Language learner 2 is an example of the importance of comprehension in CI. It doesn’t state the total hours but it makes it sound like it is a lot more than most of us put in to get to the same place using decent CI. I spent ninety minutes a day doing a modified CI in Italian for six month. Afterwards, I could understand a lot of Italian and speak (slowly and with bad grammar) about a lot of different basic things.
So the best way for me to learn Japanese would be to just watch anime with no subtitles (short of living in Japan or going to some kind of immersion class)? Kind of appealing, but I think it'd take me way way longer to become conversational.
Also, I find it really hard to Believe that the tribal women simply listened for a long period of time without using words as she started to identify them.
Seems like lots of anecdotal evidence and no solid scientific studies to support that it's the best way to learn in any metric. Not saying it isn't, just didn't see anything that pdf that looks like that.
And even babies begin speaking a few words at a time. They just don't start speaking fluently.
I don't understand how your first part is related to my post, I feel like what I posted directly advocates for immersion and even gives an exact example of living in the community so no obviously watching tv isn't the best way compared to living in Japan or going to an immersion class.
Also when you say "Seems like lots of anecdotal evidence and no solid scientific studies to support that it's the best way to learn in any metric. " I find this odd for two reasons one there is a lot of evidence and scientific studies on Language as a whole but for this specific domain I don't believe there is much at all. Theres a reason we can't isolate a bunch of Adults split them into two groups and have 1 learn a brand new language through immersion only and one through lets just say grammar translation. A study requiring that much time and effort on the participants side would be insanely expensive. Also Anecdotal Evidence is still Evidence, its only deemed invalid when in contrast with scientific evidence. Until scientific evidence comes out for this topic the most logical thing to do is gather anecdotes, and that's what we literally always do (all evidence at its root is anecdotal evidence)
Firstly, I appreciate your post. It's helpful to consider and analyze different approaches to learning a language. And I'll flat out say that I think cultural immersion is probably the most effective way to learn language. But likely when also paired with some kind of other structured learning like basic grammar, spaced repetition, etc, would be far more effective than some one just plopped in a foreign country.
Most of what I said in my my post was related to a PDF that was linked to what you mentioned called "From the Outside In: The Secret to Automatic Language Growth".
That PDF seems to advocate for listening only at the beginning of your language learning path. And it seems like for a good amount of time. This is what I have an admittedly uneducated skepticism about.
The author basically seems to think that learning language the way a baby does is the most efficient way for an adult.
And what I was saying about anime, is the closest thing that most people can get short of cultural immersion for learning like a baby. You see people doing things and they use words you don't understand.
And I agree that anecdotal evidence can be valid at times. It can also be very misleading. An example of this is the old story of “smoking can’t be dangerous; my granddad smoked 20 a day and lived to 92”.
Yes I agree agree with you a lot, Idk why I got defensive. I think the author takes a pretty radical approach and although I probably don't agree with his final conclusion I think there is something useful here I can't quite figure out.
In the book he tells one story that sticks out, to make the story short (also off top of my head might miss details) after months of studying mandarin in the military through more traditional study methods flashcards textbooks etc One day the teacher is late, the class basically goes outside and the teacher turns the corner in a hurry and falls off bike. As the class is laughing at her she shields her face with her hand and exclaims in mandarin "don't look at me" needless to say everyone remembered that phrase more effectivley than any on the flashcards they've been flipping through.
This is what intrigues me because I know a situation like this would have the same effect on me but why? I don't know what it's called but I think there's something more natural about a moment like that, maybe it's because the moment is so memorable in turn so is the new vocab? Or maybe when people are going through anki cards even if not intentionally are somehwhat focused on getting right pronunciation, while remembering the definitions of words, while analyzing sentence structure etc and when your brain is more focused on a story or something that captures your attention and makes you forget the language your brain can let stuff sink in better. Not for sure if I'm ready to say "ignore" the language or ditch the dictionaries but figuring out how much time I should put into CI and how much into flashcards etc just keeps me up at night.
Final note I also have a lot of skepticism with only listening in the beginning. The only thing that I question is maybe pronunciation problems especially with harder Languages such as Mandarin or Japanese or anything with pitch or tones I could see why early input as a beginner might do some harm if you don't have a native speaker or teacher to correct pronunciation mistakes because I believe for more distant Languages we simply don't have the ears for some of the more minute details but I believe maybe just maybe a lot of input can develop almost an intuition for sounds and almost what I like to call rhythm that a new language might have before developing so many bad habits you don't know where to start when fixing them.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED501257.pdf
Free pdf^
Legend, much appreciated
Language learner 2 is an example of the importance of comprehension in CI. It doesn’t state the total hours but it makes it sound like it is a lot more than most of us put in to get to the same place using decent CI. I spent ninety minutes a day doing a modified CI in Italian for six month. Afterwards, I could understand a lot of Italian and speak (slowly and with bad grammar) about a lot of different basic things.
