quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6272 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese
| Message 313 of 489 14 October 2007 at 11:27pm | IP Logged |
How do you learn chess with this method? By memorizing all the moves in a famous game? What about the audio component?
Btw, FSI, you said that you stopped using L1 translations as you can now get the essential meaning without a translation, I too can now get the gist of a Japanese passage without seeing the translation but do you think that for one who can not yet do that, an L1 translation is helpful?
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Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6828 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language
| Message 314 of 489 15 October 2007 at 1:04am | IP Logged |
How does someone uses this method for Japanese or Chinese? I can see it with a phonetic, albeit different script from the Roman one (i.e. Arabic or Hebrew) but for Chinese (non-phonetic) or Japanese (some phonetics, but also a lot of non-phonetic characters), how can one learn to read/write with this?
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JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6319 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin
| Message 315 of 489 15 October 2007 at 2:57am | IP Logged |
I use a variant of this method in pretty much the same way I would do it for any other language. I think the idea is to not so much rely on the spelling of a word (since English has so many words that cannot be spelled phonetically). After all, even 'phonetics' cannot be spelled phonetically. Personally, when using this approach for Chinese, it's much easier than having to figure out whether I just hear tone 1 or tone 3. I just say it, and often times the actual spoken word sounds different in insolation than it does in the context of a sentence.
Additionally, in my opinion, reading with this method is much easier this way since all I would have to do is shadow the native sounds rather than me trying to reconstruct it with my incorrect intonation despite having the correct tones (since it would still make me sound like a foreigner. However, I can't say that writing is easier.
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sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6337 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin
| Message 316 of 489 15 October 2007 at 4:02am | IP Logged |
For languages like Chinese or Japanese it might help to go through a beginners course before starting out, but I think Listening-Reading is ideal for learning languages with nonphonetic scripts. How else is one going to learn how to pronounce the words on the page if you don't have someone else reading them aloud to you? Looking up every single character would take forever.
I'm just starting to use this method with Japanese, so I can't speak of its effectiveness from personal experience yet, but it seems to be the perfect complement to the Heisig method for learning kanji/hanzi. The knock on the Heisig method has always been that it didn't teach pronunciations and character compounds along with the writing, but by Listening-Reading you quickly pick those up in context.
Edited by sheetz on 15 October 2007 at 4:03am
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JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6319 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin
| Message 317 of 489 15 October 2007 at 7:20am | IP Logged |
sheetz wrote:
How else is one going to learn how to pronounce the words on the page if you don't have someone else reading them aloud to you? Looking up every single character would take forever. |
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Precisely! Listening to the audio saves a tremendous amount of time :)
Even though I can speak Mandarin, my reading was always horrible. Two years ago, I took a placement test for a Mandarin class and even though I was supposed to go into a high intermediate class, I ended up going down a level simply because my reading was horrible.
This method is perfect for learning to read properly in Chinese rather than fumbling through with incorrect intonation and guesswork :)
Worrying about trying to remember the tones is irrelevant with this method, because I'm too busy saying (i.e. shadowing) them to the point where I don't have to think about them. In short, this method allows me to know for fact that I'm saying them correctly. If think Steve Kaufmann addressed this very point on how he learned Mandarin.
-Jason
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mjcdchess Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6907 days ago 46 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish
| Message 318 of 489 15 October 2007 at 10:08am | IP Logged |
using this method with chess you do not memorize anything. You simply go over the master games using a data base. You do not need to take lots of time on each move just watch the game as it progresses and soon you get more and more familar with excellent chess and how it is played. You pick up structures tatics and everything.
its exactly like a language. I am not sure this is proper content for a language thread but learning chess this way is like learning chess "language"
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FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6319 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 319 of 489 15 October 2007 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
quendidil wrote:
Btw, FSI, you said that you stopped using L1 translations as you can now get the essential meaning without a translation, I too can now get the gist of a Japanese passage without seeing the translation but do you think that for one who can not yet do that, an L1 translation is helpful? |
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Certainly. The eventual goal is to do away with the L1 entirely, but until we reach that point, the translation is still very useful. I think it's all about balance. If I do away with the translation before I'm ready (given a particular book/language/etc), I won't follow what I'm reading. On the other hand, if I keep using the translation when I no longer need it, it's hard to see how much I really know, and my brain doesn't get a chance to figure out things from context, as the "answers" are just a book away. So yeah, definitely keep keep a translation when you think you need it, but even more, keep in mind the goal is to move away from it, like training wheels on a bicycle :^)
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El Gringo Groupie United States Joined 6220 days ago 65 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 320 of 489 15 October 2007 at 4:46pm | IP Logged |
Can someone help me?
I am trying to try this method out but I don't completely understand how it is explained.
I am trying to learn Spanish and want to use this technique.
If anyone has links to books I can buy to do this and audiobooks let me know cause I'm confused and not sure what to do.
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