Tag Archives: language practice

Language Acquisition

What is the Speakening Method of Language Learning?

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As I have explained before, the word “speakening” is a combination of the words “speaking” and “listening.” It describes the technique of silently and simultaneously repeating what a speaker is saying to you, thus: speaking while listening. This technique makes the native speaker’s fluent speech clear to the student. It is not, however, the only feature of the Speakening Method of Language Learning.

In fact, while the technique of speakening as described above is the answer to the ultimate problem of understanding native speakers of your new language, it is not the most important feature of the Speakening Method. The Speakening Method of Language Learning is a way of practicing that every successful language learner uses to some degree or other. I use it to the exclusion of all other methods.

With all the complicated, pretty language learning software out there, why do I restrict myself to only one practice method? The answer is simple: it is the shortest route from beginner to fluent speaker that I have yet discovered. If I find a shorter one, I will share it with you. Games, graphics, exercises, and tests take you further from, not closer to the goal of a serious language learner: to learn a new language. We are not looking to be entertained, amused, or amazed by technological detours down dead ends that delay the gratification of achieving our goal.

So what is this magical practice method? It doesn’t require any software, let alone expensive software. It doesn’t even require a computer or a mobile device. Blasphemy in the 21st century! In fact, once you understand the pronunciation of the language, all you need is enough printed material to continue increasing your vocabulary and knowledge of the structure of the language, that is, its grammar.

The practice method I extol is this:

1. Divide a sentence into phrases of no longer than 2-3 words.

(It may be necessary to occasionally practice 4-5 word phrases, but they can usually be broken down to 2-3 word phrases.)

2. Read the first phrase aloud until you can say it smoothly, not necessarily rapidly.

3. Repeat the phrase without looking at the text.

4. Repeat it silently, without looking, as rapidly as possible.

5. Repeat it one more time while looking at the text, smoothly, not necessarily rapidly.

6. Move on to the subsequent phrases in the same manner until the end of the sentence.

You can use this method with any text, even the news.

That’s it. There is no need to put the whole sentence together. The brain knows what to do with the information you’ve already given it. It’s what the brain does. Trust it.

I have spent my entire adult life honing my language learning skills so that I can learn new languages as quickly as possible. What’s the rush? First, it’s fun to speak newly acquired languages with native speakers. Not only do they appreciate the effort, many actually light up when they hear you say something in a language they never thought you could know. Next, we all have other things we both have to do and enjoy doing. I, for one, love to play the piano and guitar, write songs, dance salsa, and play chess, among other things. All these things require practice. Practice takes time. If I can get the same result in less time, it would be madness to do it any other way.

One other thing: The Speakening Method of Language Learning requires practice. Practice is just another word for repetition. Don’t let anyone tell you that repetition is of no value. Whoever believes that has never mastered any skill. Ask the greatest athletes, musicians, spiritual masters, language learners, you name it, what they did to achieve such spectacular results and they will tell you: practice, i.e. repetition. “What should you practice?” is the next question. Any good beginner’s book in your language of choice will suffice, provided you understand the pronunciation. After that, any text will do. At speakening.com, English language learners practice all the sentence patterns commonly used in English with the guidance of a native English speaker, i.e. me.

So learn the Speakening Method and practice your new language this way. You won’t be sorry. Quite the contrary; you’ll be amazed. If your language of choice is English, please feel free to join us at speakening.com. You can take your time practicing your new technique because the first ten lessons are free. By the time you’re finished working through the free lessons, we’re sure you will see the value of the method and will want to join the Speakening community of English language learners.

by John DePonte

Language Acquisition

Language Roulette

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Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I like to study. It’s just that I like knowing the things that you can only learn through studying. Since speaking a new language is one of those things that require constant study and practice, I’m always on the lookout for ways to make the language learning process more efficient and fun.

My latest experiment involves cutting the material down to even more digestible chunks. Since I need to practice more than one language at a time, it simply isn’t realistic for me to work through an entire chapter for each language every day. After all, each sentence has to be broken down into several useful phrases each to be repeated many times. So I practice one page of one language three times before moving on to the next language.

