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

I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

lifehacker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 187 posts

Re: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

#121

Post by reneherse »

nandemo wrote: post #101
xiaoma wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Pimsleur for Cantonese in 2010 during a trip to HK and have kind of mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it was good for pronunciation. Many people were shocked by how good my Cantonese sounded and had troubles believing me when I said I'd just gotten to Hong Kong. On the other hand, this caused some problems-- people consistently over-estimated my language abilities, and as a result said a ton of stuff I cou…

> On the other hand, this caused some problems-- people consistently over-estimated my language abilities, and as a result said a ton of stuff I couldn't understand. I don't see how that's a downside of Pimsleur...

Fundamentally, it's just a result of picking up certain attributes of the language more quickly than others. That could be a result of the particular teaching method that Pimsleur uses, or just the natural abilities of the student.

I've had a similar experience to the grandparent while learning Mandarin (not through Pimsleur), where my pronunciation has far outstripped my progress in listening, grammar, and vocabulary. Hoping to remedy this through different exercises, talking with (sympathetic) native speakers, and catching up on my Chinese soaps. ;)

Re: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

#122

Post by reneherse »

nik_0_0 wrote: post #6
graeme wrote: post #5

Another great resource is Pimsleur. I've used their courses to learn Italian and German. It's a half hour of audio each day. The key is that you speak out loud. You can do it while cooking or driving, or any other activity that is routine and non-verbal. They teach you to pronounce phrases very well, and you learn the basic structure of the language. Once you can say "I would like a glass of wine", you can easily lea…

I'm only a few lessons into Pimsleur but it is quite interesting. I understand the concept of speaking out loud, but I hope normal conversational tone is not required! I do these on the bus, which means I can mouth the words and speak in a quiet voice, but talking makes me look like a crazy person!

Just get a pocket dictionary of the language you're studying with the subject printed large on the cover. Headphones on, same mouth movements, but now you've gone from crazy to studious!

It's a great conversation starter, too, which might land you a conversation partner if you're in a multicultural city.

Re: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

#123

Post by savramescu »

creamyhorror wrote: post #109
jmulho wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the doubters like yourself rediculous. Have you never emersed yourself in anything? Things that seem impossible aren't remotely when you take them seriously and let them consume your every thought. Focus 8 hours a day on memorizing the digit of pi, reading music, speed reading, multiplying four digit numbers in your head, "counting cards" in Blackjack, playing chess without sight of a board, learning JavaScrip…

Not everyone has the ability or personality to be a hyperfocused genius working on a difficult task. Even if they could, it's simply doubtful that a learner would pick up everything necessary to be at C1 level in 5 months. On Chinese-Forums we have a few posters who have done intensive full-time study of Chinese using modern methods for months, and I don't believe any of them managed to achieve that level in several…

Actually according to the chart he linked for Chinese it's 88 Weeks (1.69 Years) to reach C1.

Re: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

#124

Post by mattm »

oohaba wrote: post #114
w1ntermute wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for the "thousands of characters" scare for Chinese, I've read estimates that for daily communication you can make do with less than a thousand characters. It's not that hard. After years of frustration at being essentially illiterate in Japanese while having a decent level of spoken fluency, I've finally buckled down and started learning the kanji using Remembering the Kanji in combination with Anki. It really…

I used RTK as well, except with the website kanji.koohii.com instead of Anki, to learn 50 kanji a day. Did that for 2 months before moving to Japan, started using Anki for vocab / grammar, and passed the JLPT 1 examination in less than a year and a half.

I'm learning Japanese now. Can I ask you some questions?

Re: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

#125

Post by krollew »

It migh sound unbelievable, but why not?

I'm learning Ukrainian and Russian for 3,5 months. I understand Ukrainian just like that and understand Russian quite well; written and spoken. I speak ukrainian quite good and start to speak russian (because I started with ukrainian and didn't write russian first). It was 3,5months of nearly no effort maybe couple hours a week.

OK, I'm polish so slavic languages are nothing new to me, but many people learnt russian here with nearly no result. I think it's way of learning. I just started write and read ukrainian and russian bit later.

