Language learners # 1 Peter in Vancouver

Peter's story

Some while ago I said I would start talking to language learners about their experiences. A number of you have indicated a willingness to be interviewed via Skype. I started off with an interview with one of my readers based here in Vancouver. Subsequently I had my son and family come for a visit and everything got very busy. So I have not loaded up the first interview, which I am doing here. I will be trying to contact others as well, including people who do not enjoy, or do not feel they are successful language learners.

Comments

[Ryan]

Hi Steve. I really enjoyed your interview with Peter. I would be willing to do something similar sometime if you needed another person.

[claudio]

More interviews please! I think it's very helpful to see what other people are doing in order to facilitate foreign language learning. Very informative and motivational.

[Rollo]

Very helpful interview. Thank You.

I agree with Peter about the Pimsleur programs. The phrases I learned from Pimsleur seem to have stuck in my mind like no other, The program has it's drawbacks, but I will never question that is effective for what it does.

Also, Peter's belief in massive amounts of content is something to consider. Is it enough to simply surround yourself with the language or is it more important to set aside 30-60 minutes a day where you can concentrate fully on the language?

[Steve Kaufmann]

One interesting thing is that some of the phrases that I remember the best in Russian are phrases from some of the first texts that I listen to. Not to take anything away from Pimsleur, but it may be that the first phrases stick in one's mind. "On revient toujours a ses premiers amours."

[chris(mandarin_student)]

An excellent start to these interviews, I think this series of interviews will be very useful to language learners, I was particularly interested to hear Peters experiences with listening to larges amounts of real world Chinese. I started this way and think it is a great technique for languages that you haven't had any experience of. My own experience with this is detailed in the following link.
http://friedelcraft.blogspot.com/2008/04/best-thing-i-did-in-starting-to-learn.html