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Best Method or More Time ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6468 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 49 of 430 24 April 2008 at 3:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree with you, but I am not talking about comparing between different persons, but the same person. Maybe you need 3 years to achieve native fluency and I need 10 years with the same amount of every day work (time). What I am saying is that you and me will need the SAME amount of time to achieve this native fluency (you three years and I ten years) WHATEVER the methods we use. In fact, if we manage to achieve our goal, most of our total time we'll be spent with real resources (listening, reading, speaking and writing). So, if we want faster results, we don't need better methods, we need MORE TIME. In fact, we don't need the best linguistic methods (commercial or personal ones), we need the best TIME MANAGEMENT methods or tricks. Edited by slucido on 24 April 2008 at 4:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6468 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 50 of 430 24 April 2008 at 4:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||
As Frenkle said it depends on the language. For example, I am native speaker of Spanish and Català. I can read French, Italian and Portuguese directly, but not German or more distant languages. Actually I don't know, because I have never tried. It's interesting, because here we have several questions. My point is that the most important factor is TIME whatever the method we use. At first you can use crutches, for example on line dictionaries. Is there something wrong? Nothing. Native speakers use dictionaries every now and again. Do the native speakers use subtitles in there own language? Yes, when they are deaf or when the audio is very bad or the person speaks very bad. Without complexes. I began learning English reading interesting content on the Internet and using pop-up dictionaries. I only had interest in the content and not the language. How much comprehensible input I got wit this spontaneous strategy? Was it i+1? I didn't care. I got enough meaning to be satisfied about the content. The important thing was the content and not the level of comprehensible input. I am never worried about i+1 or i+5 or i-1 or 1-5 I am worried about feeling satisfied about the content or the input experience, regardless the i+1. If we feel good using Pimsleur, FSI or Assimil, go for it. If we feel like going with shadowing, movies or listening reading (and endless sub variations), go for it. It is a big delusion and I am sure there are only tiny differences in the global way, but sometimes delusion is a good thing. Why? Because we feel happy with delusions, we feel we are improving, we are more motivated and we spend MORE TIME. We are more happy spending MORE TIME. And that's the underlying and real reason of our succeed and NOT the method per se. Why we like one method and not another? Is there some secret or some "learning style"? I don't think so. Unless you aren't blind, deaf or dumb, I think this is meaningless. If you can hear, see, talk and write, you will need and use everything.If you want native fluency is unavoidable. At the beginning, maybe we use most of the time one method because we feel it's better for us. Is that feeling real? I don't think so. We are suffering social pressure or peer pressure, because we like people who explain some method, we find this person smart or provocative or whatever we like, because who explains the method has some kind of authority, degree or aura, because of the testimonials, because of marketing and persuasion strategies, because of our unfounded believes. I think we must keep it simple. Everything els is waffle. We need to separate the sheep from the goats The average native speaker use a finite number of words and sentences, and you need to EAT and regurgitate those words and sentences. The more you eat, the sooner you'll arrive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6736 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 51 of 430 24 April 2008 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You used a dictionary, which allowed you to turn most of the new content into "i+1". The parts you couldn't understand even with a dictionary remained "i+5". I asked Linguamor about it once, and she confirmed that using a dictionary is a legitimate way of generating comprehensible input. However, jumping into complex reading matter from the very beginning may not be the most efficient way of learning to read.
You can also end up bursting. :) Edited by frenkeld on 24 April 2008 at 9:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6736 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 52 of 430 24 April 2008 at 9:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Why distinguish between "tricks" and "linguistic methods"? Is using an electronic dictionary instead of a paper one a trick or a method? Either doing something saves you time or it doesn't, and if it does, it's worth using regardless of the label. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| edwin Triglot Senior Member Canada towerofconfusi&Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6257 days ago 160 posts - 183 votes 9 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French, Spanish, Portuguese | Message 53 of 430 24 April 2008 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree with Slucido, and I can also understand why people would want to disagree with him.
Let's suppose if Slucido is right for the moment, that Time is the key factor of language learning, and methods are unimportant (relatively speaking) ... then there is nothing to discuss in this forum!! This might be a good thing though, as we can all get back to our own language studies! I also agree with Slucido on his 'smokescreen' comment on many commercial products. Many people buy into their ideas because they promise some ultimately fast learning techniques. As we all know, there is no such technique for language learning. You just have to spend time on the language. Many commercial products also give you this false sense of good feeling that you have accomplished a lot. But when you reach out to some real content or real native speakers, you will realize that you are only on the tip of a huge iceberg. I can never understand why some commercial language learning products are so expensive. They are just books and tapes like other educational resources! Having said that, many commercial products are good for beginners. Just don't buy into the idea that you can become fluent in 3 months or so. As for techniques, if you come to think about it, comprehensive input, lots of practices, time management, and so on, are really just common sense to many of us. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6343 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 54 of 430 24 April 2008 at 11:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Good point. This would mean higher level material, perhapse even "real" material, is at i+1, or less. If real material is at i+1, that's what I'd study. I wouldn't do Pimsleur French if French movies and novels were at i+1 for me, for example. Unfortunately, I've already checked, and French real material is still a little above i+1 for me. So it would be more efficient for me to use easier language learning material until real material becomes i+1. Then I would switch to real material.
Ok, so if you want to study something a little more out of your realm - say Mandarin, would you only use real material to study it, like watching movies and reading newspapers in Mandarin from the beginning? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6468 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 55 of 430 24 April 2008 at 12:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
If we read websites, on line dictionaries are better, because you save time. It's a time management reason. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6468 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 56 of 430 24 April 2008 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, I am working with output right now :-) If time management is the most important thing, it possible to discuss about this. For example: -How to save time? -How to use hidden time? -How to have more fun with the language? If you have fun, you have more motivation and you spend more time.
It's true, but this common sense is forgotten a lot of times. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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