Spanish through (in)comprehensible input

I believe it's time to learn some Spanish. I intend to follow the "incomprehensible input" approach I also undertook with Italian and German. By that I really mean I will first watch and then read whatever I please. I don't intend to study any grammar or engage in any other kind of explicit study.

I acquired Italian in similar manner.

One of my early language acquisition devices:

There was no method involved and I believe that the process was mostly subconscious. My earliest memories of hearing a foreign  language are linked to pretty images and sounds and not to words and concepts like "French," "Italian," "grammar" or "studying". I like to have fun with language and through language.

My favorite cartoon at the time:

Lamù, la ragazza dello spazio

What I'm watching these days:

Lum la chica invasora

The Youtube links may disappear.

Under the hood: 80+ hours, 400,000 running words. Probably more unique words than one would expect from this type of content.

La chica invasora was something I was lucky enough to be able to follow in Spanish fairly early. I decided to postpone watching this for a while to be able to enjoy it better later in the learning process (same as with Don Quijote). If I hadn't written down somewhere that the series was somewhat difficult to follow, I would have sworn that I was always able to understand it with ease. Language grows on you like that.

La chica invasora is in European Spanish and the language is rich in idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms. After you've learned to handle the phonology, and if you have the right linguistic knowledge, the orality and the supporting visual images should make the grammar and the vocabulary feel almost too easy. This is exactly the kind of material you should be looking for. The narrative jumps around between the future and the past and the world of fairy tales intermingles with everyday reality. The episode content and tone is generally comic and romantic, rarely (teasingly) sexual, and never offensive. I like this series very much. You, however, may wish to explore and drink deep from other sources because of your personal interests or your current level of knowledge.

Something like Urusei Yatsura may feel discouraging to some learners. Peppa Pig feels like baby stuff to many critics and yet those 21 hours pack 2-5 times more vocabulary than some popular courses in a very approachable package. La chica invasora may prove less effective for a beginning student of Spanish than, say, Kipper but that's only if you can adapt watching TV shows for toddlers. Forget about visual and aural learners for a minute and think about your learning history and your ability to handle real-time cognitive load. Try not to try. Let some things fly over your head. It will happen anyway. Language is not a set of facts to be learned like a regular school subject. Some learning processes are out of learner's control.

Linguistically, the above-mentioned material is close to perfect however I would like to make it clear that I am not watching this stuff for the sake of getting sufficient "input". Spanish is a convenient medium to rewatch these childhood favorites and maybe pick up something useful along the way.

Thanks to Italian I have plenty of comprehensible input in Spanish right from the start.

1/9/2016 Completed the free vocabulary test at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language: Prueba de vocabulario
"En función de tus resultados, estimamos que conoces 63% de palabras del español. Este es el nivel aceptable para una persona nativa." Yay! I am native level and I haven't even started learning the language.

1/15/16 I completed the Cervantes online placement test. The results suggest I could be placed at C1.3-C1.4 levels. This is why Italian and Spanish speakers can make quick progress in each other's languages. It's also why some people think they know more Spanish or Italian than they actually do: it's real knowledge and yet it's not...

1/17/16  As of today, there is still no such thing as "my Spanish". I have never studied this language and the little I know is from short bursts of casual listening. I don't know how to conjugate basic Spanish verbs. I don't think my C1 placement rating was a fluke though since the test is passive and for all practical purposes I can follow the gist of fairly advanced stories, I can read newspapers and follow TV programs. I can recognize moods and tenses, habitual action and many other grammatical forms and patterns. The degree of transparency is almost random. I don't know a fair number of basic words that don't have a readily recognizable equivalent in other languages.

1/24/16
Z Nation temporadas 1 y 2
Spartacus ep 1-6
El Chavo del Ocho 6 episodes
Rome ep 1-4
Lum la chica invasora 1-15 (toughish)

1/26
1/25 Candy Candy (español) 1-14
1/26 Candy Candy (español) 15-24
1/27 read a number of online reviews
1/28 Rome ep. 5, Candy Candy ep 25-28

2/1-2/3 a lot of cartoons; Rome 2 episodes

2/15/16 I look words up only when I am especially curious. Currently that means less than once per week. I picked up Italian watching TV as a kid. By the time I studied it at the university I was reading books without a dictionary. I picked up German as a teenager in a similar manner. I opened the dictionary in each case maybe a few dozen
times. I do own several visual dictionaries and vocabulary builders that I never use. "Mastering Spanish" has created a dent in my ottoman.

I studied French in school. Through Italian, French and English I can understand thousands of Spanish words. I probably understand north of 10,000 words. I understand words, phrases and expressions that have very approximate equivalents in other languages. I am currently mapping between these languages. Given that I have a wealth of cognates at my disposal, I am mapping more than Magellan. While I'm internalizing the cognates I am also learning new words. Stopping to look up one word would break the magic and slow things down.

On the list of the most common words in Spanish ranked from 9,001-10,000 I understand easily more than half. Of the other half, I partially understand many words. I may recognize that a word is a a verb, that it has something to do with a negative emotion etc but I cannot provide the exact meaning. Maybe I'll just end up knowing these words. Some I may learn in a single eureka-type discovery. Half-learned words may be forgotten or half-forgotten, relearned...

