5 ms·

"Don't pay too much attention to grammar." Breaking that rule is one of the ways my high school failed to teach much German to most of its students.

musha68k 7y ago
As with most things you want to learn you need both - immersion as well as deliberate practice.
commandlinefan 7y ago
Back in the ‘50s or ‘60s, the U.S. government Foreign Service Institute put together a series of language learning courses that covered most of the popular languages at the time. They’re public domain and if you look hard enough, you can find them on the internet - they’re dated, but they’re still accurate (there are some here http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/ http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/ but the hosting sucks). I’ve learned Spanish and French well enough to carry on conversations in both from them. One thing about their approach is that they focus on memorizing spoken dialogues. It’s the standard goofy “what time will Mr. Gonzales arrive at the restaurant” type of dialogue, but the idea is that you’re supposed to remember what they say, even if you don’t understand the parts of speech, well enough to recite it from memory. I’ve found that, more than anything else, these memorized dialogues help the most with language recollection - if I want to say something, I scan through my memorized dialogues for something close, substitute a few words, and say it like they said it in the course.
- meigwilym 7y ago
  This reminds me of The Knowledge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#The_Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...
- pessimizer 7y ago
  I'm really a fan of rote learning and hate that it gets bad-rapped. It's not intended to teach creativity, it's intended to train reflexes. If you repeat "What time will Mr. Gonzales arrive at the restaurant" 1000 times, you'll immediately know how to ask when Bill will arrive at the restaurant. And later when you learn how to say "restaurant," "arrive," or "at what time", you suddenly know a bunch of stuff. Eventually you will forget about some of the things Mr. Gonzales did, but the reflexes will still exist. I love the endless FSI substitution drills. They feel like video games. Also the Spanish ones are done so quickly that the instructor almost trips over his own tongue. edit: also, https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/ https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/, well-hosted labor of love.
- mcguire 7y ago
  Interesting. The text to go along with the audio includes a phonetic version. Good morning. bwenozdiás [Some marks removed.] Buenos días. http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/languages/Spanish/Basic/Volume%201/Fsi-SpanishBasicCourse-Volume1-StudentText.pdf http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/languages/Spanish/Basic/..., Unit 1 - Useful phrases.
  - commandlinefan 7y ago
    Yes, you find that through the whole Spanish course. I never found it to be very useful, but it's there if somebody wants it.
- tzs 7y ago
  You can find much of the FSI material at the Live Lingua Project here [1]. The FSI is not the only US government created language program. There's also the Defense Languages Institute (DLI). Much of their material is also on Live Lingua [2]. [1] https://www.livelingua.com/fsi/ https://www.livelingua.com/fsi/ [2] https://www.livelingua.com/dli/ https://www.livelingua.com/dli/
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
matthewmacleod 7y ago
I agree this seems to be the way forward. I'm brushing up on my rusty and useless high-school German as a result of my company's work with a German client lately – it makes everything a bit easier for extended trips. The advice I got from them was basically the same – if your goal is to be able to engage in basic conversational interactions, it's far more important to build up a useful vocabulary that it is to get the correct tenses or genders.
NoodleIncident 7y ago
I had a similar experience; my high school teacher and/or textbook seemed to only reluctantly introduce new vocabulary, so that they had some words to construct their grammar exercises out of.

musha68k 7y ago

As with most things you want to learn you need both - immersion as well as deliberate practice.

commandlinefan 7y ago

Back in the ‘50s or ‘60s, the U.S. government Foreign Service Institute put together a series of language learning courses that covered most of the popular languages at the time. They’re public domain and if you look hard enough, you can find them on the internet - they’re dated, but they’re still accurate (there are some here http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/ http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/ but the hosting sucks). I’ve learned Spanish and French well enough to carry on conversations in both from them. One thing about their approach is that they focus on memorizing spoken dialogues. It’s the standard goofy “what time will Mr. Gonzales arrive at the restaurant” type of dialogue, but the idea is that you’re supposed to remember what they say, even if you don’t understand the parts of speech, well enough to recite it from memory. I’ve found that, more than anything else, these memorized dialogues help the most with language recollection - if I want to say something, I scan through my memorized dialogues for something close, substitute a few words, and say it like they said it in the course.

meigwilym 7y ago
This reminds me of The Knowledge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#The_Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...
pessimizer 7y ago
I'm really a fan of rote learning and hate that it gets bad-rapped. It's not intended to teach creativity, it's intended to train reflexes. If you repeat "What time will Mr. Gonzales arrive at the restaurant" 1000 times, you'll immediately know how to ask when Bill will arrive at the restaurant. And later when you learn how to say "restaurant," "arrive," or "at what time", you suddenly know a bunch of stuff. Eventually you will forget about some of the things Mr. Gonzales did, but the reflexes will still exist. I love the endless FSI substitution drills. They feel like video games. Also the Spanish ones are done so quickly that the instructor almost trips over his own tongue. edit: also, https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/ https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/, well-hosted labor of love.
mcguire 7y ago
Interesting. The text to go along with the audio includes a phonetic version. Good morning. bwenozdiás [Some marks removed.] Buenos días. http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/languages/Spanish/Basic/Volume%201/Fsi-SpanishBasicCourse-Volume1-StudentText.pdf http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/languages/Spanish/Basic/..., Unit 1 - Useful phrases.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  Yes, you find that through the whole Spanish course. I never found it to be very useful, but it's there if somebody wants it.
tzs 7y ago
You can find much of the FSI material at the Live Lingua Project here [1]. The FSI is not the only US government created language program. There's also the Defense Languages Institute (DLI). Much of their material is also on Live Lingua [2]. [1] https://www.livelingua.com/fsi/ https://www.livelingua.com/fsi/ [2] https://www.livelingua.com/dli/ https://www.livelingua.com/dli/

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

matthewmacleod 7y ago

I agree this seems to be the way forward. I'm brushing up on my rusty and useless high-school German as a result of my company's work with a German client lately – it makes everything a bit easier for extended trips. The advice I got from them was basically the same – if your goal is to be able to engage in basic conversational interactions, it's far more important to build up a useful vocabulary that it is to get the correct tenses or genders.

NoodleIncident 7y ago

I had a similar experience; my high school teacher and/or textbook seemed to only reluctantly introduce new vocabulary, so that they had some words to construct their grammar exercises out of.