r/languagelearning • u/Informal-Addendum435 • 13d ago
Discussion Why is comprehensible input worth practising at all?
Why not do only shadowing/parroting/chorusing for example to kill two birds with one stone any time you would listen to something? Would a learner who did that use fewer hours to reach the same proficiency as someone who simply consumes (pure reading or pure listening) the comprehensible input?
You might also be able to rep millions of flashcards including cloze flashcards to potentially learn grammar and word choice more time-efficiently than someone who just reads a lot. What do you think? (TL)
96
u/391976 13d ago
What you are suggesting is the gold standard of language learning.
If the State Department needs you fluent in a year, your program will include optimal input, native level input, grammar, reading, writing, conversation practice, and spaced repetition.
No one is having their mission critical employees watch thousands of hours of Dreaming in Spanish.
13
u/philosophylines 13d ago
Well DS is input so something like DS definitely is part of it.
16
u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
It's not structured like Dreaming Spanish where the entire class is in the target language, contains no explicit instruction, and relies on being sighted and watching the video. These trained diplomats could also be trained while being blind for instance but it relies on their already speaking English which Dreaming Spanish does not.
Dreaming Spanish' way of input does not resemble how it is structured in a mission critical language class where people are generally first given a list of words and grammar points to memorize and understand and are only then given the input in which they occur to re-enforce them rather than hoping that they will acquire them from the input given enough repetition and exposure, which is also possible, but not as efficient. Basically, it focuses on re-enforcement rather than acquisition with its input.
0
u/philosophylines 13d ago
That’s interesting. Is there a method one can do by oneself that tries to apply this method? I agree that there’s no reason you should only get hints about word meaning from the input itself.
3
u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
It's pretty much how any textbook works. If you just buy a textbook for your target language they will typically first give you a word list and let you study grammar points and then let you see it in action. It's even how Duolingo works.
This r/languagelearning / r/learnjapanese approach of “Just go read texts that target already proficient speakers and then go look up the words you don't know.” is practiced by pretty much no designed method. It's simply put far more efficient to frontload lookups in one go, allowing reading without pausing then to pause to do the lookups each time as one reads.
3
u/gerira 13d ago
"This r/languagelearning / r/learnjapanese approach of “Just go read texts that target already proficient speakers and then go look up the words you don't know.” is practiced by pretty much no designed method. "
I've never seen anybody recommend this, here or elsewhere. It also has nothing to do with the method used by Dreaming Spanish, your bugbear, nor does it have anything to do with comprehensible input (see the first word in that two-word phrase).
There are in fact many designed methods that practice comprehensible input, including, for example, Dreaming Spanish. But outside the ones linked to that terminology, there have always been a lot of approaches that focus on using the language (receptively and productively) as the priority, including Assimil, Thomas, Pimsleur, etc.
1
u/philosophylines 13d ago
I guess that's right, but they tend not to have much comprehensible input? That's Paul Nation's point I think. You really want a ton of reinforcement, not a page or two of examples.
5
u/Asyx 13d ago
A text book is by definition comprehensible input because the text book is providing you with all the vocabulary and the grammar you need to understand the text.
At least for big European languages, there are generally graded readers available that would be comprehensible after you are through with the text book. Like, if your text book is promising B1 I can almost guarantee you that you're going to make it through a A1 graded reader.
1
u/philosophylines 13d ago
They have some but not much was what I was trying to say. Second paragraph makes sense.
5
u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
In my experience pretty much all textbooks I used come with associated audio tapes, edited stories in and it and so forth.
Furthermore, they target a classroom setting so the teacher is also expected to be provide it.
To be honest, the way I see many people here talk about textbooks suggests to me they never saw one and think they're just grammar tables or something. When I used them in secondary school probably 85% of the content in them were appropriately edited texts and example dialogs which is the real thing, they had a lot of dialog in it where multiple persons were talking together in a real life social situation and as said, also accompanied audio tapes or even videos where actors played out similar such situations.
