SendaiDan wrote:

Some of the worst advice I've ever heard.

My opinion is based on the experience of becoming fluent in three languages besides my first. What's your opinion based on?

SendaiDan, your advice is good for some people but it doesn't really solve the problem in general. Many mistakes made depend on your native (or, if multilingual, dominant) language. E.g. many non-native speakers occasionally confuse ser and estar in Spanish, native speakers and Italians don't. Germans systematically get prepositions wrong in English, Swedes only very rarely. The only difference with Japanese is that the mistakes tend to be more related to meaning and (I would guess) use of particles. No amount of input over output solves that problem. It might help if you have a language teacher who becomes aware of your typical mistakes over time and corrects you every time, but even then many people will not really get it.

Add to that "general" fossilization of simply being unaware of a subtle mistake.

Also, don't assume that becoming fluent in three languages tells you anything generalizable. I'm native-like in two, fluent in another two, conversational in another, passively understand four related languages, and near-fluent (but quite limited in vocabulary outside my interests) in Japanese. From reading posts here for a few years now I've learned that what works for some people doesn't help others at all. What worked wonders for me when learning Spanish didn't cut it at all for Japanese.

corry wrote:

@Mushi Wait, are we talking about always making the same mistakes or about never learning to understand some part of the language.

Making the same mistakes.

In this particular example, the subject had fossilized speech where she repeatedly made the same mistake of not using the past participle when appropriate, as a native speaker would. This was reportedly the case even though her exposure to the target language was long, and her comprehension was very good.

In other words, her output skill remained fossilized at the level where she had still not learned how to use the past participle.

SendaiDan wrote:

I also disagree with you when you say do not use any form of output when learning a language. Is not the purpose of language to communicate with other people?

So what if that is the purpose? We are discussing methods of learning, not purpose. The purpose of cooking is to eat. Does that make eating a good way to learn how to cook?

The purpose of learning a language is to communicate. The method of learning is to listen and understand the patterns, correctly.

SendaiDan wrote:

You learn by listening and speaking, or writing with other speakers of the language. How else do you know if you are making a mistake unless someone says "Hey, you know that isn't quite right. You should say it this way."

You're telling me that you spent at least hundreds or over a thousand hours speaking Japanese, with someone at your side at all times, correcting you every single time you made a mistake? Is that really what you're claiming? What about when you said something correctly, but with a heavy accent (the way an intermediate level student would inevitably speak). Would they then repeat what you said over and over again, and force you to practice saying it, until you got it right? Because that's what "to correct someone" would mean, at that level.

Sorry, but unless that is how you're "speaking", speaking is not learning. Whenever you speak and someone doesn't correct you and make you repeat what you said correctly, you are doing the exact opposite of learning: you are learning mistakes.

SendaiDan wrote:

Or you may not have learnt a word yet, so instead you explain what the thing is to the person. When they tell you the word you don't know, in my experience, you're much likely to remember it than if you'd learnt it in your textbook. To give a poor example, children learn their native language by speaking and having their mistakes corrected. I don't see 5 year old children not speaking because they aren't yet "fluent" in their native language. They start babbling and making noises from a young age, then slowly aquire grammar and vocabularly through listening, repeating, constructing new sentences and having them correct by parents etc.

1. Adult language students don't have a parent with them full time, to correct them.
2. Children don't have at least one other language already internalized, from which to mistakenly apply patterns of grammar, intonation and pronunciation to the new language. Before they can say anything, they must learn it from someone. Unless someone teaches them wrong, they can't get it wrong. Adults can and will.
3. Despite the massive advantage I described in points nr. 1 and 2, children STILL manage to internalize mistakes, and getting them to abandon it takes massive amounts of work, that would've been avoided if there was a way to teach them without having them speak (which of course there isn't, because they need to communicate and they don't have another language to do it with - but adults do).

