Crazy language learning experiments

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aaleks
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby aaleks » Fri May 21, 2021 5:16 pm

rpg wrote:


I accidentally came across the thesis ~ one and a half years ago (i.e. before it was posted on Reddit). It inspired me on making my own experiment. I didn't try to replicate what the author of the thesis was doing though, I just decided to try to learn a language exclusively through input, without textbooks/courses, or dictionaries. But I chose French as the language for my experiment and started it with watching Hélène et les garçons because of the thesis. Probably, one day I would try something like that even if I hadn't read the thesis, I'd already kind of been "driving" in that direction - that was how I came across the thesis in the first place.

I wouldn't call my French experiment really "crazy", though. French isn't Mandarin, after all. I mean French is not as difficult for someone with my language background as Mandarin wouldn've been.
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby rpg » Fri May 21, 2021 8:07 pm

einzelne wrote:What do you mean by 'crazy'? 'Crazy' like 'insanely time consuming but effective' or more like 'people do weird stuff on the internet'? Your examples demonstrate both.

Learning 5 languages at a time is definitely crazy and a spectacular waste of time while there's nothing crazy about developing passive skills only. In fact it's the wisest decision you can make, if you're an adult who is just interested in a language and don't have plans to move to the country of your L2.

And spending 1000 hours with a language — what's so crazy about it? If you're serious about learning, it's nothing. It's just 3 hours per day durning a year. It's not even enough to develop advanced passive skills.


I can see there's been some confusion about this so let me clarify. I'm asking about examples of very unusual methodology here. Not about simply bad decision making :D Intensity/large time investment is not an explicit requirement per se, but in practice I think it's hard to say anything interesting about methodology without investing some time into it.

The 6x Assimil experiment qualifies in my mind since I think most of us wouldn't think it's possible to start six languages at once and actually make progress in all of them, so it's interesting to see someone try to test that--since each Assimil course claims that it only requires a small amount of time per day, after all.

As for spending 1000 hours (the AUA/Thai example), that's not the part I thought was interesting. It was how those 1000 hours were spent: no speaking, reading, or writing, and no explicit study of grammar or anything like that. I think that's very different from how we generally try to learn languages.
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby rpg » Fri May 21, 2021 8:20 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:There's more in HTLAL vs. LLORG. Also Assimil Hebrew in two weeks (link somewhere in that thread).

I know I went through FSI German vol 1 and 2 (24 units in total) in just two weeks many years ago...


Thanks! This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. From one of your posts in that thread, someone tried something similar to what I was musing about with marathoning Pimsleur, but they tried it with Michel Thomas instead: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... N=5&TPN=10 I'm not sure there are any definitive conclusions to be drawn from this one but it's certainly interesting.

Another example idea along the same lines: booking, say, 10 hours of back-to-back classes per day at somewhere like Lingoda (ie somewhere with a curriculum) for the span of a week. How would it go? Would you be able to keep up, or would it be too much? Taking language classes by itself is a very normal method, but I think packing them together like this would be very unusual and not something people typically try.

But to be clear I think there are plenty of other things that would qualify for this thread beyond merely "taking an existing language learning method and radically compressing it".
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby einzelne » Fri May 21, 2021 8:43 pm

rpg wrote:I can see there's been some confusion about this so let me clarify. I'm asking about examples of very unusual methodology here. Not about simply bad decision making :D


Thanks for your clarification. To my mind, both your examples (5 Assimil courses and the Thai experiment) are actually all about bad decision making and no methodology whatsoever:) I wouldn't call a methodology a deliberately maimed approach to language learning.

The only success stories I can trust have the common formula: a well-rounded approach which takes all skills into account, lots of dedication and lots of time investment. If you take all these ingridients for 5 years in the country of L2 (not 1 week, 3 months or 1000 hours) then there's a slight chance that you can succeed. Like Hemon, for instance. A spectacular example.
Or Hannah Arendt moved to the States and started to learn English when she was 38 and managed to establish herself as writer and scholar.
Or Mircea Eliade.
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri May 21, 2021 9:34 pm

Beli Tsar wrote:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:I know I went through FSI German vol 1 and 2 (24 units in total) in just two weeks many years ago...

I missed that - how did it work out?


