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  • EADD Moderators: axe battler | Pissed_and_messed

Why are Languages Taught SO SHITTILY in schools (UK)?

Hexenstahl said:
The reason many people have a hard time learning a new language is because they are taught in a very counter-intuitive and unnatural way. If you want to learn a language naturally, learn it like children do: in a conversational way. The best book I have come across so far in teaching a language like a child would learn speaking is Lingua Latina: Familia Romana by Hans H. Orberg. Even if you have zero interest in learning Latin I recommend you to pick up this book and be amazed at how fluidly and quickly you can learn to understand and formulate latin sentences. There is no english explanation, no side by side translations and no grammar/vocabulary sections with tedious conjugations and all that unnatural, sophisticated linguistic bs. The language is literally taught the way a child would learn a language. It starts very simple like this: Romana in Italia est. Guess what that means? Correct, Rome is in Italy. Then it becomes a little bit more complicated: Italia et Graeca in Europa sunt.
Since you have previously learnt by a mixture of intuition and tonal similarity that "est" means "is", you can already guess by way of logical inference that "sunt" must be "are" in this context, as the sentence now includes not only Italy but also Greece and "et" must be "and", connecting the two nouns together.
This approach continues through the whole book and THAT is how languages are supposed to be taught. If you want to learn something, throw your adult mindset out of the window and bring out that childlike curiosity. People learn best when they learn like children...
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That might be partly it. But like I said I'm really enjoying learning Spanish and not having any difficulty at all. Whereas I barely learned shit in school. So I think the WAY a language is taught is another big part of it.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Bitch, I don't care if it's in the dictionary :p
Language is an ever evolving process and the dictionary generally can't keep up and it can take years for words of newly common parlance to make it in there. Plus, you forget things like nomenclature and slang :)
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i agree:
longest German word in the dictionary: Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung
I can make much longer words that make sense and can be understood by any German, and even be translated by machines:
Umweltsregierungsbeschließungszufallsgeneratorenprogrammierfirmenexpertenschulungsbeauftragtenvorstandsbürogebäudereinigungsschulungskursgebäudereinigungsverordnungsbeamte

I could do this forever :D longest German word still being written
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Bitch, I don't care if it's in the dictionary :p
Language is an ever evolving process and the dictionary generally can't keep up and it can take years for words of newly common parlance to make it in there. Plus, you forget things like nomenclature and slang :)
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The dictionary is updated twice a year.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Maybe not literally every school, but so far as I know, taking a Foreign Language is mandatory in UK High School. Which I actually think is great, speaking a second language is an excellent skill to have...but they do such a crap job teaching them. Almost nobody here (at least among native English speakers) can actually speak a second language, And I don't know anybody who can even speak passably or conversationally in a language they did at school.
Like, I did French for 5 years in high school and while mais oui je peux parler un peu de français, I've been teaching myself Spanish for seven months and can speak it WAY, WAY better.

It's sad because they obviously go about teaching it in all the wrong ways and it could be such an advantage to have.
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The problem is that they start too late; you can learn by immersion at a young age so if you get kids learning other languages before the age of 9 (ideally at age 3-5) they learn without having to study

Instead you are mandated to start learning a language as a teen; it's the wrong way. My children are tri lingual and fluent. I am kinda tri lingual but suck badly at two of the three
 
Jackal said:
The problem is that they start too late; you can learn by immersion at a young age so if you get kids learning other languages before the age of 9 (ideally at age 3-5) they learn without having to study

Instead you are mandated to start learning a language as a teen; it's the wrong way. My children are tri lingual and fluent. I am kinda tri lingual but suck badly at two of the three
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Are you a native English speaker? (I just ask because I find that people whose first language is English are MUCH less likely to speak more than one language).

That's awesome that your kids are trilingual! What languages do they speak?

My niece is 4 and lives with us ~4 days a week. Maybe I'll try and encourage her to start learning Spanish with me.
 
Jackal said:
Yes, native English speaker, kids speak khmer, english and chinese
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wow!!

really feel you that kids have to learn early.

i'm so pissed that my dad never got us into Polish as kids, too busy working. but with good Polish you can get by in quite a few countries, plus its a shit hard language so if you've got that down surely other languages come a bit easier. instead i'm stuck with English and shitty French, which would be great, I love France, but even when I'd been living there and doing lectures and therapy in French, a lot of French people just refused to understand me. I could possibly get by in French speaking Canada, though I'd need to get used to the accent, west Africa is too different. so I'm stuck with a language spoken in two countries, one of which is inhabited by a surprising number of people who can't get past my accent to realise I actually speak the language pretty well.
 
When I was 16 all of a sudden all my lessons were in French.
Took me about 3 months and I'd learnt more than the previous 6 years of being taught French in school.
 
The majority of teachers are shit. The good ones stand out for being great. The rest stand out for letting you down.

I think the problem is, a lot of people have good memories, "just get it", or get into certain hobbies at a very young age, and can't/won't explain it. Like, the maths guy isnt ever going to be the best guy to explain it, he was in learning algerbra when he was a kid. That is my general experience of school.
 
Here we learn English from the 5th grade on and normally we can choose from french and Latin on our high schools. It could be better with the abilities in foreign languages with the Germans. It got better due to the internet but other countries are ahead of us in Europe.
 
Also, when you leave secondary school at 16 in the UK, how many kids are going to continue using the language they've been learning, how many of them are going to go and live in the country which speaks that language or even go on holiday there more than once a year. Not many, a tiny percentage. So, you don't practice what's been taught....whether it's been in a good way or a bad way. Then 15 years later you go on holiday to the country which speaks that language natively and you remember shit because you aint used it for a decade and a half.
 
Latin I found to be really hard, French is a lot easier for us germans.
 
Simple. To dramatically slow down people's learning pace and reach.

I did Latin, and French but the English language was from day one actually a sort of specialty of mine.
 
<3

Dreaming of Li Bai​

Parting from the dead, I’ve stifled my sobs,
but this parting from the living brings constant pain.
South of the Yangze, land of pain and fever—
no word comes from the exile.
Yet my old friend entered my dreams,
proof of how long I’ve pined for him.
He didn’t look the way he used to,
road so far, further than I can guess.
His spirit came from where maple groves are green,
then went back, left me in borderland darkness.
Now you’re caught in the meshes of the law;
how could you have wings to fly with?
The sinking moon floods the rafters of my room
and still I seem to see it lighting your face.
Where you go, waters are deep, waves so wide,
don’t let the dragons, the horned dragons harm you!
 
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