Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

5 languages in a year

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
54 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 
vb
Octoglot
Senior Member
Afghanistan
Joined 6425 days ago
112 posts - 135 votes 
Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Swedish

 
 Message 49 of 54
12 March 2010 at 10:25pm | IP Logged 
Had a half-hour conversation in Polish today, 1 month after taking up the language - the Google translate reading method is working a treat.
1 person has voted this message useful



Faraday
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6121 days ago
129 posts - 256 votes 
Speaks: German*

 
 Message 50 of 54
13 March 2010 at 4:47pm | IP Logged 
vb wrote:
Had a half-hour conversation in Polish today, 1 month after taking up the language - the Google translate reading method is working a treat.


That's quite impressive! Can you say more on what you did during the month? Was it grammar intensive study + reading Google's interlinear translations? How much time would you say you spent? How did you practise listening comprehension and speaking, etc.
1 person has voted this message useful



vb
Octoglot
Senior Member
Afghanistan
Joined 6425 days ago
112 posts - 135 votes 
Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Swedish

 
 Message 51 of 54
13 March 2010 at 10:16pm | IP Logged 
Faraday wrote:
That's quite impressive! Can you say more on what you did during the month? Was it grammar intensive study + reading Google's interlinear translations? How much time would you say you spent? How did you practise listening comprehension and speaking, etc.


I've been doing a language swap locally with a Polish lady (3hrs/week), I tutor her English in return for Polish practice (she doesn't have any teaching experience). The first thing I did was work through 3/4 of an old Teach Yourself in order to get some grammar under my belt, focusing on English->Polish translation. I would then use our meetings to read out loud, so that she could check my pronunciation. I wasn't able to produce much spoken language until I had had some interlinear reading under my belt and redone some of the Teach Yourself exercises, whereupon, during the last lesson, it all came splurging out. Time spent learning daily: 5-6 hrs, I reckon. I also have some Polish TV channels and have spent c.2 hrs watching them, in total.

I must re-emphasise how effective the interlinear reading method seems to be - it has blown everything else out of the water. For one, it is not boring, unlike vocab list learning or struggling through writing that is wholly in the target language whilst referring constantly to a dictionary/struggling on getting half the gist. There is an instant-feedback puzzling aspect to it that is very satisfying and everything is learnt IN CONTEXT and thus beneficial to spoken production (I believe that learning of discrete vocab terms is not particularly good for developing fluent thinking and speech in the target language; in fact, if one does not already have a decent level of production, it may be detrimental to these aims).

I now well believe the claims that a week of 14hr/day of the listening/reading method would bring one up to a very decent level.

PS - I also have a modern Polish Teach Yourself, which has been of limited use due to these problems:
- undemanding exercises that are not complicated enough to demand one's full attention -> boredom ensues. This seems to be a feature common to all the modern Polish grammar primers that I have seen. The older TY requires constant revision and integration of skills previously learnt whilst translating full sentences, rather than doing simplistic drills of the point under most recent consideration.
- grammatical promiscuity: grammar is introduced as it appears in the naturalistic conversations that form the meat of the book - far too haphazard and difficult to develop a systematic overview of the structure of the language.
- the order of presentation of male and female genders is purposefully not consistent, leading to confusion.

Edited by vb on 13 March 2010 at 11:04pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



Faraday
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6121 days ago
129 posts - 256 votes 
Speaks: German*

 
 Message 52 of 54
14 March 2010 at 2:33am | IP Logged 
vb wrote:
Faraday wrote:
That's quite impressive! Can you say more on what you did during the month? Was it grammar intensive study + reading Google's interlinear translations? How much time would you say you spent? How did you practise listening comprehension and speaking, etc.


I've been doing a language swap locally with a Polish lady (3hrs/week), I tutor her English in return for Polish practice (she doesn't have any teaching experience). The first thing I did was work through 3/4 of an old Teach Yourself in order to get some grammar under my belt, focusing on English->Polish translation. I would then use our meetings to read out loud, so that she could check my pronunciation. I wasn't able to produce much spoken language until I had had some interlinear reading under my belt and redone some of the Teach Yourself exercises, whereupon, during the last lesson, it all came splurging out. Time spent learning daily: 5-6 hrs, I reckon. I also have some Polish TV channels and have spent c.2 hrs watching them, in total.

I must re-emphasise how effective the interlinear reading method seems to be - it has blown everything else out of the water. For one, it is not boring, unlike vocab list learning or struggling through writing that is wholly in the target language whilst referring constantly to a dictionary/struggling on getting half the gist. There is an instant-feedback puzzling aspect to it that is very satisfying and everything is learnt IN CONTEXT and thus beneficial to spoken production (I believe that learning of discrete vocab terms is not particularly good for developing fluent thinking and speech in the target language; in fact, if one does not already have a decent level of production, it may be detrimental to these aims).

I now well believe the claims that a week of 14hr/day of the listening/reading method would bring one up to a very decent level.

PS - I also have a modern Polish Teach Yourself, which has been of limited use due to these problems:
- undemanding exercises that are not complicated enough to demand one's full attention -> boredom ensues. This seems to be a feature common to all the modern Polish grammar primers that I have seen. The older TY requires constant revision and integration of skills previously learnt whilst translating full sentences, rather than doing simplistic drills of the point under most recent consideration.
- grammatical promiscuity: grammar is introduced as it appears in the naturalistic conversations that form the meat of the book - far too haphazard and difficult to develop a systematic overview of the structure of the language.
- the order of presentation of male and female genders is purposefully not consistent, leading to confusion.


Very helpful; thanks. I suspect that this may be the most efficient way to get up to speed in a language, at least in terms of comprehension. Where would you say your listening comprehension is in Polish? At least in the beginning, were you frustrated by how long it took to decode each sentence?
1 person has voted this message useful



vb
Octoglot
Senior Member
Afghanistan
Joined 6425 days ago
112 posts - 135 votes 
Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Swedish

 
 Message 53 of 54
14 March 2010 at 10:08am | IP Logged 
Faraday wrote:
Very helpful; thanks. I suspect that this may be the most efficient way to get up to speed in a language, at least in terms of comprehension. Where would you say your listening comprehension is in Polish? At least in the beginning, were you frustrated by how long it took to decode each sentence?


Listening comprehension is good enough to manage reasonably simple conversations but not good enough to get much from TV. But, then again, I haven't spent much time watching TV and converting reading comprehension skills to listening.
1 person has voted this message useful



vb
Octoglot
Senior Member
Afghanistan
Joined 6425 days ago
112 posts - 135 votes 
Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Swedish

 
 Message 54 of 54
15 April 2010 at 5:18pm | IP Logged 
Have begun to read Polish teenage-level children's books in the originals, with about 70% comprehension.

Have completed Dana Beliec's Basic Polish and Intermediate Polish workbooks, but the grammar has not yet fully taken root in my noggin'.

Am assembling the mother of all English-Polish vocabulary books.

The current ambitious aim for the end of the year (well, at least, before I go back to work in September) is now basic fluency in Polish (all four skills), comprehension fluency in German and Swedish, working comprehension of Dutch (written and spoken - this may be tricky, but should be achievable ), Norwegian (written) and Danish (written; hopefully very strong Swedish will enable the latter two, given a little work on important differences between them).

It looks like I'll have to shell out for a Scandinavia-oriented upgrade to my satellite tv set-up, as learning to understand Swedish aurally by radio is proving arduous. I will also need to stay in Poland for a while over summer.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 54 messages over 7 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.2188 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.