I WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS LANGUAGE ACQUISITION WITH YOU
A long time ago in a blog post far, far away, someone said this:
I’ve a question for Matt. Since the method you [use] has little or no emphasis on reading, what happens when you actually read? I personally have trouble with the way French words are spelled to the way they are pronounced.
It was a great question, and like always, I answered honestly; I said I’d let him know what happened when I actually started reading. Then, like always, I made an offering to the god of steel, knocked up a princess, killed James Earl Jones, did too many shoulder presses, and puked on my dog.
SO WHAT DID HAPPEN WHEN I STARTED READING FRENCH STUFF?
I’m a pretty big reader with pretty big biceps. Hell, sometimes I’ll go through four, five, or even six Curious George novels in a single day. That monkey is hilarious. But what happened when I started reading in French? I had never seen French words before, never taken French classes, and flat out never given anyone any money to upload French knowledge into my massive brain. Surely the whole thing was a spectacular failure, right?
Yeah, if you’re a stupid idioHOLD ON SPILLED PROTEIN SHAKE ON MY KEYBOARD CRAP PAPERTOWELSPAPERTOWELS
-10 minutes later-
…My Macbook smells like bananas.
Anyway, it’s been awesome. I bought a Nintendo DS and downloaded the SNES gem Chrono Trigger (in French of course), and I bought some old Ninja Turtles comic books in French. Kids stuff, ya know?
VRAIMENT AWESOME
What was really cool was how natural everything was. Rather than trying to figure out how the words sound based on their spelling (hint: STUPID), I already knew how everything sounded, and merely skipped over words I didn’t know at first. Now, having read the comics a bazillion times, and being on my second play-through of Chono Trigger, I can say for sure that this was the right way to go about things. I can comfortably read French, and got to this point without ever being uncomfortable reading French. Read that sentence again, then write it 100 times.
TROP LONG; DIDN’T LIRE
To summarize, I’ve been watching French TV and movies and listening to French podcasts and music like a madman for a while now, and felt that my audio comprehension was high enough to start reading. Plus, video games and comics are fun.
Q&A
Q: Do you use a dictionary?
A: No. I don’t look words up. I don’t study. Ever.
Q: Was it slow going at first?
A: Surprisingly, not really. I think that having so much listening practice made it really simple to fill-in-the-blanks when it came to how words sounded. French spelling is horribly erratic, but I was constantly having those “ah, this word must be such-and-such” moments, like the first time I saw “je ne peux pas.” I immediately knew the phrase and how to pronounce it, regardless of the fact that it looks like a blind chimp with Parkinson’s typed it.
Q: Have you noticed a lot of improvement since you started?
A: Yes. On my first play-through of Chrono Trigger I skipped a lot words I didn’t know, and now on my second play-through it’s very rare when I find a word I don’t know. The change was pretty rapid, and happened entirely without effort. I guess I just saw the words over and over in so many contexts that my brain just figured them out or something.
Q: Do you think reading is helping you with French?
A: Reading is making me better at reading. I watched a French movie a few nights ago (Un Prophet) that had a lot of Arabic subtitled in French, and could basically read the subtitles (and understand them) at full speed. I don’t know if it’s improving my listening skills (other than the little vocab boost I’m getting); if it is, it’s on a scale too small to notice right now. My hunch: yes, it’s improving my French across the board, but in a sneaky way.
Q: When are you going to start, you know, like, talking to French people?
A: When I feel like it. Also, there aren’t a lot of French supermodels in Korea, last I checked. Maybe I should check again to make sure… nope, not too many at all.
Q: Out of curiosity, are you going to start using Anki?
A: Yep, but not in the normal way. I’ll explain in my next post.
OSX: PROTEIN LEOPARD
–MATT OUT!
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Let’s Play French
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Sounds like a great strategy if you are learning a language that uses an alphabet or syllabary. I wonder if it works as well if you go reading to listening rather than listening to reading?
I'm really interested to hear how you are going to use Anki, I'm bored of the way I'm using it now. I'm changing it up a bit, but I'm not sure how well it will work.
Worked for me the same with Thai (had to learn the alphabet, though, which I did by watching pre-school kids DVDs). Starting to read when you can actually sound out and understand 95%+ of the words is a real pleasure!
Not sure what Matt is going to respond, but I think the odds are 99:1 that "reading to listening" fails big time. Language is primarily oral, and starting with reading just means you're inventing your own wrong pronunciation and prosody. I can't see how this could work. I only see two possible routes: listening – speaking – reading – writing, or listening – reading – speaking – writing.
