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6 year old girl FLUENT from TV!! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5741 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 25 of 67 17 July 2009 at 2:44am | IP Logged | |||||
AJATT is in a totally different ballpark. It's not "I just 'dissect' movies and annoy everybody around me by mixing in words of my target language", it's "I immerse myself AND learn very very f*cking hard". Remember that 10000 sentences thingy? That takes a lot of time, work, and devotion. So, guys, please stop confusing AJATT with "effortless acquisition through exposure". It's not the same. Edited by Pyx on 17 July 2009 at 2:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5657 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 26 of 67 17 July 2009 at 2:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'll report on my own recent breakthrough, since it has taken me back to my own childhood. It might be relevant to this discussion; it might even give others some hope. I took two years of German in college almost 40 years ago. I was totally mediocre at it and never worked at it and have never improved since then. Until this year. Made bold by my success in Classical Persian, I started in reading Goethe's Roman Elegies-- very slowly, looking up words, comparing translations, etc. I really enjoyed the poems and I was used to slow, mysterious, and painstaking work after doing the Persian. I should also note that my goal at this point is reading only. I moved on after a couple of months to Hesse's Siddhartha, which I found pretty easy, though I still looked up a word or two or more per page. I knew the book pretty well from years past, so I didn't have much trouble getting the story and guessing at many word meanings. I then read some stories by Hauff, and now I'm reading Hesse's Narziss und Goldmund. Now, only a few months after this effort began, I'm only looking up a key word maybe once a chapter, and I feel that I'm getting the entire story. I'm also figuring out a great many words because I grasp almost all of the context.
The exciting thing, though, is this: I have been reminded of the joy I felt as a young boy when I first started reading serious novels in English, my own language. Those books also had many words I didn't understand, but I figured them out through context, and I read faster and better, and took on harder and harder material. I have passed through some kind of portal in German so that now I know there is no stopping. If I just keep reading these books that I truly enjoy, my mind will take care of the language learning, and I'll gradually soak up a constantly-improving knowledge of the grammar, too, based on my reading, just as I did as a youngster. Reading fluency is here, and it will only improve. The real mystery for me now is how to get through the early stages of learning a language as fast as possible, so that I can start running in this child-like way that I've described. I'm working on Arabic and Turkish and Italian (all for reading purposes). I know already that the Italian will come easily, however, I haven't yet found material that is relatively easy and compelling for me, as Hesse has been for German. (Suggestions are welcome.) A friend and I are working on 1,001 Nights in Arabic, and it's going very well. It'll be awhile before I'm running like a kid, but I think it's possible. And I think 1,001 Nights is excellent material. Fun, a bit repetitive with the vocabulary (lots of genies and merchants, for example), and we're finding Lane's translation very helpful. For Turkish, I'm using Orhan Pamuk's "My Name is Red," which is hard, since it's such a literary work, with a large vocabulary, complicated syntax, etc. I'm enjoying these early efforts so far, though. There are lots of ways to succeed. May we all find what works for us! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6724 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 27 of 67 17 July 2009 at 3:26am | IP Logged | |||||
I've also been slowly introducing Khatz's method into my daily life. I've found in the short time that I have been using this method, I'm already noticing an improvement in my listening and understanding. At times, I would listen to Hungarian and it would just sound like very fast garble. By the time I understood one sentence, three others had already been spoken. I have seen a vast improvement in this area. Whilst I'm not always understanding fully (although, this too is improving), instead of hearing garble, 90% of the time, even if I don't know the meanings of the words, I'm actually HEARING them. Being able to hear and understand more (and in normal speed of the language), I'm adding a lot more to my SRS and I do believe it's going to help me. I feel I'm at the point in my studies where only this massive input is going to help me. I know the basic grammar and a lot of words (and I continue to work on this with my teacher) - it just comes down to learning mannerisms, common phrases, getting a feel for word order and working on building my vocab and improving my accent. In saying all of this, I am still continuing my private class weekly and some study through FSI etc, though as I like to have some structured learning too. I also make every effort to speak as much as possible in Hungarian. I'm not sure if this would be 'approved' by Khatz or not, but he never says you have to do EXACTLY what he says to do. I like that he is very open-minded - he has always said that it's up to the individual and what you feel works for you. He just simply says something along the lines of "this is how I did it, I know it works. It may or may not work for you - but if you really want to learn, why not give it a try!". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jpxt2 Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6737 days ago 46 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, French Studies: Mandarin, Catalan, Portuguese, German, Italian | Message 28 of 67 17 July 2009 at 7:06am | IP Logged | |||||
WRONG, the study is NEVER NEVER NEVER supposed to be "hard" according to Khatzumoto himself. Go back and read his site a bit more until you get it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ashley_Victrola Senior Member United States Joined 5712 days ago 416 posts - 429 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Romanian | Message 29 of 67 17 July 2009 at 7:07am | IP Logged | |||||
