Perfectly learning a little of a language

My position

First things first, I may be making some posts soon on another blog, that might lead one or two people to resort to their standard defensive tactic of labelling people that disagree with them as perfectionists, non-speakers etc. etc. How you use a word is very important (as anybody learning languages should know very well). Most people would not like to be labelled a "perfectionist" however many of us would happily admit to "perfecting" a skill. Many of use may even admit to something like "when it comes to x, I am a bit of a perfectionist". Hey maybe if you are about to have heart surgery you may be happy to hear that your surgeon is a perfectionist. As with all language, context and scope are very important to meaning so let us throw the dictionaries away. I hope that the title of this post "Perfectly learning a little of a language" is clear enough.

I have nothing against learning a little of a language, in fact it can have many benefits.

One major benefit

There are many benefits to learning a little of a language, however I will introduce one that I have noticed many times. In many cultures people grow up knowing both their mother tongue and a little of other languages that are geographically close to them. They may not consider themselves able to speak the other language but they know a little, picked up from media, parody, eating places, friends, a year or two lessons at school etc. etc. Many American speakers of English probably know at least a smattering of Spanish words, many UK English speakers will know at least a little French.

Many Chinese speakers I meet know a little Japanese (if from Taiwan maybe more than a little). They may know a little Korean, at least how to greet and say thank you in Thai etc. They may be aware of new words or cognates that have been introduced to their language via the media from other Asian languages or vice-versa. Sometimes they will use these words in casual conversation with their friends, or at least they will be aware where the words have come from.

If you want to really get into a language then learning the same "little" of a few other languages that most natives will know is a huge boost. At the very least you will be able to start spotting and understanding cognates in their language that don't just come from yours. If I ever had doubts about this though, one time sitting at a table with people from China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, England (including second generation Chinese) etc. and spending a evening chatting and eating would have dispelled that doubt. Even if I never pursue them further knowing a little Japanese and a little Cantonese has more then paid itself back on a number of occasions.

Summary

So in my book knowing a little of a language is perfectly fine (another incarnation of that word perfect again) but I am pleased to be constantly perfecting my Chinese (and selected other languages). In case it every comes up it should be quite clear what kind of perfectionist I am without having to resort to a dictionary.

An of course if you read my last post you can see how learning a little bit eventually doesn't require much effort.

Learning gets easier..... leading to a misconception

Introduction

I said I would post some thoughts about recently starting to learn Hindi, a process that has caused a massive self-reappraisal regarding language learning. First some context, these days I say that I speak English (my mother tongue) and Chinese (mandarin). I am not fluent in Chinese, I get better at it, one day I will be fluent in Chinese, this lady (assuming she comes across as well in speech and I have reason to assume she does) is fluent in English, I can see the difference.

My goal is to learn to speak a number of languages and become fluent in maybe two or three (I don't know how long I will live after all). It is a hobby, a very engaging hobby and great fun for me, at some point it may interweave with my career, but after all no-body thinks it strange for someone to learn to play the Saxaphone (for example) and have no desire to be a professional musician.

Aside from Mandarin I have studied and am studying some other languages to meet my goals (Thai included obviously) I don't speak these (in the sense of being able to say I speak X) although in a case or two I may be "fluent" according to the loose standards for fluency that some have, I am sure that now I can "get by" in several (whatever that means).

The more you do something...

The more you do something the better you get. The more things you learn the better you get at learning, The more you learn languages the better you get at learning languages.

I can't see anybody having a problem with the above statements, we can speculate edge cases, or stubborn people, or people with brain damage, or learning tasks that are so vastly different that none of your previous learning experience counts, but it is not mathematical proof I am looking for here just general agreement.

So while it is quite obvious that the more you learn a particular language the better you get (let us not argue about the speed). It should also be true that the more languages you learn, the better you get at learning languages.

Starting Hindi

Starting Hindi was a shock, a big shock I have experimented with a number of languages, that first stage and guess what? I found out that now I am good at it, much better than I was. This should not be a surprise, anybody who has practiced learning and practiced learning languages should be getting better at it (shame on them if they are not). Somebody pointed out that Hindi was not similar to other languages I have looked at however consider the following...

