Your Intuition is Wrong about Learning Languages

Do you have a vague feeling that you're too old to learn a language?

Are you still looking for the best way to do this?

Or do you just....feel like you're never quite doing enough?

Then we have the show for you!! Hit play now and check out episode 69 of the Creative Language Learning Podcast

(Beware listeners: This episode contains a discussion of a few English swearwords, so if you want to avoid them please skip the first 20 minutes.)

Here's wbat's on the show this week:

Language Stories: Lindsay has a new podcast, reporting back from her adventures around the language landscapes of cities like Montréal, New York, and more.

Even after 20 years of English, I still don't know all the words. We discuss an English slang word that was news to me.

The Psychology of Rewards

We discussed why and how you can reward yourself when you reach those study goals.

Here are a few ideas from the super cool Fluent Language Learners community on Facebook:

Treat Yourself as a Reward

• Enjoy a coffee and take some time out in a café, watch the people, and take in the atmosphere
• Read a good book...maybe in your target language, maybe a bilingual text
• Treat yourself to some new stationery
• Go out and explore where speakers of your language hang out, for example if your city has an area where you can find ethnic food and goods
• Go to a concert or have a kitchen dance party

Enjoy the Rewards of Successful Language Learning

• Enjoy the happy glow of passing a certificate or good grade (Carlos), or the good feeling of completing a project
• Allow yourself a moment to recognise how much you have achieved

Some group members said that they never feel like they reach their goals. If this is you, check out our podcast for tips and thoughts on how you can reframe rewards and make them work for you.

Language Learning Misconceptions

What are the most common misconceptions, and which one is your (and my) top one?

There is even a Wikipedia article about this.

Some of them are intuitive and easy to accept, and some of them are so widespread that they have even made it into marketing.

Here's the list we discussed on the show:

• Children learn their first language effortlessly
• Younger learners learn languages more easily than older learners
• Intelligent people are better at learning languages
• Immersion is the best way to learn a language
• Grammar study is detrimental to second-language acquisition
• Learning a second language hinders the development of the first language
• Once a child can speak a language, the language-learning process is complete

Consider: All these ideas and beliefs are widespread, but none of them are true when taken at face value!

So, are there easy and hard languages - or not?

​Today I want to share a Youtube video created by Richard Simcott, a native English speaker who has studied an inspiring 16 languages!

Richard is a helpful language learning speaker, consultant, and also one of the founders of the Polyglot Conference (see you there next year?). The video he presents guides viewers through a great summary of why a language is considered hard or easy to learn for native English speakers.

​But wait, you said there are no hard languages!

​If you rewind a little bit through the archives of this blog, you will see that I have happily proclaimed "There are no hard or easy languages!" So before I go contradicting Richard's very valid points, let me explain what I mean:

The reason why you will find a language easy or difficult to learn can vary. There are the tangible factors of grammar, pronunciation, writing system and how familiar the words are. Those can't be ignored, they'll make your life easier or harder every day. But there is another attitude, much closer rooted in your own mind: The learner makes his or her learning easy (or difficult).​

You are in charge of what's easy

​Positive thinking is highly effective in language learning. If you believe that you're tackling a language that is difficult to learn, you may have a harder time. Instead, look at your motivation, consider why you're on this adventure and make yourself look at the bright side.

• An unfamiliar writing system - did this attract you to the language in the first place?​
• A completely foreign vocabulary - could you consider this your new secret code, a fresh way of looking at the world?​
• When you catch yourself dwelling on the difficult parts of your new language, try going back to something you're already good at until the confidence returns.​

Okay, so I admit this won't make Korean any easier than Spanish, but hopefully it can help fend off any big worries if you find your language in a class 1 or 2! Which language are you learning these days?

Five myths about language learning: Myth 4

Why bother when everyone speaks English anyway?

Okay, so before I sit down and watch the highlights of last night's opening of the London Olympics, I had better get this blog post covered. Not lastly, the topic of our Myth 4 is rendered pretty current by such an international event, because now we're looking at one of Britain's absolute favourite reasons to avoid language learning: the belief that "everyone speaks English". Some of the parties that like to promote this myth are tabloid papers, right-wing politicians (often guising it as "holy crap! people dare enter our country and bring their own languages!") and, scarily enough, some of the learners themselves.

Language learning is about connecting with people, making your own life easier and understanding more about how people express themselves and what for. It should go way beyond parroting "Where is the supermarket?" and "I have a brother and two sisters", and be seen as a way of reflectively engaging with how people communicate. If you're only ever going to view another language as a means of obtaining basic necessities during a brief stay abroad as a tourist, then you're losing 90% of the benefit. Take, for example, the intricate system of Japanese honorifics or the special German terms referring to 20th century history (Ossi, Wessi, Ostalgie etc). Language evolves with society, and that's what's amazing about it: You'll get to know another place's history, values, food, traditions and so much more. And you don't even have to travel there.

Secondly, it may not have occurred to you that the feeling of pointlessness as you stare at a jungle of verb tables is much more closely related to language choice than lack of necessity. I believe schools would see a much higher rate in language take-up if they were able to offer a wider choice of languages. Maybe French was never much to get you going, but your love of yoga makes you wish you could read Sanskrit.

Or you would love to cycle through Spain, haggle 40% off a cashmere scarf from your local Indian market stall, get in touch with your Gaelic roots? It certainly worked for me, studying my way through the lyrics of Pulp's whole musical oevre with a dictionary by my side.

One final point: Yes, a very large part of the world now learns English as a second language. It's an also-ran official language in countries like India, Nigeria and Cyprus. Having said that, this doesn't mean that it is the international community's preferred language. Even the British Foreign Office seem to have recognised that you miss out if you're the monolingual guest at the world's multilingual party. The amount of literature, film, theatre and music from another country that doesn't even make it into an English-speaking country is staggering. It's like looking at a painting and only seeing one colour.

Luckily, the many other positive reasons for picking up a foreign language are only a google away. No one says that this is something you have to do, but just think how fun and enriching it would be to start seeing in colour.