Saturday, August 5, 2017

Sentence mining, or 10.000 sentences

Ok, so there's a bit of misunderstanding about this going on, and not a lot of information.
I suppose people need... forms or something. "Take this, put it in, do this et voilà"

10.000 sentences at Learn Any Language Wiki

Yes, it really is that simple. You take 10.000 sentences, put them on flashcards (when digital, called SRS and suddenly is not flashcards, which are stupid >:->), and learn them. How you do that is your business.
But, the mistakes a lot of people make, are
- using ANY sentence, preferably someone else's...
- using READY WRITTEN "sentence packs", not writing them themselves
- NOT UNDERSTANDING EACH WORD IN THE SENTENCES. Because you are not to learn words but sentences. (rolling eyes).

One of the "things" with this is that YOU CHOOSE THE SENTENCES.
Which means that YOU have to THINK WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO USE THE LANGUAGE FOR and WHY ARE YOU STUDYING THE LANGUAGE.
Of course you can parrot someone else's choices, and you will learn the language, but the point with 10.000 sentences is that you remove the unnecessary junk of language learning. I mean, I have NEVER had the discussion "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, thank you, and how are you? I'm fine, too, thank you." in ANY language. 99% of Finnish courses online start with this practically useless crap, because that's what people think they need to learn.So, think of the situations you imagine you are going to experience and what you would like to be able to say and WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE RESPONSES.
It's all fine to say "Hello, my name is Ketutar, and I am a middle-aged Finnish woman, married, with no children, no pets, blah blah blah", but... who is really interested of any of that information?
"My name is...", sure. "What is your name?". "I am Finnish, where do you come from?". "I love animals, especially cats. What is your favorite animal?". "I want to go to this address, could you help, please?" "I would like to have a cup of tea, with milk, no sugar, and something sweet to eat with it. What kind of pastries do you have?" "No onions, thank you."...
Perhaps you don't plan on traveling as your first reason to learn a language, and then learning how to ask for directions is useless information. At this point of your learning. Maybe you would like to read books in your target language? My reasons to want to learn Russian is a) books, tv series and movies in Russian. b) the huge, amazing and skillful arts and crafts community of Russia, sharing a vast treasure chest of information in Russian only. After that there's plenty of other benefits of knowing Russian, and it would be wonderful to visit Russia some time, as a tourist. But that's in the future and secondary. This means that I should choose my 10.000 sentences from the books I want to read and from the artisan blogs I want to understand, not from phrase books or language courses (either in RL or on the Internet.)

Another thing is that YOU WRITE THE SENTENCE. You, personally, write down every letter, every sign, and you read it when you write it. This would be more effective, if you did it by hand, and not by computer. Nevertheless, using someone else's work robs you of this part of learning.
One of the goals of 10.000 sentences is that you are able to write the sentences. If you just copy something on the internet someone else wrote (or copied), do you know how to write it? Can you reproduce it on a piece of paper with no access to internet?

You find out how to PROPERLY PRONOUNCE the sentence and practice as many times as it takes for you to produce as good a pronunciation as you can. Record your pronunciation and compare with original. The point with this is that every time you see the sentence, you also hear it in your head properly pronounced, and soon you won't be able to separate the two. Every time you say it, you will pronounce it properly, and EVERY TIME YOU HEAR IT, you understand it.

Another thing is that YOU ARE REPEATING A SENTENCE YOU UNDERSTAND, NOT MEMORIZING SENTENCES.
There is a Finnish.. anecdote or something, called "hauki on kala" (pike is a fish). A student studies for biology test by repeating mindlessly the words from the text, and then cannot make any conclusions with this information, cannot expand the sentence, wouldn't be able to say what the pike is NOT, or mention other examples of fishes.
Now, language learning doesn't quite work this way, but this is the idea behind "The sentences should be learned without rote memorization. You will end up "memorizing" the sentences merely through repetition, but your goal should be understanding, not memorization."

Now, I didn't choose my sentences. Or, let's say, I didn't choose them to best fit my intentions with language learning, but because of the "that's the way to do it". I have decided to learn the 100 most commonly used words of Russian, so that's what I'm doing, and as they gave some sample sentences, and as people say "don't learn words, learn sentences", I'm going to learn the 100 most commonly used words in sentences, and what the sentences are, I don't care.
So my first sentence  is "Я живу в Москве"
This sentence is given as a sentence where the most common word in Russian is being used.

To do sentence mining properly, now it's time to understand it and every word in it. This is one part a lot of miners do wrong - or, more precisely, don't do at all. They just learn the sentence and move on.

Now, you are not to just learn the sentence as meaning "I live in Moskva", but you are to deconstruct the sentence.
The individual bits of the sentence are "I" (Я, by the way, is the 4th most common word in Russian), "to live", жить "in", в, and "Moskva" (the native name to Moscow), and IT IS THE DIFFERENCES FROM THE BASIC FORM THAT GIVES US THE INFORMATION WE WANT. Which means that WE NEED TO KNOW THE BASIC FORM to be able to know the difference... :-D

One difference is that the verb ends with -у, and not -ть. Checking other verb endings of 1.sing. I see that they all end with -у or -ю́. (I also notice that the other forms end differently, so Russian has verb conjugation in person. Now, I could learn the inflections the same way I did in school (я живу́, ты живёшь, он живёт, она живет, мы живём, вы живёте, они живу́т), which is actually a very good way of learning them, because it works as a mnemonic device - the repetition of same pattern. It also teaches the pronouns very effectively, but that's not the Sentence Mining way. So not going there.)

The other thing I learn from this sentence is "в Москве". Ah. The only reason I notice that is that I know Moskva is written with A in neutral, basic form.This is why it's important to actually use the native names of places when studying languages. So when using в, I need to remember to change the main word as well. I'll learn how as I go, but as for now, "in" will be "в + -е", not just в.

