Been learning Russian for 3 1/2 years now. For a long time speaking Russian was something I had little interest in – mostly because I just thought it was too difficult.
I have talked to enough language learners and observed myself now long enough to know there’s really only one guaranteed strategy to learn a language, and that’s to keep at it. Even then, there is, I suppose, no guarantee. I had plenty of self-doubts along the way, and it’s a journey, not a destination as they say.
BUT: lately, I am having daily conversations with native speakers, and I can observe that Russian is coming along quite well. I am helping them with English which is only fair but also very satisfying, and they are conversing with me in Russian.
I persisted, and I am so glad I did. I will continue because I’m not sure I will ever reach the point that I lose interest in improving my Russian.
If I could communicate with myself of three years ago, I would say: keep at it! Have faith, you can do it. Fortunately, I guess I did believe I could and still do.
I’m a Russian who’s struggling with Spanish. This is my second attempt to acquire this language. I have learned English before to the level I’m quite satisfied with, but it wasn’t a journey based on Stephen Krashen’s ideas…, and now I am eager to test his hypothesis on myself. Still have doubts (not in the hypothesis, but in myself), but wanna go on))
Self doubts. I can relate. Be flexible and follow your intuition. Be willing to try new things to find the most compelling and interesting way forward.
If Krashen implies only listening, maybe double and triple check that theory.
I love learning a language. There are many people like that. I benefit benefit from their ideas.
I’m working my way through the Harry Potter canon in Spanish - nearly finished the 4th book - and I’m seeing fewer yellow words on the pages now and sometimes I even get caught up in the drama so much, the paragraphs flow!
I have been adding common verbs and nouns that just don’t seem to stick to an Anki deck and that helps immensely. A recent example was “salpicar” to splash/splatter/speckle - a tough one to get a handle on.
Dr. Krashen says any brain acquires a language the only way - when it understands a message conveyed in that language. So, to acquire a language one needs to understand a lot of these messages = to get enough of comprehensible input. I believe it’s true. Theorists may doubt that, but many polyglots like Lomb Kato and Steve Kaufman has proved the hypothesis right to me)
Yup, persistence, daily practice is the best, practice makes perfect.
No matter the fancy method, everyone has to eventually practice/use the language (reading, listening, writing, speaking) alot, until it is all internalized. Until you are no longer thinking about the strokes of the alphabet, grammar, spelling… Until it all become muscle memory, automatic, flows and become fluent.
Every little bit of practice/use of language adds up over time.
This has been discussed a lot on this forum already. However …
The problem is that research has shown it to be false, input alone is insufficient. When we look at children, that’s not how they learn, though adults are not children of course. Children tend to learn from context and trial and error, adults are poor at learning from context, deliberate study works better for adults.
Each part of Krashen’s theory has been disproven, For example, he refers to acquiring and learning, and says that we can only acquire a language, we cannot learn a language by explicit study. But he provides no method to determine when someone has acquired something, and when they have learnt something. So the hypothesis cannot be tested, and hence it is unscientific and worthless. In truth we all learn new words explicitly, almost every day if we are a student.
Krashen’s theory is just that, a theory plucked out of thin air by a theorist. Some say he has a habit of creating theories out of thin air.
Neither uses/used Krashen’s method, even though the latter might claim that he does. Kaufmann learnt Japanese and Mandarin with intensive one on one tuition. I believe he also studied a lot on his own. I think he studied French at school, then went to live in France as a young adult. Even today he says he uses online tutors as well as other methods.
When people refer to comprehensible input, they often actually mean that a learner needs a lot of input, and I don’t think anyone disagrees with that, at least in the intermediate stage and higher.
My feeling is that the LingQ advertising promotes the Krashen theory because it is an excellent marketing tool. LingQ uses very hard sell techniques, in my opinion anyway.
If you were commenting on my post, there’s a lot of research on language learning, with plenty of practical advice e.g. use curated material, make sure words are repeated across lessons, deliberate study works, flash cards do work but only if you like using them etc.
The debate is mainly in the online world e.g. on YouTube where numerous people promote methods in order to sell their products. Krashenism is a great marketing tool.