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Never had classes but have reached a wall | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| corjine Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4019 days ago 55 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 17 of 77 15 December 2013 at 2:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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If you're looking for a personalized tutor, I highly, highly suggest iTalki.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 18 of 77 15 December 2013 at 2:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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Also, people who attend classes run into walls too. At some point pretty much every learner does.
I guess I also do, I just think of it in terms of "need to re-evaluate my methods/materials". For example, not to offend anyone but my recent improvement in Danish reminds me on this video. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5727 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 19 of 77 15 December 2013 at 7:38am | IP Logged | |||||
Emk gave you excellent advice. I concur. But maybe lay off Google Translate. It can help to understand if you're using it to translate from L2 to L1, but I don't think there's any language in which GT could produce perfectly correct sentences that you can learn from. Get a grammar book. Really. Are you familiar with the grammar vocabulary? If you are then it's easier. You can just think to yourself "I need to say it in conditional/past tense/some specific clause, etc, let me look it up". If you don't even know that, I'd recommend you just read it through and familiarize yourself with Dutch grammar. I don't mean learning it by heart, just knowing what Dutch grammar has in store. I'd still advise you to get a tutor and not going to classes for reasons given by Serpent. A tutor will see your weaknesses and you can work specifically on them. Also, working with a tutor will teach you how to learn on your own better. You might need less formal guidance then you think, or just meeting once in a while, once you know what to work on. Edited by pesahson on 15 December 2013 at 7:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rolf Senior Member United Kingdom improvingmydutch.blo Joined 6006 days ago 107 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch | Message 20 of 77 15 December 2013 at 11:27am | IP Logged | |||||
Hi, I have strayed away from grammar. Perhaps it is because it is easy to dive into the basics of Dutch without it. When I've read textbooks, I find the grammar incredibly boring. I know you must understand grammar - they are the rules of the language which cannot be ignored. But I have a great aversion to grammar. I've read the rules but I've never memorised any of them. When I use my Dutch, it's entirely natural. If you asked me a question about grammar, I'd actually have to think it through because I don't really know any of the grammatical rules! For a long time I guess I have been consciously and sub-consciously avoiding grammar. But now I realise that passive immersion will never teach a person (at least, not me) the grammar necessary to get a good grip of the language. This is another reason I'm considering classes. I have very poor self-discipline. If I don't have to do something, I won't. But if I register for a class, certain things will be expected of me and I will have no problem then delivering on those expectations. I agree, a tutor is the ideal situation. I will look around for one but I'm not particularly hopeful of finding a good one in London. It's too bad that I don't have access to Skype. So far I'm having a lot of fun on Lang 8. At least knowing that I must participate to get something back means I have an incentive to do so. I hesitate to use the world "lazy" because we are all different but, as I said, I have very poor self-discipline. I'm a natural jack of all trades and an "expert" in only a few things I have an intense passion for. And grammar will never be an intense passion for me :) This Christmas I have a week off from work. I intend to go through Colloquial Dutch again but this time to do the written exercises. Edited by rolf on 15 December 2013 at 11:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 21 of 77 15 December 2013 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree a tutor may be the best choice, if you can afford a good one. Classes won't help with most troubles you have listed. Or rather, they might help if you were extremely lucky and got an awesome teacher and motivated classmates, which is not that likely in reality.