I just finished watching an episode of a lengthy anime series. We learn that the main character, a girl, is sick. Her grandfather calls her in sick at school, the teacher mentions it to other pupils, her schoolmates discuss her illness, they go to visit her, they say hi, offer remedies... During the first 3 minutes "resfriada" was repeated 10 times. In the latter half of the episode the word occurs 3-4 times. In the next episode the key developments from the past episode will get summed up. That's all the spaced repetition I need.

2/18/2016 Today I clocked in 100 "sterling" hours of listening to Spanish. To celebrate, I decided to read my first book. I first grabbed Ficciones, but I settled on something more colorful:

"El lobo que quería ser una oveja" by Mario Ramos:

2/21/16 I'm almost finished with the first Torpedo album. In my memory "Torpedo 1936" has always been a super-cool cult comic. Upon second reading, I have discovered themes that may not be appreciated by all the readers. I looked up some vocabulary. I was especially curious :) Gangster vocabulary and some very colorful expressions keep getting repeated in other albums.

2/27 Animé: learned puente (computer jumper) and huella from two different cartoons. "Huella"was hard to miss with all the characters standing around a giant footprint. I heard the word again in a TV segment about an actual crime. I learned a lot more, actually. I "heard"for the first time a lot of the slang I picked up in Torpedo. While looking up resources I scanned a lot of book and DVD titles and I learned plenty of words this way. Titles stick in one's memory. El clan del oso cavernario was easy to recognize. Oso is not far from Italian orso but I believe I could work out the words in most European languages.

 I learned "cueva" from cartoons. It's very hard to miss the big gaping hole as is the very word for "hole", which is "agujero." "Entregas a domicilio" was easy thanks to Kiki's Delivery Service. I heard these words several times since. "Garras" or "claws" were easy to figure out, as this is a common word in animated shows. In a cartoon about car racing I learned that neumáticos agarran... I forget the word for the racetrack tarmac. I heard agarrar many times. I just double checked the spelling for neumáticos as I was tempted to write pneu...

2/28/16 Breaking into a European language without paying attention to what I was doing was never an issue for me. For at least two of my languages I have always only sought pretty pictures and pretty sounds, pretty words and then pretty thoughts - language learning was an afterthought. With others, the first thought I had after coming out of the textbook stage was: "I can't understand what the heck they're saying". I don't remember my second thought about the language or language learning after that.

03/07/16 One of the first expressions I heard watching Nación Z an eternity or so ago
was "rueda pinchada". I didn't have to look it up. After some 220 hours of listening I heard it again. RAE'S CREA lists "pinchar" at 31,329th place and "pinchada" is much lower than that. I have traveled over 1.2 million words in between.

I am mostly watching cartoons. Last night I was watching Chicho Terremoto, better known in Italy as Gigi la Trottola. I am currently watching/reading Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese (Corto Maltés in Spanish). Comics are good for children and language learners. I will soon dust off Hermann's Jeremiah and Jodorowsky's Metabarones.

I have moved from "literatura infantil" to "literatura juvenil". In practice this means there are no more pretty pictures, or that they are few and far between. The novels are under 150 pages long.

Soon I will read Historia de la Literatura Española by Ángel del Rio. It's an easy read. I picked up a beautiful hardcover version from Amazon for $4. The book has probably not been touched since 1967. I am not surprised :) Books like these are a great source of easy, descriptive, essayistic language. I also bought a Spanish-Spanish dictionary, el Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado and Duden's pictorial dictionary. I may play with them from time to time when I'm ready.

I've re-watched a Spanish movie I found especially difficult to follow in January. The movie was much easier to follow. I examined one especially difficult scene. Spanish subtitles helped me determine that I knew all the words except one (from the entire scene) already prior to January and that all the comprehension trouble was due to the rapid rate of speech and the peculiarities of continental Spanish pronunciation.

6/02/2016 I just learned "loco como una cabra" from Gatchaman. Yeah, those guys in funny bird suits.

I also wanted to save this:

"In an attempt to summarise all the information available, John De Jong (personal communication) recently presented ranges of time required to reach different levels. The 400 hours for B1 is optimistic according to his calculations, which suggests a range from 380 hours (fast learners) to 1386 (slow learners). For C1 the range is from 1,520 hours (fast learners) to 4,490 hours (slow learners) which neatly straddles Takka’s estimate" of an average of 3,000 hours. "Taking all of these factors into account, only the person asking the question can answer it by logging the progress of the learners in their context. There is no simple answer.” The CEFR in practice, p.98-100

C2 = 4600 - 12,000 hours? My freestyle diving into native material suddenly looks very reasonable.

6/19 I have been watching mostly cartoons and live TV including things such as the Spanish version of "Cops," investigative journalism (sometimes subtitled in Spanish), religious TV, commercials (not on purpose), a bit of Galician programming, talk shows, agriculture programming (very short - I did catch some "bovine" references), soccer.... My TV watching was pronunciation practice, listening, reading and listening-while-reading all rolled into one.

