Found this blog recently about a guy experimenting with the "TV Method" to learn Mandarin, and found it fascinating as it relates strongly to AJATT:

http://natural-language-acquisition.blogspot.com/

Basically everyone seems to have a story about a child learning a foreign language through actively watching TV, picking up grammar and vocab through what's happen on-screen; this guy decided to test if this method would work for an adult.

For the past 2 years he's been watching subtitle-less Chinese TV for 3 hours a day, aiming towards 2000 hours of viewing, with no other means of study. No dictionary lookups, no grammar books, nothing.

Results are now in; he recently reached that goal, and decided to record his attempts to speak to a Chinese person for the first time:

http://natural-language-acquisition.blog...lence.html

Understandably his production is poor, but also he had trouble understanding fairly simple questions like "how long have you been studying Chinese?", "how many languages do you speak?" and "What city do you live in?".

He still claims he can understand most dramas just not natural conversation, so this was put to the test and the results are a little inconclusive:

http://natural-language-acquisition.blog...lenge.html

To me this confirms something I believe; the key to AJATT is comprehensible input. No doubt this method would work eventually, but it will take as long as a child does to learn, i.e. for him to reach the speaking level of a Chinese teenager will take roughly 13 years. Thoughts/comments?

It could even take longer, since a Chinese teenager had Chinese parents, friends, and teachers, and learned Chinese in school as well, which he is pointedly denying himself.

There's been a lot of talk lately about dual texts and listening-reading (l-r) and I think they'd work better, but getting a jumpstart by studying is still my favored approach. Why deny yourself all the extra skills and knowledge you've gained so far?

He didn't use TV only.

He had been trying to learn Chinese for years before, unsuccessfully, using podcasts, Assimil, etc.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/for...2772&PN=52

I'm an foreigner myself and have migrated to many countries. You can't passively learn a language, I know of some people who can be in a country for 20 years and not speak a word in the country's language.

I think reading and grammar is the way in.

I notice I pick up a hell of a lot more Japanese passively than I used to. That is, knowing so much enables me to actually pick stuff up passively, but the initial stages it's basically suicide (or just a big waste of time) to use a PURELY passive method. I'm mildly impressed with the results given he didn't even use a dictionary, but heck, 2 years and that's all you got?

A largely failed experiment in my opinion but interesting none the less.

Though, chinese tv ってさ it has so much Chinese subs available for it! If u used those Chinese subs + dic + Anki - 2 years would get you absolute pwnage I think. Also natural conversation is rather different than drama but understanding drama is a good precursor to understanding natural conversation.

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The problem is, he's denying himself of context from which to make connections. Two things are required to learn a language, the target language itself, and a context through which to understand it and connect it to meaning. He can of course infer a certain amount of frequently used vocabulary and phrases and listening to bucket loads of real Chinese is no doubt excellent for his listening skills and pronunciation, but it's a lot easier as a beginner to learn massive amounts of vocabulary from things like parallel texts, phrasebooks etc, because the translations are right there and you can see which words mean what. Even conventional classroom methods using translation if done well also have this benefit. Just listening to TV is just waiting for contexts to pop up in which the words meaning will become clear. Why leave it to chance like this? If he combined all the listening practice with reading practice (as a faster means of learning vocabulary), he would be much much more successful as he'd then start hearing a lot of this extra vocabulary. He was using this method before to learn Japanese, and has been living in Japan for 6+ years. I watched a youtube interview he did with Steve Kaufman a few years back, and his Japanese was not very good to put it kindly. I don't know why he is so religiously fixated on a method offering such incredibly slow gains when there are plenty of simple things he could do to boost his learning.

Media + nothing else = fail.
Comprehensible media from the beginning (I mean make it so) = ok win.
Comp... media + other forms of study = better win.

My story:

I listened to random stuff (i.e., mostly non-comprehensible) + other stuff (reading, writing, speaking). I got to about 30%. Very recently, I jumped on the Subs2Srs + mass repitition + listen and read, in conjunction with everything else. The stuff I have gone through is up to 80-90% comprehensible. The random stuff is noticeably more understandable. Hence, 2 weeks on I have bounced up to 40-50% on random content. At 70% I should be able to understand the gist of most things. (In natural conversation it's 60-75% oddly enough right now.)

If you are just out of RTK and have the kana sorted, I would highly recommend you follow the comprehensible input method. I wish I could reverse the clock 5 months and have a do over. I would be much further on in terms of listening right now...

@Mesbup Agreed. I can't wait to get to the point where I can start to pick things up passively. I think it happens about the intermediate or lower upper intermediate stage (N2 or so.)

JimmySeal Wrote:but textbooks and dictionaries are not the only way.

