We, who manage to focus on ONE language (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

We, who manage to focus on ONE language
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

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casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4261 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes

Studies: Portuguese

Message 105 of 142

23 August 2013 at 10:31am | IP Logged

Tsopivo wrote:

JC_Identity wrote:

However I am, from my own experience, convinced that the premise itself doesn't hold up. So those who care to understand where I am coming from, would find the key in that I do not hold this premise. I have no difficulty with focusing on the same language throughout the day for whatever time I set off to my language endeavor. I have been able to spend everywhere from 10 minutes to ten hours on learning the language on a daily basis.

On the other hand, I have the impression that the camp of people who believe that it is better to focus on one language at a time do so on the premise that somehow, the second foreign language is taking something from the first foreign language, as if those languages were necessarily competing for the learner's time and attention. This is simply not always the case.

I'll give 2 examples from my own experience :
- The first is from when I was in junior high school. In my school, kids started learning their 1st foreign language in grade 6 as a mandatory requirement. They were also offered an optional Latin class starting in grade 6 or 7 (can't remember). As an option, the Latin class was taken during a student's free time and was taken in addition to the mandatory classes. In that case, I do not see how the addition of a second foreign language slows down the acquisition of the first foreign language and I can assure you that the pupils who choose that option did not study English less and did not learn it any slower. The next year, however, an optional "European Section" class which consisted in 2 additional hours of English was added. Due to conflicting schedule, pupils could not choose both the Latin and the English options and the pupils who chose to stick with Latin did get behind those who focused on English (but they were still on par with those students who chose neither options).

- The second example applies to my current learning style for Esperanto. Note that I am a beginner in Esperanto and while I speak English, I learnt it in school at first so I still consider myself a newbie in language learning so I think I fit the description of people who should stick to one language. Everyday, I try to meet my objectives in Esperanto and do more study if I can or want to. During my day, I also spent time on various house-chores, sport or physiotherapy exercises that do not really require my attention so I will sometimes watch a movie or a TV show while performing those tasks. Every now and then, I decide to dabble in Spanish so I spend that time in front of Spanish TV shows rather than French or English ones. Except for the risk of interference, I am fully convinced that this has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the speed of my progress in Esperanto.

So basically, what I am getting at is that yes, it is better for some people to focus on one language and the quality over quantity is a great approach but you can not apply this to everyone and the breadth over depth approach is no less respectable.

casamata wrote:

Yes, but the idea that you learn 80% of the words with 20% of the effort actually isn't that helpful. Your level of understanding with 80% word knowledge is pretty poor.

"The woman suffered thrombophlebitis after taking a dip into the sauna."

Here we have 11 words and if you don't know two of them (thrombophlebitis and sauna), you're not gonna understand anything at all.

Here is a bbc article that I randomly clicked on. "Sirens sounded across the area, but no casualties were reported. Footage showed some minor damage."

15 words. If you don't know 3 words (sirens, casualties, footage), you're not going to understand much. The other words are ones that most intermediate learners would know but without the advanced terms you're not gettin' far.

Except it does not really work like that. Saying that you know 80% of English words does not mean that for any given text, you will only know the 80% easiest words. I probably know less than 80% of English vocabulary and I can assure you that my level of understanding is neither poor nor useless and that I knew the words sauna, sirens, casualties, footage and I kind of see what thrombophlebitis is, to the same extent that I do in my native French.

casamata wrote:

Also, that 20% of knowledge is really important. Good luck trying to make a living as an engineer, an athlete, or anything if people are 25% better (and 20% better in absolute terms) than your 80%.

1) We are discussing what is for most people here a hobby. If you want to go in translation or other language related career, it is probably better to focus on one language until you get a very good at it.

2) In a lot of professions, you can absolutely make a living with only 80% of the knowledge in that field.

Except the pareto principle is not talking about absolute knowledge but relative, knowledge. With 20% of the effort you get 80% of the benefit. IE, you are not learning 80% of the TOTAL words but 80% of the vocab of a native. I doubt that there are more than a handful of English native speakers in the world that know 98% of all the words in the dictionary, let alone 99.99% of them.

So somebody with 25% percent less in relative terms (80% total) of your English vocab knowledge will be in trouble when trying to comprehend higher-level text.
3 persons have voted this message useful

casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4261 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes

Studies: Portuguese

Message 106 of 142

23 August 2013 at 10:33am | IP Logged

Tsopivo wrote:

JC_Identity wrote:

casamata wrote:

Also, that 20% of knowledge is really important. Good luck trying to make a living as an engineer, an athlete, or anything if people are 25% better (and 20% better in absolute terms) than your 80%.

N=1. For my field, if somebody gets 25% more (relative terms) and 20% more (absolute terms) questions right on board exams I don't believe that I would pass my tests and finish. Nor would I ever want to see a doctor that is so much worse than another.

Edit: Again, it is 80% of the knowledge of a competent professional, not 80% of the total knowledge in the field. Nobody knows everything about engineering, teaching, medicine, law, or any subject.

