How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

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Lawyer&Mom
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How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:40 am

I’m in my fifth year of teaching myself French. (I started in 2017, but there was a gap year at the start of the pandemic.) I’ve used all kinds of resources (Assimil, workbooks, Clozemaster, TV series, novels, Pimsleur, podcasts etc. etc.) But it’s been *all* me. No tutors, no conversation partners, no one checking my work besides me. This is a combination of frugality, laziness and a packed schedule. (I work! I have kids! I don’t want to deal with someone else just to do my own hobby!) I’ve always figured at some point I would need some feedback to in order to continue to improve, but I’m nowhere near that point yet. I keep moving forward, all by myself. (And with the kids! I’m teaching them French and they are the only other people I have had French conversations with! They get lots of native input, so I’m not worried there.)

My question is how far can someone go all alone with a language? Probably a lot farther than you could do before massive input, but how far? Wow me with your tales of solo-linguistic success!
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby leosmith » Sun Jun 26, 2022 1:07 am

Lawyer&Mom wrote:They get lots of native input, so I’m not worried there.

What? Are y'all immersed or something? That really changes the significance of your post imo. Depending on the exact situation, it may be hard for me to consider someone who is immersed as "all by themselves", or at least, to have less of an advantage than someone who isn't immersed but uses tutors/language partners. Apologies if I misunderstood you.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sun Jun 26, 2022 1:38 am

leosmith wrote:
Lawyer&Mom wrote:They get lots of native input, so I’m not worried there.

What? Are y'all immersed or something? That really changes the significance of your post imo. Depending on the exact situation, it may be hard for me to consider someone who is immersed as "all by themselves", or at least, to have less of an advantage than someone who isn't immersed but uses tutors/language partners. Apologies if I misunderstood you.


They watch a half hour a day of cartoons dubbed in French. They get to hear native speakers regularly, they don’t get to converse with native speakers. They have pretty great accents actually.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Teango » Sun Jun 26, 2022 3:19 am

When I was young,
I never needed anyone.
And Linguaphone was just for fun.
Those tapes are gone....... ♫♩♩
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby leosmith » Sun Jun 26, 2022 3:44 am

Lawyer&Mom wrote:They watch a half hour a day of cartoons dubbed in French. They get to hear native speakers regularly, they don’t get to converse with native speakers. They have pretty great accents actually.

My bad - good luck!
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby cito » Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:25 am

I think self-teaching is a really good thing, but each language is so insular in its own way, having specific grammatical features and quirks, spelling conventions, phonetics, vocabulary, so I'd (personally) just be weary of not having someone who can check for my mistakes and explain little features of languages to me, above all when I am starting to produce a language. I think it's a lot easier to be self-taught if your learning is mostly receptive (as in you are learning to read and/or listen/watch a language), but even then, taking a class can have someone explain how one might use vocabulary, pronounce something, or take advantage of a grammatical feature (like a tense or mood). Also easier if the language is related to yours.

I remember you posting about the 'mortifying fossilized' "j'ai pronounced like eye." That's the thing about having someone with you, you don't have the same chances of having mistakes like that stick. As much as we want ownership over our learning, language learning is extremely humbling, because we'll be tripping and tumbling our way to fluency.

Think about the way children learn: they do NOT do it on their own, and all natural language acquisition occurs in the presence of someone else there, either speaking to them, listen and correcting them, or both. I think learning languages is a blast, but the real presence of others creates stronger memories than Anki cards or Assimil dialogues or Pimsleur lessons (in my opinion).
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby BeaP » Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:14 am

I've been teaching myself Spanish and French from zero. My Spanish is almost C2 now, I only need to improve speaking and writing a bit to reach a balanced C2. I've done several mock tests of DELE C2, and I can understand any spoken text (film, video) easily, without subtitles. I can read literature without a dictionary, there are some harder ones of course, but those novels seem to be difficult for native speakers as well.

I've only tested my speaking skills on holidays so far, and I managed every situation. I'm planning to take some conversation lessons before the DELE, but it's mainly because of the exam. My original goal was to take the exam without any lessons as a challenge, but I've changed my mind. I really want to pass and I don't want to jeopardise things because of a personal challenge. On the other hand, I rather want feedback from these lessons, not instruction.

I'd say my French is around B1 at the moment, I'm trying to pay more attention to the productive skills this time to achieve something balanced. I'm using the CLE books and I'll make sure not to skip Expression Orale and Expression Écrite. I haven't used these yet, but I've already looked through some German skill developers because of a general interest in teaching methods, and I'm convinced that these type of books can be very effective if they're good. In this case they can also be more effective than some teachers (not all of them are experienced professionals).

