Re: PM’s French Re-entry into the Matrix - Phase 1: 500 Hours Extensive Reading

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Cavesa
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby Cavesa » Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:24 am

Everything ends, but English will hold as long as Hollywood and the american/british tv series makers will :-D

I think language learning has one hope in the techno world of the future. The emotion. Sometimes, we are already watching the desire for the "real world caused" emotion in ourselves. People are slowly getting tired of all the new toys and tools that we've got. Yes, they are overused now and will be for some time. Yes, they will have many more functions in the future. But no machine translation will ever give people the feelings of understanding, sharing, and closeness, that talking in a foreign language does. Even at the lower levels of proficiency. The machine translation will be able to help tremendously with the surface of the conversation, with the "technical" parts, but will never give an insight to how does the other person think, which is something language learning gives. Partially thanks to studying the language and culture, partially because it makes us away of the relationships between our speaking and thinking. And I think people will crave feelings and connections like this more and more. The more pressure from the technology, the stronger will be the reaction. A part of the population won't care, that won't change. But a smaller part of the population will seek out personal and intellectual pursuits like this.

Perhaps, it may be like some products these days. You can get a totally functional product from a factory, made by efficient machines and as few employees as possible. Or you can pay more for a hand made product, that is more original in design, does more or less the same thing, and is much more personal. Or you can make it yourself. It may be much less perfect than the previous ones, less nice, at least compared to the hand made one, but you'll prefer using it anyways. And you can become part of the growing community of similar enthusiasts making stuff with their own hands. I think this is the future of foreign language interactions. Machines, professionals, and people who don't settle for the two.

Yes, it looks like the fall of language learning, but I don't think it will be so. I think the population of voluntary language learners won't be hurt that much. It's mostly the mainstream obligatory education, where governments will no longer spend money on languages. And considering its quality, which is discussed in another thread now, it won't make that much of a difference in many cases :-D
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Jul 15, 2017 2:32 pm

So I went flat out for ten days and hit a wall. I stopped all desk study but have kept in touch with French via podcasts and TV. I simply cannot kick this virus/bacterial infection and I'm super healthy lately.... it will go, but man it certainly isn't giving up without a fight. Mind you I feel 99% fine.

Been scoping out Switzerland and Belgium again as my wife and I discuss future plans. They're short on nurses everywhere yet do not make it easy to get all one's paperwork in order. It appears Switzerland could take 1 year, more or less, to get to a point where I could work. Not great if living in country, things aren't cheap in Switzerland.

Belgium is complicated too but not as long a process it appears, but in both countries it appears I have to be living there to fulfill all requirements (to get my Australian qualifications assessed to ascertain equivalency/ if further education required etc). A few months of twiddling my thumbs in Belgium before even getting the chance to look for work. Not easy. Still probably easier for me than someone from a non-western country.

Still, I'm a long way off applying and if it doesn't work out with nursing, we have a back up plan.

Anyway I've rejigged my study routine to ensure I do a session of extensive reading daily. I need to develop better long-term committment if I'm to make it to C1 or at least advance substantially hby late 2018. Now I feel I ought not to return until I've got some good amount of French studying under my belt.
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Jul 16, 2017 11:50 pm

I've decided that procrastinating is still an issue for me. It's not as bad as ten years ago before I discovered HTLAL (and then this forum afterwards). Probably 350 days out of 365 a year I am exposed to French in some way. That's pretty decent, and nothing to complain about.

However the numbers would be considerably lower for the allotted desk study time I do each day. I think on average I might miss 5 to 7 days in each month where I get slack and go off the rails but still listen to podcasts to and from work. Some days I deliberately self-sabotage and won't even do that and give myself a 'reset date' (eg 'from the first of the month i'm going on a mission') and usually with a new routine designed. I often change my routine in an attempt to gather some enthusiasm or find the next golden key criteria to advance forwards. And as a part of the procrastination I often go off reading threads, posts, blogs etc about how this person or that expert got to C1 (or whatever level I'm interested in) in so much time using whatever special method.

