blaurebell wrote:DaveBee wrote:As I understand it Reineke uses TV from day one. TV input is his method for learning new languages.
Ah I didn't know! Interesting! It totally wouldn't work for me. In fact it has not worked for me for Japanese at all. I think I learned 2 words in all my anime watching and I've watched *a lot*. Can't really say how much but surely hundreds and hundreds of hours. But then, I may have been doing it wrong
I asked him about
his method:
Please note that I acquired Italian during summer vacations over a period of several years. There was no method involved and I believe that the process was largely subconscious. I was not interested in learning Italian and I don't remember ever getting angry or anxious because I didn't understand something. I do remember my dad mocking me that I was watching something I didn't understand and my going into simultaneous interpretation mode to counter him. As I already mentioned, I don't have an assembly line for learning new languages and I only speak and understand languages from three language groups.
How is it possible? Compound interest. I started out with a handful of words and a lot of shared cultural concepts. I learned to figure out meanings from context clues and I cared more about the message than the form.
That 'shared cultural concepts' bit may be why you haven't picked up much from your anime watching.
An article Reineke linked to said:
In my English language classroom I show the kids videos, such as “Mulan” and “Kung Fu Panda.” The context is Chinese, and the stories are familiar. Mulan, for example is an ancient Chinese legend, which the kids had all read in Chinese, before seeing the Disney movie.
For myself, I use these and other Disney cartoons to practice Chinese listening. Disney DVD are equipped with a language switch, so you can choose English or Chinese, complete with same language subtitles.
Reading real German books or watching real German TV would require knowledge of the culture, history, and geography. By using American movies and books, I knew who the bad guy was without anyone telling me. In German I wouldn’y have a clue. For example when I was in Spain, parents were telling me they didn’t let their kids watch the Bill Cosby show because the children were disrespectful toward their parents. This was amazing because in the States, Cosby was considered a family show, which parents encouraged kids to watch.
When Germans saw “Rocky One” they said things like, “But he did not win. So he is not good.” They missed the point entirely. As I imagined I would miss the point entirely in a German movie I stuck with what I knew.
I once tried watching a Chinese movie, and when I asked who the bad guy was, the Chinese all looked at me like I was nuts. “Didn’t you see the opening scene? General Tsao walked in backwards. Clearly he was in defeat.”
Of course! How could I have failed to pick up on that culturally universal reference?
Eventually, to truly know a language, you will also need to master the culture. So I would eventually have to start watching German, or now, Chinese movies, but one thing at a time.