alans wrote:I guess by coming to this forum and posing this questions means my heart is still in it-but I just don't feel like I'm getting ahead and
I'm worn out from trying.
I spent about 25 to 30 years trying to learn to read ancient Greek. I plateaued about 2 to 3 years in and never significantly improved after that. In hindsight, the reason I made little progress was that I was spending the vast majority of my time thinking *about* Greek in English. I was memorizing (and re-memorizing and re-re-memorizing) vocabulary lists and paradigm tables over that time. In other words, I spent countless hours trying to memorize reference materials and thinking about Greek in English. I'd have months of enthusiasm followed by months of burnout. Each time I'd restart, I'd go back to relearn everything I'd forgotten in the mean time. At any given time, I felt like I was learning and progressing. But overall, my rate of progress was glacial.
Perhaps 7 or 8 years ago (I've lost track), I was ready to give up. I was working hard and my "reading" consisted of painstakingly working my way through a few sentences per evening. I did the math and realized I'd be lucky to read a book or two in my life time and that I'd never just enjoy reading ancient Greek literature. To make a long story short, I serendipitously discovered the old HTLAL site, this one, and other videos and blogs by various polyglots and learned much about language learning. Having a background in the sciences and as an analyst, I started distilling what I was learning into a few principles that explained much of what I was reading from successful language learners. After I started applying it, I started seeing real progress.
The key idea is this. You can define the time and effort you put in. You can choose the methods you use. The combination of effort and methods determine the results. When the methods you choose are both enjoyable and effective, you will see much better results. If the methods are enjoyable, you'll stick with it and want to keep coming back the next day to do more. If the methods are not enjoyable, you'll depend on will-power and resolve to labor and toil diligently. If methods are effective, they will start to yield the types of skills you are interested in gaining. If methods are not effective, they will not yield skills you are interested in. A much longer version of the details of this is that we must understand both brain function and how quality and results are related to processes and systems. A part of this is that we are all different and what is enjoyable and effective for one person might not be for the next person.
In hindsight, my Greek learning methods were neither enjoyable nor effective. Memorizing dictionaries and tables is boring never-ending work that cannot be sustained for long periods of time (at least by me). Also, doing this was yielding much practice in looking things up and not actually reading. I was getting faster as looking things up but not better at reading. My brain was constantly thinking in English about Greek and never having a chance to internalize Greek. I was basically using methods that would be useful for passing tests. These methods were never going to yield actual reading skills.
When my Greek skills really took off is when I started practicing actual skills. I picked up an audio recording (modern Greek pronunciation) of the Greek New Testament and started following along with an interlinear. I'd listen and follow along. I'd repeat the same passage over and over until it became *familiar* and then move to the next. I discovered parallel texts (like the Loeb classics) which I'd look at the Greek, understand as much as I could, and then look to the English side for reference. Within weeks to months of starting this, I found that my brain was starting to internalize Greek. I'd see common words and phrases and just recognize them. Over time, my brain was internalizing the most common grammatical structures. I was now spending the vast majority of my time listening to and reading (silently and out loud) Greek. Most of my time was now spent mentally processing Greek rather than thinking in English about Greek. Over time, I'd adapt and use different styles of reading and different materials. The key idea was to supply a steady stream of Greek exposure to my brain with minimum English distractions except as needed. Over time, I simply found that more and more Greek words, phrases, and sentences became familiar as I looked at them. This has been both enjoyable and effective for me. I'll still look things up in dictionaries, lexicons, and grammar books. However, the majority of my time is spent actually reading Greek.
I tried a similar approach to Spanish and made satisfactory progress. I made sure to spend most of my time actually practicing the skills I wanted to acquire rather than memorizing vocabulary lists and paradigm tables. I can enjoyably read easy to intermediate level Spanish on topics of interest to me. I can enjoyably watch Spanish shows on Netflix. I of course am not following everything perfectly, but enough to enjoy the books, articles, or shows. I do need to pause and look things up, but am becoming more comfortable and familiar with things over time. I recently found a small Spanish church near where I live and find that I can interact enjoyably with people there. I find I can usually follow most of what is going on (except for chatting and small talk). This has been improving. The main thing is that I've now reached a point where my Spanish skills are sustaining themselves. I typically spend perhaps an hour or so either reading or watching TV or doing something in Spanish most days.
I've found that it is about letting our brain have the opportunity to become *familiar* with the *use* of the language. I now tend to think of language learning as using similar brain activity as when we learn songs by listening to them on the radio. Few of us set out to memorize songs, but repetitive exposure to various songs over time results in our brains internalizing long segments of various songs.
FYI, I've got a link to my web site in my signature. I've written some more in depth articles on these types of topics.
