A Language Learner's Guide to Mindset, Mantras & Emotions

When was the last time you felt discouraged by a language learning setback?

Discouragement and insecurity get the best of everyone from time to time, but the worst part is that we’re afraid to admit it. Even in a community of language learners, we have a bad habit of hiding in fear during our setbacks and comparing ourselves to those who are experiencing success.

Think back to a time you doubted yourself. Did you ever wonder:

• Am I learning the right way?

• Why am I not making more progress?

• Why does it seem like everyone else is having an easier time progressing?

• How can I stop making so many mistakes?

• Will I ever be able to learn this language?

If so, you’re not the only one to feel trapped in this sort of negative mindset. It’s a part of life.

What really matters is the steps you take to keep moving forward.

On The Podcast

Listen to this podcast with me and Lindsay Williams to explore more about creating a mindset that will help you learn another language:

What is a Mindset?

Maybe you’ve heard about mindsets before, but what does it all mean?

Like a narrative, a mindset is the mental filter you add to everything that happens in your life. It colours the way you look at the world. For example, when you’re in love, people say you have rose-tinted glasses. You’re so happy and full of endorphins that it doesn’t even matter if someone cuts you off in traffic.

But when you’re having a bad experience in the morning, it can also make you more aware of the next sub-ideal thing. Then, before you know it, you’re having a bad day.

This is a form of priming, which happens when your response to something is shaped by a previous influence. It can affect multiple aspects of our lives including our language learning efforts.

That means, when you find yourself in a negative mindset, it can change the way you view your language learning progress.

Having Negative or Limiting Thoughts?

Now that you’re aware of those pesky negative mindsets, it’s time to change them.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

One of the first questions you might want to ask yourself is whether you’re being held back by a fixed mindset.

What does that mean?

In learning and education, there is a theory that the presence of either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset can change the way children process difficult tasks and deal with failure. The Growth Mindset theory has been researched by psychologists Carol Dweck and her team.

In short, a fixed mindset is one that believes you cannot change. It’s the idea that insists that you aren’t capable or intelligent enough to conquer the difficulties you face.

Meanwhile, a growth mindset is the idea that you can develop your intelligence to improve and that your continued efforts will lead to success.

Now, think about your own doubts. Are they a part of a fixed mindset that’s keeping you from feeling like you have the ability to succeed?

Do You Believe Language Learning is Difficult?

If you’ve ever thought...

• "__ is a hard language. I don’t think I can do it."

• "Am I studying enough? Is my method effective? What is my learning style and what is everyone else doing?"

• "I’m just not at the level I should be. I’m just not doing well enough and I keep trying but I cannot get the concepts right. Everyone else is progressing more quickly."

• "I’m too old and forgetful now, my brain isn’t what it used to be."

• "I’m never going to get to the point where I can effortlessly understand. It’s never going to be easy."

..what you might really be saying to yourself is this:

"I’m not smart enough."

"Can I trust myself?"

"I can’t get there."

"I’m not allowed to have fun. Learning this is suffering."

Obstacles can be very real. Depending on your access, opportunity, disability, education, etc., you might not be progressing as quickly as someone else. You might not know about a different method that would suit you a bit better or have the ability to use other resources.

However, the theory behind adopting a growth mindset is not an assumption that your thoughts can magically make everything better. Instead, it’s a way to improve your own self-image and begin recognising your worth and celebrating the skills, talents, resourcefulness, and grit that you do have.

By consciously changing these negative thought patterns, you acknowledge that you are always capable of becoming the best version of yourself and that you’re not the only one.

How to Challenge Your Negative Ideas

Working against a negative mindset, is its own challenge. So, where should you start?

Remember that if you find yourself stuck in a negative, fixed mindset, the only way to start making progress again is to create a new perspective for yourself. Your first step is to promote a growth mindset within yourself by remembering that intelligence is not a fixed, limited capacity that cannot be changed.

In other words, it’s impossible to not be smart enough because you can always learn and improve.

For example, in a school setting, educators and parents are encouraged to use open language that highlights effort and removes the idea of natural talent. This way, children are less likely to adopt a fixed mindset about their abilities and intelligence.

You can use a similar strategy for our own language learning efforts with the help of mantras.

Let’s Make Some Mantras!

