I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

Re:I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How by xiaoma on Thursday April 19, 2012 @02:55PM (#3864527)

I used Pimsleur for Cantonese in 2010 during a trip to HK and have kind of mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it was good for pronunciation. Many people were shocked by how good my Cantonese sounded and had troubles believing me when I said I'd just gotten to Hong Kong. On the other hand, this caused some problems-- people consistently over-estimated my language abilities, and as a result said a ton of stuff I couldn't understand. Had my speech sounded worse they'd probably have modified theirs a bit and I'd have learned faster. The other wildcard is that I already spoke Mandarin fluently, and definitely had a bit of help from all the cognates.

Another downside to Pimsleur I discovered more recently while working on Swedish. They're all about the same! The dialogues and stories got kind of boring since I'd heard them already in Cantonese.

Ideally, I'd like a resource like Pimsleur plus some kind of podcast (e.g. popupcantonese.com) so that I could build more vocabulary at least at a passive level and understand more of the speech I elicit from native speakers.

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Re:I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How by vellum on Thursday April 19, 2012 @05:11PM (#3865166)

people consistently over-estimated my language abilities, and as a result said a ton of stuff I couldn't understand

The same thing happened to me in South America. I studied Spanish in high school, but when I asked someone a question there, they started talking at 100mph and I had no idea what they were saying.

I find it's a lot easier to understand Spanish speakers who grew up stateside. They use a more limited vocabulary, and they're Spanglish accent is a lot easier to understand.

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Re:I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How by nandemo on Thursday April 19, 2012 @09:04PM (#3866021)

> On the other hand, this caused some problems-- people consistently over-estimated my language abilities, and as a result said a ton of stuff I couldn't understand.

I don't see how that's a downside of Pimsleur...

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Re:I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How by reneherse on Friday April 20, 2012 @02:07AM (#3866702)

Fundamentally, it's just a result of picking up certain attributes of the language more quickly than others. That could be a result of the particular teaching method that Pimsleur uses, or just the natural abilities of the student.

I've had a similar experience to the grandparent while learning Mandarin (not through Pimsleur), where my pronunciation has far outstripped my progress in listening, grammar, and vocabulary. Hoping to remedy this through different exercises, talking with (sympathetic) native speakers, and catching up on my Chinese soaps. ;)

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Re:I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How by nandemo on Friday April 20, 2012 @04:33AM (#3867019)

Still, I don't see it as downside of the method at all. If Joe learns how to say "Excuse me, where is the Hilton Hotel?" in Chinese with really good pronunciation, and some Chinese people go on to assume he speaks really well, then that means to me: (i) Joe used a method that teaches good pronunciation from the start, (ii) those Chinese people are overestimating Joe's ability, they're simply wrong.

On (i): any method has to make some choices on what to teach first. I think good pronunciation and listening skills are much important than knowing spelling or explicit grammar rules at the beginning. While Pimsleur is not perfect, I believe it's a good method in that respect.

On (ii): it's possible that Joe got unlucky, or maybe people in that region are monolinguals and don't quite understand that language proficiency is far being binary. It's not a big deal anyway: just learn how to say "I don't understand", "sorry, I don't speak Chinese well" and "please speak slowly". At least the first 2 of those are stock Pimsleur phrases.

For what is worth, some of us foreigners in Japan experience a different phenomenon: Japanese people who can't quite believe that non-Japanese can speak their language.

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Re:I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How by reneherse on Friday April 20, 2012 @10:50AM (#3868082)

I agree that it's not a downside. It's just an interesting effect and experience! As far as Pimsleur, from people's comments here I'd certainly consider using their materials.

Regarding your experience in Japan, I think that's a demonstration of why learning foreign languages (and traveling)is so significant: It creates new cultural ties and has the power to jolt people out of their preconceptions and prejudices (both for learners and native speakers). It opens minds on all sides.

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Re:I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How by dalke on Friday April 20, 2012 @05:29PM (#3869867)

On a similar note, I started learning Swedish mostly through months of self-study (reading/writing) in the US, and a private tutor every other week. She was the only Swedish tutor I could find in a 1 hour driving radius, and British. She is a professional translator and also teaches Spanish and German; I was her first Swedish pupil.

Which meant I, like you, had the strange ability when visiting Swedish, of speaking much better Swedish than I could understand.

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Re:I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How by brianobush on Friday April 20, 2012 @01:04PM (#3868747)

agreed. This is a good thing. It puts you on the spot and you are forced to try to comprehend what is being said. Even if you only understand a word, you have consumed all and found the one word or phrase you do know.

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