[mikekchar]

I'm going to skip my usual really, really, long explanation. Long story short: TFA is wrong. Many people know how to learn a language. Many people learn several languages because after learning how to learn one, they realised it's not that hard.

Main problem people have: they have unrealistic expectations. Children don't have a magic ability to learn languages. They take 10-20 years to learn up to adult level proficiency. They take 3-5 years to learn fluency up to a basic level. If you learn as fast as a child, it will take you 5 years to be able to speak like a 5 year old.

Technique is important, but it is late and I don't want to write a massive post about it (again). Here is the short version. Study every day. Don't miss a day. If you study 3 times a week, you will plateau at a very low level. If you do less than that, you won't get past baby level. You will eventually have to "study" at least 1 hour a day, but you can start with any small amount you want (even 5 minutes is enough) -- but don't skip days. If you miss a day (or several), you can't make up for it. Don't miss days.

Only study language you understand. If you can not understand a sentence at least 95%, you will have troubles (the 95% number did not come out of my ass... it is important). Always aim for 100% comprehension. Whether you study grammar explicitly or not is up to you -- do it if you enjoy it, don't if you don't. However, do not practice constructing sentences from "first principles" using grammar. This will mean that you acquire non-idiomatic language. Only use grammar to check that your grammar is correct, not to produce sentences.

In order to learn sentences, it is enough to expose yourself to them (as long as you understand them). I found it faster to memorise exemplars. YMMV. If using flash cards (with or without SRS), always practice from your native language to your target language. Never the other way around. It is important.

You must also practice forming sounds. You can "mirror" recorded audio, but sometimes it is too fast. To combat this, get recordings of songs and learn them. Try to perfect them. Record yourself and check to see how close you are.

Always try to practice with native language sources. It can be a live person, TV, radio, or written language. Reading written language is usually best for the bulk of your learning. This is because you can easily get a lot of it and you can easily go through it again and again. When reading, make sure you understand 95% (there's that number again). If you don't, find something simpler, or find out what the content means and read it again. If the latter, repeat the section every few days until it seems like your native language.

Take every opportunity to speak the language. However, beware. Most people go through a "closed period". This is a period where you can understand a lot more than you can say. Often you can't say anything. This is normal. It means you are around a 2-3 year old native level of speaking. Congratulations! Don't let it bother. Keep going and you will definitely break through it. Most failures happen because people quit (duh). Most people quit at this stage.

There is a lot more, but that's probably enough to get anyone started. Many languages share a lot of grammar and vocabulary. If your native an target language are related, you can often "learn" a language (to a child level of ability) pretty quickly (say a year or two). If you are choosing a very different language, it will take you longer (3-5 years). No matter which you choose, you won't get adult level of fluency and proficiency in less that 5-10 years. Anybody telling you differently is selling you something that doesn't exist. Languages are huge -- you have to be in to for the long haul.

[james_s_tayler]

Although I agree with plenty of things you say, and we probably have similar experiences learning language, the strength of your assertions to always use i+1 (95%) and to always go from native to target when doing flashcards are unwarranted.

That's A method. Or A way to do it. There are many paths up the mountain. Granted I appreciate it when people explicitly lay out "here's the path I walked up" as that's good information. But there exist other paths equally as fast and maybe some even faster, many slower of course but there really is a surprising multitude of techniques that wind up at similar results.

I remember sitting and engaging with content that I had fuck all idea what was being said but I was so damn delighted every time a word came up that I knew that it just lit the fire and kept it burning. I did plenty of i+1 flashcards which were sentences (both reading and listening) purely from target to native. I quickly established a foundation on which I could parse any sentence, I just needed the vocab. Then I did nothing but engaging with content I was interested in regardless of difficulty and hung out with friends getting in 10+ hours conversation (one on one plus group situations) per week. End of my second year of doing that I could hold my own in a lengthy one on one for hours on end and end of year 3 I could hold my own indefinitely in groups.

Was a blast. So long ago now.

[mikekchar]

Sorry. You are correct. I keep getting obsessed with efficiency :-) I also did what you did. However, I have discovered that you can learn faster than that if you maintain 95% comprehension rate (it's the amount that's required to infer language from context). I used to have a list of references on this topic, but sadly I lost it somehow (along with a book on teaching English I wrote -- astonishingly I did not have backups). Since I returned to IT, I haven't had the time to go back to this :-(

But anyway, I've tried the 95% comprehension technique on my students and the results were pretty fantastic. I highly recommend it.

