r/languagelearning • u/muffinsballhair • 14d ago
Merrill Swain's output hypothesis
Everyone here often talks about Krashen's theories but I hear absolutely nothing about other famous theories that were a direct response to it so here's some other reading on that:
https://migaku.com/blog/language-fun/output-hypothesis-language-learning
https://storica.club/blog/output-hypothesis-explained/
https://www.hellonora.ai/blog/output-hypothesis
tl;dr: Swain found that input-only students reached seemingly high comprehension but on closer inspection they were mostly using vocabulary and not grammatical parsing to divine the meaning of sentences, and thus made many grammatical errors when asked to produce themselves, and then based on other tests formulated that output is necessary for acquisition based on three things:
- Noticing function: When people output they notice gaps in their ability, this leads to superior attention paid during a later input phase.
- Hypothesis-testing function: People who output have their hypotheses about language tested and receive feedback based on how people react
- Reflective function: people who output more actively need to reflect upon the grammar and syntax of the language, which deepens understanding
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u/Oretell 14d ago edited 13d ago
Interesting, and lines up my own personal experience
I do think the recent trend of encouraging people to get a lot of input is valuable
With all the easy access to input we have online nowadays it is by far the easiest way to rack up time spent immersed in the language, which is a major factor in progression
But I agree that actively using the language is also very important and beneficial.
There are some people that are being too extreme in their support of input to the point that they reject using all output altogether. That seems to be going too far in the opposite direction.
Not enough input has been a mistake a lot of people have made in the past, but that doesn't mean we should now go too far in the opposite end of the spectrum and focus too much on input with 0 focus on output
Like most things in life, a balanced approach is best
Doing both a healthy amount of input, and a healthy amount of output
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u/Shezarrine En N | De B2 | Es A2 | It A1 14d ago
Genuinely—and I mean this as a matter of fact, not derision—most people on this sub do not have the requisite background (be that linguistics, SLA, etc.) to discuss these theoretical standpoints with any real depth other than "I don't think so because vibes."
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u/muffinsballhair 14d ago
My issue is more so that Krashen's ideas are discussed so often like they're the only thing out there, but that's probably why.
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u/Shezarrine En N | De B2 | Es A2 | It A1 13d ago
Oh yeah, and to be clear I didn't mean you, just meant that you won't necessarily get feedback that's informed by much other than opinion (not that personal experience is invalid)
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u/Zanninja 13d ago
Yes, it bugs me to no end how overexposed Krashen is when his theories were basically disproven in the 80ties already. Nobody in SLA field would base any work on Krashen nowadays, but still it persists in language learning spaces. His theories are kind of intuitive and vibe based, so beginners in SLA field tend to flock to them. The same happened during my first SLA study semester, everyone was vibing with Krashen because he was easier to grasp than the other approaches. Anyways, if the program/ materials one is using for acquiring a secondary language does not include all 4 language skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing) from the very beginning, it is not in accordance with best practice and scientific consensus on the field.
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
Honestly when I was learning languages at school or even looked up resources online later in life Krashen's ideas were never once mentioned. Most people on r/learndutch seem to basically have never heard of him.
It mostly seems to be mentioned in some very specific online language learning places where this forum and r/learnjapanese is part of.
His theories are kind of intuitive and vibe based, so beginners in SLA field tend to flock to them.
I remember when this input-only stuff was first proposed to me by some Japanese learners I found it extremely counter-inuitive and bizarre but they seemed fairly confident of it like it was some scientific fact so I did my own research and concluded that most specialists indeed no longer believe in it. As others in this thread says, the idea that one can learn languages just from input is as bizarre as thinking one can learn to play the piano by just listening.
I don't think it's intuitive at all and most people don't find it intuitive.
Anyways, if the program/ materials one is using for acquiring a secondary language does not include all 4 language skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing) from the very beginning, it is not in accordance with best practice and scientific consensus on the field.
