Mark Rounds
1 HN recommender · recommended in 4 months, 2018–2025
15:25 · 1.5M views · Oct 15, 2010
A 15-minute clip of linguist Stephen Krashen discussing language acquisition, drawn from the 1980s. It presents his input hypothesis and the distinction between acquisition and learning.
Cited as the source for comprehensible input, the principle behind immersion-based language learning methods and apps.
4 comments from Hacker News
I think Duolingo is great for forming habits. Ultimately, if you want to learn something new you need to work on that skill over a decent period of time, and this becomes hard to do without a regular habit. Duolingo is also great at exposing yourself to the language gradually, but unless your goal is to simply be able to hold a conversation or say a few phrases, I don't think it will get you anywhere in the long run. As I'm getting more into language learning (specifically Japanese), Krashen's input hypothesis seems to be an important part of the process. this video Essentially he makes the distinction between "learning" that word A in language X has some meaning Y, and acquiring an unconscious understanding that word A means Y. His main point being that this unconscious acquisition (that is, being able to hear a words/phrase and not having to put conscious effort into to translating it in your head) only comes from comprehensible input, that is, listening to the language and understanding messages (I'm not so convinced that it has to be entirely 100% comprehensible, rather from experience think language can be acquired even from something like 20% comprehensible material). Communities have been rising up around Krashen's theory, one being AJATT (All japanese all the time). alljapaneseallthetime.com The creator of the site advocated listening to native Japanese material 24/7 (or at least as much as you possibly can during the day) as well as making i+1 sentence (linking back to
I don't want to discourage the author but, to be honest, what I see is nowhere close to what I figure would help me to learn Japanese. Questions I see on home page have nothing to do with learning - some about traveling around the country, some about translating "good morning", etc. True - I haven't registered. TBH though I don't see why should I. When it comes to learning any language, but Japanese in particular, I can't thank enough to the guys who created Mass Immersion Approach web page[0]. Their method is based on Stephen Krashen's "language acquisition through comprehensible input"[1] and... it just works. I've been learning Japanese in the classroom for around 2 years. I've been living in Japan for 5 years and my Japanese was rather mediocre. I've left Japan for a year and forgot a lot. Grammar is gone now, most sentence patterns are gone, mose kanji (and I've never been big on kanji) are gone. Now, after 4 months of MIA I am better then I've ever been. If you truly want to learn the language - read the page, watch their YT videos[2], just do yourself a favor and stop wasting your time. PS. I am not related. Just a happy learner. [0] [LINK] [1] this video [2] [LINK]
> We seem to just pick up our native language so easily as we're growing up, but it seems difficult to pick up a new language with the same ease later on. Easily? It takes many thousands of hours to learn our native language in the first few years of life. > I started with learning the sounds of the language first (and how to pronounce the written language) which set up the framework for learning words and phrases later on. That’s not how language acquisition works. this video [LINK]
Link: [LINK] I'm building Infinite Pod, a web app that generates language learning podcasts tuned to your individual learning goals and level. It's based on the principle of language acquisition through comprehensible input, as described here: this video It's still a bit rough, but feels magical in my own testing so I wanted to make it available to others.