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My Thoughts On Sentence Mining and others

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
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Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 57 of 66
26 August 2010 at 3:19pm | IP Logged 
Bao wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
Bao wrote:
Sentence mining, or rather any method that is focussed on repetition and input can have the effect that you learn the items in sequence and end up with the sequence stronger in mind than the actual meaning of every single item.

As leosmith says, learning-in-sequence isn't a problem with SRS as it presents items in a random order.

Are you deliberately misunderstanding me? A sentence is a sequence in itself.

Not deliberately, no. My confusion is understandable if you consider that you said that learning words doesn't cure the problem, when clearly it does...
Quote:
Memorizing sentences, passages or whole texts makes active use of the way some -though probably not all- learners' brains favour the sequence over encoding every single items anew.

I don't believe brains are that different. Language is an evolved specialisation, unique to humans, so I believe there's more similarity in language learning than others here think.
Quote:
Getting artificial repetition is a tool you might consider when the material you want to work with is just so much higher than your current level that you can not work with it yet, and you do not have an easier way to get there (like intermediary material or a tutor.)

There's always a path. If you really need a specific piece of language, you need it. But otherwise you can keep learning the language incrementally.

Quote:
Cainntear, to learn non-existing collocations (or rather more than any learner will learn in the initial stages) one would have to seriously overlearn the sentences, exclusively or almost exclusively work with the sentences - and have quite a small sample size. If somebody's actually happy doing that leave them be.

No, I won't leave them be. If someone is discussing it here, I assume that they want to learn a language and they want help and advice. They are free to disregard my advice, but I will continue to give it so they can make the decision for themselves.
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 5804 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 58 of 66
26 August 2010 at 3:26pm | IP Logged 
feanarosurion wrote:
Another point of clarification. I am an extremely global learner. I mean that in the most sincere and extreme sense. I want to learn (as well as learn to use) every single word in my target language (Finnish as the case currently is), and I don't care if the likelihood of my seeing a particular word again is second to nil. I will still put the word into SRS, and mine it to the best of my abilities.

You have set yourself an impossible task.

Not only are there far more words in any given language than any native speaker would know, but part of "knowing" a word is knowing how common it is. Common words are recalled much quicker and easier than uncommon words, and this appears to part of how the native speaker derives some of the subtler shades of connotation. By putting these rare words into SRS, you will be overexposing* yourself to them and losing the intended effect.

It's an irreconcilable paradox -- how do you learn words if part of "knowing" them is "not knowing" them?

* Overexposing = exposing yourself to excess, and to your detriment. Oversimplify = simplify to excess, and to your detriment. Overlearning = learning to excess and to your detriment...?
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mpete16
Diglot
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5315 days ago

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Speaks: Tagalog, English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 59 of 66
26 August 2010 at 6:34pm | IP Logged 
All the interesting posts on this thread got me thinking, isn't there a way to take the
best of both worlds?

I mean, what if you used sentence mining to aid your passive vocabulary, and do what
Benny does, namely go out there and use the language, to transfer words from your passive
to your active vocab?

When looking at it from this point of view, the SRS is no longer the "heart" of the
language learning process, but a passive-vocabulary-acquisition tool. The real "heart"
becomes watching TV, and just going out there and using the language.

Just a thought.
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feanarosurion
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5074 days ago

217 posts - 316 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish, Norwegian

 
 Message 60 of 66
26 August 2010 at 8:37pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
feanarosurion wrote:
Another point of clarification. I am an extremely global learner. I mean that in the most sincere and extreme sense. I want to learn (as well as learn to use) every single word in my target language (Finnish as the case currently is), and I don't care if the likelihood of my seeing a particular word again is second to nil. I will still put the word into SRS, and mine it to the best of my abilities.

You have set yourself an impossible task.

Not only are there far more words in any given language than any native speaker would know, but part of "knowing" a word is knowing how common it is. Common words are recalled much quicker and easier than uncommon words, and this appears to part of how the native speaker derives some of the subtler shades of connotation. By putting these rare words into SRS, you will be overexposing* yourself to them and losing the intended effect.

It's an irreconcilable paradox -- how do you learn words if part of "knowing" them is "not knowing" them?

