New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

General discussion about learning languages
User avatar
eldiegoefe
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 09, 2022 5:31 pm
Languages: Spanish (N), English, German (beginner)
x 12

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby eldiegoefe » Mon Jan 10, 2022 3:00 pm

I feel the same as @Fortheo. Even slowing down the audio a bit, and specially with some really fast dialogues that shows up here and there (I'm on Assimil's German Ohne Mühe), it's difficult to keep up reproducing the sounds I hear, partly because some dialogues are fast and words get mashed up and I don't hear but a mess of noises altogether, and also because my mouth and tongue still have trouble articulating fast enough, so I end up babbling incoherently, which doesn't feel very useful. To shadow in L2 and simultaneously read L1 it's even more daunting.

I asked prof Argüelles on the comments of that video, and he suggests putting more time and effort, doing it at a slower pace and getting a cat :D . I also think that practicing the method could make it progressively easier. But what makes me hesitant is to think that we people are not the same, and have different ways of learning, and it might just be that what works for some doesn't work for me.

It would be interesting to hear from people who initially struggled with the method and ended up liking it. What do you suggest to overcome these difficulties?
4 x

User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10462

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Jan 10, 2022 4:53 pm

Fortheo wrote:If any of you are following that exact routine, I'd love to read about your experiences.


Well, in the beginning of 2014, I used a Dutch course according how Arguelles had explained this "blind-shadowing in multiple steps" in another video. So I added a new lesson of blind-shadowing as I increased the reading level of an older one.

As you can see in that thread, the project ended abruptly at the end of January. I don't know why. Maybe the texts themselves got longer and longer, and then I read the previous one(s)...

I'm sure he mentioned in one video that he doesn't progress to reading L1 before he has blind-shadowed, say, ten lessons.

Something like this:
Day 1: Blind shadow lesson 1
Day 2: Blind shadow lessons 1-2
Day 3: Blind shadow lessons 1-3
Day 4: Blind shadow lessons 1-4
Day 5: Blind shadow lessons 1-5
Day 6: Blind shadow lessons 1-6
Day 7: Blind shadow lessons 1-7
Day 8: Blind shadow lessons 1-8
Day 9: Blind shadow lessons 1-9
Day 10: Blind shadow lessons 1-10
Day 11: Blind shadow lessons 2-11, read L1 - lesson 1
Day 12: Blind shadow lessons 3-12, read L1 - lesson 2, read L1 and have a look at L2 - lesson 1
Day 13: Blind shadow lessons 4-13, read L1 - lesson 3, read L1 and have a look at L2 - lesson 2, read L2 and have a look at L1 - lesson 1
Day 14: Blind shadow lessons 5-14, read L1 - lesson 4, read L1 and have a look at L2 - lesson 3, read L2 and have a look at L1 - lesson 2, read L2 - lesson 1
Day 15: Blind shadow lessons 6-15, read L1 - lesson 5, read L1 and have a look at L2 - lesson 4, read L2 and have a look at L1 - lesson 2, read L2 - lesson 2 ...

This is something slightly different than the recent video.
3 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

User avatar
Vordhosbn
Orange Belt
Posts: 121
Joined: Sun May 01, 2016 10:17 am
Location: New Zealand
Languages: English, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... p?p=194185
x 349

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby Vordhosbn » Mon Jan 10, 2022 8:57 pm

The video he did shadowing 6 languages back to back was, to me, nothing short of astounding. I understand starting with familiar languages makes the unfamiliar easier to keep up with (rather like taking calculated weight jumps at the gym during a warm-up before doing your work set), but it's clear to me having watched that video that it really is a skill, and one that needs a lot of regular practice.

The biggest :?: for me is how - or even whether - to blind shadow languages with unfamiliar sounds. Doing this right now for Georgian strikes me as fruitless, and likely counterproductive, since I need to first be able to perceive the sounds I am attempting to imitate. This is why I prefer the tried-and-true "silent period" in the earliest stages. I need to attune my ear to these foreign consonant clusters and ejectives. Shadowing at the intermediate level and beyond makes much more sense to me.
4 x

User avatar
einzelne
Blue Belt
Posts: 804
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:33 pm
Languages: Russan (N), English (Working knowledge), French (Reading), German (Reading), Italian (Reading on Kindle)
x 2882

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby einzelne » Mon Jan 10, 2022 11:42 pm

eldiegoefe wrote:I asked prof Argüelles on the comments of that video, and he suggests putting more time and effort, doing it at a slower pace and getting a cat :D . I also think that practicing the method could make it progressively easier. But what makes me hesitant is to think that we people are not the same, and have different ways of learning, and it might just be that what works for some doesn't work for me.

It would be interesting to hear from people who initially struggled with the method and ended up liking it. What do you suggest to overcome these difficulties?


Yet he is right. It takes time! It's just like sport — it takes time to build mouth muscles to produce sounds you've never produced in your life before. That's why 15 minutes a day seems like a ridiculous amount of time. 15 min a day can help you build a habit but I doubt it's enough to build a strong foundation. At least 15min never worked for me.

