I like everything that has to do with the learning process, and there is a tip I find usefull when it comes to start learning another language. Is a very simple observation I like to share with everyone I know is going through such process. I've used it many times to help spanish-speaking people that's learning english, and also tourists that wants to learn spanish, but I'm sure it can work for any language and in any direction.
I'm from Venezuela, and my native language is spanish. In South America, learning to speak english is a very important thing, but there is an issue I've seen that blocks most of the people in the process, the shame.
The teaching process we have in our schools is very mechanical and poorly efficient. It gives too much importance to reading and writing, and does not focus enough on the pronunciation. This makes students to feel frustrated and confused when they nottice they can't reproduce the sounds of the written words, and most of them quit before starting.
We might not remember our own experience when we larned our native language, but if we see any parent teaching their sons how to say "mommy" or "daddy", we easily can nottice how they exaggerate the way they modulate, so we can start following their direction till we are able to reproduce the sounds they are emiting throug their mouths.
At the beginning, we are just repeating "meaningless" sounds, and then we start relating those sounds to objects (or to persons when it comes to "mommy" and "daddy"). Then, only after we are able to communicate verbaly, we start relating those sounds to the writen code, letter by letter, so we start learning to read. And then, we start reproducing those letters on paper to start writing.
If we really want to learn another language, we have to understand that the first and most important thing we have to do is to listen conciously the sounds of that lenguage's words and sentences so we are able to start reproducing them as precisely as we can, and for that, we will have to move our faces as it never had before, and we might feel stupid for a moment, but it will all go better if we start having fun with it, or even more, if we start taking it as seriously as we were learning quantum physics.
I remember that I learned engligh when the first CDs came out with their "song books" (what an oldie, right?). So I were able to repeat the pronunciation as I were hearing the song and reading the lyrics. At first I didn't knew their meaning, but at least I started recognizing wich sounds corresponded to wich words, and then I'd look for them on the internet to start understanding their meaning.
The song lyrics are the best when it comes to learn vocabulary and even the conjugation of verbs, becase there's alway someone that "broke" someone else's heart, and some others wich hearts "will go on". (I'm sorry for those terrible examples) x'D
As a plus, I'm giving you here, the link to "the world's biggest collection of song lyrics and musical knowledge", where you can find the original lyrics of an impressive amount of songs with translations to multiple languages.
So remember, if you want to learn another language, start modulating as if your learning depended on that, because it does!
I hope this helps!
See you around!
Any constructive criticism o suggestion in the comments will be welcomed and gladly upvoted!
I'm still a minnow and learning how to formally write in english, so if you have any important correction for me, I would also appreciate it.
Don't forget to upvote if you like this post or if you find it useful.
Thank you!
I like this very much, especially about the songs. When I first learned Swedish the teacher told us that Americans don't move their mouths very much when they speak and Swedish people move them much more, even to the point it seems exaggerated. He had us exaggerate our facial movements on every sound that we made in Swedish, sticking out our lips as far as we could and then he told us to squeeze our cheeks with our hands while still sticking our lips out to make the next sound. It was funny, but it taught me to overenunciate when speaking Swedish because it won't seem like an exaggeration to a Swedish person.
Thank you! How Cool!
My learning was very empirical, and many of the people I share this tip with, have had a big laugh when they understand they have been trying to speak english with their spanish-speaking face xD...
Americans might not move their mouths very much, but the movements are very specific and different to spanish-speaking people, and it can feel very weird. But once you get others to understand this, is like you were unlocking something in their minds, and everything gets easier.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I wish my other teachers had taught us about this when I studied Russian and French. I am sure they all hold their mouths and jaws differently!
I actually felt like Swedish forced me to be a slightly different person than I am normally. It's hard to describe, but to really get the language right it can feel like you're exaggerating emotions whereas I like to "play it cool" in English and I have a deadpan sense of humor. In Swedish I felt like I had to be more expansive and maybe even sound a bit more confident than I am.
Another thing was that it sometimes made it easier to say things correctly if I imitated someone I spent a lot of time with, using their intonations and rhythms. But then I would be confused as to whether I was copying their Swedish or actually "borrowing" their personality a bit, which was an uncomfortable idea!
Some time ago I saw an article about how people change their personalities when they speak another language, and I thoght about that when I was writing the post. I thought that may be is a part of movin your face differently. That may be we unlock something that's hidden in our own bodies when we start movien different muscles. It was a very scientific article, so I guess you're not wrong when you talk about being a different person on your Swedish learning.
That "Borrowing personality" part is kind of scary, haha... But at the end we always tend to act pretty much like the people we spend more time with, so I guess that also might be true.. jeje
I just started following you. You should follow me too! n.n
I'm still just a minnow, but I'll be working to become a turtle or something else soon x)
Good job@etznab
nice
Thanks! x)
Very good post, @etznab! I wish there were more blogs like this on this website. As to your topic, I'm glad that more and more foreign language courses (especially self-study ones) focus on aural comprehension and sound reproduction first, and only then delve into reading/writing. Basically, how a baby learns a language, just in a more accelerated fashion.
Thanks @gurney. I never had heard about those courses, but it kind of confirms my point of view... Thanks for mentioning it.
I thought it would be cool to share that around here for people who are trying to learn by their own, or struggling in those sh*ity courses, haha...
If you like the blog, then don't forget to follow and upvote..!
I learned English by watching English movies and also by chatting to my foreign friends on facebook. English can't only be learned in school coz we can learn English in many ways.
Yeap, like the rest of the languages... I'ts better to learn by our own, specially with all the technologies we have around... x)
correct! its now easy to learn thanks to technology.
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