Category: Language learning

How long does it take to learn a language?

By Simon

There’s no single answer to the question posed by the title of this post. It depends on number of factors, including what hope to do with the language, how often and how intensively you study, which language you’re learning, and which language(s) you already know.

Some language learners find it helpful to set themselves targets and goals, such as passing a language proficiency exam. This gives you something to aim for, but also puts quite a lot of pressure on you. If you don’t achieve your targets and goals, or it seems likely that you won’t, it’s easy to become disheartened and possibly to give up altogether.

Here’s an alternative way of thinking about learning, from the Effortless Language Acquisition blog:

…learning is a lifelong process. There is no end. There is no graduation. There are no “permanent grades” or records.

The author of the blog argues that if you see learning a language, or indeed anything else, as a lifelong project – Constant And Neverending Improvement (CANI) is the phrase he uses, you won’t feel so stressed or worried. Instead you can just try to improve every week, even if it’s only by a small amount.

Immigrant language learning

By Simon

There was a interesting report on the radio this morning about helping immigrants in London to learn English. They interviewed a Bangladeshi woman who has lived in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which has a large immigrant population, for over 20 years but who speaks very little English. She told the interviewer that on the rare occasions when she needs to communicate in English, she uses an interpreter. The rest of the time she speaks Bengali. She also said that there aren’t enough teachers of English as a Second Language in that area, a claim that a representative of the local council denied.

It’s interesting the way some immigrant communities hold on to their languages for many generations, while others abandon them within a generation or two.

Have you had any experience of this phenomenon?

Web resources

By Simon

Here are a few online language-related resources that I came across recently:

– A series of videos on YouTube showing how Chinese characters have developed from the original pictures:

– esPodkasto – la podkasto en esperanto (Esperanto podcast)

– Lojban Radio – an introduction to this logical language (in Lojban and English)

– Hour of Babble – podcasts about constructed languages (conlangs)

– Eddie Izzard on learning French

Language learning and music

By Simon

Last week I bought a new Welsh language course – Cadw Sŵn – which uses a combination of classical music and stories to teach you the language. I think it’s based on the suggestopedia system. The course is being offered at half price and I want to brush up my Welsh, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The course consists of 20 stories based in the Welsh village of Aberarthur. The stories appear in Welsh and English in the course book, and are read aloud by the author, Colin Jones, on the accompanying CDs. You first listen to a piece of classical music, and Colin encourages you to relax. Then you listen to the story three times, once with no music, and twice with music in the background. After that you are advised to read and/or listen to the story again the next day, then to do the exercises in the book.

So far I’ve listened to the music and the first story. Later today I’ll read through the story again and do the exercises. I think this course is going to be fun. I like the idea of using stories, and the music is very pleasant to listen to. I don’t know if listening to it improves your memory, but I’m happy to try it.

Do you know of any similar courses for other languages?

What shall we talk about?

By Simon

Language exchange is a great way to practise languages you’re learning and to learn more. In my experience, it works best if those involved have reached a similar level in the language(s) they’re studying – ideally at least an intermediate level.

Sometimes the conversation flows, other times it limps along like an ostrich trying to walk through treacle. To avoid the treacle, you could agree on topics in advance and prepare them by learning relevant vocabulary. This works quite well, though after a while, thinking up new topics can be quite a challenge.

One topic I thought up today was cultural differences, particularly as they apply to the workplace. For example, the kinds of things people do when they or someone else in the office has a birthday, or when they leave the company.

What do you talk about with your language exchange partners?

Number learning Chinese soars

By Simon

According to an article on the BBC, the number of people outside China learning Mandarin Chinese has soared to 30 million over the past five years. The report mentions that in London the majority of kids learning Mandarin have parents who work in finance industry – they perceive that a knowledge of Mandarin will be very useful for their offspring in the future.

