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I Learned French in 12 Months

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Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#131

Post by torben-friis »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #103
torben-friis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a while, I used to hang out in a subreddit for people who are learning Spanish to give advice (I'm a Spaniard). You wouldn't believe the amount of times I was "corrected" with suggestions that were clearly, blatantly wrong if I didn't outright say that I was a native speaker. I think it was mainly Americans from Spanish speaking immigrant families who were overconfident on their skills, but it was funny nonethele…

How many of those were folks correcting you were Spanish? I wonder if the folks correcting you just learned a different dialect. For those not familiar, American Spanish diverged significantly from "mainland" Spanish. Even then Mexican Spanish is quite distinct in its own "charming" way from nearly every other Spanish speaking American country. It's not just the vocabulary, even the verb tenses are used differently i…

Nah, I am aware of how broad the Spanish language is, but these were basic mistakes that wouldn't be correct in any dialect. Kinda like how Americans might not know British English vocabulary, yet they know at a glance that "me will spoke English afternoon this" is not correct anywhere.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#132

Post by JCharante »

mumblemumble wrote: post #125
shmat wrote: post #101

I studied French from 7th-12th grade in an American High School. After that, I could not understand any French beyond "bonjour". I could not have a conversation in French. I could conjugate verbs and I could read some. Fast forward 45 years and I retired and decided to actually learn French. I followed a very, very similar method and after 9 months of self study took a 2 week intensive course in France where I was to…

I'm convinced that a classroom is the worst possible environment for actually learning a 2nd language. There are just so many reasons why. Probably the most insurmountable one is that the pace at which the class can move is limited by the pace at which the least motivated student is going to learn. But I also think that it's just a structurally bad environment for efficient language learning. Since everyone needs a c…

> I'm convinced that a classroom is the worst possible environment for actually learning a 2nd language.

Surely classrooms are the worst environment for learning anything. Of course it's going to be easier to learn any subject if you have a dedicated teacher who makes sure that you understand the material before moving on and keeps you engages. However is it worse than anything? Classrooms usually end up giving you access to a teacher who you can ask questions to and receive a comprehensible response.

Just like in any subject if you actually don't take the effort to study from your own curriculum you're going to be relatively behind. If all someone does is attend their CS lectures and do the bare minimum on their homework assignments then they're effectively wasting their time as they'll be behind their peers who met with professors to collaborate on research projects or with peers to found a startup (in addition to side projects).

Classrooms for any subject are a bad environment because like you stated everyone else has a chance of participating. In addition the material is suited for the majority and isn't personalized. When I was learning about geometric functions in middle school no teacher ever related it to cosine similarity that can be used in NLP.

However 1-on-1 lessons are expensive, so aren't classroms a good enough compromise?

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#133

Post by [deleted] »

cdavid wrote: post #114
tmountain wrote: post #108

I've been hacking language learning for about five years, and I've spent ridiculous amounts of time trying and reading about different strategies. I've been to Cuba, Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico to try immersion in different settings. Getting to a solid level of competency in a language actually is not that hard. It just requires dedication and consistent practice. That said, native speakers operate on a different…

It is possible to have what I think you mean by automatic response level without living in the country. I myself sucked at English until University: I hated learning it, I could not understand it spoken, and I could not read well a mildly complicated text written in it (say something written in the economist or NYT). Today, except for pronunciation, I would consider myself fluent, though of course not native. While I…

[deleted]

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#134

Post by mrfusion »

In my opinion he’d have done even better throwing away anki and watching way more kid shows. Languages aren’t supposed to be memorized. If you’re communicating with it, it just sticks in your brain.

When learning to ride a bike You don’t memorize when to move your legs.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#135

Post by hombre_fatal »

tmountain wrote: post #108

I've been hacking language learning for about five years, and I've spent ridiculous amounts of time trying and reading about different strategies. I've been to Cuba, Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico to try immersion in different settings. Getting to a solid level of competency in a language actually is not that hard. It just requires dedication and consistent practice. That said, native speakers operate on a different…

> Getting to a solid level of competency in a language actually is not that hard. It just requires dedication and consistent practice.

Though that's why it's hard. Just like eating healthy and exercise isn't hard, just requires dedication, yet notice how few people have a particularly good looking body.

The opportunity cost of learning a language is also immense. I've spent an incredible amount of time listening to and reading Spanish. It just isn't for everybody. It has to be something that makes you happy.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#136

Post by rq1 »

throwaway41968 wrote: post #122
rq1 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you’re kidding. The initial text isn’t good, the corrections are maybe not perfect and some are more a matter of taste but definitely better than the original wordings. “y dédier du temps” is closer to the original formulation and equally good for instance. I noticed that most of native speakers of any language are not that good actually in their mother tongue. For someone who’s learning the best disservice is…

>I noticed that most of native speakers of any language are not that good actually in their mother tongue. That doesn't make any sense. Maybe they're not good according to the normative institutions attempting to control the language , but that doesn't have any bearing on the ability of billions of people to communicate with their peers using their mother tongue. Just because an institution says a certain form is "in…

If these institutions attempt to control it, then they’re not normative.

