I never thought I had any talent for learning languages. Do you like learning languages? How could you... it's so boring. Whether it's vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation, it's all too painful.
But I have an infinite longing to become proficient in another language. I want to deeply experience the culture of a foreign land, rather than just scratching the surface. I even want to become a part of that culture. I greedily desire to acquire a new personality that belongs to a language.
Recently, I started learning Spanish. I am very happy (although I might not be as happy if there were exams :) because it's a fresh start. I can let go of a lot of baggage and try to learn it in many fun and relaxed ways. In contrast, well, there's English. I've made too many mistakes in learning English, so subconsciously, I might hope that learning Spanish is a compensatory opportunity.
I have heard a lot about language learning methods from childhood to adulthood, and recently I have watched a lot of videos on language learning methodologies. I have gained some insights, but the conclusions seem to be nothing more than common clichés, such as interest being the best teacher, not being afraid of making mistakes, and needing a lot of input whether active or passive, and output being the result of a lot of input. The key ultimately lies in implementation.
And the process of implementation is exactly where I have gained some insights recently.
Watch videos that interest you#
Everyone will admit that the process of language learning is dull and tasteless, so choosing videos that interest you helps to persevere. This principle is absolutely correct. But what kind of videos interest you? In the past, I would think, I like philosophy, literature, and psychology, so I'll go find videos on those topics. No. No. No. We are slaves to our desires. Admit it, be honest with yourself about your interests. The videos I truly enjoy watching are about which ham is better, how to cook octopus, recommendations and explorations of bars and nightclubs, and stories that tease desire and taboo. I don't want to watch videos about philosophy, literature, and psychology at all. I want to watch videos about food and erotica.
Speak with the purpose of communication#
This is a very popular video about learning English methodology with a high number of views. The main idea is that English is just a tool, and we should not focus on whether we make grammar mistakes, but rather on the needs of the other person in the conversation and the result of communication. Interestingly, I recently had an example of this, which was very fun.
I tried to call the internet company to have broadband installed at my house. I had been putting it off for two weeks because it was highly likely that the person on the other end wouldn't speak English, and I didn't know how to communicate. But I couldn't keep putting it off, so I nervously made the call.
Me: Hola! Can you speak English?
Other person: No... No inglés.
Me (bravely): Quiero fibra para mi casa.
And everything works out! He started speaking English to me! Although he spoke with a lot of grammar mistakes, it didn't really affect our communication and interaction. When it came to communicating some alphanumeric characters for identification purposes, Google Translate's text-to-speech feature smoothly resolved the issue! As long as you take the initiative, the story will unfold.
In this example, I initially tried my best to express my needs, and later on, he also spoke English with the purpose of communication. The end result, muy bien.
This process may not necessarily enhance my Spanish language skills, but it greatly enhances my confidence in using Spanish. After all, even if I have many expectations and aspirations for language learning, successful communication is definitely one of the goals.
Activate the intuition of the language#
"Intuition of the language" is a term I made up. I'm not sure if this is the correct method, but I want to try to cultivate this intuition right from the beginning of learning Spanish. So what is the intuition of the language? Indeed, this term is somewhat abstract, and I find it difficult to define. In general, it means not learning, understanding, and memorizing a language through logical analysis, but rather trying to feel it as much as possible. Just like when children learn a language, they don't learn it by analyzing word grammar, but rather by using their intuition of the language based on what they hear, their known vocabulary, and their understanding, internalizing it, and then expressing it outwardly. We, or at least the old me, often overly rely on logical thinking in the process of learning English, neglecting the intuition of the language. So I believe it's necessary to reactivate it.
So what should we feel and how should we feel it? I don't have any professional knowledge, I'm just summarizing some ideas based on my own experience:
- Feel the tone of the language. Just like listening to a song, feel the rhythm and stress used by native speakers of the language. If we use dialects as an analogy, it might be easier to understand. For example, everyone probably knows what the tone of the Northeastern dialect feels like.
- Feel the imagery behind the language. Different languages cannot be simply mapped. The meaning of a word in one language is not the same as in another language. What does this word mean in the target language? Feel it. Don't try to translate or define it, but feel the direct mapping of a word and a "cluster of meanings".
- Feel the overall meaning of a sentence. Don't analyze the grammar, but feel the overall meaning of a sentence. It's somewhat similar to trying to think directly in the target language, bypassing the process of translation. For example, even if you don't fully understand a sentence, just capturing some key words can quickly help you understand the meaning of the sentence. Yes, that's the feeling, remember that feeling. When we lose some grammatical details, we tend to rely more on our language intuition. On the other hand, if we know all the details of a sentence, we tend to fully translate it into our native language before understanding it. This intuition should be applied not only during input, but also during output. Try to directly express what we want to say in the target language, without translation, without thinking about grammar, and focus on the language itself.
However, first and foremost, I admit that it is not necessary to actively try to activate the intuition of the language. It's something that happens naturally over time. I never used to think about the intuition of language, but now I believe I have some intuition for English. Accumulation of time and a lot of input will eventually lead to this result. But if I had this mindset from the beginning, I believe it would have been more effective.
Also, as mentioned above, my experience in learning English has taught me that the intuition of the language must and can only be built on a foundation of extensive input. We should not prioritize the pursuit of so-called language intuition and reverse the order of importance. And if we don't feel this intuition at the beginning, there is no need to rush, just be patient.
Finally, I believe that the intuition of the language is very important, but I don't think we should rely solely on it for learning. Since we have already mastered at least one language and developed a logical thinking process, we can definitely accelerate the learning process.