I mean that I think people need to speak as well as listen. Speaking helps to engage the mind.
This is pretty good for a first go. I would never publish my first Chinese conversation. Speaking and conversation are, obviously, different skills to listening. But listening should come first, so Keith is on the right track.
Keith is also actively seeking critical feedback on his blog, so critical comments are being sought, I understand.
As for skill with tones, Keith still, obviously, has work ahead - for example, even after the tutor told Keith that 东京 was first tone for both syllables Keith still continued to pronounced jing as fourth tone etc.
Alexandre’s comment was written before the conversation took place, and as a response to a post by Keith about “don’t knowing what to say”. I don’t think it was silly - how many of us here listen for 2000 hours before speaking? As the only “method”? Not because there isn’t any opportunity to use the language, but rather the opposite - “God forbid if I open my mouth!”. Somewhere on his blog it says that he in fact has previous study experience, so in a way, this 2000 hour experiment doesn’t show much.
Now, I think listening is great - it’s my main activity. I can listen to audiobooks while doing other things, while reading along. But I don’t think it’s the Gospel truth. And I don’t see how some formal study (on one’s own) could do any harm, especially for such a different language as Mandarin. Vocabulary (dictionaries, LingQ, flashcards/SRS), bilingual texts, pronunciation, g r a m m a r and what not.
Keith, if you’re reading this - I still think you were very brave to post this first conversation on Youtube (no matter how good people are, there will always be someone criticizing every minute detail of the performance). I wish you the best of luck with your Mandarin.
加油!
I have just listened to your video. Thank you for having shared us this. It really encourages me to learn my Chinese a lot. My first lesson was not like that, neither. From tomorrow I will try not to use my mother tongue with native speakers even if I can not find something to express my idea.
We have once had a discussion on Steve’s blog about the effectiveness of just showering yourself with countless hours of TV and radio. There was this one guy, he even advocated keeping the TV on at night. Now by my own experience I don’t see how this can be very effective. I think with Chinese you really have to go after all those sounds that are unclear when you hear them together with a transcript.
There is some excellent authentic material out there that has transcript. For example the Chinese service of Deutsche Welle has a great variety of articles together with free MP3. The national Chinese channel CCTV has a lot of transcripts for his programs on its site. Furthermore one can also record these TV programs with a hard disk recorder for repetitive listening and use the Chinese subtitles that are there in many cases.
Now on the tones, as for output, I think they are somewhat overrated. Context and natural phrasing lets people understand from context even if you don’t nail all the tones 100%. Furthermore, if Chinese speak fast and they often do, their own tones become less and less articulate.
I noticed that Rony’s Chinese sounded very clear, I found myself wanting to imitate his Chinese. As a girl, I want to have female models, but he seems like a good tutor for guys.
The way Rony speaks, you see, that’s yet another thing. His Chinese was as clear and articulate as it gets here in China, almost like a news presenter, even in the beginning his Chinese was very easy to understand. Now, 2000 hours over two years is almost three hours a day, now that’s a lot of listening, certainly way more than I have invested in learning Chinese while I was still in Germany. Again, it just seems to me that Keith didn’t get good return on this investement.
I think the criticism (from the two sources) is valid. Keith needs to do some textbook/grammar study - he has very obvious word order problem. Also, learning Chinese happens to require opening the mouth early, to practise simple dialogues a lot, almost from the very beginning. It is not just about the tones, it is also for the grammar or strange word order to sink in (strange for westerners). Although listening is important for all languages, it would be dogmatic to not treat each language differently. At least my experience is that, in the beginning, learning French requires a lot more listening than when learning English, for example. One needs to be flexible. And, as Friedemann said, there is not shortcut. The video left me the same impression as Friedemann’s and I am only surprised at his frankness.
The Chinese tutor is very good and very patient. I think Notmee should consider him.
This has been a great discussion.
