The Linguist - language learning should be fun

The real secret to language learning success - intensity

The real secret to language learning success - intensity.

These days I am a dilettante language learner. I have been learning Russian on my own for a few years. These past 2 weeks I have been listening to Portuguese and LingQing Portuguese, while reading, in Italian, a book on Italy's first 20 years in the 20th century. ( L'Italia di Giolitti by Montanelli). I fit my language activities in around my work, my sports and my social commitments and other things. I do it for enjoyment. In fact, these days I stress enjoyment as the key to ongoing language success for most people.

There was a time when things were different. There was a time when I had to learn a language for a living and had a different attitude. I was assigned to Hong Kong in 1967 by the Canadian Trade Department, and my job was to learn Mandarin. I was getting paid for studying. It was my job.

I learned enough to pass my Exam in Mandarin, to be able to translate newspaper editorials, in writing and orally, in both directions, and to carry on conversations,all in about 8 or 9 months. I remember what I considered the most important element of language learning success in those days. The key to me then was intensity. I still think it is, for the really serious learner.

I was sure that learning Chinese in 8 or 9 months, working 6-10 hours a day, enabled me to learn better than if I had taken 2 years to learn it, at a more leisurely pace. I think there is a white heat of activity which causes networks to form in the brain, and the hotter the temperature, the more intense the learning.

Many years later, in 2005,I remember attending a conference on corporate language learning in Dusseldorf, Germany. The conference was called Sprachen und Beruf and is held every year. I remember listening to a seminar describing the activities of corporate language learners in Germany. Apparently the average corporate language learner has one hour a week of class with a teacher, and then spends one and a half hours a week studying the language on his/her own. Apparently they do not improve very much. I am not surprised.

I have been listening to Portuguese every day here in Palm Springs, while doing dishes, while exercising, while driving to golf, even on the golf driving range, and even while golfing, (which makes my wife furious!). An every two days I put in 30-60 minutes at the computer with LingQ. If I were to listen to Portuguese once or twice a week, I do not think that I would learn anything.

But come to think of it, maybe it is pointless to promote intensity as the key to language learning. Maybe that will just scare people. Maybe the key is to find ways to make it enjoyable. Only if the activities are enjoyable will the learner put in the effort, or even come close to achieving the intensity required to make a breakthrough.

"I am not a linguist" - Canadian government servant and language student.

Yesterday my wife and I were golfing here in Palm Springs. We were a twosome and the game was slow so we invited the person behind us to join us. He turned to be a retired senior Canadian official from the Health Department. We were talking about hiking in the Palm Springs area and he gave me his name card because his wife was a hiking guide. I responded by giving him my LingQ card.

He immediately exclaimed " I am not a linguist. I spent a year on a government French course for public servants, in Quebec, and I could not learn French. I needed to get my B level". (Undoubtedly some bureaucratic standard which would entitle him to more money and which keeps teachers and testers employed)

"Maybe the school was not good, too traditional." I suggested.

"No, they were very systematic and covered all different aspects of French", he said defending the school.

"But you did not learn to speak after one full year of study", I commented.

"I am not good at languages" he replied, "I am just not a linguist"

I said that anyone can learn. You do not need to have any special talent. "Why do most people in Sweden learn English so well? They cannot all be talented" I said as an example.

"They learn because they know that they need English," he replied.

At this point I had to decide whether to have a pleasant golf game or to continue the discussion. I changed the subject. Otherwise I would have said the following.

1) You knew you needed French for your job and yet you could not learn it. Either you did not want to or the school was a disaster.
2) In Sweden they learn English well for a number of reasons, including the fact that they have television programs in English which they start watching as children.
3) In other European countries, where they also need English, they do not learn nearly as well, because they dub their television programs into the local language, amongst other reasons.
4) I am not sure whether your problem is your attitude towards learning French, or whether it is the way it is taught, first in high schools and then at these government languages schools, but in one year of full time study, of a language as similar to English as French, you should be able to learn to speak, anyone should.
5) Why are my tax dollars going towards sending a self-professed "non-linguist", not interested in learning French, to a useless language school in Quebec, just so he can earn more money?

If a government employee is not motivated enough to learn on his or her own,he or she should not be sent to a school. The same is true for most subsidized sulanguage programs for adults. Let the learner demonstrate the commitment first. Oherwise do not waste the money.

Three useful French expressions for language learning

Successful language learning, in my view, depends on attitude, far more than aptitude or any deliberate effort on the part of teachers, however well intentioned they may be.

