My hobby, my life

Link

I've been reflecting these past couple of days. I put my languages on hold. I wanted to think about how I was doing them, why I was doing them.

And it came to me that I'm doing them as a hobby. That how I wish to treat them. I don't want to do them seriously. Not to prove a point. Not to read a goal. Not to impress. Not to break records. But just for fun. Just to enjoy them. Just to enter a state of flow.

That's how I plan to treat my whole life. That's how I used to as a kid. But then life got 'serious'. It became important. Time to earn a living now. No more fooling around. You've got to get down to it.

I reject that approach. I now see that it was wrong. So for me it's back to regarding my life as a pastime, as a game, like performance art, in a sense. The word 'hobby' is as near as I can get.

Scanner's approach

A bit a re-evaluation yesterday. What happened was that I listened to a webinar by Lydia Machovar. Her ideas got me thinking - especially the concept that you don't get better at speaking unless you speak. Which, in turn, got me to wonder why I haven't put any emphasis at all on that skill.

I realize that I've been avoiding it. Speaking feels uncomfortable to me. I prefer to read. I choose input over output. But why?

I'm not a good language learner. I'm a poor one. I'm probably one of the worst. And it'S worth examining why this is so, because that knowledge could well help me in other areas.

The reason I and many others shy away from speaking (even in our own language) is because of our conditioning. We have mistake phobia. Our education system together with our society have made us averse to making mistakes. We regard them as failures. That's why we would rather avoid to engage than risk failure.

When you are a beginner again - in a new language - you lose status. You feel yourself to be a child. You place yourself in an uneven power balance with repect to another. I know that I am particularly suceptible to the feeling.

Oh, and by the way - that picture of Tom Hanks from the movie Castaway? Lydia used the analogy of needing to swim out past the last strong wavein order to achieve that fluency and ability where you were comfortable in the language you learned. Otherwise you are always being pushed back to the shore.

What I want to do is remain true to my nature of being a scanner: maintaining an interest in many interests i.e. languages. But I'll start each day with an hour spent on one: Japanese. Then, in the evening I will cycle through another 5 or so for fun. I shall also keep a shelf of books on topics that I'm interested in. They will include a current book in each of the languages that I'm good at.

Re: Omar Sharif

Up to now, I've been rotating my languages in an order that, though it is not rigidly fixed, tends to cycle. But this morning, walking, I started thinking. I reviewed what I'd been doing. 

If I did one language per day, one cycle would take me a month. Four a day, a week. Six days for five languages; five days for six languages. I would revisit languages every 3 days, if I did 10. It would require me to do 15 languages if I wanted to do them every other day.

And then I came to an op shop. It was the first time for me to enter one since the lockdown started 5 or 6 weeks ago. I bought a book: Monsieur Ibrahim und die Blumen des Koran. It's in German, translated from the French.

It was only at home, when I searched for an image, that I realized I knew the story. There had been a movie with Omar Sharif. I think I watched it with my father. Omar was once one of the best bridge players in the world. I got the book he wrote about it for Dad, but I doubt he ever read it. In his late 80s, all he did was watch TV.

So anyway, I'm going to read Dutch, German and Japanese at will. And I'll freely change the order of the rest. It's time to mix it up a little! (Maybe even include a little TV.)

One month in

(Written one month in - i.e. at the start of February, 2020)

I've been engaged in this for a month now. It's still early days, I admit, yet I feel that I've built up a lot of momentum. I've got the ball rolling - better, I feel, than ever before. I have never applied myself to learning a language at anything like the same level. And yet it remains to be seen whether I can keep it up when I resume my employment.

I'll need to streamline how I operate at work. I'll need to carve out some space and not allow work to expand to fill the available time. I need to reserve two hours per day doing languages. That's necessary for physical maintenance, house-holding, family and the rest of it. I'm talking about a balanced lifestyle.

In January I must have put in 2 to 3 hours daily. I spent it on 10 languages. So I spent 6 to 9 hours on average for each one.

I'm finding it extremely addictive. The time is devoid of all stress, and I'm already sensing improvements. This is certainly the way to go - for me at east.