So, after reading this 2009 post again back on HTLAL by emk 30days: How to improve self-discipline and his journey with French and the key to his success, I've decided to, like him back then, to try a 30 day challenge of sorts.

It's at a different stage in my learning compared to emk. His French success over 2 years of dedicated French every single day, amounting to a smallish total of 350 hours is a speedy advancement, given the total time. Mine is much much much slower with much higher numbers. Our learning styles and personalities are very different of course, but my methods are far from efficient, and I feel a decent part of that lack of efficiency has been in my stopping and starting of routines. Yes I've done French most days of the year, but consistent application of my methods has been a bit of something that's hurt me I think. Better late than never, right? Thus, the 'missing golden key', I now feel is that I simply don't stick at a decent routine consistently enough.

Sure, my study numbers are pretty decent, and many people have stated at some point that they have been impressed with my perseverence and the fact that I keep on keeping on despite the battles. I do believe I would've reached my goals quicker had I used more native materials, but then again that is clearly not what I wanted to do up to this point and with my time over again I would not change that. From here on I intend to use native materials more so as a part of my routine, but i'm also going to iron out those 'off days' and I do feel with more consistency I will advance with more efficiency, since I believe had I applied this strategy from the beginning I would've reached B2 much sooner.

My goal is to to 3 hours of desk study every day, but for the 30 day challenge itself I'm going to make it more realistic. While still aiming for 3 hours, for the
30 day challenge, 2 hours is the magic number. 2 hours of French desk study each and every day. No exceptions. With the goal being 3, but 2 hours being the essential. I'm not allowed to change my routine either during that time. Starts tomorrow. I'll pop back in every so often with an update.
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby Fortheo » Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:06 am

3 hours of desk study a day is a lot! Make sure you have a comfortable chair. I've developed a bad case of sciatica lately and I'm blaming desk study.
Last edited by Fortheo on Mon Jul 17, 2017 3:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby smallwhite » Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:37 am

PeterMollenburg wrote:I would've reached B2 much sooner

I don't find native materials that important to success. My native-materials:courses ratio was probably similar to yours or even lower. I think you would've reached B2 much sooner if you had simply signed up for an exam sooner.
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:31 am

PeterMollenburg wrote:I believe I would've reached my goals quicker had I used more native materials, but then again that is clearly not what I wanted to do up to this point and with my time over again I would not change that. From here on I intend to use native materials more so as a part of my routine, but i'm also going to iron out those 'off days' and I do feel with more consistency I will advance with more efficiency, since I believe had I applied this strategy from the beginning I would've reached B2 much sooner.


I agree with smallwhite it is not so sure it would have worked this way.

1.I agree that having signed up for the exam sooner might have changed a lot. You don't know whether you've gotten to B2 rather recently or whether you have been there for a while, just not knowing it.

2.Your biggest timeeater were many courses of the same level. I am not saying that was a bad approach, you have proven the value more than enough. But that is actually quite a common thing that I've seen both individuals and teachers do, they get stuck at a certain level and keep repeating the same stuff ad nauseam, instead of going on and letting it all settle down in the light of new experience. You have given yourself very solid foundation to build on now, that is a great achievement. But had speed been important, you would have had to cut down on some courses, in my opinion.

3.While I agree that spending more time on the language always helps, who wouldn't agree, I don't think native input would have helped you much. I am more and more convinced, especially when looking at learners on the internet, that it is worth it to just focus on learner aimed material at the first levels and get faster to intermediate level, when the native stuff truly gets useful. Adding too much "native material" around A1 or A2 can lead to spreading oneself even thinner, and it is not an efficient way to spend time. All those people who don't even do all their course material properly and instead spend hours and hours with podcasts at A1, or youtube videos without clear structure, that is not an example to follow, as many simply get stuck at that level. At B1, it starts to change. But you still don't lose that much, if you stick to learner aimed resources even at that point, since French learners have tons of stuff to work with up to B2. Between B1 and B2, it is a question of personal preference and style, I would say. You need to switch to normal input after B2, sure, but I don't think the A1-B2 path without that much of it is in general worth regretting.

