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Sentence Method question...

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Forum Name: Questions About Your Target Languages
Forum Discription: Where you can ask practical self-study questions about a specific problem in your target language.
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14676
Printed Date: 2021 13 May at 2:54am

Posted By: I
Subject: Sentence Method question...
Date Posted: 2009 14 April at 4:40pm

Hi,

and sincere apologies if this has been covered.
My question is:

Is it best to have the TL in the question field of supermemo, and the native language in the answer field, or vice-versa?

I know people would argue, "do both ways", but which is ultimately the best way?

Thanks

Replies:

Passive knowledge comes first, so having your native language in the question field before you have seen the target sentences is a bad idea.
jeff_lindqvist on 2009 14 April

jeff_lindqvist wrote:

Passive knowledge comes first, so having your native language in the question field before you have seen the target sentences is a bad idea.

I assume I will be putting his own sentences into Supermemo, so he will definitely have seen the sentences already.

I personally don't believe in the passive-first school of thought. Passive language doesn't automatically become active and many people get caught in the passive trap -- they can understand lots but can't say a thing. In fact, there's whole populations like this -- one of the near-universal stages of language death is a generation with passive understand but zero active command.

However, from my experience it would appear to be pretty much impossible to learn something actively and not be able to understand it when you encounter it receptively (excepting problems with accent or orthographical variation).

Furthermore, when dealing with sentences receptively/passively, you don't have to understand the whole thing -- certain parts of the phrase carry redundant information, and you can understand the phrase while ignoring these.

EG "I went ** Paris last year." Any fluent English speaker knows that's "to", and will always say "to", but there are plenty of learners who, despite receiving massive amounts of correct input, continue to say "at" or "in", because the input does not force them to notice the correct preposition.

But these shortcuts are not available when we produce the target language -- you have to know the word to say it.

So I, my advice:
Native Language->Target Language
Cainntear on 2009 14 April

OK, you have a point in that "I" enters the information himself, and thus will have seen the content. I (who believe in doing both directions) have experienced getting random results, some word/sentences are easy in one direction and some in the other. There have been occasions when I've had to work for ages to get through a bunch of Native->Target cards, most likely because I hadn't seen the Target words/sentences enough times to even have a slightest clue.

My "passive-first" approach is as simple as adding the content as Target->Native, and give it a day or two. By then, I will have seen the cards a few times each and then I add Native->Target. So, just a few days delay.
jeff_lindqvist on 2009 14 April

I wrote:

I use SRS as part of what we could call the input method, that's to say, I learn from native content that I choose myself. In this context only target-target flash cards make sense, especially for sentences. The problem is that we haven't got a clue about the way you learn, the materials you use, or the stage of learning you are at, so whatever advise would be pointless. SRS is only a tool and can be used in and a number of different ways as you can see from the replies you've got.
Javi on 2009 14 April

Cainntear wrote:

[QUOTE=jeff_lindqvist]
Furthermore, when dealing with sentences receptively/passively, you don't have to understand the whole thing -- certain parts of the phrase carry redundant information, and you can understand the phrase while ignoring these.

EG "I went ** Paris last year." Any fluent English speaker knows that's "to", and will always say "to", but there are plenty of learners who, despite receiving massive amounts of correct input, continue to say "at" or "in", because the input does not force them to notice the correct preposition.

The advise to cope with that trouble in the context of the input method has been on the web for ages. I've tried it out and I think it works reasonably well. I won't rephrase it because it's crystal clear in its http://www.antimoon.com/how/readhow.htm - original form . I've actually got a lot of flash cards which only point is to illustrate the use or lack of use of a preposition, an article, a verb ending, etc.

I don't think that your comments are fair on the input question. For starters we need to know what it is, and in this respect I think a rough summary could be like this:

1) You learn to understand understanding (searching the input for content)
2) You learn to produce observing the language carefully

Well, it looks like I rephrased it after all :)
Javi on 2009 14 April

Javi wrote:

The advise to cope with that trouble in the context of the input method has been on the web for ages. I've tried it out and I think it works reasonably well.
...
I don't think that your comments are fair on the input question.

