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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 25 of 58 03 May 2010 at 6:55am | IP Logged | |||||
The actual nuns are not teaching anymore anyway, but as newyorkeric says, it is not uncommon for nuns to teach. On a totally different note, my only 10 classes of Dutch were with a Dutch monk. A Dutch friend of mine was very sceptical, and said "Beware of Dutch monks". He had a point. There is a reason why I only took 10 classes... Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 03 May 2010 at 6:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5955 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 26 of 58 03 May 2010 at 6:56am | IP Logged | |||||
I also have a hard time seeing how speaking seventy languages fluently could be possible. Does Riethmiller actually claim that anywhere? The reference in your link is to the following: "In part, the answer lies in the way its founder, director, and principal instructor, Lee K. Riethmiller, honed his fluency in the twenty-six languages he currently speaks." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| unityandoutside Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6013 days ago 94 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin, Mandarin | Message 27 of 58 03 May 2010 at 8:28am | IP Logged | |||||
It's still wacky. He's offering group classes to produce ventaglots?!?! But I don't think that guys seems as wacky as this guy. For more eye-rolls, check out his website, polyglotcenter.org, the source of the "testing" he talks about in his video. The links on the sidebar are particularly pleasing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6421 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 28 of 58 03 May 2010 at 10:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Someone talking about the Intercontinental Foreign Language Program:
http://use.perl.org/~johnseq/journal/ We were taking lessons from a Harvard Square linguist named Lee Riethmiller, at the Intercontinental Foreign Language Program. Lee has a very unique approach to foreign language instruction in several respects. He believes that you learn languages faster and with better recall if you study multiple languages concurrently. He never really said why, but my oversimplified explanation is that this is similar to the better recall/comprehension claims of speed reading. There are other reasons why this makes sense from a mnemonics perspective, and it has the added benefit of being very appealing from a student perspective (learn more in less time). In addition to encouraging you to take multiple languages simultaneously (you can choose from about 20 that Lee teaches), he also eschews the standard grammar-based approach. Instead, he writes interactive question and answer type scripts that resemble beat poetry -- quite absurb. You don't do 'going to the movies' or 'in the kitchen' vocabulary fests. Instead, you converse with mushrooms, cheese-boys, Italian bees and strawberry girls, and each verb tense you memorize is associated with a flavor of ice cream. Occasionally the scripts will overlap with some 60s pop song, and Lee will break into song. The lessons are quite entertaining, and while you can't necessarily recall how to say arbitrary sentences, the ones you know come quite easily. You are encouraged to study the scripts, but Lee is a realist about how much time working folks hav to devote to language study so you never get discouraged. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6421 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 29 of 58 03 May 2010 at 10:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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As for the benefits of studying languages simultaneously, I would imagine that having the opportunity to compare them would make arbitrary features more memorable.
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| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5922 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 30 of 58 03 May 2010 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I imagine it does too. As soon as you force people to look at 2 or 3 languages simultaneously, it stimulates the multiple language acquisition part of the brain as oppose to dragging it through grammar books and taking about 5 years to learn one language, badly. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MegatronFilm Triglot Senior Member United States peligrosa.tumblr.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5937 days ago 130 posts - 275 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 31 of 58 03 May 2010 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I forgot to mention that I went to his office one time some years ago because I was curious. He did say then that he speaks over 70 fluently. I took a sample class and it was strange. The format might work for some people, but I was confused. We were practicing Arabic, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian at the same time. I don't know how well he speaks those languages, but he was really good at switching with no problem. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5555 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 32 of 58 03 May 2010 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
An old mate from Boston reliably informs me that this bizarre character is a local eccentric beat poet and musician living in the city. I had a quick look on the Internet and found this interview as well as a somewhat dodgy and dated newspaper article on the guy. In this he only claims to teach 9 languages, although he could well have learned several more in the last 27 years, and suggests that his students could gain up to a "working knowledge" of 6 languages with his weekly multilingual sessions in 3 years.
Hilarious, albeit a little scary, and so very 60/70s! First nuns, then Dutch monks, and now hippies, this thread is certainly unwinding in a bizarre fashion...I'm looking forward to what comes next... :) Edited by Teango on 03 May 2010 at 6:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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