Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

drdru.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 81 posts

Re: An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

#21

Post by gryson »

toto444 wrote: post #17
gryson wrote: post #12

But... why? Translation is not something to be avoided for the adult language learner. We should use every advantage at our disposal. You can spend hours trying to guess the meaning of a word through pictures and context (and not getting anywhere far), or you can spend a minute reading the translated meaning and then spend hours understanding it in context (and reinforcing it, and learning its semantics). I wonder if…

> But... why? I started it for two reasons. First there is close to no easy to read content when you begin learning Japanese and there is demand for such thing. The second reason is to see how far I can go like this. It is a sort of thought experiment like you say in your comment. I discovered after I started that Hans Ørberg something similar for Latin ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_%C3%98rberg ). His Lingua L…

Have you tried more traditional textbooks? I understand there's a desire for an easy-to-use interactive app, but I've never come across anything remotely as good as a textbook like Minna no Nihongo (I used this book 20 years ago when I started learning Japanese - maybe I'm biased?).

You can see sample pages here: https://omgjapan.com/products/minna-no-nihongo-shokyu-1-hons...

It is 100% in Japanese, but it has a companion book with translated grammar notes if needed. The majority of the book is excellent content in the form of dialogs and readings designed for beginners. I suppose the exercises work better in a classroom setting...

Re: An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

#22

Post by hinkley »

gryson wrote: post #12

But... why? Translation is not something to be avoided for the adult language learner. We should use every advantage at our disposal. You can spend hours trying to guess the meaning of a word through pictures and context (and not getting anywhere far), or you can spend a minute reading the translated meaning and then spend hours understanding it in context (and reinforcing it, and learning its semantics). I wonder if…

It's not like immersive language classes aren't a thing. Even the normal foreign language classes at my university, past the third or fourth semester at least, only had 1 day of English while handling administravia, and then the entire class from then on was in the target language. During summer semester, all of the classes were taught this way, even the introductory ones.

Part of the difference between children learning something and adults learning something is that we have trouble achieving Beginner's Mind.

Finding techniques that work fine to be remedial or even insulting makes you get into your own way. In the extreme case, how do you fill a cup which is already full?

Less philosophically, each language you master gets its own language center in your brain, just as each finger you can control individually maps to an identifiable region of your motor cortex (and if you can't control your pinky, it's because they've blended together). Translating back and forth is a crutch for most, and a separate skill for others (eg, professionals). That's why when you ask your friend, "what did those guys say in the background?" you get something vague back. Nothing translates directly, idioms doubly or triply so.

What did that guy say? He said he's really mad at that other guy, (using a lot of colorful language), and I can say "he's mad" or we can go into why calling someone a dog/goat/cow/fish in this language is one step down from saying bad things about their mother.

Re: An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

#23

Post by 616c »

_solr wrote: post #15

Hi I am the OP. I just discovered that my submission has made it to the front page. A quick word on the rationale for not using translation. All of the classic apps (Anki, Duolingo, Memrise, ...) are to some extent translation based. Translating has three scalability issues. First, if you want to be inclusive and your product to be used by everyone you have to translate the whole product in a long list of languages.…

This is basically the Uplan method, no? The Israelis pioneered this long ago, or so I have been told, by relatives who were taught Hebrew in the 70s when studying there. Hebrew as spoken today (aka Modern Hebrew) was a new language that won by vote (to IIRC Russian, Yiddish, German and others) when the country had to decide on a national language, and they needed a way to teach people uniformly.

https://www.ulpanor.com/

That being said, as they learned via Ulpan as adults in their 20's and spent only 1-2 years there, none of them speak beyond a few words of Hebrew once I was in their lives decades later up until now. Twas quickly forgotten. I went through conventional language education in Arabic from early teens (it was my desired hobby because of my obviously vibrant social life, hehe) to college and speak it so-so until this day, but I have many friends and family of my own who speak Arabic.

