Feedback for Study Plan Needed

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Xmmm
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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby Xmmm » Fri Feb 16, 2018 1:07 am

smallwhite wrote:
Xmmm wrote:vocabulary

How are you doing picking up vocabulary with this method?

You only mention lack of vocabulary. What about grammar? No problem? Because your previous study has provided you with sufficient grammar? Or because you are picking up grammar fine with this method?

Do you feel (possible) improvement in speaking?



Italian -- Picking up lots of vocabulary and grammar with no effort on my part. Speaking is a ways off, don't know.

Russian -- Picking up some vocab and grammar, but it is difficult and grammar remains a weak spot. I do think if I resumed speaking I would be greatly improved.

I would revise the first step in the plan to say "if the language is a Cat IV, complete a formal course of instruction (i.e. something like Modern Russian for Russian) before jumping into the listening." I'm basically doing Modern Russian for remediation right now (on Chapter 11).

For Turkish, I'm thinking to complete Duolingo and then roll straight into The Delights of Learning Turkish and then hit Netflix big time. FSI Turkish is light on audio anyway, and Delights seems to be highly praised for being clear and methodical.
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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby reineke » Thu Feb 28, 2019 5:28 pm

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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby Xmmm » Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:43 pm

Hard to believe that was only 18 months ago.

To recap, I was trying to do Graceffo's "ALG home study" for Italian. And I understood the method as basically this:


1. Learn 1500 words any way you can (duolingo, frequency list, assimil, whatever)
2. Commence 800 hours of listening. Material has to be more than 50% comprehensible. Can't listen to anything more than once a month, but relistening counts. TL subtitles are allowed.
3. Commence speaking. 200 hours Italki, glossika and fsi as needed.
4. Read 100 books in the TL extensively. Can't read any book more than three times a year, but rereading counts.


I stuck fairly close to this plan. I found Glossika and FSI not helpful and gave them up quickly, but otherwise I did what was on the list:

1. I completed the Duolingo course
2. I watched about 800 hours of TV in Italian, plus maybe 50-100 hours in the beginning of "news in slow Italian".
3. Around the 500 hour mark I had so much Italian flying around in my head that I thought "I can speak this" and got a tutor
4. I've done 50 lessons with the tutor
5. I've read more than 5000 pages. I know 50 pages isn't a book, so I still have years more of reading, but even so ...

Results:

I can understand more than 80% of a standard TV drama in Italian. I can also understand 80% of audio books if they are plainly written (Buzzati, Levi, etc.) and not super-literary.

I can read fairly easily at about half the speed I read in English. My ability to read parallels my ability to understand audio books -- so right now I read a lot of history books and novels, but hold off on the most difficult writers.

For speaking, I can converse for an hour entirely in Italian without difficulty. I'm relatively fluent in the sense that I can produce a lot of speech. I have no problem with vocabulary -- I have a ton of vocabulary. I do have a problem with a few grammatical aspects. Coulda shoulda woulda is one area I'm trying to improve in at the moment, as I only get those constructions right maybe half the time.

I self-evaluate as a B2 in listening and reading, and a B1 in conversation. I think I can move up to C1/B2 over the next two or three years.

Conclusion:

This is such a fun easy way to approach a category I language. I've never had a bad day with Italian ... effortless!

After spinning around in circles a lot with my other languages, I plan to abandon all hope of doing things the right way, and just focus on ALG home study. I'll do all my grammar study when I have C1 skills already. :)
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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby Beli Tsar » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:43 am

Xmmm wrote:To recap, I was trying to do Graceffo's "ALG home study" for Italian. And I understood the method as basically this:

1. Learn 1500 words any way you can (duolingo, frequency list, assimil, whatever)
2. Commence 800 hours of listening. Material has to be more than 50% comprehensible. Can't listen to anything more than once a month, but relistening counts. TL subtitles are allowed.
3. Commence speaking. 200 hours Italki, glossika and fsi as needed.
4. Read 100 books in the TL extensively. Can't read any book more than three times a year, but rereading counts.


That's fascinating, and really helpful. It sheds light on some of the current discussions in other threads on learning by input too. It's great you managed to stick to the method so well and give us a good experimental result.
Xmmm wrote: I found Glossika and FSI not helpful and gave them up quickly, but otherwise I did what was on the list:

Would you mind expanding on what you found unhelpful with these? Would you have used them with another method? Was it not finding them helpful at all, or just not with this method? How long did you persevere with them?

Xmmm wrote: I do have a problem with a few grammatical aspects. Coulda shoulda woulda is one area I'm trying to improve in at the moment, as I only get those constructions right maybe half the time.

Similarly, do you think a little focused grammar could have helped in that area of weakness - or even sped your understanding of TV? Are you glad not to use it because you feel it wouldn't help, or because you dislike it? Obviously, Duolingo gave you a better starting point here than using a frequency list would have done - but would any more help?