With this it's irrelevant if you use cloze deletion with your SRS, because the idea with this is the massive exposure to the language, not memorization. You are to SEE the sentences and HEAR them in your mind, if not ears, A LOT. Not just a couple of hours a day, no, a lot. Like ALL THE TIME.
"You’ve been mining your sentences diligently, but you still have trouble even following a conversation let alone participating, right? Maybe you still can’t follow your favorite anime. Right. OK, I have a question for you. How much Japanese are you listening to? Whatever your answer is, I can guarantee you that it hasn’t been enough for long enough yet. Which is why I suggest you: Listen to 10,000 hours of Japanese over the next 18 months."
Khatzumoto at AJATT
Yeah... that's about 18 hours A DAY... He's not kidding with "ALL JAPANESE ALL THE TIME". 

6 weeks' challenge: Russian

Ok... so I'm back. For now.
I don't think I'll ever become a "superpolyglot", because I just lack the tenacity. Whatever. :-D

Anyway, Russian...
I'm trying on a new concept.

On my "6 weeks from zero to C2" plan, day one goes:
learn the alphabet
learn the numbers
deconstruct the language (apple is red)
thank you
good morning
100 most used words on flashcards
put the Omniglot phrases + vocabulary on flashcards
find a radio station of everyday music and talk and listen for 30 minutes of radio

The alphabet. Pretty straightforward. Except for и краткое, твёрдый знак and мягкий знак - short i, hard sign and soft sign. I mean, I know how they work, but remembering the names when reading out the alphabet... eh.
And the fracking esses. I have made cards to try to remember them, you know, like the classic children's alphabet pictures. Zebra, journal, Chekhov, tzar, chess and "shchuka" - the pike.
Why the pike, you might ask. Well... in my mind, the Russians used planes called "pike" during WWII against Finland. Firstly, it wasn't Russians, it was the Germans, and the planes weren't called "pike", but Stukas. The thing is that it's not even pronounced the same way,  Щ is more just another "shsh" sound, but it's SUPPOSED to be "shch" instead of "shsh". And why would the Russians - or anyone - name an airplane after a fish? Doesn't even make any sense! :-D But - mnemonic devices don't need to make any sense, they just need to work :-D I suppose flying fish fighters is a memorable picture.

The numbers are very straightforward as well.
Except for the number 40... :-D
I really like numbers. Oh, and the pronunciation... not so self-evident.

Deconstructing the language

The apple is red. => Яблоко красное.
It is John's apple. => Это яблоко Джона.
I give John the apple. => Я даю Джону яблоко.
We give him the apple. => Мы даём ему яблоко.

He gives it to John => Он даёт это Джону.
She gives it to him. => Она даёт это ему.

Is the apple red? => Яблоко красное?
The apples are red. => Яблоки красные.

I must give it to him. => Я обязан ему это дать.
I want to give it to her. => Я хочу ей это дать.
I'm going to know tomorrow. => Я узнаю завтра.
I have eaten the apple. => Я съел яблоко.
I can't eat the apple. => Я не могу есть яблоко.

useful phrases
Good morning - Доброе утро!
Thank you - Спасибо!

Top 100 Russian words
And here we went haywire... :-D

I love learning words. I love my flashcards. I love the parrot style. Yes, it works. You know, all these people who will tell you that you should absolutely not learn words because they are useless.


Sorry, bullshit.
They are not useless.
I agree in that if you ONLY have words and grammatical rules in your head, you wouldn't be able to use the language very much. The grammatical rules would be pretty... meaningless, the words... very... not fluid. :-D One would be able to make oneself understood, to some extent, get one's basic needs fulfilled, perhaps. "I thirsty".
Now, the pronunciation... with IPA it's possible one would have a pronunciation that's understandable, even when it would not be good. (Well... I actually managed to learn French pronunciation OK - some sounds are even "good". But it's just words.)
So, yes, one cannot learn a language by learning words like a parrot. BUT learning words like a parrot is not useless. That's about the way children learn languages.
All these "learn sentences, learn the words in sentences, not in itself" people forget the very important step of how kids learn languages.
How to Learn Any Language in Two Months, Part 2: SENTENCE MINING
"I put a little food on the table"
"I squeezed a little lemon on my avocado toast"
"I pooped a little on the carpet"
I need to know what is "food" and "table". I need to know what is "lemon" and "avocado toast". I need to know what is "poop" and "carpet". To be able to deduce the grammar "a little" and "on", I need to have the building blocks in between. I mean, how many kids say things like "little mouses" or "little sheeps"? If they had learned the word in context, they would use the correct plural form automatically... but they are deducting. One toy, many toys, one spoon, many spoons, one mouse, many mouses, one sheep, many sheeps...
I could be staring at a sentence in hours without it opening to me if I have NOTHING to go after. There is this story of this man who took a Portuguese book with him to a vacation, and he had basically nothing else to do but try to figure out the book. He had no dictionaries or anything else, just the text in Portuguese, a language he didn't know anything about. He managed to figure out the language well enough to be able to actually read and understand the book during his month-long vacation. Now, I believe he knew some language that is related to Portuguese, or at least some words,  to have SOMETHING to go by.
I mean, look at this and tell me what it is:

 So if you have the 1000 most common words of a language in your vocabulary, in their basic forms, suddenly the sentences make sense and it is possible for you to start deducting and associating and experimenting with sheeps and mouses, and realize that that's not right, and correct your sheep and mice, and the more you see the correct forms, the less you remember the wrong ones. You have to have SOMETHING to be able to USE the sentences.
I mean, you COULD learn to say "Как тебя зовут?" with perfect pronunciation, but if you don't know what you are saying... There is this story of a Swedish guy asking his Finnish friends how to say "I love you" in Finnish so that he can say that to girls on the ferry to Finland, and his friends tell him "minä olen hirvi". Which means "I am a moose". (Я лось in Russian, compared to я люблю тебя.)

