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Have you learned a language doing nothing? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| alleo Diglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 5800 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 9 of 26 26 August 2011 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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For example, I have never learned bulgarian. But I speak russian and ukrainian and can read polish. So when I come upon some bulgarian text I can understend a lot even without a dictionary.
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| learnvietnamese Diglot Groupie Singapore yourvietnamese.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4884 days ago 98 posts - 132 votes  Speaks: Vietnamese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 10 of 26 26 August 2011 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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The following is just my personal experience so far so please do take it with a pinch of salt.
I pretty much had the same goal as you, but with learning Mandarin. It was pretty tough and without much efforts, I guess you'd make very small progress. Now, what actually helped me most was that I managed to put in some efforts upfront to understand the basics of Chinese grammars. Then, as I didn't have time, I just rode along with the FSI audios. But I think the fact that I did manage to listen to 2-3 audios per week mattered. Sometimes, I just opened it while working. So I think if you are not in a hurry to master it and you can stick with it for long enough, I believe you'll make it. (By the way, it may be rather astounding to know that one of the most useful pieces of Chinese grammar to me so far was simply the sentence order: time + place + action). Edited by learnvietnamese on 26 August 2011 at 4:27pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| christinewong Newbie United States Joined 4776 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 11 of 26 26 August 2011 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sometimes it just for fun and travelling. You are willing to learn as long as you want to know more about the country.
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| Longinus Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4812 days ago 26 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Polish, Macedonian | Message 12 of 26 26 August 2011 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a Croatian friend who spent several weeks in the Ukraine. Without prior study of Ukrainian, she was able to communicate effectively, and understand quite a bit, by the end of the trip. She also had a similar experience in the Czech republic, although in this case she spent a few weeks studying Czech first. So, in answer to your question, I think that given the shared features among Slavic languages, plus some immersion and active efforts to understand and use the language, that you can certainly make good progress in Croatian without formal study. One caveat -- my friend is really smart, and has two doctoral degrees.
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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5197 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 13 of 26 26 August 2011 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I thought that I could pick up Portuguese with no effort. Man was I wrong!
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| KCor Groupie United States Joined 4943 days ago 50 posts - 72 votes | Message 14 of 26 26 August 2011 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||
What do degrees have to do with being smart? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| misslanguages Diglot Senior Member France fluent-language.blog Joined 4781 days ago 190 posts - 217 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 15 of 26 26 August 2011 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know. This thread is ludicrous anyway. The closest you can get to doing nothing is going all AJATT.
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5270 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 16 of 26 26 August 2011 at 11:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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This reminds me of how I learned English, which happened in a way that is very common in the Netherlands (and I believe in Scandinavia as well). I was exposed to spoken/sung English every day from a very early age and as a teenager, my love for American/British films, TV shows and books meant that I was seeking out the language as a hobby and because I was simply doing what I enjoyed doing, I never realized that I was slowly accumulating a language in the process.
By the time I was around sixteen, I spoke and wrote fluent English without ever having learned spelling rules, memorized verb conjugations or having visited an Anglophone country for more than a few days. I don´t remember ever having thought of English as a foreign language and I can only recall a handful of moments of reflection on my learning process as it was taking place. Rather, it feels like the language has just always been there in my head and sometimes it feels scarily more natural to express myself in English than in my native Dutch. So to answer the question: yes, I feel like I learned a language without doing anything, so much so that I feel uncomfortable when people compliment me on my English because I don´t feel like I did anything to deserve it. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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