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The Ultimate Accelerated Learning Exp. ! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5173 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 73 of 200 13 April 2011 at 4:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
If you present an idea publicly and it contradicts common sense, expect it to be challenged and met with skepticism. The onus is then on you to demonstrate your point. Asking you to do so is not a sign of agressivity, it's plain common sense. Abazid is looking for magical ways to avoid the hard work involved in learning languages and I believe in earnest that he will fail. He deserves to be told. While I have concluded that he will fail, what I believe is irrelevant. Ultimately, it's the results that will speak. Stating that no results can change my mind is rather arrogant on your part as I've clearly stated that I'm awaiting his results. In turn, I ask you: has your desire and Abazid's desire that these magical work-arounds be real fueled your propension to believe it? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 4940 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 74 of 200 13 April 2011 at 5:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Arekkusu,
I have no answer to your question, as I have no desire for any "magical" work-around substitute, and neither would I recommend or sponsor a 61-hour brain wash. If you believe I ever stated "no results can change" your mind, you either read incorrectly or you did not read all details I have communicated. This is exactly what I meant by your attitude affecting your ability to acquire information :) Good luck with that! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5803 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 75 of 200 13 April 2011 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
My personal experience agrees with you. I've taken classes and I've done self-study. On an intensive course, I can work productively for a full day, and still do evening activities in the language. In general, I find it hard to give 100% attention to even one Pimsleur lesson. I generally need to be doing something else to keep at it (walking, travelling, washing dishes). The longest all-audio session I've ever done was half the Michel Thomas German Foundation in a morning. But I started in the flat, went out for a walk by the sea and through the town, then went home and lay on the sofa half asleep but still pausing and muttering answers to myself. I didn't remember much. Although it wasn't bad -- it was quite relaxing and after that my Spanish and Gaelic were the best they've ever been. (Weird -- linguistic "cross training" perhaps?) I don't know what would have happened if I'd gone back to the course soon after -- I was living in the Basque Country at the time, so German wasn't a priority. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tmp011007 Diglot Senior Member Congo Joined 5861 days ago 199 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese | Message 76 of 200 13 April 2011 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
common sense?.. that reminds me of this: "whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect" samuel langhorne clemens (mark twain)
magical ways? you mean like uri geller's or james randy ones? "hard work" means that you have to put forth effort in order to get something done?.. yeah, it's true and yeah, it's not that true.. sometimes effort, sometimes time.. sometimes both of them.. sometimes "lucidity" (sorry queensryche lyrics xD) btw those "tricks", the ones Abazid is trying to test, consume effort too. somehow, according to this hard works def, hard work is implied
oh yeah, we're still waiting Edited by tmp011007 on 13 April 2011 at 6:57pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5173 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 77 of 200 13 April 2011 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
And just how did you conclude that I didn't pause and reflect? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| carlonove Senior Member United States Joined 5778 days ago 145 posts - 253 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 78 of 200 13 April 2011 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I wonder what Mark Twain thought about brainwashing.
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| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6442 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 79 of 200 16 April 2011 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Any word on results/findings yet?
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| Abazid Diglot Newbie Egypt Joined 4809 days ago 16 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Arabic (Egyptian)*, English Studies: Russian | Message 80 of 200 16 April 2011 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Update :
Where to begin ?! This was full of surprises , And way harder than I thought it would be ! WARNING :This is going to be a long post Lets begin with my initial skills with Russian as a reference before doing this : Listening: zero , Sounded like a bunch of gibberish raspy voices . Speaking : zero , Couldn't utter one word . Reading: Zero , language looked like a code or sth . Writing: zero Just before the Exp. : The day before starting with the experiment , I had a feeling that I should learn the Russian alphabet quickly before starting with it , So I looked around for mnemonics for the alphabet and then when I found them , It was real easy to memorize their shapes & their pronunciation , And that interactive mnemonic exercise showed me that Russian could be way more fun than I expected it to be (Most say it's hard) , So I was curious & intrigued , And certainly this helped give me a push way more than I expected later