[HN Gopher] Errors in learning a foreign language, 2 years in
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Errors in learning a foreign language, 2 years in
Author : saint_angels
Score : 48 points
Date : 2021-04-02 13:43 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (withteeth.fun)
(TXT) w3m dump (withteeth.fun)
| StavrosK wrote:
| In my experience, learning a foreign language is strictly a data
| game. Get as much input data as possible (hopefully with some
| sort of translation or aid), and keep at it. Textbooks don't help
| because you don't learn a language as a list of rules, being
| afraid of making mistakes doesn't help because it gets in the way
| of getting more data, and any sort of "quality over quantity" is
| the wrong approach.
|
| Consume as much of the language as possible, as fast as possible,
| while still roughly understanding what you're reading. Don't do
| it so quickly that you have no idea what you're reading, but
| don't spend time trying to memorize each and every word and
| concept.
| billfruit wrote:
| That might be difficult with languages that are practically
| dead, like latin: if you are self studying there is no
| opportunity to speak it or hear it used in conversation, there
| are no movies, no radio, no tv in it, etc..
| saint_angels wrote:
| though a few modern books are translated into latin,
| including Harry Potter! But I bet scholars are doing that
| just for fun
| soldehierro wrote:
| I think textbooks do help, immenesly, atleast for me, with the
| caveat that they are not there for you to help understand a
| language, learning to speak comes from understanding. Sure, you
| _can_ learn without a formal grammar, but being an adult gives
| you an advantage over babies, who have to learn everything de
| novo.
| cgag wrote:
| I do think going through a basic textbook is important but
| imo they shouldn't be a part of your plan once you get
| through one or two. I learned all the rules of spanish
| grammar more or less in a few semesters in college, but it's
| just a stepping stone to help with getting tons of input.
| Like now that I've listened to hundreds of hours of spanish,
| i just get the subjunctive. Occasionally youtube will
| recommend me a youtube video explaining it and hearing the
| rules people throw around seem pretty useless. You hear them
| and think about them and go, huh, i guess that is true, but
| for learning I don't think it helps beyond having in the back
| of your mind as you consume the language, I wouldn't spend
| any time doing grammar drills or anything with them.
|
| Something else people should keep in mind (i don't mean for
| this to apply to you, i just don't want to make a separate
| post) is that people will give you language learning advice
| and claim to speak a language when they can't watch tv,
| listen to podcasts, or read books in it. If you aspire to
| this kind of level (no judgement if you don't) do not listen
| to anyone who hasn't reached it.
| StavrosK wrote:
| How did textbooks help you? They help with giving you texts
| to read at your level, giving and translating examples, and
| with exercises, but I've found the "formal grammar" sort of
| rules entirely useless.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| For me they shortened the time needed to actually learn the
| language. Admittedly I couldn't speak Italian now if my
| life depended on it, but a quick run through a textbook
| (personal emphasis was on conjugation rules and tenses)
| before spending more time on vocabulary made my trip to
| Italy much better because on hearing or reading a new verb
| I could identify the stem and work towards the meaning much
| faster than if I just heard a random conjugation of the
| verb without any idea of how to derive that stem. Even if I
| didn't have to look it up (could derive meaning from
| context), I could identify that it was a verb, what it's
| probable conjugations were and start using it much more
| rapidly than if I'd had to infer these rules from exposure.
| Especially on a short 2-week trip like I had.
|
| There are textbooks that sit somewhere between "Baby's
| First Italian Reader" and "A First Course in Italian
| Grammar". A high school or college freshman text can be
| worked through pretty quickly by a motivated individual and
| are often more practical than the sort of textbook a
| pedantic grammarian might seek out, but faster than (only)
| trying to infer the rules from a participatory experience
| that isn't always easy to get.
| nickkell wrote:
| How do you expect to pick apart a sentence without
| understanding the grammar? It would look like word soup.
