How about a post for February 2013? OK, I'll tell you what happened. After I wrote my last post, which was about all the handwriting practice that I was doing for Chinese and Japanese characters, I went to the bowling alley and bowled 10 games. That turned out to be not such a good idea. I had to give my wrist a rest so I got behind in my writing and studying of Chinese and decided not to take the HSK tests.
Showing posts with label study method. Show all posts
Showing posts with label study method. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
strengthen your neural connections
Lately, I have been strengthening my neural connections, and it feels good. I'd like to tell you what I've been up to lately.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
the hodgepodge method of language learning
Friday, September 11, 2009
the TV method!
Here is my first attempt to try to describe the TV method in a video. I want to get better at talking about second language acquisition and language learning like Steve Kaufmann. Some of my thoughts may not be well connected or well said, so please forgive me. This was my first time speaking about the TV method. I was not able to cover everything in 10 minutes. I actually spoke for about 13 minutes, but I cut off the end so I wouldn't need more than one video. I also cut out a few seconds where it took me time to recall the word "unproven" in the beginning of the video. The rest is uncut. I hope you enjoy my very first video about the TV method.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
what the Heisig method is NOT
There is a series of books for mastering Chinese characters that takes an unusual approach and is often called the Heisig method because the author's name is Heisig. The books were first published as Remembering the Kanji and now there are Hanzi editions for Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
If you are not familiar, you can find some good posts to explain it such as this one. My post is not to explain the method but rather to clarify one of the misconceptions; one which the author himself has led everyone to believe.
The first book in the series is subtitled, How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters, and this is where the misconception begins. The book does not have the meanings of the characters. What people think are the meanings are called keywords and they are in English.
Chinese characters do not have English meanings. They are not used in the English language. They are only used in Chinese and Japanese, and formerly Korean and Vietnamese too. A word's meaning in one language does not encompass the exact same meaning in another. Even between the Japanese and Chinese languages, some or many of the same characters have different meanings! In English, the characters have no meanings. Just ask any English speaker at random.
You are not learning the basic meaning or base meaning of each character with the Heisig method. So what are you learning besides writing individual characters? This is the other misconception that I would like to clarify.
Instead of learning a meaning for each character, you are in fact, learning a character for an English keyword until you know 1500, 2042, or 3000 characters. Let me put it another way: You are not answering the question, "What is the meaning of 通?" Instead, you are answering, "What is the character for 'traffic'?"
What this means is that when you finish volume 1, it is a fallacy to say, "I know the meaning of all the characters." What you can say is, "I know a character for 2042 English words and I can write them too." You still have yet to learn the meanings.
A person saying that he knows the meaning of a character but is only able to give you an English word for that character is analogous to saying you know the meaning of a Japanese word via a translation.
It's OK to be able to write a few thousand Chinese characters assigned to English keywords. I'm not sure what good that is, however. For a beginner studying the language it is just a distraction. Heisig did it before he started studying Japanese.
A word of caution: If you are thinking about acquiring Chinese through the TV method, don't learn the characters first. Most Chinese programs are subtitled with hard-coded subs and those characters will be a big distraction. You're better off not understanding a single character so that you can easily ignore those subtitles. Don't say I didn't warn you!
If you are not familiar, you can find some good posts to explain it such as this one. My post is not to explain the method but rather to clarify one of the misconceptions; one which the author himself has led everyone to believe.
The first book in the series is subtitled, How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters, and this is where the misconception begins. The book does not have the meanings of the characters. What people think are the meanings are called keywords and they are in English.
Chinese characters do not have English meanings. They are not used in the English language. They are only used in Chinese and Japanese, and formerly Korean and Vietnamese too. A word's meaning in one language does not encompass the exact same meaning in another. Even between the Japanese and Chinese languages, some or many of the same characters have different meanings! In English, the characters have no meanings. Just ask any English speaker at random.
You are not learning the basic meaning or base meaning of each character with the Heisig method. So what are you learning besides writing individual characters? This is the other misconception that I would like to clarify.
Instead of learning a meaning for each character, you are in fact, learning a character for an English keyword until you know 1500, 2042, or 3000 characters. Let me put it another way: You are not answering the question, "What is the meaning of 通?" Instead, you are answering, "What is the character for 'traffic'?"
What this means is that when you finish volume 1, it is a fallacy to say, "I know the meaning of all the characters." What you can say is, "I know a character for 2042 English words and I can write them too." You still have yet to learn the meanings.
A person saying that he knows the meaning of a character but is only able to give you an English word for that character is analogous to saying you know the meaning of a Japanese word via a translation.
It's OK to be able to write a few thousand Chinese characters assigned to English keywords. I'm not sure what good that is, however. For a beginner studying the language it is just a distraction. Heisig did it before he started studying Japanese.
A word of caution: If you are thinking about acquiring Chinese through the TV method, don't learn the characters first. Most Chinese programs are subtitled with hard-coded subs and those characters will be a big distraction. You're better off not understanding a single character so that you can easily ignore those subtitles. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
don't ever study English!
Have you every heard of ADSE? It stands for Absolutely Don't Study English and is also known as DESE, Don't Ever Study English. It's a method created by a Korean who then wrote a book for it. I believe the book was originally written in Korean and later Japanese and Chinese versions were published. Since it is a non-study way to learn a language, I am interested in finding out more about it and the man who wrote the book. Unfortunately, my Google searches don't give me much information.
The DESE process is outlined on this page and here I will quote it:
In stage 2, for the spelling, what are you supposed to do about homonyms? If you don't understand the words yet, it won't be possible to pick the right homonym. It wouldn't even be possible to find the words in the dictionary either since the spelling patterns of English need to be learned before you can look anything up.
My main critique at this point is that every stage besides the first one looks like STUDY to me. Dictation is a lot of work and looking words up in a dictionary is tiring work. I thought this method was supposed to be based on enjoying the language. I would not enjoy all the work that this method prescribes.
I wonder what the results are like. If anybody can point me to any more info regarding this method, I would appreciate it. The only other description of it I found was written here.
The DESE process is outlined on this page and here I will quote it:
ADSE/DESE -- A Five-Stage Method of Language Acquisition & Language LearningI have a feeling the above quote does not give us the complete process. First of all, it doesn't really say how much nor how long. How long should the audio be for stage one? How long would this stage last?
Stage 1: Select one audio tape suitable for your English level. Listen to it twice a day (one day off a week) until you can hear all the sounds of it. Don't try to translate and understand, comprehension is not important at this point, catching all the sounds is the goal.
Stage 2: Taking dictation of the whole passage sentence by sentence (not phrase by phrase or word by word). Looking up the English Dictionary (e.g. 'Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners' or 'Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English') for the spelling of words you are not sure. Imitating the pronunciation and intonation, Reading the transcript aloud (recitation), you try to sound as much like the original as possible.
Stage 3: Writing down the definitions and the example sentences of the words you don't understand in Stage 2, you read them aloud. If there are any more words in Dictionary you still do not understand, you look them up and write them down, reading them aloud until you can understand all.
Stage 4: Select one video tape, VCD or DVD (Movie or TV Drama) without any model transcripts. Repeat the above Stages.
Stage 5: Going through an entire issue of an English newspaper printed in USA. (1) Read an article aloud (repeatedly). (2) Without looking, tell someone (or pretend to be telling someone) about what you have read. (3) Do dictionary work as needed. (4) One by One ...
In stage 2, for the spelling, what are you supposed to do about homonyms? If you don't understand the words yet, it won't be possible to pick the right homonym. It wouldn't even be possible to find the words in the dictionary either since the spelling patterns of English need to be learned before you can look anything up.
My main critique at this point is that every stage besides the first one looks like STUDY to me. Dictation is a lot of work and looking words up in a dictionary is tiring work. I thought this method was supposed to be based on enjoying the language. I would not enjoy all the work that this method prescribes.
