The Rosenfelder Challenge

[Terra]

Ashmoonfruit, how much formal training/learning do you have in linguistics? Note that I say linguistics, not how many years of French (or whatever language) you took.

[jmcd]

Also, languages are partly ciphers of each other. Please don't think that I'm overestimating the extent of this, but English 'dog' French 'chien' are pretty much ciphers of each other. When it comes to how compounds are formed, sometimes languages do it the same way, and sometimes not: 'Grandmother' and 'grand-mére' are the same compound, 'black box' and 'béte noir' (as in 'pet hate') are not. So, I think such a program can cope with this problem, especially once those compound words are edited for sound changes where the two source words meet.

No, "dog" and "chien" are not ciphers of one another. "dog" can be used in phrase "it's dog eat dog" (c'est chacun pour soi) where "chien" can't. And "chien" can be used in "ça me fait un mal de chien" (It hurts like hell) where "dog" can't. Also, people don't use "chien" as .

This is already a fairly objective part of a lexicon, seeing as their primary meanings are referring to a particular species. Even with a similar word like "singe", this can be translated not just as "monkey" but also as "ape".

Even with the most objective aspect of a lexicon, numbers, there can be differences in usage. So at other end of the scale, verbs like "put" are certainly not going to be easily replaceable word-for-word from one language to another. And that's all with two languages part of the same family and sprachbund that have influenced each other significantly (most of the time French > English but nowadays more often the other direction).

[ashmoonfruit]

jmcd:
What you say is true. I concede your point, although idioms are an exception to normal usage. Perhaps if I'd said 'approximate'... If I look up 'dog' in an English-French dictionary, I'll find 'chien'. If I then say 'chien' to a French monoglot, they will know that I mean 'dog'. That is sufficient for the purpose of the 'Challenge'.

Terra:
You mean, have I studied a course with the word 'linguistics' in the title? No, but several with the word 'language'. My higher education was in English Language and Literature (which included Middle English, Old English and Old Norse) and in Education (teaching English). Linguistics were involved in close (sometimes forensic) textual analysis, translating old texts, studying the history of the English language and language development in children, teaching English as a second language, learning how to teach people with dyslexia, and so on). Why do you ask?

[ashmoonfruit]

jmcd:
In general, this is indeed a difficulty when applying my system of simplification to another language. I try to be careful to select words with the closest meaning I can find and avoid those with alternative meanings.

The minimalisation of grammar learning is an area where the problem of words not corresponding to one another gets even worse. Sentence structures have to be kept short and simple. It's essential to know the SVO rule (tricky in German and Hindi, which I am working on now) and (to a lesser extent) the head-modifier order. I search for and favour possessive particles (like 'de' in Spanish) rather than inflected forms, and words that will serve as adpositions (in Hindi, using 'age' for 'forward' rather than grappling with Hindi's particle system too early by trying to translate 'to').

So, it's not really a process of ignoring the complexities of a language, but rather of finding ways around them for long enough to start a conversation.

[Pthagnar]

we get it -- provided you don't want to do anything particularly demanding, don't mind looking like a fool and are in people's good graces, you can talk to people with little more than a list of common words. nobody has denied this, nobody is surprised by it. this is just a *very low standard* and nothing worth making a fuss about.

[ashmoonfruit]

provided you don't want to do anything particularly demanding

From day two, I worked in an animal sanctuary where only the owner speaks English. I was also in a relationship with a non-English speaker from about week two. Demanding enough, I'd say.

don't mind looking like a fool

Nope. I nicknamed myself 'gringo estupido'. This kind of self effacing attitude helped ensure that I was...

in people's good graces

...and they are lovely people. You can find such people anywhere, if you look.

you can talk to people with little more than a list of common words ... nobody has denied this, nobody is surprised by it

It's precisely what zompist implied would be a "punishment". I set out to prove that wrong and succeeded. Several people here and elsewhere initially reacted with disbelief - and understandably so. I know very well that the idea is nothing new (I've seen Basic English being used to great effect all over India), but I've never seen it pushed quite this far (which is why I'm doing it myself).

this is just a *very low standard* and nothing worth making a fuss about

You're welcome to your opinion. I intend to develop my method further, and use it to acquire enough knowledge of enough languages so that when I travel around the world I'll be able to communicate with people everywhere I go. I'll be making learning materials available to others for free, and seeking to work in collaboration wherever possible (I'm currently receiving help from a Jordanian friend in my assault on Arabic).

If it's just not your thing, then fine, you can go and discuss something you do like on another thread. But it's no use just saying that this is all rubbish and not worth doing - el gato es al exterior de la bolsa, el caballo es escapado, y el mono puede hablar - un poco malo, posiblemente, pero hablando - eso es el punto importante. XD

[hugs]

[Lyra]

Where do you plan to go in India, cuz, in the South, you're better off with English than Hindi.