Also, depending on the phonetical difficulty of your target language, sometimes it is useful to go through a phonetic course. And, personally, when I practiced shadowing I never forced it. If I couldn't produce a sentence I simply skipped it while training.

Finally, I think that retelling is way more effective than simple shadowing, especially, if you want to develop good speaking skills. But it takes extra effort.
3 x

User avatar
zenmonkey
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2528
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:21 pm
Location: California, Germany and France
Languages: Spanish, English, French trilingual - German (B2/C1) on/off study: Persian, Hebrew, Tibetan, Setswana.
Some knowledge of Italian, Portuguese, Ladino, Yiddish ...
Want to tackle Tzotzil, Nahuatl
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=859
x 7030
Contact:

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby zenmonkey » Tue Jan 11, 2022 7:25 pm

Fortheo wrote: I just don't think it would be the best use of 15 minutes for me personally.

It's all the multi-tasking that gets me. I simply struggle with it. Blind shadowing has a place for me, but as a complete beginner going into an Assimil course with the pauses truncated as he suggests, blind shadowing as the very first step would be quite an ugly experience and quickly demotivating for me, and I say this from my own experience :lol:. Blind shadowing wouldn't show me what I already know in this situation -- how could it? I'm a complete beginner that knows nothing -- it would merely remind me of how much I don't know, which is demoralizing for me as a beginner. I personally would prefer one pass through for just focused listening first, then one pass through for shadowing, but obviously this takes up more time and goes beyond the 15-minute limit.

With the next step, multi tasking is again the issue for me. I don't find that I get the most out of listening to L2 while I'm reading L1 at the same time. My mind tends to more so want to focus on one task at a time, and I get a better understanding when I do one thing at a time, thus I'd rather read the L1 sentence on it's own, then focus on listening to the L2 sentence on it's own and make my way through the lesson like that; but again that is more time consuming.

It's just a matter of what I myself find most efficient and rewarding for me, and personally his 15 minute approach suggested in that video wouldn't be maintainable for my learning style.

I do agree that the biggest take away is all the vocalization that he does during a lesson, and that is something I'd definitely focus on more.

*edited multiple times due to the site freezing on me multiple times :| *


Ok - first off, I agree that anything that generates too much frustration isn't good. And I hear you and the others in this thread that do not find blind shadowing valuable or doable. Definitely do what works for you.

I'm an absolute beginner too with Persian (14 days in) and yet, I think I'm going to modify my study a bit to include a bit of blind shadowing. I'm going to outline my thoughts below (partially to get them straight in my head.)

1. Even as an absolute beginner I'm hearing a few words that I recognize. 1 in 10/20? And even when 80% of that first listen is just noise, getting a word is like a firework in my head. I'm going to focus on that. The value of blind listening to me is partially also the straining to understand, I'm training my ear with the sounds of this new language. Because I know that I'll be straining to understand for 2-3 years before I get to a level of real comfort.
2. I've tried just reading the L2 and I know my accent, pronunciation, and prosody are off. I'm hoping that shadowing (blind or not) a lot will help with that.
3. I want to speak the language - my learning methods in the past have been terrible at getting me to speak early. I believe that if I want to be productive, I need to practice being productive (speaking, writing) all the time in my learning cycle. I'm going to try to be verbal 70-80% of the time and see if that helps.
4. I'm personally only adding two shadowing exercises (about 3 min) at the start of my lesson with Assimil. I was already reading L1, listening L2, shadowing L2. So now I'm mostly doing B. shadow L2, shadow L1, listen (no shadow) L2, shadow L2. Stop and study. Shadow L2.

Takes me about 20 minutes in the early lessons and not the reported 10. I also place all new vocab into Anki.

What does your cycle look like?
5 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

User avatar
Fortheo
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 12:03 pm
Languages: English (N), French (?) Russian (beginner)
x 911

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby Fortheo » Wed Jan 12, 2022 12:52 am

zenmonkey wrote:
Ok - first off, I agree that anything that generates too much frustration isn't good. And I hear you and the others in this thread that do not find blind shadowing valuable or doable. Definitely do what works for you.

I'm an absolute beginner too with Persian (14 days in) and yet, I think I'm going to modify my study a bit to include a bit of blind shadowing. I'm going to outline my thoughts below (partially to get them straight in my head.)

1. Even as an absolute beginner I'm hearing a few words that I recognize. 1 in 10/20? And even when 80% of that first listen is just noise, getting a word is like a firework in my head. I'm going to focus on that. The value of blind listening to me is partially also the straining to understand, I'm training my ear with the sounds of this new language. Because I know that I'll be straining to understand for 2-3 years before I get to a level of real comfort.
2. I've tried just reading the L2 and I know my accent, pronunciation, and prosody are off. I'm hoping that shadowing (blind or not) a lot will help with that.
3. I want to speak the language - my learning methods in the past have been terrible at getting me to speak early. I believe that if I want to be productive, I need to practice being productive (speaking, writing) all the time in my learning cycle. I'm going to try to be verbal 70-80% of the time and see if that helps.
4. I'm personally only adding two shadowing exercises (about 3 min) at the start of my lesson with Assimil. I was already reading L1, listening L2, shadowing L2. So now I'm mostly doing B. shadow L2, shadow L1, listen (no shadow) L2, shadow L2. Stop and study. Shadow L2.