I wonder what the results are like. If anybody can point me to any more info regarding this method, I would appreciate it. The only other description of it I found was written here.
Friday, July 10, 2009
how to make your own language learning method!
I think we all benefit from reading about various ways to learn languages. Whether we agree with the methods or not, they are interesting to read about and may spark new ideas. So I would like to write down some of my opinions about creating a language learning method.
The meaning of a method
For the purpose of this post, I'm going to try to decide what I'm talking about when I use the word "method." A method for learning languages or language acquisition may involve a series of steps, or a combination of tools that are used to go from point A in the language to point B. Some methods may be good for the beginning stages and other methods may be more appropriate for intermediate learners wanting to make the jump to advanced levels.
The methods that do not cover the full journey are often methods that have no changes in them. You are doing the same activities or using the same tools whether you are just starting to use that method or you are nearly finished with it. There are many examples of this in the commercial language learning arena. Publishers usually target the beginners and make sure their language learning system is not too complicated to understand. Publishing companies know there is a smaller return on making materials for advanced learners so they often don't provide enough content to get you beyond the beginner level.
But that does not mean the one-method-fits-all-levels of language learning could not work. Maybe Pimsleur and Assimil are really great methods. But if they offered a 4,000 lesson package, how many people would actually buy it? Most potential customers would say, "Whoah! I'll never get through that many lessons." And so they would give up before even starting.
Other methods will have the system divided between levels or stages. Activities or tools will be completely different for each phase. Essentially, those methods change focus for each level. There are many ways you could create one of these methods. A multi-tier approach defines what is believed to be important at each level and designs activities around those beliefs.
Creating your own method
Generally speaking, you would create a method that will take a language learner from zero knowledge to advanced fluency. Then, if you realize the limitations of the method, you could modify the method or simply modify the purpose of your language learning method.
But before you can create a method to learn languages, you need to be inspired. After all, methods do not spontaneously appear from thin air. There are two resources, other than pure genius, for obtaining inspiration. The best resources are text and voice.
By reading text, such as books or blogs, you can find many examples of what people are doing or what they think they did when they successfully learned a language. There are articles and journals with studies and research done on language learning and second language acquisition. There are also forums that you can read where many experienced language learners have gathered.
The other resource is the voice of actual people who have become bilingual. Ask everybody you know who has learned a foreign language how they accomplished this feat. When you find some really exceptional people, you should interview them and take notes or record the interview. You might decide to base your language learning method on what these people say.
How to be sure your method is working
You need to know that what you are doing in your method is actually working and completely necessary. It makes no sense to say, "Do A, B and C" when only A and C are necessary and yield the same results. An unnecessary element in your method is not only unhelpful, but it also creates a negative effect on your results! At the very least, the unnecessary activity uses up your energy and quite likely your time as well. At their worst, non-essential elements will unknowingly cause harm!
So if your method combines tactics, you'll need to test them out together, separately and in different configurations. Hopefully you are doing something measurable so that you may record the results and create a chart for comparison.
I do not recommend trying out a potpourri of tools and strategies and then calling that a method. You can obtain results and make some progress in learning a language by doing just about anything, so long as you keep doing it. But if you don't know why you're doing those activities and what kind of effect they are having, then you've just joined the millions of other language learners who don't know what they are doing either.
Remember to keep in mind that your past activities and experiences in learning the language are also having an effect on your current results. You cannot make claims like, "I tried doing method X for months and got nowhere, but after switching to method Y I'm experiencing big gains!" In reality, your time doing X prepared you for the gains you see from Y. So you'll need to try doing method Y on a new language. At least one that you've never done X with before. And then see if the gains automatically appear with the new method.
Is your method reproducible? Can you get the same results every time you use the method with different and new languages? Or do you find you have to make modifications when you run into languages that have features which weren't in your previously successful language learning experiences? Such as learning a new script. Or maybe it was a one-time success and it doesn't work when you try it on other languages or when other people try to use your method.
How to promote your method
The best way to promote your method is to create a blog like this one and document your experience as you go along. You'll want to give a description of your previous background with the language your method is being tested on. The best way to prove your current level is to create a video showing you using the language, speaking the language, or being utterly confused by the language. If you have no knowledge at all of the language, then you might just skip the proof of that. But once you've reached the point where you can show your skill, such as when you begin speaking the language, you should make a recording as evidence. Even just a voice recording would be better than nothing. Then later you'll be able to make recordings when you have made improvements and people will be able to compare and see or hear the difference.
In the meantime, you can go to the language forums and announce your entry into the contest for best language learning method. Whatever way you want, spread the word about your blog and let others follow your blog. If you show that your method is well thought out and based on sound principles, others may like to try it as well. This will help you figure out if your method is reproducible.
Once you've got your language learning method all figured out and have successfully learned or acquired several languages with it, you may want to write a book about it. This will help spread your language learning method around the world and you'll be helping as many people as possible to learn a new language.
How to handle the critics
No doubt, there are going to be a few, if not many, critics who do what they do best. They are going to criticize your method! But not to worry. That's just their job. They've got all kinds of reasons why your method won't succeed or work for them. Just remember, most of them will have never tried doing the very thing that they are saying won't work. So try not to let them bother you. After all, if they haven't attempted to correctly put your method into practice then they have nothing but unfounded arguments.
Even the best, most perfect, one-size-fits-all method won't work for everybody. Why? There will be people who try it and fail simply because they didn't execute the method properly. So for those who do attempt your method and don't get the same results, you need to figure out why. What did they do differently? What did you forget to tell them? There can be a number of factors and you won't likely figure it out except for people that you have face-to-face access to. Going back and forth on a forum or through email doesn't allow you the freedom to ask everything you want and won't guarantee that the responses are adequate.
Thank you for reading
I've probably missed a few points or ideas. But this should give you a lot to think about if you're creating the next must-try method for learning languages. Thank you for reading and feel free to post comments or even to create a link to this article!
Disclaimer
Although I have written this article with the intention of it being error-free, I cannot guarantee the grammatical correctness or spelling accuracy of the content. I would, however, be thankful if you point out any problems you found while reading it. Just leave a comment and I will fix the errors and typos right away! Thanks!
The meaning of a method
For the purpose of this post, I'm going to try to decide what I'm talking about when I use the word "method." A method for learning languages or language acquisition may involve a series of steps, or a combination of tools that are used to go from point A in the language to point B. Some methods may be good for the beginning stages and other methods may be more appropriate for intermediate learners wanting to make the jump to advanced levels.
The methods that do not cover the full journey are often methods that have no changes in them. You are doing the same activities or using the same tools whether you are just starting to use that method or you are nearly finished with it. There are many examples of this in the commercial language learning arena. Publishers usually target the beginners and make sure their language learning system is not too complicated to understand. Publishing companies know there is a smaller return on making materials for advanced learners so they often don't provide enough content to get you beyond the beginner level.
But that does not mean the one-method-fits-all-levels of language learning could not work. Maybe Pimsleur and Assimil are really great methods. But if they offered a 4,000 lesson package, how many people would actually buy it? Most potential customers would say, "Whoah! I'll never get through that many lessons." And so they would give up before even starting.
Other methods will have the system divided between levels or stages. Activities or tools will be completely different for each phase. Essentially, those methods change focus for each level. There are many ways you could create one of these methods. A multi-tier approach defines what is believed to be important at each level and designs activities around those beliefs.
Creating your own method
Generally speaking, you would create a method that will take a language learner from zero knowledge to advanced fluency. Then, if you realize the limitations of the method, you could modify the method or simply modify the purpose of your language learning method.
But before you can create a method to learn languages, you need to be inspired. After all, methods do not spontaneously appear from thin air. There are two resources, other than pure genius, for obtaining inspiration. The best resources are text and voice.