The main differences between this time and previous, is that I'm diligent about spending short periods, and I'm delaying listening. (I may refrain from listening for as much as a year.)

Loose sheets into folders

I'm keen on the idea of writing 10,000 sentences per language. I want to start now, but how? I don't fancy buying and carrying around an exercise book for every language, as there's a luggage limit that I need to stay under when I fly.

So I'll do it this way. I use the one exercise book and have a page for each language. I'll number the sentence, and write down the date. Then I'll take the book apart (when it's full) and place the sheets into folders.

It's sentences that I'll copy. Maybe some phrases, or even single words if necessary. It'll all be i+1. I will need to know them roughly, not completely. Partially on the way to knowing. I'll be on the lookout for short sentences, that I'll highlight as I read.

As time and resources permit

So what's the plan?

It's to continue with my initial bunch of 10 languages - those that I have started in Japan, plus those that that I start(ed) after returning to New Zealand. After that, I'll add one at a time up to my self-imposed limit of 24, whenever a) time and b) resources come to light.

I'm looking at Turkish, Korean, Swahili, Romanian, Finnish, Afrikaans, Portuguese, Greek, Persian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Thai, Tamil, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Ainu, Kiribati and more, depending largely on which of them I can get the materials in.

The sky is the limit

Spending 10 minutes at a time, what would be the upper limit as to the number of languages that I would consider trying to acquire at once?

24

Here's how I arrived at that number. I estimate that I can only find an extra two hours a day, employed to the degree that I am (which is 60% of the time). Two hours means 120 minutes, or ten minutes for each of 12 languages. Now, I'm happy to touch on a language on alternate days, and that suggests that 24 languages is my current limit.

But if I had the time, I would do more. If I was free to spend the entire day, then the sky would be the limit.

Of course, that isn't the quickest way to learn a particular language! But I could in that fashion keep chugging them along.

(It was at that point, when I wrote the post, that I changed the name of this blog from 'Any Language I like' to "EVERY Language I Like.)

(UPDATE: by the end of April I am officially at 25 languages, 26 if you include English.)

Ideal duration

My thoughts below confirmed by the article this image comes from

I've previously spoken about spending 10 minutes at a time cycling from one language to another. But is that realistic? Would any learning take place in such a short amount of time?

When I turn the page, say from Arabic to Chinese, it takes me about 3 minutes to get up to speed, I find. I maintain that level for the next 5 minutes, but then my concentration/motivation/interest level declines. If I spend much more than 15 minutes, I'm at 50%.

So for me 10 minutes is the best.

My style of acquisition requires the freshest of brains - by which I mean that my brain needs to be at its freshest, NOT that compared to other people my brain is fresher. So that's a clue bout the process right there. It is a whole brain type of activity. I need to access all of it. It is active, multi-focus, fuzzy logic, high instinct. You need the right hemisphere contributing.

My system is non-analytical. It does not process via useless busy-work. It isn't unimaginative plodding. It's not something that you rack up wasted hours over. You don't force yourself to stay up late, awake by drinking coffee.

You spend quality time; quantity doesn't hack it. You work with a sharp sword, not a dull instrument.

Deja vu all over again

A few years ago, I took this road. And for almost two years I maintained focus. First thing of the day, every day, I wrote 100 words exactly. I had the motivation and momentum. I documented my languages-acquisition journey on another blog, but I had to call a halt to it when I was obliged to do the Adult Numeracy and Literacy Embedding unit standard at work.

But there were other factors. As well as a lack of time, I didn't fully trust in the process. I didn't engage with the language nearly enough. Or maybe TOO much! I kicked in too early, I now believe with 20/20 hindsight, that I forced myself to listen too early. (I won't ask myself to listen until after about a year, this time around). Also, I didn't establish a routine. I didn't prioritize it over work. I did too much searching and exploring, and too little of actual language exposure.

What do you expect?

I expected, upon returning to New Zealand, that I would have less time to devote to my language activities because I would have classes to teach. And yet, I dearly looked forward to kicking off Arabic, Chinese, Maori, Norwegian and Russian. Five more languages to take my total to 15 (let's include English in the tally).

