slow or fast?

Which is better? To learn a language slowly or quickly? This may seem like a dumb question to you. If it does, then you've already made up your mind, which means that you're not being open-minded.

If, however, you are one of the people who are interested in hearing my view on this, then please keep reading.

I'm sure most people would say they want to learn a foreign language as quickly as possible. Even if I could convince them that there was a tradeoff, they'd gladly take the tradeoff. I know most language learners, though, wouldn't buy the tradeoff theory. They're the people who say there's no bad way to learn a language.

I'm not writing this post to try to convince anybody that they'll be doomed by using all those shortcuts and other 'bad for your health' techniques. I'm not even trying to convince you that you're better off learning slowly. I'm just here, expressing my thoughts.

slow vs. fast

Is it better to go slow or fast? Is it better to acquire a language or to learn a language? Can you speed things up? Can you slow things down? If the first shall be last and the last shall be first, will the slow be fast and the fast be slow? I'd say so.

Language acquisition is a process that takes time. If you want to finish the race sooner, you have to put in more time each day. There aren't any good shortcuts. Studying and memorization seem like shortcuts but the end results only prove to slow you down.

Let's take a look at how going faster is bad and why slow and steady wins the race.

Every student of language learning would like to learn quickly. In doing so, they learn many words and grammar rules and pile on so much information that it overwhelms them. They push themselves beyond what they are ready for. They set the pace of learning but they do not get the massive amount of input and exposure to the language that is required for the brain to absorb the language. Instead, all they have is words and rules that they force themselves to think about so they can construct the language and get to the conversational level as quickly as they can.

The fast learner's model of the language in their head is incomplete. There are holes in their picture of the language which means they have holes in their head. They constantly search for the right words and ways of expressing themselves in the new language. The connections to that language in the brain are still weak because of the lack of exposure.

Whenever you learn something new, such as the name of a new person, it takes time to develop a strong connection in your brain. Whenever people can't quite remember my name, they always come up with a guess of Kevin. I think there are many more Kevins than there are Keiths. The fact that they both start with the same K sound and the same first 2 letters proves that they at least made a weak connection in their brain. If they had made a strong connection, they would have gotten my name right. If the connection was weaker, they wouldn't have even come up with the name Kevin. So there is such a thing as this connection strength.

How much more difficult it must be to make connections for a foreign language whose sounds are very different from what you are used to!

When I studied Japanese in school we used a textbook. We first learned the -masu form which is the middle of the road in terms of formality. Before I could get used to that form, then they added the dictionary form which can be used for informal situations. While I still hadn't mastered the -masu form and the dictionary form was still new to me, then the textbook added the honorific forms. Next we learned how to speak to the in-group and the out-group members which includes the humble forms of speech registers. I had so much information in my head without a chance to get used to and master any of it, is it any wonder why I couldn't speak Japanese naturally?

As Steve Kaufmann points out in his posts, the brain learns when it is ready. Read point number 2 of the post that I linked to there.

When you take a slow approach such as the TV method, you acquire the language as you go along and when you are ready. The part of the language that you have acquired will constantly get reinforced as you keep watching and listening to the language. What happens to the rest of the language that you are hearing but don't yet understand? Does it just get wasted? Is it wasted time? The answer is: NO. It is not wasted. It gets stored and your brain tries to organize it and tie it in with what it already has. When there is a new phrase or word that you keep hearing and noticing, that is because the storage is getting stronger. You are paying more attention to this new phrase because your brain is working on it.

If words you didn't understand were just discarded by your brain then you would never have learned anything because in the beginning you didn't understand anything. When you were born all you could do was hear and feel and see. You didn't come preprogrammed for English. If every word you heard was discarded because you couldn't understand it, then every time you heard a word it would be like the first time you ever heard it and you would keep discarding it. You wouldn't get anywhere.

Memory is still not completely understood by researchers. Sometimes you can't remember something. Does that mean it's gone? No. Later on you remember it. So just the simple problem of recall does not mean the memory is not there. It just means your connection or path to that memory is a little weak. You may hear something in a language you don't understand. You have no chance of recalling what was said but does that imply that your brain threw it away? If your brain threw away everything you didn't understand then you'd have no chance of learning a foreign language. So recall and storage are not the same thing. Just because you cannot recall does not mean it is not stored. I think everything gets stored. So while you are listening to language that you do not understand, it is all being stored. The more you hear it, the more important it becomes and the more your brain will work on it.