If I learnt familar language so fast with no effort why not to learn european language in 5 months of some effort? It's possible since european languages are not completely different and I know english and understand german now. Well, maybe it won't be C1, but I can believe there are people with better language skills than me.

Re: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

#127

Post by chastened »

ekianjo wrote: post #104
acqq wrote: post #16

I just don't believe his claim: "C1 fluency in French in about 5 months" if he started from 0 unless he didn't do anything but learning the language in the target country. C1 is a damn high fluency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Re... "Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvi…

I have seen a lot of foreigners learning French (being French myself, and exposed to international students/professionals in various situations) and I have to seriously doubt that claim as well. I have seen some Americans learning French very fast, in a matter of 6 months, enough to be able to communicate and work in French on a daily basis, but there is no way they could be qualified as producing "clear, well-struct…

>> There's just so much the brain can absorb in a short time.

Daniel Tammet learned Icelandic in one week. I would be interested to see what backs your claim that the brain can only absorb so much in a short time.

I think both you and the GP are projecting YOUR limitations onto everyone else.

The brain can and does absorb a massive amount of information each and every day. Training the conscious mind to direct that natural ability of the brain is something that is orthogonal to the brains capabilities. Being an Opera Singer (dedicated and focused) probably helps with that task.

Re: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

#128

Post by aangjie »

acqq wrote: post #16

I just don't believe his claim: "C1 fluency in French in about 5 months" if he started from 0 unless he didn't do anything but learning the language in the target country. C1 is a damn high fluency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Re... "Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvi…

Ok, i consider myself competent 3 languages(English, Tamil, Hindi). And all three are as different as languages can get(grammatically,lexically). I consider myself C1 competent in only English. I suspect i might be able to clear it in Tamil as it's after all the native tongue, though not sure, can do it without a month's studying(part-time). My experience, I learnt tamil and english during my school days. (english being the medium of instruction). I was fluent* in both in my teens(can't remember much before that, except what seems like episodic memory reformed by hearing). Somewhere around the age of 11/12 i started to learn hindi. but i achieved fluency quick. Infact one of the repetitive grouch/feedback i got from teachers' was "don't write on your own. just reproduce what you read. Newton's law is newton's.". Ofcourse I used to think if you want Newton's words go read the textbook and not my answer sheet.

-- I know i scored a 287/300 in TOEFL. Don't know of any equivalent in Tami l/Hindi, that i would compare to that format.

*-- I mean fluency in terms of forming sentences, by combining vocabulary learnt with/without context to form sentences that express and/or describe processes. Not spoken competency. That came long after that, only when i was forced to immerse myself(school rules around 16 for English and later at 25 when went to do a Master's for Hindi).

Re: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How

#129

Post by nandemo »

reneherse wrote: post #121
nandemo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, this caused some problems-- people consistently over-estimated my language abilities, and as a result said a ton of stuff I couldn't understand. I don't see how that's a downside of Pimsleur...

Fundamentally, it's just a result of picking up certain attributes of the language more quickly than others. That could be a result of the particular teaching method that Pimsleur uses, or just the natural abilities of the student. I've had a similar experience to the grandparent while learning Mandarin (not through Pimsleur), where my pronunciation has far outstripped my progress in listening, grammar, and vocabular…

Still, I don't see it as downside of the method at all. If Joe learns how to say "Excuse me, where is the Hilton Hotel?" in Chinese with really good pronunciation, and some Chinese people go on to assume he speaks really well, then that means to me: (i) Joe used a method that teaches good pronunciation from the start, (ii) those Chinese people are overestimating Joe's ability, they're simply wrong.

On (i): any method has to make some choices on what to teach first. I think good pronunciation and listening skills are much important than knowing spelling or explicit grammar rules at the beginning. While Pimsleur is not perfect, I believe it's a good method in that respect.

On (ii): it's possible that Joe got unlucky, or maybe people in that region are monolinguals and don't quite understand that language proficiency is far being binary. It's not a big deal anyway: just learn how to say "I don't understand", "sorry, I don't speak Chinese well" and "please speak slowly". At least the first 2 of those are stock Pimsleur phrases.

For what is worth, some of us foreigners in Japan experience a different phenomenon: Japanese people who can't quite believe that non-Japanese can speak their language.

Post reply on HN