How to Learn a Foreign Language (7 page)

I
promise this will be the last chapter on grammar.

The problem is that you can't really talk about learning a language without tangling with the grammar problem. And it's important that we get a really firm idea of what we're going to encounter before we go sailing off into uncharted waters of a foreign language without a map and some explanation of all the shoals.

This time we're going to talk about a gender gap—one gap that we are probably never going to be able to close.

For some reason or other, in nearly every European language, including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and even Arabic and Hebrew, there is a curious feature that to our way of thinking is hard to explain. (I've already tried to explain some curious features in other languages that at least have some practical explanation and use. But in this case I have no useful explanation. It's just life…)

Speakers of these languages—starting way back in early history—somehow ended up
categorizing
every
single noun in the language into a class of either
masculine, feminine,
and sometimes
neuter.

OK, so what's unusual about that? We do something of the same in English. “Man, bull, boy, rooster, husband, father”, etc., are masculine words in English and we refer to them as “he”. Similarly we take words like “girl, daughter, cow, mother, witch” etc., and think of them as feminine, referring to them as “she”. And words like “house, car, coal, sky” and so on we think of as having no gender, or neuter, and we refer to them as “it.”

Ah, but these European languages
do
categorize words like
house, car, sky, boat, water,
etc as being masculine or feminine. In French and Spanish, for example,
every single noun in the language falls into one of these categories.
In French the words for
house, box, strength, chair, demonstration, glory, street,
and so on are all feminine. The word for “the” with these words is “la”. But other words like
castle, dog, cake, message, government, paper
and so on are masculine. The word for “the” with these words is always “le”.

That's not all. When you use an
adjective
with these words like “white paper” or “big street” or “heavy chair”, you have to put a
masculine
or
feminine
ending on the adjective to “agree” with the noun. Nuisance? Certainly is, from our point of view. To a Frenchman of course, it comes as naturally as cooking with wine.

Even worse, some languages, German and Russian for example, use all
three
categories—masculine, feminine,
and
neuter. So with each word you have to memorize its grammatical gender. (This is the kind of extra information that you might write down on your word card when you come to memorize the word.) Just as French has
two
different words for “the” depending on whether the word is masculine or feminine, German has
three
different words for “the”—
“der” “die”
and “das”—for masculine, feminine, and neuter. Russian has
no
word for “the”, but you still need to ensure that the corresponding masculine, feminine, or neuter ending is put on any adjective that goes with the noun.
What's more, there is
no logic
about which word falls into which category of grammatical gender. You can't guess from what the word
means
as to whether it is masculine or feminine—unless it is a word like father or mother or boy or girl—and even here there is no guarantee.

Don't blame me. I didn't invent the rules. I'm just trying to prepare you for what's coming up when you start. And just to rub it in, the Chinese think all this gender business is silly and unnecessary anyway. We already mentioned earlier that the Chinese (and Turks, and Persians, and Japanese, among others) find it good enough to use one word for “he”, “she”, and “it”. These are languages without gender gaps.

Don't let all of this discourage you. It may seem strange, or a nuisance at first, but you'll get used to it pretty fast. The good news is that there are even rules in most of these languages which let you guess a good percentage of the time what gender a word happens to be—depending on the letters that it ends in.

In all, this is one gender gap that can't be overcome by legislation. The only way to overcome this one is by memorization. But, as the French say,
Vive la difference
! (In French
différence
is feminine).

1. Most European languages categorize every single noun in the language into one of two (masculine and feminine) or one of three (masculine, feminine and neuter) gender categories—regardless of the meaning of the word.

2. The gender of the word often affects the grammatical endings of other, related words.

3. Always learn the gender of each word as you learn the word, perhaps noting it on your word card along with the noun.

W
hen you first start your language course, you'll feel that you're making progress rapidly. After all, when you know five words and then learn five more—you've doubled your vocabulary. Alas, this sense of rapid progress doesn't last forever. There will be lulls along the way—what we call plateaus. The first plateau comes when you've passed through the opening phase of language and the novelty of learning has begun to wear off. This is when you're able to hold simple, but real, conversations. Still, there are many more things that you want to say but can't.