A few observations:

- Don't confuse telenovela-watching or any single source of entertainment with live TV.
- Don't get intimidated with different regional accents.
- Don't believe the hype: regular people and their idiosyncrasies are perfectly intelligible after some live TV watching. If you have trouble following a simple life story your troubles are likely due to general listening comprehension issues OR the person is mixing in elements of a dialect.
- Channel surfing is very useful.
- Read in your strongest languages and watch TV in your weakest language. Always begin with pronunciation and listening comprehension.

In short, I love TV as a language-learning tool. That's how I learned Italian and German from scratch and that's how I improved on my other languages.

6/20 A visual representation of language learning theories:

I am sticking with (in)comprehensible input.

7/5 Slam Dunk (TV series), Stephen King (audiobook), The Tale of Despereaux (60 pages).
7/6 TV - cartoons
7/7 4 short stories; TV - cartoons
7/8 Live TV - 1990's corruption cases, Mafia, Intelligence (TV segment)

Update (September 2016) I have started watching Portuguese TV programs.

Dramatic decline in number of university students taking modern foreign languages

Dramatic decline in number of university students taking modern foreign languages
The Telegraph, 14 Feb 2015
UK figures:

Entrants for modern foreign language degree courses fell by 16 per cent between 2007/08 and 2013/14, Higher Education Statistics Agency's latest (HESA) data shows. French and German entrants have sharply declined over the past seven years.

"The statistics will spark fresh concerns about the future of language study, amid reports that some university departments are being forced to cut back or close down due to a lack of demand."


US figures:

US Language Enrollments and Percentage change (2009-2013)
Published by MLA in February 2015.

Spanish 790,756 -8.2%
French 197,757 -8.1%
American Sign Language 109,577 19%
German 86,000 -9.3%
Italian 71,285 -11.3%
Japanese 66,740 -7.8%
Chinese 61,055 2%
Arabic 32,285 -7.5 %
Latin 27,192 -16.2%
Russian 21,962 -17.9%
Greek, Ancient  12,917 -35.5%
Hebrew, Biblical 12,551 -8.75%
Portuguese 12,415 10.1%
Korean 12,229 44.7%
Hebrew, Modern 6,698 -19.4%
Other languages 40,059 -6.7%

MLA attributes part of the decline in enrollments to departments and programs shutting down across the country.

Inside Higher Ed has interesting commentary on this reversal:

Not a Small World After All

See also:

Job Openings Down in English, Foreign Languages
Inside Higher Ed, 29 Feb 2015

Faculty positions decline for third year in a row, MLA report finds.

Global job search by language  skill

Neural changes underlying successful second language learning

The schematics of connectivity in the brain showing connectivity at two different times with strength indicated by line thickness. Credit: Li Lab, Penn State.

Neural changes underlying successful second language word learning: An fMRI study Link

Neuroplasticity as a function of second language learning: Anatomical changes in the human brain Link

Science Daily Article

Learning languages is a workout for brains, both young, old

Summary:

"Learning a new language changes your brain network both structurally and functionally, according to researchers. "Like physical exercise, the more you use specific areas of your brain, the more it grows and gets stronger," said the lead investigator."

Language learning makes your brain buff! Language learning turns your brain connections into an even bigger bowl of spaghetti! Take your pick.

Major languages are simpler than minor ones (yes, Chinese too)

Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure

"Abstract

Background

Languages differ greatly both in their syntactic and morphological systems and in the social environments in which they exist. We challenge the view that language grammars are unrelated to social environments in which they are learned and used.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We conducted a statistical analysis of >2,000 languages using a combination of demographic sources and the World Atlas of Language Structures— a database of structural language properties. We found strong relationships between linguistic factors related to morphological complexity, and demographic/socio-historical factors such as the number of language users, geographic spread, and degree of language contact. The analyses suggest that languages spoken by large groups have simpler inflectional morphology than languages spoken by smaller groups as measured on a variety of factors such as case systems and complexity of conjugations. Additionally, languages spoken by large groups are much more likely to use lexical strategies in place of inflectional morphology to encode evidentiality, negation, aspect, and possession. Our findings indicate that just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used. As adults learn a language, features that are difficult for them to acquire, are less likely to be passed on to subsequent learners. Languages used for communication in large groups that include adult learners appear to have been subjected to such selection. Conversely, the morphological complexity common to languages used in small groups increases redundancy which may facilitate language learning by infants.

Conclusions/Significance

We hypothesize that language structures are subjected to different evolutionary pressures in different social environments. Just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used. The proposed Linguistic Niche Hypothesis has implications for answering the broad question of why languages differ in the way they do and makes empirical predictions regarding language acquisition capacities of children versus adults."

...

 "In Mandarin or Thai, which express both tense and remoteness lexically, speakers have the option of omitting the past tense entirely."

"Yagua, a language of Peru, has inflections that differentiate 5 levels of remoteness."

The link leads to the full text of the study which is worth checking out.

