How to Learn a Foreign Language

We all learned our first language, so the theory goes, we can all learn a second language. I've heard this logic repeated a few times by internet bloggers. They are trying to dispel the common sense notion that only some people are gifted in foreign languages.

A counter argument to the idea that we can all learn a second language, as we did our first, is that children learn languages differently from adults. There is some evidence to suggest that we learn our first language during an early childhood phase known as the 'critical period.'

Still, in my experience, I can say that, given the right circumstances, that almost every adult learner could learn a second language. The notion that we can learn as a child would learn, deserves examination.

When you are a child, you have to learn a language in order to communicate with the world around you. To talk to your parents, (let alone, talk back to your parents), you must speak to them in the language they understand. Similarly if everyone at your kindergarden speaks English, and all your classmates speak English, fairly soon a child is speaking English.

This same phenomena, in theory, can be replicated with adults too. While adults will have somewhat more difficult time learning a language, if they are immersed, they tend to learn. If you were dropped in the middle of Russia, in a remote area, where no one spoke English, and you had to learn Russian to survive, in a year or two, you would speak conversational Russian.

However, this line of thought, really doesn't dispel the notion that only some people are gifted in foreign languages. As with most common knowledge, the statement is grounded in some truths.

In other words, most adult learners are not dropped in a remote village, and forced to survive...so that whole theory is irrelevant because it doesn't apply to your real world circumstance. Even if you are, for example a missionary, assigned to a remote village, an adult still has resources that a child lacks. An adult will bring an interpreter. An adult will associate with whom they choose, usually bi-lingual people. And adult may live in an enclave of English speakers in that remote village.

Most adults I know, simply are not immersed, and even if they wanted to be, they cannot be. This immersion technique is simply not an option, because they have to work and live, and don't have 2 years to be immersed.

Most people I know who want to learn Russian, want to do so because they know a few people who speak Russian, and they would like to understand the culture in a way that only fluency allows. But, their workplace is English speaking. Their church is English speaking. Their home is English speaking. Even the Russians they know (wife, girlfriend, grandfather, friends, whomever it may be) speak English and are bi-lingual.

When someone is bi-lingual and one person really only speaks English, it is English that is used, not Russian.

So the whole argument that you can learn as a child, should be dismissed. You could learn as a child, if you were in the same circumstances as a child, but you aren't.

Your circumstances is that you live in an English speaking world, with almost no opportunity to practice your foreign language, and even if learning that language would be a great asset to your career, there is no compelling, learn-or-perish, situation forcing you to learn the language.

Your only way of learning is through academic study, and it is certainly true that some people are better than others at academics.

while I have respect for the many immigrant stories, about how they came to America with only 3 words of English, and they survived and became a success in speaking English, its not a rare story. What is truly rare, is to learn a foreign of language while still being only immersed in your native tongue. To learn fluent English before arriving in America, is truly rare. It is rare, because it is so difficult to do. In fact, someone who can do such a thing, is considered a language genius.

This guide is for people in a very specific circumstance. Your native language is English. You live in the United States. Where you work, the language is English. Where you live, people speak English. You want to learn a foreign language, but all the speakers of that language, that you personally know, are bi-lingual in English and speak to you in English.

You will have to be an academic language 'genius' to accomplish this feat. But the good news is, that you can be a language 'genius' if you adopt the same techniques as others who have been successful before you.

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Expectations
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First some expectations that I have heard, that are completely wrong:

1. I will learn Russian on 2 words a day.

2. I will learn Russian from the (product purchased on the internet) program.

3. My spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend will teach me Russian.

4. I will learn conversational Russian, I don't need to read or learn grammar rules.

5. The top 1000 words in Russian cover 80% of what I need to know. The top 100 cover 50%.

1. You will not learn Russian on 2 words a day, because you need to know 10,000 words in Russian. At two words per day, you will need 5,000 days. 2 words per day, means you are going to take over 13 years to learn Russian. And that is only true, if you don't forget any words, but there is an attrition rate. Until you become fluent, you aren't repeating words at the rate you need to keep them in memory. You will lose words through disuse. At two words per day, you will eventually come to a point, where you are also forgetting about two words a day, you will peak and never finish learning Russian.