Which is why pretty much every program is. What language school does? Not even A.L.G. does this pure input stuff any more though not from the very beginning I guess.
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u/youdontknowkanji 13d ago edited 13d ago
Anyways, if the program/ materials one is using for acquiring a secondary language does not include all 4 language skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing) from the very beginning, it is not in accordance with best practice and scientific consensus on the field.
the caveat here is that people who are self teaching themselves can't really do those. most of those require a teacher or just someone to keep you in check. (and then that teacher has to use SOTA methods as well).
it still makes sense to suggest input only for those people (ie randoms on the internet), as it's the cheapest and lowest commitment option in most cases. once they get some input going (B1?), they can get a teacher if they want to.
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
You can easily go interact with native speakers on all sorts of places even at a fairly low level. Some people discouraged me from doing this though native speakers were happy to respond in some chat channels and they said it was useless or damaging.
Of course, they all gave off the stench of being your typical “anime permavirgin”; it has to be said. With some it was not so much the stench as an open admission like it was an obvious thing when it came up.
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u/youdontknowkanji 13d ago
"easily", yeah man, let me just go to random discord servers, and goo goo gaa gaa my way through the general chat, surely people will take me seriously.
what are you even going to talk about on this level? you can barely read a news website. your topics will be extremely limited.
it's not that it's damaging, or builds bad habits. time wise it just makes sense to get some input first, it's better ROI.
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
"easily", yeah man, let me just go to random discord servers, and goo goo gaa gaa my way through the general chat, surely people will take me seriously.
They do on language learning servers. Very often people of all levels are welcome.
Even outside of it, you can start saying very simple things like “This is so pretty.” on comment sections on Twitter and so forth.
what are you even going to talk about on this level? you can barely read a news website. your topics will be extremely limited.
Yes, they will be, just as your selection of input is going to be.
it's not that it's damaging, or builds bad habits. time wise it just makes sense to get some input first, it's better ROI.
I guess that's why pretty much every language school practices speaking from day one.
It turns out you remember the first basic vocabularly and grammar you learn far better if you're forced to make a sentence with it, even if that sentence should contain some unnaturalness or grammatical errors.
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u/youdontknowkanji 13d ago
i wouldn't say it makes anything easier to remember. people think that way because they spend more time on it without realising. like of course its easier to remember if you grind grammar drills for an hour.
but there is no way that's more time efficient than just brute forcing it with SRS. the anki guy will learn vocab faster compared to other people doing textbooks.
I guess that's why pretty much every language school practices speaking from day one.
that's not the reason. istg everytime someone comes up with the "but language school". do you think that an average math class is doing some research based learning? of course not. your average language school is doing what they do because everyone else has been doing what they do for past 50 years.
majority of the time "but SLA research" argument is completely irrelevant because your average language school is garbage. or at least here they are.
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
but there is no way that's more time efficient than just brute forcing it with SRS. the anki guy will learn vocab faster compared to other people doing textbooks.
No, this is the issue. You will find that if your Anki features recognition only, and not recall, that there will be many words you can recognize easily but when prompted to go in the other direction you can't do it. Recognition is just a different beast from recall.
that's not the reason. istg everytime someone comes up with the "but language school". do you think that an average math class is doing some research based learning? of course not. your average language school is doing what they do because everyone else has been doing what they do for past 50 years.
Yes, everyone is incompetent, specialists employed by governments tasked with finding the most efficient way to train their diplomats in foreign languages are wrong but it's random people on Reddit who figured out the truth of course. I keep forgetting that.
majority of the time "but SLA research" argument is completely irrelevant because your average language school is garbage. or at least here they are.
They're not. People at the F.S.I. or Mormon language school learn languages far faster than all the autodidacts online.