Phonology in Second Language Reading: Not an Optional Extra

Phonology in Second Language Reading:
Not an Optional Extra
CATHERINE WALTER
Institute of Education, University of London
London, England

TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 42, No. 3, September 2008


"In examining reading comprehension in a second language (L2), I have demonstrated that the prevailing metaphor of transfer of skills is misleading, and that what happens is access to an already existing general cognitive skill. There is evidence in first language (L1) and in L2 that accessing this skill when reading in an alphabetic language involves efficient use of verbal working memory (VWM). This article reports a study of a component of VWM, the phonological loop, which serves to hold recently read material available in a phonological form. The study investigated whether the unreliability of learners’ mental L2 phonological inventories contributed to reading comprehension problems. Lower intermediate learners with L2 reading comprehension problems attempted to recall similar and dissimilar sequences of words in L1 (French) and L2 (English). Their performance was consistent with their having unreliable L2 phonological inventories; their upper intermediate counterparts, who had no L2 reading comprehension problems, had significantly more reliable L2 phonological inventories. This finding has important implications for the classroom: Rather than attempting to teach components of a cognitive skill that learners already possess, teachers would do better to spend the equivalent time increasing exposure to the spoken language, and improving receptive and productive phonology."

...

"Whatever the detailed explanation, this study has provided evidence that the development of a reliable phonological repertoire in L2 provides an important basis for skilful reading."

Individual differences in language learning

Dörnyei, Z., & Skehan, P. (2003). Individual differences in second language learning. In C. J. Doughty, & M. H. Long (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 589-630). Oxford: Blackwell.

Aptitude

i Is such a talent innate?
ii Is it relatively fixed?
iii If it is not fixed, is it amenable to training?
iv Is foreign language aptitude a distinct ability, or does it relate to more
general abilities, such as intelligence...

Carroll's four-component model of aptitude

1 Phonemic coding ability Capacity to code unfamiliar sound so that it can be retained over more than a few seconds and subsequently retrieved or recognized
2 Grammatical sensitivity Capacity to identify the grammatical functions that words fulfill in sentences
3 Inductive language Capacity to extract syntactic and morphological learning ability patterns from a given corpus of language material and to extrapolate from such patterns
4 Associative memory Capacity to form associative bonds in memory between LI and L2 vocabulary items

The link leads to the full text which is is very good and very long. The list of professor Dörnyei's selected publications includes some other downloadable content.


Rod Ellis Individual Differences in Second Language Learning
The Handbook of Applied Linguistics

Extract: "Learners vary enormously in how successful they are in learning a language. This is true for both first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition, although there is an important difference. In the case of L1 acquisition, children vary in their rate of acquisition but all, except in cases of severe environmental deprivation, achieve full competence in their mother tongue; in the case of L2 acquisition (SLA), learners vary not only in the speed of acquisition but also in their ultimate level of achievement, with a few achieving native-like competence and others stopping far short. How can we explain these differences in achievement? Broadly speaking, three different sets of explanatory factors have been identified; social, cognitive, and affective. This chapter, however, will consider only those factors that lie inside the learner - the cognitive and affective factors - and will focus on L2 learning. Individual difference research has a considerable history in applied linguistics. Horwitz (2000a) , reviewing publications in The Modern Language Journal from the 1920s up to the end of the 1970s, documents how interest in L2 learners’ differences evolved over the decades. She notes a marked change in the labels used to refer to individual differences: “The terms good and bad, intelligent and dull, motivated and unmotivated have given way to a myriad of new terms such as..."

Not so silent after all: Examination and analysis of the silent stage in childhood second language acquisition

Not so silent after all: Examination and analysis of the silent stage in childhood second language acquisition

Theresa A. Roberts
Department of Child Development, California State University

Abstract

"A period of silence has been advanced as a characteristic feature of childhood second language acquisition. Evidence is presented to document that the presumption of silence as the second of four typical stages of second language acquisition has influenced policy and practice in preschool classrooms. A narrative review examines the extent and quality of the evidence for a silent stage in second language acquisition in young children. Twelve studies meeting inclusion criteria were reviewed and evaluated. Evidence of a silent, non-verbal, pre-production, or receptive language stage was limited. Significant conceptual and methodological limitations within the largely qualitative studies were found. Four major issues raised by the studies are elaborated upon: the theoretical clarity and operational definitions of silence and stage, phase, or period; the psychological meaning and consequences of silence; the cross-context consistency of individual patterns of silence; and how adult language elicitation and support techniques may modulate silence. Recommendations based on contemporary evidence of language acquisition processes are made for the future study of (1) second language acquisition in preschool children and (2) pedagogical practice within preschool settings to promote second language acquisition. Finally, historical, theoretical, empirical, and contextual influences likely to have given rise to the appeal and ready endorsement of silence as a consistent and typical characteristic of childhood second language acquisition are presented."


5. Conclusion
" The theoretical paradigm shift from behaviorism to cognitivism in full swing during the years when the silent stage was most vigorously studied (1970s–1980s) aligned with disciplinary developments
in linguistics, foreign language teaching, and second language acquisition; and with Piaget’s stage theory in developmental psychology to invigorate interest in and to shape the conceptual orientation of childhood second language acquisition toward a stage model. It was within this context that the idea of a silent stage in second language acquisition found fertile ground. The result of cross-disciplinary historical, theoretical, and empirical dynamics was a view of childhood second language acquisition that was philosophically appealing and ultimately very influential.