That's true. In fact I learned French and German without those; For example with Pimsleur and Michel Thomas courses to help me understand grammar better first. TV is excellent at later stages, you learn the various dialects and slang that isn't covered in any textbook.

I think the people who spend 20 years in a country and can't speak the local language are really making an effort to learn, who is crazy enough and wouldn't, but they don't have the right resources or the right methods. They are not like the users in this webpage, who know the shortcut to Japanese writing system is RTK . It's not apples and orange, they are doing the same method this guy is doing, because they don't know any other way to acquire the language skill. They lack skills in both reading and grammar, it's their true Achille's heel, and if they never make a serious attempt in both, it will be difficult for them.

[ファブリス]

JimmySeal Wrote:Our forum troll of the week made a post about this blog a while back (...) have a look... if you dare.

What was that for?

kittycate44 reported you, then went back and edited out her posts, then asked me to delete her account, which I did if only because of her copying IceCream.

Jesus you people are annoying lately. I can't get any work done today!!


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I think I am impressed with his choice of method and his reslution to carry it out but I wasn't impressed with his speach or really his level.

Languages are social tools. Yes you can watch for 3 hours but you can also add to that:
3 hours of reading
3 hours of speaking
etc....
Speaking is an important part which shouldn't be ignored.

Though I do need to listen more.

In a way this appears to be an extension of the notion to divide language learning into some discrete components and then tackle each in turn. He takes this to a certain extreme, choosing to do a vast amount of listening up front before attending to any other faculties.

What he has achieved thus far is unquestionably quite an accomplishment, albeit it of questionable utility, that he has managed to put forth such a large chunk of time in the hope that it will eventually result in the best possible competence in the language.

I think this is a fascinating experiment. I find it rather bothersome some of the comments Keith's recent posts have received, from people who, rather than being interested in seeing how this experiment plays out, are vehement in declaring it to be a failure and waste of time based on present results, when it is clear that there is much more to be done still. Expressing reservations at this point would be reasonable, but condemnation of the approach is premature, I think.

I chose some time back to try this same method for Japanese. I had completed RTK1, had just dabbled a little in Tae Kim. My Japanese study had always been rooted more in exploration and experimentation than in some eventual ability in Japanese, so it was quite natural that I would take to an uncommon idea.

Unfortunately, as I learned, this was not a suitable method for me. I am not much of a TV watcher, particularly not of the manner it seemed was necessary here, one who would give sole focus to the TV for long chunks of time. It took me quite a long time, a full year almost exactly, to reach just the 200 hour mark. I noticed over the course of those hours some improvement in listening ability, and I did learn some words, but for the most part, I could not detect much difference. I chose to stop at 200 hours, since it was not especially enjoyable and so, even if it was going to work after 300 or 500 or 2000 hours, it would be a miserable chore to get there, making the method's success for me an assured impossibility.

Personally, I am very curious to see how Keith's project turns out, if only to see if this really is a viable avenue of language learning, or an incredible waste of time. My own thought is that he could have had greater success if he managed to watch material on a graded level, rather than what he apparently did, which was to watch only advanced material.

Ａｆｔｅｒ　２　years I think we should already expect to see some serious results; In that amount of time many other people seem to be getting to quite impressive levels of fluency. The words that he's picked up already are likely the most common ones, and those that tend to come up in contexts that make them clearly identifiable. It seems to me that once you get past these, progress is more likely to slow down than speed up. I do think it is interesting to see how much and how fast you can learn this way, and I respect him for sticking with it and honestly sharing his results with people, but I also think they show that it is not a good way to learn a language.

That being said, it does show that dramas are a valuable learning resource (though we new that already).

“ are vehement in declaring it to be a failure and waste of time based on present results, when it is clear that there is much more to be done still. ”

Agreed, isn't he doing the same thing we do here albeit with listening instead of writing/reading?

We look things up.

Myth: Kids learn language faster than adults.
Reality: Adults learn language faster than kids.

I do something similar.
1) Watch w/ no subtitles
2) Review watch w/ no subtitles and looking up words that seem interesting (i.e. cool) and/or learnable, skipping parts that were well understood
3) Watch with subtitles

#Goes back in time a buys Keith a dictionary.

What I get out of this is that "yes, listening only works to a slight extent", but more needs to be done. I honestly wish that I could go back in time and tell Keith that using a dictionary + SRSing the words he is learning would have probably got him to native level listening (sure, there are ways to do this quicker, but with TV only my impression is it can be done using SRS and a dictionary alone.) Poor guy...

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but it is an interesting one and I'd like to hear more opinions on it.

What do you think about using this method for something who is already at an intermediate level? That is, basically not using a dictionary at all but surrounding yourself in audio.

