8 ms·

My understanding is that these methods work well, when the learner has already reached at least a basic level of fluency in the target foreign language. But wha

by ablekh 6y ago

My understanding is that these methods work well, when the learner has already reached at least a basic level of fluency in the target foreign language. But what about those just beginning the journey as well as those who have already started and still are moving toward that basic level goal? I assume that traditional approaches (textbooks, courses, sprinkled with some live conversations with native speakers and watching some movies/TV) remain the right ones. If so, I'm curious about what, if any, might be the optimal strategy for achieving that goal, in other words, what is the approximately optimal ratio between efforts using relevant methods (say, 50% textbook, 30% course X, 10% live conversations, 10% watching movies) and whether such strategy's ratio depends on specifics of the target language (say, Spanish vs. Chinese).

jonathanjaeger 6y ago
I do daily 30-60 minute conversations with native Brazilian speakers on Italki. That can add up in price quickly, but I would recommend at least 1-2 lessons per week to start after getting the basics down on something like Duolingo/Rosetta Stone. It was a world of difference between year 1 only using Duolingo/YouTube etc. and actually having Brazilian teachers correct my grammar, pronunciation, and add vocabulary for very context-specific situations that came up in conversations. Not to mention slang, idioms, etc.
- ablekh 6y ago
  I see. Thank you for your prompt comment. Just one clarification ... When you are saying "getting the basics down on something like Duolingo/Rosetta Stone", do you mean that "basics" here includes all levels (as far as I know, solid courses like Rosetta Stone or Fluenz - as opposed to Duolingo and similar apps - have multiple levels, where higher levels are pretty advanced) or you are talking about first 1-2 levels?
  - joshvm 6y ago
    Duolinguo is a poor substitute for human interaction. It's a good tool to support other methods, but it encourages pattern matching rather than actual memorisation and there simply isn't enough variety in the examples to help you with translating unseen phrases. It's also not sufficient for speaking practice, but at least you can hear the text-to-speech. There are some positives. The community is very active and helpful. They've done a lot better with the lessons. Japanese, for example, is much improved. It used to be that you'd get exercises in hiragana with no context at all. I agree with the other post, you'll get much more out of a two hour class once a week than doing ten minutes of duolinguo a day. The claim that x hours is equivalent to a university semester is nonsense. Your question was about optimality. It doesn't take much classroom time to get good - maybe two or three courses? (say 60 hours to A2/B1) That gets you enough of a baseline that you can start watching TV, reading papers. For example in our B1 lessons for Spanish, we'd actually read El País as an exercise.
    - ablekh 6y ago
      Understood. I appreciate you sharing your insights. What course(s) did you use for Spanish? Any thoughts on Fluenz?
      - joshvm 6y ago
        I ran through the Michel Thomas 8 hour audio course, then 3 semesters of evening class at my university (run by the language dept). That was about 60 hours of class time, 2 hours a week. By the end I would have been comfortable going for B1 with a bit of study. In terms of course level I finished up working on B2 level material. If I was doing it again I'd look at the Instituto Cervantes. I had access to grad student pricing, but even so it cost about 200 a semester. At the time I was also dating a native speaker and we would watch Spanish TV with English subs as well as English TV with Spanish subs. I still have a lot of friends who are native Spanish speakers which helps. No idea about Fluenz, sorry. One of my friends used Lingoda for German and seemed to have a decent time with it. They also do language marathons where you get a significant discount if you do daily lessons, but it's easy to miss one and then you don't get a refund.
        ablekh 6y ago
        Thank you so much for sharing very interesting and useful details. ¡Muchas gracias! :-)
        joshvm 6y ago
        I think the takeaway is that classes sometimes don't feel that useful at the time - I would often be doing homework the night before, or on the train, but it made a massive difference speaking to people regularly. The main benefit is it offers a structure that's difficult to get if you talk to strangers or even friends, or if you buy a textbook. Professional (and experienced) teachers are careful to not use vocabulary that's beyond your level, but at the same time a good class will be taught solely in the target language. In that sense I would seriously look at Lingoda if you can't attend evening classes. You get structured lessons with real people with very flexible scheduling. I don't know what qualifications the teachers are required to have though, and it's important as a beginner that you have people who know how to teach (and aren't just regurgitating the material). For Spanish, Instituto Cervantes (similarly for German you have the Goethe Institute) is the de facto international language school and you can mostly guarantee the teachers will be good.