2. There are programs on the internet that claim to be used by the foreign service, by CIA agents, and endorsed by the federal government. The truth of these programs is that they don't take you to fluency. You can use them to learn some vocabulary. Most of these programs stop after about 500 words. They may help you with 5% of what you need to know, but they stop after teaching you the very basics. They don't even come close to bringing someone to fluency. It's a very expensive way to learn 5% of what you need to know, but if you can afford it, it may be a good way to get started. Just remember you will have to adopt a whole different learning style, to get the last 95% of what you need to learn. So I wonder why start down a path, that isn't going to get you to the destination.

3. A lot of people think their spouse can teach them Russian. Unless your spouse is a foreign language teacher, it is highly unlikely that they know how to do that.

In Russia, there are two forms of the word 'you'. In old English, there were also two forms of the word 'you'. 'You' was formal, and 'Thou' was informal. In Russia, they still use both formal and informal. It is often the case that when two people meet each other, they use the formal 'you'.

Then, when they become friends, they could later switch to the informal 'you'.

But often, people never do. If they are in the habit of using the formal, even though they may have been friends for years, the habit of using the formal is very strong, and it would be quite awkward to stop.

Why do I say this...because its not a matter of knowledge, but one of habit.

Long before you ever gain the knowledge to speak in Russian, your wife and you will be in the habit of speaking in English to each other. Habits can be quite difficult to break.

It's easy to phrase thing in terms of language learning, and forget all the regular human habits still apply. So just don't forget, its highly unlikely you will be able to switch to Russian in your home, after years of speaking only English.

4. The idea that you will only learn conversational Russian, is rubbish. Absolutely rubbish. You have no chance. Who will speak to you in Russian, when you cannot speak in Russian? It's a catch-22 situation for which there is no solution, except academics.

In a true environment where you are immersed in Russian, someone, poor soul, has to speak to you in Russian, and you have to speak back, and although it isn't pleasant for either one of you, you do so, because you have no choice. It is an annoyance, for natives to have to listen to your bad accent, which they can barely understand, and your bad grammar which makes little sense, and they talk to you and you have that stupid blank stare on your face, and they have to repeat, and talk loudly, and you never get it! They talk to everyone easily, but you keep interrupting them and ask them to talk louder, as if it is their fault that you are so ignorant. They don't want to talk with you, but they do so because they have to. The clerk at the store, its her job to sell you the groceries, she has to talk to you, until you go away. The person at the DMV, has to talk with you. At the airport...they wish you would just learn Russian before you came to Russia, but you didn't and now they have to deal with you. Your co-workers were told by the boss to work with you, they have to do it, even though they try to avoid you.

In America trying to learn Russian is going to be difficult, because no one has to listen to your Russian, they can switch to English. And they will. You will not get the conversational practice to become fluent. It won't happen. That is for other people, not you, because if it were for you, it would have already happened. All your friends, your loved ones, have long ago engrained the habit of speaking English to you, and that habit will be very hard to overcome.

5. The top 100 words may be used rather frequently, but words like 'and' and 'at' and 'with', aren't really enough to understand what is meant in a conversation.

Expectations
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Expect you will need to study about 2 hours a day for about 5 years.

Remember when you were in 2nd grade, how many books you read a year? I don't, so I looked it up. http://www.shearonforschools.com/25_books.htm
25 books per year.

So how many books in Russian do you read per year? Most people I know, can honestly answer they have never read a single book of Russian....and they have no plans to read any either, because they are strickly 'conversational'.

That is the difference between the language 'genius' who will learn Russian (the person who will read 25 books per year, just like a 2nd grader), and the 99% who are playing some kind of game, pretending to learn Russian, but they will never be fluent.

The way you read a book in a language you don't know, is with a dictionary, and it takes a long time, but you will get a lot faster with each book you read.

If you don't read a book, you will never get faster, and you will never be fluent in the language.

Genius habit (Genius reads in Russian. Failure doesn't.)

