SRS is a general method to aid with learning any kind of information, it doesn't have to be used with a "list of words".

Learning to write kanji because it's rude not to do so is the strangest reason I've heard for learning it.

Zlarp wrote:

Basically, the SRS is my "audio course" - it gets me started. I get explicit knowledge of some things so I can then actually translate the things I find and start to do lots of reading.

Honestly, I never got the whole audio+SRS thing to work out so I wasn't even thinking of that when I wrote my OP.  Good lookin' out!  I'd certainly recommend an SRS for that.  I don't have the patience to figure it out lol.

I agree completely that at some point doing lots of reading will help more and I'm not so sure if those people who do "10'000 sentences" aren't handicapping themselves - though of course, I don't have 10'000 sentences in my SRS, so I can't say that from experience. Maybe it's actually really time efficient and I'm handicapping myself by not doing it, but there's only one way to find out, and that'll take a while.

Based on experience (ie I tried it), I wouldn't recommend it lol.  A sentence out of context is about as useful as a word out of context..ie not useful at all.  The more I practice, the more I realize that "speaking" is just a matter of being able to translate very quickly.  If someone says "good morning" to me in Japanese, I recognize I want to say good morning in response.  My brain translates this into Japanese, and then I say it.  The more your brain makes the same mental connection (ie saying good morning), the faster itll come to you, until you get to the point where its instantaneous.

drdunlap wrote:

Think of an SRS in language learning as a simulation of coming across a word in every day life time and time again without actually having to live for __ years to do so. SRS is a handy way to cheat nature.

Well idk, I've certainly seen advice in random places on the interwebz suggest stuffing words/sentences into an SRS in an attempt to learn the language.  Really though, nature is basically an SRS, though a lot less predictable lol.  The only reason im not a huge fan of SRS is that I feel if you don't see a word enough in nature, you don't really need to force it in your head via other means. 

Then again there are people who study random words they find in their first language, just so that they know them.  I never understood that, which is probably why I don't get the whole SRS thing lol.  It doesn't seem fun, and is quite dull a lot of times

Last edited by amtrack (2012 December 29, 4:22 pm)

amtrack wrote:

Based on experience (ie I tried it), I wouldn't recommend it lol.  A sentence out of context is about as useful as a word out of context..ie not useful at all.

But if a word is part of a sentence, regardless of whether or not the sentence is part of a bigger paragraph, the word is not out of context. The main idea of sentences on flashcards (well, the way I interpret it) is to make words easier to learn by giving them context, while also reviewing a grammatically correct usage of it. Contexts for the sentences aren't needed for this purpose as long as you can understand them.

amtrack wrote:

The more I practice, the more I realize that "speaking" is just a matter of being able to translate very quickly.  If someone says "good morning" to me in Japanese, I recognize I want to say good morning in response.  My brain translates this into Japanese, and then I say it.  The more your brain makes the same mental connection (ie saying good morning), the faster itll come to you, until you get to the point where its instantaneous.

If you're monolingual it might be difficult to imagine this, but in my experience, speaking and understanding a foreign language fluently means no process of internal translating at all. You think in the target language.

Like how even though my native language is Swedish, through the massive amounts of exposure I've had to English over the years there just hasn't been any need for having Swedish in my head at all when it's come to using English. By not having an active need for speaking or writing English, but having a desire for understanding it when watching movies, playing games, browsing the internet, I've learned from early on to understand English "as it is" when I hear/read it. Stemming from that ability, when I speak/write it, the thoughts of what I want to convey immediately take the form of English. I'm in "English mode", just as if I'm speaking my native language, and it's been like this since I was about 14 years old, tops.

I'm not at all fluent in Japanese yet, but I can speak to my ability without frequent problems like stopping, planning word order, comparing with Swedish/English, et cetera. This, I'm convinced, is simply because of not worrying about what so and so means in any other language and understanding the language "for what it is" when acquiring through exposure. The monolingual approach, AJATT, whatever.

amtrack wrote:

drdunlap wrote:

Think of an SRS in language learning as a simulation of coming across a word in every day life time and time again without actually having to live for __ years to do so. SRS is a handy way to cheat nature.

Well idk, I've certainly seen advice in random places on the interwebz suggest stuffing words/sentences into an SRS in an attempt to learn the language.  Really though, nature is basically an SRS, though a lot less predictable lol.  The only reason im not a huge fan of SRS is that I feel if you don't see a word enough in nature, you don't really need to force it in your head via other means.