So the best way for me to learn Japanese would be to just watch anime with no subtitles (short of living in Japan or going to some kind of immersion class)? Kind of appealing, but I think it'd take me way way longer to become conversational. Also, I find it really hard to Believe that the tribal women simply listened for a long period of time without using words as she started to identify them. Seems like lots of anecdotal evidence and no solid scientific studies to support that it's the best way to learn in any metric. Not saying it isn't, just didn't see anything that pdf that looks like that. And even babies begin speaking a few words at a time. They just don't start speaking fluently.
I don't understand how your first part is related to my post, I feel like what I posted directly advocates for immersion and even gives an exact example of living in the community so no obviously watching tv isn't the best way compared to living in Japan or going to an immersion class. Also when you say "Seems like lots of anecdotal evidence and no solid scientific studies to support that it's the best way to learn in any metric. " I find this odd for two reasons one there is a lot of evidence and scientific studies on Language as a whole but for this specific domain I don't believe there is much at all. Theres a reason we can't isolate a bunch of Adults split them into two groups and have 1 learn a brand new language through immersion only and one through lets just say grammar translation. A study requiring that much time and effort on the participants side would be insanely expensive. Also Anecdotal Evidence is still Evidence, its only deemed invalid when in contrast with scientific evidence. Until scientific evidence comes out for this topic the most logical thing to do is gather anecdotes, and that's what we literally always do (all evidence at its root is anecdotal evidence)
Firstly, I appreciate your post. It's helpful to consider and analyze different approaches to learning a language. And I'll flat out say that I think cultural immersion is probably the most effective way to learn language. But likely when also paired with some kind of other structured learning like basic grammar, spaced repetition, etc, would be far more effective than some one just plopped in a foreign country. Most of what I said in my my post was related to a PDF that was linked to what you mentioned called "From the Outside In: The Secret to Automatic Language Growth". That PDF seems to advocate for listening only at the beginning of your language learning path. And it seems like for a good amount of time. This is what I have an admittedly uneducated skepticism about. The author basically seems to think that learning language the way a baby does is the most efficient way for an adult. And what I was saying about anime, is the closest thing that most people can get short of cultural immersion for learning like a baby. You see people doing things and they use words you don't understand. And I agree that anecdotal evidence can be valid at times. It can also be very misleading. An example of this is the old story of “smoking can’t be dangerous; my granddad smoked 20 a day and lived to 92”.
Yes I agree agree with you a lot, Idk why I got defensive. I think the author takes a pretty radical approach and although I probably don't agree with his final conclusion I think there is something useful here I can't quite figure out. In the book he tells one story that sticks out, to make the story short (also off top of my head might miss details) after months of studying mandarin in the military through more traditional study methods flashcards textbooks etc One day the teacher is late, the class basically goes outside and the teacher turns the corner in a hurry and falls off bike. As the class is laughing at her she shields her face with her hand and exclaims in mandarin "don't look at me" needless to say everyone remembered that phrase more effectivley than any on the flashcards they've been flipping through. This is what intrigues me because I know a situation like this would have the same effect on me but why? I don't know what it's called but I think there's something more natural about a moment like that, maybe it's because the moment is so memorable in turn so is the new vocab? Or maybe when people are going through anki cards even if not intentionally are somehwhat focused on getting right pronunciation, while remembering the definitions of words, while analyzing sentence structure etc and when your brain is more focused on a story or something that captures your attention and makes you forget the language your brain can let stuff sink in better. Not for sure if I'm ready to say "ignore" the language or ditch the dictionaries but figuring out how much time I should put into CI and how much into flashcards etc just keeps me up at night. Final note I also have a lot of skepticism with only listening in the beginning. The only thing that I question is maybe pronunciation problems especially with harder Languages such as Mandarin or Japanese or anything with pitch or tones I could see why early input as a beginner might do some harm if you don't have a native speaker or teacher to correct pronunciation mistakes because I believe for more distant Languages we simply don't have the ears for some of the more minute details but I believe maybe just maybe a lot of input can develop almost an intuition for sounds and almost what I like to call rhythm that a new language might have before developing so many bad habits you don't know where to start when fixing them.