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Quantity makes the difference | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6485 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 41 of 122 21 December 2010 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Cainntear and Leosmith, your points are well taken, but they go against a straw man. Please read my messages carefully.
Let's say we compare different "best methods". Let's say we compare professor Argüelles, Steve Kauffman, David Long, Iversen, the Irish polyglot, the khatzumoto, the Korean, Luka and Torbyrne. There are other people, but let's study those people's methods. Those people are awesome. It seems that their method's work like magic, sometimes it's difficult to believe, but their methods are contradictory each other. OK. Let's look inside the magic hat. Let's see what's inside the magic box. Let's discover the magic TRICKS. What will happen when you discover the tricks behind the scenes? It's so simple that we feel disappointed. It's our reaction when we discover the tricks behind the magic shows that look like miracles. "It cannot be that way. This is ridiculous. It cannot be that simple" What's the trick behind all those methods? What do we find behind all the smokescreen? What do we find behind the sleight of hand movements? Repetition and the emotion that they attach to those repetitions. "This is ridiculous. It cannot be that simple". Yes. It is because the most magical things are often the result of the application of the most BASIC principles. Let's keep it simple, let's apply the basic principles and magic will follow. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| languagewarrior Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4923 days ago 5 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English, Spanish | Message 42 of 122 21 December 2010 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
"Many people benefit by competition in language learning. Slucido certainly does. Ask him about the 100,000 sentence method sometime. Of course, someone with such a non-competitive handle as you would not understand such things." What my handle Language warrior clearly implies is that my war is with the language(s) I have decided to battle and not with people. I do understand this and many other unimportant things. Edited by languagewarrior on 21 December 2010 at 4:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6485 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 43 of 122 21 December 2010 at 3:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I will try to explain my point better.
Why a language learning method is good? Why a language tutor is good? What's the reason behind the smokescreen and the sleight of the hand movements? They are good because the TRICK you in to doing MORE FREQUENT AND INTENSE REPETITIONS. This is the real deal: repetitions and emotion. Emotion makes you work more time and harder. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ester Groupie Joined 5477 days ago 64 posts - 114 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew | Message 44 of 122 21 December 2010 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm inclined to agree with the basic idea that slucido suggests here, i.e. that the amount of time spent with/around the language matters. The amount itself, though, won't make OR break your language studies, in my experience - there are many factors that come into play. Even the time itself isn't in a vacuum independent of other factors - WHILE you are spending that time learning the language, there are other factors related to HOW you're doing it that might end up in "one hour A" being more successful / ending up in a better retention, than in "one hour B". At least for me it's that way.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5191 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 45 of 122 21 December 2010 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Consider this graph about the illiteracy rate in France starting at the beginning of the 18th century when only 30+% of people were literate. Were only 30% of French people fluent or proficient in French? There is no doubt that to reach level X in a language, you need to be exposed to it, but reading literature is only necessary if your goal is to understand literature. Many academic debates and discussions -- also found on TV -- can expose a person to all the language they will ever need, even in highly educated circles. If you wish to complement that with literature, great, but it's not a requirement. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6485 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 46 of 122 21 December 2010 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, emotions come into play. For example, if someone has got divorced, his performance will suffer. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5155 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 47 of 122 22 December 2010 at 12:38am | IP Logged | |||||
Of course. Throughout history only a privileged few have been able to attain any degree of education. Of course people are normally fluent in their own languages, but not all, perhaps not many even today, can be said to be proficient.
To be able to read literature with ease implies being able to understand everyday conversation with ease. The reverse however is not true. Only time spent with books -not just literature, but scientific and intellectual- will open up the whole range and spectrum of what a language of the kind we're discussing has accomplished and is capable of offering. And no, again, no amount of television can substitute for this; by its nature, the level of discourse found therein simply falls far short of the type found in good books, whatever the subject matter may be. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5155 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 48 of 122 22 December 2010 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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To clarify: I'm not against watching television. It is a integral part of my language studies. But the language dimension it helps me with -fluency in everyday speech- constitutes but a foundational early stage towards my goal of full language proficiency.
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