How To Learn Foreign Languages
Learning a foreign language can be one of the most pleasurable and relaxing hobbies a professional can pursue that also contributes to his or her professional credentials. Many professionals have studied foreign languages, but get themselves on plateaus for expression. The methods that follow detail some of the ways that I have used to learn languages as diverse as French and Japanese and to help foreign businesspeople and exchange students learn to speak English.
Learn culture and language together
In Wittgenstein's Vienna, authors Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin provide a summary of why it is so important to learn a country's culture(s) as you explore its language(s) when they describe the work of Austrian intellectual Fritz Mauthner:
A given culture distinguishes itself from all other cultures by the means by which it organizes itself, and the most distinctive of such means is its language. A culture's language is part of its operating equipment—specifically, it is the communal memory since it contains within its vocabulary, the verbal expression of its traditional customs and practices. (p. 127).
History and geography determine traditional customs and practices (i.e., culture). Wars and trade in particular can determine what languages are spoken in a culture, what religion is practiced, what foods are eaten and how they are prepared, what clothing is worn, what is taught in schools, how strangers are treated, and who finds himself or herself at the top of the social classes, among other pragmatic issues of life.
When you speak a foreign language, native speakers may accord you greater respect if you know the social cues in the culture that come from understanding how their history and geography have made that culture what it is. In accurate life this means knowing etiquette such as what are taboo conversation topics, how to properly give and receive gifts, what are appropriate compliments, how to you address individuals in different social classes, and so on.
To find this information, I first turn to an encyclopedia and generate questions and/or observations as I go along on topics such as how the language reflects a stratified society, describes rites of passage, accounts for different ways of earning a living, and transforms itself in the face of change. I also consult several cultural “shortcut” books and Internet sources for my research, such as the Lonely Planet and Let's Go travel guides, which both provide cultural information in about 30 to 50 pages before beginning their travel descriptions. I also enjoy reading Eyewitness Recede Guides and Insight Guides because their images complement the culture readings in Lonely Planet and Let's Go guides. On the internet, I check out the Wikipedia and Infoplease to round out my cultural background.
Use linguistics to advance the language
• Read a general history of the language and its language family such as Kenneth Katzner's The Languages of the World.
• Expend a basic text in grammar to ground you in the grammar. I read through grammar books in about a week for the gist of how grammar and syntax work. I skip over most of the nouns, because I will recall these up in my authentic texts (discussed later). The words I do memorize are prepositions and conjunctions.
• Note how to gather the infinitive in a verb's various formats or how to find the root drawing (radical) for characters in foreign languages.
• Read a book on the language's sociolinguistics, if possible, so that you can know the social ramifications of speaking the language in different groups and the political issues around the language.
Use authentic sources as texts
Dedicate your time to working with recent language texts (authentic sources) no matter what your level of language learning is. The trick is to choose texts from an area that interests you already. For example, when I started to learn Spanish on my maintain, I bought a cookbook from Spain and translated recipes one by one until I no longer needed to translate words. The best share of learning this way was that I put my language knowledge to use in a tangible, tasty way. I could also visualize vocabulary and cooking methods, which helped me to retain vocabulary more quickly than using flash cards.
Initially, my Spanish vocabulary was limited to food words and to commands. However, the particular cookbook I was using gave a history of Spanish cuisine as well. Thanks to my background reading on Spanish culture, I was able to ferret out the meanings of many words without recourse to a dictionary.
Other sources for authentic language texts include:
• Wikipedia articles
• Car repair manuals
• Classical music liner notes
• Magazines, especially those related to a hobby you enjoy or interest you have, such as sports, music, films, fashion, gossip, vacationing, interior decorating and so on
• Literature—the traditional goal of university language courses has been to get the student to the point where he or she can read literature. Books can be daunting, but if you choose this route, you may want toread the tips in Remapping the Foreign Language Curriculum by Janet Swaffar and Katherine Arens for advice on using texts to study a particular era's culture.
Read online newspapers
It usually takes a vocabulary of approximately 5,000 words to understand a newspaper. You may want to begin your newspaper reading by translating headlines and making a word list in Excel with a column for an English translation and a column for a definition of the word in the foreign language. I am a very goal-oriented person and getting to that 5,000-word mark makes me feel like I am moving from one language plateau to another.
Once you are comfortable reading headlines, you can begin reading entire articles and eventually all the articles that interest you.
