Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Liza Debevec's avatar

Some good tips here. I am surprised, however, that you don't mention the frustration I have seen you experience when you speak your excellent Portuguese, and people reply in English because of your non-Portuguese looks. Or how, when you are thinking about whether you want boiled or baked cod for lunch, they assume you just don't know how to say it in Portuguese and will speak to you in English. Or how Swedish people will jump at any opportunity to speak to you in English, which was one of the reasons my Swedish is so bad—every time I would ask them in Swedish if they could speak slowly, as while I don't speak it well, I do understand enough. I believe one of the key things in learning a language is letting go of one's ego because there will be many moments of embarrassment and frustration.

And on the note of fun ways of learning a new language- not everyone is a reader- so I would say TV can be a great way to learn - if the programs are not dubbed into your native language. When in the 1990s Mexican telenovelas invaded the TV channels in the countries of former Yugoslavia, thousands of retired housewives not only became hooked on shows like La rosa selvaje and their grandchildren started speaking Spanish. I met a young Ethiopian woman who taught herself Korean watching Korean telenovelas on Netflix. Imagine if you've seen every episode of Friends, Seinfeld or Breaking bad in English- maybe you can now practice you German/Italian watching it all over again in a dubbed version.

And finally- if you have a hobby you love- combine it with the learning of a new language- I have definitely combined my passions of cooking and eating with learning Portuguese.

Ah, and one more- consider getting audio books in your new language- listen while reading a print copy of the book- you get to experience the spelling and the pronunciation. [enough for now, may come with additional comments later].

Expand full comment
Michael Slind's avatar

A voluminously illuminating post. In my case, the primary factor in my failure to become multi-lingual was psychological. Liza alludes to this point in her comment about letting go of one's ego. When I was learning French in school, I did well enough in writing and reading comprehension, but I would flail in conversational exercises. The moment when I heard something that I didn't fully understand, and when I had a thought that I couldn't fully convey in the meager French that was at my disposal, I would freeze up. Some combination of general anxiety and my particular sort of perfectionism kept me from ever approaching fluency. A related barrier involves acutely feeling the gap between how fluently I could convey a thought in English and how feckless and speechless I would be in trying to convey the thought in French (or another non-native language). In sum, I posit that a key ingredient in language acquisition—one that you could fold into the category of "motivation"—is a willingness to fail, to sound and feel stupid, and to speak at a grade-school level even as your mind chugs along at a grad-school level. (Par exemple: You need to accept that it will take much time and effort before you can finesse the use of terms like "grade" and "grad," as in the preceding sentence.)

Expand full comment
92 more comments...

No posts