|
 |
Breaks from TL | ||
Tags: Burn-out | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6901 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 9 of 17 18 December 2006 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I see it as a sort of passive learning. You're exposing yourself to the language and possibly absorbing new words and phrases without actively trudging through grammar or study books. Listening to radio or TV will no doubt help boost your listening comprehension skills...you can't really do this by reading a Teach Yourself book (even with the accompanying CDs). I think anyone who neglects TV, films, radio or music in their study is missing out on an excellent opportunity to hone their listening comprehension skills, especially if they have little or no contact with their target language in everyday life. While you can't learn a language merely through listening to radio or watching a film, these activities are still a fun way to pretend you're studying, even if you're taking a break from the active study. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6593 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 10 of 17 19 December 2006 at 6:40am | IP Logged | |||||
|
In the absence of native speakers, I see radio and TV as the only way to achieve fluency, really. Once you know enough to get most of what's said, I'd say movies are great for getting to fluency. It's the way just about any Swede learns English. The English education in Sweden starts out early, but it's really the American movies that teach us.
To be honest, if you're not living in a TL-speaking country or watching movies or listening to the radio in your TL, I don't understand how it's possible to achieve fluency. You need so much input, and getting something like ten minutes a day, it'll take years! As an anecdote, I recently made my pronounciation and speaking test for French. Now when I made the pre-test a month or so ago, the teacher told me that if I practiced some more, I could probably pass, but my language wasn't flowing well enough. Since then, I hadn't really done that much speaking practice (plus, the teacher creeps me out, making it hard to talk to her), but I've watched maybe two-three hours worth of movies per day. I got back, pretty worried, as I didn't feel my "flow" was that much better than last time. I read the sentences, and the teacher was very impressed. I passed with flying colours. There's my anecdotal evidence that watching movies will help your speaking. In addition, when I did my Public Speaking class in Chicago, the teacher exclaimed "You have no accent!" I hadn't spoken that much English before going there, but I was more or less raised by Hollywood. As I see it, the more times your brain has heard a word (and understood it. No point listening when you can't understand), the better it'll be at pronouncing it. This might tie in with the ALG "don't speak until you've had tons of comprehensible input" theorem. Sorry for the long rant. My point is, watch lots of movies. It's a great way to study whilst not boring yourself, and it'll help your pronounciation, not to mention comprehension. I think listening practice is more important than speaking practice when it comes to speaking well, ironically enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6920 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 17 19 December 2006 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I've read this several times on the forum, but it's always interesting to see it explained in other words. :)
Now, if only I could follow your example in my studies. I don't have that many movies in Russian... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6901 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 12 of 17 19 December 2006 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
The problem I have with the 'watching movies' approach is that there are relatively few Dutch movies and the majority of them are just not my taste. I've seen two Dutch movies so far, 'Vet Hard' and 'Het Schnitzelparadijs', but neither of them are the sort of movie I would watch in any other language. The only reason I watched them was that they were the only two I could find at the time (I was still living in the UK at the time) but neither of them did much for my listening comprehension and I dare say I probably could have spend that time doing something a bit more productive.
Even now that I live in the Netherlands, there seems to be few Dutch movies that I would consider watching. This has nothing to do with the language issue (although I will readily admit I am not particularly fond of Dutch) but rather to do with the relatively few Dutch movies that are made. There are two kids movies I would like to see in future, 'Minoes' and 'Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek', which are both based on popular kids books, although I hear the latter was actually made in English. Other than that, I don't know of any other Dutch films I'd be interested in watching. If anyone knows of any good ones, do let me know! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6593 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 13 of 17 20 December 2006 at 4:51am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I'd be very surprised if you'd felt a difference after only two movies. It takes a lot of listening. Maybe Dutch TV and radio might be more suitable, then? TV is the same everywhere, it seems. But anyway, since you're actually living in Dutch Central, you don't really have a need to watch movies, do you? I see movies as an alternative to actually speaking with people. But then, maybe your Dutch isn't good enough yet to take that approach. Then maybe shadowing is time better spent (though not as fun as watching movies, of course).
