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Cutting down on errors | ||
Tags: Corrections | Error | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| markdhemming Triglot Newbie Russian Federation Joined 4722 days ago 16 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, French Studies: Georgian, Spanish | Message 1 of 12 19 September 2012 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wrote an email in Russian yesterday and got it checked by my native colleague. As we
talked through a few mistakes I got thinking about this question - what can we do as language learners to reduce the number of errors we make? The most frustrating part for me about this is that a lot of errors are 'invisible', that is to say that the person making the error has no idea that what they are producing is wrong. I guess working with native speakers to reduce errors is one way to tackle this problem, but do any of you have ideas on how to accelerate developing accuracy? I'm amazed by many contributers on this forum who write in flawless English despite it not being their native tongue - so how did you manage it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6914 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 12 19 September 2012 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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The situation with English is a bit different - it's the "first" second language for many people in the world. With us Scandiavians in mind, we have been exposed to English since we were kids, our English teachers have encouraged us to read books etc. so naturally we're at some advantage over those who don't have the same amount of exposure to their second language.
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| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4497 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 12 19 September 2012 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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1) Interact more and more with native speakers willing to correct your errors and you will make fewer errors. The pace and volume of interaction determines the pace of correction and the subsequent pace of growing proficiency.
2) Read and listen to more and more comprehensible input and you will learn more in and from context and will develop a more natural feel for what is right and what is not. But you have to understand enough grammar and vocabulary (95%ish) for CI to work. If you don't have that knowledge then more intensive study is first required, especially for native materials. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4564 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 4 of 12 20 September 2012 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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What Peregrinus said. Or in other words, 1) output + feedback, and 2) input + "noticing
aids", that is, a knowledge of grammar, non-trivial idioms and other quirks that context alone cannot explain.
This is a temporary problem that will go away with enough reading and listening. Over time and with enough input, you will become more aware of the line between guesswork and what you actually know. The hard part is expressing yourself fluently, without sacrificing accuracy. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4564 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 5 of 12 20 September 2012 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | ||
For one, most of us have learned English in school from an early age, but even more importantly, we've been reading in English and listening to it on a daily basis for many years: books, online news, Wikipedia, movies, TV shows, video games, and so forth. Add to that some years of writing posts on forums such as this, and access to Google and online dictionaries with no time limit, and it no longer seems so amazing. Do something consistently, and you'll get better at it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4712 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 12 20 September 2012 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Practice, consistent practice.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 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 7 of 12 20 September 2012 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Specifically for Russian, google (or yandex) is a good source of morphological information: especially if you search with quotation marks, it's easy to see whether people say so or not. And yes, reading is essential.
In case you haven't heard of it, there's the fantastic site lang-8.com for getting corrections:) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5171 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 8 of 12 20 September 2012 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I often google for some options when I'm in doubt in French, but that does slows me down.
I've noticed that relying on native's corrections on this and other forums, despite all the help, isn't something I can count on regularly. I've written in French here and in other forums and only once in a while I got corrected. When the text is important, I contact a friend I've met at another community. The same happens with other languages I practice. I usually get corrections for the first two posts but then no more. That even at lang-8 and italki. I admit I don't help others as often as necessary but regarding my native language there is so much workforce out there that every post gets corrected only in a few hours in lang-8 and similar. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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