As you no doubt know, I enjoy studying languages. But I become frustrated at the different ways language courses (including apps) are designed. I want the most efficient, easiest, and clearest course possible. And I want different learning styles and situations represented. Yes, I am demanding.
When I was living in Thailand as a diplomat, the “total immersion” style of language learning was in vogue. After all, the courses would advertise, this is how children learn, and they are the most efficient learners of language of us all. This is true. But the point is that we are not children anymore. Sure, teach a child language by immersion, that’s brilliant. And sure, speak as much as possible in the language to get our ears used to it, and likewise, ask someone in a class to speak as much of the language as possible. (I had a French teacher at high school who resisted speaking French with us. It didn’t help the learning!) But there are times when an adult needs to understand something to be able to accept it and use it, in a way that a child does not. This understanding doesn’t come from immersion. Likewise, there are times when only a teacher who speaks your native language can explain something in context, in the way you need to be able to understand.
I also like to know how something is pronounced, and not just by hearing it on an app. That helps, sure, but our ears deceive us, and a “mi” can sound like “ni” or vice versa. And sometimes, even our teachers don’t hear the different ways they pronounce something. I once had a teacher who would say “ng” for “n.” But when we copied her, she would get frustrated that we were saying it wrong! So I like to see it written down. Whether that is through a phonetic alphabet like pinyin for Chinese, or through learning a syllabic alphabet, like hiragana or katakana, in Japanese. I also like to know the mechanics of pronouncing different sounds in different languages, such as where to put my tongue in my mouth. This helped me with the “r” in French, and also in Spanish, when I actually – and with a lot of practice – managed to roll my Rs. And I used to say “wabbit” when I was little, so my Rs have always been a little tricky.
Subject matter is important too. So many courses are aimed at students at school, and teach words like dictionary, class, teacher, pen, or mother, father, parents, sister etc. That’s really not helpful for my purposes, which have almost always been for business or travel. And I find it frustrating.
A lot of my language learning is self-taught. I’ve had a brilliant Teach Yourself German book, which I wrote about here. The podcasts from Synergy Spanish quickly gave me a great foundation in beginners’ conversational Spanish. I now try to apply the basics of that to any other (European) language I learn. I’ve had one brilliant language teacher, a young Spanish woman who gave me classes for six weeks before going to Spain. I had self-studied for a year before then and had developed a decent vocabulary, but she quickly clarified some grammatical issues for me and made me feel so much more comfortable in the language. Unfortunately, around the time I was in Spain, she left NZ. So on my return I could not continue working with her, and my Spanish fell silent.
I’m currently using Duolingo. What I like about it is hearing the native speakers, and adapting to that. I’m thrilled when I can hear a sentence and immediately understand it. It’s fun speaking the language again too. But I’m frustrated with certain changes in their use of what-I –call-prepositions in their language. They work on teaching through patterns, but there’s no facility for explanations to explain why they are sometimes different. I need and want that. So I’m also throwing myself into my old textbooks (yes, I kept them!) to see if I can solve the mystery.
I think though, that I am most frustrated at the fact that I studied this language for a year back in university, and yet here I am now doing a cursory crash course. I know I won’t get the facility I had at the end of that year, able to read and write and pass an oral exam, in the next couple of weeks, if I develop any facility at all in the language! That’s so disappointing. And I know too that just as I might start feeling it is a little more familiar, I’ll have left the country (about the time you read this), unlikely to ever return and use the language again. And I will delete the app from my phone, and most probably say sayonara to my textbooks forever. I find that almost unbearably sad.
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