August 24, 2009
Let’s say you’ve been booked for an extended business trip in a non-English-speaking foreign country. You know you’ll have a hard time conversing with the natives, so you brush up on a few local phrases to help tide you over. Then, you actually get there.
Even after you learn a dozen or so phrases from your language learning software, you probably don’t feel confident using them, so you go around trying to look for folks who can understand English every time you need to make conversation. While this is not a bad idea, it’s a piss poor one at best. Even worse, it won’t help you have better local interactions in the long run.
Have you ever heard of made-up words that combined the names of two languages, such as Spanglish. Generally referring to the use of both languages at the same time, it’s a technique that could help you gain more confidence in interacting with locals, while helping you improve in the new language.
The idea is to speak largely in English, while dropping whatever vocabulary you can from the target language, into the conversation. Even though the person you’re talking to doesn’t speak English, much can be gleaned from your non-verbal communication. Along with the few phrases you’ve helped and the fact that a large number of people can understand “some” English as it’s widely used, that can help move the conversation along.
If you keep doing this, building your confidence and learning from your language lessons, you’ll eventually get better. Even if you don’t evolve to speaking purely in the target language, you will have improved considerably, much more than you ever would if you just looked for the nearest English speaker all the time.
August 23, 2009
Need to practice the new language you’re studying, but don’t know anyone who speaks the vernacular? That could be a really challenging position to be in. The best solution, of course, is to find a local organization that includes folks who can converse in the language so you can get your much needed practice. While you’re still in the process of finding those, doing a few light rounds of practice on non-speakers shouldn’t hurt.
Wait, Practice On Non-Speakers?
Okay, that wasn’t very clear. What we really mean is to try incorporating small pieces of vocabulary that you learn from your language software into your everyday conversation. If you’re a native English speaker who’s studying French, how about throwing a few words of French while hanging out with your buddies?
While it won’t make sense to string together sentences in French, it shouldn’t hurt to do your greetings in the language, as well as use some French words for everyday things. In case your friends ask, just tell them the truth – that you’re trying to get practice time any way you can. They’ll understand.
French Words, French Phrases
Greetings are almost always things you can say in the target language without causing any problems. Same with other simple one-word statements like “please,” “thanks,” and “sure.” The more your friends and family get used to it, you can begin expanding your usage, adding in more and more phrases to get your practice in – even without any native speakers around.
August 22, 2009
“I’ve been studying English (or German or Japanese or any language) for two years, yet I still can’t string more than six words together.” Language instructors probably get tired of hearing that all the time. After all, it seems to be a recurrent trend among many language learners, whether they studied in a formal setting or used a language learning software.
Here’s the thing, though. If you’ve really studied a language for two years, you should be able to string at least six words together. In fact, a couple of weeks of memorizing phrases should let you do that. How? By learning the right words and phrases, of course.
Memorizing Vocabulary
Most language courses begin with learning vocabulary, along with often-used phrases and statements. Problem is, learning to ask for directions to the bus stop is only really useful in one scenario – when you’re looking for the bus stop. This means that you’re basically learning bits and pieces of language that you can only use in a limited manner – not enough to let you string together an entire conversation. Or is it?
Keeping It Flowing
The trick to learning to string together six words is to realize the most important aspect of continuity in any activity – keeping the flow. When you’re running, it’s easy to keep running until someone stops you – then, you want to sit down or rest a while or walk for a bit. Same thing with interactions.
If anything stops the flow of a conversation, then it will likely end. The way to keep that flow going is by continuing to talk, ask questions and, generally, just interacting any way you can.
Say someone asks you for the time and you answer. How about asking them something from your memorized phrases, like a good restaurant in town? When they answer, ask them if that is near the bus station (surely, you know how to ask where the bus station is – reworking that sentence to ask the modified question shouldn’t be too hard). If they ask you a question like where you are from, you can answer and ask them where they are from originally too. It’s this give and take that makes conversations flow and it’s something that you can usually manage even with just a small store of memorized vocabulary.
August 21, 2009
Language translations can’t be that difficult, right? All you have to do is match up each word with their corresponding equivalent in the target language and you’re done. That, of course, is an idea promoted only by those who actually haven’t actually translated a full document. In fact, some of the people I’ve heard argue for it don’t even speak a second language well.
Dictionary Translations. Unfortunately, language isn’t an exact science. While an English word will have its corresponding version in French, matching a sentence word per word doesn’t mean you’re going to derive the same meaning. In fact, you’re more likely to end up with a weird sentence instead. This is how old language translation software used to work and it leaves much to ask for.
Context Translations. A new development in language software is using context to define translations. Instead of matching statements word per word, it uses the framework of the entire piece to create its foreign language equivalent. While the system is not perfect, it’s considerably better than pulling each corresponding word and putting them together.
Becoming A Translator
If you really don’t want to hire an outside party to do your language translations, then your best bet is to learn to become one. It’s not going to be easy, of course, but it’s doable. If you’re looking to learn, then you’ll need the following:
- the best translation software you can find (to write first drafts from which you will build on)
- a set of language tools (including software, phrasebooks and dictionaries)
- a specialized knowledge of the specific industry you will translate documents about, particularly those local to the countries whose language you’ll be doing translations for
August 20, 2009
There are a lot of misconceptions about language translations. The web and the proliferation of these innumerable uninformed “facts” don’t help all that much, either.
If you’ve been led to believe you can skip hiring an actual translator to port documents into another language all on your own, you better get acquainted with the actual facts. While it is perfectly possible to use a translation software to turn a four-page English document into its Portuguese equivalent, there’s a good chance some parts of it will need a little (sometimes more) fine tuning.
“But I speak a foreign language…” Speaking a foreign language doesn’t automatically qualify you as a translator. Even being raised as a bilingual doesn’t instantly make you one. Depending on your level of proficiency, you may end up doing more harm than good. Different documents require different levels of skill – you may know Portuguese, but a lack of knowledge of local business parlance might still make translating business documents a difficult proposition.
When To Rely On Yourself
For the most part, you can rely on the combination of a language software plus your own skills in non-sensitive documents. If getting a translation wrong means serious problems for your business, for instance, you may want to spring the cash to hire a professional – better be safe than sorry.
August 19, 2009
As we’ve expounded on so many times, you can’t learn a language in isolation. Languages are a means of communication between people, and the only real way to learn it is by engaging in interactions.
Can’t you learn a language from a language learning software? Of course, you can. Using it, you can
memorize vocabulary, study grammar and learn how to construct sentences, among other things. However, having a store of words and grammatical constructs you can draw from is hardly the most important aspect of learning. Acquiring a language has more to do with developing abilities in communication and interaction, being a part of a community that speaks the vernacular. As such, you can’t ever truly learn a language on your own.
Unlike a skill like riding a bicycle that involve no outside component, other people are imperative to language learning. Language serves as a bridge for understanding. If you don’t use it to communicate, then your feedback mechanism is completely inadequate – about a 1 in 100, if you need a number to gauge just how lacking it is.
A more fitting comparison to the skill of language learning is the art of public speaking. You can practice giving out a speech for days on end in your bedroom, but your biggest progress will always happen once you leave the house and stand on a podium.
Don’t think you can work at language learning the same way you work on Math and History. Language has many nuances that you simply can’t pick up on your own. Read your phrasebooks and finish your language software lessons, but remember to go out and apply it as much you can.
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