A Review of Language Learning Tactics
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knowledgeartist.org
So if you really want to learn a language, just start vomiting out words with a teacher one-on-one. Just like with child rearing, vomit and messiness is always involved.
There is no magic technique. If there is a magic technique, it is like this article alludes, to use many techniques. Some may work, some may not. It is up to you to find those techniques that work for you. You are the only one who can do that.
Don't take SHIT classes. I took a Spanish class once where the teacher spent 15 minutes of a 45 minute class by having each one of the students go through their homework answers.
Don't confuse activity with productivity. There are many things that you might think are productive, and they are not. Sometimes it depends on where you are in your language learning process. For example, listening or watching to a TV show in your target language with subtitles in the target language can be counter productive if you barely understand the sounds, let alone the meanings and grammar. Also, subtitles are not 1 to 1 to the audio.
In my experience, if it is painful to you, you won't continue doing it. Most of language learning can be a pain. One of the best ways to get around the pain is to find a teacher (iTalki is a great site for that) who you find fits your needs and meet regularly with them. At the minimum, twice a week. You'll probably find that, over time, you'll develop a friend-type relationship more than a teacher-student relationship. How else are you going to talk for an hour? And if you are paying someone for their time and not relying on your friend who speaks that language it is a clear-cut transactional relationship. Patience can be bought. By paying a teacher, you are paying for their patience and your accountability to them.
It is like going to the gym. If you go to the gym once a week, don't expect a lot. However, if you go to the gym 3 times a week, you can definitely expect some improvement. You can expect even more improvement if you work with a personal trainer who gently pushes you, as you get better.
EDIT: Updated and refined my argument about taking classes
I STRONGLY categorically disagree with your "don't take classes" statement.
I would rephrase your statement "don't take shit classes".
Don't waste your time on "My name is Bob" classes looking at cartoons in textbooks.
But good classes. With proper structured tuition. Given by a true native teacher. Not an opportunity to be sniffed at.
Why do I say this ? Because I've done it. It was bloody hard work at the time and I hated every minute of it. But the outcome in terms of my fluency, including finer details like pronunciation etc without needing to think about it ? Unmatched. As far as I'm concerned there's no substitute for supervised learning.
If you want to learn a language properly, you need someone not afraid to tell you you're wrong (rather than just being nice and saying "that's good" all the time, or turning a blind eye to your abysmal pronunciation). You also need someone to push you and challenge you, especially with technical aspects which again is not something you'll find with friends.
This apparently is how language acquisition works. I do speak five languages, and not in a "polyglot blog post" way. I've tried to learn Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Russian.
The difference lies in the exposition part. The very process I used to learn English was to watch movies with barely intelligible dialogue, and subtitles that weren't 1:1. This was to "train my ear". I have also read a lot of books and content on the internet, and made sure to do it out loud. The muscles involved in English are different and it hurt at first. This was to learn idioms and acquire vocabulary.
I haven't bothered to learn grammar in any of the languages I speak but inferred the rules from consuming content. Granted, sometimes you explicit a rule, but the bulk of the time was consumption.
I discovered Stephen Krashen's work a few years ago. It is centered around "comprehensible input" for language acquisition as opposed to "learning", and stresses the fact taht input (listening, reading) was more important than output(speaking, writing) for language acquisition. It matches my experience and the experience of people I know who actually do speak multiple languages.
I've also made attempts at a bunch of other languages. Although I understand things here and there, the "input" is insufficient.
One interesting fact: I learned English out of necessity. I was interested in a field and read practically all that had been written about it in French. My only option was to learn English to access many more books.
- Be persistent. Studying languages is often boring, annoying and takes years. Nobody likes memorizing vocabulary. Embrace it. Study every day, even if that means only reviewing 5 words on some days.
- Don't try to analyze and understand everything. Communication isn't a science, treating it as such is unproductive and frustrating to the learner. There will be many things that at first sight make little sense, and that's okay; just move on. Language can be very nuanced, but with persistence you'll eventually "feel" the subtleties.
- Passive learning is super helpful. Change the phone language, watch movies (whether in the target language with subtitles, or your native language with target language subtitles), listen to music, etc. Doesn't matter if you don't understand.