Don't be discouraged. No one ever makes constant, consistent progress. We all reach plateaus from time to time when we learn new languages—or when we learn anything else, for that matter. Moreover, time spent on a plateau is really time when your brain is unconsciously consolidating what it has already learned. (I shouldn't tell you this, but sometimes even if you
haven't
been studying your language for a short while, it continues to sink into your brain. So in fact you're making progress even though you're not aware of it.)

Still, you want to get off that plateau as quickly as you can. Here are some things to do that will get you moving forward again:

When you don't know the word for something, find a way to get on without it.
If you can't say “he loves music” then say “he likes music very much.” If you can't say “she tried to avoid the accident” then say “she didn't want her car to hit the other car.” If you're really stuck getting your meaning across, be imaginative. My daughter was in France and got a flat tire. Over the phone to a mechanic she didn't know the word for “flat” so she explained that the tire was “dead.” Okay, it's not too elegant. But the mechanic got the point. She communicated.

Learn set phrases and expressions.
This is an easy way to expand your repertoire and to help your conversation sound much more fluent:

Of course, you don't want to overdo these phrases, but they give you an idea of how you can stall for time while you're thinking. And they hide awkward pauses.

Go back to some of your earlier lessons and tapes.
Listen to them and see how easy it is to repeat them now. This by itself won't get you off your plateau. But it will give you a sense of how far you've come. You'll be surprised.

Look at another textbook on the same language.
You will be pleased to see that you already know a
lot of the stuff. You will also find some different beginners' material there that your book didn't have in the early lessons. You can learn some of this extra material easily now. And it will probably seem more fun because it comes more easily and nobody is making you learn it.

Buy some kids' books or even comic books in the language.
You won't understand everything by any means, but that's not important now. (Comic books, by the way, are not necessarily easy, either. They often contain a lot of slang or idiomatic expressions. But you can learn a few of them and use them—it's often satisfying.)

Go to a language bookstore and buy a dictionary and traveler's phrase book of the language.
Just having a nice new dictionary will help you feel closer to the language. Look up some words that you found in your comic book. You don't have to learn them all now—but again—it helps in making the language feel more real to you. Also, it's a nice feeling if you've learned some words and expressions ahead of time, out of class and on your own. When you finally come to them in your own textbook, you're ahead of the game.

I said at the outset that learning a foreign language can be lots of fun. You're probably wondering when the fun starts. The answer is: right now. Here are some more things that you can do that will help you to move forward, but also be interesting in and of themselves.

Turn on a short wave radio.
See if you can get broadcasts in the language. Again, don't expect too much and don't be disappointed if you find that you understand very little of what you hear. It often comes in a rush later on anyway, when suddenly lots of things start falling in place. At least listening to the radio and catching even a few words helps make the language seem much more “real” and immediate to you.

Go someplace where you can hear the language being spoken, like a foreign grocery store.
Try to pick out some words and phrases that sound familiar to you. Warning: don't expect to be able to understand too much of what native speakers are saying to one another. Real comprehension of this kind of conversation will come much later.

Go to a movie that's made in the language you're studying.
Make sure that the movie is in the original version, not dubbed into English. If it has subtitles in English—that won't hurt. Again, be prepared for the fact that you won't understand very much at this point. It is actually very hard to understand a foreign film, sometimes just because the sound-track isn't clear. Moreover, movies have a lot of slang in them. (Have you ever seen a British film where you really had to strain to understand what was being said? That's why a foreign- language film is often so hard to understand.)

But this doesn't mean you won't get a lot out of the effort. If you look at the subtitles and then try to catch the same thing from the sound-track, you can learn a lot. But remember, subtitles don't translate everything that's being said on-screen; they give only the gist of the dialogue. Even watching the action and the gestures, and listening to the sounds, will give you a feel for the culture of the language you're studying. Television programs—if you can find any—are often better than movies. Usually people speak more directly into a television camera than they do in films. And the material tends to be more straightforward.

