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Personal Story Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| drahcir Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5600 days ago 29 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 1 of 2 04 August 2010 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have thought of a method which could be used to learn the basics of a language very quickly. It's not really my own idea but it’s sort of assimilated from the ‘learning whole texts by heart method’ and also something mentioned in this youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnRHlq_ZVF0 (quite near the end).
The method would involve writing a story which contains as many common words and everyday phrases as the learner feels is necessary, along with as many grammatical features as possible. The story could then be given to a native speaker for them to translate and read aloud. The learner then learns to recite the entire story on command, understanding all words and grammatical features in the story. They should then theoretically be able to use everything in the story at a fairly fluent level. I think it would work best if each individual made their own personal story, including all the words and phrases they feel are necessary, or the ones they use most frequently in their native language. I imagine the story would have to be around 5,000- 10,000 words long. Sometimes I think one finds it hard knowing what to study at the beginning of a language, this would help solve the problem. The other advantage I can think of is that once you know the story fairly well you could probably read and understand it in similar languages without too much effort, as the context of words and your rough position through the text would alert you as to where you are. Obviously there are a few problems with this; one which comes to mind is that just because a story has all grammatical a feature in English doesn’t mean it will in another language, so perhaps the story would have to be adapted a little for each language. Any feedback on this idea would be most welcome- has anyone or does anyone know anyone who has tried it? Does anyone know any reasons it would/ wouldn’t work? Do you know any more problems with it or suggestions for improvement? Thanks :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5807 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 2 04 August 2010 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
In this sort of case, you're likely to get "translationese" -- the translator's mid gets jammed by the English (or whatever language) structure and can't get the appropriate translation. However, in principle it's a good idea. If I have to memorise sentences, I'd rather memorise ones that are meaningful to me. I even made my own chat-up line in Basque: Begi euskaldunak politenak dira. This includes the absolutive plural article, comparatives + superlatives (like in Romance languages, the superlative is essentially the definite form of the comparative) and "they are", as well as "eye", "Basque" and beautiful. Edited by Cainntear on 04 August 2010 at 4:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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