  - mantap 6y ago
    Duolingo works very well as an introduction so you can get a taste of a language. There's no point doing higher levels on duolingo - if you actually want to learn a language to conversational level and beyond then proceed directly to memorising vocabulary with spaced repetition software such as Anki. It is much more effective. The person who might benefit from higher levels on duolingo is the traveller who does not aim for conversational level but wants to pick up enough words to get by.
    - ablekh 6y ago
      I see. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
  - jonathanjaeger 6y ago
    So I went through the whole Duolingo tree for Portuguese and thought it was high quality and got me good a foundation. As others noted, there is no substitute for actual conversation/interaction with native speakers, and I wish I started that sooner. I also second the recommendation of using something like Anki or Quizlet for vocabulary practice. I only noted that it's good to have a base before starting with professional teachers because if you're budget isn't unlimited, you might not get the bang for your buck having teachers walk you through the most basic stuff like hello/how are you/how much does that cost/etc. that you can get with Duoloingo/Rosetta Stone or similar programs. But if you want to start off with Italki and lessons on day 1 with native speakers, it certainly won't hurt!
    - ablekh 6y ago
      Got it. Very much appreciate your additional thoughtful insights.
markvdb 6y ago
My strategy for Latvian was roughly as follows: - Go mad because you don't understand a word of what's happening around you for the first time in your life. - Decide to do something about it. - Take a three week university summer introductory course. Erasmus courses area great idea. - Always actively speak the language when in native company. - Pick up at least the basics from news broadcasts. - Read childrens' books and written press. - Study five common new words a day from my actual use (speaking, listening, reading) using a spaced repetition algorithm. The article mentions ankiweb. It's stellar. Picking from your own use tailors to your needs and interests. It also makes finding example phrases easier. That worked rather well for me getting to CEFR[0] C1 in Latvian. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
- bluGill 6y ago
  Sounds like you lived in lativa just ensuring a ready supply of real life encounters as everyone speaks that first. Where I live English is dominant and even the significant Spanish speaking (Mexican) population sees me and switches to English, which they know better than my Spanish... My other target language isn't spoken in my community, but I plan on traveling to where it is spoken sometime in the future.
- ablekh 6y ago
  Understood, thank you. So, essentially, you have used the language immersion approach, on top of a light introductory course, enriched by regular vocabulary building. Sounds reasonable to me.
pessimizer 6y ago
A lot of very productive learners and teachers are advocating for learning through all-talk, all-target language, in-person language exchange sessions, and complimenting that with pleasure reading in the target language. So 0% textbook, and if a course, a course that as closely as possible imitates a group conversation. So 100% live conversation, with a rising percentage of reading material after achieving some small degree of fluency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Xj3rGu1T0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Xj3rGu1T0 I know it's not a great suggestion during the time of covid. I wonder if the online language exchange apps provide for different forms of interaction? The ability to show a picture or flip through a magazine or picture-book simultaneously with mouse pointer visibility on both sides would be nice.
- ablekh 6y ago
  Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and info. Being multi-lingual myself, I certainly understand the concept of language immersion (and, actually, most recently have tried it partially with Mandarin, in the form of watching Chinese movies, mostly with subtitles). However, I doubt that it is possible to learn correct grammar from language immersion (it's probably not that important for languages like Mandarin, which, as I understand, are very lightweight in terms of grammar; but, for the rest ...).

