Wanda Kaishin

Each character is a syllable. Words are typically one or two characters. Very rarely is a single character a sentence. An example of this is: Hi! = 嗨!

I'm assuming subs are in L2 (English for this case).

60-70%? If you only have time to watch it once, watch it without subs. Continuing to only watch it with the subs on will slow your progress. Your goal is to be able to understand it very well with no subs, so it's time to start trying to do just that.

If you have time to watch it twice, watch it without subs first, then with subs. The reason you watch it without first is that you need to make your brain work hard while you're still very focused and interested in what you're watching. If you watch it with subs first, the first watching doesn't help much, and during the second watching you will become lazy and not pay nearly as much attention. 

My native language is English, but I lived in Tanzania for 3 years so I want to mention something about Swahili. They sometimes abruptly make this gasping noise, you know - like a gasp of surprise; a quick intake of air. To native english speakers, this is a little startling, and we might think the speaker just realized something awful happened, for example. Well to Swahili speakers it's no big deal; it just means something like "continue what you're saying" or "I see what you mean"; it's like chiming in or urging on. But the first 100 or so times I heard it I was startled. And this was even after it was explained to me  

Do they have that in Setswana?

If you have the motivation, time and resources you can learn a language, regardless of age. For example, I learned 4 languages, from zero to B1/B2, in my 40's - and that was when I was working full time. I learned Russian from zero to B2 so far in my 50's, and hope to add Korean and maybe one more before they're over. People often accuse me of having above average language learning skills, but I don't. What I do have is motivation, time and resources.  

Yikes! Well, if he stays at it and stays motivated he'll eventually figure it out for himself. It's too bad hell be wasting so much time until then.

Omg - you learned Chinese for 4 years with a teacher you hate? Was this a university course?

Repeating phrases over and over again = active listening? I could be wrong, but it sounds like someone just decided to name their method "active listening". I've heard a lot of discussion regarding active vs passive listening. Active listening is when you pay full attention while watching TV, movies, listening to the radio, etc. Passive listening is when you have something playing in the background, or you just don't pay full attention to what you're listening to. I'm not a linguist so I don't know if these are linguistic terms.

Back to repeating phrases over and over again - is it effective? If that's all there is to it, I wouldn't say it's useless, but it certainly isn't very well rounded. There are 7 "skills" I think about when learning languages: reading, writing, conversation, listening, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. All skills reinforce each other, but that doesn't mean you can neglect skills and get the same result. In fact, I find that well rounded learning methods outperform unbalanced ones. The OP method doesn't include reading, writing or conversation, and may not be very strong in vocabulary or grammar. It's probably a good technique for improving listening and pronunciation, but that falls short of being a good language learning method imo.

I guarantee you'll get a fast answer if you post it on italki.

It's out of context learning, which isn't always a bad thing in small doses, but shouldn't be the main method of learning a language at any point in your studies, imo. I believe you should try to get words, grammar, etc in context. For example, read a paragraph where you encounter a few new words. If you find it helpful, as many people do especially in the early stages, you can then take these new words and memorize and/or review them. But I wouldn't advise spending most of your time doing this, and I wouldn't advise drilling lists of words and sentences that you've never encountered in context. 

But what are his goals? I personally only feel sorry for the ones who expect to reach a high level doing this. There are plenty of multi-language learners who are thrilled if they are able to small talk a little in a language. Some call this "just flirting", and it's surprising to me how many prefer this to reaching a high level. If that's what they're after, more power to 'em, right?

Back in 2006 I used Heisig's RTK1 (free PDF of the first 100 or so characters), with paper flashcards to learn to "learn" all 2000+ kanji in the book in about 7 months. It was really hard, and I was very proud of myself. It's helped me tremendously with my Japanese and Chinese. That being said, while I think for most westerners the mnemonic method is the way to go, I don't think learning the whole book is the right thing to do for most people. 

Learners who would benefit the most from learning all 2000 at once are: 

1) those who plan to study very intensively, meaning several hours a day for 2 or more years 

2) those who already have a strong background in the language

As others have stated, this method only teaches you to recognize a character, and to write it if you are given an english keyword. This doesn't mean the method is useless, it just means that you need to know some vocabulary and do some reading to give it value. If you have very little vocabulary, then either you will need to use an SRS, or something to review, to stay on top of this knowledge, or you will forget it.  

What do I think of people learning 5 languages at once? I am one, so I guess by definition I love them. Now, there seems to be some negativity about multi-language learning here, so let’s clarify.

What do you mean by “learning”? Personally, I think as long as we are using languages, we are learning them. But when people ask me which languages I’m learning now, I tell them the names of the ones that I study on a regular basis. For example, right now I study Mandarin every day, and I study Japanese, French, Thai and Russian once every 4 days. So I say I’m learning 5 languages.

If I already speak the language comfortably, do you still consider me to be learning it? And what do you mean by speaking a language comfortably? I see the term “fluent” being used a lot here, but I don’t find this term to be helpful. Fluent means too many things to too many people. I prefer to use the CEFR when talking about skill levels. There are 6 levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. All 5 of my languages are at B1 or B2, so am I still learning them by your definition?

After many years as a polyglot, if I had to do it all over again this is what I’d advise to people who want to learn a lot of languages in their lifetimes: learn the first one all the way to your final desired level in that language, then move onto the next one. Repeat. Assuming your final level is C1/C2, learning in this way allows you to completely avoid the time consuming practice of maintaining your languages.

To those who said they can’t learn multiple languages - there’s no magic formula here. As I said in another post: motivation, time and resources. If you have them, you will succeed. Do you have them for all of the languages you are learning combined? If so, no problem. If not, you will fail.

Some people have mentioned confusion between languages. This happens because you are at a low level in one or more of your languages, and it goes away when you improve. Once you’ve been through this you’ll understand that it’s nothing to worry about.

I’m all for learning multiple languages, but I’m against starting more than one language at a time. The effort level is really high and so is the confusion level. If you don’t want to follow the method I outlined above, then I recommend at least a really long stagger between starting languages.

There is a group of multi-language learners that even I have my doubts about. These are the young folks that are studying between 5 and 30 languages at a time, none of them above A1. I read about how they study. Typically they average 10 or 15 minutes a day in a language. Imo, that’s not enough to ever bring a language to a high level. But these people think if they keep it up, eventually they will reach C2. It’s unfortunate, because they are lead by a handful of enthusiasts who claim this method works. Like I said, I have my doubts.

There’s nothing wrong with learning a language to a low level; please don’t be discouraged if this is your goal. It’s not for me, but I respect everyone’s goal. What I hate to see is someone who wants to reach a high level in a language following this method.

First let me say that there is no such thing as "wrong" motivation. What works for me might not work for you and vice versa. So don't be discouraged if someone tells you your reasons aren't sufficient to get you through.

Second - motivation, time and resources. If you don't have them, you won't succeed. For time and resources, I don't think many will argue - you either have them or you don't. So that leaves motivation. After studying several languages to a high level, I strongly believe that it's the same thing. When you decide to learn a language, do you have what it takes to struggle through thousands of hours and persevere? If you do, then you will never need to worry about temporary lapses in motivation. If you don't, barring some sort of life changing event like finding a bf in your target language, no pep talk in the world is going to increase your desire enough to get there.

When I'm reading a thread it's nice to know which languages other people speak, without going to their profile page.

Nice poll. Tibetan for me.