By reading text, such as books or blogs, you can find many examples of what people are doing or what they think they did when they successfully learned a language. There are articles and journals with studies and research done on language learning and second language acquisition. There are also forums that you can read where many experienced language learners have gathered.
The other resource is the voice of actual people who have become bilingual. Ask everybody you know who has learned a foreign language how they accomplished this feat. When you find some really exceptional people, you should interview them and take notes or record the interview. You might decide to base your language learning method on what these people say.
How to be sure your method is working
You need to know that what you are doing in your method is actually working and completely necessary. It makes no sense to say, "Do A, B and C" when only A and C are necessary and yield the same results. An unnecessary element in your method is not only unhelpful, but it also creates a negative effect on your results! At the very least, the unnecessary activity uses up your energy and quite likely your time as well. At their worst, non-essential elements will unknowingly cause harm!
So if your method combines tactics, you'll need to test them out together, separately and in different configurations. Hopefully you are doing something measurable so that you may record the results and create a chart for comparison.
I do not recommend trying out a potpourri of tools and strategies and then calling that a method. You can obtain results and make some progress in learning a language by doing just about anything, so long as you keep doing it. But if you don't know why you're doing those activities and what kind of effect they are having, then you've just joined the millions of other language learners who don't know what they are doing either.
Remember to keep in mind that your past activities and experiences in learning the language are also having an effect on your current results. You cannot make claims like, "I tried doing method X for months and got nowhere, but after switching to method Y I'm experiencing big gains!" In reality, your time doing X prepared you for the gains you see from Y. So you'll need to try doing method Y on a new language. At least one that you've never done X with before. And then see if the gains automatically appear with the new method.
Is your method reproducible? Can you get the same results every time you use the method with different and new languages? Or do you find you have to make modifications when you run into languages that have features which weren't in your previously successful language learning experiences? Such as learning a new script. Or maybe it was a one-time success and it doesn't work when you try it on other languages or when other people try to use your method.
How to promote your method
The best way to promote your method is to create a blog like this one and document your experience as you go along. You'll want to give a description of your previous background with the language your method is being tested on. The best way to prove your current level is to create a video showing you using the language, speaking the language, or being utterly confused by the language. If you have no knowledge at all of the language, then you might just skip the proof of that. But once you've reached the point where you can show your skill, such as when you begin speaking the language, you should make a recording as evidence. Even just a voice recording would be better than nothing. Then later you'll be able to make recordings when you have made improvements and people will be able to compare and see or hear the difference.
In the meantime, you can go to the language forums and announce your entry into the contest for best language learning method. Whatever way you want, spread the word about your blog and let others follow your blog. If you show that your method is well thought out and based on sound principles, others may like to try it as well. This will help you figure out if your method is reproducible.
Once you've got your language learning method all figured out and have successfully learned or acquired several languages with it, you may want to write a book about it. This will help spread your language learning method around the world and you'll be helping as many people as possible to learn a new language.
How to handle the critics
No doubt, there are going to be a few, if not many, critics who do what they do best. They are going to criticize your method! But not to worry. That's just their job. They've got all kinds of reasons why your method won't succeed or work for them. Just remember, most of them will have never tried doing the very thing that they are saying won't work. So try not to let them bother you. After all, if they haven't attempted to correctly put your method into practice then they have nothing but unfounded arguments.
Even the best, most perfect, one-size-fits-all method won't work for everybody. Why? There will be people who try it and fail simply because they didn't execute the method properly. So for those who do attempt your method and don't get the same results, you need to figure out why. What did they do differently? What did you forget to tell them? There can be a number of factors and you won't likely figure it out except for people that you have face-to-face access to. Going back and forth on a forum or through email doesn't allow you the freedom to ask everything you want and won't guarantee that the responses are adequate.
Thank you for reading
I've probably missed a few points or ideas. But this should give you a lot to think about if you're creating the next must-try method for learning languages. Thank you for reading and feel free to post comments or even to create a link to this article!
Disclaimer
Although I have written this article with the intention of it being error-free, I cannot guarantee the grammatical correctness or spelling accuracy of the content. I would, however, be thankful if you point out any problems you found while reading it. Just leave a comment and I will fix the errors and typos right away! Thanks!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Hyunwoo Sun
I have a new interview on YouTube. This time, I would like you to meet Hyunwoo Sun. He is a Korean polyglot who excels at learning many languages. The skill which he has achieved in English just awes me. That is how I want to speak Japanese, Chinese or any language I persue. So I interviewed him to find out what he does, because I could not find that information on Hyunwoo's YouTube channel, in all the videos he has. Maybe he talks about it in Korean. I don't know because I don't know Korean at all.
Since he came to Japan on business for 2 weeks, I grabbed the opportunity to interview him. I threatened to kidnap him if he didn't tell me his secrets for language learning. So he agreed to meet me in a public place where I could not use any special tactics to extract information from him. So with the camera rolling, I set up on the streets of Shinjuku and asked him some grueling questions. And then I edited out all of my questions so the video cannot be used against me to press charges.
Of course, the truth is, I'm a tame fellow and there just wasn't room for my babbling in a YouTube video because of the length restrictions. And Hyunwoo is a great guy too whom you can learn Korean from if you are nice to him.
Really, I got a great interview from Hyunwoo Sun and I want to share it with all of you. He is one of the followers of my blog and that is how I first heard his name. So if you have questions and post comments here, he will read them and probably even reply.
Since he came to Japan on business for 2 weeks, I grabbed the opportunity to interview him. I threatened to kidnap him if he didn't tell me his secrets for language learning. So he agreed to meet me in a public place where I could not use any special tactics to extract information from him. So with the camera rolling, I set up on the streets of Shinjuku and asked him some grueling questions. And then I edited out all of my questions so the video cannot be used against me to press charges.
Of course, the truth is, I'm a tame fellow and there just wasn't room for my babbling in a YouTube video because of the length restrictions. And Hyunwoo is a great guy too whom you can learn Korean from if you are nice to him.
Really, I got a great interview from Hyunwoo Sun and I want to share it with all of you. He is one of the followers of my blog and that is how I first heard his name. So if you have questions and post comments here, he will read them and probably even reply.
Friday, March 27, 2009
difficulty or method?
In response to the post, How difficult is Chinese?, I would like to express my current thoughts about the points made in that post.
The first thing that comes to mind in general is that the difficulty of learning a language could be attributed to the methods used for learning that language and not the language itself. If you were to ask me about Japanese, I would say it is very difficult to learn. But if you were to ask another fellow, he would say you can learn Japanese to native level in 18 months. I would say, No Way! There are language students who come to Japan and take a full-time course (30 hours a week) for 18 months and they are nowhere near native-level. However, we must consider the methods used and what makes learning the language easier or faster.
The second thing that is important is time. Of course time is a factor. If you spend 3 hours a day or 9 hours a day, your progress will differ. I think that's agreeable to all so I won't explain it further.
The first point made in the article is about the number of characters you must learn in Chinese. My response is: What makes this difficult is method used and time spent. In the paragraph explaining that point we can see the method described, write the words over and over, is probably not the best method. It is necessary to use the characters every day, to read them and write them, but since it is hardly necessary in today's computerized world, most learners do not keep up with it.
In my own experience with Japanese, living and working in Japan, I find there is no pressing need to be able to write characters. Practice writing takes much more time and effort than reading, so I advise learners to spend the time to get good at reading before spending time on writing. Knowing characters well enough to have no problem reading them will make the task of writing them a little bit less of a burden. Another point is, if you are an advanced reader, you will know lots of vocabulary that you can use when you write. You see, when we practice writing characters but don't know any vocabulary, then we really have nothing to write. Since writing is the least beneficial and most time consuming part, it makes sense to leave it for mastering last. You will use reading skills much more often than writing skills. I'm not saying don't learn to write characters; I'm saying learn it last.
