I have
always believed that in order to learn more about how to do something, it
can be quite beneficial to study the methods of those who are experts
at it. While reading a book on ancient Greece recently, I came across
a description of how Heinrich Schliemann went about learning a new
language.
The famous 19th-century German archeologist Heinrich
Schliemann (1822-1890), who pursued a life-long dream of excavating the
remains of Homeric Troy, no doubt had a genius for language. Within the
space of two years, he taught himself fluent Dutch, English, French,
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, and later went on to learn seven more,
including both modern and ancient Greek.
How could we, who generally consider ourselves lucky if we
manage to learn only one or two foreign languages in the course of an
entire lifetime, not be curious about the method he used? Let's hear what
Schliemann himself had to say about how he approached the challenge of
mastering another tongue:
"In order to acquire quickly the Greek vocabulary,"
Schliemann wrote, "I procured a modern Greek translation of 'Paul et
Virginie' [a French novel; Schliemann already knew French], and read it
through, comparing every word with its equivalent in the French original.
When I had finished this task I knew at least one half the Greek words the
book contained; and after repeating the operation I knew them all, or
nearly so, without having lost a single minute by being obliged to use a
dictionary. Of the Greek grammar I learned only the declensions and the
verbs, and never lost my precious time in studying its rules; for as I saw
that boys, after being troubled and tormented for eight years and more in
school with the tedious rules of grammar, can nevertheless none of them
write a letter in ancient Greek without making hundreds of atrocious
blunders, I thought the method pursued by the schoolmasters must be
altogether wrong... I learned ancient Greek as I would have learned a
living language."
He doesn't say how he learned to pronounce ancient Greek, but
since nobody speaks it any more, this probably didn't really matter to him
too much. In any case, one must admire the man's ingenuity, and above all,
his freedom from conventional ideas about how languages "should"
be learned. Though we tend to put such people into a category of their
own, labeling it "genius", the truth is that one of the things
that separates a so-called genius from ordinary mortals is simply the fact
that they don't limit themselves by doing everything the way most
other folks do, or by the way that "authorities" say it must be
done: they find, or create, their own methods, and do whatever
works well for them.
When we begin to learn a foreign language, we usually use a
book whose first chapters are filled with "baby stuff":
"Hello, how are you? My name is David.", or "The cat is in
the house. My brother lives in Rome.", and such things. Of course,
that would seem easier to learn than picking up a regular book in your
target language and, only with the help of an English translation, working
your way through it sentence by sentence, the way Schliemann did. But
then, he taught himself to speak ancient Greek in such a way, so
who is to say that his method wouldn't work for us if we wanted to learn
French, Italian, or German? We could always take a few classes with a
native speaker for the pronunciation, and to take our first steps in
conversation.
And the grammar? Well, by comparing the foreign language text
to an English translation, we would get a good idea of grammatical
structures; the fact that such structures would repeat themselves quite
often during the course of an entire book would mean that we would have
ample opportunity to "absorb" them, and to learn to use them
properly on our own.
There are really only two reasons why this method might not
work for you. First of all, it would take a lot of thought, and a lot of
discipline, to work your way through a foreign language book this way. You
would have to basically construct your own grammar book as you go along,
taking notes comparing structures in both languages, making your own lists
of prepositions, pronouns, verb forms, etc., as you encounter them, and so
on. Of course, when you buy a standard language-learning book, all the
grammar has already been "spelled out" for you, which makes it
seem a lot easier. On the other hand, I can't help but think that if you did
do it Schliemann's way, collecting and organizing such grammatical
information on your own might well help you to learn it considerably
faster, and to understand it a lot better.
The other reason why this method may appear to be beyond our
abilities is merely because it is so unusual: "Nobody does it that
way!" may be the way you respond when you read about Schliemann's
procedure. You may feel that if it is so uncommon, it can't be so great,
or maybe that it just couldn't work for a "normal person" like
yourself. This is more of a psychological block than anything else, and
overcoming it could be a rather mind-expanding experience. It is true that
especially at the beginning, when you don't have any vocabulary at all,
the idea of actually beginning to read a book (albeit with the aid of a
translation) in the other language would seem daunting, almost to the
point of appearing to be impossible. But I suspect that if you actually
tried it this way, after a week or so, it wouldn't seem so hard at all,
and you may well make rapid progress. And if the book you use (or I should
say, "books", since you would have one in your target language,
as well as a translation in your native tongue) is about something which
greatly interests you, by the time you finish it, you will not only have
learned a lot about the new language, but also a good bit of fascinating
information.
I myself have not tried this method yet, but at some time in
the future, I certainly will. I may not be so ambitious as to want to
follow in the archeologist Schliemann's footsteps, searching out
the ruins of ancient Troy, but trying out the linguist Schliemann's
method of language learning holds a definite attraction for me, and could
well be rewarding for anyone who tries it.
Next...
18)
The
musician's language learning advantage:
More
than just "good hearing"
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