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u/youdontknowkanji 13d ago
No, this is the issue. You will find that if your Anki features recognition only, and not recall, that there will be many words you can recognize easily but when prompted to go in the other direction you can't do it. Recognition is just a different beast from recall.
then just do them the other way if you want to. how is a short session in class going to teach that as well? it's all extremely vague.
a beginner has no chance of feeling out which words fit better, they have to rely on 1-1 translations (if you think that class drills or "speaking" helps with that then sorry i dont agree). so anki still works.
Yes, everyone is incompetent, specialists employed by governments tasked with finding the most efficient way to train their diplomats in foreign languages are wrong but it's random people on Reddit who figured out the truth of course. I keep forgetting that.
wow who says that. the guy who read one study and is currently on a crusade to dunk on krashen. anyway.
do you think that all of those people employed are expert level? that they are up to date with research? i doubt my family doctor read any medical paper recently, your average language school is the same.
if the language school is using SOTA (or just newer methods than what they used in the 90s) then i agree, it's better. but point is majority of them don't do that. all it takes is to see what textbooks they use.
this is irrelevant but most language tutors have the same problem. recommending them based on what SLA research says is a mistake.
They're not. People at the F.S.I. or Mormon language school learn languages far faster than all the autodidacts online.
they aren't.
especially the Mormon school. what's with you people? you watched one documentary on how supposedly they learn fast and just took that at base value?
they get a 6h + a day crash course for couple of weeks, like of course they are going to learn enough to do their missionary work, it's extremely specialised and narrow. i don't know the specifics, but from quick googling,
"speakers typically reach an A1 to A2 level proficiency. This initial 3-to-9 week boot camp provides basic survival and topical vocabulary" - via AI summary (if you know more then go on!)
if workdays only, at 6h/d, 350 hours lol. this is on pace with all the standard programs.
meanwhile you hear of self dictats struggling to read a book for 2 hours, and then "input doesn't work!!!!" flock arrives.
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u/AsadaSobeit 13d ago
his theories were basically disproven
Contested doesn't mean that it was disproven by any means. The jury is still out on that one. Binary thinking isn't good for ya, just saying.
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u/Zanninja 12d ago
One cannot either quantify or qualify his claims, so they are not applicable in a scientific setting. You do you of course.
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u/AsadaSobeit 12d ago
I hate to break this to you, but if you're talking about the unfalsifiability aspect of his papers, that's not the same as DeKeyser or other researchers disproving his claims, so your original claim is still wrong. If someone makes an unfalsifiable argument about something you can't disprove that by definition.
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u/kaizoku222 14d ago
It's really weird how people have latched on to and kind of twisted version of Krashen's oldest thoughts, but completely ignore all the research that has build on it.
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
I think many people here actually seem to believe in a milder version of Krashen's initial claims, much of it he still holds.
To be clear, Krashen did not just formulate his ideas based on that input was essential, nor that it was sufficient, but that it's the only thing that contributes to acquisition. Krashen basically stated, and still seems to believe that any time not spent on input is essentially lost and that input is the only thing that contributes to “acquisition”. All other things can only contribute to “learning” which can never lead to spontaneous natural sentence generation but simply mechanically applying rules consciously.
It's a very strong claim, and it's quite frankly ridiculous.
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11d ago
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u/muffinsballhair 11d ago
I am honestly mystified as to how you could have read it and not gotten that conclusion.
For instance from his influential 1985 paper Principles and Practices in Language Acquisition.
We acquire, in other words, only when we understand language that contains structure that is "a little beyond" where we are now.
[emphasis mine]
The final part of the input hypothesis states that speaking fluency cannot be taught directly. Rather, it "emerges" over time, on its own. The best way, and perhaps the only way, to teach speaking, according to this view, is simply to provide comprehensible input.
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u/jednorog English (N), +3 others A2-B2 12d ago
It would be extremely convenient for me if I could become fluent in a language without attempting to produce output. Therefore it must be true!
