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Language Learning Forum : Links & Internet Resources

13 messages over 2 pages: 1 2 Next >>

kenshin
Triglot
Newbie
Taiwan
Joined 5032 days ago
17 posts - 34 votes
Speaks: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English
Studies: Japanese, German, French

Message 2 of 13

07 April 2011 at 7:22pm | IP Logged

Language-related content with audio files available in different languages.
They are extremely helpful for me, thanks a lot!

But, any idea why the French version is missing?
2 persons have voted this message useful

pfn123
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5085 days ago
171 posts - 291 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 3 of 13

08 April 2011 at 1:04am | IP Logged

A very useful resource. Thanks for the link Kikenyoy.
2 persons have voted this message useful

leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6552 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

Message 4 of 13

08 April 2011 at 4:56pm | IP Logged

Some quotes of interest (please discuss)

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] When searching for
‘language learning’ on the Internet, you will be informed that it is all
fun, sexy and child's play. If that’s the way you dream about
approaching your next language, stop reading here. There is nothing
snug and cosy about The Word Brain. On the contrary, this short guide
for adults may appear harsh and rude as it is about determination,
discipline, and perseverance. If these are dirty words to you, close this
guide now.

I agree with what he says about the buzz on the internet. But I didn't find the guide harsh at all. Opinionated, stuffy, vague and downright
bizarre at times, but not harsh. Despite the stuff I mentioned, most of the time I enjoyed it.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] I define ‘speaking another language’ extensively. The
definition includes the ability
• to read essays or newspapers
• to understand TV news or documentary programmes
• to imagine the correct spelling of words while listening to TV news
or documentaries
• to understand everyday conversation

What an odd definition. Not once does it mention speaking, unless that's supposed to be part of understanding. He talks about
conversation, so I can't help but conclude this is the one of the many "mistakes" I found. There were numerous analogies that didn't seem
to apply to what he was saying, sentences out of place, unrelated conclusions throughout the paper which puzzled me. And almost all of
them were in paragraphs that I agreed with. I could be wrong, but I believe this is a language problem.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] ‘Start listening, go on listening, continue listening – but please don’t speak
too early!’

Heard this many times before. He doesn't define "too early" very well, but in the end recommends 3 months. I believe in parroting almost
from the very beginning, with the aid of a transcript. Sometimes pronunciation drilling/learning the alphabet ahead of time is required to
use the transcript. But under those circumstances, there is nothing wrong with early speech. Conversation is a little different. One should
know enough not to annoy the hell out of one's language partner before they start.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] To be comfortable in another language you need roughly half of the words you
possess in your native language – 25,000.

This is a pretty high definition of comfort. He goes on to use 5,000 - 15,000, saying the other words are derivation or words that sound
like your native language.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] What would you expect the second battlefield to be, grammar or pronunciation? It is
neither! Against all expectations, grammar and
pronunciation are theatres for minor skirmishes. The second major task
in language learning is speech recognition.

Grammar is pretty major for me. Speech recognition, assuming he meant understanding speech, is more time consuming, but he really
dismisses the difficulty of grammar.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Some of these questions will be answered by
future research, but I am inclined to accept that there is a physiological
threshold for human brains to get wired to the ability of dissecting the
sounds of new languages. You would need a minimum of time to
perform this task, but you wouldn’t need much longer than that.

On the one hand he says 1500 hrs, on the other he says a minimum amount of time. Strange.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] If
teenagers are frustrated when they put their school knowledge into
practise, it is because school teaching is insufficient to get you
anywhere near the 1,500-hour exposure minimum.

True - classes don't give one enough exposure to become fluent.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] You are lucky. As listening can easily be done in
parallel to other activities – commuting, doing sport, cooking, etc. – you
will manage to dissolve the bulk of your speech recognition programme
in daily life (like a murderer who dissolves a corpse in an acid bath!).
Thereafter, you just have to change your TV habits (more about that
below), and the true extra study time can be reduced to around 100
hours.

Strange math. Apparently he thinks I watch a lot of TV. 1400 hours, to be exact. But not 1500 hours. So I need to add 100 hours to the
time I take to spend. And I don't agree that listening during activities such as sports is as effective as just listening.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Just remember these two important pieces of advice: 1) During
the first year of your training, never read a text without hearing the
sound. 2) Only listen to audio sources if you have the corresponding
text at hand.

I like this quote and I hate it. The idea of only listening to things that I read, and vice versa, is very appealing. But this can be difficult to
pull off. There might not be material available. I might not be able to read it yet. It might not be at my level. etc.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] If you are used to having a siesta, put your earphones on and activate the
loop mode. It is certainly impossible to learn words during sleep, but
the sound and music of the new language will certainly enter your brain.

In the words of Jason Borne "sleep is a weapon". If I get greedy and try to learn while sleeping, it will be diminished.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Let’s get back to your reading abilities and define the learning material you will use.
I recommend that you start studying classical language
manuals. Among the dozens of existing manuals, only a few are
outstanding, and selecting good manuals is like crossing a minefield.
Ask your teacher for help. In particular, make sure that the manual has
word lists and comes with a CD-ROM. Personally, I prefer books
without pictures and drawings because words are all you need (check
www.TheWordBrain.com/BookRecommendations.php). Neither the
Bible nor the Torah nor the Koran comes with pictures.

What's a language manual? What's a classic manual? Which ones are outstanding? You said I'm my own teacher - you want me to ask
myself? Why you gettin' all religious on us all of the sudden? Bizarre.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] make sure that your teachers are polyglots. You
wouldn’t want to learn sex with nuns and priests.

