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Text memorization and imitation | ||
Tags: Memory | Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5176 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 73 of 95 01 October 2010 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I found s_allard’s remark :
“It is not about memorizing the material to parrot it. It is more about internalizing the underlying patterns. Certain set phrases can be learned verbatim and incorporated into one's speech. Other things can be seen as instances of certain rules. “ close to the way I feel about memorization. The thing is not to able to repeat every word of a foreign text, but the resulting comprehension, ability to reproduce various common phrases, improvement in vocabulary, etc. I – shamelessly-quote slucido twice: "If you know the texts verbatim, you can revise them anywhere. You don't need any device like mp3, notebooks, flashcards...That's the advantage of knowing texts, dialogs or songs by heart. You just start reviewing and I think it depends on your goals. If you only want to learn one language to a very high or native level, I agree. If you want to be a polyglot, I think it's useful to learn verbatim a course for every language, maybe Assimil, and to use SRS." I am not so sure you can review a text , sorry revise, anywhere. I am not entirely convinced I know any piece of a foreign language of any length well enough not to want to see or hear it again many times. Maybe this is my problem, a lack of confidence or a belief my memory is inadequate to the task! However I do agree with the second remark and have tried to learn Assimil this way although is an infringement of copyright?! Thank you Microsnout for: "As one who has used this method, I would have to disagree on this point. It is not like memorization of vocabulary where you want to remember it forever. In fact, for me the process of forgetting is as important as the memorization. After I have memorized a short text (< 10 lines) each day for a week or so, I soon start to forget them and start mixing them up, combining phrases to form new original phrases that one day may be useful. Also, I have found that long after a piece has been forgotten, some phrase or word or grammatical pattern from within it stays with me forever and I begin to use it when speaking" I have found the loss of words and struggling to remember texts frustrating. This is a new perspective on it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hashimi Senior Member Oman Joined 6262 days ago 362 posts - 529 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 74 of 95 03 October 2010 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My father is a professor of English and Linguistics. He told me that the secret behind his success in learning English is that he memorized the entire Linguaphone English course (the 1957 version) by heart. After more than 50 years, he is still able to recite all the 50 lessons by heart. Text memorization is not very difficult. Many Muslims are not very religious, but they are still able to memorize large portions of the Quran by listening repeatedly to it (personally, I memorized no less than 200 pages of the Quran, i.e. third of it). Repititio est mater studiorum. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hashimi Senior Member Oman Joined 6262 days ago 362 posts - 529 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 76 of 95 03 October 2010 at 10:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Por supuesto. Linguaphone y Assimil es fácil de memorizar. El punto aquí es que la memorización es realmente un método eficaz para el aprendizaje de idiomas. (It is easy to memorize Linguaphone and Assimil. The point here is that memorization is indeed an effective method for learning languages.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7106 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 77 of 95 04 October 2010 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Very interesting. Would it be possible for you to find out how he went about memorising the lessons?
This is a statement I would probably have dismissed out of hand before actually attempting the process myself. I've switched exclusively to using Alberto's suggested intermediate step of removing vowels before moving to a first-letter prompt. This reduces the time spent memorising quite considerably. For Italian I'm combining that with Shadowing the newer lessons on my iPod (the transcript is input as song lyrics) and the older lessons in the car (just from memory) as well as using Anki for revision. Edited by Andy E on 04 October 2010 at 2:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5438 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 78 of 95 04 October 2010 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
To be honest, I'm glad that I tried memorization with French before I started my log on Russian. I'm fluent in French and rarely encounter any unknown words. Memorization of a French text was a walk in the park. The key is to visualise what you're trying to commit to memory. Whether this is easy or not depends on the type of text. The same thing with Russian, where I know only the most basic vocabulary, is a wholly different experience. I find this extremely hard. Due to my attempt with French I know that it is not the memorisation of the visualised text that causes problems but the amount of unknown vocabulary. This shouldn't be much of problem when you use an Assimil course or the like, but a "real" book can hit you hard. Between January and June I went through the Assimil Swedish course, and I know quite a few lessons by heart without ever having tried to memorise them. With my Russian experiment I don't try to force memorization of complete sentences at the moment, because I've seen that this takes way too much time. Instead, I listen to the recording of the text repeatedly and hope most of it will stick after some time. It seems to work but the result is not exactly overwhelming at this point. When I was 5 years old I had memorised some fairytales from cassettes "by accident" and could recite them. I'm not 5 years old anymore but maybe the method still works. We'll see. edit: typo Edited by OlafP on 05 October 2010 at 10:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5176 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 79 of 95 04 October 2010 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As they say these days "respect", to your father, genuinely meant, Hashimi, I think it is quite a feat to remember something by heart for 50 years. I notice many people in the West do not make any attempt to remember anything much, in fact when I was young it was positively frowned upon, and the only benchmark was "comprehension" of what was studied. As I think all the contributors to this forum would agree, this is definitely a mistake when learning languages. I can understand French, Italian, a fair amount of Spanish and German, but I am not fluent in any of them. The difficulty seems to be memorizing in a society where memorization is an unusual feat and not commonly practised.
I have tried learning by removing vowels - this amounts to writing as in Arabic, surely? - but I have not found it particularly successful for me. For Russian, I have heard, it is essential to use some mnemonics, as almost all the words are removed from recognizable Germanic or Romance vocabulary, although having cognates. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| aemilia Newbie United States Joined 5275 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Latin | Message 80 of 95 17 October 2010 at 3:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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I watched a lecture by Andrew Pudewa (publishes homeschool writing courses) who was in Japan learning to teach the Suzuki method.
He believes in the importance of memorization and imitation, and he asked his Japanese language instructor to read a Japanese copy of a book (I think it was Jack in the Beanstalk). He then memorized the book using the Suzuki method. (I'm not a Suzuki person, but I believe he reviewed all previous material and then added the new material to that. So reviews would take progressively longer.) In addition to being able to entertain Japanese children (LOL) he found his ability to form correct Japanese sentences was greatly improved. He could take the sentence structures and use the words he needed. (Obviously he did more than memorize a book, but it did help him.) I'm really considering doing this in Spanish. And I love the first letter prompts! What a great idea. Amy 1 person has voted this message useful |
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