A language learners’ forum

Cainntear wrote:He didn't invent anything. He didn't create anything. He told people to do something a particular way, and practically nobody even tried doing what he actually said. And yet here we are, years later, a bunch of clearly intellectually capable individuals talking as though anything that looks slightly similar to what he did is somehow "his invention". There have been parallel texts since no later than 196 BC. There has been simultaneous reading and listening since the invention of recorded sound (Linguaphone started on wax phonograph cylinders, before even the invention of the gramophone).

I think for most the revolutionary part was listening to L2 while reading L1. This generally seems counter-intuitive.

Most people who talk about L-R in positive terms here do so as an activity that is only one part of a larger system of learning: "I do L-R and add new vocabulary into Anki for revision" is not "the L-R method", because the L-R method is L-R and nothing else; "I do L-R with passages taken from my textbook" is not "the L-R method", because the L-R method is authentic native texts with authentic native voice recordings.

I see LR as a method to enjoy literature in the original without waiting until you are ready. So I agree that these aren't really LR, that's closer to LWT/LingQ. Subtitles are also not LR. Technology allows for many ways to listen while following the matching text (original, translated or both), so not making the distinction feels like a step backwards.

Cainntear wrote:His supporting data is "it works for me"

Also for some forum members and some people from Poland. (btw, my impression was that siomotteikiru is not a man)

I don't seem to be able to find 'Orzeszek' among the many nicknames that the originator of the L-R method used in their internet career. Although, there has been quite a lot of them, so I wouldn't wonder.
Every idea or technique in the world has already been invented or experimented with sometime in the past, so what of it? If a person has partially thought up (something that might have been already thought up by somebody else) partially compiled already known techniques into a single coherent system, which works and makes sense at least for a few people, why not put a name to it to refer to it in some way (other approaches, like AJATT and MIA come to mind)? The fact that one can deconstruct a system into its constituent elements and trace their origins to some other already known ideas shouldn't negate the effort and intellectual work/experience that has gone into creating and polishing the system. People like to think in systems (it is a way to control the complexity of a multitude of potentially useful ideas without letting them stumble over each other but make them work as an efficient whole), systems have value that isn't reduced to a combined value of its separate parts. Everybody is free to take the system as a whole, tweak it or improve upon it, take something from it to use it in their own way (and create your own system; and share it with other people if one so likes), or ignore it altogether.

I don't intend to convince anybody to learn my way or any way at all. I only share my experience.

http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_ ... ssages.htm

Serpent wrote:(btw, my impression was that siomotteikiru is not a man)

The internet seems to agree with you, as I discovered some point after writing that message.

In my defence, "Orzeszek" sounds like a masculine name due to what I took to be a diminutive suffix -- compare Maciek (m) and Maciejka (f).

Dragon27 wrote:I don't seem to be able to find 'Orzeszek' among the many nicknames that the originator of the L-R method used in their internet career. Although, there has been quite a lot of them, so I wouldn't wonder.

Yeah, I remember Phi-staszek but not Orzeszek.

BTW to my Slavic ear Orzeszek doesn't sound gender-specific, in fact the diminutive connotation can be ehhh feminizing (I don't mean that in a bad way obviously)

Most people around me do not have an interest in languages, so I use English language "polyglots", SLA information, and this website as an artificial social circle. When I see everyone else is working it makes me want to work as well.

Off and on I am trying to transition the "polyglots" to other languages. In other words listening to native Japanese or Spanish polyglots talk about being polyglots in Japanese or Spanish.

I haven't read all the posts but as far as I am concerned, watching polyglots' videos has always given me a huge boost in terms of motivation and inspiration, especially when I first started learning languages on my own in 2015. By watching their videos I collected insights that gave me the chance of broadening my linguistic horizons and "stealing" or adapting some of their techniques to my learning style and routine.

I remember the time when Youtube was barely around. A colleague at my previous work place showed me Steve Kaufmann's web site which had short embedded video introductions in his languages at that time. Each video was based on the same script, but it was still impressive and inspiring. It took a year or two before Professor Arguelles appeared on Youtube. The "daily workout" clip and his spreadsheet became major game changers for me. Other than these two polyglots? StuJayRaj (although I'd never use the phonebook to find speakers of my target languages ), Glossika (especially the long lost clips where he explored what became his mass sentence method), and for that matter Luca, Richard Simcott, Moses McCormick and Benny Lewis. Oh, I almost forget Vlad!

I'm glad you all were there when I needed the inspiration the most.

I'm late to this thread, but SLA research has helped me focus on the importance of input, and that's informed a lot of how I view language learning activities: classes and lessons are good (assuming they're conducted in the TL), reading is good, watching TV/movies in the TL is good, etc. Assimil is based around input, while Duolinguo isn't, so I use Assimil and not Duolingo. Dictionary-style flashcards (with a word on one side and a definition on the other) aren't input, so I'm suspicious of them, while Clozemaster (and cloze exercises in general) is built around full sentences and so is much better. Etc...

Youtube polyglots don't interest me much and haven't played any part in my learning style. I do enjoy watching language videos every once in a while, just for fun. There's a (white) American in Beijing with pretty good Chinese who posts videos on Youtube who I find pretty fun to watch-- it's inspiring seeing someone who started learning Chinese as an adult and reached a pretty high level.

This was the most general thread I could find about "youtube polyglots".

I like how she focused on all the little things that make Steve sound natural. What he does is in effect also what I do, and what tends to give people the feeling that I know their language better than I actually do