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Time for language to click & make sense? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5535 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 12 25 March 2010 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Greetings all,
When studying a language there is a point one reaches where they no longer feel lost and can navigate the language, so as to speak. I am referring more to having a better understanding of the target language's more troublsome points. As for myself I began studying Spanish at the end of the Summer past. My biggest problem with facing a Romance language for the first time was dealing with all the different moods, especially grasping the concept of when and how the subjunctive is used. I overcame these issues by simply reading the whole grammar section on verbs from the 'Oxford Spanish Dictionary and Grammar' all the way through. This just made things click together and demystified my aforementioned problems I had been facing. Since then I have felt FAR more comfortable with Spanish in general and have a more relaxed attitude towards studying it. Perhaps it gave me a foundational outline of the language which I needed imprinted onto my mind. How long did this take for yourselves (reaching the point of overcoming the major obstacles in your target language) and what was the turning point in your experiences where you felt that the tables had turned for the better, that the language seemed less mesmerising and that things fell into place? Likewise, what was your plan/solution? Edited by Al-Irelandi on 25 March 2010 at 3:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6783 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 12 25 March 2010 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think there are many such points. I don't have one single "click" in mind, but I've had many "sudden improvements" in my understanding of Italian, where not getting it one day and then suddenly it seems logical at some later time.
Ironically, I would say that what you might be needing is a break from studying. When studying grammar closely imo there is only so much you are capable of understanding on your first encounter with it. And if the grammar is more complicated than your best effort, then you'll fail to grasp it all. Of course, you could go over it again and maybe several times, but at very reduced return on investment. What seems to work better is just do it once, thoroughly, that way you get as much out of it as you can. Then you leave it aside, work on something else for a while. You don't have to come back to the same textbook or the same instruction materials, but chances are that "at some later time" it will begin to click for you, because something that was blocking you has fallen into place. It's like... have you ever played a sport and exercised again and again at one specific thing? And always seemed to do it "almost right, but just wrong"? And then you go on holiday, come back, first practice and it just works right off the bat? Because somehow by trying so hard you got yourself into some mental block that couldn't get undone until you took a break from it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 12 25 March 2010 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I usually look for a general grammatical overview of the language right from the start. I can't stand to be spoonfed a few chosen points; I need to know it all from the start. Some people don't like grammar, but it's the glue that holds the language together and I need to understand it from the start.
Still, there are things I don't quite get from the start, but I usually have some idea of what it is and what it isn't and I allow myself time to figure it out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5403 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 4 of 12 25 March 2010 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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My mother has this philosophy that when something doesn't make sense or there is a problem you can't figure out, just take a nap. Often this seemed to work and when I woke it clicked for me. Similar thing is with my language learning. I figured many things out after a good night sleep, as if during sleep the brain goes though everything you have been doing through the day and tries to make sense of thus solving it instead of you. :-P
(This method also worked well when I was younger and played a lot of videos games.) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 12 25 March 2010 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | ||
That is EXACTLY what the brain does. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Al-Irelandi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5535 days ago 111 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 12 25 March 2010 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some good responses there guys. I like the post that mentions the benefit in sleeping. It seems that some good sleep goes far in assisting many aspects of our lives that we might sometimes overlook. I have found that when starting a new language or upon sudden intensification of studying some new language aspect, I found myself waking up during the night in a state of being half-awake with the new target language running through my mind and being unable to stop thinking about it. It's like my mind is in hyper mode, processing all the new data to be internalised and assimilated. After going through that strange sleeping cycle for a few nights I seem to get over that which was unclear and untangible beforehand.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 7 of 12 25 March 2010 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree. Besides, "click" can mean different things, just like "fluency". You can have a click when you grasp when to use the indicative and when to use the subjunctive mood in Spanish. You can have a click when you suddenly understand everyday, native speech. You can have a click when you realise that you understand almost everything in a newspaper. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6252 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical) | Message 8 of 12 09 April 2010 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it's best to measure this sort of thing in terms of hours. I would say that 720-900 hours of study will do it for most languages. So, if all you do is study/practice for an hour a day, it will take to two to two and a half years. Study/practice for four hours a day and you'll be conversant in four or five months.
The languages that are really similar to your own (i.e.Thai/Laotian) will take less time and the ones that are very different from your own (i.e. Italian/Korean) will take as many as 1,500-2,000 hours. There are two more factors that will determine how long it takes for things to really "click": 1. The effectiveness of your methods for you. 2. Finding that optimal point of practice/learning/exposure that is not overwhelming but that is quick enough for you not to forget what you've studied. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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