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+--- Thread: Polyglots vs. Polynots (/thread-11084.html)
Polyglots vs. Polynots - kodorakun - 2013-08-17
This was a very enjoyable talk -- the first five minutes were pretty goofy but from the 5:00 mark onward it starts becoming quite informative. Taken from the Polyglot Conference 2013.
Points of particular interest include addressing "activating" your passive vocabulary, the importance of automaticity in spoken language, and lots of other goodies. I'd be particularly interested in trying to take some of the content here and develop a japanese-specific routine for speaking practice.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - Aspiring - 2013-08-18
Very informative link, thanks
Polyglots vs. Polynots - Animosophy - 2013-08-18
@15:00 that's me! Damn it! The seeking confirmation part, not the Anki addiction thing, haha.
I've made so many approval-seeking threads here on koohii, and I feel that I've done so much to correct my way of thinking. It's a shame that I'd began as a "polynot", but as with all skills and talents, not everyone's initial intuitions are the correct ones.
Everything between 15:00 and 18:00 became non-issues for me when I started to appreciate the principle of comprehensible input, it's where the magic happens. Everything beyond that was very educational and enlightening, thanks for sharing
Polyglots vs. Polynots - Savii - 2013-08-18
Great video, informative and funny. I have quite a few PolyNot traits I'm afraid
Especially 27:37 (unknown vocabulary) is a huge issue for me now that I think about it. This is a good reminder that I should perhaps try to ditch my dictionaries from time to time. It's kind of funny how I've learned English pretty much without looking anything up, yet Japanese is almost the exact opposite (obsessed with understanding everything through lookups and reasoning).
Polyglots vs. Polynots - kodorakun - 2013-08-18
Great to hear you guys are enjoying the video as much as I did. The author's web site really does offer some great language learning advice (on what he calls "connectors"). I'm going to think his suggestions over and try to come up with some new behavioral guidelines. Pretty exciting stuff.
Also, it is pretty embarrassing to have some of my traits "profiled" with such accuracy. At least for me I had a mix of polynot and polyglot characteristics. The biggest one for me was his comment about knowing how to say octopus and whatever other word, but not a simple phrase, and then he says "but only if I knew how to say helicopter!" -- that really cracked me up (^^)
Polyglots vs. Polynots - sholum - 2013-08-19
I thought that this was a great talk. I've got a couple of PolyNot traits, mainly Anki addiction (if it comes down to doing my Anki reviews or reading, I always start with Anki). Surprisingly, I don't really mind not understanding some words when I'm reading comprehensible material like easier manga and NHK Easy News. I was worried about that when I first started reading more, since I'm such a completionist, but I guess I got good at guessing while learning English through extensive reading (my native language, but I didn't converse nearly as much as I read).
Of course, when I read something too far above my level, I start looking up every word.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - alenaroo - 2013-08-19
I wrote a quick summary, maybe some of you will find it useful (probably people who have no time to watch the entire video).
1. Polyglots generally have a better short-term memory than poly-nots which helps them with three most important tasks in language learning: noticing, processing, guessing.
2. Reading material where you understand 80% of vocabulary is almost impossible.
3. A native speaker of a language knows about 20 thousands words, generally a person adds about a thousand words each year till the end of their uni days
4. Poly-nots (people not skilled in learning languages) usually believe in one best method of learning vocabulary and seek confirmation that it's the best method. They believe that there will be a magic day when output is suddenly going to be easy (after they learn all the vocab)
5. Polyglots' approach to vocabulary is different: it's not an end in itself, it's controlled for confident use in listening, reading, speaking, writing. Words sink in over time in repeated and diverse contact (not just flashcards but context). Multiple meanings, usages (frequency, formality, medium, collocations)
6. Frequency. First 2000 to 4000 words should be studied intensively, the next 2000 words should be from your specialist field of interest (e.g. academic, conversational vocab, shoe selling). Beyond 6000 words intensive vocab study is not worth it. Learning from context should be done from materials with 90% familiar vocab, choose your books accordingly. One million words to be read per year to ensure sufficient repetition.
7. Polyglots do a lot of guessing while reading - it gives longer lasting and deeper meaning. Repeated encounters in different context deepens and enriches the meaning. Polyglots use known congnates from other languages and contextual clues. That is what short memory is very useful for.
