How to Learn a Foreign Language, part 1

Fellow Science Lovers,

Game update: Nothing to report this month. I’m still engrossed with Scribes Emerge edits.


Most of my characters learn foreign languages, and I imagine many of you are, too. That’s why I’ll devote the next few articles to the question: How do you learn a foreign language? That’ll give us a nice break from all the engineering. Ready to become honorary Scribes? Let’s go…

Mindset

Knowing how to learn new languages will help you learn them faster, remember them longer, and actually use them in real life. After thirty years of this, I’ve picked up a few tips you might find helpful.

First off, don’t think about how long this’ll take. Just make steady progress and learn to enjoy the language. Look for routines you can sustain for the rest of your life. Find a process you’ll enjoy following for its own sake.

Second, learn from toddler-you. Back when learning English was your full-time job, you were an expert student, spittle and all. Hey… maybe that was the secret. Shove Cheerios in your ears and drink bathwater, then see if the foreign words start to flow. If that doesn’t work, keep reading.

Yes, I already tried it. No, it didn’t work. I’ll try Frosted Mini Wheats next time.
Child eating sloppily
Your language teacher

For those who can’t remember your high school Spanish—don’t worry. This guide won’t involve textbook drudgery. If it didn’t work then, it won’t work now.

Overall Approach

Because toddler-you first learned English by listening and speaking, adult-you should, too. That means finding suitable materials and surrounding yourself with native speakers. People who won’t be flying a spoon of Spaghetti-Os into your mouth while cooing new words and celebrating your verbal victories. Oh, to have dedicated, all-day-long language tutors again!

Reading and writing can wait. After all, most of us didn’t really start with that until around age five.

Assumptions

I know what they say about assuming things. Aside from transforming us into donkeys, assumptions will also simplify this guide.

I’ll assume English is your native language and that you live in America.

More importantly, I’ll assume you’re learning a major language. If you’re aiming for something obscure like Tamazight, you’ll spend your time looking for materials. Without moving to northern Morocco to live among the Rif Berbers, I doubt you’ll find enough.

For now, start with a major language. If your heart is set on something spoken by a few villages and their itinerant peddler, then learn the major language used in the surrounding nation. In the case of Tamazight, that would be Moroccan Arabic.

And for ease of discussion, I’ll talk about learning Russian, but this guide will help no matter the language.

Where Do I Start?

The world is swimming with resources, and it’s not obvious which ones are worth your time. Or when to switch to new material as you progress.

Simple answer: start with Pimsleur. At least do all of comprehensive level one. But you should understand why I recommend this. After trying most major curricula for thirty languages, I’ve made the best progress with Pimsleur. Especially for the early-to-intermediate stages. Why? Let’s look at what new learners need.

Focus on Conversation

Imagine that you run into a woman from Kazakhstan at your local farmers market. (I ran into two last month.) Because you’re learning Russian, you leap at the chance to practice it. What words do you need to know first?

Here’s what you won’t need:

-colors, articles of clothing, and vehicle types
-foods, animals, and household objects
-days of the week, numbers, and months of the year
-foods, drinks, weather terms, and parts of the body

Those won’t come up until after the opening lines. First, you need basic phrases.

Basic Phrases – Learn These First

-hello/goodbye
-excuse me/thank you/please
-do you speak English?
-I speak a little Russian
-I don’t speak Russian very well
-I didn’t understand that
-what’s your name? my name is
-where are you from? I’m from America
-where did you learn Russian?
-what do you do?
-I’m a (profession) -or- I work at (company name)
-nice to meet you
-are you Russian?
-how do you say X in Russian?
-please repeat

Memorizing lists of random household objects won’t help… unless you keep a spatula holstered at your hip and people always ask about it. And individual words won’t go far. You’ll need whole sentences for true conversations.

Which assumes you’re actually having the conversations. Toddler-you wasn’t afraid to make mistakes with the new language. Adult-you shouldn’t be, either. Learning these phrases will boost your confidence and trick the native speaker into thinking you know more of the language than you really do.😉 Get out there and meet Russian speakers. Make new friends and rack up early wins—both of which will keep you motivated and help you enjoy the process.

