Prior to living in Mexico I did not have much exposure to Mexicans in my young adult life. In fact, in the town of Pocahontas it is very rare that we see any foreigner at all. In my high school, we typically welcomed one foreign exchange student a year, and they were usually from Europe, where they had already taken English in school and could speak it passably.

When I was dropped off at the home of my host family, I realized that my biggest problem was not speaking but rather listening to a native Spanish speaker. It was all I could do to make sense of what my host dad was saying, which I tried to counter by doing most of the talking. I knew I spoke Spanish very slowly but I tried to convince my listeners that my speech was naturally methodical as a product of my personality and not that I needed more time to think of what to say, even though that was the truth.

“ Since our President elect has close ties to Kenya, we should make at least some effort to learn a little Swahili.”

Huh????

That line aside,  the article is fun…  Just a letter to the editor written by someone who lived in Kenya for four years.  The main point seems to be to demonstrate how many Swahili words most of us already know as they have either crept into the English lexicon, or been prominently featured in movies…  That’s a far cry from learning the language, however.  While Swahili is not considered to be that hard to learn, as languages go (it is classified as a category II language by the army and foreign service — harder than, say, Spanish, but easier than Arabic or Russian — German is category II as well), there is still a big difference between learning a few words, and learning to speak.  This is further complicated by the relative unfamiliarity of Swahili (or any indigenous African language, for that matter) to most speakers of English.  Still, it would be a fun one to learn…  Kenya is certainly on my list of must-see places…  If you want to learn and go, may I cordially recommend the Peace Corps (if you’re an American citizen, that is)…

Why not????

I actually had a classmate during my master degree program days who was a teacher of Russian and Bulgarian.  It’s a low-in-demand language — especially compared to Russian, so I don’t doubt that “[m]any expats move here without even attempting to learn the language, or, if they do, their skills stop after “da” and “ne”…“  Two factors seem to be at work here.  First, as the author notes, and as I wrote long ago, there seems to be much more hesitation to learn languages with a completely different script than one’s native language.  I would hasten to add that, according to what I’ve read (and mind you, of course, that I’ve never studied any sort of Slavic language or language written in Cyrillic script), most languages using the Cyrillic script have a very “shallow orthography,” which is to say that there is a high sound-to-script correspondence, making them quite easy (or at least not-so-hard) to read.   Secondly, non-major languages are less commonly studied for simple economic reasons.  It’s much less likely for the run-of-the-mill businessman to anticipate doing enough business with Bulgaria to necessitate the time and expense of language learning.  Compared with countries with bigger economies, or languages that are spoken across wide areas, Bulgarian does seem to be pretty niche.  Still, if Bulgarian strikes your fancy, the above-linked article would be a good place to start.

By Sarah Kyo:

The Chinese language, though, has totally been foreign to me in its sound and appearance, though I do know many people, including relatives, who speak the language. All in all, it seemed intimidating to me, and yet, now I’m giving it a go.

On the first day of my beginning Chinese class last week, people shared different reasons for studying the language, including communication with Chinese speakers and travels to China someday.

These could potentially be my reasons. Also, the fact that I’m required to learn an Asian language as part of my minor sure does force things along. There is more to it than that, though.

Ah those wistful days of beginning study…  Always fun…. That is until the Chinese writing system kicks your head in…  (Don’t mind me, Sarah…  Too much time spent with my nose stuck in linguistics tomes studying Chinese lexical access in preparation for comprehensive exams coming up at the end of the month…)

A history lesson about Michel Thomas, one of the greats in foreign language pedagogy, who posited “there [was] no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher.”

It’s a view that grates with prevailing educational opinion. These days, children’s inability to learn is often blamed on a variety of learning disabilities. If teachers are brought into the equation, it is usually by ministers either claiming the workforce is the best trained it has ever been, or declaring that inadequate teachers must be fired.