by ablekh 6y ago

jonathanjaeger 6y ago

I do daily 30-60 minute conversations with native Brazilian speakers on Italki. That can add up in price quickly, but I would recommend at least 1-2 lessons per week to start after getting the basics down on something like Duolingo/Rosetta Stone. It was a world of difference between year 1 only using Duolingo/YouTube etc. and actually having Brazilian teachers correct my grammar, pronunciation, and add vocabulary for very context-specific situations that came up in conversations. Not to mention slang, idioms, etc.

ablekh 6y ago
I see. Thank you for your prompt comment. Just one clarification ... When you are saying "getting the basics down on something like Duolingo/Rosetta Stone", do you mean that "basics" here includes all levels (as far as I know, solid courses like Rosetta Stone or Fluenz - as opposed to Duolingo and similar apps - have multiple levels, where higher levels are pretty advanced) or you are talking about first 1-2 levels?
- joshvm 6y ago
  Duolinguo is a poor substitute for human interaction. It's a good tool to support other methods, but it encourages pattern matching rather than actual memorisation and there simply isn't enough variety in the examples to help you with translating unseen phrases. It's also not sufficient for speaking practice, but at least you can hear the text-to-speech. There are some positives. The community is very active and helpful. They've done a lot better with the lessons. Japanese, for example, is much improved. It used to be that you'd get exercises in hiragana with no context at all. I agree with the other post, you'll get much more out of a two hour class once a week than doing ten minutes of duolinguo a day. The claim that x hours is equivalent to a university semester is nonsense. Your question was about optimality. It doesn't take much classroom time to get good - maybe two or three courses? (say 60 hours to A2/B1) That gets you enough of a baseline that you can start watching TV, reading papers. For example in our B1 lessons for Spanish, we'd actually read El País as an exercise.
  - ablekh 6y ago
    Understood. I appreciate you sharing your insights. What course(s) did you use for Spanish? Any thoughts on Fluenz?
    - joshvm 6y ago
      I ran through the Michel Thomas 8 hour audio course, then 3 semesters of evening class at my university (run by the language dept). That was about 60 hours of class time, 2 hours a week. By the end I would have been comfortable going for B1 with a bit of study. In terms of course level I finished up working on B2 level material. If I was doing it again I'd look at the Instituto Cervantes. I had access to grad student pricing, but even so it cost about 200 a semester. At the time I was also dating a native speaker and we would watch Spanish TV with English subs as well as English TV with Spanish subs. I still have a lot of friends who are native Spanish speakers which helps. No idea about Fluenz, sorry. One of my friends used Lingoda for German and seemed to have a decent time with it. They also do language marathons where you get a significant discount if you do daily lessons, but it's easy to miss one and then you don't get a refund.
      - ablekh 6y ago
        Thank you so much for sharing very interesting and useful details. ¡Muchas gracias! :-)
        joshvm 6y ago
        I think the takeaway is that classes sometimes don't feel that useful at the time - I would often be doing homework the night before, or on the train, but it made a massive difference speaking to people regularly. The main benefit is it offers a structure that's difficult to get if you talk to strangers or even friends, or if you buy a textbook. Professional (and experienced) teachers are careful to not use vocabulary that's beyond your level, but at the same time a good class will be taught solely in the target language. In that sense I would seriously look at Lingoda if you can't attend evening classes. You get structured lessons with real people with very flexible scheduling. I don't know what qualifications the teachers are required to have though, and it's important as a beginner that you have people who know how to teach (and aren't just regurgitating the material). For Spanish, Instituto Cervantes (similarly for German you have the Goethe Institute) is the de facto international language school and you can mostly guarantee the teachers will be good.
- mantap 6y ago
  Duolingo works very well as an introduction so you can get a taste of a language. There's no point doing higher levels on duolingo - if you actually want to learn a language to conversational level and beyond then proceed directly to memorising vocabulary with spaced repetition software such as Anki. It is much more effective. The person who might benefit from higher levels on duolingo is the traveller who does not aim for conversational level but wants to pick up enough words to get by.
  - ablekh 6y ago
    I see. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
- jonathanjaeger 6y ago
  So I went through the whole Duolingo tree for Portuguese and thought it was high quality and got me good a foundation. As others noted, there is no substitute for actual conversation/interaction with native speakers, and I wish I started that sooner. I also second the recommendation of using something like Anki or Quizlet for vocabulary practice. I only noted that it's good to have a base before starting with professional teachers because if you're budget isn't unlimited, you might not get the bang for your buck having teachers walk you through the most basic stuff like hello/how are you/how much does that cost/etc. that you can get with Duoloingo/Rosetta Stone or similar programs. But if you want to start off with Italki and lessons on day 1 with native speakers, it certainly won't hurt!
  - ablekh 6y ago
    Got it. Very much appreciate your additional thoughtful insights.

markvdb 6y ago

My strategy for Latvian was roughly as follows: - Go mad because you don't understand a word of what's happening around you for the first time in your life. - Decide to do something about it. - Take a three week university summer introductory course. Erasmus courses area great idea. - Always actively speak the language when in native company. - Pick up at least the basics from news broadcasts. - Read childrens' books and written press. - Study five common new words a day from my actual use (speaking, listening, reading) using a spaced repetition algorithm. The article mentions ankiweb. It's stellar. Picking from your own use tailors to your needs and interests. It also makes finding example phrases easier. That worked rather well for me getting to CEFR[0] C1 in Latvian. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...

bluGill 6y ago
Sounds like you lived in lativa just ensuring a ready supply of real life encounters as everyone speaks that first. Where I live English is dominant and even the significant Spanish speaking (Mexican) population sees me and switches to English, which they know better than my Spanish... My other target language isn't spoken in my community, but I plan on traveling to where it is spoken sometime in the future.
ablekh 6y ago
Understood, thank you. So, essentially, you have used the language immersion approach, on top of a light introductory course, enriched by regular vocabulary building. Sounds reasonable to me.

pessimizer 6y ago

A lot of very productive learners and teachers are advocating for learning through all-talk, all-target language, in-person language exchange sessions, and complimenting that with pleasure reading in the target language. So 0% textbook, and if a course, a course that as closely as possible imitates a group conversation. So 100% live conversation, with a rising percentage of reading material after achieving some small degree of fluency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Xj3rGu1T0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Xj3rGu1T0 I know it's not a great suggestion during the time of covid. I wonder if the online language exchange apps provide for different forms of interaction? The ability to show a picture or flip through a magazine or picture-book simultaneously with mouse pointer visibility on both sides would be nice.

ablekh 6y ago
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and info. Being multi-lingual myself, I certainly understand the concept of language immersion (and, actually, most recently have tried it partially with Mandarin, in the form of watching Chinese movies, mostly with subtitles). However, I doubt that it is possible to learn correct grammar from language immersion (it's probably not that important for languages like Mandarin, which, as I understand, are very lightweight in terms of grammar; but, for the rest ...).