You can do that, but I don't believe it's optimal, for two reasons:

1. What they call "reading for content", I just call "reading", because that's the natural, normal way to read. I. Have. Had. Many. Students. Who. Read. Out. Loud. Like. This. because they've been taught to "read" every word. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't really reading. I've seen people who never get past this stage, so this strategy can be and is damaging to some learners.

2. Students who read "fluently", ie flowingly, will make the same mistakes with prepositions, articles etc as they do in their own speech. Students. Who. Read. Stiltedly will read the prepositions as written. But 10 seconds later, if you can prompt them to use one of the structures in the sentence they've just read, they'll make the same mistake as always.

OK, I know that reading for form/reading to learn can be done, but after a while it gets difficult to stay attached to the meaning[*]. Furthermore, it takes a lot of effort to overcome the natural tendency to do things the lazy way. Going from your native language to your target language removes the temptation, so removes the effort required to overcome the temptation.

[*]Compare with stories of teachers who become so focussed on a student's spoken form that they'll respond to sentences like "my grandmother has died last night" by correcting it ("my grandmother died last night").
Cainntear on 2009 15 April

Cainntear wrote:

How can it possibly be less optimal than translating the sentence you are working on to your native language just for the sake of writing a flash card?. These Polish guys behind Supermemo and Atimoon aim to a very high level of proficiency in English. I would say that not even native fluency but the English of an educated native. At this point working with monolingual material is the only way to go as there's no native language to go from. Perhaps you've noticed the fact that, for a start, it is a web page about learning English written in English!! I think we can safely assume that the typical follower of their methods knows how to read and how to use computers, and most likely they are in the habit of doing some kind of intellectual work. Yes I know, not all people can do those things, and so what?

It seems that you haven't learnt any of your languages to a near-native level and from your comments one could get the impression that you neither want to nor care about. That's fine, we are talking about different goals, different stages and different approaches. The OP don't even bother to show up, so at least for me this thread is over. It's not like I enjoy arguing about the same thing all the time.
Javi on 2009 15 April

Javi wrote:

How can it possibly be less optimal than translating the sentence you are working on to your native language just for the sake of writing a flash card?.

It may take longer to build a bilingual deck than a monolingual one, but I believe that the self-discipline needed to use a monolingual deck is just too much of a burden.

You believe building a bilingual deck is too much effort, I believe using a monolingual deck is too much effort... we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I'm not going to convince you, you're not going to convince me.

Quote:

These Polish guys behind Supermemo and Atimoon aim to a very high level of proficiency in English. I would say that not even native fluency but the English of an educated native.

A) "aim for" and "acheive" are very different things. Many aim, few achieve.

B) "Educated English" is actually far, far easier than normal colloquial English. The grammar has been consciously regularised, so grammar books (for English speakers) will tell you that the opposite of I used to [do something] is *I didn't use to... when the real opposite is I never used to.... There's lots of little things like that.

Edit:
PS. I do want to learn some languages to near native level, but I don't want to learn all of them to near-native level. I thought I was getting close with Spanish, but I've realised that I've slackened off badly and amn't putting much effort into it at all, so unsurprisingly, I'm actually getting worse....
Cainntear on 2009 17 April

Cainntear wrote:

You believe building a bilingual deck is too much effort, I believe using a monolingual deck is too much effort... we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I'm not going to convince you, you're not going to convince me.

I'm afraid it is more than just effort. What I fear are those connections between L1 and L2. I've worked without them so far and I haven't missed anything.

Quote:

That may be true, but I didn't say educated English, I said educated natives. I was thinking of the kind of people who finished college, perhaps spent some time at university and are obviously quite capable of talking colloquially.
Javi on 2009 17 April

Javi wrote:

I'm afraid it is more than just effort. What I fear are those connections between L1 and L2. I've worked without them so far and I haven't missed anything.

How do you know? If you've missed it, you won't notice that you've missed it -- that's the problem I've had with my Spanish. When people stopped correcting me, I got overconfident.

Anyway, it's not always about associating or connecting the L1 and L2.

Sometimes it's about making the differences between the two clear -- no matter how I've gone about learning a language, there will always be the tendency for L1 patterns to jump into my head, and knowledge of the differences has allowed me to catch my mistakes and fix them.