| StavrosK wrote:
| When you read this sentence, do you parse it by logically
| analyzing which word is the subject, which the object and
| which the verb?
| nickkell wrote:
| No, because English is my first language. German on the
| other hand is what I've learned as an adult and that's
| exactly what I'd do.
| StavrosK wrote:
| It must take you hours to read a paragraph, then.
| nickkell wrote:
| It went much quicker after I learned the grammar!
|
| It's not like I'm thinking up all the terms that a
| sentence could possibly consist of, and then finding them
| in the text. Reading left-to-right you know what kind of
| word to expect next. It also helps you fill in unknown
| words based on their context.
| [deleted]
| AndriyKunitsyn wrote:
| What level of proficiency have you achieved? As a B2 in
| English, I cannot fully agree with you.
|
| The method you pick depends on your goals of learning the
| language. If you want to simply read and listen - sure, your
| method might do.
|
| If you want to actually communicate in a language with native
| speakers, especially in a business environment where every
| mistake can cost you good impression, then you'll need some
| information which can be really hard to take from something
| else than textbooks. For example, conjugation tables, which can
| be quite lengthy for languages such as Russian or Arabic.
| Textbook creators have put some effort to make these tables,
| and I don't see any benefit to discard this effort.
| cehrlich wrote:
| I'm a non native speaker who has reached native-level fluency
| in English, and I have never looked at a conjugation table in
| my life. The only experience I have is thousands of hours of
| reading/listening, and maybe a couple hundred hours of
| speaking.
| Jabbles wrote:
| English does not have many different conjugations or verb
| inflections. Russian has lots.
| cambalache wrote:
| Yet Russian people learn the language just as OP did.
| Those tables serve at best as references to be consulted
| rarely, not as an organic learning material, that would
| be insanity.
| AndriyKunitsyn wrote:
| They do, they start as toddlers, they practice the
| language 24/7, and they have a decade to master it. Adult
| people simply don't have this luxury. Kids are not really
| a model for learning as an adult.
|
| Learning is an effort that needs to be put. Preferably,
| in a time frame narrow enough you don't forget why you
| even started learning. And when optimizing the language
| learning process, grammar tables are useful.
| StavrosK wrote:
| > What level of proficiency have you achieved?
|
| In English, well, you've read my post, I'm conversational in
| Spanish and I've forgotten most of my German.
|
| Sure, conjugation tables feel useful, but I've never actually
| noticed myself using the information. Instead, I use the
| information I've learned from speaking with native speakers
| and reading texts, and never from a rote recital of the
| rules.
| toto444 wrote:
| That is the approach that I advocate as well. I believe that if
| you manage to carefully craft a path of comprehensible and
| enjoyable input of slowly increasing complexity you can speed
| up the learning process. I have been working for the past two
| years on creating such a thing for the Japanese language. You
| can check it out here if you are intested :
| https://drdru.github.io/ ).
|
| However I don't agree with what you say about textbooks. Being
| able to read the rules of the language stated explicitly is
| definitely useful (once you have some familiarity with the
| language).
| PeterWhittaker wrote:
| Likewise. I have five observations:
|
| The more words I know, the more likely I can recognize them
| as they flow by....
|
| By flow I mean listening to the whole sentence, paragraph,
| and not trying to hang on every phoneme: Between context and
| the human tendency to repeat, chances are you'll get the
| gist, especially if there are key words you can pick out.
|
| I find the most important things to learn are "how do say",
| "what is the word for", "can you please repeat, but more
| slowly, please", and "sorry for mangling your language".
|
| Learn the lilt of the language, how speakers hold their
| mouths, and how people use their bodies: The more you sound
| like you know the language, a) the less likely they are to
| switch to English, and b) the more pleased they will be with
| the effort you are making.
|
| People are remarkably forgiving of poor grammar when its
| seems you are making a genuine and respectful effort.
|
| (Native English, near-native and fluent French, joual, and a
| few other regionalisms, conversational Spanish that would
| likely come back pretty quickly, porto-conversational Turkish
| that might come back, market Arabic that might come back,
| really bad Greek, enough Polish and German once upon a time
| to at least order beer and food and get from A to B.)
