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3 things which work & 1 bitter admission | ||
Tags: Learning Experience | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5535 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 17 29 August 2012 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
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After trying quite a few approaches, I am reluctantly forced to conclude that three
things will help me learn a language: 1. Input. Lots of input. 2. Having no choice. 3. Actually studying. I am not equally attracted to all of these. But if I try to do without one of them for too long, the price is steep: I spend forever stuck on a plateau. How about you? 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5696 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 2 of 17 29 August 2012 at 12:21am | IP Logged | ||
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What exactly do you mean by "having no choice"? Are you talking about being put in situations where knowing the language is an absolute necessity (you "have no choice" but to speak it), and therefore it increases your motivation to learn? Or are you possibly referring to the negative aspect of having too many language-learning materials and flitting between them so often that you don't accomplish anything?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 17 29 August 2012 at 12:45am | IP Logged | ||
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For me it's doing active studying each day. I've tried to learn, or must maintain,
languages with podcasts, movies, and music. I had fun trying, but it never worked. I don't know yet if reading works for me as 'active' study. I'll find out soon enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5535 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 17 29 August 2012 at 12:45am | IP Logged | ||
Yes. I'm in a gnomic mood today, after a long post on my log, so expect cryptic responses. :-) Strictly speaking, it doesn't have to be absolute necessity. It's usually possible to get by in English. But it's possible to create practical necessity by rearranging my environment, or by being really stubborn about not using English for certain things which I have no intention of giving up. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5348 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 5 of 17 29 August 2012 at 2:14am | IP Logged | ||
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For me, learning a language is as simple as:
1) Having materials of good quality in sufficient quantity, and 2) Having enough time This is straightforward enough for some languages, however requisite no. 1 can go unfulfilled for many others that I'd wish to learn, for example Kannada or Marathi. What do I mean by materials of good quality? For me it is manuals and series that provide you with all that you need to know (not having to guess pronunciation in the case of Japanese or Arabic, for instance), present the language by way of copious amounts of it rather than redundant explanations in the base language, and progress from beginner all the way to advanced. And these must be available as printed books. Languages without sufficient intermediate and advanced materials represent the greatest challenge for me. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5133 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 6 of 17 29 August 2012 at 2:55am | IP Logged | ||
For me personally, I'd go so far as to say that number 2 would eventually become THE most important factor for me. What I mean by this is that I could study and get all the input I could possibly get in a day, but without being forced to use the language constantly, I'd be stuck at a B2-ish level. For me to get beyond that, a move to where the language is spoken would be in order. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ZombieKing Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4530 days ago 247 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* | Message 7 of 17 29 August 2012 at 3:13am | IP Logged | ||
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For me it would be:
1. Consistent revision 2. Progress, even if it's little by little 3. A good attitude Reviewing is easy enough with Anki and having a notebook with my vocab in it. Progress is made whenever I read some sort of text and learn vocabulary/grammar from it. And a good attitude is what keeps me motivated and not feeling burned out. Edited by ZombieKing on 29 August 2012 at 3:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 17 29 August 2012 at 11:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting post on boiling it down to the essentials. For me it seems to be input,
conversation, and "active study" as kanewai said. If I'm not getting all three of these regularly I don't progress. Even at the advanced level I'm finding that some amount of deliberate, focused study, as opposed to just listening and conversing, is necessary to keep things moving. "Having no choice" is something that I don't really think about, but I suppose I take care of it by seeking out regular opportunities to converse and making plans for trips abroad, and that's what fuels my motivation for the other things. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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