Learning A New Language For Dummies

Introduction

Learning new languages has been a top goal for many people (including business leaders) during the last few years. This is especially true now that the world is witnessing and experiencing a growth in globalization and a push for more inclusion and diversity initiatives. Ultimately, it’s important to remember that language rights are human rights, so speaking someone’s language shows acknowledgment and respect for them and their culture.

In that context, there’s a growing need to help people learn languages. This book provides an overview of what language learning entails, the factors that have an effect in the journey, the numerous benefits and advantages of learning a new language, and so much more.

About This Book

In Learning a New Language For Dummies, I show you what learning a new language involves and how to make it a more successful experience for you. I provide an overview of the key components in the language learning journey, the role personal differences play in the process, the importance of learning vocabulary, and the best strategies to develop and improve all your skills in the new language. I also guide you through considering your motivation(s) and goal(s) to learn a new language, and choosing the language and learning strategies that best fit your needs.

I pack this book with research-based explanations to help you understand what to focus on when learning a new language, and I highlight actual strategies you can use to achieve your learning goals. For example, I discuss the importance of both receiving appropriate language input (exposure to the language you’re learning) and having opportunities to create output (using the language to communicate with other language users). So, I cover what the research states about input and output, and I give you tips and suggestions on the different ways you can apply the principles of this research to your own interactions, both when you’re communicating in person and when you’re using technology. I also remind you throughout this book that making errors is a natural and expected feature in language learning and development. Don’t give up!

A quick note: Sidebars (shaded boxes of text in some chapters) dig into the details of a given topic, but they aren’t crucial to understanding it. Feel free to read them or skip them. You can pass over the text accompanied by the Technical Stuff icon, too. The text marked with this icon contains some interesting but nonessential information about learning a new language.

One last thing: You may note that within this book, some web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading the book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

Foolish Assumptions

Here are some of my assumptions about you, dear reader, and why you’re picking up this book:

You have some interest in finding out what learning a new language entails.

You want to learn a new language to communicate with other speakers of that language.

You’re wondering about the best way to start your new language learning journey, and you aren’t sure how to start or what to look for.

Icons Used in This Book

Like all For Dummies books, this book features icons to help you navigate the information. Here’s what they mean:

Remember If you take away anything from this book, it should be the information marked with this icon.

Technical Stuff This icon flags information that delves a little deeper than usual into the process of learning a new language.

Tip This icon highlights especially helpful advice about what to do and how to do it as you travel through your new language learning journey.

Warning This icon points out situations and actions to avoid in order to progress and succeed in your language learning experience.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the web. Check out the free Cheat Sheet for info on essential input for learning a new language, strategies for learning vocabulary, tips for speaking in a new language, and more. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and type "Learning a New Language For Dummies Cheat Sheet" in the Search box.

Where to Go from Here

You don’t have to read this book from cover to cover, but if you’re an especially thorough person, feel free to do so! If you just want to find specific information and then get back to work on learning your new language, take a look at the table of contents or the index, and then dive into the chapter or section that interests you.

For example, if you don’t know how or where to start, and need help to even decide on a new language to study, open the book up to Chapter 11 for tips on choosing a language, and then let me help you design your learning path in Chapter 12. Very soon you’ll have a plan in place and be ready to start your language learning journey. Buckle up, and get ready to go!

Part 1

Getting Started with Learning a New Language

IN THIS PART …

Understand communication, its components and design features, as well as the different branches of linguistics.

Know terminology to name languages and their speakers and important components in learning a new language.

Recognize the personal features that affect language learning and assess your proficiency level as you learn an L2.

Discover the many benefits and advantages that learning a new language can offer.

Chapter 1

Craving a New Language

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Looking at the definition of language

Bullet Highlighting what you need to learn a new language

Bullet Understanding the components of communication

Bullet Considering the functions of language

Bullet Outlining the branches of linguistics

Thinking of learning a new language? Wonderful! You’re in the right place. Since you’re reading this book, I’m guessing that you’re pretty enthusiastic about learning a new language. If so, you already have a key ingredient for such a journey: your motivation!

In this chapter, you get an overview of the process of learning a new language. I start by defining what language is. It seems like a simple term, but linguists (people who study language) have pondered over how to define language for years. I also explain the importance of knowing more than one language in today’s world and becoming part of the bilingual (or multilingual) team; then I dive into what communication is and discuss its components, as well as its features and functions. Finally, I briefly mention some of the disciplines that study language.