8. Train short term memory by gradually increasing your reading span with recall (read - recollect what you've just read, increase the span) untill guessing becomes automatic.
9. Active skills, speaking and writing. This part is hard and scary. Do it anyway and do it early. Rehearse at home, talk while looking at yourself in the mirror. Summarise. 400 words are enough for adult writing. Keep elaborating over time.
10. Fluency development. It's not about big vocab, it's about smooth and fast and in control. It's training for automaticity. Hence, overlearn. Do high-speed reading, listening, speaking, writing. Lots of real life encounters. Practice clusters of words (collocations), concentrate on the high-frequency ones. To gain fluency, a learner should know tens of thousands of high-frequency collocations.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - kodorakun - 2013-08-19
alenaroo, thanks for the summary! I was thinking just that sort of list would be very useful for people. Just to add two things:
The speaker has a list and "theory" (approach/method) about using "connectors", here is an example:
https://sites.google.com/site/fluentczech/connectorstarterpack
I believe these are the sorts of practical, high-frequency phrases he is claiming polyglots master and develop confidently and quickly. Might be worth making a E-J list? Anyone wanna share a spreadsheet?
Also, he very very highly recommended this book (the scribd version is incomplete, I believe):
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18179640/How-to-Improve-Your-Foreign-Language
Polyglots vs. Polynots - kodorakun - 2013-08-19
As an interesting note, regarding the 1million words per year:
Assume a language-independent estimate of 250 "words" per page, then:
1,000,000 words / 250(words/page) = 4,000 pages
And over a year you have:
4,000 pages / 365 days = ~11 pages/day
There it is people -- not trying to be condescending with the algebra here, but just making the point: You can do it.
11 pages a day is a very reasonable goal to work towards, if you want a behavioral pattern to achieve:
"I will read (at least) 11 pages a day"
Polyglots vs. Polynots - ryuudou - 2013-08-19
Keep in mind, as with all things, that this presentation isn't objective.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - Aspiring - 2013-08-19
@kodorakun
[from katsuo]
四字熟語 (4-character idioms)
*Over 3,000 四字熟語 with an approximate frequency of use rating. here
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=43560#pid43560
Polyglots vs. Polynots - PkmnTrainerAbram - 2013-08-19
I pretty much watched this presentation instead of spending that hour studying Japanese and I'm glad I did. That's some good practical advice.
Is there some lists of these connectors already from E-J? I feel like there HAS been but I can't seem to think of where I read them before.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - kodorakun - 2013-08-19
Aspiring, thanks for the link to the massive spreadsheets but that's not quite what I had in mind. I was thinking more like a concentrated effort to replicate the connectors listed for English to Czech as shown on "fluent in czech" site -- or maybe fine tune those phrases to a more suitable Japanese set. I don't want to spend 6 months doing 20 phrases/day on some mammoth phrase list. I want to focus on mastering a small, high-frequency, practical set of phrases.
Or something like that. It was just an idea. Once time I marked all "sentence starters" in a non-fiction book on physics I read. It was interesting, I got maybe 20 or so phrases that started what seemed like every other sentence... Lemme paste it here, as an example (things like this for _spoken_ language would be nice, but they don't have to be these comprehensive multi-thousand item lists):
"Non-fiction sentence starters":
では
言うまでもないことですが
とはいえ
そう言われても
別の言い方をすると
ここでまた
それについて
ところが
したがって
簡単に言うと
だとすると
先ほど
ちなみに
それはともかく
つまり
前にもお話ししたとおり
ならば
しかしいずれも
ただし
だからといって
こうして
というのも
さりげなく言ったつもりですが
見かけの上では
またしても
詳しい話を始めると
もっとも
というか
もう少し踏み込んで言うと
簡単にいえば
それ以外にも
このあたりから
それより何より
余談ですが
やや唐突ですが
それどころか
そのためには
ともあれ
詳しい説明を省いて言うと、
Polyglots vs. Polynots - gaiaslastlaugh - 2013-08-19
ryuudou Wrote:Keep in mind, as with all things, that this presentation isn't objective.I wonder how much it is slanted specifically towards polyglots. E.g., the admonition not to study vocab explicitly beyond 6,000 words. While I agree that meaning seeps in more solidly through context, when it comes to kanji, I think daily production practice is worthwhile well past the 6,000-word mark.