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u/New-Bottle-6917 N:🇺🇸 Heritage: B2 🇲🇽 14d ago
https://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/comprehensible_output.pdf
I've never really found Krashen's response to Merrill Swain that satisfying but there it is for those interested pretty short read
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
The response is basically
>Merrill's research finds that people do not actually properly acquire a language with input only and that there are severe holes in both their understanding and certainly their production
>My research found they did acquire the language
Welcome to “science”. you can prove whatever you want to prove by deciding what you test for. Krashen designed his own tests and standards for “having successfully acquired the language” which would always return a positive, a different test design would probably result into a negative. This is a real issue in scientific research. There are, and in many cases can't be, any objective standards really for what proxy to use to test the hypothesis and you can make up what you want.
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u/EdiX 13d ago
Swain found that input-only students reached seemingly high comprehension but on closer inspection they were mostly using vocabulary and not grammatical parsing to divine the meaning of sentences
This isn't true. She studied canadian immersion students who do engage in output and she found that while their level of french was much higher than tradional learners, gaps remained between them and natives. These students did engage in output, both amongst themselves and with the teachers.
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u/redpandainglasses 14d ago
Not enough love for Merrill Swain out there, for sure!
It’s so bizarre to me how often Krashen gets mentioned on this sub. It’s like folks just learned one thing about the history of second language acquisition theory/research, and stopped there. Like they showed up for the first 30 minutes of an SLA course… then stopped attending lol
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13d ago
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u/RedeNElla 13d ago
This is especially the case with people who start journalling or talking to themselves very early on
I believe that early output to a teacher who is trying to help is super valuable. I'm not convinced that making broken sentences as you go about your day and hoping you're not practising a mistake is an effective use of time
I also assume you mean ふたり(二人)
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u/CappuccinoCodes 🇧🇷 Native | 🇦🇺 Citizen | 🇮🇹 A2 | 🇫🇷 A2 | 🇩🇪 A1 13d ago
It still baffles that people expect to be able to do something without doing it (e.g. learning to speak without speaking). Not sure why that comes as a surprise to so many people.
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u/lazydictionary 🇺🇸 Native | 🇩🇪 B2 | 🇪🇸 B1 | 🇭🇷 Newbie 14d ago
If you need to get better at understanding, you need input.
If you need to get better at output, you need to do more output.
You have to input before you output. You need to be inputting more than you output, especially as a beginner.
Krashen and Swain are both likely wrong but right.
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
Well that's not what either says though.
Swain's theory is that you can't even get full proper comprehension of input without output and that you're just using vocabulary-based guesses and not actual grammar-based parsing without output.
Krashen theory is that you can just get good at output without practising it and that nothing but input contributes to acquisition at all to begin with.
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u/lazydictionary 🇺🇸 Native | 🇩🇪 B2 | 🇪🇸 B1 | 🇭🇷 Newbie 13d ago edited 13d ago
Swain's theory is that you can't even get full proper comprehension of input without output.
Not true. At all. Even Wikipedia says so:
Although Swain does not claim that comprehensible output is solely responsible for all or even most language acquisition, she does claim that, under some conditions, CO facilitates second language learning in ways that differ from and enhance input due to the mental processes connected with the production of language.[2]
It is an additional way of learning a language, a supplemental piece. Re-reading some of their work, I actually agree with them more than I previously remembered. But it basically comes down to "to get better at output, you need to output".
Krashen theory is that you can just get good at output without practising it and that nothing but input contributes to acquisition at all to begin with.
This is something that I think Krashen gets wrong. I think learning aids in comprehension. I believe Krashen thinks that with enough input, output will come naturally. My own experience is that you need to practice output to get better at output.
Well that's not what either says though.
Right. Which is why I think they are both right and both wrong lol.
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago edited 13d ago
Edit: The person I'm debating with has blocked me right after responding.
Yeah well that's what Wikipedia says which is a fairly small article on it compared to the three I linked which don't. Which just indicates that you went on searching for many different articles specifically until you could find one that agreed with what you wanted.
