Friday, June 29, 2018

The Goldlist Method

 Uncle Davey's Goldlist Method

This is another method of learning without learning. You just write words in a list, and they somehow magically transfer into your memory.
Now, I really don't believe this, but there are people who swear by this, so who am I to say anything different.

So - how this works.

1. have an A4 notebook. Choose one you think is beautiful, precious, enjoyable.(Though the person who invented this uses an ordinary hardcover composition notebook. Nothing precious about it.)
2. open a page. Write the date on top. Then write 25 words on it. Write them with all the necessary information, like if it's masculine, feminine, strong verb etc. Write them as beautifully and carefully and neatly as you can, slowly and enjoying the esthetic impact and the writing. It is also good if you choose the most comfortable, enjoyable place to write these words, and make it a nice experience, with something good to drink.
3. Read out loud the list.
4. Close the book and don't open this page in at least two weeks.

Next day - or when ever after 20 minutes - you open the book on next page and repeat this - write the date, write 25 words.

And so on. Rinse and repeat.

Step 2.
14+ After at least 14 days (it can be more) go back to your list and distill it.
Write 17 of those 25 words on top of the page 2 of the opening.
Choose the ones that are hardest for you to remember.
Again, pay attention to enjoying the lines and writing.
When you are done, you read up the list out loud and close the book, and forget all about it the next two weeks.

Step 3.
28+ After at least 14 days, go back and distill it.
Now it's 12 words.

Step 4.
42+ After at least 14 days, go back to your list and distill it.
Now it's 9 words


Step 5.
56+ After at least 14 days, go back and distill it.
Take a new book. If possible, this one should be even more beautiful than the first one. This will be your Silver Book.
Take the first 4 pages, the first 100 words of the first book, and pick 25 words from the 9 words' lists.

Step 6.
70+ After at least 14 days, go back to your list and distill it.
Write 17 of those 25 words on top of the page 2 of the opening.

Step 7.
84+ days after you started 17 become 12

Step 8.
98+ days later, 12 become 9

Step 9.
112+ days from the beginning, you'll be able to start your Gold book.
Start a new book, this time the most beautiful, precious book you can find.
Write the hardest 25 words from the first 4 pages of the Silver Book on the list. Then you repeat the procedure for steps 10, 11 and 12.
And that's it.

For every Goldbook page, you have learned 400 words. It will have taken 155+ days, about 5 months.


Now, I'm not that into this and my math can be wrong, but... that sounds like a huge waste of time. Because all this time I have not been able to use the words. If I had used flashcards to learn those 25 words by heart with the what ever it was called method, I would have learned 3600 words and I would have been able to use them from day 1.

Because day 1 words would have been
1: no
2: hello, hi, good day or some sort of variant of this
3: I
4: no
5: speak
6: -ish
7: you
8: English
9: please
10: thanks
11: what
12: is
13: this
14: yes
15: help
16-25 numbers 1-10


I... find it hard to believe this works, because as Bartosz says, the "science" behind it is total... er... not correct. But - I really don't care about the science babble, I care about if the method works, and there's a lot of people who say it does. I don't need to know why it works, and unlike Bartosz, I'm not ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I'm not ready to ignore it just because the explanation stinks.

Also, I find the claim unbelievable, that "you just remember these words, and when this library is activated, you will be speaking the language fluently". And apparently it is activated by someone speaking the language to you. It would be nice, if it worked that way.

Also, I haven't been able to find out how Lydia Machova has learned the languages she speaks. She mentions text books and audio, and Goldlist doesn't use those things, so I don't think she uses it as much as she makes it seem. And that makes me very suspicious.

I sincerely don't think this method is "popular" among polyglots. It is too slow. The only practical application I can think of, is to use it on a language I'm planning to learn, in the future.



But - I'm willing to try. Even if it would only give me 20 minutes of calligraphy time, that would be quite nice. And - so many people say it works, maybe it does work.

Now, the "record" is 15000 lines in 70 days, that's about 8-10 pages a day. Now... if this really works, that would be very nice.  That means I would get a 15.000 words' vocabulary in 225 days, with practically no effort. The only thing it would cost is the composition notebooks (you'll need 18 of the 100 pages ones or 25 of the 70 pages ones), and the time it takes to write 8-10 pages every day.

Updates 5/8 2020
I chose Latin for this exercise, because it's on my list of languages I want to learn, but not a priority, it's easy to find sample sentences, that has been parsed "to death",  and I don't mind not seeing it the rest of the time.
I suppose I did something wrong, because I didn't learn the sentences. I can understand what I read, and when my priority is to read in foreign language, then it's kind of perfect, but Uncle Dave promises we actually learn the language, and that did not happen. I couldn't repeat one sentence from the books. So - it doesn't work for me. It's basically just a waste of notebooks.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Please, stop hating!

