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Quantifying similar-language discount | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4671 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 19 22 July 2012 at 9:28am | IP Logged | ||
Or learn vocabulary, grammar or pretty much anything to do with a language. It's impossible to learn a language without tons of input. But it's very slow, at best, to learn a language with nothing but input. I'm glad to hear you aren't trying to do that yourself, because it seems that a lot of people here are under the impression that merely reading and listening is an efficient method. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 10 of 19 22 July 2012 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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do you mean simply reading and listening or LR? LR is very efficient, remember for example Volte's great result in the Finnish challenge.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 11 of 19 22 July 2012 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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The discussion in the thread on speed got me thinking...
With grammar, how much of a discount you get depends on your methods and even learning style. If you're a global learner and you go for the big picture initially - well, in a related language you practically have the big picture for free. For example, I know very little Dutch but in most Dutch sentences I understand the structure immediately. So if your first goal is understanding everything (or 90%), remember how much time it took you to learn the grammar (in The Related Language) and subtract it, or at least some 70-80%. That's your discount. You lose it if you need to produce sentences immediately. You'll have to learn actively what you could absorb passively or semi-passively (input+anki). And it'll be also frustrating because it's so obvious yet not the same. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hertz Pro Member United States Joined 4513 days ago 47 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 19 23 July 2012 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for all of your responses. I realize that it's not possible to apply a simple percentage discount to the number of hours required, but Serpent's observation about overlapping grammar is very helpful. Vocabulary is a matter of repetition and acquisition, but grammar takes time to absorb. Also, although not every word will appear in every sentence, grammar is in every one.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 13 of 19 24 July 2012 at 12:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Even if a word is similar, you still need to hear it several times in the new language to properly learn it. But that's input again. Your discount will be in the "study" hours and the math here depends on your methods. For example with vocabulary, say you like Iversen-style word lists and decide to use them, but not for the similar words. This means you'll do them for 30% of the words if 70% are similar.
Oh and the estimated number for a native speaker of said language is a guideline! Though they have some advantages obviously, such as knowing more rare words, also the old-fashioned or dialect ones can be useful. A native with a background in linguistics is an even more dangerous rival;) Plus many are already passively fluent in the related language(s), if they have enough input - especially in Scandinavia but also for example in Portugal. Most of them don't realize just how important constant input has been and attribute it all simply to the similarity. So a non-native speaker can't expect to learn a related language as fast as a native would, but that's still a good estimate. Edited by Serpent on 24 July 2012 at 12:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 14 of 19 24 July 2012 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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It depends on the target language.
The step from Portuguese to Spanish is easier than the step from Spanish to Portuguese, for example. Italian to Spanish is easier than Spanish to Italian. German to Dutch is easier than Dutch to German. Edited by Medulin on 24 July 2012 at 9:37pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4949 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 15 of 19 26 July 2012 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Why so? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 16 of 19 26 July 2012 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Because Portuguese makes more sense than Spanish. Hahaha I know I'm biased.
Anyway at least with German and Dutch it's universally agreed upon. For example the default advicehere is to go straight to German if that's what you want to learn, as while learning an easier related language first will give you an advantage, you'll still have to learn all the grammar, as it's more difficult than in Dutch. (my German sucks, and yet the structure of most Dutch sentences makes sense at once to me) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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