If I can spare a couple of hours per day (I thought), or two hours and twenty minutes, then that amounts to 10 minutes per language (this time excluding English; it will just have to manage).

I don't think that this will be a problem. Ten minutes ought to be enough, if my method is indeed as good as an hour of traditional study. It's easily six times as efficient, I believe.

Therefore, I'm looking at 365 days divided by 6 number of hours per language, or 61 hours. If I set my age of retirement as the conclusion of this experiment - which is two years from now - then I'm spending, say, 125 hours on each of my 14 languages.

It will be interesting to discover whether the whole thing is doable. Whether it doesn't lead to too much strain. And whether the languages help each other along, rather than slow each other's progress.

My motto and plan

As my language count creeps up, what's my plan to spend time with them all?

First off, why do it? What's the point of doing them in this fashion?

Well, if someone's end goal is to learn three or four languages, when do he or she start with the third and the fourth? I mean, if you wait until your second language is as good as your first, then you'll be waiting forever. And even if you set yourself a target of waiting until you're at an intermediate level, then you'll still be waiting a year or two in between each.

I couldn't do that. I don't have the patience.

So let me spend from 10 to 15 minutes at a time. That's enough to cover between one and two thousand words, connected in sentences, constituting a text. In my book, that's efficient.

I've been doing that for about 2 months now, so I know that it's doable. It's not even a strain. A little done often is better than an hour at a time at widely-spaced or irregular intervals. That's my motto.

Nitty-gritty Swedish

Although I read at speed, there are words that I recognize. (And remember, this happened in the course of 1 minute - my very first minute ever of Swedish!)

• Numbers: nittio, nittiotre
• Direction: österut
• Verbs: viste, farten, log, löpte
• Tense: var, hade
• Pronouns: han, man
• Articles: en, den
• Prepositions: av, andra, upp, ut
• Colour: gröna
• Adjectives favoritual, lång
• Nouns - a wealth of words similar to how they look in English and other languages I have some knowledge of: tummen, näse, vägen, natrium lapor, minuter, kurs

I place no pressure upon myself to learn, memorize, recall or reproduce any of the above. I don't consciously categorize. For now, all that I'm doing is to recognize what's in front of me (on paper).

Decent exposure

You get used to stuff by exposing yourself to it gradually and repeatedly. That's how training works. You don't overdo it, but you don't avoid it either. You want it broad, shallow and light. And you want to do it in an environment that supports that exposure. That doesn't make fun of you, or force you to do stuff that you aren't ready for, or don't wish to do.

Rather than marvel at the fact that any child, anywhere picks up the basics of its parents' tongue (or tongues) usually by the age of 4, without any real instruction, rigorous correction, comprehensive feedback, drills, or indeed any form of formal study, I take it as a given that it it is exposure, pure and simply, that is the basic mechanism that underpins the acquisition of any language.

You want to hear and see the language around you, connected to the real world of your experience.

I've done that for myself via the medium of books. If I go through them at normal speaking speed, then I'll touch upon about 100 words per minute, a thousand in ten.  I'm happy to do that in any of my current languages from English to Polish. As I listen, my eyes flit across the text, catching what I can, and letting go of the rest. I get a sense of the (as yet) unknown with my peripheral vision.

So I don't do it the way it is done in the classroom. I don't use a limited word list of 25 words and one grammar point per day. Rather, it's as if the language that I want to pick up is a plastic-dimpled meat tray that I set outside in the drizzle. All the holes fill up at once. I don't go about the job carefully, hesitantly, SLOWLY with a pipette. I leave it up to nature. The process of language acquisition is an organic one.

But enough generality. The next post looks at the nitty-gritty, for which the books themselves are the best place to start.

Impossible failure

I believe that you succeed at learning a language by simply persisting. By not giving up. If you keep on taking steps in the right direction, no matter how small, you get to your goal.

The great thing is that everything works! Different approaches may take different amounts of time, but absolutely anything will help you learn the language. All that you need to do is keep going. You just need not to stop.

And so, I think long and hard over which resource to use, and how to use it. I wish to put in place activities that are almost addictive, activities that I could continue all day, given the opportunity. Activities that don't stress, tire, or make me bored.