• 
  hei ("is" in many contexts) appears at the end of many phrases just like the Japanese desu) you can hear it often enough to start splitting what you hear into phrase chunks.
  
• 
  Honorific ji like Japanese san
  
• 
  Masculine and feminine, Oh well at least I am used to the concept from German (and most Europeans aren't going to have a problem with this concept).
  
• 
  By now word order changes are so familiar I don't resist them at all.
  
• 
  Kya moving to the beginning of a phrase to turn the whole phrase into a question, already used to ka and ma etc. in Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese turning the whole phrase into a question when added to the end.
  
• 
  Long vowel sounds (ala Thai), I could hear them and their importance, so fully expected to find them in the alphabet.
  
• 
  Used to duplication in Asian languages, and the quick win freebie words you get, delighted to find much duplication of words in Hind: cubi "one time", cubi cubi (sometimes) etc.
  

There is of course much more. The end result being that I know I can learn the first few hundred words of a language, with good pronunciation, basic grammar structures (implicit rather than explicit) and be able to hear the words pretty well in the wild far faster than I would have ever thought possible. Fast enough to impress most people. You could easily convince yourself that you will be speaking the language like a native really fast. I knew this would not be the case, (beyond the scope of this post).

The misrepresentation

If you could see the "language learning physique" of somebody who had practiced learning languages, they would look like an athlete. The trouble is that you cannot see that physique. You have no idea. For a thought experiment, imagine a normal guy is plucked off of the street and exposed to the Highland Games in Scotland. He quickly becomes pretty good at tossing the caber, he doesn't win a prize or anything but he doesn't embarrass himself either among all those experienced Scottish guys. Impressive right. Imagine instead that the guy isn't a regular guy but a rugby player, a big guy, good physique, explosive strength, big muscles. Are you impressed now? You can see why he took to it pretty fast right? He may have never trained for that sport but his body has already picked up a lot of attributes that can only be acquired over time and training.

So why should we be impressed or surprised if someone who has a good "language physique" makes a quick start? I think it is because in the case of my thought experiment it is staring you in the face, it is easy to see the difference in the two guys, but not so simple to look inside somebodies head.

Transferable skills and training

In my thought experiment would you start teaching or training the two guys the same way?. Would you train an experienced musician picking up a new instrument the same way as a complete musical newbie? You could say to the rugby player "hey look this first bit is pretty easy, just ...". would it be fair to say that to the regular guy?

I have never explicitly studied grammar in my language learning, I am sure I don't need to now , exposure has taken me beyond being locked in the grammar of my mother tongue. Can I say that grammar instruction wouldn't have help me the first time? No I can't say that, I don't know, it is too late for me to know. I can't even test it by studying grammar in another language because I am already changed by all the things I have done before.

Summary

I am suggesting that many of the apparently impressive language learning stunts are really not that impressive at all. The most impressive ones are based on abnormal minds are amazing but don't help those of us with normal minds. All the rest are just what you would expect but cannot see just by looking superficially.

I am suggesting that a lot of language learning advice from experienced language learners is inappropriate for beginners (or at least the suggested time scales are way off beam).

I would also like to suggest that it would be a massive disrespect for the rugby player in my example to turn around and say to the regular guy "hey this is easy". Hard is relative if the rugby player wants to experience hard then he should strive to win a prize, it may well be harder for the regular guy to get to the point where he can toss the first size caber in the competition.

And last I would suggest to some of the followers that don't see the reality, get some respect, believe that you can do hard things rather than being afraid to try something unless someone tells you is easy and massages your ego. Learn to understand learning, learn to look under stones and question things, learn to improve yourself.

It was easy for me to make a quick start in learning Hindi, not so easy to pick up the experience to let me do it.

A holiday from Thai

Been a little quiet recently, also taking a holiday from learning any Thai, there are two reasons for this. Firstly I have a short period (about three months or so, I hope), of an immense amount of work. On occasion working 16hour days and working at weekends etc. My current stage of Thai (more about that in a later post), does not fit in well with this work schedule. Having said that learning something can be relaxing, and also clears my mind of work when I need it to, so I have stared learning Hindi.

There is a real danger that I will dilute my language learning too much, but Hindi is on the list of languages that I want to learn and for a while at least I am working with a Hindi speaker, with whom I get on with very well. Starting Hindi and comparing it to learning Thai has been a real eye opener and has led to some surprising conclusion, expect a flurry of posts soon.

Why Language learning classes won't work

Introduction

More cobweb cleaning ready to start a new year, people often bang on about teaching techniques and why traditional language teaching won't work, etc. etc. but it seems to me that the truth is simple that a class, in school, for learning a language will never work, it simply can't.

What I mean here is a class as part of the normal curriculum for teaching children at school, or a regular weekly class at a night-school. And when I say it won't work, I mean that even years of attendance is unlikely to result in being able to comfortably speak and understand the language despite successfully completing the classes and passing tests etc.

The Problem

The problem as I see it is that learning a language requires learning and effort on a lot of different levels. Often language learning is compared to sport or learning a musical instrument, I think that mastering a language is broader than most of these comparisons, there are a lot of facts (or near facts, more on that in a later post) to learn as well as the need to spend a lot of time on task (actually playing the sport / instrument or listening to music).

If however we are generous and compare speaking a language (whatever that actually means) to playing a sport or instrument well then consider the fact that the standard education system can't achieve either of these goals with sport or music (and doesn't really try). Music classes teach about music, and introduce music, maybe even inspire some students, but they do not make competent musicians out of the vast majority of students. Standard sport lessons introduce sports, give the students a little exercise, but they do not produce competent sports people. In fact nobody expects these music and sports lessons to do much more than they actually do.

The students that progress in sports and music are the ones that have extra lessons, the ones who join clubs outside or inside school, the ones that attend extra practice for their class or school team. Most of them can't progress beyond a very basic standard without this extra effort, and nobody expects otherwise.

There is only so much time available in education, standards in Maths and Mother Language achieve what they do in the time available, there is some variation due to talent and interest and method but the employees and further education establishments take what is produced and work with it. In this way though what is produced by language classes does not offer functional abilities in the language.

Basic to intermediate communication skills could theoretically be taught in the time available but then we have the other education system problem of testing and assessment. Educationalists are not going to be happy with just being able to say that 80% of students leave the system able to have a "reasonable conversation" and leave it at that, far easier to test them on predetermined content and their abilities to do things with grammar that might even baffle a native speaker. A bit like teaching students to strip down, clean and re-assemble a saxophone, with little to no ability to play the thing (easy to grade though).

The whole thing needs to be turned on it's head, we need to review what we expect from language education, maybe not even call French lessons by that name, just call it "Language Education". Change the focus and the expectation, French lessons are now the thing that you do extra (like guitar lessons and playing for the soccer team) you won't get good unless you put the time in.

Summary

Most adults would not expect to attend a saxophone class for a couple of hours a week, do an hour or so homework on it a week and get any good at playing saxophone this side of the next ten years (especially if they have no previous musical experience to build on. Yet countless people regularly take on classes in a foreign language on this premise.

Is it bonkers or am I? comments gratefully received.

An Infinite number of languages

Introduction

image by Stephen Begin

The End of a year and the start of new one, forgive the cluster of peculiar posts you will see here for a while whilst I clear out the cobwebs. A heavier focus on Thai will resume next year at some point.

Whilst it is not strictly true that every snowflake is different (especially when small) it is true enough for me to compare them to language. It is not true that there are an infinite number of languages either but as a starting point, in my view there are at least as many languages as there are people on earth who can speak. That is just a starting point you would have to add each extra language that anybody can speak.

Saying that the language someone speaks is French or German or Spanish is just an approximation, it is applying some criteria to the individual language that they speak and own, a criteria that gives you a good idea which other peoples individual language is roughly mutually intelligible (near enough that they can communicate with little difficulty).

This viewpoint comforts me tremendously (I don't see myself as having to reach a standard that is fixed). All I have to do is insert a "new" language in my brain that gets near enough that a bunch of other people of a certain background can communicate with me easily. The more people #I can communicate with and the smoother the communication the more progress I have made. Not a trivial task but fuzzy enough to not be so scary as an absolute standard.

