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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4121 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 73 of 94 28 June 2015 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, thanks for mentioning that. He has indeed said that he continues to shadow "grown up" books, but I would presume that means that he "shadow marches" with them from track 1 to the end, but crucially one time only. The shadowing method proper, however, involves repeatedly cycling through material (In my double experience, no less than 50 times before it sinks in). It's after you have done this for a few different assimil-type books that it's time to move on to broader pastures. At B1 level in German I, instead, focussed on intensively shadowing and writing out the novella "Siddhartha" at a stage when I could have started reading and listening widely. And no, I don't have instant recall of impressively long passages, like I imagined I would have... :( 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4121 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 74 of 94 28 June 2015 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Haha, this rings true. If some English learner said to me "I've formed many a hardy friendship here" I would compliment them for their turn of phrase, but I had to explain what I meant and what the word "trabar" meant to a Spanish native when I said "he trabado profundas amistades aqui". He didn't acknowledge the word even when I showed him it in a dictionary. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4121 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 75 of 94 28 June 2015 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
One more:
This is contrary to my experience. I agree with Luca that a foundational mistake of many learners, include myself once, is to view language acquisition from the word up, rather than learning how to glue the "chunks" of language together. Another poster was saying something about how something as simple as knowing how to say "the stars are coming out" is effectively an element in itself: either known, or unknown. He's right, and it ought to be learned in one element, even to save time if nothing else. I think this stands by reason alone, too. A lexicographer's job is almost like making a theory of some word; taking from manifold concrete instances of that word the "thread" or, as Wittgenstein would have say, "family resemblance" between those instances. However satisfying it is, it ignores that the "definition" is an imposition designed for our convenience. What is the hope that our instrument of convenience mirrors the cognitive science of semantics? For the sake of illustration: get a haircut at get married to get lost in we could argue about whether these "gets" fall under one all-consuming definition or rather two or three different ones, but it would help the German or Spaniard only in a very limited way to know that "get" can be, in the most general sense, "werden" "kriegen" "se" or "conseguir," because natural translations for these phrases are not always going to match these general translations. They'd be better off learning these three chunks as individual entries in their mental rolodex and trying not to dwell on their word-for-word structures once they get a handle of how the word "get" functions. Quick disclaimer: I do believe that infinitely branchable "nodes," that stand for (roughly) words, exist in the cognitive architecture of syntax, but I think that the axiomatic elements of semantics are limited and not unlimited: containing only whatever innate archetypes we all share like "mother" and "death" and other universal concepts. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4103 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 76 of 94 29 June 2015 at 12:23am | IP Logged | |||||
Spanish is though spoken "faster" more than most languages, at least according to some study that determined something like more syllables are produced per unit time in Spanish than languages such as Dutch, German, or French, and definitely English. If I remeber correctly, Japanese is #1 in terms of "speed" for syllables and Spanish #2. I cannot find the study right now, someone linked it months ago in another thread. But it is not exactly false that Spanish sounds "faster". In terms of syllables as sounds the ratio is higher. When I speak Spanish, my strongest language, I do speak much faster than in English trying to match natives as best that I can. I have practised in the past to purposely breeze through speech much faster than any other language that I speak because, technically, if you speak Spanish at the same speed as English, i.e. if you speak the same ratio of syllables (not words) per unit time in Spanish that you would in English, then it is true that you are speaking much slower than average for Spanish. It is still a bit confusing, but if take a word, "arquitectura". If I wanted to say this word using my "English speed", it would take maybe 2 seconds, maybe 2,25 seconds even. In my "Spanish speed" I am, like a car, several gears shifted higher on the gearshift, and would most likely say it within 1 second, definitely less in a conversation although it might sound slightly sloppier. Same with something like, "Hoy hace sol". In English speed it might take me close to 2 seconds. In my Spanish speed I would attempt to say this in less than a second. I am watching "Zapeando" right now, a Spanish talk/comedy/entertainment show, and one of the hosts just said the word "comunica" in less than one second. In English speed, I doubt that many native Anglophones can fit four syllables within 0,6 seconds for example. About Japanese, I used to play a video game from Japan with a friend years ago. They always used to blurt out some string of words that was lightning fast. I still am not sure what the words are, but my friend asked a classmate from Japan to translate, and apparently the translation is, "I bow to your skills and to your father" or something, which in the video game took characters less than 2 seconds to say. The only way is to force oneself to say more syllables if the language has a higher ratio than one's native language, or slower, if it has a less ratio. It causes a lot of tongue twists for a while, but it is the only way to force oneself to speak faster if the language has that higher syllable ratio. I am not sure what native Hispanophones think when someone speaks their language slower than normal. I know that most are very patient, but if someone takes for example, 5 times longer to say all of the syllables in a sentence than for a native, who knows if they think, "Damn, hurry the f___ up!" Edited by 1e4e6 on 29 June 2015 at 12:56am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5039 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 77 of 94 29 June 2015 at 3:43am | IP Logged | |||||
Some time before I joined HTLAL I was quite seduced, albeit not completely, by the Pimsleur philosophy -- then I backed out. The bull I used to believe up to that point was that languages are best learned going by 'methods' or 'approaches' that put language pieces together in some way that is somehow best for the learner, with 'pieces' meaning anything from isolated vocabulary items, idioms, grammar structures, conjugations, or whole subsystems -- you just had to pick the 'method' that best suited you, and you'd learn any language just like that. Over time I realized guided methods and approaches are sure a great help for people who are not attacking more than one foreign language, but as I got more experienced I became convinced there's no such 'one size fits all' in language learning. Just too many differences between what any individual need to learn about different languages, between languages themselves, between learners in the end. As a more mature learner, I have developed a generally good feel about what might be a good idea to work on next, or why I can't tackle (when that happens) any particular material -- exercises, books, films or whatever -- yet, and such 'guidance' often becomes a nuisance. Thus I have ended up gravitating towards materials not attached to particular methods or courses, i.e. grammars and dictionaries (both mono- and bilingual) to learn any 'theory' bits and put it together on my own, while I immerse myself in and play with native materials as I build up the skills to handle them. In short, I stopped believing the bull that organized, pre-structured courses are the be-all, end-all of language learning, and 'free' approaches are a waste of time. Also, I stopped believing that anyone who will try a free approach will end up doing stuff just the way I do it :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5039 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 78 of 94 29 June 2015 at 4:58am | IP Logged | |||||
Sorry for the double post, I missed this side discussion:
On the one hand, if you get compliments for your 'good English' while Spanish speakers recast what you're 'trying to say', maybe simply your Spanish is nowhere near as good as your English. OTOH, there are always ignorant idiots, and some learners sure do know their language better than them. However, seems to me that all of this revolves around the idea that, no matter how good you are at it, choosing register / vocabulary in some specific (bookish / literary?) ways is always better, which in itself is bull of the worst kind :) I think the question that the aforementioned situations should always bring to our minds, for perfect mastery of even your own language is impossible, is 'just when didn't they tell me I was making a fool of myself?' Edited by mrwarper on 29 June 2015 at 4:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4121 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 79 of 94 29 June 2015 at 11:51am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm sorry, can you clarify this some more, please? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4121 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 80 of 94 29 June 2015 at 11:58am | IP Logged | |||||
Again, can you please clarify? I'm not sure what you wrote has to do with what I wrote, except for the part about "language pieces." 1 person has voted this message useful |
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