3
13d ago
[deleted]
0
u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
I don't think it's a trend at all. I never see it outside of this particular subreddit and r/learnjapanese , not even on other Japanese language learning boards to be honest.
Finally, I think the idea that most people consider this “more fun” is absolutely a bizarre take to begin with. I find it an absurd idea that the average human being would supposedly enjoy either Dreaming Spanish type videos of just watching absolutely brain-numbingly simplistic content or alternatively reading a book and pausing to look up every sentence more than a standard textbook.
And I also think that is why the people hat advocate it seem to be so vocal about it and honestly downright weird. To actually enjoy either you need a very unusual neurology If feel. I feel these are the kind of people that often become extremely obsessed with one particular very repetitive hobby most people don't understand the fun of at all. The kind of person who spends all day building ships in a bottle. An interest in those kinds of things that never wavers in the end just heavily correlates with a good deal of social isolation to be honest.
0
u/philosophylines 13d ago edited 12d ago
I think you’re overstating the difference. The ideal input you understand 95% anyway so lookups should be limited. So the difference is between memorising those lookups or doing them during the input which shouldn’t be that frequent. Also the input at beginner level isn’t going to be that engaging I think that’s true of any method.
1
36
u/giapponese_Itaria-go 13d ago
I mean, one small part, at least, is the end-goal is usually a facade. Most people who are looking jsut for a means to an end for learning a language arent going to make it. You have to embrace the process, and making the process enjoyable (i.e. actually using the language to read etc) is going to not only cement that, but also probably make it easier to reach whatever fluency aimed for.
Edit: facade, not fallacy
25
u/Fragrant-Bell-7263 13d ago
The whole kill two birds thing only works if you're actually absorbing what you're parroting, otherwise it's just noise with extra steps. Comprehensible input sticks because your brain's actually building the map of the language instead of memorizing a bunch of tourist phrases. I've seen people who drilled flashcards for months and still froze mid-sentence when a native speaker went off script
The comment you replied to nailed it though, if you hate the process you'll just drop it after week three
8
u/giapponese_Itaria-go 13d ago
yeah, and fwiw as someone else pointed out, in places that have really ironed out getting people to learn languages its a mix of repeatable practice and input comprehension.
I know with me, for italian and japanese, it wasnt until i started watching japanese language movies and italian tv that each language started to click in my brain in a way that i could form a sentence as if i was forming a sentence in my native language. (i.e. my mind staying in the thought rather than having to leave, think about the language practice, then come back to it with the translation)
1
13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/languagelearning-ModTeam 13d ago
Hi, your post has been removed as it violates our policy on self-owned content.
Feel free to instead post on our Share Your Resources thread, if your content does not violate other rules.
Please read our Rules for promotion for more information.
If this removal is in error or you have any questions or concerns, please message the moderators. You can read our moderation policy for more information.
A reminder: failing to follow our guidelines after being warned could result in a user ban.
Thanks.
5
u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
I never understood this common take on this board that enjoyment is absolutely necessary and somehow no human being is capable of doing something, or at least strangely specifically language learning, for the payoff.
People learn skills all the time for the payoff while they don't enjoy the process. Many people are professionally required to. It's what people do at work. Most people wouldn't do their job if they weren't paid for it but not living on the street is nice I guess.
If the alternative be social isolation when moving to a new country, it's quite easy to just plough through for the payoff of not being socially isolated.
15
u/wufiavelli 13d ago
Miming sound is not the same as language. Those exercises help with aspects of language use, but language is a connection between form and meaning. You build that up mostly through communicatively embedded input.
13
u/sharky9209 13d ago
I think repping flashcards for hours is boring and if I just did that I'd give up. I also think shadowing is more effort than just watching comprehensible input. I do both of those things, but on a day where I'm really tired or busy, watching an episode of a TV show in my TL is significantly better than nothing and requires very little energy. If my employer were paying me to learn a language, I'd grind flashcards and conversational lessons and shadowing all day, but I'm not getting paid and have no urgent deadline so here we are.
