Scriptorium questions

[poru]

I usually use the scriptorium method for studying Chinese about 10-15 minutes a day. I am at a high beginner level, so I am still just copying sample sentences from an Assimil book. I find it works best with Chinese since it is of a different script. I just wanted to bring up some questions/points of discussion regarding this method.

1. How many times do you write the same sentence in one session? How many times do you write the same sentence in a week?

2. How long are your sessions and how do you count them? I categorize it by time, but I believe some others do it by pages.

3. Do you use this method for languages with your native script? For me, it feels as though I get much more out of this when I am using this method with a language with a different script like Chinese or Korean than I do with German or Norwegian. Obviously using this method in the latter is much quicker and easier, but I feel that I get much more out of the session if it is in a script different from my own.

4. Have you altered this method in anyways that you find more beneficial to your own personal study?

I ask these questions because I would like to use this method more, but feel that I need to work on it a bit before I have it down pat and before I can really make the most of it for my studies.

[jeff_lindqvist]

1. I started with Writing Chinese with Ease and wrote each character (or word) for as many times it required to fill one line (maybe 10-15 times?). When I had finished that, I copied sentences from the Chinese with Ease 1 and 2, each sentence only once.

2. I count minutes and typically write for 30 minutes which sometimes equal two pages, sometimes less.

3. Yes, Irish and Portuguese.

4. No. It just takes time to adjust to writing longhand (which I'm not used to these days). A page of Irish/Portuguese is easier than Chinese (my writing hand is in pain after just a short while).

[Iversen]

For those that don't know what the OP is referring to, the "scriptorium" method was proposed by Alexander Arguelles and described by himself in a message on HTLAL and demonstrated in a Youtube video. He wrote the following ultrashort summary:

1. Read a sentence aloud.
2. Say each word aloud again as you write it.
3. Read the sentence aloud as you have written it.
The whole purpose of this exercise is to force yourself to slow down and pay attention to detail. This is the stage at which you should check all unknowns in grammars or dictionaries, although that would have been too tedious to show in the video.

I have used text copying with the same purpose for ages, although without the vocal part. Well, then it isn't scriptorium you may say, and that's correct. But the topics raised by Poru are also relevant for me.

I don't see a problem with writing in the Latin alphabet. The important factor is whether I know the language well or not - if I know it too well I don't do text copying. I can write much more legibly in the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets because I wasn't forced to write in the ugly 'skønskrift' in school (cursive, called 'beautiful writing' in Danish), but it doesn't play a role for my use of the method. Btw, it may be a peripheral piece of information, but I have actually had to adapt some aspects of my Latin handwriting along the way. For instance my Polish ł's (the striked-out l that sounds like /w/) originally looked like a t, and of course that had to be changed. I have not studied Oriental languages with other alphabets.

I don't count minutes, but sometimes I spend more than an hour on a text in one target language, followed by an hour in another language. And frankly, I couldn't see myself reading aloud for hours on end, which is one reason that I just 'think' the sounds. However this is an exercise that also can be done if you only have ten minutes to spend.

I always use a format where I fold a sheet of papir and make a column of some four cm or so to the right for unknown words. I have one dead simple rule: if there are so many unknown words that the columns is full before the space for the text copy, then I do a copy more because the text then must be difficult enough to warrant it. And the second time I should know it much better - it may even have become comprehensible. Another good tip is to look unknown words up before you tackle a sentence or paragraph - it will break your rhythm if you look too many words up in the middle of a sentence. And I always try to get a translation because that saves me time. And even the use of a machine translation is better than doing unaided guesses, interspersed with frantic leaves-turning in a dictionary.

The unknown words generally continue into a wordlist, but I have lately tried to cut down on the time I spend on looking words from texts up so I may skip some of the more dubious guesses. I keep the copies for some time, but when the piles have grown too large I throw them out

[poru]

Thanks for the replies. Both are quite interesting and helpful.