And all the while, that language which you have already acquired will get stronger and stronger. What you want is for the language to feel natural to you. If it is foreign to you then you will not be comfortable using it. So one of the benefits of natural language acquisition is that you will feel comfortable using the language. If you are like me, your recall works better when you are comfortable.

I can't tell you the exact figure but something like 80% of the words used in a spoken language are the same set of words. Whether it is 2,000 words or 5,000 words, I don't know. If most of the time you are hearing the same set of words, you are going to acquire them pretty quickly. When you acquire words, you don't have to think about them at all. When you study words, then you are constantly thinking about those words. Even after you feel you know the words quite well, you have already created a habit of thinking about them. Habits are hard to break.

But natural acquisition frees you from those habits and allows you to pass up those people who studied the language. Acquisition allows you to relax and lets your brain work more effectively. It also gives you a broader exposure to the language. While the students are studying a limited set of words, you will have heard expressions that the students never encountered before. You will be ready for it. Once you acquire the meaning you will be way ahead of those students who will be trying to recall the meaning. While the students are trying to remember the meaning, they are missing the next sentence in the conversation. You will be hearing it. They will be frustrated. You will be relaxed and getting more input that will be easily processed.

In summary, trying to go fast and forcing a pace that is not natural and that creates bad habits of thinking will only get you so far. That is the ceiling. Going at the natural pace using a natural approach is very complimentary. It relaxes you which allows your brain to work more efficiently. You only use language that you are completely comfortable with. You are not thinking about grammar or wondering if what you say sounds natural. You know it is natural and you know the grammar is correct because you've heard it a thousand times. You don't need to think about words. The words just come to you.

Even now, I've got words that just come to me. A lot of English sentences start with "You." It is natural for us English speakers to start our thoughts with "You." "You" is rarely used in Japanese. I never use "You" in Japanese. So when the Chinese word for "You" pops into my head, which it often does now, I know that the thought I was about to think was my natural tendency to use "You" to begin a sentence and because I am watching the Chinese dramas so much, it just wants to come out in Chinese. I don't have the knowledge yet to complete my thoughts in Chinese so I have to stop and then I realize that Chinese is coming to me. I didn't choose it. I didn't make a decision. It just came.

I look forward to when I've acquired enough of the language to be able to converse in it. I think it will be pleasant and feel natural which is in contrast to how I feel about Japanese.

from the outside in

There are some documents worth reading over at ALG World. Among them, I highly recommend Dr. J. Marvin Brown's book, From the Outside In. By reading this book, you will understand the background and proof of Automatic Language Growth. You see, a lot of people who are aware of ALG do not realize that this is a proven method. To everybody, including myself, who have just heard about AUA Thai in the last two years, it seems that this is a new approach, but in reality, AUA has been teaching Thai this way for over 20 years now! So it's not just theory. It has been tested, verified, and implemented. When they say that speaking is not necessary and will hurt your ability to acquire the language, they know what they are talking about!

Here are the things you must not do while acquiring a new language as stated in the book:

1. Don't Speak!
2. Don't Ask!
3. Don't Look Up Words!
4. Don't Take Notes!
5. Don't Think!

All of this means, don't analyze the language. We all do this naturally as adults to some degree, and if you look at the worst language learners, you will see this over analyzing. I have worked with ESL students as a teacher or conversation partner, so I have run into these people who analyze and think about the language more than anyone else, and let me tell you, they drive me nuts! They will start thinking about the language and trying to figure out how to construct a sentence and totally ignore their teacher. It's like, hey I'm going to tell you how to say it. Would you just stop thinking and start listening! But, of course, it's the system's fault. Everybody is expected to speak and everybody expects the quiet person is not getting anywhere.

A little background on Dr. Brown will show you that he had been there and done that. He had been through the FSI drilling and "practicing until it becomes automatic" type of learning. In fact, he learned Chinese through the Navy in the 1940's and was the guinea pig for the Army Method in the 50's. He is the one who proved that their methods "worked." And in 1980, he again set out to prove that practice makes perfect:

I was excited as I walked into the Japanese class that fall quarter of 1980. I had never been less than number one in a language class—and that was without trying. This time I was going to knock myself out. Getting an “A” wouldn’t be enough. Being the best in the class wouldn’t be enough. I was going to be the best the world had ever seen. You wouldn’t believe the extremes I went to.

I practiced until I could deliver it with perfect pronunciation and without a single hesitation. Then I practiced up to double speed without a hesitation.

