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Benefits of failing to learn a language | ||
Tags: dropping a Language | Brain | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6393 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 33 of 38 28 July 2014 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Nah, it's just that nobody showed him Assimil, French in action, lyricstraining, GLOSS and Anki/Memrise :D
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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5328 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 38 28 July 2014 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, I know almost nothing about Mr Alexander's particular case—he wrote a very short article and he didn't include a lot of details. In general, though, I think a lot of people fail for a few common reasons: 1. They give up way too soon. 2. They don't get enough comprehensible input. 3. They have no need to actually use the language, and they don't create any need. For somebody like Mr Alexander, with 700+ hours in a Romance language, I'd hope to see: - A good beginner course or something else to get him to A2 quickly. - 1,000 pages of extensive reading. - 3,000 words of corrected writing, in roughly 100-word chunks. - 250 hours of comprehensible, focused listening. - 150 hours of one-on-one conversation with no fallback to English, at least some of these corrected. If he still can't converse with a native 3-year-old, well, the 3-year-old probably has 4,000+ hours of usable exposure and interaction. So let's take drastic measures and give our adult student another 5,000 pages of reading, 500 hours of active listening, and two months of full-time immersion. If the adult still gets totally destroyed then, sure, maybe they're too old or they suck at languages or something. But if you want to be able to compete with the hard-core experience of the typical native 3-year-old, you'd better be ready to pay your dues. It's also worth noting that the average FSI student is in their mid-40s, and they reach the equivalent of C1 French (arguably a bit wobbly) in 24 weeks with an average of 20 hours of class and 25 hours of homework per week. Finally, native 3-year-olds can occasionally produce pretty sophisticated grammar and tell longer stories. But they also make a lot of mistakes, hesitate, pause and mumble, and they frequently limit themselves to a couple of sentences per utterance. This isn't that hard for an adult to match. If you want to get hopelessly outclassed, try comparing yourself to a native 12-year-old who reads obsessively.
And when they told you they really liked Rosetta Stone, were they speaking English or French? I've spoken with quite a few people who really loved Rosetta Stone, but they were all using English at the time, and none of them knew enough French to get by. You presumably get to speak with quite a few anglophones who've learned French, and quite a few of them are perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation. Do any of those folks praise Rosetta Stone as being the most important part of their French studies? For I know, this might be the case—but it's not what I've witnessed personally. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5226 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 35 of 38 28 July 2014 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I also believe that 700 hours of good work in French should produce good results, at least an A2 or a B1. What
constitutes good work is probably debatable. I personally think that working with a good tutor once the basics are covered makes all the difference in the world. Plus some time in the country. As for Rosetta Stone, I must say that the program is the standard offering in the Montreal English School Board - or one of the school boards - and is well liked. I know a university professor who used RS in preparation of the trip to Italy. From what I gather, people think RS is a good starter, as I said earlier. Only the marketing people say that RS, or Fluenz or any of the others, will make you bilingual. Which brings up a somewhat tangential topic. I notice that European classroom-oriented, and some self-learning, language materials are indicating the target CEFR level. There is nothing like this in North America where all the products can get away with making outlandish claims of end results. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4240 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 36 of 38 01 August 2014 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Most people / learning programs don't spend enough time on listening and speaking skills. The
polyglot Moses McCormick mentioned he came across someone who took Japanese for several years but could barely utter a word besides basic greetings. Even Luca Lampariello came to the same conclusion of listening a lot. When it comes to listening, don't know how much time people devote themselves to watching TV. You pick up words & phrases without getting bored. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4896 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 37 of 38 01 August 2014 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Excellent post. It really makes me wish there was a convenient way to count every minute of my studies and figure out how much I've done. The only thing that I might add to the three year old thing is that after more than 20 years of exposure and active use I still have alot of trouble communicating with three year olds. Alot of the time, I just can't understand them when they speak. That's in English, I might add. As for RS: Je suis bien d'accord. The few people I've known who used it speak only English... and one of them lives in Kenya! (Used RS for Swahili) Edited by Darklight1216 on 02 August 2014 at 12:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5141 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 38 of 38 02 August 2014 at 12:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I really don't believe so. The problem most likely is Mr. Alexander. The most difficult aspect of learning a foreign language is learning how to learn a foreign language. And if someone isn't used to self-study and figuring things out on their own, this will be doubly burdensome. Only out of circumstance does the latter in effect frequently coincide with age. I don't think an intellectually promiscuous individual will have much trouble learning a new language at any age. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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