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How would you study languages in prison? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| oldearth Groupie United States Joined 4689 days ago 72 posts - 173 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 1 of 25 21 March 2014 at 10:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a prison pen pal who has expressed interest in taking up the study of languages. My friend is doing 10+
years in a maximum security facility, with several hours each day to kill alone in his cell. He is allowed up to 15 books at a time, but lets call it 10 to allow for a few non-language books on hand. This person doesn't have a college diploma, but worked in a technical field before going behind bars and is experienced in persevering while teaching himself tricky technical material. Obviously this person has no access to computers, audio, video, SRS systems, or other multimedia. There are Spanish-speaking people inside with him he can eavesdrop on, but racial tensions are high and opportunities for conversational language exchange would be very limited. Under these circumstances, what language would you choose? What languages besides Spanish have simple enough pronunciation that they could be profitably studied with only textual materials? If you have specific methodological tips or suggestions for these circumstances, I will pass those on as well. But with 10,000 hours to devote and minimal distractions, I don't think the choice of method makes much difference. If he catches the language bug, I think he could pick up a very high reading level of several languages in that time. A secondary question would be which materials to suggest as a starting place. Right now my thinking is: 1) Assimil (without audio) 2) Teach Yourself (without audio) 3) A big dictionary with good example sentences 4-6) A couple workbooks (Big Red Book of X series maybe) to build specific grammar skills and vocab. 7) A good novel in English 8) A translation of the novel into L2 The things in this list provide a mix of comprehensible input type resources and active practice. I don't personally make much use of workbooks, but I would if I didn't have any other way to get feedback. What do you guys think? To recap the constraints here, how would you proceed with:
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| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4152 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 25 21 March 2014 at 11:06am | IP Logged | ||
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It's not so good that he can't have audio.
Spanish has several advantages: it could be useful in his years after prison, and he already knows how it sounds. A dictionary A grammar Assimil, or FSI if you can print it for him. Maybe some newspapers he can practice on. 10 years of study can turn you into a real scholar. I hope the tensions you mention will not couse him a problem, about learning Spanish I mean. Also he could try to get some education in the technical field he has some experience in, or try any other path. Is that possible, to get a diploma, degree etc while in prison? Because if so he should really consider it. Also, a degree in languages is a nice goal. Something to work for and keep his motivation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6999 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 25 21 March 2014 at 11:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Ten years in maximum security is a very tough situation.
If he thinks learning a language will help him while he in prison, he might choose Spanish because of the phonetic pronunciation and the opportunity to hear it. If the goal is general education to help him when he gets out, I'd be inclined to stick to English and steadily read challenging books (Great Books). As his time to release approaches, he might start reading more "practical" books, such as business or technology. Those books will be easy after a diet of the classics. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| leroc Senior Member United States Joined 4105 days ago 114 posts - 167 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 4 of 25 21 March 2014 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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He should learn Latin. He wouldn't need audio and could focus on studying. It would also open up a whole range of literature he could read during his sentence.
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| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4430 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 5 of 25 21 March 2014 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just because he wouldn't necessarily have a chance to speak with other inmates, I still think he should learn Spanish. It's phonetic, chances are they'll have a lot of books in Spanish because of the other inmates, and like you said he could eavesdrop. Other than that, there's always Italian, German, and Latin.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6497 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 6 of 25 21 March 2014 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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As reading materials I would suggest a very thick book with a translation (it doesn't have to be Harry Potter, but with just 10 books at any time it would be stupid to choose thin books) - maybe an anthology of some kind, plus of course a dictionary with pronunciation directives and examples. Just a simple grammar in the beginning.
It is a problem if there isn't anything to listen to, and if he isn't on so friendly terms with other inmates that they would accept to speak to him in his target language, but then he would just have to concentrate on the written language in the beginning. It can be done, as I know from my own studies - including those that took place before the internet. As for the choice of language: In the USA Spanish would of course be the logical choice: lots of materials to choose from, a pronunciation which is relatively predictable from the spelling and many speakers outside the prison. And it might also be seen as less weird than for instance Latin or Esperanto by other inmates, which could be a relevant factor if he doesn't want to jeopardize his status in that specific subculture. Just reading books there might give him a problem. Edited by Iversen on 21 March 2014 at 2:34pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5326 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 25 21 March 2014 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||
I've mentioned this story before, and of course Egyptian isn't a practical language by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a great story of somebody successfully learning a language in prison:
It's a pretty interesting story, and it discusses his study methods briefly. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5227 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 8 of 25 21 March 2014 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, truth be told, variations of this situation have been a vicarious fantasy of mine--alone for years with nothing but my books to keep me company. However, knowing someone is facing this for real makes me feel guilty for imagining it might be a desirable situation.
Which language(s) to choose From the comments thus far, the two biggest criteria appear to be: 1. can develop decent pronunciation without audio and 2. as an aid for life post-prison. As to the latter, being able to tell a potential employer, etc. that "I spent that time improving myself by learning X" where X is any sufficiently impressive endeavor, is the goal--so it almost doesn't matter what the X actually is. Although, Spanish might actually be counter-productive in this regard because, assuming he is incarcerated in the US, Spanish has a negative stigma and is associated with low social class and lack of education. (Not my opinion of course, just how I see the situation.) If the intent is to impress, he should pick something with greater prestige. If racial tensions exist, German too might be out of the question. (Neo-Nazi prison gangs are a common TV cliche in the US. Maybe that's ridiculous, but I'm sure some people would think it.) So, regarding pronunciation. Spanish and Italian are both very phonetic and regular. Classical languages like Latin and ancient Greek have little demands for speaking or listening skills. However, I wonder if we're being overly dismissive of the usefulness of phonetic transcriptions. After all, it wasn't all that long ago that folks made due with them. Assimil, Berlitz Self-Teachers, and other materials do include these. Although not ideal, they are probably good enough for many languages, especially given his situation. Which materials As such, I'd recommend a course that includes copious phonetic helps. Second, it would need to be pleasantly and efficaciously repeatable. Both of these requirements exclude most of the Teach Yourself books I've seen. I'd probably prefer courses that focus on reading proficiency like the "X For Reading" books, Lingua Latina, Reading Latin, Reading Greek, and the like along with Assimil for the more colloquial language. Workbooks are nice in theory (because of the answer keys), but I wonder if they would be worth more than one pass, whereas you could always make your own grammar and vocab drills using sentences from a dictionary or novel. It also depends a bit on how frequently he can exchange books. If exchange is difficult, it would suck to be stuck with a book that can't be effectively reused. I'd prefer to work through harder native content with a good dictionary multiple times instead, but then again I'm not new to language learning and maybe this approach isn't good for beginners. If he is religious or doesn't mind religious content, the Bible is nice and big. It also has the benefit of being widely available even in prisons and generally uncriticizable as a pasttime, not to mention that religious study (even if insincere, for lack of a better word) has certain privileges, including people outside willing to give you books and the fact that it is a commonly viewed "rehabilitation" path. This would probably be my route in this situation with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and I am an atheist (granted, one who loves ancient history). Methods What's the writing situation like? Are notebooks considered books? If feasible and necessary, I would use the scriptorium technique quite a lot which would result in my own copies of some books which I could keep and reread after I had exchanged the original book. If you are intending to send your pen pal some resources, I would be willing to chip in. PM me if so. 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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