What will make reading characters easier is knowing the language beforehand. If you already know how to process the language easily, then while working on reading you only need effort for the reading task. You see, there are two parts. One is reading; the other is understanding. When you finish reading a long sentence, do you understand it or do you have to go back and reread it again? While struggling to read, it can be easy to forget what you just read, especially when the meaning of the words also takes time to comprehend. This is why I recommend working on reading and writing after listening and speaking.
The next point in the article is that Chinese has a tonal system. The problem here is definitely the method. Almost all courses and teachers focus on tones. I believe you should not focus on tones. Tones are actually a speaking problem, but if you don't speak until you have reached the proper level of understanding, you will have no problem with tones. You won't need to think about tones as you will have acquired the rhythm and prosody of the language. But what they do in classes is to start pronouncing words right after learning about tones. Of course the students have no idea what the word is supposed to sound like so they have to use their memory of rules and numbers to reproduce the words with the correct tones. But with natural learning you only need to hear the word or phrase inside your head which will be a Memorex recording that your brain supplies.
The next point is that it is difficult to use a Chinese dictionary to look up words. If you've been reading my blog, you know what I'll say! Don't use a dictionary. It's time consuming, slows you down, and does other bad things to you. If you know the language well before reading, you won't need to look up words for meaning. I know of one guy who is reading Chinese without a dictionary and he is enjoying it.
Another point about Chinese in the article is that it has a lot of vocabulary. Well, I guess most languages do! A Chinese man I know often complains to me about how much vocabulary he has to learn for English. He doesn't agree with me that Japanese has a lot of vocabulary. That would be because for him it was not as difficult since Japanese has tons of vocabulary from Chinese, but for the rest of us we have to learn many words which have the same meaning because there are Japanese words and then there are words borrowed a long time ago from Chinese. And we don't see them all of the time because some have been replaced by a 3rd set of words originating from English and other languages. It is unlikely that Chinese has borrowed as many words as other languages have. I have been listening to it for hundreds of hours and I haven't picked up on any borrowed words from English except for "CPU" when someone was buying a computer.
The next problem mentioned was this:
First of all, the word "wand" is also a very rare word in English! However, all English speakers would know the word. Children's books will always have these kind of words that everyone knows but don't use in everyday adult life.
Secondly, in Mandarin, 魔 and 杖 have but one reading each which means that if you knew the individual characters you could read the word, then if you knew the word already you are done. If you didn't know the word but knew the meaning of each character, you could figure out the meaning of the word, and given the context of the book it would make sense that it's a magic wand. But in English, just looking at the letters in the word is not going to clue you in to the meaning. In Japanese, the first character has only one reading but the second character has two readings. If you already knew the word you could read it, but if you didn't know the word you would have to verify the reading for it. Actually, this two-character word does not exist in Japanese. I asked a Japanese coworker to look at this word and he had a painful look on his face while he unassuredly tried to read the word. Although he was not sure how to pronounce it, he could tell me what it means. Both Japanese and Chinese have this word, 魔法, which I know in Japanese and somehow knew the reading for the first character. But as for the second character in the original Chinese word given as an example, I didn't know that character nor the word it represents. It means "stick." The kind of stick that you find under trees and you pick up and played with when you were a child. When I told my Japanese coworker that I didn't know that word, he jumped back with surprise. Every language has an enormous amount of vocabulary that you don't need, but you will want to eventually learn. You will more likely come across this extra vocabulary while reading because it's not likely your boss is going to ask you to go outside and find him a nice long stick. This is one of the reasons why I put the importance of reading after that of learning to listen and to speak. If you try reading before mastering listening, you will be spending more effort trying to learn too many words.
Language learning skills are easier to master when you have already mastered one of the skills previous to a different skill. If you are good at listening, then speaking will be easier. If you are good at listening and speaking, then reading will be easier. If you are good at listening, speaking, and reading, then writing will be easier. If you try to do more than one at the same time then you will not have this advantage. The mastery of one skill can cut down on the time it takes to master the next skill.
The first thing that comes to mind in general is that the difficulty of learning a language could be attributed to the methods used for learning that language and not the language itself. If you were to ask me about Japanese, I would say it is very difficult to learn. But if you were to ask another fellow, he would say you can learn Japanese to native level in 18 months. I would say, No Way! There are language students who come to Japan and take a full-time course (30 hours a week) for 18 months and they are nowhere near native-level. However, we must consider the methods used and what makes learning the language easier or faster.
The second thing that is important is time. Of course time is a factor. If you spend 3 hours a day or 9 hours a day, your progress will differ. I think that's agreeable to all so I won't explain it further.
The first point made in the article is about the number of characters you must learn in Chinese. My response is: What makes this difficult is method used and time spent. In the paragraph explaining that point we can see the method described, write the words over and over, is probably not the best method. It is necessary to use the characters every day, to read them and write them, but since it is hardly necessary in today's computerized world, most learners do not keep up with it.
In my own experience with Japanese, living and working in Japan, I find there is no pressing need to be able to write characters. Practice writing takes much more time and effort than reading, so I advise learners to spend the time to get good at reading before spending time on writing. Knowing characters well enough to have no problem reading them will make the task of writing them a little bit less of a burden. Another point is, if you are an advanced reader, you will know lots of vocabulary that you can use when you write. You see, when we practice writing characters but don't know any vocabulary, then we really have nothing to write. Since writing is the least beneficial and most time consuming part, it makes sense to leave it for mastering last. You will use reading skills much more often than writing skills. I'm not saying don't learn to write characters; I'm saying learn it last.
What will make reading characters easier is knowing the language beforehand. If you already know how to process the language easily, then while working on reading you only need effort for the reading task. You see, there are two parts. One is reading; the other is understanding. When you finish reading a long sentence, do you understand it or do you have to go back and reread it again? While struggling to read, it can be easy to forget what you just read, especially when the meaning of the words also takes time to comprehend. This is why I recommend working on reading and writing after listening and speaking.
The next point in the article is that Chinese has a tonal system. The problem here is definitely the method. Almost all courses and teachers focus on tones. I believe you should not focus on tones. Tones are actually a speaking problem, but if you don't speak until you have reached the proper level of understanding, you will have no problem with tones. You won't need to think about tones as you will have acquired the rhythm and prosody of the language. But what they do in classes is to start pronouncing words right after learning about tones. Of course the students have no idea what the word is supposed to sound like so they have to use their memory of rules and numbers to reproduce the words with the correct tones. But with natural learning you only need to hear the word or phrase inside your head which will be a Memorex recording that your brain supplies.
The next point is that it is difficult to use a Chinese dictionary to look up words. If you've been reading my blog, you know what I'll say! Don't use a dictionary. It's time consuming, slows you down, and does other bad things to you. If you know the language well before reading, you won't need to look up words for meaning. I know of one guy who is reading Chinese without a dictionary and he is enjoying it.
Another point about Chinese in the article is that it has a lot of vocabulary. Well, I guess most languages do! A Chinese man I know often complains to me about how much vocabulary he has to learn for English. He doesn't agree with me that Japanese has a lot of vocabulary. That would be because for him it was not as difficult since Japanese has tons of vocabulary from Chinese, but for the rest of us we have to learn many words which have the same meaning because there are Japanese words and then there are words borrowed a long time ago from Chinese. And we don't see them all of the time because some have been replaced by a 3rd set of words originating from English and other languages. It is unlikely that Chinese has borrowed as many words as other languages have. I have been listening to it for hundreds of hours and I haven't picked up on any borrowed words from English except for "CPU" when someone was buying a computer.
The next problem mentioned was this:
One of the most frustrating things you’ll find, even after years of studying Chinese, is that you will always encounter unknown words and characters in any book you read. Even children’s books like Harry Potter can be a challenge as you will rarely see the word 魔杖 (wand) used in any other context. It’s quite disheartening to have trouble reading a book that many Chinese schoolchildren can zip through.