~Lyra

[ashmoonfruit]

Yes, that's true. I don't feel inclined to learn Tamil as well though, not just yet.

I spent a total of two years in India between '99 and '08 (in the south, centre, west and north, and also Nepal, but not in the east and north-east). My favourite part is the north (Himachal Pradesh and around there), where Hindi is common.

It's been a few years since I was there and I've forgotten much of what I learned (which was difficult to learn in the first place, because English is so widespread), so I want to regain and expand my limited Hindi. Plus, I'm targeting all of the ten most widely spoken languages of the world anyway - and Hindi has something like half a billion speakers worldwide (including quite a few in the UK, which is handy for me - although I will have to look at some Urdu as an add-on).

[Pthagnar]

The standard you offer *is* a low standard -- this does not stop being the case by admitting it frankly. One *can* surrender dignity gladly, but that is still what one is doing by playing the clown.

What work did you do at the animal sanctuary? Was it particularly demanding -- not physically, I mean, but intellectually? Did you have to negotiate with people involved in financing it? Lawyers? Estate agents? Suppliers? It is no bad thing for you if you did not, but such people would find it *very difficult* to do necessary work like this without the ability to communicate *well*, never mind working from a position lacking in dignity.

Take also your relationship -- with such things one gets out of them what one puts in. Suppose, instead of just treating it as, not wanting to diminish waht you had, a love affair, you had the intention of marrying the lady. Then you would have to deal with many other things: her family, the immigration authorities perhaps, possibly even the Church, and so on. In order to negotiate these well, I would hope you would realise that a lax approach left quite a bit to be desired! But, of course, if you do not want to take it that far, then you need not worry about such things. Again, it is no bad thing for you if you do not, but anybody with such serious intentions would find it *very difficult*.

Which is why nobody is saying that what you are doing is "rubbish and not worth doing". You obviously get a great deal of fun from it. It is just that it is a simple, modest, commonplace idea and what everybody practically instinctively does when trying to survive amongst foreigners, and so should rightly be treated as being a simple, modest, commonplace thing, rather than a surprising development, a challenge to some notional orthodoxy or a grand triumph.

[Miekko]

jmcd:
What you say is true. I concede your point, although idioms are an exception to normal usage. Perhaps if I'd said 'approximate'... If I look up 'dog' in an English-French dictionary, I'll find 'chien'. If I then say 'chien' to a French monoglot, they will know that I mean 'dog'. That is sufficient for the purpose of the 'Challenge'.

Terra:
You mean, have I studied a course with the word 'linguistics' in the title? No, but several with the word 'language'. My higher education was in English Language and Literature (which included Middle English, Old English and Old Norse) and in Education (teaching English). Linguistics were involved in close (sometimes forensic) textual analysis, translating old texts, studying the history of the English language and language development in children, teaching English as a second language, learning how to teach people with dyslexia, and so on). Why do you ask?

To what extent did you learn any linguistics that wasn't applied, but rather general - that is, linguistics as it can be applied to any language rather than linguistics as it applies to the specific languages you were taught about?

[Pthagnar]

Also, look at the wording of the original "challenge":

Just don't take it too seriously; if you do, your punishment is to learn 850 words of any actual foreign language and be set down in a city of monolingual speakers of that language.

There is a condition hidden in plain sight here: "Just don't take it too seriously; if you do...". This is quite carefully worded, maybe even more carefully than Zompist realised: if you do not take it seriously [as you do not, though you are kinda taking "not taking it seriously" too seriously, if you see what I mean] then there is no reason to expect to find it punishing.

And so you don't.

[ashmoonfruit]

To what extent did you learn any linguistics that wasn't applied, but rather general - that is, linguistics as it can be applied to any language rather than linguistics as it applies to the specific languages you were taught about?

It's impossible to discuss what the inflection may have been on the end of an incompletely preserved word that appears on a runic inscription from a broken gravestone, and discuss how the different possibilities give rise to varying interpretations of the artefact, without reading up on a certain amount of linguistics. Yes, it was all applied, but theory was inseparable from that. I never studied 'pure' linguistics at university, it's just something that comes into some of my interests. Of the books I've read that are focussed on linguistics, two that stand out in my memory are The Encyclopaedia of Language, ed. David Crystal and The Loom of Language, but I can't remember who wrote that. I'm considering getting zompist's new book; it sounds excellent, if the LCK is anything to go by. So, I wouldn't call myself a linguist, not even as an amateur - but I am a professional teacher, an amateur conlanger and a backpacker with linguistic attitude.

By the way, you're the designer of Bryatesle, aren't you? IMHO, one of the best conlangs I've seen. Good work.

