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

181–187 of 187 posts

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

#181

Post by v0cab »

chastened wrote: post #127
ekianjo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Did Daniel Tammet really learn Icelandic in a week?

He studied for a particular interview about his experience learning Icelandic. I don't know how well he spoke in that interview, or if he could cope in situations which weren't interviews about what he thinks of Iceland/Icelandic and his studying method.

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

#182

Post by v0cab »

chastened wrote: post #127
ekianjo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Did Daniel Tammet really learn Icelandic in a week?

He studied for a particular interview about his experience learning Icelandic. I don't know how well he spoke in that interview, or if he could cope in situations which weren't interviews about what he thinks of Iceland/Icelandic and his studying method.

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

#183

Post by v0cab »

jmulho wrote: post #102
virtualeyes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

absolutely agree, I would LOVE to hear the C1 French speakers demonstrate their savoir faire with la belle langue NOW, with further years of practice post-C1 mastery. I can guarantee that: 1) you will sound nothing like a native speaker 2) I will laugh

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…

I think you underestimate just how much there is to learn when learning a language that is very different to your own. Learning Javascript, which has a limited grammar and VERY limited vocabulary, really really doesn't compare.

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

#184

Post by chastened »

w1ntermute wrote: post #171
chastened wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average vocabulary of the average person in their NATIVE TONGUE is just over 3500 words (it varies a lot from culture to culture). The average vocabulary of a University Graduate in the Arts is 10-12000 words. In the sciences it varies greatly, chemistry, biology and medicine being the most demanding at >15,000. Someone with a vocabulary of 20-25000 words would be highly educated or very well read, or an speciali…

I don't know where you got that idea from, but I took an online test for English (which is my native language) vocabulary, and found that I knew about 30000 words. And I wouldn't consider myself to be that unusual.

Was that an estimate, or did you actually click through 30,000 words? If the latter, your attention span is outside 2 standard deviations.

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

#185

Post by cowardnews »

chastened wrote: post #127
ekianjo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

I had a long reply to your question, but my account has been banned again. Here is my last post to this site. -- It depends what you mean by 'learn Icelandic'. At the end of a week he spoke at probably a grade school level, but with less vocabulary than a grade school child. I saw the documentary of his progress, and he did indeed speak with other Icelanders outside of the interview setting, and he could communicate with them. Again, from the subtitles, it seemed he was speaking at a grade school level.

There are other people who have achieved similar levels in very short periods of time who are not Savants or Aspies.

Dan Lee Dimke learned Mandarin Chinese to about the same level in 11 days.

Powell Janulus began learning languages at the age of 18, started with Pakistani, then went on to learn 40 other languages and was a certified translator in 28 of them at the age of 38. HE wasn't autistic or even particularly intelligent in the academic sense. He developed his own phonetic alphabet based on the mouth movements needed to make a sound, and wrote his target language in his own alphabet.

I used to know many more, but haven't visited the subject for some time now, so their names presently escape me.

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

#186

Post by w1ntermute »

v0cab wrote: post #180
w1ntermute wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't had much success with SRS for Korean vocab. There are so many words that are just too similiar to each other. Are you studying words in isolation or in context? The latter approach makes things much easier.

The SRS words were mostly in isolation. I agree now that studying in context does make it easier, but in that case how is an SRS useful?

Why do you feel that the SRS's utility is determined by whether the words are in context or not? In fact, the people over at AJATT[0] have recommended using sentences and never using individual words. You want to practice in the types of situations you're actually going to encounter the language in. And in almost all cases, you'll encounter Korean (and any other spoken language) in the form of whole sentences, or at least phrases.

0: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/

Post reply on HN