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Ideal Systematic Approaches | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7257 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes  | Message 2 of 7 06 April 2008 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
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I am not ignoring this request, but I will need to give it some more thought. Actually, I rather regret having given such a universal fixed prescription for Korean. However, learning that language represents such a difficult task and the materials for doing so are so scanty that the ideal regimen is quite probably the same for most people from our background. With comparatively less challenging languages (ILR level I or II languages), however, and especially with those that have a great variety of different learning materials, the ideal approach could be quite different for different learners. I suppose the first thing I would need to know in order to give a better answer would be some time considerations and time constraints. In other words, how many hours a day could be devoted to this pursuit, and, on the other hand, is there a time frame of years in which it would be desirable to attain a high competence?
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7257 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 4 of 7 13 April 2008 at 6:05pm | IP Logged |
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As I look over your breakdown of your 20 hours, 10 or fully half of them seem to be time-saving devices, ways of using your commute or exercise time to study as well. Well done! However, such “study time” is never, can never be, as focused as pure study time. What, in your honest estimation, is your overall degree of focus while driving or working-out? I would guess around 50%, as that is about what mine is. At any rate, that is more than enough passive listening time, so the first thing you ought to do is make sure that your remaining 10 hours are truly active. From the list of potential methods that you provide, focus on shadowing, scriptorium, and reading (alternate sentences) aloud. Dividing your 10 hours a week gives you 90 minutes a day for these three activities. You will probably profit most if you can do these three back to back, for 15 minutes each, 2x each day, once early in the morning, once later in the day. You say that your schedule varies each day, but you will learn best if you can strive for and achieve regularity in this. I get the impression that you are still a relative beginner? If so, then get and use a variety of generations of Assimil and Linguaphone courses, perhaps plus the Cortina method, as you can use all three types of manuals for all three activities. By cycling through them, you should stay fresh until you have gotten a great deal out of them and become aware of your particular grammatical weakness, at which point you should begin work with book of verb drills or FSI type pattern drills so as to polish your command, as well as reading literature to enjoy the fruits of your labor at the same time you increase your vocabulary.
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7257 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 6 of 7 20 April 2008 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
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After you have attained a high degree of Spanish, you should be able to increase you “study” time even if you do not increase you hours beyond 20 if you a) consciously develop the habit of thinking in Spanish, and b) dedicate some of your presumed recreational time to it, e.g., by watching movies in it and going out of your way to socialize in it, which could possibly lead to c) getting a Spanish-speaking girlfriend, which is obviously an ultimate means of increasing your use. But still, it will be years before you should take Spanish off your active improvement/maintenance list, and so a portion of your 20 hours will have to go to it. Your main focus should be reading good literature, and that should not seem like “studying.” Figure 45 minutes or an hour each day, or 5 hours a week. For beginning to read, yes, bilingual texts are preferable to dictionaries, and audio is always nice, but you should not get addicted to it. At any rate, you will have only 15 hours a week for your next language (see the time management thread for the inherent superiority of simultaneously study). This will be more than enough for a second Romance language because of the transfer of skills, but you may find yourself needing to beg, borrow, or steal more time for German or Russian.
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