Go to a foreign restaurant.
Eat lunch or dinner at some restaurants that serve food from the country whose language you're learning. This by itself will help you feel closer to the language and to its culture. In any case, you'll need to know something about the names of dishes. If your waiter or waitress is a native, try to order in his or her language. At least say “hello” and “thank you”. Don't worry about making mistakes;
they'll probably help you and be delighted at your efforts. I've often gotten special service and attention from just such simple efforts. (And you can always leave a generous tip.)

Buy a foreign newspaper.
Look at the headlines and see if you can figure out what the words mean. Turn to the section of the paper that interests you the most—sports, fashion, business, or whatever. Read as much as you can, and see if you can at least get the gist of it. Use a dictionary if you need to. The new words you'll learn are bound to come in handy sooner or later.

Grab every occasion to use your language with a foreigner.
Using your Chinese on a Korean of course may not win you a lot of points, but the right language with the right native will help a lot. They will really appreciate it. Even if you can only tell them a few simple things, the effort is important. In one more month you can probably tell them more about yourself, and even more after six months.

Above all, when you're on a plateau take every opportunity you can to practice. When native speakers aren't around you should try talking to
yourself
in your new language whenever you have the chance. Walking, jogging, or driving to work are good opportunities. Tell yourself stories, or repeat your dialogues, or invent a conversation with yourself. This is all part of the drill of spending so many hours functioning in the language that it really starts to sink in and become second nature.

Remember again that
time is your friend.
If you keep plugging away you will surely make progress even if it doesn't feel like it.

1. Sooner or later you'll reach a plateau. Don't be discouraged. Time will help you.

2. You can help yourself move off the plateau by working to consolidate what you've already learned, and by dipping into the culture a little bit.

3. Practice, practice, practice.

A
language is like an ocean: it seems to go on forever. And it does. How far
you
go depends on your own goals. To be honest with you, it takes years of study to become totally fluent and proficient in a foreign language. The good news is that you don't have to become fluent to start making yourself understood in a foreign language. Even if you're going to take just one course at school, or spend two weeks reading through a language handbook before traveling overseas on holiday or on business, you'll be surprised at how far you can really get.

There are some practical realities about learning a language that you should be aware of. Some types of situations in a language are much harder than others, as you will find out at first-hand. For example, talking one-on-one with another person in a foreign language is always much easier than talking in a group conversation. Why? Because you have much greater control over the conversation when it's just you and the other person.

You'll find that you get fairly familiar with certain kinds of conversations, certain topics that you tend to go over again and again. Topics like where are you from, how long have you been studying Mongolian, how do you like Patagonia, and so on. Even when you're not quite sure whether or not you understood the question you can usually guess what the question was, and give the answer you think is expected.

Be prepared to have to do a good bit of guessing in conversations with foreigners. You get quite good at guessing after a while. Sometimes you might not even catch more than one or two words in a question. It either comes too fast or there are too many words you still don't know. In such cases you have the choice of admitting that you didn't understand and ask for a repeat—or else fake it and guess what the person was driving at.

It's usually best to admit you don't understand, but sometimes you can only say that so many times before you start feeling very awkward. But it can be embarrassing if you guess wrong:

Usually a native will speak more slowly and clearly if he knows you're a foreigner in his country. That's a big help and lets you tune in more clearly and listen carefully.

If you are talking with just one other person, you can try to steer the conversation. In fact, you should try to keep some control over the conversation or else it will take unexpected turns that can be very confusing.

Frankly, you will always be doing some degree of guessing at this intermediary stage of the language. You will not know enough words to catch everything and
you will have to rely on your wits to handle the conversation.

You will be somewhat more comfortable when you know the topic under discussion. But when the speaker suddenly changes the subject you may have to listen quite hard again to be sure that you've followed the transition to the new topic. As soon as you know the topic you can anticipate a lot of what might be coming up.

Set yourself realistic goals. Don't expect to be able to express yourself like a native. A native speaker is someone who has grown up speaking the language. He will know almost all facets of the language—the slang, the baby words, the jokes, the puns, the rhymes, the formal language, the advertising slogans, the famous literary quotations—everything. Only when you've lived in a country for years and years will you start approximating what a real native speaker can do.