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Whenever I am abroad with the goal of learning a language, I
| simply pretend to not speak English. I feel a little bad about
| doing this, since it's akin to ,,lying" and using your
| conversation partner, but it has gotten me extremely far with
| several languages, so I'm really sorry but will continue doing
| so.
| scpedicini wrote:
| Heh, I can speak rudimentary Italian, so I used to do the same
| thing when I was studying Chinese.
|
| Percentage of people I knew in Taiwan who could speak English:
| 40% Percentage of people I knew in Taiwan who could speak
| Italian : 0%
| KMag wrote:
| When I first arrived in Hong Kong, I asked some colleagues
| about learning Cantonese. They told me that people in Hong Kong
| tend to be very hard-working, and you have one or two sentences
| to convince them that speaking with you in Cantonese is just as
| efficient use of their time as speaking to you in English.
|
| I have a friend who was born here, looks local, but spent her
| formative years in Canada. She has been back in Hong Kong for
| more than 15 years now, but still isn't happy with her
| Cantonese conversational skills because she speaks with a bit
| of a Canadian accent and people usually force her to speak
| English after hearing her speak a couple sentences of
| Cantonese.
|
| It's fair enough; my friend isn't paying these people to be
| speaking partners, and is trying to extract a bit of a
| knowledge tax from them.
|
| On the other hand, when I run into people whose English isn't
| particularly good, they are very willing to stumble through a
| very rough mixture of Mandarin and Cantonese with me when it's
| the most efficient way for us to communicate. In these cases,
| it's not uncommon for people to continue to speak Mandarin at
| my wife, after I've told them in Mandarin "She's Thai overseas
| Chinese; she can only speak Thai and English". My wife has
| learned to break eye contact to discourage them from continuing
| to talk at her, and to avoid giving the impression she secretly
| understands Mandarin. I don't think the people even realize
| they're speaking at my wife and getting responses from me; some
| people just seem to find it more awkward to speak Mandarin with
| a white person than to speak Mandarin at a Chinese-looking
| person who's clearly not paying attention.
| saint_angels wrote:
| did you ever slip and reveal your ability to speak English? If
| so, how did people react?
| nullsense wrote:
| Errors and successes in learning foreign languages, 12 years in.
|
| Japanese - Fluent (3 years study)
|
| This was a resounding success, but actually set me up to fail my
| next 3 languages.
|
| Successes were
|
| 1) finding Anki and the AJATT method, and just totally embracing
| it.
|
| 2) Choosing early on to locate high quality materials on grammar
| and Anki 3 to 4 sentences per grammar point and front load
| virtually all Japanese grammar in around 4 months.
|
| 3) after grammar study was done dropping sentences and instead
| inputting only single words into Anki
|
| 4) Finding regular conversation partners, and language exchange
| clubs with the many Japanese people in my area
|
| 5) being somewhat unfairly ruthless in pretty much only speaking
| Japanese
|
| Korean - I can understand bits and pieces, after 2 separate and
| serious attempts each lasting 3 to 6 months
|
| Successes were
|
| 1) repeating all of the input/grammar stuff and consuming native
| media I had done with Japanese as understanding was coming along
| well
|
| Errors were
|
| 1) not having much utility for the language outside simply just
| enjoying it for its own sake, while this was true with Japanese
| also in a way, Japanese gave my life a purpose and direction at a
| time I had none thus the utility from that standpoint while
| abstract was huge. Same just didn't apply to Korean.
|
| 2) Not finding any speaking partners. Right at the end of my
| second attempt I did start to remedy this, but then I started a
| family and settled down and because Korean had no actual utility
| in my life it was dropped.
