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Immersion Experiment | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Zeitgeist21 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5644 days ago 156 posts - 192 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 25 of 33 25 June 2010 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Haha TerryW you may well be right :D With the exponential thing I just meant that it's easier to pick up new words the more you already know, like picking up words when I know none is pretty hard ;) Whereas in German for example at the moment I understand pretty much everything (not so much in books but in films) so when a word I didn't already know comes up it's usually pretty obvious what it means because of the context =)
Realistically I think you're probably right about me staying on the left side of the curve at one hour a day though I think I might try and make it more like a minimum of an hour a day and aim to watch a whole film a day when I can. Though yeah I'm still probably gonna be on the left side of the curve the whole time anyway but I'm not really dead set on learning Russian anyway, I just chose it because it's not related to any languages I know already and I have a good friend who speaks Russian who can point me in the right direction with finding new stuff =) I'm more just curious to see who I'll percieve Russian when I learn like this and to see what results I get. No subs or other materials, I keep wanting to pick up an Assimil or do L-R or something because I know I could be learning sooo much faster but I'm holding back ^^ So yeah the frustration graph probably will be exponential :D To be honest I didn't really wanna debate all this with everyone though ^^ I only expected a few people to read the thread and thought it would be keep me in check and make me keep it all up :P I hadn't really planned to analyse and discuss it until I had some results ^^ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zeitgeist21 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5644 days ago 156 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 26 of 33 25 June 2010 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the last 3 days I've heard 5 hours of Russian including Frost / Nixon in Russian and ...22 июня, ровно в 4 часа... .
It was really odd watching the second because I understood the outline of what was happening because of what I could see, though I didn't understand why anything was happening as that was all in the dialogue. Though they said communism (which sounds pretty much the same) quite alot so I guess that was an important theme and the main guy was a soldier. I'm certain the events are related to these two things but I don't know how. There were also quite a few songs and a little kid with mad accordion skills at the beginning ^^ What I found even more surprising was that I actually enjoyed watching the movie :D So far I only understand a few words, I can't spell them but one sounds something like knee-yet although the ee is kinda swallowed, and I think it means "no" or if not that something negative. Although only having learnt about 10 words of Czech in a holiday I got a cognate with that ^^ Dobre or something similar sounding means good. Two other words that I understand are ya which I think means "I am" and Soldat because it's the same in German. Now time for А зори здесь тихие... =) Edited by WillH on 25 June 2010 at 3:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5555 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 27 of 33 25 June 2010 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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One of the important things here is that at least a fraction of your input needs to be comprehensible, either through context, reference, or starting from a point where you understand enough words and structures to disambiguate new words as they start to frequently re-occur or stand out from the rest.
I think it's an interesting experiment, but I do worry that progress could prove painfully slow, and that the time could be invested otherwise more efficiently, or at least it could all be more fun for you over time. I've read several accounts of the "TV Method", and links to other people's experiments with audio-visual immersion can be found here on the forum too. But if you're dead set on solely audio immersion, then please consider the following tips to try and make things a little easier in the long run and speed up the boot-strapping period initially (i.e. internalising enough vocabulary so that you can learn quicker from future context): 1. Choose audio where you clearly already know the context, and ideally, the story. For example, I know the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" inside-out, and would hopefully be able to pick up some initial vocabulary just by remembering the plot sequence and exactly what is said at each point. 2. Look for audio where the general theme or speaker likes to include lots of English loanwords, and keep an ear out for similarities between words in the target language and your own native language too. This will add even more to overall context, which in turn will help you work out more new words after a while. 