No Kato Lomb's book was not. She would take a book, read it as best she could, skip over words she did not know, WRITE them down and then at the end of the reading session look up all the words she did not know in order to see if she was able to distinguish them in context and improve her vocabulary. You for some reason would prefer to take days to suss out one word, which I really don't reccommend to anyone at all. Especially if they want to speak it in 5 months. I mean they can, I don't want to limit anyone but it seems a bit needless to be in the dark so long. The things you said were in line with her wiki which for all anyone knows YOU wrote, it actually did not clearly explain her points. I would try to follow what she did in the book, which I did read. I really wish you'd stop citing Wikipedia as some sort of proof. And don't just randomly quote the existence of a single book at me. Especially if you can't write their name. Dr. SCHWARTZ deals with neuroplasticity from the concept that certain thought patterns can be changed, a possible solution for psychopathological disorders. Not one for changing the critical period for language learning, which deals with the strengthening and loss of different neurons. Now thinking about it, perhaps that girl's parents had her watching those cartoons during her critical period a lot (ages 0-2). Besides that, there are many counter theories to this claim, some are conventional and some are just and new and exciting. The brain can be plastic in some ways. In others, it can't. That's why we can learn new languages with new structures but that's also why it's more difficult and takes more work. We were never programmed to be able to acquire language in that way and it's hard to learn it in only that way. So I am a bit skeptical of why this girl's ability to do this really proves anything other than perhaps a deviation (in her case a good thing) of the norm. I mean, it uses ONE method that is something you employ. But you also employ other things. And others who do that don't have similar results. That's why the ones that do have good results get studied. I would never tell a kid "oh you CAN'T do it that way". I would try to aid their learning by giving them yet more help. You shouldn't JUST use didactic materials, it isn't immersive enough and no one successful here DOES do that. Conversely, we also think that there's many things only watching tv just can't teach you so the fact that some little girl did it is great but as adults we can use more materials and we do SO THAT IT DOESN'T TAKE AS LONG. Anyway, I really think you should start a log in the appropriate section. You could chart your progress, write in your Swedish, and post things that are relevant to your progress such as this. Then we will all be able to see how well your way works as it happens. Edited by Ashley_Victrola on 17 July 2009 at 7:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6453 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 30 of 67 17 July 2009 at 7:46am | IP Logged | |||||
Hello You've got me confused with Keith who was kind enough to provide a link to my blog. He doesn't use grammar books and dictionaries because he believes this is the most natural approach. I'm most of the time simply too lazy to use them. I do like dictionaries and I own many and I appreciate a well-written grammar. Your post has made it necessary to mention this: Keith has yet to successfully learn a language in this manner. I know that he can do it. I'm not sure if he should. I wrote about my language learning experience because I was amused with the "TV method" wave of posts. I've run into two articles over the years about kids who learned languages this way. One kid was Algerian and he/she learned French and I have completely forgotten about the other one but it was apparently newsworthy enough for a blurb in the papers. For me and most likely for these kids this was not a conscious language learning effort, this was TV time. Even later I was simply watching TV, not studying a language. I've observed people watching foreign channels - unless it was a sport channel a lot of them could not stand watching something they could not completely understand. I was 5-6 when I first tuned into an Italian TV station and perhaps 16-17 when I started watching German TV. No rewinding - I didn't own a VCR until embarassingly late. I believe that neuroplasticity may play a role if you wish to eventually pass yourself for a native but it is not necessary to be a child in order to learn a language this way. My wife took two years of Chinese in high school. She's been periodically watching Chinese TV dramas since she was seven. She can understand "almost everything" but since her interests are fairly limited she gets confused when things get "political" etc. She says she's not able to follow Chinese news. This whole fun business is great if you have no practical use for the language. Two weeks ago I started two separate German classes. I'm willing to try any crazy thing. Anyway, this week's grammar explanation was surreal. I do believe that grammar study is helpful but I also think that most people approach grammar in a very unhelpful way. This goes for both the pro and anti-grammar people. Kato Lomb used textbooks and dictionaries and she attended Chinese language courses. Khatzumoto sometimes likes to quote Krashen. He also seems incapable of remembering that for Krashen incomprehensible input is simply noise. I respectfully beg to differ. In any case I believe TV has enough clues for the would-be learner to make the seemingly incomprehensible into comprehensible. Edited by reineke on 17 July 2009 at 8:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ashley_Victrola Senior Member United States Joined 5712 days ago 416 posts - 429 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Romanian | Message 31 of 67 17 July 2009 at 8:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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So apparently, H332, it isn't just me saying that you misinterpreted people. Even the people who you quote are saying that you misquote and misunderstand their processes...and the guy you were confusing him with who does similar methods to yours has yet to learn a language successfully with this tactic. Interesting.
Anyway, as the guy above said your method is good if you don't have a practical use for it. Don't think I'm a jerk for pointing out fallacies. I just really don't want anyone to waste time in a way that won't work. I think your movie thing is a good idea, and it deserved A (as in 1) post about its helpfulness but it certainly isn't all inclusive and there are faster ways of doing it and getting the same effect. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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