was merely on the surface, and so concluded that glossolalia is "only a facade of language".[9] He reached this conclusion because the syllable string did not form words, the stream of speech was not internally organised, and– most importantly of all– there was no systematic relationship between units of speech and concepts. Humans use language to communicate, but glossolalia does not. Therefore he concluded that glossolalia is not "a specimen of human language because it is neither internally organized nor systematically related to the world man perceives".

So what is the point of learning to produce nonsense utterences that sound vaguely like a language you already know? Although gibberish does seem appropriate for this thread.
rapp on 26 April 2011

Abazid, one of the reasons why you will find many people being very skeptical over some of the theories you believe in, is the extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence.

If the theory of morphic resonance could be proven via peer-reviewed experiments in respected scientific journals with the experimental results able to be replicated in further experiments by different researchers with consistency then the theory would be given credence and garner some respect in the scientific community. Instead, the serious scientific community appears to see it as pseudoscience with no solid supporting evidence and with evidence to the contrary.

On Sheldrake's wikipedia article there is an example of a joint-experiment that he did with neurobiologist Steven Rose where day-old chicks were trained to react negatively to a small light when the light was later followed by an injection which would cause the chick to feel temporarily ill. As a result, the chicks would link their pecking of the light to being ill and therefore became strongly averse to pecking it. The aim though was to see whether successive batches of day-old chicks would progressively become more averse to pecking the light for the first time which would suggest that perhaps morphic resonance would cause them to "remember" the experience of previous generations of chicks.

According to Rose and an independent analysis of the data by biologist Patrick Bateson, there was no indication that successive batches of chicks were any more wary about pecking the light for the first time than previous batches, though of course Sheldrake claims otherwise.

As for the seven experiments in that quote you gave from that site "co-intelligence", I find it interesting that on the site itself it gives no citations whatsoever to any recorded experiments in any scientific journal. They can claim all they want but if they can't even provide a citation then there is no reason to believe their claims about these experiments.

Also, if morphic resonance were true then it should really be staring us in the face with children in successive generations able to learn their native language more quickly than previous generations and do better in education. Instead, many British universities are complaining of falling standards in literacy and numeracy among new students where, assuming morphic resonance were true, the opposite should be occurring.

As for glossolalia, the wikipedia article gives various sensible explanations without the need of the idea of information somehow being beamed into their brain and I fail to see how your quote from the section in the article saying it could be a learned response is any indicator of morphic resonance being true. If you think that the investigation by the Lutheran Medical Center which shows that the influence of a particular leader can shape a group's glossolalia, that can be explained in psychological terms and does not require the belief of tapping into some kind of collective unconscious store of information and that these people are actually reproducing some kind of language and not actually just warbling gibberish.

I remember you mentioning the documentary film "What the Bleep do We Know?" as something for people to watch but it is a film that has been heavily debunked by skeptics. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlPiXNlhKFo - What the Bleep do we Know Debunking Video

It also actually provides citations, like statistics to actual crime figures.

It is important to try and be careful about what information you accept as being true or likely to be true and not to let wishful thinking get in the way.

I suspect you may be in need of a "baloney detection kit":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU - Baloney Detection Kit

jazzboy.bebop on 26 April 2011

Look, I know I can be harsh, and I know some other people can too, but when someone turns up and conflates the double-slit experiment with quantum superposition and then claims that the result of this all depends on what you expect to see (it doesn't, the double-slit experiment always generates an interference pattern despite the apparent mass of light suggesting the existence of the photon, thus causing the seeming paradox called "wave-particle duality", and quantum effects are completely and utterly random -- the presence of an observe collapses potential quantum states to a single physically realised state) and then complains that people are accusing him of pseudo-science without proof... well, it's hard to fault the really sarcastic guys.

I've tried to stick to the pertinent issues in terms of language learning, as has s_allard, but the OP's posts have been ridiculous, and therefore drawn ridicule.

And it really doesn't matter how quickly or how well Mezzofanti learned Cingalese -- he was an accomplished polyglot when he started, and in case you hadn't notices, language learning gets easier the more languages you learn.
Cainntear on 26 April 2011

Volte wrote:

If I could have given this post 10 votes I would have.

Having been away for a week, I am reading this thread with more and more sadness. Not because of the OP. In fact, what I take away from his experiment, is the inspiration to try a major cramming session as a starter for my next language (though including regular amounts of sleep).

I did however think we were better than this, and more generous than this. And after having been here for just a year I assume I am still considered a newbie and therefore obviously not worthy of the same respect as the ones who have been here for years. I am sad also to learn that. I thought you got the same respect regardless of the time you had been on the forum.