This also goes for "don't translate" rule. A lot of people are getting their knickers in a twist because "they can't stop translating!!!". It's not a problem. You stop it when you know the language well enough. 
It's like learning to read. In the beginning we name each letter. We say it out loud. We follow the letters with our finger. Then you start reading the words as pictographs. Then you stop talking. You still say the word in your mind, but you don't say it out loud. Then you stop following the text with your finger. Then you stop voicing the text. Though I still do that. :-D Some people don't "read out loud" in their heads, I've heard. It makes them read faster. I'm OK with my reading speed :-D You start reading whole sentences instead of words, then whole pages instead of sentences, and at that point you are speed-reading. :-D 
The same thing happens with languages. In the beginning you are thinking in your mother tongue, about what you want to say. You don't do that with languages you are fluent in. You don't think what you are saying, you just say it, because you are so used to say it. Most of us aren't even aware of most of what we say. So go ahead and translate as much as you feel like. You will stop it when you are ready.

Anyway, I find SOME basic vocabulary VERY HELPFUL in learning languages, which, of course, happens in context, by using it. By memorizing words you are collecting bricks, not building houses, but you can't build houses without the bricks.

As you see they give sample sentences where the word is being used... and as so many people are talking about "don't learn words, learn sentences", I'm going to try that this time. It shouldn't take that much longer to learn sentences instead of words.
But I suspect it makes my understanding of the language worse, or slower, but, whatever. We'll get there, sooner or later.

So - putting words on flashcards and memorizing them... not going to happen. Putting sentences on flashcards and memorizing them instead. And, yes, with translation.

Finding a radio station: Russian radio stations streaming
I think Russian Hit is a good choice. Good contemporary pop music and ads and a lot of Russian.

Friday, June 30, 2017

Language journaling

You all know these amazing, beautiful language journals that are so satisfying to see... yours probably aren't like that. Mine isn't.

Now, I have a serious journal envy here. Mostly because I KNOW I COULD DO IT if I tried. Or something. I know calligraphy, I can draw, I have all kinds of pens and I know how to use them :-D

So... why am I not doing it?

One of my problems is that most language journals are bound. Which means that I can remove a page that went wrong, or add information in "proper", "logical" place, but I have to start a new page for every piece of information, or have them mixed up in a mess one can't find anything from... :-(
And it will be like that anyway. :-(
(moping)



So... I think I'll just ignore that bit, and just toss them in a journal, and make pretty the parts that I can control. Like... you know... things.

1) make your journal a nice first page.



2) I like having the trackers and counters and calendars and plans and bucket lists in the beginning


 6 months' challenge tracking- Charlotte's language journal

Duolingo tracker - I don't know by whom. :-(
but I like it.


like in most language course books, the next page should be the alphabet and phonology, how to pronounce the language


3) the main body - some people know what they are going to write, which notes they'll make, like Chiazo, and has things like sentence structure, questions and so on. I like to learn those thing "in action". I think I would like to have a page for

- the numbers

- how to say the date; "It's Saturday, 29th of June two thousand nineteen"

- personal pronouns, conjugated

- how to say verbs in present and simple past tense.

- question words

- prepositions or case endings for common use - like, how to say in language "in the box", "outside the box", "over the box", "on top of the box" and so on. (Laatikossa, laatikon ulkopuolella, laatikon yläpuolella, laatikolla, in Finnish. Sometimes a postposition, sometimes a case ending... sorry. :-D)


- "I love you" is actually a very good sentence to learn, because it teaches you the object, accusative :-D I love thee, thou lovest him, he loves us, we love you, you love them, they love me...
Ich liebe dich, du liebst ihn, er liebt uns, wir lieben euch, ihr liebt sie, Sie lieben mich

I give my heart to thee, thou givest your heart to him, he gives his heart to us, we give our heart to you, you give your heart to them, they give their heart to me.
Ich gebe dir mein Herz, du gibst ihm dein Herz, er gibt uns sein Herz, wir geben euch unser Herz, ihr gebt ihnen euer Herz, Sie geben mir ihr Herz.

It is also an easy way to learn possessive pronouns and pronouns in dative - and to understand what accusative and dative are :-D
(And I usually use a book or letter instead of a heart. Heart just fitted "I love you" :-D)

- also some basic sentences, like "thank you", "you're welcome", "hello", "yes" and "no". Makes it a lot easier to watch tv-series and learn more. :-D

- colors - makes it really pretty :-)


3) the vocabulary

No, that page with colors is not part of vocabulary. It probably could be, if you wanted to do it that way, but the best way is to do it like a dictionary,

This is an old German word book. The kids wrote the list of foreign words on one half of the page, and then a translation, and then the book was used so that the kid covered one side of the page and quizzed the words. You know the drill :-D

So, yes. A translation. Totally inspite of the fact, that most words don't have a direct, one word, literal translation, or one meaning. This word is just a clue, one word reminder of what the word could mean. It was never meant to be one word definite, literal translation, never meant to say "this word means exactly this, and cannot, should not, may not be translated any other way!"

I just read a well-meaning but idiotic article about keeping a vocabulary notebook, and I find it hard to think that there are still grown-up people out there, people who are old enough to try to learn a language on their own, WHO DON'T KNOW THAT LANGUAGES ARE ENTITIES THAT CANNOT BE LITERALLY TRANSLATED. What we are translating is the idea conveyed with the language. When you are studying vocabulary, you are studying ideas conveyed by the words, not direct, perfect, literal translations. We are not Google Translate or Babelfish. We are not an Universal Translator. We are not a computer, that doesn't understand that you can't put in a string of words, translate them, and out comes a perfect sentence in foreign language! What comes out is a "Google translation".

