Also a while ago I went on a 2 week trip with 3 norwegian friends and they spent nearly the whole time speaking norwegian (which to me sounded like gibberish when I first heard it) and by the end of the trip I was surprised that I could actually pick up on some of the things they were saying with no prior knowledge of the language. I also know someone who learned an incredible amount of czech by just tagging along with a group of czechs.

Personally, I think that this method has a lot to do with being attentive and actually listening to the language, if you are tuning out and not paying attention you’re obviously not going to take it in, but if used properly I think it could be a good stepping stone for learning another language.

The article is nicompoop and gives me a strong gut feeling that the listening method is invalid and would strongly dissuade actual learning if people actually put this into practice.
Here are some reason’s for why I agree with John and believe that this listening method of learning spanish is not a method at all:

First of all I have a story:
I had a music teacher, someone with perfect pitch, and a doctorate in music (sound). He’s spent time learning different languages for singing in his expert music theory class.
He said to make a point that his children both were learning portugese because they had moved there to study music. One child made a complete fool of himself using his muscles to sound out letters, and trying to speak the language non stop. The other was too embarrassed to speak the language INCORRECTLY and didn’t learn the language very well at all. The experimentation and constant practice of a language is how you learn it.

and it makes complete sense.
You learn by doing.
You learn by developing muscle memory.
You learn by actively engaging with the people you are talking to.

Muscle memory is a phenominon that musicians like myself are very familiar with. If you practice a song a thousand times your muscles with automatically learn that song. If you practice swimming you must first learn the technique by practicing the technique. You don’t spend a year watching people swim to learn how to swim. you jump in the water and learn how to swim yourself. and practice practice practice until your muscles automatically know how to swim without thinking about it. in fluid motion.

THE SAME Goes for speaking. You must actively practice speech in order to learn it. Certainly listening is important, but it is futile to learn a language if you are not using your tounge and aquiring muscle memory.

I’m learning spanish as an native English speaker, and living with a with a Spanish speaking family. I learn by doing not just sitting and listening. There’s few things that I can say with great confidence are wrong. This article is flat out wrong. and I’d like to see any of you non swimmers try to jump in the middle of a lake just by watching people swim for two years. hahaha.

Thanks for your post. Well, i suggest you to take a look to all the tittles of the post and see which ones are more interesting for you… there is so many topics, and every week we publish at least 2 new ones!
Cheers!

The linguistic hypothesis proposed by Chomsky that language is innate has been scientifically questioned and disproven by many researchers proving that there’s nothing innate in language. And no linguistics existed even before they made this unsupported hypothesis, so you don’t have to believe in it to be a linguist.

Everyone will have to choose which hypothesis they want to believe but rest assured that “language is innate” is just a thin air hypothesis but a fact and not certainly something you “must” believe.

I want to suggest John Bruer book “The Myth of the First Three Years”
Disproving scientifically with brain scans the hypothesis that children are meant to learn and adults not (as if learning something every day of your life wasn’t needed to survive and thrive in this planet) and the hypothesis that the brain of children is a sponge and that of adults is a wall.