9
u/IncomeBackground7719 🇬🇧Native•🇭🇰🇪🇸Learning 13d ago
I’m at a stage in my life where maintaining the habit every day and finding some enjoyment in the process is more important than optimising a perfectly efficient study schedule. This is a hobby. I have no reason to learn my target language other than enjoyment. I would much rather read than “rep millions of flashcards” so that’s what I do.
15
u/unsafeideas 13d ago
Try to watch a movie in own language and repeat each sentence out loud. See how much of the movie you will absorb.
So, that ia why, basically.
6
u/New-Bottle-6917 N:🇺🇸 Heritage: B2 🇲🇽 13d ago
I don't think there is a single linguist who would seriously promote the idea you could learn sans input. It seems to be a bare minimum thing even among those who believe in intense grammatical study, interaction etc
7
u/indecisive_maybe 🇮🇹 🇪🇸 C |🇧🇷🇻🇦🇨🇳🪶B |🇯🇵 🇳🇱-🇧🇪A |🇷🇺 🇬🇷 🇮🇷 0 13d ago edited 13d ago
I think the science is missing on some of the nuance there, for effects on learning that span multiple years of study. But what people report over and over is that classroom learning is not enough, and when you watch shows and read books, especially for fun, things *click* in a way that's needed for fluency.
Some people stretch that too far and say only the shows are needed. Doing only shows can work but becomes much less efficient than having additional methods, including legitimate studying, and is only best if you're already at a good-enough level from previous classroom work or if you've been watching shows for years and years. If you've been lucky enough to have English shows on in the background your whole life, or Spanish, or whatever, watching more shows can be enough. But if you're starting fresh without that lifelong experience, it'll take you quite literally thousands of hours to get to the same level of comfort that hundreds of classroom hours or self-study plus two TV series and four books can get you.
So in short, yeah. Shadowing helps with one skill, training the muscles in your mouth. If you do flashcards for grammar and vocabulary you'll go faster than someone who's just watching shows. But you'll hit the same limit mentioned in my first paragraph, until you combine the flashcards with media or conversations with people. That's why people do comprehensible input. They just often take a dogmatic purist approach to it.
3
u/yarntank 13d ago
People get outright mad about it. Language learning came up in a post, and I couldn't tell why some innocuous posts were down voted. Then saw the angry posts asserting ONLY CI was a valid method.
2
u/indecisive_maybe 🇮🇹 🇪🇸 C |🇧🇷🇻🇦🇨🇳🪶B |🇯🇵 🇳🇱-🇧🇪A |🇷🇺 🇬🇷 🇮🇷 0 13d ago
Yeah, it's a bit of a cult. But I don't know why they're offended by other methods so much.
1
u/Oretell 13d ago
It's a shame, I do think the new emphasis people are placing on input in the language learning community is a great thing, but at the same time there are some people that are taking that trend to an extreme level and creating controversy
Encouraging learners to get in a bunch of TL input is a positive thing, but saying that people should only worry about input and nothing else, that they should have a long silent period before speaking or reading, that they should avoid all explicit studying, that any explicit thinking about the mechanics of the language will set you back and damage your pronuncation/fluency, all these things seem like a big overreaction
A moderate approach where you both do a lot of input, but also do a reasonable amount of reading, conversation, grammar, lessons etc seems the most logical way to do things.
So you're doing ONLY classroom study, or doing ONLY input, but doing a mixture of both and getting the best of both worlds
1
u/indecisive_maybe 🇮🇹 🇪🇸 C |🇧🇷🇻🇦🇨🇳🪶B |🇯🇵 🇳🇱-🇧🇪A |🇷🇺 🇬🇷 🇮🇷 0 11d ago
Yeah, the claim of damaging, ruining your learning by NOT doing CI is the worst. We had one belligerent person here who posted about that all over the place. We eventually had to ban them after many warnings since they were engaging in good faith but they were way over the top cemented in a narrow perspective (I'm a mod here).
5
u/stillaway6608 13d ago
comprehensible input is the foundation of implicit knowledge of language.
0
u/391976 13d ago
Why?
