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Schliemann method - has it been emulated?

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datsunking1
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 Message 25 of 30
21 July 2010 at 2:51am | IP Logged 
I've learned nearly all of my Spanish from books.

Given the fact that I have over 10 pertaining to the language, it is possible.

I really wished I would have had Assimil... High school teaching was horrible. We never spoke, just studied grammar. Typical huh? My speaking and audio comprehension aren't where I would like them to be, but I can read almost anything with a 90% comprehension level or higher. I think it's sad :/
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William Camden
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 Message 26 of 30
21 July 2010 at 2:33pm | IP Logged 
Ocius wrote:
William Camden wrote:
Feats of memory of the kind he claimed to be able to perform are interesting, but a lot
of similar claims by other people don't seem to hold water. (As far as I have been able to discover, claims of
"photographic memory" are considered by psychologists to be unfounded.) Perhaps Schliemann could recite the
gist of 20 or so pages to a tutor, and in his romancing imagination later, this turned to perfect
recall.


While I'm almost certain he exaggerated his ability to memorize passages a bit, similar memory feats (reading a
long passage several times and being able to recite it) are not all that extraordinary for a trained memory. As was
mentioned earlier, part of being a good actor is knowing how one's memory works and knowing the tricks to
retaining scripts verbatim even in high-stress situations (i.e. on stage). While memorizing "20 pages" word-for-
word after only three readings seems a bit extraordinary, doing so in, say, 60 minutes or so, is something within
the bounds of normal experience (if you can make it interesting and develop strong memory cues). Edit: Not all
types of texts are equally easily to memorize, though that should go without saying. Say, for example, you
wanted to memorize passages from the Bible. Well, if you attended a Christian school or had a religious family
environment, attempting to memorize large passages would be much easier simply because one would already
be familiar with the stories. I imagine in Schliemann's case, such examples from his school days involved
memorization of texts which he had become familiar with in previous lessons. Further, memorizing things like
the text of the Iliad or the Odyssey, for someone who is obsessively interested in classic legends, would probably
be relatively easy.

All that said, there are certain physiological conditions which allow for incredible feats of memory (i.e.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Shereshevsky), though typically they develop unconsciously and, if they're
strong enough to cause better-than-usual memory, also tend to have adverse side-effects in other areas of
one's life.


Schliemann didn't have training in actor-type memory skills, as far as we know. Although rote-learning of classics was probably a part of his early education, it should be remembered that family troubles caused his education to be disrupted, and he was forced to work in a shop. Schliemann presented himself as becoming quite a ferocious autodidact, and on this point I see no reason to doubt his account.

Early troubles probably shaped his character decisively, both for better and for worse. I think it gave him an obsessive drive to succeed, not just with languages, but it also made him prone to exaggeration and self-aggrandisement.
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Romanist
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 Message 27 of 30
21 July 2010 at 4:13pm | IP Logged 
William Camden wrote:
Schliemann didn't have training in actor-type memory skills, as far as we know.


(Emphasis added.)

William Camden wrote:
Although rote-learning of classics was probably a part of his early education, it should be remembered that family troubles caused his education to be disrupted, and he was forced to work in a shop. Schliemann presented himself as becoming quite a ferocious autodidact, and on this point I see no reason to doubt his account.


Here we agree.

William Camden wrote:
Early troubles probably shaped his character decisively, both for better and for worse. I think it gave him an obsessive drive to succeed, not just with languages, but it also made him prone to exaggeration and self-aggrandisement.


Indeed. And let's remember that he rose from near poverty to become an extremely wealthy man - quite a feat in itself. As with his polyglot abilities, his success in business is not in any kind of doubt. Yet people quibble about whether he could learn 10 pages or 20 pages of English text in one day! Well, maybe he could, maybe not. (As others have already pointed out, it's not something we can ever know for sure...)

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Journeyer
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 Message 28 of 30
22 July 2010 at 5:10am | IP Logged 
I don't have much to say about Schliemann in this thread. I definitely agree with William Camden and the others who say we need to take his claims with quite a helping of salt. However, I find myself leaning more towards Romanist's side.

I'm going to take some pages from Schliemann's book and give his method (tailored to me personally) a shot, or find a way to mix it with LR, or something.

But what I really wanted to say was this: This thread is not about Schliemann's honesty overall, but about his method. If you want to find if it works (or better said, if it works for you) try it and see! :-)
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Cainntear
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 Message 29 of 30
22 July 2010 at 12:03pm | IP Logged 
Romanist wrote:
Well, what I'm getting at is this: There is general agreement that Schliemann really could read and write Latin, Greek, and at least eight modern languages. And this being so, one would surely tend to assume that he was being frank and honest about his learning methods, unless there is specific evidence to the contrary?
...

There are those who have similarly tried to cast general aspersions on the late Michel Thomas because of the rather outlandish stories he told to his biographer.

Actually, Thomas is a brilliant example.

On the Language Master documentary, Thomas claimed that his student's never make mistakes, because "it doesn't occur to them" to make mistakes. Well as his CDs attest, his student's do make mistakes. Thomas also made a big thing about how he uses mnemonics, giving the example of "it's a fair thing to do" (faire, French). He talks as though it's something important, but it isn't. It isn't -- Thomas teaches fare in the Italian course and hacer in the Spanish course just as easily without needing mnemonics. And then the killer blow: Thomas taught Harold Goodman how to teach languages. Harold Goodman's Mandarin Chinese course is in many ways diametrically opposed to Thomas's courses.

My point? Michel Thomas got excellent results, but he didn't consciously know how he achieved them.

Schliemann may be no different. Plus, as has been commented, the actual texts he used are not inconsequential. There's a big difference in method between "memorise a translation of a well-known biblical or classical text" and "understand and memorise a piece of text you've never seen before".
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William Camden
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 Message 30 of 30
22 July 2010 at 1:32pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
Romanist wrote:
Well, what I'm getting at is this: There is general agreement that Schliemann really could read and write Latin, Greek, and at least eight modern languages. And this being so, one would surely tend to assume that he was being frank and honest about his learning methods, unless there is specific evidence to the contrary?
...

There are those who have similarly tried to cast general aspersions on the late Michel Thomas because of the rather outlandish stories he told to his biographer.

Actually, Thomas is a brilliant example.

On the Language Master documentary, Thomas claimed that his student's never make mistakes, because "it doesn't occur to them" to make mistakes. Well as his CDs attest, his student's do make mistakes. Thomas also made a big thing about how he uses mnemonics, giving the example of "it's a fair thing to do" (faire, French). He talks as though it's something important, but it isn't. It isn't -- Thomas teaches fare in the Italian course and hacer in the Spanish course just as easily without needing mnemonics. And then the killer blow: Thomas taught Harold Goodman how to teach languages. Harold Goodman's Mandarin Chinese course is in many ways diametrically opposed to Thomas's courses.

My point? Michel Thomas got excellent results, but he didn't consciously know how he achieved them.

Schliemann may be no different. Plus, as has been commented, the actual texts he used are not inconsequential. There's a big difference in method between "memorise a translation of a well-known biblical or classical text" and "understand and memorise a piece of text you've never seen before".


Yes, I have rudimentary Latin but can often understand or partly understand extracts from the Vulgate. Less to do with my Latin than with having some familiarity with the Bible in English. If Schliemann was memorising things he already partly knew, the memorising feat is more understandable but less spectacular.
(Edited for typo)


Edited by William Camden on 23 July 2010 at 3:32pm


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