"One turtle walked over it street that eat one strawberry"

Well... the thing of course is that you can use your journal, notebook, any which way you want to, and if you want to write down every possible translation and understanding of the word, "What kind of word is it?", "How common is it?", "How do I use it?", "What does it mean?", "How is it pronounced?", "A useful and meaningful example", of course, you can.
Just remember one thing. You are supposed to learn several thousands of words. Are you seriously willing to do that with every one of them?
Nah... only do this with the most important words, and only note the interesting parts. You do not have to gather ALL information into your notebook! It is for NOTES. It is for JOURNALING. It is NOT a dictionary! USE A DICTIONARY!
BTW, I just realized that this might be what makes mathematically thinking people good language learners. We see patterns, correlations, associations, beyond the simple meaning, we are good at trying to convey ideas that are just ideas, not words nor pictures, and one language is just like another...




 Anyway, back to writing vocabulary in your language journal :-D
What ever I say, do it the way you like to do it. I'm not you, what might be stupid for me, might be exactly the right thing for you and vice versa. You might think some of the things I do are really stupid, and for you they would be.






Sunday, June 25, 2017

Are You Addicted To Reading?

Asks  Idahosa Ness in Sound Rehab: A 5-Point Program for Kicking Your Visual-Addiction

Well... are you? ARE YOU?

Good for you, I say.


I am a writer. The best advice, the only advice that ever works is "If you want to get good at writing, write a lot and read a lot". Reading is enjoyable and painless language acquisition. That is basically the only way one gets good at one's mothertongue.
"Improved literacy can contribute to economic growth; reduce poverty; reduce crime; promote democracy; increase civic engagement; prevent HIV/AIDS and other diseases through information provision; enhance cultural diversity through literacy programmes in minority languages; lead to lower birth rates as a result of increased education; and confer personal benefits such as increased self-esteem, confidence and empowerment."

And then we have the Idahosas of the world. *sigh*

So, he advocates learning languages with one's ears instead of one's eyes.
I'm all for using ALL senses to learn everything one can learn.
I'm all against limiting one's options.
What's wrong with learning languages with your ears AND your eyes? And your mouth and hands and, heck, let's throw in nose, too. Olfactory memory is very strong, and way too un-utilized in language learning.

He claims this is flawed logic: “You can't just assume that everyone is an auditory learner like you. Personally, I’m a visual learner so I can’t learn a language unless I can see it.”

It's not. For several reasons.

The most important in this instance is that most languages do have a written form. If it has a written form, it is quite possible to learn that, without ever using one's ears at all.

Another reason is that Idahosa doesn't seem to understand how learning works. When one says "I'm a visual learner", it means that's one's strongest "style", but most people use all the learning styles when they learn. The thing is that a person really doesn't learn well by NOT using their strongest learning style.

What ever anyone tells you, what ever you think, LITERACY IS A GOOD THING.
Now, OF COURSE, you shouldn't rely solely on written text, but it is quite possible to learn a language through writing.
I DIDN'T HAVE ANY FRENCH AUDIO WHEN I LEARNED TO SPEAK IT, I ONLY HAD IPA. MY PRONUNCIATION ISN'T BAD.
There was, of course, several problems, but those were mostly about liaison. I'm certain that I would have gotten even that right, had I had better instructions.

We have hundreds of endangered and dying languages, and writing them down is the only way of preserving them. And we write them down phonetically to preserve the pronunciation. That's the magic of letters and sign and other "little black squiggles".

"Can you read better than you can hear? Can you write better than you can speak? If so, you are visually addicted, and this is your intervention."

Yes, I can. I also have Asperger's Syndrome, I am a musical/mathematical thinker, pattern thinker, if you wish - which means that verbally expressing myself is like a foreign language for me. I suffer from selective mutism. I also have some difficulties with hearing. I find his "intervention" insulting.

What about remembering that people really are different? And that "different" isn't synonymous to "worse" or "lesser"?
What about trying to see that even though you have a lot of great ideas and auditory learning is close to your heart, it really doesn't work as well for everyone, and not everyone has the same goals and aspirations as you do, or the same measurements and qualifications of what counts as learning or knowing a language?

"Here’s the basic model for acquiring and utilizing language in the script-centric paradigm:

Foundation: ortography
Acquisition: through seeing the words written down
Utilization: first visualize the written words, then convert the script into sounds, and then re-create the sound"

Er... No. Not really. Well... I suppose that's the way it works for some people, but I don't know anyone who does it that way.

This is how I do it.

I learn the alphabet, that is, THE SOUNDS of the language. All writing systems are basically phonetic. When a language gets a written form, it is writing down sounds. Every word is a combination of sounds, and a written word is a pictogram of the phonemes.

Then I learn some simple things, like the numbers and some general greetings. I learn the the way they are actually said, not the way they are written, because I understand that there is no universal writing. Every language has its own alphabet, because the alphabet is created to convey the phonology of the language, and all languages don't have the same phonology.

I never learn a word as just a visual thing, just a combination of letters, where the most important thing is how the letters are combined, and if I have the accent or cedilla in the right place. No, a written down word in a flashcard is always accompanied with the proper pronunciation. I read "chat" as /tʃæt/ if it's English, /ʃa/ if it's French and /ʃat/ if I don't know what language it is, because I'm Finnish.

Now, because I am a pattern thinker, I don't have a visual or auditory dictionary, card cabinet or phrasebook in my head. So, this theory is extremely irritating, this theory of those who advocate for non-traditional methods of learning languages, that we are stupid slow ineffective troglodytes, like some kind of geriatric monks because we have to go to the filing cabinet, and find the correct word first in our mothertongue and then go to another cabinet and translate it, and then go to a third cabinet and use grammar, and it all takes hours and hours, while the trimmed race horses who have learned the languages intuitively and auditory, like babies, have run around the monastery and had hundreds of discussions while we are still calligraphying the first word on the pergament. *sigh*

So - let's go through the "potential errors" Idahosa lists.