When we contemplate the study of another language, we realize that we are staring uncertainty in the face.  Won't we have trouble understanding what people say in the language, even after studying it? Won't we have trouble saying what we want to say and sounding intelligent? Won't we constantly forget words? Will we ever learn the language?

Here are three expressions that can help.

C'est une perfection de n'aspirer point à etre parfait.   -  To not aspire to perfection is perfection.
Fénélon

Do not worry about perfection at any stage in the language, although you can keep it as a final goal (one that will not be achieved). Do not worry about what you do not understand, nor what you forget. Do not try to nail down the pronunciation or the grammar or any other details, as you absorb the language.

L'appétit vient en mangeant.  - Appetite comes with eating.
Rabelais

The more you get into the language, the more you will enjoy it. This applies to all activities related to language study, whether listening, reading or vocabulary review. At times you have to push yourself to get started, but once you get going, as you find yourself gradually discovering more and more of the language, the whole activity grows on you.

Il faut joindre l'utile à l'agréable. - We should combine the useful with the agreeable.
Anonymous

Only do those language learning activities that you find useful or enjoyable. If you are not surrounded by people who speak the language, just focus on listening and reading. Don't worry about rare words that you forget because you do not see them often. You probably do not need them. Just do what you need to do and do what you enjoy doing.

Low tech SRS for learning Chinese characters

Just an anecdote as part of this discussion of SRS systems.

I used my own personal SRS system for learning the first 1000 characters in Chinese and then learned the rest from my reading. This was in 1968.

My personal SRS approach to Kanji consisted of taking the conventional squared paper used by Chinese and Japanese school children. Then I bought flash cards of the most common 1000 characters. I would pick out a batch to study every day. Once past the first 1000 I would only occasionally do this. Usually I would only write out new characters a few times. On the other hand I did have to write from time to time.

I started with the first one and wrote it out 6 or 7 times in the squares of the left hand column. Then I would write the sound or the meaning two or three columns to the right. Then I picked up the next character and did the same. Soon I would run into the first character and have to write it again. Then I would again rewrite it a few columns to the left. I kept on doing this until my batch was done. I started doing 10 a day and then got it up to 30. I would retire cards that I knew and mix back into the deck the cards that I did not know. I did it every day, or almost. In eight months I learned to read and write 4,000 characters.

After 3 months I was reading the newspaper, after 6 months I was reading novels, after 8 months I wrote an exam where I had to translate newspaper editorials from English to Chinese and vice versa.

After 40 years of not writing Chinese I can no longer write by hand, but I can do so using a word processor and I can read.

More on Spaced Reptition Systems

I would be interested to hear which of the many SRS systems are the most popular, and how they are used.  I am particularly interested to hear how different kinds of information are learned using these systems.

I mean there are different bits of information that are learned using these systems. Which are easiest to learn this way? How many do you look at daily?

1) An isolated fact. The capital city of Finland - no understanding, no context required.
2) A mathematical or scientific theory. Understanding required
3) A Chinese character: A major effort required to learn a totally different writing system, in addition to having to learn the language
4) A word (passive knowledge). Some easier than others, to learn, and forget. Depends largely on frequency of exposure in contexts other than SRS system itself.
5) A phrase (passive knowledge), Easier than words because a collection of words some of which are usually known.
6) Sentence (passive knowledge) really just a long phrase, but a more unique collection of words.
7) 4)-6) again but active knowledge

8) A grammar rule or word ending as a rule.

9) A grammar pattern as part of frequently reviewed phrases or sentences

I save about 1000 LingQ per month at LingQ, from my reading and listening. I save words, and I save phrases, which I often tag for grammar or other purposes, for later review.

This would correspond to 1000 cards. When I consider that my Flash Cards in LingQ (we also have a SRS system) can be reversed (English Russian as well as Russian English in my case ), this could be 2000 cards the way Anki counts them.

I know that my deliberate word and phrase review in LingQ is very much on a random sample basis. I cannot review all my saved words. I do not do it on a thorough basis. There is just not enough time, since I spend most of my time listening and reading.

I am happy with that and my word and phrase knowledge is growing. How much time would I have to spend daily on word and phrase review if I were a disciplined SRS user?

Resonance and learning

In my previous post I explained that I am more partial to listening and reading, rather then working with SRS (spaced repetition systems). When I do review vocabulary, I prefer to control what I review. I either look at words and phrases from recently studied content, or I look at my high frequency vocabulary, or I look at lists tagged for certain grammatical issues, or I search by root words or components, or I just go at my list of words alphabetically, at random.

