Further Ramblings...

I'm going to review some common problems and learning-techniques that I have stumbled upon in L2 acquisition (learning a second language). This is to help out any friends who intend to study abroad, or have an interest in learning another language. Keep in mind that it has only been around 2 months that I have been in my target language country, and I'm not backing any of this up with research or linguistic studies; I'm just talking off the top of my head and discussing what I have found helpful.

First of all, you often forget that learning a language involves four branches. People tend to focus on the active branches, which are Speaking and Writing. Most people know that even these two are completely different, and require individual modes of thought processes, AKA you may be able to write well but are incapable of speaking fluidly. The passive branches, Reading and Listening, are sometimes ignored and seen as just another part of the active branches: Ex. "If I learn to speak without pause, my listening ability will come simultaneously, automatically."

Do not think this way. After a month of furiously scribbling notes while, at the same time, trying to listen to a speed-talking champion of a professor, and then struggling to switch my mode of thought as I have to suddenly respond to a question, I can say that each of these activities requires your brain to switch gears in varying and, sometimes, contrasting ways. It made me realize just how lazy you can be with your L1, not only in the thought process but phonetically, too.

One problem is that the typical phrases, idiomatic expressions, or words that one initially learns in another language often have many more contextual possibilities than you realize. When you hear them used in such a way different and alien from your current understanding (AKA you had equated this word/phrase with one in your own language, but it turned out that it had many more uses in the L2 than in your L1), your brain is thrown off track as you thought that you had finally deciphered the meaning and "feel" of the word/phrase, but you are now scrambling to figure out exactly what this person is saying. This often happens when you mentally translate into your L1, so that you associate the "feeling" of the word with the same in your own language, and then find out that there are uses for this word/phrase that make no sense in your L1.

Ex (although a bad one considering I knew this before arriving): You learn the verb valer, which means: to cost, or to be worth. You learn the idiomatic expression "Vale la pena", which translates to "It's worth it". You figure you have a pretty good grasp of the verbs conjugation and usage. But one day someone says to you "Vale, pues, es que no tienes que decirlo así, vale?" And your head spins because you had no idea that "vale" can also be used as "OK" as a term of agreement.

This was initially one of the most frustrating parts of listening to professors. I would concentrate too intensely on what they were saying, glossing over every word in my head, and when they used a word that I had either not heard of before, or in a different way than I was used to, my train of thought would abruptly halt, like cotton trousers snagged on a briar. I would inevitably lose a valuable 3-5 seconds of the professors speech, and have to dig my way back into the context of the conversation. Originally, this would happen about every 10-15 seconds in class. If you do the math, at an average speed of 47.5 words per second, I would lose around 6.7 billion words in a standard hour-and-a-half class period.

This is simple arithmetic, folks, don't argue with science.

The way around this, I found, was to stop thinking. The best way I can describe it is to imagine your brain not like a sponge, which has to absorb and interpret every utterance, but as a crystal clear window, where words simply flow through and out to make room for the next group behind it. If you allow one single unknown word to cause you to miss the next 3, you are going to lose a large portion of the conversation. The maddening part is that in class, it always seems to be the most important word that you either don't know or didn't understand, and it might very well ruin the context for the next 5 minutes.

Professor: "What Marx is attempting to say here is that the bourgeois class should xhj;le7y the qpemnzx while, at the same time, mth;*&%LP. This is very important and will be on the test."

Justin: *Slowly raises revolver to face*

What was even more frustrating is learning how to respond in a timely and correct manner. I expect this to take a few more months before I am comfortably able to process what I am hearing and simultaneously formulate a response that actually makes sense. The difficult part is getting past what I will now call the "chunk" phase. This is where you have pre-written responses loaded into your head, chunks of words and phrases that you know when to use, that provoke responses from the other person that you are familiar with, and with which you become too comfortable without actually forming a sentence or playing with the language whatsoever. Often these responses are on a hair-trigger, and you will use them without even thinking of a better way to phrase your intentions.

Some may argue that this is how we talk in our L1, which may be true, but when you are actively trying to learn another language, you don't want to get lazy quite this early on.
So please, MAKE mistakes, play with the language, no one cares if you slip up. You are going to sound like a foreigner for a while, so get used to it. Which brings me to my last point....

Pronunciation and accent. Even if you know your grammar inside and out, these two little things will have natives asking what country you are from directly after "Hola." The best way to improve this is from mimicry. I found out a long time ago that I could not be lazy with Spanish pronunciation. There are no "uh's" or "eh's" or other lazy sounds, and as a language learner, you cannot speak Spanish through closed immovable lips like you can in English.

LISTEN.

Imitate what you hear, make an ever-present, conscious effort to get rid of your heavy, terrible American accent. It's probably more obvious than you realize. Watch TV and mimic the sounds, the pace of their speaking and the rhythm of the sentences. Achieving an accurate pronunciation and accent will make you sound like a native MUCH faster than correct grammar, but I suggest trying to keep the two at around the same level.


Sorry for the long post, I kind of got on a roll. Questions, thoughts, concerns? Criticism? Anything?