Voices en Español

Learning foreign languages is hot. There are tons of resources from continuing ed classes at community colleges to DVD/CD series like Rosetta Stone to podcasts. But can adults who have spent the bulk of their years speaking only one language really learn a second, third or even a fourth language? I mean really learn a language enough to effectively communicate in it and to be understood.

Lane Green, a correspondent for The Economist thinks so. He says that he has learned Spanish, French, Portugese, German and Russian all “post-puberty” and now is tackling Arabic. He wrote a piece about this for Janera, a web site for global nomads, but unfortunately you have to be a member of the community to read the entire piece. Here’s an excerpt where he makes an analogy between jazz and language learning:

Learning a language in adulthood is difficult—nothing can replace the childhood environment, much less the childhood brain. However, with patience and persistence, it can be done. To produce a foreign language requires more than lips, teeth and tongue—it requires ears, eyes and mental agility. You must listen carefully and then imitate.

Language is like jazz: both are spontaneous compositions derived from a finite set of elements (notes or words). But the jazz analogy may compel people to think that they simply don’t have the talent. What they don’t realize is how obsessively John Coltrane practiced, repeating scales and arpeggios over and over again to build up the skills he would need to make that freeform composition on the stage seem so effortless.

It is exactly the same way when composing a foreign language.

Basically his advice is to tackle language learning on all fronts: reading, speaking, listening and writing. Outside of classroom settings, CDs and DVDs, look for opportunities to use the foreign language at work, at the neighborhood coffee shop, etc., basically anywhere you can have any kind of interaction with the language.

It’s pretty obvious stuff but bears repeating because many people delude themselves into thinking they can learn a language by solely buying a stack of phrase books or downloading audio. Those things are very important, of course, but real-life contact with the language is the most important because that’s where the confidence and the true breakthroughs in speaking a language come from. In my opinion, the best way to learn a foreign language as an adult is to get a boyfriend/girlfriend who speaks the language. It especially helps if they don’t speak your native language so that way you’re forced to communicate in their language.