I did this sort of thing with daily drills and quarterly speeches for three years. It didn’t work. And I could see that it never would. Not a single sentence was ever triggered by a thought. And this had been one of my requirements for success. I had set out to prove the success of practice. I proved, instead, its failure.

So, as you can see, Dr. Brown went from a motto of practice, practice, practice to a motto of don't practice! Another thing to point out is that Dr. Brown had created Thai language programs in the traditional way. He had many years of experience in revising the program and trying to improve it the traditional way. He had left AUA and when he came back is when he started the ALG way. With the old methods of teaching Thai, in 30 years he never had a single student pass his own abilities in Thai. And he wrote that after 10 years with the ALG method, he saw students passing him up all the time.

First, we need an understanding of how advanced Dr. Brown was in Thai. He studied Thai for 4 years and was immersed in Thailand for 40 years.

Now what was my own language preparation? I had studied Thai for 2 years at Cal at 3 hours a week and 2 years at Cornell at 6 hours a week. ... So when I arrived in Thailand I had been through almost 500 hours of classroom study by the Army Method. I could make near-perfect sounds once I had assembled a sentence for delivery, but I couldn’t even begin to ‘carry on a conversation’.

Where was the guinea pig after 32 years? I told you that by 1960 I thought I had arrived. Well I kept getting better and better through the 60’s ... People described my Thai as ‘legendary’ and I tended to believe them. When I gave lectures to Thai schools, the teachers would later tell me that my Thai was better than theirs. Now I knew full well how damning this comment can be, but I still lapped it up. More convincing were things like this. I phoned to speak to an American friend, and the servant who answered the phone later told him that a Thai man had called -- and swore by it. “Are you sure it wasn’t a foreigner with perfect Thai?” (he had been expecting me to call). “No. It was a Thai. I’m 100% certain.” I could see through this too, but I was succumbing to something I said earlier: ‘Short term satisfaction tends to blind us to long term goals.’

Now, the point that I am making here is that when your language skill is that much advanced and you recognize that someone else is even bettter, then that "better" person must be really, really good!

But what were the long-term goals of the guinea pig? I had set out to prove that the Army method could produce perfect speakers. Then, I thought I had proved the method right. Now, I can see that I had proved it wrong. The difference is hiding in the word ‘speak’. Then, I was thinking of ‘delivery’ (how the speaking comes out). Since my delivery was near perfect, I had proved it right. Now, I’m thinking of ‘production’ (how I get from thought to sentence). Since my production of Thai is very different from my production of English, I must have proved it wrong. Let me put it this way. When I speak Thai, I think in Thai. When I speak English, I think only in thought--I pay no attention to English.

A mif is a mental image flash. There is an article on it by David Long at the ALG World archive page. For now, I just needed to tell you what 'mif' stands for so when you read the next quote, you won't be wondering so much.

I found long ago that whenever I was in a Thai-speaking group together with other foreigners, I could easily tell whether they were better or worse than me. When I could see what they were trying to say, I would be flashing my own internal speaking (mifs), and I could easily see how my mifs compared to theirs. Was I faster or slower than them? Better or worse? Of course anyone could do the same thing for their own range. We’ve all got such a meter.

So, how long does it take for a successful student of the ALG method to pass up Dr. Brown at speaking Thai?

Our first success story came in 1988 when our course had grown to a full year. He was the first ‘student’ to pass me up. It took him about 5 years (one year of class plus 4 years of partial immersion). The most recent success story that I noticed was in 2001--after our course had reached new heights. It took her 2½ years (1½ years of class plus 1 year of partial immersion). And this is the current state of the art: 2½ years.

Remember now, I’m talking about a level above me. Her 2½ years had overtaken my 40! Notice also that my ‘bell test’ could only come at some time after a student had finished our course; that is, after a certain amount of immersion. It just so happened that the two people mentioned above worked in our department after their course and we were thus able to observe their immersion.

So, the proof is there. The concept has been proven. To sum it up, I'll state it this way. Not thinking about the language while acquiring it is far superior to drilling, practicing, and learning the language.

