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Harm in using native materials early? | ||
Tags: Native Materials | Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4765 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 17 of 29 22 October 2011 at 7:41am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been studying for about three months myself, so I can't say I'm extremely experienced, but I can say that I approve of starting from the beginning.
About a week after I started learning, I started using native materials, mostly online news. It is a good way to practice the language, and a good way to find words to begin studying (I often go blank when trying to do this). It also gives more personality to a language than just a dictionary, but it IS a truly daunting experience. Upon reading newspapers, I could understand very little, and I figured I had a long way to go. But because I did this early, I was still building vocabulary quickly so I was confident in my ability to overcome this obstacle. Today, I can understand newspapers with 60-90% clarity. Listening is yet more daunting, but now I don't feel like I'm listening to Chinese. The language is slower and I can understand words more frequently. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cpnlsn88 Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4972 days ago 63 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, Latin | Message 18 of 29 23 October 2011 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think there's a good rationale for exposure to native material early on. For one thing one doesn't have the disappointment of learning so much then having a 'shock' encounter with native material. However I am resolutely against subjecting oneself to long exposure without understanding. I don't believe it has any magical 'subliminal' benefit. Most native input can though be made easier in a number of ways (choosing easier material, repetition, reading and listening, news input and so on).
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| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6060 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 19 of 29 23 October 2011 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it's the 'all-japanese-all-the-time' guy who started advocating listening to a lot of native material from the beginning. I'm sure others have talked about this before, but I think this is how the idea got popular. My take on it? That it really does work for some people -- people who learn this way aren't lying. But, it doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for me. I'd say, give it a shot for a few months, maybe, but if you're not picking up anything, find another method.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 20 of 29 23 October 2011 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||
It's not just about "picking up" something when you use native material. It is about developing skills. I have been learning French slowly over about 3-4 months now. I listen to "easy" news in French from rFI from time to time. It is only about 10 minutes per episode, so it is not overly taxing. I guess I only know about 5-10% of the words used, but since it's news, I can often catch the gist, or at least figure out the topic, based on proper names used. I don't listen passively, hoping the French will magically seep into my brain. I actively listen for words I know, and am improving at the skill of picking words out. In another few months I will be picking out phrases and whole sentences I understand. The point is that when you learn a language you need to develop a variety of skills. Native materials are one way of doing this. As I've said previously in this thread, I prefer using easier native material at first, and working up to more difficult material. Others like to jump right into the tough stuff. Either way, native materials are indispensible. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 21 of 29 25 October 2011 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I may be a bit late to the debate, but I'm not sure what the alternative to native materials is. I guess people must be referring to artificially made-up texts or exercises. I've always heard and preferred "authentic" materials, but native materials probably means the same thing. My understanding of language learning theory is that you should use material that is just a bit higher than your level of comprehension so that you can enjoy or understand most of the material and still be challenged. So, you always keep moving the bar up. Frankly, it seems kind of masochistic to me to want to start learning French with a heavyweight 19th century novel. I think a comic book or some fairy tales would be more fun. Edited by s_allard on 25 October 2011 at 3:53pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 22 of 29 25 October 2011 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||
This is why I prefer to grade my native material, even to the point of starting with children's books. I like to keep my material a bit difficult, but not too difficult. It is said that in order to "read with pleasure" you should only be looking up one word in twenty (or know 95% of the words). This makes some people push and push to learn the 5000 or so words of vocabulary needed to read adult writings with ease. However, it you can find plenty of literature for younger people with much smaller vocabulary, which still uses most grammatical features of adult language. For example, the CLE book I have in French (mentioned several pages above) has 600 words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Incunabulum Newbie United States Joined 4974 days ago 13 posts - 30 votes Studies: French, Serbian | Message 23 of 29 25 October 2011 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't seen this site mentioned before, so I'll mention it here. It has recordings
in French along with transcripts: http://francebienvenue1.wordpress.com/ If you are a beginner you can view it like this: http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx? ref=Internal&from=fr&to=en&a=http://francebienvenue1.wordpre ss.com/ which will give you the option of seeing the original and a machine translated version side by side, or through popups over the original text. This is a very low pain way to use native material. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JiriT Triglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4732 days ago 60 posts - 95 votes Speaks: Czech*, English, German | Message 24 of 29 26 October 2011 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||
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The initial question is asked in a bad way. When someone learns a language, it cannot
make any harm. One can learn a language in a less effective way or even in a way which will never lead to the expected aim. The question should rather sound. what is the most effective way or is using such a method effective enough? Sometimes a less effective way is acceptable, when it is connected for instance with better motivation. For example, someone starts reading a book with practically no vocabulary and no knowledge of the grammar. It is not very effective but the person enjoys this way. Then why not. I believe, its is good to have a good textbook and to learn some basic vocabulary and grammar. It is more effective than to look up each word in a dictionary. I am not dogmatic, after going half of the textbook I start with reading real texts, but I take it as a complement. Some people here recommend text in a simplified language, basic vocabulary, simple grammar etc. But then I ask, is it a real language or a kind of textbook? There is another reason why I believe, good textbooks are very helpful. They contain the language one cannnot find in a book, I mean various conversational phrases etc. You can have very extensive vocabulary, even active vocabulary, but at the same time it can be very diffucult for you to tell somebody the way when he asks. Edited by JiriT on 26 October 2011 at 12:28am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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