Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

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neofight78
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Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby neofight78 » Sat Aug 08, 2015 3:37 pm

From today's log entry:

One stubborn and recurring problem was seen again today: I consistently fail to use the past tense after чтобы. This is despite knowing the grammar and having done quite a few flashcards on it. I'm keen to fix it, as I don't want to end up with any fossilised mistakes. But I'm not sure what I can do. Trying to analyse the cause has given me a new theory. It's a conjunction, so I think I'm throwing out the first phrase + чтобы, and then I pause to think about the second phrase and in the process of thinking about that, I forget it needs to be put it in the past tense. So perhaps it's being caused by the pause + a sort of cognitive overload. Not sure that leads me to any ideas on how to fix it though...


This is the first persistent error that I've come across where I know the grammar well, I've practiced it, yet the mistakes still occur on a pretty frequent basis (rather than the occasional goof up). I was wondering what peoples experiences were with persistent or fossilised errors and how to overcome them?
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby Expugnator » Sat Aug 08, 2015 4:22 pm

Writing down in paper is a good way to 'fix' something your brain still gets wrong, as it makes the correct form more concrete. You can try just writing down some sentences or doing translation exercises, like Assimil's 2nd wave. I have several 'confusing pairs' I mix up in my languages because I understand the rule behind their usage but still forget who-does-what. It is like you tell me about affect/effect that one is a verb and the other is the noun, and I understand the rule crystal-clear but keep mixing who does what (not my case because they sound differently enough in my native language, just an example). In such cases, corrective output is what works better for me, and using paper and pen(cil) is usually eve more effective. Just don't stress out about everything, you better reserve those more intensive efforts for details that you keep mixing up even when the other topics at the same level already got better.
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby Arnaud » Sat Aug 08, 2015 5:02 pm

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Last edited by Arnaud on Tue Sep 13, 2016 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby kimchizzle » Sat Aug 08, 2015 8:39 pm

I will second Expugnator's opinion about writing down sentences by hand. I think the concept of "overlearning" would work well here too. Overlearning is basically drilling a small grammar point so much that it becomes second nature.

Here's how I would apply overlearning drills to your situation. First, I'd find about 25 sentences using чтобы in the correct context you want to study, from journalism or literature. The reason I'd personally find sentences from journalism or literature instead of creating my own sentences is they will be native texts and I can be sure I'm not accidentally adding grammar errors elsewhere in the sentences. After finding the sentences, I would then write them down by hand in a notebook for a set period of time, personally I would do at least 15 minutes of writing by hand and after finishing the 25 sentences, repeating them over and over until the 15 minutes has passed. I would do this drill everyday trying to get to where I dont need to look at the sentences as quickly as possible, where I'm just doing the sentences by memorization. I'd do this once as day at least 15 minutes of time for at least a week but as long as it took to feel the grammar I'm drilling feels second-nature and will be very hard to forget again.

Hope this helps.
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby sctroyenne » Sat Aug 08, 2015 9:32 pm

In addition to drilling output I'd also make the argument that extensive reading (and sometimes listening) can help a lot as well for grammar points that are difficult to master. I found that reading a lot of articles and nonfiction especially really helped me with things such as conditional statements and some more advanced conjunctions (such as d'autant plus/moins que). What wasn't working with drilling was that some of these require much more context to understand than what is provided in a single sentence that would typically be in drills and reading sentences in context helped put it all together.

Another major class of persistent errors learners are bound to make: gender. And this is the kind of mistake that really jumps out to native speakers (mistakes like effect/affect in English are common among natives as well so they won't out you as a second language learner). I think here it really is a matter of drilling and noting down what we get wrong (since we can probably be proud of the fact that in the vast majority of cases we're right). Especially when speaking, I'll correct myself once my brain realizes what I just said was wrong, which means I know the gender I just don't have it automatically associated for speech yet. Any other input from someone who has worked to reduce this class of error is definitely appreciated :)

When I was taking flute lessons my teacher would have me take technical passages I was consistently making mistakes in and make me play them 10 times in a row without a single mistake before moving on to make sure I wasn't practicing the mistake. As she said, make sure that for every time you get something wrong you need to get it right about 10 times to change the habit. This is definitely the same idea behind drilling in languages. But another technique she had for technical passages that worked really well was to play them again but in a completely different style: different rhythms, articulations, playing the passages in a different order, etc. I think the reason it worked is that it put the focus exclusively on the notes and the fingerings themselves without having to worry about getting all the other elements correct. I'm wondering if there's an application of this technique to drilling grammar: maybe singing a sentence, for example?
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby neofight78 » Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:19 pm

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. It sounds like putting in a lot more reps, and using writing by hand is the way to go. I've never really used writing as a learning technique up to this point, so it could be an interesting experiment in itself for me.

sctroyenne wrote:I think the reason it worked is that it put the focus exclusively on the notes and the fingerings themselves without having to worry about getting all the other elements correct. I'm wondering if there's an application of this technique to drilling grammar: maybe singing a sentence, for example?


