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Schliemann method - has it been emulated? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5273 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes  Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 30 15 July 2010 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are some extremely interesting threads on this forum about Heinrich Schliemann's method for learning foreign languages. (In a nutshell, it seems that he learnt by heart one or two whole books in the target languages!)
I was just wondering: does anyone know whether this method has ever been successfully emulated by other language learners? If it has not been emulated, one might reasonably conclude that Schliemann was a 'one-off' with a special genius for memorizing large amounts of text. On the other hand, if it is a method which is proven to work more generally for some people, then why do we not hear more about it? (I mean, beginner to level C2 in just a few months - that seems pretty attractive, doesn't it!?) Edited by Romanist on 15 July 2010 at 9:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Andrew~ Groupie United States howlearnspanish.com Joined 5259 days ago 42 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 2 of 30 15 July 2010 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've definitely heard of people doing this before, though usually it's someone learning a language (often I hear this about English) just by watching a certain TV show or a single movie (or two) over and over and over until they've translated, understood, and can repeat every single thing said. When you think about it, you realize that probably 95% of a language will be covered in a few hours worth of movies or TV shows, so it's really plausible...maybe not the best or most interesting way to go about it, but I'm pretty sure it would work.
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| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5343 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 3 of 30 15 July 2010 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I do not know anything of Schliemann's methods, except for what you have written above. I am more familiar with his obsession for finding Troy.
Anyway, I know a professor at my university whose niece has told me several times has learned English just by reading the bible and making translations. My professor is from China. If someone is smart enough and really wants it, I could see it possible to learn a language just through reading, and hence some memorization of the content of the books. The person would have to be really smart though, or atleast really good at analysing things coupled with logical thinking. I am not sure how it would work for a language that is very foreign to anything one has studied, but if it was a language that was not so different from what one understands, then I think it could be possible. Through my limited knowledge of Spanish, as well as my studies of Dutch, English and wine, I can read bits and pieces of French and even roughly pronounce them okay. If I really pushed myself, perhaps I could achieve greater results, though I never tried. Same with the Scandinavian tongues. If I was provided with a Scandinavian text, let's say The Hobbit for instance, I think that if I had a few solid weeks to do nothing but work with it, I could parse through the text and break down the grammar, as well as a large portion of the words. This doesn't help with the pronunciation though, and besides, I don't think enough people have this amount of free time or ambition, when they can just grab something less intense to start. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5273 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 4 of 30 15 July 2010 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not clear about the exact details of Schliemann's method; I just know that it involved learning and internalizing whole books in the target languages. (The books in question may have been translations of works which he had already read in other languages - but I'm not absolutely sure about that.)
As far as I know, it is generally accepted that Schliemann really did have a very high mastery of about 10 different languages - so for him at least it must have been an extremely effective method! I just wish I could understand how he was able to apply the method right at the beginning, when he was starting out with a new language. (I just can't see how one can learn text by heart without knowing what it means!? :-0) Edited by Romanist on 15 July 2010 at 9:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5311 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 5 of 30 16 July 2010 at 12:31am | IP Logged | |||||
He writes about his method in great detail in his German autobiography and in the introduction of his English book Ilios. The city and country of the Trojans, which you can download from archive.org.
I think that he was an outlier in the sense that Malcom Gladwell defines them in his book Outliers. I.e., he was very driven and devoted any spare time that he could find to language studies. He was also strongly motivated to learn most of his languages because he needed them to conduct his business. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5273 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 6 of 30 16 July 2010 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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Doitsujin, thanks very much for this wonderful link ;-) I'm going to download this book and check it out in detail.
(The thing is this: I actually have a copy of the first 'Harry Potter' book translated into Ancient Greek. There is a part of me which is thinking along..ahem..certain lines! But we'll see.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Romanist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5273 days ago 261 posts - 366 votes Studies: Italian | Message 7 of 30 16 July 2010 at 11:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have now read the part of the introduction where Schliemann describes his language learning methods. He mentions a friend of his, a German academic, who as a boy had used similar methods to master Latin and Greek - so this answeres my original question, I suppose.
Schliemann also calls for his method to be introduced in schools and colleges, claiming that it is not a theory but rather a "stubborn fact" that students could completely master Modern Greek within 6 months, and the ancient form within 1 year...! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6759 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 8 of 30 16 July 2010 at 11:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Heh, that's on my "to-buy" list as well, but it might not be a good idea to use it for learning Greek, since a lot of the vocabulary (especially modern terms) had to be invented using modern or Byzantine Greek. Students usually start by reading eloquent yet easy-to-read authors like Xenophon. (In either case, it sounds like the translator did a bang-up job with Harry Potter.) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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