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Language Learning Orthodoxy You Ignore | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 41 of 116 02 December 2014 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Please expand on that. I'm sure what most of us agree about is really that there's next to no evidence of anyone achieving anything significant with RS that wouldn't have been achieved faster and more smoothly with other methods. But most are willing to question that if they see evidence that doesn't come from someone who's obviously working for RS. And then there's the financial part. Did you get RS from a library? Edited by Serpent on 02 December 2014 at 6:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5231 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 42 of 116 02 December 2014 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know what the scientific orthodoxy is on learning languages in adulthood. I imagine there is one, but I don't know it.
As to the orthodoxy of common wisdom, I'm not sure that exists either. We have different opinions on how to learn languages here on this forum, and there are many other such fora, blogs, and channels on the Internet, with their own slants on these things. I do disagree with folks here from time to time. Some positions I've had that clashed with others' are "I don't think one should delete SRS cards liberally," and "There's no responsibility for a person to prioritize learning any particular language, even if that language is the language of one's culture and it's dying out." But I rarely criticize the learning techniques of others, because I believe there are many roads leading to the same goal (assuming we even have the same goal!), certain roads which may suit a particular person better than another. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 43 of 116 02 December 2014 at 7:53pm | IP Logged | ||
There is an important point here. Can we assume that we have the same goal? I'm not sure we do. Under the umbrella of "learning a foreign language" there is, I think, a big divide between those who want to actually speak the language, preferably with native speakers, and those who want to able to read and listen to works of culture in the target language without actually speaking it well. These are two legitimate goals. They are also the source of some friction here. I won't go into all the implications but I think, for example, that "speakers" would tend to be more interested in oral conversational comprehension, phonetics, speaking as soon as possible and immersion whereas the others would be more interested in reading, writing, developing vocabulary and oral comprehension of literary works. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 44 of 116 02 December 2014 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's more of a continuum, really, and it's a question of timing and opportunities. For many, speaking isn't their first goal, but one they'd like to achieve eventually, often after they learn to communicate in writing.
One more thing is that most long-term members have already achieved a pretty high level in the language they have most contact with, such as English or Spanish. In my case Finnish and English (although I don't really enjoy speaking the latter). There's even some correlation to extraversion and introversion. Introverts hate small talk and often wait until they can say something meaningful and understand the response. Although if you look at tarvos, Iversen and me, we're all different. Tarvos seems to speak sooner and consume less aural media. Iversen starts by thinking and writing, and progresses to speaking and listening while abroad. I only start reading when I'm good at listening, then I write very little and practise speaking abroad (and then polish my writing, ideally). The individual differences are just too large to speak of any tendencies. And we three are supposedly quite similar learners, if you compare us to Benny for example. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5231 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 45 of 116 02 December 2014 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I've heard some language "authorities" (scare quotes because these are simply people with popular blogs, not credentials) criticize some learners for reasons that, at the end of the day, were not necessarily deficiencies in their learning styles, but rather just a result of people seeking different goals. Some want to read famous works, some want to talk at a "sophisticated" level, some want to be able to make small talk with locals, some are just fascinated by different grammars and sounds and don't mind just tasting languages. It complicates things terribly, but nevertheless, these are all perfectly legitimate aims. Edited by ScottScheule on 02 December 2014 at 9:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 46 of 116 02 December 2014 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | ||
These are good points. I think those who prioritize the less social skills of reading, or listening, or watching TV tend to prefer more intimate or profound conversations. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4257 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 47 of 116 02 December 2014 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Other big factors for different techniques are the materials you're interested in, and the materials available for your target languages. I use language study as a supplement to film study so now I do most of my studying in Anki because subs2SRS lets me combine my film studies and language studies. But if they released audiobook versions of film textbooks I'd probably be doing way more L-R than SRS.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 48 of 116 02 December 2014 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think SRS tools (anki, babbel, duolingo, lingvist, et al) are extremely effective. I
just don't use them. Or rather, I use them for a week or two and then drift off. I find reading a very slow approach to learning languages. Watching tv and movies is even slower. Yet, during the last month, I've spent 1.5 hours on SRS, 13 hours each on novels and tv. It's not so much that I'm ignoring anything orthodox. It's that I do this for fun, and I'm ok with the slow and steady approach to languages. If I had to take a test, or had a job offer in a foreign country, I would immediately switch to the more intense and less fun orthodox methods.
I actually found these to be true for my French, but the key is it requires truly titanic-levels of massive input. As in, I had done two levels of Assimil, three quarters of FSI, and read 10,0000 pages of French lit over two years, but had zero conversation practice. And my language skills really did seem to magically appear when I finally actually went to France. I tried the same with half the work in Spanish, and had no results. No magic, just me sounding like a typical gringo. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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