* Overexposing = exposing yourself to excess, and to your detriment. Oversimplify = simplify to excess, and to your detriment. Overlearning = learning to excess and to your detriment...?


Well, it's what works for me. It's certainly not to my detriment. I can tell when I'm barely ever going to see a word again. And usually that means it's not in my dictionary so besides a single vocab card I don't bother to do anything else. I still want to be able to recognize that word and know what it means, even if I'm not going to use it.

Oh, and I realize that it is an impossible task to learn every single word, but that's just how my learning style works. Especially now that I'm at an intermediate level, and I can pretty much just take words from anywhere, and I can take sentences from anywhere. My goal isn't actually to know every single word, but a 10-20 000 word passive vocab by the end of this process isn't unreasonable I think. But until that happens, and I'm happy with the results, I'll keep looking up and mining every word I come across.

I don't think my method will work for everyone. Perhaps I'm the only one this method will ever work for, but it works for me. Your advice doesn't apply to me, in this case. I have considered it, but it doesn't help me. I'm not shoving this method down anyone's throats. I'm just presenting it as an alternative to what has previously been discussed. And, as I previously stated, it works for me. That's the bottom line, and the only real important thing.

Edited by feanarosurion on 26 August 2010 at 8:39pm

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frenkeld
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6736 days ago

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Studies: German

 
 Message 61 of 66
26 August 2010 at 9:42pm | IP Logged 
irishpolyglot wrote:
The antimoon method of shutting up until you speak perfectly is a horrible way ... It's a good way to pass exams or read well perhaps.


I don't know much about the antimoon method, but if one looks at the general idea of focusing on passive skills before speaking, much will depend on how much listening versus reading one does. Reading a hundred novels before doing anything else with the language may be a bit dry, although even that depends on who you ask, but if one dedicates enough time to listening in the passive phase, one will by definition be good for more than just 'reading well'.


Edited by frenkeld on 26 August 2010 at 10:15pm

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maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5012 days ago

564 posts - 839 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese
Studies: Urdu

 
 Message 62 of 66
26 August 2010 at 10:53pm | IP Logged 
From my not so vast experience the purpose of language is communication.

Even if Goffanfrankenshellish [I do hope that is not a real language somewhere] as a language is hellishly tonal and fricative, but only agglutinive in certain moods and has an indecent amout of plural options and five genders. Kids still learn it.

No child at any time starts with a perfect speech pattern but makes an attempt at getting the message across.

Example: Scene:Venice. A little restaurant, a few side streets from the 'SUPERYACHT' berths. we got into an Italian conversation with the couple on the next table. He was, to me, typically southern Italian, she was probably German.
We prattled on [chatted] for some time and eventually he asked me where in Italy I came from because he was Libyan. His girlfriend was Italian rather than German.

The conversation flowed and we all had a good evening. Thats is what language is really about. I cant read Pirandello without thinking of that exceptional evening.

My accountant will have the credit card stubs so I can recommend the restaurant!



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frenkeld
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6736 days ago

2042 posts - 2719 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 63 of 66
26 August 2010 at 11:04pm | IP Logged 
maydayayday wrote:
From my not so vast experience the purpose of language is communication. ... I cant read Pirandello without thinking of that exceptional evening.


Communication can take different forms. When you read Pirandello, it is also an act of communication, from the author to the reader. In the end, how one wants to use a language is a personal preference.

Whether a certain learning method is effective or not should be relatively independent of personal preferences. I was just wondering whether a 'silent period', consisting of listening, reading, and studying, may not be a viable study method for some people, with speaking turned on eventually if they feel like it. I personally don't see why a silent period should be an ineffective prelude to active skills, including speaking.


Edited by frenkeld on 27 August 2010 at 4:40am

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Deji
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5233 days ago

116 posts - 182 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Hindi, Bengali

 
 Message 64 of 66
15 December 2010 at 6:59am | IP Logged 
PaulLambeth wrote:
Therefore I can do better with my own limited knowledge of Excel formulae, as that's easier
to edit, add to and customise visually.


So please tell, what do you do with excel, other than of course adding to a list, sorting, deleting etc. ?

-I use Works for Bengali and copy it into excel for safekeeping.


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