Seamoby Wrote:@kuma01 Can't have it both ways, to have us consider your story while you discredit the story about the Chinese person (which sounds plausible to me). Neither story carries more weight than the other.

The story of this so called Chinese person has been told to us by a third party, in which case you'd be a fool not to doubt it. Also I have no reason to be defending a strategy that supposedly doesn't work if I hadn't experienced the benefits of it myself, unless I'm somehow in on some kind of AJATT conspiracy to slowly convince everyone on the forum to switch to Silverspoon for their studies. You might say "well not everyone learns languages the same way", but if you were to do that you'd be saying I have some kind of natural capacity for languages, which is exactly the kind of excuse Khatz mentions in his blogs. Seeing as how in this case most of you have never been in the position to have the same kind of experience as us non-native English speakers I'd say that our experience proves Khatzumoto is correct in saying that input is much more important than output. Watching House in English did more for my language capacity than posting on forums ever did.

@kuma01 Please do not resort to name calling. It makes my ears ring. I have anecdotal experiences of my own as a basis of my considering the story that you were discrediting. And the fact that the story was narrated by a third party does not automatically invalidate the story.

IceCream Wrote:In a very general, basic, way, since such different parts of the brain are active during each activity, i'm inclined to believe that each seperate skill does need training in it's own right in order to make that activity easier. That doesn't mean that they aren't mutually supportive to some extent, things are obviously more complex than that, they aren't entirely cut off from each other.

I agree with IceCream. I have even seen this for myself this weekend. Since returning home from Japan 6 months ago, I feel that my listening skills have continued to improve, I know more vocabulary than when I lived in Japan and I use Japanese virtually everyday typing and commenting to my friends on facebook/skype.

However, yesterday for the first time in about 2 months my Korean friends called me on skype (we talk in Japanese). I had so much trouble talking in half decent sentences of a conversational level. I took me ages to come up with the right word that I was looking for and then to keep the conversation flowing. I find when I speak Japanese, usually I can switch English off completely unless it is something really difficult and indepth that I am trying to say, but I was having trouble slipping into Japanese. I was really quite surprised and found it a bit of an eye opener that I really need to start speaking again.

So basically what I am trying to say is that while certain skills have continued to improve, my speech declined dramatically, which to me shows that just because I learnt X amount of new words etc etc that they really are independent skills.

DevvaR Wrote:Carolina, after SRSing 4000 words, how's your listening comprehension? How much of certain anime/drama/etc can you understand?

I only listen to podcasts, in November last year when I started listening I undertood zero or close. Now I can understand almost everything. My listening skills are so, so much better than they were before.

I've been watching Ayu ready lately though. They japanese spoken is so casual that it gets really easy to understand and they don't really talk about difficult subjects so I can't really say. I understand almost everything in Ayu ready.

However, I've been reading/listening to the news (yahoo video news) and after listening and reading the article the first time, the next time I listen I will understand everything. The I copy the sentence and audio to anki and srs it.

DevvaR Wrote:Carolina, after SRSing 4000 words, how's your listening comprehension? How much of certain anime/drama/etc can you understand?

Well, I know more than 4000 words probably and I must admit I'm not quite low on grammar, too, but I still understand only rubbish, when it comes to more complex sentences. I can't tell, but in a way, I created a fear of listening to Japanese due the demotivation not understanding anything at all anyway. When I watch anime/drama with japanese subtitles it is indeed enjoyable and I would get the story line/plot, but without.. it would turn out to be difficult and frustrating like ever since.
On the other hand I'm recognising myself catching up words from my passive vocabulary knowledge. They just become "active" and I can use them in my own - written - sentences. Seems like there is some truth behind enough input => leads to output (some day)..

Edit: I should add to what I wrote above, that I would skip Japanese texts, I read. I wouldn't read them, but just skip through the lines like I also do in German and English - and I'd get the hang, as long as the grammar is simple/known to me. Quite confusing.. feels like my brain is good at reading but sucks at listening, *although* I'm extremely careful listening, i.e. I have an absolute hearing (7 years piano and accordion playing)~ @IceCream, wanna crack my skull for some awesome brain scan???? DD

@Kuma01, sorry but my story is true, as far as I know. At least I have no reason to doubt this person, though they could have been understating their own skills?

I think I've said on here before but - The AJATT theory of large amounts of good input leading to good output only works if you're actually outputting. Your use of vocab, grammar and accent will improve, but you still have to make a concious effort to practise speaking and writing.

It does not appear "automatically", and it is still an iterative process, i.e. you will not wake up one day and suddently be able to speak perfectly.

From experience, if you use anki for vocab/reading context. It will improve your listening to high levels(fluency) as well as for reading. So you'll get solid reading/listening skills, to the point where you could call yourself fluent or at least near-fluent. Now this is only half the battle(this is where I am now. My reading/listening are solid, all need is a few more months of intensive learning and I'll be fine).

Now these do help with output, no one can say that. But what I've learned is: if your not near natives or can't hang with natives. You should try shadowing from what you listen to, even copy exactly how people reply back to certain things. I've come to the conclusion that: once you get to a certain level of input(reading/listening). You should start actively shadowing(you can read/understand to that 90%+ mark).

