#alghub

[rigelmejo]

I've been very interested in the r/dreamingspanish and r/ALGhub subreddits lately. Mainly because it's very cool to see people share their progress reports of: how many hours they studied, what resources they used (very useful if you're looking for material you might understand at various milestones), and what milestones of understanding they've hit so far (what kind of stuff they can understand in the language and do) and what is still difficult or impossible for them.

I highly recommend checking out r/dreamingspanish for Spanish material recommendations, and ideas, and to compare your own progress after X hours. I am not an ALG/CI purist, and even though I've used a ton of explicit learning resources (anki, memrise, textbooks, classes, youtube explanation videos, grammar guides, word translations) along with content I understood the main idea of with no aid (more like ALG/comprehensible input pure methods recommend), I found that their hours for milestones are still somewhat in line with my experiences. So I think learners who use some media they understand the main idea of, even if they do some explicit learning, will find the milestones and comparing with other learner's progress of some use.

I know French, Chinese, and Japanese, too much to try learning any using a pure ALG/Comprehensible Input approach. But I really wish I could test the method out on a brand new language ToT. Alas, I do NOT have enough time in my life. So I've settled for seeing how the ALG/CI method ideas can be applied to improving from where I'm at. For Chinese, this is easy, as comprehensible input for understanding the main idea is whatever audio I want to listen to (if I don't look up words or don't count time I look up words). And listening for hundreds of hours was alrwady my goal for Chinese, so this is just motivating me to listen MORE and have a goal milestone to hit in X hours. For Japanese, I simply do not want to sacrifice the speed explicit learning has for initial familiarity with words, so I'm still trying to cram through glossika and learn 5000 words (although I'd argue Krashen - not ALG but him in particular - argued any input that's comprehended, even with aid like english translation, which is what glossika is, japanese audio made immediately comprehensible by english translation right after, also how the Listening Reading Method works, in any case glossika is very much NOT compatible with ALG lol). In addition to glossika, I'm watching Comprehensible Japanese youtube and just watching in order from Complete Beginner. I tried watching peppa pig in Japanese and I could do it, but wow do I not like that cartoon. I wish I could watch Rugrats in Japanese instead. I do find Comprehensible Japanese is helping with grammar quick-comprehension, even though right now I know all the words. For French: I've been watching Comprehensible Input French (a phenomenal channel), and listening to Ayan Academy's voiced videos for Francais par Le Methode Nature (a book I used to study with). I know most of these words, but my listening skill in french is like A1-A2 Attrocious!!! I can't understand Spoken french of things I can read! So I'm hoping it helps my listening skills, and it would be cool to test if this Comprehensible Input only method helps make words more nuanced in my head (the visuals on Comprehensible Input French youtube helped make words feel more Active in my head, attached to a mental image, instead of how they are now mostly in passive storage where I only remember meaning when seeing them spelled in a book). I also am curious if the comprehensible input exposure will help speaking skills eventually, seeing as I have barely any speaking skills. (It's bad, I can read anything in French but if someones speaking or I need to speak it's like I know almost nothing, that's what I get learning to read Primarily).