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Mormons and Language Learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Lemus Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6383 days ago 232 posts - 266 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese, Russian, German | Message 17 of 35 10 June 2007 at 11:36am | IP Logged | ||
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I would imagine almost any of us could be fluent that fast if we were incredibly motivated, did two months of intensive study, and then were placed in a full immersion environment for an extended amount of time.
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| wetnose Groupie United States Joined 6980 days ago 90 posts - 98 votes Studies: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 18 of 35 10 June 2007 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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This reminds me of a book I'd always wanted to buy sometime. It's called
"Language Acquisition Made Practical: Field Methods for Language Learners" and is supposed to be for missionaries. As the title indicates, though, it's for picking up a language 'in-field'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7148 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 19 of 35 10 June 2007 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
I bought the book, along with Grammatical Analysis, about 30 years ago. Both books came from the Summer Institute of Linguistics. I met a couple of Missionaries from the organization and discussed my love (and obsession) of languages with them. They recommended the books and said that sales were restricted to people in the organization but got the books for me. Language Acquisition Made Practical was for missionaries going into a new area where the language is unknown outside of the community and learning the language cold. I was fascinated by the book. As I understand it, they were the only organization doing this kind of work. They would reduce the language to dictionaries and grammars and translate the Bible into the language and write textbooks. What intrigued me was that people who were entirely illiterate could learn to read fluently in 4 or 5 months. Of course the rules of spelling and pronunciation were entirely regular, but it makes me wonder why our methods in English speaking countries are so inefficient. By the way, my daughter, Wendy, learnt to read German fluently in a couple of months. She was able to read anything she was given. She was so excited at being able to read she read all shop signs, street signs and food packaging. Her second-grade reader had excerpts from Pearl Buck, Leo Tolstoy and Erich Kaestner. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7148 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 20 of 35 10 June 2007 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I began listening to the lessons in Dr. Blair teaching Chinese and I liked his approach. He stated that you should learn a working knowledge of the language in less than 24 hours, certainly less than 48 hours.
He now teaches at a Mormon university and produces the language programs for Mormon missionaries. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7013 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 21 of 35 10 June 2007 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | ||
Ah, that's why the name sounds familiar. They are now at SIL.org, home to a number of papers frequently linked to from this forum: Language Learning in the Real World for Non-Beginners, Success with foreign language: Seven who achieved it and what worked for them, Leave me alone: Can't you See I'm Learning your Language?, and others. See the entire online bookshelf contents. Unfortunately, the Language Learner's Field Guide only has a table of contents available online. Edited by dmg on 10 June 2007 at 9:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tornado Triglot Newbie Luxembourg Joined 6741 days ago 17 posts - 16 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Hungarian, German* Studies: French | Message 22 of 35 11 June 2007 at 3:31am | IP Logged | ||
so can you recommend the course? cause I found his course on amazon.de for 17€, which is really very cheap for a language course with 3 audio cd's & a practice cd-rom!!! can you say how far the course could get someone? edit: don't worry about it, I found your thread about the program. so probably nothing to recommend for someone on an intermediate level. Edited by tornado on 11 June 2007 at 8:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6381 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 35 11 June 2007 at 10:53am | IP Logged | ||
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My friend said that his two-month training was similar to a university class. There was just more of it (6 hours a day in the classroom with other students). There was an emphasis on conversation, but they also used textbooks and workbooks. So most of the credit goes to being fully immersed in the language, IMHO.
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