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Can children really be smarter than us adults?

Well, maybe.

It has been observed that children who are placed into a new linguistic environment only start speaking the new and unfamiliar language tentatively and little by little. They listen and observe for quite a long time, saying nothing. Then, after some weeks, or even months, they start speaking a few words to their new play pals. The first few days they try out short sentences and a few words at a time. Then the neural connections seem to consolidate, and the child speaks fluently with his or her newfound vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation all in place. And then the vocabulary grows as they play.

You probably have an idea of what I am trying to say by now. But don’t misunderstand. Trying out new words and phrases is strongly recommended. It reinforces the building of new neural pathways. Trying to find a response too early to something you hear, on the other hand, risks playing havoc in the sorting mechanisms of your brain and directing your efforts back to the structure of your first language, which is exactly what we want to avoid.

How to choose training material then? Countless sources are available. You will need a few thousand words if your ambition is to speak with people, so it does not really matter where you start. But some topics pop up more frequently than others so it might be smart to begin there. Food is one of them. In northern countries the weather is always discussed and commented upon.

I’ll show you a few tricks in my next post.

Hasta luego
Karl

It is easy to be distracted from doing The Right Thing.

People are in a hurry. They will want to teach you how to say where you are from and how to ask back where they are from… and so on. You might even yourself want to learn right away how to order a meal at a sidewalk café in your chosen country. 

You can indeed learn these things quickly. But then the sound barrier stops you from moving on, because people talk back before you have established the necessary neural infrastructure to catch the words that come flying at you.

My advice is: 

• Don’t slow down. 
• Change direction from short-term satisfaction to long-term contentment.
• Keep the speed up. 
• Concentrate on building that neural infrastructure – new neurons, a myriad of new synapses and neural pathways to connect them. (I’ll show you how in coming posts.)Avoid, at all times, using your mother tongue’s neural pathways for your new language.

Many think that listening comes naturally. It does not. It takes patience and perseverance to learn the art of listening accurately. It is not for nothing that professional singers routinely practice do-re-mi-fa-sol and other scales. Musical sound patterns need maintenance and constant practice. So do linguistic sound patterns.

It may sound far-fetched to liken language acquisition to sports. In all sports the goal is to win competitions. That requires intensive training over long periods of time – volume training, as it were – as well as attention to detail.

Linguistic training is not so different. The goal is to win the attention and interest of the listener. I’ll show you a few techniques on how to achieve that in my next posts, one of them being the instinctive wisdom of young children.

Hasta luego
Karl

From the song Ol’ Man River:

“He don’t plant tater
He don’t plant cotton
An’ them that plants ’em is soon forgotten.”

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In my previous post I said it might not be as hard to learn new languages as everybody thinks. Well, if that is a fact why doesn’t everybody just go out and do it?

I’ll try to answer that. But beware, this simple thing might need a complicated explanation. 

As I said last time, it is all about doing The Right Thing as opposed to doing things right, and about starting at the beginning.  

So, we need to find out where the beginning really begins. I did say that language begins with the sounds,or rather sound patterns. But therein lies the problem. Sound is volatile; once uttered it’s gone, gone forever. Even whole words, as the famous singer Paul Robson sang: “… is soon forgotten”.

The first task, then, is to make sure you catch the string of sounds that you hear; after that to catch them accurately; and finally, that they’re not forgotten – neither soon, nor later.

I advise you: do not read the lyrics. Not a word, nothing. Listen to the song instead.

The spelling rules that you know are tied to your mother tongue and your brain is easily fooled, no matter how smart it otherwise is. New sounds are apt to travel down old neural pathways and to choose the wrong route, like following your usual exit off the motorway.

How this trap can be avoided? I’ll try to explain that in my next post.

Until then

Karl

Hi.

In this blog I’d like to speak to you about language and related topics. 

I’ll begin with language.

Everybody has an opinion on language. Everybody speaks at least one. Some speak two or even more. 

It is generally assumed that learning a second language well is very hard.

But as the song title suggests; It ain’t necessarily so.

It is all about doing the right thing as opposed to doing things right. And about starting at the right end, which is at the beginning!

The beginning is sound. Language is sound. So are songs. Both can be written down, but writing is not the beginning. 

Sounds fly through the air and must be caught before they are gone, in the space of milliseconds. 

That requires practice, a lot of practice. 

Strangely, most language learning methods skip the beginning and rush into reading and speaking from the very start. We did not do that as toddlers. Neither should we as adolescents or adults.

Artificial intelligence is all the rage nowadays. It can help you do miraculous things. 

So can natural intelligence. 

If you’re interested, I will show you a quicker and better path into new languages and thereby into new cultures and alternative ways of thinking. I can even show you how to build your own language course in my next post.

Until then…

/Karl Hofsö