Justification

Every person has their own set of associations for every word, including their mother tongue.
Every person has been exposed to each word in a different way, whilst in different moods, under different circumstances. Every person (Ok there may be the odd freaky verbal doppelgänger out there) pronounces every word slightly differently to anybody else that speaks the same language (different pitch, different harmonics, different speed). We all have our preferred adjectives, greetings, swear words, words we like the sound of, words we don't like the sound of. Sub-groupings of similar languages within languages are formed by age-groups, professions, hobbies, sexual orientation etc. etc.

Dictionaries are approximations (or sometimes self-fulfilling prophesies if people learn most of their words from them). You could write a distinct dictionary for each individual. Many entries would be same across various people but each dictionary would be distinct, some would be considerably smaller than others.

Here is a prediction, I just know it is true (it has to be). Spain and Portugal share a border, there just has to some people somewhere that daily speak something that would cause people to argue about whether it was Spanish or Portuguese they speak. I won't even look on the Internet I am so confident this will be the case.

Summary

Some people won't like this view, it won't sit well, they will feel that they need an absolute standard to work to. I feel liberated by it.

How to start learning a language

Youtube is a great place to pick up some basic vocabulary in many languages. This is not the best example of these particular lessons (they are pretty good ;)) but it is at least seasonal.

Introduction

I don't feel I wrote a single good summary of how I would start to learn a language so here it is.... I am not a polyglot yet, and I have higher personal standards for fluency than many, but this kind of approach works for me, I am currently successfully applying it to Japanese.

Start by listening

If the sounds of the language are unfamiliar then listen to it, listen attentively and listen whilst doing other things, get a feel for how it sounds, get a feel for words, word barriers sentence intonation etc. You can listen to radio, watch TV, news, drama, comedy, people what ever you can get your hands on. You should feel the language get more familiar. At the same time you can watch the style of the native speakers, how they move, how they express themselves, also pay attention to how they speak your language, if they have an accent this gives you clues about the sounds in their language.

A good test is to determine how well you can distinguish the language from others (especially languages that are similar). If you are learning German, you should be able to easily distinguish it from Dutch or Norwegian or Afrikaans. learning Spanish then distinguish Portuguese, learning Japanese then distinguish Korean.

You may find it hard to listen to something you don't understand, I never have had a problem so long as I can feel the progress. You can listen for word-boundaries, mood, names, conjugates at some point the stream of random sound becomes a stream of words that you don't understand. It sounds trivial but the difference is huge.

You may have done most of this stage already if you have been exposed to the language before and you can continue this process whilst doing other things. You have probably done enough when you can say "right that is the language, now what the hell does it all mean". You are going to be speaking in the style of a new language, for most activities if you are going to do something "in the style of" you would expect to have some experience of what that style is. Play music in the style of, dance in the style of, paint in the style of ......

Pick up some basic vocabulary

A few hundred high exposure words and simple phrases, this is not a significant feat of memory in yours or anyone else's life, if you get stuck in you will learn them.

There is much debate about how to pick up vocabulary, in the early stages though I really don't think it matters. Children learn the basic vocabulary for their own language by massive exposure, you can do the same. Find whatever lessons, videos, podcasts you can online that are teaching basic vocabulary in the language you are learning and get exposed. The words will stick with enough exposure. These very high frequency words don't need tests, flash cards, SRS, lists or similar. If you are being tested on or testing yourself for example on simple words like "yes" or "no" or "thank you", then stop. Just get a bit more exposure and you will just know them. Save the arguments for how you are going to learn vocabulary later on, even guys that have a "bad memory" still seem to manage to remember all the names of the players in a bunch of football teams or similar, so at this level of memory exposure is all that is required, no special tricks or techniques needed.

Youtube is a great place to pick up basic vocabulary, many languages have countless little lessons teaching language, some free offerings from commercial organizations and some from members of the public. Quality doesn't matter too much, get as much variety as you can and it will all even out. Free introductory lessons to learning podcasts, free cut-down versions of learning software, all may give you audio you can practice.