[james_s_tayler]

I don't disagree with 95% it's definitely a magic formula. What I did was do my focused study where I would sit down and do flashcards etc in the 95% format and then for hours a day after the focused study side of things was taken care of I'd dive into completely unstructured learning. That's been my go to ever since.

Also, I suppose I should clarify a little around target to native. I tried that a couple of times. Maybe even 3 times seriously. Intellectually I always came to the conclusion that if you can pull off doing pure output in native to target over a wide enough range of sentences then the whole structure of the language will crystalize really fast. I could never make the emotional side of it work. It always felt too grindy for me and I had to overextend on spending effort against that one task and couldn't sustain it. So I'd just slide back to my tried and true method because tough as they were I could always make the emotional side of that sustainable.

I think it's actually a critically important point. I love it the idea of it as a method and if the emotions of it are workable then it's probably an epic path.

[amaccuish]

I agree mostly with this but I think you understate the importance of grammar. To express yourself in another language, you need two tools, vocab and grammar. Vocab without grammar in most languages is just a stream of words with no connection, and grammar without vocab leads to the problem you suggest, that of unnatural sentences. But grammar is still important, sure I think there's some leeway in how much you do, but it's absolutely key to do a fair bit, otherwise your sentences will always be fairly basic and you can't understand the nuances in someone's speech.

I think the problem, at least in schools, is the dedicated grammar classes, which have no apparent meaning or use. It's best to tackle grammar using practical examples, with an understanding that grammar is not just an end in itself, but something useful to be exploited during speech.

[mikekchar]

Yep, I totally agree with you. It's hard to summarise this stuff without leaving out important things :-) Possibly interestingly, I learned Japanese grammar when I taught a course on English grammar in Japanese (it was what I was getting paid to do... not necessarily what I thought was best for the students, but that's another story). I had to continuously find Japanese equivalents for English grammar. After I finished teaching that course, my Japanese language ability really increased a lot. I wish I had gotten my students to do what I did! Sometimes when teaching you learn at the expense of your first students...

[jasim]

If someone wants to learn a language just to enjoy its language & literature, and not necessarily be conversant in it, then would it be okay to never speak it? Or is conversation an essential practice?

[jhbadger]

Of course. For example, while there are a small number of "living latinists" who actually want to speak the language, the vast majority of people studying Latin just want to read it, and the teaching material reflects this (focusing on interpreting text rather than composing it or speaking it) Same with other classical languages such as Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Ancient Egyptian, and Babylonian.

[mikekchar]

If you are asking, can I learn a language enough to enjoy literature and studying the language without engaging in conversation, the answer is "yes". I know lots of people who do this (especially in Japanese since a lot of people only study it in order to enjoy manga and anime in Japanese).

Interestingly, there is a prevailing theory that even if you never have a conversation, you can eventually acquire the language (see the work done by Stephen Krashen). There are examples of severely abused children who were able to acquire language without being allowed to converse. I would say it's not the fastest way to learn, but it seems it may be possible.

The main thing is that you need to be able to make a mental map of the language and then check your mental map against reality. Conversation is a good way to do that because it allows a native speaker to quickly point out problems. There are other ways to do it.

A lot of language is culture, though, so it can sometimes be hard to truly understand some language without having the same experience. Usually this requires experiencing social events with real people, which also usually requires considerable conversation. But if enjoyment is the goal, it isn't necessary to understand absolutely everything.

[james_s_tayler]

In that case you can never speak it and still achieve your goals. You'll find you can get stunningly far in your comprehension and totally clam up when confronted with an actual conversation that you will do dismally bad it. It's quite funny almost. They might as well be orthogonal skills.

It's very fun and rewarding to just dive into pop culture and literature and enjoy that one aspect. I've loved it every time I've done just that dimension. Though you inevitably wind up feeling like you want to speak with people.

[v4ult]

I found your comment interesting. If you have a longer version or blog post written anywhere I'd like to read it.

[mikekchar]

If you look through my history long enough you'll see several versions :-) I'm afraid I don't have anything current that's public. Some day I'll try to find time to write up something more concrete.