This is too easy!

I easily spent time on 3 languages this morning. It may prove almost too easy to learn a number of them quickly. It takes almost no effort to follow along as I listen. I hardly have to concentrate. I'm not required to remember anything. I don't need to study, look up words or do exercises. And yet I feel that I'm learning very quickly.

But let me spell out what my intentions are.

I want to get used to hearing and reading various languages. I'm talking about input. If I could achieve just the ability to listen and to read, I'd be happy. To actually speak or write languages is not my immediate goal. Output would comes after. My 'immediate' goal is to be able to understand my target languages.

At present I've only tackled Japanese, Dutch and German. You could call them my 'cheat' languages since I've already put in time with them. But I can predict that a whole bunch of others will come almost as easily. French, Spanish, Italian, and a Scandinavian language for fun. 

Their alphabets are more or less familiar to me. So are at least a hundred or more words. I'm convinced that with such a foundation my ListenRead techniques will work like a dream.

I suspect that the only difficulty may consist of mixing similar languages up e.g. Spanish and Portugese; Swedish, Danish and Norwegian; Russian, Czech and Polish.

But as long as each language has a distinctive 'flavor' (e.g. having its own alphabet) then I don't anticipate any problem.

Still, I'd happily admit that it's still early days.

Make comments online

To start writing in another language and develop that skill, one could begin by making comments in that language in suitable online forums.

Start with by finding a site that lends itself to one-word comments. A photography site such as Flickr.com would do the trick. 

You could start by reading what other people have written. Then you might re-use some of those comments yourself—if you feel that they apply—to other photos. Cut and paste if you need to (e.g. if the script is hard to wangle on your keyboard).

Gradually you’ll read, understand and be able to manipulate longer phrases and sentences.

What I get from Frank Smith

Stephen Krashen credits Frank Smith for many of his ideas, so when I came across a copy of the book, Reading Without Nonsense, I grabbed it. Published in 1978, it's an oldie but a goodie. Since it was falling apart at the seams (or rather its bindings), I've separated the pages and plan to resurrect Frank's volume as a pdf file.

Frank Smith is a psycho-linguist and dilettante extraordinaire. What I get from him is the nerve and audacity to examine various topics and not be afraid to reach my own informed opinion. You don't need to stand in awe of conventional academic dogma, or dogmatic people.

Below are a number of extracts. They come from just the preface and the first introductory chapter, so there's a wealth of thought there. One of the most powerful may be found on page 2:

Examination of a wide range of topics relevant to reading not only leaves little to be said about reading itself, it leaves little to be added about how reading should be taught. Instructional implications become self-evident.

From Reading Without Nonsense

• p viii Reading is not easily accomplished if you are nervous about your performance
• p viii Just as it is not difficult to make a book unreadable, so it is easy to make learning to read impossible
• p ix It is only through reading that children learn to read
• p ix Children can learn to read only through materials and activities that make sense to them, that they can relate to what they already know or want to know
• p ix The universal concern should change from what teachers should do to what teachers should know
• p x Learning itself is nothing but the endeavour to make sense
• p2 An analysis of reading also gives . . . a deeper understanding of . . . subjects like science or mathematics
• p 3-4 The training of teachers does not invariably encourage them to make their own decisions
• p4 All methods of teaching reading work
• p4 No method [of teaching reading] succeeds with all children
• p5 Without understanding, instruction is founded on superstition
• p5 'Breaking down reading' makes reading more difficult because it makes nonsense out of what should be sense
• p5 To learn to read children need to read
• p5-6 Two basic necessities for learning to read are the availability of interesting material that makes sense to the learner and an understanding adult as a guide
• p6 Children cannot be taught to read
• p6 A teacher's responsibility is not to teach children to read but to make it possible for them to learn to read
• p6 There is nothing unique about reading physiologically, visually or linguistically
• p7 [There is an] unwarranted assumption that anything that is not specifically taught cannot involve much learning
• p8 We do not have to train children to learn, or even account for their learning; we have to avoid interfering with it
• p8 Children who have learned to comprehend spoken language . . . and who can see sufficiently well . . . have already demonstrated sufficient language, visual acuity and learning ability to learn how to read
• p8  Learning to read is easy for a child - or should be, were it not for the fact that it is easy for an adult to make learning to read difficult
• p8 A child who can see, and who can comprehend speech, cannot be a failure at reading because of a 'specific learning disability', or minimal brain dysfunction, or dyslexia, or any of the other terms that are used to conceal ignorance about why some children fail to learn to read
• p8-9 Children will fail to learn to read who do not want to read, who cannot make sense of it, or who find the price of learning too high
• p9 Skill in reading actually depends on using the eyes as little as possible
• p9 The more we try to memorize as we read, the less we are likely to comprehend or remember
• p9 Meaning is not something that a reader or listener gets from language, but something that is brought to language
• p9 Reading is not 'decoding to sound' and . . . children cannot learn to read by memorizing phonic rules
• p10 Readers are not passive recipients of meaning from print, but must predict if they are to comprehend

