The one important question which often scares people away from learning a different language is How long before they can be an adult in the target language.
Sorry to break it down to you people, it won't happen in a day or two. No there are no exceptions, not even Daniel Tammet, well granted that if you have developed your memory well beyond the usual capacity [ Synesthesis], you might be able to learn a couple thousand words in a day, but doing the same with a language would be a different game altogether.
It's a proven fact that children use a higher percentage of their brain that adults and that is the reason why most people believe that the best age to learn a language is during one's childhood. Well, It's not entirely true!
Learning a language is much more than just learning a thousand frequent words or even about memorising all the peculiarities of the language's grammar. It's a much more organic process, one needs to be a child again and who doesn't want to live one's childhood again? Think about it for minute, how quickly children pick up new words though we must remember the fact that, on an average, a child reaches full fluency in a language by the age of 9-10 years and after that it's question of slang and more vocabulary. But the adult human brain is much more adept at seeking out patterns and it is my firm belief that everything we do - arts, music, matte, movies anything; it's all a game of patterns. We just love it, humans have depended upon this supreme ability to survive hundreds of thousands of years. The human mind is the Greatest Pattern Recognition machine, which can ever be conceived, this is the crown jewel of evolution!!
Though we don't really know how to use it for constructive purposes and more often than not we end up using it destructively or upon trivial matters! But, those rare times that we do choose to use it properly, it's pretty amazing.
Keeping such a simple thing in mind is of immense help as human nature is essentially the same, be it from a Chinese perspective or from an African perspective. Just that the way we choose to express it differs. Another thing, as Benny Lewis so unfailingly points out is that if one aspect of the language is difficult then the other aspect is bound to be simple.
Take Chinese for an example, the language has inspired countless idioms in different languages of the world which deal with the sheer incomprehensibility of a particular subject. But you can take a look for yourself and I am quite sure that you would be so utterly surprised that once you gloss over the Chinese pictograms and the tones, the basic structure of the language is one of the simplest that you can ever imagine.
When we talk about the grammar of the Chinese language (or any other language for that matter), we don't consider the phonological aspects ( tones) or the writing systems but rather we consider questions like :-
How do the words of different kind fit together to form new words?
How do words group together to form sentences?
And of course, there are many aspects of Linguistics which deal with the Semantics, the Contextual factors as well, to name just a couple. But the basic pattern of words is quite simple as compared to other languages. Ah, this reminds me to put up a post about different language families as well!
The Chinese language (languages, rather ) contains no cases, as in "he", "his" or "him" and the fun part is that once you understand a certain common vocabulary the new words would automatically start making sense. Think about the myriads of foreign words in English which don't make sense on their own, which is only natural given that by default a language creates new words from within it's existing body of words which in Linguistics is called Lexicon. But due to various arbitrary factors like Religion, Economics, Social Status etc a language takes on many many new words which are different from it's own lexicon. Apart from dead languages, I know of only one other language which does opts for intrinsic words rather than extrinsic words, which is Modern Icelandic;P
Now, don't let this lead you to a senseless debate concerning the purity of a language. It's a myth, no language is pure or isolated. It's always a big family of languages which share a certain feature and overtime all languages change, c'est la vie. Languages are alive and have a life of their own, they die, they live, they change over time; just like us.
So, back to the main topic of the post, the important point being that if you wish to learn a language be a child again, be imaginative, less inhibited, freer than you have been in a long loong time, full of energy and enthusiasm. I suggest that you figure out your priority before you dive in, ask yourself questions like
Do I wish to be able to speak the language, write it ?
Or would I be happy if I just understand my favourite songs in the language ?
Do I need to be really competitive in the language and use it daily ?
Or do I just need it to be able to navigate around the Tourist labyrinth on my trips abroad ?
Make sure that you aim right and make realistic targets and then use various Getting Things Done (GTD) techniques to get yourself there.
Btw if you do decide to learn a language, don't do it half heartedly. It's gonna change your life for the better, I guarantee, but if you are gonna just drift off mid way then you would only end up telling your "I too tried to learn..." story to someone else. You are better, you can do better than that !!
If you want to be better, be!! There is no secret to it, like everything else, your Mind is a Muscle and learning a language for the mind is what Gym is for your body. You don't think about lifting up 100 kg on the very first day, do you? Well, be smart and set achievable targets.
Above all, language learning is not a chore and the more you explore languages, the better you will get in picking up patterns and understand things better. There are tons of resources on the net for each and every language on the planet ( okay, for most ) so, stop being lazy!
The only real answer of How long does it take for you to learn a language, it depends completely on you, your passion and dedication. You can be fluent in 3 months or take a lifetime to learn a language.