Theoretical over-generalization and simplification encouraged the view that silence was likely to be a discernible, typical, and consistent feature of second language development. Results of a limited number of studies on the silent stage indicate that these expectations are largely unsubstantiated based on widely held standards for what constitutes convincing research evidence. The findings are a reminder of the importance of seeking out and reviewing primary sources rather than relying on secondary sources that may not accurately portray the original results of investigations. This review draws attention to the vulnerability of scientific inquiry to theoretical difficulties and to methodologically weak investigation when research is framed by appealing metaphors standing on fragile conceptual and empirical structures..."


The link leads to the full text.

Research on dictionary use in foreign language learning

Research on dictionary use in foreign language learning

See also Monolingual dictionaries vs bilingual dictionaries

Rubin (1975) states that "the good language learner is a willing and accurate guesser".

Benoussan, Sim and Weiss (1984) found no correlation between dictionary use and reading comprehension scores of EFL/university students.

Hosenfeld (1984) prompts teachers to train learners in the use of guessing techniques, so that they can avoid the dictionary.

Carrell, Devine, & Eskey (1988) believe that L2 learners should consult a dictionary sparingly and only as a last resort.

Tono (1988) found positive correlation between dictionary skills and reading comprehension scores.

Summers (1988) Results suggest positive correlation between dictionary use and reading comprehension scores.

Neubach and Cohen (1988) Dictionary did not help much in reading comprehension of EFL/university students.

Laufer (2005) estimates that vocabulary learning from context is only possible and reliable when the student understands between 95% and 98% of the text.

Luppescu and Day (1993) suggest that the dictionary use can have a positive effect on vocabulary acquisition. 

Hulstijn (1993) EFL /Y 10-11 students with larger vocabularies looked up fewer words than subjects with smaller vocabularies. High inferring ability need not result in less dictionary use than low inferring ability.

Cho and Krashen (1994) in the Sweet Valley studies found out that, of the four test subjects, the two who used the dictionary learned more vocabulary per words read. The authors still wonder whether the time spent with the dictionary was well spent. An overview of free voluntary reading studies, controversies etc. can be found here.

Knight (1994) found that university students who used dictionaries learned more words but also achieved higher reading comprehension scores than those who guessed from context. The negative point in the use of the dictionary was the reading rate. 

Hulstijn, Hollander and Greidanus (1996) found out that when a student looked up a word in the dictionary, their retention rate was higher than other reading conditions such as marginal glosses. 

Fraser (1997) states that a strategic combination of guessing and dictionary use was the most effective way to deal with L2 reading comprehension. Results also revealed that consulting a dictionary was associated with substantial vocabulary learning. 

Songhao (1997) also remarks the positive effects of the dictionary use and how learners seem to have the need to confirm their guess and clarify their confusions with the dictionary.

Cote and Tejedor (1998) reveal the "widespread ignorance" about dictionary use on the students’ part.  Most students thought they were good at using a dictionary. It was observed that the students did not pay attention to the dictionary entry on the whole, but just looked for the L1 equivalent. 

Atkins and Varentola (1998) Lower proficiency students tend to use dictionaries more often in reading comprehension process. Lower proficiency EFL students did better with dictionaries than without dictionaries. No difference was found among higher proficiency students.

Prichard (2008) The findings suggest that high-intermediate and advanced learners are often selective when considering whether to look up a word. However, a third of the participants in the study were judged to have used the dictionary excessively. A quarter of the words were not essential for reading comprehension of the author's main points, nor "frequent or useful words," according to corpus research. It is concluded that some learners might benefit from training in selective dictionary use.

Mármol and Sánchez-Lafuente (2013) revealed that dictionary use is not efficient as expected. Yet, a positive attitude towards this tool prevails among the best performers.

Timed and untimed grammaticality judgments measure distinct types of knowledge

Timed and untimed grammaticality judgments measure distinct types of knowledge: Evidence from eye-movement patterns

Link

ABSTRACT

"Grammaticality judgment tests (GJTs) have been used to elicit data reflecting second language (L2) speakers’ knowledge of L2 grammar. However, the exact constructs measured by GJTs, whether primarily implicit or explicit knowledge, are disputed and have been argued to differ depending on test-related variables (i.e., time pressure and item grammaticality).
Using eye-tracking, this study replicates the GJT results in R. Ellis (2005). Twenty native and 40 nonnative English speakers judged sentences with and without time pressure. Analyses revealed that time pressure suppressed regressions (right-to-left eye movements) in nonnative speakers only. Conversely, both groups regressed more on untimed, grammatical items. These findings suggest that timed and untimed GJTs measure different constructs, which could correspond to implicit and explicit knowledge, respectively. In particular, they point to a difference in the levels of automatic and controlled processing involved in responding to the timed and untimed tests. Furthermore, untimed grammatical items may induce GJT-specific task effects."

Learning to read words in a new language shapes the neural organization of the prior languages

Learning to read words in a new language shapes the neural organization of the prior languages

Abstract

"Learning a new language entails interactions with one׳s prior language(s). Much research has shown how native language affects the cognitive and neural mechanisms of a new language, but little is known about whether and how learning a new language shapes the neural mechanisms of prior language(s). In two experiments in the current study, we used an artificial language training paradigm in combination with an fMRI to examine (1) the effects of different linguistic components (phonology and semantics) of a new language on the neural process of prior languages (i.e., native and second languages), and (2) whether such effects were modulated by the proficiency level in the new language. Results of Experiment 1 showed that when the training in a new language involved semantics (as opposed to only visual forms and phonology), neural activity during word reading in the native language (Chinese) was reduced in several reading-related regions, including the left pars opercularis, pars triangularis, bilateral inferior temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, and inferior occipital gyrus. Results of Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and further found that semantic training also affected neural activity during word reading in the subjects׳ second language (English). Furthermore, we found that the effects of the new language were modulated by the subjects׳ proficiency level in the new language. These results provide critical imaging evidence for the influence of learning to read words in a new language on word reading in native and second languages."