Tip If you want to learn a language you can use with many speakers, here’s a fun fact: The most spoken languages around the globe (as a native speaker and as a second language) are English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, French, and Modern Standard Arabic. You can find out more about choosing a language to learn in Chapter 11.

Defining What Language Means

Language is a natural human ability that we acquire effortlessly by merely being exposed to it and using it to communicate with other members of our language community. Language is essential in our lives to maintain social interactions because it helps us express thoughts, ideas, desires, emotions, and culture.

Language also is a form of self-identity. Yes, that’s right! The way you speak and the language you use reveal a lot about your identity and your culture. Think about it: When you hear someone talking, can you guess if they’re from your area or not? Can you guess their age or gender? What about their socioeconomic status? Can you guess if they’re native speakers of the language or language learners? It’s not uncommon to answer yes to all or most of these questions. That’s what I mean when I say that language is a form of self-identity.

Technical Stuff Technically speaking, languages are formed by arbitrary signs (words) that are governed by certain rules (grammar). (You can read more about the arbitrariness of words in the later section "Recognizing special design features.") Despite their complexity, languages are systematic and rule-governed, so linguists are able to study them in a scientific way. Thanks to the rules that govern languages, members of a speech community produce and understand an infinite number of sentences.

Most researchers agree that humans are born already programmed to learn languages, and some structures in our brains are specialized for language processing. So, some of the work is already done for you, without any visible effort!

A FEW FUN FACTS ABOUT LANGUAGES

If you haven’t decided which language you want to learn yet, you have many to choose from! According to Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com/), which is one of the most important online sources of information about languages, there are more than 7,000 languages in the world! Here’s some interesting data about these languages:

About 90 percent of the world population speaks 700 of these languages.

More than 50 percent of the population speaks 23 of these languages.

Eighty-five percent of the people in the world use either Asian or European languages.

Forty percent of these languages (more than 3,000 languages) are endangered languages (they have fewer than 1,000 users).

Gaining a Superpower by Learning a New Language

Learning new languages is an exciting and rewarding task! Bilinguals can communicate with more people than monolinguals do, and languages give you the opportunity to discover different cultures and provide broader perspectives of the world and humanity. Talk about a superpower!

And learning languages isn’t as difficult as some people may think; note that you’ve already acquired at least one language — the one you’re using now to read this book. You may only need some guidance on how to achieve your goal to learn a new one. Furthermore, you may have heard that the more languages you learn, the easier it becomes to learn a new one. So, go for it! The following sections explain what you need to learn a new language and give an overview of the benefits of language learning.

Knowing what you need up front

You need a few ingredients for a successful experience when learning a new language so that you can join the bilingual (or multilingual) superpower team sooner rather than later. (I explain all of them in detail throughout this book.) To learn a language, you need the following:

Strong motivation: Learning a language should feel like a joyful act. You should feel the excitement within you, like the butterflies you feel when you see someone you’re dating. You shouldn’t feel pushed/obliged to learn it; you should have an intense desire to do so.

Tip To help you find your motivation, try writing down at least five reasons why you want to learn a particular language. For example, suppose you want to learn French so you can travel around France more easily, speak with friends and family members who live there, read French literature in its original form, watch French movies without subtitles, and enjoy French restaurants even more by reading the menus in French.

Time and consistency: I suggest spending at least 15 minutes on your new language every day. It’s better to dedicate some time to it on a daily basis than to spend many hours working on it only once a week.

Tip Try to connect learning a language with your daily life. For example, while your coffee is brewing, use those spare minutes to read in your new language, listen to music in the language, review flashcards, and so on. You can also change your email/phone settings to your new language, try watching TV and movies in your new language, or write your to-do list in your new language. These repetitive actions will be a huge help in your learning progress!

Resources: You need to find compelling books, dictionaries, audiovisual material, and similar resources in your target language. Being repeatedly exposed to diverse material that uses your new language will help you retain that language.

Tip If possible, find native or proficient speakers of the language to practice with. This is a really valuable resource! You can reach out to local universities or be on the lookout for local language clubs that meet periodically; pay attention to the bulletin boards in coffee shops, libraries, and universities. You can also use online apps to find conversation partners. I share some online apps and sites you can use in Chapter 14.

A feeling of relaxation: You shouldn’t feel stressed out when learning or practicing the language. You need to feel comfortable and accept the idea that making mistakes is part of the deal. In the language-learning field, we refer to that as having a low affective filter. You can read more about the importance of the affective filter in Chapter 7.

A plan: Consider your motivation and goals, and outline the steps you will follow to reach that goal. The clearer your plan is, the easier it will be to implement it. See Chapter 12 for details.