If they're suggesting substituting exposure for brutal SRSing then I agree, not a fan of that either. But I think you should see SRS as something to use alongside input as an effective means of reviewing lots of information in a short amount of time. It's certainly very useful when we're starting out from scratch and have trouble finding enough comprehensible input in a vast world of native content.

Also, while we're certain to see the few thousand most common words enough in nature, the tens of thousands of infrequent words we ultimately need to know will of course take very long to come across. Savoring the occasions we're exposed to them by reviewing them alongside in an SRS is sure to save some of that time, I think.

TwoMoreCharacters wrote:

If you're monolingual it might be difficult to imagine this, but in my experience, speaking and understanding a foreign language fluently means no process of internal translating at all. You think in the target language.

I agree, but this is impossible when you first start speaking a language.  Before speech there's thought, and most of us think in our native language initially.  So in the beginning, there is always a translation process.  After all, we are not children, thus are incapable (to my knowledge) of communicative thought without putting language to it.  This is probably why learning a second language as an adult seems so difficult.  Children go from abstract to language, while adults go from abstract -> native language -> second language.

The first connection between abstract and native language happens so incredibly fast you are unaware of it.  It is automatic and instantaneous.  The second connection is what gives us language learners problems.  To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced the native language -> second language connection ever goes away, just like how the abstract -> native language connection doesn't go away.  I think we just reach a point where the translation becomes automatic and instantaneous without us being aware of it.

Then again, I've had dreams entirely in a separate language, so I can't say a direction connection between abstract-> second language is impossible.  I just hold the general belief that your mother tongue will always possess some level of influence on your thought patterns unless it has been completely abandoned for several years.

Last edited by amtrack (2012 December 29, 6:42 pm)

drdunlap wrote:

Are you bi/multi-lingual by chance?

No, i would not call myself bi-lingual, though I have had limited conversations in a second language.  Mostly just small talk, as my vocab was limited to what you'd normally talk about during downtime in a school day. 

I'm mostly just theorizing based off of different research in regards to bilingual/multilingual speakers.  I also wonder if a second language learned by a child is stored differently than a second language learned by an adult.  The problem of course is that most of language is subconscious, so there's no way of knowing what the hell is going on.  Its partly what makes it such a fascinating subject to me.

I have noticed its fairly difficult to switch from one language to another, but I am not quite sure why.  One one hand, if the abstract -> native language -> second language connection was always in effect, it shouldn't be difficult to bounce between languages.  Clearly that is not the case, so maybe the brain stores it differently.  We know for a fact that our first language was learned by defining and translating the abstract into words.  This begs the question, though, how exactly do we learn a second language past the child stage?

If you think about it, we don't use abstract to learn a language, because that is just about impossible for an adult as far as I know.  A child sees a car and its just a blob to him, but even if i show you a picture of a car it is not an abstract blob to you.  Since that is the case, a second language must be stored differently in a manner that makes it difficult to switch back and forth from.

amtrack wrote:

The first connection between abstract and native language happens so incredibly fast you are unaware of it.  It is automatic and instantaneous.  The second connection is what gives us language learners problems.  To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced the native language -> second language connection ever goes away, just like how the abstract -> native language connection doesn't go away.  I think we just reach a point where the translation becomes automatic and instantaneous without us being aware of it.

I really don't think this is the case. At least when I analyze the way I personally use English and Finnish. They are completely separate in my head, and as such translating can be a massive headache. The languages are too different. It makes no sense.

I'm a bit curious about this, because I don't think that I "think" in a particular language. Certainly, I can think *up* and compose words in a language, as I'm doing now, but it's at least a mildly taxing mental task, like adding numbers in your head, and it's not something that I do all the time as a matter of course.

I can't imagine how jumbled my head would be if I had to think in a language. If a car passes by, am I supposed to compose a little narrative, like, "Wow, that is a car. C-A-R. An automobile. A Ford Focus, late model. It has tinted side windows the hue of smoky quartz. Its engine rumbles softly - and there's the doppler shift as it passes by. It kicks up a breeze that ruffles my hair..."

No way! How long does it take you guys to think about stuff?

That said, if someone were to ask me what language I think in, I'd probably take that to mean, "In what language can you perform production with the least amount of effort?" It sounds like some people take it to mean something more though?

