Language learning tactics that worked

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Madrigal
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Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Madrigal » Sun Aug 22, 2021 4:14 am

Has anyone ever learned anything using Rosetta Stone? Or Duolingo? And by learning I mean being able to perform in that language and knowing you could attribute it to that practice. Any methods that worked?

I know someone who is studying a language and she keeps telling me that if I'm not happy with my classes, I should just study on my own. She just ditched her teacher because she didn't like the book. To me, this is like wanting to be a veterinarian and being presented with a dog to study, but instead of studying the dog, you go get some pictures and books about the dog and study that instead.

A bad teacher is better than no teacher. I think.

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Utisz
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Utisz » Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:13 am

Duolingo is good as a first step I think.

My pro tip though is to live in a country that only speaks the language you wanna learn.

And as to why you want to learn a language otherwise ... :dunno:

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Ferrus
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Ferrus » Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:33 am

Utisz wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:13 am
Duolingo is good as a first step I think.

My pro tip though is to live in a country that only speaks the language you wanna learn.

And as to why you want to learn a language otherwise ... :dunno:
That or you want to read/study documents or literature in the language of interest. This probably applies more to ancient languages though.
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Utisz
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Utisz » Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:55 am

Ferrus wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:33 am
That or you want to read/study documents or literature in the language of interest. This probably applies more to ancient languages though.
This has never happened to me. Madrigal talks about this sort of thing all the time and it's beyond my comprehension.
I can't imagine anyone writing something so compelling or important that it would be worth learning a language for.
It's a pretty tough ask even for an entire culture.

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Ferrus
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Ferrus » Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:11 pm

Utisz wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:55 am
This has never happened to me. Madrigal talks about this sort of thing all the time and it's beyond my comprehension.
I can't imagine anyone writing something so compelling or important that it would be worth learning a language for.
It's a pretty tough ask even for an entire culture.
Well, the more I think about it you are partially right, probably for most people this is true, and it is reflected in how languages without social prestidge die out.

The thing is some people just like knowing things. I am thinking of historians or archaelogists for example. A lot of the past, especiqlly the distant past is a great puzzle of trying to tie fragments of evidence together. And learning languages and decipherment is part of the game if you will. A way to acess hidden knowledge. In the same way there is a thrill in chasing down the right document in Google. Personally I find the web of etymology of words across European languages fascinating (that word comes from Roman penis amulates and street statues, look it up!) that apart from practical benefits has been a filip to learn vocabulary for me. To some extent this applies to those interested in particular forms of philosophical thought and don't want their understanding corrupted by imperfect mapping s between concepts in German/Ancient Greek and English. I mean I keep a constant log of words or phrases or concepts I've never heard of in order to search for them later. I can't stand not knowing things.

There is also for some people inherent intellectual satisfaction in learning languages. It's a difficult mental test and as a language moves from being nonsense to meaningful there is a sense of satisfaction there. I have a book by Alex Bellos on language puzzles. A lot of the puzzles are working out codes, or using etymology to trace how words mutate or figuring out patterns in syntax and grammar. I am also thinking of cryptic crosswords and the kind of people who enjoy them. I think many polyglots fit into this kind of thinking. I would say they are typically different from the kinds of people who enjoy mathematical or mechanical puzzles but I am not sure they are necessarily mutually exclusive. One of the great protagonists of the decipherment if Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics was the polymath Thomas Young of the double-slit experiment fame. Murray Gell-Mann also had an interest in statistical etymology.

There is of course - and I suspect this might be more important to Madrigal - the aesthetic aspect. The nature of the prosody (i.e. stressed languages vs. vowel length) in both poetry and prose something that is untranslateable. This affects poetry more - and thus song lyrics that themselves rely on poetic rhythms - of course. I do understand this on some level given the pleasure well constructed, rhythmic and balanced phrases in English give me. Although I am too much of a literal thinker for it to be too important personally. But that said I also remember the way at my school the elite few above me who studied Latin classics in the original were marked by them far more than having read a wan English translation.

