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Same audio 1000 times?

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
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s_allard
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 Message 25 of 83
19 March 2012 at 6:58pm | IP Logged 
Splog wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
So, Splog, what's your take on all this?


...
I thought about this today, as I was out walking for two hours today and listening to an audiobook in French. I really enjoyed the book, which kept me focused, plus I heard thousands of different sentences which gave me broad exposure. If, however, I had stuck to just the first two minutes of the book, repeatedly for the whole two hours, I would still have only manged 60 of the 1000 reps. There would still be a whole 31 hours of repeated listening to do for that two minute clip. At that rate, it would take me several years to finish the book. No matter how effective the technique may be, I don't think I have the mental endurance to do it.

Perhaps there is something to the technique, but I would need considerable proof of its effectiveness, and (just as importantly) a guarantee that the 2 minute clip I was listening to was not just some random clip, but rather one created by super-geniuses to ensure that not a single second of the clip is irrelevant.

Maybe, though, I am just lazy.

I'm not going to argue in favour of 2-minute clips, but I think it is important to distinguish two things. Listening to material because it is enjoyable and interesting is one thing and certainly highly respectable. That is why I keep watching that soap opera after 200 episodes.

On the other hand, for study purposes, it might be more useful to concentrate on certain things in smaller samples. Since Splog knows French, I'll take the example of the French subjunctive mood that many people have trouble with. In a given book there will be many examples of the subjunctive. So, there is some exposure there. Fine.

But a different, and complementary approach, would be to isolate some examples of usage of the subjunctive and repeat 25-50 times until they feel very familiar. This is not to say that you stop reading entire books. Hell no, that's more fun. But you focus on certain things that you want to learn in a deliberate fashion.

Similarly, you might say that this week I'll read recipes and cooking articles because I want to improve my vocabulary in the kitchen. If you read general books, you'll probably never come across much of this vocabulary. But with this strategy you make a conscious effort to focus on a certain area whose vocabulary is lacking in your language skills.
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Arekkusu
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 Message 26 of 83
19 March 2012 at 7:26pm | IP Logged 
Beyond any potential benefits you envision, what about the adverse effects? If I listened to the same 2-minute clip 1000 times, I'd be so fed up with study that I'll want to give it a rest for a few days. Not sure that'd be productive.

s_allard wrote:
But a different, and complementary approach, would be to isolate some examples of usage of the subjunctive and repeat 25-50 times until they feel very familiar. This is not to say that you stop reading entire books. Hell no, that's more fun. But you focus on certain things that you want to learn in a deliberate fashion.


This made me think -- it would be nice to have an application that automatically split an audiobook into sentences based on their content: all sentences with passé composé, with subjunctive, etc.


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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 27 of 83
19 March 2012 at 7:47pm | IP Logged 
Splog wrote:
Perhaps there is something to the technique, but I would need considerable proof of its effectiveness, and (just as importantly) a guarantee that the 2 minute clip I was listening to was not just some random clip, but rather one created by super-geniuses to ensure that not a single second of the clip is irrelevant.


In the Jerry Dai thread it's said that he memorized the first paragraph from the first lesson of "Family album USA" (text here). Maybe that's the content he listened to a thousand times.

All "10 000 times myth" aside, we can't know beforehand what will happen after doing something 100/500/1000/10 000 times. However, a language isn't the same thing as a ballet movement reaching perfection, and personally I'd never listen to the same content for that number of times in hope for the "magic" to appear. Olle Kjellin and the chorusing aficionados are happy with repeating an A4 filled with sentences some 50-100 times.

Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 19 March 2012 at 7:47pm

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Arekkusu
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 Message 28 of 83
19 March 2012 at 8:06pm | IP Logged 
jeff_lindqvist wrote:
In the Jerry Dai thread it's said that he memorized the first paragraph from the first lesson of "Family album USA" (text here). Maybe that's the content he listened to a thousand times.

The first line says "May take a picture and your little boy?".

I'd hate to have rehearsed THAT a thousand times...
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s_allard
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 Message 29 of 83
19 March 2012 at 10:09pm | IP Logged 
I think we're getting hung up on this figure of 1000 times. Who could keep count? And I don't think anybody believes that you're supposed to repeat something all in a row. You spread it out over time.

Basically, we all agree that some, and probably a lot, of repetition is necessary to learn a language skill. Just the pronunciation alone requires much repetition. How much and in what doses may be debatable, but you have to repeat things in some form. Does that mean you must repeat the same paragraph 50 times a day for a month? No. But I could see myself repeating a certain passage aloud 5 times a day for a week or until I felt I had it right.

So let's not get fixated on this idea of a thousand reps. You do what you feel is right.



Edited by s_allard on 20 March 2012 at 1:00am

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emk
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 Message 30 of 83
19 March 2012 at 10:45pm | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
What I find really rare even today is raw, unrehearsed, spoken
conversational language. Well, not exactly. You can find a lot on Youtube. But you have
so much work to do in terms of transcription.


This is slightly off-topic, but I've recently found quite a few French conversations on
lingq.com. Most of these are conversations between native speakers using Skype, and
they come with transcripts. And Lingq provides an online dictionary and an
iPhone/Android app, which pretty much eliminates the busywork.

As for listening to an audio clip 1,000 times, I don't have the patience. Back when I
was working through Assimil, I found that 10 times was a good start, and that 20 times
was a luxury. Today, listening on Lingq, I often bail after 1 to 5 reps if I'm
listening intensively, or 10 if I'm only paying partial attention.

If I can't understand a fast, tricky sentence after 10 reps, then either I'm not ready
to learn it yet, or I need to practice the grammar and vocabulary in another context.
Maybe there's something magic about 1,000 reps, but I don't plan to be the guinea pig.
:-)
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tommus
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 Message 31 of 83
19 March 2012 at 11:28pm | IP Logged 
Splog, this seems like an approach that might be very useful for your "connectors". Since many connectors are quite abstract, they tend to be difficult to memorise, and especially difficult to learn out of context. If you were to take your most important connectors and have a native speaker put them into a single short story. Lets keep it to about 4 minutes (like the langcal.com segment). Ensure that the 4 minutes is cleverly crafted to employ each of the connectors in a self-evident sentence, with a transcript and native audio. Ideally, there would be a coherent story, not just disconnected sentences. Then you listen to it until you are convinced you have completely mastered it, to the extent that you feel it would be pointless to listen to it any more. Then, without the audio or transcript, speak the 4 minutes until you are convinced it would be pointless to repeat it any more because you have mastered it completely. Review the native audio as necessary for high quality pronunciation.

How many repetitions would that take? Probably quite a few, but much, much less than 1000. And, in my opinion, it would probably be extremely useful to any L2 learner.

There are several language versions of your connectors here on HTLAL. I'd be very willing to help compose an English 4 minute version. I'd be extremely pleased if one or more of our native-Dutch members would consider working on a Dutch version. Maybe s_allard and Arekkusu could build a French version. It might be possible to build a standard 4 minute connectors short story that could be, with some adaptation, translated into any language. As a single theme for such a targeted 4 minutes, I can't really see anything more useful than your connectors.



Edited by tommus on 20 March 2012 at 2:04am

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tmp011007
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 Message 32 of 83
20 March 2012 at 1:31am | IP Logged 
I am not into that 1000 times figure. I just don't like rote learning..

what about using SRS concepts here too? (something like SRS "scheduled listening sessions")

Edited by tmp011007 on 20 March 2012 at 1:34am



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