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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6945 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 17 of 36 02 July 2006 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||
Cortina does look pretty good. Another popular approach is to use simplified readers. Besides the standard ones easily found on Amazon, here are a couple of links to collections graded for vocabulary size: French, Spanish. (This site automatically capitalizes "Spanish" in the Spanish URL, set it to lower case to get a working link.) Edited by frenkeld on 03 July 2006 at 3:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Eric Senior Member Australia Joined 7230 days ago 102 posts - 105 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 18 of 36 04 July 2006 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Malcom,
It's something I may do now I think of it. I feel a little awkward though, I must admit, and for me that is why it is a stumbling block. Thankyou for you explanation and help. frenkeld, You asked some tough questions! I do want to be a polyglot, actually it's something I need to do also. I didn't have a great education but despite that I have a large English vocabulary and seem to intuitively understand connotation despite only being introduced to it formally this year at University, and quite briefly. I also have a pretty good memory for retaining vocab once it finally sticks, all signs suggest that my forte could be languages As for whether I love my own language, it's a tricky question. I don't only use it as a tool like most people and I appreciate etymology, but sometimes I wish my first language was French rather than English. I know students of English would seem to say that natural English speakers hit the jackpot as far as language learning because they naturally acquired arguably the hardest language to learn (really?) but I think English as a first language has many drawbacks, one being it's remoteness from any other language (ie no Dutch-German/Italian-Spanish/Russian-Bulgarian/ types of 'sister' languages) because of it's composite nature of Germanic roots and Romance influence, not to mention that I'd haphazardly guess that native English speakers would rank amongst the most ignorant of all language learners as it seems if you were raised with any other tongue the world forces you to acquire a second, but not if that first tongue is English. You asked what I'd do if I was fluent in another language, the answer is to join a club and converse in it regularly, travel, translate (hopefully for a living) and appreciate quality literature as it was written. (and take pride in the fact that I can do it) I can't do all these things as a native English speaker, as a native English speaker I'm just like everyone else. I guess the meaning is self-improvement ultimately, we all look for ways to improve ourselves and take different roads to get there. (ie- for some it's physical, others mental, others experience, etc) omicron, I get haunted by purchases that never ocurred if I do that. I'm trying more self-control, even if that means spending an hour in the bookstore and reading parts I find interesting to vanquish any internal sales attempt. The process is working I believe, I now only buy if it's a sale, and/or really necessary to my current situation. (the key word being current, I've been through the buying for the future phase and if untreated, one is liable to buy everything!) I actually looked at the English version of Waiting for Godot in the bookstore yesterday and I'm probably going to pick it up based on your recommendation. (lazy man's way = assured success if I try) The reason I bought "the outsider" was to read it through a couple of times in English so I'm familiar with the story, thus when I finally tackle "l'étranger" I hope to know where I am in the story and what should be happening even if most of the vocab is all unknown to me. The fact that if I continue with French next year (highly probable) that we study l'étranger makes me feel my purchases were justified in the interest of getting a head start on my education. Thankyou for the perfectionist link, I actually indentified with many things in that link. I always thought perhaps I had an inferiority complex/Napoleon complex though I wouldn't trust my analysis, and the word 'perfectionist' carries the connotation to me as someone who always gets a goal done, even if they have to go through hell to do it. I never thought that perfectionists would fail, and since I have failed on numerous occasions I thus didn't think the label applied to me. Anyway, labels are labels, but the day by day motto is accurate. Again it's about self-discipline, I mean, I just thought to myself if I memorized one phrase from a phrase-book per day, in time I'd have quite a vocab and could make myself understood in certain situations, and although I'd be somewhat of an advanced parrot, from the parrot stage, it must be a simple stroll over to fluency with a bit of grammar to tell you why the things you memorized are the way they are? A stumbling block for me though is that I can't do that perfectly. For example, I had my Dutch phrase book and there was a phrase that said: Is er hier iemand die Engels sprekt? (meaning "does anybody here speak English") Now I knew what all the words mean't by themselves (I had to use the phrase-book's dictionary for "iemand" though it was pretty obvious it had to be 'anyone/someone') except for "er". The pharse-book's dictionary didn't have an entry for "er" and although I guessed it mean't "there" I couldn't verify it. (I resisted the urge to buy a Dutch dictionary last week imposing the rules that the only way I can buy one is when I complete an audio course and know most of the phrase book!) But it didn't sit right with me memorizing this phrase without being able to pull apart all pieces and know what their role it for certain. So I scoured the phrase-book searching for other phrases that contained 'er' and after I found one (only one other was necessary) I concluded it must be "there". I don't know if everyone does that or not or whether it's wrong, hmm. Farley, Yes I see what you are saying. I bought a Spanish newspaper the other day with the goal to highlight words I don't know, then look them up in a dictionary, and to complete a page everyday until after 4 pages I can discard that one sheet, eventually my goal is to not have the newspaper in my house any longer. (in which I'll then buy another) The goal is to see how quick I can destroy the paper