Differences in brain circuitry may predict language learning success and failure

Learning a second language may depend on the strength of brain's connections

Date: January 20, 2016
Source: Society for Neuroscience
Summary: Learning a second language is easier for some adults than others, and innate differences in how the various parts of the brain "talk" to one another may help explain why. The findings "have implications for predicting language learning success and failure."

“The most interesting part of this finding is that the connectivity between the different areas was observed before learning,” said Arturo Hernandez, a neuroscientist at the University of Houston who studies second-language learning and was not involved in the study. “This shows that some individuals may have a particular neuronal activity pattern that may lend itself to better learning of a second language.”

The study was mentioned in the following news article:
Second language learning theories: Why is it hard for your adult brain to master another dialect?
(International Business Times)

Brain Processes Written Words as Unique Objects

The study:

Evidence for Highly Selective Neuronal Tuning to Whole Words in the “Visual Word Form Area”
Laurie S. Glezer, Xiong Jiang, Maximilian Riesenhuber

Summary

"Theories of reading have posited the existence of a neural representation coding for whole real words (i.e., an orthographic lexicon), but experimental support for such a representation has proved elusive. Using fMRI rapid adaptation techniques, we provide evidence that the human left ventral occipitotemporal cortex (specifically the “visual word form area,” VWFA) contains a representation based on neurons highly selective for individual real words, in contrast to current theories that posit a sublexical representation in the VWFA."

Full Text 

Reader-friendly news article

Brain processes written words as unique 'objects,' GUMC neuroscientists say (EureakAlert!)

"In their experiments, the researchers looked at the response between two visually similar normal words that shared all letters but one (i.e. 'boat' and 'coat') and found that the neural response to this condition "looked just like when participants saw two words that shared no letters, for example 'coat' and 'fish',"

The brain can add new words to its “visual dictionary” even if they are made up. The neurons in the 'visual word form area' are tuned to whole real words and this selectivity is developed through experience with words."

The role of reward in word learning and its implications for language acquisition

The role of reward in word learning and its implications for language acquisition.

You may have learned about this study under a media headline such as:

"Learning New Words Activates The Same Brain Regions As Sex And Drugs"

Take a look what one of the authors has to say about this:

Sex, words and Rock&Roll? Not at all, just bad journalism

Abstract

"The exact neural processes behind humans' drive to acquire a new language--first as infants and later as second-language learners--are yet to be established. Recent theoretical models have proposed that during human evolution, emerging language-learning mechanisms might have been glued to phylogenetically older subcortical reward systems, reinforcing human motivation to learn a new language. Supporting this hypothesis, our results showed that adult participants exhibited robust fMRI activation in the ventral striatum (VS)--a core region of reward processing--when successfully learning the meaning of new words. This activation was similar to the VS recruitment elicited using an independent reward task. Moreover, the VS showed enhanced functional and structural connectivity with neocortical language areas during successful word learning. Together, our results provide evidence for the neural substrate of reward and motivation during word learning. We suggest that this strong functional and anatomical coupling between neocortical language regions and the subcortical reward system provided a crucial advantage in humans that eventually enabled our lineage to successfully acquire linguistic skills."

Insight into Learners’ Perspectives on Watching Movies with L1 vs. L2 Subtitles

Insight into Learners’ Perspectives on Watching Movies with L1 vs. L2 Subtitles

Focusing on Language
Chia-jung Tsai
National Changhua University of Education

This is a companion piece to Foreign Subtitles Help and Native Language Subtitles Harm

See also: Target Language Subtitles for Comprehensible Film Language Input


The study suggests that learners may improve their spelling, word recognition ability, pronunciation of new words and words they have already acquired, their understanding of spoken language, and intonation when they watch movies with the L2 subtitles.


