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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| elarsen21 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4783 days ago 7 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 1 of 15 02 April 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, everyone!
I've written the following article for friends of mine that are interested in learning a language independently. I'm very interested in your feedback, constructive criticism, and suggestions. Thanks very much! Erik ... I taught myself Spanish over the course of about a year, to the point of testing into the highest level (of five levels) of a "Spanish for Foreigners" course in a Latin American university, without ever taking a Spanish class. More importantly, I made wonderful friends, and I feel comfortable conversing with any native speaker I could happen to meet. Of course, I still have a lot to learn! Based on my experiences, I came up with a step-by-step process for learning a foreign language. I believe this method can be applied to any language, although my own experience is limited (English, French, Spanish, some Norwegian). It should be especially effective for European languages. In my opinion, it is very important to develop the auditory sense before visually seeing the language. We have pre-conceived notions of pronunciation that cause us to speak in a foreign accent when we begin reading another language or visualizing its words. Therefore, the first priority is listening and speaking, rather than reading and writing. STEP 1. PASSIVE LISTENING If you're serious about understanding what native speakers say, as well as having an authentic accent and pronunciation, you first need to develop your ear for the language's true sound. Infants hear several hundred hours of their native language before beginning to speak. The key here is that the sources are native speakers. Fortunately, today with the internet, it is easy to find online radio stations and podcasts, music, even TV shows and movies, in a huge variety of foreign languages. Look for sources aimed at a native audience (e.g. a German radio station in Berlin). But what if you don't understand? Of course you won't understand. The idea is simply to relax and listen closely, to hone your ear. Listen for the unique sound, the rhythm, the intonation. Listen as much as possible, and as separate from English as possible. Continue to practice passive listening throughout the process of learning the language. STEP 2. LISTENING-IMITATING (Make friends with native speakers!) The beginning of true learning is doing, making mistakes, and receiving feedback. In the case of languages, speaking and making adjustments is the most productive thing you will do. The Pimsleur audio programs provide the opportunity to listen and echo native speakers repeatedly. By imitating and hearing the native pronunciation a second and third time, you receive feedback. Pimsleur is also designed to help you develop an intuitive sense of the language without having to read grammar books. You can also try mimicking your passive-listening sources, even singing along with music! The low-tech version is to simply make friends with a native speaker and ask them to correct your pronunciation when you repeat what they say. Feedback is the key, giving you a sense of progress and learning that you can build on. If you can't find such a person locally, look for a language-exchange community online. STEP 3. LISTENING-CONVERSING The core of any language is conversation. The more practice you get in real conversation, the faster your abilities will expand. Michel Thomas's audio program rapidly developed my ability to form phrases and understand what was being said to me. The fundamental element in forming phrases is the verb, and Thomas teaches skill with verbs and grammar in an intuitive way. Understanding how to form phrases allows you to spend more time in real conversation, instead of the artificial role-play of reading from a phrasebook or textbook. You can use other sentence-building and verb-conjugating methods to learn basic grammar for conversation. In the case of Spanish, I also found the Practice Makes Perfect verb workbook very helpful. Use your abilities to get to know your new friends better. The human connection will motivate you and carry you forward more than anything else. Always remember to ask your native speaker friends to correct your mistakes, and thank them profusely. The feedback is extremely important. STEP 4. LISTENING-READING You can now start looking at the language visually. Make sure you have a good auditory command of the language before looking at written words and phrases. Even during reading, we often think "audibly." So, be especially careful here to view the foreign words and characters as entirely new. The first step is to follow the text with a native speaker reading. Pimsleur's program includes short reading exercises in which written words are pronounced by native speakers and practiced by the student. The Assimil courses are based on a listening-reading methodology. Many free podcasts are available that feature native speakers with a text transcript. STEP 5. MORE VOCABULARY FOR YOUR CONVERSATIONS In Spanish, the 3,000 most frequent vocabulary words form 95% of conversation. Therefore, learning these 3,000 words can further expand your conversational ability, and very quickly. This is true for many languages, and frequency lists are readily found on the internet. Spaced repetition has been shown to be a highly effective method for memorization. There are spaced-repetition system (SRS) software programs available to automate this process, including the open-source Anki. There are even vocabulary frequency-list "flashcard decks" (including audio) for various languages. Khaztumoto (mentioned below) developed the "10,000 Sentences" SRS method, which intuitively teaches grammar in addition to vocabulary. This method requires daily dedication, collecting interesting sentences and reviewing them. With your new vocabulary, keep striving for deeper and more involved conversations! STEP 6. READING-WRITING Once you have a strong auditory ability the language, the next way to expand your vocabulary and grammatical understanding is to read. And read. And read. First and most importantly, find reading material on the subjects that you are most interested in. Again, with the internet, your options are endless in nearly every language. Keep a good dictionary and a reliable grammar reference on hand. Once your vocabulary has reached a certain threshold (perhaps mastery of the 3,000 most-frequent words), transition to monolingual reference books. Finally, writing. The most fun and easy way is to email and chat with your native speaker friends. Again, ask them to please correct your mistakes and be grateful to them for doing so! Here are three important factors to consider when learning a language: MOTIVATION A big factor is your own motivation and consistency in practicing the language. When you self-direct your study of a foreign language, or any skill, you need to make the effort to show up every day, to stay engaged. Even when you're highly motivated, at times you will feel sick of the foreign language. Just take the small step of showing up consistently, and you'll continue building your ability. The best way to maintain your motivation with a foreign language is to develop relationships with people you care about that speak that language. It's even more effective if they can't speak your language. My motivation was to spend a significant amount of time in Latin America, to get closer to the people and the culture. Because of this, the process of learning, even the failures and awkward times, was a joy. IMMERSION (AVOID English) The best way to immerse yourself is to live in the foreign country. My own rate of learning went way up when I avoided English and stayed immersed with native speakers, especially my true friends that I really wanted to communicate with. In a foreign country, you are constantly exposed to the language passively, as well as often finding yourself new, challenging situations that help you learn. What if you can't be in a foreign country? Nowadays, it's possible to immerse yourself in a foreign language using technology and the internet. Online radio, podcasts, music, TV shows, movies, online language exchanges, even changing your computer's main language are some of the ways to surround yourself with a new language. An inspiring example of immersion outside a foreign country is Khatzumoto of All Japanese All The Time, who taught himself Japanese outside of his U.S. college studies in 18 months, to the point of completing a job interview in that language and winning a job in Japan. CHALLENGE Always seek out new challenges that take you outside your comfort zone in the foreign language. Without striving beyond your current abilities, you won't be able to improve. Do language-related things that intimidate you. Try more and more complex tasks. This could reach the level of speaking in front of a native audience or even holding a job in which you are required to speak the language. Always meeting new people, having conversations with medical doctors and university professors, as well as regular people on the street, gave me the confidence to talk to nearly anyone. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6501 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 15 03 April 2011 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
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There is a lot of common sense and good advice in your first message here. My main quibble with it is the late introduction of the written language - far too late in my opinion. For some of us conversation is NOT the core of any language, for the simple reason that we will have few chances to speak a number of our languages. So in practice we will spend more time on passive activities like reading and listening than on active ones, and we may even be spending more time on the written language than on the spoken one - especially those of us who study without following a regular course with a teacher.
Of course you can't read without knowing how a language is pronounced (unless you treat it as some kind of abstract combinatorial exercise ), but written sources combined with the use of wordbooks are ideal for acquisition of vocabulary, and close scrutiny of grammatical constructions is also much easier to perform on written sources than on spoken ones. Furthermore the correspondance between sounds and spelling is in most languages closer than it is in English, which makes it both easy and safe to use the written sources from the beginning. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6155 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 15 03 April 2011 at 6:16am | IP Logged | ||
I've been harping about this on this forum for years now, so don't take this personally! People often tell beginners to listen to hours and hours of the target language to "get the rhythm of it." I think that would be a waste of time for beginners. You correctly mention in your Step 2 that Pimsleur lets you hear and mimic native speakers. (The same holds for FSI, Assimil and other good courses) So why waste time listening to high-speed incomprehensible gibberish as Step 1? For sure, a beginner will not be able to understand it at all or reproduce it at all, so why not get right down to a good course and start learning something? I could listen to Eddie VanHalen play guitar for 8 hours a day for a year, but I wouldn't be able to play a single note until I pick up a guitar and learn to play. After one is somewhat established in learning a new language, a lot of passive (active?) listening is good for understanding the spoken language. Nice write-up though, and welcome to the forum. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| CS Groupie United States Joined 4926 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Latin, French | Message 5 of 15 03 April 2011 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||
I find the use of IPA transcriptions for French words and phrases in combination with exposure to spoken French invaluable. I also remember being pleasantly surprised by finding a Teach Yourself Catalan book with IPA transcriptions. Edited by CS on 03 April 2011 at 3:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| elarsen21 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4783 days ago 7 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 6 of 15 04 April 2011 at 12:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for your comments so far! This is a great community.
Iversen: You make a very good point about those learning a language with more emphasis on reading/writing. Certainly translators, academics, and learners of rare languages will emphasize the written form far more. I admit to having much less experience in reading/writing than in listening/speaking. I began learning Spanish with an intense desire for spoken conversations and to not have a "gringo" accent. :) For this reason, I place a strong (perhaps overly strong) focus on the auditory sense first. TerryW / vacatiolegis: I really believe that "ear training" makes a difference. It allows for auditory self-correction. In the case of learning guitar, if you have developed a keen sense of how a note sounds, you can quickly make adjustments -- "re-tune" -- as necessary. But you are absolutely right, learning does not really begin until you act. Developing your ear is more of a tool to make self-corrections to sound like a native speaker when you do speak. Passive listening is helpful throughout the process in addition to "active" learning. It can be done in a very relaxed state-- with no pressure to perform. By itself it will not bring huge leaps in ability, but will continue "tuning" the auditory sense. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6501 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 15 04 April 2011 at 9:39am | IP Logged | ||
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You don't need to understand a spoken specimen completely in order to listen for word boundaries and for the exact pronunciation of certain sounds - actually trying too hard to understand everybody has the effect that you stop listening while you think about the meaning, and then the whole purpose of doing eartraining is lost.
Instead you should set yourself some goals for your listening. Unorganized passive listening without a clear purpose is a complete waste of time. For instance you can take a written text with audio and then listen closely to the vowels or to the r's or something else. That is an exercise in listening, but its primary goal is of course to give you a better foundation for your own language production. Or you can do what I call "listening like a bloodhound follows a trail", i.e. ignore the meaning completely, but just try to follow the trail of syllables, words and phrases. Maybe you already know some of the words, and then their meaning will pop up in your mind in some form, and the better you know the language the greater the chance that you actually understand the meaning of the speech - but that's not the purpose. The purpose is to train yourself in not getting lost. And at a later stage where you more or less understand the meaning you can do the third kind of listening: you can listen for the 'language melody'. In this case you cannot ignore the meaning because the prosody is intimately tied to the speaker's intentions. But having the right kind of melody is important if you want to sound vaguely as a native speaker. And finally: when you already understand a language you can go back to the 'lower level' listening and listen to the things different native speakers actually say, and then you can get a comprehensive picture of dialects, sociolects, current fads and even individual idiosyncracies. But trying to listen for meaning AND form at the same time is one thing too much. If language learners including immigrants would sometimes drop the idea that you only listen for the meaning then you wouldn't have those pathetic cases where people have lived in a country for thirty years and still sound like complete foreigners. And no, my own pronunciation in different languages doesn't live up to all this - my focus is too much on the written language, and I listen far too little to many of my languages because I find most kinds of content utterly boring. Edited by Iversen on 04 April 2011 at 9:41am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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