First of all, the word "wand" is also a very rare word in English! However, all English speakers would know the word. Children's books will always have these kind of words that everyone knows but don't use in everyday adult life.
Secondly, in Mandarin, 魔 and 杖 have but one reading each which means that if you knew the individual characters you could read the word, then if you knew the word already you are done. If you didn't know the word but knew the meaning of each character, you could figure out the meaning of the word, and given the context of the book it would make sense that it's a magic wand. But in English, just looking at the letters in the word is not going to clue you in to the meaning. In Japanese, the first character has only one reading but the second character has two readings. If you already knew the word you could read it, but if you didn't know the word you would have to verify the reading for it. Actually, this two-character word does not exist in Japanese. I asked a Japanese coworker to look at this word and he had a painful look on his face while he unassuredly tried to read the word. Although he was not sure how to pronounce it, he could tell me what it means. Both Japanese and Chinese have this word, 魔法, which I know in Japanese and somehow knew the reading for the first character. But as for the second character in the original Chinese word given as an example, I didn't know that character nor the word it represents. It means "stick." The kind of stick that you find under trees and you pick up and played with when you were a child. When I told my Japanese coworker that I didn't know that word, he jumped back with surprise. Every language has an enormous amount of vocabulary that you don't need, but you will want to eventually learn. You will more likely come across this extra vocabulary while reading because it's not likely your boss is going to ask you to go outside and find him a nice long stick. This is one of the reasons why I put the importance of reading after that of learning to listen and to speak. If you try reading before mastering listening, you will be spending more effort trying to learn too many words.
Language learning skills are easier to master when you have already mastered one of the skills previous to a different skill. If you are good at listening, then speaking will be easier. If you are good at listening and speaking, then reading will be easier. If you are good at listening, speaking, and reading, then writing will be easier. If you try to do more than one at the same time then you will not have this advantage. The mastery of one skill can cut down on the time it takes to master the next skill.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Armando
I have read the story of Armando before and just now came across it again. The article was written by Stephen Krashen and is about how Armando acquired Hebrew. It's not very long, so I urge you to read it if you haven't read it before.
Armando became a near-native speaker of Hebrew without classes, books, or studying. He was simply employed in a family-owned restaurant where the owners were Hebrew speakers. Armando said (quote from the article),
It's very interesting to see how the judges came to different conclusions about the speaker they heard (Armando.) While 2 of the 4 said that he was not a native speaker, 1 of them explicitly stated that he thought Armando was a native speaker. I don't know what that says about Armando, but it says a lot about the people who judge you.
Krashen also states the following in the article:
It also interesting that Krashen changed the name of the input hypothesis to the comprehension hypothesis. I have not looked at everything Krashen has written. I mean, I have not read the vast majority of his works. So I do not know for sure, but I suspect that he has never done a study on incomprehensible input. I think it is just being taken as a given that incomprehensible input is of no value. For most people, that makes sense.
But not to me. That's like saying that incomprehensible language just bounces off of you and has no effect. This simply cannot be true. I will write about why I disagree in another post.
Armando became a near-native speaker of Hebrew without classes, books, or studying. He was simply employed in a family-owned restaurant where the owners were Hebrew speakers. Armando said (quote from the article),
...it was two or three years until he was comfortable in conversation even though he heard Hebrew all day on the job. He said that he never forced or pushed himself with Hebrew, that his approach was relaxed.In a job, you may hear Hebrew all day long, but it wouldn't be as much as in a class at ALG World. In a restaurant, when it gets busy (assuming his restaurant had busy times) people may be shouting orders but they won't be having conversations. When a restaurant is slow, the workers are talking and conversing a lot. So each day and each hour would vary. That is why it may have taken him longer than an ALG World class. But at least he didn't give up like many students do.
Armando told me that he had never learned to read Hebrew, never studied Hebrew grammar, had no idea of what the rules of Hebrew grammar were, and certainly did not think about grammar when speaking. He said that he received about five corrections a day, but none of these were aimed at grammar; it was all vocabulary.So we see he never studied the grammar. He never spent time reading either. His acquisition was all through the ear.
It's very interesting to see how the judges came to different conclusions about the speaker they heard (Armando.) While 2 of the 4 said that he was not a native speaker, 1 of them explicitly stated that he thought Armando was a native speaker. I don't know what that says about Armando, but it says a lot about the people who judge you.
Krashen also states the following in the article:
Of course, Hebrew was not comprehensible for him right away. His great accomplishment was due to patience, being willing to acquire slowly and gradually with a long silent period (or period of reduced output). With a "natural approach" language class Armando would have had comprehensible input right away and would moved through the beginning stages more quickly, and real conversational Hebrew would have been comprehensible earlier.I note that "Hebrew was not comprehensible for him right away." This, to me, clearly means that comprehension became the result of the input.
It also interesting that Krashen changed the name of the input hypothesis to the comprehension hypothesis. I have not looked at everything Krashen has written. I mean, I have not read the vast majority of his works. So I do not know for sure, but I suspect that he has never done a study on incomprehensible input. I think it is just being taken as a given that incomprehensible input is of no value. For most people, that makes sense.
But not to me. That's like saying that incomprehensible language just bounces off of you and has no effect. This simply cannot be true. I will write about why I disagree in another post.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
what can we do?
If you've been reading my blog, you can tell that I've become convinced that the ALG method (automatic language growth) is the best way to acquire a language. It is the only method that gets you to native proficiency in 2 to 3 years. And there are many reasons why and how it works, which I won't go into in this post.
So what can we do if we cannot go to Thailand or if ALG World does not offer the language that we want to learn? The way I see it, there are 2 choices. The first is to go with the other methods of learning a language where you use dictionaries and look up everything you don't understand. In the end, you'll have to be satisfied with whatever ceiling you reach.
The second choice is to try to create our own Automatic Language Growth. The way I'm going to do this is to use online TV. In fact, I began about a week ago. I don't remember exactly which day it was. I'm not going to document how many hours I've watched or any statistics like that. I know it's much easier to watch 10 hours of TV than to listen to an hour of limited content.
As you might be aware, I have been trying to learn Chinese. From now on, in accordance with ALG principles, I'm no longer going to try. I'm simply going to bathe in the language and let the language into my brain. If there was ever anyone who was good at not trying, that would be me!
As I have already learned a little bit of the language, I hear many of the words that I have learned. I am experiencing first-hand the crippling effect of my learning. Whenever I hear something familiar, the meaning just won't come. I have to associate it with the English and then I understand the meaning. There is some kind of barrier. But I know I can get over this, because these already-learned words are so frequent and common that I eventually won't feel the need to translate them.
When I watched the first day, the language was very much like a blur. I tried to hear every word, but I could only hear 2 or 3 words in a sentence. I think the words that I could catch triggered something that made me not able to catch the other parts of the sentences. After a few days, I noticed that I could hear much more and it was much clearer. It was a big difference. Although I still don't know most of the language, it comes through more clearly now.
All of the Chinese TV shows and movies have subtitles in Chinese. With the help of seeing the word, I was able to figure out the meaning of a new word last night. When I saw it at first, I couldn't figure out what it meant. The word was 姐夫. I knew each character but was not able to understand what the word meant. After figuring out the relationship of the people in the drama and then finally seeing this word used in a context of only two people, I could finally figure out who 姐夫 was and of course what the word is. I don't think this is the intended way to acquire the language, but anyway, this is the first word I learned or figured out from watching TV.
There's another effect of watching many hours of TV in a foreign language. There's something happening inside my head because of all that input that is pouring in. There are times when I am not watching or thinking about the language at all, and I hear or feel something in the back of my head. Bits of phrases, or a word from the language is playing or repeating in my head. It's not me trying to do anything. But I hear this echo. I guess it is similar to a song you just can't get out of your head. But in this case, it's only partial language. My only guess is that my brain is processing the language. It's doing something in the background.