I do not need to see an example of what the OP has learned. He tells us that he learned a lot, and that he assumes it is a B1. That sounds high to me, but I have no reason to doubt his word. I am happy that he has taken the time to share his experiment with us, and I can't really say that he owes us any more than that.

What does anyone know about anyone anyhow? I have posted a picture of a lady in her forties, said I speak 8 languages and shared stories of a long life, but for all you know I may be a spotty 12 year old monolingual, American boy with a vivid imagination and really bad spelling.
Solfrid Cristin on 26 April 2011

Ya, agreed with Volte and Solfrid Cristin. Abazid has accomplished many positive effects here--including a great sense of accomplishment for himself. (Whether that sense of accomplishment truly reflects his level of A1, A2, B2, whatever...it still feels good to him, right? and that will help him learn more of the language, whether it is right or wrong.) He has even inspired me to push myself more with my language learning--especially now that i have the time to even be on here and read the forum.

many other people are just plainly responding to shut him down. for the sake of pushing their experience of what is more accurate, they challenge him, disrespect his information and who he is as a person, feed him negatives of his positive experience, and spit on his accomplishment. They are no role model, no matter how many languages they've learned.

They should be ashamed.
aerozeplyn on 26 April 2011

szastprast wrote:

The issue here is not respcet or disrespect, nobody called them names.

Yes the issue is respect. If we can respect only those we agree with, it is like granting freedom of speech only to those we agree with.

Solfrid Cristin on 26 April 2011

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

szastprast wrote:

The issue here is not respcet or disrespect, nobody called them names.

Yes the issue is respect. If we can respect only those we agree with, it is like granting freedom of speech only to those we agree with.

Disagreement is not disrespect.

And nobody has impeded the OP's freedom to express anything he wanted.
Arekkusu on 26 April 2011

szastprast wrote:

I suppose this thread should be closed, it leads nowhere.

There is no reason to close the thread. The OP should remain free to make additional observations should he feel so enclined.
Arekkusu on 26 April 2011

This thread for me has kickstarted my getting stuck in to MT German again, after far too long procrastinating.I can now take away the OP's experiences and use them as some form of benchmark against how I feel my progress is doing.

From a social anthropological point of view though - I have learned a hell of a lot more.

Best wishes in your continued studies Abazid.
HMS on 26 April 2011

szastprast wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

but for all you know I may be a spotty 12 year old monolingual, American boy with a vivid imagination and really bad spelling.

This is an argument ad personam, calling anybody a spotty twelve-year-old boy with really bad spelling is not a magnanimous act of respect.

The OP said what he said, some people disagreed (including me), that's all.

Hm. My English must be worse than I thought. I do not understand what you mean, and I was not aware of calling anyone anything, I was merely pointing out that what we know about eachother is what each person tells about himself. I have said I am a female, Norwegian with a certain amount of knowledge. That has not been challenged. I have not been asked to prove it or make YouTube videos. The only facts people know about me is that I can write English, but am really bad a spelling, hence the reference to my possible American 12 year old persona. I have written a few messages in my other languages, but so little that it could easily be faked.

However we do tend to take what everyone say about themselves at face value. Why should we not? It is not like anyone earns money from making fake claims about their language skills. It is only when we get claims like "I learned 4 exotic languages yesterday and will do two more this afternoon" that we can know for a fact that this is not possible.

I would therefore put it to you, that the OP, or anyone else, new or old on the forum, should get treated with respect, even if we disagree. His claims are not impossible, just uncommon and unchartered ground.

I wish the OP all the best, I thank him again for sharing his experiment with us, and even though I am unable to follow some of his theories, I have been inspired by this. And I sincerely hope that other newbies do not get scared away from the forum, or from trying out new theories after seeing how this went.
Solfrid Cristin on 26 April 2011

Arekkusu wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

szastprast wrote:

The issue here is not respcet or disrespect, nobody called them names.

Yes the issue is respect. If we can respect only those we agree with, it is like granting freedom of speech only to
those we agree with.

Disagreement is not disrespect.

And nobody has impeded the OP's freedom to express anything he wanted.

You are right: disagreement is not disrespect. Even the dictionary can tell us that. However, it is how you disagree
that can be disrespectful.
aerozeplyn on 26 April 2011

aerozeplyn wrote:

Arekkusu wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

szastprast wrote:

The issue here is not respcet or disrespect, nobody called them names.

Yes the issue is respect. If we can respect only those we agree with, it is like granting freedom of speech only to
those we agree with.

Disagreement is not disrespect.

And nobody has impeded the OP's freedom to express anything he wanted.

You are right: disagreement is not disrespect. Even the dictionary can tell us that. However, it is how you disagree
that can be disrespectful.

