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Glossika Mass Sentence Method...thoughts?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
ihoop
Newbie
United States
Joined 4622 days ago

29 posts - 66 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 1 of 7
15 December 2013 at 10:43am | IP Logged 
Hi all,

I am an America who has been studying Mandarin for a bit over a year now. I have done
most of the FSI course and am quite happy with my progress....I can express ideas, but
I really want my Chinese speaking to reach a new level. I just want to be relaxed when
speaking Chinese with others and to have the confidence of speaking relatively
fluently.

As someone living in Taiwan I have heard a lot about Mike Campbell's sentence method.
He recently produced a couple courses for Chinese that supposedly "train" sentences to
give one greater ability of expression in Chinese. I have not bought any of the
courses yet, but I am certainly interested. His method seems to make sense...
Basically, you practice a couple hundred sentences each day and through this you
acquire new vocabulary, gain an "intuitive" sense of grammar, and gain greater
confidence when speaking.

I believe that fluency in a language comes from a combination of being able to form
complete thoughts in the target language along with having the necessary muscle memory
to get these thoughts out of your mouth correctly, so to speak...

Any thoughts on this kind of method? It is quite interesting and very different from a
lot of other methods. If anyone has done anything like this before I would love to
hear about it. I should also add that I am in no way affiliated with this company, I
am just truly curious about this method of language learning.

Thanks for reading!

-Ian
3 persons have voted this message useful



eyðimörk
Triglot
Senior Member
France
goo.gl/aT4FY7
Joined 4111 days ago

490 posts - 1158 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French
Studies: Breton, Italian

 
 Message 2 of 7
15 December 2013 at 11:37am | IP Logged 
How does this differ from Assimil, FSI or studying (reading, listening) native materials? Other than the fact that Assimil and FSI are often present sentences as a dialogue. I think I'm missing some crucial information about this method. It just sounds like, well, your average ‘study at home’ course. That's by no means a bad thing. On the contrary. I love adding new material of this type to my studying repertoire. I don't think I'd pay for a course like that, though, if that's what it is, since I am able to find plenty of material like this anyway (even in a small and endangered language like Breton) and money is always an issue.
1 person has voted this message useful



luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7217 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 3 of 7
15 December 2013 at 12:48pm | IP Logged 
I have never studied a language as difficult as Mandarin, but I too think at your level, finding some genre of books that appeals to you would be the way to get massive sentence input without the drudgery of doing one sentence at a time.

From reading the AJATT blogs a while back, it seemed that he was interested in positive thinking and success books, which is one of the easier genres once you are accustomed to it. Personally, I like philosophical and idea realated books, which, once one is accustomed to the language, seem easier than, for instance, novels.

I think at your level, the best thing to do is pursue your interests.
2 persons have voted this message useful



AML
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6837 days ago

323 posts - 426 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 7
16 December 2013 at 10:32pm | IP Logged 
ihoop wrote:
Hi all,

I am an America who has been studying Mandarin for a bit over a year now. I have done
most of the FSI course and am quite happy with my progress....I can express ideas, but
I really want my Chinese speaking to reach a new level. I just want to be relaxed when
speaking Chinese with others and to have the confidence of speaking relatively
fluently.

As someone living in Taiwan I have heard a lot about Mike Campbell's sentence method.
He recently produced a couple courses for Chinese that supposedly "train" sentences to
give one greater ability of expression in Chinese. I have not bought any of the
courses yet, but I am certainly interested. His method seems to make sense...
Basically, you practice a couple hundred sentences each day and through this you
acquire new vocabulary, gain an "intuitive" sense of grammar, and gain greater
confidence when speaking.

I believe that fluency in a language comes from a combination of being able to form
complete thoughts in the target language along with having the necessary muscle memory
to get these thoughts out of your mouth correctly, so to speak...

Any thoughts on this kind of method? It is quite interesting and very different from a
lot of other methods. If anyone has done anything like this before I would love to
hear about it. I should also add that I am in no way affiliated with this company, I
am just truly curious about this method of language learning.

Thanks for reading!

-Ian


I have not bought or used his course(s), but I follow his YouTube channel and have watched many of his videos, including the one's about the mass sentence method. My general understanding of
the method
is that it's all about massive exposure - seeing words used in many contexts (via lots of example sentences) and reviewing these sentences many many times (usually out loud). I think there is a
considerable writing component involved as well. This is the video where he reviews his general method.

I like his ideas because it fits well with the concepts of how skill is created (not just being born with a certain skill or talent). Read the book called
"The Talent Code" for more on the concepts of myelin and generating skill (language is a skill) pathways.

If I studied Chinese, I'd probably be pretty excited about his stuff and would definitely give his materials a shot. Give it a try and let us know!

edit: fixed link

Edited by AML on 16 December 2013 at 11:54pm

5 persons have voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4880 days ago

1181 posts - 1912 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 5 of 7
16 December 2013 at 11:56pm | IP Logged 
I used to study audio sentences with unknown words and expression via SRS. I just took them from intermediate study materials. I listened to the sentence, repeated it out loud once, looked at the text and then decided whether I knew the unknown words I had marked with colours. I did this with around 300 or 400 sentences, I think. It definitely helped with listening comprehension, some with production (I mimicked patterns from these sentence in conversation) and also proved to be a good way to learn vocabulary embedded in context. I eventually got tired of remembering random snippets of Korean all throughout the day - this kind of studying is quite intensive. It was like having multiple songs stuck in your head (this would set in on the 3rd or 4th day of repeating a particular sentence). Even with these side effects, this method will be my main strategy for learning Persian because it simply works so well.

What I'm trying to say is: Yes, it probably works for you, but you probably don't need to strictly follow a particular method of studying sentences and also don't have to buy anything to get the benefits. Actually, choosing your own sentences might be more beneficial because they have more of a personal connection to you - you met them in some materials, in a bigger context and decided to study them, which I think helps to hook them in your memory.

Edited by druckfehler on 17 December 2013 at 12:03am

3 persons have voted this message useful



osoymar
Tetraglot
Pro Member
United States
Joined 4748 days ago

190 posts - 344 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese
Studies: Spanish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 6 of 7
17 December 2013 at 6:58pm | IP Logged 
I followed this plan for about a week... okay, maybe more like five days. It seemed
really helpful for production, especially with vocabulary that I would be likely to
actually use.

But as others have mentioned, it is pretty low on the fun scale. I also ran into some
technological frustration- all the dictation apps I've found have problems determining
the correct volume to record at, leaving parts of the recordings inaudible.

I think if I were to start again, I would focus mostly just on reading out loud, and only
listening to some of the recordings to check for pronunciation difficulties. And it would
have to be for a language I'm really motivated to learn!
2 persons have voted this message useful



js6426
Diglot
Senior Member
Cambodia
Joined 4532 days ago

277 posts - 349 votes 
Speaks: English*, Khmer
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 7 of 7
21 December 2013 at 7:55am | IP Logged 
I bought this for the appointments module and tried it. It was incredibly boring and I had to message Glossika to
point out mistakes on a number of different occassions. There are differences between the audio and the simplified
transcript, which he claims is because the way they say things in the mainland is different to the way they do in
Taiwan, where they use traditional characters. This is a valid point, but if I am doing the method then what use is it
for me to read the characters and read a different pronunciation to the audio file. You can't download any of it
which means you have to be online to use it. The sentences are all incredibly similar also. I stopped midway
through and just mined vocab that I didn't know. It is a very tedious process to go through day after day, and it just
wasn't for me. I wouldn't buy this again at all.


3 persons have voted this message useful



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