
Nobody Knows How to Learn a Language - _abattoir
https://blog.usejournal.com/nobody-knows-how-to-learn-a-language-f5e042e73af8
======
WheelsAtLarge
The answer is no secret but it's hard to achieve. The fastest way to learn a
new language fluently is to speak it, constantly.

Yes, it's easier for children to acquire a new language but they learn it
because they are constantly forced to use it.

I've known a number of people that have lived in a foreign country yet they
did not learn the language. Why? Because they could get away with using
English most of the time. They were never forced to speak it. They could get
away with only speaking it a little. And if they got in trouble they could
always ask someone for help.

The stress caused by having to come up with the proper word combination helps
immensely. We tend to remember what caused us stress. Also, repetition will
always help in acquiring new words.

So, basically, start a learning program but make sure you practice every day
by speaking with someone that's fluent in your new language ASAP and let them
correct you as needed. Also, NEVER speak your native language with that
person. Only use the language you want to learn with him or her.

Do not start book studying, grammar and such, until you have a good grasp of
the language. Reading a new language will reinforce accents since we tend to
read with our language in mind.

The more you have to think in the language you are trying to learn the faster
you will reach fluency.

~~~
injb
This.

The author of the article says:

"If there were someone who knew how to learn new languages, we would all know
it. They would be uniquely and unquestionably skilled at producing new
language speakers. They would be very visible: everybody would be flocking to
their doors and imitating them."

He seems to be confusing "learn" with "teach". All of the above would be true
if he said "if there were someone who knew how to _teach_ new languages...".

Lots of people know how to learn, but no one wants to hear about it, because
the answer is: work really hard.

"Everyone wants to be a bodybuilder, but no one wants to lift no heavy ass
weights."

~~~
retiredcoder
Unrelated but not everyone can be a body builder.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin)

~~~
shard
I'm not sure what you wanted to point out in the link that you shared, but it
seems to me that being a body builder is like being a painter or writer or
skier or marathon runner, you just get the tools and do it. There's no need to
be at a level where you can make a living from it to participate.

------
MarsAscendant
> In theory, formal language instruction is precisely the right way to learn a
> new language.

Surely that's not true: otherwise, children wouldn't have learned their native
tongue(s) the way they famously do.

Not sure what kind of theory the author's been immersing themselves with. When
I was studying for a language tutor, along my linguistics program, the context
was put forth as the most important part of learning anything, let alone a
language.

> I studied French in elementary school — supposedly the “ideal” age to learn
> a new language, according to some people — and somehow continued to get As
> and Bs while retaining almost no ability to speak the language at all.

Perhaps they haven't because language acquisition, like most any mental
skill¹, requires an interest to maintain, let alone improve. My suspicion is
this is also why people dislike maths so much: because it's a tenuous process
that requires considerate effort to develop. Without a passion for it – often
gained either through a natural aptitude or an inspirational teacher – it
might be difficult, in those two fields, or in any other of similar
requirements, to obtain and retain the skills necessary.

¹ I have a sneaking suspicion – and might well be wrong – that, in physical
skills, muscle memory or related mechanisms may affect retention. There've
been studies suggesting that writing things down helps memorization, which is
a rather "muscle" activity. Perhaps the latter is related to the former?

~~~
mattmanser
It's also not how most of us learn the much simpler computer languages, I can
pick up a language much quicker by playing with it rather than learning it
formally.

------
viraptor
> Less than 1 percent of American adults today are proficient in a foreign
> language that they studied in a U.S. classroom.

Is this really as notable as the author suggests? Are there more people
proficient in other subjects learned in the classroom? I don't think more than
1% of people from my classrooms are proficient in maths / chemistry / physics
to a "fluent adult language" degree.

~~~
_abattoir
So you're saying that statistic isn't notable if the entirety of education has
less than 1 percent effectiveness... yes, I'd say that was notable.

~~~
viraptor
It's notable, but not in this context. If we're talking about
effectiveness/usefulness of education systems in general, sure, that's an
interesting point. If talking specifically about language learning - I don't
think so.

Similar: It's notable that I've got 2 legs - as a living creature, due to
adaptation, etc. It's not notable in a town of people - they all have 2 legs.

------
jcl
The first four paragraphs water down the title's claim to the more comfortably
defensible: "Nobody knows how to learn a language... to native fluency without
significant effort."