Takes me about 20 minutes in the early lessons and not the reported 10. I also place all new vocab into Anki.

What does your cycle look like?


Just to be clear, I'm not against blind shadowing as a beginner -- I just don't like it as the very first step when approaching a new assimil lesson. In the 15 minute routine that Prof Argüelles shares, he does blind shadowing both as the first step and as the last step. Blind shadowing as the last step is something I absolutely agree with because I think being able to blind shadow the lesson well is a sign that you've just about mastered that lesson. In contrast I don't like blind shadowing as the very first step because my babbling gets in the way of my listening; and if it's my first run through the lesson, then I really just want to listen and focus only on understanding as much as I possibly can.

I have a routine for assimil, but it wouldn't fit in the 15 minute time frame, and everything that I was mentioning previously was within the context of trying to find a productive routine that could be done within 15 minutes a day. Your routine, for instance, sounds good to me, but I don't think I'd be able to do that all within a 15 minute time frame.

My general routine is actually very, very similar to Prof Argüelles's routine that he shared, and I know that I can't do it all within a 15 minute time frame. The only main difference between My routine and the one Prof Argüelles shared is that instead of blind shadowing in step one, I simply listen and focus only on listening. Also, instead of simultaneously reading L1 while listening to L2 in step 2, I instead read a sentence in L1, then listen to the corresponding sentence in L2, and I do this until I'm at the end of the lesson (as I said, I'm not big on multi-tasking) The rest of my steps are identical to the ones Prof Argüelles shared, including the blind shadowing in the end.
5 x

User avatar
einzelne
Blue Belt
Posts: 804
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:33 pm
Languages: Russan (N), English (Working knowledge), French (Reading), German (Reading), Italian (Reading on Kindle)
x 2882

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby einzelne » Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:30 am

jeff_lindqvist wrote:Atomic Habits, New Year's Resolutions, and Polyitis


Did I get him right or did he indeed say that he still needs to put more time and effort into his Korean to literary works? Does it mean that his Korean is still not good enough to read literature? He mentions Korean together with Arabic but the reason I'm asking about Korean is because he lived in Korea and his wife is a Korean (?).

Btw are there any videos where he speaks Korean.
0 x

User avatar
Vordhosbn
Orange Belt
Posts: 121
Joined: Sun May 01, 2016 10:17 am
Location: New Zealand
Languages: English, German, French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... p?p=194185
x 349

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby Vordhosbn » Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:22 am

einzelne wrote:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:Atomic Habits, New Year's Resolutions, and Polyitis


Did I get him right or did he indeed say that he still needs to put more time and effort into his Korean to literary works? Does it mean that his Korean is still not good enough to read literature? He mentions Korean together with Arabic but the reason I'm asking about Korean is because he lived in Korea and his wife is a Korean (?).

Btw are there any videos where he speaks Korean.

I just re-watched the video and he's referring to them in the past tense, specifically when he was in South Korea studying them intensively during that 5-year "monastic" period and had to sacrifice other languages to focus more on the likes of Korean, Arabic, Persian etc.

That said, you can see in his video above ("15 Minutes a Day") he still actively works on them - look at the books on his bookshelf just as the camera pans down over him. You'll see a bunch of bookmarked Assimil manuals as well as Francis Y. T. Park's volume III of "Speaking Korean" which is a Chinese character (hanja) reader.
1 x

User avatar
einzelne
Blue Belt
Posts: 804
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:33 pm
Languages: Russan (N), English (Working knowledge), French (Reading), German (Reading), Italian (Reading on Kindle)
x 2882

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby einzelne » Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:26 pm

Vordhosbn wrote:That said, you can see in his video above ("15 Minutes a Day") he still actively works on them.


Thank you for clarification, I listened to it distracted and missed the part where he says that it was back when he was living in Korea.
Still, are there any videos of him talking Korean?

And I'm really curious about his reading lists. Textbooks are good, but how many actual books does he read on average per year? With that many languages requiring maintenance and active work how can you possibly find enough time to read for pleasure? I'm asking it because I find it hard to juggle 4 languages (1 native + 3 easy foreign languages). How on earth can you do it with a dozen of languages? Apparently, he tried to develop certain schemes but it never worked for him. But I'm just curious about his reading habits and routines (since ostensibly the main goal of his polyglot quest is reading).
Last edited by einzelne on Thu Jan 13, 2022 4:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
3 x

User avatar
luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1243
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (intermediate), Esperanto (B1), French (intermediate but rusting)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
x 3631

Re: New Prof Argüelles Youtube Series

Postby luke » Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:36 pm

einzelne wrote:And I'm really curios about his reading lists.

Professor Arguelles used to have a website with an URL like "foreignlanguageexpertise.com". There, he had some Excel spreadsheets with Great Book lists, Western Canon, Eastern Canon, the original language, the century, etc. Maybe someone here knows how to dig those spreadsheets out of an archive. They don't tell the professor's history, but they do document the sort of books he's interested in.
1 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests