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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Ortho Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6349 days ago 58 posts - 60 votes  | Message 169 of 255 21 July 2008 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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An interesting thing is that the two people you cite there as doing everything in context both know lots of languages. I remember a profarguelles post about dictionaries where he said that he had learned some number of languages using out-of-context dictionary-type methods but now regarded it as a mistake. I wonder if part of this is the knowledge of how big the task is of learning a new language once you've already done it, perspective on not hurrying, etc., versus the first-language-learner's desire to have tangible results in order to generate confidence.
In other words, I wonder if being able to maintain progress working "out of context" works better for people who have already learned at least one foreign language, or given some thought to linguistic structure etc (it is worth noting here that profarguelles also has a degree in philology, i think) for reasons of 1) efficiency gathered through learning that first foreign language or 2) confidence from having done it. Edited by Ortho on 21 July 2008 at 10:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6549 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 170 of 255 21 July 2008 at 11:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I bet all aspects of language learning are easier for people who've already learned a foreign language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| CobaltDragon Groupie United States cobaltdragon.co Joined 5941 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Vietnamese | Message 171 of 255 19 August 2008 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Phew, I've just finished reading the 22 pages of this post, and I'm hoping someone can offer me what they think is the best method when a tonal language is being learned. I've picked up a few things I think may be somewhat useful from this thread, but would like a bit more input.
I'm learning Vietnamese with the help of a private tutor. She comes to my house once a week for 2 hours. She's a native speaker from central Viet Nam. I'm not really sure what the method we're using would be called; I am working my way through school books that children in Viet Nam use to learn the alphabet, tones, letter combinations, words, and slowly starts moving into grammar. I've been learning with my tutor since about March of 2008, and at this point I have pronunciation down pretty well. My tutor says she can usually understand what I'm saying when I read aloud. I'm probably reading at the speed that a native second or third grader would be. However, that is simply pronouncing the sentences and words...I'm recalling the meaning of maybe 40% of the words. Part of that is because every lesson includes several new words, but I am also having a huge problem remembering words I've encountered before. Up to now what I've been doing is creating a two-column word list after each lesson with all the new words (Vietnamese on the left and English on the right). This is not working for me. I am getting so frustrated because I'll read a passage and then she has me go through and give the meaning for all the words I know, then gives me the meaning of the other words. Way too often I see a word and it's familiar to me; I know I've seen the word before, but for whatever reason the meaning just doesn't come to mind. Then, she'll say the meaning and I'm like, "oh, yes, I remember that! - duh". Being a tonal language, there are potentially six completely different meanings for the same spelling, depending on the tone mark. I often get word meanings mixed up with the same spelling but different tone. Some people have suggested that I listen to Vietnamese music while looking at the lyrics, which I love to do, but singing often means the tones are distorted, and I think this may actually make it worse. I have several first and second grade level readers that I bought on my trip to Viet Nam. These are books that the kids there use to learn English; they have a couple of sentences on each page in both English and Vietnamese. I thought maybe visual learning might be better, but so far I've only found flashcards with pictures of animals, letters, and numbers. Sorry this is so long, especially since it boils down to wanting to know if there are any particular tricks for helping to learn vocabulary in a tonal language. For me, at least, it seems much harder than I recall when I was learning Hebrew, Spanish and Latin vocabulary way back when. Edited by CobaltDragon on 19 August 2008 at 3:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 172 of 255 20 August 2008 at 6:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Aren't all those diacritics in Vietnamese meant to indicate the tones? If so then learning a tonal language shouldn't be different from learning an 'atonal' language. Otherwise you could indicate the tones with drawn lines where it is necessary, preferably in another colour in order not to clutter the writing even more - Vietnamese writing is already brimming with diacritics all over the place.