- It can be depressing and you'll want to stop. Even after months of studying hard, go to a party with only natives and see how much you'll understand. Likely very little. Know it's normal, and only temporary.
- The hardest part is reaching a level of fluency where your brain no longer actively translates the language.
- Study from multiple sources. Most textbooks explain the nuances in natural language badly.
- Nearly all dialogue in textbooks is unnatural and robotic. Don't imitate textbooks or you'll sound like one.
- Observe and imitate natives. Often, the forced imitations eventually become a natural part of your speech.
- Stop caring so much. Don't try to be perfect. Speak a lot and allow yourself to make many mistakes, because you will.
- as with all foreign language speakers, the rules are subtly different for outsiders. Just copying native speakers can result in unpleasantness. In Korean, non-Koreans who "misuse" "panmal" (the blunt, informal speech level) by closely imitating friends can come across unintentionally as thuggish. There as elsewhere foreigners are held to higher standards.
If you’re a beginner, no reasonable human being is going to think anything nuanced about your choice of words. When was the last time you judged a non-native speaker of your own language for this level of subtlety?
My advice is to do whatever it takes to be understood. You’re going to sound like a rude idiot. Make peace with it.
I would also add that speaking a Japanese that is too good can backfire, as native have then more expectations that go further than language (behavior), especially for East-Asian people. Keeping illusion of semi-(in)competence can be useful.
I've found the reverse in Korea: the tyranny of low expectations. Often Koreans simply refuse to speak to me in any way, saying even a single word beyond, "I don't speak English".
Learning to "just move on" has been the biggest game-changer for me, not just in topics that are difficult to understand, but also for topics that are dreadful or simply difficult to focus on with ADD.
Language learning is a long enough process that one can simply "put off" learning the difficult or stressful things (for me, numbers and Russian movement verbs) and allow them to absorb naturally through exposure. This has made learning much less daunting for me.
The academic instruction was crucial for me. No matter how much I listened, I was never going to really understand the difference between unidirectional and multidirectional verbs of motion until it was explained in a way I could really grok.
On the other hand there is quite simply no replacement for hearing and speaking with native speakers of the target language. I taught quite a few English classes and there were often Ukrainian teachers who spoke English flawlessly, but for whatever reason students who only learned from non-native English speakers were at a clear disadvantage compared to those who also had native teachers, and everyone was at a disadvantage to those who had practiced in an English speaking country.
I worked with tons of people who lived in eastern Ukraine for years and never learned Russian or Ukrainian beyond a few phrases, I really do think it takes dedicated instruction combined with tons of practice with native speakers to really make fluency happen.
How to learn 1000 words? I'm using the Leittner method, aka Spaced Repetition, as implemented in the Anki flash card app [1] , and beautifully explained in [2].
After that progress takes off if you acquire vocab as fast as possible while speaking to natives as much as possible.
That initial bootstrapping phase can be done in 4 months.
No, immersion is not key. I know a bunch of people immersed for years in a foreign country that can’t introduce themselves in the local language. Happened to me too. Immersion only works if one as enough prior knowledge so that some input will be comprehensible, and then build on that. For bootstraping this, traditional methods (books, videos, classes) are required.
Also claiming having learn 9 languages without even listening them nor the level attained is cringy as hell. I’m so fed up of the mainstream blog posts about language; opening my own website/company about language learning is on my todo list once I graduate from PhD (related to language education).
Sorry it didn't live up to your standard / wasn't written in a style you would appreciate
You can use the app but as soon as you struggle, you're likely to be kicked out for some time. That's when you need practice the most, and they're discouraging you. It's disastrous for free users and indicates they gave too much for free and/or their monetization strategy is failing.
The way I understand it losing hearts prevents you from progressing too quickly. You can refill hearts by practicing content you've covered already and hence strengthen your basics.
Stopping when you make 5 mistakes is a very bad thing when you're trying to learn.
- reading some specially printed books with your native language and the target language side by side (eg left page English, right page Czech for me)
- writing regularly can be great practice. Doesn’t have to be about anything profound, just “what I did on the weekend” is fine, even if it was boring and unspectacular. It helps if you have friends willing to read and correct you, but just forcing yourself to produce the right words in a low-pressure situation can be really useful
A Russian teacher I had in college more than forty years ago told us about her experience. As a teenager, before World War II, she had moved with her family to Austria. When they arrived, she understood no German whatsoever. The way she learned it, she said, was just to read book after book in German. While she didn't understand what she read at all when she started, within a few months she was, she said, fluent, thanks mainly to the extensive reading. Systematic study in school and social immersion no doubt helped her as well.
