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Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer
| Message 1 of 30 19 May 2015 at 7:17pm | IP Logged |
I've finally given in - and have started learning Khmer :)
Like so many here I'm no stranger to wanderlust - as evidenced by several abandoned logs. My passion for Thai on the other hand has never suffered from this, and I've been able to make good progress over the years, resulting in friendships, various projects and many great experiences and travels. It's in the spirit of Thai, and not those other abandoned languages, that I would like to see my Khmer endeavor develop. And I do have a few things going for me: several established friendships and contacts to ethnic Khmers in Thailand (through Thai for the time being), and also some other projects in the Khmer-speaking regions of Thailand. Furthermore, the influence of Khmer on Thai is huge and knowledge of Khmer will be enriching and enlightening in many ways. Last but not least there's a huge language shift going on in the Khmer-speaking border provinces with Cambodia which will be fascinating to explore.
I think it's fair to say that my approach to language learning is quite different from what most people do. Because of this, and the fact that there's not a lot on Khmer on the internet, I've decided to blog about my language learning. HTLAL has always been welcoming of all kinds of approaches, so I thought I would post here as well from time to time. I’ve always enjoyed the community but seem to have lost touch after the recent server breakdown.
In a nutshell, here’s what I'm currently doing and planning to do:
- Silent phase of about 1000 hours in the beginning, during which I will only listen to comprehensible input; no speaking, no reading, no translations, no explanations etc.
- After those 1000 hours, I will start speaking, reading and writing, probably in that order
- During the silent phase, I listen to tailor-made recordings or have live sessions (occasionally); the recordings are based on picture books and designed in such a way that I have comprehensible input from the very start; live sessions are more about TPR and TPR with objects
- In later stages, I will continue to work with various types of picture books, using GPA ideas which I've already been applying to Thai for quite some time.
Here’s my blog with much more details and lots of examples: Outer Khmer.
A good overview of the types of pictures I’ve worked with in the beginning is here.
At this point, I'm about 220 hours into the silent phase. Khmer is a beautiful language, I've been really enjoying it so far. I might even fall in love with the language... if I haven't already :)
Edited by Bakunin on 19 May 2015 at 7:18pm
7 persons have voted this message useful
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6097 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish
| Message 2 of 30 19 May 2015 at 10:07pm | IP Logged |
Good to see you back Bakunin!
And good to see that you are going on strong with Thai (no more Szlarski !!)
I wish you well with Khmer.
Your listening approach is interesting - are you planning any expicit grammar / vocab study?
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 3 of 30 20 May 2015 at 3:31am | IP Logged |
Great to see you here again!
Don't you speak English anymore? :P
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| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3848 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto
| Message 4 of 30 20 May 2015 at 9:26am | IP Logged |
I think I've only followed one log of yours in the past, but I found it fascinating, and was very excited to see your nick on a new log. Good luck with Khmer, I look forward to following your progress.
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| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer
| Message 5 of 30 20 May 2015 at 6:43pm | IP Logged |
@Mooby: Thanks :) I see that you've added a nice collection of blunt knifes to your sharp one, he he :)) Your confession actually convinced me to post - if even you succumb to wanderlust then I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Explicit grammar and vocab study… thinking about the answer made it clear to me that I want to conceptualize Khmer as a spoken language without a writing system for the time being. This is not true in the case of Khmer, but this will be my approach, at least in the beginning. I'm generally interested in second language acquisition of languages which aren't written and would like to explore and develop techniques which work for me. There is a huge bias towards written languages, and people even confuse language for the black stuff on paper, but I’m going to defy that! :)
More concretely, if explicit vocab work includes activities like focused listening and speaking exercises, a framework for meaning negotiation and a framework for review of recordings, then the answer is yes (although not during the silent phase, of course); if, however, the question is more about whether I will study word lists or use bilingual dictionaries, then the answer is no.
@Serpent: Thanks :) ... and yep, English has atrophied. It's basically gone :)
@Elenia: Thanks :) I'll do my best to post from time to time! But don’t get too excited, I’m not going to do much more than listen to wordless picture stories and enjoy myself for quite some time to come...
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| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4650 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 6 of 30 20 May 2015 at 7:04pm | IP Logged |
I hope you are up for a question about your learning style. I am looking back at my own process of learning Spanish and it was course heavy with no outside listening and I think if I were to do it over I would change this and listen from the start. However, you stated:
-Silent phase of about 1000 hours in the beginning, during which I will only listen to comprehensible input; no speaking, no reading, no translations, no explanations etc.-
How does one have the ability to make something comprehensible in a new target language. I get the listening but if I were to start Russian tomorrow (which I cannot understand 5 words), how would I make the audio comprehensible without translations and explanations. I am VERY interested in your methods.
Thanks in advance for the time and explanations,
BOLIO
4 persons have voted this message useful
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer
| Message 7 of 30 20 May 2015 at 7:20pm | IP Logged |
BOLIO wrote:
I hope you are up for a question about your learning style. |
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Sure, that's the idea of being here, isn't it :)
BOLIO wrote:
-Silent phase of about 1000 hours in the beginning, during which I will only listen to comprehensible input; no speaking, no reading, no translations, no explanations etc.-
How does one have the ability to make something comprehensible in a new target language. I get the listening but if I were to start Russian tomorrow (which I cannot understand 5 words), how would I make the audio comprehensible without translations and explanations. |
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I've written in detail about the first sessions on my blog. You can find everything here. Scroll to "Absolute beginner phase (100 hours)" and look at the first few posts (sessions 1-6). The summary post on picture types during the absolute beginner phase might also be useful to understand better what I've been doing.
In any case you raise an important point, and I want to be very clear: I'm not listening to stuff I don't understand. This is not the TV method; I'm doing something completely different. I design my input so that I understand what it's about from the very start. The figure I like to quote is "80% comprehension" at the minimum. Initially, the 80% don't refer to the ratio of known to unknown words but rather to the proportion of listening time during which I understand what is being talked about. Such an approach leads to rapid vocabulary acquisition. The brain is a fantastic pattern recognition device :)
Edited by Bakunin on 20 May 2015 at 7:21pm
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 8 of 30 20 May 2015 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
Bolio, you might be interested in this wikia article, as well as Katò Lomb's book. And actually if you gave Russian a try you'd understand more than you expect (although not 80%).
Edited by Serpent on 20 May 2015 at 8:04pm
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