I've actually forced myself to watch everything dubbed to French lately. I usually hate dubbing of movies (as all Swedes do), but as long as it's not movies I'm really excited about, I find it's no big deal. And it's really fun to see, for example, Schwartzenegger in French (no, he has no accent). That goes for you, too, Jeff. Are movies dubbed in Russia? It might sound heretic, but it's not too bad once you get used to it. I started with animated movies, as the dubbing isn't nearly as disturbing, plus the language is usually pretty simple (but watch out for Donald Duck and others with distorted voices. Makes it damned near impossible to get anything). Something tells me that getting huge amounts of DVDs cheap from Russia shouldn't be too hard. And I have to ask, Skywalker, what is 'Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek' about? 'Cause it sounds sort of similar to the Swedish-made 'Emil i snickerboa'. 'Spijk' = nail? ('Spik' in Swedish. 'Snickra', the first part of 'snickerboa' means to hammer.) And 'broek' sounds a bit like 'boden', which 'boa' would be if spelled "correctly"). But maybe I'm over-analyzing. It doesn't happen to be about a mischievous boy in a small village who hides in the 'Spijkerbroek' when his father gets mad, does it? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6901 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 14 of 17 20 December 2006 at 5:46am | IP Logged | |||||
I do listen to Dutch radio and watch some TV but I find it hard to stay interested for more than a few minutes. I've yet to find a TV show that really takes my interest and absolutely detest the comedy shows (Paul de Leeuw in particular). I've tried watching 'De Baantje' (or whatever it's called), which is a detective series but this isn't a genre I particularly like so I don't bother watching it very often. Maybe I'm just really fussy...I don't watch much TV anyway (in English or Dutch) as I prefer to get my entertainment on the Net or in 'real life'. These days, it seems that even YouTube has better quality entertainment than many of the TV channels I normally watch.... The problem with Dutch TV is that too many of the shows are actually American/British ones with Dutch subs. Films don't get dubbed either. This can sometimes be useful for learning a few new words here and there but I tend to give up reading after a while as it gets tiring and can't concentrate on what I'm watching. I love watching documentaries (particularly ones on archaeology or animals) but, again, these are usually in English. The only thing I really watch is the news but I usually already know what the stories are going to be about as I check BBC.com several times a day.
I haven't seen the movie or read the book so I can't really say much. I do know that the story is about a boy who somehow gets transported back in time to the time of the Crusades. 'Spijkerbroek' are jeans so the title can be translated as 'A Crusade in Jeans'. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rmss Triglot Senior Member Spain spanish-only.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6575 days ago 234 posts - 248 votes 3 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, English, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 15 of 17 20 December 2006 at 8:35am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Haha, you mean Baantjer ;-). I uploaded an audiobook today for Vlad, maybe you want to have the book too?
Tell me, what don't you like about Dutch? Okay, sometimes it may sound a bit hard but to me it sounds awesome (you have to realize that I'm raised with the idea that the English language is better than the Dutch language, and to be honest I love the Dutch language, whatever has been told to me). Edited by Rmss on 20 December 2006 at 8:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6901 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 16 of 17 20 December 2006 at 8:46am | IP Logged | |||||
It's nothing personal. I just don't like the sound of Germanic languages in general (English is the exception to the rule but I don't think it is a particularly beautiful language either). The grammar gives me a headache and for some reason Dutch doesn't look very nice in its written form with all those double a's and oe's and k's. Very superficial reasons really and I'm sure many people would disagree with me but I suppose everyone has their 'smaak' (taste), eh? :) I have to admit I have a bias towards the Romance languages and have always found them much more pleasing to my eyes and ears...with the exception of Portuguese (I just don't like the sound of it). I don't know...I don't really think everyone has a solid reason for not liking a particular language, just as some people don't like cars or birdwatching. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
