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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 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 73 of 87 14 April 2009 at 2:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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I can see that my name has turned up a couple of times in this thread, so I may just as well state my position on some of the issues here.
I do use wordlists for word memorization, and it is true that I sometimes take my words from dictionaries, sometimes from texts. But in this last case I first note them down on a sheet of paper, so in a sense you could say that I never base my word lists directly on words in a context. But I don't see this as a problem. Words aren't isolated cases of meaningless noise, - they are connected to other words both in the same language and in other language through etymology, derivation, similarities in sound and spelling, meaning and other factors, including the one of having seen a certain word somewhere. So writing wordlists is not a mere absorption of meaningsless phoneme sequences, but an activity that is intimately connected with my other activities. The reason that I write wordlists is of course that they give me a lot of new words in a very short time. If I read a text I can't look up words all the time, and even having a literal translation or a pop-up dictionary doesn't change that. If I have to absorb new words at the rate of one per minute or more from a text then I lose the sense of coherence in the text, and I get totally exhausted from all that guess work and problem solving. I can't do it unless the number of new words is so low that I only have to look up a minor part of the words in the text - that is the idea behind the notion of 'comprehensible' texts. But with word lists I can get through a lot of words in no time, and when I then later meet the same words in context I'm in a much better position to understand them and their function in the text. One thing more: my preferred method for getting a grip on a new language is to do hyperliteral translations, preferably aided by a normal translation, but if I can't get one of those then I'm prepared to slug it through with the help of a dictionary and a grammar. It doesn't take many pages before I have met the most common words and constructions several times, and if I then can find some very easy texts I can start reading extensively to get the 'drive'. And those easy texts could for instance be popular scientific articles because of their high proportion of international words. All kinds of reading - and later listening - yield new words, but it would be foolish to try to do wordlists while reading a book. I note down the words for later use in word lists, and then I continue my reading. My impression - based on years of doing them - is that it is totally irrelevant where the words come from. I don't get more bored or confused when I make word lists directly from my dictionaries than I do when I use words culled laboriously from a text, - the only relevant factors are 1) to have a good dictionary which leaves little room for false guesses, 2) getting accostumed to the new language and its quirks.The more background, the easier it is to add new words. And finally, I can work with both languages and other things for a long time. I often read a book in one go, and I can do language related activities from I wake up to I go to sleep if I haven't got more urgent matters to tend to. But I have found that it is most efficient for me to change language and/or activity after about an hour, maybe two. Edited by Iversen on 03 July 2009 at 11:56am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Steve Kaufmann Newbie Canada thelinguist.blogs.co Joined 5707 days ago 20 posts - 24 votes | Message 74 of 87 14 April 2009 at 8:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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I do some of the same. If the material I am reading does not have too many unknown words, I will simply use a highlighter and mark up my book with phrases and words that I want to learn. Then after a chapter, I will review the highlighted phrases. Words that I do not know I then type into google documents (to take advantage of their spell checker in order to avoid any mistyped words), then I copy and paste the list into LingQ, which adds these words to my data base.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 75 of 87 14 April 2009 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've experienced good teachers and bad teachers. In my experience a good teacher causes learning, but we'll have to agree to differ on that. I'll rephrase my original statement so it doesn't rely on a teacher: I think much of learning styles is about coping with suboptimal learning materials and techniques, not about an effective way of learning, 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Steve Kaufmann Newbie Canada thelinguist.blogs.co Joined 5707 days ago 20 posts - 24 votes | Message 76 of 87 14 April 2009 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I did not say that a good teacher does not cause learning, so we need not agree to disagree on that.
As to your rephrased statement I have not a clue what your point is. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6246 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 77 of 87 14 April 2009 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Nobody ever does. He just loves to post. Edited my mistake pointed out to me by icing_death, see further down this page. Edited by charlmartell on 19 April 2009 at 12:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6859 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 78 of 87 15 April 2009 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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For what it's worth (not much), I used to be an active participant on this forum, and then lost interest as I got more into LingQ, or at least its methods (I'm too attached to SuperMemo to ever give it up!). Lots of listening and reading, very little talking. Most of the material I find is on LingQ, but it can come from anywhere. I started learning Italian this way a little less than a year ago, not expecting much, and I've been pleasantly surprised.
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| icing_death Senior Member United States Joined 5863 days ago 296 posts - 302 votes Speaks: English* | Message 79 of 87 18 April 2009 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
What do you mean by "to be post"? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| charlmartell Super Polyglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6246 days ago 286 posts - 298 votes Speaks: French, English, German, Luxembourgish*, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 80 of 87 18 April 2009 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
I only now found out that I had nonplussed you. My sentence started out as "He just loves to be heard" but as I thought some smart alec would tell me it was not "heard" but "read" I changed it to "post". Except I left the "be", which of course was a silly mistake. I apologize if I totally confused you. It was supposed to be: "He just loves to post" (900+ posts in 300 days!). And I have now corrected it accordingly. Thanks for pointing it out. Edited by charlmartell on 18 April 2009 at 11:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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