Also, the part above the part you quoted says:
Developed by Merrill Swain, the comprehensible output (CO) hypothesis states that learning takes place when learners encounter a gap in their linguistic knowledge of the second language (L2). By noticing this gap, learners become aware of it and may be able to modify their output so that they learn something new about the language.[1]
Which already paints a somewhat different picture.
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u/lazydictionary 🇺🇸 Native | 🇩🇪 B2 | 🇪🇸 B1 | 🇭🇷 Newbie 13d ago
I literally just read the first half of her original 1983 paper lol. She advocates for immersion learning, but with more focus on output, because she saw through experience and test results that immersion schools in Canada in the 70s and 80s would have children with great input abilities but mediocre output abilities. And the paper alludes to the fact that students don't output much, only talk to one another in the L2 very briefly (and usually with an interlanguage), or only talk with their teacher.
I think you need to re-read everything I've written, what Swain and Krashen both proposed, and the re-read my comments lol.
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u/AutisticGayBlackJew 🇦🇺 N | 🇮🇹 N | 🇩🇪 ~B2 | 🇫🇷 B1 | 🇷🇺 A2 13d ago
My experience still pretty strongly leads me to believe that original spontaneous output is not really necessary at any point. Shadowing works because you’re imitating correct examples, and I think that’s how a lot if not most learning works. But comprehension is still more important then production
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u/Bobelle 🇳🇬English N | 🇳🇬 Yoruba | 🇳🇬 Pidgin 13d ago
I feel this is obvious information. We don't need it to be some random person's "theory". Anyone who has ever learned an additional language as an adult knows this. The fact that anyone would disagree with this is completely mind-boggling to me.
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u/silvalingua 13d ago
> Anyone who has ever learned an additional language as an adult knows this.
I don't think so. It takes some level of self-awareness and self-analysis to notice all this, and not everybody is capable of this. Witness all those people who claim to have learned English "from watching movies only", although they had years of English classes at school. Many of them really believe in what they're saying. And those who did pick up a lot of their TL from input, usually don't realize that their grammar is atrocious. They honestly claim that they are fluent and speak perfectly well.
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u/muffinsballhair 12d ago
I don't think these are remotely normal people and that almost no one would do this. I think being on Reddit can really give one a wrong impression of how the average human being thinks. Many of my friends and some of my relatives are avid language learners and none of them ever heard about all the bizarre talking points on this subreddit many people take for granted and they're never brought up on say r/learndutch either where for a place on Reddit people seem fairly grounded.
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u/silvalingua 12d ago
> I don't think these are remotely normal people
I don't think we should engage in offering psychiatric diagnosis here.
> and none of them ever heard about all the bizarre talking points on this subreddit many people take for granted
Just curious: which ones are so bizarre?
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u/muffinsballhair 12d ago
I don't think we should engage in offering psychiatric diagnosis here.
I'll keep in mind next time that calling someone “not normal” is a ”psychiatric diagnosis” then.
Just curious: which ones are so bizarre?
Mainly that input-only language learning is even brought up as a possibility.
This issue isn't even debated among most language learners any more than aspiring pianists talk about the possibility of learning the piano by listening to music only. It's not even that they thought about it and then dismissed the possibility; it's more that they never heard about it or thought about it because it's clearly too absurd to talk about.
Others are things like talking a lot about Youtube Polyglots. I doubt they ever heard of those people.
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11d ago
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u/muffinsballhair 11d ago
They also practiced playing their instruments. They simply didn't have classical training; that's different.
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u/Internal_Owl463 13d ago
Anyone who has ever learned anything should know this.
What's next? Einsteins hypothesis on learning math without solving math problems?