Also, since I don't know a related language like Korean, some of his polyglot-specific advice (using known cognates, e.g.) just isn't applicable.
A lot of the speaking advice sounds polyglot-specific, and some ("speak early") is debated hotly even among polyglots (e.g., http://blog.thelinguist.com/effective-language-learning-just-listen-and-r).
I'm also iffy on throwing out statistics like "80% vocab" and "90% vocab". It makes more sense to me to use enjoyment and engagements as metrics. Do you enjoy what you're reading, even if you have to look up some words? Are you engaged in the story? Then keep reading. If it feels like a slog, put it down and come back to it at a later date.
But I'm also not a polyglot. I don't want to know 10 different languages; I just want to know Japanese really, really well. So, different goals, perhaps.
There's some good advice here I'll be trying - e.g., practicing short-term recall of material I've just read. I'd encourage people not to change their methods drastically based on one video, however. Method isn't as important as exposure and enjoyment.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - TheVinster - 2013-08-22
I continue to have a hard time practicing output. I always try to think about what I want to say in Japanese, fail, and then just give up. The only way to overcome this obstacle is to practice output more, but starting in the first place is so difficult. Made another Lang-8 entry today; however, I continue to have issues meeting Japanaese people with whom to voice chat with. It's an endless cycle of going nowhere. At least I'm reading. ._.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - ktcgx - 2013-08-22
TheVinster Wrote:I continue to have a hard time practicing output. I always try to think about what I want to say in Japanese, fail, and then just give up. The only way to overcome this obstacle is to practice output more, but starting in the first place is so difficult. Made another Lang-8 entry today; however, I continue to have issues meeting Japanaese people with whom to voice chat with. It's an endless cycle of going nowhere. At least I'm reading. ._.I think in any language it is important not to get hung up on perceived failures. Just speak. There's no way to get around it, and you can't really create automaticity without forcing your brain to do it...
Polyglots vs. Polynots - Arupan - 2013-08-22
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Polyglots vs. Polynots - sholum - 2013-08-22
Arupan Wrote:-> And finally, what does being a "good guesser" even mean? "Polynots" can get the meaning of a sentence after knowing 95% of the words in it while Polyglots can do the same with 90% only. So the average person isn't capable of logical thinking and most likely can't play connect the dots...?You'd be surprised how poorly most people do at using logical thought to derive meaning from context. It's such a big deal that they have to 'teach' it in class and test you on it several times. At least, that's what they do in the US. Sadly, many people do poorly on these tests, even when it's for college.
Of course, learning this reading skill has nothing to do with knowing multiple languages as much as it does with reading a lot
Polyglots vs. Polynots - ktcgx - 2013-08-22
Arupan Wrote:-> I don't know if everyone's like this but according to the polynot guy every polyglot should be a "Jack of all trades, master of none" (maybe except his mother tongue) since he can only converse on topics he controls (e.g. changing the topic to *food* cause he isn't familiar with political terms). What's the purpose in language learning then? Just so you can get by if you go on a trip or to pick up women...?He said absolutely nothing about limiting your topics of conversation to ones you can control.
He said to work your way up to fluency of production/ automaticity through controlling your material, so that you're able to make good guesses at the words you don't know, and then having mastered language at that level, moving onto a higher level...
Polyglots vs. Polynots - blackbrich - 2013-08-22
Arupan Wrote:The video was very, very biased in my opinion. Some thoughts off the top of my head:Yes his video was biased, but so are almost all talks based on anecdotal evidence. I'm just happy he cited a few scientific sources.
*snip*
Also, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the type of of polyglots he's talking about, but some of them know upwards of 7+ languages (Most are not slouches in their respective languages either). The Jack of All Trades is very relevant in that respect. So he's not talking about just language learning, he's talking about language learning to be a polyglot.
For example Luca knows about 9 the last time I remember checking, and Richard Simcott is cited with 12 sometimes 16. Not that they know every language with equal proficiency. But understand he's talking higher numbers than just being bilingual, trilingual.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - Inny Jan - 2013-08-22
Arupan Wrote:What's the purpose in language learning then? Just so you can get by if you go on a trip or to pick up women...?Essentially, yes.