People are obviously a good source of vocabulary, friends, family, associates, people around you, anyone who can speak the language. If you are in a foreign country then you are surrounded by sounds that will help you, don't ignore them. If not in a foreign country then rejoice at all the technology available to you that will help.

Play

If you watch small children learning a language you will see them play, babbling, making their toys have pretend conversations etc.. When playing they don't stress about whether it makes sense. Sometimes they may have to talk to a big scary adult they don't know and then you can see the stakes raised, suddenly they are more careful, perhaps more nervous. Have fun with the language, pick up a few words and start mashing them together in ways you think they may work, play in your head or with a trusted friend, or in safe environment (where your ridiculous accidents will spark humour rather than a fight).

Think about when you will talk

Start to think about how you will talk the language and to who. Maybe that bit is easy at first, perhaps there are friends, colleagues people there already, so armed with the style of the language and some basic vocabulary start practising. If not then just start to work out where you will find the opportunities when you will need it. When the speech is bursting to come out you want to have planned an outlet.

Summary

Get yourself used to the sounds of language and when you speak your pronunciation will be OK at least. It doesn't take long to get used to a language, if you really don't like the sound of it then you are going to struggle learning it anyway (you can get to like it but not if you resist it).

Don't stress about the initial basic vocabulary that gets you started, that bit is easy. It is high exposure, you will learn it. If it takes you twice as long or twice as fast then over the course of learning the language it is not a big deal. Keep getting exposed, pay at least some attention and if you have any interest in the language you will learn the basic vocabulary.

Opposites

This video apart from being funny in places also highlights the difficulty of real language. The intended meaning of a word can vary radically from the dictionary definition.

I will be posting some fairly heavy posts soon, prior to that a lighter one. When you learn a new language you quickly find out that in the real world many words shift and squirm in meaning, often (depending on the context) meaning exactly the opposite of the dictionary definition. Sometimes you are pre-warned I believe in Thai you can use "man" to refer to a person either in an insulting manner or because you are close to them (at least everyone involved should be able to guess your intention :)).

Language Spikes

Introduction

I recently use the word spike to describe the Pimsleur approach whilst commenting on a post at yearlyglot.com. Randy picked up on the term spike as a good term and I realised that although I use this term myself it doesn't seem to be used very much in language learning (as far as I can tell). I am used to hearing the term applied to software development, a definition from here is quite appropriate: A spike is a narrow but deep coding experiment that allows the developers to see how various functions might work and to better estimate both system performance and the difficulty of the coding. The key concepts here are "narrow" and "deep".

The spike

Right from the first time I started learning languages I have seen most learning material as various types of spike. Inevitability learning materials want to give learners a feeling that they are making progress and this often entails build up a conversational exchange and penetrating the language to some depth, without the time to develop related vocabulary, alternative ways of saying things etc. this also inevitably leads to a narrow understanding of single area of the language.

Self learners can also make their own spikes, concentrating on the vocabulary required for a discrete task, a daily chore, a certain interaction with a single person can also involve raising a deep and narrow spike into the language.

Advantages and disadvantages

Spikes generally work better for output, as a speaker you can get away with knowing only one way to say something, even if there is a more eloquent way to say what you want, your spike will give you perfectly acceptable ways to say it. As long as the conversation progresses roughly in the expected direction spikes can give you an opportunity to have a conversation early on and they can introduce elements of the language like grammar that you wouldn't meet at first.

Spikes can rapidly collapse, the more potential variability that is introduced the more chance that the spike will fail you. The biggest problem of course is that there are many ways of saying the same thing, if talking with someone who is helping you learn a language or in a very formulaic situation, then they will probably stick to the scripts but perfect strangers may wander in any direction.

The more spikes you have raised the greater the opportunity to jump from one to the other and the more vocabulary you pick up the broader the base. Eventually everything should hopefully start to join up.

The basic spikes

The most basic spikes that people may acquire first are usually to do with ritualised politeness, food and drink and perhaps interaction with people they may interested in on a romantic level.