And it's also about connecting L2 with thought: when I see L1 I know what it means -- I understand it effortlessly, without having to think about it. When I produce the L2 equivalent, I'm then connecting that language to a clear, unambiguous thought.

But as you say, it's no fun arguing the same thing all the time. I've stated my argument as clear as I can and you're free to disagree. I can't prove I'm right.
Cainntear on 2009 17 April

I prefer both ways, although L1-L2 is clearly more useful for me. As for the multiple comments condemning
translation, I disagree. People have been using translation in the early stages of language learning for centuries.
I've used it myself quite successfully. It's just a stage I go through when I'm learning. If you can skip it, more
power to you. Personally, I've tried, and found it much less efficient for me than a little translation.

I feel that the current trend of non-translation passive methods (10,000 sentences, L-R method, etc) are so
popular because people are under the impression that they are less work. Are they really less work? I've done
many experiments on myself and found passive learning not to work well for me. I wonder if these learners are
checking their progress, and if they are comparing it with non-passive methods. I would guess that passive
methods are the best choice for less than half the population, although I could be wrong.

I suspect another reason for the popularity of these methods: they really push the silent(non-conversation)
period idea, which is probably very attractive to the typical internet language learner. The learner is actually
encouraged to hide out as long as possible and learn passively, which fits the personality of many internet users.
I feel that this is dangerous, since it encourages reclusive behavior, which may make the learner even more
fearful of talking, or at least less encouraged to talk.

To me there is no substitute for learning to speak as soon as possible. The first skill that I can learn to a useful
level is conversation. I learn it, then use it to help me learn the other skills. It seems terribly inefficient for me to
hold back until I learn to read or listen to movies/TV well enough to really understand.
icing_death on 2009 18 April

Cainntear wrote:

B) "Educated English" is actually far, far easier than normal colloquial English. The grammar has been consciously regularised, so grammar books (for English speakers) will tell you that the opposite of I used to [do something] is *I didn't use to... when the real opposite is I never used to.... There's lots of little things like that.

And there was I thinking that I never used to... was the opposite of I always used to.... Weird!
charlmartell on 2009 18 April

charlmartell wrote:

Cainntear wrote:

What are you doing? Stop it!

Volte on 2009 18 April

icing_death wrote:

As I said in another thread, I don't think that L1->L2 flash cards involve true translation. It is rather rote memorisation of short sentences in the target language using the L1 part as a trigger. In the end it's not that different from what I do, which is reading aloud my not so short sentences, because I also end up almost memorising them. Nothing surprising, that's what SRS is about actually.

I say it is not true translation because if it was you'd run into troubles. I can see at least two potential problems:

1) As you progress you learn different ways to say the same thing. That complicates a lot the making of the cards, unless you relay on memorisation.

2) Translating leads to unidiomatic expressions. Non professional translators do that all the time even when they translate to their own native language, let alone to a foreign language. I myself produce crap Spanish when translating from English. I have trouble with passives, gerunds and so one. So, If you avoid those unidiomatic expressions is because you are neither translating nor producing, you are recalling a memorised sentence, nothing to do with the spontaneous production of new sentences that only happens in conversation or when you think or write. Yes, thinking and writing is also active.
Javi on 2009 18 April

Javi wrote:

1) As you progress you learn different ways to say the same thing. That complicates a lot the making of the cards, unless you relay on memorisation.

Why do you think this is a problem? If you know ten different ways to say "Let's go to the movies" in L2 and the English phrase "Let's go to the movies" comes up, and you say one of them in L2, you mark it correct, whether you hit the exact one on the back of the card or not. What's the problem?

The point is NOT that you translate from English into the other language. The point is that you have an occasion to say something in the foreign language.

Pimsleur is horrible for this, because when it gets you to producing the question will be (in L2): "Now tell me that you want to go the movies" and your answer will be "I want to go to the movies", and you haven't had to produce anything, because the L2 way of posing the question just reminded you of all the words and sentence structure that you're supposed to be producing. I'd be really good in French if I had a little demon on my shoulder to whisper the words in my ear every time I needed to say or write something.

Anyway, for me the L1 question is just a way of putting myself in the situation where I can attempt to produce the L2. It could be L3 or L4 or pictures or recordings or someone doing mime (but not sign language because then we'd be translating oh noes!), but just writing the L1 on the side of the card is quick and easy, and it doesn't create some kind of chronic disease where I have to always translate through my native language in order to use the L2.

