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FLR Technique

 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery Post Reply
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RipeIdeas
Newbie
Japan
orangeroomstudios.wo
Joined 5121 days ago

3 posts - 11 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 17 of 25
08 May 2010 at 6:11am | IP Logged 
I just wanted to summarize here the learning experience I had in Malaysia this past week attempting to speak Malay (Bahasa Melayu), which I had been studying for about a month in a more or less hodgepodge manner using a mix of the FLR keywords and Shadowing/Scriptorium techniques. I do not know if this will help anyone else, but if anyone has any advice or comments, I would really appreciate it!

Study period: approximately 1 month before trip

Materials: 白水社 CD Express (Malay for Japanese speakers; 20 dialogues); 国際語学社 Useful Dictionary of Japanese Malay Indonesian English

Study sessions: ~20 minute passive listening to dialogues (iPod on train), between 4-5 sessions; 2 ~15 minutes outdoor sessions of Shadowing for first 5 dialogues; 4 sessions of Scriptorium for a total of 12 dialogues(writing the dialogues by hand while sometimes reading outloud, and looking up uknown vocabulary); silent reading of dialogues; filling out and reviewing of keyword sheet (question words, conjunctions, etc, pulled from dialogues); reading and copying interesting words from dictionary (2 2hour sessions); 1 attempt at translating lyrics of Malay song into English; various sessions of sporadic listening

Note on pre-trip study: I tried to include study sessions of Malay into my daily polyglot workout, but for lack of organization, prioritization, and general busy-ness, I did not study nearly enough as I would have liked. Looking back at my study record for the past month, I was not focused on Malay, but it was rather one of a few languages whose study I was attempting to balance.

Summary of Malay experiences/encounters in Malaysia: The first real exposure to the language was on the airplane from Narita to Kota Kinabalu: video, instructions, announcements, etc in English, Japanese, and Malay. Did currency exchange from Yen to Ringgit ("how much?" etc) and tried and failed to ask taxi driver "how long will it take to the hotel?" (a question I had never heard myself, but rather attempted to piece together words I knew), and got driver to tell me the correct way ("Berapa lagi ke hotel?"). At first, people switched to English (which was a bit puzzling and frustrating), but this soon changed after the first day or so of various encounters in hotels, restaurants, with staff, porters, shop people, taxi drivers first involving simple exchanges, often coming back to "who did you learn Malay from?" (Belajar dengan siapa? Study with who?), very similar to Dialogue 10 of CD Express. Usually I tried to ask the person to teach me something (in English), and almost everyone seemed amused by my attempts at Malay beyond the typical thankyou - you're welcome exchange ("Terima kasih" - "Sama sama"), and many launched into long Malay answers, explanations, questions which I barely, if at all, understood (aka "getting caught with pants down"). I carried a pen and small pad in my pocket the whole trip, noting vocabulary on signs, menus, etc and phrases people taught me, trying to incorporate what I learned into the next encounter, each time a bit smoother than the previous. I tried to pay attention to the native Malay spoken around me, listening in on people's conversations, watching occaional TV program at night, etc. Had at least 2 dreams involving Malay, myself speaking or just overhearing the language being spoken.

Self-evaluation: This was the first time in a while visiting a country whose language I didn't speak more of less well, and I while I think I could have put more time and effort into studying before hand, I feel I accomplished my language mission on this trip, which was 1) exposure to authentic input (audio and visual) and 2) exchange in simple impromptu exchanges and conversations. Many of my simple exchanges involved the same vocabulary, simple mistakes, broken phrases.

The plan from now: To complete the Shadowing/Scriptorium exercises; to continue vocab study in comparative context with Kazadandusun (local language of Sabah) and Indonesian using a beginner's dictionary bought at airport; to read a text in Indonesian/Malay; to use these languages little by little in my daily life through work or weekend activities.

Tommy McDonald

7 persons have voted this message useful



daveyboy
Newbie
Spain
Joined 5041 days ago

33 posts - 46 votes
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 18 of 25
09 June 2010 at 3:23pm | IP Logged 

Hello there Moses.