4.It is definitely possible that your investments until now (all the courses, redoing stuff, spending more time at it than you now think had been necessary) will pay off in the long run. I am quite sure your progress to the C levels will be much smoother than that of people with gaps and weaknesses in the basics.

You are awesome, keep going. Your French gives you no reason to seriously doubt yourself, in my opinion. :-)
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby PeterMollenburg » Mon Jul 17, 2017 1:15 pm

Fortheo wrote:3 hours of feel study a day is a lot! Make sure you have a comfortable chair. I've developed a bad case of sciatica lately and I'm blaming desk study.


My sciatica fortunately disappeared a few years back. I credit this to change in lifestyle, mainly dietary (removal of garbage processed foods and sugar-loaded junk- this plays a big role on musculo-skeletal health- want shit bones, keep drinking that soft drink!). Of course posture and activity play a large role too. I prefer to kayak or cycle now instead of running or basketball (which I def. miss at times), but I gave them up many many years before the sciatica issues. But you are right Fortheo, one must consider, and I often do myself, what the long-term effects of habitual activities potentially will be on our health in future. Thus, I've often considered a desk with a bike or something like that. This is also a reason I have largely eliminated my mobile phone from study sessions, which I had in front of me 99% of the time up until recently, as a study tool. Blue light causes issues long-term and best to reduce it where we can in a world in which our interactions with technology are increasingly hard to avoid. I need to get back on my bike! Thanks for dropping by Fortheo, I hope your language learning is going well!

smallwhite wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:I would've reached B2 much sooner

I don't find native materials that important to success. My native-materials:courses ratio was probably similar to yours or even lower. I think you would've reached B2 much sooner if you had simply signed up for an exam sooner.


Thanks for the vote of confidence smallwhite. I do wonder this sometimes that perhaps I've been underestimating my level at times. No, I don't believe i'm C1 but you're right I probably could've passed a B2 exam some time ago. As I mentioned another time, my highly experienced tutor believed when I last spoke to her, that I was midway between B2 and C1 - that's a fair way down the C1 path. Perhaps sometimes my perfectionism gets in the way. I think I often see C1/C2 as absolute mastery. It's not. I ought to remind myself of this from time to time.

And having read this article earlier tonight:
How Diplomats Learn Foreign Languages by Shawn Kobb
I was astounded with the (little) time in which a level 1 language can be learned at the FSI in terms of overall hours (which I roughly calculated with the information provided in the article). I thought something's up with my learning methods... What is it? Perfectionism! The author claims that he'll never be able to rid himself of his (American) accent.... Therein lies a key to part of the massive difference in overall study hours. I simply could not learn to speak French (or another language) sounding even a little Australian. Many hours have been put into this. And, I've maybe overdone basic courses instead of moving on (who cares). I've also been a little too stop and start with my methods (working on that one), and I don't have a constant (in person) tutor to feedback with and aid in activating the language. These all make a considerable difference to overall time required, imo, from my perspective, to learn a language to C1 level when compared with such a regiment of language learning as used at the FSI. Anyway, that's my take on it. I could have a low aptitude for languages too. But hey, what do I know, I know me and I learn like me, so whether I do or not, makes no difference, I just keep learning. And I don't necessarily believe that to be true. I'm just me :) And also part of being me, and learning what it takes to learn a language, was that you have to really step it up and push yourself and I've gone for the scenic route instead, to take the gradient out of that steep climb. I didn't realise this until a good way into the journey.

Cavesa wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:I believe I would've reached my goals quicker had I used more native materials, but then again that is clearly not what I wanted to do up to this point and with my time over again I would not change that. From here on I intend to use native materials more so as a part of my routine, but i'm also going to iron out those 'off days' and I do feel with more consistency I will advance with more efficiency, since I believe had I applied this strategy from the beginning I would've reached B2 much sooner.


