Japanese, Dutch and German

My first language is English. It's a handy one to know. I actually had to learn it twice during my early childhood. But for now I want to concentrate on the next three languages that I aim to acquire: Japanese, Dutch and German.

Japanese print shows a Dutch man and a German man drawing up a contract in a mercantile house in Yokohama, Japan. Done by Sadahide Utagawa (1807-1873) in 1861.

My 3 ‘Easy’ Languages

I want to acquire languages from varying start points, both to test whether my methods are universally applicable, but also because it would be a waste to ignore languages on which I’ve made a start.

Japanese
First started 20+ years ago but made very little progress. Have a history of resistance. In the past 2 years began to make some headway as a result of experimenting and refining my ideas. At the start of this 2-year period, I begin at an intermediate level as regards written Japanese, but at a beginner’s level with regard to speaking and listening.

Initial plan:

• Children’s book e.g. Enid Blyton, Magic Tree House to read and mine sentences
• Shadow HNT 1-10 in Japanese (Mami’s)
• Harry Potter for kanji
• Harry Potter for listening

Dutch

Technically my first language. I picked it up at home. I’ve spent the first year of elementary school in the Netherlands, but have never studied either grammar or tried to memorize any vocabulary. I start from a fairly advanced level.

Initial plan:

• Read Ghost Boy in Dutch done

German

Natural affinity to this language since I can guess at a good deal of it because of my Dutch and English. I completed a half-year beginner’s course in German at University 40 years ago. I’ve spent 2 weeks in Germany soon after that.

Initial plan:

• View My Name is Nobody in German and English done
  
• Thereafter, Harry book 3 text+audio

Other possible languages

French

I just love the work of Serge Gainsbourgh. But at high school, where I was obliged to do French for 2 years, I hated the language and thought it effeminate. Consequently I did poorly.

Hindi

I spent 18 months working at a school in the Punjab 35 years ago. I picked up the odd word, and tried to learn the alphabet. But since Punjabi and Urdu were spoken (at the English-medium school) I failed to make any further progress.

Update: see this blog.

Connect words, connect the dots . . .

Words are not enough. Just knowing the words won’t make you able to use another language. And besides, going about the business of learning a language one word at a time is almost completely useless.

Witness Japanese where I know hundreds of words but cannot connect the dots. I may every separate part of a sentence but have no idea what the whole is about.

You see, there is a hell of a lot that you need to know about words in order to fit them together. And a single dictionary meaning doesn’t give you that. Therefore, from the word go, work with more than one word at a time.

Go for pairs of words, phrases, whole sentences at a gulp. Don’t always, or even usually, break them down into their components. That way you get a lot of extra associated input: grammar patterns, word co-locations, concordance, general usage etc.

Sit sentences from two languages side by side. Do it the way that Heinrich Schliemann did.

 

Consider a spaced repetition system

A spaced repetition system helps you to review items on a list in random order according to how familiar you are with them. If you know them well, they pop up less frequently. If you are having trouble with them, you encounter them more often.

Anki is possibly the most well-known SRS online. I've experimented with it.

Currently, I use a site called kanji koohii to review kanji for my Japanese.

Nevertheless, I'm not going to recommend spaced repetition systems unreservedly for three reasons.

First, they can put you under some stress.

Second, they encourage the review of isolated words (though to be fair your learning list need not consist of single words).

Third, they are non-selective as to the importance of the elements that you review (unless you are very careful in choosing which items to include).

 To me, it makes more sense to read a book in your target language, because  words and structures come up naturally as often as they are important.

Role play

When you learn another language, the more you are able to forget yourself the better. That's one of the psychological aspects of language-learning.

So aim to act out a role. (I've hears that someone dresses up in orange and kicks about a football when he does Dutch!)

Me, I want to speak like Takakura Ken, the Japanese Clint Eastwood!

All in the mind

80% of learning an language is psychology. Only 20% is to do with method.  (Where exactly I got that, I forget, but I believe it.)

That figure is the average. For some cultures--Japanese, for example--the psychological issue is even greater. And it depends on the individual as well. Me, for example. I've had a HUGE psychological language-learning issue with Japanese.

I won't go into that here.

But you know yourself the issue that you had with French. You felt it sounded feminine. You and your mates called it a "poofy" language. To a lesser extent you had an issue with Latin too. You'd heard it was a 'dead' language. And you were frustrated by the fact that even after learning its grammar rules it would behave like a 'proper' subject such as Maths or Science.

Bringing such an attitude to any language guarantees that you'll never learn it.

Listen, you first try your hand at Japanese (in 1993) you'll make very little progress for 20 years. Then, when you finally change your attitude, you'll streak ahead and feel comfortable with it in a year or two. Simple as that.

Moral of the story: Deal with your attitude first!