Wanda Kaishin

This shouldn't surprise anyone. What I'd like to see is a study comparing 1) 100% pure immersion to 2) 90% immersion + 10% grammar study, because I'm sure that a mixture is more efficient than pure immersion. 

Sometimes I suffer from cramps in my calves, especially when I sleep. Last night was the worst ever- they woke me up three times. So this morning my calves are tender, and it's uncomfortable to stand up. But here I am, at my standing desk, studying languages. That's how I know I'm addicted!

One Semester of Spanish Love Song

What do you think?

Check out Idaho Ness

This guy is probably the world's most famous rapping polyglot.

 Hahaha - yes, it's true. But I recommend you take this thread lightly and tell us how you know you are addicted to language learning.

Instead of working a normal job, I study languages all day. That's how I know I'm addicted. How about you?

13 hours ago, OmniHead said:

We all think in our mother language, this is why you call it "in-built" sense;

I disagree with this, because I believe I don't really think "in a language". I consider the dialogue that goes on in my brain to be sort of a side effect that turns off and on, depending on what I'm doing. For example, when I'm typing, the dialogue is loud and clear, but when I'm thinking about members of the opposite sex, it doesn't exist. So when we make a decision, I don't necessarily think in a language.

5 hours ago, Mechanic1c said:

I don't remember. Also, you're right about communicate with.

Hahaha - Sir, your honesty is refreshing!

2 hours ago, Mechanic1c said:

The lexicon and phrasing of a language and the ideas that you use it to communicate with do matter. That's why certain synonyms are used more than others in English, as well as cerain phrases (for example, I put "with" after communicate in the previous because it would sound more understandable and convincing, even if it's grammatically incorrect).

I think it's a stretch to assume that it will lead to better decisions, but there's no doubt in my mind that it will lead to different decisions. For example, some languages have idioms that fit certain situations perfectly, and that may help you understand it and assess the situation in a way you otherwise couldn't have so easily in the same way. The very fact that languages are composed of various phrases and words that are pre-existing proves the limits of a language in expressing thoughts, so using a different language will certainly affect thought patterns.

And you quoted me because...?

(Btw, communicate with is grammatically correct.)

6 hours ago, czarina84 said:

I'm actually hard of hearing, so I even need the subtitles in my native language to understand what they are saying.  I don't use them as a crutch; I just can't hear what is said, so if I don't read it, I'm lost.

That's got to be tough - learning languages with a hearing problem. Do you use a hearing aid?

2 hours ago, Blaveloper said:

My only critique would be that Linguaholic himself is too easy on everybody sometimes, so I often had to come in and do some Moderator tasks instead.
I understand there isn't much to moderate here, but if there is then it often remains unmoderated.

I think this is the kind of thing you should take up in a pm involving admins and mods, rather than posting it publicly. Personally, I like the way things are run here, but I'm willing to listen to your complaints and examples and go with direction from our leadership. So I suggest creating a pm like I described, deleting this text from your post, and deleting my post completely.

16 hours ago, XLS said:

it wouldn't be a surprise if there were languages that were not written.  

Yes, there are many languages that aren't written.

So you're basically looking for links to lists here? I personally don't have any, but here are (imo) the two best forums to ask these question:

http://forum.koohii.com/

http://www.chinese-forums.com/

Many people who try to curse in L2 come off sounding humorous. If that doesn't bother you, then please continue.

If you could speak just 5 languages, including your native language, what would they be? Ok, maybe you don't plan on ever learning 5 languages, but in your dreams, what would they be? And if you already have more than 5, which 5 would you keep? My list is:

1) English (native)

2) Thai (I spend so much time there)

3) Spanish (haven't used it actively for a while, but I hear it all the time)

4) Russian (I'm very attracted to these people)

5) Mandarin (It's sort of my flavor of the week right now)

To me, there isn't much of an impact. Firstly, it takes thousands of hours to reach a high level in a language, and most of us only spend a small portion of that with a teacher. Secondly, I personally only use teachers for conversation practice, so they play a lesser role in my language learning than in many others'. But if you're stuck in a class, of course a good teacher will make a big difference for that period of time. 

4 hours ago, agentzero said:

I'd say it's hard to speak more than 15-20 languages on a same fluent level and even that's stretching it.

Are you talking about reaching C1/C2? I agree. Although it may be technically possible, it's probably a fulltime-lifetime effort, which eliminates just about everyone. Although I have to admit there are 2 guys on youtube who are probably pretty close to 10 X C1/C2. That used to be my lifetime goal, but I changed it to 12 X B2+ 

6 hours ago, lushlala said:

I was reading an article on language learning earlier, when I stumbled across an interesting point! The article stated that many people initially succeed at quickly picking up foreign language skills, but then hit a plateau, settling into some sort of comfort zone that they then find very difficult to get out of. It suggested that some people seem happy to just be 'good enough' at their chosen foreign language, as opposed to striving to be the very best at it. This doesn't apply to me, but I'm curious to see if any of you have experienced this? -and if you did, how did you push yourself to continue past that stage, in order to get to a higher level in your language skills?