I believe the amount and variation of the language input is the most important thing to consider in regards to your exposure to the language. Without enough variation, your brain may not be able to work out the meaning. But with lots of variation, it all begins to make sense. Plus, I think you need to be overwhelmed by the language. Massive amounts of language input will really get your brain working. While Krashen states that it needs to be comprehensible, I do not. I believe that comprehension of the language is the by-product of the input. I will get more into this idea in another post. And finally, I believe that you shouldn't try or make any effort. Just relax and let the language flow in.
So what can we do if we cannot go to Thailand or if ALG World does not offer the language that we want to learn? The way I see it, there are 2 choices. The first is to go with the other methods of learning a language where you use dictionaries and look up everything you don't understand. In the end, you'll have to be satisfied with whatever ceiling you reach.
The second choice is to try to create our own Automatic Language Growth. The way I'm going to do this is to use online TV. In fact, I began about a week ago. I don't remember exactly which day it was. I'm not going to document how many hours I've watched or any statistics like that. I know it's much easier to watch 10 hours of TV than to listen to an hour of limited content.
As you might be aware, I have been trying to learn Chinese. From now on, in accordance with ALG principles, I'm no longer going to try. I'm simply going to bathe in the language and let the language into my brain. If there was ever anyone who was good at not trying, that would be me!
As I have already learned a little bit of the language, I hear many of the words that I have learned. I am experiencing first-hand the crippling effect of my learning. Whenever I hear something familiar, the meaning just won't come. I have to associate it with the English and then I understand the meaning. There is some kind of barrier. But I know I can get over this, because these already-learned words are so frequent and common that I eventually won't feel the need to translate them.
When I watched the first day, the language was very much like a blur. I tried to hear every word, but I could only hear 2 or 3 words in a sentence. I think the words that I could catch triggered something that made me not able to catch the other parts of the sentences. After a few days, I noticed that I could hear much more and it was much clearer. It was a big difference. Although I still don't know most of the language, it comes through more clearly now.
All of the Chinese TV shows and movies have subtitles in Chinese. With the help of seeing the word, I was able to figure out the meaning of a new word last night. When I saw it at first, I couldn't figure out what it meant. The word was 姐夫. I knew each character but was not able to understand what the word meant. After figuring out the relationship of the people in the drama and then finally seeing this word used in a context of only two people, I could finally figure out who 姐夫 was and of course what the word is. I don't think this is the intended way to acquire the language, but anyway, this is the first word I learned or figured out from watching TV.
There's another effect of watching many hours of TV in a foreign language. There's something happening inside my head because of all that input that is pouring in. There are times when I am not watching or thinking about the language at all, and I hear or feel something in the back of my head. Bits of phrases, or a word from the language is playing or repeating in my head. It's not me trying to do anything. But I hear this echo. I guess it is similar to a song you just can't get out of your head. But in this case, it's only partial language. My only guess is that my brain is processing the language. It's doing something in the background.
I believe the amount and variation of the language input is the most important thing to consider in regards to your exposure to the language. Without enough variation, your brain may not be able to work out the meaning. But with lots of variation, it all begins to make sense. Plus, I think you need to be overwhelmed by the language. Massive amounts of language input will really get your brain working. While Krashen states that it needs to be comprehensible, I do not. I believe that comprehension of the language is the by-product of the input. I will get more into this idea in another post. And finally, I believe that you shouldn't try or make any effort. Just relax and let the language flow in.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
from the outside in
There are some documents worth reading over at ALG World. Among them, I highly recommend Dr. J. Marvin Brown's book, From the Outside In. By reading this book, you will understand the background and proof of Automatic Language Growth. You see, a lot of people who are aware of ALG do not realize that this is a proven method. To everybody, including myself, who have just heard about AUA Thai in the last two years, it seems that this is a new approach, but in reality, AUA has been teaching Thai this way for over 20 years now! So it's not just theory. It has been tested, verified, and implemented. When they say that speaking is not necessary and will hurt your ability to acquire the language, they know what they are talking about!
Here are the things you must not do while acquiring a new language as stated in the book:
A little background on Dr. Brown will show you that he had been there and done that. He had been through the FSI drilling and "practicing until it becomes automatic" type of learning. In fact, he learned Chinese through the Navy in the 1940's and was the guinea pig for the Army Method in the 50's. He is the one who proved that their methods "worked." And in 1980, he again set out to prove that practice makes perfect:
First, we need an understanding of how advanced Dr. Brown was in Thai. He studied Thai for 4 years and was immersed in Thailand for 40 years.
Here are the things you must not do while acquiring a new language as stated in the book:
- Don't Speak!
- Don't Ask!
- Don't Look Up Words!
- Don't Take Notes!
- Don't Think!
A little background on Dr. Brown will show you that he had been there and done that. He had been through the FSI drilling and "practicing until it becomes automatic" type of learning. In fact, he learned Chinese through the Navy in the 1940's and was the guinea pig for the Army Method in the 50's. He is the one who proved that their methods "worked." And in 1980, he again set out to prove that practice makes perfect:
I was excited as I walked into the Japanese class that fall quarter of 1980. I had never been less than number one in a language class—and that was without trying. This time I was going to knock myself out. Getting an “A” wouldn’t be enough. Being the best in the class wouldn’t be enough. I was going to be the best the world had ever seen. You wouldn’t believe the extremes I went to.
I practiced until I could deliver it with perfect pronunciation and without a single hesitation. Then I practiced up to double speed without a hesitation.
I did this sort of thing with daily drills and quarterly speeches for three years. It didn’t work. And I could see that it never would. Not a single sentence was ever triggered by a thought. And this had been one of my requirements for success. I had set out to prove the success of practice. I proved, instead, its failure.So, as you can see, Dr. Brown went from a motto of practice, practice, practice to a motto of don't practice! Another thing to point out is that Dr. Brown had created Thai language programs in the traditional way. He had many years of experience in revising the program and trying to improve it the traditional way. He had left AUA and when he came back is when he started the ALG way. With the old methods of teaching Thai, in 30 years he never had a single student pass his own abilities in Thai. And he wrote that after 10 years with the ALG method, he saw students passing him up all the time.
First, we need an understanding of how advanced Dr. Brown was in Thai. He studied Thai for 4 years and was immersed in Thailand for 40 years.
Now what was my own language preparation? I had studied Thai for 2 years at Cal at 3 hours a week and 2 years at Cornell at 6 hours a week. ... So when I arrived in Thailand I had been through almost 500 hours of classroom study by the Army Method. I could make near-perfect sounds once I had assembled a sentence for delivery, but I couldn’t even begin to ‘carry on a conversation’.
Where was the guinea pig after 32 years? I told you that by 1960 I thought I had arrived. Well I kept getting better and better through the 60’s ... People described my Thai as ‘legendary’ and I tended to believe them. When I gave lectures to Thai schools, the teachers would later tell me that my Thai was better than theirs. Now I knew full well how damning this comment can be, but I still lapped it up. More convincing were things like this. I phoned to speak to an American friend, and the servant who answered the phone later told him that a Thai man had called -- and swore by it. “Are you sure it wasn’t a foreigner with perfect Thai?” (he had been expecting me to call). “No. It was a Thai. I’m 100% certain.” I could see through this too, but I was succumbing to something I said earlier: ‘Short term satisfaction tends to blind us to long term goals.’Now, the point that I am making here is that when your language skill is that much advanced and you recognize that someone else is even bettter, then that "better" person must be really, really good!
