Monday, April 10, 2006
(11:16 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Language Learning
[Anthony did his best to do the Monday Picture-Blogging for today, but software problems prevented him. As I am currently procrastinating on writing a summary of Caputo's Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, I might as well post something.]I only have real experience so far with learning to read a language, but so far I've "done" a few: French, German, and Latin. I understand that it's better to learn how to speak and understand them as well, but since I have very little opportunity to practice such skills, it seems difficult to maintain them. Maintaining reading skills is easy, however, given the areas that I am studying. (Some sweet day, however, I will begin my lessons at the Alliance Française de Chicago -- perhaps next semester, enough to bring me up to speed for my début at the AAR/SBL.)
Given that that's my situation, then, what is the best way to go about learning a language? What seems to work? First, one must recognize that there is an infinite qualitative difference between completing grammar exercises and actually reading texts. Inevitably, once you complete the grammar book and set to work on a text that is not prepared specifically for people who are trying to learn the language, you will be stopped cold within the first three sentences -- usually, in my experience, within the first three words of the first sentence. This is frustrating, and it is always tempting to think that if you had just paid closer attention during the grammar portion of the class, or if you had memorized the vocabulary words by rote (something I never, ever do, nor do I ever make flashcards -- but maybe I should?), this would not have happened. That is not actually the case, however. Getting more and more hung up on the details of grammar (without any idea how often these points of grammar ever really even come up), or on vocabulary (without any idea how relevant these words will be for the kinds of texts you'll be reading) would only have produced unnecessary delays and, in the worst case, actually increased the existential despair associated with the first major roadblock.
Thus, my first point is that if you want to learn to read a language, get through the grammar section as quickly as possible. All those people who tell you you should take years of language courses, etc., are lying to you. Take three months, tops, to get through a grammar book (as you acquire more and more languages, this should take less and less time, at least if you're staying within the same language grouping like I am). Do the exercises, etc., to the extent that they don't piss you off. Then, since you want to read texts, you should, you know, read texts.
This leads to the second question: What is the best approach to reading texts? Should I produce a translation of them? Should I go for quantity or for quality? The first point is that you should read something you actually care about, even if it's "hard" (within reason, of course -- you shouldn't start with Ulysses if you're learning English for reading). As for issues of speed, I'm torn. On the one hand, the "plowing" method has much to recommend it, but also has some drawbacks. I found it fairly helpful for French, but then, I was starting my French-reading project during a summer when I had theoretically infinite time to put into it -- plus I was working through an additional grammar book, building vocabulary in a systematic way (though not with flashcards). I ultimately produced a polished translation of a difficult text, all while keeping up reading and all that, so that now I have very solid French reading skills.
There's not always time for all that, however. I didn't have time to do that for German, which I found more difficult overall anyway, and as such the "plowing" method led to a huge amount of frustration. I only started to develop any real confidence with German when I started up my "devotional exercises" of reading through Benjamin's Theses several times. This seems to me to be the best way to go -- take a relatively short text, then go through it several times. You'll pick up the vocabulary better that way, and, crucially, you will more quickly come to the point where you are reading rather than haltingly translating in your head and looking up the same word in the same sentence three times because it's so hard to keep all the pieces in place.
Of course, this is "cheating" because you're not really sight-reading (the ultimate goal), but it's great for your confidence to be reading something in the language with a certain degree of fluency, pretty early on -- and it frees you to see how the grammar fits together more easily, as well, without a lot of this moronic stuff of consciously labelling every noun as "masculine dative" or whatever. The endings, etc., become associated with a meaning and a function rather than a spot on a chart.
With Latin, I have gone straight to the repetitious reading of short sections, based mainly on the demands of the class for which I learned Latin, and I have been really happy with it during this short period. I have probably just gotten lucky in this respect, but I feel like the passage Marion chose for this week happens to illustrate a really broad range of grammatical points, so that's been helpful. (This is kind of luck of the draw: I feel like Benjamin was better in terms of really putting the grammar to work than my initial reading text from Nietzsche was.) But most of all, after reading the same two-page passage over the course of several days, I've gotten a bit of a preview of what it's like to read Latin fluently. That is really important, because during my German learning, I despaired of ever reading German at more than a sentence an hour.
The method of plowing through multiple texts is the best way to go if you're studying for a translation test for grad school, though. But after you take the text, try the "devotional exercise" approach. It can take as little as fifteen minutes to a half hour a day, but it makes a huge difference.
Finally, assuming that you want to learn the four primary "prestige" languages for academic studies in the humanities, this seems to me to be the best order:
- French
- German
- Latin
- Greek
Yes, that just happens to be the order the I did them. I'll probably try Greek this summer, so I'll let you know how that goes.
