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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| justinwilliams Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6499 days ago 321 posts - 327 votes  3 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Italian | Message 17 of 69 29 March 2007 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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AND babies have nothing to rely on, their mind is still empty of descriptive and thinking tools. Whereas you could still think and describe to yourself what you're thinking of without your foreign language.
The need is definitely less when you already have one language to think. Hard to describe but... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6428 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 18 of 69 29 March 2007 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Context. At first most language directed at me was in English, but lots of Norwegian was spoken in my presence. I gradually began to understand more and more of what I heard, and as I understood more, more of the language directed at me was in Norwegian. I continued to speak English. I was not motivated to learn Norwegian, since I did not expect to stay in Norway. However, I did gradually begin to speak Norwegian, mostly to shopkeepers and the like at first, and then eventually to everyone I met. I also had begun to read Norwegian newspapers - I was working in an office, there was a lot of downtime, and there were newspapers lying around, so I read them, understanding what I could. It was only later that I encountered the concept of comprehensible input and realized how I had learned Norwegian. I have since let the concept of comprehensible input guide my learning of other languages, with very pleasing results. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6501 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 19 of 69 29 March 2007 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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| kinoko Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6446 days ago 103 posts - 109 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, Japanese, Spanish Studies: German | Message 20 of 69 29 March 2007 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Linguamor please don't be silly! The only reason you could do that with Norwegian was for a certain transparency with English (and maybe with other scandinavian languages you already knew, even if I am not sure about what you learnt first...). Try to learn Chinese or Korean in that way and you'll end up knowing absolutely NOTHING even after ten years of exposure. I see plenty of people here in Japan who have been immersed for YEARS and are even married with a Japanese wife or husband, do not have any opportunity to use their language outside the small circle of a couple of people and still can't speak a word.
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| jstele Bilingual Senior Member United States Joined 6465 days ago 186 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean* | Message 21 of 69 29 March 2007 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I know that Linguamor's approach can work for Korean as I have acquired vocabulary through exposure as well not only as a child, but also as an adult. Hearing the same word in different contexts, you cannot help but extract the meaning of the word. I don't understand why people are so defensive. With enough comprehensible input presented in the right way, there should be no problem absorbing the language like a child.
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6753 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 22 of 69 29 March 2007 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Did you use any study aids at all? Did you own a grammar book or a textbook? Did you ever open a dictionary? Did you ever receive any grammatical explanations from the natives? Also, if this took place after you'd studied languages at the university, did you find your general insight into grammatical phenomena and terminology helping you figure out the structure of Norwedgian?
I must say I am skeptical that a single idea can be the end-all of language learning. Not that it may not be relevant, or even very relevant, it's just that there may be "implementation" details that may also be important. Here is one model of comprehensible input, straight out of Barry Farber: (1) you read the first 5 chapters of a textbook; (2) you continue reading your textbook, but also open your first newspaper article, look up every unknown word in the first sentence, understand the sentence the best you can, record the words that now make sense on flashcards, move on to the next sentence. This is comprehensible input, especially if the reading matter is chosen well, yet this isn't how you learn languages. So, there must be more to your way of learning and teaching, but because you believe in one concept, you seem to see the rest as incidental details, even while paradoxically being quite attached to them, and try to force everything into the comprehensible input framework rather that merely let it illuminate and guide certain aspects of how you learn and teach languages. In any case, this is what I am afraid may be happening, but I could be wrong, of course. Just on the off-chance that I am not entirely wrong, please, continue to share the details of how you do things, for your specific choices and preferences are not all automatically obvious from the comprehensible input concept alone and just may point to some other aspects of language learning and acquisition. Edited by frenkeld on 30 March 2007 at 12:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jstele Bilingual Senior Member United States Joined 6465 days ago 186 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean* | Message 23 of 69 29 March 2007 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm sure or I hope it is an exaggeration that they cannot speak a word. If that is the case, then they did not take the right approach to learning. You can't just hear input, you must pay attention with an intent to understand what is being said. You must pay attention to the manner in which things are spoken. Then, slowly, gradually, you will notice patterns and your abilities will increase exponentially. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6428 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 24 of 69 29 March 2007 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
At the time I only knew English and some French. I'm quite sure that with ten years of exposure to Chinese or Korean I could understand (comprehensible input) I would know quite a lot of spoken Chinese or Korean. Simple immersion is not enough, the exposure has to contain comprehensible input, i.e. language that one can understand. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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