|
 |
Quality/Quantity | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5078 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes  Studies: Italian | Message 25 of 33 06 July 2010 at 1:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
(I would say that your English is higher than just C1 level..) Edited by Romanist on 06 July 2010 at 1:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6739 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 26 of 33 06 July 2010 at 1:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
These expectations are usually rather vague - most people never figure out what they really want out of life, and when they think they do, it's because they haven't been thinking. Lest anyone think we are getting off-topic, I should hasten to add that this is relevant to language-learning. One feels the craving for languages, but satisfying this particular drive is extremely time-consuming. Logic says, there must be more important things that aren't going to get done because of this little hobby, and yet it's pretty hard to give up languages cold turkey once you have developed the taste for them.
I was sarcastic where I could have just made my point, even though the behavior patterns that I mentioned in jest have all been vigorously defended in this forum at one time or another, often in the "quantity versus quality" threads. You, in turn, picked up on the "life sucks" statement of mine, which is too general to be meaningful, and did not connect it to a more measured and specific preceding statement, "If languages are just a hobby for you, you will probably be frustrated with your choices no matter what you do." This statement alludes to the fact that there are many more languages than human lifespan can handle, and so one ends up having to make choices, and given that a hobbyist has no external criteria for making these choices, he or she will at some point question the choices made no matter what they were. Another point made was that if you study a smaller number of languages in depth and don't keep constantly chasing new ones, "... you will stop stressing over there being 6,000 more languages on this planet." Besides not stressing, i.e., being at peace, there is another, more practical aspect to going for "depth" over "breadth". In my experience, the initial period, before you reach a solid intermediate level in a language, requires an extra push. You can't really dilly-dally, you have to hit the new language quite hard if you don't want to keep sliding back. Once you are solid intermediate, you can read, watch, listen, read up on grammar once in a while, and you will keep getting better. Basically, it is still work, but it can be done in a more relaxed way from that point on. If you are always studying a new language, you are living in a state of constant hyperactivity. It's a narcotic some people live for, but it will take away from other things in life far more than nursing a small fixed number of languages from intermediate to advanced, once the initial investment in them has been made.
(1) Figure out what you really want out of life, how languages fit into it, and what they are in a particularly strong conflict with. (2) If step 1 reveals that you have other important things in life besides languages, but you still need languages in your life, remember that the "quality" approach leaves more room for other things in life than the "quantity" approach. Edited by frenkeld on 07 July 2010 at 7:32am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6739 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 27 of 33 06 July 2010 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
There is an assumption built into these questions, that one will want to hop onto a new language the moment a predetermined skill level has been reached with the current one. The level of "quality" is then determined by this skill level. This is not the only possible approach. You can reach a certain skill level in the current language and do nothing for a while afterwards. All you do is enjoy the languages you know, maybe taking up a new one at a later time, maybe not. When you start a new language, the required focus easily turns the maintenance of your other languages into a chore. This way you never fully enjoy your languages, you mostly "maintain" them while learning new ones. This leads to you having insufficient "quality time" with languages, which is also bad - "quality" doesn't have to be measured exclusively by the skill level achieved. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| dantalian Diglot Senior Member Bouvet Island Joined 5478 days ago 125 posts - 156 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 28 of 33 07 July 2010 at 12:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
The truth is that, even though most people never figure out what they really want of life, it does not exclude the fact, that they want to learn a foreign language for one reason or another or for no “reasonable” reason at all, and some really succeed in doing that. That’s life, that’s how it is, and we should not blame people for that. Any attempts to persuade them to solve Hamlet-like question first and then think about learning a language are doomed to failure and look redundant. However, if you know a universal approach for solving that issue or ready-made answers applicable for all, don’t hesitate to post them. The examples of how you personally “figured out what you really want out of life”, in connection with your Spanish and German would be very much appreciated.
Generally, I don’t mind your “two steps” approach, however, I can’t see any significant difference with my own statements, except that you give here a certain margin to “quality”, which in its turn coincide with my personal current preferences, posted in another thread, ask people to resolve “eternal questions” first, and pay no attention to “recourses” they need to take into account when starting learning process. All the rest is just difference in terminology.
