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Language Learning is much easier nowadays | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 25 11 July 2012 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Language studies in the past? Crippling effects of technology ...where I wrote: Textbook, mp3 player, grammar book, pen and paper, dictionary, internet - any tool has its merits. I'm not connected to "internet" while taking a walk, but I can listen to something on my mp3 player. When I'm working on the computer, there's no room for textbooks. I don't learn to write Chinese characters better than trying them out for "real" with a pen and paper. And so on. People have learned languages way before computers were as common as they are today (I know people around here whose German or French they learned some 50 years ago is more accurate than the average youth's English - how about that!). ----- Of course Internet and the current technology has made foreign languages more accessible, easier to practice and so on. Nobody can deny that. But as frenkeld says, it's easier to lose track nowadays. I've dropped studying a language more than once because of distraction - from other languages (Wanderlust) and from other things in general. 20 years ago, I probably wouldn't. I can speak English, and on a good day I can manage some Spanish and German. Guess what - I learned them all in school, back in the old days, without computers or mp3 players. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Heather McNamar Senior Member United States Joined 4782 days ago 77 posts - 109 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 10 of 25 11 July 2012 at 12:31am | IP Logged | ||
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A lot of interesting points made here. I definitely think the Internet has made language learning easier by bringing together resources from all over the world, which means we now have access to more authentic materials in our target languages. It's also made learning more "obscure" languages easier, since there are now more resources available than ever. It's also possible to talk to people in other countries, thanks to Skype and instant messaging and such. And don't forget language learning apps and a greater abundance of self-study courses. But as jeff_lindqvist points out, there was no reason why one couldn't learn a language to fluency in the "Dark Ages." The main difference is that now, we have more information, literally, at our fingertips.
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| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4778 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 11 of 25 11 July 2012 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||
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I think that in general for those of us in the West, language learning technology has advanced by leaps and bounds and has made learning much easier, but not everyone in the world has been able to benefit from these innovations. The "digital divide" STILL exists between the First and Third Worlds. Supposedly on this planet there are 2 billion people who have never made a telephone call. There are rural schools in Africa where only one French or English textbook is available for students.
I tried corresponding with a girl from Armenia in 2009, and wanted to know if she had a computer. She said that not only did she not have a computer, but everyone she knew was so poor that that they couldn't afford to buy one. And it's not like all of these people live in mud huts or something, they simply live in a society with no infrastructure, where outages and blackouts are the rule, not the exception. So obviously most Third Worlders have it much more difficult than I do. No matter how talented or motivated you are, you are sometimes limited by the circumstances of your own country's deplorable living conditions. I try to be grateful every day for the fact that Russian and Armenian TV shows are just a mouseclick away. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 12 of 25 11 July 2012 at 3:00am | IP Logged | ||
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For me the most important thing is the contact with others learning languages via the
internet. I'd have given up by now otherwise. In the UK (outside of London) learning a language is not very rewarding (unless, like most of us here, you find it intrinsically rewarding): contrary to what they say it really doesn't help those of us who are working class in the job market (obviously it helps those in certain professions) and serious language learning doesn't carry any more prestige than learning to rattle of a few phrases (even if they're wrong!) as most people can't tell the difference. Also most people here seriously underestimate how difficult it is, if you're dumb enough to be honest about how many hours you've put in over the years people are stunned, they'll then assume you're "fluent" (by which they mean can speak like a native) and if you then admit that your 2nd language is mediocre at best and your 3rd is still quite poor they'll assume there's something wrong with you. And even if you had reached native standard in that time they'd think you a bit weird for putting in that amount of study without a piece of paper at the end of it. Without technology (mobile phones, internet etc) these would be the only people I could interact with. To judge by the popularity of some of the "language log" threads I can't be the only one who finds this contact very useful. Edit: oh and as unpopular as it may be to say this, filesharing sites would be the second most important thing for me. There, I bet that just lost any goodwill the main part of my post had won me! ;-) Edited by Random review on 11 July 2012 at 3:46am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4701 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 13 of 25 11 July 2012 at 4:11am | IP Logged | ||
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No way.
I actually agree. Many great Japanese language books by Kodansha are out of print since the company closed their US branch. Filesharing makes it possible to still get them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 14 of 25 11 July 2012 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | ||
Sorry to go off-topic, but for many that was the best thing about library.nu: that it had so many academic books impossible to get elsewhere. Serious researchers found they could get information not otherwise available (or if they were lucky enough to live in the UK, only available at the British Library). Even for laypersons like myself there were many interesting and useful obscure out of print books there. :-( 2 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 15 of 25 11 July 2012 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Even here, we're seeing the first glimmers of hope: $80 Android Phone Sells Like Hotcakes in Kenya $80 is still too expensive for the poorest of the world, who live on $300 to $600 per year. But it's well within reach for the global "middle class," who earn $3000 to $6000. And these prices are falling like a rock—given another 10 or 20 years, smartphones will be available to a large fraction of the world's population. And a smartphone gets you a lot: dozens of school books, communication with your family and friends, some kind of internet access, and audio/video playback. One moderately expensive device can open up the world. So as costs come down, things will get really interesting. For one, you can do an awful lot of language learning with a smartphone. I was speaking to an older French teacher, who teaches high school French classes and who works as a director of education at an Alliance Française. She was complaining about students with smartphones, so I took mine out and started showing her everything: Dictionaries, verb conjugators, streaming internet radio, podcasts, LingQ, French websites and of course Anki. Her jaw just about hit the floor. So maybe the value of the technology is in how you use it. If you spend all your time goofing off, it can waste almost as many hours as television. But if you keep focused on what you want, it's an incredibly powerful tool. Twenty years from now, the digital divide may be almost gone. But that just leaves us another divide: Between the people who goof off, and the people who can at least occasionally focus, however imperfectly. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 16 of 25 11 July 2012 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is no doubt that technology, and especially the internet, has made language learning easier. I do want to add, however, that that nothing can replace actual interaction with natives in the country of the language. There is nothing like observing how a language is actually used and nothing like participating oneself for real. This in my mind is the ultimate limitation of all those software packages that offer "virtual immersion." It"s not the same.
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