How Should We Proceed to Learn Languages?

 How Should We Proceed to Learn Languages?

 Since I am a seasoned and enthusiastic language learner, people in my contact ask quite often questions about how they should initiate their journey with a foreign language they do not know anything about. I comprehend that it is a process of utmost difficulty, but, as a matter of fact, it is utterly worth it. If I had to summarise language learning in a succinct and laconic manner, I would certainly describe it as the art of transforming noise and squiggles into a message. For sure, it takes an unimaginably long time to achieve a satisfying level, although a little less to achieve a satisfactory one. To top it all, the process is exorbitantly laborious and cumbrous when the vexatious and mind-blowing inurement to the grammatical hotchpotch you will have to cope with. Thus, how should we approach it?

 After this exordium, I reckon it to be important to be aware of the neural changes taking place during the acquisition of a language, because you will be all the more confident as you learn more about what happens in your brain at the moment of language learning. One of these confidence-injecting facts is that the brain never forgets in reality; however, neural connections to a piece of knowledge get debilitated and, in the end, obliterated by the passage of time in case you do not stimulate it. It signifies that you do not forget, but that you remember harder; nonetheless, you can train yourself to remember more and more by dint of constant practice and exposure. As you know, a crucial aspect of language acquisition is the memorisation of a vast lexicon as well as idiomatic expressions and grammatical structures. In order to address this issue, I have only one solution I can cite: exposure. One of the greatest linguistics of all time is presumably Stephen Krashen, who, in his theory of language acquisition, postulated that every individual acquires a language through repetitive exposure. According to him, we all learn languages alike irrespective of our age. Therefore, adults could resort to the same methodology that is involuntarily utilised by toddlers in the phase of the acquisition of their mother tongue, claims he. I largely concur with this idea, though with some reservations. To my mind, you will be capable of learning a language as a baby does as long as you provide yourself with an adequate microenvironment where you can fully and suitably expose yourself to the language.

 Another important aspect of our brain is that it is totally malleable thanks to its neuroplasticity, suggesting that it can adapt to everything, but also it can dim your faculties as you do not use them. It is due to this neuroplasticity that many people, who had moved to another country before they reach their adult age, intuitively change their native language at the expense of their first one. Consequently, you have to incessantly practice your target language in order to have it all fresh and ready to use as occasion requires. It might sound disheartening; nonetheless, it means that there is not a single obstacle that you cannot overcome, since difficulties will taper off with time as you push on.

 All this being said, I suppose that we can now move on to the real process of learning. In this regard, I have to state that the preliminary examination of the language is indispensable. The reason is that when you find yourself in a new place and strive to arrive at a certain point, you will ask questions about the turns you are going to take, the address, and the directions. However, when you plunge into a new domain such as languages, billiards, tennis, yoga, or else, you will not even know which questions you should ask. This might give rise to some discouragement and an obnoxious sensation of lostness. Because of this, I recommend always perusing a grammar book of your target language and watching some informative videos thereon. Otherwise, there is a high probability that you will grow despondent and helplessly relinquish. Some languages display features that do not exist in others. The tones of Sino-Tibetan languages, the distinction between animate and inanimate nouns of Slavic languages, and the clicking sounds of Xhosa greatly exemplify this. In the face of such peculiarities, it is recommendable that you be aware of what you are going to confront.

 Then, I assume that you have gleaned sufficient information about the language you want to learn. The practice is situ commences! Learning by heart your very first words and emphatic expressions is an exhilarating stage that serves as a ramp to launch yourself; however, you should know that this apparently unlimited enthusiasm will subtly tail off because of the slowdown of your learning pace as it gets more and more arduous to stumble upon new unknown words, which instils a feeling of stuckness in almost every language learner at first. Aware of this, I suggest you jot down the most common hundred or thousand, depending on your patience and diligence, words in descending order of commonness, and go through them for a while. By the way, I remind you to discard grammatical particles that might look like a word such as 'the' or 'an.' Besides, you should memorise some basic expressions that are meaningless per se. For instance, you should learn to say 'Thank you,' which doesn't make much sense unless you know linguistics, in English even if you are a beginner. You do not have to delve into the onerous details of why 'Thank you' is said this way or why it does not have to go with an 'I' in the beginning. These are frivolous parts at that stage. When you feel comfortable with the first words you have jotted down, you can look for listening and reading material for beginners. In general, mini-stories and beginner dialogues are helpful for your first steps into the new language. It is advisable for you to create a short list of different listening and reading material and to repeat it the whole list all over again once you hit the end since your brain requires as much repetition as novelty. It is factually known that a person will retain only a tiny 10% of what he/she listens to, therefore you have to take into account this margin of oblivion and study accordingly. For sure, you cannot listen to the same dialogue a thousand times but you should listen to it for a second or third time after a while if you are willing to fully learn its every component—words, sentences, expressions, structures, etc.—

 By dint of relentless effort, you will notice at some point that you are capable of the discernment of more complicated words even if they are found in somewhat intertwined structures that would only cause ambiguity if you had taken a glance at it some time ago. This point marks a milestone and signals the beginning of linguistic independence which means the ability to use the language without referring to other languages. As of that moment, you can increase the difficulty of the material you expose yourself to and, most importantly, you can and should start "producing" the language by speaking and writing. At first, your production does not have to be an eternal prose or an unforgettable discourse, but you should start using the language bit by bit, though at a rudimentary level. It is already expected that you make grave mistakes either in pronunciation or in syntaxis, but what matters is to obtain ease at using the language to some degree. Your listening and reading practice should also comprise themes that necessitate a bit more advanced vocabulary. Just like the beginner level had the exhilarating aspect of velocity, because you were learning a lot of things every day, this intermediate level has also an encouraging aspect which is the discovery of the language. Since the material you are going to consume will be of a higher register of the language, it will enable you to explore the culture lying behind the language. Notwithstanding this, you should pay attention to the fact that your learning velocity will exponentially decelerate as of this point since you will run into unknown words lesser and lesser. When there is that vexatious sensation of being stuck and not progressing, you should know that you have now hit the intermediate plateau: the slyest of all traps! 

 Intermediate plateau will arouse certain doubts, leading you to question your own methods and motives for the language, because you will feel totally and desperately stuck as if you were condemned to a linguistic "damnation," which is clearly not the case. When you are faced with the intermediate plateau, it all comes down to one word: discipline. Supposing that learning a language is a video game, you might regard it as a "boss fight" too due to the fact that the only item at your disposal will be your discipline. The enthusiasm and the will die away; learning slows down to the point of stopping. Those who manage to pass beyond this level and reach an impressive C are in general those who perseverantly pushed on and didn't throw in the towel. Contrarily to popular belief, you haven't yet learnt the language! Thus, you shouldn't down the sails; on the contrary, you should augment your practice as much as you can. From that point on, engage in discussions on abstruse themes, participate in current debates, watch TV in the language, write compositions and essays with elegant structures and pompous words such as "serendipity, grandiloquent, to defenestrate, bush hammer, tabernacle, etc." The time the plateau will drag on varies from person to person, but keep in mind that everyone overcomes it as they keep going.

 Once passed the plateau, I congratulate you! Before, you knew the language; now you really know the language. All your efforts bore their fruits, so you can now freely enjoy the language by indulging in literature, cinema, and stand-up shows. It is also probable that you have honed up on your writing and speaking skills not only in the sense that you use the language but also in the sense that you nourished the faculties of finding right words and employing them in the right place, independently of languages. Finally, you did it! There is only one last step remaining: the maintenance of the language; and this will last forever unlike other steps. Good luck!

Thank you for reading,

Athel.