A handle on basic vocabulary: Building your vocabulary is especially important in the beginning of the learning process; learning words is even more important than mastering the language structure (grammar). You can start by learning everyday vocabulary, and words that are linked to your interests and hobbies. See Chapter 13 for details.

Remember Note that you can communicate with others using just individual words. Grammatical accuracy comes with time, and it shouldn’t be the focus for novice learners. Traditional classroom teaching can help a lot when it’s time to polish your grammar.

Seeing the benefits of being bilingual (or multilingual) in the world

Defining bilingualism or multilingualism isn’t an easy task, and consequently, measuring the number of bilinguals in the world is equally difficult. Actually, no official data about bilingualism exists. However, some researchers, such as François Grosjean, say that half or slightly more than half of the world’s population is bilingual, and others, such as Colin Baker, state that the number is between 50 percent and 70 percent.

Normally the census of a country doesn’t ask whether members of its population are bilingual, but the census may ask about the languages they know, which is used to calculate the number of bilingual speakers. However, we still have the difficulty of deciding what being bilingual means or what knowing a language entails. Some countries, such as Switzerland, have a more restrictive view of the definition of bilingualism than others, such as the United States. So, as you can see, obtaining reliable data about the number of bilinguals in the world isn’t an easy task.

What’s clear is that in some countries and on some continents (such as Asia and Africa), bilingualism/multilingualism is very common; in others (such as Europe), more than half of the population speaks at least two languages (although two of Europe’s largest countries, Great Britain and France, don’t have much bilingualism). The United States is one of the few developed countries where learning languages isn’t a priority.

Speaking two or more languages isn’t a modern feat; it has existed forever, since communities with different languages had to communicate with each other. In fact, two major causes of bilingualism are

Trade and business: For example, nowadays people use English to conduct business, but during the third and fourth centuries BCE, buyers and sellers used Greek to trade in the Mediterranean.

The movement of people for political, religious, social, educational, or economic reasons: For example, people living in regions with political or religious conflicts migrate to other countries searching for a more stable and peaceful life. Likewise, people move in search of better work or educational opportunities.

Remember Being multilingual in our diverse world is generally considered to be a great asset. Organizations such as the United Nations support multilingualism because of its benefits to the global community. Additionally, research supports the idea that multilingualism provides a wide array of benefits that range from academic to cognitive, cultural, and even economic ones. Being part of the bilingual superpower team gives you opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t have. Bilingualism can open doors for you personally, academically, and professionally. You can find out more about the advantages of learning new languages in Chapter 4.

Uncovering Communication Categories, Components, and Design Features

Language is the main character in the language-learning process, but it isn’t the only one. Language is the tool we need to communicate with other members of our community. Thus, communication is another main character in this language-learning play. In the following sections, I define communication, describe its different modes, discuss its components, and explain how these components work together to deliver the diverse functions of language.

Technical Stuff Professor Milton Azevedo and other linguists define language as a social behavior that only humans possess and that is manifested through the creative employment of signs. These signs are arbitrary and part of an ordered system. Having an ordered system allows us to communicate with others and share our cultural expression in a wide variety of contexts.

Specifying communication categories

Communication has been defined in various ways by many linguists. In a paper published in 2017, well-known language scholar Bill VanPatten defines communication as the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning with a purpose in a given context.

In other words, communication involves people articulating ideas so that others comprehend them, and if a breakdown in communication happens, they need to negotiate the intended meaning. Language exchanges need to be purposeful and meaningful in the context where they happen.

Remember Communication can be classified as one-way or two-way communication.

One-way communication refers to communication that doesn’t require a reply. For instance, when you read an online news site, you’re receiving one-way communication because you’re reading and interpreting the meaning of the words, but you aren’t expected to reply to the site. Another example is a reporter transmitting the news on TV. The reporter is just informing viewers, not expecting to interact with them.

On the other hand, two-way communication entails a give-and-take between the people participating in the communication. One person produces language, and the other reacts to the language produced. There may be some negotiation of meaning between the two participants in the communicative act.

Remember ACTFL (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages; see Chapter 3) divides communication into three modes:

Interpretive communication is a one-way communication that entails understanding and deciphering messages. It can be in the form of reading (for example, the newspaper), listening (for example, to the radio) or viewing (for example, a movie).

Interpersonal communication is a two-way communication where the participants exchange information and negotiate meaning. Interpersonal communication can be done by speaking (for example, chatting with your friends) or writing (for example, sending text messages).

