Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

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tractor
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby tractor » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:11 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:800 hours isn't much to pick up the basics of a new language. The average American spends 5 hours per day watching TV. If they simply shifted their habits and instead watched 5 hours of French or Chinese per day, they would rack up 1,825 hours of immersion per year.

They would be spending five hours every single day watching something they didn't understand. Very few people are willing to spend their spare time that way.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby TopDog_IK » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:15 pm

tractor wrote:
TopDog_IK wrote:800 hours isn't much to pick up the basics of a new language. The average American spends 5 hours per day watching TV. If they simply shifted their habits and instead watched 5 hours of French or Chinese per day, they would rack up 1,825 hours of immersion per year.

They would be spending five hours every single day watching something they didn't understand. Very few people are willing to spend their spare time that way.


Not if they start with Peppa Pig and other such children's shows.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby LupCenușiu » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:21 pm

A bit of necromancy didn't kill anyone, after all...

TopDog_IK wrote:800 hours isn't much to pick up the basics of a new language.


Could be way too much, depending of language and what we mean by "basics". A0? A1? A2? Passive or active skills ?

TopDog_IK wrote:The average American spends 5 hours per day watching TV. If they simply shifted their habits and instead watched 5 hours of French or Chinese per day, they would rack up 1,825 hours of immersion per year.


This might vary quite a bit based on the background of the learner, but pretty sure for a native English speaker French and Chinese would yield very different results. Now, let's imagine 2 hours of work familiarizing with language structure, vocabulary and practicing some output, and 3 hours watching TV. Or even 1:4. Probably would be an improvement.

You suggest the modern version of what the arabian diplomat character played by Banderas in "13th Warrior" did to learn some form of Old Norse. It was fiction though, and even there he had the help of some translation via broken Latin. :D
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby tractor » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:22 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:
tractor wrote:
TopDog_IK wrote:800 hours isn't much to pick up the basics of a new language. The average American spends 5 hours per day watching TV. If they simply shifted their habits and instead watched 5 hours of French or Chinese per day, they would rack up 1,825 hours of immersion per year.

They would be spending five hours every single day watching something they didn't understand. Very few people are willing to spend their spare time that way.


Not if they start with Peppa Pig and other such children's shows.

I don't think most adults would be willing to watch Peppa Pig and similar shows for five hours a day.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby TopDog_IK » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:31 pm

tractor wrote:
TopDog_IK wrote:
tractor wrote:
TopDog_IK wrote:800 hours isn't much to pick up the basics of a new language. The average American spends 5 hours per day watching TV. If they simply shifted their habits and instead watched 5 hours of French or Chinese per day, they would rack up 1,825 hours of immersion per year.

They would be spending five hours every single day watching something they didn't understand. Very few people are willing to spend their spare time that way.


Not if they start with Peppa Pig and other such children's shows.

I don't think most adults would be willing to watch Peppa Pig and similar shows for five hours a day.


I don't think most adults would be willing to sit in a classroom for 5 hours a day, either. Do they want to learn a new language or not?
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby tractor » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:36 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:I don't think most adults would be willing to sit in a classroom for 5 hours a day, either. Do they want to learn a new language or not?

Luckily, it's not necessary to spend five hours a day in a classroom.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby Spaceman » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:43 pm

The fact that an adult isn't willing to watch Peppa Pig for 5 hours a day is the entire raison d'être of things like Dreaming Spanish. Making content that is interesting to adults, while still being easily understandable at a low level of language knowledge. And as much as his claims are ridiculous, I do think Dreaming Spanish does a pretty good job of that. I never listened to their beginner stuff, but their intermediate/advanced stuff does a good job of being interesting enough to watch. I think it's much more useful to think of content like this in terms of training your listening ability rather than in terms of learning the language.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby Cainntear » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:46 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
Kraut wrote:
The teachers ask for the students’ opinions and experiences all the time, but the students are allowed to reply in English, and actually encouraged to not try to speak Thai until it comes out naturally (in their experience this starts happening naturally after around 800h of listening for western people learning Thai).


800 hours. That's almost half a year of full-time teaching. So language learning is clearly only possible for very rich people and literal domestic slaves.


800 hours isn't much to pick up the basics of a new language. The average American spends 5 hours per day watching TV. If they simply shifted their habits and instead watched 5 hours of French or Chinese per day, they would rack up 1,825 hours of immersion per year.

The course in question is talking about classroom tuition and saying that 800 hours of their teaching gets people to that point.

They did not at any point claim that watching 800 hours of TV would get you there.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby Cainntear » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:48 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:I don't think most adults would be willing to sit in a classroom for 5 hours a day, either. Do they want to learn a new language or not?

A lot of people here have learned a lot of languages to a very good level of competence.

I've tried watching pre-school cartoons in one language -- it was a total waste of time, so I never repeated it with another one.

I generally find that intense boredom is an absolute killer when you're trying to learn something. Suggesting that people who choose not to subject themselves to such torture don't want to learn is utterly wrong.
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Re: Pablo from Dreaming Spanish: Language can’t be explained

Postby LupCenușiu » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:50 pm

TopDog_IK wrote:
tractor wrote:I don't think most adults would be willing to watch Peppa Pig and similar shows for five hours a day.


I don't think most adults would be willing to sit in a classroom for 5 hours a day, either. Do they want to learn a new language or not?


If there is a certain amount of allocated time, I don't think is even a topic, which method is more effective. If John Cablefan spends 800h watching TV in the target language, while Billy Booknerd use TV as a supplement (within the available time) and study more or less structured the language in 800h, my money would be on Billy in any sort of skill test.

If there is no time limit, sure, almost any method would work, eventually. You can happily dig a trench with a spoon if you choose to. So maybe the method is suited for people that would want to learn a language, but don't want to put in much effort, and time is no issue (which, of course, is an illusion, time is an issue for all of us, but I digress).
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