Learning Options

Now how do you learn these phrases? There are many things to try. You could:
1. look up the individual words in Google Translate and string them together using English word order. Please don’t. You’ll end up with phrases that natives don’t use.
2. look up the entire phrase in Google Translate. Better, but still flawed.
3. find the phrases on tutorial websites. Much better. Especially if they include audio snippets. These sites are likely made by a teacher.
4. find them on YouTube. Possibly even better, but it still has a problem. If the teacher says each phrase only once or twice before moving on, you won’t get not enough practice. You could repeat the video several times, but that’ll get old fast.
5. hire a tutor. This might be best because you get feedback from a real human who can correct your pronunciation right away. For languages like Chinese where the tonality can be tricky, this might spare you from forming bad habits. However, if hiring a tutor is too expensive or inconvenient, you won’t do it.
6. use a general audio course like Teach Yourself or Russianpod101. These are usually better than YouTube because they tend to be better edited and more systematic. However, they cram in too much material too quickly.
7. use conversational audio courses like Pimsleur and Michel Thomas. Mango Passport is pretty good for Russian, but I’ve never tried it for other languages. Among these three, I’ve found Pimsleur to be the best. Standby for a detailed explanation.

Assuming you opt for a conversational audio course, what features does it need?

What Makes a Good Audio Course

Pick something that…
-goes slooooooooow. Most courses go WAY too fast. In their zeal to pack in more words and grammar than beginners need, they blast you with too much material, and you’ll forget most of it right away.

-guides you with pronunciation cues one syllable at a time. Throwing a whole word at you is often too much. Especially for long words.

-prompts you to guess how to say something and pauses to let you answer. Some brands will ask you to pause, say the answer, then press play again. You won’t do much of this because it’s annoying. The Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, and Mango courses build in these pauses for you.

-builds short sentences out of each new word, reusing them in different ways. This is the most natural way to repeat vocab.

-reuses words across different lessons and contexts to reinforce long-term mastery. It doesn’t hammer a new word for one lesson and then forget it.

-puts you in different scenarios. Pimsleur will say something like, “Imagine you just met a Russian woman. How would you greet her?” You need prompts like this.

-teaches you the most critical words and phrases first.

-sneaks in grammar concepts. A conversational course shouldn’t say, “Let’s cover the accusative case for feminine nouns.” Instead, it should teach you the phrases, “This is a gazeta,” and “I read the gazeto,”and let you pick up on the pattern for yourself. That’s how we learned English—we noticed grammar rules subconsciously.

Just Memorize a List?

You’ll also need frequently used words to help you customize sentences for unique situations.

You can never predict how a conversation will unfold, unless you’re playing Chrono Trigger for the 50th time. (Those NPCs always say the same thing.)

In real life, an unsuspecting native speaker may not reply with, “nice to meet you.” She might just leap out of her chair and shout, “You scared the %@ out of me!” That happened to me with a Turkish girl, who could be reading this newsletter and spitting out her coffee right now. Of course, beginner courses don’t teach the phrase she used, but you get the point. 😅 You need more than canned phrases.

The ideal course will also drip feed common words:

-question words: where, how, what, how much, when, why, who, which

-pronouns: I/me, you, this, that (these are most critical. Learn the others later) If your language has a formal and informal form of “you”, learn the formal one first. You’ll use that more often with strangers.

-possessives: my, your (Learn these first. Save the others for later.)

-utility words: here, there, no, not, yes, but, because, then, a little, too much, also, together, please, yet, still, from, to, with, very, much/many, or, if

-time qualifiers: now, later, today, tomorrow, yesterday, o’clock

-basic verbs: understand, speak, say, to be, have, go, eat, drink, repeat, can/could, buy, would like, want, like, think

-adverbs and adjectives: well, badly, good, bad, near, far, expensive, fast, slow, certainly

-basic nouns: restaurant, hotel, car, street, restroom, house, lunch, dinner, day, water, tea, money, time

In addition to speaking, you’ll also need listening practice, which we’ll cover next month. Until then, go borrow Pimsleur audio lessons from your local library (using the Hoopla and Libby apps is easiest). Or start the free trial of the Pimsleur app on your phone. Then go chat up a native speaker.

References:

https://www.pimsleur.com/

Note: the above is NOT an affiliate link. I have no financial interest in Pimsleur–I just think it’s the best for new learners and I use it nearly every day. Pimsleur is the reason I can still break out basic phrases in Cantonese even though I haven’t studied it in over 15 years.


Writing update: I’m on chapter 21 of my next revision of Scribes Emerge. The release might slide into December. I’ll keep you posted.

See you next month,
Dylan West

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