3. Opt for simple themes where the vocabulary is very basic and repeated several times, especially where the narrator is fun and interesting and likes making noises that could act as clues to what's being said. Children's stories are really great at this. 4. As an extension of tip no. (1) really, you could try to immerse yourself in the audio from familiar television (or even better, radio series) (e.g. telenovelas, Star Trek, whatever). There's a much higher chance that the same catch-phrases and vocabulary will pop up frequently again and again, which means an even higher chance of you working out what they might be. 5. Listen to dialogues, especially relatively set speech acts and transactions. Interpersonal communication can give you many further clues as to meaning by noticing how people react and respond. What do questions sound like, for example? How about commands? The first things I tend to pick up whilst watching a film in a foreign language are the imperatives, e.g. Poehali!, Derzhi!, etc. I also tend to understand what's going on in basic transactions, and can work out greetings and parts of scenarios at the doctor's or in a supermarket for example. Good luck in your experiment, and I look forward to reading how you get on. :) Edited by Teango on 25 June 2010 at 4:24pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Zeitgeist21 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5644 days ago 156 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 28 of 33 25 June 2010 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry I was misleading when I said pure audio, I meant my only input from the language is audio (i.e. no written language) though I didn't meant to imply that there would be no video for context. I'm watching the videos too =) Thanks for the suggestions, I'll keep them in mind! I'll try and find some movies I know well in Russian, "Frost/Nixon" is one of my favourites so I'll be sure to watch that again :P I'm also staying with a friend in Moscow for 5 days towards the end of August so I should be able to buy a few of my favourites then too :)
The website mentioned above with Russian films also has kid's movies and cartoons too which should be easier and more repetetive in terms of vocab though at the same time I find them less interesting to watch. I guess consistency will win it for me at the end so I'll try and watch a balance of easy, more repetetive films and harder more interesting ones =) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5555 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 29 of 33 25 June 2010 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Sluzhebnyj roman" and "Ironiya sud'by" rank amongst my favourite all-time Russian films. I can simply watch them again and again. Children's classic tv series and cartoons also open up a very important window on Russian culture. I thoroughly recommend any of the classic short adventures of "Cheburashka i Crocodil Gena", and keep a lookout for "Priklyucheniya Elektronika" and "Ivan Vasil'evich menyaet professiyu" too. Udachi (good luck)! :) Edited by Teango on 25 June 2010 at 5:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zeitgeist21 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5644 days ago 156 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 30 of 33 25 June 2010 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you so much for the recommendations!! They'll be the next ones on my list ;)
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| Zeitgeist21 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5644 days ago 156 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 31 of 33 26 June 2010 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm enjoying this experiment alot and have listened a further two hours in the last day bringing up my total to 7 hours but I'm having second thoughts about this experiment. I think it would work but I feel I'm splitting my time among too many things right now and only doing everything to a shallow level :/
I'm splitting my time among German, Russian, guitar and sport and I feel that I'm making so much less progress in all of these areas than I could be. And I'm going to have a lot less time soon when I start my full-time job in Berlin and as I already said, learning Russian isn't a priority in my lfe. I'm tempted to give up Russian and guitar for the next year so that I can focus entirely on my German. In a year or two I'd love to come back to this experiment but do it properly (3-5 hours daily) but for now I think I need to focus my efforts towards my German and develop a really deep knowledge in one of my languages before moving on and learning more. I'm not entirely sure yet, and I'm going to keep up the experiment for another few days while I decide but I think this would probably be best for me, especially as I'm moving to Berlin soon. I hope I didn't let any of you down who were interested, though at least now I've developed an interest in Russian cinema! :P Edited by WillH on 26 June 2010 at 9:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| RedBeard Senior Member United States atariage.com Joined 6101 days ago 126 posts - 182 votes Speaks: Ancient Greek* Studies: French, German | Message 32 of 33 26 June 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | ||
You need to do what is best for you and your family, of course. That said, the original post says an hour a day. If you decide to keep up the experiment, relax and go back to your orginal 1 hour with/without video. Maybe that way you could still have time for your various hobbies. I am interested in the outcome, but if you can't do it then you can't do it. No harm, no foul. Edited by RedBeard on 26 June 2010 at 9:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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