I still can’t establish the link between your “more specific” statement "If languages are just a hobby for you, you will probably be frustrated with your choices no matter what you do." and your reduction of motivation to vanity, which I requested to clarify. I can just as well easily narrow one’s motivation for learning any language to half a dozen of other more or less noble traits. Thus, your deduction still looks arbitrary, which breaks the consistency of the argumentation. That being said, I think that the original “hardness” objection (“It is pretty hard to apply a cost-benefit analysis to entertainment. “) is equally applicable to you own “two steps” model and, since you require from common people a more “philosophical” approach towards language learning, your “recipe” looks even harder . All the rest of your first post still looks like pointing out on your own discrepancies with an uncertain opponent, which means leading discussion with yourself, and as a result it is not connected with my post at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6739 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 29 of 33 07 July 2010 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
It is worth recalling something stated in either Kato Lomb's book on language learning or in Spivak's book on polyglots (I forget which). The statement is that polyglots are typically not high achievers outside language-learning. If you do not mind this fact, that's fine. If you do, you have to be careful.
If you are into quantity, you better have few ambitions in life besides languages. If you can tolerate the "quality-based" approach, you have a chance of accomplishing other things. I believe this is an important practical observation, however similar or dissimilar our conceptual approaches may be.
My original post was not entirely coherent, and it was party in jest. I do not at all believe that vanity is the only motivation for learning languages. The strongest motivation is probably the pursuit of the high that comes with the breakthroughs one makes in a foreign language. For me personally it is the sense of a "mental vacation" that I want them for - reading a novel in a different language feels like a trip into alternate reality that I find stimulating.
I meant that it is almost impossible to apply cost-benefit analysis to learning five languages to a B1 level versus learning two to a higher level. It is not as hard, though still not easy, to apply cost-benefit analysis to hobbies versus other things in life.
I started on Spanish and German before I was fully aware of how language-learning impacts other activities that require time and, when relevant, concentration. In retrospect, they were fine choices for my needs, but they did take quite a bit of time, so with any future language I will analyze the schedule before committing. Edited by frenkeld on 09 July 2010 at 12:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5141 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 30 of 33 07 July 2010 at 3:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
In some cases, those ambitions can actually reinforce rather than conflict with language-learning. After reaching a certain level, languages take care of themselves. I for instance would be reading Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky or the Mahabharata anyway; only, after learning their languages, I'll get to do it in the original rather than in Spanish or English. And I don't think my English will suffer as a result; it's too ingrained in my mind to lose it from having read so many books in it when I was at the level I'm in in other languages today. I'm confident with time that will be the case with them as well, allowing me to progress further to additional languages. Same with other aspects. Before discovering languages I used to watch news discussion shows while having dinner; now I'm watching a German soap, and in a few months I'll get started with Russian ones. The content is not that dissimilar either. For an intellectual at least, learning to a high level and maintaining two dozen languages is not entirely out of the question, nor does it exclude those great ambitions of which language-learning can be but a servant. Any aspiration of distinction is a lifetime pursuit, be it mathematics, music or scholarship. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6243 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 31 of 33 07 July 2010 at 3:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
What a thick, depressing, Russian borsch. You should consider moving to a frozen attic somewhere (in the Southern Hemisphere perhaps) and living off of black tea for a while and maybe then you'll manage to strike the right balance.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6739 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 32 of 33 07 July 2010 at 6:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
The fact that languages "take care of themselves" after a certain level was behind my argument that the quality-based approach is easier to balance with other things in life than the quantity-based approach. However, if you are always learning a new language, you are pursuing quantity, and there is no free lunch to be had with that: learning a new language puts you in a distracted state of mind which will invariably interfere with other things. Your recipe is best suited for someone for whom the main pursuit in life is languages and things you can directly use them for. You also need quite a bit of leisure time to do this, which not everyone has. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