without trying. Currently I'll do a sheet every 3 days, and I can get the jist of a story with comprehension of perhaps 60-70% of a normal article. Despite this, I still don't enjoy the ignorance and running to the dictionary, but little by little this will be reduced I hope. TDC, Thankyou for your advice. I'm now making an effort to study everyday - if not in every language then at the very least one language. I have bought blank flash cards and am going to use them. I do want to travel one day and I don't want a pharse-book when I do. frenkeld II, Thankyou for the heads up concerning Cortina. Coincidentally I had seen their range that a language bookstore I visit regularly and had wanted to buy one of their titles only to stop myself citing the 3 books at home I have that I haven't read fully. But they are something I will look into, thankyou. Edited by Eric on 04 July 2006 at 8:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6859 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 19 of 36 05 July 2006 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Now that's an interesting approach and I don't think it's wrong at all. The Language/30 series teaches languages in this way. I remember trying to learn Czech in this manner and I had a terribly difficult time pulling together the patterns to figure out which were the nouns and adjectives and so on. I reckon if I had stuck with it, maybe I could have become fluent in that way. It seemed that it required trusting my subconscious beyond what I was comfortable with. More power to you if you can learn this way! I can kind of relate to how you do things. I taught myself how to tune a guitar and some chords using an encyclopedia and a piano. This took me so long to do, and once I had even figured out some songs on the radio, someone said, "You know, you can get a book that will show you all that." Ugh. I don't know. Some of us like to choose the harder path. I think it means we're really smart. :) At the same time, it can be self-defeating, taking the harder path, especially when you have an inner-critic reminding you that you can't do it. Based on you're writing, I think you must be really smart. But your inner-critic is putting up some roadblocks. Let me rephrase that. YOU are putting up these roadblocks. It's not that you lack the motivation. It's that you have to make a decision. Are you going to continue to be harsh on yourself over things that don't matter? Or are you going to send this inner-critic on a vacation? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tjerk Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6759 days ago 54 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, English, Spanish, French Studies: Swedish | Message 20 of 36 05 July 2006 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Eric,
out of what you told, I conclude you're stuck in the intermediate stage : you know something, you spent already a lot of time and money, you have the books, you know the basics BUT you can't read the newspaper, you don't understand the movies, and so on.... then the question WHY ? appears (certainly in your perfectionist case :-) I'll just give some hints that jump into my mind, the only working 'real plans' are given, these are the schedule.. here just some hints to get out of the intermediate phase and get yourself back on track.. - Travel ! If not directly possible : Plan to travel ! Dream of it... start looking on the web.. plan a whole route through france and spain, which countries would you do in Latin America ? visualize your travels : Imagine yourself in the middle of nowhere in Spain asking the way. If you're in your textbook at something about politics.. imagine yourself talking about politics with a typical Spanish local guy in a tapa bar - Get an online dictionary or one on pc... I also hate to look up every word when i'm reading.. but when you're reading in front of your pc, your hands of the keyboard and each time you come across an unknown word just type it - enter and you see it on your screen.. you harldy loose any pace. Of course this is a passive way of learning vocab since it goes too fast to really retain it.. - Newspapers have a tendancy to use always the same words if you're reading about a specific topic, so don't look up every word you don't understand, only look it up the second way you encounter it! this way you're sure you're looking up the most common and important words. - Try to chat with yourself at home.. if you read for instance a article about the worldcup soccer. Try to use the vocab you just had to look up in a discussion with yourself why the aussies actually deserved to be in the final because they were better then spain.. blabla.; well you get the jist.. it's fun that way.. because you get the idea of actually being able of something and that you already can incorporate the new words... and one guarantee.. after a discussion like this, they stick the words - if you watch a movie for the second time, press once in a while pause and repeat the actors.. play their dialogs.. or extend them :-) - and just imprint yourself... there is no way you ever going to be as fluent in a language as your mother tongue (unless you move to spain for another 30 years) Just face it, it never gonna happen, you only gonna make some mistakes, people will here it alwayx that you are a foreigner, it is an unachievable goal. - But knowing that : it is a releave.. you don't have to speak perfect the language.. when you travel you notice this. People are already enthousiastic if you say you know one sentence in their language, you do some very basic chit chat presenting yourself and applause.. and so on.. these are cheap motivators but they work. Be perfect in a language is unattainable, just try to improve, that's a goal - about the book disease : had that also, had to cut it down due to the fact I earn less now.. so now i made myself a deal : I can never buy a book the first week I see it, if I still think about the specific book one week later, I go to the store and buy it - Well to crush your believe dutch is an easy language (it is not that hard, it has just some inconvenient things) you already encountered the hardest word of it : ER. It is more then there, it is used in a lot more circumstances and there is no other language which has a similar word. The english 'there' is actually closest of all languages but not covering all. In fact I never heard any immigrant use this word right (if they already use it) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6746 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes Speaks: English* | Message 21 of 36 05 July 2006 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||