As for myself I'm not referring to inner monologues, I don't really do that. If I took note of a certain car that passed by I wouldn't really sub-vocalize anything, just think about what it looks like. Maybe go as far as "Nice car". Or if one would abruptly pass by really close and throw me off a bit - "Whoah, a car!?", "あぶないな"

What I'm talking about is how you're internally dealing with messages during communication. If you as a native English speaker read a sign that's in English, that's a one-step process of simply understanding what the words mean. If you read a sign that's in Japanese, would that be the same process of simply understanding the Japanese, or would you evaluate the Japanese words and quickly convert them to English in your head?

It's not reading "喫煙禁止" and then going "Alright, I guess no smoking here then" or something, I'm talking about reading it and automatically having to filter it into "smoking prohibit(ed)" as you understand it. If you have to think about what it translates to in another language, that's what I call "not thinking in Japanese"

The reverse goes for speaking.

Last edited by TwoMoreCharacters (2012 December 30, 3:39 pm)

Thanks you two - that definitely gives me a better idea what's being discussed. For me personally:

Regardinginternal monologues - yes, sometimes I do this, but not frequently. I caught myself doing this the other day while shoveling the driveway. I was feeling tired, so encouraged myself by saying, "But isn't it good feeling getting some exercise in the snow?" This was in Japanese though, probably because I associate digging in the snow with happy childhood memories when my (Japanese) parents would encourage me to play outside when it snowed.

Regarding written signs, no I do not translate them to an intermediate language. Even when I was in Germany and the signs were in German, which I did not know, as soon as I figured out what, for example, "ausfahrt" was, I wouldn't think "exit" or "出口". I'd wordlessly understand that meant my having the ability to turn off there. No translation - that would have been extra effort.

Yes, my first language was Japanese, but I switched primarily to English from around kindergarten due to my parents moving to the U.S.

I'm not raised bilingually, but I never translate either... When reading or listening to Japanese, I either understand or I don't -- even if I understand what's going on, translating is still a pain in the rectal chamber.

I'm Norwegian, and English is my second langauge. The only times I actually translate from Norwegian is when I'm not too sure which English word to use, which happens next to never nowadays.

EDIT: Am I the only one who have to log in every time I visit this forum??

Last edited by Stian (2012 December 31, 9:30 am)

amtrack wrote:

Based on experience (ie I tried it), I wouldn't recommend it lol.  A sentence out of context is about as useful as a word out of context..ie not useful at all.  The more I practice, the more I realize that "speaking" is just a matter of being able to translate very quickly.  If someone says "good morning" to me in Japanese, I recognize I want to say good morning in response.  My brain translates this into Japanese, and then I say it.  The more your brain makes the same mental connection (ie saying good morning), the faster itll come to you, until you get to the point where its instantaneous.

Although I don't know that much Japanese yet, I don't translate unless I'm dealing with several unfamiliar words in a sentence (in which case I probably won't understand anyway). If I wanted to greet someone in the morning, I'd say おはよう, it doesn't need to go through the intermediate step of 'good morning'. Same with understanding things. I'd have to consciously think about it to translate.

I do use a SRS. Without it, I'd spend so long going over the same stuff again and again, because I just don't remember it well. Not much point in doing a textbook and forgetting it, I'd rather use it in conjunction with the SRS. Hope that explains how someone might use one.

amtrack wrote:

If you think about it, we don't use abstract to learn a language, because that is just about impossible for an adult as far as I know.  A child sees a car and its just a blob to him, but even if i show you a picture of a car it is not an abstract blob to you.  Since that is the case, a second language must be stored differently in a manner that makes it difficult to switch back and forth from.

I find the picture method pretty helpful, use it with my SRS. Kanji on front, picture on back (though there are various way to do it).

Mushi wrote:

I can't imagine how jumbled my head would be if I had to think in a language. If a car passes by, am I supposed to compose a little narrative, like, "Wow, that is a car. C-A-R. An automobile. A Ford Focus, late model. It has tinted side windows the hue of smoky quartz. Its engine rumbles softly - and there's the doppler shift as it passes by. It kicks up a breeze that ruffles my hair..."

No way! How long does it take you guys to think about stuff?

Hee, often I don't just think in language, I think in written language (picture what I'm thinking written down). I can't imagine being able to think straight otherwise.
(for the anime watchers here, think all the writing in Bakemonogatari. Yep, I actually think like that)

Last edited by Ampharos64 (2012 December 31, 8:43 pm)