Conclusion


"Watching movies with either L1 or L2 subtitles seems to be both advantageous and disadvantageous, but for lower-intermediate learners, it might be that the L2 subtitles are more beneficial. The L1 subtitles may merely enable learners to improve their language proficiency in terms of vocabulary, listening comprehension of the language and oral abilities to a very limited extent. The responses revealed from this study suggest that learners can learn simple words from what they hear with the Chinese subtitles, remember simple sentences, monitor their listening comprehension, and acquire spoken language. However, these will occur only when the words and phrases are relatively easy or sufficiently familiar to the learners. Katchen (1996b) found that the use of the L1 subtitles was beneficial for the advanced learners, but the L1 subtitles might not be so useful for the lower-intermediate learners as their vocabulary size is far smaller.
On the contrary, learners may gain more language from watching movies with the L2 subtitles. This study suggests that learners may improve their spelling, word recognition ability, pronunciation of new words and words they have already learned, understanding of spoken language, and intonation.
However, the effects of the use of the L2 subtitled movie may be still limited as this study also discovered that learners could not really accurately pronounce words with only one exposure to the L2 subtitled movie. Repeated exposure may provoke far more language learning as Chang and Read (2007) discovered that repeating the same input was the most effective. Some participants also suggested watching a movie repeatedly with the L1 subtitles first, followed by the L2 subtitles. The similar process was also recommended in Markham et al.’s (2001) paper where the researchers suggested watching the same movie three times with the L1 subtitles first, the L2 subtitles second, and no subtitles last. This sequence would allow learners to use their stronger native language reading skills first; followed by using their emerging but more or less weaker target-language reading skills. Finally, learners would be ready to rely totally on their much weaker target language listening skills.
It may be worth considering as well that whether to watch movies with the L2 subtitles or the L1 subtitles depends on the goals of teaching. For instance, if the teaching goal is to help students improve their pronunciation and spelling, watching movies with the L2 subtitles may be a choice.
Alternatively, combining watching movies subtitled with the target language with other teaching techniques may provoke the best benefits for lower-intermediate learners; for example, to supply the learners with some comprehension assistance, such as vocabulary pre-viewing and repeated exposure to the target language (Chang, 2005)."

What you need to know to learn a foreign language

Paul Nation's book What you need to know to learn a foreign language is available for free download from Victoria University's website. It's a quick read aimed at educating the general public about language learning. It's a relatively recent book, published in August 2014 - practically hot off the digital presses as these things go.

In short, the book offers some useful insights into language learning and very practical advice to people meandering about how to approach studying a new language. Some teasers:

Learn through listening and reading:

- Extensive reading

- Narrow reading

-  Intensive reading

- Should you reread books?

- How much reading do you need to do?

 - Reading while listening

- How much vocabulary do you need to know to watch a movie?

- Finding out about useful words and phrases by using a concordancer

Learn through speaking and writing

- 4/3/2 activity

- Prepared talks

- Memorized sentences and dialogues

- Developing writing fluency

- Delayed copying

- Transcription

-  Read, watch, listen and write

Deliberate study of language features

-  Word cards

Get fluent at using what you know

Learning rates for “Easy” and “Hard” languages

The Four Strands

"A large part of this book focuses on the principle of the four strands. This principle
says that in order to have a proper balance of opportunities for learning, we need to
spend about one quarter of our time learning through input, about one quarter of
our time learning through output, about one quarter of our time doing deliberate
learning, and about one quarter of our time working with easy input and output in
order to develop fluency."

Is there a best method for learning a language?

"Unfortunately, the answer is no. Language learning can occur through all kinds of methods. What is most important is that good principles of learning are applied."

Paul Nation is Emeritus Professor in Applied Linguistics at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (LALS) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

How to learn ten thousand words

This is a companion post to Word frequency and incidental learning

While there are countless words in the English language, knowledge of between 3000 and 5000 most frequent word families will yield lexical coverage of 95-98%, depending on language content. This vocabulary size provides a good basis for comprehension and language use. This core vocabulary also provides a good basis for further comfortable vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading and listening which is the core mantra of the comprehensible input crowd (i.e. Krashen et al).

How do we go about developing a core vocabulary of some 3000 word families? Pick up any decent comprehensive course like the Assimil series and it will likely include the bulk of the required vocabulary. People occasionally "pick up" languages. If you're lucky, your previous linguistic knowledge will provide plenty of cognates. Speakers of multiple languages may possess a passive knowledge of cognates rivaling that of native speakers with little or no involvement in their new target language. Not everyone is equally successful at recognizing and exploiting cognates, but we'll leave that for another time.

Successful language learners will learn the bulk of their vocabulary through repeated encounters in different contexts.Words and their shades of meaning are learned gradually. According to some published research, in order to have a high probability of learning a new word from context you need to encounter it between five and twenty times*.

In his paper aptly named How much input do you need to learn 10,000 words? Nation suggested that a learner needs to meet around 3,000,000 words in order to learn the most frequent 9000 word families in English.

According to the statistical analysis table developed by Dr. Rob Waring:

• To meet all the 3000 most frequent words in English 1, 5, 10 and 20 times, you’d need to read or otherwise meet 47,300, 236,700, 473,000, and 947,000 words, respectively.

• To meet all the 5000 most frequent words in English 1, 5, 10 and 20 times, you’d need to read 132,100, 661,000, 1,321,000, and 2,642,000 words.

• To meet all the 10,000 most frequent words in English 1, 5 and 10 times, you’d need to read 632,000, 3,164,000 and 6,328,947 words, respectively.

 In order to meet the most frequent 10,000 words 20 times, you will need to read or otherwise meet the equivalent of 12,657,895 running words or the equivalent of approximately 100 books the length of Pride and Prejudice. At 140 words per minute, you would hear 12.7 million words after 1507 hours of listening to audiobooks.

I see a bit of a discrepancy here. According to Nation 3.0 million words are sufficient for 12 repetitions at the "9th 1000 word level". According to Waring, in order to meet the 10,000th word 5 times  one needs to read/listen to approximately 3.2 million running words. This is likely due to the fact that Nation uses "word families"as a reference point, which inherently increases the number of repetitions (and which is also mentioned in his paper). While Nation's methodology allows for a higher number of repetition counts, it presumes a knowledge of morphology and excludes cases of polysemy.