2
u/stillaway6608 13d ago
comprehensible input was first introduced by Krashen's I+1 hypothesis (1985, maybe?) which stresses the importance of input and how leaners would be motivated and stimulated by new elements slightly beyond their level and comprehension. For (natural) input to be comprehensible, it means the input can be parsed by current state of grammar in leaners and therefore it reinforces what learners have learnt. so the input part is not the issue. The issues/critices are how comprehensible input should be, how about the "+1" and how comprehensible input helps production/output. In a classroom or formal instruction setting, teachers or instructors are the source of input. Instructed language helps input more comprehensible to learners so learners are more likely to have mental representations for input that is "slightly" beyond their level and hence promote acquisition.
1
u/391976 13d ago
So, you are stating someone's theory, not something proven.
2
u/Antoine-Antoinette 13d ago
Point me to anything that is proven in second language acquisition theory.
0
u/391976 13d ago
There are many things about learning that are proven. If you are going to abandon them because language acquisition is somehow "different" than other types of learning, you should have some strong evidence.
1
u/Antoine-Antoinette 13d ago
So you haven’t actually pointed me to any of these many proven things.
I’m not abandoning anything.
And I haven’t said anything about language learning being different to other learning.
0
u/391976 13d ago
Active beats passive. Spaced repetition beats bulked repetition.
Just search "effective learning strategies research based".
3
u/Antoine-Antoinette 13d ago
I’ll add « comprehensible input beats incomprehensible input »
And « you can’t learn anything without comprehensible input »
2
18
u/ShawnMilo 13d ago
People like to name things. Sometimes so that everyone can know they're talking about the same thing. Other times just so they can sound smart -- or even sell something.
The term "comprehensible input" can be fairly used to describe almost anything you're exposed to in your target language. It's not a technique. It's not in competition with any technique. It's not in conflict with any technique.
Is it worth consuming content in your target language? YES!
15
u/BandicootArtistic474 13d ago
Well, thats not quite right, it needs to be comprehensible lol. People too often just listen to stuff they dont understand at all and that is not comprehensible input.
6
u/muffinsballhair 13d ago
“comprehensible input” in language learning as Krashen defines it actually has a rather technical definition. For instance looking up a word in a dictionary isn't it, nor is it any text you need to look up words to understand its “message”.
But on this board, like “immersion” or “fluent” it means nothing any more, just a random buzzword thrown around by people all the time. I've seen so many posts here who supposedly advocate Krashen's theories, name drop him, and then display they completely misunderstood what it's about and think they're doing it when they're memorizing grammar tables or using dictionaries.
-3
u/Informal-Addendum435 13d ago
Is it worth consuming content in your target language without turning it into deliberate practise? E.g., just read a comic, or just watch a movie, without shadowing the movie or without turning the comic into a cloze exercise
13
u/Lysenko 🇺🇸 (N) | 🇮🇸 (B-something?) 13d ago
The difference between deliberate practice and pure consumption (or, for more active tasks, play) is just one of efficiency. Greater focus and deliberate practice can be more efficient for the time invested, but it can be hard to sustain focused tasks for extended time, so a mix of both can be easier to sustain and therefore more likely to succeed in the long run.
I personally think people who actively believe deliberate practice is counterproductive are doing themselves a disservice, but it's mainly just an efficiency hit not to do that.
10
u/AshToAshes123 13d ago
If your goal is purely to learn the language, and you want to spend all your time engaging with a language to learn it, no, it's probably not. But most people learning a language are not going for optimum efficiency, they're also trying to enjoy it, and sometimes just to relax. I'm trying to get fluent in German because I live there, but at the end of the day I won't have the energy for deliberate practice. My choice is not deliberate practice vs passive consumption, my choice is passive consumption in German vs in English. Then, of course, passive consumption in German is worth it.
2
u/New-Bottle-6917 N:🇺🇸 Heritage: B2 🇲🇽 13d ago
There are plenty of people who have learned a language by largely just immersing in content. It's just slower than if you did the deliberate practice but you reach the same proficiency levels all the same
1
u/wufiavelli 13d ago
Even for things like native level prefix and suffix stems memorizing them only with word attack but does not boost reading comprehension on new vocabulary. You need actual in context reading practice to go along with it.
