I found the Michel Thomas Spanish really useful, if you can get over the fact that one of the students on the audio keeps making mistakes and slows up the process. If there is a basic review CD available I'd go for that, all the content is taken form the foundation audio except its just Michel Thomas speaking. Be aware of his accent thogh. He is Swiss.

There is a book called Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish and the teaching method uses similar principles as the Michel Thomas method, in that she starts from familiar words and uses formulas.

I also found Street Spanish by David Burke really good fun because it deals with the idioms of the language such as "I'm taking your hair" (Pulling your leg) etc.

Just my 2 pesos worth.

Tim

eliansito wrote:

Those (not very accurate) affirmations are being questioned by the whole theory of the plasticity of the brain, besides being the least helpful beliefs/almost excuses for someone learning a new language.

A massive number of our neural connections die out after a certain age, and among those are the ones for native acquisition of language. This isn't an "unhelpful belief" or an "excuse"; it's a documented fact. It's been questioned, and the question has been answered.

That isn't a bad thing. It's streamlining. Our nervous systems become more efficient.

Simply put, using babies as models of language acquisition is like using a dog as a model of improving our sense of smell; their nervous systems are different from ours. There's an immutable limit on the model. We can use it, but we have to adapt it.

Neuroplacticity doesn't change that. Our brains haven't suddenly become more plastic with the development of the theory; the theory explains what people have been doing all along. And no one has found an adult who can acquire language natively.

Besides... who would want to do it that way? An adult is capable of developing competence in a foreign language in months; it takes babies five or more years to acquire native fluency.

timkenning wrote:

I found the Michel Thomas Spanish really useful, if you can get over the fact that one of the students on the audio keeps making mistakes and slows up the process.

That's not a bug; it's a feature.

^^^ Fully!

It's part of the learning process. Allows you to refine your own response after hearing a less desirable one. Involves you more fully in the process as the 3rd student.

Michels programs rock!

Mandarin is incredibly fun to learn aswell. Using hand gestures and colours aswell.

Michael_DeBusk wrote:

A massive number of our neural connections die out after a certain age, and among those are the ones for native acquisition of language.

Neuroplacticity doesn't change that. Our brains haven't suddenly become more plastic with the development of the theory; the theory explains what people have been doing all along. And no one has found an adult who can acquire language natively.

Besides... who would want to do it that way? An adult is capable of developing competence in a foreign language in months; it takes babies five or more years to acquire native fluency.

If there was such thing as native acquisition of language which would be what ? the equivalent of downright "inmersion"?? Like surrounding yourself with the language 24/7 and no choice scape from it right?

That those neurological connections die means they are not used anymore it doens't mean they CANNOT be used anymore.


The theory of the plasticity of the brain does not make our brains more plastic.

The belief that some things cannot be made in the same way after a certain age CAN make our brains more rigid.

Applying the theory of the plasticity of the brain CAN make our brains more flexible because if the theory says it can be done, and we act on on that presuposition, we will do it.

In terms of practicality learning a language like adults do is more practical, because not everyone can drop everything and just move in with a family to a village where nothing but that language is spoken.

BUT if logistics were not the problem, moving to the very country, and be surrounded 24/7 by the language you want to learn and being forced to use the language for your very survival is to this day the most effective/comprehensive/exponential method of learning a language, isnt that precisely the way babies learn?

Every adult can learn a language natively.

You talk about competency I talk about proficiency. Native learning can still include traditional methods for that matter.

About time? My bets would go for the native learner too, as I said learning that way is exponential. Something methods lack, or are slower at that. (the snowball effect)

Dogs are different species, and they have different neurology but you could still make an old dog bark like a puppy if the conditions were proper.(that didnt came out nice...sorry, not intentional )

Humans do have the same neurology as babies, and according to the theory of the plasticity of the brain they do so at any given age.

Thanks!

Enzym wrote:

Hello!
I´ve resently moved to spain and are right now in huge need to learn Spannish. So i was thinkig if its possible so speed things up with nlp and hypnosis. The dream ofcourse would be to learn it all throgth hypnosis, in trance. Juste emerge and know the basics för spannis, or do it throgth several selfhypnosis sessions..

