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asakiyumeThis morning in the car I was listening to the Cantares Latino-Americanos program on WTCC and repeating words and phrases I liked, which were mainly ones I understood... and it struck me that while I don't speak Spanish or claim to know it, a fair number of words and phrases are actually in my vocabulary, and I bet this is true of a lot of Americans.
In the United States, lots of people for whom English is a first language feel very uncomfortable about learning a foreign language. They set it up in their minds as a huge and daunting task. But what if, instead of thinking they didn't know any language unless they could speak and read it fluently, they were able to think of themselves as having a smattering of a language, starting with when they had just had a few words and phrases, like me with Spanish? Maybe that would demystify and de-difficult-ize language learning. Because that's what language learning is, I think--going from a few words and phrases that you can employ in a limited number of circumstances to a few more. Then stretching to a few more. Then more.
People in most places learn bunches of languages. They usually know two really well: their mother tongue and the most dominant national language of their country (maybe these two are one and the same, but in many cases they're not). But on top of those, they'll know other local tongues, plus languages of neighboring countries, plus maybe English or some other major trade language. They don't know all of those to the extent that they know the first two languages, but they know them somewhat.
... So yeah. I speak Spanish... a tiny, tiny bit. But one day maybe I'll stretch it.
In the United States, lots of people for whom English is a first language feel very uncomfortable about learning a foreign language. They set it up in their minds as a huge and daunting task. But what if, instead of thinking they didn't know any language unless they could speak and read it fluently, they were able to think of themselves as having a smattering of a language, starting with when they had just had a few words and phrases, like me with Spanish? Maybe that would demystify and de-difficult-ize language learning. Because that's what language learning is, I think--going from a few words and phrases that you can employ in a limited number of circumstances to a few more. Then stretching to a few more. Then more.
People in most places learn bunches of languages. They usually know two really well: their mother tongue and the most dominant national language of their country (maybe these two are one and the same, but in many cases they're not). But on top of those, they'll know other local tongues, plus languages of neighboring countries, plus maybe English or some other major trade language. They don't know all of those to the extent that they know the first two languages, but they know them somewhat.
... So yeah. I speak Spanish... a tiny, tiny bit. But one day maybe I'll stretch it.
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Date: 2014-12-21 03:12 am (UTC)This post actually kind of describes the exact hang-up that I used to have with language learning. I picked up English relatively young, and I spoke it fairly well. It used to be, then, that whenever I wanted or needed to pick up another language, a vague notion emerged in my head that since I could speak one foreign language with reasonable proficiency, I had to display the same deftness with the other language too before I could get down to the business of actually using it for anything. Maybe I figured that not getting it right from the get-go would've been unworthy of the task at hand, so to speak, or maybe I was just really used to getting it right.
And this wasn't useful at all. What I needed was precisely the confidence to speak and write in snippets, fragments, and muddles. It occurred to me that I wasn't going to get much better if I didn't actually use the bits and pieces I was being taught, warts and all -- and so I had to condition myself to start communicating with the awareness that I'd probably bollocks it up half the time. And I simply had to accept that I wouldn't be able to employ the same level of flexibility and nuance that I could when speaking English (or, indeed, my native Finnish).
At first it felt... really weird. I like to play with language and I'm weirdly picky about words. When I don't have elbow room to express what I want to express in precisely the way I like, it feels a bit like someone's chopped off a limb. But I've found that getting it sort of right is often a more workable strategy than gunning for perfection and ending up saying little or nothing at all.
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Date: 2014-12-21 04:15 am (UTC)For me, the thing that gives me the push is being in a situation where I *have* to use the little bits of language that I have.
Feeling like someone's chopped off a limb--that's a good description. I remember when I wasn't very fluent with Japanese, having to twist my rudimentary vocabulary this way and that to express the things I was trying to say. If I didn't know the word "philosopher," I'd have to say something like "a person who talks a lot about ideas and big questions of life," and then someone might volunteer the word for me.
I didn't know you were Finnish! So many people are so very, very good at English....
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Date: 2014-12-21 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 09:03 am (UTC)It worked. The students loved it and talked a lot. And that's the only way to learn to speak a foreign language correctly. Talk a lot -- badly at first, but eventually it gets better just because you talk a lot.
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Date: 2014-12-21 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 04:48 pm (UTC)I think the way I've learned to fix mistaken ways of saying things, for myself, is to say something I think is correct, have the person I'm speaking to look a little puzzled, and then have them say, "You mean---" filling in with the right way of saying it. "Yes! That's it!" I say. And remember. The other is by listening to bunches of native speakers speaking together.
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Date: 2014-12-21 06:06 pm (UTC)That is, I echo the correct grammar. They hear the right way to say it, but there's no muss and no interruption in the conversation.
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Date: 2014-12-22 02:29 pm (UTC)(And if they don't have those things, it's okay too--they'll still become more fluent and free in their communication, just with some errors in there... which, in terms of human communication, isn't the end of the world)
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Date: 2014-12-21 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-21 03:58 pm (UTC)A nosegay of responses:
- Oddly: Sheeyun and I watching the last episodes of "The Tudors." He was just in the kitchen getting something when I laughed, and wen he came down, I explained that when Lady Mary spoke fluent Spanish to the new Spanish ambassador he remarked in the subtitles on her speaking English, but in his speech, upon her speaking Christian. And then I realized with pleasure that I have enough of several languages that my ear is open to them. (Any English-speaker might catch the funny clever scripting I noticed, but I think our ears are mostly turned off. ) Even Korean, though unless it's a soap I'll get very little-- and yet my ears are cocked for the occasional noogoo or hajeman.
- As I understand it, studies of multilinguals indicate that in most languages claimed, there are a few words or phrases or a pidjin, not full fluency.
- I like the amputation comparison. Partly in a developmental way. It is exhausting to work for long in a language that's inadequately one's own. I imagine it's exhausting to adjust to amputation. But as skill develops in language, or in a differently-balancing body, te exhaustion abates. But still, it is different-- not the same as a native tongue or the body before amputation. (Though of course some people have more than one native tongue-- a bliss!)
- Whoops, forgot one. When Dr. Samuel Johnson visited France he only spoke Latin, olding it to be improper that the French should find an Englishman inferior in anything. What a guy.
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Date: 2014-12-21 04:58 pm (UTC)I like the idea of an ear being open--that's a great way of saying it.
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Date: 2014-12-22 09:14 am (UTC)My Danish students are often a bit shy when they have to speak English, so I "force" them out of their comfort zone through various games. Once they get that little nudge, they do fine. No, it's not perfect, but if they spoke perfect English, they wouldn't be in my class.
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Date: 2014-12-22 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2014-12-24 08:44 am (UTC)