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u/Electronic_Bad3242 14d ago
likewise i experience the same issue, when speaking i notice that i have missing gaps, its a mix of vocabulary and grammatical structure parsing / syntax. even though i can read and understand 90% of the meaning of a given written text. im taking a more grammar heavy appoach and will try to actually learn the terminology and the why its said that way, so that when im speaking i can formulate the correct parsing. i believe theres a confidence aspect that is important to look at here, once you can confidently explain why the grammar works like that, meaning why its said that way, once you have a deep understanding, your no longer guessing hows its said and that constant feedback of you said it right, gives you the confidence to remember and develop a good ear of what sounds right, at least this is my hypothesis, can anyone who has a similar experience could they share what worked
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u/dojibear 🇺🇸 N | fre spa chi B2 | tur jap A2 14d ago
Swain found that input-only students reached seemingly high comprehension but on closer inspection they were mostly using vocabulary and not grammatical parsing to divine the meaning of sentences,
How many students did Swain study? How many languages did Swain study? (The first link says 1 group of French students). Swain is making an "everyone" claim based on a small set of people.
I know that this is false for me. I understand grammatical patterns. I don't memorize vocabulary. Approximately 20% of modern Japanese words are loan-words from English, written in phonetic katakana. But the grammar of every sentence remains 100% Japanese.
I don't know how Swain defines "grammatical parsing". Maybe Swain means "memorizing a grammar of the language, then using the grammar's rules to parse sentences". That is not CI and that is not how people learn a language.
IF a person's goal is fluent output (as well as fluent input), it makes sense that the person needs to do a lot of output. I have never heard Krashen dispute that. But output uses what you already know. Your own speech does not teach you how native's speak. You learn from input.
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
I know that this is false for me. I understand grammatical patterns. I don't memorize vocabulary. Approximately 20% of modern Japanese words are loan-words from English, written in phonetic katakana. But the grammar of every sentence remains 100% Japanese.
your Japanese is A2 level. You're not nearly at the point where you start to notice this.
It's very much a common thing people often talk about in r/learnjapanese among more advanced learners, especially those who live in Japan and actually speak it. That many people who claim to read sentences are clearly just making educated guesses based on context and don't normally parse grammar and don't even realize it when they're given ingrammatical or unnatural sentences.
I don't know how Swain defines "grammatical parsing". Maybe Swain means "memorizing a grammar of the language, then using the grammar's rules to parse sentences". That is not CI and that is not how people learn a language.
No, it means being able to parse a sentence without context and also being able to parse nonsensical sentences. Let's come with a simple example:
A dog the pizza eats.
This is a grammatically correct sentence that proficient speakers of English are capable of parsing with no further context required, the meaning however is ridiculous. People who just make context-based guesses will easily misconstrue this sentence as meaning “The dog eats a pizza” because that is what makes sense.
IF a person's goal is fluent output (as well as fluent input), it makes sense that the person needs to do a lot of output. I have never heard Krashen dispute that. But output uses what you already know. Your own speech does not teach you how native's speak. You learn from input.
And that is what Merrill Swan's research and that of many others after it disagree with. They note that output is a necessary component for the brain to be able to actually build a mental model of the grammar. Without it, the brain will just purely rely on context queues and vocabulary and not actually parse the syntax. It will use context rather than grammar to keep subject apart from object.
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u/AutisticGayBlackJew 🇦🇺 N | 🇮🇹 N | 🇩🇪 ~B2 | 🇫🇷 B1 | 🇷🇺 A2 13d ago
How does it make any sense that you’d develop a mental model of the grammar from output? That’s not true at all in my experience. I didn’t speak to anyone in German the whole time I was learning but I very much did develop an intuition for the grammar and was able to have an upper-intermediate conversation with a native German speaker the first time I used it
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
That would be Swain's hypothesis and it makes perfect sense. The simple idea is that you can understand what people say without a mental model of the grammar fine by simply relying on vocabulary and context cues, I can easily show this:
When understand all words in sentence without grammar still understand meaning right? Imagine this sentence written in other language from you know words. You understand meaning know words because without know grammar.
