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Language learning is similar to riding a bike?

by Alkanadi, September 17, 2015

Messages: 8

Language: English

Alkanadi (User's profile) September 17, 2015, 9:55:35 AM

What is your opinion of "learn by doing" when it comes to languages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqAFosSqC28

Can you compare learning a language to riding a bike?

sudanglo (User's profile) September 17, 2015, 1:06:53 PM

It would be very inefficient to teach Esperanto by asking learners to work out the rules for themselves from examples (just throwing them in at the deep end and expecting them to swim).

Alkanadi (User's profile) September 17, 2015, 2:02:15 PM

sudanglo:It would be very inefficient to teach Esperanto by asking learners to work out the rules for themselves from examples (just throwing them in at the deep end and expecting them to swim).
Yah. When you learn how to ride a bike there is a lot of informal teaching. Nobody just gets on and rides. They observe a lot and their parents teach them.

johmue (User's profile) September 17, 2015, 2:15:07 PM

Alkanadi:What is your opinion of "learn by doing" when it comes to languages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqAFosSqC28

Can you compare learning a language to riding a bike?
Ia am a big friend of learning a language by using it. However when it comes to Esperanto, many beginners have the tendency, to learn it by publishing something like poems, blog articles, wikipedia articles, youtube videos.

That's a bit like learning to fly on a full booked Airbus A380 whose passangers don't even know that their captain is a pilot learner who never touched a yoke before.

Tempodivalse (User's profile) September 17, 2015, 4:23:20 PM

The main disanalogy between riding a bike and learning a language is that it's hard to forget how to ride a bike after long periods of disuse, but easy with languages. (I don't remember hardly anything of Mandarin after almost a decade.)

devilyoudont (User's profile) September 17, 2015, 4:32:02 PM

I don't think it's a good metaphor at the very least because "like riding a bike" has a set meaning in English and it isn't this.

Is it true that immersion is important? Obviously. But it's also clear that some people can't achieve fluency even living long term in a completely immersed environment.

In the end, people learn in different ways. Try different approaches. The approach which leaves you excited to work on it every day is the one which will work best in the long term even if it is hypothetically slower in the short

eshapard (User's profile) September 17, 2015, 7:10:18 PM

That video confuses learning with practicing; knowledge with skill.

You don't learn to speak a language well by speaking it. You develop that skill by practicing it. Ditto: hearing it, reading it, writing it, etc.

In order to practice it though, you have to first learn it somehow. No one gets on a bike unless they've learned that the handlebars steer it, pumping the pedals makes it go, and how to use the brakes. The rest of their learning may come from trial and error... which can be a painful but effective way to learn.

I've noticed that language course salesmen often promise that you can skip the work of studying the language and just jump right into fluency!... It must sell.

Alkanadi (User's profile) September 20, 2015, 10:01:02 AM

eshapard:I've noticed that language course salesmen often promise that you can skip the work of studying the language and just jump right into fluency!... It must sell.
People want to learn language but classes are so painful. They will do anything to avoid it.

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