The Korean version of Glossika has been released. I downloaded mine yesterday.
Heâs releasing a lot of new languages (and language combinations) I see. Soon thereâll even be Icelandic!
Mike Campbell = classy act
Mike Campbell may be great language guru, but his website is a total mess. He is offering so many similar products (GMS, GSR, ebooks, printed books, fluency packs, business packs, âŚ), and he is not able to explain to his prospective custumers what the differences and objectives of his products are.
You all are my witnesses. As of today. I commit to 20 minutes a day of studying Glossika until I finish the 3000 sentences (about 8 months, I figure.)
I would prefer to spend 8 months on content of interest to me.
And need no witness.
My very strong interest is to be able to speak with my Korean friends. Iâve been studying for 5 months and taking an online class for 2 months (where we practice speaking for 1 hour a week) and I simply canât speak yet. I am so slow. I want to be able to say sentences in one breath, not stop at the end of every word to think about particles and pause to consider word order. I want sentences I can recall quickly.
I will still read and work on building my vocabulary. I will still do many things. But I am adding Glossika so that I will write, type, listen, speak, and analyze sentences until their patterns reveal themselves to me.
There seems to be something about the combination of East Asian languages and self appointed language âgurusâ that seem to keep coming up with this same type of method?
Khatzumoto, Glossika, Scott Youngâs recent experiment⌠etc. all of them push the mass beginner sentence craze.
I suspect the real reason is that the scripts in some of these languages can sometimes be impenetrable (although not the case for Korean), and that useful natural content with script/text is often very hard to find.
But there is also something about the approach that is (kinda) effective. But I, personally, wouldnât want to do it for than a month or two, at most.
@ jreidy
âIâve been studying for 5 months and taking an online class for 2 months (where we practice speaking for 1 hour a week) and I simply canât speak yet. I am so slow.â
Hmm, that doesnât seem particularly slow to me. I couldnât speak basic German properly after 4 months, and I was doing 13 hours of lessons a week.
So whatâs the dealio with this Glossika stuff? Is it good? I would be interested to give it a shot. It is a bit of money, but it looks like the money pays for a lot of stuff. I donât really understand the description. Is it just thousands of example sentences?
I have it for russian, but I don´t think this works for me. Maybe when I can use the language better. I can´t really learn that way, I have to let it sink in âfrom behindâ, first learn to understand and then, let it pop up in my head, when I speak. I don´t know, its kind of good, but maybe not worth the time you have to spend with it. Everyone is different, so it might work better fore some. I wish it would work better, but Steveâs (and others) way of learning, is the only way that really seems to work for me. It´s not thousand different sentences, some is âyesâ and ânoâ - answers.
Ok, but is it just example sentences with audio? It seems to come in the form of a book or ebook, but is it also some sort of software?
MP3 + pdf. Yes, example sentences with text. It looks pretty nice and the sound quality is really good.
May I suggest an Important addendum to your âwitnessedâ list?
"and should I falter and slow down - or even miss my goal - I shall just begin again!
Edited for nonsense. (and I gave myself a rose by mistake) Honestly, it was a mistake!
ad Steve: (âŚ) ⌠I would prefer to spend 8 months on content of interest to me. (âŚ)
Who knows, maybe youâd find the sentences interesting?
Just because it is a list of sentences this does not mean it cannot be of interest to you, I guess. Unless, of course, you are not referring to the content itself but to the way of its presentation.
There are many different ways of increasing your vocabulary. I find Mikeâs approach very effective and it works for me, but certainly not for everybody.
ad Colin:
I like this kind of material. I would not use it as a beginner. In my opinion you have to be at least at a lower intermediate level, understanding the basic grammatical structures of a language and knowing a couple of thousand words or so. Thatâs when Mikeâs products (and similar study material - after all he did not reinvent the wheel even though he has done a really fine job in my opinion) work best for me.
I use them as a supplement to my other study material (just as Mike suggests on his site).
I find such material very useful to get speaking because you train many typical structures and phrases.
You can actually internalize a great number of useful structures.
But if you donât like it, it wonât work for you.
You have to see for yourself. It is basically what Langenscheidt offers for languages such as English, French, Italian and Spanish.
It has always worked for me and I am very happy Mike offers this kind of product for languages no other publisher would care about.
P.S. Actually, this material is not so different from what Steve introduced on this site some time ago with his âlanguage patternsâ - just with many more example sentences and structures.
I bought and have been using the Russian fluency package, as a way to revise my Russian while on public transport. Good audio material, suitably packaged in convenient mp3s for on-the-go listening and repeating. The PDFs are a bit clumsy to use, e.g. useless on mobile. It contains the type of spoken language phrases that internet radio and typical âinteresting contentâ language lessons donât contain.
Definitely a useful tool for me. Recommended.
I was thinking of trying it out for Chinese. I am still very much a beginner, so maybe given what Robert said, it would be best if I wait for a while.
I consider myself a novice hoping to work my way up to beginner. I had intended to use Glossikaâs Mass Sentences later in my training. Yet, when I downloaded Glossika, I decided to give it a try, and I find that I know a lot of the words in the first level, and the sentences are things I want to be able to say with practice. It is understandable to me, at least so far.
Glossika recommends listening to all the sentences once first. That gives you the overview. Then to try out the program for 3 - 4 weeks and see what happens. It isnât just to passively listen, but to be engaged with the sentences, if you are following their methodology.
So far, it is keeping my interest. I am glad with this purchase.
If it is possible to buy just the audio Glossika Spaced Repetition Fluency Level 1, then that would be my suggestion for someone who isnât ready to buy the whole program. You listen to one GSR a day on the ârelaxedâ approach.
I am just using his Mandarin staff for improving my sentence reproduction. I think it is a good and convenient material with good intermediate vocabulary. To go through it from beginning to end as Mike suggests is definitely for the âdisciplinedâ language learners. But even the âhedonistâ learner (like me) can benefit from it.