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How to Become a Polyglot by D. Spivak | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7094 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 33 of 73 21 February 2007 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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David,
Thanks much for the translation, that’s a valuable contribution to the forum. It helps put things into perspectives; all our courses and methods are just fancy notebooks. It was also a good case for learning with the basics, similar to learning arithmetic on paper before learning to use a calculator. John 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6620 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 34 of 73 21 February 2007 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Well, I was wondering if you had experience in translation. As a translator, I know how difficult translation can sometimes be. I haven't seen the Russian original, but it seems to me your translation is quite good. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6945 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 35 of 73 21 February 2007 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
To tell the truth, at this instant I can't recall a single occasion when I translated anything from Russian into English in a formal way since coming to the US in 1979. I should say I am not really too concerned about readability of the translation, once I get a chance to clean up the English a bit. It's the diffculties you are referring to that I found intimidating. First, there were a few instances when a phrase, a word, or even a sentence (when placed in context) seemed either ambiguous or unclear in the original. Now, somehow from his style of writing I have a slight suspicioun that Mr. Spivak is somewhat more of a polyglot than a writer, but then I've been out of the language medium for so long that it could also be my slipping grasp of the finer or more colloquial aspects of the Russian language. Second, I don't own a Russian dictionary. I consulted a monolingual online one at http://slovari.gramota.ru a couple of times, but I did not try to find an online bilingual one, partly out of fear that I would get sucked into polishing individual word renderings and spend too much time on the whole project. Finally, and most commonly, there was that perennial issue when something sounds just right in one language, yet it's not easy to capture that exact turn of thought, so to speak, in another. In all of the above cases, I went for speed, allowing myself a bit of poetic license (in rendering things in idiomatic English), trying to keep the flavor of the original, but not at the level of accuracy that I imagine would be expected of what really is technical writing on a specific topic. Well, that's that for the translation. Allow me to come back to what we previously discussed here, language learning methodologies. I read a decent chunk of the online article you cited, and what the author says seems very common sense - who would doubt that one needs input that is appropriate at a given stage, so we don't get totally lost, and surely one needs to speak in order to learn to speak. However, I think there may be something missing (unless it's in the rest of the article) when one looks not at the intermediate, but at the very early and the very advanced stages of learning. With the former there is just too much evidence that different people need different methods to succeed, especially with their first language. "Comprehensible input" does not, for example, address memorization. It also does not address the issue of how gradual the input needs to be. Any particular book or course has size limitations, so the sample sentences go in certain steps as to their grammar content. It may be enough for some people's minds to figure out the whole picture from a given amount of input, others, however, may need more or less detailed grammatical explanations to fill in the gaps. About the more advanced level, I will speak from my own experience. My wife is English-speaking, and English is all I use to make a living, so one could say that I have had "comprehensible input", as well as opportunities to speak to people and cutlural awareness of Americana, up the wazoo. And yet, after all these years, I am clearly on a plateau as far as lingering grammatical and lexical inaccuracies in either understanding or production. So, I would say that once one gets to a point where natural input of daily life no longer offers "contrasting minimal pairs" that are well-discriminated enough to clean up the remaining problem areas naturally, I see little choice but to resort to "arificial" means, perhaps a good advanced grammar book, maybe even with exercises, or finding a teacher who will correct one's writing and discuss errors on a regular basis for a period of time.
I am starting to itch to translate Kato Lomb's language-learning method as well. Together, the two would offer an intersting glimpse into successful approaches people used in the pre-miltimedia (and pre-ADD) era. Not by Assimil alone ... Edited by frenkeld on 22 February 2007 at 12:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6620 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 36 of 73 22 February 2007 at 1:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
This article discusses the very early stages of learning a new language and is probably better at explaining and demonstrating what comprehensible input is and how it works. "Kick-starting Your Language Learning" www.languageimpact.com/articles/gt/kickstrt.htm
My own experience in language learning and teaching, and my study of second language acquisition has convinced me that anyone can learn a new language with comprehensible input, and that comprehensible input plays the major role in any successful language learning outcome.
With comprehensible input the language is not memorized, but acquired. The comprehensible input needs to be at a level one step beyond the learner's current linguistic competence. The technical term is level i+1. There is much research showing that there is a natural order in which grammar rules are acquired, and that the order is similar for all language learners, and roughly similar to the ordered followed by first language learners, so the order in which they are present in the input may not be relevant, except insofar as the order affects the comprehensibility of the input.
Human minds have evolved the ability to do just this, and, given the opportunity, they are very good at it. Successful language learners have acquired far more than they can have ever consciously learned.