I agree. Most respectfully :-)
Solfrid Cristin on 27 April 2011

Respect and criticism are not incompatible. I have said on a few occasions that I find the experiment interesting and I have supported it and the OP. Mind you, I firmly believe that we are not really talking about language learning. I have called it jump-starting the learning process.

With all due respect to Sofrid Cristin, you have to admit that it's hard to swallow the statement that the OP has reached level B1 in Russian after MT Foundation over three days and little sleep. I was the one who asked for some sort of tangible manifestation of the OP's achievements in Russian. Not because I don't trust people, but simply because I am really curious to see what can be accomplished in three days. I'm not waiting to pounce on the OP with a "gotcha". O.K, it doesn't have to be Youtube, but, as I pointed out, the OP has not made the slightest mention of any issues with learning Russian. It doesn't have to be in Russian. No mention about difficulties pronouncing Russian. Nothing about the case system. Nothing at all.

All the theoretical discussion may be of interest to some people -- much of it looks like gobbledygook to me --but I really don't mind it. What I do mind is that there is no longer any talk about learning Russian.
s_allard on 27 April 2011

s_allard wrote:

I was the one who asked for some sort of tangible manifestation of the OP's achievements in Russian. Not because I don't trust people, but simply because I am really curious to see what can be accomplished in three days. I'm not waiting to pounce on the OP with a "gotcha". O.K, it doesn't have to be Youtube, but, as I pointed out, the OP has not made the slightest mention of any issues with learning Russian. It doesn't have to be in Russian. No mention about difficulties pronouncing Russian. Nothing about the case system. Nothing at all.

Some people keep talking about how Abazid wasn't treated with respect, but I found Abazid's behavior in this thread pretty disrespectful as well, and this is one of the main reasons why. He was pretty dismissive to those who didn't believe the same things he did and was quick with the insults from the start of the thread, but when people who genuinely showed an interest in the results and wanted some form of demonstration so they can see how far he had gotten, he responded to everyone with hostility and name calling. That pretty much told me all I needed to know.
sabotai on 27 April 2011

sabotai wrote:

s_allard wrote:

Two wrongs don't make a right. Abazid certainly could have done a number of things better in this thread, but he was also treated rather badly. Quite a few people have responded more dramatically than he did to similar treatment on this forum - which doesn't make any of this any better.

Volte on 27 April 2011

Volte wrote:

Two wrongs don't make a right.

I'm not saying they do, just that I'm not going to look on Abazid like's he's a victim here and feel sorry for him.
sabotai on 27 April 2011

s_allard wrote:

Yes, I find it hard to believe - but not absolutely impossible. The mind works in mysterious ways. I would also have liked to hear of the challenges the OP found, since like you, I am genuinely interested in the outcome. I have struggled like a lioness with Russian for a year without having all that much to show for it. If he has found a better way, I would like as much input as possible. I would therefore welcome more details, though I would understand it if he did not feel inclined to provide them after the reception he has received.

And I know that you particularly would not have said "gotcha", but I think you would also admit that there are others here who most probably would have.
Solfrid Cristin on 27 April 2011

S Allard,

The OP was asked to state his proficiency in terms of CEFR level attained, something he was unfamiliar with. He then obviously googled CEFR and gave as close approximation as he could based on the available explanations for each level. He even said he could be wrong and offered to submit a text of a level he felt comfortable with for an "expert" to assess his level. Everybody then stuck with the B1 claim though and the rest of this thread was built on that, which is unfair.

Like Sofrid, this thread has inspired me to "jumpstart" my German using MT. I will start tomorrow and take with it certain lessons I have learned from Abazid's experience. By stating this here will help me "take the plunge" as I've now put my cards on the table. I will post my intentions and aspirations if anyone is interested.

My experience of what MT I have listened to so far has given me one doubt though - I would say I have listened to MT foundation all the way through in sporadic bursts. If I listen to any given chapter in it I can produce the answer. I think this could be more to do with (What is the word for it?) Like when muslims learn to recite the koran verbatim in Arabic, without undestanding it. There are also people who can produce any quote from any given verse from the bible. Maybe this is what Abazid experienced? Only he knows.

