hereticalrants Wrote:

mgbp7 Wrote:No one says, “But I thought Edward was a vampire? How can he go outside in the daytime?” in my mock Japanese car conversations.

Why not? You ARE doing that nonsense in Japanese, aren't you? You'd better not be doing it in English; those books are pretty lousy in the original Meyer-ese.

ta12121 Wrote:lol 吸血鬼=bloodsucker
　

0.0 somebody has been doing their kanji reviews.

Thanks for pointing out what I said.

lol no problem

OK, So I don't care about the science behind anything, so don't recommend me any books or anything.

I'm going to side a bit more with Aijin in this case.
Gaining a mass amount of exposure to the language will surely give the learner a decent amount of familiarity with the vocab they learn/study, and how they are used. But that doesn't necessarily translate into speaking.

Using words in conversation is probably the best way to cement them into the learner's mind. Yes, they can read it, hear it, and it will be completely fine, but it's the words that they actually use that will stick with them.
Why, I have a large number of cards in Anki that I can mark as "Very Easy" that I would never think of in the midst of conversation.

Asriel Wrote:OK, So I don't care about the science behind anything, so don't recommend me any books or anything.

You might find this book interesting, then: http://books.google.com/books?id=8y-FVtrKeSYC

^_^

Asriel Wrote:I'm going to side a bit more with Aijin in this case.
Gaining a mass amount of exposure to the language will surely give the learner a decent amount of familiarity with the vocab they learn/study, and how they are used. But that doesn't necessarily translate into speaking.

Using words in conversation is probably the best way to cement them into the learner's mind. Yes, they can read it, hear it, and it will be completely fine, but it's the words that they actually use that will stick with them.
Why, I have a large number of cards in Anki that I can mark as "Very Easy" that I would never think of in the midst of conversation.

For the record I should add that I view it all as being part of a continuum. While I can appreciate there is a phonological path for speech and lexical access, there's a more complex relationship at work, multiple multidirectional routes. According to most current models, if not all. For me personally, it's not 'use' that allows me to produce words robustly, it's simply gaining familiarity with them in multiple contexts, often or mostly through input, though if you strive to actually use a given word/sentence structure, you're applying more effort and focus and checking your feedback, ie the same strength that 'active recall' has as a learning method. There's no cognitive basis, for example, for the differentiation between active and passive vocabulary, only items you have strong and varied connections for.

I only make qualifications for 'production' in the sense that there's a component involved where you're learning to chunk and use retrieval structures amidst multiple 'suppressive' processes, general creative/intuitive processing of syntax and context, etc., and I think that while internalizing elements of the language to build one's mental corpus does most of the work, there are physical and 'online' (in the moment, as it were) strategic processes that need to be developed as well.

In that sense I'm perfectly fine recommending mostly input and delaying output practice until an intermediate level is reached where one can begin utilizing proper corrective feedback without a kind of Sisyphean learning curve that one might have with an underdeveloped foundation.

As for Ulysses, I would say that anyone who says they understand Ulysses but can't produce a work of similar quality A)Don't understand the ideas and text comprising Ulysses to the same level as Joyce did and B)Don't have the motivation to do so (or insert the many other factors involved that creates diversity amongst human output/skill development over their lifespans/the history of humankind). In other words, it's less a matter of input/output and more a matter of the many ways people develop their deep linguistic awareness. (Linguistic here also including the peculiarities of the textual medium.)

Personally, I could totally write Ulysses: The Better Sequel that isn't Finnegans Wake. I just don't feel like it. I'm too tired. ;p

Asriel Wrote:Why, I have a large number of cards in Anki that I can mark as "Very Easy" that I would never think of in the midst of conversation.

... until you think of them. There is a non-zero chance that this will happen, and it increases dramatically if the word/phrase was used a short time before or if you hear something extremely funny that uses the word. The word will then likely go into your working vocabulary, since you will, of course, have to say the funny thing to your friends.

The chance of saying something that you do not know at all is... zero.

I prefer non-zero over zero, and prefer to build my working vocabulary from a pre-existing passive vocabulary. Am I alone in this?

ruiner Wrote:In that sense I'm perfectly fine recommending mostly input and delaying output practice until an intermediate level is reached where one can begin utilizing proper corrective feedback without a kind of Sisyphean learning curve that one might have with an underdeveloped foundation.

Well, I guess this does change things. I am definitely past a beginner stage, and would definitely put myself on that "intermediate level" or above that you mentioned. I'm currently in Japan, speaking it in my daily life, and didn't have much trouble with the practice JLPT-2 I took last night.

hereticalrants Wrote:I prefer non-zero over zero, and prefer to build my working vocabulary from a pre-existing passive vocabulary. Am I alone in this?

This I agree with. Except that 1/0 = undefined, but we're not talking math.
All I'm saying is that in order to put something into a working vocabulary, it's best to...wait for it...use it. Yes, these words will first enter your passive vocabulary, as I'm not saying that you should magically "come up" with words in your working vocabulary.
However, in order to cement the words into the working vocabulary, it's best to use them. (Perhaps in the aforementioned intermediate stage).
When I learn new words, I try and use them in my everyday life as soon as I can. If I don't, they just get stuck in my "Anki vocabulary," as it were.