I have been watching your videos on Youtube as well as the other Polyglot videos, I
find them very interesting to see and hear the methods on learning languages.

I live in Spain [ Madrid ] with my girlfriend. I have lived here nearly 3 years now,
and I am still trying to learn the language, my girlfriend is Spanish but speaks fluent
English and most of the time we speak English in the house, It's a very very bad
comfort zone to me and I am trying to break out of it by trying to just speak Spanish
in the house.

I lost my job at a local warehouse so I have all the hours in the day now to
concentrate on learning Spanish, for now any way. Don't get me wrong I know quite a bit
of Spanish and can speak it but I still stumble and struggle to put sentences and
conversation together, and the Biggest problem I have is the listening comprehension,
they speak at like 200 miles an hour here in Spain and the Spanish goes straight over
my head.! It's very frustrating.

The learning methods I use are:

Flash cards [ words and phrases ]

Stories on the net with audio.

Grammar books [ not to much though ]

Reading [ maybe the books are to advanced ..? ]

Verb drills from software.

And to be honest, Not much talking.

I actually thought that these methods would work quite good but I feel like I am not
improving any better in the language, because of this the motivation some times slips
and I don't study every day, that's not good I know.

I need to talk more, could that be the missing key ..? I have recently installed
Skype and tested the quality of the audio and it is very good, I need to hunt down some
natives now to speak with.

What do you think Moses..? would you change any of these methods of learning the
Spanish language..? Your tips and advice will be truly appreciated.

Thanks. David









     


2 persons have voted this message useful



laoshu505000
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5575 days ago

121 posts - 232 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 19 of 25
18 November 2010 at 1:53am | IP Logged 
daveyboy wrote:

Hello there Moses.

I have been watching your videos on Youtube as well as the other Polyglot videos, I
find them very interesting to see and hear the methods on learning languages.

I live in Spain [ Madrid ] with my girlfriend. I have lived here nearly 3 years now,
and I am still trying to learn the language, my girlfriend is Spanish but speaks fluent
English and most of the time we speak English in the house, It's a very very bad
comfort zone to me and I am trying to break out of it by trying to just speak Spanish
in the house.

I lost my job at a local warehouse so I have all the hours in the day now to
concentrate on learning Spanish, for now any way. Don't get me wrong I know quite a bit
of Spanish and can speak it but I still stumble and struggle to put sentences and
conversation together, and the Biggest problem I have is the listening comprehension,
they speak at like 200 miles an hour here in Spain and the Spanish goes straight over
my head.! It's very frustrating.

The learning methods I use are:

Flash cards [ words and phrases ]

Stories on the net with audio.

Grammar books [ not to much though ]

Reading [ maybe the books are to advanced ..? ]

Verb drills from software.

And to be honest, Not much talking.

I actually thought that these methods would work quite good but I feel like I am not
improving any better in the language, because of this the motivation some times slips
and I don't study every day, that's not good I know.

I need to talk more, could that be the missing key ..? I have recently installed
Skype and tested the quality of the audio and it is very good, I need to hunt down some
natives now to speak with.

What do you think Moses..? would you change any of these methods of learning the
Spanish language..? Your tips and advice will be truly appreciated.

Thanks. David

Hello David,

Sorry for this late reply. I don't come to the forums as much as I used to.

About your method you've described above, I think that if it works out best for you, and it's given you good results, I would say that it's a great method. The only way for a method to be not so good,is if it doesn't help you get the results you want.
Keep me updated on your progress.

Best

Moses









     


2 persons have voted this message useful



laoshu505000
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5575 days ago

121 posts - 232 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 20 of 25
18 November 2010 at 1:56am | IP Logged 
Hello everyone,

I just wanted to post up an update of the FLR technique to help out those who are having trouble trying to utilize certain textbooks. I hope this will help you out a lot. Let me know if you have any questions about anything. Thanks for viewing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hypw9t0Npc0


Best

Moses
1 person has voted this message useful



slymie
Tetraglot
Groupie
China
Joined 4987 days ago

81 posts - 154 votes 
Speaks: English, Macedonian
Studies: French, Mandarin, Greek
Studies: Shanghainese, Uyghur, Russian

 
 Message 21 of 25
24 November 2010 at 12:34am | IP Logged 
Hi laoshu, youtube is banned in my country, is there anywhere to read up on your methods instead of viwing youtube videos? or videos on another non-banned site?