------
adamnemecek
Figure out the most common 3000 words and memorize those. Practice the
grammar. Read news papers in the language and try to summarize the articles in
your own words. Watch YouTube videos in the language. Start speaking to native
speakers. It’s not too crazy, school really dated your time. It’s funny, early
on, in school you learn words like “apple” but these words don’t come up all
that often.

~~~
thecleaner
Any resource on how to get these types of frequent lists ? I am big fan of
"learn words and consume media" method.

~~~
simula67
I think for some languages this might be problematic. I am trying to learn
some Russian and the word endings changes based on how each word interacts
with other words.

For example :

"I know" : Ya znayu

"We know" : My Znayem

"He/She Know" : on znayet/ona znayet

"You know" : Ty Znayesh

"They know" : Oni znayut

etc

Knowing that 'znat' means 'To know' might not be enough to place a word in a
sentence

Some suggest that it might be better to memorize sentences or phrases instead

~~~
stevekemp
Finnish is similar with the various suffixes based on context. The rules are
reasonably regular, and in a classroom with a list I can make the right
choices.

Doing it in real-time when speaking is more of a challenge though.

------
DanielBMarkham
Over the past several years, I've been fascinated with what linguists do in
the large: not the narrow, tight study of particular language aspects, the
broad understanding of human languages in general.

One thing I _think_ I got from this: languages are _spoken_ not written. Once
you start writing a language it becomes something else. In some cases, you
even end up with an official language. A standard.

Human language is the use of sounds to negotiate meaning. So yes, immersion
really is the only way to learn because with immersion all you really care
about is whether meaning can be transferred around, not whether it's "right"
or not. All of that correctness stuff is a different thing entirely than
language. Perhaps the author's goal might be "speak language X well enough
that others don't realize it's their second language". It's a laudable goal.
I'm just not convinced it qualifies as learning a language. (In the colloquial
sense, sure.)

People are actually experts in creating and learning languages. They take what
they know, extend it a little bit, and work it into some pattern of speech
that conveys meaning. Any time you hear somebody who's new to your country
speak in a way that half their old way, half the new way, you're hearing
somebody create a language.

But if you want to start fooling people, to invisibly blend into a society and
not give anything away with your speech, I think you're going to need
stressors, either internal or external. Otherwise your brain is going to learn
just enough to get by, just like it learns everything else.

------
potatofarmer45
In college we had a program where you studied in the country of the language
you're trying to learn. What was interesting was the "pledge" where no matter
how bad it got, you didn't revert to English. It sucked at the start, but
eventually you just pick things up and it just works.

You don't quite get the grammar and native speakers will notice that, but so
long as they correct you, eventually you'll just pick up the rules.

------
physicles
The hardest part about learning a new language is maintaining motivation.

Learning a new language isn’t a hobby you can just add to your life like
knitting or cooking. It’s more like an ambitious diet and exercise program,
except the payoff is even less motivating. If you look good, everyone sees. If
you can speak Japanese, nobody cares but other people you talk to whose
English is worse than your Japanese. Like exercise, if you invest anything
less than four hours a week, you won’t make meaningful gains, and it’s often
months before you get anywhere. It’s a slog.

The trick (if you can call it that) is to find something you really want to
do, badly, that you NEED your L2 to do. For Japanese learners, maybe maybe
wanting to watch anime is enough. For English learners, maybe it’s watching
American TV and movies. For Americans learning an L2, immersion is the pretty
much the only viable approach.

Immersion is just a hack to motivate yourself by making your life almost
unbearably difficult, with learning to speak your L2 the only way out.

Looking back on six years living in China and learning Chinese while working
(borderline fluent in some topics but woefully inadequate in others), if I
could do it over again I would:

1\. Spend a few months getting the fundamentals down: learn pronunciation,
drill it with a patient native speaker, go hard at 10+ hours a week book
studying. (I did this)

2\. Move somewhere to either work or study only in your L2, and where there’s
barely any English speakers. Live there for a year or more. (I didn’t do this;
I lived in a large city and had mostly English speaking friends and my work
was in English)

There’s no way to fluency without spending hundreds of hours talking with
people in your L2: ~500 hours for Spanish, ~1500 for Chinese or Arabic.

------
huffmsa
I don't support the argument here that Fluency == Knowledge of parts of
speech.

I don't think of English as a formal structure except for when I'm editing a
written document.

Fluency is the ability to carry on an uninterrupted conversation with another
fluent speaker.

Immersion (true immersion, where you don't try to cheat) is the best way to
become fluent.

You've gotta be Daniel Day Lewis.

------
mikekchar
I'm going to skip my usual really, really, long explanation. Long story short:
TFA is wrong. Many people know how to learn a language. Many people learn
several languages because after learning how to learn one, they realised it's
not that hard.

Main problem people have: they have unrealistic expectations. Children don't
have a magic ability to learn languages. They take 10-20 years to learn up to
adult level proficiency. They take 3-5 years to learn fluency up to a basic
level. If you learn as fast as a child, it will take you 5 years to be able to
speak like a 5 year old.

Technique is important, but it is late and I don't want to write a massive
post about it (again). Here is the short version. Study every day. Don't miss
a day. If you study 3 times a week, you will plateau at a very low level. If
you do less than that, you won't get past baby level. You will eventually have
to "study" at least 1 hour a day, but you can start with any small amount you
want (even 5 minutes is enough) -- but don't skip days. If you miss a day (or
several), you can't make up for it. Don't miss days.

Only study language you understand. If you can not understand a sentence at
least 95%, you will have troubles (the 95% number did not come out of my
ass... it is important). Always aim for 100% comprehension. Whether you study
grammar explicitly or not is up to you -- do it if you enjoy it, don't if you
don't. However, do _not_ practice constructing sentences from "first
principles" using grammar. This will mean that you acquire non-idiomatic
language. Only use grammar to check that your grammar is correct, not to
produce sentences.

In order to learn sentences, it is enough to expose yourself to them (as long
as you understand them). I found it faster to memorise exemplars. YMMV. If
using flash cards (with or without SRS), always practice from your native
language to your target language. _Never_ the other way around. It is
important.

You must also practice forming sounds. You can "mirror" recorded audio, but
sometimes it is too fast. To combat this, get recordings of songs and learn
them. Try to perfect them. Record yourself and check to see how close you are.

Always try to practice with native language sources. It can be a live person,
TV, radio, or written language. Reading written language is usually best for
the bulk of your learning. This is because you can easily get a lot of it and
you can easily go through it again and again. When reading, make sure you
understand 95% (there's that number again). If you don't, find something
simpler, or find out what the content means and read it again. If the latter,
repeat the section every few days until it seems like your native language.

Take every opportunity to speak the language. However, beware. Most people go
through a "closed period". This is a period where you can understand a lot
more than you can say. Often you can't say _anything_. This is normal. It
means you are around a 2-3 year old native level of speaking. Congratulations!
Don't let it bother. Keep going and you will definitely break through it. Most
failures happen because people quit (duh). Most people quit at this stage.

There is a _lot_ more, but that's probably enough to get anyone started. Many
languages share a lot of grammar and vocabulary. If your native an target
language are related, you can often "learn" a language (to a child level of
ability) pretty quickly (say a year or two). If you are choosing a very
different language, it will take you longer (3-5 years). No matter which you
choose, you won't get adult level of fluency and proficiency in less that 5-10
years. Anybody telling you differently is selling you something that doesn't
exist. Languages are _huge_ \-- you have to be in to for the long haul.