|
| Mandarin - still some limited level of understanding and can
| speak some basic phrases. 2 serious attempts each lasting 3
| months
|
| Successes were
|
| 1) first attempt I did all the same things with Anki and native
| media
|
| 2) first attempt was actually taking it a semester of it in
| university which gave a structure I had previously dismissed as
| inferior but actually found had its merits, most of which was
| actually practicing output in a controlled manner
|
| 3) second attempt was 3 months in China on a business trip, and I
| managed to get access to Chinese equivalents of Spotify/Netflix
| and this massively boosted my native media game
|
| 3) second attempt being in China meant the language had massive
| utility so I studied very hard and can still remember how to
| order Carl's Junior haha.
|
| Errors were
|
| 1) When learning it at University I never found suitable
| conversation partners outside the classroom as everyone also
| speaks fluent English
|
| 2) When studying it in China I never found suitable conversation
| partners because all the people I worked with had better English
| than my Mandarin and I tried somewhat to go out and meet people
| but I was just too painfully shy and my Mandarin too low level.
|
| 3) After 2nd attempt upon returning home Mandarin lost all it's
| utility and given I had no functional speaking ability, though I
| could understand a lot and passed HSK3, I couldn't converse with
| any of my Chinese co-workers back home, so I dropped it almost
| instantly
|
| French/Spanish/Italian/German - I understand words and phrases
| here and there from listening to music in these languages, but
| never actually intended on properly learning them
|
| Successes were
|
| 1) Again with native media, only music for these languages as
| that was the drawcard, just finding cool new songs and learning
| to sing along
|
| Errors were
|
| Well, no errors really, I was just having fun
|
| Portuguese - currently 3 months into this! Understanding is
| getting decent, and speaking ability is starting to develop
|
| This time around I'm putting all the lessons from my successes
| and errors into practice as follows.
|
| 1) Anki/Grammar, and native media! This has always been
| stunningly effective at increasing understand very fast
|
| 2) hiring a tutor! I realised this was the mistake I made after
| 2nd attempt at Mandarin. My speaking ability is really starting
| to pick up now
|
| 3) making sure the language has utility! I'm learning BJJ and my
| coach is Brazilian and doesn't speak much English.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| I had two foreign languages at school: English and Russian.
| English went pretty well because there were the internet, books,
| films, etc. Russian was like having an anchor attached to your
| body when swimming. It was so painful. I hated it and couldn't
| see why would I ever need because I know English ( the naivety of
| the young). A few years after the school, I went abroad and the
| circumstances brought me and a few Russians with no command of
| English under one roof. It was even more painful. Even basic
| things,such as 'this is raw meat' was almost impossible.. Months
| went by, the vocabulary improved. I could discuss wider topics
| and eventually it became pretty easy and we used to talk for
| hours. I learned more in one year than during 6 years at school.
| Even now, I'd love to learn Spanish,or maybe French but the first
| thing you get after buying any book is 500 grammar rules before
| the first word is shown. It's like learning how to drive by
| reading books on mechanical engineering and oil industry.
| soldehierro wrote:
| People like to rag on teaching grammar rules. While it's
| certaintly not what makes you fluent - that's an intuitive
| grasp of grammar, it allows you to start understanding and
| enjoying native content much faster. Learning a language from a
| book has another issue, though - I just can't sustain the
| enthusiam. For me, taking formal classes (so there's something
| on the line) allows a foundation to be built without me having
| to delicately balance overenthusiam and underenthusiasm when
| pacing it.
| abecedarius wrote:
| > but the first thing you get after buying any book is 500
| grammar rules before the first word is shown
|
| There's an example of a very different approach: Lingua Latina
| Per Se Illustrata, all in the language to be taught, starting
| from simple language, using pictures, etc. The most like that
| that I've seen for Spanish or French was this basic French
| dictionary: https://www.amazon.com/Mon-premier-dictionnaire-
| Roger-Pillet...
