An experiment in teaching a language without relying on translation • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by JCharante » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

throwaway2245 wrote: post #32

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…

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 su…

> 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 absolutely second this as someone who has taken 3/5 semesters of Chinese. Some classmate's pronounciation is so objectively wrong that I have to pay attention for when they're called on just to mute my volume output. Obviously I can't do this in-person.

I've taken one-on-one courses in another language and it's (believable I suppose) how much faster I've progressed.

Another fault is that some classes are structured so that nobody fails or falls behind (whether they're night classes, at a school, or in a corporate environment). The fault with that is that many other subjects simply don't care if 1/3 of the class fails, but language group classes tend to go at the speed of the lowest individuals.

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

#42

Post by Clewza313 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 2:28 AM UTC

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.

Many (but not all) Duolingo languages, eg Chinese, actually have basic grammar covered in the Tips section boxes before each lesson:

https://www.duolingo.com/skill/zs/Existence/tips

However, this feature is not really discoverable and often the main content that follows is only loosely if at all related.

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

#43

Post by cercatrova » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 2:41 AM UTC

This reminds me of when I was trying to learn Latin. I used a book called Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. It was entirely in Latin but it started off with simple words which you'd understand due to it being in the Latin alphabet (obviously) which Western language speakers use, and it had illustrations to show you what was happening. People could eventually read larger Latin texts from going through the Lingua Latina series of books.

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

#44

Post by princeb » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

i would imagine most private language learning schools use a program where they have the first couple of classes - e.g. the basics of reading and writing the script, introductory phrases - in the student's native language before moving directly into teaching with nothing but the target language. my foreign language teacher used a lot of pictures, drawings and charades to get an idea across, if simplification into more basic words failed to do the job.

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

#45

Post by laurieg » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 3:21 AM UTC

In my experience, adult learners strongly dislike learning without translation.

If you show an adult a picture of something and say this is a “flug”, only in the very simplest cases (where they are most likely just imagining their native word for the object) will they be satisfied. If it’s a class of objects or a more abstract idea they tend to feel very unsure until they have accessed some kind of translation, even if it is a bad or misleading one. In some ways the native word is more important than the actual meaning for these learners. No native word == no feeling of understanding.

A student who enjoys avoiding using translation tends to progress very well, but it’s difficult to tell if they are simply good at the target language already and don’t need translation, or their avoidance of translation is the key to their success. Teasing out the direction of causality isn’t easy.

I’d love to see a language textbook produced with not language. Just pictures of situations, common items and other prompts. The idea would be to take use this textbook a long with a native speaker to listen to and learn examples of all different useful parts of the language. Even then, I feel the imagine choice would probably bias certain language features more than others.

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

#46

Post by hinkley » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 3:28 AM UTC

JCharante wrote: post #41

throwaway2245 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

> 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 i…

These classes I was referring to were often taught by a native speaker, so there was always at least one person in any class worth emulating. But that was never really my issue so I am not a good judge of how others experience that problem.

Moving backward a few years, my high school teacher (singular) was a bit odd. He sat us in the same alphabetical pattern every year. Behind me sat a girl with impeccable vocabulary but some of the worst pronunciation in the whole class. Meanwhile I had impeccable pronunciation and a respectable vocabulary.

By senior year she had still not improved, and some days it was more than I could take. It was only a few years ago that I realized that while she couldn’t see me make faces, the teacher could. And so he had to stand up front interacting with her while I was in his field of vision, trying and failing not to make pained facial expressions. I don’t know if he found that frustrating, amusing, or something else.

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

#47

Post by giovannibonetti » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

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…

LingoDeer teachs some grammar as well. I have it used briefly for learning japanese and found it way better than DuoLingo or Fluent Forever

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

#48

Post by naniwaduni » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

_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.…

Or worse—僕はうなぎだ!

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

#49

Post by jjeaff » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #33

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…

> 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 r…

We may not teach a codified grammar rule set until later, but we are definitely learning grammer as we learn language for the first time.

My 2 year old will say things like, "I like she". After which we will correct her, "I like her".

She has never heard anyone say "I like she" but she is re-ordering and inventing her own sentences using unspoken rules. (She may have generated that sentence from hearing "where is she?") She will eventually recognize that some things don't sound right, but she is also applying those things that sound right to newly invented sentences using those rules.

So in effect, we do seem to be learning rules when first learning to talk, we just are extracting those rules internally and applying them rather than working from a codified set of rules.

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

#50

Post by musicale » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:50 AM UTC

Clewza313 wrote: post #42

henrikschroder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many (but not all) Duolingo languages, eg Chinese, actually have basic grammar covered in the Tips section boxes before each lesson: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/zs/Existence/tips However, this feature is not really discoverable and often the main content that follows is only loosely if at all related.

It took me a while to find the "tips" lessons on duolingo but now I always review them before the translation drills and usually find them to be relevant.