In 1998, 6,000 students were studying Mandarin in the USA; there are now 50,000. The report goes on to claim that “It’s self-evident that children will be much better off economically and in job seeking if Chinese programmes are adopted.” I’m not convinced of this – knowledge of Chinese can be useful but isn’t necessarily sufficient to secure you a good job. Other skills and qualifications are needed as well.

The article speculates that Mandarin may replace English as the global language, and concludes that this probably won’t happen just yet, but could do within 100 years or so.

What do you think – could Mandarin take over from English as the most widely spoken language?

Podcast language courses

By Simon

I came across an interesting article today about using podcasts to learn languages. It lists a number of useful sites for languages such as Spanish, French and Russian, and mentions that numerous similar podcasts are available on iTunes. I just had a search in iTunes and have found quite a few free podcasts for various languages, including Greek, Tibetan, Chinese and French, and I’ve subscribed to some Irish and Scottish Gaelic ones. All I need to do now is find time to listen to them.

There are also links to podcasts in many languages here, and to some language learning podcasts here, where alongside such popular languages as Spanish and Japanese, you can find lessons in Mohawk and Osaka dialect.

Attitudes to languages

By Simon

I came across an interesting article today which discusses, among other things, attitudes to Irish in Ireland. The writer is a native speaker of Irish from Connemara who bemoans the feelings of inferiority about their language felt by many people in the Gaeltachtaí (the areas where Irish is, in theory, the main language).

Here are a few extracts:

In Ireland Irish is more of an emotional question than a linguistic one. The sound of Irish seems to be lodged in the sub-conscious mind of our people. That might explain why discussions about Irish are more of an emotional nature than about the intricacies of the language itself.

Never is there as much emotion expressed in relation to the other languages they failed to learn at school or didn’t enjoy. And even less knowledge about them. The sounds that I made as a child are still ringing in our ears and pounding in our hearts waiting to be released.

I’ve witnessed many people in the Galltacht expressing the belief that Gaeltacht people have a real sense of pride about their language and would prefer to keep the ‘blow-ins’ out. This may be true of some but the truth is that a feeling of inferiority is rampant among native Irish speakers and has been for centuries.

English is felt to be the ‘better’ language by many in the Gaeltacht.

The effect of losing our language is a subtle shift in our harmony with ourselves. It will not make headlines but its survival is necessary for our fundamental feeling of belonging and our understanding of who we really are.

Similar sentiments and attitudes are unfortunately true for many other minority languages, and indeed ‘non-standard’ dialects. The situation isn’t entirely gloomy in Ireland though – many pupils at the increasingly popular gaelscoileanna (schools that teach everything through the medium of Irish), seem to be proud to speak Irish.

Dictionaries

By Simon

When learning a language, many people use bilingual dictionaries. These are very useful, but once you get passed the basics, it’s a good idea to invest in a monolingual dictionary in your target language. When you look up words in bilingual dictionaries, you rely on your native language to understand what they mean. In a monolingual dictionary you have to rely entirely on the language you’re learning. This helps you to pick a lot of new vocabulary.

The only problem with monolingual dictionaries is finding places to buy them. There are monolingual dictionaries online, for example I just found a good Spanish dictionary here, but finding printed ones is not quite so easy. Any suggestions where to look?

Useful websites

By Simon

Here are a couple of useful language-related websites I came across today:

BePolyglot
Provides a systematic way to learn four Romance languages: French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. It contains a detailed comparison of the grammars of these languages, highlights similarities and differences in vocabularly and shows how to convert words between languages.

It’s intended for those who want to improve their knowledge of one or more Romance languages, as well as for anyone interested in comparative linguistics and Romance languages. To access the full content of the site, you have to subscribe, which costs $4.95 per month or $19.90 per year.

Does anyone know of similar sites for other language families?

Kanji Converter
This site converts Japanese kanji into hiragana, katakana and/or romaji. It also gives information about the words in English.

I usually know or can guess what Japanese kanji mean and know how to pronounce them in Mandarin, but don’t always know how to pronounce them in Japanese, so this site is very useful for me.