Survey on language learning beliefs

[Shm Jay]

http://ronpeek.com/lime/index.php

[Gulliver]

Done!

[Gojera]

Done!

[Ser]

Done!

Also, it just made me realize that it's soon gonna be 5 years since I started learning Mandarin. And it's still as shitty as shit. Makes wanna cry.

It'd be cool to see all the tips at the beginning of section 3 put together, but whatever. I gave my e-mail so I may at least get to see some of the results that Ron Keen got.

[Viktor77]

Done! That was long.

My tips were:

1. Learn phonetics before learning grammar.
2. Force yourself to speak, even if to yourself.
3. Obtain a knowledge of general grammar before learning a foreign language.

[Cathbad]

Done - very interesting indeed! Although I forgot to mention that a basis in linguistics helps enormously, in all fields... but maybe that's kind of self-evident.

[Gulliver]

Done - very interesting indeed! Although I forgot to mention that a basis in linguistics helps enormously, in all fields... but maybe that's kind of self-evident.

I'm not sure how true I think this is… I don't think any explicit knowledge of linguistics makes much of a difference beyond the very early stages. I mean "gender does not mean boys and girls, it means noun class" might be helpful… but more generally, I'm not too sure.

[Åge Kruger]

I thought the tips were for learning many languages, so I didn't give any, but if I were give to give tips on how to learn any language, I would say:
1. Spend as much time as possible with the language
2. Use an SRS
3. Shadow

[Skomakar'n]

2. Use an SRS

Sexual reassignment surgery?

[Åge Kruger]

2. Use an SRS

Sexual reassignment surgery?

No, don't be silly, Special Repair Service.

[Cathbad]

Done - very interesting indeed! Although I forgot to mention that a basis in linguistics helps enormously, in all fields... but maybe that's kind of self-evident.

I'm not sure how true I think this is… I don't think any explicit knowledge of linguistics makes much of a difference beyond the very early stages. I mean "gender does not mean boys and girls, it means noun class" might be helpful… but more generally, I'm not too sure.

Well, that's precisely it. Knowing the difference between (e.g.) "perfective" and "imperfective" is very useful... to know what aspect/tense to use, etc.

[Torco]

bit long, will probably try again later.

[Jipí]

Done!

[Skomakar'n]

2. Use an SRS

Sexual reassignment surgery?

No, don't be silly, Special Repair Service.

I didn't know of anything else with that acronym.

What's a special repair service?

[Ser]

I didn't know of anything else with that acronym.

What's a special repair service?

It really stands for "spaced repetition system". It's about software like Anki, Supermemo and others, that encourage route memorization using flashcards, but going over them or a fraction of them every day or so over a long period of time.

For a different opinion, I find them painful and useless myself, YMMV.

[Qwynegold]

@Shm Jay: Are you Ron Peek?

[Jashan]

Did it. My tips were:

1) Immerse yourself in the language / isolate yourself away from your native language

(That is, if you're in Italy learning Italian, don't go hang out with Anglophones.)

2) Speak as often as possible -- don't be embarrassed about messing up.

3) Buy kids' books and movies with subtitles to help gain exposure and vocabulary.

(Kids books and things like Disney movies, you're probably going to be able to follow the story even if you miss details, and they tend to use simpler words and constructions for beginners, so you'll get more everyday vocabulary like "walk" and "see" and "shout" instead of stuff like "ambled", "observed", and "exclaimed")

[Shm Jay]

@Qwynegold: No.

[Åge Kruger]

I didn't know of anything else with that acronym.

What's a special repair service?

It really stands for "spaced repetition system". It's about software like Anki, Supermemo and others, that encourage route memorization using flashcards, but going over them or a fraction of them every day or so over a long period of time.

For a different opinion, I find them painful and useless myself, YMMV.

I've never had much success remembering words using any other method (I can't be arsed with mnemonic memory techniques). My cards have audio and pictures, though, so that makes them more exciting (although, SRS isn't meant to encourage rote memorisation, but to move words from your short-term memory to your long term memory). My current stack of decks has about 1500 items, and I study maybe 150 cards a day, usually in the morning for about forty minutes.

How do you memorise vocabulary?

[jal]

How do you memorise vocabulary?

Reading sentences that contain them, preferably a lot, and preferably without other unknown words, and preferably if also the context makes it clear what is meant. Semantic memorization, that is. Studying word lists doesn't work for me, at all (to give you an idea: in school I usually had 3/10 for learning vocabulary using word lists, though I had a 9/10 total on my highschool exams overall).


JAL

[jal]

Shouldn't we warn the survey author that his survey is being invested by language geeks, and his results may be a bit skewed? :)


JAL

[Ser]

How do you memorise vocabulary?

I hate memorizing vocabulary, I see it only as a painful thing you do when starting to learn a language where most roots are alien (e.g. Chinese). And even then that's only for familiarization purposes with the words, using a single simple translation. (Unless you want to spend a huge amount of time adding comprehensive translations to the flashcards, you generally just use a single simple equivalent to another language, which teaches you little anyway (two words between two languages aren't often equivalent to each other, having various usages, and then you have to consider collocation, such as what verbs you use with what nouns)). Other than that, I just learn new words in context by guessing what they mean or actually looking them up in a dictionary.

Did you input the whole 1500 entries yourself? I for once can't stand spending time on that either, but on the other hand I can't find made sets that I like for my languages.

Shouldn't we warn the survey author that his survey is being invested by language geeks, and his results may be a bit skewed?

Was thinking the exact same thing, we're not normal language learners at all in the first place.

[Viktor77]

How do you memorise vocabulary?

My method is use. I read stories and translate words, so for example, in my Spanish cuento class we read a story and there was a Spanish word the class didn't know, surtidor, so my professor explained the meaning in Spanish. I found the word interesting and used it in a poem, this ingrained it in my mind. I still don't know the translation in English because I make every attempt to learn new vocab without translations. This is especially helpful with words which convey especially complex meanings such as Spanish estertor último. Just due to the nature of the meaning I remembered it, and it didn't help that I don't even know the equivalent in English. When you can say a word in Spanish and can't find a translation in English, the world stands out as memorable. So basically I try to find something meaningful about each word to give me a reason to memorise it and then I use it as much as possible.

[Radius Solis]

Well shit. I took the survey and when I got to the end it only told me sorry, you were inactive too long and your session has expired, If they don't want people to take the time to give well-thought answers they shouldn't ask so many interesting questions on the same page. Fuck them.

[Lyhoko Leaci]

Well shit. I took the survey and when I got to the end it only told me sorry, you were inactive too long and your session has expired, If they don't want people to take the time to give well-thought answers they shouldn't ask so many interesting questions on the same page. Fuck them.

I was gone for around 1-1.5 hours in the middle of the survey and never got that result...