The Benefits of Failing at French • Hacker News Board

Re: The Benefits of Failing at French

#151

Post by doorhammer » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 5:36 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #144

seanc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another advantage the toddler has, not mentioned in the article. People expect the toddler to speak poorly, and don't make fun of him or treat him badly for doing so. I found being laughed at was a huge barrier to learning French when I lived in Montreal. For example, many English speakers (and Quebecers!) I know have stories like this to tell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaFf2kWL45U (45s clip from The Mo…

> I found being laughed at was a huge barrier to learning French when I lived in Montreal Wow, can anyone explain the reasoning behind making fun of a language learner? I'm in Japan right now, and the reaction to me speaking my feeble attempt at Japanese here is more "OMG you can speak Japanese? That's amazing!"

I'm sure this isn't the case everywhere, but I got the same reactions in thailand; any time I tried to say anything in really awful thai, everyone was super appreciative and friendly about it.

Re: The Benefits of Failing at French

#152

Post by theintern » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 6:31 PM UTC

jmhain wrote: post #60

I set out to learn Spanish almost exactly one year ago, deciding it was ridiculous to be monolingual in a world of thousands of languages. My approach was as intensive as the author's; I completed the Duolingo skill tree, read books on grammar and slang, watched, listened to, and read Spanish media and Spanish translations of English media, attended meetups, etc. While I'm only 23, I experienced the same "mental foun…

I'm glad to hear a glowing report from using Duolingo. I find it easy to put in daily practice with (must maintain my streak!) and it's good to hear that it gave you a good foundation at the end of it all.

Re: The Benefits of Failing at French

#153

Post by vehementi » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 7:05 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #144

seanc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another advantage the toddler has, not mentioned in the article. People expect the toddler to speak poorly, and don't make fun of him or treat him badly for doing so. I found being laughed at was a huge barrier to learning French when I lived in Montreal. For example, many English speakers (and Quebecers!) I know have stories like this to tell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaFf2kWL45U (45s clip from The Mo…

> I found being laughed at was a huge barrier to learning French when I lived in Montreal Wow, can anyone explain the reasoning behind making fun of a language learner? I'm in Japan right now, and the reaction to me speaking my feeble attempt at Japanese here is more "OMG you can speak Japanese? That's amazing!"

It's a cultural thing. The French speaker stereotype is an asshole about that. There's a lot of racism in Vancouver (at least) against immigrant Chinese who are ESL, but an identical person speaking broken English with a Russian or Italian accent would be perceived as sexy.

Re: The Benefits of Failing at French

#154

Post by Zarel » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 12:55 AM UTC

b6 wrote: post #86

loudmax wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Chinese were the same way. Chinese grammar is very simple and there's little or no conjugation. A lot of Chinese words sound very similar and if you say a word in the wrong tone, you're likely to have said a different word. Oftentimes, native Chinese speakers are bewildered when they hear learners attempting to speak Chinese. Not because they're being rude or condescending, but because if you're just slightly…

I've struggled a lot with Mandarin pronunciation. I think the difficulty is mostly due to Chinese speakers being sensitive to differences between some sounds that English speakers lump together. For example, most English speakers would initially not be aware of any significant difference between the sounds of pinyin "x" and "sh". They're both basically English "sh". And there are a few other similar cases in Mandarin…

> For example, most English speakers would initially not be aware of any significant difference between the sounds of pinyin "x" and "sh". They're both basically English "sh".

That's interesting. To me, as Southern Chinese, Pinyin "x" and "sh" are very different. What I get confused are Pinyin "sh" and "s", which both sound like English "s" to me.

Re: The Benefits of Failing at French

#155

Post by mjklin » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 1:54 PM UTC

b6 wrote: post #86

loudmax wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Chinese were the same way. Chinese grammar is very simple and there's little or no conjugation. A lot of Chinese words sound very similar and if you say a word in the wrong tone, you're likely to have said a different word. Oftentimes, native Chinese speakers are bewildered when they hear learners attempting to speak Chinese. Not because they're being rude or condescending, but because if you're just slightly…

I've struggled a lot with Mandarin pronunciation. I think the difficulty is mostly due to Chinese speakers being sensitive to differences between some sounds that English speakers lump together. For example, most English speakers would initially not be aware of any significant difference between the sounds of pinyin "x" and "sh". They're both basically English "sh". And there are a few other similar cases in Mandarin…

Now try the Hunan dialect where they pronounce h as f and (stressed) n as l.

Yes, they pronounce their province "Fulan"

Re: The Benefits of Failing at French

#156

Post by zem » Mon, Jul 21, 2014, 6:15 AM UTC

arafalov wrote: post #116

A couple of points: 1) The guy lists his activities with heavy focus on Rosetta Stone. To me that pretty much invalidates his claims on the spot. RS is not really well respected in language learning circles (at least a couple of years ago, it was not). Pimsleur is better due to its exponential backoff repetition model and it's "how do you say" prompts. 2) I did not see any mention of activities that actually built vo…

the fact that he was doing it wrong may invalidate his claim that it's nigh impossible for adults to learn a new language (from what I remember, people are also more sceptical about some "language window" closing off one you hit 5 or so), but his other point about the attempt improving his general mental abilities is surely still valid.

Re: The Benefits of Failing at French

#157

Post by irv » Mon, Jul 21, 2014, 10:23 AM UTC

few days late, but thought I'd share my anecdote. several years ago now, I was on a road trip through the largest island of Japan, Honshu, and was staying at a cheap roadside motel in the middle of nowhere. My girlfriend was having a shower, and I walked out of the room without the keycard as you needed it to operate the lights etc in the room. off I went to grab a few cold drinks from the vending machine, and then suddenly realised I had no idea what room number or even what floor our room was on. Despite what she says, my girlfriend is fluent in Japanese and I'd always relied on her to do all the hard work, and spent maybe 3 months picking up a bit of the language a few years previously.

Well, I had no choice but to go to the front desk and explain the situation using the full range of my vocabulary. As a few people have already mentioned, native Japanese speakers tend to treat you with a mix of awe and pity when you clearly can't speak the language but nonetheless attempt it. But exactly as the article described, I concentrated on saying what I could, not what was necessarily correct. I actually surprised myself, and my girlfriend when I eventually returned to the room and explained why the cold drinks were now tepid.

Re: The Benefits of Failing at French

#158

Post by jmhain » Mon, Jul 21, 2014, 6:06 PM UTC

theintern wrote: post #152

jmhain wrote: post #60

I set out to learn Spanish almost exactly one year ago, deciding it was ridiculous to be monolingual in a world of thousands of languages. My approach was as intensive as the author's; I completed the Duolingo skill tree, read books on grammar and slang, watched, listened to, and read Spanish media and Spanish translations of English media, attended meetups, etc. While I'm only 23, I experienced the same "mental foun…

I'm glad to hear a glowing report from using Duolingo. I find it easy to put in daily practice with (must maintain my streak!) and it's good to hear that it gave you a good foundation at the end of it all.

Fortunately, I like languages and Duolingo enough to use it regardless of the streak. I've experienced a lot of weirdness with it that ultimately caused me to lose it despite daily practice.