In terms of Anki statistics I have about 20k vocab and 3k kanji, but my listening is still really bad. Could I just watch a bunch of drama and expect it to get better? Or do I need to put in outside effort?

I like old threads. They loudly tell you that this forum is still alive.

You can learn a thing or two from movies.
I remember 'Waratte' - a guy said at a funeral while taking a picture, then he corrected himself and said, 'Naite'!

According to the US State Department, it takes 88 weeks, and 2200 class hours (half of it preferably spent studying in-country) to learn Mandarin.

So this is a bad idea. But it was a worthwhile experiment, I suppose, just to prove that it's a bad idea. Now he should repeat that same test with Japanese, but this time by doing 3 hours of Anki sentence drills/day. I have a feeling that would beat the USDS classroom method, even just by itself. Add some active grammar study and written and oral conversation practice (in country or online, makes no difference) to the mix, and it would crush it.

kameden Wrote:Sorry for bumping an old thread, but it is an interesting one and I'd like to hear more opinions on it.

What do you think about using this method for something who is already at an intermediate level? That is, basically not using a dictionary at all but surrounding yourself in audio.

I can tell from experience that it works great at a highly advanced level (once you easily understand the audio, and you're just learning idioms, dialects, and the occasional new word here and there).

But I can't imagine it working very well, by itself, if you can't fully understand the audio you're listening to (for the same reason it didn't work for this guy: if you don't understand what you're listening to, you can't stay focused on it for hours; and if you're not focused, you're not learning much).

That said, it's still a good idea to listen to target language audio passively (while doing other things). It won't work by itself, but it will help in learning new vocab with other methods. While you can't actually learn the meanings of words while listening to incomprehensible audio, you will remember certain sequences of sounds (be it words or short expressions), memories which you can then make use of as you actively study the same expressions. For instance, if you heard "nakerebanaranai" a million times before, and then you come across what it actually means either in Anki sentence drills or a grammar book, it's much easier and far less intimidating to learn than if it's the first time you saw it.

In conclusion, all this experiment says about passive listening is that it doesn't work well by itself. It doesn't prove that it doesn't work when used in concert with active study.

kameden:

Rather than give up your active study and stop using a dictionary, why don't you just increase your audio input and continue with what your doing for active study?

Find every opportunity in your day to listen to Japanese. If you drive a car, that's such a good time for committing to listening to Japanese. I'd definitely say, increasing how much I was listening to Japanese definitely improved my Japanese! I believe that and reading manga casually gave me the push I needed to read novels in Japanese. But it doesn't mean you give up your active study. I still used dictionaries! I admit I'm more of an extensive reader out of laziness, but I've never forbid myself from using a dictionary. And I transitioned from Japanese to English dictionaries from Japanese to Japanese dictionary. J-J dictionaries are so beneficial.

There are so many other times in the day where you could do passive listening. So there's no reason to give up active studying. Just increase the listening.

lumiina Wrote:So there's no reason to give up active studying.

Sure there are. How do you know that he doesn't have a good reason to try and cut down on active studying? What if he has a difficult job, or is in college and needs to spend his energy studying something else?

We should let him decide how to manage his own time and energy, and answer his question: what if he cuts down on or even eliminates active studying?

I don't think one needs to actively study for hours every day to learn a language. I learned several without doing that. I think that if he only does an hour (or even just half an hour, at the level he's at) of active study a day, and adds in immersion on the side, he can still make reasonable progress. Immersion will never be as efficient as active studying, but it does help.

I do however think that eliminating active study completely, to the point where you don't even use a dictionary, is a bad idea. Even with the languages I speak on a native level (including my native language), I WILL google a word or idiom I'm not perfectly familiar with. And I find that it does set me apart from people who don't do that, even natives. As it turns out, even a lifetime of immersion isn't enough to help you truly master a language. Taking an active interest in even your native tongue, and every language you learn after that, is important.

In kameden's case, seems like, predictably, 20K vocab didn't do much for his listening comprehension. It wouldn't, you need sentence drills, preferably with audio, for that. I would suggest exactly that: find difficult enough materials that they're still a challenge (like a tough drama or something), Sub2SRS them, and review with the audio in the question. Or, if that's too much of a hassle, parallel read. Buonaparte's thread has plenty of resources for that, including audiobooks. This page also has some links that still work, I think: http://rtkwiki.koohii.com/wiki/Audiobooks

Even just half an hour a day should do the trick, and get you to a level where you can comfortably follow along with native audio.

That's not what I meant to imply. I was only saying, he probably shouldn't give up active studying all together if he wants to improve his Japanese. Do you honestly think that I would shame someone for giving up active studying because they are too busy at work?

This is why I can't be on forums. I get too emotional with the knit picking when it comes to language.