|
| Anyone know of other books in that spirit?
| toto444 wrote:
| I am creating a static site in that spirit. I have shared the
| link in an other comment. I use emojis to define simple words
| and I use these simple words to build sentences and then
| stories.
| saint_angels wrote:
| if I understand you correctly, then Rosetta Stone digital
| courses might be similar. No grammar or words are explicitly
| defined/translated, everything is taught through context with
| images and audio
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Sort of. I just pulled up that book on Amazon. Check out
| the "look inside". The first chapter reads as an advanced
| version of "See Spot. See Spot run. Run Spot run!".
| Vocabulary is getting introduced slowly and as it builds up
| there is explanatory text or elaborations (in the prose or
| in the margins). A description of the language is being
| presented within the language, which Rosetta Stone doesn't
| _totally_ get to. Rosetta Stone presents more and more
| examples with, at times, markings to help illustrate what
| they 're getting at (-ar verbs get conjugated with -o, -as,
| -a, -amos, -an) but it seems this Latin book (I've
| exhausted my page views so can't see more sections)
| actually has a description of Latin in Latin, not just more
| words/phrases presented individually. (TBF, I never
| completed a Rosetta Stone course so maybe they get closer
| to this eventually, but that's not my impression.)
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Lingua-Latina-Illustrata-Pars-
| Familia...
| bumbada wrote:
| I recommend you the book "fluent forever". I have learned
| several hard languages since I bought the book and started
| using anki.
|
| Now that I speak several languages is easier and easier to
| learn a new one. I am native Spanish speaker.
|
| You don't learn by reading and understanding anything, you
| learn by practicing every day until it becomes automatic.
|
| For learning Spanish or French you can use Michel Thomas audio
| lessons and using Anki for learning it. Someone told me there
| are torrents out there.
| BlueGh0st wrote:
| I began my Russian journey 10 years ago and I feel extremely
| ashamed about how little I know. I can barely hold a
| conversation. My ADHD/anxiety makes reading near impossible and
| it seems the resources for Russian language are generally old-
| fashioned or inconvenient (eg RU isn't often supported by these
| new clever/trendy learning tools that pop up).
|
| My goal now is just to get to a Russian speaking country and
| learn naturally. I have decent pattern recognition so this is
| the easiest way for me to learn, so it's a pity that there
| seems to be so few resources that take advantage of this.
| Chatting with strangers in my target language has been the most
| beneficial for me so far.
| kevinstubbs wrote:
| I was self-studying Russian for quite some time, with decent
| progress. But when I came to Seoul and ran into some native
| Russian speakers, I discovered that I could barely put my
| sentences together in real-time. I made some changes to my
| approach and a year later was able to conversate, read articles,
| and watch movies without any aid.
|
| The "one weird trick" to it was to spend literally hundreds of
| hours one on one with tutors online. It's not an option for
| everybody, of course, but if you can do it - do it. Studying with
| flash cards and apps helps too, but your brain more importantly
| needs to practice understanding strings of words and putting them
| together yourself in real-time.
| saint_angels wrote:
| did you try language exchanche apps like Hellotalk? If so, how
| would you compare it to online tutors? Paid tutors are probably
| much more focused on your progress than random natives, but is
| there something else?
| gotodengo wrote:
| I was mostly treading water in my Portuguese practice for the
| past few years, before getting remotivated this year and making
| some decent progress.
|
| I agree with many of TFA's points > To learn a lot from reading,
| you need to read a lot, and for that you have to understand at
| least the gist of what you are looking at.
|
| Reading was huge for me. After "speaking" the language for 5
| years I finally read a full novel. I immediately noticed
| improvements in my writing and understanding. A few weeks later I
| finished reading a second novel and am now on to the third.
|
| (I really recommend The Martian by the way, it seems like it's
| been translated a ton, and it's written in a mostly first person
| diary style so the tenses are fairly simple while being more
| engaging than kid's books)
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