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Can adult learners achieve native levels? | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 161 of 303 12 October 2012 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
I suspect that, when actors are directed to speak with a specific accent, it's similar to shadowing and has little effect on their ability to use that accent outside of the rehearsed lines. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 162 of 303 13 October 2012 at 2:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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If I had money to burn I'd buy even more books and other fun materials. An hour of class instruction costs as much as a decent book (which you can spend far more than one hour with).
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 163 of 303 13 October 2012 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
The cost of language classes tends to reflect the cost to the people and institution giving them more closely than their value, unless it's subsidized. Given the choice between good, free classes, and books with audio, I prefer books. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hiiro Yui Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4718 days ago 111 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 164 of 303 13 October 2012 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Okay, let me try again. I don’t have the ears. Telling me to experiment is frustrating because I never know when I’m doing it right or not. I don’t know where the boundaries of acceptable sounds are. When I try to mimic people, it never feels like I got it exactly. For people who have the ears this may seem strange, so let me use music as an example. When I hear music, I have no idea what frequencies are being used. In my memory of the melody, I can tell the frequency changed by a certain amount, but I can’t remember the height of any one note. It becomes a blur. If all the notes were shifted up or down by a half-step, I wouldn’t notice. Hell, there are frequencies between the notes on a piano. If a computer generated note were played for me, I wouldn’t be able to tell if that note exists on a piano or not because my memory of the sound of piano notes is fuzzy. I sing out of tune, and telling me to experiment until I start singing in tune makes no sense. Now, if a note were played for me and you tell me to sing that note at the same time, I may be able to match it, but once the piano note stops playing the memory of its height starts shifting. Muscle memory may be my only friend. If I continuously sing that note along with the piano, I can get used to the feel of the muscles. That’s why I would like a free, online program. Such a thing doesn’t currently exist so let’s make one.
People who have the ears think it’s easy if you concentrate. People who are naturals at mental math think it’s easy if you concentrate. People with photographic memory think it’s easy to remember what happened on January 23 if you concentrate. People with excellent marksmanship think it’s easy if you concentrate. People with good debate skills think…wait. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 165 of 303 13 October 2012 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Even most musicians can't do that. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 166 of 303 13 October 2012 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
I have to be sure that I get this right. On the one hand you have good free classes. That is to say a small group (4-6 people), a dynamite teacher and lots of materials and learning tools. Meeting maybe for three hours twice a week for 10 weeks. And all this for free. On the other hand all you have is a book and a couple of CD's. And you say that you would prefer the book. I have to laugh. But I think this quote reflects a common attitude here at HTLAL that self-teaching is always better than classes. There are truly people who believe that all classes are a waste of time. And that the best way to learn a language is by yourself in a corner with a book and some tapes. All I can say is that if anybody hears of a free course in Mandarin or Russian like what I just described, please let me know. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 167 of 303 13 October 2012 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think that self-teaching is always better; I do, however, have preferences. Feel free to laugh, if you disagree with de gustibus non est disputandum. I find it useful to work one-on-one with people at times with language study. I find some classes with 4-6 people useful in some fields - a good seminar can be quite worthwhile. But I've never had a language class I've considered particularly worthwhile. I wouldn't choose a book and tapes over all ways of language learning; I would take it over a class, even one with 4-6 people. Either way, I'd strongly want supplementary resources... 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 168 of 303 14 October 2012 at 4:32am | IP Logged | |||||
I must say, I fail to discover the humor in what Volte wrote. A language class might be useful for a very narrow purpose within the vast enterprise that is to learn a language. Overall and by itself, in my opinion it is a rather poor, probably hopeless way to go about learning a language. Let us examine for a moment what learning a language involves. Take listening for instance. With a handful of materials you get a diverse selection of voices, sexes, ages and settings, and most of the time you get also a transcription of what is being said along with notes and explanations, all of which you can peruse at your discretion and go over as many times or in any way you see fit. You can then complement this by watching online TV or listening to the radio. In a class you get at most one decent sample (perhaps not even this, oftentimes the teacher being a learner themself) and a multitude of defective, struggling ones comparable to your own. And a very patient teacher along with an excessively tolerant, possibly disengaged group of classmates would be necessary to fit a classroom presentation to your own needs and pace. Which is bound to instill a better sense of the phonetics of a language? Then there is the question of vocabulary and syntax, the heart and soul as well as the bulk of the work involved in learning a new language. Most of it is acquired by means of manuals, textbooks and readings even in a classroom setting, so there is little to comment on that other than to point out the obvious irrelevance and unavoidable waste of precious time imposed by a classroom in this regard. Let us then consider the strong point of classroom learning: immediate feedback. No doubt, many will find this much valuable and even indispensable, particularly those wishing to "just speak" right away. My own way of looking at it is as follows: I can either speak now and get feedback on what I already know or passively move forward and acquire ever more grammar, vocabulary and syntax. If I forgo the former and carry on with the latter a truly funny thing happens: as I advance with my studies, that on which I may have benefited from feedback from a teacher early on progressively becomes second nature through extensive exposure and building-on until finally that advice is in retrospective rendered irrelevant, enabling me to cover more ground and assimilate much more of the language in the same amount of time. Language is such that it continually references itself, so there is little point in dwelling on structures and features early on which will repeat themselves ad nauseam throughout your journey. If you carry the above to its conclusion, you may find you have little need of a professor right until the moment you're ready to have casual conversation with a patient native speaker - at which point speaking will also be far more pleasurable than years and years of babbling with an instructor. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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