SendaiDan wrote:

When I went to Japan as a student, I had been studying Japanese for about two years and so my understanding was around N3 level I would say at a guess. At first when I was in classes and with other Japanese students it was incredibly difficult to speak Japanese.

The fact that at N3 you couldn't speak isn't surprising, and it doesn't prove that you can't learn a language without speaking it. You just have to be well past N2 (closer to N1 than N2).

On the other hand, the fact that I never practiced speaking English or French before I could in fact speak them correctly (and without a heavy accent, unlike everyone I know who learned by speaking), does prove that practicing speaking is not necessary or beneficial to learning a language correctly.

SendaiDan wrote:

By the six month mark I had no qualms about speaking at all and from their my ability to both speak and understand spoken Japanese skyrocketed. Granted I was constantly being bombarded by Japanese as I was living in Japan, but I could have quite easily stayed self-conscious and embarrassed to talk, and have wasted a whole year long opportunity.

How's your accent? I think that if you would've stuck to being bombarded by Japanese, but spoken back to people mostly in English, you would've gained just as much knowledge, and your accent would be gone by now.

Last edited by Stansfield123 (2013 January 23, 1:33 am)

Stansfield123 wrote:

1. Adult language students don't have a parent with them full time, to correct them.

Neither do children; research has shown pretty conclusively that correction has little to no impact on language acquisition (once they acquire language they can be corrected to conform their speech to the educated dialect.)

3. Despite the massive advantage I described in points nr. 1 and 2, children STILL manage to internalize mistakes, and getting them to abandon it takes massive amounts of work, that would've been avoided if there was a way to teach them without having them speak (which of course there isn't, because they need to communicate and they don't have another language to do it with - but adults do).

Native speaker children do not internalize mistakes (that survive past the language acquisition stage).  They internalize features of local dialects that are not part of the standard, educated dialect.  This would not be avoided by not talking; the only way to avoid it would be to have the child only exposed to the standard dialect (which is impossible since no native speaker's ideolect conforms 100% to a standard dialect).

Children actually do not have to speak to acquire language as long as they are exposed to it.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2013 January 23, 1:56 am)

Stansfield123 wrote:

SendaiDan wrote:

I also disagree with you when you say do not use any form of output when learning a language. Is not the purpose of language to communicate with other people?

So what if that is the purpose? We are discussing methods of learning, not purpose. The purpose of cooking is to eat. Does that make eating a good way to learn how to cook? The purpose of learning a language is to communicate. The method of learning is to listen and understand the patterns, correctly.

No, but it means you don't watch hours of cooking tv shows and youtube videos, and reading countless recipe books before actually picking up a knife and trying to cook something. You don't learn about cooking for 3 years before trying to make a stirfry. You read a recipe and then try to make it. Simple. If you burn it or it doesn't taste quite right, next time you make it differently.

Stansfield123 wrote:

SendaiDan wrote:

You learn by listening and speaking, or writing with other speakers of the language. How else do you know if you are making a mistake unless someone says "Hey, you know that isn't quite right. You should say it this way."

You're telling me that you spent at least hundreds or over a thousand hours speaking Japanese, with someone at your side at all times, correcting you every single time you made a mistake? Is that really what you're claiming? What about when you said something correctly, but with a heavy accent (the way an intermediate level student would inevitably speak). Would they then repeat what you said over and over again, and force you to practice saying it, until you got it right? Because that's what "to correct someone" would mean, at that level.

Sorry, but unless that is how you're "speaking", speaking is not learning. Whenever you speak and someone doesn't correct you and make you repeat what you said correctly, you are doing the exact opposite of learning: you are learning mistakes.