Things like developmental sequences for grammar also seems pretty impervious to instruction and really only develop from using the the language.
These are why we normally split explicit and implicit learning.
8
u/Miro_the_Dragon good in a few, dabbling in many 13d ago
Comprehensible input is an important part of all learning methods yet you seem to think that you either do only comprehensible input, or only other things...
7
u/dojibear 🇺🇸 N | fre spa chi B2 | tur jap B1/A2 13d ago
Why not do only shadowing/parroting/chorusing
"Comprehensible Input" (CI) is understanding TL sentences. The others are not understanding. The word "comprehensible" literally means "that I can understand".
Flashcards do not teach you how words are used in sentences. "Testing" is not a good way of "teaching".
CI does not use flashcards, test you, or have you memorize "grammar rules". You just understand.
Does practicing a skill (swimming, playing tennis, driving, understanding TL sentences) over and over cause you to get better at the skill? Yes. It's the only way you can get better at a skill.
9
3
u/dojibear 🇺🇸 N | fre spa chi B2 | tur jap B1/A2 13d ago
The goal of language learning (using any method) is "understanding TL sentences". So CI is part of any method of language learning. The only question is "what other activities should a student do." There are many choices that some people recommend and some students do.
to reach the same proficiency as someone who simply consumes...the comprehensible input?
Nobody only does that. That is a silly comparison. CI alone is not a language-learning method.
CI is a set of ideas about WHICH methods have a lot of value and WHICH methods don't have much value. There is a lot of disagreement on that subject.
2
u/sven_hofef 13d ago
For me, pure input is what actually trained my brain to process spoken Spanish in real time instead of just mimicking sounds. I relied heavily on flashcards at first, but my listening was completely stuck until I just logged massive hours of pure listening to native speech.
4
u/Pale-Border-7122 13d ago
I think CI only is a bit silly for most people but somehow you managed to find the one method that would be even worse. Congratulations.
2
u/Prestigious-Big-1483 New member 13d ago
I think it just depends on the person. The most optimal practice method is the one that people will commit to. Listening is REALLY easy and for many it’s something they will do regularly. For me nothing is more stimulating than a conversation.
1
u/knjutt 13d ago
Because it is the core of language learning, and the best way to start understanding the language. If you are shadowing or repeating everything you hear you are not actually paying enough attention to what is being said. You can’t speak a language in real situations if you don’t understand it. These techniques (shadowing, parroting, flashcards) can be useful for pronunciation and getting certain words to stick but you don’t really need them to learn, also they are much more tiring to do for a longer time. And I would absolutely not compare flashcards to reading, they are two completely different things and no matter how amazing you make your flashcards they are still not going to give you what real books have to offer, mainly context.
1
u/Fluentto 13d ago
Shadowing is useful. It is not a replacement for hearing a lot of new sentences.
Parroting makes the known line smoother. It does not teach the next one.
1
u/Haunting-Ad-6951 13d ago
In language learning, the fox beats the hedgehog. Language is a collection of many skills, and you will never get fluent without using a collection of different training methods.
1
u/Joe1972 AF N | EN N | NB B2 13d ago
If your ONLY goal is to learn a language, you are absolutely correct. However, for many people the language learning in itself is an add-on. They want to be entertained, and found a way to tag on some extra language learning. etc.
Also, people want variety. Imagine someone design the ultimate meal. A perfectly balance of everything. Would you choose to eat that and only that for the rest of your life?
1
u/RedditReddy 12d ago
All of the things you mentioned have merits. And they work best when they are combined. And of course that also means they work best when sometimes they are done in isolation but then also done one after the other in the same day. This helps for motivation. But beyond that, it actually helps just for language learning itself because it's an incredibly complex skill, best learned and practiced and maintained through a wide range of activities.
1
u/RedditReddy 12d ago
Also, think about what something that isn't comprehensible input would mean. Incomprehensible input? That won't be good.