Basically learning the tones can't be too different from learning where to put the stress in other languages. The crux of the matter is that for most of us it is necessary to associate the written form of the words with their pronunciation in order to remember them, and therefore you have to know their pronunciation. This is especially tricky with ideogrammatic writing systems like the Chinese one. As for your use of simple two-column word lists it is clearly not sufficient except for refreshing halfknown words, - it may be the most frequent and most traditional method in the world for memorizing huge amounts of words, but it is simply not efficient enough. Make three columns (target, base, target), memorize groups of 5-7 words and don't write columns 2 resp. 3 in each group down until you can write all 5-7 words in one go as I have described it in the first part of this humongous monsterthread. And then do a repetition round one day later, - this repetition round is a central part of the method. I can't guarantee that this method will suit you, but if you can't make it work then there is no reason to believe that looking at long columns of word pairs (target, base) - one pair followed by the next pair - will be better for you. Edited by Iversen on 13 November 2008 at 8:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| CobaltDragon Groupie United States cobaltdragon.co Joined 5941 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Vietnamese | Message 173 of 255 20 August 2008 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, the diacritics do indicate the tones. I think therein lies part of my problem - of my own making, I'm sure. Let me give you the following example:
The words trong and trọng trong means "clear" or "internal" or "within" trọng means "to think highly of" My tutor and I'm sure all native speakers think of these are completely different words. I, unfortunately, think of them as the same word with a different tone mark. I'm probably not explaining myself very well here, but that's the crux of the difference, I think. I get confused b/c in my mind they are almost the same, just different b/c of the tone mark. I guess with more time and more repitition I will begin to think of the words in the same manner a native speaker does - it's just frustrating in the mean time. I will definitely give the 3 column method a try, it certainly can't hurt! Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6549 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 174 of 255 20 August 2008 at 12:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Based on my experience with Thai and Mandarin, tonal languages present a unique vocabulary challange for me. Someone decided that, instead of having a lot of unique consonant/vowel pronunciations, they would use tones to make words unique. That results in a lot of pseudo-homonyms (sorry linguists - I don't know what words that sound alike except for the tones are called) that are difficult for native speakers of non-tonal languages. Mandarin is worse than Thai in this respect, as it has fewer syllables, and far more real homonyms. I'm guessing Vietnamese is pretty bad too, since it's also a Chinese character based language. I mention this stuff because I want you to know that it's not just you. Many of us have more trouble retaining/recalling tonal language vocabulary.
Happens all the time to me in the early stages of acquisition. You'll get past it eventually.
After you finish a word list, you might load the words into an SRS (fancy computerized flashcard program), or just make flashcards. That way the word is more isolated, which theoretically means you should be able to recognize it in any context. I've found this is a good reinforcement step for me. Writing out words/sentences will probably help too. Having to write that tone mark will help reinforce it. When you hear the word, you will be able to visualize the tones (I hope). Probably the best, and obvious, advice is to use the language as much as possible. I like conversation the best for reinforcing vocab. When I can use a word correctly while speaking, acquisition is pretty much complete. By that I mean I can usually recognize the spoken and written word by then too. Others prefer reading/listening/writing. It's probably best to expirement a little to see what works best for you. So why did you say you're learning Vietnamese? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| CobaltDragon Groupie United States cobaltdragon.co Joined 5941 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Vietnamese | Message 175 of 255 20 August 2008 at 12:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks, that is actually a bit of comfort - not knowing anyone else learning the language, I really have no gauge at all of my progress.
Can you recommend a good SRS program? Never used one before. I have always enjoyed Vietnamese culture, food, etc. Last year I adopted my son from Viet Nam (he was 4.5 months old - 19 months old now), and truly fell in love with the people and the country. So, I want to learn for myself, for return visits...but, I also want to be able to pass the language onto him at some level. I already write the Vietnamese word for things in his picture books and he knows most animals and common objects (plane, car, etc) in both English and Vietnamese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 176 of 255 21 August 2008 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes. Language-learning and perhaps any learning is partly psychological. If you have learned one L2, you know you can learn another. Also, you may be able to apply the same techniques used with one L2 to learning the next. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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