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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 4931 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 9 of 14 01 December 2010 at 12:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I learn using grammars, flash cards and LingQ. But, the main technique of my study is
speak the laguage when you can. At computer I read in English, and with friends and teachers I can speak. And listening is needed, it might became easier with a MP4, but I use the computer because a brazilian proverb: "Who doesn´t have a dog uses a cat to hunting." And I´m getting. Living and learning. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5551 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 10 of 14 01 December 2010 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Something I recently realized is that for me, the method doesn't make that much of a difference. Be it immersion, fake immersion/massive semi-comprehensible input, audio-lingual method, grammar-translation, communicative teaching, whatever else - I did learn with any of those methods, and never as fast as I would have liked to. It does however go a bit faster when I combine different approaches to supplement each other, and when I tweak exercises/activities to suit my needs. (For example I recently found out that I do much better and actually gain something from cloze deletion exercises when I copy the entire sentence by hand - little things like that.)
But more important is to be realistic about what I expect of myself, and to critically watch my own progress or non-progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LLF Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5365 days ago 66 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 14 02 December 2010 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Whereas that's certainly true, I'd say that reading is an essential basis for listening; the reading provides the vocabulary that you need for listening. I find that size of vocab. is far less relevant to speaking or writing though; it's possible to speak fluently (in the flowing-ly sense) with a rather restricted vocab, and it's entirely possible to write well with a restricted vocab, as that does not take place in real-time, so you can refer to a dictionary as needed. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6460 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 12 of 14 02 December 2010 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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1-Understand a sentence. 2-Repeat that sentence. 3-Repeat 1 and 2 with other sentence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5166 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 13 of 14 02 December 2010 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here are my general thoughts on what I do, in no particular order. I don't have a specific method per se, but I realize that I do certain things that seem to work. Some will say that what works for one person may not work for another, but I tend to disagree: what people LIKE to do might vary, but for the most part, what works probably doesn't.
1. Understand what you are aiming for and keep that goal in mind. Personally, I want to communicate with native speakers in their language and I want to understand how they think and how they feel. If I can do that orally, then it follows that I can do it in writing, so I always concentrate on oral. Learning a language is a long-term effort and remaining motivated is not always easy, so create objectives and stick to them. 2. Create new habits. I always concentrate on the actual, real language spoken naturally by natives. I take what I hear (or read) and I try to integrate it into my own thinking patterns -- I repeat it as if I were in that situation, as if I were a native speaker. By doing this, I create the instantaneous linguistic habits that are essential to becoming fluent. 3. Be a native speaker. I try to imitate natives and I imagine that I'm one of them. If you're not comfortable doing that, I suggest you sort out that issue before you do anything else: you can't learn to speak a language fluently if the thought of being mistaken for a native speaker of that language is inconceivable to you. 4. Put yourself in real language situations or create them in your mind. We learn better speaking with native speakers in real life situations, but since such opportunities are not available very often, we need to fake it. If I can't use the language with another person in a real context, I try to feel it as if I were having that experience. I imagine myself there, I imagine the reaction, the response, etc. Watching TV is a great way to see the world through a native speaker's eyes and to imagine yourself living in the country. 5. Think in the language. Spend as much time as possible thinking in that language, talking to yourself or to imaginary friends about your life and your current experiences. Plan your social interactions in the language and imagine what you would say. Any shortcomings will immediately appear obvious. Once you know what you need and what you are lacking, it's easy to work on fixing them. 6. Be patient and have fun. Learning a language takes time; be patient. We all make mistakes and we all end up making fools of ourselves; laugh it off. Forget pride and enjoy yourself: you'll learn better. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| justberta Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5370 days ago 140 posts - 170 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian* Studies: Indonesian, German, Spanish, Russian | Message 14 of 14 09 December 2010 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with everything the poster above me just stated. In particular number 3, seeing
as a over the top Austen Powers British accent would eventually give you a British accent, after having toned it down a bit. Try imitating natives, mimicking and interrupting them as they speak, just a word or phrase while aiming for flawless pronunciation. Sometimes they are annoyed, other times, specially when drunk they will compliment you. Of course you don't know what this word means but that's not the point. Basically be a baby. For longer sentences simply mouthing them works well, and no one will notice. I also agree with how talking to yourself truly helps. In your head or our loud. Works best if you do it constantly. It it's more of a compulsive behavior on your part that you can't help. Of course you must also think in the language, while making p intricate soap opera like daydreams. Works best if you have a lot of time by yourself. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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