If you’ve ever tried meditating, you might already know about mantras. Whether in the form of a word, a phrase, or simply a sound, mantras help us focus our thoughts. They can help change our perception.

This makes them valuable for turning our negative, fixed thoughts into ones that can help us progress.

Mantras can promote overall self-esteem to boost confidence:

• I approve of myself and feel great about myself.

• My high self-esteem enables me to respect others and beget respect in turn.

• I accept others as they are and they in turn accept me as I am.

• It matters little what others say. What matters is how I react and what I believe.

• I have high self-esteem as I respect myself.

• I am solution-minded. Any problem that comes up in life is solvable.

They can also speak directly to your language learning difficulties:

• I am a smart and capable language learner.

• I grow with every word I say in my new language.

• I am soaking up new knowledge like a sponge.

• If you believe you’re going to fail, you are probably going to fail.

• If you believe you’re going to succeed, you can.

These are just a few examples of mantras you can begin to use. You can also create more personalized mantras by:

• Adding the word "yet" to a negative sentence. I’m not prepared to speak yet.

• Thinking of what you are worried about or afraid of and imagining yourself overcoming that.

  • What is that situation like? How do you feel? How do you move and sound when you’re getting there? Put that feeling into a sentence that you can say to yourself again and again.

Remember that there are no rules for what your mantra has to sound like. Some people like a long mantra while others prefer a single line. You can even search online to find something that speaks to you.

Affirm Your Progress

There will always be setbacks and challenges. Just as making mistakes helps you learn a language, these difficulties and mental blocks can help you grow.

No matter what you face during your language learning journey, tell yourself that:

• Yes, you do get to decide that you are good at this. It’s not an outrage. No one will check.

• You are working hard enough for the results you are getting. Give yourself some credit and allow yourself to play with and enjoy your new language.

Then, the next time you hit a roadblock, you can ask yourself, "What can I do to get around this?"

Because you will get around it.

Need a bit of help?

Keep some positive affirmation cards handy for those days when you don’t feel very motivated. You can get a free set of language learning specific affirmations here.

#clearthelist September 2019: The Eleven Languages I Spoke in One Month

Imagine you’re on a long-distance cycling trip, perhaps through all of a country or state. You know the destination and you’re pedalling every day, always pushing ahead even if you know you may not arrive for many days. On a journey like that, what would you be without a necessary stop to find yourself on the map now and then? Can you do it without GPS? I don’t think I could!

Learning a language is a lot like navigating a long trip like that. We often know our destination before we get going and we set off in the right direction. But without regular check-ins, we may pedal and pedal until we fall over.

Here on the blog, I write a monthly check-in like that to keep you up to date with my own language learning goals. It’s part of the #clearthelist round-up hosted by Shannon Kennedy and Lindsay Williams.

Want to try out this check-in process for yourself?

Why not check out my Language Habit Toolkit, an in-depth course designed to help you set useful language goals, track them easily and achieve a new milestone every month.

What Happened in August?

Last month was dominated by my biggest trip of the year, visiting the USA and Canada to participate in two conferences. First, I attended Podcast Movement in Orlando to learn more about how to make great podcasts and support myself well while doing it.

And while I was across the pond, how could I have missed Langfest in Montréal, Canada? Impossible!

The trip in between these two cities was a lot of fun: I took Amtrak to Charleston in South Carolina, having long wanted to try the American train. My impression was…that Europeans love the train even in America, haha!

The Langfest team another excellent language event this year, with so many highlights including meeting the creators of Klingon and Dothraki, and running my own creative writing workshop with María Ortega Garcia.

The Fluent Show

First of all let me say how amazing it was for me to meet so many listeners on the road in August. I’m over the moon to know that the Fluent Show is popular!

This month contained a whole range of amazing episodes so let me share two with you today:

1. Langfest 2019 captured in audio, with almost a dozen interviews and voices directly from the show

1. What is the Right Mixture for Language Learning Success?, an episode about why so many methods feel like they’re THE best method

If you’re not a Fluent Show listener already, you’ll find lots more exciting shows to listen or subscribe to at www.fluent.show.

Language Goals and Progress

I had pretty clear goals for August 2019, so this time I’ll run through them without breaking it down too much into listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Mandarin Chinese

• Listen to Mandopop

I neglected this, spending more time on podcasts.