The good news is that you don't have to be a native speaker. You're not trying to sound like you've grown up and lived in that country all your life. You are interested in the practical ability to communicate in the language on everyday matters and on those specialized topics that relate to your personal or professional interests.

What you must do is decide how proficient you want to be and how much time you can devote to that effort. You may find as you get into the language that you enjoy the experience so much that you're willing to devote even more time to it. That's great. And if you're living overseas you'll have even more chance to hear and practice your language.

In the end, practice is the single most important rule for making progress. Remember the old gag, “Excuse me, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, man, practice.”

A few words of caution as you set off on your language venture. You aren't going to be able to operate as well outside your classroom as you were in it. Here are some things to be aware of:

Watch out for local accents.
You know what a variety of accents we have in America: Brooklyn, Boston, New Jersey, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, and so on. Well, foreign countries are that way too. Even small countries can have a bewildering mixture of regional accents. England has far more differences per square mile than the US.

Be prepared for the fact that not everybody is going to talk like your language teacher, like your language tape, or like a radio announcer. You will run across country bumpkin types, authentic mushmouths, mumblers, down-home drawlers, machine gun motor mouths and everything else. Most languages will have strong regional dialects. It's tough at first. But with time it will get better as your ear learns to tune in a little more closely and grow accustomed to a variety of regional accents. For example, you'll be able to tell that your conversation partner is from Southern France or Northern Italy.

Beware of the telephone.
Sooner or later you will have to pick up the phone or put in a call to somebody when you're in a foreign country. Be prepared for the worst. What's so bad about it? The main problem is you can't see the mouth of the person talking.

You may not realize it, but we depend a lot on our eyes when we listen to people talk. We actually Up read to some extent—especially as we strain to follow someone speaking in a foreign language. On the telephone we are handicapped because we can't see the mouth of the speaker. On top of that, the sound of the phone is never as clear as it is in a face-to-face conversation. And everyone seems to speak awfully fast.

Beware of jokes.
Anyone who has ever had much experience at learning a language will tell you that jokes are an area of sudden death for the intermediate language student. The problem is that jokes, by definition, depend on plays on words or sudden surprise turns in a story. And, by definition, this is the one area you are
least prepared for. I've never found a satisfactory way out of this bind. Usually I end up following most of the story until they get to the punch line—and then I muff it.

You can try to laugh at a joke anyway. But I often find that I laugh before the real punch line comes. Or I wait too long and don't laugh when the joke is over. Just take it from me that jokes are usually bad news. But as you get better in the language, jokes can offer you unique kinds of insights into the life of the country you're studying.

Don't cuss.
Every language has its cuss words. And every kid growing up learns pretty fast that it's not so much the words themselves that are are important, but the company that you use them in. When you're out with friends or close colleagues your own age, chances are you're going to use some words that you would avoid using in front of your parents or your own kids.

It's the same thing with a foreign language, only more so. Your teacher or a foreign friend might teach you some choice swear words, but you use them at your peril. Perhaps you've heard foreigners swear in English when they don't know the language very well. Usually it sounds terrible. You've heard the words a thousand times, but they use them in the wrong situation, or don't fully understand the impact of the word. Remember there is a fine line among swear words. Which word is worse than another is something that usually only a person who knows a language very well can determine. It will take you quite some time to know exactly what word you can use when and with whom. Until you really know that, best stay away from using them.

If you have a fairly good experience learning your first foreign language, you might be tempted to try another. If so, you'll find that each new language gets easier to learn. You become more familiar with the way languages work. You notice similarities among words
that help you remember them better. You know more about the “tricks” of language study.

That's what this book has been all about. Showing you what I've learned along the way as I've studied one language after another. If I've succeeded, by now you should have a good idea of what to expect when you start to learn a foreign language, and of how to approach the task.

Finally, I hope I've imparted to you some sort of my own enthusiasm for the rewards that learning a new language brings. An old Chinese proverb says “One language, one man; two languages, two men.” In effect when you learn a new language you become a new person, with a new culture, and even a new way of looking at things. Your whole perspective on the outside world changes.

So, good luck. And don't forget to have some fun along the way.