The question of EFFICIENCY in polyglottery

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PeterMollenburg
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Re: The question of EFFICIENCY in polyglottery

Postby PeterMollenburg » Thu Jun 24, 2021 10:02 pm

David1917 wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:
David1917 wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:Still, I'm not trying to disregard the important anecdotal evidence in his claims, as I have suspected a similar concept - that multiple languages in the earlier stages is fine, but how does one push them all simultaneously past the intermediate plateau onto more advanced levels? It seems your quote enzelne of Arguelles holds the answer: you can't, or if we assume you can if you stick at it long enough, then we have an answer with regards to efficiency: it's terribly inefficient.

So, can we potentially conclude the it might be more efficient to study three languages simultaneously at the beginning levels, but as our comprehension grows and we continue along this path towards 'advanced', we need more and more time with the language to advance further. Yeah?

Additionally, we might as well then start off focusing on one language from the beginning as we are only going to have to drop two at some point if we want to reach C1 or beyond. So it seems again to be more efficient to focus on one language at a time if we aim to reach C1 or beyond.


If I recall he did have to focus on each one with more daily hours to push past an intermediate plateau. Russian is the example I'm the most familiar with, but after going through the Assimil Russisch ohne mühe a few times as well as whatever other workbooks up to the point that he was doing bilingual literature readings, he would spend most of the day focused on Russian. This was also especially in preparation for a month-long homestay in St. Petersburg.

He talks a lot about the difference between passive & active as well. You can gain probably a quite impressive passive reading knowledge of several languages over the course of time with short daily bursts of activity. To make that active though you must spend more time doing so and actually live in a place or speak with people. Of the three "exotic" languages he was focused on in Korea (Persian, Arabic, Hindi/Urdu), he felt Arabic was at the bottom of the heap until he moved to Lebanon. Very quickly it moved to the top, and it took that level of exposure to bring all that passive knowledge to life (& probably get it to stick better in the long run).

This also relates to what I think most would agree on, which is that the "B" range of CEFR is the most one can hope for with isolated self-study. If we are talking about C1 and beyond, then that does require a more significant amount of work. As for Prof Arguelles as far as I can tell he can do English, French, German, Korean, & Arabic at that level. I chose these because he has lived and worked in them for extended periods of time, meaning they can be activated at a high level rather instantaneously. He can read a novel in Faroese but has probably never spoken it with anyone, and certainly wouldn't necessarily be able to hop in to a conversation with educated native speakers on some advanced topic as with those first five. He bought a car in Lebanon using only Portuguese as the manner of conversation, and seemed to be satisfied with the purchase months after the fact, but again would probably not hope to have an advanced conversation on demand.

I think what he suggests is that maybe spending a week in the Faroe Islands or Brazil could prepare him for a discussion at an academic conference or something, but has never tried it, and that is a difference. Those languages are also related to ones he knows very well (and consistently calls dialects of each other). I would assume that it would take something on the order of weeks or months in Iran or India to get those languages to an appropriate level. I also think that if, now being in America, he stopped reading Arabic literature or listening to Arabic broadcasts or corresponding with Arab colleagues for an extended period of time, it might take days or weeks to return to that level (but probably not months).


I've quoted you David1917, but I've bolded a particularly interesting line and further underlined what most caught my attention within that sentence. Given you seem to feel that with isolated self-study one might very well struggle to reach the C-levels, this leads me to the question then, what is isolated self-study in your opinion? Do you mean someone studying for a few hours or more every single day, but isolated because they are not in the country in which the language is spoken or by isolated did you mean 'sporadic'?


Good catch. By "isolated" I meant as a solo endeavor without speaking to other people in the language. They don't have to be in-country, but if you're doing textbooks and even reading literature but alone and not having conversations (in-person or online) then there's sort of a brick wall there.


Thanks for clarifying. After my long-winded fully understandable multi-lingual justified approach, I've come full circle and decided to continue with French only in an attempt to join those elusive ones who do reach C2 outside the country where the language is spoken.
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Re: The question of EFFICIENCY in polyglottery

Postby jeffers » Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:43 pm

One question which I don't think has been addressed (although I confess I have merely skimmed most of this thread) is what "C2" really means, beyond simply "really, really good at the language". Sometimes people confuse the CEFR scale with how close to "native proficiency" a second language learner is, but I think this is a mistake. To give away my point from the start, I believe many native speaking adults in England would struggle with a B2 exam in their own language, and the majority would probably struggle with C1 or C2. To describe it roughly, the C-levels could be characterized as the ability to function in a highly academic and/or highly professional setting.

The official descriptors can be found on this spreadsheet: https://rm.coe.int/cefr-descriptors-2020-/16809ed2c7 There are 150 descriptors of what C2 means. Many of these descriptions could describe a speaker close to "native proficiency", such as "Can understand with ease virtually any kind of language, whether live or broadcast, delivered at fast natural speed". On the other hand, many of the C2 descriptors require the ability to work with highly technical language, "even on abstract and complex topics of a specialist nature beyond their own field". And there are many descriptors like this.