This is very common in language learning. I think it most typically happens when the learner is immersed in the language. She learns it to the point where she feels she is functional. She sees the payoff for improving beyond this point as being greatly diminished, so she relaxes into the comfort of this level.

I've seen this happen a lot, and I think these people are also the ones most likely to overestimate their level. I can't count the times I've had someone at a B1 level tell me they were "fluent" or even "C2". It's like they fail to see how many issues they still have for some reason. 

Thanks - I learned something new today

I've heard about it, but haven't used it for anything myself. Another list that's pretty popular, is the list of most frequent words; I often see it talked about in language learning discussions. For example "did you know that only 10 words make up 25% of the English language?" type discussions. 

I wrote this a while back:

Just now, Wanda Kaishin said:

Step 1 – Word level pronunciation
Goals: Be able to repeat isolated words correctly after hearing them. Be able to read isolated words out loud with correct pronunciation.
Expansion: The first thing you need to be able to do is pronounce all the different sounds made in a language. When you do this it will be most efficient to link these sounds to something visual, so the most efficient thing to do is learn orthography, the language’s writing system, at the same time. Note - this is a pretty short step, along the order of 10-20 hours for most languages. The goal isn’t comprehension or comfortably reading texts; those things come later.

How to do it: Find some material that teaches pronunciation, for example, the first chapter of a textbook or an online resource. There must be audio. You need to work with audio from the beginning – never read first and utter before listening; check the audio frequently. Practice listening to and repeating the sounds, then listening to the sounds and writing the text. After you get the hang of it, practice reading and pronouncing the text, and comparing your pronunciation to the audio. Memorize the alphabet and the names of the letters. When you are reading and pronouncing words correctly, move on to the next step. After learning to pronounce all the separate sounds, you should be able to pronounce complete words too.

Step 2 – Sentence level pronunciation
Goals: Be able to repeat simple sentences correctly after hearing them. Be able to read those sentences out loud with correct pronunciation.
Expansion: The best time to learn good pronunciation is in the beginning. Step 1 was about word level pronunciation. Step 2 is about sentence level pronunciation.

How to do it: You need to find some basic material that you can shadow, parrot or repeat. It’s best if it’s designed to be an audio program, but you’ll need to have a transcript for it too. I strongly recommend Pimsleur for this step, although you will need to find a transcript somewhere or create your own because Pimsleur doesn’t publish them. Another option for this is Assimil. After doing an audio lesson, memorize the sentences and new vocabulary words from L1 to L2 and L2 to L1, reading them out loud with correct pronunciation. I recommend using an SRS for this. When you are doing the audio lessons, be sure you pronounce every aspect of the sentence prosody, intonation, rhythm, stress, etc as the native speaker does.

4 hours ago, Yessica11 said:

I read an article that did a study (N. Coupland and H. Bishop) in the UK to see which "British" accent is the favorite.  They overwhelming chose the "Queen's English" as the most appealing accent.  The "Queen's English" is also called Received Pronunciation (RP), which is typically what English Teachers learn if they learn English as a Second Language to teach it. (Hope that makes sense.)

Can you give an example by telling us a famous actor who uses this accent?

6 hours ago, anna3101 said:

I'd say there's a difference between speaking and just repeating words or saying phrases out loud.

Speaking requires some vocabulary and grammar. I really don't believe in "speaking from day 1", if by speaking we mean an actual normal conversation.

Agreed. I know it's trendy now, but I can't help but feel sorry for the poor native speakers that have to listen to someone with such inadequate skills.

I'm actually quite amazed by the turn around on this philosophy. 10 years ago most people on the forums would say they prefer to work on their passive skills until they reach a certain level of comfort, and only then begin to speak. The forums were full of people who would wait years before starting to talk.

Back then I was considered to be a bit strange for my early conversation philosophy. I was encouraging people to start conversing early well before Benny became popular. But now I'm pretty average. I start pronouncing and repeating sentences from day 1. I like to have good pronunciation before I start reading much, because reading before you have good pronunciation actually fossilizes bad pronunciation. This is the key to a good accent imo. That being said, I don't start to converse with native speakers until I have a reasonable amount of vocabulary and grammar under my belt. When I start to converse, I go 30 min in L2. So it takes a while to acquire the level to do that; about 2-3 months if I'm studying intensively. I write down all the unknown words/sentences my partner uses, and all the words I wish I'd known during the conversation, or words I forgot, and review them all before I have the next conversation. I try to do this every day, and usually bump it up to 60 min after a month or so. 

When learning languages, many people prefer to wait for a while before they begin to speak. Some will wait for months or even years. Some will begin speaking (pronouncing/repeating) the language immediately, but wait for a period of time before having a conversation with a native speaker. Some begin talking to native speakers in the first day. Which method do you prefer and why?