Unusual, evidence-based ways to get better at a new language • Hacker News Board

Re: Unusual, evidence-based ways to get better at a new language

#161

Post by klmr » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 11:08 AM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #59

klmr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good advice, but > they are probably used to read a chapter or two on a daily basis This sounds mental. Reading the Bible on a daily basis? I’m pretty sure that this is not the norm for the vast majority of (devout) Christians (at least in Western/Central Europe).

Even if you don't normally read daily, you probably know the meaning of most verses. Most Christians know the creation myth by heart, and are pretty familiar with the sermon on the mount and the passion stories, so they can probably pick up a lot of vocabulary from context.

Yes: As mentioned, I think this is excellent advice.

Re: Unusual, evidence-based ways to get better at a new language

#162

Post by doubleunplussed » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 11:40 AM UTC

kd5bjo wrote: post #144

doubleunplussed wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found spaced repetition a great way to increase the size of my vocabulary whilst learning a language. You're right that it's unnatural, but a large unnaturally-learned vocabulary can then be polished by practice in more natural contents, and I feel like the net result is more efficient than using the natural contexts alone. This is especially true since I do not have easy access to native speakers for half an ho…

One thing that’s helped a lot with my listening comprehension is following along in a printed book with an audiobook reader. Especially when it’s a translation of a story I already know, I can usually more or less follow the plot and let the language information seep into my unconscious.

Thanks for the tip! That's one thing that hadn't occurred to me to try. I've tried the same thing with TV/movies, but the subtitles are usually not identical to the spoken dialog - they tend to be simplified and paraphrased to be shorter - but eBooks should be very faithful to their written counterparts.

Re: Unusual, evidence-based ways to get better at a new language

#163

Post by wahnfrieden » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 12:50 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #147

wahnfrieden wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built an iOS app for studying Japanese called Manabi Reader. It collects interesting short-form reading materials, has one-tap dictionary lookups, and lets you add words to flashcards. I'm currently working on extending it with word tracking functionality, so that you can see which words in an article are new to you, can track your progress through kanji by reading, etc. https://reader.manabi.io

How do you solve the problem that almost all interesting material is copyrighted? I use texts from https://www.aozora.gr.jp/ but most of those are somewhat old-fashioned, except for a few modern Japanese translations of foreign public-domain literature.

The app is a dressed-up RSS reader

Re: Unusual, evidence-based ways to get better at a new language

#164

Post by viraptor » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

pwinnski wrote: post #71

viraptor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a norm. Even in very devout households attending multiple masses every week. (I'm not saying there aren't people doing actual mindful reading every day, but the generalisation to "Christians" in this case is bad)

I believe (without linkable evidence) that Roman Catholics are far less likely to engage in daily reading that protestants, but 27% of Americans[0] read their Bibles several times a week or daily. [0] https://www.barna.com/research/state-of-the-bible-2018-seven...

I tried to get to some research on this topic, but it's pretty hard to find anything really independent. There are a few surveys, but there are issues: they're sponsored by Christian/evangelical groups, and I think their respondents are going to be a bit skewed:

> Persons in selected households are then invited by telephone or by mail to participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel

I have opinions on how biased this can be...

Re: Unusual, evidence-based ways to get better at a new language

#165

Post by swordsmith » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #120

zzzcpan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I was watching tv shows with english subtitles and was looking up every word I didn't understand in a dictionary for an hour or more every day. Some days much more, if the show was interesting to me, so it was kind of motivating. At the beginning pausing video and switching between media player and dictionary proved to be a bit too exhausting, so I also wrote a tiny program that did that with a single hotkey be…

> At the beginning pausing video and switching between media player and dictionary proved to be a bit too exhausting, so I also wrote a tiny program that did that with a single hotkey before I really started doing all this. That sounds like a great idea for a service to help learn languages: subtitled videos with links from each word (or idiomatic phrase) in the subtitles to dictionary definitions.

> subtitled videos with links from each word (or idiomatic phrase) in the subtitles to dictionary definitions.

I'm not sure having a easy link is necessarily a good thing. The act of typing the characters and opening up the page, especially multiple times (it's rare you'll remember a word after looking it up one time), form a strong anchor in memory. This is the similar effect to having google maps vs. looking up direction before driving on remembering your route.

Re: Unusual, evidence-based ways to get better at a new language

#166

Post by KajMagnus » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

dlkf wrote: post #54

> Evening learning probably isn’t ideal for teenagers either. In a study published in 2012, Johannes Holz at the University of Freiberg, and colleagues, found that 16- and 17-year-old girls performed better on tests of factual memory if they’d learned the material at 3pm than at 9pm. > However, another study, published in Psychological Science in 2016, suggests that evening learning can be beneficial – especially if…

This pessimistic comment made me link directly to the article, instead of linking to HN as I usually do, when I now sent the article to someone looking to learn a new langauge.