As a language learner, I’ve come to realize that doing is improving. I remember downloading dozens of apps, purchasing textbooks, and perusing the internet for any “hacks” that would get me to learn as quickly and as efficiently as possible. While those methods did indeed help me, the practice that was most imperative was practice itself, and it was a matter of finding someone I felt comfortable enough to talk to and make dozens of mistakes in front of where I had initial hardships. Based on the intelligences test, I scored highest on social, followed by language and self– which seems like a recipe conducive to language learning success. Being able to connect with someone socially about their experiences pairs nicely with an intrinsic drive to learn more about the syntax and etymology of a language. Though textbooks are a great supplementary tool, and perhaps the most direct way of learning the grammatical structures of a language, I find that textbooks preparing me for flawless writing typically don’t work out the best for me. In my learning of Korean, for instance, the textbooks produced by Yonsei university are a terrific start for those partial towards sound Lexile ability, but books honed in on refining conversational ability, such as those from Seogang university, help tremendously since I want to improve my conversational ability– which ties into the goals aspect of learning.
Learning a language is a very broad pursuit, language is immersive and omnipresent, so targeting a specific goal saw my learning improve drastically. When I began, I simply compared my abilities with those of my English faculties, failing to recognize equal prowess in all aspects of English or any other language (speaking, writing, reading, etc.) is not possible, so I devote myself to the spoken portions during language pedagogy. The number of words I feel comfortable speaking, but could definitely not spell in Korean is embarrassingly high– but I don’t really mind since exemplary spelling was never my goal. So for this reason, shadowing is a practice that was most beneficial to my learning. The act of hearing a phrase, recognizing patterns, acknowledging intonation and pronunciation, and ultimately reproducing said phrase gave me the confidence to use it in the future without fear of being completely erroneous (since I still misused the phrases occasionally). This repeated exchange works in conjunction with my visual learning style, repetition from flashcards to learn more vocabulary is unbelievably useful. Programs like Anki and apps like Memrise do a phenomenal job of reinforcing definitions of words, and I particularly benefited from Anki when I used cards containing some of the most ubiquitous words in the language I’m learning. Though complexity is inevitably limited, there is plenty someone can say by just using 100 or so words, and this philosophy is how I think I should expand my learning activities.
For example, in Korean, Hanja, the Korean word for Chinese roots has palpable impacts on modern-day Korean. Similar to the relationship romance languages have with Latin, understanding these roots and seeing them used in novel words provides at least some semblance of familiarity which will ease comprehension and further retainment. The history of a language gives insight into its present, and this principle is one I will take advantage of with other languages that pique my interest.
Comments
Hi Isaac,
I totally agree with the part where you said the best part was finding someone to speak the language comfortably to! For the past two years now, I have been using the platform iTalki to learn Cantonese, Mandarin, and a little bit of Korean. It is an online tutoring service where native speakers or professional teachers teach and tutor you on the language of your choosing, and their rates are posted on the website as well. This was by far the best language learning tool, I have ever used. Currently, I am practicing Cantonese and Mandarin on iTalki. I highly recommend giving them a try, and talk to Dr. Soloway about iTalki credits because the department paid for my lessons!