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Language Learning is much easier nowadays | ||
Tags: Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6151 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 25 10 July 2012 at 11:37am | IP Logged |
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I've come to the conclusion that language learning has become a lot easier in recent years. When I first attempted to learn Hungarian in the late '80's, there was only one old Teach Yourself course in the library. The tapes and the books were quite worn, and no bookshop at the time seemed to sell the course. To listen to the tapes you needed a stereo player, as walkmans couldn't play the volume loud enough.
Nowadays, I can research what courses are available on the internet. Courses which cost hundreds of euro, such as FSI, are now available free. My MP3 player allows me to listen to hundreds of hours of audio without lugging tapes around. I've now access to audio books in my target language, and I can Skype to talk with partners. Flash card programs can teach vocabulary using space repetition. Cheap flights have allowed me to travel more than ever, and have brought numerous native speakers to my country. I don't think us language learners have ever had it so good. What do you think ? 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nakrian keegiat Diglot Groupie Thailand Joined 4907 days ago 70 posts - 172 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 25 10 July 2012 at 11:48am | IP Logged |
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I doubt anyone will disagree and this point has been made many times. Edited by nakrian keegiat on 10 July 2012 at 11:49am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5391 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 3 of 25 10 July 2012 at 12:12pm | IP Logged |
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When I think of when I took French in high school - right on the cusp of high speed
internet, MP3 players, lots and lots of cheap storage space, etc I almost regret not being born a few years later. I'm actually trying to get in contact with my old high school teacher to see if she'd like me to give a talk about all the things French has done for me and all the resources they could be using right now to get fluent. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 25 10 July 2012 at 12:53pm | IP Logged |
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When I finished college, I deliberately decided to sacrifice my very basic reading
knowledge of Latin—it was clear that the upkeep costs were too high. Had I learned my Latin with SRS software, I would have been able to save most of it at modest cost. With Middle Egyptian, I intend to learn a very modest amount, and then keep most of it. And while we're being thankful, let me put in a good word for Amazon.fr. Sure, they're the Borg. But I can point, click, type in my Amazon password, wince at the cost, and click ship. I can get all sorts of strange books which amuse me, including modern French science fiction, programming books, and French/hieroglyphic facing-page translations. In the 80s, I had massive trouble getting that stuff in English. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 25 10 July 2012 at 6:43pm | IP Logged |
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Since we are going down memory lane here, I remember my mom who was collecting language samples from all the languages that she could find in my home town in 1972, carrying around a tape recorder, which weighed as much as a toddler. We are not talking a nifty little casette player, with casettes, but great big tapes. It was so heavy, that she had problems with her right arm for the rest of her life. It breaks my heart to think that today she could have used a tiny little thing that barely would cover her hand.
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 6 of 25 10 July 2012 at 8:03pm | IP Logged |
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Domestic and international online shopping, credit card technology, CD & DVD, portable mp3 & movie players, electronic dictionaries, learning and authentic resources directly available on the internet - all those are major advances helpful to a language learner that hardly need elaborating. In a sense, it is more interesting to ask whether these advances have had any negative side effects.
Looking back, when I had limited resources, I tended to study those that were available in depth - when I had one textbook, a couple of tapes with dialogs, a graded reader and a couple of novels, I really studied them and studied them until I essentially over-learned them. These days, with a wide range of materials at my fingertips, I find it much harder to go in such depth with any one of them, with the overall results that are often worse than in the past. One can, of course, compensate by a conscious effort to stay focused, but one has to remember to do that - it's all too easy these days to indulge in oodles of "input" and not do enough hard studying. Edited by frenkeld on 10 July 2012 at 10:49pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4991 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 25 10 July 2012 at 8:33pm | IP Logged |
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I totally agree. That's why I cannot understand people saying they have no time to learn
a new language. I have only little time myself, but I always carry some vocabulary cards and my iPod full with audio files, so I can use any free minute to relax from doing whatever I'm doing, while I listen to some podcast episodes in my target language. Of course with little time it will take longer to make any progress, but the fact is that progress is possible. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 25 10 July 2012 at 10:10pm | IP Logged |
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Certainly true, and it's been interesting to see how the availability of materials has increased over the past decade(s). Even at times that I would least expect to be able to practice or surround myself with my target languages, I can listen to it or use it in some way. Plus, the availability of media from other parts of the world has helped greatly with advancing into higher levels of some languages.
Also, though not necessarily related to technology, is that for Arabic dialects, there are far more reliable resources for Egyptian and Levantine (as well as Iraqi and Gulf) than there were when I was learning them. Plus, there's more access to authentic materials nowadays. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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