on . I already set up my Mp3 player & my pc as well , got everything arranged to avoid losing time , And sleep-programmed myself into retaining & understanding the info in my exp. for future use . The Exp: I woke up at Tuesday about 3 am , Very enthusiastic , And then I started with MT foundations 8 hr course . I really loved the teacher & the students pace & attitude(I had to look at their video to get a mental image of them to stop thinking how they all looked like Video) , And it was a very active type of learning coz I was repeatedly testing myself throughout in layers, What I didn't put into account though was , That I paused the tracks so many times throughout , To think an answer , Maybe rewind a bit that I wanted to understand..etc , Which made the course take WAY more than I expected it to take . It took about 2.5 the time I thought it would (Also took more time along with 10 min breaks e.g ritual prayer) The first 8-10 hours passed by real fast and I was having fun with it , Yet I thought I never spent that much time concentrating on doing one thing in a so collected way unless it was an emergency like an exam or sth and I was beginning to feel a lil bit tired , But I thought that I want to continue with this to see where it goes . I avoided all types of food that induced sleep like Milk & Cheese , And kept taking in more & more coffe , They helped a little bit in the beginning but were of no use later . At the 13-14th hour mark , Sitting down on my pc while listening would make me feel sleepy , More like "why don't you go take a nap or sth ?!" So I had to walk all over the place while listening and sit for a little while to avoid feeling like that , And more coffe . At the 18-20 hr mark ,My understanding & concentration were still working okay but I losing more & more of it , I was getting more & more tired , And what kept me up was walking around & physical exercise (coffe was no use now) , If I sat down it means that SURE enough I would get into micro-sleeps/passouts , So I sticked to this , Which was REAL hard that I even thought of not doing this and getting some sleep, But I was determined to continue . At the mark of 23-24 hour , I was at the last cd , Listening to the last tracks , I was dead tired , Very very sleepy , I almost completely lost my focus , I had to rewind a track about 3-4 times to understand it and I'd feel there was time slips (lost time) , And even walking seems to have no effect in waking me up , It was more of a struggle at this time to wake up , But I felt a great sense of achievement coz I understood & retained most of the information and I was becoming real good at making sentences slowly but correctly . And something clicked , I felt a fulfilling inspiring & enlightening sense of favorable language saturation as I've been listening to them for about 18 hours and I've gotten so used to the terms & way of talking , That it seemed very natural for me to say them now . At the 25th hour , My vision turned hazy & very sleepy , And I had micro-sleeps even when I was walking , And mainly I was sleep-walking ,I wanted to sleep SO badly, That I passed out and slept on my sofa !? 30 mins later , My mother woke me up , I felt that I basically failed the experiment , But I was really surprised coz normally when I spent time of my computer I was capable of spending much more time and not feeling that sleepy so fast , But I realize now that It's because there was no visual stimulation and no instructors . I also realized that If I was listening to a "Repeat after me" type of programs that are WAY less active & communicative than MT , I would have felt WAY sleepy earlier . I thought that I've learned and knew a lot and it would be a loss if I didn't continue as I was too invested with the 25 hrs I already spent and it was only about 30 mins, So I had a "Whatever it takes" type of attitude . 2 hours of repeating about 3 tracks many times and micro-sleeping through many parts of it and repeating it again to see what I've missed (I should have just let it play) . Obviously , I passed out again on my bed and slept for what seemed to feel like years( about 4-5 hours) and woke up at about 4 pm . I thought what the heck , I will still continue until I finish MT 3 levels at least but I'll try to use more means of keeping myself awake this time , More physical exercise , More coffe ,Cold water..etc , Whatever as I continue with the materials (I realized that I'll have to drop Pimsleur and ONLY stick to Michel Thomas for now coz it seemed to take a LOT more time than I expected ) . I started listening to the tracks that I repeated so many times and didn't get once , But this time they were so easy to understand & to listen to , That I finished these last tracks in the foundation so fast . At that point I've already canceled Pimsleur out , And started thinking whether I repeat the Foundation course or continue with the Advanced , I felt that I should go with the Advanced , And I was right . All the basics I've learned through the Foundations were reinforced so strongly and I became capable of making up sentences WAY faster & more natural than before even in complex sentences ( I had to think of the mnemonics Natasha mentioned to remember in the foundations) , But the Advanced opened up many more structures that I understood , But I felt like that they needed more exercises to reinforce them . This time I was capable of spending more than 24 hours with more wakefulness & concentration . from about 9 pm until about 12 am the second day (I paused the audio more than the foundations course , More complex), I was done with the advanced course , I basically went through similar cycles but I did more physical exercise , more strong coffe , sometimes checked the forum around here all in my 10 mins , And that seemed to keep me up more , Still my concentration was