The importance of travelling

While I am sitting here slightly stressing out about the amount of work I still need to do before I leave to far away northern paradises, I thought to myself I ought to relax, drink a cup of tea(decaffeinated, for which I ought to thank my friend an pupil Astrid.) In the meantime sharing with you some of my views on the importance of travelling abroad as an aid to language learning.

Before I do this however, I ought to apologize for my absence recently to those of you that are eagerly following my blog. (Oddly enough, there are quite some of you. For which many thanks.)

And apologize in advance for my upcoming absence. Northern paradises, you see…

There won’t be many blog posts here this summer, since I will be travelling to Norway and Sweden for two months. There will be, however, a second blog (also in English) for just my travel stories. (ambitious, as always! ;) ) A link to that blog soon.

Now, the importance of travelling. People always tell me that it’s crucial to travel to the country, or countries, where they speak the language you are trying to learn. Well, yes and no.

Yes; it is important to indulge yourself in the language you are learning.
No; travelling is not the only way to do so.

Travelling is a good way to do so for sure, you’ll meet many new people and have good everyday practice in the language you are trying to learn. But for those of you that aren’t so keen on travelling for whatever reason, all hope is not lost.

When you’re learning a language it is important that you get as much practice as possible and really get into the language. Do as much as you can in the language from as early as possible. There really is no other way. It’s tiresome at first, but really, it gets a lot easier very fast if you stick it out.

Travelling does help, you are in a country where people speak a language you want to learn and obviously there will be contact with the language maybe a lot more than if you’d stay home. But it’s not enough. You can live in a country for years and never really learn the language of the people there if you’re not actually trying. Social interaction is key, but it’s not everything. When you come home you’ll still have to work on your language skills, they don’t grow overnight. (Actually, they sort of do, more on that in another article, perhaps.)

The opposite is true as well. If you stay home chances are you’ll pick up on the language a lot slower. But there are alternatives to travelling. For example, you can look up a community in your town/country for the language you are trying to learn. You’ll find a lot of natives there. E.g.: I visit the Norwegian community here in Antwerp and I get a lot of practice for free.

Another alternative is the internet. You can easily find a language partner online on a language exchange website and voice chat with him or her on Skype. Win-win situation, you can help each other learn a language. (interpals.net, sharedtalk.com are my favourite.)

So, there you have the importance of travelling. Important? Yes. Mandatory? Definitely not.

How fluent is fluent?

How fluent is fluent? When do you speak a language?

 

When is it time to say you speak a language as opposed to saying that you are learning it?
That is a question that is not as simple to answer as it seems as this implies that at some point, for whatever reason, you stop learning.

This, however, is not the case. Even in my native language I still learn every day, but it’s not as if I would tell anybody that I am “learning” Dutch.
So when do you say that you speak a language. Is it when you are able to sustain a conversation? Literally be able to speak the language? When you are able to read literature with no problems whatsoever? When you are able to write a coherent text?

The competences of knowing a language are rather vague. One might say that you speak a language fluently when you have all of these, others might think one is more important than the other.

“Fluent” is a rather vague term anyway. What is fluent? Being able to make a coherent text with no pause, perhaps? Maybe speaking a language without any accent? But then again, natives have accents too. Here again, some people think this and some people think the other.

Some of you may have heard of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, commonly known as the CEFR.
It is a noble attempt to define fluency.

The common references are:

A Basic User

A1 Breakthrough or beginner

A2 Waystage or elementary

B Independent User

B1 Threshold or intermediate

B2 Vantage or upper intermediate

C Proficient User

C1 Effective Operational Proficiency or advanced

C2 Mastery or proficiency

 

Each of these references comes with a range of competences a learner will have when they reach this stage in their study. This gives you a way of giving someone else an idea of how well you know a language. But at the same time it also puts a stop to gradation. It is as if you stop learning when you get to C2, where in fact you never actually stop learning a language.

At some point language learning becomes different though. It is no longer about studying vocabulary or grammar and applying this in your dialogues. When you know the grammar rules and making a dialogue with no hesitation at all the learning becomes more passive and slower. In fact, you might not even know you are learning.