[finlay]

Maybe you should look into second language acquisition more formally. You might find it interesting. As Pthug says, nothing you've done is earth-shattering; but I bet you had a lot of fun doing it. In terms of the best way to acquire a second language, nothing really beats being in a country where they speak it.

[ashmoonfruit]

Maybe you should look into second language acquisition more formally. You might find it interesting. As Pthug says, nothing you've done is earth-shattering; but I bet you had a lot of fun doing it. In terms of the best way to acquire a second language, nothing really beats being in a country where they speak it.

Yes, I'm reading up on second language acquisition - although there are issues. I'm not impressed with either the crazy way they teach foreign languages in UK schools, or with the way that I was taught to teach English to foreigners. That's why I set out to do it my own way. I learned far more Hindi during my first 6 months in India than the French I learned after 5 years of it at school - so I was always going to base my approach on immersion. The main problem with immersion (by which I mean turning up in the country and going for it, not one of the classroom immersion methods), is the difficulty experienced in the early stages when you don't know much. So, I set out to find the shortest route from silence to conversation. That remains my focus.

What I did in Perú was indeed just an experiment, but I and others around me were surprised and delighted by its success. I have taken the first few steps towards developing that experiment into a working method, and I know that there is a long, long way to go. I don't expect to shake the language learning industry to its foundations. I do expect to hop easily over that first language barrier whenever I step off a plane (or maybe into a conworld) - and hopefully help a few others do the same.

[Pthagnar]

What I did in Perú was indeed just an experiment, but I and others around me were surprised and delighted by its success.

Who? Why would anybody be surprised by this? This is nothing that millions of people over millennia have not done before!

[Melteor]

Well, another thing is, conversation can be very literal if you set the rules of the game right. Literal speech in English is limited to news items, and especially newscasts, and that's not even very conversational, which is very elliptical. Fortunately Spanish uses elliptical phrases a lot like English...moreso than say Japanese. Speaking of Japanese, that's one language you wouldn't make much headway with with this method of yours, ashmoonfruit. People might not even acknowledge a foreigner trying to speak it.

As far as unusual language-learning methods go, you might look into Madrigal's Magic Key for French or Spanish. It preceded Rosetta Stone and Speed Spanish, with its mix of pictures, cognates and stuff but it's a book without a spoken component...But it focusses on production, so it builds confidence. And you can just pile through it.

[Pthagnar]

the japanese are huge dignity fans

on the other hand, they're also huge stupid foreigner fans

could go either way

happily they have gameshows maybe?

[Torco]

I don't like it when someone who challenges the notions of a discipline, however wrong he may be, is asked "how much training do you have in the discipline you're challenging". It reeks of elitism.

I don't know why it's true, Orcrot. Why do you think it's true?

I'm just glad that it is true (quid pro quo), and I'm busy exploiting that fact.

I've already said why I think its true, because people are smart and, as pthug points out, yours is a low standard: I could have a relationship with someone without doing any talking. actually, come to think of it, it sounds like a pretty interesting experiment... going on a 'date' and saying nothing. nothing at all. but on topic, people can coordinate basic actions without any common language at all, this everyone knows. what you seem to have discovered is that starting out with a basic lexicon might be more effective than starting out with a few phrases [likely useless] or some basic grammar [no one cares if please a beer, a beer please, or beer a please as far as giving you a beer goes]. Hell, I was even negotiating prices in Prague, and getting clothes my size, and I spoke like two words of the language [ano, nu, and apparently people understood dobar dan, which is not czech and I remembered because of some random reason from this girl who had croatian heritage].

Point is, yeah, it works because people are smart and you had cooperative natives. uncooperative or even indifferent natives will make it impossible to implement your method. Basically, what you're doing is, in D&D terms, using your charisma modifier to learn a language, as opposed to your intelligence modifier like people normally do. Also, small wonder you learn more with two weeks in peru than with two years in the states [or some other non-spanish speaking country]. those were two weeks of roughly all day immersion, whereas normal people learn langs with like two hours per week, which is retarded.

I strongly encourage you to learn more about linguistics, fruit-man [I'm intending that as friendly, not derisive, by the way, your handle doesn't compute with my brain-wiring for whatever reason], and about sociolinguistics and those thingamajigs. That being said, and considering that the Peru experiment doesn't shatter the world, you seem to be inclined in developing a method for immersion-learning, and that's certainly a worthy endeavor. Do consider, however, that *people* are the reason you learned barebones functional broken spanish so quickly. In designing your method, ask yourself: why did people help you learn the lang? how come they did? what did they get out of it? how did the mindset of cooperation and tolerance for the sort of jarringly spoken broken language skills the immersion-learner produces set in? how could someone else elicit the same sort of goodwill towards his langlearning efforts? self-effacing attitude seems to have played a role in it. How did you deal with the frustration of understanding like one in every ten words people said to you, and, I imagine, like one in every 20 words people said to each other in normal speech? were you filling in the blanks, using other channels? that kind of thing

[ashmoonfruit]

Japanese is on my list, but near the bottom. I'm sure the role of dignity in Japan will make that exercise extra challenging, and also offer some unique opportunities for fun. Probably more fun than in Arabic - my Jordanian friend advises me that making a mistake of register when asking for a 'ride' from someone in the Middle East could result in sudden violence! I'll visit Japan first - I'll cope better with the locals being terribly embarrassed on my behalf.