This week it’s Italian, Spanish, and Japanese. The texts I use have beautiful grammar sections complete with translated sentences that I practice for total fluency. When I’ve completed one page of Italian, I move on to Japanese, and then to Spanish. It’s a sort of language roulette. It’s quick, effective, and fun. Any book with translated sentences will do. There are some great books of idioms in many languages that are quite useful for this purpose.

Let’s look at an example. If you’re learning English, your page may have five to ten translated sentences you need to practice. Let’s say the first sentence is: If I practice English this way, I’ll be fluent in no time. This sentence divides nicely into four useful phrases. Read the first phrase while looking at the text: If I practice English. Now say it without looking at the text: If I practice English. Imagine you’re saying it to someone you know; you’ll remember it better that way. Now read it again while looking at the text: If I practice English.

Now, apply this technique to the next phrase: this way. That’s a short, easy one, but very, very useful. Then with I’ll be fluent. And finally: in no time. Each one of these phrases can be used in an infinite variety of contexts. That’s why this method of language practice is the best. You never need to memorize an entire sentence, unless the sentence itself is a short, useful phrase.

When you’ve completed the first sentence, continue through the rest of them until you’ve worked through all the sentences on that page. Now do the entire page the same way two more times, for a total of three repetitions. Depending on how many sentences there are on the page, this can take anywhere from around five to twenty minutes. You can continue through as many pages as you want in one language, or switch off to another language. It’s entirely up to you. If three repetitions of the page take too long, do two, but no fewer. The brain loves repetition; humor it.

by John DePonte

Language Acquisition

Beginner’s Luck

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I used to think that learning a new language was a matter of finding a good course book presented in three volumes: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Once you’ve mastered the material in these three volumes, you were fluent in the language. Of course, experience has once again taught me humility.

Don’t misunderstand. I’ve found some superb books, usually in two volumes that certainly lay the foundation for becoming fluent in a new language. However, after working so hard to establish that foundation I still found myself unable to understand the native spoken language. Naturally, I had to ask myself: “What did I miss?”

Well, I made the same mistake I made when, as an aspiring musician I assumed that once you learned to play the piano, you were a pianist, period. A gunslinger in the old west would never make it to his final ride off into the sunset with that attitude. If he, or she, did not practice his skills every day, and I mean every single day, it wouldn’t be long before someone younger and faster made him regret his sloth. Of course, unless it’s possible to actually die from embarrassment, the pianist and the language learner would probably be spared such a fate. The lesson here is that you never acquire a skill, “period.” You acquire a skill, “comma,” and then you practice.

Now I know that the gunslinger, the pianist, and the language learner all have to practice all the time in order or their skills to prove useful. The two questions for gunslinger, the pianist, and the language learner are, “What do I practice?” and “How do I practice it?” I can imagine what the gunslinger has to practice, and I know what the pianist has to practice. But I’m not writing this article to send you back to the OK Corral or to off to Carnegie Hall. I want to share one of my most entertaining and effective language learning techniques with you. I call it, “Beginner’s Luck.”

Most beginner language books cover pretty much the same grammatical material. Where they tend to differ is in the vocabulary. While the topics covered in these volumes will not vary wildly, they will be different enough to offer an extensive, useful daily vocabulary if you work through enough of them. I find it both effective and fun to work through several beginner books in one language over and over again. “Over and over again” is just a way of saying, “practice.”

Practicing through multiple beginner books in one language, even before moving on the intermediate level, has some surprising effects. In addition to developing an impressive vocabulary of high frequency words, the grammar of the language becomes etched in the brain in a way that is far more permanent and practical than memorizing rules. Also, the work in each book supports and simplifies the work in all the other books. This makes the process of acquiring the language easier and a lot more fun. Finally, but far from least, practicing regularly through at least three beginner books leads not only leads to fluency, it gives you an easy way to maintain it, period.

by John DePonte

Language Acquisition

Chopping Ice

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It’s winter in New York and the freezer is on the fritz. We’re chopping ice inside, and we’re chopping ice outside. It’s painstaking work, but it’s necessary. If we don’t chop the ice in the freezer, we lose all the food that’s buried underneath it. If we don’t chop the ice outside, we can’t use the car, we’ll get fined for leaving the ice on our sidewalk and stairs, or worse, someone might slip and get hurt.