~~~
jasim
If someone wants to learn a language just to enjoy its language & literature,
and not necessarily be conversant in it, then would it be okay to never speak
it? Or is conversation an essential practice?

~~~
jhbadger
Of course. For example, while there are a small number of "living latinists"
who actually want to speak the language, the vast majority of people studying
Latin just want to read it, and the teaching material reflects this (focusing
on interpreting text rather than composing it or speaking it) Same with other
classical languages such as Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Ancient Egyptian, and
Babylonian.

------
viraptor
> If there were someone who knew how to learn new languages, we would all know
> it. They would be uniquely and unquestionably skilled at producing new
> language speakers.

The thing is... There are people like that. They may not know how to teach
that to others, but if you look at simultaneous translators, they don't just
know another language. They know 4 or more fluently. And maybe pick up another
one over summer holiday just for fun. (At least the ones I know did that)

------
viraptor
I got curious about the CIA notes. When I was at uni, a GCHQ person tried to
recruit people from the class. One of the things he mentioned was that they
want people to pick up new languages and it's common to learn them during your
career. I wonder if it's the same as in CIA (we can now claim we have an
X-speaking analysts), or if the situation there is better for some reason.
Does anyone know more details?

------
person_of_color
My problem is I can pickup the grammar and theory while learning, but poor at
speaking the spot. I don't really have anyone to practice with. Any ideas?