I agree with smallwhite it is not so sure it would have worked this way.

1.I agree that having signed up for the exam sooner might have changed a lot. You don't know whether you've gotten to B2 rather recently or whether you have been there for a while, just not knowing it.

Thank you :) Yes you could be right indeed. Perhaps it's good reason for me to push to sit the C1 exam sooner than I am aiming. Something to consider at least.

Cavesa wrote:2.Your biggest timeeater were many courses of the same level. I am not saying that was a bad approach, you have proven the value more than enough. But that is actually quite a common thing that I've seen both individuals and teachers do, they get stuck at a certain level and keep repeating the same stuff ad nauseam, instead of going on and letting it all settle down in the light of new experience. You have given yourself very solid foundation to build on now, that is a great achievement. But had speed been important, you would have had to cut down on some courses, in my opinion.


True indeed. I touched on this above, I do feel that repeating easy courses was a time vacuum. Initially I thought it was the right thing to do to learn a language to an advanced level - I truly didn't know how much of a task was ahead of me! However then it became a 'let's tick them all off my list mission' (some of this sentiment is still within me, but it's more of an advanced list now, but not entirely). Then I realised, hey this just takes a hell of a lot more time than I expected (ie I massively underestimated the time-eater! - I kept changing my chosen courses and rejigging my routine every 2nd day, literally at times, which didn't help, but I did remain consistent mostly at studying). Still, it seems for me a lot of this was needed, and could in fact help me, as my base is solid as you point out.

Cavesa wrote:3.While I agree that spending more time on the language always helps, who wouldn't agree, I don't think native input would have helped you much. I am more and more convinced, especially when looking at learners on the internet, that it is worth it to just focus on learner aimed material at the first levels and get faster to intermediate level, when the native stuff truly gets useful. Adding too much "native material" around A1 or A2 can lead to spreading oneself even thinner, and it is not an efficient way to spend time. All those people who don't even do all their course material properly and instead spend hours and hours with podcasts at A1, or youtube videos without clear structure, that is not an example to follow, as many simply get stuck at that level. At B1, it starts to change. But you still don't lose that much, if you stick to learner aimed resources even at that point, since French learners have tons of stuff to work with up to B2. Between B1 and B2, it is a question of personal preference and style, I would say. You need to switch to normal input after B2, sure, but I don't think the A1-B2 path without that much of it is in general worth regretting.

Actually this makes a LOT of sense and now that I look back at my statements perhaps I wasn't precise enough in my description. I do actually agree with you and perhaps what would've potentially been better was simply more reading and watching at times. I don't know, maybe not, but I still feel at times I lack in having a natural 'feel for the language' and this is where reading would help I believe. Regardless of whether I should've started at A2 (I never would, it just doesn't feel right) or B1, it's clearly a good time to start reading more now. But yeah, I think you're spot on here Cavesa. A gradual build up to a suitable point in which level appropriate native content could be introduced is a good approach. Maybe I need not have introduced those activities earlier at all, but perhaps I did do one too many beginner courses which slowed down my progress to reach that point of being ready for native content.

Cavesa wrote:4.It is definitely possible that your investments until now (all the courses, redoing stuff, spending more time at it than you now think had been necessary) will pay off in the long run. I am quite sure your progress to the C levels will be much smoother than that of people with gaps and weaknesses in the basics.


I get a sense that this possibility could indeed be what arises. I hope this coming stretch of time invested is for once shorter than all the previous study which ended up being much much much more than I anticipated. Still, if it's longer, it doesn't matter, i'll keep moving forward until I read my objectives, and then of course I won't stop, i'll just start learning Dutch as well!