I had been studying Russian for several years at that point and had reached a plateau, frustrated at being unable to read literature without looking up most words in a dictionary, so I tried what she suggested. Over the next couple of years, I read my way through dozens of novels and nonfiction books without using a dictionary. While I understood very little at first, the repeated exposure to vocabulary and grammatical patterns in meaningful contexts kickstarted my acquisition of the language, and soon I was enjoying Tolstoy, Chekhov, and the like in the original. In my case as well, continuing to study vocabulary and grammar systematically, both in class and on my own, also helped.
I applied the same technique when I moved to Japan in 1983. After having learned hiragana, katakana, and a few hundred kanji, I started reading real-world texts—newspapers, magazines, novels—straight through. I understood very little at first, but I made steady progress and after a couple of years I was able to start working as a Japanese-to-English translator. Once again, the effect of the extensive reading was boosted significantly by continuing to take language classes and to memorize vocabulary. The immersion in Japanese society also helped, of course.
I'm really glad I made that effort when I was young to learn not only to speak Japanese but to read and write it as well. That has made all the difference in my life since.
(1) attitude -- being willing to make mistakes (it's actually part of the brain rewiring process -- we remember better when there's an emotional connection). Also being willing to take the language as it is, and not imposing your own values on it from the get-go (e.g. why are there so many unnecessary cases/conjugations? it's stupid! -- people who are super-contrarian and judgy probably struggle more... they try to analyze everything but end up not learning anything. It's a common attitudinal problem among many otherwise smart people.)
(2) constant contact -- you need to spend time with the language in small chunks (e.g. 1/2 hour a day) over a long period of time rather than spend a week studying then stopping for several months.
(3) ability to notice things/distinctions -- this is important because if you cannot differentiate sounds or details, it can be hard to get to a certain level. I believe this ability is at least partly innate; folks who have this ability in spades seem to be able to progress faster. (but I also believe folks who have a growth mindset and put in the work eventually get there)
With these elements, one can assemble a combination of techniques tailored to oneself (everybody learns differently). For me, watching YouTube creators explain local culture is what interests me. Podcasts work for some people, but interesting content doesn't always exist in my target language, so I'm perfectly happy to reject that as technique for acquiring certain languages. Taking classroom lessons actually works really well for me because I like structure, so I do it weekly. Some people like music for learning languages -- it doesn't really work for me because I don't get to learn intonation (music obscures intonation and vowel lengths).
Learning techniques have to necessarily be bespoke because we come at languages with different backgrounds and interests. But I believe the 3 elements above have to exist.
In my opinion -- this is only my opinion -- immersion by living in a country is overrated as a technique. It helps for sure, but it really isn't necessary. The elements above are what are needed -- without these, even immersion is ineffective. I've met Irish guys living in Barcelona who couldn't speak any of the local languages. I've first hand experience living in several places where I never learned the local language because there was always a way around it.
Immersion works when there's no other way around it. In particular for native english speakers, you'd have to be in a situation where either most people you interact with don't know enough english for communication to be effective, or (and this is very rare in my limited experience) you would have to make an effort to stop using your native language altogether, even when locals address you in it. It also helps when there aren't any family/friends/compatriots around so you can't really "cheat" and you won't be able to function on a daily basis unless you learn and practice the local language.
Being immersed with no alternatives does force one to learn simple phrases to get by but it seems quite possible that you'll never have non-trivial conversations with locals until you have enough vocabulary -- and locals won't have non-trivial conversations with you unless you have enough vocabulary. Also native speakers are often loathe to correct you when you make mistakes, so the feedback loops is often broken. To get out of this chicken and egg situation, it seems to me that some amount of focused study is required, and whether that is done in the country or outside doesn't seem to matter (especially with sites like iTalki or others).
As an example: I have friends who taught English in Korea for years (where English isn't widely spoken). They were able to function for years with a few choice phrases and never needed to go beyond that.