No I'm not telling you that. Classes and teachers are there to teach students the language in the proper form, and to correct pronunciation or syntax issues if they are apparent. Obviously I didn't have someone standing over my shoulder correcting every mistake I ever made - that's a ridiculous thing to suggest. My teachers, however, did correct me when I used the wrong phrase or word at an inappropriate time, which I might add, I probably studied on my own or saw while reading a website etc. Without a doubt there is a difference between natural speech and the type of speaking used in a classroom - the situation is completely unnatural and the conversations are all staged. It does not matter how much you have studied previously, without actually trying to produce something you production skills will be lacking when it comes to a real-life conversation (writing less so). I have read threads on this forum where people have completed RTK, SRSed Core 6000 and 5,000 sentences (as an example) yet they say when they try to have a real conversation in Japan or with a Japanese person in their home country, they can barely utter a word. This is, in my opinion, is because their speaking ability in that language has not yet been strengthened, despite having listened to countless dramas and anime and drilling all those words and sentences.

Stansfield123 wrote:

SendaiDan wrote:

When I went to Japan as a student, I had been studying Japanese for about two years and so my understanding was around N3 level I would say at a guess. At first when I was in classes and with other Japanese students it was incredibly difficult to speak Japanese.

The fact that at N3 you couldn't speak isn't surprising, and it doesn't prove that you can't learn a language without speaking it. You just have to be well past N2 (closer to N1 than N2).

I would say it was surprising that I had difficulty saying very simple sentences at that level. For weeks my reply to questions was merely はい、そうです。 because I struggled to speak full sentences. On the other hand, my writing was not so bad because I had a somewhat decent (if not low intermediate) vocabulary and grammar understanding.

Stansfield123 wrote:

On the other hand, the fact that I never practiced speaking English or French before I could in fact speak them correctly (and without a heavy accent, unlike everyone I know who learned by speaking), does prove that practicing speaking is not necessary or beneficial to learning a language correctly.

I find this interesting. How did you know you were able to speak them correctly if infact you had never practised speaking them before. How do you know you wouldn't have spoken them correctly if you had tried 6 or 12 months earlier? You may have had to speak more simply, but it doesn't mean you speech would have been full of mistakes.

Stansfield123 wrote:

How's your accent? I think that if you would've stuck to being bombarded by Japanese, but spoken back to people mostly in English, you would've gained just as much knowledge, and your accent would be gone by now.

So you're saying it would've been a good idea to speak English in a university class at a Japanese university, with Japanese students, a Japanese teacher, Japanese textbook, and all instruction in Japanese because my accent might sound foreign? Honestly, it's hardly worth the effort to reply to such a far-fetched suggestion. Nevermind the fact that one look at me tells you that I am not Japanese. It's pretty much a given that if you aren't learning a language as a child/teenager you are going to have some form of an accent. I suppose I still have an accent when I speak Japanese, I am an English speaking Australian afterall, however I have been told that my pronunciation is quite good, which I would assume to mean that my accent is also not very strong. Although I don't consider myself a "Japanese-language snob", I do cringe when I hear the stereotypical gaijin accent (especially if the person is Australian, it can be quite bad) so I make a conscious effort to my sure I have good pronunciation. Then again, my Australian accent when I speak English is fairly neutral. I was told by both Japanese and European friends that when I speak English they could understand my accent easily, while they had difficulty with other Australians at our university. Also if you learnt English as an older teenager/adult, it's highly unlikely that you would have an accent that couldn't be picked up by a native speaker.

yudantaiteki wrote:

Native speaker children do not internalize mistakes (that survive past the language acquisition stage).  They internalize features of local dialects that are not part of the standard, educated dialect.  This would not be avoided by not talking; the only way to avoid it would be to have the child only exposed to the standard dialect (which is impossible since no native speaker's ideolect conforms 100% to a standard dialect).

Children actually do not have to speak to acquire language as long as they are exposed to it.