On the subject of literal vs non-literal language, I found this to be one of the main sources of entertainment when learning Spanish in Perú. I had regular exchanges with one of the other workers in the animal sanctuary, playing around with inuendo (which is pretty easy when you're working with monkeys). I'll never forget the look on his face when I described our after-work beer as 'los testiculos del perro' - the following game of 'silly idiom tennis' between us gave rise to one of Latha's idioms: laga jagra (lit. 'monkey penis', 'the best thing').

[ashmoonfruit]

I don't like it when someone who challenges the notions of a discipline, however wrong he may be, is asked "how much training do you have in the discipline you're challenging". It reeks of elitism.

I'm glad you said it. I'm trying not to start any new fights.

I could have a relationship with someone without doing any talking. actually, come to think of it, it sounds like a pretty interesting experiment... going on a 'date' and saying nothing. nothing at all.

Hahaha. If only! Nah, I had to talk to her all the bloody time. I don't mean that. I learned more from her than anyone else. I had to - she had no interest in learning English, or coming to England. Hfff...

Basically, what you're doing is, in D&D terms, using your charisma modifier to learn a language, as opposed to your intelligence modifier like people normally do.

Hahaha! I love this. ...and I'm going to try to get away with it, if I ever play a character with any charisma.

I strongly encourage you to learn more about linguistics, fruit-man [I'm intending that as friendly, not derisive, by the way, your handle doesn't compute with my brain-wiring for whatever reason], and about sociolinguistics and those thingamajigs.

For sure. I am more aware than ever of the importance of linguistics. I'm also rather busy, but that won't stop me.

It's ok, I'm not offended. So, 'ash' is just my name, and 'moonfruit' comes from my free website provider, who gave me the URL you see in my signature. I rather lazily decided to just adopt this as my online ID.

In designing your method, ask yourself: why did people help you learn the lang? how come they did? what did they get out of it? how did the mindset of cooperation and tolerance for the sort of jarringly spoken broken language skills the immersion-learner produces set in? how could someone else elicit the same sort of goodwill towards his langlearning efforts? self-effacing attitude seems to have played a role in it. How did you deal with the frustration of understanding like one in every ten words people said to you, and, I imagine, like one in every 20 words people said to each other in normal speech? were you filling in the blanks, using other channels? that kind of thing

Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. That paragraph is like my stream of consciousness right now.

[finlay]

Dignity.. dunno... but at least in Tokyo, one doesn't just strike up a conversation with anyone. You might have more luck out in the sticks somewhere, as far as I know. But then there are various restaurants and bars you can go to and just chat away with the barman or whoever. Anyway, I tend to be afraid of making a fool of myself personally, so I don't end up doing this sort of thing, at least alone. Also some of those places can close themselves off to foreigners deliberately.

[ashmoonfruit]

How did you deal with the frustration of understanding like one in every ten words people said to you, and, I imagine, like one in every 20 words people said to each other in normal speech? were you filling in the blanks, using other channels?

Interesting point. I found that most people would speak simply to me (taking their cue from me about which words I knew at that point, and sometimes even copying my manner of speech, which was fun for them), and I coped with a mixture of filling in the blanks, guessing, asking for clarification (eg: 'gprthb? que es gprthb?'), and learning really fast. When people were speaking to each other, the pressure to understand was off (since I was not expected to respond), so that was a chance to just listen and understand as much as I could.

The old man whose house I stayed in, however, never got his head around the idea that I knew some Spanish, but not every toothless and half-pissed muttering he emitted. (He was like Father Jack, if you know who that is, but of opposite temperament, fortunately). Again, this was mostly a source of amusement, especially for his wife, who delighted in the opportunity to tell him off every time he used another piece of archaic slang while recounting yet another fishing story.

It wasn't frustrating. It was fascinating, and fun.

[Torco]

soo.. you should go to learn the lang, and not to do anything else which might put pressure on you to understand anything? good point

[Torco]

surely it will work better in a small japanese village with many lonely old ladies and bored kids who have never seen a guailo outside the TV.
oh, wait, guailo is chinese... never mind, a gaijin, was it?.

[Lyra]

Un guiri, tiu, un guiri...

~Lyra