Calling yourself a polyglot isn't claiming some sort of unearned prestige. 

Anyone who knows more than 3 languages, can call themselves a polyglot, because that is the correct term of these people. 
There are no requirements or formal tests.
The only quality required is that one is OK using this language. 
One doesn't need to have a perfect accent, one doesn't need to be fluent, one doesn't need to be able to read and write, one doesn't need to not make any mistakes or not search for words. One doesn't need to be perfect or be mistaken for a Native speaker to pass. 
It really is very subjective. 
If YOU think you can speak a language, then YOU do speak it, and if you think you speak several languages, then you ARE a polyglot, and can flaunt it as much as you want to. 
And I just say "Congratulations!" 
Because that's what you are worth. 
And it doesn't matter if you "got those languages for free". 
What matters is that you know those languages.

I call myself trilingual, because I consider myself fluent in only three languages. Finnish, Swedish and English.
But I can read books in French. Some people would say they know French, too. I don't, because I couldn't write this blog in French.
I know more German than French. So - I could add German to my list as well.
I know more Norwegian and Danish than German, and not only because they are very like Swedish.
I understand Spanish and Italian.
I can count to 10 in several languages, and say the common things like "thank you" and "I love you", in a lot of languages. I COULD make a "watch a polyglot count to 10 in several languages" which would last quite a long time. because I can count to 10 in quite a lot of languages. :-D

Now, becoming a YouTube celebrity because you know (or claim to know) several languages is a lot more deserved than becoming a YouTube celebrity because you do stupid stuff or say nasty things about other people or show videos about animals and/or people getting hurt and think it's funny.
(Yes, for example, a cat slips on an icy car and falls. Most of AFV videos. People using gym equipment wrong. I mean... yes, it's amusing, but the risk of getting injured like that is very high, and there should be someone at the gym stopping people from doing that. It would be better if you went to help instead of videotaping the event. Also, it's not OK to videotape people at a gym.)

Then the "polyglot gurus". I haven't met anyone who has named himself that. I have yet to meet the "self-appointed polyglot guru". 
Now, calling oneself a polyglot isn't appointing oneself a guru. It's the exact proper term and name to call anyone who speaks more than 3 languages. So, even if you claim to speak 57 languages, but in reality only speak 5, then you ARE a polyglot.
It might be self-aggrandizing to claim to be able to speak over 10 languages, when one isn't, but it isn't if one does speak over 10 languages. Then it's just the truth.

There's nothing wrong with being proud of being able to use several languages, nothing shameful, nothing one needs to be quiet about. It's a great ability, and it doesn't matter why and how one gained that ability.

So, a lot of the hate comes from how people perceive these people, not how they present themselves. I mean, a lot of "polyglot gurus" don't even call themselves polyglots.

There are people who hate anyone who claims being able to speak several languages. They think these people are showing off, prideful, full of themselves, bragging... so what? Being able to speak several language IS worth showing off, it IS something to be proud of and worth bragging. You are just jealous and should get something worth bragging about instead of hating others.

Learning a couple of languages is one of the easiest ways of getting something worth bragging about. If that "internet idiot" can do that, you can do that. ALMOST EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET SPEAKS A LANGUAGE. If you can learn one, you can learn two, three, 27, 115, what ever. (Now, if you have learned 27 or 115 languages, you probably have forgotten most of the most of them, but what does that matter?)

Then, the motivation. No, you don't need to want to communicate with people to learn a language. ANY reason to learn a language is a good reason.
If you learn 10 languages just to brag, good!
If you learn 10 languages because that one guy does that, good!
If you learn 10 languages just because you can, good!
If you learn 4 languages just to be able to read the Bible in original language, good!
If you learn another language just to be able to understand what the minority people speak behind your back, good!
If you learn another language because your great-great-great-grandmother came from Hungary, good!
You learn a language because you love K-pop. Good!
I mean, ANY reason to learn a language is a good reason. You can't hurt anyone by learning a language.
(Now, what you do with that language after you learned it, that's a different story. Language is a very powerful thing and can be used to hurt people, even a lot of people. Frankly, all genocides were caused by language.)

So if you learn 10 languages just to be a member of the "exclusive polyglot club", good.
Frankly, it isn't that exclusive. It accepts anyone who speaks more than 3 languages :-D

There's nothing wrong with "showing off" that you can speak several languages. It's a good quality. It's a desirable quality. It IS something to show off, be proud off, flaunt and make videos about. 
Making videos about "look at this guy who thinks he is so cool when he's not" and "look at that fat chick how disgusting she is" isn't. Or "look at this cat getting hurt, how funny". 
I'd rather watch some polyglots talking about how they study languages, about all their languages, why they studied this language or that, about their experiences in this country or that, or just chatting with their polyglot friends in several languages.

Or Saara speaking gobbledygook :-D



Friday, June 1, 2018