"Your native reading habits are deeply ingrained, so it can mess up your “script-sound converter“
No. My native reading habits are for reading my native language. As I said, I learn every word in the language I learn them, even if I used the word in my native language to understand the word. Like "Chat is cat in French". In real time it happens a lot faster. More like this:
In my head it's just... I just know it. It's not a sound or a picture or a word, it's... It's impossible to try to convey a pattern mind with words or images. THIS is how my mind works. Where's the cat?


And inspite of how you write the word, chat in French is never read chat in English even if you have been reading billions of words in English, because when you are reading French, chat is /ʃa/, not /tʃæt/. I don't know enough French to know if there even is /tʃæt/ in French.
"more than half of people’s pronunciation errors come from saying foreign words according to native orthographical conventions."
More than that, I would say... though perhaps they have been taught wrong, or perhaps they are physically incapable of producing the sound required. Nevertheless, I have thought it's accent, and that's totally fine. I mean, it should be fine for me to have a Finnish accent, I AM Finnish. And the point with communication should be communication, and not some "do you pass as a native" fluency test. 
 "Hearing and Speaking Can Become Inflexible"
Of course. But I don't assume the colloquial, spoken language is static and like writing. I don't always speak grammatically perfect or well-articulated, and I don't think anyone else does either. In Finnish the spoken language and the written language differ quite a lot. So why the heck would I limit my concept of the language to its existence on paper?

"A Meta-Thinking Habit Can Develop"
Sure, it can. It doesn't matter. Everyone thinks about things when they discuss things. It's OK for those things to be the nasty rash, that odd bird you saw, conjugation or spelling rules. It doesn't matter if the thing I'm thinking about is connected with the language. IT DOES NOT SLOW ME DOWN. It doesn't slow anyone down. The human brain is such an amazing thing that it can do those thoughts and calculations and everything necessary in nanoseconds. No-one will notice anything. It doesn't effect your fluency in any way. THE ONLY THING IT EFFECTS IS YOUR SELF-CONFIDENCE. Now, that is not good, but THE EFFECT IS THE SAME AS WHEN YOU START THINKING THE SHORT I IN TIJUANA IS NOT THE SAME SHORT I AS IN TICK, AND OBSESSING ABOUT YOUR PRONUNCIATION NOT BEING PERFECT.
The people will understand you even when you speak Rally English. BECAUSE SPOKEN LANGUAGE IS BASICALLY FOR COMMUNICATING AND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER. People will ask if they don't understand you. It's OK to not sound like a native and still speak. It's better you sound like the foreign noobie you are, than that you sound like a native speaker. A 10 years old native speaker.

"Some people can balance the sound and script in their head well enough to avoid most complications, which is why it’s still possible for someone to achieve foreign language fluency in this model."
Most polyglots have learned their languages like that. For example Benny Lewis, Tim Doner, David Tammet, Matthew and Michael Youlden, Alexander Arguelles...

"In my experience as a language-teacher and accent-coacher for thousands of people"
I think you mean "a language teacher and accent coach"... But what do I know. English isn't my mothertongue. (It's Idahosa's, though, and I do know.) Uh. That was mean.

"In my experience as a language-teacher and accent-coacher for thousands of people, however, I’ve come to realize that the vast majority of people CANNOT achieve this balance so easily."
Well... I would say they need to do it the way I do it, but - what ever works for them is good.

Anyway, Idahosa then goes on to explain the "Sound-centric language acquisition".

Foundation: phonology
Acquisition: through hearing the words
Utilization: recall the sound and reproduce it

"You should notice right away that the sound-centric model is much simpler than the script-centric one (I guess that's why it's the preferred language learning model for babies)"

I don't see it as "much simpler".

Step 1) foundation: ortography/phonology
Step 2) acquisition: through eyes/ears
Step 3) remember the written word/remember the sounds that create the word
Step 4) read the word/repeat the word

What is with this obsession with babies? Babies aren't really that good at learning languages. First you are in a very sensory deprived space for 9 months, where you basically only hear what your mother says. Then you spend about a year just trying to control your mouth and repeating sounds. Then you spend a year trying to control your mouth and repeat specific sounds, and desperately try to be understood. After having studied the language for almost three years, you still speak 1-2 word sentences that mostly focus on your needs. You can say "hungry". "banana". "mom". All this time, you mostly hear only one language and most people deliberately use very simplified version of the language around you. Babies way of learning languages is extremely ineffective and really not something I would use as an attractive example of how good my method of learning languages is.

Quite a lot of parents have chosen to teach their children sign language, to give them a chance to actually communicate before they have mastered the sounds.

"On top of that, the Foreign Language Education industry has done nothing but nurture our visual addiction. They know people won’t buy their products unless they pump them full of eye-ball crack. In big-business, the goal of “produce as many fluent speakers as possible” will always be trumped by the goal of “produce as much revenue as possible."

Says the man who sells his language course (BASIC, mind you - this course is just the foundation. You'll learn to pronounce the phonemes of the language.) for $197.00
With that money, you'd get
Pimsleur WHOLE Spanish AND Portuguese course Gold Edition, or
Rosetta Stone Spanish course with Lifetime Access on iOS.
You could get 2 1/2 years subscription to +Babbel.
Assimil Spanish AND Portuguese Super Pack.
You could get six different language courses, from beginner to advanced, by Living Language. Including free online learning.
The same with "Teach Yourself..."

So... If I was he, I wouldn't say a thing about producing revenue.

But I suppose "Big Pharma" is a biggie here. Tell people there's a conspiracy theory and they are wasting their moneys, and they will come running to spend their moneys on your product.

Also, he might have wanted to look at these "Foreign Language Education Industry" products. I don't think any of them come without audio. Some of them are based on the "repeat after me" principle. The text is there to give the correct spelling, grammar and some additional information to those who want it.

Having said that, I think he has a good thing going, he's good at what he is doing and if you have 200 dollars to put on a speech coach, go for it. It is worth it.

