How I use the Scriptorium technique with the Seedlang app to improve my German spelling and pronunciation
A language learner must overcome the discrepancy between how words sound in daily conversation and how they are transcribed on paper. In the context of Indo-European languages, Bodmer explained in The Loom of Language, individual words in some languages are simply spoken more clear-cut, while some languages may opt for sloughing off syllables (p. 26). Resyllabification is common in Romance languages but it also occurs in German and English:
Wir sollen uns verstecken (on paper)
Wi-soll-nuns-ver-stec-ken (how it sounds)
Vi-soil-noon-thir-sh-that-kan (how it is transcribed in English)
Resyllabification aside, the written scripts we use to transcribe the sound of the language always lag behind the sound change across different syllabic writing systems (Bodmer 79) (c.f. guckt is pronounced like the English word kook lol). This means a good reading knowledge of a language may not translate into good listening and speaking skills if we cannot internalise the sound pattern of words when it is used in combinations with other words in different scenarios.
So far I have decided to choose learning German on my own as one of my starting ultralearning projects. Instead of relying on pre-recorded courses and textbooks (I have plenty of them at my disposal), I use the Seedlang app as a means for providing me with a directed learning experience and ample authentic sound profile for replication. As Scott Young suggests, one needs multiple and a variable range of examples to extract the abstract principles they all share in common (See the Conclusion from Get Better at Anything). The materials are effectively organised according to learning principles like retrieval, spacing and interleaving so that learners can distinguish, identify and replicate the unique sound combinations that frequently appear in the German language. It saves me a lot of mental energy just to build my own practice loop. For beginners, the grain size of the practice and tiny stories are more than enough to keep your brain, mouth and facial muscles busy adapting to the sound and spelling of common expressions, let alone their usages.
Gamification and a structured feedback loop can certainly help you grind through the learning process when you are tired or demoralised, but I find that a certain seemingly dumb technique works pretty well alongside the practice loop from the Seedlang app. What I am talking about is Alexander Arguelles's Scriptorium technique. It is not for the smart people perhaps, and it sounds silly for any adult learners. But it works really well on memory/skill retention in language learning. This is for those who are, first, patient enough and value quality over quantity. This may also serve as an antidote to those who can't even transcribe verbatim what you have heard from an audio recording from your targeted language, that is, a red flag indicating you are really bad at listening comprehension, spelling and even syntax in your targeted language. Below are a few steps on how I execute this rather silly but solid method by making use of my Seedlang app, a pen and paper:
(1) When Seedlang plays the audio and clip of words and sentences, I repeat after the recordings as many times as I can so that I get a rough gesture of the sounds and make sure I don't miss a single syllable. At the same time, I guess and write down the exact words and spellings. Even when I cannot make sense of what I have transcribed, I have tried to make sure I have taken notes on the most approximated sounds possible.
(2) Only then will I record my audio answer, check the written answer and see how off the mark my educated guess is. I then repeat the audio recording while writing down the correct transcription. At the same time, I note down if there are any liaison between words or sound differences between speakers on the app (regional differences in accent perhaps). I will take note of sentence stress and rhythm if I have ever noticed them.
(3) After that, since the largest learning unit in each small chapter is always just a few bite-size sentences, I can dissect the grammatical properties and functions of words easily. This helps to memorise inflections of words, which indicate different grammatical functions and meanings. This allows me to, later on, chunk the commonly appeared one into "blocks" to facilitate retrieval.
(4) At the end of my study section. I go through and read aloud all my transcribed sentences and words again. I will start going through this list once again in the next session with the same listening practice.
If this works well in learning German in the following months, I will mimic the same strategy when I decide it is time to learn French once again. Yet since there are far too many polyglots on the internet, they may soon come up with more efficient and time-saving ways of learning languages on our own. Who knows. I am an old relic now as the whole world is anticipating the coming of AGI.