I'm interested in reading what ideas you might have.

thanks!
1 person has voted this message useful



slymie
Tetraglot
Groupie
China
Joined 4987 days ago

81 posts - 154 votes 
Speaks: English, Macedonian
Studies: French, Mandarin, Greek
Studies: Shanghainese, Uyghur, Russian

 
 Message 22 of 25
24 November 2010 at 12:51am | IP Logged 
daveyboy wrote:

Hello there Moses.

I have been watching your videos on Youtube as well as the other Polyglot videos, I
find them very interesting to see and hear the methods on learning languages.

I live in Spain [ Madrid ] with my girlfriend. I have lived here nearly 3 years now,
and I am still trying to learn the language, my girlfriend is Spanish but speaks fluent
English and most of the time we speak English in the house, It's a very very bad
comfort zone to me and I am trying to break out of it by trying to just speak Spanish
in the house.

I lost my job at a local warehouse so I have all the hours in the day now to
concentrate on learning Spanish, for now any way. Don't get me wrong I know quite a bit
of Spanish and can speak it but I still stumble and struggle to put sentences and
conversation together, and the Biggest problem I have is the listening comprehension,
they speak at like 200 miles an hour here in Spain and the Spanish goes straight over
my head.! It's very frustrating.

The learning methods I use are:

Flash cards [ words and phrases ]

Stories on the net with audio.

Grammar books [ not to much though ]

Reading [ maybe the books are to advanced ..? ]

Verb drills from software.

And to be honest, Not much talking.

I actually thought that these methods would work quite good but I feel like I am not
improving any better in the language, because of this the motivation some times slips
and I don't study every day, that's not good I know.

I need to talk more, could that be the missing key ..? I have recently installed
Skype and tested the quality of the audio and it is very good, I need to hunt down some
natives now to speak with.

What do you think Moses..? would you change any of these methods of learning the
Spanish language..? Your tips and advice will be truly appreciated.

Thanks. David
     



I know the question isn't for me but I just thought I should add:

You are living in Spain and have what most of us would die for, which is total immersion. Its great your girlfriend speaks fluent English but you need to explain to her how important it is for you to improve your Spanish and that you wish she could speak to you only in Spanish, no matter what. (this is my friends method)

my personal method is just to respond to everyone with my target language. Eventually they will give up speaking English, and if not, you are still practicing your speaking skills. DO not give in and speak English as a crutch, try to explain or use actions rather than English. If they go to English from Spanish out of fustration, tell them politely that you "don't speak French".

I used to get my lunch from 3 different places, (one place a drink, second place fries, third place burger) just to get 3x the opportunity to practice ordering and using the language. I would drive salespeople nuts asking 'how much is this?' 'what size do you have?' 'do you have it in red' over and over then not buying anything and walking into the next store.
5 persons have voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4668 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 23 of 25
21 December 2011 at 6:46pm | IP Logged 
Hi, this method looks helpful, especially if you're looking to talk to native speakers as soon as possible. Your first post covers the outline for step 1. Could you post the outlines and sample sentences for the other steps?
1 person has voted this message useful



atama warui
Triglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4460 days ago

594 posts - 985 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, Japanese

 
 Message 24 of 25
21 January 2012 at 1:23pm | IP Logged 
I've done it quite similarly. Learned such key words, then used them in places like Twitter and Facebook with natives.

Step 3 wasn't for me actually. I don't intend to make videos, and I won't utilize Youtube as a platform to practice or improve or socialize with natives and/or other language learners.

Step 4 was exceptionally useful, and I'm going to use this technique from now on, on Lang-8.com, where natives will correct my sentences. I guess my meanings will be kept, while new expressions can be gained from them editing my text in order to make it sound more natural and smooth.


1 person has voted this message useful



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