As I’m working through my book of Japanese idioms, I’m noticing the similarities between working through unfamiliar language and chopping ice. You don’t always feel like you’re making progress, but you know you have to carry on. You may have to make several passes through the task before you reach your goal. Once you do reach your goal, there’s always maintenance, or “salting the sidewalk.”

What’s at once fascinating and difficult about my book of Japanese idioms is its sample sentences. Sure the explanations of the idioms are interesting. Most of them are from long ago in Japan and China, and the stories behind them can be charming or mortifying. But what interests me is the employment of these idioms in sentences that use the colloquial language of the Japan of today.

While most language books teach the “text book” language that you would learn in the classroom, good books that offer ample coverage of the idiomatic language of daily life are far and few between. No, I’m not talking about those ugly little volumes that purport to teach you the language that “you never learned in the classroom,” in other words, profanity. I’m talking about comprehensive coverage of the non-standard way that native speakers of any language combine their words, phrases, and ideas. This natural linguistic process is essential to the understanding and use of any language.

All speakers shorten their native language in ways that would be incomprehensible to a learner of that language who had only studied the “standard” language. Finding good books that teach this natural way of speaking can be challenging, but they do exist. Once you find one, start chopping ice. I like to work through the entire book, making sure I understand all that I can during the first pass. Will I understand everything the first time through? Probably not. It doesn’t matter; I know I’m going to be working through this book many times, so I just keep going.

The second time through the book, I choose those phrases that I think will be most useful and I practice them for fluency. The other phrases I just work through again as I did the first time. Then I repeat this process, adding new phrases to the fluency practice process each subsequent time through the book. If I find a phrase that doesn’t seem to be useful, I ignore it. You don’t have to do something just because the author included it in her book. Finally, I salt the sidewalk by reading through the book either until I don’t need to any more, or for the rest of my life.

by John DePonte

Language Acquisition

Fly-By Reading

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Fly-by Reading

How can I remain fluent in a language that I do not have the opportunity to use every day? That is the question. If you aspire to speak more than two languages, you need to find a way to imitate the environment in which you must use those languages in your daily life in order to maintain your skills in those languages. The problem is that we sleep for eight hours a day (at least the very luckiest of us do), we work eight hours a day, and we have responsibilities beyond work that keep us busy for most of the remaining eight hours. How can we fit our languages into our day?

I have played with many techniques for solving this problem, and one of the most promising methods I’ve developed is what I call “fly-by reading.” Anyone familiar with the Speakening method of language learning is already familiar with the core practice of dividing sentences into digestible, useful phrases and repeating those phrases for understanding and fluency. There is nothing more productive a language learner can do. However, after achieving fluency in a language, this technique can be reserved for new and unfamiliar phrases only.

Fly-by reading allows us to review vast amounts of language in a much shorter time than the essential phrase-by-phrase method. However, it is only appropriate for those languages we have already acquired. Choose an advanced text in the target language that offers several translated examples of all the grammatical structures and sentence patterns commonly found in that language. Read through these examples at a comfortable pace without stopping to repeat phrases unless you really don’t understand a particular phrase. Don’t worry too much about pronunciation; this should only be taking place in your head, not in your mouth. The faster you can do this, the better.

I have a beautiful Italian language book that offers the ideal text for fly-by reading. I took the book to one of my favorite coffee shops, bought my coffee (rent for the table), put in my headphones to listen to some of my favorite music (not really recommended for best studying practice), and started my first attempt at fly-by reading. It was 10:00 A.M. I only looked up whenever I realized that someone was talking to me, then immediately resumed my reading. When I finished the grammar sections of the twenty chapters in the book, I checked the time. It was 1:30 PM! Way too long!