Strong Will
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You have to have a very strong will. You are learning a foreign language, while msot people are learning English. You are swimming against the tide, so become a world class swimmer.

When I finally was able to hold a small conversation in Russian, Russians would continue to answer back in English.

Some of my friends did so, because it was very embarassing for them to speak Russian with an American. They felt like it was polite to speak English.

Other Russians were anxious to learn English, and did so because I was English practice for them.

Other Russians were simply trying to insult me. Some foreignors don't like Americans...don't kid yourself, they don't. They weren't going to help me learn Russian for any reason, because its a language of national unity, and who was I to learn Russian, I'm not Russian.

It doesn't matter...they spoke to me in English and when I answered in English, we were just speaking English, and no Russian practice was happening.

Understand your comprehension of a foreign language will be much greater than your ability to speak it. So it takes about 3 years of building your comprehension (Russian, Japanese, Korean), or about 1 year (Spanish, Italian), before you can speak conversationally.

When I was finally ready, my acquaintences would speak English and I would speak Russian back. We could talk for hours without them budging, them in English, me in Russian.

Eventually I got better. Steadily a few more people started using Russian, and more, and the one day, miraculously, the world had changed and people were willing to use Russian with me!

And looking back on it, its easy for me to say this: The real reason they didn't speak with me in Russian, is actually quite simple, it was because I couldn't really speak Russian! It wasn't them, it was me!

But...its useless for me to just tell you that. You have to have a really strong will and impose yourself, or you won't become fluent.

Make it their fault, and speak Russian, come hell or high water. Be an imposition, make them strain to understand you, make them slow down, make them repeat, make them talk louder...practice, practice, and practice.

Like a pushy vacuum cleaner salesman...to the obnoxious go the rewards! Pushy salesman make more money! Pushy language learners get the real practice they require!

Genius habit (Genius talks in Russian. Failure habit: talks about how they are learning Russian, using English).

How you really learn Russian
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You learn it from the Ether of the Cosmos. When you set up your next computer and it asks you for the language of install, you move it off the default 'English' and change it to 'Russian'.

When you browse the internet, your homepage is set to www.kp.ru, and not to www.cnn.com

On Saturday Night you watch 'Tsirk so svozdami' off satellite...you don't want Saturday Night Live.

Your next book is in Russian. Your next music Cd is by Valeriya. Your favorite internet chat room, is a russian chat room. You can type in Russian just as easily as English (you can learn to type in your own home, anyone can do it...no need for immersion there).

Genius habit (Genius: types in Russian. Failure habit: won't type in Russian)

Next time you go to vote, make Vladimir Putin a write-in candidate. (uhm, well maybe this one isn't entirely necessary).

You russify your life, and if you cannot use Russian everday, because your skill level doesn't yet allow you to even form a sentence, then you build your words and recognition of sentences until you can.

In other words, its a whole lot of work to learn a foreign language, so get crackin'.

And realize that you cannot escape the pattern. No adult likes talking like a baby, but you will do it. You cannot escape starting with the first step: talking like a baby ...only able to give commands and 2 words sentences...(it doesn't matter if you learn every grammar rule, your conversational ability will start with 2 word sentences).

You move up to being able to hold a normal conversation in present tense, but unable to talk about abstract concepts, even past tense will be difficult.

And you go through all the stages until finally you are fluent.

English to Russian learning
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You initially do leverage your knowledge of English to learn Russian, and only later do you do all your thinking in Russian and use your basic Russian to learn advanced Russian (if you get to this point great, you don't need to read this article)...so, you get a movie, it has both Russian and English on it...both a Russian language track and Russian subtitles, and an English language track and English subtitles...how do you learn best from this movie?

I've seen most people use the Russian language with English subtitles. The 99% group...those non-genius types who will never learn Russian, they seem to favor this method. It's just reading the movie in English using the Russian sounds for mood music. It makes you feel good about learning Russian, but what you are really doing is reading in English. It doesn't progress your Russian...remember the example of 2 words per day. Even if you convince me it helps you with your Russian, its only at a rate that is too slow to get you to fluency in this lifetime.