So this brings up the question, is the goal to be "as good as possible" in the three or more languages? In which case are you aiming for the highest level exams to evidence this? Or is the goal to be able to function "professionally" in the languages?

I think I'm rambling, but I guess the point I'm driving at is:
1. Is the goal to PASS a C2 test? If so, why? Or,
2. Is the goal to BE at C2? Again, if so, why?

I suspect the answers to these would make a big difference in what efficiency would look like.
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Re: The question of EFFICIENCY in polyglottery

Postby luke » Sat Aug 21, 2021 11:01 am

Steve wrote:
rdearman wrote:Many studies have shown huge blocks of study time are not as effective as interleaving.

Many years ago I read a papers on interleaving (by Robert Bjork if I recall correctly) in which students perceived that block learning was more effective even when the objective results were that interleaving produced better results for them.

When I first learned about interleaving awhile ago, I started doing some experimentation. At first it tended to feel like I was dabbling in a lot of things, but over time that context switching seemed to develop more links between related topics than serial micro-mastery of smaller topics was doing. In some ways, approaching language learning centered around using input (supported by learning to use grammatical reference materials) is more akin to interleaved learning where topics are mixed and repeatedly hit again and again over time in contrast to a typical course where individual topics are taught in a more block oriented manner.

I love the way you write and explain things.

Thinking back to a suggestion you offered me in another thread, I'm seeing how that post and this post fit together.

I'm also seeing an interesting paradox. I've bolded it above for clarity.

If one considers the "input" to be the actual block, e.g., "that long novel I've been reading". I.E. "the novel" is the "block" you're learning.

In that other thread where I asked about "how do you know what parts of grammar you need help with" (when it's not clear why something is hard, but it is).

Lumping "grammar", "vocabulary", "characters", "time line", "is this figurative?", etc, etc, etc as more "micro-skills", one can start to identify the most challenging micro-skill du jour (right now). E.G., "the author is using a lot of words I don't understand" (vocabulary), "certain verbs have a common suffix that I'm not clear on, but is somehow relevant to the meaning" (grammar), or "this character is related to the other characters by ... and ... and ...", etc, etc.

So my realization is to not to think of "grammar" or "vocabulary" or "character relationships" as the "block" to be learned. Rather, the "interesting novel" is the block. Grammar and vocabulary are multitudinarios (enormous and sprawling). The novel itself has some center, some internal cohesion. Use that as the focus. Grammar, vocab, notes, charts on character relationships are just micro-tools to make sense of something concrete, finite and free standing (the novel).

I know it seems like I'm taking the Bjork position, by focusing on the "block". I'm just trying to say the novel can be the overall organizer for the interleaved "micro-skills". I'm also calling grammar and vocab skills "micro-skills", which seems absurd at first glance. But Steve's writing is around "learning" and my comments above are how I'm making sense of his book with "timeless" in it's title, What You Need to Know about Language Learning For All Ages and the Listen-Reading system I've been occupied with the last few days.
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Re: The question of EFFICIENCY in polyglottery

Postby sirgregory » Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:31 am

An argument I have heard for sequential over simultaneous acquisition of new languages is based on the logic of the forgetting curve and spaced repetition. When you encounter a new word, you have a certain amount of time before you forget it, and the interval increases with repeated exposures (ideally in the form of active retrieval). According to such a mathematical model, your progress as a function of daily input should be better-than-linear; that is, if you double your daily input you should reach whatever level of proficiency more than twice as fast. A corollary here is that the ideal would be to acquire a language as intensively as possible. And from a maintenance perspective, it probably makes sense to keep going until you've reached a fairly advanced level because (in theory) you should not need much reinforcement to maintain the core vocabulary at that point.

The above is more of a thought experiment than anything. Obviously there are a lot of assumptions with any model like this.
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Re: The question of EFFICIENCY in polyglottery

Postby zenmonkey » Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:22 am

rdearman wrote:Wow. I really am crap at this. I don't think I have ever spent 3 hour studying anything. Certainly not one single subject for 3 solid hours. And like Iverson i was stupid and learned two romance languages at the same time. I need to reevaluate my life.


I once crammed an entire semester of Advanced Signal Process into a week of study - taking breaks for pizza and coke, and I slept in my cubby on the D level of the library, 4 floors down into the ground. My roommate and I did this marathon to pass the course (which we did) - 37 years later, I still have uncomfortable dreams about this. We were very efficient, we were not very healthy. Or happy. In fact, I think I was terrified.

I'm ok with being stupid and inefficient. Consistency trumps efficiency. That's what I'm humbly going for now. And slowly nudging myself to relearn how to learn.
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Re: The question of EFFICIENCY in polyglottery

Postby IronMike » Sat Jan 29, 2022 10:59 pm

zenmonkey wrote:I once crammed an entire semester of Advanced Signal Process into a week of study - taking breaks for pizza and coke...

Party at zenmonkey's place!

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