True enough… to a degree…  I would have to note that there certainly are bad students out there, but it’s in the “lazy/undisciplined” mold, not the “incapable” one.  Any person without significant mental or physical handicap can learn a language, but it’s a complex matter of getting to the heart of the multitudinous factors of attitude, interest, and the like which affect learning.  I would go so far as to even challenge to view that “anyone can learn any language.”  Given the remarkable diversity of cultures and languages, the chances are that most people, if they looked, would find a language/culture that so offended them on some level as to preclude any real desire to learn that language.  Language learning, at root, is a means of getting close to a people group, and if one has no desire to ever be associated with those people, it would be next to impossible to gain any real fluency.  The goal of the “good” teacher is to stimulate students’ interest in the people, culture, and language, so that the students’ interest is intrinsic, and that learning continues beyond the confines of the classroom.  Towards that, any given methodology is intrinsically limited, as it will only appeal to some people.  The mark of an excellent teacher is that he/she will recognize and use whatever approach works for the individual student.  For those who have seen Kung Fu Panda (which I heartily recommend — FL Doc’s Oscar pick of the year!), there is an excellent illustration of this concept of “flexible pedagogical method” therein…

“But I already learned that…”

Any foreign language teacher will be quite familiar with this complaint — usually delivered in a whiny voice which grates like an “Urkel” catchphrase…  Teaching ESL again this last week (in lieu of my academic-year teaching of English composition to both international students and native English speakers) has quickly reacquainted me with the perils of students’ attempts at self-assessment.  Language assessment is a rather inexact science, at best, but all of us in my profession try our best to place students in classes where they have the best opportunity for growth and development.  Inevitably, however, there will be students who object to their placements — and 99% of all such complaints are from students who think their placement is too low.  There are a variety of ways by which students come to decide that their placement is much too low for their liking.  Many students get upset at perceived level differences between themselves and their classmates.  Often, they will decide that because they cannot understand (or be understood) by classmate from “country X,” they must be waaaay higher in level.  Sometimes this is the source of some high comedy, as the student that they are basing this comparison upon may, in all reality be the superior student.  More typically, it’s a matter of what skills they choose to base such comparisons on.  For example, the student may think because his/her oral fluency is higher than anyone else in the class, that he/she should be bumped up, but the student remains grossly ignorant that his/her grammar skills are amongst the worst in the class.  I once had a student who made that exact argument and was chastised to discover that the student whom he was using for comparison had consistently outperformed him in grammar and reading tests by a factor of nearly +50%.

The most common means by which students try to assess their own level, however, is usually the criterion of what the teacher is covering in class.  Namely– is the teacher covering new material or not.  Ever so many students become almost personally offended whenever a teacher tries to cover a subject that “we already know that..”   The important thing to realize in language study is that language proficiency is not merely the sum of acquired knowledge….  Indeed, if it were, all one would need to do to learn a language would be to read one good-sized manual on the rules and constructions of the language.  Clearly this is not the case in the real world.  There is a sizable difference between “studying” a language and “learning” a language.  There is an even bigger difference between “learning” and “knowing” a language.  In order to “know” a language — or even an isolated grammar point — one has to drill the point again and again to the point of automaticity.  It takes a long time to be able to productively use grammar points and phrases — hence in formal lessons, one can reasonably expect to retread the same exercises and points again and again.  For example, when I was in 5th year Spanish, we certainly upon occasion were expected to perform exercises that were straight from 1st and 2nd year texts.  There was never any question of whether we had seen the material before, but until the points came automatically when speaking, they were well worth practicing.  The funny part is that students will often make multiple errors in a certain grammar point while complaining that they “already know” it.

So, a little advice to all people doing formal FL studies…  Don’t fret if you find yourself covering points that you’ve seen before.  Copious and frequent review is imperative if you truly expect to ever “know” the language.

I get so caught up in the possibilities of online language learning that I have given books rather short shrift on this blog.  LeTutor comes to the rescue, with this handy list of in-print language learning guides…

A bit of a continuation of this post, wherein I seconded the motion that languages are best learned by living them…  Today, Karolina writes on Wiadomości24 that “What helped me most to make progress in English was a trip to England. I believe that the best way to learn a foreign language is to go to the country where it’s spoken as a mother tounge. There, want it or not, you have to use the language to communicate with others.“  I have to second the motion, but with the caveat that it doesn’t work the same for everyone.  Personally, the only thing I can get in classroom study is language structure, and I become fairly proficient at reading and writing.  I’ve found that I am practically incapable of learning to speak and listen comfortably (i.e., “attain oral proficiency”) in a language without some type of travel scenario wherein I end up having to interact with natives of the language regularly for an extended period.  Even as little as two weeks will radically change my abilities.  However, I have known many students who manage to learn oral language abilities just fine in the classroom (which is not to say that they didn’t improve by going abroad).  Scarily enough, there are even people for whom extended trips abroad can actually negatively affect their language skills.  This happens when a student arrives in the foreign country, promptly freaks out, and then disengages from the people and the culture to such a degree that their language skills actually regress.  So don’t think of study abroad as a magic cure-all, but rather as an opportunity to connect the language to specific people…  It’s getting to know people and to call them friends that really “connects” us to the language and provides the drive to improve our skills.

FYI- Check out Karolina’s pic…  She’s a hotty

Today’s quote is from Angela, who responded to my 7/6 post about Portuguese.  If you’re into Portuguese, be sure to check out the comment, as well as this blog (the most recent addition to my blogroll).

Quote: “And as soon as you have the chance take a course in one of the two countries. That’s the best way to plunge into the whole experience of portuguese… music, way of life, food, wine, culture in general and of course breathing the language!!”

Amen to that!  That’s the best way to learn any language.  To paraphrase Milhouse (talking about learning Italian) from the Simpsons,  “you don’t speak [a language], you live[the language]!”

Interestingly enough, this is the cause for some of the huge disparity we see in the eventual fluency levels of people learning different languages.  You can put two people of equal aptitude and intelligence into a foreign country and give them language learning support, and often we will see one learner positively blossom in his/her new surroundings, while the other learns enough to barely survive.  There are many, many variables that go into language learning besides aptitude, some of which are not always obvious, but one factor that is not discussed nearly enough in my opinion is simply affinity for the culture where that language is spoken.  Simply put, if you don’t like the place and people connected to the language, you’re not going to go very far in your studies.  More often than not, the people who say “I guess I have no talent for languages,” are actually suffering from a lack of connection to their language of study.  It is only by forging a connection of interest, when we breathe in the air, food, wine, and music of a foreign culture and find ourselves insatiable, that our foreign language studies will lead to continuous improvement.  Mind you, it is important to note that it’s not necessary (or indeed possible) to like everything about another culture, but it’s important to find those aspects that you do positively enjoy, and to dwell on those to motivate your study.  I, for one, can attest that there were aspects of each and every country I’ve lived in that I didn’t care for, but they were far outweighed by the parts that I did find pleasure in.

Still, you have to try if you expect to find anything that you do like.  Be brave, get over to another country — if only on holiday — and live the language!!!

I got the following question today from a friend:

“How much of a leap is it to learn Portuguese from French?”

My response (quite open to comments from people who actually know Portuguese, as opposed to my knowledge about Portuguese from general linguistics tomes):

“Ummm…  You know I don’t speak Portuguese, right?  More or less, any proficiency in a language from the same family is going to be a major plus.  You’ll have an easier time with grammatical concepts and sentence order, as it’s largely the same, however, being a Romance language, you’ll still be buried up to your eyeballs in verb charts.  There’s no way around memorizing congugation patterns.  French seems to be a better bridge to Portuguese sounds than Spanish, although Spanish and Portuguese are more closely related vocabulary and grammar-wise.  At my university, in fact, there’s a specific class to help speakers of Spanish to “transition” to Portuguese, as it largely simply requires mastery of certain sounds and “shifting over.”  You thinking of learning it?  Note: there is apparently a large difference between Brazilian Portuguese and the language one finds in Portugal.  Most recommend choosing one dialect or the other at the outset of study.”