One thing I do if I think that I'm not learning a word properly, despite understanding it perfectly in the context of the SRS (sometimes I give myself too much context in my sentence cards), is simply fail it and start over with it, or make a card in which I have to produce the term from a definition.

I'm just not all that worried about it, though. For example, the term "chemiosmotic phosphorylation" is in my working English vocabulary ( apparantly ), and I don't recall ever using it in conversation or even reading extensive amounts of material about it.

Usually, if I SRS something and then see it one or two times outside of the SRS, I can use it in speech.

Asriel Wrote:aforementioned

See, right there?

I have a box of cookies that says you only used that word because Aijin did.

Don't get me wrong, I use it all the time, but I have only heard two other people actually use it in day-to-day speech, and one of them was character in a sit-com.

Quote:Except that 1/0 = undefined,

Ah. I don't use that kind of casual mathematical vocabulary. If I had meant division, I would have said "divide."

Answering the word from the definition, that's an idea I haven't gotten around to trying.

I have no doubt that I used 'aforementioned' because aijin did. This has more to do with it being in the back of my mind from having read it recently. It's not like I learned the word by reading Aijin's post. I'm a native English speaker, 'aforementioned' is definitely a word that I know, and have used countless times in the past. Admittedly, mostly when writing papers and the like.

The whole thing about the math: forget it, it wasn't anything important.

ps: why is "chemiosmotic phosphorylation" in your working vocabulary in the first place?

Asriel Wrote:This has more to do with it being in the back of my mind from having read it recently.

Why can´t it work that way in L2 and L3, too, then?

...science lecture ages past

hereticalrants Wrote:Why can´t it work that way in L2 and L3, too, then?

I'm not saying it can't. The difference here is that it's a word that I know, a word that I'm familiar with.

I'm not going to pick up a book, read it through, put some words in Anki, and naturally be able to use it in conversation. My experience is that I need to put in the effort to use it in conversation before it gets "cemented" into my working vocabulary.

Surely, if I SRS'd a word, and then someone used it conversation, I would understand it, and then echo it back -- using the correct context. Because I had JUST heard them say it. Which, if you care to argue enough, is what I think you're saying:

1. Hear/read word in context
2. "Study" it (SRS/Iverson/etc)
3. Encounter it in context
4. Use it

My point is that words don't always come up so conveniently in context, so in order to try and skip Step 3, I go out of my way to bring it into the conversation, therefore cementing it into my working vocab.

Asriel Wrote:I go out of my way to bring it into the conversation, therefore cementing it into my working vocab.

Hm. I do that when I am telling one of my crazy stories.

@LazyNomad
Aijin is a native Japanese.

@yukimine

yukimine Wrote:Are you saying a six years old child has the same writing abilities of a full-fledged adult? And isn't speaking an output skill as well? Surely children don't wait two years before speaking.

No, I have not said that.
Children take years to learn how to write well. And they only start it after they have a really strong command of the language.

Children do take a long time silent before speaking.
As I pointed, they only say "mama" after 4 months. And they are in the best learning environment ever: With their mommy and daddy feeding them interesting content in the language during most of their wake time.

Adults don't have this advantage.

@ruiner
Tks, man. I'll read it carefully at home tonight.

@Asriel

Asriel Wrote:Gaining a mass amount of exposure to the language will surely give the learner a decent amount of familiarity with the vocab they learn/study, and how they are used. But that doesn't necessarily translate into speaking.

We all agree on that. What we don't agree with is with the proportion.
I believe you must spend many more hours of input for each hour of output.

Let's make it clear by example. Let's imagine 3 weeks of study.

Week 1:
4hs/day of listening/reading every day. Except the Sunday when you write or speak for 1 hour and only listen/read for 3 hours.

Week 2:
2hs/day listening. 2hs/day speaking. Every day.

Week 3:
1h/day reading/listening. 3hs/day speaking/writing.

Witch week would you chose?

I'd chose Week 1.

I'm not under the impression that if you speak/listen constantly, you'll learn by some "osmosis," although you will pick up a few words here and there. It's simply not efficient.

On the same coin, if you spend all your time reading/listening, you won't necessarily be able to output it naturally when the time comes.

IceCream Wrote:There are phrases i hear in dramas every day, but if i don't make a habit of outputting them, they simply don't stay there. I understand them perfectly when i hear them, that's not the problem. The problem is, if you don't habitually use the language, you can't form your own speech habits.

This is all I'm saying.
I've spent a few months in Japan now, without studying anything apart from my RtK. So you could say that for the past few months, I have been doing 100% output and 0% (active) input. I have not improved at all. At least not to a degree that can be considered efficient.

So yes, you should have much, much more input that you should output, I've never [meant to] denied this. My point is that if you just read, read, and read, you're not going to be able to "write Ulysses," if you will, on your first try. You need to read, read, and read, in order to get some of the substance to be able to write Ulysses, but even so, on your first try sitting down to write a novel, it ain't gonna be Ulysses.

