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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6227 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 1 of 164 23 March 2009 at 9:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This is a continuation of 'Teaching English to Parents', as I don't
believe that thread should get bogged down by this.
I find it very easy, especially after the first few hours of a language. Other forum members, such as Iversen, have experimented and found it possible. The length of words is basically irrelevant for this, as is the number of words. Seriously different ways of expressing them can be a minor hurdle, but it's only a minor one. The slow speed helps at first; later on, I like to increase the speed of the audiobook via software.
I am not a neuroscientist; I don't know -how- this works; I merely know that it does - perhaps it involves fast switching. Given that the ability to follow along is quite simple and empirically testable (give yourself a parallel text, audio, and a few hours), reality needs to trump interpretations of research - it is quite easy to misinterpret, especially in fields which are not your own. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6227 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 164 23 March 2009 at 9:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Not a single one of your objections has anything to do with L-R. 1) There are quacks out there, some of whom prey on people: yes. I'm sure you're also willing to admit there are non-quacks, though (if not, the term 'quack' has no useful meaning). Hence, this says nothing about whether or not someone/something is a quack. Irrelevant for the merits of L-R, but: I certainly don't consider myself a sheep. I'm a computer scientist, a skeptic, a rationalist, and favor traditional over alternative medicine. 2) You worked hard, and so you don't like to think you missed an easier path for the same results: that's natural, but says nothing - for OR against - the existence of an easier path. 3) A lot of people talk and never get started on anything. Granted. This often involves Rosetta Stone and LSLC - more often than L-R and shadowing. The relevance of this fact: zero. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 5936 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 3 of 164 23 March 2009 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Some forms of "alternative" medicine have been traditional for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. ;p 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6227 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 164 23 March 2009 at 9:21am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Age says nothing about value. I've personally required surgery multiple times; if I was born even a century ago, I would be crippled. I am not saying there is nothing of value in traditional medicine - aspirin wouldn't exist if it weren't for birch bark (... which I'm allergic to, but I digress). However, alternative medicine systems simply have a much higher degree number of quacks at present, and this often causes serious harm to people. For intervention in acute conditions, I would say 'modern non-alternative medicine' is clearly superior. I will agree that the term 'alternative' is unfortunate: it bunches together long traditions which have some worthwhile insights (mixed with some nonsense, unfortunately) with modern quacks who claim they can heal you by waving around colored pieces of plastic (and yes, this is a real example from my personal experience - I was brought to that quack against my will as a minor). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 5936 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 6 of 164 23 March 2009 at 9:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Oh, I agree with you. I'm merely remarking that your terminology is somewhat confusing. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6491 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 7 of 164 23 March 2009 at 10:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It may be true that multitasking in reality just is ultrafast switching, but it really doesn't matter - the important thing is what you demonstrably can do. And I know for a fact that I normally listen to something while I'm working with my languages at home (but rarely on the job). If I couldn't write here on the forum while watching TV or listening to something then I wouldn't have written much here, because that's the way I do it. Of course there are limits: two people speaking at the same times is one too much, but I know from experience that I can read while listening to somebody speaking, so either there isn't a block, or (more likely) there is some ultrafast switching going on. With my weaker languages there is a limit: I have to focus on what is said, so I can't deal with more than one 'language channel' at a time (speech or writing), but I can listen to music and watch TV without sound, -so here there is a real block, but one that is related to the decoding of content, not the purely absorption of stimuli.
However in L-R the situation is different: here you essentially have the same text in two parallel versions, - one is typically audio, the other either a transcript or a literal translation, and my experiments have convinced me that this is indeed possible. There isn't any competition for decoding resources because you only have one decoding running, but from two sources. In fact I was quite surprised when I experienced first-hand that I could follow an audio example in GLOSS while reading the translation. So why don't I use L-R more? Mainly because I find literature boring, and practically all audio books are literature. The speakers are either amateurs, and then the recording is generally bad and the voices are unpleasant, or it is a professional actor, and these have a nauseating tendency to dramatize everything - my ideal is something close to a good news speaker: clear and neutral. Of course listening get is even more boring with slow speech. Because of this my method generally is to listen just enough to get a sense of how the languages sound (because I don't want to read with a 'pronunciation' that is totally out of contact with the real thing), and then I do a lot of reading. Listening in larger doses comes later, but before speaking (though I acknowledge that shadowing might be a good idea at this stage), and I have with several languages experienced a quite sudden shift from not understanding speech to understanding more or less everything - a socalled epiphany moment.But I would use L-R more, if I could find suitable sources. If there were an ridiculously easy "dummy" level of Gloss, then that would be the perfect thing for me. btw. one by-product of my flirting with L-R is that I have made bilingual written texts the basis of my work with weak languages. Most translations are not so literal that you can immediately identify the role and meaning of each element of the target language text, but having a rough idea about the meaning saves a lot of time. Digital translations can serve the same purpose, - you can't trust them, but they may point you in the right direction (though only when used from the target language to your base language, because you per definition can't see when there is something vaguely rotten in a translation into a language which you don't master yet). Edited by Iversen on 23 March 2009 at 10:52am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 5941 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 8 of 164 23 March 2009 at 10:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The problem is you do not simultaneously listen and read at the same time as many people have maintained, including the famous 'creator' of this method. I have found that at the beginning stages it is imperative to read slightly ahead of the audiobook, trying to be aware of as much of the audio as possible. As time goes by and you grow more comfortable with the process you slowly begin relying on the audio as the main form of input. The text then simply acts as a secondary guide. So, for me, at no point am I reading and listening simultaneously, I'm constantly switching between modes. So while SOME corners of CURRENT neuroscience argue for the existence of these conflicting channels it bears no real relevance to 'L-R'. Now, instead of completely ignoring the anecdotal evidence of the likes of Volte, FSI, and myself over the all encompassing guiding (yet some what inconsistent at the best of times) light of science why don't you give 'L-R' a fair crack of the whip and see what happens. At the very least you will enjoy a couple of good novels. At the same time I do not want to perpetuate the myth that 'L-R' is some sort of miracle cure. In my experience you will still have to devote a large chunk of time in reaching your goal of fluency but I do believe it is one of the more enjoyable paths to getting there. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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