Then once you've gotten here(probably 1 year if things are done right, although for some people this may be too long, you can edit/do whatever you think works for yourself). Now, this is when you make an active effort to output via input(start heavily shadowing shows,dramas,movies,animes(love these).) Give yourself a few months to do this(you'll be surprised on how far you can get with this). Then you can start practicing output via language exchange,friends,etc.

The battle for fluency is done in two phases: input(reading/listening. I.e. training passive vocabulary) and output(training active vocabulary via speaking/writing)

Seamoby Wrote:@kuma01 Please do not resort to name calling. It makes my ears ring. I have anecdotal experiences of my own as a basis of my considering the story that you were discrediting. And the fact that the story was narrated by a third party does not automatically invalidate the story.

I don't remember calling anybody by any name, unless you're referring to the word fool. If you honestly think that can be perceived as insulting you have egg shell feelings.

Quote:I think I've said on here before but - The AJATT theory of large amounts of good input leading to good output only works if you're actually outputting. Your use of vocab, grammar and accent will improve, but you still have to make a concious effort to practise speaking and writing.

I never deliberately practiced writing or speaking in English and I do just fine at both of those. I'll give you writing though, since Japanese obviously doesn't use the alphabet, but then again in this day and age it's a redundant skill to have for an adult anyway.

Quote:So basically what I am trying to say is that while certain skills have continued to improve, my speech declined dramatically, which to me shows that just because I learnt X amount of new words etc etc that they really are independent skills.

I've never lived in an English speaking country for any amount of time, nor do I use English every day but if the need arises I can speak it fluently, even though I've never deliberately practiced speaking English.

Quote:It does not appear "automatically", and it is still an iterative process, i.e. you will not wake up one day and suddently be able to speak perfectly.

I never mentioned it being some kind of instant skill you gain overnight. I believe that any amount of comprehension translates to a degree of output. For example, if I can understand scientific literature in English I'm pretty damn sure I'm going to be able to have a conversation in the language, I'd say the same applies to any language. It even applies to your native language. The more you read the more your vocabulary and style improve, so why wouldn't the same apply to any other language.

This "output"-forcing/"trying" remembers me of my sincere and dear, but also military english teacher in class 8 we had.

We were sitting in class like lambs, he entered the room and started talking in English - which made us just laugh and burst out, since we have always talked in German and answered in German in English class. We wanted to make him think, he'll never be able to make us speak English and that he was kind of nuts (the girls liked him though, he looks quite attractive, nobody can deny that), but.. that guy was seemingly (?) in the U.S. army and he squeezed these words out of our lungs and throats every single second in English class. We made ugly mistakes, we were shattered after giving hellishly long seminar papers dealing about American society and economy, we almost vomitted because of the fear making a mistake and getting a bloody mark for that.

We had him a year and turned out to be fluent (more or less).
That's my story concerning English, voilá.

Hey, I'm fluent in English now. Still haven't found a "squeeza"-Japanese-teacher. Anyone?

my boss speaks terrible english. it's understandable but he makes a lot of mistakes, and he still misunderstands us a lot. one of my coworkers said something like "there's no noun, it's just all adjectives and adjective phrases."

he's also been working for longer than i've been born. he also writes english perfectly.

Kuma01 Wrote:I never mentioned it being some kind of instant skill you gain overnight. I believe that any amount of comprehension translates to a degree of output. For example, if I can understand scientific literature in English I'm pretty damn sure I'm going to be able to have a conversation in the language, I'd say the same applies to any language. It even applies to your native language. The more you read the more your vocabulary and style improve, so why wouldn't the same apply to any other language.

Some degree of output... I know a fair few people who have passed N1 but can't speak well at all. There are a fair few people on these boards who have, after gaining high levels of listening / reading posted that they have problems speaking. There are also very few examples from this board of people saying they could speak well due to high input only.

Make of that what you will

IceCream Wrote:

Seamoby Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:http://www.uib.no/med/avd/miapr/arvid/Ui...ainfun.gif

What does the "generating words" label refer to? Is this the writing part?

generating words means thinking of what words to say for yourself. Unfortunately, that image just comes from a medical index, & i can't remember the exact study it's from. But, i remember seeing a very similar picture in a book (i think it was this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cognitive-Neuros...331&sr=8-1).

If i'm remembering correctly, the "speaking" part actually referred to reading aloud, and "generating" referred to conversing. But don't quote me on that.

Thanks. Yeah, I think that would make sense.

IceCream Wrote:@nadiatims: it's not supposed to "prove" anything. That's why i didn't comment along with it. I just thought it was a striking image when i first saw it, and thought it was relevent taken along with the kind of things Nest0r was saying about the 4 strands.

In a very general, basic, way, since such different parts of the brain are active during each activity, i'm inclined to believe that each seperate skill does need training in it's own right in order to make that activity easier. That doesn't mean that they aren't mutually supportive to some extent, things are obviously more complex than that, they aren't entirely cut off from each other.

I agree, that was how I read the image, too.

IceCream Wrote:In any case, i'm not sure why AJATT is being brought up here tbh, it's not so relevent. There are plenty of people on this forum who've reached the same level Khatz was at after 1.5 years, and many of them would disagree on this point. We don't just have to take one person's opinion.

Good point.