Coping With A New Language For An Adult

Coping With A New Language For An Adult

Language learning revolves around how well we remember things and children can do this much better than adults can. Those foreign athletes and politicians we see on the television who mesmerise us by speaking English fluently, probably started learning it at a very early age and have never looked back. Adults who were lucky enough to get the basic elementary rules of grammar at school but have never since practised, may find that it will come back to them vaguely once they are in the country. For those of us who did not a language at school though, words and rules seem to go in through one ear and out of the other. Even then, we often have to see a sentence written down on paper to make any sense of it.

Another problem is pronunciation. As with all things in life, the ability to and mimic new words has not been distributed fairly. Hence some people say a word correctly the first time whilst some of us have to listen to it a number of times before it sinks in.

Adults are touchy about making mistakes and being corrected. We feel we are being criticised or attacked. Added to that, we are inhibited and feel embarrassed making these new shapes and noises with our mouths. It seems so much easier to let someone else speak English to us!Adults often do not have the staying power or discipline to learn a foreign language a baby learning to walk puts us to shame. He tumbles over endless times but he gets up for another go. Adults are easily discouraged. It can take years of study and practice to speak fluently. (Do we speak our own language all the time without making any mistakes?) The best policy is to try your hardest but do not set your goals too high. Accept that you cannot do everything as well as you would like to do. Language lessons with a teacher are only useful if an adult is motivated: there is no waving of a magic wand or a secret switch that the teacher turns on. Worse, many of us have awful school memories of being forcefed irregular verbs and being told we will never be linguists. You will know when you are ready for lessons and some people never need them.

When it does come to enrolling for a language course, the mistake that is often made is that a class is chosen because the hours (or price) suit best. Ask questions about the makeup of the group because you will not make much progress if the class is not homogeneous. Beginners feel they are holding back other, more proficient, members of the group and this is often true! Objectives are important too: do you need the language for your work while the others just want a survival course?

Expensive sets of language CDs or cassettes are sometimes bought, too, in the mistaken belief that it is an instant way of learning a language. You may well be demotivated by the very idea of all the time required to work through them. Language is a living thing it is about communication: you need a few experiences of looking at reallife people in the eye first.

It is possible to get yourself up and running without formal lessons. Borrow clear, wellwritten vocabulary books from the library if you can. Start with colourful word books aimed at young children learning French. Better still, find books with cassettes or CDs that you can listen to over and over again in the car or at home. Begin slowly, aiming at learning five new words or verbs a day. Write them down on a piece of paper to test yourself. Then gradually increase the number every day. Work yourself up to secondary school level books where you will see those first basic grammar rules and the easy tenses. At all costs, avoid books with complicated jargon.

Buy a dictionary. Even better buy two. One larger, more detailed one to keep at home and another smaller one to carry around make sure though that the print is not too small because you will want to read it easily. Look up words you do not know before you go out for an errand or pick up the phone.

Do not expect the locals to understand you first time, but do not falter: it is perhaps because you are nervous that they have not heard you. Speak up with confidence. Give the person you are talking to time to answer too: my sons say I keep repeating myself and that is because I assume I have not been understood whereas, in fact, that split second silence is thinking time.

If you are really determined about speaking a foreign language then you should maximise your opportunities of doing so. Go to the local market to force yourself into situations where you need to speak to people. Unlike the assistants in the supermarket, local stall holders depend on you going back to buy, so they have time for a chat in the hope of making a new client. Speak to elderly people: they have time to talk and give you the opportunity of improving your new language.

Watch the local television: you may pick up some basics just watching the commercials.

Buy the local newspaper from time to time. You will find some useful words just going through the small ads! Without making it an academic exercise, force yourself to look up the odd word you do not understand in your dictionary. Even copy it out a few times on a blank piece of paper to assimilate it.

For adults, language learning is a long, hard process and we must not expect too much of ourselves too quickly. Think of it in terms of brushing your teeth: if you are serious about this, it is something that you have to spend a bit of time on every day.