Maybe this stage is where we can speak of fluency?

With all that said, I think the most important thing is that to say that you speak a language has much more to do with confidence than competence.

When you say you are learning a language, you are telling someone that you have knowledge of some sort but they can expect you to make mistakes in this language. It’s almost as if you excuse yourself for the mistakes you are about to make. Or excuse yourself for not knowing some things when asked.

When you say you speak a language, however, you are saying that your knowledge is beyond a learner’s and you should have no trouble at all communicating in this language.

When you say you speak a language, it usually means you are comfortable with using it. Whereas when you say you are learning one, it usually means you feel a little awkward using it.

I’m not saying, however, that there is no standard. Of course there is a standard.
Communication with natives is key here. The best judges of fluency are those who have reached this fluency, of course. In my opinion, the only competence that is required to be able to say you speak a language, is communication with natives. They are the standard you ought to live up to after all.
So I guess, if someone asked me when I would say I speak a language, I would say that would be about the time I would be able to easily communicate with natives, understand them and express my own thoughts.

 

Studying vocabulary?

I was going to write something about studying vocabulary the old fashion way, as in how to tackle a list of words that you probably will forget in a day or two.
Then I realized it wasn’t helpful, because, you can learn a list of 2000 words, but in my experience, it won’t get you very far. You’ll know a whole bunch of words but never have seen them in their context and you will be forever unsure about whether or not you are using them in the right contexts.
Ok, granted, this may not be the case for words such as school or table. They pretty much mean exactly what they mean and are pretty see-through. But there are a lot of words that are more ambiguous than that.

When it comes to vocabulary, I have to admit that I myself have never been good at memorizing a list of words. And when I did manage to memorize them they were gone in no time. And so along the way I discovered that learning vocabulary does not come down to endless lists of words to just memorize.
What I noticed is that a lot of people split up learning a language into two things, vocabulary on one side and grammar on the other. And while there is some truth to that, I rarely see these two parts of a language come together until the learner is trying to make a conversation. It is at that moment they realize that they have a lot of vocabulary and know the grammar but they just can’t seem to put two and two together, and so they struggle to say something.

Once I overcame my fear of speaking a language that I was learning from day one, I found that it was much easier to combine learning grammar and vocabulary rather than to see them as two separate things. On top of that, I also changed my ways of studying from academic to casual.   

Instead of sitting behind my desk trying to get 2000 words of Finnish in my head I just spoke to native speaker. I admit, at first I was just sitting there with a dictionary looking up every word they said. But that’s ok, you’ve got to start somewhere. I noticed I was learning vocabulary quickly without even trying. I was picking up words from conversations as I go. And I was picking up grammar and figuring it out myself as well. Think about it, the people that have Finnish as a native language aren’t constantly reflecting what case they have to use. They apply grammar without even thinking about it, in fact, they probably don’t even know they are doing it and when you ask them they won’t even know exactly why it is what it is.

I learned Portuguese as a second native language, and when I went to university I noticed that I knew zip about the grammar, but somehow, I instinctively knew how to apply it even though the rules we were being given were immensely complex. I realized right there and then that learning a language was much more about communicating than actually studying.

A lot of people don’t actually speak a language when they are learning it. They see learning and speaking as two different processes, first you learn, then you speak. However, this is not the case. In order to learn you have to speak. And when you speak, you will pick up vocabulary more quickly because you have a context to tie it to.

It’s also important to realize that you’re never starting from zero, a lot of words are very international and resemble words in the language you are learning. Without realizing it, you already have thousands of words in your passive knowledge of whatever foreign language you are learning. By communicating in this language you can change your passive knowledge into active knowledge and acquire more passive knowledge to in its turn be turned into active knowledge as well.

This all is way more effective than learning a list of words you will inevitably forget in a day or so.

A youtube channel to follow!

I stumbled upon this youtube channel called “School of language”. The most usefull thing they have is I think this mini webseries that comes in various languages (English, French, Spanish and German). Each episode is about 20 minutes long and very easy to follow. Worth checking out!

10 Tips when you're learning a language

I've gathered ten of the things that I find important when you want to learn a language successfully, I hope they help!