As for your Week example, I would take Week 1, except change 1 hour on Sunday, and devote the entire Sunday to speaking, hopefully with someone who can help you use the recently learned vocabulary (this is where tutors and *gasp* classes come in handy)
That's still 24 hours of input and only 4 hours of output.

Yeah, I guess we reached a consensus. This proportion will change with how much the learner knows.
If he can read and listen very well, he needs output practice. Maybe even the 4hours in the Sunday will be too little.
If he can't read or listen, it is still to early to output. 1h might already be too much.

mentat_kgs Wrote:This proportion will change with how much the learner knows.

Babies = need time, they can't speak for 1h
Me = relatively OK at Japanese...need to speak new things I learn

I think this sums everything up well.

mentat_kgs Wrote:@LazyNomad
Aijin is a native Japanese.

I know. I meant that she also fluent in English and Chinese, so she has enough first-hand experience in what it takes to learn foreign language.

LazyNomad Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:@LazyNomad
Aijin is a native Japanese.

I know. I meant that she also fluent in English and Chinese, so she has enough first-hand experience in what it takes to learn foreign language.

Well, mentat_kgs is a native Brazilian and is fluent in English and good at Japanese, so it's not like it's a difference of experience, it's a difference of theory and opinion.

mentat_kgs Wrote:No, I have not said that.
Children take years to learn how to write well. And they only start it after they have a really strong command of the language.

Children do take a long time silent before speaking.
As I pointed, they only say "mama" after 4 months. And they are in the best learning environment ever: With their mommy and daddy feeding them interesting content in the language during most of their wake time.

Adults don't have this advantage.

But can we really say that children before 4 months are already developed enough to be able to express or make relations between words and things they see? Do they understand everything that are said to them or they're just a bunch of sounds with no meaning? I think my main concern with your argument is that I felt like you was saying that children can understand adults perfectly or can express themselves with no trouble since they're young just because they had a lot of input, which I don't think it's the case. And to be honest, I don't think we can really compare how a child develop their language with how the adults do it, because there's just so many biological factors behind it. It takes time for children to be able to fully understand things like irony or metaphors. On the other hand, adults are already developed enough to understand the subtles things of a language and like heretical_rants said, can see the whole picture.

In any case, Asriel and IceCream worded it better than me. I think what us that advocate output are saying is not to ignore input or to spent a long time just doing output since the beginning (quality > quantity in this case too). We are just saying that you're not going to become a better speaker/writer of a language if you don't output it. Input is not the solution for everything. And while you can delay it as much as you want, if you decide to work on it just when you had already acheived a high fluence in reading/listening, your output skills will not match the rest of your abilities and you'll have to spend quite a time to level it up.

This argument amuses me, as I think that everyone really agrees with each other on the topic. No one is saying that output is automatic, and, likewise, nobody is saying that you shouldn't learn things before you try to output them.



Although...One of the textbook approaches is using new vocab and substituting it into model sentences. I think that this is an inefficient way of learning the sentence patterns and do not believe it helps with the vocab, either. Why? It's not output practice. You are reaaranging stuff that is already there. Nothing has to be in your long term memory.

I just memorised a code on the bottom of my computer, and used it in the context of this sentence: CCAE06LP1300T1. I don't consider that to be output. I won't even remember it two minutes from now. It would be more productive to expose yourself to more things that are similar, and yes, imitate the sentence patterns that you find all around you.

EDIT: sorry... those last two paragraphs are really just a rant about my Spanish classes...

I think for one to output. One has to be exposed to certain situations so many times that it becomes etched into one mind without effort. For me personally my output is still lacking. Like just yesterday i was speaking to a Japanese person. I understand what she was saying verbally as well as written. But when i tried to output or reply back. I felt like the information i know wasn't coming to me. It's still difficult. I feel my reading+listening skills are always going up more nowadays then any other. I'm trying nowadays to just go into conversations and just listen and see how people reply. I think i just need practice to output the basic stuff first, describing basic things that i would do in english. But just in japanese.

My wife says that she sounds like Tohoku-ben. She uses the same words and repeats herself a lot but pretty good, anyway.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but this section on critiques of Krashen/output that summarizes J. Boulouffe I had only skimmed in the past but it's worth posting because it echoes the common ground found in this thread: http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/L...#Boulouffe

While the above is in English, the article it cites is apparently in French. I only found one other, more recent article by Boulouffe that's a bit technical: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journ...5/abstract - INTAKE AS THE LOCUS OF EQUILIBRATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING

Also: THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT TASK TYPES ON L2 LEARNERS’ INTAKE AND ACQUISITION OF TWO GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES

"... Finally, the implications for teaching practice are that for relatively complex structures such as negative adverbs and adverb placement exposure to the input with minimal pedagogic intervention may not be sufficient."

The other points on that first overview page on output are of course also interesting, especially the stuff about bottom-up processing and comprehensible output.