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Regretful Tactics in Language Learning | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Belardur Octoglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5612 days ago 148 posts - 195 votes  Speaks: English*, GermanC2, Spanish, Dutch, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Lowland Scots Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Italian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean | Message 9 of 23 12 October 2013 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | ||
Good, we have some additional insight from four yeas ago, too. The thread you linked was shortly after I took my hiatus from the forum, but I know that I would have answered a bit differently then. It might be interesting to see what some members from the 2009 thread think about differently in the intervening time. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4663 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 10 of 23 12 October 2013 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I started with FSI, which was a good choice. I believe in learning from context and didn't feel the need to use flashcards or words lists. Besides the first 4-5 years of English learning at school, I don't recall memorizing specific words, except with irregular verb. I might have done it but obviously I don't remember it as being the way I learned the most.
So, with FSI, everything went really well up to unit 6. It started getting a little bit harder by unit 7, but I still made good progress. By unit 11 or so and over, I realize I was mixing verbs, forgetting vocabulary and, out of the context of those exercises, would often recognize words but not be able to recall their exact meaning. So, I started using Anki, both for FSI sentences (entering one example for each word or grammar point) and vocabulary. If I had from the start, I think I might have been able to cut 6 months of my learning time. I still believe in learning from context, but I've learned that up until the point I'm good enough to be able to understand a lot of input, and probably also because of the German vocabulary being more foreign to me than English was, I still have to use memorisation for some time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 11 of 23 12 October 2013 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I agree with Akkadboy, unsurprisingly as we are following the same course, and
liking it. The one thing I have learned while doing this course, where reading is actively discouraged, contrary to what I previously thought, it really does help you to focus on listening in a way that I never had done before. So much so now that I think I listen better, whatever I am listening to, e.g. when I am watching "The Young Montalbano" which is on BBC4 TV at the moment, even though I'm not studying Italian, and even though I do read the subtitles of course. But I really try to listen out for the words and try to catch each one, whether I know what it means or not. In addition to that, I'd say my regret generally is being too content to "sit back" (metaphorically and sometimes literally) and not be more active and proactive in my languages. Listening comprehension is essential and a good thing but , at least I found, that it's very easy to just listen and not even make the attempt to be more active. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 23 12 October 2013 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I spent too much time listening to news radio before turning to TV series. Radio was useful because I was a bit of a news junkie at the time, and because there were a lot of transparent words. But once I got partial understanding, the remaining bits were just too difficult to make further progress, no matter how much I listened.
TV series had lots of pictures and fewer voices, and they didn't change the subject every 30 seconds. This gave me much stronger context and allowed me to plow further into the unknown. I could then solidify my gains through sheer volume. I learned that if you can't puzzle out something useful from context, immersion is a waste of time. And so now I try to find ways to get as big a comprehension boost as possible: hence TV, BDs and translations of my favorite books. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5392 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 13 of 23 13 October 2013 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||
Exactly - I think there's a "danger zone" once you get more advanced where you're able to function quite well and understand media but clearly not at full C1/C2 standard (or beyond) yet. It's easier to get complacent at this stage and stop making progress. Of course it's fine if you've reached your own defined stopping point but if the goal is to continue making progress you have to continue working as hard if not harder as before. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5733 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 14 of 23 13 October 2013 at 7:10am | IP Logged | ||
I find that B2/C1 is this awful "plateau" where the Pareto principle kicks in - 20% of the effort gets you 80% of the way, and the remaining 80% of effort gets you the final 20% of the way. This is also the point where you switch from formal materials to native ones. Add to this the fact that language ability can fluctuate from day to day and you often feel like you're not getting anywhere at all for your effort, slack off, and end up back at B1. There's a less pernicious plateau at A2/B1, when you've learned all the formal grammar and can get the gist of most of what you read, but your active skills are still seriously lacking and perhaps your listening comprehension as well. I've found this can be lessened by a heavy focus on audio from the beginning (Pimsleur or similar), so that you at least have rock solid basic conversational skills to keep your confidence and motivation up. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4445 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 15 of 23 13 October 2013 at 9:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Many years ago took French for a few years in high school. The test score wasn't bad but at the time had very little
focus on conversation and a lot of repetition on grammar & vocabulary. Besides not being in an immersion course, the school year was only September to June. The 3 months summer break in between could have bought a plane ticket to Paris and focus on talking to the natives. 1 year went on summer vacation to Taiwan. Met a few American exchange students in their small groups talking in English. This is definitely not the way to go in a foreign exchange. If anybody wants to learn a language, they need to bring their skills up to a basic conversation level or it would be a waste of time. I'm hearing this over and over again people spend years studying Spanish, Chinese or whatever and have no confidence asking for directions. Edited by shk00design on 13 October 2013 at 9:16am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sabotai Senior Member United States Joined 5883 days ago 391 posts - 489 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese, Korean, French | Message 16 of 23 13 October 2013 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I decided to start learning languages when I was 29. I was fast approaching 30 and realized that my only skill was that I was good at World of Warcraft. I needed some hobbies and one of them was to pick up a second language.
Now I say that I started learning languages when I was 30 instead of 29. My first regret with language learning was that instead of researching options in language learning products, I fell for the marketing and simply bought Rosetta Stone. So I just don't even count that first year. As for bad habits, I would say that I have a horrible habit of buying too many resources. Because then I want to use them all. Which in and of itself isn't bad, especially for something like Korean. Different vocab, sample sentences, audio content, etc. I imagine that going through my 6-8 courses will be good in the end for the languages FSI has at the top of its difficulty list (as long as I get through them in a reasonable amount of time). My bad habit is that I convince myself that I can use 6-8 courses all at the same time. I don't just have wunderlust when it comes to languages, I have it when it comes to different resources and methods, too. Edited by sabotai on 13 October 2013 at 7:38pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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