On the other hand I know that many people swear by SRS systems, and we certainly want to enable people to use their favourite SRS systems with LingQ. It is on our list.

 I guess the important thing is to do things that we like to do. The more time we spend with the language, the better we will learn. The more we like what we are doing, the more we will do it.

I do find that when I am doing a form of study or review which I like, then there is resonance from the activity. I feel that I am learning. This is a difficult concept to explain. I can look at declensions tables or grammar rules or lists of words, read them, review them, but there is little resonance. There is little left in my brain after I finish. When I next look at the declension table I feel as if I am starting from the beginning again.

 I found the same when I used language books that only offered phrases and sentences without context. I listened over and over, but not much would stick. When there is an interesting context, there is more resonance. Two weeks of listening to Rubem Alves talk about education (and studying the transcripts) in Portuguese was worth more than one month of listening to Random House Living Language Portuguese.

On flash cards, spaced repetition and sentence mining

Most language learners are familiar with flash cards, fewer learners have heard of SRS or spaced repetition and even fewer learners know of sentence mining. Googling these terms will clear things up for most people. What these activities have in common is that they are deliberate learning tools or tasks, that take us away from listening and reading or using the language.

I believe that a certain amount of such activity is useful in helping us to notice the language. The amount that we should do will depend on our interest or tolerance for this kind of activity. My tolerance level is low, and here is why.

I find it easiest to just listen to a language, since I can do it while doing other tasks. I enjoy reading, which I do on its own, or on the computer in order to easily look up and save words from texts that I am listening to.

I do invest some time in the deliberate study of words that I have saved. I look at them in lists, and I use flash cards. I also invest time in upgrading these entries in my database, by tagging them or editing the phrases that are captured in LingQ.  The deliberate review of vocabulary represents less than 10% of my language learning time. Since I have, on average 50 minutes a day to spend on language learning, this means 5 minutes a day on vocabulary review.

An SRS system pushes words at the learner based on an algorithm, which is designed to optimize retention in one's memory. I do not like having a steady flow of words pushed at me. I prefer to review my vocabulary when I want, and in the way that I want, and that can vary. Sometimes I review chronologically by the date when I first met them, sometimes alphabetically which enables me to see relationships between words which start the same way. I review my tagged lists sometimes, and I can search my saved words by root or component. Whatever I do, I can only review a small portion of the words that I have saved. I have saved over 20,000 words. Reviewing the words is more of a brain massage to make my brain more attentive, rather than an exhaustive effort to learn the words.

I believe that most of my learning of words takes place when I listen and read. When I read in LingQ I can see the previously saved words highlighted in yellow. Every time I import an item from Exho Moskvi in Russian, of about 30 minutes in length, I see 200 old friends. I often click on them while reading, just to refresh my understanding of them, especially in the light of the new context where I now find them.

I know and respect greatly the language learning activities of Khatzumoto, but I cannot bring myself to learn sentences, or as it is sometimes called, to do sentence mining. I prefer phrases. In LingQ  I review the automatically captured phrases when I review my saved words. Since I cannot review all my words, this is a bit random, but it all helps. I especially focus on phrases that embody grammar points, like cases in Russian. I know that all of this review is very much a matter of random sampling.

However, even though I spend most of my time reading and listening rather then reviewing words or sentences, there is no question that my vocabulary has grown immensely. I read with far grater ease now than I used to.

LingQ in the classroom and the role of a classroom teacher.

How can LingQ can be used in a classroom? I want to address two questions that I received quite some time ago, one from Albert in Taiwan and one from Milan who studies Cantonese in Hong Kong.

First of all let's realize that the vast majority of language teachers in the world are not native speakers, and are not a model of the spoken language, nor even, necessarily, of the written language that their students are studying. Furthermore, in many situations, students in schools are denied the opportunity to learn a language because there is no qualified teacher available, i.e. someone with at least some knowledge of this other language.

• LingQ, as well as other resources on the Internet, can greatly enhance the power of a teacher, regardless of whether the teacher is a native speaker or not.
  LingQ provides a wide choice of content with audio and text.
  LingQ offers a structured approach to vocabulary acquisition.
  LingQ integrates listening, reading, vocabulary review, speaking and writing.
  LingQ connects learners to a community of learners and native speakers.

A classroom can be an effective place to focus a LingQ program for a variety of reasons.