Cavesa wrote:You are awesome, keep going. Your French gives you no reason to seriously doubt yourself, in my opinion. :-)


Thank you Cavesa, your positive words here go a long way. It leaves me with a positive sentiment, that all in all I'm truly grateful for all the language learners on this forum who've done so much to keep me going on my French learning journey. I'm almost certain my Dutch journey will be a fraction of the time and a fraction of the frustration, but I best not get ahead of myself, nor talk to soon!
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby iguanamon » Tue Jul 18, 2017 12:07 am

The more I do this, the more I see that there are many paths to learning a language. Language-learning is humbling. Having been around now for several years, I have had each one of my assumptions challenged and refuted to some degree. I always thought your approach was too heavily skewed towards courses, and that adding some native materials would get you towards your objective quicker (of course, you didn't avoid them completely). You've proven with good results that what you have done works, at least for big languages with plenty of learning materials. Is it the best approach? Is my approach the best? Who knows and who cares! You reached your objective and are still moving forward. That's what matters most, not how quickly you get there or how long it may take.

Language-learning here on the forum tends to swing like a pendulum. There was a time when anki was all the rage and considered to be THE answer. There was a time when it was thought that Assimil was the greatest thing since sliced bread and all that a learner needed. Now the pendulum has swung so far toward native materials that I am seeing monolinguals here who are A2 and below "watching" series with English subs, as if it were a magic bullet- flitting about from youtube video to youtube video like a hummingbird to flowers. They're not going to get much (language-learning wise) out of doing that at all. They would benefit much more from short, comprehensible texts or working with a song's lyrics and devoting most of their time to their courses. I'm not saying it's totally useless to watch a series with English subs for low-level learners, but for the time spent on doing that in exchange for such a small benefit, they'd be better off working on mastering the basics. I'm picking on English-speakers here because non-native-speakers of English here already speak a second language at a high level.

How many of these learners actually work with the series is unknown. I never see them mention what they do other than watch. If they were making parallel texts, looking up unknown words, transcribing audio and researching grammar points that would be useful (I did), that's one thing, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that this is probably not happening with most of them.

Language-learning is a highly personal endeavor. Those of us who have reached B2 and higher invest an awful lot of our toil and effort making it happen. We are justifiably proud of our accomplishments. As a result, some of us have a tendency to take things a little personally when someone else disregards our advice or approach or even criticizes something that has worked well for us. It is easy to become opinionated because of success. I am beyond that now. Let a thousand flowers bloom! Some day someone will prove me wrong about monolingual adult English-speakers studying multiple languages simultaneously never reaching an advanced level here on the forum. I've never said it's impossible, just not very probable based on my forum observations.

PM, you have shown that hard work, consistency and persistence have a payoff in language-learning, as well as have smallwhite and Cavesa. I truly believe that these qualities, which are also tied in with desire are more important than any approach. Without theses qualities, no learner is very likely to succeed. Hard work, consistency, persistence and desire are critical. So, my hat is off to you, PM, and to the hard work of smallwhite and Cavesa. All the best to you, PM. May you reach C1 and beyond, doing things your way! :)
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby blaurebell » Tue Jul 18, 2017 8:00 am

iguanamon wrote:Language-learning here on the forum tends to swing like a pendulum. There was a time when anki was all the rage and considered to be THE answer. There was a time when it was thought that Assimil was the greatest thing since sliced bread and all that a learner needed. Now the pendulum has swung so far toward native materials that I am seeing monolinguals here who are A2 and below "watching" series with English subs, as if it were a magic bullet- flitting about from youtube video to youtube video like a hummingbird to flowers. They're not going to get much (language-learning wise) out of doing that at all. They would benefit much more from short, comprehensible texts or working with a song's lyrics and devoting most of their time to their courses. I'm not saying it's totally useless to watch a series with English subs for low-level learners, but for the time spent on doing that in exchange for such a small benefit, they'd be better off working on mastering the basics. I'm picking on English-speakers here because non-native-speakers of English here already speak a second language at a high level.