going down as time passed . At the end of it , The foundations stuck real good inside my head and the advanced took my skills to the next level , But I also though whether I should do it again or go through the vocab level . I thought that I should go through the Vocab course and like the Advanced did with the foundations , I'm sure it will cement the Advanced as it becomes more complex . At the time ,I reached the deteriorated level of concentration I've reached during my first day . The Vocab level had 2 different students and they were REALLY faster & skilled than the previous ones that seemed to be slow & beginners , And with my delayed concentration , It was a struggle to pause the audio like so many times to try to figure out what were these words they were saying so fast , At the rate , I thought "Less" of my russian skills , Maybe I needed to cement my Advanced level by listening to it once more . But I persisted , I decided to revise what I already knew , I will write down everything I remember so far from both of my courses in a mind map , And then go through the user guides for both levels and correct what wasn't correct . And so I did , And found I remember many things , But also wasn't capable of coming up with all of them on the spot . After revising the guides , It was about 8 pm now , I decided that It's now time to go through the vocab course whatever it takes to understand it . I still had the same experience of having a hard time understanding them as they spoke real fast and made up Very complex sentences for me , So I still did the same , But took notes this time to help me every time I paused . I did this for about 3 hours , finished the first CD of four with understanding but with a LOT of effort coz At the time I was losing all concentration again & starting to feel more sleepy . And then when I got into the 2nd one , I couldn't do ALL this thinking anymore , So I did what was supposed to be the aim of the experiment unknowingly lol . I stopped thinking or trying to answer , And just listened to the CD and then half the other . I was getting WAY too sleepy , I was at the 33 hour mark and was getting many micro-sleeps , I went to pray , And then continued for more into the 3rd CD , At that time I reached the sleep-walking stage again , Hazy vision , DYING to sleep , At the time it was 8 am , About 38 hours . And I was pissed I didn't finish the rest of the Vocab course . BAM , My body forced me to pass out again on bed . 4 hours later , I thought "LOL , This is the second time and I didn't even finish the 3rd level" , But then I was thankful later that this happened later , When I decided to finish the course anyway . When I listened to the 3rd CD in the vocab course I was amazed , This time I was capable of listening to the fast & complex sentences of the students and the teacher with ease & understanding as if I knew them , And I was also real fast with sentence creation that I felt that most of the information in the advanced course were also cemented as I progressed into the last cd . This made me think that at the time that I only listened to the information without thinking many of it were added to long term memory that my understanding of them was so efficient. I finished it completely at about 1 am that day , And the end felt that I was capable now of making way more complex words and If I was in Russia as a tourist I'd be able to manage through pretty well . After calculating how much it all took , It all spanned about 72 hours as a total but not connected though (25+38+9) I do think that I'll need to re-listen to the Vocab level once more coz there was a lot of words (1000 and more in the user guide) and lots of exercises . I spent about 3 years in school learning french and I don't remember much of it ,Yet I feel that I know more about Russian WAY more than I know about french , I think it's the saturation and exposure to a lot of material & exercise that could be the reason . Current Russian skills : Listening: Intermediate , I could recognize & understand words in native convos that don't have complex & sophisticated vocab . Speaking: Intermediate , I could speak and pronounce the language correctly and express myself when I need to , But I still need lots more vocabulary to fill the gaps. Reading :Beginner , I could now read the language through my learning of the alphabet and merging it with my listening experience , To work out meanings . Writing: Beginner , I could write based on what I listened to using my knowledge of the vocab but definitely BAD spelling . Currently I changed my windows language into paroski to add more vocab and make my reading better , And downloaded many dual language novels along with movies to start practicing more & more of it . Was this all worth it ??? Are you kidding me , Definitely , I never thought I could be able to speak a language & understand this fast , And I realized that I WASTE TOO MUCH TIME on BS , By messing so many things at the same time instead of doing only one thing with complete focus , And so yes even though I failed the main experiment guidelines , I gained a LOT . I think that the effect of brainwashing was reinforced the 2nd time when I couldn't keep up and just listened , TO find out the second day that I could keep up and understand REAL good , I don't think that it only has to do with deteriorated concentration because of the fact that my listening skills improved two-fold & my vocab recognition as well . Also , It seems to me that the time needed for each person to reach that state of no-thinking differs from one person to the next according to his body . And yes even though it was REAL hard , It was lots of fun as well !? Cheers Edited by Abazid on 16 April 2011 at 5:13pm 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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