Use only the Russian soundtrack, and a dictionary. If you must, you can turn on the Russian subtitles.

So how are you leveraging English to learn Russian? The definitiion of the word is in your Russian English dictionary...thats it; That's all I meant. Someday you will graduate to a Russian only dictionary, the same way you were using an english only dictionary in 2nd grade.

Genius habit(Russian language track, Russian language Subtitles. Failure habit: Russian language track, English subtitles; English language track, Russian subtitles also doesn't work, but is rarely chosen since the non-genius types don't read Russian).

Sense of Humor
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I once meant to say I was born in America, and I accidentally said I remove my clothes in America. The words are somewhat similar...the mind plays tricks.

When you start pulling things out of your memory, sometimes it isn't right.

Eventually someone will say 'don't speak words you don't know.' Don't listen. If you are a politician giving a sensitive speach, OK, don't risk it. Language learner: You have to speak a lot of words that you are shaky on. It's part of the process.

I've said some pretty hilarious, ridiculous stuff in Russian. I've also just said some things so poorly that my conversation partner wanted to dart out of the room. It's not fun to talk with an idiot, its awkward.
But keep going forward.

How do you say it in Russian?
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You don't. They never say that phrase that you are thinking about in Russian. Not ever. But you didn't tell me the phrase....hmm and in truth, you didn't really ask the question, but I digress.

I don't care. Let's say your English phrase was: 'its all greek to me' -- if you try to get a translation, a direct translation won't make any sense at all. A less direct translation like 'it's complex like chinese grammar.'...will make sense, but is actually a bit awkward sounding. Saying something is a 'dark forrest', is probably close to what you meant, in Russian.

If you go through this process while having a conversation, basically the conversation has ended while your gears were turning. Conversations are lightning quick.

Basically get out of the habit of drawing English phrases into your head as responses and then trying to figure out the Russian equivalent.

Start building your knowledge of Russian phrases, and only from there, do you draw responses.

That's not fun, because your pool of Russian phrases is almost nil. But that is what you have to do. Build up your pool of Russian comebacks, witicisms, and sentence structures, that is the key to speaking Russian. I have met some people that did develop the ability to speak Russian in an American way, but they were never happy for having done that, and had to go back and learn the Russian way anyway.

You will get good at what you practice, so make the practice about Russian, and not English to Russian translation.

Conclusion
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You can tell by my writing style, that I am not actually a great communicator, so why then do I speak both Russian and English, when your English is great, your language skills far more advanced, your intelligence greater, and yet you are struggling on the foreign language?

Because you avoid the hard work. Pretty much anything you do in language learning that is a short cut, don't do it. Look for the hardest, longest, most difficult way to do anything.

And so I stand in exact contrast to the people who say that the reason people fail is academics make language learning too hard.

I didn't make it hard, it just is hard, so get in the habit of doing hard work. And I'm no academic, no need to use foul language.

I am proof that anyone can learn a language. I am only a language genius, in the sense that I am in that rare group: I have never been to Russia, but I speak conversational Russian.

I studied for 5 years, I read 25 books in a year, just like a 2nd grader. I chatted in Russian. I made a fool of myself countless times. I angered people, with rudeness. I seem aloof when really I don't know what to say. I've expressed opinions that were more about the words I had available to express an opinion than any true opinion. Thats some of the real parts of the process.

I've spoken out today, because the hype you get on the internet about language learning leads you down the wrong path. Hype about word games, or learning from pictures, or just try real hard because anyone can do it...all nonsense.

Anyone can do it, but, if you cannot place yourself in an immersion environment, then you need to take an academic approach that will take tremendous effort. If you can neither immerse yourself, or take extended time to study academically, then likely it is true that you don't have an option to learn a foreign language.

For some it really isn't a realistic choice...you have to do one or the other, there really isn't a choice to learn it in some super convenient way, at least not yet.

If you do take the academic self-study approach, it is challenging, and you will have to self discover what works best for you, but I hope this article is useful as a starting point and especially to give some insight on the scope and nature of the project.

Good luck!