Sorry to break it down to you people, it won't happen in a day or two. No there are no exceptions, not even Daniel Tammet, well granted that if you have developed your memory well beyond the usual capacity [ Synesthesis], you might be able to learn a couple thousand words in a day, but doing the same with a language would be a different game altogether.
It's a proven fact that children use a higher percentage of their brain that adults and that is the reason why most people believe that the best age to learn a language is during one's childhood. Well, It's not entirely true!
Learning a language is much more than just learning a thousand frequent words or even about memorising all the peculiarities of the language's grammar. It's a much more organic process, one needs to be a child again and who doesn't want to live one's childhood again? Think about it for minute, how quickly children pick up new words though we must remember the fact that, on an average, a child reaches full fluency in a language by the age of 9-10 years and after that it's question of slang and more vocabulary. But the adult human brain is much more adept at seeking out patterns and it is my firm belief that everything we do - arts, music, matte, movies anything; it's all a game of patterns. We just love it, humans have depended upon this supreme ability to survive hundreds of thousands of years. The human mind is the Greatest Pattern Recognition machine, which can ever be conceived, this is the crown jewel of evolution!!
Though we don't really know how to use it for constructive purposes and more often than not we end up using it destructively or upon trivial matters! But, those rare times that we do choose to use it properly, it's pretty amazing.
Keeping such a simple thing in mind is of immense help as human nature is essentially the same, be it from a Chinese perspective or from an African perspective. Just that the way we choose to express it differs. Another thing, as Benny Lewis so unfailingly points out is that if one aspect of the language is difficult then the other aspect is bound to be simple.
Take Chinese for an example, the language has inspired countless idioms in different languages of the world which deal with the sheer incomprehensibility of a particular subject. But you can take a look for yourself and I am quite sure that you would be so utterly surprised that once you gloss over the Chinese pictograms and the tones, the basic structure of the language is one of the simplest that you can ever imagine.
When we talk about the grammar of the Chinese language (or any other language for that matter), we don't consider the phonological aspects ( tones) or the writing systems but rather we consider questions like :-
How do the words of different kind fit together to form new words?
How do words group together to form sentences?
And of course, there are many aspects of Linguistics which deal with the Semantics, the Contextual factors as well, to name just a couple. But the basic pattern of words is quite simple as compared to other languages. Ah, this reminds me to put up a post about different language families as well!
The Chinese language (languages, rather ) contains no cases, as in "he", "his" or "him" and the fun part is that once you understand a certain common vocabulary the new words would automatically start making sense. Think about the myriads of foreign words in English which don't make sense on their own, which is only natural given that by default a language creates new words from within it's existing body of words which in Linguistics is called Lexicon. But due to various arbitrary factors like Religion, Economics, Social Status etc a language takes on many many new words which are different from it's own lexicon. Apart from dead languages, I know of only one other language which does opts for intrinsic words rather than extrinsic words, which is Modern Icelandic;P
Now, don't let this lead you to a senseless debate concerning the purity of a language. It's a myth, no language is pure or isolated. It's always a big family of languages which share a certain feature and overtime all languages change, c'est la vie. Languages are alive and have a life of their own, they die, they live, they change over time; just like us.
So, back to the main topic of the post, the important point being that if you wish to learn a language be a child again, be imaginative, less inhibited, freer than you have been in a long loong time, full of energy and enthusiasm. I suggest that you figure out your priority before you dive in, ask yourself questions like
Do I wish to be able to speak the language, write it ?
Or would I be happy if I just understand my favourite songs in the language ?
Do I need to be really competitive in the language and use it daily ?
Or do I just need it to be able to navigate around the Tourist labyrinth on my trips abroad ?
Make sure that you aim right and make realistic targets and then use various Getting Things Done (GTD) techniques to get yourself there.
Btw if you do decide to learn a language, don't do it half heartedly. It's gonna change your life for the better, I guarantee, but if you are gonna just drift off mid way then you would only end up telling your "I too tried to learn..." story to someone else. You are better, you can do better than that !!
If you want to be better, be!! There is no secret to it, like everything else, your Mind is a Muscle and learning a language for the mind is what Gym is for your body. You don't think about lifting up 100 kg on the very first day, do you? Well, be smart and set achievable targets.
Above all, language learning is not a chore and the more you explore languages, the better you will get in picking up patterns and understand things better. There are tons of resources on the net for each and every language on the planet ( okay, for most ) so, stop being lazy!
The only real answer of How long does it take for you to learn a language, it depends completely on you, your passion and dedication. You can be fluent in 3 months or take a lifetime to learn a language.
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