Edited by casamata on 23 August 2013 at 10:36am
1 person has voted this message useful

patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4532 days ago
1546 posts - 3200 votes

Studies: German

Message 107 of 142

23 August 2013 at 10:48am | IP Logged

casamata wrote:

Learning high-frequency words→learn many connotations of high-frequency words→learn rarer words→learn connotations of rarer words→learn very rare words/specialized vocab→etc

I don't have that impression. I think I am constantly refining my understanding of high frequency words as I interact in the language. Sure you learn high frequency words earlier than lower frequency words, but you are constantly refining all the words the you know as you learn a language.

casamata wrote:

In word form, I think what you are saying is already done by the time one starts to learn relatively unused vocabulary.

That's absolutely not my impression. I was already C2 native in English at university, when I really started really appreciating the subtly of high frequency words. This coincided with the point in my life when I started writing and reading more extensively in the language as part of my studies.

Learning a language is simply not a linear process as you describe - at least not in my experience.

casamata wrote:

Did you mean to say "plethora" in your sentence? But yes, being able to speak and write (and understand!) with more skill is definitely an advantage in specialization.

No I meant the word I used. :)

Edited by patrickwilken on 23 August 2013 at 10:59am
3 persons have voted this message useful

Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5765 days ago
2256 posts - 4046 votes

Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

Message 108 of 142

23 August 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged

JC_Identity wrote:

Bao wrote:

I don't see any reason for why I should push myself a lot harder to improve just a little faster.
There's no deadline I have to meet, nothing I have to gain from putting in even more effort than I am already doing. I want this language to be part of my life for the next 50+ years, after all. And the same is true for several others. Apart from that I prefer improving at a rate which makes people think I am a very dedicated learner, not at one that makes them treat me like a freak.

This is great because what I have been talking about is the opposite of pushing yourself. I have condemned self-discipline in favor of self-interest. I respect your decision to move slowly, but majority of people tend to want the most efficient approach if all other factors are equal or if they are even better with the faster approach.

I didn't make myself clear there. The pace at which I choose to go, now that it is my own choice, is sustainable. The pace at which I was going in Spain brought me to my limits, and I only spent half of my waking hours with the language. Even though that pace might seem slow to you, the majority of people I met there learned Spanish at a slower pace than I did.
It is possible that I could improve faster, but I don't see how, nor why. My Spanish is already so strong that somebody speaking Spanish next to me makes me inadvertently switch to Spanish, and indeed makes it hard for me to switch back to German or English. Speaking Japanese or French is almost impossible for about half an hour, and I get a lot of interference in French even the next day.

So concentrating on my strongest learning language actually interferes with my daily life, my short term goals and possibly my long term goals. The only thing that helped me so far was to switch between languages more, and not less.

As for self-interest, I want to be able to connect with people, to make them feel appreciated and welcomed. I want to encourage them to try out new activities when they feel insecure. The moments I feel proudest of my love of languages are those when friends tell me seeing my slow, but steady progress motivated them to stick to their own studies or even encouraged them to start learning a language or another skill they'd wanted to learn for a long time, but never thought they would be able to.

I want to add something to what kuji has already said about Japanese. I am at a stage where I can plow my way through most native media, and also at one at which my friends feel I should learn to use gender, age and situation appropriate speech patterns. Which means that I should not copy most of the Japanese used in: anime, non-fiction books, Japanese fiction, translated fiction, manga, children's literature, children's TV shows, song lyrics, news broadcasts; and to a lesser degree nico-nico and other websites, drama series and variety shows. Oh, and the language used in my textbooks also sounds weird to them. And when talking to me, they tend to clean out most localisms and slang, but not when talking to each other - and I never know whether it's a cue for me to not copy it or they believe I don't understand it.

That means that no matter how much I enjoy working with a certain material, there is *always* a voice in the back of my mind attempting to sort through whatever I'm learning and decide whether to try using a certain pattern or word, and in which kind of situation. It's exhausting when I don't take breaks from the language, and frustrating when I just keep going despite my mental exhaustion. But not using the language actively, or using anything that comes to mind when talking to people are strategies that are even more frustrating for me at this level.

So I take breaks. And, trying to fortify my languages against interference and attrition, I switch languages. In order to regain my self confidence and motivation, I switch languages.

Edited by Bao on 23 August 2013 at 11:25pm
3 persons have voted this message useful

Duke100782
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Philippines
https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4487 days ago
172 posts - 240 votes

Speaks: English*, Tagalog*
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin

Message 109 of 142

23 August 2013 at 3:47pm | IP Logged

Focusing on one language is something I've committed to. I'm grinding down on Mandarin Chinese. I was
assigned in China more than a year ago. When I arrived in China I could barely speak a few sentences. My
father is ethnicly Chinese so I every bit look like local. In my line of work, the more Chinese I can speak the
better. It would be great to start studying other languages like Spanish, Cebuano, Russian, Fookien, Hindi,
and so on, but living and working in China, the benefit I get from China is direct and immediate. Also, I have
the opportunity to really become fluent, which I might not have if I lived outside China.
1 person has voted this message useful

tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4706 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 111 of 142

23 August 2013 at 5:08pm | IP Logged

casamata wrote:

Tsopivo wrote:

JC_Identity wrote:

However I am, from my own
experience, convinced that the premise itself doesn't hold up. So those who care to
understand where I am coming from, would find the key in that I do not hold this
premise. I have no difficulty with focusing on the same language throughout the day for
whatever time I set off to my language endeavor. I have been able to spend everywhere
from 10 minutes to ten hours on learning the language on a daily basis.