So what do u guys think, whats the best most efective and fastest way to learn spanish with nlp and hypnosis as help?

Regards..
Peter

Peter,

It is possible to unconsciously install beliefs, strategies and processes for learning spanish faster and easier, but you are still going to have to practice the language to keep this skills.

Have you seen the film The Matrix? Even when Neo has all the fighting skills implanted into his brain he still has to go practice them with Morpheus.

Get the Michel Thomas spanish CD's these make it extremely easy to learn from....

OH and someone commented on the mistakes by the students in another post.........are there on purpose........

Cheers,

Jason

livemocha.com is like rosetta stone, but online, completely free, and has like 8 or 10 different languages. In addition to basically being an exact replica of rosetta stone online but free, it's a community too, you can record your voice and people will gladly correct your pronunciation, accent and grammar. you can also post written work. check it out while it's free.

Thanks a lot! I tried it out yesterday and had a blast with some Spanish lessons. One feature they have that I wish Chris would consider for NLP connections is the ability to record an audio responce. Imagine how many NLP conniptions could be stopped right away if people would be able to post what they want to say by actually saying it, with proper intonations and emphasis!
And give the fact that a lot of participants are decent hypnotists the possiblilties....

Oh Alex - what an idea - yes audio or video -

You could load it on you tube and make a link, couldn't you.


SL is good for that - have you been to Nina's Healing Pool?


:

eliansito wrote:

Every adult can learn a language natively.

You've demonstrated in this post that you don't know what "native acquisition" is, so your entire premise is faulty. So here's what I'll do. I'll continue to discuss this topic with you after you have proven to my satisfaction that you have acquired, natively, a language that you never heard before the age of twelve.

Michael_DeBusk wrote:

You've demonstrated in this post that you don't know what "native acquisition" is, so your entire premise is faulty. So here's what I'll do. I'll continue to discuss this topic with you after you have proven to my satisfaction that you have acquired, natively, a language that you never heard before the age of twelve.

Michael,
I can provide you many examples of people who have learned language as adults and speak them better than "natives." What is a native speaker anyway? We don't really think in language, we think in ideas. Language is just a means that we use to express those ideas. Take the Russian journalist Vladimir Pozner. His "native" language is Russian. As a teen he lived in New York and went to school in NYC. He returned to Russia where he currently lives. I can tell you, he speaks Russian with a noticeable accent. He speaks English, however, with no accent whatsoever. Language is a living thing that is constantly changing, just like you and I. Blink! In that brief moment cells in your body died and new cells emerged. Wait 15 years. You'll have wrinkles you didn't have before. A few more gray hairs. A couple more fat cells. 15 years from now there will vastly different words in all languages, Russian, English, Mandarin, Swahili, and there will be words that are archaic. So, if you leave this fine land and relocated to Switzerland, you'll speak German. 15 years from now you'll come back here and what you remembered American English to be will be something different. You may even come across as less "native" to some. But I'll still love ya .

russianbear wrote:

I can provide you many examples of people who have learned language as adults and speak them better than "natives."

You don't need to. I can provide myself with many of those examples. There's a Physician Assistant in our ER who is a native Spanish speaker and who speaks English so beautifully I'm almost jealous. To be a native speaker is not necessarily to be a perfectly competent speaker.

So if anyone is equating "native" with "skilled" in this discussion, that might explain the difficulty. We all know unskilled native speakers and highly skilled non-native speakers. Skill is acquired. What isn't acquired is the set of internal rules or intuitions that a native speaker has and that a non-native speaker, even a fluent one, does not.

What is a native speaker anyway?

This looks like begging the question, and ordinarily I'd say it is, but: essentially, a speaker's native language is the language they learned in childhood. (If someone learns two languages in childhood, they are native to two languages.)

The reason this isn't begging the question, other than the fact that the word "native" means "born into", is because of the fMRI evidence of the neural changes that take place after native acquisition. Refer to "Processing lexical semantic information in second language shaped native langauge by event-related fMRI" for the fMRI images as an example.

We don't really think in language, we think in ideas.

