usis35 Wrote:This is working for me:
-Watch a Seinfeld episode in Japanese
-Watch it again, searching for some words in the English script (there are so many I don't understand, that I just pick the ones that I think more interesting or more repeated). I copy paste from Edict some of the definitions, just to have them for review or to be added to Anki.
-convert the episode to mp3 and listen again a couple of times in my car

Results: The first time I watch it (audio+video) I understand about 30%. If the first time is only audio, I understand 15%
After 3 or 4 times, I reach 80 % understanding. I stop there and move to another episode. (It is important not to struggle trying to understand 100%)

PS could you direct me to finding these japanese seinfled episodes?
By email maybe?

Best thing to do is do a lot of vocab cards,reading and just keep listening/reading to different media sources. And eventually but not right off the bat, you will gain more understanding through listening(listening skills increasing). It takes some time, but you will get to the point of basically understanding almost everything you hear. It's all a matter of learning more and more until you reach a phase where you can understand through purely audio, almost everything you hear. Sometimes there isn't really a direct guide to 100% listening skills, it's more about experimenting and finding your maximum learning styles, so that you may continue learning more and more.

Erubey Wrote:

usis35 Wrote:This is working for me:
-Watch a Seinfeld episode in Japanese
-Watch it again, searching for some words in the English script (there are so many I don't understand, that I just pick the ones that I think more interesting or more repeated). I copy paste from Edict some of the definitions, just to have them for review or to be added to Anki.
-convert the episode to mp3 and listen again a couple of times in my car

Results: The first time I watch it (audio+video) I understand about 30%. If the first time is only audio, I understand 15%
After 3 or 4 times, I reach 80 % understanding. I stop there and move to another episode. (It is important not to struggle trying to understand 100%)

PS could you direct me to finding these japanese seinfled episodes?
By email maybe?

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid110702

Just a quick thought: I like most of AJATT's concepts, but disagree with the claim, that children learn simply by sitting in the corner and hearing stuff.

In reality, healthy and lucky babies, that become good pupils are treated like little princes/princesses and everybody in the family jumps around them trying to make them say simple words, like "mama" or "papa". Gradually longer terms and phrases are added, usually containing the first learned sounds (mama).

While I'm convinced that it's a mistake to talk to children in "baby language", as if they were totally retarded (unfortunately very common) – because it makes it impossible for children to actually learn real language – I do think the small portions, the patience and the exeggarated praise do their job.

As we all know, the less love children get, the more problems they will have with basic stuff like reading and writing. But there is nobody who does this for us. Nobody hugs us for every correct word, so the reward/dopamine shot isn't anywhere near what these little superstars called babies get from their surrounding.

robnonstop Wrote:As we all know, the less love children get, the more problems they will have with basic stuff like reading and writing.

But not with speaking. Spoken language is acquired by babies as long as they are exposed to it, regardless of whether the parents reward the kids, love them, or even pay any attention to them at all.

You should always be very dubious, though of any claims that a certain method of learning is good because "it's how kids learn". Even specialist researchers into child language development haven't figured out completely how kids learn language, and it's still a huge open question whether it's actually good (or even possible) for adults to learn language in the same way as children.

(AJATT, in particular, has very little to do with the way children learn language -- that doesn't make it bad, of course.)

yudantaiteki Wrote:Spoken language is acquired by babies as long as they are exposed to it, regardless of whether the parents reward the kids, love them, or even pay any attention to them at all.

Not my experience. I worked with children who had parents that were, let's say overwhelmed or unable to do their duty. Many of them had severe problems with speaking, even if their parents did not have them. As a baby you get a lot of applause for very small steps (literally). At a later stage good role models are the most important aspect but as a baby praise and attention is crucial.

It's what makes kids stick to an instrument or art, and once they are good at it, people will say "they have talent", when in reality they just got more praise, while their results sucked as bad as every other kid's.

What exactly do you mean by "severe problems with speaking"?

(Do people raised in orphanages not speak as well?)

yudantaiteki Wrote:What exactly do you mean by "severe problems with speaking"?

(Do people raised in orphanages not speak as well?)

