Passive learning a language

[Rozzie]

Hi everyone,

I was on youtube and looking at a video and the person in the video talking about passive learning a language. I would like to know what is passive learning?

Thanks in advance

[Brun Ugle]

Different people mean different things when they talk about passive learning, but in general "passive" means that they don't use standard textbooks, courses, grammar book, etc., and instead just watch TV, listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks, read books or newspapers, etc. If you're learning a language that is related to one you already know, you might easily pick it up in this manner, although I prefer to always do at least a little explicit grammar work if I want to ever be able to speak or write myself.

People also talk about active and passive skills, although productive and receptive skills might be better terms. Active or productive skills would be those where you produce the language, ie speaking and writing. And passive or receptive skills are those where you just take in the language, ie reading and listening. Some people don't feel the need to produce the language themselves and only ever work on the receptive skills, but they might still study using standard materials, or not. Others, like me, work on receptive skills until they feel they have a fairly solid understanding of the language, and only then move on to speaking and writing. Still others want to start talking to people from the first day.

So, I imagine your YouTuber is referring to learning by listening and reading without consulting textbooks, but he might also be referring to only working on the receptive skills, or as they are often called, "passive" skills.

[Serpent]

By default I generally assume it means learning to understand. I'd also not describe using native materials as passive

[DangerDave2010]

Basically you watch television and hope for the best. One cannot break a wall of unintelligible input, but if you know and understand the basics, your comprehension will improve with time.

[Brun Ugle]

By default I generally assume it means learning to understand. I'd also not describe using native materials as passive

I agree. Calling it passive is somewhat confusing, but I've heard people call watching TV "passive learning." And I'll admit, it doesn't necessarily take much effort, but I think you have to put a bit of effort in somewhere, at least I do. For me I usually put the effort into studying textbooks and other materials and then just relax with TV, but other times I do my TV watching more actively. Lately I've been watching a show that has transcripts, so after each episode, I read the transcript, look up all unfamiliar words and expressions and note them down. I don't think I would call that "passive" learning.

[aaleks]

According to this:

but in general "passive" means that they don't use standard textbooks, courses, grammar book, etc., and instead just watch TV, listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks, read books or newspapers, etc

it looks like my way of learning English is mostly passive . But I can't say for sure. I did use a textbook but a long time ago (in the early 2000s) during my first attempt to learn the language. And I never completed it anyway. Actually there's no course, textbook, or grammat book I've ever completed. In the last 5 years I usually used grammar books as reference books, and in the beginning of this year I did several units of Murphy grammar book to close some gaps. Besides that, I also used textbooks to learn English reading rules. And, of course, I used dictionary (and still do ). But I guess it's all.
On one hand it's an easy way (or seemingly easy - the placebo effect may be ) to learn a language. On the other I don't have solid knowledge about the language (or how is it called?) so I'm never 100% sure that I use the right grammar structure, words, etc.

[Ogrim]

On this I basically have to agree with Donovan Nagel: Passive language learning is nonsense.

Now, I think it is misleading to call reading or watching movies and series "passive learning". In the end it is about comprehensible input. Obviously as a total beginner it is nonsense because you won't magically start understanding the language by spending 100 hours watching TV series. At an intermediate or advanced stage it is a somewhat different story, because a lot of input will help you consolidate things you already know. Still I don't think you improve much in neither vocabulary nor grammer if you don't do active listening or reading. Even when I read a book extensively in Russian I still look up words, I notice use of case endings, verb aspect etc. I also learn new words from context. For me this is active learning, just as much as doing SRS or grammar exercises in a textbook.

[Cainntear]

As you can see, there is no way that any of us can understand what someone means by "passive learning" with any ceartainty if we haven't heard or seen what he said.

[Rozzie]

As you can see, there is no way that any of us can understand what someone means by "passive learning" with any ceartainty if we haven't heard or seen what he said.

Sorry about the topic I just wanted a general overview of what it was.

[Serpent]

Obviously as a total beginner it is nonsense because you won't magically start understanding the language by spending 100 hours watching TV series.

Ahem
I agree that you need for example to be a false beginner, or to use materials for children, etc...

@aaleks do you mean a solid foundation? A "theoretical base"? Don't worry too much about that As you become more advanced, it's natural that you don't always know which grammatical rule you're using or how exactly a lexical distinction works. Just like in L1, at least in some cases it just feels right. (obviously you should remain open to corrections )