I immediately knew what had gone wrong. I had automatically spent too much time practicing phrases instead of fly-by reading. When I got home, I did it with my Japanese text and it went much faster. Of course the Japanese text does not have nearly so much content as the Italian text. So, I had to try it again in Italian. Success! I was able to fly by the Italian book in less than two hours.

Now, you don’t have to do the whole book in one day. One week would be fast enough. At that rate, fly-by reading can take you through several languages in a short enough time to keep your skills fresh and growing.

 

By John DePonte

 

 

 

 

Language Acquisition

Fast Talk Reading

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When I was first learning Spanish, I was standing next to a Spanish speaking family on the deck of the Staten Island Ferry. The little girl tried to kick her father in the shin. I smiled at the father and said, “Una patada,” or “A kick.” The father and mother smiled and Dad let out a stream of Spanish of which I understood not one word. I smiled and nodded in order to avoid embarrassment, rather than admit I didn’t understand. Evidently, my reaction was inappropriate because the mother and father looked at each other, raised their eyebrows, shrugged their shoulders, and looked away. Whatever Dad said required a response that was quite different from what I did.

We’ve all pretended to hear something that we didn’t hear an nodded our heads as if we had, and most of the time no harm, no foul. Sometimes, though, we are expected to give an answer and when we nod our heads, we betray ourselves. Our esteemed listener realizes that we haven’t been listening, we didn’t understand, or we simply didn’t hear. If they believe we did, they might even be hurt because our non-verbal response actually makes sense, but it’s offensive. We’re innocent of this offense because we never heard them in the first place, but they don’t know that. The moral of the story: It is always better to admit you didn’t hear or understand than it is to pretend.

Of course, it is always better to understand in the first place. I’ve said it before, and I will continue saying it: learning to understand the speech of a native speaker in a new language is the most difficult part of the language acquisition process. When a student encounters a difficulty, his/her job becomes to make it as easy as possible. There is one thing that language learners can do that will not only help them to understand native speakers, but will make them fluent speakers themselves. I call it “fast talk reading.”

Whether you’re working through a textbook, a conversation manual, a newspaper, whatever, divide the sentences into small phrases of two or three words each. Practice these phrases aloud as fast as possible. This technique has a twofold effect: the muscles of the speaking apparatus receive training in the pronunciation of the new language at fluent speed, and the ear receives training in hearing the language at fluent speed. Even if your fastest speaking speed is not yet fluent, keep practicing. It will be. There is no need to put these phrases together into complete sentences. The brain automatically knows what to do with them.

After you’ve worked through your text using the “fast talk reading” technique, “fast read” through it without talking. Try not to physically sub-vocalize, i.e. don’t move your mouth or tongue while you’re reading. Make it all happen in the head. This is not so easy as it sounds, but if you keep it in mind, it will eventually become natural. You will find that your “fast reading” can become as fast as the speech a native speaker, and this will be your crowning achievement.

 

by John DePonte

Language Acquisition

Word for Word

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There are language courses that warn their readers never to translate word for word. The reasoning is that since languages don’t always translate word for word, you would not be learning your new language properly. So, when an English-speaking student sees the Japanese sentence, “Watashi wa amerikajin desu,” he or she should translate it as, “I am an American.” After all, that is what it means.

Unfortunately, there are three reasons that make it absolutely necessary to learn a language word for word. First, we learn vocabulary within the contexts of phrases and sentences. That means we must know what each word or lexical unit in a sentence means if we are to use those same units in other contexts. If I don’t translate “Watashi wa amerikajin desu” word for word, I will assume that “Watashi” means “I,” “wa” means “am,” “amerikajin” means “an,” and “desu” means “American.” In fact, “Watashi” does mean “I,” but that’s the only one I got right. I need to know much more than the mere meaning of the sentence in my native language.