Sometimes even at significant levels of immersion, it's possible to not be able to speak the language beyond the basics. I have friends who attended German universities, in German, but have trouble speaking German. Likewise in the US there are many international students attending college in English, do fairly well in school, but struggle greatly to converse in the language.
I think immersion is merely a tool: the underlying driving force really is "intention". With intention, it's possible to go much farther even if immersion was not a tool at one's disposal.
Another nice thing about immersion is that you can engage with cultural events that may not be present in your own country, and gain a deeper understanding of the natives themselves, which ties straight back into the language.
Depending on the country or your living situation it can be really hard to branch out... learning while living in a student dormitory was great because I was forced to express myself, even if I was sick, felt less motivated, missed home, etc.
My view is that he has his own methods which clearly work for him, and he has achieved a level of fluency that I can confirm is quite good (I speak several of the languages that he does), so there's something there.
I think his general prescriptions are correct and track with my language learning journey. As to the specific prescriptions he makes, like the use of mini-stories on LingQ, I've not found them to work for me. Or his prescription to read and listen a lot before attempting to speak -- I don't agree with that, though it seems to work for people with his cognitive style (i.e. more introverted rather than extroverted). I don't think either of these detracts from the points I made above though.
As for self-published books, I'm not sure I have such expectations of self-published authors that I would be affronted if they didn't deliver on their promises, but I haven't not read anything by him so I can't assess.
He has a business (LingQ) but I don't get the sense he's really peddling it any more than any other business (most YouTube creators do the same -- self-promotion on YT is just part of the game), but I guess perceptions differ. Again you're entitled to your opinions, but I do feel they are rather strong compared to my own assessment.
COVID has given me a reason to watch more content. I've found myself watching some fabulous output from Korea, Japan and elsewhere on Netflix.
But the subtitling on Netflix is just abysmal. I mean seriously, we're talking about schoolboy fundamentals here. White text on white/bright background ? Yup, Netflix does it, not just occasionally but A LOT. Subtitles bouncing around the screen during the course of the same film/episode (i.e. jumping between top and bottom of screen). Yup, Netflix does it, again not just occasionally but A LOT.
Honestly, makes me feel sad for those hearing impaired people who actually rely on subtitles.
Except for some short phrases, the subtitles were very close to what was spoken in rapid-fire Spanish.
The problem with “La casa de papel” is that is a serious multi-layered plot with complex characters that requires a lot of thinking.
“Club de Cuervos” is entertaining and no thinking compared to it. However, the constant use of Güey or Wey and “no manches” may annoy you.
I do agree with your sentiment that the web at large unfortunately still isn't great in terms of accessibility :/
I've tried to improve my French via Netflix and it's useless. Netflix subtitles are often just the English subtitles independently translated. Even for original French content you are not guaranteed to get correct subtitles.
I doubt they were considering language learning when subtitling, unfortunately.
For some reason this didn't come to mind when I was outlining for the article, would've included it haha
The Rosetta Stone was a huge breakthrough find, as it was an important clue for hieroglyphs, as it had the same decree written 3 different times.
Linguistic anthropologist s usually learn from many hours of field recorded conversations for nearly extinct languages.
The Bible is the arguably most translated book in history. If the Bible has a translation in one of your dead languages, you could start there.
Even Machine Learning needs language pairs (same text in two languages) to get started.
[1] https://books.google.com/books/about/Familia_Romana.html?id=...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRllohBcHec7YUgW6HfltLA
I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish, and have tried lots of apps and various techniques and can listen ok, read well, and barely speak. I have an 18 month son, and a Hispanic nanny who basically pure Spanish to him.
Something I’ve been doing lately, is translating each phrase I say to him on my phone (“Do you need help with your legos?” Kind of thing) and storing the translations in a spreadsheet.
Surprisingly, there’s no app that I can find where you can link a spreadsheet to it and then generate Spaced Repetition Flash Cards from the rows in it. I know there’s a ton of apps where I can make cards straight in the app, but I was surprised there’s nothing that can work straight off of a Google Sheet.
So I’ve started tinkering with React Native just to learn something new and potentially hack together something for this.
So, my question: Is anyone else interested in the idea of having an app where they can load up a spreadsheet and turn it into smart flash cards really easily?