How to learn a foreign language
Many people want, or need, to learn another language than the one they learned from their parents. In fact, everyone speaking one language is an ancient fantasy of paradise (see Tower of Babel).
There are many Internet pages, such as Google Translate, and devices for sale, which will translate one language into another, with varying degrees of accuracy. A test: translate a page into the target language (French, for example), then have the same program translate the French text back into English. Compare the results.
These devices and Internet pages are very useful in limited contexts. They are far better than nothing, or a bilingual dictionary. However, all of them make major mistakes and are unsuitable for serious or thorough undertanding of anything but the most elementary texts or conversations. For literature they are not useful, and do not claim to be.
Unfortunately, to understand another language well, it has to be learned "the hard way."
Define your goals: just what do you want to learn? To be able to speak (without necessarily understanding what is spoken to you)? To be able to understand what is spoken to you? By educated people (like someone you might meet in an office), or illiterates (which is far harder). To read a newspaper, book, or correspondence in the target language? To be able to write correctly in the language?
There are a number of software programs that assist in learning a language. As of this writing (2015) the most widely-advertised is Rosetta Stone, though there are others. (The Rosetta Stone, currently in the British Museum, is a large stone inscribed in three languages, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic, a script form of the language, and Ancient Greek. Its discovery led to the decipherment of hieroglyphics.)
Like the devices, these are also useful, but have shortcomings (see ). The U.S. military and State Department spend vast sums teaching foreign languages, and have not even considered closing their programs and replacing them with software or gadgets. A program similar to the military's Defense Language Institute, but which is open to everyone, is the Middlebury College Language Schools.
A free resource: many foreign language television and radio programs are available free on the Internet; some are available on cable television systems. The human brain has a natural language-learning ability - that's how babies learn - and sheer exposure, the more the better (like mothers provide babies), may well lead to learning. News broadcasts about international events may be the easiest to understand. It may feel uncomfortable to watch or listen to a language you do not understand; that is because your brain is working hard. To see results takes several months.
Another free resource: using Skype or other tools, there are many speakers of foreign languages who are glad to trade instruction and conversation in their language for the same in English. For one example, sponsored by Dickenson College, see http://www.language-exchanges.org/.
For the highest levels of proficiency, spending time in a country where the language is spoken, and receiving instruction from a trained instructor, are indispensable. In many countries, such as Mexico, Costa Rica, France, Spain, Germany, Israel and others, there are specialized schools whose business it is to help visiting foreigners use the language. Some offer accelerated programs in which the student uses no English for weeks at a time (called "total immersion"). Even though the need to study in a foreign country has been called a "myth," the same article ends with a recommendation to conclude your study in a foreign country.
Grammar, though it has a bad reputation, is really your friend. It consists of the rules of the language. Using grammar is why two years of university language instruction (50 minutes, three times a week) can produce a reasonable facility in a language. "Grammar, which has logic and beauty, is efficient."
Finally, once one has learned a second language, learning a third language is much easier. A fourth language is easier yet, and so on. This is why there are people who know, five, ten, or twenty languages. But learning just one is a great accomplishment, to be very proud of.
There are many Internet pages, such as Google Translate, and devices for sale, which will translate one language into another, with varying degrees of accuracy. A test: translate a page into the target language (French, for example), then have the same program translate the French text back into English. Compare the results.
These devices and Internet pages are very useful in limited contexts. They are far better than nothing, or a bilingual dictionary. However, all of them make major mistakes and are unsuitable for serious or thorough undertanding of anything but the most elementary texts or conversations. For literature they are not useful, and do not claim to be.
Unfortunately, to understand another language well, it has to be learned "the hard way."
Define your goals: just what do you want to learn? To be able to speak (without necessarily understanding what is spoken to you)? To be able to understand what is spoken to you? By educated people (like someone you might meet in an office), or illiterates (which is far harder). To read a newspaper, book, or correspondence in the target language? To be able to write correctly in the language?
There are a number of software programs that assist in learning a language. As of this writing (2015) the most widely-advertised is Rosetta Stone, though there are others. (The Rosetta Stone, currently in the British Museum, is a large stone inscribed in three languages, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic, a script form of the language, and Ancient Greek. Its discovery led to the decipherment of hieroglyphics.)
Like the devices, these are also useful, but have shortcomings (see ). The U.S. military and State Department spend vast sums teaching foreign languages, and have not even considered closing their programs and replacing them with software or gadgets. A program similar to the military's Defense Language Institute, but which is open to everyone, is the Middlebury College Language Schools.
A free resource: many foreign language television and radio programs are available free on the Internet; some are available on cable television systems. The human brain has a natural language-learning ability - that's how babies learn - and sheer exposure, the more the better (like mothers provide babies), may well lead to learning. News broadcasts about international events may be the easiest to understand. It may feel uncomfortable to watch or listen to a language you do not understand; that is because your brain is working hard. To see results takes several months.
Another free resource: using Skype or other tools, there are many speakers of foreign languages who are glad to trade instruction and conversation in their language for the same in English. For one example, sponsored by Dickenson College, see http://www.language-exchanges.org/.
For the highest levels of proficiency, spending time in a country where the language is spoken, and receiving instruction from a trained instructor, are indispensable. In many countries, such as Mexico, Costa Rica, France, Spain, Germany, Israel and others, there are specialized schools whose business it is to help visiting foreigners use the language. Some offer accelerated programs in which the student uses no English for weeks at a time (called "total immersion"). Even though the need to study in a foreign country has been called a "myth," the same article ends with a recommendation to conclude your study in a foreign country.
Grammar, though it has a bad reputation, is really your friend. It consists of the rules of the language. Using grammar is why two years of university language instruction (50 minutes, three times a week) can produce a reasonable facility in a language. "Grammar, which has logic and beauty, is efficient."
Finally, once one has learned a second language, learning a third language is much easier. A fourth language is easier yet, and so on. This is why there are people who know, five, ten, or twenty languages. But learning just one is a great accomplishment, to be very proud of.
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