Learning a language like a child
This is a follow-up to my previous post Learning Shanghainese like a Child, in which I described how I learnt Shanghainese as an adult like a child. In this post, I'll elaborate more on why we don't learn languages like children as adults but at the same time on how we can adapt the language learning tricks of kids to our needs.
Many adult language learners dream of learning a language like a child again. It seems so effortless. Children seem to pick up languages quickly, learn to speak accent-free and just happily chat away. But in fact, language learning means a lot of effort for children. We just don't remember it. It takes a year until kids can utter the first words. Another year until they talk in simple sentences. By the age of four, they already have impressive linguistic skills but in general, can't read or write, still have pronunciation problems, and still make many grammar mistakes. When they enter school, they start to learn about grammar, finally acquiring meta-knowledge of the language, learning more sophisticated vocabulary. By the age of ten, you could call them fluent but they still lack a lot of advanced vocabulary (reading a newspaper or novel aimed at adults is still a challenge). And they only got so far by living in an immersive environment 24/7 and listening to countless repetitions, shadowing the people around them and also endlessly repeating the same words and sentences over and over. Does that really sound so appealing? As adults, we can learn languages much faster. Our meta-knowledge of language and previous language learning experiences help us to understand grammatical concepts faster. Since we can read, we can broaden our vocabulary much faster than toddlers. And we can discuss more interesting topics than just daily necessities.
I have three kids and for the last 11 years, I could watch their language development and language acquisition. On one hand, it's very impressive to watch how kids can grasp grammatical concepts and rules without being taught. But this also leads to mistakes like conjugating all verbs like regular verbs (German: "ich kommte" instead of "ich kam"). At the age of four, German kids have acquired the basic rules of German grammar but still make some mistakes when it comes to conjugation and proper declension and they aren't able yet to read a newspaper. My daughter is 4 years old now and she has impressive speaking skills but adult language learners are far more advanced after four years of immersive language study. Nevertheless, there are some language learning tricks that we can learn from the kids:
- Listen, listen, listen: Children are immersed in their mother tongue 24/7. As an adult you normally can't just move to a new country every couple of years and get "adopted" by a family of native speakers of your target language. But even if you don't live in an immersive environment, you can try to immerse yourself in the language as much possible. I listen to podcasts in my target languages as much as possible, while commuting to work, while cooking and cleaning the house, while doing grocery shopping, just whenever when I do something that doesn't take a lot of active thinking. When I do something that requires some thinking (like writing this blog post), I just listen to music in my target languages. I do listen to podcasts for learners but I prefer to listen to material aimed at native speakers, even though I might not understand a lot in the beginning. The pronunciation and the speed are more natural than in material aimed at learners. I do listen attentively. Even if I don't understand everything I try to catch a word or a phrase here and there and get the general gist. Kids do that too. They try to eavesdrop on adult's conversations all the time. Don't ever think that your child is too small to understand or to focused on playing than to listen and understand what the adults are talking about. They understand more than you think and so will you when you listen to audio and video material for native speakers.
- Listen and repeat: Toddlers go through a parrot phase where they repeat almost everything that is said to them. It's sometimes annoying, especially for elder siblings but it's a great exercise. When I listen to audio material while doing other things, I often try to shadow the speaker while he speaks, especially if I listen to something for a second time and of course when I listen to music, I try to sing along. But when I have time to sit down at my computer I also do this exercise that I listen to a sentence and then try to repeat it. Sometimes I record it, so I can compare it to the original or get feedback by native speaker.
- Talk to yourself: You don't have any native speaker who talks to you? Talk to your imaginary friends! Children do a lot of role-playing alone. My daughter plays with her puppets and takes over different roles, even speaking with different voices depending on the role. I also do that (when nobody's watching), for instance, while driving or sorting the laundry. I just practice dialogues myself. You can talk with your imaginary partner about doing grocery shopping, buying clothes, going to the doctors, talking about plans for the weekend.
- Go to playgroups: Children don't only learn their mother tongue with the help of adults (=native speakers) but also through interaction with other kids (=learners) and they learn a lot from older kids (=advanced learners). So what helps and motivates me a lot is to practise my target languages with other learners. I have some friends who also learn Spanish for instance and we mainly write to each other in Spanish. This way we don't have to dedicate half of the time to each other's own native tongues but we both practise our common target language whenever we interact. I also joined several language learning groups on Facebook. These are my favourites:
Español intermedio y avanzado
The language of communication is Spanish only. The group share resources and tips for learning Spanish and also practises together.
Entraide en langues
The language of communication is French only. The group shares resources and tips for learning all languages. So, it's basically a polyglot group but the difference to other groups is that the commonly used language is French instead of English. It's a group connected to the Facebook page Le néerlandais simplifié, where you can find a lot of language learning tips in French, English, Spanish and Dutch.
Language Diary Challenge
The members of this group post every day during the month of April 2018 a couple of words, sentences or short texts related to their daily language learning. All languages are allowed. It's very motivating to see the other members' activities and it inspired me to start recording me on audio and video speaking my target languages. I published my videos also in other Facebook groups and got lots of motivating feedback. This group is connected to the Facebook page Joy of Languages, another very interesting site with lots of tips for language learning.
- Don't be afraid of making mistakes: That is the most important thing you can learn from children. Happily chat away. Just use what you know. Speak, write, interact. Don't fear to sound ridiculous. We've all been there. Most other language learners and native speakers will be supportive. We can learn a lot from mistakes. It's often the funniest and most embarrassing mistakes that make things stick in our minds. Record yourself to document your level or write a text. After a couple of months do a new recording or write a new text and compare them to the previous ones. You'll see that you made progress and make fewer mistakes now.
French videos about the topic "Learning languages like a child"
Le monde des langues: Pourquoi vous ne devriez pas apprendre « comme un enfantL'atout des langues: Apprendre l'anglais facilement comme un enfant
This is such an interesting topic. So true, in my opinion. As part as their development, children play with words and experiment in all sorts of ways. As described in this post, they are listening all the time, repeat what others say (this being both adults or other children) and certainly talk to themselves (or to someone that takes part in the story they're visualising in their minds) when they're playing alone.
AntwortenLöschenLittle by little they enrich their vocabulary and try to form their own words. For example, conjugating verbs. As any language learner, they will actually make the same mistakes: they'll say «yo cabo*» instead of «yo quepo» in Spanish, for example (verbo caber, to fit). Or «No lo sabo*» instead of «No lo sé» (verbo saber, to know) And they will keep making the same mistake for many weeks actually (as, again, the majority of language learners). In the meantime though, they get to communicate effectively.
As a Spanish teacher, I think I can learn so much from this. In fact, sometimes I like reading books aimed to children because they use vocabulary, expressions and games that could be adapted to my lessons. When done properly, I've found it to be very effective and useful for many learners, who, from there, can build up their repertoire with more complicated structures