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A new language in 2 weeks? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 58 02 May 2010 at 10:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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A Dutch friend of mine inists that there are some Dutch nuns who have developed a method where they can teach you a new language from scratch in two weeks.
I have to admit that since I have spent months and years in learning most of my languages, the idea of doing it in 2 weeks seems incredible. I can understand that I could learn enough Portoguese or Dutch in order to read a newspaper, or to have simple conversations, since my other languages would help me with both vocabulary and grammar, but a language like say, Russian, is that even humanly possible? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LangOfChildren Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 5426 days ago 82 posts - 141 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Swedish Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Russian | Message 2 of 58 02 May 2010 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Even though I do not have any scientific proof for it, I believe that this is very
possible. I'm experimenting in this direction myself and will undertake certain extreme experiments later this year. I can't tell anyone about it just yet, though. I know that the general consensus seems to be, that it takes a lot of time to really learn a language from scratch. I expect most of the answers you will receive will be that it is impossible. Regardless of the question whether it's possible or not, I do think it would be interesting to know what that method of theirs looks like. Let's see what the others think. Edited by LangOfChildren on 02 May 2010 at 12:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iolanthe Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5640 days ago 410 posts - 482 votes Speaks: English*, DutchC1 Studies: Turkish, French | Message 3 of 58 02 May 2010 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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They basically force you to speak Dutch for two weeks, only speak Dutch to you and give you language classes. I think it's a lot more useful for someone who has an understanding of the language but doesn't yet speak fluently since it forces you to develop that very skill. It also costs around 2000 euros so most people who do it are sent by their company and lose nothing out of their own pocket if the method doesn't work for them. I think a stay with the nuns would have been a waste of money for me as a beginner but now I'd love to be forced to speak Dutch for 2 weeks. Of course I can probably find a cheaper way to do this by volunteering or getting a job where I have to speak a lot.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 58 02 May 2010 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nothing in the literature this school puts out makes it sound particularly special.
You pay a lot of money, so you get one-on-one tuition for part of the day, then you spend part of the day doing computer-based exercises. Furthermore there's preselection interviews, so they can take on people who they know are going to do well and create a "self-fulfilling prophecy" -- only accept people who are going to succeed and you get a good success rate, and because of the limited capacity of the school, they don't risk empty spaces.* Note that most of the students come from the international business community so are already competent in at least one foreign language: English. * I would argue that groups like the US Defense Language Institute work the same way. The DLI does a big "aptitude battery" to see how easy you would find it to learn a particular language. If you wouldn't find it easy, you don't get in. There's no need to teach well if the student is going to learn easily, and within the US military, there's lots of people chasing the cushy jobs that knowledge of languages brings, so they can afford to turn people away. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 5 of 58 02 May 2010 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Michael Ventris, who discovered that the Linear B script was early Greek, apparently got himself to basic fluency in Swedish within a couple of weeks, before moving there to do architectural work after WWII. Certainly he was seen by two other British architects talking fluently in the language to a Swedish official at the customs desk as they entered the country.
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| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5584 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 6 of 58 02 May 2010 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's exactly what they do. If you think about it, if you're studying that language for 10 hours a day, only seeing it, speaking it, hearing it, etc, that is a lot of hours! 140 hours in two weeks. That's an amazing amount of study. If I had the opportunity to do something like that I definitely would. By the way, My Ukrainian friend speaks native English (He's been here for 5-6 years) and he said if you're around the language, like in the country or around the people, it's VERY EASY TO LEARN. Don't be intimidated by Russian. :) He said everyone says "It's way too hard!" He said it's really not. If you let it work for you, it will be easy :) (He speaks Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and English :D) He said if I would go to the Ukraine I would learn it in a few months :) Edited by datsunking1 on 02 May 2010 at 2:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 58 02 May 2010 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
I am sure you could learn it in a few months. But a couple of weeks? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5447 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 8 of 58 02 May 2010 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
I do think that investing that much time on languages can get you to a basic level of fluency very rapidly. I think for related or similar languages it is possible in weeks, and for distantly related or unrelated languages, few months. I would like to try one day, hopefully I can do so if I ever get a study-abroad opportunity somewhere. By the way, I also have a Ukrainian friend speaks the same combination of languages - Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and English. I doubt he's the same guy that you know, but I just think it's an interesting coincidence. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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