This was back in 2008 (I think). I listened to everything just once. I shadowed everything in the target language. I did the drills without the book in front of me. I managed to do it, but as I'm sure I've written elsewhere on the forum (yes - here), it didn't really "work". I'm somehow convinced that FSI is meant to take a long time - with the right method. You can't force it. You can't speed it up.
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby einzelne » Fri May 21, 2021 9:43 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:I'm somehow convinced that FSI is meant to take a long time - with the right method. You can't force it. You can't speed it up.


Indeed. They wrote about it:

Learning a language also cannot be done in a short time. The length of time it takes to learn a language well depends to a great extent on similarities between the new language and other languages that the learner may know well. The time necessary for a beginning learner to develop professional proficiency in each language—proven again and again over a half century of language teaching—cannot be shortened appreciably. FSI has tried to shorten programs, and it has not worked.
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby einzelne » Fri May 21, 2021 10:37 pm

Actually, you question reminded me of a very intriguing pedagogical experience of Joseph Jacotot. I think it certainly qualifies as a 'crazy learning experiment'. Here's a quote from Rancière's book The Ignorant Schoolmaster:

The unassuming lecturers lessons were, in fact, highly appreciated by his students. Among those who wanted to avail themselves of him were a good number of students who did not speak French; but Joseph Jacotot knew no Flemish. There was thus no language in which he could teach them what they sought from him. Yet he wanted to respond to their wishes. To do so, the minimal link of a thing in common had to be established between himself and them. At that time, a bilingual edition of Télémaque was being published in Brussels. The thing in common had been found, and Telemachus made his way into the life of Joseph Jacotot. He had the book delivered to the students and asked them, through an interpreter, to learn the French text with the help of the translation. When they had made it through the first half of the book, he had them repeat what they had learned over and over, and then told them to read through the rest of the book until they could recite it. This was a fortunate solution, but it was also, on a small scale, a philosophical experiment in the style of the ones performed during the Age of Enlightenment. And Joseph Jacotot, in 1818, remained a man of the preceding century. But the experiment exceeded his expectations. He asked the students who had prepared as instructed to write in French what they thought about what they had read:

He expected horrendous barbarisms, or maybe a complete inability to perform. How could these young people, deprived of explanation, understand and resolve the difficulties of a language entirely new to them? No matter! He had to find out where the route opened by chance had taken them, what had been the results of that desperate empiricism. And how surprised he was to discover that the students, left to themselves, managed this difficult step as well as many French could have done! Was wanting all that was necessary for doing? Were all men virtually capable of understanding what others had done and understood?


The book is fantastic but you can also find other accounts of his method on the internet.
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby thelazyoxymoron » Sat May 22, 2021 8:08 am

Not sure whether this qualifies or not (I certainly won't call it crazy), but I found emk's subs2srs experiment really interesting. I modified the method a bit by re-ranking the sentences using Morphman add-on and it's been working good for me, so far.
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby El Forastero » Mon May 24, 2021 12:39 am

I don't know if my experiment classifies as "Crazy", but I started to learn italian for 100 days, and I passed a C1 test. The initial goal was B2, but when I started to study the B2 preparation content, I realized that I understood C1 content, so I went for it.

The craziest language-learning-related experiment I have read about is the one by a guy who got a C2 test in italian only usind cards. His webpage is called: How I Passed the Demanding, 5-Part, 5 1/2 Hour, Oral, Paper and Pen, Highest Level (C2), Italian Language Exam Without Going to Italy – Here’s a Hint: the 326,538 Flashcard Reviews Helped a Lot.

You can visit it here: https://t.ly/Y1Ag
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Re: Crazy language learning experiments

Postby einzelne » Mon May 24, 2021 1:30 am

El Forastero wrote:The craziest language-learning-related experiment I have read about is the one by a guy who got a C2 test in italian only usind cards.


Far from the truth. The guy talked a lot with native speakers. That’s how he got the content to fill out his anki cards. He turned his grammar books into flashcards. He transcribed newscasts... Long story shot, flashcards were just a tool among many others.

But I would wholeheartedly recommend to read the original post. It’’s a rare example when someone gives you an honest account of what it takes to master a language. You don’t see that often on the internet.
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