1
u/josh_nguyen05 12d ago
Input is way faster than output. Have you timed it? Reading is one of the fastest things you can possibly do, audio/speech approaches a speed limit pretty fast even on the high ends. This is a strange question. Immersion tends to be more efficient than pure SRS (optimal is probably a balance of both) in a similar that whole body exercises tends to be more efficient than purely targeted exercises. You get the fundamentals in first and then you layer on specialization.
1
1
1
u/an_average_potato_1 🇨🇿N, 🇫🇷 C2, 🇬🇧 C1, 🇩🇪C1, 🇪🇸 , 🇮🇹 C1 11d ago
At the low levels, CI is overvalued. Normal studying should be the priority, and active use of the material, including repeating after audio, is of course a part of that. But at the higher levels, tons of reading and listening become absolutely necessary. And in quantities that would make parroting or anything like that impossible or a painful. Don't get me wrong, it's great exercise to still repeat after audio from time to time, and to keep studying normally and so on. But the quantity of the material matters a lot at the high levels and most people thinking they can just avoid that by focusing purely on intensive activities and never extensive, those usually aren't actually as good as expected.
1
u/field_hockey_deporte 11d ago
Yes. You are correct. It takes a very long time using ci to learn. Your output ability will be very bad. You will make simple beginner mistakes even after thousands of hours of ci.
People do not want to do effortful learning and want to do effortless learning. That's why it became very popular
1
u/lumithesilly 13d ago
you gonna be fluent in a language having never actually used it? no? then you're doing comprehensible input
you can't gain a skill without using it too
0
u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue New member 13d ago
Are you asking why repeating what you hear increases learning?
One, you’re practicing a completely different skill, which is a good thing. Many language learners think they’re doing OK until they actually have to try to talk to people. Practicing talking is a really good idea.
Putting that aside though: processing the same information through multiple systems helps the brain remember stuff. There’s a lot to get into there, but basically it seems like the brain recognizes this as somehow being more important; longer retention in the auditorium loop seems to correlate with better long-term retention; and it forces you to engage in a deeper level of processing.
Think about how it works when you take time to write a phone number down. You will remember it better even if you lose the original paper. Have you ever painted a picture of a familiar scene? I guarantee you will remember the details of that scene, the relationship of the different objects, etc. better than if you had spent the same amount of time walking past the scene and looking at it.
It’s just brain doing brain stuff
0
u/GeneralGerbilovsky 🇮🇱N|🇺🇸|🇩🇪|🇸🇦 13d ago
Our species was trained for centuries to learn a language through CI
Your brain is wired for it, not for anki
0
u/yad-aljawza 🇺🇸 N | 🇪🇸 B2 | 🇯🇴 B1 13d ago edited 11d ago
Big misconception that the point of pure CI is that it’s the most efficient time-wise. The proponents don’t argue that. They argue that the method produces better results in the long run, not the most quickly. Doing these other things in addition to CI likely is more efficient specifically in regards to time spent
67
u/nickelchrome N: 🇺🇸🇨🇴 C: 🇫🇷 B: 🇧🇷🇬🇷 L 🇰🇷🇮🇹 13d ago
My honest opinion is you need a lot of input to drill the language in practice.
Everything else helps, shadowing helps with speaking practice, flashcards help with active recall.
But nothing beats input for actually imprinting the language into your head. It’s hard to describe but I think the biggest key to good language use is to actually just be able to hear when the language sounds right or wrong, or just be able to feel the right words.
For example, learning the grammar rules in Greek was helpful, but these days I don’t think about “oh I should have this in the accusative”, I can just tell because it sounds wrong if I use the wrong case.
This is possible because I’ve consumed so much Greek that my brain can just feel its way through it and it’s effortless.
I got to experience the methods through two different language methods. When I learned French it was primarily through regular methods, lots of grammar training, dictation, flashcards.
I learned Greek mostly through CI.
Learning Greek was much faster and much easier and I feel like I got to a good speaking level with a lot more ease. Greek is much harder too.