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Reading TL May Delay Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 41 of 73 21 January 2012 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I want to clarify my statement
I think that reading can help force you to think in the target language. I must also say that when I tried to learn Indonesian by ear, I failed. I heard 'bahasa ingris', which should be 'inggeris'. Even though Indonesian is quite phonetic. but I do agree that only reading may make your speaking ability worse, especially with English, I think I would mispronounce a lot of English words. Tibetan or 'taibetan'? I don't know, I would go with the first one. When I started learning Korean I was sure you pronunce it as in Polish, but it's actually more like koriyan :S My statement about reading helping listening was because I can understand orally a lot of English - I often watch TV in English. It's better than my Japanese. Nevertheless I have listened to Japanese longer, I think, but what I do all the time on the Internet is in English. I also think that more practice with the writen word has helped me with Japanese and Korean too -- the more I read, the faster I do it, so my brain processes it faster and so on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 42 of 73 21 January 2012 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 43 of 73 21 January 2012 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Hudreds of millions? I highly doubt so. Most people who learn this way fail to reach any usable level of fluency and almost never reach a near-native level. Those who do succeed despite of this probably relearn the language correctly and forget the slow way. I know people love reassuring truths, but you are wasting your time if you learn that way, because you are learning skills you're not going to need.
Yes, you can probably improve over time, though I doubt you will be able to correct it completely. But even if it is possible, why would you want to create such an obstacle for yourself? I don't find it hilarious at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5299 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 44 of 73 22 January 2012 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
So what, it is impossible to correct later or it can be done? (btw. it is better to start with a good pronunciation, you are not the first smart guy to notice this. And of course it can be corrected, this is the story of my French e.g., it is possible, but of course not desirable.) The other nonsense: "many people here assume that you can learn to use the language slowly and then progress to use it faster as you improve. Wrong." Well, maybe you just want to give a link to the study you misunderstood so that people can draw some more intelligent conclusions than you did, because I can only repeat: This is obvious nonsense. Someone writing such things is not a qualified person, and I see a great potential of wasting my time, indeed, by arguing against such ridiculous misunderstandings and overstatements. Look it up again, see what the researcher really found out and concluded- and then come again, or not. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 45 of 73 22 January 2012 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Of course you can start speaking a language slowly, and then improve your speed as you improve your proficiency. I can give a good example from my own experience of teaching typing. I taught typing to students aged 8 to 15 for about 5 years, so I got a pretty good idea of what worked well and what didn't for them. To learn to type fast, you have to first type slowly and absolutely correctly. Any students who started with sloppy habits, such as using the wrong fingers, never learned to correct this without great effort. And if they didn't correct their sloppy habits, they never got very fast. But those who progressed to high typing speeds invariably started slowly and carefully, and gradually improved their speed as the keys became second nature. The sloppy students often were faster for the first year or so, but hit a wall they couldn't pass with poor technique. I don't see why speaking a language would be that different. In fact, the clearest proof that you must start slowly, and then improve your speed, is the fact that there is no way a new learner can speak anything like as fast as a native speaker. The idea that you can't start slowly and then speed up is, to be perfectly frank, bs. Edited by Jeffers on 22 January 2012 at 12:38am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 46 of 73 22 January 2012 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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That's exactly what I was trying to say Jeffers, but your example is much better. I'm not saying that speaking a language is different than typing, it's the same. If you start with sloppy habits you will eventually hit a wall you will be unable to overcome.
What I'm saying is that reading allows you to use poor technique becuase you have plenty of time, while listening doesn't because the speed is given, so you don't have enough time to slip into bad habits like reading words in a different order, deconstructing sentences, translating etc. Edited by LaughingChimp on 22 January 2012 at 1:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4702 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 47 of 73 22 January 2012 at 2:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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You can not compare a physical ability which requires things like agility to tasks like learning a language, which requires other qualities. Pronunciation is also just one of the skills to master a language. You could argue whether a good pronunciation is even desireable (personally, I won't lower my standards - I only learn Japanese, and I'd like to get as close to native level as possible one day), but that's beside the point.
Producing sounds you're not used to is not only training, but conscious effort and knowledge. You can sit in your room and train pronunciation until you're blue in the face without even recognizing where you make mistakes. But when you start, this is often how it goes. I also don't buy the fossilization bullshit - excuse my French. Only people who are content with their sloppy pronunciation will be stuck with it. While it may be almost impossible to get to native level due to other factors, pronunciation can be taken to a very good level ith proper instruction, even after you made initial mistakes during your newbie stages. Yes, bad habits die hard. In an ideal world, every language learner goes the optimal way and achieves native level and pronunciation within months. Unfortunately, this is the real world. Ways around mistakes done in the past do exist, and if it means more work, so be it. I am willing to put in the time and energy, because I love the language, which is also the reason I'm learning it in the first place. So, for the type of learner with a similar mindset, I highly doubt they will be stuck with pronunciation mistakes forever. Your brain is rewiring itself constantly. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| FamusBluRaincot Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 5562 days ago 50 posts - 114 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 48 of 73 22 January 2012 at 2:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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In Praise of Slow
Jeffers has it right. Musicians have a saying-”If you can’t play it slow, you can’t play it fast”. The Pimsleur and Assimil programs that I am familiar with have examples of slowed down, very precise speech suitable for imitation by beginners. I am particularly thinking of the Mandarin programs. In fast speech, a native speaker may drop phonemes and blur some phonemic distinctions. But ask him to slow down and the missing information reappears. The listener also puts back in the missing information. The point is that the learner who starts by trying to copy the fast speech, is never aware of the missing information. And even if he is, he hasn’t had the hundreds, or even thousands of hours of practice necessary to develop the motor habits to accurately reproduce the utterances he hears. In all cultures, mothers often speak “motherese” to their babies. Typically this is slowed down speech, with lots of repetition, exaggerated intonation and perhaps even with exaggerated phonemic distinctions. If this kind of speech helps babies to learn, why wouldn’t it also help adults? Even for listening material, whether you are a beginner or advanced, slow is always better then fast for material with new vocabulary, concepts, or structures. This is even true in your native language. If I can understand it spoken slowly, I know I will eventually be able to understand it spoken quickly. (Listening to material that is too fast for you, and that you don’t understand won’t hurt you though-its just inefficient) The earlier intermediate CSLpod lessons have a teacher who a master at controlling the pace of the learning material according to its difficulty. She starts with a dialog at slow speed. Then she will go through the new words and phrases, saying them slowly, with long pauses. Next are examples of usage with more pauses. She never misses a chance to repeat. On the other hand, when she is using stock phrases that she thinks you will know, she goes at full bore native speed. At the end of the lesson she gives you the new material at full speed. Her methods are amazingly effective and exclusively in Mandarin. I do almost all of my learning by ear. Even if I have a transcript, I probably won’t look at it-though I will look at word lists if they are available. However, many learners say that they are “visual learners” and can’t learn without transcripts. I wonder whether some of this preference for visual learning is a result of the fact that, without having to keep up with the audio, you can slow down and think about the material. Perhaps the unpopularity of the audio-lingual methods came about because they forced students to go too fast, too soon. The Pimsleur Method is more popular because it slows things down. Edited by FamusBluRaincot on 22 January 2012 at 10:32am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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