I'm linking some sample pages to show what I'm talking about. The answer key part is the most important. It's supposed to give you the information a teacher could give you. Unfortunately, it's only shown in the first sample.
https://issuu.com/marketingcle/docs/feuilletage_expression_orale_fle_niv3_
https://issuu.com/marketingcle/docs/feuilletage_ea5b8c24695e87
Hueber Hören / Sprechen: https://shop.hueber.de/media/livebook/9783197174938/index.html
Hueber Lesen / Schreiben: https://shop.hueber.de/media/livebook/9783195774932/index.html
https://www.klett-sprachen.de/deutsch-intensiv-schreiben-b1/t-1/9783126754392

The receptive skills were very easy to improve thanks to the internet. The productive skills can also be improved with the right method or textbooks, skill developers. I just couldn't find one for Spanish, and I didn't even stick to the coursebooks I was using.

I'm using Phonetique Progressive at the moment for French, and I find it very effective in training pronunciation. All these books contain extremely controlled practice and advance in very small steps to prevent mistakes and misunderstandings.

Advantages of classes: discipline, speaking practice
Advantages of learning at home: choosing my own materials, only listening to native pronunciation and correct, natural speech

My biggest problem with teachers is that being a teacher myself I'm extremely critical, and those who can convince me are usually very expensive. Although the books I've mentioned are pretty expensive as well if you buy them in bulk, they all give you enough material for months.

I'm not teaching my kids any languages yet, because Hungarian is a very difficult language with very difficult orthography. (French orthography is a piece of cake compared to this.) A good command of one's native language is absolute priority in my opinion, so I want to teach them foreign languages only when they can write relatively well in Hungarian. I even do their English homework with my left hand because I don't want them to get confused. We listen to Spanish songs (mainly Alvaro Soler) and they sing along, but that's all.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Axon » Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:17 am

In 2017 I studied Indonesian by myself for about five or six months before moving to Indonesia. I only talked to another learner of Indonesian about it for three weeks or so right before we moved, otherwise, it was all me. I have a clear memory of actively participating in a multi-person conversation on the day I arrived, jetlagged and with my brain working overtime to comprehend, and still thinking "oh my god, I actually did it." Of course, one conversation wasn't everything, and I've written before about how vocabulary was a problem for me when I first started, but I knew that I could land on my feet. If I'd known then what I know now about learning, languages in general, and what it takes to use a non-European language in a foreign country, I'd have spent those six months more efficiently. It all worked out in the end, though.

I may be showing my ignorance here, but Indonesian/Malay might be the easiest non-Indo-European languages a native English speaker could do that with. You have an almost completely transparent writing system, minimal phonemes, grammar that's complex when you get in-depth but very English-like in informal contexts, plentiful English loan words, huge amounts of free native media and grammar resources, etc. Candidates like Tagalog and Swahili both appear to have much more complex phonology and grammar.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby zgriptsuroica » Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:57 am

I guess it depends on what you mean by "all by yourself" for me. I've reached the point where Spanish was my primary professional language for a few years and never had any classes or tutors, but I joined a Spanish learners discord where people would correct you if you messed up a lot or in a consistent fashion, but not with any sort of structure to it. If that doesn't count, I guess the sky's the limit for how far you can go.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby rdearman » Sun Jun 26, 2022 9:09 am

Lawyer&Mom wrote:My question is how far can someone go all alone with a language? Probably a lot farther than you could do before massive input, but how far? Wow me with your tales of solo-linguistic success!

I can't wow you. I did basically the same as you, then started doing language exchanges where natives pointed out all the horrible mispronunciation and the fossilised mistakes. They were too polite to talk about the terrible accent, but I figured it out from the fact they couldn't understand me much of the time not because of the words but because of the thick accent. I couldn't find words quickly enough to have a conversation. The words didn't come and the sentence structure had to be painstakingly converted from English.

I am going to be harsh here, sorry. Apologies in advance.

The only conversation you have is with people who you have taught to speak your homemade version of French, eg your children. If you are learning French in order to read or watch TV then fine, but if your intention is conversation and interaction with native speakers then I think you will swiftly fall down.

I cannot judge your level and all I can say is that for me I couldn't speak French until I started to speak French with French people. I admit that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and people on this forum accomplish in months what's has taken me decades, but it seems to me that you don't learn to swim until you jump in the pool.
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