I believe nothing is better than listening to or speak with real native speakers daily in a real situation (not on Skype). That is to feel real respiration of human being. For example, playing music alone with CD in their room is much easier that playing the same pieces in front of juries or public in concert with much pressure ,but is more exciting than any other thing.
However, it costs much money to take private lessons so we should replace the real situation with podcasts, TV dramas, etc such as artificial contents that allow us to do repetitive practices.
Benny site - motivation when I’m feeling a bit rubbish (you need a lot of that as a teen)
LingQ- resources such as audiobooks (at the moment my listening comprehension is very poor. I have to keep saying to them to slow down a bit)
Jeff, I am also not a believer in dogmatic refusal to speak. I just say we should speak when we want. In my case, with Russian and now Korean, it put the start to speaking off until I have enough vocabulary and familiarity. I simply do not believe that this delays my progress to fluency in the language.
James, I would be careful in suggesting that what people do differently from you is “absurd”, or what comment we have “no need for”. We are all entitled to our own points of view.
easier that–>>easier than
Sorry, I made mistakes.
For example, playing music alone with CD in their room is much easier that playing the same pieces in front of juries or public in concert with much pressure ,but playing in concert or for concours, etc is more exciting than any other thing.
Steve- yes, I see. The absurd thing was a step too far, but so was suggesting that people who read benny’s site don’t learn anything.
Te each his own. I will suggest that I think you will find better ways of cheering yourself up in the future.
I think reading Benny’s blog is a waste of time.
I exaggerated too much, I am very sorry for that, but nothing is better than learning or play music in a real environment, it is true. The important thing is how we put the merit of this direct method (=learning like a child in a real situation) to practical use when using contents.
Sorry for posting too much. This is my last post for today.
But James, dooo has every right to ask the question. I also wonder, since I see very little merit in most of what he has to say, such as in the case of the title of this thread which came, apparently, from a recent article of his at his blog.
As for music and songs, I know many people relate language learning to learning music, and I think there are similarities, but I have never considered songs useful for language learning because the vocabulary is too limited. To me language learning is mostly about acquiring words.
I meant, of course, little merit in what Benny has to say.
Songs have very little “content” in my opinion. They don’t provide that much “sentence structure”, prosody or vocabulary. However, if I find something I like in a language I don’t have good command of or don’t know at all, I might want to find out what they’re singing about (this got me into Irish two decades ago).
The major connections I see with languages and music are the tools in use, and the ways they can be taught/learned/practiced. You need vocabulary to be able to speak (notes, scales, sequences, chords, riffs, tunes), sentence structure (a feel for what “works” according to the style you’re playing), pronunciation (intonation, tone), prosody (rhythm, tempo)…
If anyone has watched Professor Arguelles demonstrate “shadowing”, that’s more or less exactly how I’ve practiced and learned 99% of my repertoire. I got the skills along the way.
Steve, your remarks about my behaviour are slightly hypocritical.
“to me he is just a clown”
“I find very little in what he has to say”
Other people do. Other people want to learn because of him. Just because he does thing differently from you doesn’t mean he’s a clown, does it? Afterall, “other people are entitled to their own opinions”.
With regards to songs, I really like them. Although there is often very little in what there is in the lyrics, I like remembering the words. I find it quite easy because of the repetition and the rhythm. Sometimes though, the words are deliberately mispronounced to fit the tune, meaning my comprehension and pronunciation are slightly off.
I am sorry, to me Benny is a clown with little of value to say.
Let me add the following. James you said that the long silent period was absurd.
That is precisely how I learn languages. In the last ten years I have learned Cantonese, Russian, and Portuguese precisely in this way, and now am working on Korean. I focus on developing my listening and comprehension skills and building up my vocabulary. These things are easy to do and within my control, they just take time. I can converse in these languages although not as fluently as I would like. If I had the opportunity to speak more, I would take advantage and my speaking ability would improve quickly, because I have a sound base.
This has also been the pattern for most of my language learning. There is nothing absurd in this, and it is certainly not a “comfortable waste of time.”
On the other hand Benny announces with great fanfare that he is going to Prague, Bangkok or Budapest to achieve “fluency in three months” by speaking to everyone he meets, and the results are rather poor, from what I can see. He says that Berliners will mistake him for a Berliner, or that Brazilians think he is a native, when he sounds so obviously non-native. Nothing wrong with sounding non-native, I do not claim to sound native in any language other than English, but why the hype?
He promotes his “language hacking” methods but has no proof. There are no shortcuts. Language learning takes time. His advice is a distraction, other than the message that we should not be a afraid to speak to which I would add that we should speak when we want to, and speaking from the beginning is not a condition forsuccessful language learning, just a matter of choice. Whether it is helpful or not will depend on many other factors.
Thank you Steve.
I have said that the advice he gives is more motivational rather than practical. I mean, if you just started, and had all this talk saying that it will take years to learn a language, you will give up soon. Then you hear that someone can do it in just 120 days, wouldn’t you be more than happy to start again?
When I meant absurd, I meant like people watching 2000 hours of TV before they ever speak. I don’t know how long you spend listening before you speak or acquire vocabulary but I am quite happy going on 20 minute walks, each day a month, listening to music in my target language. The, I start speaking as soon as possible. I soon become accusomed to speaking it, and want to speak it more and more. It becomes quite an addicition, if you like. I started learning some Russian but went straight into getting vocab, something which I later found dificult and am at the moment just listening. Russian vocabulary is a lot easier to remember now. I try and keep a period of just input as a short time. Otherwise it justs gets boring.
So while I don’t agree it is a comfortable waste of time, I do think that stretched on too long, it does become one. As I said- if you want to speak, speak; if you want to read, read.
Thanks again for taking the time to write (and also read this if you got to the end).
Jeff
If you want to learn singing or playing musical instrument, first of all you have to be gifted with talent for music. Fortunately, if you want to learn language you need not. Children don’t train speaking at all. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe they have special ability for natural language acquisiton and adults don’t. What do you think?
“If you want to learn singing or playing musical instrument, first of all you have to be gifted with talent for music.”
Says who? While not all who devote some time to music become famous (or even “good”), it’s really hard to pinpoint if it has to do with “talent”, amount of practice, “correct” practice and so on. It’s easy for somebody to say: “I have no talent for music!”. Funnily enough, I’ve heard people say the same about languages, sports etc. What makes music so unique in this respect? Most of us have ears.
Children learn the way the learn because they have to. Personally, I think it’s foolish to think that adults should learn the same way. It just doesn’t make any sense to me to keep my mouth shut for extended periods of time in order to learn “naturally”, when I can use dictionaries, grammars, text or voice chats, shadow, chorus, read aloud, relate to other languages, and so on.
I don’t know about languages, as I’ve yet to learn a second one to a decent level, but with any other ability I’ve worked for I’m sure it was just hours applied to it that got me results, not any “natural” talent.
“Oh, I wish I could draw/play music, I just don’t have the talent”…
“How often do you practice or try?” …
“Never”
I hope it’s the same with languages, no natural, in-born “talent”, just the amount of time given to the task.
Right on Lewis. Krashen talks about motivation, self-esteem (confidence you will get to your goals) and the absence of anxiety. But of course you have to put in the time. The more languages you get, the better you get at it, and the more confident you will achieve your goal. Once you conquer the first mountain the others get lower.