Watch foreign newscasts and films
After you have mastered your newspaper vocabulary, try watching the news on Scola or a local station carrying foreign-language news. To train your ear, try to pick out nouns for two weeks and just nouns, so that you can view how they are pronounced and learn to distinguish them in sentences. Then, just listen for verbs for two weeks. At the end of a month, try to listen to nouns and verbs together to see if you can understand what is said. Repeat this cycle over three months and you should see improvement in your comprehension. You can also turn on the foreign language subtitle function for some languages like Spanish, but you should not rely on the subtitles for training yourself in listening comprehension.
For films, you may want to watch the film first in the foreign language to see what you can understand from context. If you are watching Spanish or French films, you can turn on foreign-language subtitles in those languages to see if you understand what is said. (You have to have a good reading level for this.) After that, sight the film again without subtitles to see if you can follow the conversation. For other languages, use the newscast scheme to isolate nouns, followed by verbs.
Obviously, it helps to like the film you are watching repeatedly to make this blueprint work.
Masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns
Some languages, such as the Romance and Germanic ones, describe nouns as masculine, feminine, or neuter. I spent hours with flashcards trying to remember the gender of French nouns and didn't progress very far until I read Barry Farber's How to Learn Any Language. Farber counsels language learners to make up a story, the more uncommon and funny the better, about why the noun should be masculine, feminine, or neuter. Once you repeat the story to yourself a few times, you will have the tag memorized and no longer need the record. The fable method for learning noun genders is much more fun than flipping flashcards several hundred times.
Recognizing foreign alphabets and characters
You can flip flashcards to learn foreign-language alphabets and characters, but I like to make memorization a game, specifically Concentration. Make two sets of the alphabet letters or characters you are learning, including their pronunciations and meaning if they are characters. Recall 10 to 20 pairs at a time and play Concentration.
While looking for your matching card, you have time to advise pronunciations—and time to absorb meaning if playing with characters. You may notice that when you use the language to perform a task, you retain it better than just repeating the word's pronunciation and/or meaning.
Writing foreign alphabets and characters
Practice makes perfect, but that does not mean you have to be bored by rote work. You can use your right brain and do calligraphy as you learn foreign alphabets and characters. Borrow or purchase a book on calligraphy in the foreign language you are studying to see what the different styles are. Try to recreate the alphabet or characters in these styles one by one. By doing this you learn to write the alphabets and characters as well as perceive and read the various script forms. This artistic exercise reminds me that painting and writing are often the same activity in many cultures, for instance that of China.
Listen to foreign-language CDs
Foreign-language lessons that you listen to in your car can be effective way to learn languages, but in the spirit of fun I prefer to listen to music to learn sentence structures and vocabulary. If you can, rep the lyrics to your foreign-language CDs or have a native speaker write out the lyrics for you. You can sing along to the music or just enjoy it as you drive, desirable house, cook, relax, or dance. If you play an instrument, learning to accompany these songs is a great way to make the lyrics stick in your mind.
Master your numbers
In How to Learn a Foreign Language, Graham E. Fuller writes that during World War II, the Germans were able to detect spies in their midst by having people do long division out loud. Numbers trip up many otherwise fluent people. To move from this language plateau, practice adding numbers on license plates and throughout the day as you encounter numbers. In fact, doing all your arithmetic transactions in your targeted foreign language will give you greater fluency. You may want to consider purchasing a foreign-language Monopoly set as well to have fun with number practice.
Speaking and writing—the last frontier
The easiest way to improve your speaking is to catch a native speaker to converse with on topics that interest you both. Often you can barter language lessons for English lessons. Universities, libraries, and cultural groups can provide leads in matching up individuals. For example, in high school I went through a local People-to-People organization (http://www.ptpi.org) to win two Japanese nursing students with whom I swapped language and cooking lessons. My family also hosted numerous exchange students during my high-school and college years.
Thanks to the internet, speaking and writing have blended. Listservs and blogs all provide chances to “converse.” I am wary of chat rooms in any language, but they do provide a chance for real-time conversation.
The trick to learning foreign languages
The secret to all of these methods above is to create foreign-language learning fun and part of an interest or hobby you already have, so that you enjoy using it to explore an area that already engages you.
Sources
Farber, B. (2002) How to Learn Any Language. New York: MJF Books
Fuller, G. (1991). How to Learn a Foreign Language. Friday Harbor, WA: Storm King Press
Janik, A. & Toulmin S. (1973). Wittgenstein's Vienna. NewYork: Simon and Schuster
Katzner, K. (2002). Languages of the World. Oxford: Routledge.
Swaffar, J. & Arens, K. (2005). Remapping the Foreign Language Curriculum: An Near through Multiple Literacies. New York: Modern Language Association.
Related Posts
Filed under Interior Decorating Courses by on Jan 27th, 2012. 