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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| LifeLongStudent Diglot Newbie United States focalfox.com/blog Joined 5117 days ago 13 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 1 of 6 15 November 2010 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Does anyone know of any advanced learning techniques, that high-performing Learners at the top of their fields use? Speed Reading, Photographic Memories, Abstract thinking, mind mapping... etc.
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| 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 2 of 6 15 November 2010 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not even high-performing learners know what they do.
The trouble is, the more you study languages, the easier and more natural it gets. Mind mapping is useless as it is for structured facts, and if you understand the concept well enough to draw an accurate mind map, you don't need a mind map. If you don't understand it well enough, your mind map will be wrong. Consider "Tony Buzan's Spanish Revolution", a so-called course built entirely on mind mapping. To remember "la comida" (food), you need a memorable image, so draw a lovely big chocolate birthday cake -- that's his advice. "La comida" is also "lunch", so the cake actually aids miscomprehension. So that's a suggestion from someone who should already know better -- imagine how easy it would be to make that mistake starting with no prior knowledge. Speed reading is useless, because you can only speed-read in a language you know very well. A photographic memory can help you learn a small number of fixed phrases, but a language is more than that. Most learners simply learn to learn, and trying to build a rigid formal structure only serves to inhibit that organic process. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6694 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 6 16 November 2010 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I totally agree with Cainntear on mind maps and succulent chocolate birthday cakes. Associations can be useful in the moment of memorization, but they should only be seen as memory hooks that help you to fixate a word or expression in your memory. After that step they are irrelevant, and building great systems describing your associations just takes away valuable time which you could have used on reading, listening to genuine sources and using your language at whatever level you can muster.
Speed reading is especially useless because it is designed to throw away precisely those things which you try to learn: endings, grammar words, weird little expressions and anything that could make you stop up and think. Photographic memory? Well, if you have got it then congratulations, but else there are well-publicized techniques that can make you memorize more efficiently. Though some of those techniques are made for learning long series of data in a specific order, which isn't relevant for languages. Abstract thinking? Well, that's a fuzzy notion. You should definitely try to understand grammar, understand the relationship of words to other words and understand how idiomatic expressions got their special meanings, but this isn't rocket science - actually the more abstract, the less relevant for language learning. The most abstract thing in linguistics is probably transformational grammar in all its avatars, and there is nothing more irrelevant for language learning. So what are we left with? A lot actually, but not the kind of deep secrets LifeLongStudent had hoped to get. There are concrete techniques which may be useful (for instance I have my intensive reading/copying and my wordlists which are essential for my language learning), but these techniques are not exactly secret, they are not really advanced in any technical sense and no single technique can teach you a language. Gadgets? Computer programs? Well, MP3 players and Anki is about as complicated as it gets - and they are not secret, nor difficult to use. In short, you need to take an approach where you use a varied array of techniques and get as much exposure as possible to your target language, and apart from that it is just a question of perseverance and diligence. Edited by Iversen on 16 November 2010 at 10:01am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5660 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 6 16 November 2010 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | ||
I know a few polyglots, even some "at the top of their field" and their secret is a love for and lifelong commitment to language learning. Most people give up after three months, whereas they may have achieved a great deal if they had stuck with it for a few hours a day for another ten years. Apparently, it gets easier the more languages you know. So, the secret to being great at learning a language is to have learned a lot of languages already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5640 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 5 of 6 17 November 2010 at 4:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Speed reading should only be used if you only have 10 minutes before class to read a chapter that was assigned. I only use it the first time I read through chapters in the textbooks to get the main ideas, not specific details. For language learning, it serves no purpose except in the beginning when you're forcing yourself to be able to read faster. Aside from faster reading speeds, speed reading is useless in language learning.
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| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6666 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 6 of 6 17 November 2010 at 8:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with the other comments.
I will add. The common secret: PASSION for language learning. If you have passion, you will find enough TIME every day, you will study with high INTENSITY and you will find methods that work for you. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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