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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 9 of 12 04 November 2014 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | ||
Over the years here, this is what I sometimes see happen to beginners. It's almost akin to an addiction. The software fills the pleasure centers with satisfaction in a way that the initial struggles to engage with the language outside of a course and the anki deck doesn't. So, "reading/speaking/listening hard" - "srs easy" = do loads of srs- "Yay, I'm learning, look how many words I 'know', woohoo!". You are learning, to a certain extent. You're just not learning where the parts go, what to do with them and how they work together. Using srs as one tool to help is one thing- a good thing to do. Using it as a main tool in the box (along with just a course and minimal engagement with the language outside these two) is another thing entirely- not so good. When that happens it's time to step back, take a look and do something about it because it isn't helping as much as you may think. You certainly can do extensive reading, if it's comprehensible. Parallel texts will do that for you until you don't need them anymore. They can serve as a bridge to reading just in Spanish (with a pop-up dictionary). Don't neglect the other skills either- listening, speaking and writing. They're important too. Each skill informs and reinforces the other. Yeah, I know, it's a lot, but it will help you engage and interact with the language and its speakers. Maybe that means you cut back a bit on some areas of your learning process (srs, course?) and add in others like- Writing on lang8 (short paragraphs) for native speaker correction; Finding a free skype language exchange partner on italki, shared talk, etc; Listening to a daily newscast for 10 or 15 minutes (yeah, daily means every day). All of this can be done for free. Have a look at my post The multi-track approach. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4341 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 10 of 12 04 November 2014 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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But if you use a parallel text, isn't that technically closer to intensive reading?
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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 11 of 12 04 November 2014 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Only if you let it be. The point of a parallel text is that it saves looking up words and helps one to see "chunks" of language at a glance. Purposely not using parallel texts as an intensive exercise, not worrying about every word and not putting everything in sight into srs is what I am advocating in this particular case. Glance at unknown words and register it briefly in your memory and then move on. It's more about building critical mass and learning words in context, in different contexts with each different reading. The OP said that he couldn't read extensively because he had to stop and look up too many words. Parallel texts make that easier. L1 can be covered up while reading L2 and only opened up when needed, or L1 can be read first- then L2, or L2 first then L1, or L2 and leave L1 open and train to only glance over when necessary, etc. There are many ways to do this. I prefer the last option. Edited by iguanamon on 04 November 2014 at 5:13pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 12 04 November 2014 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did a similar experiment with Serbian wordlists earlier this year - I went through roughly 4.800 words directly from a dictionary, and when I have revisited those lists later on I have been able to cover up the translation columns and still remember about 70-80% of the words. I couldn't have got that vocabulary in less time without some kind of systematic memorizing, except maybe if I applied for the installation of a savant brain which could pick up anything like a sponge.
I have also had a Serbian and a Croatian station on my TV for some months now and visited the area in connection with the Novi Sad event. But understanding speech on the fly is harder than reading texts - at least for me. These activities mean that I now can read a typical magazine article or articles in the Serbian Wikipedia (with the help of a dictionary or a translation). I can also pull sentences out of my head, though not at lightening speed, and often I lack some crucial words. But given the limited time I have spent on being active in the language this isn't surprising. So my word learning marathon has definitely given the results I expected. But being able to speak the language fluently was not among the results I expected, and you don't get it just by cramming words. Verbal fluency is mainly based on hard and constant training in practical use of the most common words (including the grammar words), and the time that is spent on learning the words from no. 1000 and upwards in a language can't also be spent on speaking. Edited by Iversen on 04 November 2014 at 3:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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