Two of my favorite quotes, right next to each other. Very good point about the polyglots. And I wouldn't mind learning sex with a nun,
but probably not from a nun.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Important advice: Make sure that you receive grammar lessons in your native
language. Reject all ‘monoglot’ proposals such as being taught
Spanish grammar by a Spanish teacher who exclusively speaks Spanish.
Don’t complicate your life. Your native language is by far the best tool
for grasping and understanding new concepts.

Agree. But sometimes there is no grammar or teaching available in one's native language.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] The verb training and the first rounds of grammar will not take more than 100
hours.

I embarrassed that I've spent close to 1000 hours with Japanese grammar, and I still suck.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Some people perceive this as a high price for familiarising themselves with other
languages and decide that they are not willing to pay the
price. They don’t want, at any cost, to look clumsy, awkward, or inept.
That is, of course, the end of the dream of speaking another language.
Without going through the baby/stranger/klutzy stage, nobody will ever
learn to speak another language.

Totally agree

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Yet even
more dangerous, because it occurs more frequently, is seemingly
innocuous distraction, for example extended surfing tours on the
Internet. Opening social network accounts, reading incoherent
information from disparate sources, writing short messages,
participating in nonsense quizzes, listening simultaneously to music,
downloading videos or doing whatever else you can imagine – such
acrobatic multitasking is heavy stuff for delicate infant spines.

This is like saying "don't rest". Totally disagree. Give that man a dose of spurt learning.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Learn new words on day 0 and repeat them on day 1, 3, 6, 10,
17, and 31.

A poor man's anki.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] If you learn languages at university and, a fortiori, if you contemplate becoming a
language teacher, things are different. Every language is
within your reach because your daily work schedule includes 3 hours of
word nailing plus hours of listening to audio sources. Don’t even
envisage a more modest approach. Nobody wants language teachers
who are not in command of what they teach, and anything less than 5
hours of daily study is unacceptable. Those not willing to fulfil these
requirements should reconsider their professional choices.

You hear that, all you language majors? 5 hours a day or you're fired! Ok, that does qualify as harsh.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] As soon as possible, you must move into territory where you
are able to read everything... because reading is the best conceivable
language training!

Finally, a silver bullet.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Finally, test yourself by
covering first the right column and then the left column. 100 percent
correct answers is a good score.

He actually went into a tiny bit of detail there. He avoids it throughout the whole paper, so this surprised me. And yes, 100 percent is not
bad.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Good language
manuals usually present around 2,000 words – that is far short of your
final word score of 5–15,000.

I SAID - WHAT THE HELL IS A LANGUAGE MANUAL! ARE YOU DEAF? Sorry...I'm preparing for a colonoscopy today.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] Success is determined by the number of hours people are ready to invest.

Agreed to an extent, but there is much more to it than that.

thewordbrain.com wrote:

] struggling with Arabic taught me
fundamental lessons for writing this guide

Just wanted to point out something to those of you who don't venture out of your language family. If you do some day, and take a
language to fluency, you will understand what works and what doesn't to a much higher degree than before.

Edited by leosmith on 08 April 2011 at 6:03pm
6 persons have voted this message useful

kmart
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6126 days ago
194 posts - 400 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian

Message 5 of 13

09 April 2011 at 9:09am | IP Logged

Thanks for the review, leosmith, I believe you have saved me 70 pages of reading time, hehe. Nothing in this book it seems, that hasn't been covered by the good people of this site I think, but possibly useful to beginners as a summary of good suggestions (and some not so good).
I'm wary of the insistence on what you "have" to do - can be a bit off-putting. I would suggest to beginners that you study in a way, and with material, that appeals to you, but don't be afraid to try new things, and give even unappealing things a fair chance - but NOT if it puts you off studying!!!
As you progress in your learning and grow more in love and confident with your new language you acquire further inspiration and determination that allows you to tackle harder and less "fun" methods, and the resulting improvement generates further inspiration and determination.
But to tell someone that if they haven't got what it takes, get out of the kitchen, is a bit intimidating. What's the harm in a lazy flibberty-gibbert having a little play with a language and learning a few tourist phrases for their next holiday? They just might discover a real enthusiasm and commitment to learning. Worked for me.
;-)
1 person has voted this message useful

kenshin
Triglot
Newbie
Taiwan
Joined 5032 days ago
17 posts - 34 votes
Speaks: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English
Studies: Japanese, German, French

Message 7 of 13

09 April 2011 at 10:05am | IP Logged

leosmith wrote:

thewordbrain.com wrote:

I like this quote and I hate it. The idea of only listening to things that I read, and
vice versa, is very appealing. But this can be difficult to
pull off. There might not be material available. I might not be able to read it yet. It
might not be at my level. etc.

That's exactly the problem i'm having. There are plenty of reading materials in French
I want to read, but obviously there is no audio file.

While upload tons of text files to rhinospike.com asking for recording, doesn't seem
very practical...
1 person has voted this message useful

Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6013 days ago
4399 posts - 7687 votes

Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

Message 8 of 13

09 April 2011 at 11:18am | IP Logged

Quote:

– all I would ask you at this point is to rapidly
assemble the knowledge that is needed to recognise the most
frequent grammatical structures. Recognising grammar
requires 10 times less training than producing grammar.

Doesn't he stop to ask himself why this is?

It's a simple idea that recognising is easier than producing and it's tempting to leave it at that, but it's only half the story.

There is a lot of redundancy in language.

Consider "I know, you know, he knows, etc". The "-s" in the third person singular isn't strictly required to get the message of the sentence across. In nouns, plural marking isn't strictly required either. (You'd understand "I have three brother", wouldn't you?)

This leads to the danger of forming an incomplete, inconsistent or just plain wrong internal model of the language.

Only production provides an environment where accuracy is genuinely enforced and rewarded.

1 person has voted this message useful

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