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'm very happy (although I might not be so happy if there's an exam :) It's probably because it's a fresh start and 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've heard a lot about language learning methods from childhood to now, and recently I've watched a lot of videos about language learning methodologies. I've gained some insights, but the conclusions seem to be nothing more than old 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 lies in how to implement them.
And the process of implementation is exactly where I've gained some insights recently.
Watch videos that interest you#
Everyone would agree that the process of language learning is boring, so choosing videos that interest you helps to persevere. This principle is absolutely correct. But what videos are you interested in? In the past, I would think that I like philosophy, literature, and psychology, so I would 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 philosophy, literature, or psychology. I want to watch food and pornography.
Speak with the goal 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 shouldn't focus on whether we make grammar mistakes, but rather on the needs of the other person in the conversation and the result of communication. Coincidentally, I have a very interesting example of this recently.
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's 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?
Them: 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 solved the problem! 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 goal 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 difficult to define. In general, it means not learning, understanding, and memorizing a language through logic, 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 existing vocabulary, and their understanding, internalizing it, and then expressing it outwardly. We, at least the old me, often rely too much on logical thinking in the process of learning English, neglecting the intuition of the language. So I believe it's important to reactivate it.
So what should we feel and how do 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. It might be easier to understand if we compare it to dialects. For example, everyone probably knows what the tone of Northeastern Chinese sounds like.
- Feel the imagery behind the language. Different languages don't have a simple one-to-one mapping. 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 like trying to think directly in the target language, bypassing the translation process. For example, you may not fully understand a sentence, but just capturing a few key words allows you to quickly 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. And when 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 translating, without thinking about grammar, and focus on the language itself.
But first, I admit that actively trying to activate the intuition of the language is not necessary. It's something that happens naturally over time. I never thought about the intuition of language before, but now I believe I have some level of language intuition in 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 made the learning process more efficient.
Also, as mentioned above, my experience in learning English has taught me that language intuition must and can only be built on a foundation of extensive input. We shouldn't prioritize the pursuit of so-called language intuition and neglect the fundamentals. And if you don't feel this intuition at the beginning, there's no need to rush, just be patient.
Finally, I believe that language intuition 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 accelerate the learning process.