#you can use comprehemsible input Learner Resources no matter who you are or what your study plan is! its just a useful resource!

[rigelmejo]

I hope the posts I make about comprehensible input are useful and help people understand things.

I see soany people confused on language learning forums about comprehensible input. Asking about what it is, if they have to use it to learn a language, if it's "better," if it's 70% or 98% or if it's about reading or lessons.

It's just a term. A term that people confuse for more than it is, since it's used in many contexts.

Comprehensible input is input (so listening, reading, watching) that you understand the meaning of. That's all.

In reading, many classes refer to 95-98% comprehensible input (aka reading material with only 2-5 unknown words out of 100) as ideal extensive reading material. Extensive reading material is reading material where you read and can easily guess new words from context - it's a big activity we did to learn to read in our native languages. Ideal intensive reading material in classes is usually 90-95% comprehensible (as in you don't know 5-10 words out of 100 on the page), and usually in classes and learning material the unknown words will be provided in a glossary or vocabulary list so you can comprehend 98-100% with the help of using the glossary/vocabulary list/looking up the meaning of unknown words. That is how comprehensible input as a term is used in literature classes, in foreign language teaching discussions about intensive and extensive reading. It's about specifically how many words you comprehend (understand) in the reading material, and then if that makes it better as extensive reading material where you can simply guess the unknown words from context, or if you need to read it intensively (look up words) in order to make it more comprehensible (understandable).

In learner forums, comprehensible input often vaguely means "anything you can comprehend the main idea of with or without tools". So a graded reader for your language level would be comprehensible input as it is (as you'd kmow enough words to understand the main idea with no tools), a textbook dialogue with a vocabulary list would be comprehensible input (where the tool of the vocavulary list helps make the dialogue comprehensible), a show where you look up every unknown word until you undersrand the main idea would be comprehensible input (by intensively looking up unknown words with a translation tool). Comprehensible Input lessons for learners are (usually) a video or classroom where teachers use visuals like gestures, objects, pictures, and expressions to make the main idea of what they're communicating very comprehensible even if you don't know any words they're saying. Comprehensible input lessons made for intermediate students tend to use more of words they expect learners to know, and less visuals, more like graded readers and learner podcasts.

Learners refer to ALL of those things as comprehensible input. Even though they're different! Even though some would require tools to comprehend! If you comprehemd the main idea, it's comprehensible to you. If you can't comprehend the main ideas, you can use tools to Make a material comprehensible by looking up enough unknown items to understand the main idea.

If you comprehend input enough to understand the main idea of something, then you can guess some more details from context - and gradually learn more stuff from the material just from context. So if you make it so you comprehend input, then you can further learn more words and details and grammar from the context of the portions you understand. So if you use a Comprehensible Input Lesson for beginners, and understand the main idea using visual images, the idea is you'll learn some words you're hearing by guessing/understanding based on the context of the images (which you understand). If you use a graded reader and there's 1 unknown word in 100 words you don't know, the idea is you can guess or infer the meaning of that 1 unknown word in context. If you read a news article and look up enough key words to understand the main idea of the article, chances are you'll be able to guess a few additional words in that article from context (without having to look all the words up). If you watch Peppa Pig in a target language, and can follow the main idea using the visuals of the objects on screen, chances are you can guess a rough meaning of some of the words they're saying (maybe they're holding an apple and keep saying a word so you eventually guess that means apple).

Some people say they comprehend as low as 50% of something, and where those kind of guesses come from is probably visual media more. Maybe they comprehend 50% of the actual words in Peppa Pig, but they understand most of the main ideas that are going on in the story thanks to the visuals. People might say they comprehend as little as 20% of a Super Beginner Dreaming Spanish video if say they learned few words, but thanks to the visuals explaining everything visually they understand 90% of the actual main ideas.

My way of deciding if a material is comprehensible enough to start learning some things from context, is if I can follow the main idea. Whether that's a learner podcast and I just happen to know most of the words so I can follow the main idea, or a novel and I look up enough keywords while I read (use a tool) to understand the main idea, or I watch a cartoon where I know few words but visually can understand the main idea going on.

It is comprehensible input, if you comprehend the main idea. That's all. Use tools if you need to, or don't if you understand the main idea without tools.

Learning material designed specifically to be comprehensible to learners tends to be labelled "comprehensible input." I think confusion here comes when someone is studying using ALG or Dreaming Spanish method, and then tells someone else "comprehensible input" is the name of the METHOD they're learning through and it involves no textbooks or classes. The method they're studying with is a specific method. The Dreaming Spanish method, or the ALG method. The method involves using a specific kind of comprehensible input - lessons made for learners, then materials designed for learners to use extensively (as in understandable without tools), then materials for native speakers. But ALL language learning methods utilize various types of comprehensible input. These study methods (ALG, Dreaming Spanish) just specifically use "comprehensible input learner materials" and recommend not using study materials which require tools (by which I mean lookups, translations, explanations in another language, any intensive kinds of study where you look up explanations and translations).

On the other end of the spectrum, some learners call all immersion comprehensible input. And by that they tend to mean, they ARE using tools (anki decks, translation apps, grammar guides) to look up enough words in material to comprehend the main idea. So they are using tools to understand some materials, and perhaps also using comprehensible input made for learners (such as comprehensible input lessons and learner podcasts), and eventually material made for native speakers Is comprehensible enough to them without tools to follow the main idea. This would be Refold method, and some other learners who use the term "comprehensible input" to mean immersion, learner podcasts, CI lessons, broadly.

Textbooks are comprehensible input, designed to have the tools BUILT in to make it comprehensible (vocabulary glossaries with translations, grammar explanations). Language/Target Language sentence audio like Pimsleur and Glossika are comprehensible input - they make it comprehensible by giving you the translation so you understand the input.

All immersion you understand the main idea of, is comprehensible input. Which all learners will do EVENTUALLY when they one day read, listen, watch, speak with someone, write back and forth with someone in the language. All learners get comprehensible input in some form, usually multiple forms. Sometimes comprehensible input you just understand the main idea from context alone. Sometimes you make something into comprehensible input by using tools to understand the main idea. As long as you understand the main idea (however you can), then you can learn additional bits of language from the context of the parts you do understand.

I hope that makes sense.