I need to know that “wa” is a topic marker that is not translated into English, but means something like “As for.” “Watashi wa” means “As for me” (literally: I/ as for). It’s pretty clear that “amerikajin” is the word here that refers to the English word “American,” but it actually refers to an American person, i.e. “an American.” “Amerika” means “America” and “jin” adds the meaning of person. “Desu” is the Japanese equivalent of “is,” “am,” or “are.” So our literal translation is: I / as for / an American / am. It would be translated: “As for me, I am an American.” The final, idiomatic translation would be: “I am an American,” “I am American,” or “I’m American.”

The second reason that we always need word for word translations is that they provide us with insight into how the native speakers of a language think about the world we share and how they express their ideas about it. When I speak any language other than my native English, I don’t first think of the English sentence, then translate. I think of the words in the order that a native speaker would use to construct the sentence. It’s even helpful to think of the words you would use in your native language in the word order of the language you’re learning. This will help you develop a feel for putting sentences together naturally and easily in your new language. Ultimately, I say what I have to say without recourse to my native language. In other words, I think in the other language. In fact, I develop a different speaking “personality” for each language so I can commit to speaking that language like a native speaker.

The third reason that word for word translation is essential is that it is simply impossible to actually acquire a language without it. Remember, when we say we “acquire” a language, we mean we gain the ability to speak it like a native. The native speaker of any language can tell you what virtually every word in his or her sentences means. This is not a coincidence. Word for word translation, i.e. knowing what every single word means, is an indispensable feature of the language acquisition process whether we are studying a second language, or learning our mother tongue.

by John DePonte

Language Acquisition

Language Mastery: The Pincer Maneuver

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The term “pincer maneuver” is derived from tools that are used to grasp things from two sides. Tweezers and tongs are examples of pincers. The pincer maneuver is a military tactic that involves attacking the enemy from opposite sides. So, what on earth does the Pincer Maneuver have to do with language mastery? Well, I’ll tell you.

Once I have reached an advanced level in a new language, the most challenging part of the language acquisition process still lies ahead: becoming fluent. After achieving fluency, you still have to work to maintain the ability to speak the language. Use it or lose it. One of the most effective techniques I have found for these purposes is what I refer to as the Pincer Maneuver. It simply means practicing with two different books at the same time: one basic, the other advanced.

The Pincer Maneuver approaches the language from two opposite sides: beginner and advanced. Each side complements, supports, and improves the other. Most good language books will have readings, conversations, and grammar explanations. I prefer to work through the readings and conversations without referring to the grammar. After completing both books in this manner, I like to work through the examples in the grammar sections of both books. Occasionally, it helps to read through some of the grammar explanations too.

Start your Pincer Maneuver process with the two best books you can find: basic and advanced. Work through these books in the way I have described above several times. You can use these books as the basis of your language maintenance for the rest of your life. Other books can be added for constantly increasing your vocabulary, but your two “pincer” books will have already provided you with a formidable vocabulary along with most of the grammar you will ever need. Don’t worry. Most real-life conversations do not involve complex vocabulary or complicated sentence structures. Just think of the daily conversations you have in your native language.

You will find that the Pincer Maneuver is not only highly effective, but a heck of a lot of fun. The advanced material will make the basic and intermediate levels seem so simple that they become automatic. That is, you will start to become truly fluent. In addition, the advanced level will become clearer and clearer. Perhaps the most important result of using the Pincer Maneuver is that your confidence in using the language will rise to a level that will have you fearlessly conversing with native speakers.

by John DePonte

Language Acquisition

Less is More

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So you’re ready to learn English. You’ve bought your textbook, you’re seated at your desk with your coffee on the coaster, and you’re ready to go. You open to Chapter 1. It’s twenty pages long. You take a sip of your coffee. You slowly place the cup back on its coaster. Chapter 1. Twenty pages. What’s on TV?

No one wants to spend an extended period of time doing anything, much less studying.  The problem is, you want to learn English, and that takes time. Not just time, but effort too. This is where most people give up on their idea to learn the language they always wanted to know. That’s a mistake. There is a way to spend the necessary time and apply the necessary effort without feeling it.