• Get 100 Lingqs on the LingQ app

Overall I now have lots of LingQs, the challenge is becoming more about noting and remembering them all! Still enjoying this app and using it in the mornings.

• Post 2-3 speaking videos on Instagram

I only posted one, then travel threw me off the wagon. I did learn some more Chinese from a new friend at Langfest though, so I feel positive about my speaking.

• Find a new Chinese tutor

So here’s what happened: I wanted a new tutor but felt guilty about ghosting the current one. Then as if by magic, she decided she’s taking a break and sent a messaging saying she won’t be available until December. So yay, I was free for a new tutor.

But then I didn’t book one. Hah! I count this as a goal half achieved 😅

• Figure out how to type Chinese characters on the iPhone

Done!

• Practice characters by hand every week

In the weeks I was at home, this was done.

Welsh

• Book a class to practice speaking

Sadly no, but I still got my speaking practice on one occasion this month in conversation with a Langfest buddy.

• Read the book Ffenestri

This book is LOVELY and I’m nearly finished. I’m reading well at all 3 levels, as I should :)

• Plan my next trip to Wales

Sadly this fell through as I prioritised visiting my family in Germany first. Chwarae teg, wouldn’t you say?

• More stuff!

I can now watch Welsh TV without subtitles! 🎉

Other Languages

It’s impossible to travel without practicing other languages, so August also became an opportunity for me to speak my long-neglected languages.

Counting in Klingon

In bilingual Montréal, I spoke lots of French with people from all over. Québécois French is never 100% comprehensible to me, but as always when I speak French I felt reassured that I’m entirely capable.

I bungled my way through a taxi ride with a lovely Colombian in Spanish, though I never did end up where I originally wanted to be. But I blame Lyft and GPS for that instead of my language skills, haha.

And talking of bungling, I also spoke more Italian than I have done in 20 years. The Italian sounded like that, too. It’s R.U.S.T.Y. and has essentially turned into bad Spanish.

I also attended basic workshops on the fictional languages Klingon and Dothraki, as well as Breton and Signed Languages.

Language Goals for September 2019

It’s handy to start setting goals by remembering the time frame available. In other words, the question is “What do you want to achieve in the next 30 days?” - seems a little less intense than wondering how to achieve a lot.

This month I’ve been inspired by intense learning projects and the book Ultralearning by Scott Young (interview coming up on the podcast). What can I commit to that would stretch me, challenge me?

Listening Goals

In Chinese, I’ll look for a tutor and ask them to help me listen, perhaps through some dictation rather than the pressure of conversing instantly.

In Welsh, I’m getting so much better so I’ll keep up what I’m doing.

Reading Goals

I don’t have firm goals here and want to focus on other skills, so I’ll just commit to the tools and say I want to finish Ffenestri in Welsh and use LingQ 4 days a week in Chinese.

Speaking Goals

Here I would like to take it up a notch!

In Chinese I am still fairly shy about speaking - I wish I had a few sample conversations to practice with. Comment if you can recommend any? Meanwhile it’s a good idea to push ahead and find that new tutor!

In Welsh I so want to practice speaking and everything, so I’m going to book myself 3 sessions to speak bad Welsh at people. Yay!

Writing Goals

I’ll go easy on the writing beyond what I usually do, which is to text people. In Chinese I’m also making vocab lists by hand now and writing down set phrases in characters and pinyin.

Here’s an instagram slideshow showing my vocab system in more detail:

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And that’s it for September’s #clearthelist!

How are You Getting On in Language Learning?

Comment below and tell me how your month of August went! Did you come to Langfest? Would you like to attend it some time? Have you got any strong speaking goals?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

5 Hilarious Games for Learning Languages in a Group

It’s an open secret among experienced language teachers: We love playing games!

During my retreats and lessons, I’ve had so many experiences when an hour of Articulate in German helped my students speak fluently with more ease than a hundred other lessons. In this guest post, Italian teacher Gloria presents her top 5 games for learning languages.

Many of these games will be a lot of fun for learning other languages, too. Over to Gloria…

Among the tools we can use to learn languages, games are surely the ones I love the most. I know it sounds weird said from a teacher, but I’ve never really liked traditional learning methods. Sure, when I was learning languages at school, these traditional methods made me feel like I was doing the right thing. Still, I found them endlessly boring and energy-consuming. All those drilling activities, fill-in-the-blank exercises, multiple-choice quizzes… they just made me feel anxious and in the end, they weren’t contributing to my learning.

