Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Learning languages.. interesting paradox of sorts.

Stompy · 05-03-2006, 01:14 PM

So I was thinking.. "Hm, if I really wanted to learn spanish, could I just constantly listen to spanish stuff.. radio broadcasts, audio tapes of people talking in it, etc." No single instruction whatsoever.

Just immersion.

Obviously it has to work because... that's how we all learned.

But it made me think... if you kept hearing "What did you do yesterday?" in spanish over and over and over... you could hear it a million times, but it doesn't mean you'll instantly know what it means.

And with us, no one ever sat down with us and said, "Yesterday means..."

So I'm wondering how words without immediate definitions are learned - a 5 year old knows what "yesterday" is and could answer "What did you do yesterday?" So at what point did the words just ... "click"?

Hopefully this post makes sense, but it has me wondering how the whole process works.

05-03-2006, 01:14 PM	#1 (permalink)
Stompy Banned from being Banned Location: Donkey	Learning languages.. interesting paradox of sorts. So I was thinking.. "Hm, if I really wanted to learn spanish, could I just constantly listen to spanish stuff.. radio broadcasts, audio tapes of people talking in it, etc." No single instruction whatsoever. Just immersion. Obviously it has to work because... that's how we all learned. But it made me think... if you kept hearing "What did you do yesterday?" in spanish over and over and over... you could hear it a million times, but it doesn't mean you'll instantly know what it means. And with us, no one ever sat down with us and said, "Yesterday means..." So I'm wondering how words without immediate definitions are learned - a 5 year old knows what "yesterday" is and could answer "What did you do yesterday?" So at what point did the words just ... "click"? Hopefully this post makes sense, but it has me wondering how the whole process works. __________________ I love lamp.