I'm sure you couldn't talk about, let's say post-render colour space conversion when processing objects in the isolated transparency group with [1]this women, but you could talk about holidays, interests, shopping and the other usual stuff in any of 6 languages she speaks.
[1]
Polyglots vs. Polynots - Tzadeck - 2013-08-22
This is a good video, especially for this forum. Not only do a lot of people on this forum do what he warns against, some people swear that it is the right way to do things. Not to say that he’s necessarily correct in all his advice, and the advice may not fit perfectly with Japanese and our individual goals, but it might make some people rethink their approach.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - SomeCallMeChris - 2013-08-22
Arupan Wrote:according to the video you should quit when you get around N2 level (lol).When did he say that? In the video I saw, he suggested you should consider only Anki'ing your basic vocabulary up to the first few thousand words and after that start tackling native material and engaging in conversation with natives and learn words in context. I don't recall any 'quitting learning' being mentioned.
Quote:"Jack of all trades, master of none"When was this even said? As I recall it he roughly said learn the basics, then have basic conversations and learn one field of interest, and then learn another field of interest, and so on, always choosing material that you have high understanding of. Jack of all trades is almost the opposite of what I thought he said.
Quote:And finally, what does being a "good guesser" even mean? "Polynots" can get the meaning of a sentence after knowing 95% of the words in it while Polyglots can do the same with 90% only. So the average person isn't capable of logical thinking and most likely can't play connect the dots...?You ask what being a 'good guesser' means and then quote the meaning he gave. Are you trying to say you don't believe there's a variation in people's ability to fill in language gaps? If so, you should say so directly because this criticism doesn't even make sense.
At any rate, it's nothing to do with logic; this is a matter of, when you're listening to natural conversation, can you fill in the gaps. You don't have -time- for logic, you have to go on intuition. If your intuition is good, you're a 'good guesser' in his parlance. If your intuition is bad, you're a 'bad guesser'.
Logical thinking just doesn't help with encountering unknown language constructs. You almost never have enough information to logically conclude that a term or construct means a certain thing, but you quite often have enough information to intuit what a term or construct is likely to mean. (This also includes your knowledge of the society L2 is the native language for, knowledge of the topic you're trying to understand, and understanding of the sorts of things human beings anywhere are or aren't likely to say.)
Polyglots vs. Polynots - Arupan - 2013-08-23
.
Polyglots vs. Polynots - SomeCallMeChris - 2013-08-23
Arupan Wrote:-> As far as I remember, you needed around 6000 words in order to pass the old JLPT Lvl2 and the new one should be approximately the same (you can pass it if you know less of course considering the fact that you don't need a 100% score and that there are only a few words appearing on the test itself). So in order to be a polyglot you should just take N2 and then go on to the next language (maybe take N1 5 years later...? I don't know) cause the more the better, right?Let me say this again: I don't think anyone said anything about -stopping learning-.
Just because you aren't adding words from frequency lists to Anki doesn't mean you aren't learning. Just because you aren't adding words to Anki -at all- doesn't mean you aren't learning. I don't believe 'and then you stop' was even implied at any point.
I'm not saying it was an unbiased or perfect speech, I just don't think this criticism of it is valid because I think you're attacking something that wasn't said.
Quote:-> No, trying to get 1 number out of 100 numbers would be guessing. What he speaks about is fast* logical thinkingI think there's a vast difference between quickly doing precise deductive reasoning and making leaps of intuition, and I don't think you can do that much deductive reasoning at conversational speed... but perhaps you don't mean deductive reasoning when you say 'logical thinking'.
< clip >
Maybe this makes me special? (lol)
And yes, if you actually think out your entire sentence before saying it and still have somebody to say it to, you are extremely special. Most people work out their sentences on the fly (unless they are prepared speeches).
Normally, trying to work out sentences completely before speaking means the conversation has moved on without you, although in a one-on-one conversation it can sometimes be managed and depending on the topic and the depth to which you're exploring it sometimes that can make for greater depth in the conversation - but it's not the normal way of speaking. And that's talking about speaking in one's native language. Doing so in a second language would be even more challenging.