The Problem With Traditional Study Methods

When you feel tense or anxious, you are pushing yourself away from your learning goals. Why? Because we need to create positive memories if we want to store new information into our brain. If we want to secure a long-term learning or, in other words, if we want to truly acquire new information, we need to be in a relaxed and stress-free state of mind. Stress prevents new information from coming in. Conversely, happiness and calmness open us up to letting new information in.

This is especially true for Italian.

Italian is known particularly for its charm, but also for being quite a complicated language. If English is your first language, you might have experienced a few tough moments when approaching Italian for the first time.

Group Games for Language Learners

Below you will find some creative group games which will help you add some fun to your Italian practice and secure yourself a stress-free and efficient learning.

1) Strega Comanda Colore (Witch commands colour)

This game comes straight from my childhood and is a part of the Italian kindergarten-games tradition. Here I would like to propose it with a small variant. Originally, we have one person who plays the witch and who says “strega comanda colore…” (witch commands colour…) and then he or she adds one colour of their choice. Once the other players have heard the colour, they have to run and touch one object with that specific colour before the witch catches them. If someone gets caught, they become the witch, and the game continues until everyone gets caught.

Now, here is the variant I would like to propose to you: When you touch an object, you can also shout the name of that object. This way, you will create an opportunity for learning and revising new Italian words.

You can also stick a post-it note on the objects you haven’t learned yet. After that, you can remove the post-it note and add a bit of a challenge to your game by relying on your memory. If you want, you can use this game to revise words in other languages as well and spread a little bit of the Italian traditions all over the world.

2) The Miming Game

We can use this game for many languages, and for Italian it comes particularly in handy when you want to revise verb conjugations. When you struggle with verb conjugations, the miming game gives you an opportunity to practice Italian verbs in a laid back and fun way.

First, write a subject pronoun like io (“I”), tu (you) or lui (“he”), on a paper or a whiteboard, and mime a verb of your choice. The other players will have to guess the verb and say it conjugated according to that subject. If, for example, you choose the subject “noi” and you mime the verb bere (to drink), the participants will have to shout beviamo. The first player who guesses the right answer will take your place, and the game will continue until you all decide it’s over.

You can then choose which tense you want to revise. You can begin with the present tense and then shift to the passato prossimo or the imperfetto as well. If you want, you can also choose to revise more tenses together.

A round of Pictionary in our comfortable lounge at the Fluent German Retreat

3) Pictionary

It’s the perfect game to play with a language buddy or a small group of friends. One person begins by drawing a picture, and the other participants have to guess what that picture is and say their answer in their target language.

You can draw pictures representing nouns like cane (“dog”), albero (“tree”) and libro (“book”). You can even draw adjectives like felice (“happy”), stanco (“tired”) and triste (“sad”). Then, you can also draw verbs like mangiare (“eat”), dormire (“sleep”) and leggere (“read”). You can use this game to revise what you’ve already learned.

It’s a good opportunity to spend some good time with friends and turn a leisure moment into a learning opportunity.

4) Pronunciation Memory Card Game

Everyone loves the sound of the Italian language, but how many out there find Italian easy to pronounce? So, here I want to propose a variant of the classic memory card game.

You can still match pictures and words, but, in order to help you with your pronunciation, you can focus on tricky words like ciao, chiesa, schiena, sci, formaggio, laghi… When you find a matching pair, shout the word out loud. If you don’t remember how to pronounce that word, the other players can help you with that.

Remember, this is all about teamwork, it’s not a competition. Plus, working to support each other is going to lead you further than competing against each other.

5) Game of the Goose

It’s the famous board game where you throw a dice and move pieces from one box to another around a track. You can build this game gradually, as you learn new sentences and words.

First, print out a blank template for the game of the goose (there are plenty online) and in each square you can write a question you’ve learnt to answer. Once all the squares are filled in with a question, you and your partners can throw the dice, move your pawns and answer the question where your pawn has landed.

Remember this is about team support, instead of competition, especially if you’re shy and you feel a bit intimidated when it comes to speaking.

