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A couple of points: 1) The guy lists his activities with heavy focus on Rosetta Stone. To me that pretty much invalidates his claims on the spot. RS is not rea
by arafalov 12y ago
A couple of points:
1) The guy lists his activities with heavy focus on Rosetta Stone. To me that pretty much invalidates his claims on the spot. RS is not really well respected in language learning circles (at least a couple of years ago, it was not). Pimsleur is better due to its exponential backoff repetition model and it's "how do you say" prompts.
2) I did not see any mention of activities that actually built vocabulary. Not in a "listen to a show" way, but in a "read a book and translate every word you don't understand". I learned English that way. As a Russian, I studied it in school and in private courses to no effect. When I came to Australia, I decided to re-read Tolkien's "The Hobbit" but this time in the original rather than Russian translation. Of course, I did not realize that Tolkien was philologist... So, I may have learnt a bit more of vocabulary and grammar than I really needed for street English.
3) When you learn your first foreign language, you are learning two things at once: language-learning practices and specifics of specific language (vocabulary, grammar, sounds). That's why Esperanto as the first foreign language is great. (http://www.springboard2languages.org/ http://www.springboard2languages.org/) You learn the practices (in a very supporting community http://lernu.net/ http://lernu.net/) with a very regular language. Then, you can attack a more complex language like French.
4) As an aside, last couple of years, language learning startups were quite popular. Unfortunately, they all try to address global market and don't dive deep enough into any single language. Therefore most of the interesting & academic research that could have really impacted language learning process goes unused. I have about 10 pages of (technical) notes on what _I_ would want from a language-learning website and I have seen less than 10% of it out in the wild.
- jodrellblank 12y agoTo pull a bit out of the Esperanto / Springboard2Languages idea, particularly watch this linked TEDx talk about teaching Esperanto to young school children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gSAkUOElsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gSAkUOElsg How it serves as a good simplified language because it's so regular, there's very little learning before you can start saying your own sentences instead of reciting pre-made ones.
- personlurking 12y agoGreat (and true) points. I like to think of the process as one might think of exercising a part of the body, in that one shouldn't let the muscles get used to just one method. When people ask me what's the best method to learning a foreign language, I say 'do them all'. I also advocate for the 'translate word by word' technique and to realize what you can do alone (reading, writing, listening) should be better than what you can do with someone else present (speaking). In other words, work on what you can, when you can. Small steps, consistency and not giving up are also key factors.
- zem 12y agothe fact that he was doing it wrong may invalidate his claim that it's nigh impossible for adults to learn a new language (from what I remember, people are also more sceptical about some "language window" closing off one you hit 5 or so), but his other point about the attempt improving his general mental abilities is surely still valid.