There is an oft repeated English mantra: Keep It Simple Stupid! This principle, often abbreviated as K.I.S.S., can be applied to nearly any venture, including learning a second language.
Go to your favorite book store where there is no shortage of books claiming to have the key to quickly teach you a foreign language. Regardless of which catchy title you pick, you will be guided down a rather standard path: greetings, niceties, numbers, and how to order food at one of the gazillion McDonald’s that litter the major cities of the world. Your systematic program may include recordings playable on everything from your dusty 8-track to your iPod. And just for fun they may throw in some flash cards. I am always amused by how quickly these systematic programs jump from simple necessities to the complexity of correct gender markers, cases, and verb tenses that native speakers would have trouble defining. All of this leaves me wondering, “HEY! What happened to the ‘simple’ part, stupid?”
Now don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with any of these programs and systems. I think its great that you can use the same program as NASA astronauts (apparently all astronauts learn the same way) and that all those busy people have a spare ten to fifteen minutes. But what are we, the non-astronauts lacking ten extra minutes a day, to do?
We need to keep it simple. And by simple, what I really mean is functional. All of those language programs and systems have their pluses. However, first you need to take into consideration how you learn. How do you, my dear reader, prefer to learn something new? Do you need to see it? Do you need to hear it? Do you need to jump in and do it/experience it? You, dear reader, have an advantage over any child learning a second language. You have a life’s worth of learning strategies. Learning strategies that make you an effective learner.
Let me run off on a tangent before I continue. Please consider the sentence, “It is easy for a child to learn a foreign language.” You have seen it before. You have heard it before. You have maybe even said it before. Guess what? This is as antiquated and as useless as the idea that “children learning second languages are at an academic disadvantage.” (I will spare you the research, facts, professional and personal experience to support how grossly inaccurate those statements are.) Yes, children are experiential learners. Yes, children are highly motivated to play and be in a group and have fun. And yes, throwing a child into an immersive foreign language environment is likely to yield a child with some second language skills. Calling it easy? Well, that is wrong. That is like me saying its easy for an Olympic athlete to perform their selected sport. We don’t see the training. The years of practice. The sacrifices. The injuries. The set backs. The frustrations.
So how do we typical adults learn to acquire some level of competence in a foreign language? First, think about how you learn. Go ahead and buy those books and CD’s, but look at your choices based on how you learn and a realistic expectations for your foreign language needs. Next, if the goal is a high level of functioning in all modalities of the foreign language (speaking, listening, reading, writing), you are going to have to immerse yourself in that language as some point. Total immersion in a foreign language and culture is never something one would describe as simple. If your foreign language needs do not require you to be literate (or literate at a high level) then you have just simplified your language needs.
There is always great emphasis on the speaking skills of a person using a foreign language. The Japanese have this absurd fascination with pronunciation, especially with regards to English. I lost count long ago of perfectly competent English language speakers in Japan, who will tell you that their English isn’t good because they don’t speak with a native English accent. (For the record, English is the most spoken language in the world, with second-language speakers of English speakers nearly outnumbering native English speakers. What then is a “native” English speaker? Quick, go find a London native and a New York native. Then ask them to say any random twenty words you come up with. Then tell me which one is the “best” native English speaker. By the way, don’t mention the results to a Sydney native!) As a speech-language pathologist I am the first to obsess about the importance of clear pronunciation. However, a refinement of pronunciation skills will come as your level of overall language competence increases; provided this is an area that receives appropriate attention and instruction.
There is frequently so much attention on speaking that folks forget that they need to listen. How many of you have had this happen to you? You are in a situation where you need to use a foreign language. You have enough vocabulary to ask or state what you need. And then the person with whom you are speaking does the unthinkable: They ask you a question! Your first reaction to this is, “OH CRAP! I have already used up all my words. I didn’t think anyone would ask me a question!” One of the simplest things you can do to make your foreign language experience less frustrating is to spend time thinking about, studying, and ideally listening to the things that a person is likely to ask you in a given situation. For example, there are a number of ways the hostess at a restaurant in Japan may ask you how many people are in your party. The differences are dependent on which level of politeness the hostess uses with you. The answer is always the same, holding up the number of fingers to indicate the number of people in your party (hoping its less than ten!). Still, by examining the different ways you may be asked this question, you are going to identify the most useful vocabulary and sentence structures that need to be addressed. I recall vividly my first Japanese teacher who was more interested in teaching me how to say, “I go jogging every day” than she was in teaching me the way a waitresses would ask me “Do you want your drink before or after your meal?” (食事はいつなさいますか。 Shokuji ha itsu nasaimasu ka?)
I am a Walker! I DO NOT JOG!!!! I still want my drink WITH my meal (飲み物を食事と一緒に持たせてください。Nomimono o shokuji to issho ni motasete kudasai.). Look at that question and the answer. Look at that! Look at what wonderfully simple and perfectly functional vocabulary the question and answer incorporate: simple functional use of particles, verb tenses, and a touch of insight into how to be polite and understand the politeness markers. These are all manageable concepts that can be easily built upon as one’s language abilities progress. Not to mention that if I can simply get my drink with my meal I will so happy I might just want to kiss someone.