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Listening from the beginning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 18 of 70 13 May 2011 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Are you sure we are wired to learn through reading and writing? Widespread literacy is in most parts of the world a new phenomenon and has probably had little evolutionary impact yet. Edited by tractor on 14 May 2011 at 9:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 19 of 70 13 May 2011 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
There's a theory that human language evolved through a series of symbolic gestures -- i.e. sign language preceded spoken language. If language evolution was primarily visual, literacy is in a way a return to our "roots". Of course, writing is more abstract and arbitrary than most sign languages, which have a fairly high number of representational symbols and model grammatical functions in a very clear analogue to the world, but then again writing is no less arbitrary in its representations than speaking. I mean, why "fish"? After all, as you say, literacy hasn't been around long enough to have an evolutionary impact... but why then has all of humanity evolved the ability to relate visual words with spoken ones...?
Guilty? No. There's nothing wrong with trying to learn the rules -- your viewpoint and Arekkusu's are not mutually exclusive. The reason "intellectualised" language is so much maligned at the moment isn't because intellectualisation of a language is an inherently bad thing, but because those most people who attempt it make the language fit the rules, rather than making the rules fit the language. As a computer programmer (by training, though not by profession), I see the rules of language in terms of inheritance and overriding, and this helps me create simple and manageable rules rather than unweildy long ones. The concept of "overriding" one rule with another is just a different way of expressing the concept of exceptions, but I find it logical because I stop trying to encapsulate the conditions for exceptions within the main rule. Oooh... I feel a blog post coming on.... 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 20 of 70 13 May 2011 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Exactly. No one said you can't learn by reading and writing, but there is no doubt that humans spent millenia learning eachother's languages through first-hand interactions, from listening and speaking. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| amethyst32 Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5649 days ago 118 posts - 198 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, French | Message 22 of 70 13 May 2011 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hi,
I agree with the OP about listening from the beginning, but for me the point of it is getting used to how the real language is spoken. I don't think the slower, simpler language used in beginner podcasts and programs offer this advantage, so I prefer listening to native audio while getting beginner input from my course and other resources. Also, I don't agree that passive listening is "a waste of time" since it doesn't necessarily use any extra time, and switching between passive and active listening is very easily done. Much of the advice on here seems to set these techniques up as a dichotomy, but I don't see any reason why it has to be like that. I find doing both gives me the best of both worlds. :-) Edited by amethyst32 on 13 May 2011 at 11:07pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6550 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 23 of 70 14 May 2011 at 3:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Why the change in philosophy? It almost sounds like you've learned something since the last time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5130 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 24 of 70 14 May 2011 at 3:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You've reminded me of a paper I read a couple years back about this (although not related to the thread). It talked about how speech evolved, precisely from gestures. I'll have to dig it up. It was an interesting read. The author, a South African, surmised that once our groups, or tribes, reached a size of around 150 people, gesturing was no longer effective and vocalization, then speech was needed to effectively communicate with the entire group. If I can find the paper I'll post it, assuming anyone is interested in reading it. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
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