|
 |
Learning through memorization | ||
Tags: Memory | Learning Technique/Method | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5222 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 1 of 9 17 October 2010 at 11:54am | IP Logged | ||
|
I recently found a log here and thought a particular post within it was interesting. If I may, I will reproduce that quote:
"I just realized something: what if we created a more condensed version of this method? What if we established a given number of static sentences that covered the vast majority of the commonly used structures and grammatical processes in a language, and which a person could use and modify by substituting nouns, adjectives and verbs as needed? Maybe one could created a much more condensed version of this method that could hold within 10-20 pages? Even better, what if we could write a story specifically with that purpose in mind?" This quote was from Arekkusu and I don't believe it ever got a response. Has anyone done anything like this before? If so, to what result? I have found memorization to be useful in the past, but have never made it into a learning method. Having a resource such as the one Arekkusu suggests could be quite useful. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6573 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 9 17 October 2010 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Isn't that pretty much what Assimil strives to be? I haven't used it, but the impression I've gotten is that it works that way.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6002 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 9 17 October 2010 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||
|
The meaning of a sentence is created by the interaction of meanings of all elements in that sentence.
One sentence can only tell you the meaning of the sentence. To see the meaning of the elements, you have to see them in various contexts, to see how they interact with other bits of language. One example can never tell the whole story. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5222 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 4 of 9 17 October 2010 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I suppose what I'm getting at is using memorization for the purpose of internalizing the information. For example, if I memorize the sentence "上海比北京大吧?" (is Shanghai bigger than Beijing?) and internalize, I would have the ability to adapt the structure in countless ways. I could use it to compare somebodies height or weight, etc.
This is, of course, something that already happens naturally with every language learner. So what I think that quote was getting at is doing this on a grander scale. Making long lists of useful sentence structures in order to memorize and internalize them. Also, this can be contrasted with the method which employs rote memorization of books and such. Anyways, this was just a thought I had and wanted to share. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6002 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 9 18 October 2010 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||
|
Yes, I know what you're getting at, but there isn't enough information there.
For you to be able to do this would require a massive amount of information not contained in the text -- that is, the substitutions that are allowed. So in order to use these 10-20 pages successfully, you would still need another 1000 or so pages. The technique described is therefore an illusion, a piece of misdirection. It points at a small text as the "core", when it is only a very small piece of the whole. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7123 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 6 of 9 18 October 2010 at 6:51am | IP Logged | ||
|
Jasoninchina,
Although I understand the objections, I think for some people it would be very useful. There is already something similar to this on chinese-forums.com in the grammar section. I've been thinking of adding to it. Its seriously lacking in terms of examples of connecting words. While there are many different learning styles and not every idea will work for every person, I do think some people will find it a useful reference. I know when I started learning Mandarin I often looked up sentence patterns. I think with Mandarin, looking up sentence patterns is equivalent to a student learning French looking up verb conjugations. Sentence patterns are our verb conjugations--well, not quite, I am being a little overboard with that, but there's a kernel of truth to it nonetheless. grammar-work-in-progress/">Chinese-forums Grammar Rules 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5438 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 7 of 9 18 October 2010 at 8:10am | IP Logged | ||
|
If you visit book2.de, you will find a series of books that have the same sentences in around 50 languages. Each book has 100 pages, with around 18 sentences per page. If you master the content, you will have a fair amount of vocabulary and some core structures. But you won't have the flavor of the language or its nuances. For languages whose grammar is drastically different from ours, you may have some misconceptions about which word did what in some of those phrases you've learned.
Languages are living, shifting, changing organisms. They don't make sense. While they serve to describe their speakers' worlds, what they readily express and force you to take notice of differs. Look at the following: Habla... He/She/It speaks. Yes, you've taught a Spanish speaker to convey the notion that a person is engaged in speech acts in the present. But now look at the possible translations of this one-word Spanish sentence: He speaks. She speaks. It speaks. He is speaking. She is speaking. It is speaking. He does speak. She does speak. It does speak. All are valid translations without more context. So what do you put in a core text so that a learner can infer that in English you need to distinguish between generalities, things being done and things being inferred while in Spanish you don't? If a Spanish speaker sees the following - Habla... He speaks. Habla... He is speaking. Habla... He does speak. - will that be more or less useful than the first bit - Habla... He/She/It speaks? This is why, per Cainntear, your 20 pages of core sentences will require 1000 pages of notes. For those interested in projects like this, I encourage a visit to book2.de. It's a good resource and well worth checking out. But these projects have their limitations, by their very nature and you should be aware that using them to gain familiarity with language items is not the same thing as learning a language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6573 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 8 of 9 18 October 2010 at 8:50am | IP Logged | ||
That's pretty awesome! Thanks for sharing that link. Some minor quibbles aside (calling Mandarin "Chinese" always gets me, and they could at least have one African language (Afrikaans doesn't count)), it looks really interesting. Bookmarked for future reference. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
