Using Glossika's methods
I really like his methods. He said something on his Facebook page which really struck me:
Quote:
"And the other great thing is that I'm learning sentence structure the way native speakers use the language and that's what I like the best. It means after all this practice I will inherently know how to structure a sentence. I know that my time words feel natural coming before the verb (Chinese) or at the end of a sentence (English).
One of the most important goals of the mass sentence method is to be able to mimic the whole sentence after hearing it once. Not only can you write down all the sounds and group them into words, but you can also repeat it at the same speed and naturally without looking at any text. If you have to look at some text, then you're not training your ears well enough. Keep away from the text, listen and repeat. The greatest advantage to this is that you'll be able to repeat and understand any conversation you ever hear in that language for the rest of your life. In fact, repeating all the conversations you hear people saying is the same as the Mass Sentence Method, only you're doing it conversation by conversation in an easily understood context, and you basically become just as fluent as a native speaker by doing this. Knowing the characters for each word should be a lower priority. I made it a higher priority to get the characters for everything I heard early on, so that everytime I heard or said something I was always connecting it visually in my mind with a character. But after a while, I realized that I was using Chinese so naturally that I never was thinking in characters, I was thinking in ideas and outputting messages directly in Chinese from those ideas. Only then did I discover that I actually say things that I'm not sure what the characters are. That means I was learning the language much quicker natively than I possibly could from studying it."
I forgot the details of his method even though I was vaguely trying to follow it, calling it "shadowing", so I looked up his YT videos again. I agree with his methods and so far have been impressed with the results.
I wondered how he got over the problem of shadowing when there were no pre-prepared recordings available. What he does is he makes his own recordings and listens to them. I don't want to do this because I don't like listening to my own voice. But it does make sense. I might have to get over the squeamishness of listening to my own voice. No one likes to listen to their own voice actually. It's quite a common phenomenon. I sound much different to how I thought I did. I get quite a shock actually, an unpleasant one.
So ... I tried using his methods, listening a lot more, and it worked! Also, I worked on mnemonics a lot harder.
His ideas about imprinting words in the hippocampus are interesting.
I think his method is the best way to learn languages. I just have to make time to make those recordings!
I think his emphasis on the number of phrases he learns is important. I think it's more about the number of phrases than the number of words when one aims to become fluent in a language. The number of words is important when it comes to learning reading though.
So I think one needs to cover about 10,000-20,000 phrases in order to achieve native-like fluency in a language.
He likes phrase books as well. I really like his approach and will model my learning methods on his.
Less emphasis on seeing the written word and more on the spoken word.
I really have noticed a difference when I do this.
I will keep up with his FB page and his YT videos. I find them tremendously helpful.
Also, I wonder how those people who became fluent in Korean became so. I know they spent a few years doing full time study of Korean. Did they use some variation of Mike Campbell's method?
I know one of them went to a classroom with a Korean teacher; also, came to Korea and spent one year here.
Got to re-think my study methods. Got to get those 10,000 phrases.
The Essential Book is about 1,000 phrases. The Migrant phrase book has 1,000 phrases. The Using Korean has about 2,000 sentences. International Learners has about 2,500 sentences.
I just had a look at "Making Out in Korean". That book seems useful and easy. I think I will shadow it.
The Business Essential book has about 1000 sentences.
Studying just these books will get me to the 10,000 phrase mark. So don't worry! Just study the easier stuff first and become proficient in them. Then move onto the harder stuff.
I think the children's dictionary is good to shadow. I might do that. I might record in English and get Mrs L to record in Korean and we can practice from that book.
So I think that's enough. You can't be too ambitious. And also after you reach a certain level, you will start conversing with Koreans and pick up more Korean that way. So just try and finish your first book. There is a big psychological boost after you master your first book.
What I might do is cover up the Korean and only read it right at the end.
Posted by honeybearsmom
at 7:09 PM EST
Updated: Saturday, 3 March 2012 7:31 PM EST
