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Learning a language in two days | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5434 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 49 19 May 2011 at 1:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Here's an article--and a shameless plug--on Paul Noble's method for teaching a language (Mandarin) in two days. Quite interesting indeed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/18/speak-mandar in-in-two-days I really loved the following part because it slams the whole approach of learning a bunch of words in order to speak: "The narrow set of nouns and verbs is an integral part of Noble's technique. "One of the worst things you can do with language teaching is teach someone a massive number of words. It's back-to-front – teach them to speak and then add to their knowledge. You have to become very fluent in a very small amount of the language." Many students, he says, are led astray by learning numbers, colours or days of the week before they've learned any kind of framework with which to use them. "The nouns are almost irrelevant. That's stuff you can learn yourself." Is this snake-oil or something effective? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5134 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 2 of 49 19 May 2011 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm quite sure I've read of Paul Noble before here on HTLAL and the comparisons to, even plagiarism of, the Michel Thomas method.
Yep, here's one link (there are more if you search). I also remember reading quite a rant from the Michel Thomas Mandarin course creator over on Amazon. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6298 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 3 of 49 19 May 2011 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||
The key thing is to focus on the important words and phrases first and build up from that. Beer. Beer, please. Could I have a beer, please? Could I have another beer, please? 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 5090 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 4 of 49 19 May 2011 at 1:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Anytime I see "Learn _____ in X days", if X is less than 3 months I ignore it completely as garbage. After reading it, this is basically a crash course in simple grammar, which is not all that impressive for 2 days of intensive learning. Sure the people involved must have been good teachers, but he has not learned Mandarin in two days. He's just spent that much time on learning grammar techniques. Speaking fluently and learning enough vocabulary to get by will still take years.
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| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5085 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 5 of 49 19 May 2011 at 2:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Learning Mandarin in two days? I'd join the course if the creator did learn the language in two days. I mean, the language, not a couple of phrases (what we can do just by watching random Youtube clips in two days).
Is it really possible to learn Mandarin in two days? If you're a native speaker of some another Chinese language (Perhaps Cantonese?) it could happen. It wouldn't be easy, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5434 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 6 of 49 19 May 2011 at 2:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Come on, folks. Let's get real. Forget the commercial hype. Nobody really believes that you can learn a language in two days, not even Paul Noble, I'm sure. But as a way of jump starting a language I think it's interesting. I assume the idea is that you come away excited, energized and primed to continue instead of discouraged by the mountain of material to learn. If I can go to a Chinese restaurant and order a meal after a two days (although it looks a bit staged to me), who can argue with that?
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| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5422 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 7 of 49 19 May 2011 at 2:35am | IP Logged | ||
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The guy basically teaches using MT's methodology but calls it his own. His Spanish and
French courses are very similar to the MT ones, though actually cover a little less grammar. He copies so many of the same elements like teaching transformations right at the start but he rearranges the content enough and tweaks it enough so he can't be sued. His only real change in his recorded courses aside from the tweaked content and more situational vocabulary is not including students in the recordings, not saying that people should always use the pause button (as a natural pause is included) and making sure to include native speakers as a pronunciation guide. I doubt his Mandarin course is going to be that different from the MT Method course. If anything it will probably teach less grammar, much like his other courses. Edited by jazzboy.bebop on 19 May 2011 at 4:06am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| akprocks Senior Member United States Joined 5290 days ago 178 posts - 258 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 8 of 49 19 May 2011 at 4:23am | IP Logged | ||
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You could learn Toki Pona in two hard, study days. Mandarin, I'm not so sure.
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