How would Einstein approach a new language?

Einstein is said to have figured out the riddle of relativity after imagining himself riding a beam at the speed of light. My answer to the riddle of how best to learn another language comes from imagining myself listening at the speed of sound.

If you process language quickly, at the speed of sound, you have no time to think. And if you’ve no time to think, then you’ve no time to analyze, second-guess oneself, worry, become perfectionistic, grow self-conscious, prevaricate, procrastinate—all those naughty things that brains do when you give them too much time.

So read at (least as quickly as) the speed of listening. Listen uninterruptedly. Cover a lot of ground so as to progress evenly and holistically on every front.

I tell you, it works.

Something puzzling

In our own language, we don't process every word that we hear. Neither do we process every word that we hear. In fact, I have on good authority that we only actually process 1 in 6. So there's a lot of predicting and guessing going on. This approach must be more efficient overall.

And yet we are advised, when learning another language, to choose books that we almost completely understand. Paul Nation, is believe, is responsible for the advice that 95% of the words on the page ought to be comprehended. That's just one word out of 20 which is new.

Doesn't this strike you as somewhat anal? What are we so uptight when we look over a text in a foreign language? Where does that meme come from, the one that tells us that we need to be practically perfect and look up every word?

Get an audiobook

It was only a decade or so ago that I listened to an audiobook for the first time. I don't know why it took me so long. I've been reading books all of my life.

So why did I start? It may have been that this particular Lee Child book wasn't available except in the audio format. I was impatient to read it, so I listened to it instead.

Initially I was impatient as I listened! As a rule, listening is slower that reading. But then I caught onto the trick of listening through headphones or ear attachments(?) as I did other things.

Walk to and from work, for example. Walking to work in the dark while listening to a spooky story! Now that's an adventure!

As regards learning another language, audiobooks are invaluable. Now they help to process the language more quickly than you read. Thereby, you learn to guess things, skip things, ignore things, and generally not be so anal about needing to look everything up. In short, you learn to relax more in another language.

Oh, and one more thing: you learn to listen! 

Try something new

From time to time, try something new. Variety is important when you are doing something long-term. So explore, experiment, and invent.

People won't have shuffled sentences before, I guarantee, because I am the one that came up with it.

Take something that has been translated, sentence for sentence. Then create two versions by combining them. And so . . .

EL PRIMER POZO

Había una vez un pequeño reino alrededor de un lago.  

Un verano muy caluroso no llovió y el lago se secó. 

La gente estaba ansiosa y fue a ver al rey. 

“Hace tanto que no llueve. 

¡Nuestros campo están desiertos!” dijeron los campesinos. 

“No hay peces para pescar. 

¿Cómo podemos ganarnos la vida?” preguntaron los pescadores. 

“Sálvanos del desastre, Buen Rey,” suplicaron las mujeres y exclamaron los niños con sed.

El rey envió a sus cuatro generales a buscar agua en todas direcciones. 

El primer general fue hacia el este, hacia el amanecer, el segundo al sur, hacia el polvo y el calor, el tercero fue al oeste, donde se pone el sol, y el cuarto siguió a la Estrella del Norte. 

Buscaron día y noche, noche y día, arriba y abajo, buscaron en todas partes, pero en vano. 

Tres de los generales regresaron, con las manos vacías. 

Pero el general que fue al norte decidido a no fallar a su rey, llegó finalmente a un pueblo frío de montaña. 

Al sentarse al pie de la montaña, llegó una mujer anciana y se sentó a su lado. 

El general señaló hacia el horizonte y dijo: “Yo pertenezco a un hermoso reino, donde no ha llovido durante un año entero. 