Of course these weirdos (and probably WEIRDOs) are far and few between, although said people are usually engaging in this as a harmless hobby. Most normal people - and 90% of the tine me also, the 10% is my asking some frustrated Spanish speakers, usually my wife, about some obscure word or grammatical construct usually they have never heard of - are just looking for practical communication. Undoubtedly devotion to a particular religion is probably the next biggest animating factor.
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Madrigal
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Madrigal » Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:31 pm

Ferrus wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:11 pm
There is of course - and I suspect this might be more important to Madrigal - the aesthetic aspect. The nature of the prosody (i.e. stressed languages vs. vowel length) in both poetry and prose something that is untranslateable. This affects poetry more - and thus song lyrics that themselves rely on poetic rhythms - of course. I do understand this on some level given the pleasure well constructed, rhythmic and balanced phrases in English give me. Although I am too much of a literal thinker for it to be too important personally. But that said I also remember the way at my school the elite few above me who studied Latin classics in the original were marked by them far more than having read a wan English translation.
I think there are some things that only seem crucial to you when you're bilingual. When you've read something you consider meaningful in its original language and then you read the translation into another language, regardless of the translator's skill, it initially feels a little shocking. It doesn't even have to be complex or poetic. If I read something Che Guevara said, translated into English, I would say that's not Che Guevara, period. At the risk of sounding mystically inclined (which nobody would accuse me of, right :ph34r: ) there's just something in the spirit of what is said that is lost when you read it in another language. Of course, you will go on being perfectly ignorant of this if you don't know the language the translation of which you're reading.

This way of seeing languages means you don't just want to know a language but also understand the spirit of the people who speak it, and so personally I try to go for languages whose people inspire my sympathies. The question comes down to whether, for example, I'd really want to be in a room with a lot of those people. I can think of many languages I find interesting on different levels, but not all of them pass the test of that question.

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Ferrus
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Ferrus » Mon Sep 13, 2021 6:49 am

Madrigal wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:31 pm
This way of seeing languages means you don't just want to know a language but also understand the spirit of the people who speak it, and so personally I try to go for languages whose people inspire my sympathies. The question comes down to whether, for example, I'd really want to be in a room with a lot of those people. I can think of many languages I find interesting on different levels, but not all of them pass the test of that question.
Am I to ascertain from this you sympathies lie mainly with Mediterrean cultures*? :ph34r: Isn't that partially cultural proximity? Although that is kind of understandable as even people not from a similar culture get hooked on them.

* Although I'm guessing the Catalans are an exception. :lol:
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Utisz
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Utisz » Sat Sep 18, 2021 7:50 am

Ferrus wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:11 pm
Well, the more I think about it you are partially right, probably for most people this is true, and it is reflected in how languages without social prestidge die out.
I guess I get that. It's like this difference of syntax vs. semantics, like I don't really give a shit what the syntax is, I just want to understand it, or communicate it. So I guess learning the syntax to get to the semantics makes sense. And some syntaxes are maybe better or more concise or "poetic" to express a certain semantics, or have a sense of place.

But it's also depressing in a way, because there are so many syntaxes, that one person can only ever learn a fraction of those syntaxes, and the idea that the meaning does not translate well means that large portions of the world's population will never see eye to eye, or be able to "know" in the same way.

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Ferrus
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by Ferrus » Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:35 am

Utisz wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 7:50 am
But it's also depressing in a way, because there are so many syntaxes, that one person can only ever learn a fraction of those syntaxes, and the idea that the meaning does not translate well means that large portions of the world's population will never see eye to eye, or be able to "know" in the same way.
Actually I sort of came to the sane conclusion. Learning a language well, I mean really well, is so vast an effort that personally I feel learning just one other living* language is realistic. You need to immerse yourself in the culture and language (which intermix) - not to mention regional differences - and this to me seems a lifelong project. I've become skeptical of those who say they are polyglots in 15 languages or whatever. Maybe they can speak a textbook form of various languages, and once you have learnt universal grammatical concepts it is just a question of memorisation - but speaking idiomatically and naturally is a different question. It takes a certain amount of time for your neurons to get rewired so the grammatical concepts are natural. I saw this in seriousness, for me using foreign grammatical forms original felt unnatural, like forcing an EU plug into a UK plug socket. But with repetition the brain changes and the framework in which you slot words felt normal. In mean this is true for riding a bike, programming, cooking, kayaking, karate or whatever but is much more noticeable with languages.

* I saw living as I think you can include non-living languages as a separate skillset. Non-living languages are for reading old documents with a fixed vocabulary and usually more stylised idiom and grammatical form. Although again it is better to limit yourself to just obe of these.
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Re: Language learning tactics that worked

Post by SomeInternetBloke » Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:11 am

"My favourite song from one of my favourite albums, Nena asking you to please, please let her be your pirate. So smooth and joyful, I have to listen to it three times if I listen once" - ashi

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