Stop Learning Spanish, Acquire It
I always hear people talking and see people writing about trying to learn some freakin’ language or, when they’re serious, learning it.
The slogan of this blog is Learn How to Learn Spanish. Man, even I’m making this mistake. Learning a language… Ha! Officially, babies don’t learn a language, they acquire it. It’s thrown at them and they absord, that’s all they do. They don’t put effort in it, they don’t worry and are not even thinking about learning something. And they’re good. They end up speaking the language, even though it takes them several years. But again, that doesn’t matter, because they’re more fluent than most language learners will ever get.
I talk a lot about babies and language acquisition, but that’s because I think we’d make our lives easier if we’d all be “learning” a language like they do. I mean, people became fluent in a language without learning it. They understand and speak it because they acquired the darn language. They put no real effort in it, they just absorbed and had fun. Schools and colleges just destroyed that idea of absorbing a language. They think you have to learn it. Even when you try to just acquire a language, they come up will all kind of things to supplement your “learning”.
Lately I’ve been reading this blog of an ALG student. ALG stands for Automatic Language Growth, and like the name suggests it’s all about language “growing” inside you. You’re not learning it, but rather absorbing it, acquiring it, because of which it starts growing in you. Just read the blog and you’ll see how amazing the system is.
ALG pretty much works like this: a student enrolls in a course for which he has nothing to do except for attending class and listening. There’s no homework, no textbooks, no speaking. Just listening to some teachers for several hundreds of hours. And because of all that comprehensive listening (even though it’s not that comprehensive at first), the language starts growing in you.
Later on, the student learns (yes, as in studying a bit) how to read and write. Even speaking is covered, but only after more than 800 hours of listening. You see, after that many hours of listening the language has grown in you, making it an “adult”. You’ve acquired the language, but maybe not perfectly yet. There’s room for improvement, but that’s covered with more input and practice.
As this student proved, you don’t need to learn a language to actually speak it. Acquiring it is the goal, learning is just a way to do it. You see, the student in question had lived in Thailand for several years and learned some Thai, but didn’t speak it. So he decided to move from learning to acquiring it, and he succeeded.
Unfortunately, the ALG program is only available for a limited number of languages in Thailand. But we can replicate it and apply it to our own environment. Keith has been a great advocate of the TV method and has shown how far it can take you. But just as with ALG it takes diligence to keep going and to finally succeed.
I strongly believe we should stop talking about learning a language, because that implies that we use some kind of tool to learn it, and that’s not the most effective way to learn a language. Instead, just absorb and let the Spanish language grown in you. That’s how you learned your native tongue, and now that’s how you’re going to learn Spanish as well.
Further reading:
- Reasons why NOT stop studying Spanish
- Immersion is the way to go (and stop looking for excuses)
- Learning a Language Is Like Running a Marathon
Further
View full post on Spanish Only
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Good article. Does anyone have any sources for Italian?
I completely agree with this article but sometimes when you are “acquiring” your target language in your own country you just don’t hear it often enough and even a lesson a day does not cut it.
We invented http://lingomatch.com to make a dent in the problem by helping students find language exchange partners to hangout with between lessons. And by “hang-out” we mean just that, absorbing…not learning…
@Ramses — apologies if my question doesn’t fit here, but I think it does as it has to do with acquiring Spanish versus studying, which I have done for too long. Anyway, between here and http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/ I am getting tons of useful information. I am trying to figure out “how” to be in Spanish all the time. So far, I am in Spanish very little when I really think about it. I do the standard reading, watching T.V., listening to the radio, but I want more, more, more. I want to stay in Spanish as if it were my first language, not my second in order to really get good at it, but paying for a tutor to talk with me is expensive ($20-$30 per hour in my area). I know the standard is “make Spanish friends”, which I have done but like everyone else they have their own lives so it isn’t like a daily dose of Spanish. Besides, a true Spanish speaker simply speaks in Spanish regardless of who they are speaking to. This is the part I find most difficult, just speaking in Spanish regardless of the situation or who I am talking to/with. That is to say, if I am with a Spanish speaking friend/tutor I can easily stay in Spanish, order coffee in Spanish, etc., but when alone it isn’t happening. I get self-conscious that I look too gringo and, therefore, don’t make the attempt. Then, of course, I spend hours chastising myself for not just going for it. Any advice, words of wisdom
would sincerely be appreciated.
·@Ramses – Ah I see, sorry I got that confused. TV can only take you so far
@David – Yep and believe me I understand that well (I’m practically illiterate in my native language). But I can still follow news and other high-level conversations like a native (except academic discussions of course but even in such cases English terms are used so it’s not much of a problem) whereas I *just* can’t be able to do so in my target language. I suppose vocabulary is a barrier.