It does make perfect sense when the improper use of tenses or grammar break the temporality, spatiality or relationships of the narrative.

Eg. The obvious ones in french: ce/se, ça(cela)/çà/sa... etc. A bit less obvious: “après qu’il ait”, subjunctive after stating a fact or is the subjunctive intended and it wasn’t a fact... etc.

And sometimes it becomes poetic “à l’insu de leur plein gré” when both forms are correct but with completely different meanings.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#137

Post by mumblemumble »

JCharante wrote: post #132
mumblemumble wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced that a classroom is the worst possible environment for actually learning a 2nd language. There are just so many reasons why. Probably the most insurmountable one is that the pace at which the class can move is limited by the pace at which the least motivated student is going to learn. But I also think that it's just a structurally bad environment for efficient language learning. Since everyone needs a c…

> I'm convinced that a classroom is the worst possible environment for actually learning a 2nd language. Surely classrooms are the worst environment for learning anything. Of course it's going to be easier to learn any subject if you have a dedicated teacher who makes sure that you understand the material before moving on and keeps you engages. However is it worse than anything? Classrooms usually end up giving you a…

It's the gulf of the difference.

Most other subjects, I'd say classes are a bit sub-optimal, but still a great choice if you aren't working with unlimited resources. There's value in hands-on group projects, labs, instructor feedback, etc. And, in most subjects, there are plenty of successful people who did a lot of their learning in a classroom environment.

Language learning, though, I'd say that a classroom is worse than nothing at all, if you're motivated. And not just a little worse, like, a lot worse. In language learning, it seems remarkably consistent that the vast majority of people who achieve much success eschew classrooms entirely.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#138

Post by throwaway41968 »

mrfusion wrote: post #134

In my opinion he’d have done even better throwing away anki and watching way more kid shows. Languages aren’t supposed to be memorized. If you’re communicating with it, it just sticks in your brain. When learning to ride a bike You don’t memorize when to move your legs.

The way you learn as an adult is very different from the way you learn as a child. There's nothing compelling about kid shows. I don't know what drives your efforts to learn a language but, mine are about having access to interesting media, literature, conversations, etc. Speaking like a 4 year old only gets you so far.

And if you want to do it, and do it quickly, you've got to do your Anki reps. Acquire lots and lots of vocabulary so you get through the boring part and start enjoying the use of the language.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#139

Post by throwaway41968 »

rq1 wrote: post #136
throwaway41968 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I noticed that most of native speakers of any language are not that good actually in their mother tongue. That doesn't make any sense. Maybe they're not good according to the normative institutions attempting to control the language , but that doesn't have any bearing on the ability of billions of people to communicate with their peers using their mother tongue. Just because an institution says a certain form is "in…

If these institutions attempt to control it, then they’re not normative. It does make perfect sense when the improper use of tenses or grammar break the temporality, spatiality or relationships of the narrative. Eg. The obvious ones in french: ce/se, ça(cela)/çà/sa... etc. A bit less obvious: “après qu’il ait”, subjunctive after stating a fact or is the subjunctive intended and it wasn’t a fact... etc. And sometimes…

Except the subjunctive almost completely lost its initial semantic value of expressing the hypothetical or fictious in French, and in most cases has been replaced by the indicative. (Contrast with languages like Italian or Spanish that did retain the subjunctive in these cases, and look at the (many) situations where the indicative is used in French and the subjunctive is used in Italian/Spanish). These days, the subjunctive is mainly used in clauses where an infinitive could be used (pour qu'il ait/pour avoir, sans qu'il ait/sans avoir, etc.) In that sense, après qu'il ait, on top of feeling more "natural" due to the symmetry with avant qu'il ait, isn't as outrageous an error as académiciens would have you believe, it simply follows this very handy rule of thumb.

Generally speaking, proper use of tenses and moods is overrated; it is inconsistent across Romance languages yet speakers of either have no difficulty making themselves understood, or learning others' systems. Many non-Romance languages dispense entirely with this system and yet their speakers don't encounter any difficulties expressing the same shades of meaning as they would in French.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#140

Post by moufestaphio »

mrfusion wrote: post #134

In my opinion he’d have done even better throwing away anki and watching way more kid shows. Languages aren’t supposed to be memorized. If you’re communicating with it, it just sticks in your brain. When learning to ride a bike You don’t memorize when to move your legs.

I completely disagree. Many language learning tasks are just memorization. English spelling or grammar for example. There aren't rules, you just have to memorize it.

>It just sticks in your brain

yeah, that's how I feel with flashcards/anki. After doing it a bunch, it's just there in your brain.

>When learning to ride a bike You don’t memorize when to move your legs.

I mean, isn't that exactly what muscle memory is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory

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