Grammar is not that boring if you find a way that is suitable to you. By suitable, I mean two options. Either you find a fun way (which may be hard for you, since you dislike grammar so much) or you find a highly efficient way in order not to torture yourself for long. I think you might profit greatly from studying from a grammar book and reading a lot while paying attention to the language used including grammar, not just getting the gist of the text. What are you usually reading btw? It is not true that immersion cannot teach you the grammar but you need to put some efforts in and the combination with "real" studying of the grammar is the most efficient, from my experience. Classes, despite focusing a lot on grammar (usually) have a few drawbacks in the area that may be fatal for you. No choice over the methods, no choice over your pace and so on. Getting feedback on your writing on italki may make a world of difference. As usually, the quantity is quite important. If you put together at least a few lines every day, you will see the progress. If you look back at the corrections and study what you were doing wrong, you will grow greatly :-) For speaking, there are many things you can do. A good tutor will surely help (but don't settle for a bad one. Ever!). Exchange partners will surely help. And there are a few things you can do on your own. 1.work on your pronunciation (repeating after audio, shadowing, lots of listening) 2.learn to think in the language by immersion (tv series can make a difference. something you enjoy and something that won't give you time to translate) 3.speak to yourself, both on various topics and by doing your exercises of whatever kind aloud. No whispering or just thinking, speak aloud. Let your brain become used to hearing yourself speaking the language. Let it remember hearing you using the correct patterns. And it will help with your "self-esteem". A lot of people have worse troubles with speaking than they need to. They just get "scared" when they speak very easily. A class won't help you with poor self-discipline. Just going to sit somewhere twice a week won't help. And it is not that sure a class will make you work harder. It is often very easy to become one of the best in the class without much work because the others lack the motivation and the classes are usually slow paced. In such an environment, you won't develop better self-discipline. You might not enjoy the classes due to various reasons, that wouldn't help as well. You speak of being expected to do some things in order to succeed at the class. Well, you will be expected to pay regularily, that is all. The best interest of most language schools is not to make you work hard and see you progress as well and fast as you can. Their interest is to appear non threatening and little demanding, in order not to scare away most learners. Their interest is to keep the pace slow and boring to make you pay for more semesters. Their interest is not to make you work much outside the class because 1.lazy people wouldn't go to such classes 2.you might realize you are better off without the class. Really, self-discipline is surely a worthy quality to develop but joining the class is the exact opposite. You will be taken away any responsibility for your learning along with the freedom of most choices and usually with the motivation too. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| rolf Senior Member United Kingdom improvingmydutch.blo Joined 6006 days ago 107 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch | Message 22 of 77 15 December 2013 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, I'm starting to think more that a class may not be for me.....
I'm going to order Assimil Dutch today and ideally do that over Christmas week because I understand that Assimil is based on shadowing. I think I need to review the grammatical rules more often, like at least once a month, if not more frequently. It's funny: although Dutch is so similar to English which makes picking it up easy, it's almost as if that's a double-edged sword. I think I might have made better progress in a "more difficult to learn" language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5727 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 23 of 77 15 December 2013 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
You don't necessarily have to know the rules by heart. What about understanding. Are you sure you understand very well? If you can tell the difference between future, present, past tense when reading, then that is grammar knowledge. I also think using Google Translate made your brain a bit lazy. With GT you get your answer quickly and you forget it quickly. But using Lang8 systematically will help you. I know from experience it took me ages to write anything on there at first, but it gets better. Sprachprofi made a brilliant list of topics you can write about on Lang 8. Check it out: Topics Shadowing or lots of repeated listening is a good idea. I think it would be useful if you had a stock of phrases and sentences that you know are correct. It would boost your self-esteem. You could use the dialogs from Colloquial. If you say that everything you want to say is a mess, starting with even the simplest dialogs would do you good. The things is, in order for that to be successful you have to know what those sentences mean. You really have to understand the input. What is the use of every word in that sentence, why do some words look differently (why is it 'did' and not 'do', why is is 'went' not 'go', that kind of thing, grammar conveys meaning). You don't have to learn the rules explicitly for everything, but you have to notice the grammar. Only after that, listening and repeating really works I found. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 24 of 77 15 December 2013 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's mostly that shadowing is based on Assimil, not vice versa. You can shadow any audio that is modern and pleasant and that you want to sound like.
Going back to the basics is tricky because the vocabulary/content will be boring. To avoid boredom, write your own sentences or turn any interesting texts into exercises using the link I gave you. And try lyricstraining :))) And don't stop using native materials. Reward yourself with them for your grammar sessions. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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