I totally agree with everything you said iguanamon! For me it's also a strange thing to see folks watching so much at a level where it's not very comprehensible. Before I've reached my first 5000 pages in a new language I only listen to get the sound system figured out and then leave all the watching for when I have a solid B2 vocabulary. Since I don't really pick up new vocabulary from listening efficiently it would be a waste of time to continue before B2. That said, whenever I listened to things at the beginning it seemed somewhat magical to me to have it open up somehow. One needs surprisingly little vocabulary to follow what's going on in a story and the brain seems to be filling in a lot of the gaps. So, after only a short time it actually becomes somewhat fun to watch the magic of the brain doing its job, even if it's still pretty much a waste of time. Maybe that's what's so appealing?

We often have this notion that there is only black and white in comprehension, either you understand or you don't understand, but that's actually not how it works. I'm always struck by it when I read philosophy. Often I have the experience that I understand absolutely nothing for 50 pages, but if I keep going at some point something clicks and I suddenly understand a great part of what seemed totally obscure to me until then. It's not that there was no understanding, it was just not conscious understanding yet. Before I started learning Russian properly I had the ability to figure out what people were talking about in Russian even without understanding a single word "consciously". It was a leftover from my parents trying to have secrets from us by speaking Russian with each other. All my Russian friends found this ability uncanny, because they were used to their language being opaque to all the German speakers around them. There are only few cognates and there is simply nothing the brain could latch on to figure out what's going on. I apparently had enough leftover from my parents speaking around me when I was little that I could always have a vague notion of what's happening. It's probably the same sort of unconscious understanding that happens before the "aha" moment when reading philosophy.

And I think when one watches stuff before really consciously understanding it, it's something like that too. A lot of stuff is obvious from all the different cues, there are many half understood sentences that build up the story even if there are gaps. That's cool, but does one learn from it? Sure, maybe a word here or there that is repeated a lot. Maybe one gets used to certain expressions. It all adds up, but it's generally a lot slower than reading. My French learning journey was very heavy on reading and I only had about 300h of audio until now. My Spanish journey was very listening heavy with more than 850h of audio - most of it after I reached B2. And yet, my listening scores for French are better! I basically wasted 500h! Or did I? Not quite, since I can watch series and movies in Spanish without missing anything major, whereas with French I still sometimes miss entire sentences here or there, especially with movies and unfamiliar actors. It's simply a parsing problem. When I actually manage to parse the French - easier with audio listening comprehension tests than with mumbling actors, my understanding is more precise than in Spanish though because I have a broader and more precise vocabulary. In Spanish I do understand most of what I hear in a lot of accents thanks to all the watching, but apparently with less precision than I would like simply because I'm simply lacking vocabulary. And because the brain is such a marvellous thing I didn't even know that there are still gaps being filled in and not always correctly! Just yesterday I guessed the meaning of a Spanish word completely wrong and if my husband hadn't pointed it out, I never would have noticed.

So, from a learning perspective watching all that stuff before B2 might not be efficient for picking up new vocabulary, but it probably helps a lot with that "parsing problem" of simply recognising the words one already knows. Maybe I wouldn't miss sentences in movies with French if I had watched more stuff earlier. Who knows. But if parsing the words is all I get from it, I still don't see the point in wasting my time with things that I can't possibly understand properly yet. Spending that time with more efficient activities will get me to proper comprehension much faster.

So, PM, in my book you didn't waste any time at all. You can push to B2 on very little grammar, speaking incorrectly, with a heavy accent and lots of native material. You might even pass the B2 exam, but that way you'll definitely hit the B2 plateau. A Japanese girl in the local language school said to me "Getting to B2 is very easy, but getting beyond that, impossible!" Well, sure, in an interaction based immersion school, how could one possibly close all those gaps that were left before? It would need an entirely different strategy of drilling grammar and looking at different course material ... in other words, your strategy! Instead of doing all the courses to get over that annoying B2 plateau you won't even experience such a plateau because you already did all the courses and didn't leave any gaps. You won't have to work on your accent either, because you've already done that. Maybe your strategy wasn't the most efficient one to get to B2, but it certainly was the best strategy to get to C1+ without all the kicking and screaming! Just keep going, you're doing everything right!
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Re: PM's French Target: C1 2018

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Jul 22, 2017 1:30 pm

iguanamon wrote:The more I do this, the more I see that there are many paths to learning a language....

