Tonight I have to give a short speech in Japanese to about 30 members of the Japan-Canada Chamber of Commerce. I’m a director of this chamber, which consists mainly of recent Japanese immigrants to Canada who run their own businesses here. Here’s what I plan to say in Japanese.
By: TheDreamSky
Learning a language is like being in love. In fact, you have to be in love to learn a language well. I mean a passion for the language. You have to have a love affair with it. You don’t have to marry the language. You can have an affair and then move on to another language after a while. But while you’re learning it, you have to be in love with it. You’ll learn faster if you stay faithful to the language while you’re studying it.
Just as when you’re in love, you want and need to spend as much time as possible with the object of your affection. You want to hear its voice and read its thoughts. You want to learn more about it—the different words and phrases it uses to express itself. Wherever you are, you think about the way it speaks. You start to observe the object of your affection closely. You notice all the little things it does; you become familiar with its quirks. You breathe it in. You hear its voice. You feel it. You naturally get to know it better and better.
Just as in a love affair, there are some things about the object of your affection that you don’t like. You ignore them. You think only about the things you love. You don’t question the object of your affection. You simply accept it. You don’t ask why. You don’t ask why it behaves a certain way. You don’t try to understand the secrets of its structure. You just want to be with it, and even imitate it—the highest form of appreciation.
Loving a language is a one-sided love affair. You love the language. It doesn’t love you. But the good thing is that it doesn’t get jealous of your past love affairs. It doesn’t care if you’re having another love affair at the same time. But, as with people, that can cause problems … The language won’t criticize you. You can use it however you like, as long as you enjoy yourself.
You aren’t jealous of other people who love the language you love. In fact, you enjoy meeting people who love the language you love. Loving a language is much less troublesome than loving a person, because loving a language is its own reward. You don’t care what the language thinks of you. You enjoy admiring the language and expect nothing in return. As long as you maintain this relationship, you’ll learn and improve the language.
If you use a language without loving it, you won’t improve. If your only goal is to get a better job or pass a test, you won’t improve. People are the same way. You can’t have a love affair with someone just to get a better job, but …
This has been my approach. When I learn a language, I spend most of my initial time just listening and reading, building up my vocabulary and phrases. I just want to keep getting to know the language, enjoying its personality, and becoming comfortable with it. I don’t want anyone questioning me or talking to me about my love. I don’t want to speak the language before I’ve really gotten to know it, because I know I wouldn’t do my love justice. I only speak the language when I want to, when I’m ready.
To learn a language, I practice an approach known as the “silent period.” I’m learning Russian now, and I’ve been doing this for a year. I’ve read and listened to many different kinds of content, including simple news stories, podcasts, and Tolstoy. I love it. I still don’t speak Russian. I could, if I wanted to. I’ve been using the latest version of our language-learning system, LingQ, which lets people learn any language they want.
If any of you are interested in having a love affair with a language, email me. I’ll give you a month of free use of our language-learning system—or, should I say, a month of love affairs with languages. You can also get a copy of my book: The Linguist.
Original article by Steve Kaufman from The Linguist: http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/2007/05/language_learni.html
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Curiosities: Leo Tolstoy was one of the great writers of nineteenth-century Russian literature. He became famous for turning to pacifism in old age. Among his best-known works are War and Peace, about Napoleon’s campaigns in Russia, and Anna Karenina, which exposes the hypocritical society of the time and offers one of literature’s deepest portraits of a woman. Source: Wikipedia
To learn more, read an excerpt from Anna Karenina at Learning Russian.net. They use a learning technique with the English text alongside the Russian text.