So more than anything: increased exposure is key and few people will correct humor you with your method if it takes longer as an adult, and it definitely will! haha

Re: An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

#24

Post by gryson »

hinkley wrote: post #22
gryson wrote: post #12

But... why? Translation is not something to be avoided for the adult language learner. We should use every advantage at our disposal. You can spend hours trying to guess the meaning of a word through pictures and context (and not getting anywhere far), or you can spend a minute reading the translated meaning and then spend hours understanding it in context (and reinforcing it, and learning its semantics). I wonder if…

It's not like immersive language classes aren't a thing. Even the normal foreign language classes at my university, past the third or fourth semester at least, only had 1 day of English while handling administravia, and then the entire class from then on was in the target language. During summer semester, all of the classes were taught this way, even the introductory ones. Part of the difference between children lear…

Yes, the 'natural approach' to language learning is definitely popular. But in most classroom settings I would be surprised if students weren't exposed to the translated meanings through homework or the textbook. Class would not get very far once students started learning abstract concepts otherwise. Of course, translation is just the very first step in lexical acquisition - it's still a long journey to acquire a word.

>Less philosophically, each language you master gets its own language center in your brain, just as each finger you can control individually maps to an identifiable region of your motor cortex (and if you can't control your pinky, it's because they've blended together).

That's not really true, though, and it also depends on what aspect of language we're talking about (phonology vs. syntax vs. lexical acquisition, for example). In the case of the lexicon, there's good experimental evidence that bilinguals, when hearing one language, activate lexical competitors from both languages (i.e., they are not fully able to inhibit activation of one language in listening). The mind is far more complex than having different "centers" for different things. It's a complex network of signal activation and inhibition.

Of course, that doesn't relate to my original point, which was simply that language learners should not purposefully limit themselves. The incredible amount of time it's going to take to learn abstract concepts without translation far, far outweighs the possible co-activation of translation equivalents.

Re: An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

#25

Post by [deleted] »

gryson wrote: post #12

But... why? Translation is not something to be avoided for the adult language learner. We should use every advantage at our disposal. You can spend hours trying to guess the meaning of a word through pictures and context (and not getting anywhere far), or you can spend a minute reading the translated meaning and then spend hours understanding it in context (and reinforcing it, and learning its semantics). I wonder if…

[deleted]

Re: An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

#26

Post by bitwize »

inetsee wrote: post #16

This reminds me of "English Through Pictures" by Richards and Gibson.

My sister learned early reading through the Peabody Rebus Reader method. She was given short books with titles like "Red and Blue Are On Me". A small symbol stood for each word in the early chapters, which were slowly replaced with written words until the end of the book (an example of "whole word" reading).

I got strong "Red and Blue Are On Me" vibes from this page.

Re: An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

#27

Post by chrisvasselli »

_solr wrote: post #15

Hi I am the OP. I just discovered that my submission has made it to the front page. A quick word on the rationale for not using translation. All of the classic apps (Anki, Duolingo, Memrise, ...) are to some extent translation based. Translating has three scalability issues. First, if you want to be inclusive and your product to be used by everyone you have to translate the whole product in a long list of languages.…

I think you're hitting on something real here, that translation doesn't "scale up". You can't rely entirely on learning translations to learn a language, and in some ways it can really hold you back if you think of things as having a 1-1 mapping with English. Especially when dealing with languages without a common ancestor with English, like Japanese, where a lot of concepts just don't line up.

For example, in Japanese there's not a direct equivalent to the word "to give". There are different words depending on the relationship between the people, and at a basic level, you always have to "give upwards" or "give downwards", with different words for each.

I could see this kind of method of teaching being really useful for learning those kinds of concepts. I think learning the Japanese words directly, without getting hung up on what their English translations are, could avoid some pitfalls.

I'm less sure about how useful it is for the real basic basics. But it's a cool concept none the less.

Re: An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

#29

Post by nullsense »

_solr wrote: post #15

Hi I am the OP. I just discovered that my submission has made it to the front page. A quick word on the rationale for not using translation. All of the classic apps (Anki, Duolingo, Memrise, ...) are to some extent translation based. Translating has three scalability issues. First, if you want to be inclusive and your product to be used by everyone you have to translate the whole product in a long list of languages.…

You forgot "Monkeys eat bananas"
Post reply on HN