Iversen wrote:luke wrote:If one thinks beyond what is on the paper in the quote, the linguist who wrote suggests that certain verbs vary so much that perhaps they are best learned, not as "this is all the same verb" - although it is - but rather as a small body of interconnected linguistic fragments that may later congeal, but for some (perhaps most) students, they don't have to worry that "I fall" and "we fall" are the same verb with different spellings. (...)
Similarly, with vocabulary, many words have multiple meanings, different registers, different colocations, etc. The "individualized, bottom up" notion seems to fit in here as well. Only a few are gifted or patient enough to turn a new word from a dictionary into a fully formed "mental representation" that matches that of the author(s) of the dictionary entry.
In a strict bottom-up approach you would be spending years trying to pick up fragments. And this would be idiotic because you could use a grammar book to connect those fragments and fill out some holes.
Thank you for using the word "idiotic" to describe my approach. Now I'm seeing how well the moniker "idiot savant" fits me, even if "savant" is a stretch.
But I love the way you're introducing this. There's a difference between first language acquisition and second language learning/acquisition. Children are doing the first. If you're an older child or adult, you have to use some combination of learning and acquisition.
And if I get the drift of your closing statement, which I'm repositioning here, for continuity of the overall topic:
Iversen wrote:And forget about Krashen.
The detractors are saying "it can't be
all acquisition if your not a child anymore. Even if you are a child, you might do well with some learning.
And on Kraut's reddit quote above in the second paragraph, about the "heritage Spanish non-speaker until I cracked a book". There, something akin to the "affective filter" was in play. I.E., Spanish was perhaps perceived as a low-prestige language not spoken by his/her peers. Or his parents weren't very talkative or something. Something was there that he didn't learn how to
speak it. Could have even been parental pressure.
Abuelita (grandma) can't speak English, but you have to. Of course we're nice to our live-in abuelita and speak to her in the language that she speaks, but she's older and we respect our elders. (And by the way, your parents and abuelita use Spanish as a code language when we're talking about you and we don't always want you to understand what we're up to).
I'm not trying to defend Krashen. Just that there's at least some truth in some of his ideas.
Iversen wrote:On the other hand the strict top-down approach (i.e. learning every aspect of something from a grammar book or dictionary) has the problem that it doesn't suit the way our memory works - you need to see things as they are used in real situations. On the other hand, getting acquainted with something at the theoretical level will make it much easier for you to make sense of all the confused stuff you find 'out there'. So in other words, both strict bottom-up and top-down are inefficient, you need a combination.
A brilliant conclusion AND it gets to the crux of Krashen criticism. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Iversen wrote:I have written somewhere in this thread that children learn their languages from isolated fragments (they can't read grammars or dictionaries, and parents may not be good at explaining things). In the case of highly irregular verbs like "to be" that would mean that they aren't learnt as one single verb, but more like several verb forms which are used in specific circumstances. With time the kids may realize that all the forms form one big lump - the verb "to be". On the other hand "fall" and "falls" are probably learnt from the start as one verb 'with a difference'. And then they learn to add the -s when speaking about single things or persons. but not when there are more than one. And then they learn that this isn't done for things that happened yesterday.
On the button again, as per usual. A very good clarifying response and exactly what I
meant to say, at least "to be" being a better example in English. I was thinking "to fall" (
caerse but didn't want to clutter up the post with a verb I still haven't mastered. (you don't say to some fella
me gusta a ti, unless you want to get hit. You say something like "you fall well with me" if you mean "you're cool". And I don't know all the proper conjugations either). It also happened to be one of the verbs presented in the unit I took the FSI quote from. (But FSI never gets into the "you fall well with me" and barely touches on
darse cuenta, although it's great for so many other things).
Instead, I was drawn back to childhood memories of finding out that those various conjugations of "to be" were all the same word, at least as far as grammar was concerned. I was sick a lot at that time and never got the point of why grammar was even a subject. Seemed like a difficult subject that had only theoretical applications in the real world, as opposed to something like arithmetic, which helped you know how many comics you could buy, and know how many comics at 12 cents versus 25 cents you can buy with the money in your pocket, or which comics you can buy next week when you get your allowance. Arithmetic definitely has applicability. But grammar? Subject, predicate, that wasn't [i]too[i] bad. Then they just started piling on more complications on something that seemed unnecessary in the first place.
So again, thank you for bringing that up, because the "s" ending or "fall, fell, falls, fell" was not really difficult to grasp as a child in English. But the technical folks and teachers and those with distant maternal languages see learners struggle with something that seems easy to a native speaker.
Iversen wrote:OK, this is possible, but a peek in a dictionary might clear things up so that you don't have to solve riddles yourself. Why invent the wheel when you can buy one?
I love dictionaries for clearing things up and bringing new perspectives. They're fantastic. And I have the utmost respect for your approach, which you seem to use so naturally. Dictionary envy.
Iversen wrote:As for words with a whole lot of uses: once you have memorized the 'core' meaning it will be easier to add secondary meanings and idioms etc. later. Trying to learn the whole lot in one fell sweep is not the smart way to do things. Use the tools (dictionaries, grammars) because they make it easier to learn from the real world afterwards. And use the real word to find out what you need to learn from the tools.
Thinking maybe you're keyboard failed you in that last sentence. Did you mean "real world"? Not certain, because we're talking about dictionaries and words. But I was talking about comic books, and that's "real world" when you're a kid. That's how my dad learned to read. He was kept home from school a lot.
But you might have meant exactly what you typed, and if so, please clarify. The idiot needs more help.
Oh, and could you comment on another clarifying thing? Is your preferred first grammar a simple short book in a language you know well? Or do you man-handle a comprehensive grammar like you do a dictionary?