Yes, this is similar to the idea I expressed in the original post. Somehow, my brain is getting overloaded producing the second part of the sentence causing me to forget that it's preceded by чтобы and therefore the tense needs changing accordingly.
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby aokoye » Mon Aug 10, 2015 12:14 am

sctroyenne wrote:In addition to drilling output I'd also make the argument that extensive reading (and sometimes listening) can help a lot as well for grammar points that are difficult to master. I found that reading a lot of articles and nonfiction especially really helped me with things such as conditional statements and some more advanced conjunctions (such as d'autant plus/moins que). What wasn't working with drilling was that some of these require much more context to understand than what is provided in a single sentence that would typically be in drills and reading sentences in context helped put it all together.

Another major class of persistent errors learners are bound to make: gender. And this is the kind of mistake that really jumps out to native speakers (mistakes like effect/affect in English are common among natives as well so they won't out you as a second language learner). I think here it really is a matter of drilling and noting down what we get wrong (since we can probably be proud of the fact that in the vast majority of cases we're right). Especially when speaking, I'll correct myself once my brain realizes what I just said was wrong, which means I know the gender I just don't have it automatically associated for speech yet. Any other input from someone who has worked to reduce this class of error is definitely appreciated :)

When I was taking flute lessons my teacher would have me take technical passages I was consistently making mistakes in and make me play them 10 times in a row without a single mistake before moving on to make sure I wasn't practicing the mistake. As she said, make sure that for every time you get something wrong you need to get it right about 10 times to change the habit. This is definitely the same idea behind drilling in languages. But another technique she had for technical passages that worked really well was to play them again but in a completely different style: different rhythms, articulations, playing the passages in a different order, etc. I think the reason it worked is that it put the focus exclusively on the notes and the fingerings themselves without having to worry about getting all the other elements correct. I'm wondering if there's an application of this technique to drilling grammar: maybe singing a sentence, for example?
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby basica » Mon Aug 10, 2015 12:41 am

I found with me my spoken production lags behind my written one so for example I make far few case mistakes in Serbian while writing than I do while talking and I am not as fluid with past tense production as I am with writing it. I've noticed that these simply improved with time where I am much better today than I was say 2 months back.

The only issue I really had of something sorta fossilizing was using voliti (to love) in same way I would use the english verbs to like and to want and it just sounded weird so I had to force myself to start substituting it with zeliti (to wish/to desire) and svidati (to like/to be appealing). This process was helped with a tutor pointing out whenever I feel back into the habit of using voliti the wrong way.

So I think written practice might help, but I think you probably need more speaking practice where someone keeps an eye out for this mistake to help keep you on the right track - at least that's been my experience when simply speaking more wasn't enough to correct it.
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby Cavesa » Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:51 pm

I totally agree with lots of things mentioned (tons of input, rewriting things correctly and so on), but I would like to stress the importance of a good explanation. Lots of grammatical mistakes (even though not only those) come from either a bad explanation or misunderstanding a good explanation. That's why I love to use more than one resource. I've found it helpful at times to just let another book explain the matter to me, in a different manner, different words, with different examples.

The worst problem, however, are fossilized pronunciation mistakes. I was told about one by Tarvos a few days ago (we met in Prague and he is an awesome guy, by the way). I am pronouncing the "u" in French wrong very often and it gives away my region of origin. Funnily enough, not even a tutor (native speaker) ever commented on that (I told you tutors were not a panacea...). I suppose the only way is to repeat after audio a lot, drill that thing into the ears, brain and tongue. Any other ideas what to do about it? I am so far that any fossilized mistake in French looks like it is there to stay. My goal is not to fake being a native, I don't mind a slight accent (most natives usually guess I just come from a different region, at least for some time, until I mess something up totally), but I dislike having "eastern european" accent as that can still be a huge stigma abroad.
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Re: Tackling persistent mistakes / fossilisation

Postby sctroyenne » Mon Aug 10, 2015 3:52 pm

Cavesa wrote:The worst problem, however, are fossilized pronunciation mistakes. I was told about one by Tarvos a few days ago (we met in Prague and he is an awesome guy, by the way). I am pronouncing the "u" in French wrong very often and it gives away my region of origin. Funnily enough, not even a tutor (native speaker) ever commented on that (I told you tutors were not a panacea...). I suppose the only way is to repeat after audio a lot, drill that thing into the ears, brain and tongue. Any other ideas what to do about it? I am so far that any fossilized mistake in French looks like it is there to stay. My goal is not to fake being a native, I don't mind a slight accent (most natives usually guess I just come from a different region, at least for some time, until I mess something up totally), but I dislike having "eastern european" accent as that can still be a huge stigma abroad.


I wouldn't say it's a lost cause. I was able to fix my r after years of study and after half my study abroad year in France (I had a high school teacher that didn't bother working on the r and u with us - I guess she figured a bunch of high school students wouldn't get over it sounding "weird"). I worked on it by reading aloud slowly a lot. Certain combinations were harder than others so I kept working on it. It kind of helps that the r is pronounced in a completely different place so it's not easy to mix them up (unlike the vowels which makes it harder to get rid of diphthongs and all that). I'm still not always perfect (and the u isn't always perfect either) but it doesn't immediately give me away at least. Also, if you haven't already tried a phonetics course/book that would help too.

It takes a while for the deliberate practice to transfer to your everyday speech and it may start to slip sometimes when you're not focused but that's normal. And yes, the stigmas that are carried over from certain accents suck and it's a shame people can be ignorant. Just ask them how many languages they speak fluently :D
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