As you can see, when it comes to learning Italian - and languages in general, applying creativity is the first step towards a new kind of language-learning experience.

You can play these games with your friends and classmates, or you can even involve your family, if you’re learning together. You will see how easy it is to transform a learning moment into an enjoyable shared moment that will bring beautiful and positive long-term memories.

What Are Your Favourite Games for Learning a Language?

Gloria Spagnoli is a playful Italian teacher online and founder of Speakita - Playful online Italian lessons for beginners. She’s committed to helping shy beginners and false beginners speak Italian confidently, with no stress and by having fun.

#clearthelist August 2019: How I Keep Motivation for Learning Languages

Hello and welcome to #clearthelist, a monthly language learning goals round-up. This blog round-up of goal trackers is hosted by Lindsay Williams and Shannon Kennedy here.

What Happened in July?

July 2019 seemed like a long month with lots going on. Here at Fluent, I’m currently head down in some preparation work for big things to come later in the year, such as my first membership community and a course update for the Language Habit Toolkit.

I spent 10 beautiful days on holiday visiting Hamburg and the German island of Fehmarn. My first island and my first ever experience of the famous German Strandkorb. Fehmarn is gorgeous and I didn’t want to leave.

In the following week, Britain braved a heatwave and I achieved a particular personal goal: my British citizenship. I am now a dual national, which was a move entirely motivated by Brexit and therefore bittersweet at best.

Fun fact 1: At the ceremony I had to say a pledge of allegiance. I asked to do it in Welsh but was denied because "we have to be able to understand you". I now speak more British languages than the Brits who held my citizenship ceremony.

The Fluent Show

This month I was pleased to publish five podcast episodes, all of which just stand their own. My favourite conversation was with María Ortega Garcia, giving me such a zest for play in how I teach.

And I can’t leave you without recommending the episode Indigenous Languages Explained, which is a topic that you’ll find both important and interesting.

The Fluent Show also hit a huge milestone this week. We counted ONE MILLION DOWNLOADS 😲in the last two years. It’s an absolute whopper number and made me so excited and proud. Thank you, listeners!

Time to get to those language goals now then…oh my.

Citizenship ceremony in 38 degrees 🥵

Language Goals and Progress

Fun fact 2: When I do not print out my goals or write them by hand and pin them on the wall behind my computer monitor, I don’t do as much towards them. Fancy that. It’s a reminder that even faint awareness of our goals can help us move towards them.

Let’s talk about Welsh first.

Welsh Language Maintenance

This was a maintenance month where I didn’t focus so much on the Welsh language. I picked up the book Ffenestri by Lois Arnold - picked it up from my shelf, that is - and finally started reading it during our long train journey to Hamburg. This book is so lovely. It is divided into 3 levels and I breezed through the beginner section and most of the intermediate section. I’m a B1/B2 reader in my book!

After the holiday, I’d not had the chance to pick the book back up…but I look forward to the next parts.

In terms of listening and writing, there wasn’t daily contact but still a consistent stream of language input through S4C and even my Intermediate Grammar book.

Only thing…I didn’t speak a lot of the language at all. It’s a classic problem for those of us who live further away from our target language communities, and the answer is to simply rope in friends or book more online lessons.

Welsh is now a pleasure language for me, one that I enjoy every time I get to experience it. Sadly I’m missing the Eisteddfod this year, but I’m eager to plan my next trip to Cymru.

Chinese Language Progress

Now, for my little Chinese progress.

Listening

I watched the odd YouTube video and tried out a few resources, but like in previous months I know I’ve got a gap here. Might be time to purchase a course with practice audio.

The good thing: I’ve discovered Mandopop and am now happily bouncing around Spotify so that I can get into more of a positive mindset with Mandarin Chinese.

Reading

I had high hopes that I would make lots of progress using Lingq, but instead the progress was somewhat slack as I found myself reviewing vocabulary rather than adding new words.

In the long run, I’m sure I’ll be glad that I didn’t just press on to get ego numbers. But right now, it’s a bit of a ¯(ツ)/¯._

My biggest reading contact comes from the language learning apps that I fall back on while I’m studying: Drops, Lingodeer, Memrise. This month was a strong showing for the apps, which kind of goes to show how little concentration time I put in.

Speaking

I took one italki lesson and enjoyed it, didn’t really speak a lot more than that.