I personally have been doing the listening – reading – speaking – writing method (first input, then output), but I think listening – speaking – reading – writing would be just as good. In fact, that method is more like first language acquisition anyway, so maybe I should do that…
Anyway, I like your idea of learning the Thai alphabet from kids DVDs. Luckily French uses the Roman alphabet so it was not really an issue, but for any language that uses foreign characters an approach like yours sounds pretty ideal (except Chinese & Japanese of course).
Thanks for commenting, and I hope your Thai studies are still going well.
-Matt
Thai still rocks, it actually gets more and more fun the more I get functional. I just stopped blogging about it, I prefer to spend my time on other things at the moment (like, err, reading, chatting and watching Thai). Looking forward to your Anki post, it'll be a controversial topic.
By the way, I recently raided my local library for French kids books. Found some great adventure stories. Had to throw them out again when I decided to really focus on Thai, though.
Now, I can't say for sure that reading before listening is a bad idea, so I'll just say this: reading before listening is a really, really bad idea. Heck, people who guess pronunciation of words in their own language tend to screw up, why would it be any different in your L2, right?
As for Anki, I'm doing my best to make a system that won't bore me to tears, or worse yet, make me start seeing French as work. This will be my next post, so stay tuned!
Thanks for commenting,
-Matt
This is massively awesome. Awwwwwesome.
I have a feeling that, in Chinese or Japanese, if you had the context at hand (and you already racked in all those listening hours) it would be the same story. And by context, I mean topic. The context of the rest of what you'd read would make it more clear. All of this, I'm assuming…
I think you've pretty much convinced me that this is the way I might should probably approach Japanese.
I'm working on Spanish to conversational fluency, which is a goal nothing near Native ability (which you are or already have developing), I just want to speak and open up some of my coworkers (who speak Spanish as their native tongue). So my Japanese approach would have to be more of your method, I think.
Can't wait for your next post!
Way back in the day, when I was immersing in Japanese, I started reading a few Japanese comics and found it surprisingly easy to project correct pronunciation onto words that I had heard over and over. Especially when I read comics of shows I had watched, and already knew how the characters intoned certain words and phrases. The catch is that I had already finished Heisig's RtK, so I could look at words and more less guess what they meant based on 1. the kanji used, and 2. the other words in the sentence.
Whatever works, man, whatever works!
Anyway, you too are massively awesome as well, maugrassia. Awwwwwesome!
Take it easy,
-Matt
Cool. So are you going to actually move to France for a bit? I presume you’re learning French because you plan on actually using it somewhere at some point (although there are PLENTY of people who learn new languages just because it’s fun or they just want to be able to say they now speak 7 languages instead of 6–you will find tons of this type on HTLAL), is that correct?
Cheers,
Andrew
Hey Andrew,
Yeah, I want to do a work-stay program in France at some point, and would rather be fluent before I get there. Also I want to travel around North Africa and maybe swing back through Switzerland at some point, so I'm not just learning French for its own sake, although that is certainly part of it as well.
Thanks for commenting!
-Matt
Reading while you're listening? Are you sure? In my experience, this distracts from the audio itself. Babies don't have subtitles to help them understand stuff, why would we? Okay, I have to be honest: in the past I tried to use subtitles to learn Spanish, but the lack of closed caption subtitles for Spanish made them only work as a distraction for me, so I learned Spanish without ever touching them. The same counts from Matt I know; he just listens and absorbs.
Now, I know this may sound as a weird approach for Mandarin, but I know at least Keith (http://natural-language-acquisition.blogspot.com) and Khatzumoto (http://www.ajatt.com) ignored subtitles and just absorbed. In the case of Khatzumoto I know it has worked wonders.
Don't get me wrong, do whatever you feel comfortable with and what yields good results for you. For example, I can't stand watching telediarios, but some love them and re-watch them several times a day. I would pull my fingernails out, plain and simple.
P.S. That's maybe a good idea, would also help us get the word out about input-based learning.
Hey Ramses, thanks for your response, and for dropping a line on my blog back in the day
Babies don't have Anki to do SRS reps with like you and I do for Spanish, or Khatzumoto does for Japanese, either. What babies do have is family and caretakers who speak slowly and repetitively to them and repeat more or less the same activities with them on a daily basis for the first few years of their life, transmitting the meaning of what they’re saying through their actions, gesticulations, and facial expressions. And for babies, that’s interesting content. But I feel the same way about SRS with my Mandarin right now as you do about telediarios – I’d much rather listen to authentic content with context, mostly dialogues.
