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Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh
| Message 113 of 164 30 March 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged |
Goindol wrote:
Is it permitted to get a broad overview of the target language's grammar beforehand? Ask specific questions about the language during the challenge? |
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It was my understanding that L-R was being presented as self-contained and complete and that you shouldn't need to.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 114 of 164 30 March 2009 at 10:56pm | IP Logged |
Cainntear wrote:
Goindol wrote:
Is it permitted to get a broad overview of the target language's grammar beforehand? Ask specific questions about the language during the challenge? |
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It was my understanding that L-R was being presented as self-contained and complete and that you shouldn't need to. |
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Read more carefully, then. Atamagaii has been quite consistent in saying that you don't need to read anything about grammar ahead of time for closely related languages to ones you already speak, but that it's "helpful" for more distant ones.
1 person has voted this message useful
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5879 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish
| Message 115 of 164 31 March 2009 at 3:09am | IP Logged |
Wow. I gotta tell you Volte, you set the bar pretty low.
Hey, I'm just a language enthusiast like the next person. I certainly don't make a point to bump around forums looking to argue with people, more often I like to give a hand when I can.
But wow, you're killing me. It looks like just for the sake of argument you claim you've had success with this method, and obviously you haven't.
But then again, apparently extracting bits of stuff here and there counts for you and you would advertise it as such. I wonder if you realize how powerful the blanket statement is "I could watch polish tv after a few dozen hours" is to the person who wants to believe you and does so when you say such a thing. They really think you can watch the tv and understand and so they think hey, that's amazing, I'm on board too. But we know better, eh? Who would actually make such a claim when it is so far from the truth? Wow. We don't take a statement like that and expect it to be broken down into what you did, we take it for what it means. You know, actually watching tv and getting it.
It makes me think of all the people that claim to know another language just to impress friends, and when asked to actually speak it they can't, other than a few words or frases. What's the point?
So when you say to me that spending 2 years to get to basic fluency is no big deal, too many to count and list and have done so faster and with too many different methods...well yeah...If we're talking about what you consider "basic fluency". I shudder to think what that might consist of. I imagine by your standards I could probably get to "basic fluency" in 2 or 3 months and put it on the shelf and grab another.
We have an entirely different perception as to the acquisition and command of a foreign language. I didn't claim "basic fluency". I said fluent. Big difference. And I also recognize the fact that I can spend another 2 years perfecting it before I will be satisfied.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 116 of 164 31 March 2009 at 3:28am | IP Logged |
hypersport wrote:
Wow. I gotta tell you Volte, you set the bar pretty low. |
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I set many bars; some are pretty low.
hypersport wrote:
Hey, I'm just a language enthusiast like the next person. I certainly don't make a point to bump around forums looking to argue with people, more often I like to give a hand when I can.
But wow, you're killing me. It looks like just for the sake of argument you claim you've had success with this method, and obviously you haven't.
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We're defining success differently.
hypersport wrote:
But then again, apparently extracting bits of stuff here and there counts for you and you would advertise it as such.
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Extracting bits of stuff here and there counts for... extracting bits of stuff here and there. When I can extract _enough_ of the bits, I understand.
hypersport wrote:
I wonder if you realize how powerful the blanket statement is "I could watch polish tv after a few dozen hours" is to the person who wants to believe you and does so when you say such a thing. They really think you can watch the tv and understand and so they think hey, that's amazing, I'm on board too. But we know better, eh? Who would actually make such a claim when it is so far from the truth? Wow. We don't take a statement like that and expect it to be broken down into what you did, we take it for what it means. You know, actually watching tv and getting it.
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I've "actually watched TV and got it" in Polish; feel free to disbelieve me, or misinterpret this based on my other statements.
hypersport wrote:
It makes me think of all the people that claim to know another language just to impress friends, and when asked to actually speak it they can't, other than a few words or frases. What's the point?
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I don't see any point in that either.
hypersport wrote:
So when you say to me that spending 2 years to get to basic fluency is no big deal, too many to count and list and have done so faster and with too many different methods...well yeah...If we're talking about what you consider "basic fluency". I shudder to think what that might consist of. I imagine by your standards I could probably get to "basic fluency" in 2 or 3 months and put it on the shelf and grab another.
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My standards for "basic fluency" are quite simple: being able to talk about pretty much anything one cares to, in a non-halting ('fluent') manner, with occasional errors in grammar and potential suboptimal word choice.
2-3 months isn't impossible - look at the time estimates given by the administrator of this site for a second Romance language. I'd say he's conservative and has high standards; if you want to argue with what he's written on the subject, go for it.
hypersport wrote:
We have an entirely different perception as to the acquisition and command of a foreign language. I didn't claim "basic fluency". I said fluent. Big difference. |
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I have no idea how you define 'fluent'; go ahead and do so.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Goindol Senior Member United States Joined 6072 days ago 165 posts - 203 votes
| Message 117 of 164 31 March 2009 at 4:37am | IP Logged |
I said earlier in the thread that I'm willing to try the L-R method to learn a language from scratch. Here are some basic guidelines I was thinking of for the challenge.
Time frame: total of 3 weeks. During the first week, I will read the text in translation, and read up on rudimentary grammar and phonetics. The remaining two weeks will be spent on the L-R method proper. Two days will be set aside for rest. So 23 in total, including the rest days.
Intensity: I will spend a minimum of 5 hours and up to 8 hours on L-R daily during the two-week period. I cannot read longer than that because staring at my LCD screen for prolonged periods gives me a headache.
Material and language: open to discussion, but I will need an interlinear text, and well-recorded audio. If I finish a book before the two weeks are up, I will move on to another book until the end of the challenge. If anyone has suitable interlinear texts, please PM me with the details.
Documentation: I'll keep a daily log to record my impressions, and to ask and answer any questions. Will spend up to 1 hour every day on the log.
Volte, Cainntear et al., I'll leave it to you to hammer out the rest of the details and come to an agreement. Please do so within a reasonable time frame -- let's say within 72 hours.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 118 of 164 31 March 2009 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
The agreement will have to exclude me, as I won't be posting in the next 72 hours. Hopefully aYa will chime in.
Good luck.
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| Akipenda Lugha Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5736 days ago 78 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Swahili, Sign Language, Spanish
| Message 119 of 164 31 March 2009 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
Hey I've studied French for 3 years, can have conversations and live in french if I want, and I still have trouble making out dialogue on TV in french and reading standard material, so that's saying a lot to be able to understand and read even a lower percentage of content. In fact, it says something about the method. I've learnt very textually, from textbooks, from rules, so I can form sentences and converse 'avec bon usage', but the standard tools don't teach you how to process native speech and writing, whereas I can see how a method like L-R based on high levels of exposure would address that weakness in textbook learning.
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| icing_death Senior Member United States Joined 5859 days ago 296 posts - 302 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 120 of 164 31 March 2009 at 7:10am | IP Logged |
Goindol wrote:
Volte, Cainntear et al., I'll leave it to you to hammer out the rest of the details and come to an agreement. Please do so within a reasonable time frame -- let's say within 72 hours. |
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It's not my call, but I request you choose an "easy" language (but not esperanto). BTW, are you a native English speaker? If you are, I request you choose a language from the easiest category defined by FSI. If it doesn't do the things they claim, then you've proven it for all languages. If it works, then we critics have to shut up. All of this is my personal opinion of course.
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