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I feel "stuck" | ||
Tags: Measuring Progress | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Spiky Newbie United States Joined 5444 days ago 19 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 1 of 12 21 April 2010 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm currently learning Tagalog (Filipino) and I've read countless articles on "how to learn a language." I like to listen particularly to Steve Kaufman and his suggestions on how to learn. He says that we should just listen to content that we like and get a lot of input and that we'll acquire the language. I find his suggestion to be quite vague. He always refers to Stephen Krashen and his "language acquisition" theory. He says that if we just expose ourselves to the language at a level just above our competency, then we can learn the language.
They also stress being okay with "uncertainty" which is what I'm learning to be. But I seem to be "uncertain" about a lot of things and I see myself referring to the dictionary many times. My efforts, though, are usually in vain, as I usually forget the word as soon as I close my window. How does this work? Should I just trust my gut that I'll eventually absorb the language? Right now, I'm reading news articles in Tagalog and I try to my best to comprehend them, which I can do, but the words just go over my head like nothing. Is that okay? How should I go about doing this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| str0be Senior Member Korea, South Joined 5609 days ago 103 posts - 148 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, Korean | Message 2 of 12 21 April 2010 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
I've found that it's sometimes better to concentrate on improving my retention of the words I already 'know' (including getting used to the spelling, and just getting used to seeing them around) rather than pushing myself with too many words and difficult reading or listening exercises. Edited by str0be on 21 April 2010 at 11:35am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| simonuk Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5357 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai | Message 3 of 12 21 April 2010 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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i feel your pain
ive been learning thai now for 15 months or so and have a reasonable vocab of maybe 2500 words and can read intermediate materials with no problems, can communicate reasonably and pick out sentances with growing regularity whilst watching thai movies. im just finding it frustrating now that my progress has slowed even though i study 2-4 hours daily. i often find that im still unsure or the correct grammer or wording to use when talking or writing. so i have split my studies in to several parts 1- grammar and sentance contruction study from a dedicated a grammer book. 2- vocab revision and aquisition 10-20 new words a day taken from materials ive read or hear that day. 3- reading articles and acompanying audio ( intermediate FSI ) 4- watching movies and listening to the radio my live in gf is thai yet we speak hardly any thai together as she is less than encouraging ( grrrr) and shes a English language student herself so we default to the path of least resistance. i guess what im attempting to say is that maybe you need to do a little bit of everything and accept that its a long term aim to pick up an asian language Edited by simonuk on 21 April 2010 at 12:23pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Spiky Newbie United States Joined 5444 days ago 19 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 4 of 12 22 April 2010 at 3:13am | IP Logged | ||
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So, am I doing this correctly? Should I just trust my gut?
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| simonuk Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5357 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai | Message 5 of 12 22 April 2010 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
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i dont believe its possible to just absorb a language.
i think you learn by understanding and trial and error. who is providing you feedback when you misunderstand or mispronounce something? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spiky Newbie United States Joined 5444 days ago 19 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 12 23 April 2010 at 4:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't have anybody like that unfortunately. I'm a lone wolf when it comes to these things. That's why I'm stuck.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5710 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 7 of 12 23 April 2010 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I feel exactly like this at the moment with Spanish. I'd estimate my active vocab is
somewhere around 2.5-3,000 words. I feel this is a kind of stalling point because after learning all the easily translatable words things start to get difficult. I can easily have basic conversations and my reading and listening comprehension are pretty good on most topics. My problem is that I can't retain or quickly associate meaning to those "other" words that have a number of translations; words that typically can't be crammed using flashcards, etc. Another problem is that these aren't words that are coming up so often that you can easily learn then from repetition. This is where I feel the problem is. At the moment I am trying to read my first book without a dictionary. I've read harry potter 1 and 3 refering to the dictionary pretty regularly. I've since started number 7 and after a few chapters I've found that I can follow the plot easily enough but there are so many words that are just flying by. The thought of actively trying to learn those words is overwhelming to say the least. After learning those "key 2.5/3k" words, there's an infinite pool out there which is what I'm struggling with right now. I'm hoping to see if I can work on my inference skills by reading this book without a dictionary. I want to see if I can learn words that way, and then hope that they shift into my active vocabulary if I just keep reading and reading. I'm looking for help on this too. Hopefully some people can come up with some strategies. What does everyone else think? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spiky Newbie United States Joined 5444 days ago 19 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 8 of 12 01 May 2010 at 5:26am | IP Logged | ||
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BUMP
Any ideas? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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