How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

General discussion about learning languages
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PeterMollenburg
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:03 pm

Lawyer&Mom wrote:Look, I know what I’m doing. This isn’t my first language. I studied German in a university classroom, took all the tests, got good grades and showed up in Germany with huge gaps in my knowledge and fossilized mistakes. I’m not aiming for perfection, but rather can I do at home as good a job as a kid majoring in French? Yes, I think I can. I have the huge advantage of massive input and easy access to excellent resources like CLE, neither of which I had when I was learning German. (Did excellent DAF workbooks exist in 1997? Probably! But they weren’t readily available in California. Amazon changed everything.)

I would absolutely love to be living in a dorm in France right now, taking far more advantage of my immersion opportunities than I did when I was 19 in Germany and saddled with the inhibitions of a teenager. But marriage, mortgage, kids, and global pandemics have a way of getting in the way…

I was hugely conflicted about teaching my kids languages when I wasn’t an expert, and in retrospect I wasted a lot of time because of it. I got hung up on the fact that I couldn’t raise little native speakers. I can’t. But I absolutely can do as good a job as kids learning a second language in a classroom. The huge advantage I have is massive input and consistency. My kids hear solid blocks of native French every single day. We read books every day. We do Paul Noble everyday. That’s what they learn from. Their little conversations with me are just practice, the same shoddy practice they would get speaking with their classmates at school. I would love to get them some real immersion opportunities in the future, but they are doing great right now.

BeaP, thank you for the suggestions of the Oral Production and Writing workbooks. They look more helpful than I had expected. I’ve been barreling through grammar, but I think it would be helpful to circle back and work through those before I move to the next grammar book.



I'm surprised I hadn't noticed this before, but I guess the general theme of the thread didn't grab me, and then I read your posts Lawyer&Mom.

I read in Spanish to my kids regularly. My level of Spanish is A1. My pronunciation is solid however. I read and speak in Dutch to the kids regularly. My level would be B1. My children speak Dutch. I overheard them the other day speaking Dutch on their own outside while I was inside the house. I was thinking how great it is. I know there are gaps as there are gaps in my Dutch, lots of gaps. I speak to the kids in French. My French level is approximately C1. Their French is excellent as far as I know. I know they are missing colloquialisms, idioms, but they do very well and I've had positive feedback from Alliance Française teachers. When my daughter attended she spoke more French than all the other students. One teacher stated she spoke better French than some children with native French parents.

The key is not always about having native speaker parents - a lot can be achieved with solid methodology/-ies. Many a native parent is unsuccessful in transmitting their language to their children despite trying. Being native is not everything in raising your children bi/multilingual.

We criticise poor teaching at schools, wish we had better language teaching methods when we were at school. What's if we had a teacher come home with us? What's if that teacher was really passionate? What's if that teacher wasn't perfect? Oh no! No, don't teach imperfect language!

Okay, to be fair there are valid concerns here, but what's better more of the language or less? Provided it's not absolutely full of errors, more exposure and use is better, whether it's perfect or not. I do read loads to my kids, using phrases, words and idioms that I don't use in my everyday speech. This broadens the exposure, as do podcasts, music, movies, audiobooks and the occasional other French speaker. They are miles ahead of where a student would have been in high school when I was a kid in terms of speaking. My kids would speak better French than most final year students from my day. Should I stop speaking to them and stop reading to them because I'm not a native speaker and there are gaps? Should I draw it right back to a once or twice a week dry grammar lesson so it's more normal like back in my day because I'm not a native speaker?

I also know what I'm doing. ;) Keep up the good work Lawyer&Mom and guys, let's not be so afraid here, it's a joy to share other cultures and languages with our kids even if they grow up to never use them. When you speak French/Russian/German/Korean (your L2/L3 etc) do you speak exactly like a native? Should you stop then because you're imperfect and there are gaps?
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Lawyer&Mom
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:13 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:[
We criticise poor teaching at schools, wish we had better language teaching methods when we were at school. What's if we had a teacher come home with us? What's if that teacher was really passionate? What's if that teacher wasn't perfect? Oh no! No, don't teach imperfect language!


It’s fascinating to me that we have no problem teaching ourselves imperfect language, but it’s suddenly a crime to teach our kids imperfect language. Spoiler alert: Parents teach their kids imperfect *everything*. Kids have *so* many questions about the world, and I’m reasonably well-educated and I do my best, but my explanations of science and history and psychology are not perfect! And yet, we muddle along.

I’m trying to teach my kids that languages are fun and fascinating, and that a little of something everyday will snowball into bigger, cooler things, and that the world is an interesting place with interesting people. If they pick up some French too that’s great.

The other day my kid asked me the difference between “crois que” and “pense que.” I had never explicitly discussed either verb with them. I said I wasn’t exactly sure but I think the first is to believe and the other is to think. We made up some example sentences and agreed I was probably right. My takeaways: 1) Holy heck, they are actually picking up some French! Mass input works! Kids really *are* sponges! 2) I don’t have to be an expert. It’s so much fun to play with the language and figure it out together.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:21 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:The key is not always about having native speaker parents - a lot can be achieved with solid methodology/-ies. Many a native parent is unsuccessful in transmitting their language to their children despite trying. Being native is not everything in raising your children bi/multilingual.