"I always found it strange how language-learners know so much about obscure grammar concepts like the past plu-perfect bubonic subjunctive and the modular gerundial kryptonic splunk-dicative, but whenever I ask them to explain simple phonetic concepts like the difference between the /t/ sound and the /d/ sound, they act as if I were expecting them to know nuclear physics."

Mocking someone else's special terminology will most certainly make them willing to learn your  Vulvular Passive-egressive Ferengis and Glottalic Subape hissifits. Yes, special terminology is difficult, unless one uses it all the time. I'm not expecting you to know what the correct name for verb tenses is, and you don't expect me to be able to explain to you the difference of a voiced and voiceless alveolar stop, OK?

And, no, I don't need to know THE WORDS for what my tongue does where in my mouth. I just have to be able to do that.

He is right about "it doesn’t take much to develop a practical knowledge of phonetics and speech physiology." I am the first to admit I would not have been able to learn OK pronunciation of languages without phonetics and speech physiology. But - I need them because I learn from texts.

"For example, one can predict that a native Spanish speaker will have trouble with the /i/ vowel from English words like “bit” and “sit” since it does NOT exist in Spanish. That’s why pronouncing words like “bit” and “sit” as “beet” and “seat” are characteristics of the typical Spanish accent."

Now, I am not good at hearing the differences between sounds, but I really can't hear any difference between the i in pico de gallo and pickhack. I have also never heard anyone call the Southern neighbor of USA to "Meheeco".

"Similarly, an English speaker almost always articulates the /e/ vowel as a diphthong /ei/, so we can expect him to pronounce /e/ vowels in other languages this way too."

I have also never heard anyone having had seix in beid. But, as said, I'm Finnish, not Native English speaker.

Oh... there I go again. I do know. There is no difference. This guy is wrong, and that makes me very suspicious about his capacity to speech coach anyone. I mean... how could he not be aware of that there IS /i/ in Spanish? "Sí, mis cinco hijas son bonitas"? Has he seriously learned to say that "see, mees cheenco eechas son boneetas"? And he's supposed to teach me the proper pronunciation of Spanish? For 200 dollars? Seriously?

Uh. I really wish he didn't speculate like that. Because the advice he gives is very good.

1) learn phonetics, speech physiology and IPA
2) check out the phonology of your target language and compare that to your own, to catch the probably pitfalls. Note what causes you problems and work on that.
3) record yourself, and ask native speakers correct your pronunciation
4) To learn to speak, you have to speak. To learn to listen, you have to listen. Do what you want to learn.

"Personally, I never set out to “learn a language,” I set out to “learn to communicate with people of a different culture.” And as long as sound is what people are chiefly relying on to communicate with one another, then sound is what I’m going to focus on."

Personally, I love to learn new things, and languages are a big part of that.
I mostly want to learn to read and write, which is why I focus on reading and writing.
I also wish to communicate with people who don't speak my language, but I do that on the internet, in writing, because I have bad social phobia, I don't do social interaction. I am not going to travel, or go to a polyglot meeting, or skype with someone. I find it hard enough to call my sisters.

So - my "addiction to script" is not unhealthy, nor is it an addiction, and I have no reason to get rid of it.


P.S. The language community loves to speak about "his pronunciation stinks, so he doesn't speak the language", or "He only speaks very rudimentary, simple form of the language, has a very poor vocabulary and makes a lot of mistakes, so he doesn't speak the language". So, let's talk about "I speak 10 languages, but I'm illiterate in all of them". Do you KNOW a language if you can't read and write it?


Friday, March 10, 2017

How to learn a language in 10 days

Yes, it is quite possible to learn a language in 10 days.

This is the short of it because if you want to learn a language in 10 days, you probably don't want to "waste time" by reading a lot of text. :-D

Day 1: you learn the alphabet PERFECT PRONUNCIATION LIKE A NATIVE, you learn the numbers - ALL OF THEM, WITH PERFECT PRONUNCIATION, you learn a handful of useful phrases.
You use them wherever you can.

Day 2: you learn the 1000 most frequent words, PERFECT PRONUNCIATION, ALL INFLICTIONS AND COMMON DERIVATES.
You use them as much as you can. Name everything around you. Talk to yourself. Try to create as many sentences as you can with the words you have.

Day 3: you learn the 2000 next common words, PERFECT PRONUNCIATION, ALL INFLICTIONS AND COMMON DERIVATES.
You use them as much as you can. Name everything around you. Talk to yourself. Try to create as many sentences as you can with the words you have.

Day 4-10: You will read, write, listen and speak the language. The more you do this, the better chances you have to actually succeed in learning the language. Verify your output and understanding.

To improve your chances to succeed, find someone (or preferably more than one) who is a native speaker of the language and talk with them.

Now comes the long of it.

You just need to put in a LOT of work. Don’t expect to be able to do anything, but study and use the language. Everything you need to do, like eat and sleep, should happen in the target language.
If you want to learn a language in 10 days, you HAVE to put in at least 10 hours of work every day.
And I mean WORK. Intentional, focused, active, and determined. Now, a human being cannot do this for longer than 10-15 minutes at a time, if even that, so when you notice your focus starting to wander, take a pause, stretch a bit, and get back to work. 

Also, you shouldn’t expect to learn it well or to be very fluent. It takes generally about 500 hours to learn a language, and there are only 240 hours in 10 days, even if you could study 24/7 for 10 days.
What you should expect is to get to a 5 year old child's level of language. And that is knowing the language. Might not know it well, might not be able to have advanced discussions with people, might not be able to pass tests, but you will know the language and be able to express yourself in it.

Remember to sleep at least 8 hours every night, remember to drink a lot of water, and eat little but sensibly. No sweets and junk food.
See yourself as a race car - you wouldn't put in the tank any crap, and expect the car to function optimally, would you? Then you should treat your body as the tool and instrument it is, and give yourself the best circumstances.
And take a walk in fresh air every hour or so. At least once a day.