That said, when I was writing my reponse to you I had an idea about how to do this all in L2 (putting a little situation on the front of the card, like Q: "There is a new film coming out this week, you'd like to go see it with your friend. Describe how the conversation might go." Or something like that, with a better-written question. Maybe this is a way to deal with the problem (I agree that using L1 is a problem because it's inefficient--cards with L2 on both side would give you twice as much practice, I'm just saying I haven't really found a better way) that you're pointing out.

Ortho on 2009 18 April

Javi wrote:

As I said in another thread, I don't think that L1->L2 flash cards involve true translation.

Reading a card in L1, and saying it in L2 is translation.

Javi wrote:

It is rather rote memorisation of short sentences in the target language using the L1 part as a
trigger.

Not necessarily, but I think I see what you are getting at. If you are using sentence flashcards and you've spent
too much time on the same flashcards, you might get to the point where you recognize the card by the first
character, and blurt out the answer without really reading it or formulating an answer.

This is not a problem with single words, as it's pretty much what one wants to happen. This is not even a big
deal with sentences, provided you are not too reliant on flashcards, that is, if they don't make up too high of a
percentage of your study time. It's good to use a variety of techniques; try not to be one-dimensional.

I only use sentence flashcards for idioms/set phrases, grammar examples, and tough vocabulary items. I don't
mind memorizing these. Otherwise, I stick to words. For reading practice, I read (don't use flashcards). Another
thing you can consider is deleting your flashcards after a few months. Not only will this help you with this
particular problem, but it will allow you to add more new material, which is always good.

Javi wrote:

In the end it's not that different from what I do, which is reading aloud my not so short sentences,
because I also end up almost memorising them. Nothing surprising, that's what SRS is about actually.

There are some benefits to memorizing sentences outright, but what the 100000 sentence technique is really
supposed to do for you is teach you to read. Having whole sentences memorized is useful, but not as useful as
having words and short phrases memorized in my experience.

Javi wrote:

Nothing surprising, that's what SRS is about actually.

Agreed. If people are shooting for internalization rather than memorization, maybe they shouldn't use SRSs. On
the other hand, taking the measures I mentioned above should make it better.

Javi wrote:

1) As you progress you learn different ways to say the same thing. That complicates a lot the
making of the cards, unless you relay on memorisation.

There are some flashcard writing tricks that might help here, but the best advice is stop being so anal with
cards. There is no need to go overboard and try to learn every phrase and every definition, especially at the
sentence level, with flashcards.

Javi wrote:

2) Translating leads to unidiomatic expressions.

Sometimes. But no more than, in the case of someone who has memorized thousands of sentences, having to
create a sentence that they haven't memorized. When it comes to production, no technique is going to allow one
to create perfectly idiomatic speech/writing without a lot of practice. This is one reason I believe producing early
and practicing a lot as part of my regular routine is so important.

Javi wrote:

I have trouble with passives, gerunds and so one. So, If you avoid those unidiomatic expressions is
because you are neither translating nor producing, you are recalling a memorised sentence, nothing to do with
the spontaneous production of new sentences that only happens in conversation or when you think or
write.

If you are able to use a memorized sentence "as is" in a conversation, then you are pretty good at figuring out
what to memorize. Well done. But creating perfect sentences is something you can do with practice - it's not a
skill limited to sentence memorizers.

Javi wrote:

Yes, thinking and writing is also active.

I think by most definitions speaking and writing are considered active, reading and listening are considered
passive. I can see thinking going either way, depending on what kind of thinking it is.

icing_death on 2009 18 April

Volte wrote:

charlmartell wrote:

Cainntear wrote:

What are you doing? Stop it!

Point taken. Except I wasn't arguing with him, I was just asking for clarification on a point of spoken English. As I suppose he is an expert in that respect at least.
charlmartell on 2009 18 April

icing_death wrote:

Javi wrote:

...

Good grief, another cainntear! As if one dissecter weren't enough!
charlmartell on 2009 18 April

These discussions are more about fads than anything else.

