Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

General discussion about learning languages
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zenmonkey
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jun 05, 2017 9:40 am

Tristano wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:
Ogrim wrote:
Tristano wrote:- Certain languages are not written like they are pronounced (thanks Hebrew), so I can't start with reading because it would take me too much time
- Certain languages use a much larger vocabulary than others (like Dutch) so it takes more time also
- Other languages have grammars the cause the words to mutate the whole time that makes you think that you encountered a new word when in fact it's just the same


I would say no language is written like it is pronounced. With that I mean that different languages attribute different sounds to the same letters


I agree. I've heard some English speaking natives say that Spanish sounds like it is written. Yes the sounds a more uniform and phonetically predictable than in English, which is more haphazard and contains numerous sounds for one spelling (e.g. "-ough" in bought, dough, through and thorough) but to a Mandarin native Spanish is not written how it sounds at all. It comes down to associating symbols with sounds, and even the pitfalls of English can be overcome with flexible associations.

Perhaps Tristano you may try to lean the sounds of a new language based too much on your native language or other languages you already know as well, to produce Hebrew or some other more obscure languages. With every knew language, it's okay to draw connections with phonemes you already know in other languages and apply them to the new languages, but i'd be careful to expect new languages to sound a certain way based on languages and writing systems you're already familiar with. Don't colour new languages with your known languages. Throw out the drawing board and draw up a new one entitled "Hebrew pronunciation" which is represented by Hebrew characters and has little to do with Italian, English or Dutch characters and sounds systems. If there are sounds you already know, bonus. If not, it doesn't matter.


We're out of track here. I personally find Hebrew to be the easiest language that I ever studied, the problem is that the vowels are not written. Now, I guess that studying Italian would be a walk in the park for you, but what if the vowels were not written? Would it be the same difficultly? No. And that means that reading intensively or extensively at the beginner stage would be of no help, that is the issue that I have with Hebrew.


Tristan, we are somewhat in the same boat - I'm also suffering through Hebrew reading with the absence of nikkud... so a few quick comments and questions:

Are your goals related more to understand/speaking or reading? Both? Do you want to consider being able to speak or reading a text a success. Depending on that you may need to adjust your study tools.

Specific to rendering Hebrew reading more fluid:

I am trying to identify a bunch of connector word, prefixes, question words, pronouns and standard structures (for example - 'I have' 'there is for me') that I just be able to scan and know. Those are going to go in from drills off cards - for me both in print and cursive script.

I also work with loan words in Hebrew that I would easily be able to guess (I know the meaning of מתמטיקה) and use them to 'train the eye' - again, drills on these. He studies mathematics, she studies zoology. Drill, drill. There are lists out there for English/French/Italian loan words in Hebrew.
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby Tristano » Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:20 am

smallwhite wrote:5 pages and I still haven't received sufficient information from you. Talk about "Rapid passive knowledge acquisition". Nevermind. Thanks for answering some of my questions anyway.


I tried to give a broad answer.
The thing you asked, passive knowledge of a cat IV language in 135h is not my goal. I don't find it realistic, unless I know related languages already so I have vocabulary and grammar discount.
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby Tristano » Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:15 am

zenmonkey wrote:Tristan, we are somewhat in the same boat - I'm also suffering through Hebrew reading with the absence of nikkud... so a few quick comments and questions:

Are your goals related more to understand/speaking or reading? Both? Do you want to consider being able to speak or reading a text a success. Depending on that you may need to adjust your study tools.

Specific to rendering Hebrew reading more fluid:

I am trying to identify a bunch of connector word, prefixes, question words, pronouns and standard structures (for example - 'I have' 'there is for me') that I just be able to scan and know. Those are going to go in from drills off cards - for me both in print and cursive script.

I also work with loan words in Hebrew that I would easily be able to guess (I know the meaning of מתמטיקה) and use them to 'train the eye' - again, drills on these. He studies mathematics, she studies zoology. Drill, drill. There are lists out there for English/French/Italian loan words in Hebrew.