Writing

2 pages of vocab notes after reviewing the italki lesson, and I’ve been writing a few little pages of introduction stuff as well.

A Word on The Value of My Vision Goal

In July I lost track of tracking, and now that it’s coming round to review time I can feel the impact. I’m a great Chinese student when I sit down and focus, when I’m in the habit, when I want to. But after some time off, I wasn’t in a good routine.

When you are at a beginner level in any language, that routine is incredibly important. Once you can speak, enjoy TV, read, everything becomes easier to integrate.

So I’m definitely a beginner and for a few minutes I was even considering throwing the towel. But I am not ready to abandon this project! I want to understand more Chinese when I hear it, chat to a few people, initiate conversations. I am happy to get the study materials back out and spend 15 minutes on them every day.

You can’t always keep up the same levels of motivation and action. To learn a language in a busy life, you need a moment to remember the big picture.

If you want to learn more about the importance of a vision goal, this blog article is a good start: How To Learn A New Language With Smart And Useful Goals

Language Goals for August 2019

Let’s be realistic: I’m spending almost 2 weeks of this month travelling. I’m unlikely to be carrying around a Chinese book or running into lots of Welsh speakers.

With that in mind, who am I to give up, right? Here are my goals for the month:

Welsh Language Goals

Mae popeth yn iawn, everything’s okay with Welsh. I’d only love to speak more so I’ll have to make sure that I have one or two real conversations with someone. Please volunteer in the comments. 🤗

Chinese Language Goals

I am going to travel with my phone and iPad, so this month my goals are digital.

Listening

Skipping this, except for more of the Mandopop.

Reading

I am reading a story on Lingq and will continue with it, hopefully making more Lingqs in the process. I will say I’d like to get to 100 Lingqs, bearing in mind my slow pace as I do review everything several times.

Speaking

I am in the market for a new tutor, and I’m also going to record a few videos of myself speaking Chinese to post on Instagram or share with a tutor. I live in such a student town that I also imagine it might be lots of fun to find a local exchange partner…but I’ll do that once I have acquired some basic level of decent skill.

Writing

I’ll continue to write by hand (characters and pinyin) while I’m home when I have time, but my only firm goal is to figure out how to type characters on an iPhone.

And that’s it for my round-up and goals for August 2019!

How do You Record Your Goals?

How do you keep track? Tell me in the comments below!

Indigenous Languages Explained: What You Need to Know Today

How would you feel if you were the only person left in the world who spoke your native language?

It seems unthinkable, right? Yet, it’s a reality for more than a few speakers of indigenous languages that are at risk of dying out. In fact, it’s estimated that one indigenous language is lost every two weeks.

Out of around 7,111 languages, about a fifth are endangered or vulnerable on some level. Indigenous languages make up at least 4,000 of the world’s languages, though it’s impossible to know the exact number.

But what exactly is an indigenous language and what makes them so important?

Listen to this podcast episode with me and Lindsay Williams to learn more about indigenous languages (and Sean Paul!).

What’s an Indigenous Language?

To put it simply, an indigenous language is one that is spoken by the indigenous people of a region.

However, most indigenous languages are also minority languages that are spoken by a very small number of people and many of them are in danger of losing out to more widely spoken languages. Factors such assimilation into the dominant culture or even coercion to abandon minority languages have seriously decreased the number of native speakers. In some cases, there is only one known speaker of a language, which puts these languages at serious risk of becoming extinct.

The Year of Indigenous Languages

Indigenous languages are fading out, unnoticed, because there aren’t enough people who speak or learn them.

What can we do about it?

In an effort to bring attention to and preserve these languages, along with the cultural diversity they represent, the United Nations has declared 2019 as The International Year of Indigenous Languages.

The idea behind the declaration is not only to raise awareness, but to take actions that support, increase access to, and promote indigenous languages, including:

• Supporting revitalization with more materials and services that encourage speakers to use indigenous languages

• Increasing educational means to learn indigenous languages

• Promoting knowledge of both indigenous languages and cultures

Why is Protecting Indigenous Languages So Important?

Think for a moment about a time you felt like an outsider among people who spoke a foreign language. Besides the more obvious difficulties of not being able to express yourself, you might have felt that there were social and cultural differences that you just didn’t understand. Likewise, there would be things that they wouldn’t understand about you.

