You want another language. Okay. But then immediately you think to yourself, "In that case, what do I need to do?"
Right away, you are heading off-track.
Obviously you need to do something. I don't deny that. But it's more along the lines of allowing something to be done to you. It's arranging the condition and setting up systems and habits, after which you allow the process to happen to you.
You're not to put words into your head. You are not the one who must learn rules and apply them. You are not the one who must push through the nervousness barrier and force yourself to speak.
No, no no . . . None of that!
You're not the doer, you're the do-ee.
You're not responsible for the results, either. And that's good to realize, because this removes any pressure of possible failure.
You're not to measure your achievements either. You aren't achieving in the sense that you've been trained to expect. It won't go neatly and tidily.
You'll get better imperfectly, messily, sloppily, randomly, magically, and unfathomably. You'll learn the language without knowing how you did it!
Don't put pressure on yourself to remember vocabulary, to spell correctly, to pronounce correctly, to understand the rule, to comprehend, to treat language learning as a serious business, or to study in any way.
Put yourself in the right environment, and get your brain into the right state. That's all that's required of you. The rest will happen automatically.
Don't consciously try to learn a language. You can't. No one can. The most that you'll achieve is to learn a few things about it.
The phrase 'get used to it' has generally negative connotations. They are usually unpleasant things that you are obliged to get used to: heat, cold, hunger, discomfort, pain, disability, poverty, bereavement to name a few.
So how could I express 'getting used to a language' in a better light?
Maybe . . . You grow into a language. You fit yourself to it. It moulds itself to you. You become familiar with it. You learn to appreciate it. You get good at it.
This is an important psychological shift to make. If you harbor any negativity toward a language (or its people, or its culture) then you face an uphill road.
Speaking in specifics, you need to be able to . . .
- enjoy its sounds (and not to flinch)
- write its letters lovingly
- scan a page of text without tensing up
- remain comfortable in a sub 100% understanding environment
- listen relaxedly to hearing it spoken at normal speed
- get used to NOT studying (probably the most difficult item on this list)
Somewhere along the line, people got the idea that the way to learn another language is to study its grammar, and then to practice applying those rules, translating from one language into the other. That's the 'Grammar Translation Method'.
It is derived from the 'traditional' or 'classical' way of teaching Greek and Latin. Well, you know how useful that was for your schoolboy Latin!
Intuitively, grammar translation seems to be the way you'd go about learning another language. Trouble is, it doesn't work. Or rather, it does work (because every method will eventually get you there) but slowly, painfully, boringly, and tediously.
The Grammar Translation Method has been deemed ineffective by the authorities themselves.
We don't even get taught the grammar of our own language at school anymore for that very reason.
How can I get across that point most succinctly and forcefully?
How about this: no one out of all the billions of people in the world ever ,earned their own language through studying its grammar. Not one. And yet 99% of people could use their mother tongue within a year or two of birth!
The grammar of a language is NOT the language itself. They are two totally different subjects. No one confuses Physics with Physical Education.
