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"**, 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, labelling 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 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; and
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 procedures. 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 those who are seeking a more conventional approach to learning a
foreign language - check this out!
Next: The musician's language
learning advantage
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