~~~
uncle_d
Find a local Meetup? Skype with native online teachers?

------
lordnacho
I grew up with four languages around me and am currently learning another,
having also added a couple of others before. Here's my take on it:

\- For a child, every lesson in everything is a language lesson. Everyone you
come across will correct you. Everyone will add to your vocabulary. Say you're
cooking, or going to the zoo. You'll learn what pots and pans are, all the
animals in the zoo, some verbs that are relevant.

\- English is very relaxed about its pronunciation. If you're British, "scarf"
and "giraffe" rhyme. In American English, they don't. Yet nobody meeting
someone from the other side of the pond considers either to be wrong. When
English speakers go and learn another language, there's a lot of these close
sounds that are wrong. In fact just yesterday in a Mandarin class a guy asked
the teacher what the difference between "车" (car/vehicle) and "吃"(to eat) is.
He couldn't hear it until we tried a few times.

\- English is everyone else's second language because pronunciation is not a
big deal. You can often tell if someone is a foreign speaker from their
accent, but it's still understandable and nobody complains. By contrast most
people in Europe will just swap to English if they hear you say something
slightly wrong.

\- Institutions are bad at teaching languages because they're not geared
towards teaching, they're actually just indices. When you learn something like
Linear Algebra or Data Structures, you don't learn stuff in class as much as
you learn that they exist. So you go to a DS class and you find out there's a
thing called a hash map. You go home, fire up your toolchain, and play with it
for a few hours until you get it. Everything you need is out there on the
internet somewhere, in English. Same with just about everything else, you
learn on your own what's been mentioned in class. If you sit in a language
class, you can't do that. Nobody can hear if you are pronouncing things
correctly. Also, there's a minimum amount of structure and vocab you need to
be able to say anything useful, and you're constantly running into missing
ideas, eg "how to I say 'used to' in this language?".

\- I suspect the real reason people find it hard is economics. Contrary to
this article, I don't think it's actually particularly valuable. This is why
immersion doesn't happen. Kids have low opportunity cost, this is why they are
able to spend their youth learning a bunch of things. If you move to a new
country as an adult, chances are your livelihood depends on some specialist
skill that is supported by English, and the rest of the time you're taking
care of your family. So you're not getting immersion. You also don't get
cultural immersion from the language class. I'm not talking about the fact
they eat baguettes in France; your knowledge of France as a culture requires
you to access umpteen levels more information than people normally do. How
many people are going to know what the French think of secularism, or the
Dreyfus affair, from just studying French? I don't think I'll be coming across
essays about the cultural revolution in my Mandarin class, either. And then
add to that cultural items that every local knows, but isn't considered
historically/politically important. The most popular Danish song of all time?

~~~
radicalbyte
> If you're British, "scarf" and "giraffe" rhyme. > In American English, they
> don't.

They don't rhyme in British English either. Maybe in one of the regional
dialects - I think that you could probably force it in a scouse (Liverpool)
accent.

~~~
uncle_d
Perhaps they do in old-style Received Pronunciation, like wot the Queen
speaks.

But yep if you go oop North then A's become short and giraffe will rhyme with
gaffe (like bath and laugh will).

------
kurtisc
-

~~~
tdeck
Which is perfectly fine and has a long history in English.

~~~
techcode
Based on author's name it seems we came from the same country.

I used "came" and not "come" since it just feels more appropriate considering
it's two different countries countries now.

I don't think I've ever heard about "split infinitive" before.

Perhaps I did - and it's just that the "school way" of learning foreign
languages always confused me.

My first foreign language was German and at this point I basically can't have
a conversation using it - at best I can kind of understand what someone is
saying.

Though to be fair living in The Netherlands Dutch kind of highjacked it.

The way I learned English was simply pure interest. Watching Hollywood and
British movies and TV series, reading computer/programming books and other
"stuff on the Internet".

Teachers were equally confused by the fact I have had problems with
recognizing/naming different tenses and grammar forms - and still getting it
(mostly) right just by "gut feeling".

And actually I've been able to "think in English" for a long time. So long
that these days I occasionally have trouble coming up with idiomatic way to
say something in my native/mother tongue (Serbian).