The key to learning anything is to take it in small useful chunks. Not just small, but small and useful. It’s the usefulness of the chunk of knowledge that gives you that all too important sense of accomplishment. That sense of accomplishment is the fuel that will take you to the end of your journey. What lies at the end of this journey? In this case, it’s the ability to speak English.

By what magic do we spend the time and make the effort required for becoming fluent in English? First, let’s find the smallest useful chunk of English that will give us the feeling that we have actually learned something: a question. Next, let’s divide that question into useful phrases of two or three words each and practice those small phrases until they are fluent and we understand what the question means. Finally, let’s do the same thing with the answer to the question.

Now you can turn on the TV, secure in the knowledge that you have made real progress in your journey to English mastery. However, you’ll find that you feel so good about what you’ve just accomplished that you don’t want to watch TV. You’d much rather do another question and answer the Speakening Way. Before you know it, you’re no longer an English language learner; you’re an English speaker.

by John DePonte

 

 

Language Acquisition

How Would Ted Williams Learn a New Language?

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Ted Williams was arguably baseball’s greatest hitter. How did he become a great hitter? Let’s see what Mr. Williams himself had to say about it: “And then to practice, practice, practice. I said I hit until the blisters bled, and I did, it was something I forced myself to do to build up those hard, tough calluses. I doubt you’d see as many calluses today. Most players hit with those golf gloves, to begin with, but more important, they don’t take as much batting practice—as much extra batting practice, and that’s how you learn…You see it even it the Little Leagues. With all the regimentation they get, and all the emphasis on playing games instead of practicing, a kid isn’t afforded the time he needs in the batting cage (1986 Williams and Underwood, The Science of Hitting).

It wasn’t only in baseball that Ted Williams saw the necessity of practice: “Look at Snead and Hogan and those other golfers, they’re out there hitting practice balls forever. I’m lucky if I can get fifteen practice swings a day. If I could get an hour’s batting practice every day I could hit .450.” (1986 Williams and Underwood).

Who did Ted Williams admire as a hitter? He considered Rogers Hornsby to be the closest thing to a complete hitter that ever lived. What did Hornsby have to say about hitting? “A great hitter isn’t born, he’s made. He’s made out of practice, fault correction, and confidence” (1986 Williams and Underwood). Williams and Hornsby used to have hitting contests after practice.

What has all this got to do with learning a new language? Everything! A language is not a subject you learn about; it’s a skill you acquire. If you want to learn about language, study linguistics. If you want to learn how to speak a language, practice it. Little Leaguers playing games instead of practicing is akin to language learners engaging in conversation before they have practiced enough to be ready for it. To know that you have to practice a language is the first step. To know what to practice is the next step. There is no more efficient way to acquire a language than to practice the small phrases within the authentic sentences of native speakers.

Ted Williams once said of another player, “He practiced as much and as hard as anybody on our club but he didn’t practice the right way” (1986 Williams and Underwood). To practice a language the right way, you must repeat each small phrase of a sentence until you can say it with the fluency of a native speaker. Imitating a native speaker is best in the beginning. Then work through all the phrases until the end of the sentence, and then to the end of the book, article or whatever text you are using. Then continue to do the same thing with the same texts for the rest of your life and add more and more texts as your skill improves. When a text becomes too simple for you, discard it. But don’t underestimate the value of reviewing relatively simple texts even after you are fully fluent in the language.

Why do I turn to Ted Williams for advice on language learning? Ted Williams excelled at a skill that is, in his words, “the single most difficult thing to do in sport.” (1986 Williams and Underwood). Fluency in a new language is such a difficult skill to acquire that most of us don’t even know anyone who has succeeded at it. We all hear such common refrains as, “I took French in high school but I don’t remember a thing.” Adults who can speak the foreign language they “took” in high school are far and few between because this skill requires consistent, correct practice and most people just don’t have the determination to practice “until the blisters bleed.” That internal desire, that cannot be instilled by anyone but the student himself or herself, is what makes speaking a new language a rare and wonderful accomplishment.

by John DePonte