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EASY LANGUAGE
LEARNING by Duncan Rooth
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Is learning a foreign language ever
easy ? Yes. If you are five and move to another country ...
But what
about for the rest of us who are no longer five, and need to be polite when
travelling for business or for pleasure ? I think that the answer is yes,
language learning can be easy provided you don't want or need to learn too
much.
The key to successful language learning in my mind is not to set
the goalposts too high. It is rather like running. Even if you run twice a
week, you don't necessarily want to be able to run a marathon, or have any
intention of running a marathon or maybe you never could run a marathon. You
might just want to maintain a level of fitness. I think the same can be said
for language learning. I find languages fascinating and enjoy dabbling with
them, but that doesn't mean I feel duty-bound to get good (or maybe I can't
anyway). I'm a programmer and have no particular aptitude for foreign language
learning, but I like to learn some of the language before I visit a country.
Let's get back to the goalposts. If you decide to learn ten words in a
foreign language before visiting the country, you know that you will manage to
do this. Learning a foreign language for your purposes has now been redefined
to learning ten words. Conversely if you decide to attain conversational
fluency, unless you are an exceptionally talented individual you will fall far
short of your goal, and quite probably give up.
I think that there is
far to much emphasis on this completer-finisher thing with regard to languages.
For the majority of us, language learning should be easy and fun. Of
course, I'm not saying that there isn't a place for becoming fluent in other
languages, I'm just saying that for most of us it isn't practica, necessary or
even possible.
I like travelling but I don't have the time or aptitude
to learn too much of any particular foreign language. So I learn, or dabble and
enjoy it. I set goals that work for me and are usually to learn about hundred
words whenever I visit a new country. I'll learn the words you need to be
polite, the numbers, greetings and a few general phrases. Doing this always
results in a better holiday and I enjoy it.
It is also far easier to
start learning a foreign language than to finish. In other words the better you
are the slower it can be to improve, because you are becoming stuck with
grammar, making sentences, learning less common words etc. If you are only
trying to learn a few foreign words and phrases you will enjoy a faster rate of
progress, have more fun, and don't have to spend to much time on any given
language.
Minority languages are particular candidates for this
approach, because often you don't need to use them to communicate and they are
by their very nature not widely used.
A good example is Catalan which
is spoken in the north-east of Spain by about 10 million people, almost all of
whom are bilingual (also speaking Spanish). There is no need to learn Catalan
to travel around this area of Spain, if you already speak Spanish, but it shows
respect for the local culture and it is interesting.
About the
Author:
Duncan Rooth is a programmer with an interest in languages. He
writes software to teach basic words and phrases in foreign languages found on
http://www.linguata.com
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