Presentational communication is a one-way communication where the speaker/writer delivers information to an audience, but has no expectation of receiving an answer from the audience.

Technical Stuff When you think of communication, you may often picture interpersonal communication, where two people share information. Communication comes from the Latin communicare, which means to share, to make common, or to inform. In fact, its root is communis, which means shared by all, common, public. When you communicate, you share information and make it common knowledge. You may recognize other English words that come from the same root, such as community. Interesting, right?

We communicate for many different purposes, such as to exchange information; transmit ideas; express wishes, emotions, and feelings; describe language itself or talk about abstract concepts; have fun with language; recreate or retell the past; or even invent the future. You can find out more about the different uses of language in communication in the later section "Clarifying Various Language Functions."

Examining components of the communication chain

Figure 1-1 shows how the communication chain works and the way we communicate our ideas.

Remember In order for human communication to happen, you need to consider these main ingredients:

The interlocutors, or users (the sender/source and the receiver), are the participants in the communication. Humans and most animals can exchange their sender and receiver role at any moment in their communicative exchange.

The message is the idea, knowledge, or feeling you want to transmit, or what you receive and need to interpret.

The code is the language used to transmit messages. Once you know the message or content you want to transmit, you need to codify it in the language you’re using, according to the rules of that language. Afterwards, the receiver will decodify your language to understand the message.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 1-1: The communication chain.

Obviously, for communication to be successful, the interlocutors need to know the code: its sounds (or its written form), the meaning of the words used, and how words are conveyed in sentences (grammar).

The medium is the channel used to transmit the message from the sender to the receiver. Nowadays, cell phones are a very popular medium used to transmit messages.

The context (setting) is the physical place where the communication occurs. The context may affect the message or the way you use the code. For instance, think of the way you would explain the reason for a sick day if you’re at a bar with friends as compared to being in the office with your boss. You would express it differently, right?

Feedback is the verbal or nonverbal response you give to the other interlocutor(s) to indicate that the message was received (or not), or to ask for clarification and the like. Feedback helps the interlocutors ensure that the communication was successful.

You can see how these components work together in Figure 1-1.

Recognizing special design features

Communication has a series of characteristics called design features (a term coined by linguist Charles Hockett in the 1960s). Although both animals and humans communicate, our communications don’t share the same design features. In fact, only humans use a sophisticated form of communication: language.

Table 1-1 provides an overview of all the design features of communication. You can see which features are shared by all communication systems and which ones are special to humans.

TABLE 1-1 Overview of Communication Design Features

What all communication systems have

Remember All communication systems have these three characteristics:

A medium/mode of communication: This design feature refers to how messages are transmitted — how they are produced and perceived. Most humans and animals communicate using an auditory-vocal mode of communication: The vocal system transmits sounds, and the auditory system receives them.

Other modes of communication used by some animals and humans are visual-gestural (used in sign languages, where messages are transmitted via hand, arm, head, and facial movements and received visually) and chemical-olfactory (some moths communicate messages with a chemical medium called pheromones).

You’ll use a new language mainly by communicating through sounds (auditory-vocal mode), but you’ll also use the visual mode (to read print, watch video, or use sign languages).

Semanticity: This feature assumes that all signals in a communication system must mean something and that the interlocutors can understand it. For instance, if I say book to you, I expect that you and I have a similar idea of what book means.

Pragmatic function: This feature refers to the fact that we use communication systems for a purpose. We produce messages to inform or influence other community members, to keep them alive, to learn new information, and the like. For example, animals use signs to indicate alarm and to indicate the source and quality of food, and humans can convey a wide variety of intentions.

What some communication systems have

While the preceding design features are shared by all communication systems, other design features are found only in certain communication systems. Of course, human communications have all these features:

Interchangeability: The users (sender and receiver) can exchange roles: I can be the sender of the message first, and a moment later I can be the receiver of some other message. Moreover, the same person can be the sender and the receiver (when you talk to yourself, for example). Not all organisms can have both roles. For instance, male silkworm moths are only receivers; they cannot send messages.

Cultural transmission: Even if it’s true that humans are preprogrammed to acquire languages (the Language Acquisition Device), we need social interaction and input from other users to learn a language and its conventions. These interactions also transmit the culture of the speech community. You cannot acquire a language in isolation; you need to be in contact and interact with other users to learn it. For example, male white-crowned sparrows learn their dialect songs from older males during their first three months after birth; male humpback whales also have their own song that evolves in contact with other humpback whales. Find out more about cultural transmission in Chapter 2.

Arbitrariness: Why do we call a certain four-legged animal dog in English? That same animal may