If you live in a country where your target language is not spoken, "inverse translation" is a good method. Harder, but very good. Your memory reinforcement will be stronger and yes, at first this "inverse translation" method can be a long serie of behaviour chains with two behaviours every one.

slucido on 2009 18 April

Javi wrote:

2) Translating leads to unidiomatic expressions.

As I've already said, I don't believe "translating" these short expressions is the same as translating a long text, but setting that aside for one moment....

When you are doing L1->L2 flashcards, you're teaching yourself not to translate literally and instead to translate idiomatically. If you were to start with "tengo hambre" and you translated it as "I have hunger", the other side of the flashcard would tell you you were wrong, and you would learn to say "I am hungry" instead.

Quote:

So, If you avoid those unidiomatic expressions is because you are neither translating nor producing, you are recalling a memorised sentence, nothing to do with the spontaneous production of new sentences that only happens in conversation or when you think or write.

But that depends on the size of your card deck. The Michel Thomas courses, for example, teach by L1->L2 translation, and there is virtually no repetition of any given sentence (almost every prompt is unique), so I don't think this is necessarily true.

So if the deck is large enough that you don't see an individual card often enough to completely memorise it, it would be production (but then again would that still be the method we're talking about?)

Charlmartell,
if you're genuinely curious about the "used to" thing, PM me and I'll give you an explanation, but judging by your response to icing_death I'm guessing you just said it to try to start a fight.
Cainntear on 2009 18 April

charlmartell wrote:

Cainntear wrote:

And there was I thinking that I never used to... was the opposite of I always used to.... Weird!

At best, this is a point in which English varies regionally. "I never used to" is not a statement I can imagine myself ever making.

I can spontaneously say "I used to ..."; the opposite simply doesn't spontaneously come up. In response to "Did you ever do...", I'd say "No/nope, never" if the answer was negative.

The extreme case, for me, is if someone was talking about something and, while I wasn't questioned, I felt the need to explicitly deny having done it (and, frankly, this simply doesn't tend to happen: it would sound defensive, and depending on the context, likely silly or judgmental - regardless, it would be awkward). In that case, I'd probably simply say "I've never ..." - ie, "I've never eaten stir-fried chipmunks!"

Anyhow, I simply wouldn't use 'used' in a negative form of the sort posited above - not with "never" and not with "didn't". The whole idea of negating something with a repeated aspect in English strikes me as weird: either you never did it (and hence don't use 'used to'), or you only did it sometimes, and so you say "I occasionally/I sometimes/I rarely/I didn't often..." ...

Volte on 2009 18 April

Depending on context, I think another valid "opposite" of used to is will. (Three years ago, I used to go to the
library every day. Three years from now, I will go to the library every day.)
icing_death on 2009 18 April

Volte wrote:

Anyhow, I simply wouldn't use 'used' in a negative form of the sort posited above - not with "never" and not with "didn't". The whole idea of negating something with a repeated aspect in English strikes me as weird: either you never did it (and hence don't use 'used to'), or you only did it sometimes, and so you say "I occasionally/I sometimes/I rarely/I didn't often..." ...

Well that's exactly it.

The only circumstance I would ever think of using the negative of "used to" in is as follows

A: I didn't think you liked eggs
B: Well, I never used to, but I like them now.

as opposed to
A: I thought you liked eggs
B: Well, I used to, but not any more.

I mentioned "didn't used to" as it specifically came up in a grammar course for natives that I took, and then it was mentioned in a book I was teaching English from. I checked it out in the British National Corpus and it was only in the spoken corpus once, but loads of times in the written, hence why I saw it as a valid example of simplified "educated native" English.
Cainntear on 2009 18 April

icing_death wrote:

Depending on context, I think another valid "opposite" of used to is will. (Three years ago, I used to go to the
library every day. Three years from now, I will go to the library every day.)

What on earth do you mean?
charlmartell on 2009 19 April

charlmartell wrote:

icing_death wrote:

Depending on context, I think another valid "opposite" of used to is will. (Three years ago, I used to go to the
library every day. Three years from now, I will go to the library every day.)

What on earth do you mean?

My guess is that both of them don't change the succeeding verb, yet "used to" indicates the past and "will" indicates the future, thus they are valid opposites.
Monox D. I-Fly on 2017 23 September