@ アカン I understand your statement, “…the very definition of native-level fluency demand that the speaker be able to do everything that a native of the target language can do?”, but not sure I completely agree. Please allow me to explain where I am confused with your statement. In our own native language (L1) we do no know “everything” that our fellow speakers know, but that does not mean that we are not fluent in our own language. I, for example, would be lost in a high-tech conversation with scientists, but this does not mean I am not fluent in my L1 language. It means that I have not studied science and, therefore, cannot speak with any authority on the subject. This would have more to do with subject matter knowledge than it would with language fluency. On the other hand, in agreement with the statement, I do believe that to consider myself as fluent in my L2 I must be able to express my thoughts in a manner that is equal to that of a native speaker at my same level of education. As Ramses pointed out, a 7 year old will communicate differently than a college graduate, but this would not mean that the 7 year old is not fluent in their own language.
I’ve never said that you can reach the same level you have now in your native language, simply by watching television or listening to music. You can compare audio-based immersion to an 6-7 year old native. Then you start reading, and ‘get older’. Then you start studying stuff, and get ‘into high school’. You just have to imitate the stages a native goes through, but you can do it faster because you already know most concepts you read and hear about in your target language.
I mean, a 7 year old is a native speaker, so when you reach that point you’ve reached native fluency. But when you want to function as an adult, you have to go further and start reading (and writing, yes) a lot in your target language.
Ramses,
Thanks for the long and detailed reply! Managed to clear a lot of doubts/misconceptions and also raise a few more:
Understand what you have to say about the written language part but unless you actually start writing at some point of time I really don’t think massive reading is going to do much good. For instance, I have plenty of friends (non-native speakers of English like me) who read piles upon piles of books but can’t write worth a darn. I suppose its the same as speaking in your second language – you know when you’re ready.
True, there’s no way you can follow a class on advanced calculus if you’ve never studied basic arithmetic. But doesn’t the very definition of native-level fluency demand that the speaker be able to do everything that a native of the target language can do? So while a native who’s an arts major might not be able to follow the Feynman lectures, he WILL be able to follow a lecture on Shakespearean literature. So in order to reach true native-level fluency it seems that you will have to educate yourself (in the target language of course) at some point of time and plain immersion won’t cut it.
Props to your spoken Spanish! Goes to show that hours and hours of input DO yield good results in the end (absolutely loved the Watching Television is Bad. Do it More! post). I’ve been focusing a lot on aural input lately (in fact almost exclusively) and I’m already getting more and more familiar with the spoken language (Japanese being my language of choice and not Spanish). Still skeptical about how this will improve my output skills though.
Thanks again for the long reply!
Thank you for your comment
. Hopefully more will follow.
Written language doesn’t come natural, but can be acquired in a more natural way by reading a lot instead of learning how to write. Every serious writing class starts with the rule: “Read a lot if you want to write well”. Reading is mainly a passive activity (although not as passive as listening), so it can come naturally.
About the more difficult subjects: did you learn about quantum physics by getting immersed in a group of people talking about the subject? No, you studied it. These subjects have nothing to do with language acquisition. I dare you to follow a conversation, in your native language, by two scientists. The subject is something you know nothing about. Can you follow it? No, because you’re not familiar with the subject. Therefore you need to study it, as much as in your native language as in your target language.
Immersion is all about getting good at the daily language, the language people use in the streets, etc. You can live a happy life knowing this language, but just like in your native language you need to read a lot and study different subjects if you want to become good at that specialized language.
About my Spanish and English: my spoken Spanish is better than my spoken English. It just come out more naturally. I don’t know how good my written Spanish is compared to my English, but I think I’m better at Spanish grammar than at English grammar (in other words: my English sentences often sound weird, whereas my Spanish sentences just sound normal).
Long-time reader (okay perhaps not THAT long), first time commenter:
It’s fine for people to advocate the natural approach insofar as spoken fluency is the only target. What about the written language though? I think we’ll all agree that our acquiring of the written language is anything but natural. Also what about technical/scientific terms such as “thermal equilibrium” or “quasi federal bicameral legislature”? Surely these terms need to be studied outside their context in order for their meanings to be fully grasped. What I don’t get is how thousands of hours of input will enable you to understand a science or a mathematics lecture that both use terms which you’re unfamiliar with.
Also, you mentioned in one of your comments that your Spanish is better than your English. By this, do you mean the spoken language alone or the written language as well? Either way it’s an amazing achievement and just goes to show how far determination and good methods can take you
Ramses wrote:
“They end up speaking the language, even though it takes them several years. But again, that doesn’t matter, because they’re more fluent than most language learners will ever get.”
In my view, the best examples of natural language acquisition are provided by young kids (5-10 years old) who learn the local language of whatever country they happen to live in. Without even thinking about it, they learn the local language to a near native level in less than a year usually.