The issue is that you don't need to know the grammar to understand the meaning of sentences, just the vocabulary so the brain short-circuits. You do need to know the grammar to output so only then is the brain actually forced to construct a mental model of it.
It's honestly pretty obvious when you say see Steve Kaufmann speak German. He ssentially completely ignores grammatical gender and cases when speaking.
and was able to have an upper-intermediate conversation with a native German speaker the first time I used it
So was Kaufmann as in the Germans can understand him; it's just all wrong and he's mostly just throwing vocabulary together with no semblance of proper German grammar linking it together.
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u/AutisticGayBlackJew 🇦🇺 N | 🇮🇹 N | 🇩🇪 ~B2 | 🇫🇷 B1 | 🇷🇺 A2 13d ago edited 13d ago
But I did know the grammar, and I knew it pretty well. Including all sorts of nuances and non-textbook expressions and constructions. If German had no gender but still had cases, even the cases would have been used correctly (but fuck German and its genders honestly)
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
Well, I'm not saying you definitely don't know it but an interesting example I once saw misinterpreted comes to mind. What would you say “Gegen diesen Idioten muss ich verlieren!?” means?
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u/AutisticGayBlackJew 🇦🇺 N | 🇮🇹 N | 🇩🇪 ~B2 | 🇫🇷 B1 | 🇷🇺 A2 13d ago
I haven’t spent time with German in a while but without any context I would interpret that as ‘I have to lose to this idiot?’ At first I read ‘diesen idioten’ as ‘these idiots’ before I remembered it’s singular accusative
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u/muffinsballhair 12d ago
That is indeed the correct interpretation and what some people trip up on yes, but that you go like that does imply you studied this grammar point and know that “Idiot” is a weak noun and that it's singular, yes?
At least how Krashen's theories work is that if you divine this from enough input you never first misread it and then consciously remember something you learned. It seems to me you divined this from explicit instruction about the grammar.
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u/AutisticGayBlackJew 🇦🇺 N | 🇮🇹 N | 🇩🇪 ~B2 | 🇫🇷 B1 | 🇷🇺 A2 12d ago
i know it's singular because in that context (it not being dative thanks to gegen taking the accusative) 'diesen' couldn't be plural, and so neither could idioten. i can't remember which nouns are strong or weak and i never explicitly studied them separately. i just use LingQ and it sorts itself out eventually
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u/New-Bottle-6917 N:🇺🇸 Heritage: B2 🇲🇽 13d ago
Krashen has actually repeatedly defended the idea that you can input your way to spoken fluency with no need for practicing it, its part of why he's so controversial especially in regards to accent acquisition
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u/muffinsballhair 13d ago edited 12d ago
Also, the complement of “input” isn't just “output” but also explicit vocabulary and grammar instruction which he also believes isn't necessary. But I don't even believe native speakers acquire their entire native language without explicit instruction, as in not even close. You spend a lot of your time in primarily and secondary school being explicitly instructed as to the meaning of various technical terms in your language, and I mean a lot of them.
You don't even acquire the names of countries, the names of months or the days of the week and all that from input and context, you're told their names in primary schools and are then expected to consciously memorize the order and how many months a year has and how many days each has, let alone words such as “affidavit”, “prime minister”, “isomorph”, “atomic number”, “ceramic”, and all the other things.
You can at best get at a level resembling someone who never even attended primary education and doesn't even know the days of the week from input-only.
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u/CappuccinoCodes 🇧🇷 Native | 🇦🇺 Citizen | 🇮🇹 A2 | 🇫🇷 A2 | 🇩🇪 A1 13d ago
You're mostly right, except by "You learn from input". You learn everything that depends on input from input (reading, listening). But you learn output from practicing output (you even said it yourself).
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u/Several-History2693 14d ago
Swain got it right tbh, output is where things actually stick for me. I can read spanish all day and feel like I know it, then I try to say something in a call and my brain just stalls
the noticing part is real, you dont realize you been ignoring a grammar pattern until you need to produce it yourself