Any stereo audio learning resources for other languages?

[berkeman]

I had an interesting thought tonight, but my Google-foo is failing me so far. I learned Spanish as a second language in high school, and have lost most of that skill over the years. I learned a fair bit of Japanese as an Army bratt stationed in Yokohama in the late 1960s with my family, but have also lost most of that ability to understand and speak Japanese.

I would like to refresh on one of those languages or perhaps another language, but the traditional learning paths don't appeal to me. I think that I could benefit a lot from a teaching modality where stereo audio was used, along with the brain's ability to process two parallel audio streams from the left and right ears at the same time.

We use the stereo processing ability extensively in emergency communication situations (in EMS, Fire, HAM radio, etc.), where you listen to two different channels at the same time with stereo headphones and have to mentally separate them. It seems like if I were hearing Spanish in one ear and the simultaneous English translation in the other ear, that would help a lot to facilitate my re-learning of the language. There would be some subtleties to making the presentation optimum for the stereo learning experience (switching back and forth between commentary about grammar issues and the actual conversational examples), but it seems like if you started with the model of simultaneous stereo audio, there could be a lot of learning leverage with that language learning paradigm.

And I'm well aware that language translation of conversational sentences is not word-for-word, so of course there would be some desynchronization as sentences were played in stereo in both ears (adjectives versus noun positions in sentences in Spanish, for example), but I don't think that would be much of an issue once you got used to the presentation.

Has anyone seen this type of learning presentation/modality before? If so, I'd like to give it a try. If not, I guess I need to get a lot better at either Spanish or Japanese, and try to put together a trial version...

 

[jedishrfu]

Well there’s the Rosetta Stone learning system. It’s fast paced works well fo European languages but not as well for Asian languages. They apparently tried to shoehorn Asian languages into the euro model.

I’ve not used RosettaStone myself. I let my wife do the talking as many husbands do but I digress.

Ite an interesting idea. I wonder if the multi channels of a dvd movie could be accessed at the same time to do the left right ear trick you mentioned.

 

[skeptic2]

I learned Spanish while living in Chicago. I did it by attending evening conversational Spanish classes at a local community college and by listening only to Spanish language radio and television stations for over a year. The Spanish classes allowed me to ask and get answers to questions about things I couldn't understand about Spanish. Listening to Spanish language stations helped me develop an ear for Spanish words so I could distinguish words in sentences as opposed to hearing a string of unconnected syllables.

 

[Hirted99]

I don't like to bring up old topics, but learning Spanish got me too I tried to learn it during my 1 year of living in Spain, but it was not successful at all. It's too difficult.

 

[symbolipoint]

Maybe just my strong feeling; but one needs to learn a language with and through people and not with nor through any technology. Some mention was of "as a second language", which indicates language acquisition. The instruction, such as in a properly taught class/classroom with people for speaking and listening is necessary.

 

[pinball1970]

I don't like to bring up old topics, but learning Spanish got me too I tried to learn it during my 1 year of living in Spain, but it was not successful at all. It's too difficult.

It's an old thread but interesting. I learned some basics off YouTube for a trip but I was pretty useless.
You need to put time in for practice.

 

[symbolipoint]

It's an old thread but interesting. I learned some basics off YouTube for a trip but I was pretty useless.
You need to put time in for practice.

That is an understatement.

Two kinds of language learning instruction: Study, and Acquisition. One does not achieve speak-listen acquisition through study. One of the intended results of "ESL" is to help the students ACQUIRE English. The instruction is designed for language acquisition.

 

[Hirted99]

It's an old thread but interesting. I learned some basics off YouTube for a trip but I was pretty useless.
You need to put time in for practice.

Thank you. Yeah, it's probably just a matter of practice.

 

[pinball1970]

That is an understatement.

Two kinds of language learning instruction: Study, and Acquisition. One does not achieve speak-listen acquisition through study. One of the intended results of "ESL" is to help the students ACQUIRE English. The instruction is designed for language acquisition.

One huge difference for me. I was taught French and German at school, text books teachers, cassettes for oral/aural practice. 1983

I went to France years after and was lost everything sounded like a jumbled mess.

We got an Austrian then a German student in the lab for a year in the late 90s so years after my formal lessons. When I went to Germany I could understand a significant percentage by the end of the trip and they could understand me.
The same with Hungarian, no lessons, no idea on spelling or grammar but listening to my gf family for a few years and writing everything out phonetically before a trip for vocab and by the end of a trip, there was decent basic communication.

For me that was the difference, whole days practicing and listening. Unfortunately I could not do that at school, I was too busy trying to conjugate irregular verbs!

 

[symbolipoint]

One huge difference for me. I was taught French and German at school, text books teachers, cassettes for oral/aural practice. 1983

I went to France years after and was lost everything sounded like a jumbled mess.

We got an Austrian then a German student in the lab for a year in the late 90s so years after my formal lessons. When I went to Germany I could understand a significant percentage by the end of the trip and they could understand me.
The same with Hungarian, no lessons, no idea on spelling or grammar but listening to my gf family for a few years and writing everything out phonetically before a trip for vocab and by the end of a trip, there was decent basic communication.

For me that was the difference, whole days practicing and listening. Unfortunately I could not do that at school, I was too busy trying to conjugate irregular verbs!

Finally, somebody who understands this maybe not identically, but mostly the way I do.

 

[Bruzote]

Maybe just my strong feeling; but one needs to learn a language with and through people and not with nor through any technology. Some mention was of "as a second language", which indicates language acquisition. The instruction, such as in a properly taught class/classroom with people for speaking and listening is necessary.

"Needs"? Well, for basic Spanish it can be enough. Listening only to the "Learn in Your Car" Spanish series from Peloton Press (out of business now), playing their CDs and using the printed material (word-for-word) to clarify the audio content, I was able to engage in conversational Spanish. (The left channel was English, the right one Spanish, btw. If I felt like it, I could use just one channel at a time for translating one way or the other, but then losing the confirmation from the other channel. Either way, it still took as much playing time on the CD.)

After my studying (on and off for years, only while driving), I could understand Spanish speakers if they woul speak with clear enunciation and obvious gap between the words, which is not easy to get people to do. Still, I got married to my Peruvian wife in Peru, conversed with her family, and gave a speech at the reception. Few people spoke English, so I had to up my game quickly. That was hard and I had mixed results. Unfortunately, the speech I had given sounded like I was fluent, and many wedding guests I had not met well would later come up to me and speak "rapidly" in regular Spanish. Of course, regular speakers tend to run one word into another and get sloppy on enunciation (because it is time and energy efficient). So, I was quite overwhelmed when they did that. Still, I was able to get about on my own with the Spanish I had learned from nothing but a set of CDs. It was a slow and grueling process, but I didn't have the luxury of living in a different community for weeks or even months on end. BTW, I also ended up breaking my CD player's reverse button! :-D

 

[Bruzote]

To be clear, I actually spoke better Spanish before I met my Spanish-speaking wife. She has not been patient enough and my Spanish has actually declined due to lack of study since I met and married her! Go figure!

 

[symbolipoint]

Bruzote
Figuring if you are just special to be able to learn the way you did, is difficult. Your method would definitely not work for me.