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"I learned English from watching..." | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6059 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 73 of 97 01 March 2010 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When you have the basic grammar and vocabulary learned, then by all means knock yourself out with massive TV watching and audio in the L2. But I doubt whether you can learn through that alone, unless the language is so close to your L1 that passive exposure alone will let you learn it.
Once you have the basics learned, comprehension should be much better than 20%, and it is then actually worth watching lots of TV. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5798 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 74 of 97 01 March 2010 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
OK, so first of all, with sometimes 4-5 hours a day, and somethings nothing all week, how long has it taken you to rack up 450 hours? How long ago did you start? If it was safe to assume you can learn 20% in 450 study hours, we could claim 100% in 2250 hours. But unfortunately it's not safe to assume that. What you've learned is the easiest 20%. You've learned stuff that is easy and high frequency. The next 20% won't be as easy, and it will be lower frequency, so you'll encounter it less, so although it will take a similar amount of exposure to learn, it will take longer against the calendar. Worse, the highest frequency words account for half the language spoken. In general, you can understand 20% of the words in a piece of spoken language by knowing only a dozen words. 20% of a program is not 20% of the language. Worse still, if you only understand 20% of the words, that means you probably haven't understood a complete sentence, which means you've not got enough context to verify the meaning you have deduced for a word -- if you're wrong, you'll never know it, because the proof is hidden from you, and if you've mislearnt something, then it will become an obstacle to learning other words that co-occur with it (because you will be assuming the sentence means something other than it really does). Sorry, not impressed. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5240 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 75 of 97 01 March 2010 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If someone understands 20 % of the words in regular speach, how large will their vocabulary be? 500 words? 1000
words? 2000 words? 4000 words? 5000 words? I don't know, but if it's around 2000 words and one has spent 450 hours, thats only 4 to 5 words per study hour. And that is passive, not active, skills. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6696 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 76 of 97 01 March 2010 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
So what does this say? Did you really not learn anything else but to write letters during English class? It's that part I don't get. I'm not arguing with the fact that there are a lot of other (supplemental, even "better") resources. Even if I've had classmates that probably couldn't count to 100 nor string together a sentence after, say, eight-nine years of English, it's not the same thing as "School didn't teach me anything". 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5625 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 78 of 97 08 March 2010 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My view at the time was that all other languages were pointless to learn apart from English. I thought "if I have to learn English, so can the Germans, French etc.. Why should I have to learn their language AND English?"
Some of it sticks in your head when you are that young. I definitely learnt SOMETHING. Enough French/Spanish to manage in everyday situations in France and Spain. Cyrillic alphabet, handwriting and an interest in the Russia. That's about it. But what subjects did I compromise to do all that language studying? (English was a foreign language to me too). Not too sure. But Americans and English people can get out of foreign languages completely if they want. So they have more time to learn science or art. Edited by cordelia0507 on 08 March 2010 at 10:07pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6059 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 79 of 97 10 March 2010 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I can think of subjects that, even for Anglophones, might be studied more deeply with the help of an L2. It even plays a part frequently in things I do that have nothing to do with languages. For example, I like to read up on all kinds of things in Wikipedia. But I am not confined to reading the English-language one on subject X, because I am not a monoglot English speaker.
It's a matter of personal inclination, I suppose. I received good marks at school for languages with relatively little effort. And you tend to pursue what you are good at. Also, I had early experience of non-Anglophone environments, and that tends to affect your attitudes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hvorki_ne Groupie Joined 5173 days ago 72 posts - 79 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic | Message 80 of 97 15 March 2010 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Where did you get this information? Maybe in the UK, although I doubt it since my partner had to take a language, but in the US you have to take a foreign language. In 7&8 you had to take a foreign language at my school, but that's not true everywhere. In every highschool I've ever seen (and I've been to 3 myself) you have to take 2 years of a foreign language to graduate. Most colleges require an "intermediate" (~ 2 years/semesters, not sure which) knowledge of a language as well. This is hardly enough to be fluent, and the teaching is lacking and people generally forget it immediately, but you can't get out of it completely. Art, on the other hand, THAT you can get out of... I wasn't required to take a single art course my entire highschool career. At the one I spent the last two years at they actively discouraged art classes. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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