Sometimes. Children in orphanages are surrounded by other talking children and adults. More likely a highly neglected, single child will develop slower and make you want to slam your head on a wall. Not speaking from experience or anything. f(^^;)

shihoro Wrote:Re Babies and speaking. From what I know and have read it seems babies/toddlers will learn to speak even if they do not receive love or any communicative stimulation.

There was an experiment a long long time ago in much more primitive days. They wanted to know language a child would learn if no-one talked to it. It wound up learning... nothing! Also died due to it's lonely, crappy, miserable, unloved existence. So I'm going to have to say I disagree with what you're saying there.

shihoro Wrote:Re Babies and speaking. From what I know and have read it seems babies/toddlers will learn to speak even if they do not receive love or any communicative stimulation.

I think the problem is the "or" here. I'm really having a hard time figuring how you can learn a first language without "communicative stimulation", since it starts in utero. But without love, yeah, sure. Maybe you meant "extra communicative stimulation".

I'm sure it's great for many other reasons, but I really doubt that the baby talk and exaggerated praise makes any significant difference in language development for a normal kid who grows up with plenty of language exposure and people to interact with. A kid brought up by wolves is another story.

shihoro Wrote:This boy forgets that a few months ago before I started at the school, he stopped me in the street and demanded "Oi you! Give me some money for sweets." I told hm no. "***** off then you ***** cunt!" Not what you want to to hear but don't tell me he can't communicate.

Lol. At least he doesn't just play with his dump truck and "have bad days."

*head ---> wall*

As usual I have to be careful to explain myself better. The data on children acquiring language regardless of love/care has to do only with language *acquisition* (i.e. the grammar and vocabulary). People who cuss a lot or don't speak the educated dialect have still acquired language, and can still use the same grammatical structures as other native speakers and probably have pretty significant vocabularies. They just don't use language as well.

mezbup Wrote:There was an experiment a long long time ago in much more primitive days

I think this was a European king, French or German, who expected the children to talk Latin. Of course they didn't talk at all and just died but it doesn't proof much because they didn't get praise and (more importantly) nobody talked to them.

I know a woman who talks to her dog like you would talk to a grown up. The dog usually replies "woof". The same way she talks to her child who is now a teen and hasn't been seen saying anything until she became 15, not even hello. This of course is not necessarily representative, my point is, that adults instinctively talk in a very easy language to children, gradually leveling up over time. At the very beginning the child is only expected to say very simple words and then sentences build up on those simple words (where is the mama, where is the mama?). In the "Western World" this is a little overdone (too dumbed down) in my opinion but still better than too complicated, at least as long as the child doesn't talk at all.

robnonstop Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:There was an experiment a long long time ago in much more primitive days

I think this was a European king, French or German, who expected the children to talk Latin. Of course they didn't talk at all and just died but it doesn't proof much because they didn't get praise and (more importantly) nobody talked to them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_de...xperiments

Not exactly the type of experiment you can pull off in today's world, so researchers still have to study these experiments and other very rare cases of humans raised without any communication in human language. This can net you all sorts of silly theories but no way to test it.

robnonstop Wrote:Not my experience. I worked with children who had parents that were, let's say overwhelmed or unable to do their duty. Many of them had severe problems with speaking, even if their parents did not have them. As a baby you get a lot of applause for very small steps (literally). At a later stage good role models are the most important aspect but as a baby praise and attention is crucial.

It's what makes kids stick to an instrument or art, and once they are good at it, people will say "they have talent", when in reality they just got more praise, while their results sucked as bad as every other kid's.

robnonstop Wrote:The same way she talks to her child who is now a teen and hasn't been seen saying anything until she became 15, not even hello. This of course is not necessarily representative, my point is, that adults instinctively talk in a very easy language to children, gradually leveling up over time. At the very beginning the child is only expected to say very simple words and then sentences build up on those simple words (where is the mama, where is the mama?). In the "Western World" this is a little overdone (too dumbed down) in my opinion but still better than too complicated, at least as long as the child doesn't talk at all.

The simplified term is "socially awkward".

& Yes, in the west many kids become excessively addicted to T.V. and video games and thus suffer child neglectance.

I'm certain people like this speak & understand English fine. They just lack social skills.