Re: Learning languages

I bought a "Teach Yourself" book once in Seattle; for Modern Persian (it's
called Farsi, morons!). This was soon after I met my girlfriend, later wife,
since it's her native tongue and all that. It wasn't that bad, but I don't
like the way language is taught in those self-teaching programs (especially
ones where, say, Spanish words are spelled out in English-style phonetics).

I'm also old-school in that I don't like cutting corners and skipping over
rote memorization of things like noun declensions and verb conjugations. I'm
also a real stickler for correct pronunciation -- this is what I HATED the
most about the way French was taught at my high school. We all sounded like
Americans speaking French in a lazy, ignorant manner; a Frenchman,
Quebequois or even a Cajun would probably have been offended. And this is by
teacher who supposedly travelled frequently to Paris! The textbook did cover
the particulars; I do remember IPA symbols being used (first time I ever saw
an o-slash, unless I read about Danish beforehand).

I go phonology first, writing second, common vocabulary third, grammar
fourth. By necessity some vocabulary pops up in discussion of the first, and
grammar (the "this is a ____" sentence) in the third. I use visualization,
connecting objects with their words. I really want to teach language, even
to adults, the same way a native language is taught to infants and children
as much as it is possible, even though the best time to learn a language is
always before age seven.

Which reminds me I'm supposed to be teaching myself Arabic, but I've been
lazy.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Bates" <christopher.bates@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 3:04 AM
Subject: Re: Learning languages


> DON'T BUY "TEACH YOURSELF" BOOKS/PACKS. Sorry, but I've listened to a
> few of them, and I always found their grammar explanations to be
> extremely poor, to the point where the only reason I could figure out
> the grammatical details is because I know some things about linguistics
> already. Anyone with an average knowledge of linguistics, or foreign
> languages (average amongst general population here = knowing practically
> nothing even about english grammar (well... I mean not knowing it
> innately, but...)) would just end up memorizing little phrases and
> things, and picking up a very incomplete knowledge of the grammar
> necessary to build your own sentences for situations which aren't taught
> in the book. Maybe I just got bad ones though.

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