Day 0

You need to take this seriously. Which means that you need a word frequency list for YOU. You don't want to learn words and sentences that are important to someone else. You want to be able to say what YOU want to say.
To do this, you need to collect the words that are important to you. So... how to do this?

Write a list of things you want to be able to say. (In any language)
Write a list of things you actually say most days.
Write down things you do most days - describe your day. "I get up, I brush my teeth, I feed the cats..."
If you are active on some social media, copy your latest posts and add them to the list.
List all the items in your home and what they are used for or what you do with or to them. Like "door, I open, close, and lock it. Wall. It's needed to keep up the ceiling and to hang things on. Floor. I walk on it and I put furniture on it. Ceiling. It's there to keep the rain away and to hang lamps on. Bookshelf. Book. DVDs. Television. Armchair. Wardrobe. Clothes. Shirt, skirt, dress, pants, underwear... Fridge. Tomatoes, milk, coffee, tea, cup, saucer, plates, spoon, fork... You get the idea. Yes, every damn thing in your home. (Don't you wish you were a minimalist now and only owned 100 items? :-D No, I'm just talking about myself. I am a maximalist, I like things, and I have the weirdest, oddest things in my home I don't know the names of even in Finnish. And then I have the most specialized things for arts and crafts and baking. I mean... "serrated knife" isn't something most people use every day.

You will need 3000 words, and to get that, you will need to generate some 12.000 words of text. It's about 25 pages.

Now, this isn't all that serious. It is OK to use any word frequency list to fill up your list. I would not ignore this step, though, because you need to learn a language YOU can USE. Most people use only 2,500-3,500 different words in their everyday speech.

Now, if you can't possibly gather a personal word list of 3000 words, it's OK to take just any word frequency list and fill up the list.

Take this list and separate the words. You can use this tool: Word Frequency Counter. It can handle 3000-word texts. I don't know its limits. Maybe it can handle 12.000 words as well.
Then you need to reduce the list to reasonable lexemes. The word frequency counter counts "know", "knowledge", "known" and "knew" as different words. I count those as variants of one word. You do as you think is wise.
Like I - me - my - mine - myself are one word. For me to be able to say I know the word "I", I have to be able to inflect it and know that the different inflected forms are just "I" looking different.

Or you translate all these sentences, express the idea you want to express, in the language you want to learn, and do the frequency list with that. This is a bit more difficult, I would use my mother tongue (or the language I use most often) to do the list and just ignore the "you shouldn't TRANSLATE!!!". Come on! You are always translating, whether it is ideas, images, words, or thoughts. Most people don't think in full sentences of any language, but they most certainly have to express themselves in somewhat full sentences to be understood.

Day 1

  1. Learn the alphabet of the language. Do it the “old school” “A, B, C, D…” style. Record your pronunciation and polish it until there are no big differences. A written language has most of the phonemes of it in the alphabet. This shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.
  2. Learn the “Useful phrases” on Omniglot (or some other phrase list, if your language doesn't have Omniglot phrases). This, too, shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, topmost.
  3. Learn the numbers, 0–100, and 1000, 10.000, 100.000 and 1.000.000
This will do for the first day. On the evening of the first day, you should be able to know all this, be able to say it and be understood, understand it when said to you, and understand when you read it and write it. If you can’t do all four, study more until you can.

It is important to get the pronunciation right! Most words are pronounced as they are written BUT IN THE LANGUAGE. The French words are pronounced as they are written IN FRENCH. So even if you are just reading quietly in your mind, you should mind your pronunciation. Even if you never plan to speak the language with anyone. Learn the correct pronunciation when you learn a word. Take "horse", "hoarse" and "whores". There is a subtle difference there in the pronunciation. Most Finns cannot hear nor produce the difference. Or "they're, their, there".
To get it right, listen to Idahosa Ness. There are plenty of videos online where he presents his method. LISTEN to what he says and LISTEN to yourself when you place your tongue in different places in your mouth. It might take some time to learn to intentionally and consciously use your mouth, but it is invaluable when learning languages! And I am a language learner who studies languages to be able to READ.

Days 2–3. 


Learn the 3000 most frequently used words of your language by heart. It shouldn’t take more than 2 days. Yes, this is totally mechanical, cramming your head, rote learning, parroting.

Just remember, you have to be able to pronounce the words understandably, know them when you hear them, understand them when you read them, and be able to write them. 

You should learn the nouns in singular and plural, and know how to express the word in definite and indefinite form if your language has those. (And, frankly, you should be able to conjugate it in all cases, if your language has noun cases. Sorry, but they are pretty simple forms, and in reality, you just need to learn the exceptions, and the rest is logical, self-evident, and obvious - when you know the rule.
And you really should know the rule. I can promise you that when you have learned, let’s say “kissa, kissat, kissan, kissojen, kissan, kissat, kissaa, kissoja, kissana, kissoina, kissaksi, kissoiksi, kissassa, kissoissa, kissasta, kissoista, kissaan, kissoihin, kissalla, kissoilla, kissalta, kissoilta, kissalle, kissoille, kissoitta, kissoin, kissoineen”, “koira, koirat, koiran, koirien, koiran, koirat, koiraa, koiria, koirana, koirina, koiraksi, koiriksi, koirassa, omg will this crap never end”, you will very quickly learn the basic rule of cases in Finnish, and learn to see the case suffixes as postpositions.)

You should be able to know the comparative forms of every adjective

You should be able to conjugate the verbs in present AND simple past tense, in all persons. (that is; “I know, you know, he, she, it knows, we know, you know, they know - I knew, you knew, he, she, it knew, we knew, you knew, they knew”)

2 days.

Days 4–10


Play with your new toys, and see how many sentences you can form with them.
 If you don’t have a word for a sentence you want to make, find it out and learn it.