While the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been discredited, it's true, there are some variants of it that are gaining support. (I'm sorry I don't have a reference.) Language and thought ARE related, and they DO influence one another... just not to the degree that Sapir-Whorf asserted.

Language is just a means that we use to express those ideas.

I'd say that's a rather dramatic over-simplification, but I get what you're trying to say. Have you read Samuel Hayakawa's book, Language in Thought and Action? I think you'd appreciate it, if you haven't. [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-S-I-Hayakawa/dp/0156482401"]Amazon Link[/ame]

15 years from now you'll come back here and what you remembered American English to be will be something different.

And yet the parts of my brain that will be active when speaking English will be those that are active now, and have been since I was a child, and those which are active while speaking German will be those that are active now, when I speak just enough German to ask a girl to come back to my place for a drink.

You may even come across as less "native" to some.

My parents are from southwestern Virginia, and have lived in northeastern Maryland for over forty years. When a relative, like my mother's sister, comes up to visit, I can hear a marked contrast between my parents' speech and theirs. (There's more Scotch-Irish in their relatives' speech than in theirs.) At the same time, I can hear a marked difference between my own speech and my that of my parents'. (I've intentionally cultivated a dialect closer to Standard American English, but I find that, as I get older, I'm letting it slip.)

But I'll still love ya .

That isn't love. It's morbid fascination, like we feel when driving by the scene of an accident.

Michael_DeBusk wrote:

You've demonstrated in this post that you don't know what "native acquisition" is, so your entire premise is faulty. So here's what I'll do. I'll continue to discuss this topic with you after you have proven to my satisfaction that you have acquired, natively, a language that you never heard before the age of twelve.

My premise might be faulty, but not all my points were made out of that premise...anyway, let it be your way.

I wikied "native acquisition" and there is no entry with that particular wording, there is though this piece under "Acquisition-learning hypothesis"

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In modern linguistics, there are many theories as to how humans are able to develop language ability. According to Stephen Krashen's acquisition-learning hypothesis, there are two independent ways in which we develop our linguistic skills: acquisition and learning. [1] This theory is at the core of modern language acquisition theory, and is perhaps the most fundamental of Krashen's theories on Second Language Acquisition.

Acquisition
Acquisition of language is a subconscious process of which the individual is not aware. One is unaware of the process as it is happening and when the new knowledge is acquired, the acquirer generally does not realize that he or she possesses any new knowledge. According to Krashen, both adults and children can subconsciously acquire language, and either written or oral language can be acquired.[1] This process is similar to the process that children undergo when learning their native language. Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language, during which the acquirer is focused on meaning rather than form. [2]

Learning
Learning a language, on the other hand, is a conscious process, much like what one experiences in school. New knowledge or language forms are represented consciously in the learner's mind, frequently in the form of language "rules" and "grammar" and the process often involves error correction.[1]. Language learning involves formal instruction, and according to Krashen, is less effective than acquisition.[2]

Acquisition-learning hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I dont know if that matches your definition of native acquisition, please refer me if its not accurate.

QUALIFYING
I speak indonesian fluently, before I moved here (Indonesia, 7 years ago), I had never in my life heard indonesian language (I am spanish 34), and I have never in my life attended a course nor opened a book with the purpose of learning the language either before or after coming here.

Furthermore, a friend of mine moved here without any (0) knowledge of english nor indonesian language and learnt both at the same rate and speed, his not being able to speak english speeded up rather than slowing his learning process, in my case I could make up with english whilst acquiring indonesian.

Would you be open to consider now whether I qualify for you to be so kind of continuing this discussion with me?

How can I prove that to your satisfaction? (I am not making it up.)

Thank you!

Michael_DeBusk wrote:

And yet the parts of my brain that will be active when speaking English will be those that are active now, and have been since I was a child, and those which are active while speaking German will be those that are active now, when I speak just enough German to ask a girl to come back to my place for a drink.

Do you need any more than that? I don't think so.

I still disagree with your belief that after a certain age one does not aquire the internal "rules" of a language. This is probably true in 99% of cases, but I know plenty of people who came to this country, or emigrated to other countries, as adults, and aquired native fluency regardless of the fact that they were not born into.