My first 100 hours of Mandarin listening mostly consisted of “baby content”, listening to hundreds of Beginner and Elementary ChinesePOD podcasts over and over again with no reading to really build a solid listening base, as well as listening to Intermediate radio shows where they speak half in English and half in Mandarin and explain the dialogues auditorily as you go along. But I don’t fancy wallowing in the nether regions of Elementary Mandarin and half-English content and listening to conversations like “Hello, I would like to buy a hamburger” for the next year. I want to listen to the news, podcasts about history, pop culture radio, and Harry Potter audio books for Pete’s sake.
And I want to understand what I’m listening to, even if it’s beyond my level of "unaided" comprehension and I don't understand everything. So I find content with transcripts and get a rough translation to read along with while I’m listening. This is not the same as “subtitles”, as you say – when you’re watching TV with subtitles, you have to pay attention to the audio, the subtitles AND the visual content. When you’re reading a rough translation while listening, you only have two things to pay attention to. And you’re right – it IS a distraction from listening, which is why I always listen only first, then listen and read along, then listen again many times. Once you’ve accessed the meaning of the content, the need to read is gone, and you can just concentrate on listening.
I agree with you guys that listening to things you don’t understand is beneficial in language learning. I have my Mandarin podcasts and radio on all the time and there’s a lot I don’t understand yet. But I want to understand at least the GIST of what I’m listening to. With Spanish, German and French it was different – because of cognate vocabulary and similar structures, I understood or at leastly recognized between 10-50% FROM THE VERY FIRST DAY, as I’m sure you and Matt did as well, and I absorbed new vocabulary with ease. With Mandarin you start from scratch with nothing, and you have to have some way to get at the meaning of what you’re listening to.
As far as “Kanji Keith” is concerned, I respect the cojones and the amount of time he has to watch and listen to countless hours of content that is well-nigh inaccessible to him, but regardless, he clearly states on his blog (http://natural-language-acquisition.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-history-of-learning-chinese-language.html) that before he ever started with his “Chinese TV Method” he: had an 8-week Chinese course at university, had listened to Serge Melnyks English/Mandarin podcasts, had done lots of audio reps with FSI content, had done shadowing (he calls it “chorusing”) with Assimil, and had done extensive reading and listening on LingQ – in short, he had already done a lot to get at the meaning of the basis of what he would be listening to on TV.
Regards
David
Hello Ramses, I asked a question here"http://www.spanish-only.com/2008/03/how-to-roll-your-r/#idc-cover". it is a very old post and i dont know if you would see that. can you please help me?
thanks again
Thank you Matt for responding to my question and a very interesting response it is. I guess the loads of media you went through aided you in guessing the written words contextually. That’s actually quite awesome! It also makes me wonder what would happen if the same approach were taken with a character-based language like chinese or japanese.
Keep up the good posts!
Thanks for giving me a question to base an article on!
As for the question about someone doing the same approach with Japanese, I think it would work just as well with some minor tweaks, like working through Heisig's RtK first, and maybe a beginner sentence pack or something.
I'll do my best to keep the posts coming. Take it easy bud
-Matt
Holy wow, David!
1. One of my best buds is named David, so you're cool in my book.
2. I'm from San Diego, and worked at Sony (SCEA) for a few years, and almost worked at SOE! I would probably know you right now if I had taken that job!
Anyway, about your comment, I certainly try to listen to French far more than I read it (think like a 5:1 ratio, minimum). And no, I have never considered recording any of my posts. That's up to Ramses if he wants to do it. I'm just a guest here!
Good luck with the Mandarin, and heck, maybe I'll run in to ya once I'm back in SD!
-Matt
Hey Matt
Thanks for your reply, I just got back from SOE's Fan Faire in Vegas so I haven't had the opportunity to get back to you.
SCEA's the one that's in RB, right? I've met a few people that work over there.
I'd say that my listening to reading ratio for Mandarin is also about 5:1, though I'm hoping that will decrease as I reach an upper intermediate level of listening to the point where I can pick up new words from context.
Shoot me a message when you're back in town, I'd love to hear about your Korea experience.
Regards
David
Man oh man do I love me some Calvin and Hobbes. I don't suppose you've found any French C&H resources have ya?