I second this. I prefer someone with a good methodology to a native teacher any day. (Elsewhere, I've mentioned that barely anyone of my teachers has been a native speaker of the language.)
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Jun 29, 2022 5:24 pm

Lawyer&Mom wrote:I’m trying to teach my kids that languages are fun and fascinating, and that a little of something everyday will snowball into bigger, cooler things, and that the world is an interesting place with interesting people. If they pick up some French too that’s great.

Le Baron wrote:Lawyer&Mom exposing her children to French in that way is admirable I think. Even though she is an adult learner, the children watching cartoons like that will probably learn to acquire in a vastly different way.

I'm still wondering why I got it in the neck.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Wed Jun 29, 2022 9:45 pm

Le Baron wrote:
Lawyer&Mom wrote:I’m trying to teach my kids that languages are fun and fascinating, and that a little of something everyday will snowball into bigger, cooler things, and that the world is an interesting place with interesting people. If they pick up some French too that’s great.

Le Baron wrote:Lawyer&Mom exposing her children to French in that way is admirable I think. Even though she is an adult learner, the children watching cartoons like that will probably learn to acquire in a vastly different way.

I'm still wondering why I got it in the neck.


Pressure from above, the public expecting an outcome, media on this with a critical spotlight, confidence in us language learners on the line, we needed a neck, any neck. Yours was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were practically using it to hold up your head.... deliberately and blatantly!
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Jun 29, 2022 9:54 pm

It will teach me to practise neck modesty in public.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby księżycowy » Thu Jun 30, 2022 11:50 am

Getting back to the question of whether I've learned all by myself, and how far I've gotten, yes I have learned a few languages all by myself. My Polish, Irish and Japanese have been all solo affairs. I can't say I've gotten much beyond the beginning (~a1) stages, but that is more because of shifting foci and other poor commitments and planning on my part. :P

At this point I'd also consider Hebrew, Greek, and German as "all by myself", even though I've had formal study in those. It's been many years since I took 2 semesters of German in my undergraduate days, and the courses I took for Hebrew and Greek were half of the textbook for each at best.

Due to my goals, I think I can get reasonably far on my own with most of these languages. That's not to say I won't take up interaction with others if/when possible. But I'm inclined to believe that reading, writing, and shadowing can go a long way if done well. Having said that, though, nothing quite takes the place of real time feedback from a native or teacher (provided they know what they are talking about and can convey it too you equally well). But if a textbook/workbook is written well, and the exercises are well constructed I'd think (hope?) the chances of fossilized errors are lesser without the necessity of a teacher/corrector. But I'm just thinking out loud really.
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Jun 30, 2022 3:53 pm

księżycowy wrote:Getting back to the question of whether I've learned all by myself, and how far I've gotten, yes I have learned a few languages all by myself. My Polish, Irish and Japanese have been all solo affairs. I can't say I've gotten much beyond the beginning (~a1) stages, but that is more because of shifting foci and other poor commitments and planning on my part. :P


Same here. At least half a dozen languages have been solo projects up to a certain point where I may have quit entirely, say, due to poor commitment, or just the feeling that "I reached my goal". One started as a language on my own even though I (some years later) took a course which included some conversation and homework. And that gave me inspiration to continue (for some time). So something like: solo → (somewhat) guided tuition → then solo again. (Levels? Who knows.)
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Lawyer&Mom
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Thu Jun 30, 2022 6:48 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:
księżycowy wrote:Getting back to the question of whether I've learned all by myself, and how far I've gotten, yes I have learned a few languages all by myself. My Polish, Irish and Japanese have been all solo affairs. I can't say I've gotten much beyond the beginning (~a1) stages, but that is more because of shifting foci and other poor commitments and planning on my part. :P


Same here. At least half a dozen languages have been solo projects up to a certain point where I may have quit entirely, say, due to poor commitment, or just the feeling that "I reached my goal". One started as a language on my own even though I (some years later) took a course which included some conversation and homework. And that gave me inspiration to continue (for some time). So something like: solo → (somewhat) guided tuition → then solo again. (Levels? Who knows.)


I’ve given up on several solo-project languages myself. (Irish, Russian, Chinese…) French has major advantages. My motivation is clear: I want to speak French, *and* I want to teach my kids French. But French itself is a major advantage. It’s a uniquely transparent level-one language for an English speaker, with loads of learning material and reasonably available native content. Easy does make things easier!
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Re: How far have you gotten *all* by yourself?

Postby Ug_Caveman » Thu Jun 30, 2022 8:42 pm

The furthest I'm happy to say I've got 'by myself' is A2, but that's only because of the formal certification and I'm attempting to reach B1 by May next year in Dutch. It's slightly further than I got studying French at school and a lot further than I got studying Spanish at school.

From what I've been told, despite a lack of practise with native speakers, I've done a fairly solid job on pronunciation.

Other languages? Not very far (although I'm noticing the weak ability I once had in my long lost languages from school has been recovering simply by virtue of becoming a better language learner and my brain doing a better job of processing the whole idea.) I'm trying to reach A1 in a few months in a different language, not 100% I'll manage but a challenge is fun.
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