Agreed. Although I find it interesting to observe a family where the parents are foreign-born and the children are (for sake of simplicity) Australian-born, and the children clearly understand what the parents say to them, yet will reply only in English. As these are merely observations, there is no doubt more depth to the situation - maybe the children are embarrassed to speak the language in public, or maybe they can't actually speak the language, despite having full comprehension. Not having had the luxury of parents who speak a different language, it makes me jealous to think of how easily these children can aquire a second language

I'm Australian born Chinese and in this situation, so I can provide some insight. When I was growing up, I was spoken to in Chinese and I spoke back in Chinese. I only used it at home and in general conversations so I couldn't talk about specialised topics or anything. Over the years, as I learnt English, I talked to my dad in English instead of Chinese because I could talk more in English than Chinese. I still talk to my mum in Chinese because her English isn't that great. Essentially what happened was, my Chinese degraded, I can understand enough to get around but I can barely speak it. It kind mutated into a hybrid of Chinese-English, where I would use Chinese grammar constructs and then for words I couldn't say, I would use the English equivalent.

I guess it wasn't exactly a conscious choice of using English over Chinese due to embarrassment. Simply I could use English a lot better than Chinese and slowly over the years, it degraded. If my parents talked to me in Chinese, I could understand but it's simply easier for me to answer back in English because of my stronger active abilities in English than in Chinese. It's a case of use it or lose it.

Last edited by DevvaR (2013 January 23, 6:11 am)

Don't get me wrong, accent is certainly an important aspect to some extent, but let me expand on that.
In between the perfect native accent (which is in itself a bit hard to pinpoint, as what is native-like in one area will be a laughingstock in another in quite a few languages...) and the accent a foreigner begins with, there's a pretty wide range. Once the pronunciation issue is solved (so a native can understand everything you say, but you accent is still foreign) it simply becomes a whim.

What benefits do you get from losing the accent?
- Some people take you more seriously
...
- Some people take you more seriously.

That's about it. No added benefits. And unless you're looking for a job which is heavily reliant on speech (voice acting, maaaaaaaybe PR but it depends on the company, interpreting...maybe.. I'm sure there are a few more jobs here) it won't affect anything. Your language skill will not be judged by any professional depending on your accent; it's why so many teachers still have their foreign accents. Linguists still have their foreign accents. Multinational companies are still filled with foreign-accented managers and even chiefs. Translators sometimes have horrendous accents as well. No one cares.
Ok, maybe a few people care. About the same amount of people who don't give a person a job if they're not pretty to look at. Probably less =/.  Maybe the same amount as the people who don't give a guy a job because he's not pretty to look at?

As a fluency factor, accent is nothing; it's just a nice bonus, which is mostly useless if any area but the one whose accent you so heavily struggled to learn. The only benefit is your own personal satisfaction, and maybe a few superficial jerks judging you less (if a foreign accent is more important than language mastery then yeah, it's superficial). Job benefits are next to 0, language mastery doesn't improve at all, it's basically just putting a pretty package on it. It takes much more work than other more important aspects, and I think only extensive knowledge of formal semantics in possible worlds manages to reap less benefits.

Not that I'm discouraging people from practicing their accents, it can be fun . But claims of it being a sign of fluency is really just being elitist.

(also, talk smartly enough and your foreign accent will be irrelevant, talk poorly enough and your native accent will be ridiculed)

Mushi wrote:

corry wrote:

@Mushi Wait, are we talking about always making the same mistakes or about never learning to understand some part of the language.

Making the same mistakes.

In this particular example, the subject had fossilized speech where she repeatedly made the same mistake of not using the past participle when appropriate, as a native speaker would. This was reportedly the case even though her exposure to the target language was long, and her comprehension was very good.

In other words, her output skill remained fossilized at the level where she had still not learned how to use the past participle.

I think that she maybe wouldnt have developed the problem if she had waited until she had had more exposure to the correct form. Does the reference say anything about how early on in her study she started making the mistake.

It seems like if you limit output to only the things that you have heard and understood in your input then you wont make any mistakes and there wont be anything to fossilize.

^I post it here so you can do that for me lol.

The way I put it seems almost tautological to me.

I think you left out the, limit output to only, bit.