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Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

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Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

#71

Post by Tor3 »

peterfirefly wrote: post #50
felsokning wrote: post #24

> ...OR Series in target language and subtitles in English or native language... In the ever-growing geo-restrictions world, this is no longer as easy as it was in the days of yore. For example, if you're learning Norwegian and you want to watch anything on NRK, you need to get a BankId[1] - for which you need to be a resident _in_ Norway to have. The alternative, of course, is buying DVDs/Blu-Rays on Amazon -- but y…

Not necessary for news broadcasts, for example: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/dagsrevyen-21/202405/NNFA21051224/av... I didn't bother looking further into it but I would expect lots of other programs to be available without BankId.

I've been watching NRK for years, in Japan, with a Chromecast plugged into the TV. No problems watching news. Can't watch BBC nature programs, for pretty obvious reasons, but some other locally produced material can be watched. And that about summarizes my interests.. there's nothing else there I would want to watch anyway. Never tried bankID - that wasn't a thing before, with NRK. First time I heard about this, in fact. In any case I suspect that will not help at all when I use Chromecast.

Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

#73

Post by Tor3 »

kebsup wrote: post #49

Shameless plug: for the past year, I've been building an app to help me learn vocabulary. I used to use Anki, but it was very difficult to keep adding new words -> word, sentence example, image, audio. So I've basically created a copy of Anki - spaced-repetition flashcards, with the generation of cards fully automated. Also added YouTube and website integration. [1] The problem with language learning in my opinion is…

Vocabulary is of course super important, but what's even more important is how you learn the vocabulary. Memorizing single word translations is worse than useless, as words are not used in the same way in different languages. What I'm using is curated input with dialogues etc. which are constructed within a fixed set of vocabulary, so by listening to (and reading) it all you eventually get through a lot of vocabulary and after a while every new episode is easily understood: Time to shift more of the attention over to the next level (more vocabulary and longer dialogues).

(As for English, I learned all my vocabulary by reading. I was reading for the purpose of reading, learning English was not the goal at all)

Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

#74

Post by j45 »

Are there any other kinds of polyglots than self-directed learners picking things up?

Languages, their libraries, and specifically the variety of frameworks kind of require wandering to see what delivers on it's promises in the immediate and forseeable future/direction.

Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

#75

Post by [deleted] »

__experiment__ wrote: post #16

i have learned many language (german, english, french, japanese, korean). i have used Anki, Supermemo, Flashcards, Watched Series, Read Books and the only thing that seems to work is: - Spaced Repetition - Something you actually enjoy(learning should be fun) - Comprehensible Input anything else has not worked for me.

[deleted]

Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

#76

Post by fuzztester »

zerof1l wrote: post #21

I'm currently actively learning my 5th language and passively learning the 6th one. There's no universal way to learn a new language. What works for one doesn't work for another. Also, a big factor in how hard it will be to learn a new language are the languages you know already. If the new language is similar to the one you know already, i.e. is in the same language family, you will have a much easier time learning…

>You may find yourself having to learn to think in a new way literally.

Like that Alan Perlis quote about programming languages.

Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

#77

Post by david_allison »

ix101 wrote: post #27
__experiment__ wrote: post #16

i have learned many language (german, english, french, japanese, korean). i have used Anki, Supermemo, Flashcards, Watched Series, Read Books and the only thing that seems to work is: - Spaced Repetition - Something you actually enjoy(learning should be fun) - Comprehensible Input anything else has not worked for me.

The limitation with flashcards is that you get the entire answer, not sure if there are flashcard apps with a hint function? I experimented with vocab training where you can peek the first two letters which helps jog the memory.

Anki has two types of hint fields (and the CSS/JavaScript in Note Types is editable, so you can add your own functionality if this is insufficient)

* https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/fields.html#hint-fields

* https://docs.ankiweb.net/editing.html#cloze-deletion:~:text=...

Disclaimer: AnkiDroid maintainer

Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

#78

Post by SamBam »

ajuc wrote: post #7
jll29 wrote: post #2

I would suggest to drop "Amateur" from the title in the sense that languages are useful both professionally and privately - you never know in what language your next deal will be signed, your next networking acqaintance bumps into you to make you the next job offer etc. Besides, as a professional (computational) linguist, I have met many trained/professional linguists that know only one language - typically English -…

> the way a language structures the world for you in the way its vocab influences the way you think in concepts You can even see it in this article :) "Learn only 4 tenses. Past for one time events, past continuous, present, future. These are enough to go by and explain yourself." Some lanuages don't even have 4 tenses. Polish has 3. And Past Continuous isn't a thing, we have aspects instead. BTW I don't intend to cr…

I think that the author's intent can be meaningful understood without the implication that they don't know about other languages.

I think a reasonable interpretation of the statement is "learn how to use verbs such that you can talk about doing something now, doing something in the future, having done something and continuing to do it, and having some something and since stopped doing it."

In every language humans are capable of expressing those distinct concepts. But boy, that was an awful lot wordier than the way the author put it.

Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot

#80

Post by SamBam »

richwater wrote: post #47
pard68 wrote: post #45

Barring English, I only speak "dead" languages. Am I a polyglot still? Latin, Koine & Classic Greek, ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and am at "coffee" level in a few ANE/Semitic languages.

No offense, but what is the "point" in this?

What's the point in reading Shakespeare, or recognizing a Monet painting, or knowing Ancient Greek history or Norse mythology?
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