41–50 of 339 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's not. It's "bouloche" -- https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bouloche That says a lot about the quality of peer review at the NYT.
That someone missed potentially a typo in a foreign language?
It's just a matter on how much time you spend learning the language. Even if you only consider the time you spent in school merely learning your own native language those school lessons will add up to thousands of hours. How many adults, who have already "learned" a foreign language, dedicate 6 hours per week purely on further improving their skills in that language for 12 years? If you are worried about not knowing…
What website/application would you recommend for spaced repetition of vocabulary? I've found the changing Windows logon screens quite nice, since every other day or so there's a new beautiful picture along with a few bubbles of text in German, enabling me to learn a few new words (though I'll probably forget most of them).
It's just a matter on how much time you spend learning the language. Even if you only consider the time you spent in school merely learning your own native language those school lessons will add up to thousands of hours. How many adults, who have already "learned" a foreign language, dedicate 6 hours per week purely on further improving their skills in that language for 12 years? If you are worried about not knowing…
What website/application would you recommend for spaced repetition of vocabulary? I've found the changing Windows logon screens quite nice, since every other day or so there's a new beautiful picture along with a few bubbles of text in German, enabling me to learn a few new words (though I'll probably forget most of them).
If you don't use a language, you lose it. Yes, even your native language. It does take longer because you know so much of it.
It's just a matter on how much time you spend learning the language. Even if you only consider the time you spent in school merely learning your own native language those school lessons will add up to thousands of hours. How many adults, who have already "learned" a foreign language, dedicate 6 hours per week purely on further improving their skills in that language for 12 years? If you are worried about not knowing…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And I revel in small triumphs, like discovering that a woolen ball on a sweater is a “boulouche” I'm French and I discovered that word today.
Me too. As there are only around 602 000 results on Google I suspected it was only used in specific areas and according to the dictionary ("Petit Robert") it originates from Lille.
In my student exchange year this was very noticeable: all of us Europeans decided to not speak our native languages among ourselves while the large group of Brazilians kept speaking Portuguese with each other. At the end of the year the their English showed little improvement and they also did not seem be well integrated with American friends and so on.
On the other hand, we came home barely able to speak our native languages. That is a really weird feeling when you try to speak to your parents in German and your brain just gives you English words and idioms.
So yeah, before you give up because of age try to not leave your brain an out to be lazy. Brain, there is only one language now and you'd better learn it quickly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People forget how much time they spent learning something when they were younger. I feel like a lot of adults give up and use age as an excuse for not trying new things.
I think this is one of the biggest points. Kids spend all day in school being forced to learn, they come home and do homework, and everything they're doing day to day is exposing them to something new. Every little thing they know feels like a huge accomplishment. Adults are generally getting paid to do things they can already do and when we get home, we tend to piss away our time with things we know we'll like and a…
You’re far too kind to school. You can teach an illiterate 9 year old to read English in 40 hours, about the same time as it takes to cover the entire primary school math curriculum with a 12 year old. Homework in primary school has nugatory impacts on learning; it’s a theft of time from children and their families for ~0 benefit. You can take a native speaker of Mandarin from completely illiterate to grade level in reading and writing in three years and that’s either the most difficult or the second most difficult language after Japanese to write. If children actually retained what they were taught in school maybe it would be worth it but the average US adult doesn’t know each state has two senators. People do not retain knowledge they don’t use or find interesting.
School before 12 years old is an exercise in teaching children things slowly and haltingly that they are capable of picking up quickly and easily in a fraction of the time two years later, and things that genuinely help children like play time, especially unstructured play are forced out to increase test scores in earlier age groups when the increase washes out to nothing compared to those of two decades ago by the end of high school.
If I speak bad English (I am Russian), everybody is still happy, the worst thing can happen is I’ll get corrected, and in 99.9% of cases it’s not even that.
If I speak bad French with a French person... may God have mercy upon my soul. Especially if I forgot to say bonjour/bonsoir first (abomination! burn the heretic!)
> And I revel in small triumphs, like discovering that a woolen ball on a sweater is a “boulouche” It's not. It's "bouloche" -- https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/bouloche > When my kids brought home notices telling me to check their hair for “poux” (pronounced “poo”), I correctly deduced that it meant lice. But later, in a first-aid course, I was perplexed when the instructor told us to immediately check an unconscious…
You're being harsh for pouls / poux being singular/plural, provided it was the first time the author had encountered those words. That kind of knowledge comes with experience with the words, which the author didn't have. Bouloche has been corrected.