Japanese makes Mandarin Chinese look easy

People tend to think that Japanese and Chinese are at about the same difficulty when it comes to English speakers learning them. I disagree. English and Chinese word order are more similar to each other than Japanese word order. Chinese grammar is much easier than either English or Japanese. Chinese words, such as verbs, never change shape. Japanese verbs are like transformers! Japanese characteristics are more round about, but Chinese are more straight forward like English. Since Japanese borrowed the Chinese characters, they also borrowed Chinese words. So there are many duplicate words in Japanese and the writing system is a mess. The only thing that is easier in Japanese is pronunciation. For everything else, you will need tons upon tons of exposure to get used to Japanese.

I am not yet an expert in Chinese, so I like to cite this article which clearly shows a difference. Keep in mind that the author learned both languages at DLI. That is the Defense Language Institute. He studied Mandarin before Japanese, so he was an experienced language learner when he studied Japanese. He was put through an intensive course and he didn't find that to be particularly difficult. Then he spent over 7 years in Japan and still didn't feel comfortable with the language. And he was not the only one who felt that way.

Japanese is hard to get used to. People keep changing their speech so you don't get enough exposure to it. The writing system can write things in different ways, so again you are robbed of exposure. You always stop to think about the verb form even though the meaning doesn't change. Well, you don't always stop to think, and then you end up not saying it the way that you know is better.

Anway, I'm going to paste that article in here because I'm afraid that one day it will no longer be available through the link. Please read the whole article. It is quite interesting. So, here it is:

Chinese Mandarin is Easy

Comparing Its Difficulty with Japanese, German, and Spanish

by Mike Wright

"The biggest impediment to learning Mandarin seems to be fear--sometimes caused by the teachers. I've studied quite a few languages, and none of them were as easy for me as Mandarin."

What I came to believe is that Mandarin is pretty easy for native English speakers, while Japanese is one of the most difficult. Mandarin syntax is easy to teach using pattern drills. Furthermore, Mandarin sentence order is similar to English--but simpler, having no inflections (thus no irregularities) and with gender, number, tense, etc. being optional, whereas they are obligatory for most of the world's languages. The only difficult part of spoken Mandarin is the tone system. Even that isn't a big problem for practical use. I know that my tones have always been weak, but when I was using the language regularly, I had no problem communicating. What turned out to be more important was to adapt to the basic pronunciation and vocabulary used by the average Hokkien speaker when speaking Mandarin. Of course, I never got to go to China. I do remember how wonderful it was to run across a native of Beijing or Tianjin in Taiwan--it was so clear.

The biggest impediment to learning Mandarin seems to be fear--sometimes caused by the teachers. I've studied quite a few languages, and none of them were as easy for me as Mandarin.

Mandarin was my first serious language, after some Spanish and German in high school and college, and it was the easiest by far.

Comparison with Japanese

I didn't find Japanese too difficult while studying it at Defense Language Institute, but when I arrived in Japan, I found that I had a lot of trouble communicating. This was very different from my experience with Mandarin. When I arrived in Taiwan, I could pretty much discuss any topic. On the other hand, I spent a total of 7.5 years in Japan, much of it associating with people who spoke little or no English, yet I never felt confident in the language. It's not so much the syntax--the conjugation of verbs and adjectives is quite regular--but the way the language is used. In many respects, it seems to be as much a problem of culture as of language per se.

Japanese syntax, as usually taught in schools, covers about 25 percent of the syntax. Even Defense Language Institute probably wasn't able to cover more than about 60 percent. It's not that it's so difficult--there's just so much of it. Compared with conversational Mandarin, there seem to be many more common ways of expressing any particular idea. The Japanese seem to be more fond of synonyms, too, leading to the need for more vocabulary items. Japanese culture adds to the burden. The Japanese don't like to just come right out and make blunt statements. They talk around the subject. By comparison, Chinese speakers and English speakers are very much alike. They tend to be direct and precise. Although this is a matter of culture, it has a big impact on the ease or difficulty of learning the language of a particular culture.

So, I'd say that what made Japanese difficult for me (and for all of my fellow Defense Language Institute graduates) is that there seems to be so much of it, and that it's spoken by people who are living in the Japanese culture.

Many of my friends had similar experiences, including one who graduated from the Japanese course with a 98 average--the highest on record. He was quite angry when he arrived in Japan and found that he couldn't get around in the language as he had been able to do with Mandarin in Taiwan.

Comparison with German and Spanish

In comparison, German and Spanish are difficult because of inflection and gender. Although many people consider these languages easy because of the large number of English cognates, my personal experience is that vocabulary is nothing. You will pick up as much as you need--as you need it. The really tricky part is the syntax. If you don't have that down, no amount of vocabulary will save you.