JayB - I think you may have a point. But it is also possible that some learners are able to learn in other ways. I personally need to have heard and above all I need to have used the words myself in order to become fluent. For that I benefit mostly from going to the country in question and often I just tag on a course onto a business trip and that seems to work. Some people I think are able to learn in other ways and benefit from reading for example ( I think LingQ is good for that incidentally).
Having said that, lessons that are exclusively in the target language are also useful and can lead to fluency. For example skype lessons coupled with courses in the country. This combination has not previously been possible to that extent so I think nowadays you may not need to go and live in the country. Living in the country makes your accent more native-like and make your small talk conversations spontaneous and natural sounding. Haivng those context situations is not always possible where one lives. For example common expressions such as “I am just going out, I will be back in five minutes” “we have been lucky with the weather” “what are your plans for the evening” are things you learn to say and respond to in the same way as natives would say it when you live in the country, plus it happens at an instant. Spontaneous and immediate questions and responses in certain situations I guess you could call it. That makes you sound more fluent.
I would (and do) recommend LingQ for beginners to advanced (at least for most European languages). For Asian languages, beginners could still learn with LingQ but they had better be motivated and patient!!
I think you are certainly right to say that different people learn in different ways. And you may well be right that things like online-lessons with native speakers is a complete game changer - clearly this wasn’t available as an option previously.
Things like watching satellite TV in the target language can also be very effective, in my opinion. Normally I would never (and I mean NEVER) watch soap operas - I regard them as intellectual junk! But I have to confess that I did get into the habit of watching this kind of trash while I was living in Germany - and there is no denying the fact that I learnt quite a lot from them!
Ultimately I think you also have to read a lot in a target language in order to go into it more deeply. (I do wonder whether one possible problem with LingQ is that it forces people to read before they are truly ready to do so?)
In the case of European languages, I would say it depends on the person’s linguistic background. I would agree that someone who already knows some Spanish, for example, could use LingQ to get into Italian or French.
I’d say an English speaker could pretty easily use LingQ to learn French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese or Esperanto. This is, of course, provided that the learner is motivated, can follow advice of others who have gone before them and is patient. Plus there needs to be enough content, obviously!
“(I do wonder whether one possible problem with LingQ is that it forces people to read before they are truly ready to do so?)” ← Well I wouldn’t suggest that a beginner try to read advanced texts or novels. I do, however, think there are several advantages to spending time with target language texts from an early stage (not the least of which is that you can pick up good spelling habits quite early on!).
JayB - You are right soap operas are helpful and they give you exactly those contexts that you miss out on when you do not live in the country. However, I find watching television is a very passive experience. I feel that interaction is pretty much the best way to learn. You have to think on your feet trying to retrieve at an instant what you know and when you get that things start tranferring to the active vocabulary, for me in any case.
I have never watched soaps here in Germany either. Though having said that, there is a thing called GZSZ, a programme teenagers watch. I had to watch a bit of it to spot trends for this particular target group. But I would not watch programmes like that in my spare time.
I agree with you on the reading front and LingQ. For some people this is not a suitable approach.
“However, I find watching television is a very passive experience. I feel that interaction is pretty much the best way to learn.” ← I agree, and this is something I’ve been lacking in my learning. However, I have also noticed that if I watch shows that I really enjoy, a surprising amount of words and phrases seem to stick (e.g. throughout the day I might remind myself of funny quotes or words I heard). There will of course be gaps, but in the absence of immersion, this kind of learning can still be very useful.
Peter - I agree with that. What I do in those situations is to try and find a native to ask about that particular phrase that keeps on coming up. Just to be able to remember it and it works. The very fact that you have spoken to someone about that expression helps.
I would have to say that German soap operas have, in recent years, become increasingly…well…vulgar!
Back in the early days, GZSZ was at least watchable. For example, there was a character called (I believe) “Dr Gerner” who was a fairly serious lawyer. But over the years he turned into a kind of weird and sleazy panto-villain!
More recently there was another soap called AWZ - but I quickly tuned out of that when the script-writers became obsessed with gay sex. (What consenting adults do in private is, of course, their business. But I personally don’t need to have this right in my face when I’m watching 6.00pm TV…)
@ JayB - Never even heard of AWZ but I think I am not that keen on German TV. We have a satellite dish here and only watch British TV at home.
On the what you do in private note, I am often asked by people in other countries why the Germans are so keen on FKK…(they should just ask the Germans that).
The intellectual Germans tend to rave about a series called Tatort. I have never taken to it. It is not a soap opera but more like a detective story. That and Spiege for reading :-)is what intellectuals should at least consume hat man mich belehrt.
I love the way we can meander away from a topic. Let me add to the German tv sub-plot here:
Tatort is not a series, it is an institution: stand-alone 90 mins detective stories produced by and set in the various German speaking countries. It is not bad.
I think many people can learn a language at LingQ from scratch. I do recommend that people also access other resources such as beginner series like Colloquial, Teach Yourself of whatever they like, as well as grammar reference material on the web. Our content in many languages, including German, Spanish, Russian, is really quite large. Even in Czech which has a limited library, I was able to start at LingQ although I also referred to Teach Yourself and other resources, but most of my time was at LingQ.
As for reading, this is the first thing I do when I start learning a language. The only exception would be Chinese where I relied on pinyin at the beginning.
I would not travel to learn, but would only travel after I had learned the language to a certain degree which is what I am doing with Czech.
I also find movies, videos and the like less useful for learning than reading and listening, since I mostly don’t understand videos and movies and television shows for a long long time.