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Krashen & some failures for Massive Input | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6368 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 49 of 67 30 October 2014 at 9:44am | IP Logged | |||||
Children pick up a language without issues or accent even if they have an L1 already, though, as long as they are immersed in the language before puberty or thereabouts (I don't know the exact line, which is probably pretty fuzzy, anyway). And it's a lot quicker than for adults. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4408 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 50 of 67 30 October 2014 at 10:32am | IP Logged | |||||
What decelensions are you having trouble with? I learned much of my German from in-laws and kind of picked up things piecemeal for a while. I did do some study from books and CDs in the initial stages but not enough to give me a complete grounding. Therefore I had several moments when a light switched on somewhere in my brain as I realised, oh, that's how you do it. For instance, I rapidly acquired rules like ein grosses Haus, meine kleine Katze etc, but for some reason I just stuck on an -e ending to make plural declensions. I was vaguely aware that sometimes you needed -en but didn't really grasp it. One day someone wistfully remarked "ja, die alten Leute" and it clicked from there. With cases, the mistake I made was always changing der to den in the middle of a sentence, regardless of whether the article was actually in the accusative case. So, "hast du den Schlüssel" worked but "wann kommt den Zug" didn't, although everyone understood me. Now I understand how the cases function but back then I was none the wiser, perhaps because in English we don't put nouns into different cases. So yes, massive input works wonders but seems to leave some holes which could be filled in by consulting a textbook. But once you're up and running as an adult speaker, people rarely correct you. It might even be the case that many natives actually enjoy listening to quirky grammar, as long as the overall meaning is clear and the speech is reasonably fluent. Or maybe they just don't care. There is a stereotype about German people dislking imperfect German and instantly switching to English (with immaculate grammar, of course) they moment they detect a hair out of place, but I've yet to come across this person in real life. Edited by beano on 30 October 2014 at 10:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5937 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 51 of 67 30 October 2014 at 11:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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I actually love reading grammar books written in the target language. Once you use substantial monolingual grammar books, all the small details and nuances get explained. They tend to give numerous examples from literature and colloquial speech, while covering the common mistakes that native speakers make.
In a recent book I read about learning by Benedict Carey, pure input is inefficient. Most of the studies point to feedback and testing as the crucial element. Edited by DaraghM on 30 October 2014 at 11:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4319 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 52 of 67 30 October 2014 at 11:58am | IP Logged | |||||
Is this the book: How we learn Does Carey speak specifically about input for language learning, or is this a more general perspective on learning. What's his background? Is he a journalist or scientist? If it's good perhaps I should read the German edition: Neues Lernen: Warum Faulheit und Ablenkung dabei helfen. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5937 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 53 of 67 30 October 2014 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes. That's the book. He's a science journalist, but he quotes from a number of studies. The book is about general learning, but language learning crops up a bit in the earlier stages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lemberg1963 Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States zamishka.blogspot.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4025 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Ukrainian* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Polish | Message 54 of 67 30 October 2014 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ich habe einen Hund is semantically identical to Ich habe ein Hund, even though one is correct and the other isn't. Neurons are energetically expensive, so your brain takes a shortcut and throws them in together into a general category "single non-specific object" and just skims over it, which saves it time and energy.
Carey is referring to learning in general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testing_effect You're more likely to remember a fact if you review a question for which the fact is the answer, than if you just read the answer. So...flashcards. A lot of Carey's book can be summarized with the word "Anki", which is fine, since good learning practices are still unknown in the general population. Edited by Lemberg1963 on 30 October 2014 at 3:17pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4408 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 55 of 67 30 October 2014 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've had conversations with Dutch and Scandanavian people who speak excellent English but sometimes misuse a preposition or make a tense error (not a criticism, just an observation). Exposure to English is enormous in these countries and not everyone ends up with a perfect command of the language. Then again, are a few minor gaps really important? If you are writing a highly formal report or dissertation then you may well strive for perfection but you would be proof reading and checking out areas you weren't 100 sure of in any case.
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| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4319 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 56 of 67 30 October 2014 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
My grammar problems go beyond the occasional missed preposition, but sure I can communicate. I mentioned the doctorate only because its the most extensive piece of writing I have ever done, and it was remarkable how much it improved my writing style (and I found it particularly surprising given how much writing I had done prior this). Perhaps as others have mentioned the difference is that with writing, unlike reading, you are forced to consider the form of the language much more closely. It would be nice if this holds for my L2 as well. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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