My Current Strategies For Language Learning
By thomas on Oct 7, 2007 in Study Methods
I’ve been studying Japanese off and on for about 8 years. If you break it down chronologically, I had:
- 2 years in a Texas university
- 1 year in a Japanese university
- 1 more semester in a Texas university
- 3 or 4 years of not studying Japanese at all
- 1 year living in Japan, surrounded by Japanese but only studying with serious dedication in infrequent month-long bursts.
Input Method
My most successful month-long burst was last August/September, and my success was due to a new method that is currently making the rounds in the language learning community. I don’t know if it has a name, but I’ll call it the “Input Method”. Much of the credit for the spread of this method goes to Khatzumoto, the author of the wonderful blog All Japanese All The Time. In his words:
… the hypothesis [is] that input (reading, listening) matters more than output (writing, speaking), and that input of high quality and quantity naturally leads to high quality output, without much effort. In English, that means stop talking before you hurt yourself.
Basically, the principles of the method are this:
- Focus on input, forget output
- Learn sentences, not words
- Learn high quality sentences - authentic sentences gathered directly from target language sources
- Enter your sentences into an SRS (Spaced Repitition System), such as Mnemosyne, Anki, or KhatzuMemo
- Drill the sentences daily with your SRS
- Aim for 10,000 sentences
Using a Kanji test prep book, a bilingual dictionary and this method, I basically doubled my Japanese vocabulary in 40 days time. I reached 1000 sentences in my SRS, one tenth of the way to the goal! As my vocabulary grew, I became much more adept at finding new sentences to enter into the SRS. I didn’t have to spend time looking up words because I knew them now. Like magic I started to pick out the new words on TV, in the store, everywhere.
Then my son was born and everything changed. In the first weeks I just didn’t have time to do my SRS daily and I lost my momentum.
During my 3 weeks of off time, I’ve had time to reevaluate my strategy. While I had great success looking up example sentences in the dictionary, I neglected listening input. My vocabulary skyrocketed, but I still wasn’t good at comprehending spoken Japanese. I have an exciting plan to remedy that, but first…
What About Pali?
I am sold on the Input Method, completely. In all my years of studying Japanese, I have never learned so efficiently. I am going to reapply this method to my study of Pali when I begin in a few days.
The Input Method is perfectly suited for Pali. Pali is a dead language. Nobody speaks it anymore. Since I won’t ever run into a native Pali speaker, there is no reason to ever worry about output. If I start trying to speak Pali to people on the street, they’ll think I’m a fool. I’m restricted to input by default, which is perfect!
And Japanese?
Now that I’ve settled into the routine of caring for an infant, I can resume my SRS duties. The focus now is listening. The dictionary work is getting cut. I’m going to pull my input from audio. What audio sources will I use? That’s my exciting plan. I’m going to watch one of my favorite movies over and over and over again. Dubbed in Japanese. One DVD chapter at a time. What movie is that? See if you can guess. Here is the first line:
「タイラー・ダーデンを知ってるか」 何度も人に聞かれた。
For a hint, try to decode タイラー・ダーデン using this Katakana chart.
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Although I don’t completely agree with the statement “stop talking before you hurt yourself” (I mean, you learn much faster of you repeat the things you learn and actually use every tiny bit of information you’re able to come up with), I like the idea of using flash cards.
I’m actually using it for my Spanish now. The funny thing is that I can remember the chunks I learned with the flash cards and use them in other self-made sentences, better than loose words I learned from some books. Of course language learned is all about using different approaches, but this is on hell of a vocab learning method.
Rmss | Oct 8, 2007 | Reply
And sometimes you can’t completely avoid talking, like if you live in a country where you need to use the language on a daily basis. I think his point is just that you shouldn’t rush output. You don’t want to develop bad habits by producing clumsy sentences. If you click on the link to his quote, he elaborates a little further in the article.
The system has been working really well for me. I’ve never seen so much improvement in my Japanese study in so short a time. Now the trick is to stay motivated and keep doing it daily!
thomas | Oct 8, 2007 | Reply
Producing clumsy sentences is not a bad thing, as long as you get corrections from someone. At my university (I’m majoring Spanish) we do this all the time. Use the language as much as possible, but learn from your mistakes (that means that someone needs to say what you’re doing wrong).
This may be hard to achieve if you’re only doing self-study, but a great way to learn languages if you have a tutor.
Rmss | Oct 9, 2007 | Reply
Sometimes native speakers let your mistakes go though. I think Khatzumoto was exaggerating a bit to drive the point home about emphasizing input. He is trying to get us away from the translate-this-sentence-from-english approach and closer to the mimic-natural-speech approach. The former often leads to awkward and unnatural word choice.
But you’re right - you shouldn’t avoid talking altogether. Afterall, you need to practice talking if you want your mouth to get used to producing the foreign words!
I’ve had a lot of success with the Input Method when it comes to speaking, since I end up constructing sentences by mimicking what I’ve drilled many times in my SRS. Natural input leads to natural output. But by no means is it the only way to the goal. It’s just the one I’m using currently.
thomas | Oct 11, 2007 | Reply
It’s worth noting that Khatzumoto recommends reading your sentences aloud and also copying them over by hand as you review them. These don’t seem like much, but they really help get your mouth used to making Japanese sounds, and get your hands used to writing kanji.
Shaydwyrm | Oct 21, 2007 | Reply
For Spanish I always read the sentences I’m learning out loud. Not only I get used to the pronounciation, but it sticks better in my brain after some time.
Ouwe | Oct 22, 2007 | Reply
For Spanish I always read the sentences I’m learning out loud. Not only I get used to the pronounciation, but it sticks better in my brain after some time..
Rmss | Oct 22, 2007 | Reply