¿Me puedes ayudar a encontrar agua?”

La mujer animó al general a que subiera con ella la montaña y adentro de una cueva. 

“Nosotros tampoco tenemos agua en nuestro país,” dijo ella.

Entonces, señalando las columnas de hielo en la cueva, ella continuó, “Nosotros a esto lo llamamos hielo. 

Toma un poco, y tu reino nunca más tendrá sed.” 

El general rompió un gran pedazo, lo cargó en su carreta de caballos y regresó velozmente a su reino. 

Cuando llegó a la corte, el enorme bloque de hielo se había derretido y quedaba un pequeño trozo. 

Nadie en la corte había visto nunca hielo, ¡y todos lo observaron maravillados! 

“Esto debe ser una semilla de agua,” exclamó uno de los ministros de pronto, 

El rey ordenó que la ‘semilla de agua’ fuera sembrada inmediatamente. 

Mientras los campesinos cavaban un hueco el trozo de hielo se derretía al sol. 

Ellos colocaron la semilla en el hueco pero antes de que pudieran cubrirla, desapareció. 

Los campesinos estaban confusos y preocupados. 

Cavaron la tierra más y más hondo, en la noche buscando la misteriosa semilla. 

Al romper el alba, el rey encontró a los campesinos dormidos profundamente al lado del agujero. 

Se asomó curiosamente al interior y exclamó sorprendido, “¡Despertar mis valiosos hombres, el agua ha germinado! 

¡Hay agua en el agujero!” 

Así es como fue creado el primer pozo.

and . . .

THE FIRST WELL

There once was a small kingdom around a lake. 

One very hot summer it did not rain and the lake dried up. 

People grew anxious and went to the King. 

“It has not rained for so long. 

Our fields are barren!” said the farmers. 

“There’s no fish to catch. 

How shall we earn a living?” asked the fishermen. 

“Save us from disaster, Good King,” urged the women and the children cried with thirst.

The King sent his four generals to search for water in all directions. 

The first general went east, towards the sunrise, the second to the south, to dust and heat, the third went west, where the sun sets, and the fourth followed the North Star. 

They searched day and night, night and day, high and low, they searched everywhere, but in vain. 

Three of the generals returned, empty-handed. 

But the general who had gone north determined not to fail his King, finally reached a cold mountain village. 

As he sat at the foot of the mountain, an old woman came by and sat next to him. 

The general pointed at the horizon and said, “I belong to a beautiful kingdom, where it has not rained for a whole year. 

Can you help me find water?” 

The woman motioned the general to follow her up the mountain and inside a cave. 

“We have no water in our country either,” she said. 

Then, pointing to the icicles in the cave, she continued, “We call this ice. 

Take some, and your kingdom will never go thirsty again.” 

The general broke off a huge piece, loaded it onto his horse-cart and rushed back home. 

By the time he reached the court, the enormous icicle had melted into a small lump of ice. 

Nobody in the court had ever seen ice, so everybody gazed at it with wonder! 

“This must be a water-seed,” one of the ministers exclaimed suddenly. 

The King ordered the ‘water-seed’ to be sowed immediately. 

While the farmers dug a hole, the lump dwindled in the sun. 

They swiftly placed the seed in the hole, but, before they could cover it, it had vanished. 

The farmers there got confused and worried. 

They dug the earth deeper and deeper, into the night, looking for the mysterious seed. 

At the break of dawn, the King found the farmers fast asleep around a hole.

Curiously, he peeped in and cried out in amazement, “Wake up my worthy men, the water-seed has sprouted! 

There’s water in the hole!” 

This is how the first well was created.

become . . .

THE FIRST WELL

Había una vez un pequeño reino alrededor de un lago.  

One very hot summer it did not rain and the lake dried up. 

La gente estaba ansiosa y fue a ver al rey. 

“It has not rained for so long. 

¡Nuestros campo están desiertos!” dijeron los campesinos. 

“There’s no fish to catch. 

¿Cómo podemos ganarnos la vida?” preguntaron los pescadores. 

“Save us from disaster, Good King,” urged the women and the children cried with thirst.

El rey envió a sus cuatro generales a buscar agua en todas direcciones. 

The first general went east, towards the sunrise, the second to the south, to dust and heat, the third went west, where the sun sets, and the fourth followed the North Star. 

