Steve Kaufmann - Bilingual Interview in Taiwan
January 29th, 2007 by MarkSteve Kaufmann, a well known polyglot, gives an English/Mandarin interview and talks about his experiences learning nine languages.
I’ve always liked Steve Kaufmann’s writing. He presents himself as a linguist only so far in as he is a language learner. He’s very down to earth, and makes good points about the importance of learning words in context.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
That video really busts up the preconception some people have that language aquisition becomes an uphill battle the older you are. He seems to treat it more as any other kind of skill…the more you practice the better you get!
I have to say I kind of disagree about the grammar rules though. Memorizing them helps me immensely (of course, it’s so hard to do). But it’s certainly not the only tool!
January 30th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
…certainly not the only tool, I was going to say.
January 31st, 2007 at 12:50 am
Based on my experiences, both as a student and a teacher, explicit grammar instruction is very useful. It makes more speech and more text comprehensible to low and even intermediate level students. I can’t really say I disagree with him that vocabulary building is extremely important, though. What I really liked about what he said was his focus on learning vocabulary through encountering it in a variety of different contexts. Vocabulary lists masquerading as English textbooks is the bane of Asian EFL.
January 31st, 2007 at 9:08 am
Oh, for sure, the vocab is important, as are readings and different contexts. I think a lot of English learners in Taiwan are frustrated in that respect though because they know that memorizing massive lists of vocab without context are not the way to get good at the language in the long run, but it’s what get them through the next test.
I emailed the video to one of Gene’s potential students (his first lesson starts thursday). He replied “When he started talking in Mandarin, I had the urge to bash my head in the wall…this guy is so good it’s scary. I believe that the method he advocates is surely effective, but it’s not suited to the Taiwanese education system. I’d be failed before it comes to fruition.”
January 31st, 2007 at 11:38 am
I totally agree that “[v]ocabulary lists masquerading as English textbooks is the bane of Asian EFL,” but I have a soft spot in my heart for at least a little rote vocab memorization. It shouldn’t be the only way one goes about learning, but there’s something to be said about building a stockpile of words, particularly high frequency/important for understanding a sentence words. Of course those are the words that one comes across in extensive reading, as well, but I think that straight up memorizing them in the beginning can have its benefits.
The most intense period of Chinese improvement I underwent was about a year ago in which I spent about three months *just learning* all the HSK words. I haven’t retained them all (particularly some of the stranger ones that are included just so they can ask questions about some Revolution-era topic), but I have retained a large mass of them, and it has made everything since then easier. It was a lot of work, but it paid off extremely well (for me, YMMV).
January 31st, 2007 at 2:10 pm
John, where did you get the list of HSK words, and how many are there?
January 31st, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I guess there’s no such thing as a magic bullet when it comes to language learning…different approaches work to different extents.
I’ve been trying to learn Taiwanese through karaoke (I’m a mandarin native speaker but can’t speak Taiwanese for shit). I really thought I was making good progress with the visual/aural reinforcement. Until I tried out my stuff in front of an actual Taiwanese person and she burst out laughing in the middle of the first line and didn’t quite stop until after the song is over.
February 1st, 2007 at 11:52 am
Mark,
There are 8000 or so for up through HSK Intermediate, though the actual number is less as some words are repeated from a lower level with expanded meanings. I got them the hard way, from a series of four books, but you can get the lists from http://hmarty.free.fr/hanzi/ (which is a pretty cool, if fledgling, dictionary). Look under the “HSK Tables” on the left.
February 1st, 2007 at 2:48 pm
小马词典? Sweet! It’s my dictionary!
February 2nd, 2007 at 5:53 am
Yellowbridge.com has free computer flashcards for hsk and other lists. Has matching games for pinyin, characters, trad versus simplified etc. Quite useful if you need to take that test. I think it does 3000 of the hsk, but has other lists as well.