Hi,
Hebrew is an exception on what I'm doing. I'm mostly interested in oral comprehension and (very basic) conversational skills. Reading can come in 10-20 years (if you ask me now, maybe it will change in the future).
This and the difficulties of reading this language in my beginner stage makes me avoid as much as possible to try to gain reading skills (I know, it sounds like a paradox. I learned and forgot the alphabet 3 times and when I read a word I have no clue how I should pronounce it. The diacritics make it even more confusing to me). I'm nowhere as advanced as you are and my motivations are certainly lower.

My own challenge is to get to understand a very big number of languages in very small amount of time. I have many reasons for it but they are out of topic here :) Plus, there are many languages I really find interesting.

Anyway, what you do reminds me of a video of Moses McCormick where he was explaining that to 'level up' he was learning all the connectors and drilling how to use them (if I remember well). Very good stuff and helpful for all languages.
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby zenmonkey » Tue Jun 06, 2017 10:03 am

If you want to skip the writing for now (and there is nothing wrong with that) and focus on listening and talking but have issues with remembering pronunciation then I would suggest you add some sort of transliteration notes - either in a notebook or cards. Quick drills every one in a while might help.

For Ladakhi/Tibetan, languages that are very opaque to me, I'm kicking that off with IPA work to get basic sounds (plus one is tonal and the other is not) and I'll try to use that as my short hand for other languages.

If your objective is many languages, not too deep and oral focus, then learning and using IPA is probably a good idea.
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby arthaey » Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:19 pm

I <3 the IPA. Totally worth the initial time investment to learn!
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby reineke » Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:09 pm

I enjoyed watching a Romanian channel during a recent international soccer tournament. Listening skills take a while to develop but ITA>RO is not a huge jump. I enjoyed listening to Romanian. That's my only strategy. Listening skills take time to develop even under ideal conditions.

Edit: I was so concerned to share that listening skills take time to develop that I wrote it twice. I also enjoyed listening to Romanian and I mentioned that twice too.
Last edited by reineke on Sat Aug 12, 2017 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby Gomorrita » Sat Aug 12, 2017 7:42 am

LesRonces wrote:Well i disagree because i know several children who moved to France, between the ages of 4 and 12, and became fluent very very quickly. Painlessly, according to their parents.

That is what I thought too, but maybe I am just inferring it from personal (and anecdotal) experience. I moved to US for a year when I was 11 and I was fluent within less than 6 months, perhaps even less. And I did struggle a lot to adapt to life in US, but language was not part of that struggle at all.
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby reineke » Sat Aug 12, 2017 12:10 pm

Judging by that profile picture, Tristano is at least 16. He's still playing with his food so maybe he also preserved some extra brain plasticity.
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby Tristano » Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:38 pm

Lol I'm 35 and I now have less hair than in my profile picture, that I took ages ago, at least 2 years ago, before learning decent Dutch and having a half Dutch and half italian daughter :lol:

Since when I started this thread I decided to stop studying Hebrew and start Romanian.
My work with Romanian will give me a lot of answers for my own question. Until now, I notice that even though it goes fast with the reading skills, the listening once take much longer, as Reineke stated in one of his lasts comments of this thread.
But ok, it's like to discover that water is wet.
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Re: Rapid passive knowledge acquisition

Postby reineke » Sat Aug 12, 2017 2:21 pm

[quote="]... it is obviously much easier for you to learn Spanish or Portuguese than Hebrew, because you get a lot for "free".[/quote]

Name intentionally deleted because we hear this kind of thing often here.

As a valued mamber of "Romantics inc." Tristano gets steep discounts in all the branches of this great store. He also gets a raincheck, if you will, on his active skills. Nothing is free.

An FSI-style scale for Italian speakers would include Romanian under P (for che pacchia!).
At an Italian university in Trento the number of lessons scheduled for native speakers of romance languages is half that of other students.

FSI: "Our students are typically very highly motivated: They know that proficiency in the language they are studying is crucial to their success in their jobs - and therefore to their competitiveness within the Foreign Service".
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