Iversen, I think you have an interesting method for treating unknown words in this method. I'm still new to seriously using this method, so I am still trying to work out a helpful and idiosyncratic way of using it. At a beginner level, I guess it is good for acquiring vocabulary and really cementing grammatical structure. One thing I am thinking of doing is accumulating the sentences that contain unknown words and segments of grammar from introductory course books, like Cortina or Assimil, and then writing them all out in a session. Rewriting the same sentence may be ideal for this and I can also repeat the exercise in the following sessions. Thus, by the third or fourth session I would presume at least some (though ideally more) of the unknown words will have been acquired.

Iversen, do you still study vocabulary as you used to? Using the different columns? Years ago I remember you said you study vocab with three columns of words and I've made use of it sporadically throughout my studies. It has been helpful!

[Iversen]

I still use my three column wordlists, and I'm close to finishing a revision of my Guide to Learning Languages where the layout is described in detail. I hope to be able to publish it here in some form at the end of January - maybe as a series of threads as on HTLAL, maybe as one file if that is possible.

EDIT: the Guide has now been uploaded, and the chapter about three-column wordlists is here

[poru]

I still use my three column wordlists, and I'm close to finishing a revision of my Guide to Learning Languages where the layout is described in detail. I hope to be able to publish it here in some form at the end of January - maybe as a series of threads as on HTLAL, maybe as one file if that is possible.

Oh wow that would be excellent! How is that coming along? I am sure the users of this forum will find it of great interest and help to their study. Have you been able to finish it up yet?

[jeff_lindqvist]

Here it is:
Iversen's Guide to Learning Languages (version 3b)

[maxeneg]

I'm interested in using this method, but I was wondering if it's mostly useful for developing writing skills? I'm learning Japanese, but only how to read kanji, not write it. I do shadowing and reading, but I'm looking for another active learning activity to do.

[jeff_lindqvist]

If a language has another script than the one you're used to, I think it's very helpful to spend some time on writing. I did it for Chinese, which admittedly is one of my weakest languages, but I feel that it would have been even worse without scriptorium.

I quote myself (28 Jan 2019):

It's a way to combine several skills and senses at the same time. You see (=read) the sentence, say it out loud (and hear it) while you write it. Even if you only copy text (which is what I do nowadays), it's still a way to "produce" text in a target language (but with training wheels). Some learn Chinese characters by writing them. Some copy music by hand.

I can skim a text fast. I can listen to audio which has been sped up. (I can also zone out while listening.) But writing forces me to slow things down and pay attention.

[Iversen]

Doing the scriptorium in the original form where each sentence is read aloud could in theory have a positive impact on your pronunciation, but since you don't get any information about its correctness and your reading is hacked into small pieces the scriptorium isn't the most obvious method to train oral language. And personally I don't even say a word while I write so for me it is even less relevant for that purpose.

The scriptorium is more likely to help you to write fluently and legibly in other alphabets, and I'm quite certain that I wouldn't have been able to write fast in the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets (or the Latin ones with many diacritics) if I hadn't copied hundreds of pages in the relevant languages. As for the calligraphic qualities of my handwriting, ahem - maybe not - the jury is out on that one. But I can write more legibly in Russian than in Danish because I don't have to fight the remnants of that damned cursive writing in my Danish scribbles. In the other alphabets I have avoided the curvie from the beginning.

So to sum up: for me the main effect of do my silent version of the scriptorium is that I am forced to slow down so that I have time to notice all the things in a text that I would skip if I just read it normally - things like new words, idioms and nice syntactical details. Extensive reading (i.e. reading for fun or to learn a subject matter, but not the language as such) is also important, but it is just not the place where I'm focused on the language, and if I take notes then it's mainly about the content. On the other hand, the words, idioms and constructions you pick up from the text copy exercises can of course also be used when you speak - they are platform independent. But you have to train fluency of speech and pronunciation in other ways.