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How do you learn best? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5318 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 22 19 April 2012 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
Fossilization seems to be a pretty complex phenomenon. - Some students will fossilize quickly at a pidgin-like level, especially if they dislike using a language or have little need for it. - The number of fossilized errors is apparently influenced by "social distance" from native speakers. - Many adults will never get a decade of full-time, round-the-clock immersion in their second tongue. But there is one group with zero social distance from native speakers, and decades of continuous immersion in their second language: Spouses who use it at home and at work. And given enough time, many of them will attain virtually native spoken grammar, and their vocabulary will be limited only by their reading. But I'm impatient, so I don't rely entirely on immersion to deal with fossils. At least for me, it's far more efficient to have somebody point out that I have no clue how to use the French partitive article correctly, find a grammar book, and start noticing it in my input. But to borrow a gardening metaphor, this is basically weeding, and the plants still grow by themselves. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4777 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 22 19 April 2012 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I like to learn languages with a tutor, which doesn't mean that he/she necessarily needs
to be a teacher. I check vocabulary and grammar alone, and while speaking, reading and listening I learn most of the "soul" of a language.
My offer to you: If you'd like to practise German, you can write me a PM to have a chat via Skype. Let me know, if I can help in any way. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5120 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 22 19 April 2012 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
PM coming up!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4422 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 12 of 22 19 April 2012 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Learning from context. Assimil, books, news sites, songs, etc
For me, it depends if I like learning in a classroom or not. For example, I love learning French in university, but I also took German at the same time. I decided to focus on French, so because of that, I hate German because I don't pay attention to it outside of the classroom and I study for tests the day before and we are going over grammar I don't know because I don't focus on it. It's sort of my fault but whatever. :P 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Superking Diglot Groupie United States polyglutwastaken.blo Joined 6429 days ago 87 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 22 19 April 2012 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Having successfully learned one foreign language, I definitely have a style that is much more well defined and recognizeable for me than it was the first time around.
I love textbooks. I was sort of randomly strolling through Mandarin before I obtained my first textbook, or I felt that way even though I learned a substantial amount. It's been an anchor for me, as the physical act of writing still does wonders for my recall. As I continue to bolster the grammatical skeleton of my knowledge of Mandarin, I find myself making the same wildly unscientific comparison every time I think about it. Imagine taking a glue-covered sheet of paper and dipping it in glitter. A lot of it is going to stick, but some may fall off. Add more glue, or make a second pass with the paper and some more will stick. You're always throwing more at it than will be able to stick permanently in one go, but some sticks. Some always sticks, and you never lose what does stick. I find myself learning Mandarin that way. I'll learn 20-30 words by writing them out, studying them intensively, and through repeated use I'll master 5-10. Fair enough -- I now know 10 more words, and my mental database is that much better for it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4654 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 14 of 22 19 April 2012 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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emk, if I could vote for your post 10 times I would. That was extremely illuminating for me. It makes sense that social distance and time in immersion with native speakers plays a huge part and it certainly does in my example. Thanks!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4493 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 15 of 22 20 April 2012 at 1:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just need to speak and use languages. I think the kicker is exposure. You can learn the grammar in x amount of time but the real thing is exposing yourself to the influence and putting yourself out there in the situation where you have nothing to rely on but the language you're speaking. If you have a basic modicum of knowledge, this'll get you there eventually.
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6383 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 16 of 22 20 April 2012 at 1:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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I learn best on my own because things have to matter to me. I detest the thought of having to learn by heart or copy by hand something that isn't worth it, that isn't special.
Music is a part of language learning for me, just like grammar or shadowing is. I'm also addicted to AJATT-style natural learning, though I love grammar. I love figuring things out naturally, on my own. In fact, I'm not sure I'd do well in an immersion situation. I'm an introvert and presuming I'd even go somewhere to learn the local language... I'd learn most by watching TV (especially football in sport bars!), reading the papers and listening to music and to what people say around me. Though my ideal route is listening a lot -> listening fluency -> reading a lot -> reading fluency + some writing -> writing fluency -> shadowing -> spoken fluency My strategy also depends on the language. Ironically, my first attempt at using the sentences method was with Esperanto, and I dropped it soon. Esperanto is an agglutinating language and it's almost as logical as Finnish so there was no need for this... but the Romance languages are a completely different story. I hate what they did to the Latin grammar :D Basically, for me the main problem with the formal study of Indo-European grammar is that almost every single textbook is supposed to be used by those learning their first foreign language, or at most the second after English. I don't need anyone holding my hand, I don't need most of the explanations out there. Another essential thing is reading short informal texts written by native speakers - previously at forums, now on twitter. Edited by Serpent on 20 April 2012 at 1:15am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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