I'm about to find out how something similar goes for me.
HMS on 27 April 2011

Solfrid Cristin - Unfortunately, with whole respect I must disagree with your opinion. I gave my opinion about experiment and lack of providing any results, as in my opinion someone who makes public claims what is he going to do suppose provide some kind of objective feedback. I made myself clear about it. I also added few sarcastic comments about pseudo-science which he presented. Those comments one can consider being disrespectful, I wouldn't call it so strong but let's face it I've done them because in my opinion he's and aerozeplyn posts are ridiculous! We must keep in mind that this forum might be often visited by underage audience! Schoolchildren who learn for their language exams etc. And I could see here OP suggesting 61 hours sleep deprivation and aerozeplyn suggesting LSD!!!! Damn I know there are dodgy places on internet and if teenager without supervision will look for troubles he will find them, but should we really in the name of respect and tolerance nod and promote potentially harmful behaviour, and someone who suggests that this might help you with your language? What's next? Ultimate Amphetamine Learning Exp? How I learned Spanish in 3 days by oxygen deprivation? I didn't went through all that links which they provided but I'm sure you can find full pallet of dangerous practices as sleep deprivation or using LSD might be. And as we know young mind is very willing to look for shortcuts. If we will agree for people publishing potentially hazardous ideas as a method that will "cut your learning time by half" as OP claimed then it won't be a surprise that young people will first try those methods and that might be our fault. That's why I think we should point out what's not right, and that's why I DON'T HAVE RESPECT for most of that pseudo-science rubbish. However I've seen some positive values of that experiment, pointed what I considered unnecessary and as I haven't seen any proof therefore I am unable to trust someone who promotes learning languages in the state of levitation. And I'm not going to change my mind for freedom of speech, he have freedom of speech, I have it as well. There is no reason to believe those people, or promote their viewpoint. People who suggest that kind of potentially detrimental ideas without any scientific proof expect that no one will speak up. There is no proof on those websites, and there is no proof in this topic thus I consider it useless.
leyus on 27 April 2011

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Yes, I find it hard to believe - but not absolutely impossible.

It's impossible in this case. If he mastered the material he used 100% it wouldn't put him at B1.
leosmith on 27 April 2011

leosmith wrote:

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Yes, I find it hard to believe - but not absolutely impossible.

It's impossible in this case. If he mastered the material he used 100% it wouldn't put him at B1.

True, but he revised his level once he found out what a B1 level actually was, although I still think he was being generous with his own assessment - he really needed an outsider's assessment, all said and done.

I took a look at the syllabus for the MT Vocabulary course he'd posted and, while there were a fair number of useful things, I think he'd be hard pressed to get to an A2 level with just the MT course. It's a good foundation for further study for sure, but in no way a complete course, unless you consider not being able to count beyond 10 or telling time something that's not needed in every day life (that was one of the things that bothered me about the MT Polish courses - knowing how to count isn't sufficient to be able to tell time).

But with that as a foundation, he should be in good shape to quickly advance through other, more complete courses, provided he's retained what he learned in the MT course.

If the takeaway for him is the desire to continue studying, then he at least got something out of it, albeit by wrecking his body for a week.

R.
==
hrhenry on 27 April 2011

HMS wrote:

I think this could be more to do with (What is the word for it?) Like when muslims learn to recite the koran verbatim in Arabic, without undestanding it.

I don't know the technical term for it, but most people round here just call it "parroting". It's something I was wary about when he talked about repeating sections and then getting them right.
I've noticed a few times how quickly my brain can pick up on the order of items in a recording or a wordlist. The big giveaway was when I had to think of the French for strawberry in order to remember raspberry of blackberry (the next two items on the vocabulary list).

Quote:

Maybe this is what Abazid experienced? Only he knows.

The problem is that he might not know.
While I noticed the problems with revising stuff in the same order, other people don't.
The success in memorising a list of items is seen as a success in language learning, even though it doesn't lead to an improvement in conversational ability.

Several large commercial publishers take advantage of the fact that learners really can't judge the value of their own learning by producing material that can be completed easily, thus giving the customer a nice fuzzy feeling and getting him to recommend the product to friends, even though he hasn't really achieved anything significant. (Hint: big yellow box.)
Cainntear on 27 April 2011

From my own experience with Michel Thomas Foundation and Advanced French, I think it is easy to overestimate your ability with the language upon completion of the courses as you feel like you have learned so much in a short space of time.

Abazid did re-evaluate his level though and said it was probably more around A2 than B1 and I think A2 is within the realms of possibility if you were to complete the Foundation, Advanced and Vocabulary courses, though you might need to do the vocabulary course a couple of times or so for the info to stick. Correct me if I am wrong, but the vocabulary you would need to be considered around A2 level is from around 650+ words and if you were to complete all three levels of MT and assuming you can remember the content you should know well in excess of 650 words. Abazid might not be comfortably at A2 but I think in that respect at least, we could give him the benefit of the doubt.

jazzboy.bebop on 27 April 2011

Cainntear wrote:

"three ~~~ ~ half" is "three and a half" -- there's really nothing else it could be.

"three / 6 = 1 half"

I got that alternate answer by Quantum Jumping to the planet Sudoku.

Sorry for this interruption, we now return you to the Fight of the Century.
TerryW on 28 April 2011