And I feel that such activities must involve a book. A real book. An authentic book - not a textbook, grammar, or dictionary.

It's all about finding a good book. One that you can't put down. One that, while reading, you forget is in a foreign language.

On the shoulders of giants

So that's me set up, more or less. I'm ready to go. I've several languages that I can work on now. The rest I'll start once I return to New Zealand next month. I've outlined how I mean to start - or resume - and I've established a set of starting points.

To most people, this plan of action must appear very loose and unstructured. There doesn't seem to be much study going on. For Dutch, German, French, Japanese and Norwegian, I'm just reading from a book, or books. And for the other languages - Polish, Chinese, Maori, Russian, Hindi and Arabic, I'm somehow boosting myself up to that level.

So what's the deal behind this? Is there any substance to it? Any proof?

Well, I can assure you that I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. And I intend to follow in their seven-league footsteps. Their names will crop up in the course of this blog. I'll explain as I go. For now, I'm just retrofitting this blog with my holiday musings.

Different starting points

What I wanted to do at the outset was to establish various starting points. I needed those to draw up my initial plans of action. For each of my 12 languages, my starting level was different.

At 63 - in the present as I thought this, in the past as I posted it- I consider myself nicely middle-aged. I've a range of life experiences, and that includes a range of interaction with each of the dozen tongues I've chosen to improve. Each language will therefore require a different prescription. I've 12 different experiments to set up. I can't do them as a batch as this ain't mass-production.

The ABCs of multi-lingual-ism

It happens to be the start of 2020 as I put pen to paper (well, it was). The time feels right to start a new blog. It's time for a New Year's resolution. It's time for a challenge. A language acquisition challenge.

Initially, I thought of setting a 365-day goal. But I feel that would be too gimmicky - it doesn't feel authentic. Plus, I have life that I'd like to live alongside of this project. Life-work balance and all that.

So I'll take it fairly easy. I've no problem with that - I've already opted to work only part time (0.6). And in a couple of years I'll be eligible to retire. All in all, I'm not going to turn this into a big deal. I wish to spend no more than a couple of hours per day on this exercise. In terms of language-learning, therefore, I'll see how I fare with just a few languages, not too many. I'll settle for an even dozen.

I've selected them according to the alphabet. They each start with a different letter, so that'll make it easier to name and keep track of them.

• A is for Arabic
• C is for Chinese
• D is for Dutch
• E is for English (which I don't count as one of the 12)
• F is for French
• G is for German
• H is for Hindi
• J is for Japanese
• M is for Maori
• N is for Norwegian
• P is for Polish
• R is for Russian
• and S will be for Spanish

I think that's a fair swag.

Room for improvement

Just a quick word up front. Something that you ought to know. A disclaimer, if you like. It's this: I'm not someone who is especially interested in learning languages. No, really. I mean it.

But I have a work history of teaching. I've been a teacher, in one way or another, for many years. I'm currently helping people learn English. And along the way I've become interested in figuring out better ways. Better approaches to the learning of them, that is.

Learning another language is never going to be easy. It's always going to take a big chunk of time, no matter how one goes about it. There do exist short-cuts, I believe, but they can only take you so far. Which is one of the reasons that so many people fall by the wayside, myself included. I read somewhere, once, that only about 5% of starting-out language learners manage to achieve what they set out to do. I haven't been able to confirm that fact, but I could well believe it that it is true.

Anyway, as a result this business has become somewhat of a pet puzzle for me. I've looked into it for years. Until by now I've become convinced that there are better methods than those used in conventional classrooms. And I've decided to test them out on myself. I'll take a crack at being the guinea pig.

The reason that I feel that there is room for improvement in the field of language acquisition is that plenty of people have managed to pick up a language in around a year, often after previously having bombed out at school. They've somehow managed to latch onto how to do it on their own. They've discovered their own way of going about it.

If I now can demonstrate the same, if I can achieve what they have done, or even do better, then it's likely that I'll have something to share.

And so that is my plan. Here's where I'll document my efforts from two months ago. I'll tell the story. I'll describe what I do, and why I do it. I'll explain why it seems to work. Who knows, I may persuade you that it's worth while trying things another way.

And so, without further ado . . .