That’s because language doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Culture, traditions, social norms, and even unique expressions are built into a language. What do you think happens when those things aren’t passed down alongside indigenous languages due to assimilation, discrimination, and other threats to indigenous languages?

They become lost, too.

Language is a Human Right

When we allow indigenous languages to be lost and discriminated against, we’re also allowing indigenous people to be forgotten and discriminated against. Working to preserve indigenous languages acknowledges that choosing and speaking our languages is a human right.

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, law provides for:

• Freedom from discrimination

• The right to a fair trial, which means getting an interpreter if needed

• Freedom of expression - no matter which language you choose

• The right to education in your chosen medium of instruction

The effort to preserve indigenous languages reminds us that:

• Nationhood is NOT defined through language, as shown in many situations all around the world where languages have been imposed on people after conquest or colonization.

• Indigenous languages are very often minority languages, and minorities are routinely

  • Denied education, money, access to opportunities and resources

  • Exploited and oppressed, so they cannot speak out about what matters to them

• Your language IS your voice, your history, and your culture. It’s a big source of self-confidence and self-belief in the world.

  • When you lose that connection to your own identity, you lose yourself.

How Much Do You Know about Indigenous Languages?

You might be surprised to learn that…

• Only 23 languages are used by more than half of the world’s population

• Up to 95% of the world’s languages might be extinct or endangered by the end of the century

• Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country in the world, followed by Indonesia and Nigeria. Most of the languages spoken in these countries are indigenous.

• The Navajo language is the most spoken Native American language in the U.S.

In some cases, indigenous languages have a larger influence on the dominant language or culture than you think.

• Did you know that a number of Australian English words have been borrowed from indigenous Aboriginal languages, including the word "kangaroo"?

In an effort to promote these languages and bring indigenous cultures into the spotlight, some people have implemented more creative (and fantastic) means.

• The National Arts Centre in Ottawa is opening the first Indigenous Theatre program, featuring multiple shows performed entirely in an indigenous language

Sharing Indigenous Languages

As enthusiastic and curious language learners, you might already be wondering about what some of these indigenous languages sound like, especially if you’ve never heard of them before.

Are they ever similar to more dominant languages in the same region? If not, how different are they?

Luckily, as more and more people embrace indigenous languages, opportunities to listen to and learn about them are increasing as well. For instance, you can listen to covers of popular songs in an indigenous language, like this version of Blackbird sung in Mi’kmaq, which is spoken in Canada and the U.S.

Similarly, there have been a few projects to expand the reach of Navajo, including a dubbed version of Star Wars and Finding Nemo.

Music lovers can also hope to find both cover songs and original music by speakers of indigenous languages, including this one by Eivør Pálsdóttir, a Faroese singer and songwriter. If you listen, you might pick out that Faroese is related to Icelandic, though it still has distinctive qualities of its own. Currently, the language is mainly spoken in the Faroe Islands.

A Mi’kmaq prayer book photographed by Dennis Jarvis (Flickr)

Recommendations for Tools and Resources

You can start learning any language, including many indigenous ones. If the language is endangered or spoken by a minority that has experienced unfavourable treatment in the past, bear in mind that your access may not match the access that members of the language community may have.

Approach language practice with the same respect you would owe anyone that gives you the time and attention of practicing a language with them.

Remember: Cultural exchange and learning each other’s languages is how humans show respect to each other.

The best places to find out about almost any language under the sun are these four:

• Wikitongues.org

• Omniglot - the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages

• The Atlas of Endangered Alphabets

• Ethnologue: Languages of the World

To learn one of those many languages, keep an eye out among the most popular language resources first. Programmes like Glossika or Drops support a few indigenous languages, and you may be surprised about how many languages you’ll find at Teach Yourself, Michel Thomas or Pimsleur.

Don’t forget to look at social media as a second resource, searching for hashtags in indigenous languages and following musicians or writers who use them.

And finally, look around platforms like Italki when you’re ready to have a conversation with an online tutor. With over 10,000 tutors listed on the platform, we have studied several popular indigenous languages ourselves on there such as Guaraní and Icelandic.

Do You Know an Indigenous Language?

Share a comment below and tell us what you know about an indigenous language from anywhere in the world.