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My Thoughts On Sentence Mining and others | ||
Tags: Goals | Learning Technique/Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6729 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 17 of 66 21 August 2010 at 9:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree - I also mentioned earlier that I wouldn't say his site presents a coherent 'method' so much as an attitude toward language learning.
I'm also hesitant to speak to others if all I've done is memorize phrases without understanding the parts that make them up and how to manipulate those parts creatively. I think attempting to communicate despite having such an extremely limited command of the language (I believe Benny suggests making up for it by using lots of gestures, miming, and inventing words like 'eye-windows' for glasses at this phase) takes a lot of courage, but is not for everyone. I prefer to see it as a gesture of respect for the language and for my listeners' time to attain a certain level of ability before attempting conversation - and as a way to save myself and others a lot of frustration, as you said! But on the other hand, I wouldn't go too far in the opposite direction and actively avoid speaking to anyone until I'm 'ready', either. I'd presume to say that most of us haven't got the patience for that. So I think that for most people, what you've said is right on the money: early production, provided you have the basics down enough to form your own sentences and respond to what's said to you. And on top of that, don't just focus on speaking, but be sure to read and listen as much as possible. In the long run, a balanced approach like this is superior to any single method, I think. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5766 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 18 of 66 21 August 2010 at 11:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, sounds like a lot of people find "sentence mining" boring and tedious. I find it the opposite. I pick books that interest me, and I try to read them with some "flow" to keep the storyline going, and I highlight a couple things per page to look up later. Then later I use a dictionary and add those things to Anki. Every time I add something it enhances my understanding of the story, and makes the process more enjoyable.
I also enjoy just sitting down with a difficult book and working through one page entirely so that I understand everything. It's so satisfying to read that page through afterward and understand every word on it...it feels like I already speak that language really well, at least as far as that one page is concerned, so it gives me a big feeling of progress. I love the "puzzle-solving" aspect of it too, as I try to figure out what each sentence means. As for Benny's advice, I too find it dissatisfying as a "method" since he clearly does a bunch of studying at various points, but doesn't clarify his study methods. But a lot of it is great advice about how to get speaking, if you already know some words, so I use it like that. My biggest problem has always been activating my languages, so the stuff that Benny advises is a huge help to me. I don't really care for speaking right from the beginning, but the rest of it is helpful to me. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6729 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 19 of 66 21 August 2010 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
The people who don't enjoy sentence mining are probably the ones who feel obligated to enter every single unknown word or construct they encounter into an SRS (much like how you say you occasionally do for one page, except for the entire book and everything else they encounter). Of course, that would take ages and would suck all the enjoyment out of reading a book or watching a movie. Khatzumoto, however, advocates being picky about the sentences you enter. When he reads a book, he reads it primarily for enjoyment, without stopping to look up anything. Instead, he 'dog-ears' the corner of the page to look it up later. After he looks everything (I think) up, he only adds around 10% of it into his SRS deck! This isn't work at all! If you're reading an 'i+1' book, this will probably amount to only a handful of sentences for an entire novel, and they will all be sentences that are extremely interesting to you. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6330 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 20 of 66 22 August 2010 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
In your words
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5791 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 21 of 66 22 August 2010 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ermmm.... that's quite a leap of logic. (not a sentence miner, not an SRS user) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5413 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 22 of 66 23 August 2010 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@mpete16 It's true that I haven't outlined my full study approach in detail and it is more complex than "The Irish method" suggests :P I do speak from the start, but I also study in various traditional forms as well as using SRS (only recently). I would consider my Lonely Planet phrasebook studying as a light form of "sentence mining", although that is only for beginning stages. I prefer to be as spontaneous as possible, even if this sacrifices perfection.
I personally wouldn't combine SRS with sentence mining. SRS works for me for words, even if they are out of context, learning them this way has worked for me up to now. @Doviende I do have my study periods and will elaborate on all of that with time ;) The German guide I told you about that I'll discuss on my site this week is all about the actual content of the language (grammar & vocabulary), which I haven't discussed up until now, since I consider attitude and interaction with natives an important requisite. @Lucky_Charms Thanks for pointing out what actually happened mate! I'm amazed how quick people are to jump down my throat for simply being an ambitious fellow. You are right that I am not quite trying to promote a "method". Both myself and Khatzumoto are against this idea of a perfect method actually. The attitude is way more important, but I do promote particular things I do as likely being more efficient if the goal is to speak with natives. My advice falls short if people are more interested in literature, watching TV, passing examinations etc. - in which case input would be the priority. @Cainntear I'm amazed that despite all the angry comments you left on my site you think that my only message is "speak from the start!" It shows how little you pay attention. @Leosmith The Thai mission was a holiday for me and an experiment in just getting the taste of an Asian language. It was NOT an intensive 3-month mission like my German and Hungarian ones were and I certainly did not apply the advice I blog about, since my entire life (apart from one weekend) was in English with little focus at all on Thai. I was there mainly to party on beaches, not speak fluent Thai, but wanted a mini-mission to keep the blog active. I'm very happy with my results in Thailand considering the very little time investment and you can read my last post on the thaivisa forum for my replies to comments like yours. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5791 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 23 of 66 23 August 2010 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
And here we go again... "angry comments"... Check again and you'll find that you were the one to get snippy when I commented. I sometimes disagreed with you outright, and I sometimes focused on a single point of disagreement. You took offense to that, and you. Yes, on occasions I have gotten angry, because you were attacking me. As I've said before, I know you're trying to say more, but the message is lost. What you think you're saying and what your readers think you're saying are very different things, and this is abundantly clear from the comments here and on your site. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5413 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 24 of 66 23 August 2010 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Cainntear Please stop hijacking the thread theme and going off on irrelevant tangents (as usual) to whine about my website. It's a blog, not a detailed thesis about a method of precisely what I do every second of my language studies. I have told you before that I am not an academic and do not have to play by your rules.
I reveal parts of my own particular approach piece by piece and am well aware of what my readers know about my own method up to now. Your response is ludicrous as always. You bring back your dislike of my website for no apparent reason, I'm "snippy", "refuse to engage in debate", I make "incorrect assumptions", and yet I'm the one attacking you apparently. EDIT: I imagine Cainntear will reply to this to try to edge me on and the argument will go on indefinitely, so I'll resist the urge to reply to his next taunt. Could someone please bring this back on topic? :) Cainntear and I have personality and learning approach disagreements with one another that are totally irrelevant to this discussion. Edited by irishpolyglot on 23 August 2010 at 7:37pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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