I think that German 'da' comes closer than English 'there' to the four grammatical uses of 'er'. In fact, if you allow 'davon' for the partitive meaning, then they more or less coincide, at least if you use your imagination. Fascinating word definitely, though... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6945 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 22 of 36 05 July 2006 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Cortina is one possible tool to make sure there are no gaping holes in one's basic vocabulary and grammar. It is, at the end of the day, still a basic textbook, and one needs something else to bridge the gap between the fundamentals and the unabridged sources, especially if a confidence boost is in order. This is the job that simplified readers excel at, and they should be used for any language for which they are available. (No "IMHO" this time - I really think this is beyond any doubt.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| japanesefan Bilingual Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 6747 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Welsh*, GermanC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 23 of 36 06 July 2006 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dear Eric,
I've had many of these problems which you've described and I'd like to say what has been most effective for me learning German. As you have a solid foundation in the grammar, buy some CDs which really appeal to you e.g Shakira, mexican rap music? and then get transcrips of the music in Spanish and english. This will not only increase your vocabulary, but will also improve your speech flow and sentence structures will come more easily. I don't think you can underestimate the effectiveness of this. I've met non-natives who have excellent english who aren't particularly intelligent and have said to me that they've read few (if any) books in english but through the american influence (MTV, film industry, music) have become proficient in english. It can be soul-sucking to look up every unknown word and worse than that I've found myself translating everything word-for-word when speaking and writing and not really 'thinking' in my target language. This makes speech very hesitent. I find language exchanges a waste of time. I, personally couldn't meet-up with a stranger and have a conversation in english, so why would this be different when doing a language exchange? Also, I've found that the other person can also be quite 'selfish' and isn't intereseted in correcting your mistakes and tries to push the balance by speaking a lot more than half the time in english instead of my target language. I'd get a tutor where the lesson is conducted in Spanish as this is much more professional and effective. As for timetables, I find these a waste of time as you spend more time making the timetable than getting down to it. Although it's good to have objectives e.g learn 5 idioms a day it's better to keep these vague. Buy audiobooks that you've read previosly in english. You know that you have to do the work to get to the prize so I would do an hour of grammar then an hour of reading a newspaper/novel in the target language with a dictionary and learning all the unknown vocabulary but only do this once you've learned by heart the list from your last session. As with the grammar, don't set yourself page-number targets. It is a hundred times better to move on only when you know the material. If I were you, I would set aside two hours for this every day (has to be in the morning). If you feel that it's too dry and you aren't getting anywhere or you aren't learning anything just carry-on. Remember that consistentsy is by far the most important factor when learning a foreign language. If you use these two hours which you have set aside each morning, six days a week, you will feel your language competence soar. Then in the afternoons you can read wikipedia articles in Spanish, listen to audiobooks, radio (all without dictionary), learn a few idioms and then in the evenings you can relax by watching a Spanish film or having a barbacue with your Spanish-speaking friends. I often feel like starting a new language but then I remind myself that it's unlocking the mystery I want, not to learn the language. Remember: Jack of all trades, master of none. As for the 'teacher' who said that your brain turns to mush at 27, she shouldn't be a teacher. The main purpose of a teacher should be to give his or her students confidence and motivation, not the exact opposite. I hope you will achieve your dream of fluency in Spanish in the foreseeable future. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Eric Senior Member Australia Joined 7230 days ago 102 posts - 105 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 24 of 36 07 July 2006 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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CaitO'Ceallaigh,
I think you are correct concerning the roadblocks. I'm very anxious for fluency but it seems that the process is done by baby steps and not giant leaps. (and I feel that even if I studied for 4 hours I would retain only a portion of the vocab therefore my time is wasted) I do have to be content with a phrase per day and or one audio lesson per day I suppose. It's just that I'm getting older and I really should have had a second language by now. (inner critic I suppose?) Tjerk, It's not possible for me to travel anytime in their near future unfortunately. I'm looking into a handhelf electronic translator that I can use while reading, and interesting idea about the newspaper, though I'm not sure I can keep my curiosity at bay. (if I don't know a word, out comes the dicitonary!) I am trying to think in my target language of Spanish and I do have mini-monologues it in, that is a relief. frenkeld, Any brand of simplified reader that you would recommend for Spanish or are all similar? japanesefan, I'm considering asking a Spanish tutor of mine whether she would agree to a short tenue as private tutor for me over a few weeks (perhaps six lessons) where we just converse and she can pick out my mistakes and I can get alot of vocab from her. Apart from that is there any particualr reason why study must be done in the mornings? (I find my only free time is at night unfortunately) Many Thanks to all, Eric 1 person has voted this message useful |
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