In "Love's Labours Lost" there is a phrase "they have been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps" or something like that. Our linguistic capacities may suffer the same finite limits as eating, learning speed aside. The person who 'consumes' many tongues may or may not possess the requisite ‘linguistic stomach capacity’ to master them all.

Part of the problem with adult learning of language is the theoretical rather than natural approach taken. Immersion is a better way for most people than the typical school approach. But even immersion is not really natural. Did you get adult language addressed to you as an infant and child? Typically adults 'talk down' to children. By simplifying the language we present children, we ease their task of leaning it.

Also the playmates of children do not speak to their companions in complex ways early on. Also natural language acquisition proceeds by accretion and connection to previous acquisitions. When we learn a new language by contrast it is like being asked to sprint before we can crawl or being thrown in the middle of a pond and being told to swim out before getting any swimming lessons except a theoretical briefing on the process. Things we have to learn to do, we learn by doing I think Aristotle said.

One example of language learning that impressed me as likely to succeed (and which did succeed by the way) was when two brothers from Spain immigrated to our town and entered the first grade even though it was 5 and 8 years below their grade level in Spain. In a few months they had proceeded through all the intervening grades relearning in English what they had already learned in Spanish. This had two advantages. First the language was simpler in the first grade. Second they already knew essentially all the material presented in each grade they whizzed thru!

In the case of expanding one's mastery of one's own native language the dictionary studying approach or getting a new word in the email every day is not natural. Hearing a word in a real and important context so there is a motivation is more natural. Also since few like to admit not knowing they don't know a word or do not have time to pursue such a question when they are getting the gist of the conversation, we typically form conjectures at least as to part of speech and general semantic category before we really learn the word. If we don't hear the word again, we will forget it. But if reinforcement occurs, then we will learn its meaning from context the gradual way, the natural way.

When we think we have heard a word for the first time, we are probably wrong. We just didn't notice it before. I offer the following in proof of this contention. After you hear a word for the first time, it often seems as if everywhere you turn you encounter it. Is there a great conspiracy afoot to teach you this word!? I think not. The fact is that now that this word has caught your attention, you have been sensitized to it and hence the remarkable number of times you hear it soon after you hear it for the 'first' time!

To reinforce my point about the unnatural means used to teach languages, the first one is that in the first place you are not 'taught' the language. It is more as if you caught it. Adults talk baby talk to you. You goo and babble after a certain point. You hold your peace for a considerable period though, just to make sure you don't make a fool of yourself. It can often take two to four years before any significant speech occurs. I started talking in earnest at age 14 months. In a couple of weeks, my father, who had recently returned from WWII, stopped counting the new words at 200.

You see on the surface how very unlike this procedure typical language schooling is. Of course I am not maintaining that lying on you back sucking on a bottle of milk is essential to language learning, but it might be worth a try! Keep an open mind is all I am saying. (Well not all, but part of it!)

Hi David! It's me, Markham (know as Mark) from Prodata days. Give Mary and me a holler real soon! My profile has my email address.

Oh and as to the vast size and complexity of English expression, only a core set of words is required to express oneself. Two or three thousand should do for a start. The 800 some word set of Basic English is a bit spare, but it makes the point. Comprehension is harder than such basic expression, but if you have the core, you can expand on it.

The ideal way to get that as an adult is much different than the approach we use. Here is how I think we should proceed. First we start with a “See Spot Run” English text, Then we introduce the ‘same’ text, but with some of the word order and inflections of the target language. We keep this up until we are fluently reading and speaking using the grammar of the target language without learning a single word of its lexicon yet.

The next step is to learn this book gradually substituting the target language word for the strangely placed and inflected English word. Now we have both lexicon and grammar and the language. We can now introduce more complex material starting again with a text using more complex forms and new inflections, then another series of lexicon substitutions. Has anyone ever tried something like this?


Markham Robinson,
CEO MasterPlan Financial Software
www.masterplanner.com