Ohne Grammatik Sprachen Lernen: Die Sprachblock-Methode
A very good new YouTube video from Gabriel Gelman, with a presentation in German, although his principal focus is his teaching of English to Germans.
However, the 20 minute video has wide applicability, even though it is on very familiar themes for Lingqers: “language blocks”, “chunking”, word combinations (particularly in German with a “lego-language”…), collocations, Professor Stephen Krashen’s “comprehensible and compelling input” hypothesis, etc.
Depending on your level of German you might want to run through the transcript first, which I have placed in the Lingq library, possibly in sentence mode, which will allow you to clear away any unfamiliar words.
But I would highly recommend you then use the button on the bottom left at Lingq to play the video with the adjacent AI generated transcript, as he makes some very good points. [My advice is also to ignore the fact that Gabriel’s PowerPoint presentation displays occasionally in an amateurish manner on his face or that there are occasional infelicities in the transcript, such as “Gehlmann” for Gelman, because this is a very useful discussion to help you think over your own individualistic approach to language learning.]
I agree with your sceptical critique, and as the Book of Ecclesiastes said a long time ago “there is no new thing under the sun”.
But with respect you are a very advanced language learner and have a sophisticated understanding of how to learn multiple languages, as well as being a native German speaker.
You yourself have noted your early acquisition battles with French, so you should surely be “encouraging the others”…?
For the beginner in German I certainly do think Gabriel Gelman makes some relevant points in his new video and in his written discussion as “Erfinder der Sprachblock-Methode” (sic) at:
At least it might stop the unwary German learner “going down the rabbit hole” of initially pursuing arid grammar rules rather than engaging with the language itself…
Note that watching the Gabriel Gelman YouTube videos, and then possibly reading his written formulation of “language blocks” (aka collocations, habitual juxtapositions, “chunking”, meaningful word groups, “comprehensible and compelling input” etc, etc) have the considerable advantage of being free!
However, this is where I get a hysterical fit of laughter.
But OK, I’ve also seen some language provider announce state-of-the-art SLA technology online, only to then refer to its revolutionary “(not) new” spaced repetition system (and that was around 2022, if I remember correctly!)
I understand that SLA is a competitive market where each provider has to find its niche, but it’s annoying when old stuff just gets a new label.
Then the providers should at least create “new” software for old ideas…
That said, you’re right:
It’s good that Gabriel is spreading this message, because focusing on collocations / chunks in languages is simply a good language learning strategy!
