Yiuel's Tips about Learning a Foreign Language

[Yiuel]

Hi everyone,

I have been doing, and I am still doing, some research on foreign language learning. Where I currently live, a small town in Japan called Kurobe, it is something they are trying to do (rather clumsily). As I am still in the process of studying, and I believe that this study won't end that quickly, things that I might say here might change. I'll actually change this first post to reflect the current status of my researches. But, here it goes.

Tips about Learning a Foreign Language

- These tips can be used for any language. Indeed, they can also be used for one own's conlang, which makes this thread highly appropriate for the forum.
- These tips are for those people who want to master a language. You can apply them partially for partial results. (Indeed, this is why I only have partial results with some languages.)
- I will also use many examples, using the various languages that I can speak and am learning. I have 5 such languages : French, English, Esperanto, Japanese and Swedish. I might also use other languages, I even have a conlang in mind for one specific example.
- Otherwise, enjoy the good reading...

1. Learning a Foreign Language : Issues

When learning foreign languages, you have to face certain issues. Most of those who have learned a foreign language actually encountered them and had to live with them. I just want to make sure with you that I do understand the issues your are facing, someone of which you might not even be consciously aware of, and that my goal is to actually make sure that these issues, while challenging, are not problems or difficulties.

2. Fun, Interest, Diligence, Every Waking Day

3. The Process of Speaking: knowing the language; using the language

4. Pronunciation

5. The Power of Examples

6. Going Abroad: how to make full use of your stay abroad

7. Mistakes: using the language vs. making mistakes

8. The Process of Learning: step by step, little by little, at one's own pace

Links and resources

Mark Rosenfelder speaking about why people learn languages
http://www.zompist.com/whylang.html
Some people learn languages but most... don't. Educational programs, parents, finvenkist auxlangers and others want their children to learn foreign langauges. The conclusion is highly depressing for those who want to have children learn languages, but if does offer great stuff. I do not necessarly agree with the conclusions about the tips, but they are a great step in the good direction.

[Yiuel]

I have finally completed my first presentation in the original Japanese. I will be posting a translated summary of each session here. At first glance it does seem to have been rather enlightening.

If people find the results interesting, I might then publish a whole book. Probably in French, originally, but also in English, Esperanto and other languages.

[rickardspaghetti]

I'll be looking forward to this.

[decem]

I'm looking forward to this hugely.

Also, *pronunciation

[MrKrov]

You got two 2 and 3 backwards (as far as labeling goes).

[Yiuel]

I'm looking forward to this hugely.

Also, *pronunciation

That's a word I have to relearn how to write; I've always written it "ou" instead of "u". Corrected.

You got two 2 and 3 backwards (as far as labeling goes).

That's because a couple of days ago, I switched both subjects, because both are central, but the one I placed first is the most important part. I didn't change the numbers then; I had completely forgotten them. They're changed now.

I will post it only after I've made my first presentation here, in Japan. (The original work is actually in Japanese, because I am doing it as part of my work.) However, I'll leave you with interesting details.

Recently, I've made peace with communication and expression; I hated it with a passion because when badly done, it leads to awful results (it certainly did with me). But I still don't think it is the central part, just one part of actual language learning.

[Yiuel]

I have added a "links and resources" for those who are interested in my various sources and resources.

[Yiuel]

The more I learn, the more it gets interesting.

Grammars are good, but only as references.

Indeed, I have relearned the very importance of input, and careful imput. You have to be aware all the time when reading new imput to learn grammar.

For pronunciation, I just realized that you need just as much imput. I am learning Swedish, as our boardlord can attest, and for pronunciation, I have gone the way with pronunciation. I still need a good Swedish dictionary, but I believe wiktionary for the moment is more than enough. It's unfortunate however the dictionary does not provide example sentences : according to one of my sources, the best dictionaries are those who provide example sentences and... considering my own French-Japanese dictionary, I tend to agree.

Also, I realized why Esperanto, despite its few irregularities, is so much easier than any other language. The student, as soon as he has grasped a pattern, can run away with it to the depths of insanity and yet still be grammatically correct and... understood. Pronunciation of Esperanto, despite being highly standardized, is much less strict than any other language : the range of each phoneme is actually a lot wider than most languages. Indeed, it pretty much work like English, but with possibly thousands of regional variants that can be readily understood if exposed. (And the fact that you only have 5 vowels makes the basics a lot easier : less interactions to learn between the vowels and consonants).

But then, today, I thought, why did Volapük failed yet Esperanto kind of worked? For a very simple reason : when you go back to the initial book, written in different languages, Zamenhof did exactly the best thing ever. The Ekzercaro. Basically, he gave stuff to read (and therefore, understand) to his intial students. http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/fu ... rcaro.html Zamenhof probably didn't know, but this part was probably his best invention ever. I will actually use it with my Esperanto students next week. (Then again, as every rule you learn can be applied exceptionlessly, it makes it that much easier.)

This means that, when you create a language, you may create pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar rules or even pragmatics, if you don't give your student something to read, they'll just learn information about the language, not the language itself. And when you learn a language, you can read about its grammar and vocabulary (and this can be of great help to dust out many things), but you will only learn through having tons and tons and tons of examples. A rough estimate on a website I will link tells us it might be as much as 2 million sentences to achieve a certain fluency, and I cannot say I disagree with that number. Kind of scary, but when you break it down, it makes it awesome.

A lot, a lot :) And I will continue to give such updates.

[Visinoid]

Since a sentence takes few seconds to read, I think 2 millions is fair. I agree that reading is the best learning material! :D How many sentences an average book counts in our opinion, Yiuel? ><

[Yiuel]

Since a sentence takes few seconds to read, I think 2 millions is fair. I agree that reading is the best learning material! :D How many sentences an average book counts in our opinion, Yiuel? ><

Reading is a good learning material, but it's crap for pronunciation; a lot of Quebeckers can speak English, but their pronunciation is highly idiosyncratic. (So is mine, in other ways.) You have to balance it with listening stuff, and because pronunciation is pretty much using muscles, you actually have to train them (I use songs for that, but tv shows are awesome as well for that, the goal being shadowing : repeating what the person has to say.). That's what I have been doing with Swedish, and I am still doing that work though I will now do it at a higher rate (about 5 songs per month for this month).

One could say that we would need about 1600 hours then to read and listen to that much, which makes it a little more than 1 hour per day during 4 years, or less than that for 5 years. Sentence per book is pretty much useless : compare all the books of Harry Potter, and some are longer than the others. Sentence per page is perhaps a better measure, the site I used said that it is about 60 pages per day to reach the level.

Sure, at first 60 page-equivalent is pretty much impossible, but you actually get faster as time passes because what you have seen before, you don't need to relook much of it.

(For those who learn a foreign language whose orthography is different from your mother tongue, please, PLEASE, learn it. In Japan, people are a lot less scared of me when they actually see me write full-kanji. Do that for any language. Swedish is also insane in terms of writing, so I have to relearn how to write. But it gets better. After my year of pronunciation and reading it, I'll be able to tackle the awful stuff, actually understanding :p)

[Yiuel]

Today is my first presentation. I'll will make them available here, but they are completely in Japanese. I'll have to translate them.

Recently, I'm blocked over the "Power of Examples". It's probably the most important, because it's what we need to have good language use. Aslo, I am afraid of the 7th part. It's probably the most controversial part, but I'll make sure to balance it all. Actually, having it after my presentation on examples is a great thing, because I'll then be able to tell people to rely on those thousands of examples they will have read and heard.

In 3 hours as I write this sentence...