Comment by derriz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by derriz | Hacker News Reader

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I disagree with nearly all of your advice and tips. And I'd be very surprised if they reflected actual scientific findings in linguistics.

The least objectionable is the "don't translate" tip but even there I think you've gotten it wrong - translating isn't the issue - avoiding the trap of getting bogged down in trying to translate _precisely_ or being a perfectionist. But you definitely have to maintain some understanding of the context in order to get any value from subsequent exposure.

I fully disagree that you can acquire language just by osmosis - that it's enough to just listen to a language for hundreds of hours. Do you really think that if I isolated myself with hundreds of hours of say Mandarin audio recordings, TV shows and newspapers and novels and spent 40 hours a week listening to the recordings or staring at written text, that in a few months I would acquire the language? I mean if this actually worked, learning second languages wouldn't even be seen as a challenge or task.

It takes thousands of hours of active "work" with a second language to acquire it (although the data is patchy), not hundreds of hours of passive "experiencing".

And avoiding speaking is terrible advice. It's been shown to provide a huge boost to language acquisition. I know people who can read and comprehend the spoken form of a second language at a reasonably high level (C2) but can barely speak it. Speaking will not just "happen" if you don't actively practice it.

If you honestly did manage to acquire fluent Spanish purely by just passively "experiencing" the language, then I'm guessing your first language is closely related one - one of the romance languages.

> Do you really think that if I isolated myself with hundreds of hours of say Mandarin audio recordings, TV shows and newspapers and novels and spent 40 hours a week listening to the recordings or staring at written text, that in a few months I would acquire the language?

Yes, it does work, according to various accounts I've seen, although 40 hours for a few months might not quite be enough (the usual figure is around 18 months of full-time immersion, and more is obviously better), and this is actually quite challenging to do for long periods of time (esp. without distracting yourself with your native language excessively) and that's why it can be a challenge.

>not hundreds of hours of passive "experiencing".

It's on the hour of thousands, not hundreds. There are people, especially in the refold community, who have reached fluency in languages very different from their native, with mostly input (active output is part of the equation, but it can be done later, after your comprehension is very high).

>Speaking will not just "happen" if you don't actively practice it.

Yes, you do need to practice speaking to get good at speaking. But from aforementioned accounts, this process can be quite fast after a high level of comprehension has been gained.

I can confirm that for myself, over the past half year or so, increasing the amount of input I get every day has greatly accelerated my japanese learning process, versus the previous year, where I got far fewer hours in (1, maybe 2 hours a day at most, versus my current 4+ hours every day), although I'm not fluent yet.

In just that time I went from barely being able to read, and only being able to understand simple beginner podcasts to being able to fully understand easier shows (stuff for adults is still mostly out of my reach), and understand most of all the podcasts I listen to, (as long as I'm actually focused on the audio, if I'm passively listening I don't understand as much). My reading hasn't improved as much, as I spend probably 80% of the time listening/watching shows versus reading, but I can read basic manga easily now, and I'm working on reading through some essays now, novels still seems massively difficult, but we'll see in another couple months.

I've found that many hours of audio input each day have greatly improved my ability to keep up with native-speed speaking, although for increasing my comprehension, intensive study (making sure I understand each line in a show, or careful reading) is more effective per unit of time. I have no doubt you could acquire the same results as intensive study with enough exposure to the language though, as I've seen it happen with myself before I tried adding intensive study, it would just take more time.

Most people wouldn't call 4 hours a day massive though, so I can probably still increase my rate of improvement if I find more time to use.

> Yes, it does work, according to various accounts I've seen, although 40 hours for a few months might not quite be enough (the usual figure is around 18 months of full-time immersion, and more is obviously better)

Could you provide a reference to these studies or accounts?

The original claim was a second language can be acquire by hundreds of hours of passive "experiencing". Your claim of 18 months full time is more like 6,000 hours if by full-time you mean all-day. This is more than an order of magnitude more than the original claim and 2 to 5 times more than then numbers I've seen in studies on how many hours it takes to achieve C1 level in a second language using regular teaching/learning techniques. There is significant variance depending on the the relationship between the learner's first language and the L2.

So even if it worked (and I'm dubious - learning anything requires some effort/active practice) spending 7,000 hours of passive "experiencing" would be a hugely inefficient way to learn a language.

Perhaps we are having some miscommunication here. I don't know if the original poster was making a precise statement when they said "hundreds and hundreds of hours" anyway.

>Could you provide a reference to these studies or accounts? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxYZvMByRjU&list=PLT9cfjU1yk...

I haven't watched any of these videos in a while so I don't remember which ones are good, and it's a lot to go through, sorry about that. But there are some accounts here of people who have followed "mostly-input" style methods. I don't think any of them are 100% passive input though, and I'm not sure anybody argued that is the best way to do it.

I also seem to remember a study I found recently on whether uncomprehensible input works for language acquisition with very interesting results, but I cannot find it right now.

>spending 7,000 hours of passive "experiencing" would be a hugely inefficient way to learn a language

The efficiency really depends on if it's something you want to do or not, but I don't know if anybody is doing a full 12 hours a day (maybe some super hardcore people). I believe it's closer to 6, maybe 8 hours if you're very serious about it and have the time.

>learning anything requires some effort/active practice

Yes, you need to actually try to understand what you're listening to at least part of the time, maybe most of the time, which means you need to be actually interested in the content, otherwise you will get bored quickly. But passive listening while you are doing other things definitely helps in combination with active study.

I'm not sure if we're using "passive" in the same way though. Actively focusing on, and trying to understand what you are listening to isn't what I'd call passive.

Taking 4 hours out of my day is pretty massive. Between sleep, work, kid and basic household chores I wouldn't have 4 hours a day ever.

Yes, it also feels like a lot to me, but it has become much easier to do as my comprehension has gone up. But most of that is not actually taking time out of my day. I go on walks every day, listening to podcasts at the same time. While I do chores, browse the internet, or drive somewhere, I do the same thing. This usually adds up to at least 2 hours a day. On top of that I make sure to do some reading, then try to watch a show or two in japanese on top of that.

I suppose this last year has been quite good for immersion style learning, since there wasn't much else to do except stay inside.

Of course, those with less responsibilities can spend much more time doing this, and most of the success stories where people get truly excellent results in short amounts of time are from high school or college students. I don't mind if it takes a bit more time for me :).

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