/sci/ - Science & Math

>>14606916
Yes, what you're saying is already well known, you can google "comprehensible input" to learn all about it

I practiced Japanese based on English, but English is not my mother tongue, same with Russian

>Imagine being taught how to speak like a child
Children are practicing the language around the clock just by existing. They just listen to people speak, pick up a word here and there and eventually start piecing together crude sentences. As an adult you have the benefit of already knowing how to speak, so you can teach concepts like grammar more efficiently. Sure you could probably learn a language by living and breathing it for years, but how many people can do that? And would anybody really feel like speaking with you, if you're speaking like a toddler. I'd say it's simply more efficient actually practicing a language than just slowly absorbing it

>>14607000
Good to know, glad I'm not the first person to think of this.
>>14607039
Don't get me wrong, I'm not proposing literally speaking like a toddler. There are efficient ways to teach language, I'm just saying starting from the basics and learning without translation, as someone (such as a child who knows no language to begin with) would learn.

>>14607047
>learning without translation
So instead of doing stuff like "house = дoм", you just show a picture of a house? As far as I can tell, that's how kids pick up words, you show them things and tell them what it's called. Then at some point they'll know some words and start using them in crude sentences. I don't think there would really be much of a difference honestly, because then you'd still be thinking "house" in your mind when you see a house

If that's not it, I'm not really sure what it entails to learn like a child

>>14606916
You got it OP, you figured it out.

Rosetta Stone is what you want to go for. It won't teach you the full language, but more and more and more than enough to be able to speak enough to learn the rest yourself through conversation with native speakers. Rosetta Stone is 1:1 the method you are talking about.

>>14607067
Yeah visually would be my idea. Because if you learn house=дoм, when you see a house you will think "That's a house, and the translation for it is дoм" rather than how a native would see it, they would see the house and say "that's a дoм." It's a matter of thinking in the language and I don't think that sort of thing can arise if you learn said language through translation.

>>14607069
Excellent that's good to hear

>>14607077
>If you learn a language just as a translation of your native, whenever you say something you are actively thinking about what to say in your native tongue and then mentally translate it, rather than just thinking the concept up in the foreign language.

As a neuroscientist, I can also tell you that the mechanics of what you said here is one of the hottest topics in neuroscience research. The process of "translating" would require two different pathways: concept > native language > new language. Direct speaking would follow just one pathway: concept > new language and naturally expend less mental resources and processing time. The difference between those two methods can be used to identify brain areas active in different parts of that chain.

The problem is that the existence of a concept as a fixed neural location is still hypothetical. One of the most prominent theories is the "Grandmother Cell"

Hopefully you enjoy Rosetta Stone

>>14606916
Easiest way in the world to learn while gaining basic proficiency is translation of children's books and nursery rhymes, the same way we teach children language growing up. You can find the same stories you were told as children for free, due to being out of print and copyright, in nearly every language. Though my experience on this only applies to latin languages or germanic ones like English.

The same is true for what is available online for audio/video at a same level of low complexity. Naturally as an adult one can incorporate the knowledge in a systematic fashion much quicker. I find that this, combined with duolingo and use of dictionaries and forums, makes learning languages really easy compared to how universities tend to teach.

>>14607070
>when you see a house you will think "That's a house, and the translation for it is дoм"
That hasn't really been my experience, if I look at a thing, I'll just think about what it's called in x language, if that's what I'm doing. For context I speak three languages and I've learned three other ones for a bit, can't claim that I actually speak those languages though. But I'm never going to just look at an object and have six different languages pop up in my head. You'll just default to your main language

>>14607096
I have been unable to locate detail on what I just described as relates to neuroscience, but that is not my "wheelhouse" so I would not quite know how to filter out the right jargon in English. >>14607100

Is there research on what I refer to, where one piggybacks off the learning routines and mechanisms of natural language acquisition in childhood? Just intuitively, to me, that seems like the most obvious thing to do. Though I do not know how well studied that *exact* thing is or what the jargon in the neuroscience of language acquisition is.

Or maybe just don't be a brainlet? You are not a child anymore so you don't need to learn like a child. Systematically learning grammar and vocabulary is the most efficient way. Already knowing a language is an advantage. And understanding jokes in other languages comes natural as soon as you know the words. Unless you're an NPC. You're not an NPC, are you?

>>14606916
Monolinguals are so retarded.

Want to learn a language? Use it, as frequently as possible. That's it. There are no shortcuts. You won't somehow be tainted if you use a bilingual dictionary.