Re:A Review of Language Learning Tactics
by Jugurtha on Sunday September 13, 2020 @05:50AM
(#24459690)
>For example, listening or watching to a TV show in your target language with subtitles in the target language can be counter productive if you barely understand the sounds, let alone the meanings and grammar. Also, subtitles are not 1 to 1 to the audio.
This apparently is how language acquisition works. I do speak five languages, and not in a "polyglot blog post" way. I've tried to learn Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Russian.
The difference lies in the exposition part. The very process I used to learn English was to watch movies with barely intelligible dialogue, and subtitles that weren't 1:1. This was to "train my ear". I have also read a lot of books and content on the internet, and made sure to do it out loud. The muscles involved in English are different and it hurt at first. This was to learn idioms and acquire vocabulary.
I haven't bothered to learn grammar in any of the languages I speak but inferred the rules from consuming content. Granted, sometimes you explicit a rule, but the bulk of the time was consumption.
I discovered Stephen Krashen's work a few years ago. It is centered around "comprehensible input" for language acquisition as opposed to "learning", and stresses the fact taht input (listening, reading) was more important than output(speaking, writing) for language acquisition. It matches my experience and the experience of people I know who actually do speak multiple languages.
I've also made attempts at a bunch of other languages. Although I understand things here and there, the "input" is insufficient.
One interesting fact: I learned English out of necessity. I was interested in a field and read practically all that had been written about it in French. My only option was to learn English to access many more books.
This apparently is how language acquisition works. I do speak five languages, and not in a "polyglot blog post" way. I've tried to learn Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Russian.
The difference lies in the exposition part. The very process I used to learn English was to watch movies with barely intelligible dialogue, and subtitles that weren't 1:1. This was to "train my ear". I have also read a lot of books and content on the internet, and made sure to do it out loud. The muscles involved in English are different and it hurt at first. This was to learn idioms and acquire vocabulary.
I haven't bothered to learn grammar in any of the languages I speak but inferred the rules from consuming content. Granted, sometimes you explicit a rule, but the bulk of the time was consumption.
I discovered Stephen Krashen's work a few years ago. It is centered around "comprehensible input" for language acquisition as opposed to "learning", and stresses the fact taht input (listening, reading) was more important than output(speaking, writing) for language acquisition. It matches my experience and the experience of people I know who actually do speak multiple languages.
I've also made attempts at a bunch of other languages. Although I understand things here and there, the "input" is insufficient.
One interesting fact: I learned English out of necessity. I was interested in a field and read practically all that had been written about it in French. My only option was to learn English to access many more books.