Buscaron día y noche, noche y día, arriba y abajo, buscaron en todas partes, pero en vano. 

Three of the generals returned, empty-handed. 

Pero el general que fue al norte decidido a no fallar a su rey, llegó finalmente a un pueblo frío de montaña. 

As he sat at the foot of the mountain, an old woman came by and sat next to him. 

El general señaló hacia el horizonte y dijo: “Yo pertenezco a un hermoso reino, donde no ha llovido durante un año entero. 

Can you help me find water?” 

La mujer animó al general a que subiera con ella la montaña y adentro de una cueva.

“We have no water in our country either,” she said.

Entonces, señalando las columnas de hielo en la cueva, ella continuó, “Nosotros a esto lo llamamos hielo. 

Take some, and your kingdom will never go thirsty again.” 

El general rompió un gran pedazo, lo cargó en su carreta de caballos y regresó velozmente a su reino. 

By the time he reached the court, the enormous icicle had melted into a small lump of ice. 

Nadie en la corte había visto nunca hielo, ¡y todos lo observaron maravillados! 

“This must be a water-seed,” one of the ministers exclaimed suddenly. 

El rey ordenó que la ‘semilla de agua’ fuera sembrada inmediatamente. 

While the farmers dug a hole, the lump dwindled in the sun. 

Ellos colocaron la semilla en el hueco pero antes de que pudieran cubrirla, desapareció. 

The farmers there got confused and worried. 

Cavaron la tierra más y más hondo, en la noche buscando la misteriosa semilla. 

At the break of dawn, the King found the farmers fast asleep around a hole.

Se asomó curiosamente al interior y exclamó sorprendido, “¡Despertar mis valiosos hombres, el agua ha germinado! 

There’s water in the hole!”  

Así es como fue creado el primer pozo.

and . . .

EL PRIMER POZO

There once was a small kingdom around a lake.

Un verano muy caluroso no llovió y el lago se secó. 

People grew anxious and went to the King. 

“Hace tanto que no llueve. 

Our fields are barren!” said the farmers. 

“No hay peces para pescar. 

How shall we earn a living?” asked the fishermen.

“Sálvanos del desastre, Buen Rey,” suplicaron las mujeres y exclamaron los niños con sed.

The King sent his four generals to search for water in all directions.

El primer general fue hacia el este, hacia el amanecer, el segundo al sur, hacia el polvo y el calor, el tercero fue al oeste, donde se pone el sol, y el cuarto siguió a la Estrella del Norte. 

They searched day and night, night and day, high and low, they searched everywhere, but in vain.

Tres de los generales regresaron, con las manos vacías. 

But the general who had gone north determined not to fail his King, finally reached a cold mountain village.

Al sentarse al pie de la montaña, llegó una mujer anciana y se sentó a su lado. 

The general pointed at the horizon and said, “I belong to a beautiful kingdom, where it has not rained for a whole year.

¿Me puedes ayudar a encontrar agua?”

The woman motioned the general to follow her up the mountain and inside a cave. 

“Nosotros tampoco tenemos agua en nuestro país,” dijo ella.

Then, pointing to the icicles in the cave, she continued, “We call this ice.

Toma un poco, y tu reino nunca más tendrá sed.” 

The general broke off a huge piece, loaded it onto his horse-cart and rushed back home. 

Cuando llegó a la corte, el enorme bloque de hielo se había derretido y quedaba un pequeño trozo. 

Nobody in the court had ever seen ice, so everybody gazed at it with wonder! 

“Esto debe ser una semilla de agua,” exclamó uno de los ministros de pronto.

The King ordered the ‘water-seed’ to be sowed immediately.

Mientras los campesinos cavaban un hueco el trozo de hielo se derretía al sol. 

They swiftly placed the seed in the hole, but, before they could cover it, it had vanished.

Los campesinos estaban confusos y preocupados. 

They dug the earth deeper and deeper, into the night, looking for the mysterious seed.

Al romper el alba, el rey encontró a los campesinos dormidos profundamente al lado del agujero. 

Curiously, he peeped in and cried out in amazement, “Wake up my worthy men, the water-seed has sprouted!

¡Hay agua en el agujero!” 

This is how the first well was created.

Finally, you listen many times to whichever of the two languages, English or Spanish, that you wish to acquire while reading the blue and purple versions alternately. It will start to stick.