1.       Be the language

If you want to learn a language it’s important that you get this language in your head. You have to try and get to a point where you think in the language you’re trying to learn. Only this way is it ever going to stick. Try to be with the language as much as possible. Also, when you’re talking to someone in a language you’re learning, try not to switch to English but explain in the foreign language what you are trying to say. It’s not easy, but you’ll learn much more from it.

2.       Get over your fear of speaking

Many people when they begin to learn a language are afraid to speak it and don’t want to let other people hear them make mistakes. They basically won’t let anyone hear them speaking the language until they speak it “perfectly”. This is one of the biggest mistakes made by learners, in my opinion. A because you will never speak a language perfectly, there is no such thing. And B because you will only learn through speaking the language. I think it’s best to start speaking the language from day one. Even if all you can say is “yes”, “no” and “I don’t understand,” it’s a start, and something to build on. I know it can be very exhausting for other people to listen to someone not being able to say what they want to say, but that’s the only way to learn.

3.       Make time

A lot of people tell me “I don’t have the time to learn a foreign language,” well, as far as that’s concerned; there is no easy way out! As I said in my first post, language learning IS time consuming. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t make time for it, even if you are a busy person. (Like I am, by the way.)
The trick is to do something every day, even if it’s only 15 minutes of practice, it will help you memorise the language and stop the process of forgeting things.
It’s not always easy to make time, but it has to happen.

4.       Be determined

You really have to want to go for it, otherwise you’ll never get there. Like I said before, it’s not easy and it is time consuming, but if you’re really determined then you’ll get there. You have to want it.

5.       Give it your everything

Basically comes with being determined. You have to want to work for it and give it your best shot possible. If you’re doing tip 1, then automatically you are giving it your everything already. Giving it your everything –for me- doesn’t mean that you have to study from 8 am ‘til 10 pm with no break whatsoever. Don’t overwork yourself, just do as much as you can so at the end of the day you don’t get the feeling you could have done more. A good day in language learning –again, for me- is when I can say to myself “well, look at all the progress I made.” And that’s where it gets rewarding too!

6.       Make a plan

Don’t just start with no goal or target set. You’re bound to get derailed that way. Ask yourself what your aim is, how far you want to get with this. Try to put a timestamp on it, just to give yourself something to work toward. Try to switch  between learning grammar and learning vocabulary and getting as many aspects of the language as possible. Also, gather your resources on beforehand, otherwise you’ll get lost in all that’s out there. Try to find a good learning book or website, and try to complete that before you move on to the next one, otherwise you’ll have done chapter 1 of every book and website –mostly about the same thing- and you’ll never get any further than that because you feel you’re stuck.
It’s ok to have more than one resource, but make a plan!

7.       Don’t procrastinate

“I want to learn Swahili someday,” is probably the most annoying thing someone can tell me. What do you mean someday?! Someday is simply not good enough. When people say someday, they really mean never. If you want something, do it now. There’s never going to be a better time to start. You’ll lose the courage to do so if you don’t get started now. –Been there, done that-

8.       You can do it!

“I want to learn Swahili, but it’s too difficult,” is probably the second most annoying thing people tell me. There is no such thing as a difficult language. Besides, we probably already speak a so called “difficult language” without even noticing it. –Yes, English is considered difficult by many people too!-
Chinese is one of the best examples for this, many people consider Chinese an incredibly difficult language to learn. (Or, Finnish too for example, which I am learning)The thing is, it’s all about perspective. A 4 years old Chinese boy speaks Chinese fluently, it really can’t be rocket science. It’s all about attitude, if you start out by telling yourself that you can’t do this, then you’re already minimizing your chances of succeeding. Believe in yourself, you can do it!

9.       Tell people
People often just don’t tell other people they’re learning a certain language. Out of fear, or with the thought that they just don’t know enough of that language yet to tell anybody about it. That’s a mistake. In fact, you should tell everybody that you’re going to get started on a language because it makes it much more concrete. It’s much realer. And you’ll be more determined to continue learning it because people will ask you how you’re doing with it. You’ll be much less tempted to just stop learning that language all together.

