|
 |
How do you people cram in so many? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5774 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 1 of 73 01 April 2009 at 11:32am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Really. I'm struggling to understand how people can know so many languages.
I'm currently struggling away at Swedish and I am quite rubbish at it. I don't see myself as ever being able to totally master it- there are tens of thousands of words in the dictionary, how am I going to learn all those? Learning rules, grammer and all that is easily done and with that and a few basic words if you're so inclined you can say you speak the language but that is of course cheating. Truly speaking? agghhh. It'd be a full time job for me to get my Swedish up to that level. For a bunch of languages including ones for placs I've never been to? I don't see how it can be done. (quasi-rant over) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 73 01 April 2009 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
How? I don't care about words. In my experience words take care of themselves in a way grammar can't. Someone can hold up or point to an actual cat and say "cat", but it's impossible to hold up an actual hypothetical condition clause (eg "If I were you"), because a hypothetical condition clause doesn't physically exist.
So I only learn words when I need to, and then it's easy. And ask yourself this: do you know the entire English dictionary? No? But would you say you speak English? Yes? Then doesn't it follow that you don't need to understand the whole dictionary to "know" a language...? 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| betaquarx Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 5711 days ago 70 posts - 90 votes Speaks: German*, English, Dutch Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 73 01 April 2009 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
1.) Learn one language at a time.
2.) Study at the very very least 15 minutes a day, better 1 or 2 hours (it's not good to study for 3 or 4 hours on Monday and then do nothing for the rest of the week). 3.) Don't try to learn a dictionary by heart, learn the words you really need. 10 words a day is a good target for starters. If you got the hang of it you can increase if you want. 4.) Get media in your target language. Laugh if you want, but children's books are a good start. 5.) If your target language is not spoken in the country you reside in, it's sometimes hard to find native speakers. But thank god the internet was invented. I am sure you will find people on the internet (maybe even on this forum) who are willing to hold a conversation with you over Skype or Ventrilo in your target language. 6.) Don't lose the fun! Your brain will refuse to learn if you are not having fun while learning. The human attention span is about 40 minutes. If you are really studying hard for way longer than that you are not learning efficiently. Better chunk it up to 15 minute lessons and then do some recreation. Sport is good, supplies your brain with new oxygen (and varied impressions if done outside) :D 7.) Don't give up. Sounds worn out, but it is true! If you think it's too much, just halt for a few minutes, ask yourself if you really want to do it, drop all unnecessary overload you wanted to do all at once and concentrate on the important parts. Then start again slowly but surely (and determined of course). hope this helps 
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5890 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 4 of 73 01 April 2009 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
wow!! betaqurx those are great instructions!!!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5774 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 5 of 73 01 April 2009 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of course you don't need to know it all but for English I would understand the majority. Especially those that people are ever likely to say (500 words are 50%, 1000 words 90% and 5000 95% or somesuch? don't have exact numbers on me now). Thats still a damn lot of words. For one language its hard enough, for more I would really be damned.
I don't get you. How does that work? Words are languages. I could say I speak Japanese as I did one time study it and still have a understanding of the basic grammer and sentence construction and all that. My vocabulary has gone totally to pot though. I certainly don't speak Japanese. Only learning words when you need to doesn't really mean you can speak a language. Just that if presented with a text at home you could decipher it. Edited by Tyr on 01 April 2009 at 1:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| betaquarx Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 5711 days ago 70 posts - 90 votes Speaks: German*, English, Dutch Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 73 01 April 2009 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I think what he meant was that he would not learn words like merinthophobia (just an example!) beforehand , but rather when you encounter them frequently and really need them.
You will build up a good vocabulary eventually. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 73 01 April 2009 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ah, well there's the thing: use it or lose it. If you don't speak the language for a bit, you'll forget it. But the positive side is (as you say) you don't lose the grammar as quick as the vocabulary. So if you are likely to stop using the language for a bit, learning grammar is more useful than learning vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6244 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical) | Message 8 of 73 01 April 2009 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
We've had very long discussions on this website about what it means to know a language and how many words are necessary. Some say that you need to know around 1,000 before you can really claim it and others say you need to know five times that number.
I must agree with Cainntear on both counts. Memorizing grammar rules doesn't mean you'll know a language any more than memorizing instructions for playing the clarinet will teach you to make music. You need to practice. Once you've internalized the language's grammar it's unlikely to ever truly go away. The same is true of words. It's unlikely that you'll ever forget the words in Swedish that you use often and in a variety of contexts (just like your vocabulary in English). If you can't find a way to use the words you're trying to learn then it will be harder for them to be internalized. The other thing that is true is that if you don't use it, you lose it, but you can get it back. Brazilian linguist Carlos Freire has studied over 110 languages but can only converse in about thirty of them at the drop of a hat. He says that the other languages are deactivated but they can be reactivated in a few days to a week of review. Edited by portunhol on 01 April 2009 at 5:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