I had not at first realized that Keith’s listening consisted of watching TV. That is not something that I would do since I do not enjoy listening to content that I basically do not understand. I also do not consider video or TV to be high intensity learning content. I prefer audio content and reading. They are more mobile and have a higher word intensity. However, this is a matter of taste. The important thing is to do what you like.
To say that if Keith had more oral practice he would have done better is meaningless. Where would Keith get this oral practice? He can watch TV or listen and read on his own. It is more difficult to organize the oral practice. If the opportunity is available fine, but if not, a lot can be achieved just with input, but doing it the LingQ way is much more efficient, in my view, than watching TV. His video was a demonstration of what he had been able to achieve on his own, just watching TV.
I have studied many languages and have not found that the method varies with the language, but can understand that other feel differently. In Chinese the pronunciation and grammar are actually quite a bit easier than some other languages like Russian. But in any case, a lot of listening and reading can be effective, and nothing prevents the learner from imitating what he or she hears.
If the opportunity to speak exists, go for it, but it is not a necessity in my view.
I think focused repetitive listening using a transcript is key for learning Chinese. I was a bit harsh in my initial assessment and maybe I shouldn’t have been but I was really amazed how poor his comprehension seems to be after 2 years with three hours a day of exposure. He already had a problem with Rony’s opening question regarding his afternoon plans, he didn’t understand when Rony asked him whether he had lived in China, he didn’t even understand when asked which city in Japan he lives in. He seemed not familiar with very basic Chinese words such as city (城市) or language (语言). Based on this video I don’t know how he can enjoy watching Chinese TV at all.
Again, this is not about personal attacks, but rather about learning strategies and I don’t think Keith made a convincing case for his TV approach.
Steve said: "To say that if Keith had more oral practice he would have done better is meaningless. Where would Keith get this oral practice? He can watch TV or listen and read on his own. It is more difficult to organize the oral practice. "
You made wrong assumptions, Steve. It is Keith’s conscious/deliberate choice to not speak (or not do anything else but watching Chinese TV - mostly drama series) for an extended period of time. He calls it extreme language learning and runs a highly public blog for the experiment. He explained that he could have broken the silence after 1500 hours of silence instead of 2000 hours and that video is made for the occasion of this 2000 hours milestone.
Secondly, I stand by what I said about learning Chinese - “opening the mouth early, to practise simple dialogues, almost from the very beginning” does not necessarily require a partner. One can do it by oneself, reading aloud with a text to get used to the word order, grammar, or whatever. Precisely because Chinese grammar is relatively simple, one can and should do this early and often. If you have a partner to practise (the partner does not have to be a native, could be fellow student), it is all the better.
I actually appreciate Friedemann’s frankness since I tend to be frank myself. We are just expressing our honest opinions of the TV-only approach.
Me too, I created the same page to try to watch TV dramas in languages.
http://tinyurl.com/4fhghay (Chinese)
http://tinyurl.com/4thf6sd (French)
http://tinyurl.com/4j8fzqm (English)
As my friend sends me many French DVDs every time, it will be very easy to start to watch them.
Starting my Google sheet, I am having difficulty to count each drama’s time. I don’t know exactly how long it takes. Some stories are long, some stories are short…etc, so it will be very difficult to count it.
And I don’t want to continue to watch a whole story if someone speaks very rapidly. I sometimes stop it, and watch the same part again with subtitles. So, this activity; watching the same one again and again prevents me from counting exactly the time.
I am wondering how Keith overcame such a difficulty for 2000 hours.
Can you allocate certain time in the day just to watch whatever you want. Then log the overall time you spent?
Yes, that is the way to do, I see, but I don’t want to see what time I started to watch, sometimes I forget to look at my watch.
In my view how long I spend to watch it is not important. Concentrate on listening for a short time is more important than just watching it for a long long time, so counting time every time is not so important, either.
That is the difficulty.
As I am not a perfect person, I must say that it is impossible to count how long I concentrate on listening to or watching something. Counting time only is a motivation for oneself.