10.   Don’t give up!

My experience is that the first couple of weeks or even months of learning a language are piece of cake, but after that, there is some sort of barrier where you can’t seem to push from that intermediate level to an advanced level. This is where you just have to keep going, no matter how little progress you seem to make. I compare this with obese people that are trying to loose their excess weight, at first they seem to lose weight by tons, but after a while they just don’t seem to do as well. Not because they’re not continuously working out or sticking to their diets. But just because after a while it just gets harder. The same goes for language learning, at some point you’re going to feel a little stuck, but that’s ok, just don’t give up!

And tip 11 HAVE SOME FUN. Language learning does not have to be boring!

And then there was language

Hello people!

Welcome to my all new blog "Babilon".

This is the very first post ever, so to start the blog off I will just briefly tell you who I am and who this blog is meant for.

On this blog I will be posting all sorts of tips and tricks for language learning. And share with you my personal experiences as I go.
I think there are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to language learning.
I think anyone can learn any language. I'll be the last to say that it's an easy process, or that it's not time consuming. It isn't easy, and it is time consuming. But if you really want to push just that little bit harder you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. -With the right attitude-

Learning a foreign language can be a really rewarding process, or the exact opposite. It has got it's ups and downs and you'll encounter many issues. But at the end of the road, you'll be baffled at what you have achieved. 
However, this blog isn't only for those who have only started on their first ever foreign language. It is also meant for those of you who are a little bit more experienced with language learning.

I'll be sharing with you tips and tricks of all sorts and kinds, such as resources for language learning, helpful study methods and inspirational people. I might also refer to some articles. My aim is not to publish academically research though, it is rather to keep this a casual blog.

About me: I'm a linguistics/translation student at university in Belgium.
I have Portuguese roots and this is the reason I have been brought up with two native languages, being Dutch and Portuguese.
I've been intensively learning several languages for a while now. In highschool I was never that good at languages, and you might think that is a little odd. But I didn't feel the rewarding part of learning languages until I went to university. At this time I spoke Portuguese, Dutch, French, English and some Spanish. (Note: although I have two native languages, it was not always a walk in the park for me to learn these new languages either, but I pushed through.)

I decided to take on English and Portuguese in my first year of university. (A choice which I now regret.) I couldn't write Portuguese because until then I'd only ever spoken it, so I wanted to "perfect" the knowledge of my native language.

As I went, my interest in foreign languages grew. I wanted to teach myself Icelandic.
I was quickly let down though, because I just couldn't seem to memorize the language at all. I got nowhere. I thought to myself, there must be a way around this obstacle. Icelandic, as some of you may now, is a very old Nordic language, that since the Viking times has been left almost untouched. What I thought of doing then is to teach myself Norwegian. As these two languages are very strongly related. And sure enough, my knowledge of the Norwegian language expanded quickly, as did my love for Scandinavia.
At this time I became acquainted with a polyglot who goes by the name "Benny the Irish polyglot," he has a website called Fluent in 3 months, which I stumbled upon.
The blogposts on this website helped me a great deal and made me push just that extra little bit harder.

Learning Norwegian was very rewarding for me, because in a matter of months I was able to sustain a decent conversation and everything went really smoothly. So much so that I wanted to take on another language. I went back to Icelandic, and this time I had more success because I recognized a lot of words from Norwegian. I could almost perfectly understand an Icelandic text with the knowledge I had from my Norwegian studies. Soon enough Icelandic was no longer enough either. I took on Finnish. A language with 15(!!) cases. It seemed a little abstract at first, and I'm still trying hard, but I'm getting there.
After Finnish came Russian. A whole new alphabet, that seemed really scary at first, but it's learnable in just one afternoon. I don't speak that much of these languages yet, but I'm not scared to take them on anymore because I know that I am capable of doing it.

And then there is Japanese. Japanese is my "longterm" language project. I'm actually a little stuck on it, because I always seem to restart at the same point and I'm making no progress at all. It's a barrier that I need to break trough at some point, I'm just not exactly sure how yet.

I guess what I'm trying to tell you guys it that it is possible.