Nice quote

In a book I'm reading, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (a novel about Dracula, loaned to me by Mario):

Until then my forays into written French had been purely utilitarian, the completion of almost mathematical exercises. When I comprehended a new phrase it was merely a bridge to the next exercise. 

Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of meaning, the way the words shed their printed bodies in a flash of heat and light.

And from the same book further on . . .

He pointed to a page of beautiful Arabic, and I thought for the hundredth time how terrible it was that human languages and even alphabets were separated from one another by this frustrating Babel of differences, so that when I glanced at a page of Ottoman printing, my comprehension was immediately caught in a bramble of symbols as impenetrable to me as a hedge of magic briars.

.

Seek input that you can understand

Comprehensible input. You've been there, done that.

When you needed to learn Dutch, you read ‘Ot en Sien’ and ‘Kruimeltje’. Later, when you needed to learn English, you read Superman comics, the Famous Five and Myths and Legends from Many Lands.

You got yourself comprehensible input in the language that you had to learn. 

You chose interesting material at your level.

It’s possible to expand the difficulty limit of the material if you have a way to making it understandable. (Cheating is allowed.)

If you already know the story, that’s good (unless you are disinclined to re-read books or watch movies again and again). But you could get around that by seeking more by the same author, or continue in that genre.

If your listening is at a level where it supplements your understanding, then listen to the audiobook at the same time as you follow along on paper or the screen.

And if you read on screen, you might use an application that gives you the meaning of words when you scroll over them.

  There are means and ways.

Optimum exposure

What is exposure? What do we expose ourselves to? Why is exposure important to learning a language?

Those are useful questions to ask, but I’ll start with another: How does anyone learn a language? The answer is that you get used to it. Simply that. You don’t need a degree. You don’t need any form of education. You don’t need to be an adult, or even a child!

You get used to it, because it is all around you. You are exposed to it. Gradually you pick out more and more meaning. 

Language appears to be a meaningful thing, so that is why you pay attention to it. It gets you what you want: company, milk, a toy, your wet clothes changed, and if you are lucky a ride on someone’s shoulders.

It’s a long-term this, getting used to it through exposure. It makes no sense to rush it, because you can’t. That doesn’t work. So you don’t over expose yourself. You take naps. You switch off when you need to.

So, just as a little UV is good, you don’t overdo it with vitamin D. You go for a walk in the mountains, but you wear your woolens. You protect your ears when you mow the lawn. You put on safety glasses in the lab. You don’t sleep in the room where you broke the thermometer. You slap on sunscreen.

To learn a language you expose yourself by listening and reading to material that you enjoy and that is not too difficult. Go for low intensity  and a maximum of hours.

Remember the comics you were into? Do you recall those first few episodes of Sesame Street? Tunes and rhymes and ditties and puns. Jokes that you copied down to retell. Picture books that you valued and treasured and kept. Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson. Early Disney cartoons.

All of it magic!

Surf in your new language

Instead of feeling (mildly) guilty about  surfing the Internet without any real aim, take advantage of that inclination. Put it to use. Surf in a new language, remaining at sites just as long as they hold your interest. Read a word or a sentence according to whim.

This is reading! You are reading!

According to no less an authority as Stephen Krashen,  web surfing falls into the pantheon of  useful exposure to language, along with comics, fairy tales, magazines and Harlequin romances (I’m making it up about the romances, but I’m sure he’d agree).

If your computer doesn’t handle the script of the language, cut and paste the odd group of kanji or whatever and see where they lead you. If you turn over enough rocks, you’re gonna find something interesting sooner or later. Google search also for images and videos etc. Use YouTube as a search engine too for your viewing pleasure.

Waste an hour by putting it to good use!

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.

Read a home run book

According to Stephen Krashen, the term 'home run book' was coined by Clifton Fadiman in 1947. It refers to the first book that a child manages to read through in his or her first language. But I believe that it is just as important for anyone learning another language.

That's because it's quite an accomplishment. It gives you a great boost in confidence to complete an entire book in another language. You know that you can do it.

The experience also gives you a great dollop of second language exposure. Read a set of book at the right level (I'm thinking of Mami reading Enid Blyton's Famous Five series, and then C.S. Lewis's Narnian Chronicles) and you are 'in'!

You want something at the right level; something you are interested in; and something that you are familiar with. Illustrations help (there's a good reason why children read picture books first).