• The teacher can explain LingQ, how to get started and how to take advantage of all of its features. Most online learners do not use all of LingQs power.
• The teacher can assign content to learners from the LingQ library, or ask them to import content that is more relevant to their curriculum.
• With LingQ, the teacher can have individual learners or groups of learners working on different content (even different languages), that suit their interests and abilities.
• Issues related to the language, or the use of LingQ, can be discussed in class.
• Students can be encouraged to study on their own, in class as well as away from the class.
• The teachers can more easily work with individual learners, and follow their activity and progress.
• Individuals or groups of learners can share Vocabulary lists, discuss content items, or discuss how they use the system.
• Class discussions can be summarized and posted as content to be Imported and studied.
• Writing assignments can be corrected and easily integrated into each learners input activities.

Since there is a wide variety of listening material in the LingQ Library, even a non-native teacher can be effective in encouraging and stimulating learners, and giving assignments. The fluency of the teacher is less of an issue.

If the teacher is native, or a very fluent speaker of the language being taught, that opens up additional opportunities for free discussio  in the class, or even to create new content for use in LingQ.

I addition, there are specific ways in which LingQ is particularly useful in preparing for TOEFL, TOEIC and other similar standard tests, as I have discussed earlier.

See below

I am working to develop a course for people taking these standard English tests. I am interested in hearing ideas on what to put into the course. Here are some of my ideas so far.

1) To me the key to success in these tests is a strong three-legged foundation.
The ability to read quickly and understand
The ability to listen and understand
A large vocabulary of words and phrases

2) If a person has a sound foundation then he/she can work on output.
Writing an answer to a question within a limited time period
Answering an oral question within a limited time period

For 1) what we do at LingQ is ideal. We have content on a wide variety of subjects, and our learners can practice reading, listening and accumulate a wide vocabulary.

We can take it one step further.

There are key lists of words available on the Internet
The Academic Word List
TOEIC lists
TOEFL lists
Previous questions from these tests
Etc.

Here are some examples:

http://language.massey.ac.nz/staff/awl/sublist1.sh tml
http://www2.nict.go.jp/x/x161/members/mutiyama/voc abridge-toeic/
http://supervoca.net/toefllist.cgi


These can be used in the following way.

create a Collection in Import called Lists.
import each list as an item in the Collection
open them as content starting with the one that has the lowest % new words
go through and LingQ the words that you do not know
use "examples" to find appropriate phrases for the LingQ box or wait until the word appears again in another text.
if you want you can Tag these words TOEFL or TOEIC or AWL whatever you want.

This procedure has a number of advantages
1) You can immediately input a long list of words that are necessary for these tests.
2) You get a sense of how many you already know.
3) These words will now appear highlighted in yellow in future texts at LingQ.
4) You will now have the words you need in your database for review in Flash Cards
5) You can track your progress in learning these words.

As for the output portion of standard tests, we will be working to recreate realistic tests of oral and written expression similar to what is on the tests.

I look forward to comments and suggestions.

After I get input here I will post on this subject on my blog. I believe that LingQ is a particularly useful tool for preparing for these tests, better than many of the specialized TOEIC schools etc. that charge a lot of money.

I think the same can be done for other languages and would be interested to know of what lists exists in other languages.

Graded readers, Penguin Readers, easy news, etc.

There are many publishers of graded readers, easy to read news , and other simplified texts for language learners. The only time I found these interesting or useful was when I was learning to read Chinese characters, and even then only for the first few months.

We probably do need easy content to get us started in a language. This kind of content is usually provided in the simple dialogues that can be found in most starter language kits you can buy at book stores or online.

We offer simplified content at LingQ in the Beginner I and Beginner II areas in each language. All of this content also has sound, so that learners can listen repeatedly to these simplified texts, to start to get used to the language and learn some of the most frequently used words. But one need only spend a few months on this kind of material, in my experience.

I have always wanted to get on to real authentic content as soon as possible. I have never been motivated to read simplified versions of famous books such as are offered in the Penguin Readers series. Even in Russian I preferred to fight my way through the real version of a book or news item, (usually importing it into LingQ) rather then read some simplified story or even simplified history book.

But I guess that is just me. The market for these simplified texts is large, so I am probably the exception. What do others think?

Jing videos about LingQ

I have added a few more videos about LingQ in the LingQCentral blog. I have also posted them to my youtube account. I am exploring the features of Jing.

I hope to do more in different languages, or better some of our users may do some in their native languages.