On the other hand, I have the impression that the camp of people who believe that it is
better to focus on one language at a time do so on the premise that somehow, the second
foreign language is taking something from the first foreign language, as if those
languages were necessarily competing for the learner's time and attention. This is
simply not always the case.

I'll give 2 examples from my own experience :
- The first is from when I was in junior high school. In my school, kids started
learning their 1st foreign language in grade 6 as a mandatory requirement. They were
also offered an optional Latin class starting in grade 6 or 7 (can't remember). As an
option, the Latin class was taken during a student's free time and was taken in
addition to the mandatory classes. In that case, I do not see how the addition of a
second foreign language slows down the acquisition of the first foreign language and I
can assure you that the pupils who choose that option did not study English less and
did not learn it any slower. The next year, however, an optional "European Section"
class which consisted in 2 additional hours of English was added. Due to conflicting
schedule, pupils could not choose both the Latin and the English options and the pupils
who chose to stick with Latin did get behind those who focused on English (but they
were still on par with those students who chose neither options).

- The second example applies to my current learning style for Esperanto. Note that I am
a beginner in Esperanto and while I speak English, I learnt it in school at first so I
still consider myself a newbie in language learning so I think I fit the description of
people who should stick to one language. Everyday, I try to meet my objectives in
Esperanto and do more study if I can or want to. During my day, I also spent time on
various house-chores, sport or physiotherapy exercises that do not really require my
attention so I will sometimes watch a movie or a TV show while performing those tasks.
Every now and then, I decide to dabble in Spanish so I spend that time in front of
Spanish TV shows rather than French or English ones. Except for the risk of
interference, I am fully convinced that this has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the
speed of my progress in Esperanto.

So basically, what I am getting at is that yes, it is better for some people to focus
on one language and the quality over quantity is a great approach but you can not apply
this to everyone and the breadth over depth approach is no less respectable.

casamata wrote:

Yes, but the idea that you learn 80% of the words with 20% of the effort actually isn't
that helpful. Your level of understanding with 80% word knowledge is pretty poor.

"The woman suffered thrombophlebitis after taking a dip into the sauna."

Here we have 11 words and if you don't know two of them (thrombophlebitis and sauna),
you're not gonna understand anything at all.

Here is a bbc article that I randomly clicked on. "Sirens sounded across the area, but
no casualties were reported. Footage showed some minor damage."

15 words. If you don't know 3 words (sirens, casualties, footage), you're not going to
understand much. The other words are ones that most intermediate learners would know
but without the advanced terms you're not gettin' far.

Except it does not really work like that. Saying that you know 80% of English words
does not mean that for any given text, you will only know the 80% easiest words. I
probably know less than 80% of English vocabulary and I can assure you that my level of
understanding is neither poor nor useless and that I knew the words sauna, sirens,
casualties, footage and I kind of see what thrombophlebitis is, to the same extent that
I do in my native French.

casamata wrote:

Also, that 20% of knowledge is really important. Good luck trying to make a living as
an engineer, an athlete, or anything if people are 25% better (and 20% better in
absolute terms) than your 80%.

1) We are discussing what is for most people here a hobby. If you want to go in
translation or other language related career, it is probably better to focus on one
language until you get a very good at it.

2) In a lot of professions, you can absolutely make a living with only 80% of the
knowledge in that field.

Except the pareto principle is not talking about absolute knowledge but relative,
knowledge. With 20% of the effort you get 80% of the benefit. IE, you are not learning
80% of the TOTAL words but 80% of the vocab of a native. I doubt that there are more
than a handful of English native speakers in the world that know 98% of all the words
in the dictionary, let alone 99.99% of them.

So somebody with 25% percent less in relative terms (80% total) of your English vocab
knowledge will be in trouble when trying to comprehend higher-level text.

That's fine, I don't regularly read Russian policy reports on nuclear energy. I'll get
back to you when I do.
2 persons have voted this message useful

JC_Identity
Triglot
Groupie
Sweden
thelawofidentity.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4120 days ago
53 posts - 108 votes

Speaks: Swedish, Serbo-Croatian*, English

Message 112 of 142

23 August 2013 at 6:56pm | IP Logged

erenko wrote:

I focus on one book at a time. The language doesn't matter.
If it happens to be in English, let it be English. French? I don't mind French as long as the book is worth it. Russian? Why not? All I want is to become wiser, not to be an expert in a language. I'm not interested in small talk either.

Although I would choose one language, I must say that I am glad to read that there are other people who are not treating languages as ends in themselves but means to an end, which is that interesting content.

2 persons have voted this message useful

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