How to Learn Any Language

Today, I went to the library to return some videotapes I borrowed for the weekend. My mother had dropped me off because she had an errand she needed to take care of, so I found I had some time to nose around in the stacks after I left the books at the return desk. I wound my way to the foreign language and linguistics section. There, practically staring me in the face, was a book called How to Learn Any Language Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably, and On Your Own.

Now, despite my current efforts, I'm a bit skeptical about the on your own part. I know that, sooner or later, I'll need to find a class or at least a Portuguese-speaking friend or penpal, so that I can really practice the language. But having had some experience as an EFL teacher and preparing to go into a master's program in intercultural communication, I figured it was worth at least a gander.

I haven't read the whole book yet, but the author's story is intriguing. As a child, he had a fascination with everyone and everything foreign, so that by the time he had the opportunity to start learning a foreign langauge (Latin) in high school, he was thoroughly psyched up for it. His first three days in Latin class, he was the class star, easily remembering the words his teacher taught him for farmer and merchant and so on. Then on day four, he was out sick. When he came back, the class had moved on to declensions and, deciding that grammar was dull, he proceeded to all but flunk Latin.

Out of some need to prove he wasn't just bad at languages, the author found a book on Chinese and started studying it on his own. He then had a tremendous stroke of luck when, in the midst of World War II, his family went on vacation and he met some actual Chinese soldiers with whom he could practice the language.

Eventually, he claims, he went on to master not only Mandarin Chinese but also French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Norwegian, Danish, Hebrew, Yiddish, Hungarian, and Indonesian.

From what I can gather of the approach he's developed over the years, the author seems to have alighted on something close to the communicative method I know and love from my teaching days. The problem with traditional language teaching, the author concludes, is its almost relentless focus on grammar. Students aren't encouraged to do anything with the language until they've mastered all of the grammar, and so they miss out on the fun of actually using their new languages to read, speak, and communicate. This tends to kill motivation and lead to complaints that, despite having taken years of Spanish in high school and college, they can't order a simple bowl of soup in Seville.

Well, I think he has it about half right. Language learning does require practice with real communication even more than learning conjugations by heart. The trouble is that, at the beginning, you don't really have a lot you can communicate with or about. Also, a lot of students are self-conscious about talking with (and being judged by) native speakers at first and really need to practice with other students.

I'll be reporting on how practical the author's suggestions are.