Write a diary with your new words. At least 10 sentences. It doesn’t need to be elaborated and advanced and fancy. “today I woke up at 9 a.m. It is rainy. I took a shower. I made myself a cup of coffee. I eat cereals with orange juice. I have a cat. Her name is Daisy. She is cute. I love her. It’s evening now. I watched the Aquaman. I don’t like it. I ate popcorn. Good night.” 
Publish it on iTalki notebooks or Lang8 or CorrectMyText and get it corrected. (MyLanguageExchange might be helpful too, I don't know much about that.)

3 Fun Ways to Do Some Mighty Fine Foreign Language Writing

Then go and read it up aloud on Lingora and get your pronunciation evaluated.

Now, you can try a voice recognition program, for example, https://www.speechtexter.com/ but it might not be that good. Siri comes to mind :-D But - it CAN give you SOME guidance in what you need to be more careful with. Also, it needs Google Chrome.

Read. At least 10 pages of a fiction book written for people over 10 EVERY DAY.
And not just mechanically read. Understand what you read. And don’t use a translator. Use a dictionary. Yes, I do expect you to find out every damned word and translate it so that you understand what the text says. You don’t need to create a good translation of the text, though, just to understand it.
The more you read, the less you need your dictionary and the more of the language you learn.
You will develop a sense of the language and get the grammar in your spine, and you will use good language just because your language sense won’t let you use bad grammar. This is why you should keep reading at least 10 pages ever after if you want to improve your newly acquired language and actually get fluent in it one day.

Listen to the radio (in the language you want to learn, of course) from the moment you wake up to when you go to bed.
Find a song you like in the language with audio (for example a video on YouTube), learn the lyrics, and sing a long. Doesn’t matter that you can’t sing. No-one cares.
One song every day. At least one song.
It’s OK if it’s a translation or “language B version” of a popular song in another language. That’s just great because then you know the melody.

Watch at least 2 episodes of a TV series or 1 movie in the language, without subtitles (or subtitles in the language you are studying), every day. Basically, this is just a listening and understanding exercise, but if you want to improve your chances of learning the language, you can do more.
Google uses movies and television to learn a language.
-fluent in 3 months of movies
-joy of languages - learn a language by watching tv
-fluentU - learning languages through movies
-I will Teach You Any Language - is watching movies really a good way to learn languages? (no, but he gives good tips at the end of the article)
- Duolingo discussion about using television to help learn languages 
- can you learn a new language by watching movies?
- mosalingua: how to learn a language with movies and series
- how films can help you teach a language
- the television trick to learn new languages

Talk with imaginary friends. Or enemies. Pretend to live in the world of your favorite book or TV show. Or videogame or whatever rocks your boat. If that doesn’t rock your boat, train for future situations you plan using your language in.

Describe everything you do, all the time. Preferably out loud, but quietly in your head, if you don’t want people to stare at you like you were an idiot. ("Now I’m brushing my teeth, now I’m making myself a cup of tea… I take the mug out of the cupboard, I fill the kettle with water, I put the teabag in the mug, I wait for the water to boil… here I am at the corner shop, I see oranges, I see bananas, I see I don’t know what that is, and I’m sure I don’t want to know, now I’m taking some tomatoes, one tomato, two tomatoes, three tomatoes…")
Write Post-its as a memory aid and put them all over your home. 

Write your shopping lists in the target language. Name all the things you see in the shop. Think about the discussion at the counter. Ask the cashier if they speak your language and if they do, ask them to serve you in that language.

Record yourself speaking and post it on YouTube. If you put a challenging title to it, like “I bet you can’t find anything to correct in my —-ish!”, I’m pretty sure at least someone will come and tell you what you are doing wrong :-D “Please, help me learn and correct my —-sh” will probably not work well.
You can just do the ordinary “add1” or some other challenge thing, these usually have prompts about what you can say, or just copy people. (Except that if you are a Russian guy, don’t say “I’m a middle-aged Finnish woman”. Or you could, of course, say that. As said, whatever rocks your boat.) You could repeat those phrases you learned on day 1, and the words you learned on days 2 and 3, numbers, your word play, or whatever. Or you could record those imaginary conversations. Or play the conversations from the book you just read or the TV series.

Now, if you aren’t really introverted and shy and all that, you have an even better chance to learn a language. Get yourself at least one tutor on Skype or something like that, and live chat with them for at least one hour every day. Preferably get more than just one person to do this with. The more you use the language, actively use the language, try to remember the words you have learned, and not just look them up in a dictionary, try to form sentences and express yourself, try to be understood and understand, the more you learn and the better you get. The invaluable benefit of this is that you have someone who is there specifically to correct your language and fix the errors and mistakes as they happen, so that you won’t go around days, perhaps even years, having learned wrong, someone who IS fluent in the language and who KNOWS how it is used.

It’s highly possible that someone, who lives where you live, speaks the language you are trying to learn. Find them and talk with them.

HelloTalk
iTalki
Speaky
Tandem

Learn a Language by Talking Online with These 5 Tools!


If you have a specific reason to learn the language, sit down and think up the specific words you need for that reason, specific sentences you might need to say or that would be good to say, and several possible responses. Find out how to say this, and learn it by heart.
Learn the specific vocabulary for the occasion. Replace some of the 3000 words (like words for banana, quarterback, and satellite) with words that will be more useful for you.

If you have access to some professionally created language courses, great! Use them. Divide the material with the time you have, for example, if there are 30 lessons in a course, and you have 10 days - 10 hours every day, you will need to go through and learn 3 lessons every day. Start and end the day with a lesson, and put the last in the middle of the day.

The following is not important for this challenge, but if you want to continue with the language, I recommend you start doing this on day 11.
People who study languages with the fluidity and "passing as a native speaker" aspect in mind have noticed, that you don't only need to SOUND like a native, you need to LOOK like a native as well. So find some material with a native speaker saying things in front of a camera and copy their facial expressions and movements, especially how their mouth moves, in front of a mirror - or camera - and train until you get it right. Look at documentaries and copy how people move, how they move their bodies when they speak, how they sit, how they interact, how they stand when they speak with other people, and copy that.