Learning to speak a language, without learning to read it | Hacker News Reader

Learning to speak a language, without learning to read it

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Basically, I've looked at a few apps which allow you to study Asian languages, without actually learning the writing systems.

So you'll have Chinese, but you'll just have the romanization of the words. this is awesome for me because I've always really struggled with language learning, but I hope to eventually visit China.

I'm also looking at Korean a bit as well. How much I wish as a teenager I understood how much easier learning Korean could be compared to either Japanese or Chinese. The writing system doesn't have 4,000 different characters to remember so it might be possible for me to eventually read Korean as well, but for now I'm more focused on learning basic phrases. I figure if I have a need or a desire to eventually learn the Korean reading system I can do that later.

Any thoughts

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It's of course totally possible to learn a language without learning to write, since that's historically how people have always done it.

But note that modern societies aren't very accommodating to illiterate people. Even language-learning resources like dictionaries tend to assume that the user is able to read and write.

On the other hand, if you just want to visit as a tourist, you could do that without any knowledge of the language, just relying on English signage in touristy areas and Google Translate for simple conversations. It might detract a bit from the experience if you visit an old temple and can't read the inscriptions, but then again most Chinese people can't read the Manchu inscriptions on Qing dynasty buildings and still enjoy visiting them.

But if you want to stay longer or want to travel off the beaten path, not being able to read and write can be a real hassle. Fortunately, 4000 different characters isn't actually that much. You probably know tens of thousands of English words you learned over the course of a few decades. If you learn five to ten new characters per day, you can reach 4000 in a year or two. The hardest part of language learning is actually doing that little bit of daily practice.

When I started learning Chinese, I used https://apps.ankiweb.net/ with the Chinese support addon and added five flashcards every day (not always new characters, most words have characters in common) then worked through the scheduled number of reviews, using a notebook for writing practice. After two years, I moved to China as an exchange student and was able to get around fine, even though I still had a lot to learn. Sometime later my notebook was completely filled with writing practice, at which point I decided it wasn't really necessary anymore.

If that much grinding turns you off, try applying it to something you enjoy. E.g. pick a pop song you like but don't yet understand, get the lyrics and work through them word by word. Or watch a drama with target-language subtitles and keep your ears and eyes primed to notice common words. (Although those might not always be the most useful, e.g. the protagonists' names are probably not something you need to remember.)

But I don't know what has made you struggle with language learning in the past, so maybe that advice is not at all useful to you.

Thanks for the response !

I do plan on kind of just visiting as a tourist. I'll have to think about it a bit more, because on one hand I really do want to learn Chinese. But those 4,000 characters seem to be really daunting.

I think your point is that if I'm going to go in, I need to go all in and actually learn to read too. I do have an abundance of free time so maybe I'll try.

You might be interested in the Pimsleur language courses. I took a bit of one for Cantonese and found their teaching method to be a lot easier than expected.

Pimsleur courses are all about speaking and comprehending accurately, and don't focus on the writing.

I also recommend Pimsleur. I've used it for several languages. (Admittedly, all had at least some overlap with English; the furthest was Greek. I've always wondered how I'd fare with a completely unfamiliar language.)

Pimsleur's method is all about carefully timed reinforcement and repetition. I suspect it's less scientific than it sounds, but it seems to work for me.

The focus on speech also seems to help. It gives a kinaesthetic connection to the words that reading doesn't. The words come out by physical reflex.

It's even better if you have at least some access to an actual teacher who can help you over speed bumps. I had a hell of a time with the French R, for instance, and in general French is full of hard-to-distinguish sounds. And it's pricey -- but I got most of mine from the library for $0.

I wouldn't say spaced repetition is un-studied, but it did sort of come in and out of vogue since its discovery. Look at the references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition#References

One of the studies even differentiates between long- and short- term retention, as impacted by the timing of the repetitions. Pimsleur, possibly coincidentally, follows the method they describe as more appropriate for long-term retention.

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