Grammatical explanations may be helpful to language learners, maybe by making input more comprehensible, but understanding and memorizing a grammar rule is not the same as acquiring that rule, i.e. spontaneously using it correctly in speech. One of the simplest rules in English is that an 's' is added to third person singular verbs in the present tense. This rule is easy to understand and easy to remember, but it takes considerable meaningful exposure to English to acquire this rule.
I would never have guessed that you are not a native English speaker. You write much better than the average American native English speaker. What type of lingering grammatical and lexical inaccuracies do you mean?
For problem areas I would recommend targeted input and facilitated production. Edited by Linguamor on 22 February 2007 at 3:51pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7094 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 37 of 73 22 February 2007 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
David, Thanks, that was the little clue that helped me see what you have been trying to get at!
You have asked the question a couple of times on the site regarding the difference between “global” versus “sequential” learning. I borrowed the terms from a Learning Types article to try and answer why there was such an argument between, at that time, Assimil and FSI fans. My assumption was that if you where more global in your outlook you would prefer Assimil. With your translation above, I believe you just proved my assumption incorrect. So what if we use a different analogy? What if we used “the whole” versus “the parts”. The whole meaning the “just listen and learn” first approach and the parts meaning Michel Thomas learn all the rules first approach. I think learning is an equal measure of both, but most are predisposed in one direction or the other. So what if someone is a “big picture” learner, but builds the picture by sorting thought the parts? In that case you would want all the rules and structure up front with as little interference from vocabulary and idioms. And then have mastered the parts, would then dive into the whole of the language. Another “big picture” learner might start with the whole in order to see the parts. Such a learner would want as little interference with the rules from at start but would review them later after getting the feel of the language. Still others would not have a stated preference and would balance one with the other. Regardless of the “method” in the end there is still a balance between the whole and the parts, it just a question of where to start. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6945 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 38 of 73 22 February 2007 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
It may well be true that a global learner would prefer Assimil to FSI, if he or she wanted to use a comprehensive audiocourse as an introduction to the language to begin with. However, there are other materials and techniques to break into a language for both global and sequential learners, and Spivak and Kato Lomb show us two examples of how that can be and has been done successfully. With Spivak, it's hard to tell whether he himself is global or sequential, partly because it's not clear whether he was merely careful enough to describe a method that he felt would work for a reasonably wide cross-secton of first-time learners, or whether that really was his favorite approach for all occasions. Given that the introduction to the book mentions that he "freely speaks" (a Russian way of expressing "fluent") 7 languages, one can wonder whether he himself would necessarily follow this very approach to learn another language. About Kato Lomb, on the other hand, we know for sure that she was about as global as one can get. Yet, her approach to leraning a language still included methodically working through a course - it's just that she made up, with plenty of room to spare, for the "sequential" nature of this effort with other activities conducted in parallel. And let's not forget Barry Farber - is he global or sequential? And while we are at it - what about Pimsleur courses? Global or sequential? So, your assumption is likely correct - it's just that there are other options out there. Edited by frenkeld on 22 February 2007 at 9:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7094 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 39 of 73 22 February 2007 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
That was just my point; the original comparison was too narrow.
That probably does not matter, the advice he gives seems solid enough for anyone to use. If anything his method seems take advantage of the Whole-Part approach giving equal attention to both. That it what I was referring to above, that after reading your translation, every course and method is just a “notebook”.
Exactly! The best of the immersion style experts still used a grammar course. It is just that the emphasis was on the “whole”, but not the exclusion to studying the parts or patterns.
Most likely irrelevant as he advocated a "let's use them all approach, like Spivak he advocates a balance.
Using a “Whole/Part analogy” it has elements of both, it just “Part” heavy.
But even those options have the same parallels: Whole->Part or Part->Whole. But while we are at it, why do so many people have an ax to grind at the mention of immersion style learning? I’m trying to agree with you! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6945 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 40 of 73 22 February 2007 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
This may have more to do with the individual incarnations than the general principle - I can't recall anyone complaining about French in Action videos, for example. Also, no one really complains about immersive practice, like listening to the radio when one still only catches glimpses of words and phrases or trying to speak while still making mistakes. It's only the immersive study that not everyone likes - some people probably feel that studying is about acquiring the fundamentals without unnecessary fuss.
Oh, I wasn't trying to disagee - I was just continuing the conversation so as to understand your ideas more clearly. (Until I understand them well enough, I couldn't really disagee anyway. :) ) I guess I have to ask then why "whole-part" isn't just another binary label like "global-sequential", juxtaposing more or less the same meanings. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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