Very wise words dignified of a humble someone who practices self reflection and humility, a quality far too uncommon nowadays, but important on the road to language learning success, I believe, iguanamon, thank you for your reflections.

iguanamon wrote:PM, you have shown that hard work, consistency and persistence have a payoff in language-learning, as well as have smallwhite and Cavesa. I truly believe that these qualities, which are also tied in with desire are more important than any approach. Without theses qualities, no learner is very likely to succeed. Hard work, consistency, persistence and desire are critical. So, my hat is off to you, PM, and to the hard work of smallwhite and Cavesa. All the best to you, PM. May you reach C1 and beyond, doing things your way! :)


Thank you most kindly iguanamon :) May your endeavours equally be met with fruition and fulfillment ;)

blaurebell wrote:
iguanamon wrote:Language-learning here on the forum tends to swing like a pendulum.....


I totally agree with everything you said iguanamon! For me it's also a strange thing to see folks watching so much at a level where it's not very comprehensible....


Thank you also blaurebell for you insightful reflections as well. Your sharing is noteworthy for any a language learner.

blaurebell wrote:So, PM, in my book you didn't waste any time at all. You can push to B2 on very little grammar, speaking incorrectly, with a heavy accent and lots of native material. You might even pass the B2 exam, but that way you'll definitely hit the B2 plateau. A Japanese girl in the local language school said to me "Getting to B2 is very easy, but getting beyond that, impossible!" Well, sure, in an interaction based immersion school, how could one possibly close all those gaps that were left before? It would need an entirely different strategy of drilling grammar and looking at different course material ... in other words, your strategy! Instead of doing all the courses to get over that annoying B2 plateau you won't even experience such a plateau because you already did all the courses and didn't leave any gaps. You won't have to work on your accent either, because you've already done that. Maybe your strategy wasn't the most efficient one to get to B2, but it certainly was the best strategy to get to C1+ without all the kicking and screaming! Just keep going, you're doing everything right!


Very positive feedback here, although I don't entirely agree with your praises 100% It's nice to hold myself in high esteem, and perhaps, more deservedly so than I am willing to give myself credit for, on most occasions. However, to say I left no gaps - well I'm not sure you meant that absolutely literally, but i can assure you it is not true in the literal sense. Just because I have used grammar based courses predominantly does not mean at all that I used them perfectly, and learned or assimilated everything contained within them (although I have tried and that does help). I realise you're not saying this and I'm almost putting words in your mouth there, but I would just like to point out that my plan isn't flawless. It may deserve much more merit than even I have afforded it, as I succumbed to the voices of the majority that I was going about it all wrong, and have believed to varying degrees at times that I was therefore using flawed methods, but still I pushed forward with my methods anyway.

But.... I'm going to say here that balance is likely (theoretically) best. To use both courses and native content, both intensive work and extensive (all suitable to one's level). I do see what you are saying though, blaurebell (and others here too)- that my strategies have not been rubbish and have not been a waste of time necessarily, and contain a lot of positive on the whole, but when one studies using predominantly intensive methods, internalising and activating the covered material doesn't necessarily come easily - and this is why I do believe a more balance approached (not necessarily 50/50 but 'more' balanced) would perhaps be better (in theory), as the extensive activities would assist in internalisation, activitation and automation. Then again, that is simply not what I wanted to do, or I would've done it. And yourself, iguanamon, Cavesa and smallwhite are perhaps all saying with what I for the most part agree with, I've got there my way and my way is definitely not rubbish, so thank you blaurebell for saying so ;)
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