Learning a language can, on one level, be compared to putting together a
rather large jigsaw puzzle. Imagine that somebody gives you a puzzle that
shows a panoramic view of the grand canyon - that is, if you ever manage to
put all the pieces together. For there are several thousand of them, and
many seem to look exacerbatingly similar. So how do you do it? Little by
little, with patienece and perseverence. You know you can't do it in a day,
maybe not even in a week or a month, but if you do something on a regular
basis, connecting just a few pieces daily, you know you'll finish sooner or
later.
Admittedly, the analogy isn't perfect. After all, the puzzle
does have a limited number of pieces, and depending on how many there are
altogether, you can calculate exactly how many days it'll take you to finish
if you manage to put together, say, 3 pieces a day. A language, on the other
hand, is constantly growing, developing, changing, evolving... Nobody in the
world knows everything there is to know about his or her native tongue, let
alone a foreign language.
But then, when you set out to learn a foreign language, your
goal isn't to know everything about it (since you are aware that that isn't
possible). It is instead to master a vocabulary consisting of the most
commonly used words, to learn to use the grammar correctly, and, in the end,
to be able to understand and to make yourself understood in that language.
This is an aim that can indeed be divided up into a few thousand parts.
Working with a list of
the 1500 most frequently encountered words in your target language, as well
as a good grammar book, you might theoretically be able to determine, for
instance, 2500 "elements" that are to be learned: the 1500 vocabulary words,
plus 1 thousand grammatical units. (One grammatical unit being, for example,
the present tense of the verb "to be" in your target language; another one
being the past tense, yet another could be a rule concerning word order,
etc.)
Now, if you learn 5 parts of this "puzzle" every single day,
you know you will have achieved your goal in 500 days, or about a year and a
half (2500 "elements" divided by 5 = 500). That's not really so long, is it?
Sure, you'll have to review material already learned, but if your daily
"quota" of new elements isn't too large, you'll easily have enough time left
over for review.
Working in such a way not only guarantees progress,
but just as importantly, it serves to all but completely eliminate one of
the most formidable obstacles to learning any subject of wide scope: the
frustration you can feel when you think about all the things you'll
have to learn in order to reach your goal.
When you first begin to learn a language, it can seem a bit
overwhelming. Learning how to say "Buenos días", or "Wie geht es Ihnen?"
isn't so bad, but as soon as you want to express just about anything else,
you realize that you don't know how to do so. Even after a couple of months,
you still might have trouble speaking in tenses other than the present, and
this severely limits your ability to communicate with others. It's as if you
were climbing a mountain: if you look down, you may be delighted to see that
you have already climbed the first few hundred meters, but when you look up,
the peak may still be very far away!
By "dividing and conquering" - learning just a few little
"pieces" at a time, but on a consistent and regular basis, you will reach
your goal, with an absolute minimum of frustration.
For your daily goal will
not be "to be able to speak this *!#* language NOW!", but rather, to simply
learn a few elements, and then do the same thing tomorrow, the next day, and
so on. Patience, discipline, perseverance... and before you know it,
you will find that you can handle yourself quite well in your new language,
without ever having felt that your head was going to explode!
A piece of practical advice: when you are learning a
language, be sure you have a book that fulfills these requirements:
1) It should teach the grammar in a clear, orderly fashion, concentrating on
the most important grammatical features, without dwelling on useless
information. By "useless", I mean elements of grammar that are antiquated,
extremely rare, etc. Once you have reached an advanced level, you can always
buy another book that go into such details. But in the beginning, you should
concentrate on useful grammar, with the goal of MASTERING it.
2) It doesn't give you a vocabulary of thousands of words. During my years
of teaching English here in Spain, I have often seen books used for teaching
English to Spanish high-school students that contain words that even I have
never used in my life. This is senseless. Get yourself a list of the 1000
most common words (preferably ordered according to frequency) in your target
language, and use this as a basis for vocabulary. In your grammar book,
concentrate on memorizing the useful vocabulary; if you see a word that you
would seldom ever need, don't bother with it!
3) It contains exercises as well as an answer key in the back. There's
nothing more frustrating than to do grammar exercises, and then to have no
way to check your answers. Of course, if you are working with a teacher,
he/she can correct your mistakes. Nonetheless, since you'll no doubt be
learning alone a lot, it is a comfort to know that when you are finished the
exercises, you can immediately see if and where you went wrong.
Of course, languages cannot be learned with books alone: you
will also have to LISTEN and SPEAK. For this purpose. besides
learning vocabulary and grammar, you must learn good pronunciation, so that
you will understand others when they speak, and so that you yourself will be
understood. This takes us to our next subject, entitled...
"Be a parrot!"
5)
Be a parrot - don't think, talk!
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