As far as novels go, I'm not there yet; right now I want to learn common, spoken French so I stick to video games and comics because it's all dialogue rather than exposition (I don't want to speak like a narrator!).
You keep on rocking too, buddy!
-Matt
Found it. For anyone interested, here's a Calvin et Hobbes book:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1P0A89J7
Cool, you found some. I just got my C+H from second hand on Amazon and have found other stuff in dusty old used book shops. I agree, comics are an absolute goldmine of everyday conversation/banter ammo, C+H especially for how to be funny/sarcastic/hyperbolic in French.
Dear,
Ramses or Matt how did you go about finding good french/spanish that you liked? Ie. on internet forums,radio stations etc. The problem is that groove shark and last.fm dont work for me! I have been wading through crap french music for weeks and have only found one band I like!
Thanks
Niall
Sorry typo! I meant french or spanish music you liked!
I used Grooveshark to find a whole bunch of decent stuff, then hopped into my binary pirate ship and looted many an album from them there digital shores.
It's basically just a game; keep your finger on the 'next' button and keep smashing it until you find something that doesn't suck (just like in your L1). I collected some rock, hip-hop, indie music, talking-over-music music, etc. until I amassed a small collection. It still needs to grow, but I'm pretty happy with what I've found.
In the interest of giving context though, music listening probably makes up less than 10% of my French immersion time. Everything is good for you, but some things are… more gooderer. TV > PODCASTS > TEXT > MUSIC. But don't take my word for it!*
* Seriously, take my word for it.
Thanks Matt
If you already know of a few artists or songs that you like, try using Pandora (www.pandora.com). Pandora is an online radio that allows you to choose what songs the radio will play. Basically, you log onto the site and type in the name of a song or artist/group that you like. Then Pandora plays songs that are mapped out to be similar to the song or artist that you originally typed in. You can skip a limited amount of songs and also give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to songs. If you give a thumbs up or down, you'll influence the program to play songs that are more related to or different from the song, depending on how you rated it. If you register (for free) you can create many radio stations. I used Pandora to find more artists/groups in Spanish. Right now, I have a few primarily-Spanish radio station that play rap, a few that play different moods of rock, and another that plays reggae. So just go to Pandora, type in the name of that one band you like, and start finding similar bands.
Thanks! sadly pandora is not available in the uk!
Hey matt, I’ve got a couple questions for you about the reasoning behind your methods… In particular the whole no studying thing. Is there a specific reason you don’t “study” (use srs, look up things). Do you think you will go faster without it? Just dont feel like it? Now that my computer broke(this is on my phone) I can’t really add to surusu or look up words so I’m just reading and watching tv like you, no studying involved… I know I’m still learnin alot but I feel I would be going faster studying some. So once again, why don’t you study. (not saying not studying is bad, just curious).
Just from my experience. I tried reading books the hard way, looking up all the words and characters (Chinese) I didn't know, and quickly got burned out fast. It definitely became a chore kind of thing. Now I've just bought a lot of reading material I find interesting , and have started to get into just reading it and not worrying about the words I don't know like what Matt did. After a while, I started looking up words I didn't know anyway, just out of curiosity.
The latter method has definitely worked better, because it's been much more sustainable. I probably would, hour for hour, learn much more the first way (well, maybe), but if I only end up doing it 1/8 as much as the second way, what's the point? There does seem to be an optimal way to learn a language (or, well, "optimaler" way…), and I'm sure I'm not doing it. But remember, with language learning, consistency beats optimal hands down. Found out the stuff that you will actually do that will move you forward, and start there.
Amen. I find ignoring words you don't know, combined with material repetition (e.g. I'm on my second play-through of Chrono Trigger, and will probably play it again) has been working wonders.
I feel like I'm on this nice jog, and people who study are sprinting by as if this was a track meet. Funny thing is, they drop like flies while I just keep chugging along at a totally fun, infinitely sustainable pace.
To specifically answer your question, no, I don't think I go faster without study, in the short term. I go infinitely faster in the long run though, since you're always lapping the guy who gave up running.
Also I'm lazy. Thanks for commenting!
Hi Matt,
What prompted you to start reading in French? Was it because you reached a predetermined point (ex. 2000 hours of viewing) or was there another criteria?
Thanks!
zanzibar40
I know you're just a spam-bot, but hey, robots need love too. So thanks for the prefabricated comment, you soulless abomination!