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5 Year Prison Sentence | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7089 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 1 of 52 11 December 2010 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Let's suppose that you're an American on vacation in Russia. You commit some crime and you're sentenced to 5 years solitary confinement in prison. All you have for entertainment is a TV with only Russian channels. You watch the TV around 4 hours a day every day for those 5 years. Do you know Russian by the end of your sentence? Edited by ANK47 on 11 December 2010 at 11:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 52 12 December 2010 at 12:10am | IP Logged | ||
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If you do, it's mostly from your inmates, the wardens and (hopefully) some lessons. Watching TV alone wouldn't get you very far.
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| mr_chinnery Senior Member England Joined 5749 days ago 202 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 52 12 December 2010 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||
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This question reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Bart is lost in France and learns
French by osmosis, thus ensuring his escape. IRL, it's not so easy :) Edited by mr_chinnery on 12 December 2010 at 12:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 52 12 December 2010 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I think you probably could learn Russian (or any other language) that way, because after a while you would notice the same words being used in the same situations, and the same things being called the same. It would be a slow process, but I am sure you would get there in the end. After all that is how children learn languages, by listening to conversations where they have to learn all the concepts.
I learned most of my French by listening to lectures at school, and watching TV. I didn't get much in the beginning, but slowly it crept in. I did not have any French classes as such (French for foreigners I mean), I just sat there and "listened very carefully, and they said it more than once" :-) Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 12 December 2010 at 12:42am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6542 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 5 of 52 12 December 2010 at 5:11am | IP Logged | ||
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no
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| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5440 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 6 of 52 12 December 2010 at 5:37am | IP Logged | ||
well, not really, children learn through interaction, as well. I can't see how it would be possible to learn a language in total isolation, that is to say without any interaction and any reference point (translation), so I'd go for 'no'. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6364 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 52 12 December 2010 at 6:13am | IP Logged | ||
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If you had a Russian-English dictionary to study. Otherwise, probably not because you
have no reference points as to what means what. You can only guess words from context when you already know words. So if you learned words from fellow inmates over time you may build up a small vocabulary (1000 words) that would allow you to learn more vocabulary from TV from context. Edited by zerothinking on 12 December 2010 at 6:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lucas Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5159 days ago 85 posts - 130 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Italian, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 52 12 December 2010 at 6:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting...I first began to answer "of cours not"!
But then I remembered one of my students in Slovakia, who had good basic knowledge in german. How did he learned it? Watching cartoons when he was a kid, with nobody to speak german with in the middle of Slovakia! If it's possible for a slovak to learn German only with TV, it would be theorically possible for your prisoner...but maybe only if you're a kid and you're watching cartoons! :) I still don't know how this happened, but it worked... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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