Different types of language material may have very different word frequencies. Per 1 million words, the word "Dear" occurs 1284 times in the Dickens corpus, 54 times in the Brown corpus (a compendium of a variety of sources), and 223 times in Subtlexus (Movies and TV shows). "Me" occurs 9,242 times in Subtlexus vs 1,183 in Brown. See other comparisons here and here. Based on the foregoing, it may be concluded that a listening and reading strategy involving substantial blocks of different types of language content may lead to a wider vocabulary and long-term vocabulary retention.

*Over the course of the past 20 years the suggested number of exposures in order to retain a word increased from 5-6 initially, to the current recommendation of 15-20 exposures. Some recent research suggests that incidental acquisition of vocabulary can happen "extremely fast even with complete beginners in a FL" with "as little as two exposures to new words."  Moreover the researchers found that "the impact of exposure was not constant across number of exposures, but rather decreased following the initial encounters." See the first link.

Sources:
How much input do you need to learn 10,000 words? by Paul Nation
The Role of Repeated Exposure to Multimodal Input in Incidental Acquisition of Foreign Language Vocabulary by Marie-Josée Bisson, Walter J. B. van Heuven, Kathy Conklin and Richard J. Tunney
Words are Learned Incrementally over Multiple Exposures by Steven A Stahl
Why should we build up a Start-up vocabulary quickly? (Rob Waring)
The inescapable case for extensive reading (Rob Waring)
Lexical Threshold revisited: Lexical text coverage, learners' vocabulary size and reading comprehension by Batia Laufer and Geke C Ravenhorst-Kalovski
Vocabulary Size, Text Coverage and Word Lists by Paul Nation and Robert Waring
At what rate do learners learn and retain new vocabulary from reading a graded reader? by Rob Waring and Misako Takaki
Vocabulary Demands of Television Programs by Stuart Webb and Michael P. H. Rodgers
Effect of Frequency and Idiomacity on Second Language Reading Comprehension by Ron Martinez

The average book length

An average English language literary novel would have around 80-100,000 words (depending on genre) and 5,000-7,000 sentences. An average trade 5.5x8.5 inch book may have approximately 300 words per page and a 6x9 inch size book may have 350 words per page. The smaller, cheaper mass market paperbacks (usually 4.125 x 6.75 inches) pack on average 250 words per printed page but longer books may pack more than 350 words per printed page.

The median length for all Amazon books is about 64,000 words.  Here are some stats about book lengths taken from Amazon's text stats taken a couple of years ago.

Pride and Prejudice
Words: 120,528 (29% have more)
Sentences: 5,878 (35% have more)
Words per Sentence: 20.5 (42% have more)

Effi Briest (German)
Words: 98,455
Sentences: 5,501
Words per Sentence: 17.9

Anna Karenina (translated)
Words: 334,108 1% have more
Sentences: 19,345 2% have more
Words per Sentence: 17.3

James Clavell's Shogun
Words: 428,978
Sentences: 43,647
Words per Sentence: 9.8

Animal Farm
29,966 words (75% of books have more words)

Ethan Frome
30,191 words (75% of books have more words)

The Crying of Lot 49
46,573 words (64% of books have more words)

Slaughterhouse-Five
47,192 words (64% of books have more words)

Lord of the Flies
62,481 words (51% of books have more words)

Brave New World
64,531 words (50% of books have more words)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
70,570 words (45% of books have more words)

Portnoy’s Complaint
78,535 words (41% of books have more words)

Lolita
112,473 words (21% of books have more words)

Madame Bovary
117,963 words (18% of books have more words)

Mansfield Park
159, 344 words (9% of books have more words)

Moby-Dick
209,117 words (4% of books have more words)

Ulysses
262,869 words (2% of books have more words)

Middlemarch
310,593 words (2% of books have more words)

War and Peace
544,406 words (0% of books have more words)

The European Reading Challenge

The European Reading Challenge
January 1, 2016 to January 31, 2017

Hosted by Rose City Reader.

I intend to read five books from five different European authors in their native languages. For good measure I also entered into the Classics Challenge 2016.

Senator Says Maryland's Italian State Motto Is Sexist

Senator Bryan Simonaire  (R-Anne Arundel) has filed a bill that would update the nearly 400-year-old phrase “Fatti maschii, parole femine” which literally translates into “manly deeds, womanly words” to something more gender-neutral. Senator Simonaire proposes to change the official state motto to English“Strong deeds, gentle words,” which is also Maryland's current officially cited translation of the motto.

Maryland is the only US state with a motto in Italian. In 1993 a move to change the English translation of Maryland's Italian motto from "Manly Deeds, Womanly Words" to "Strong Deeds, Gentle Words" passed a House committee but never made it to the House floor. In 2001, the official translation was changed to the aforementioned gentler, politically correct version.

The Washington Post chimes in:

How a ‘sexist’ quote from 16th-century pope became Maryland’s state motto

The Maryland motto is sexist in any language (Opinion)

See also No longer manly, state seal uses gentle words (The Baltimore Sun, January 12, 2001).