But what were the long-term goals of the guinea pig? I had set out to prove that the Army method could produce perfect speakers. Then, I thought I had proved the method right. Now, I can see that I had proved it wrong. The difference is hiding in the word ‘speak’. Then, I was thinking of ‘delivery’ (how the speaking comes out). Since my delivery was near perfect, I had proved it right. Now, I’m thinking of ‘production’ (how I get from thought to sentence). Since my production of Thai is very different from my production of English, I must have proved it wrong. Let me put it this way. When I speak Thai, I think in Thai. When I speak English, I think only in thought--I pay no attention to English.A mif is a mental image flash. There is an article on it by David Long at the ALG World archive page. For now, I just needed to tell you what 'mif' stands for so when you read the next quote, you won't be wondering so much.
I found long ago that whenever I was in a Thai-speaking group together with other foreigners, I could easily tell whether they were better or worse than me. When I could see what they were trying to say, I would be flashing my own internal speaking (mifs), and I could easily see how my mifs compared to theirs. Was I faster or slower than them? Better or worse? Of course anyone could do the same thing for their own range. We’ve all got such a meter.So, how long does it take for a successful student of the ALG method to pass up Dr. Brown at speaking Thai?
Our first success story came in 1988 when our course had grown to a full year. He was the first ‘student’ to pass me up. It took him about 5 years (one year of class plus 4 years of partial immersion). The most recent success story that I noticed was in 2001--after our course had reached new heights. It took her 2½ years (1½ years of class plus 1 year of partial immersion). And this is the current state of the art: 2½ years.So, the proof is there. The concept has been proven. To sum it up, I'll state it this way. Not thinking about the language while acquiring it is far superior to drilling, practicing, and learning the language.
Remember now, I’m talking about a level above me. Her 2½ years had overtaken my 40! Notice also that my ‘bell test’ could only come at some time after a student had finished our course; that is, after a certain amount of immersion. It just so happened that the two people mentioned above worked in our department after their course and we were thus able to observe their immersion.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
ALG World
I might consider ALG World the ultimate in extreme language learning and seems by far the best method there is. ALG stands for Automatic Language Growth. This is total immersion and no translation. So you start at Level 1 with no knowledge of the language and the teachers only speak in the target language. Notice that they have 2 teachers, not just one. I think that it is best to have 2 teachers in the classroom. 2 native speaking teachers. Since you start out not knowing the language, the teachers use more than just speaking in order to communicate to you. So you are understanding. You are not trying to remember words and not being asked to speak in the target language. You are just acquiring the language. Your ability to guess is what facilitates your acquisition of the language. This natural acquisition gets you native fluency. That means you speak with the facility and pronunciation of someone who grew up speaking the language.
In a way, this seems similar to an English lesson at a conversation school in Japan because the native English speaking teachers here (in Japan) cannot all be expected to be able to speak Japanese so therefor the lessons that students take at one of these "schools" is all in English. Therefor I would like to point out what some of the differences are. First and foremost, here in Japan, you get only one teacher teaching a lesson. At ALG World there are 2 teachers in the classroom. Having 2 teachers provides natural interaction and dialog for the students. With only 1 teacher, the teacher has a much bigger challenge to display the natural language. The next point is that at ALG World, the students are not under any pressure to produce output. In Japan, progress is measured by output. The pressure and stress to speak is quite counter productive. I know I can perform better and remember things more easily when I am not under any pressure. The last major difference I would like to point out is the number of hours. At ALG World, the students take class for 6 hours a day. So that would be 1500 hours in a year and could be 3000 in 2 years. The average student may take 1 or 2 hours a week of lessons in Japan. So it could all just be the number of hours. But the difference between the approaches shows up in pronunciation and facility in the language, not just the number of years it takes.
There are some videos on YouTube. This one is a Japanese lesson at ALG World.
I don't know which level that class is, but I can understand it 100%.
Here is a level 1 Thai lesson. Very interesting. It seems to me that in Thai some sounds are made with the whole mouth. It's like the sound is not just being pushed out but it is being held in the mouth. Obviously I can't describe what I mean or what I hear. But it just feels like the sounds are produced in a totally different way. Maybe it's not just some, but maybe all the sounds. I noticed this also in the movie Ong Bak. I bought this movie in May or June this year here in Japan so I've got the original Thai as well as a Japanese dub and Japanese subtitles.
If you want to know more about the ALG method, there is a presentation on YouTube divided into six parts. The first part is here.
In a way, this seems similar to an English lesson at a conversation school in Japan because the native English speaking teachers here (in Japan) cannot all be expected to be able to speak Japanese so therefor the lessons that students take at one of these "schools" is all in English. Therefor I would like to point out what some of the differences are. First and foremost, here in Japan, you get only one teacher teaching a lesson. At ALG World there are 2 teachers in the classroom. Having 2 teachers provides natural interaction and dialog for the students. With only 1 teacher, the teacher has a much bigger challenge to display the natural language. The next point is that at ALG World, the students are not under any pressure to produce output. In Japan, progress is measured by output. The pressure and stress to speak is quite counter productive. I know I can perform better and remember things more easily when I am not under any pressure. The last major difference I would like to point out is the number of hours. At ALG World, the students take class for 6 hours a day. So that would be 1500 hours in a year and could be 3000 in 2 years. The average student may take 1 or 2 hours a week of lessons in Japan. So it could all just be the number of hours. But the difference between the approaches shows up in pronunciation and facility in the language, not just the number of years it takes.
There are some videos on YouTube. This one is a Japanese lesson at ALG World.
I don't know which level that class is, but I can understand it 100%.
Here is a level 1 Thai lesson. Very interesting. It seems to me that in Thai some sounds are made with the whole mouth. It's like the sound is not just being pushed out but it is being held in the mouth. Obviously I can't describe what I mean or what I hear. But it just feels like the sounds are produced in a totally different way. Maybe it's not just some, but maybe all the sounds. I noticed this also in the movie Ong Bak. I bought this movie in May or June this year here in Japan so I've got the original Thai as well as a Japanese dub and Japanese subtitles.
If you want to know more about the ALG method, there is a presentation on YouTube divided into six parts. The first part is here.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
The Iversen Method
The Iversen Method is a wordlist method for tackling vocabulary acquisition in language-learning.
I am working on the modified Iversen method for Japanese. As a trial run, here is what I have done.
First of all, the paper. I used printed paper with squares neatly arranged like graphing paper. The squares are 5 millimeters. It's really small and I did not think I would be able to write in the complex characters in them, but somehow I managed. The paper has 44 rows and 30 columns.
Without getting too detailed, I put one entry per line which ended up in the following order: Kanji, Kana, English, Kanji.
The first day, I did 6 at a time. I felt I had to do some memorizing before writing them on the paper because when I do write them down the first time, that is when I need to make my mental notes about the characters so that later, I can recall those notes and reproduce the Kanji in the final column. Without doing some work to memorize the reading and meaning before writing the words in the initial column, I would have nothing to attach it to in my brain.
So I went through the list before writing them down until I knew the readings and the meanings. Then I wrote the Kanji words by first carefully looking at them and then trying to write them from memory. If I could not do it, then I knew which part to give more attention to and I made mental notes. I also repeated the reading and meaning once when finished with each word.
By the time I finished writing the 6 words, I could still remember all the readings. I did a quick run through in my mind to make sure and then I proceeded to write down the readings in hiragana for each word.
After that, I would check my recall of the English translations. Usually, no problem. So then I wrote down all of the English translations. After that, I double checked to make sure I hadn't left anything out.
Finally, the fourth and last column. This was the challenging part because I had written down the readings and the English since having written the actual Kanji words. Just glancing at Kanji is not enough of a review to be able to write them. So it felt like some time had passed since I had written them. I covered up the first two columns and went through the English column. I traced the Kanji with my pen but no ink as I reconstructed them from my memory. Many times I closed my eyes to get a better look at them. This helps to remove any visual distractions from sight so that I can concentrate on the characters from memory. I recalled my mental notes that I had made about which characters were used and what those characters consisted of. If I got stuck, I tried my hardest to remember it. Only when I had felt that that wasn't working would I finally resort to looking at the answer. If I failed any one word, I would repeat the run through again. Once I could go through the list with no problem, then I would actually write them down in that fourth column.