Again, thanks for sharing the results of your experiment. I hope you'll update us again in a year.
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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby Xmmm » Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:40 pm

Beli Tsar wrote:
Xmmm wrote: I found Glossika and FSI not helpful and gave them up quickly, but otherwise I did what was on the list:

Would you mind expanding on what you found unhelpful with these? Would you have used them with another method? Was it not finding them helpful at all, or just not with this method? How long did you persevere with them?


I started with FSI Italian when I'd already finished Duolingo. It's a FAST course, so not super comprehensive. I was eager to get on with the TV. I only did the first two lessons. I think it would have been a perfectly good replacement for Duolingo, but doing both was unnecessary.

Regarding Glossika ... you know, I used it for Russian and felt it helped my pronunciation. However, for Italian that felt unnecessary. All that TV -- I was hearing the right pronunciation for hours and hours. And Glossika is just so artificial, and boring, and was taking away from TV time. Maybe 10-20 hours.

Beli Tsar wrote:
Xmmm wrote: I do have a problem with a few grammatical aspects. Coulda shoulda woulda is one area I'm trying to improve in at the moment, as I only get those constructions right maybe half the time.

Similarly, do you think a little focused grammar could have helped in that area of weakness - or even sped your understanding of TV? Are you glad not to use it because you feel it wouldn't help, or because you dislike it? Obviously, Duolingo gave you a better starting point here than using a frequency list would have done - but would any more help?


Better grammar would help with speaking more correctly. I don't think it would help with comprehension. Maybe if I were trying to read Bufalino or some other challenging author it might help with comprehension, I don't know.

I dislike studying grammar. I also don't seem to absorb it through exercises. I can pre-test at 60% on a grammar quiz, spend 3 hours studying the relevant rules, and test at 90%. Then a couple months later I take the test again, and I'm at 60% or 62%. It doesn't stick.

The reason to use Duolingo or some other introductory course was because Graceffo recommended it in his "ALG home study" article. He basically said he wasn't an ALG purist and for a person trying this as self-study at home, the most significant hurdle was the initial kernel of 1500 words. Once you know that many words, you can start finding simple shows where could conceivably understand at least 50%, and from there everything snowballs. Duolingo also gave me A2 grammar for free, but I was really just trying to learn the 1800 words.

I also feel that ongoing massive exposure to native content will reduce the amount of grammar I need to learn in the future, because I'm passively absorbing some as I go. Why spend 200 hours studying grammar up front with decidedly mixed results if I can wait four years and just polish off Italian with a 20 hour grammar review? I can dream, right?
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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby reineke » Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:19 pm

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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby rdearman » Fri Mar 01, 2019 9:04 pm

reineke wrote:He's an inspiring individual but uh, don't put all your eggs in this basket.

Which one is he? What is his basket?
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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby reineke » Sat Mar 02, 2019 12:41 am

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Re: Feedback for Study Plan Needed

Postby Xmmm » Sat Mar 02, 2019 12:57 am

ロータス wrote:1. Learn 1500 words any way you can (duolingo, frequency list, assimil, whatever)
2. Commence 800 hours of listening. Material has to be more than 50% comprehensible. Can't listen to anything more than once a month, but relistening counts. TL subtitles are allowed.
3. Commence speaking. 200 hours Italki, glossika and fsi as needed.
4. Read 100 books in the TL extensively. Can't read any book more than three times a year, but rereading counts.

I still confused by step 2. How do you learn vocabulary? I know you finished Duolingo but did you really just pick up and understand new words you never heard before over time without looking it up in a dictionary? Do you pause the show and look up a word you keep hearing over and over again? Can you talk about what you did during step 2 besides watch TV shows?


I did this when I started:

1. watch in Italian with Italian subtitles
2. If I understood the scene good enough, move on. Good enough was far from perfect.
3. Otherwise re-watch it and look up words until comprehension was good enough. Once in a while things would get metaphorical and I've have to resort to English because the Italian didn't make any sense to me. That was rare.
4. Just look the words up. Don't write them down, don't study them

I don't know if there's a net benefit to looking up words. It improves comprehension, but it reduces the amount of TV you can watch. Watching a regular episode takes 45 minutes. If you look up 50 words, it will take more than 2 hours. So it's not clear that looking up words is a net positive.

I certainly picked up many many words and turns of phrase just by watching without looking them up. Because the same things get repeated over and over again while professional actors act stuff out for you.

Once I went over 40 or 50% comprehension, I stopped looking up words altogether, but my comprehension continued to improve.

With Turkish, down at 20% comprehension, I'm back to looking up words but I'm trying to do it less often and trust the magic more.
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