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An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation

drdru.github.io

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

#31

Post by arata »

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…

> First there is close to no easy to read content when you begin learning Japanese and there is demand for such thing.

If you know the alphabets (that is kana), you can try the easiest graded reader such as [1] and progressing from there. It assumes little to no grammar knowledge and comes with illustrations and narrated audio that you can follow along.

[1] https://tadoku.org/japanese/book/4155/

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

#32

Post by throwaway2245 »

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…

One thing I dislike about language group classes is that you learn with other non-native speakers (and, in general, with the same experiences that you have).

In other words, you learn and re-enforce each others' common mistakes, misconceptions, mistranslated idioms, and ambiguities in the language that native speakers find instantly jarring. This worsens if the teacher is non-native: I wouldn't place much value in such a class.

I definitely think it's important that you teach your native language/that you learn from a native speaker. Learning Japanese from a novice is not something that I want to do.

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

#33

Post by Swizec »

tsimionescu wrote: post #19
_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 that one problem that eventually happens with this approach, which is a problem I had with Duolingo as well, is that very soon after learning a few words you need to start learning basic grammar. In these approaches that don't explain the grammar at all, you need to spend effort pattern matching to pick up the right grammatical rules to construct your own sentences, and you are never sure that you're doing th…

> In these approaches that don't explain the grammar at all, you need to spend effort pattern matching to pick up the right grammatical rules to construct your own sentences, and you are never sure that you're doing the right thing.

To be fair, you learn your first language by inference and don't start learning the rules until you're some 10 years into fluency. Even as late as high school we were taught grammatical rules with "As a native speaker, do what sounds right, then find the correct rule and say you applied it. Immigrants, sorry you'll find this exam question impossibly difficult. Good luck"

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

#34

Post by henrikschroder »

tsimionescu wrote: post #19
_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 that one problem that eventually happens with this approach, which is a problem I had with Duolingo as well, is that very soon after learning a few words you need to start learning basic grammar. In these approaches that don't explain the grammar at all, you need to spend effort pattern matching to pick up the right grammatical rules to construct your own sentences, and you are never sure that you're doing th…

Just one more anecdote, but this is what turned me off from duolingo completely. You can't just learn words or sentences alone, you have to have at least some grammar in there. You need lists of prepositions and pronouns, and you need a little bit of at least simple rules for verbs and nouns. Yes, it's boring but otherwise you'll really struggle.

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

#35

Post by unabst »

_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're still translating the mouse image into "mouse" in your mother tongue, then staring at the Japanese word.

But I do agree translation does about as much harm as good. It's a shortcut that helps you shorten the learning curve by importing what you already know about language and the things you often say generically from another language. Learning a language is really really hard, so for many, without this shortcut, you'd barely get anywhere. That's the only good it does though, because it will set you back from becoming fluent and will continue to prevent you from thinking in that new langauge.

The best way to learn a language is through mimicry, immersion, and repetition as you're surrouned by people who only speak that language, who are also friendly, forgiving, and willing to talk to you. Like, children surrounded by their parents, then friends, then friends and teachers.

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

#36

Post by asiachick »

gryson wrote: post #24
hinkley wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wor…

> in most classroom settings I would be surprised if students weren't exposed to the translated meanings through homework or the textbook

I don't think this is true. At best the student will have their own dictionary. At least in my experience, all the full time foreign language schools I know of teach solely in the language being learned and the textbook is solely in that language as well. The students are a mix from all over the world. The school would not cater to all of them by providing translations in a bunch of different languages.

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

#37

Post by nutanc »

This is a very interesting experiment. A couple of observations from my side.

1. First goal is mentioned as, "prove that you can learn japanese without using your mother tongue". But when I click on start you show a Monkey with some Japanese text. In my mind I see the picture of a monkey and think of the word in my mother tongue, Telugu(Kothi), then I check the Japanese script. So I am not strictly learning Japanese without using my mother tongue.

2. Since Japanese script is also new to me it becomes harder. As I have to learn the alphabet first and then words and then sentences.

3. To really try this experiment out instead of the Japanese text the picture should be associated with the Japanese word and Japanese sentences. If you realize, thats how we learn language as a kid. We are shown images and told to repeat words and then sentences.

4. Deep learning tries to do something similar. Here what you are trying to do is encode the word in an image as a translation layer and then we jump across languages. Deep learning also learns embeddings and then uses those embeddings to translate. In this case, the embedding is an image, but computers can use lesser info than all the pixels to embed.

5. This embedding approach has limitations in deep learning as we can see from the current translation engines. But by using sound and image maybe our brain embeds information better and hence we learn languages better.

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

#38

Post by euske »

I've seen a plenty of "learn Japanese" sites, and always scratched my head wondering what their end goal are. The learning process should accomodate the end goals.

Is that to watch Japanese anime without subtitles? To have a deep conversation with ordinary people? Or simply the language is too linguistically intriguing? (BTW, so many languages are just as intriguing as Japanese)

To me, a Japanese native majoring in CompSci, learning English has obvious benefits: there are 100x more learning materials, youtube videos, source code comments, and discussions, etc. And they're better. Eventually, speaking English opens up the world. (Maybe that's also true for Mandarin today.)

But Japanese? It's a niche market for a smaller number of people. I think learning Japanese is much less practical than learning English/Mandarin, so I guess you'd have to be more committed at it to actually gain something.

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

#40

Post by Xenograph »

henrikschroder wrote: post #34
tsimionescu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that one problem that eventually happens with this approach, which is a problem I had with Duolingo as well, is that very soon after learning a few words you need to start learning basic grammar. In these approaches that don't explain the grammar at all, you need to spend effort pattern matching to pick up the right grammatical rules to construct your own sentences, and you are never sure that you're doing th…

Just one more anecdote, but this is what turned me off from duolingo completely. You can't just learn words or sentences alone, you have to have at least some grammar in there. You need lists of prepositions and pronouns, and you need a little bit of at least simple rules for verbs and nouns. Yes, it's boring but otherwise you'll really struggle.

Not that I disagree necessarily, but to play devil's advocate: kids don't learn any formal grammar rules before they speak their first language fluently.
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