Like I said, the first day I had done 6 at a time (42 total). I felt that this was too easy and that the exercise was over too quickly.
So the second day I did 11 at a time. Naturally, this was more challenging but still easily attainable. The less familiar I was with a particular Kanji the more difficult it was. On the final two sets, I noted the time it took. Each set of 11 took about 32 minutes. Both times, the first 6 minutes were spent learning the words before I wrote that initial column.
So to fill up a page with 44 words took me 2 hours plus rest time in between sets.
I'm thinking if I use a dictionary or vocabulary book, I can leave out the 2nd column which has the readings. I could look them up easily later if I reviewed them a month down the road and forgot some. This would allow me to get twice as many words on a page. Plus, it would be easier to review since the readings wouldn't be on the page. I would know for sure that I had learned the readings if I can still read them with out having to worry about covering up the readings before I accidently see them.
Each night was a lot of work. I'm not sure I could keep this up. I was exhausted when I finished. I would have liked to have done more. But it was tiring so I could not. I suppose I will try with the 3-column version instead of four columns.
Follow these links if you want to see images of the pages I wrote.
(1.5 MB each)
page 1
page 2
I am working on the modified Iversen method for Japanese. As a trial run, here is what I have done.
First of all, the paper. I used printed paper with squares neatly arranged like graphing paper. The squares are 5 millimeters. It's really small and I did not think I would be able to write in the complex characters in them, but somehow I managed. The paper has 44 rows and 30 columns.
Without getting too detailed, I put one entry per line which ended up in the following order: Kanji, Kana, English, Kanji.
The first day, I did 6 at a time. I felt I had to do some memorizing before writing them on the paper because when I do write them down the first time, that is when I need to make my mental notes about the characters so that later, I can recall those notes and reproduce the Kanji in the final column. Without doing some work to memorize the reading and meaning before writing the words in the initial column, I would have nothing to attach it to in my brain.
So I went through the list before writing them down until I knew the readings and the meanings. Then I wrote the Kanji words by first carefully looking at them and then trying to write them from memory. If I could not do it, then I knew which part to give more attention to and I made mental notes. I also repeated the reading and meaning once when finished with each word.
By the time I finished writing the 6 words, I could still remember all the readings. I did a quick run through in my mind to make sure and then I proceeded to write down the readings in hiragana for each word.
After that, I would check my recall of the English translations. Usually, no problem. So then I wrote down all of the English translations. After that, I double checked to make sure I hadn't left anything out.
Finally, the fourth and last column. This was the challenging part because I had written down the readings and the English since having written the actual Kanji words. Just glancing at Kanji is not enough of a review to be able to write them. So it felt like some time had passed since I had written them. I covered up the first two columns and went through the English column. I traced the Kanji with my pen but no ink as I reconstructed them from my memory. Many times I closed my eyes to get a better look at them. This helps to remove any visual distractions from sight so that I can concentrate on the characters from memory. I recalled my mental notes that I had made about which characters were used and what those characters consisted of. If I got stuck, I tried my hardest to remember it. Only when I had felt that that wasn't working would I finally resort to looking at the answer. If I failed any one word, I would repeat the run through again. Once I could go through the list with no problem, then I would actually write them down in that fourth column.
Like I said, the first day I had done 6 at a time (42 total). I felt that this was too easy and that the exercise was over too quickly.
So the second day I did 11 at a time. Naturally, this was more challenging but still easily attainable. The less familiar I was with a particular Kanji the more difficult it was. On the final two sets, I noted the time it took. Each set of 11 took about 32 minutes. Both times, the first 6 minutes were spent learning the words before I wrote that initial column.
So to fill up a page with 44 words took me 2 hours plus rest time in between sets.
I'm thinking if I use a dictionary or vocabulary book, I can leave out the 2nd column which has the readings. I could look them up easily later if I reviewed them a month down the road and forgot some. This would allow me to get twice as many words on a page. Plus, it would be easier to review since the readings wouldn't be on the page. I would know for sure that I had learned the readings if I can still read them with out having to worry about covering up the readings before I accidently see them.
Each night was a lot of work. I'm not sure I could keep this up. I was exhausted when I finished. I would have liked to have done more. But it was tiring so I could not. I suppose I will try with the 3-column version instead of four columns.
Follow these links if you want to see images of the pages I wrote.
(1.5 MB each)
page 1
page 2
Friday, March 14, 2008
Can you recommend me a Kanji book?
Is there a book that teaches Kanji? I mean, really teaches it. Some provide background information and educate you on Kanji, but all books that I have found so far, provide you with no effective way to learn Kanji. What you generally find in the books on Kanji is just information. You can look up a character and get the information you need but as for learning the Japanese written characters, all books rely on the user to memorize. Even Heisig's famous method requires you to memorize your own made-up stories. So that series is no different.
漢字を教える本はありますか？本当に教えていますか？背景を説明して漢字の知識を仕込む本はありますが、今までの見付かった本は効果的な漢字学習方法はありません。漢字を学ぶ本の中に、一般的な見付ける内容は情報だけです。字を引いて欲しい情報を取ることが出来ますが日本の漢字を習うという方法は、全ての本は学習者が暗記するのを頼りにします。ヘイシグ先生の有名な方法も自分が作ったストリーを暗記する必要があります。だからその本も違いません。
漢字を教える本はありますか？本当に教えていますか？背景を説明して漢字の知識を仕込む本はありますが、今までの見付かった本は効果的な漢字学習方法はありません。漢字を学ぶ本の中に、一般的な見付ける内容は情報だけです。字を引いて欲しい情報を取ることが出来ますが日本の漢字を習うという方法は、全ての本は学習者が暗記するのを頼りにします。ヘイシグ先生の有名な方法も自分が作ったストリーを暗記する必要があります。だからその本も違いません。
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Quiz me
To study for the Kanji test, I have made myself a couple of quizzes. I have about 200 words that could show up on the 8th level (8級) test and I'd better be able to read and write them. I put these words into a text file.
My php program will read in the file, shuffle the list, and then output a javascript array. Then I have a little javascript code to display the quiz info.
The first quiz I made is for reading practice. It shows the word and I need to type in the kana into the box. Then I press return and it checks it. If I get it right, I get a point and move on to the next word. If I get it wrong, I can try again but I won't get any more points. I can click the question mark to see the answer and I can click the triangle to go to the next word.
The second quiz is for writing practice. It shows the kana reading and the English meaning. Then I just need to write the Kanji on a piece o' paper. When I've done that, I then click the question mark to display the Kanji. I score myself by clicking on one of the three icons that display. I use the green one for right answers, the red one for wrong answers, and the pink one to skip.
Let me tell ya, it's not easy going through 200 words. Just 100 is tiring enough. But I can quit and when I do it again later, I'll get a new order. So I don't really need to do them all at once.
Here is what the quiz looks like:
My php program will read in the file, shuffle the list, and then output a javascript array. Then I have a little javascript code to display the quiz info.
The first quiz I made is for reading practice. It shows the word and I need to type in the kana into the box. Then I press return and it checks it. If I get it right, I get a point and move on to the next word. If I get it wrong, I can try again but I won't get any more points. I can click the question mark to see the answer and I can click the triangle to go to the next word.
The second quiz is for writing practice. It shows the kana reading and the English meaning. Then I just need to write the Kanji on a piece o' paper. When I've done that, I then click the question mark to display the Kanji. I score myself by clicking on one of the three icons that display. I use the green one for right answers, the red one for wrong answers, and the pink one to skip.
Let me tell ya, it's not easy going through 200 words. Just 100 is tiring enough. But I can quit and when I do it again later, I'll get a new order. So I don't really need to do them all at once.
Here is what the quiz looks like:
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