Thinking in a Foreign Language is a lot like Meditating

That is what I have on my mind this week and I blogged about it on my consulting website here. 

See what you think and try it!

FAQ 4 CAN I SPEAK A FOREIGN LANGUAGE WITH MY KIDS EVEN IF I AM NOT A NATIVE SPEAKER?

Of course you can. The trick is to make it a positive experience for your child. To do that you must concentrate on sharing your Love and Enthusiasm for the language. The opposite would be “tricking” your child into thinking you are a native speaker (I have seen this happen. Not pretty) and creating a pseudo target language environment because you think it’s going to give the kid a better chance at a job later. That would be manipulative and you will be found out.

The people who seem to have the most success sharing their foreign language with their children are the ones who learn together and/or dedicate specific times to working on or speaking the language together. This may mean watching films together in the language, listening to children’s radio programs in the target language (Kids Public Radio in English, for example) and having certain times of the day where they speak the language together-- the walk home from school, for example, or while you are getting the table set for dinner, you decide.

The only time I saw things go terribly wrong was when the non-native parent was sneaky about it.  She was a foreign language teacher, so the language was important to her and she wanted to save her daughter the pain of having to learn it like she did. Her heart was in the right place. So she created the immersion atmosphere at home.  Fine. She had all of the Disney films in the target language (they were videocassettes back then). Fine. She spoke to her child only in that language. Fine, but at some point she should have EXPLAINED to her what she was doing. She did not. The daughter eventually figured out her mother was not a native and it was all a hoax. Man, was she pissed! 

Be prepared for rebellion. 

Be open about it too. Explain why you going against the grain. If you put your kid in a school taught in a different language like I did (I speak English to my daughter, husband speaks Italian, she goes to school in Slovene), the questions will come immediately. Mine looked like this:

Why did you put me in this different school when everyone else is speaking my language?

Why are You talking to me in this funny language when I Know that with daddy you speak a different way?

You have to answer. 

Explain the advantage you are giving them. If you are passionate about languages and you want your child to be passionate about them, give every bit of reason to love the language(s) as much as you do by traveling, and enjoying the culture, getting to know other people in that language. Show that languages are about people and making friends. 

I did my best to answer my daughter. I said, “It’s good for your brain development, honey!” and “Your grandparents used to speak Slovene, dear, and Mommy is just stealing back the language that was stolen from you!”

Blank stare. Not convinced. I told her that she should stick it out and see how it goes. She did.

Then Carnevale came along and, as we always do, we went up to the Slovene part of town to celebrate. My husband and I and my daughter dressed up like the three little pigs. We walked from house to house getting treats, singing and dancing in the streets (we also drank wine). At lunch time there were two accordions and a guitar. They played all of the Triestino classics, in Slovene. Eva knew all of the songs. They were the ones that she had learned in Pre-School. Joy.

She sang her heart out that day. In Slovene.

Later that week she did one of those things you thought only adults do: she took me aside, like she was going to tell me a little secret.

“Mommy. NOW I understand why you put me in that school. It was for Carneval! So I could sing all the songs. Now I know why.”

"Yes, that is exactly right," I agreed with her.

FAQ 3 I AM TRYING TO SPEAK ITALIAN BUT MY HIGH SCHOOL FRENCH KEEPS COMING OUT. WHY?

Another variation: I am trying to speak English but German keeps coming out. In other words:

I am trying to learn a foreign language but words from the other languages I have studied come to mind instead of the ones I want. Why is that?

Sometimes when we try to learn another language we have the perception that other languages we have studied “get in the way”. When my brother came to visit me for the first time in Italy, he complained that French words he learned in High School were coming out, and there is a good reason for that.

 It is like your brain is saying: “Hmm we have to get used to a new situation here, and my native language just isn’t going to cut it” and  it goes looking for anything that is NOT your native language. It might be the French you learned in High School, for example. If this happens to you, it is a good sign.

 

It means that your brain knows to suppress your native language and, by the way, it is THIS skill that differentiates bilingual speakers from monolinguals and is responsible for all the benefits of foreign language that we read about: faster thinking, pushing off Alzheimers, etc.

 

In my brother’s case, he was lucky because that French probably helped him somewhat with his Italian because they are both Romance languages. As a general rule, if you THINK you understand a word because it reminds you of a word you learned when you were studying a different language, 99% of the time you are  going to be right.

 

So don’t worry about your other language. It may seem like an obstacle, but it is not. It can and will help you, and if you are able to suppress your native language already, you are in great shape to becoming a fluent speaker in your language of choice. Embrace it!

FAQ 2 DOES IT MATTER IF MY TEACHER IS NOT A NATIVE SPEAKER?

To this I say absolutely not, especially if your teacher is fluent and has the cultural knowledge of the language because he or she studied abroad, or at least spent some time there. Most language teachers have, because it is the easiest way to get fluent, and if you are not fluent, why would you want to teach it? 

Listen. I hate to tell you this, but you are NOT going to get your teacher’s accent. It just doesn’t work that way. We pick up our accent from those around us and then we mix that with our own habits of pronunciation that we bring with us from other languages. This is also true for children. If you want them to have a perfect accent in a language, put them in situations with native speakers their age.

Non-native speakers have the added benefit of having learned the language themselves, so they may have some tricks that a native does not. They may also hold you to a higher standard and not let you get away with making the typical mistakes that non-natives make. A good teacher will know you better than you know yourself and push you in a way that you might not expect but which allows you to achieve a high level in the language. That is also a bonus.

The fun part of learning a language is the culture. So you want to have a teacher who can share that with you. And please let the teacher be fun and exciting-- a teacher who is going to make you Love the language. Just because a teacher is a native does not mean that he or she will be a good teacher.

I would MUCH rather have a non-native speaker who is excellent than a native speaker who is a bore. How about you?

FAQ 1 I TOOK A LANGUAGE IN HIGH SCHOOL. HOW COME I CAN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING I LEARNED? IS IT MY TEACHER’S FAULT?

People who took language in high school often feel this way. It’s the teacher’s fault they didn’t learn, or it's the teacher's fault for not being a native speaker. I am here to tell you that it is not the teacher’s fault. It is not Your fault, either. You just didn’t have enough contact with the language. 

There are lots of different ideas about how long it takes to really learn a language but the one I tend to go with is this: if you are lucky enough to be in the foreign country when you are doing it, it will take you about a month to have the first big click with the language, this means you have a concrete feeling or flash or moment of clarity when you realize that you understand a lot and can speak. You are not going ot be perfect of course, but that is the first conscious jump. 

To get that click without living in a foreign country you will need about 500 hours of contact with the language, which does not necessarily mean being with a teacher (if it did, I would be rich).This can mean any kind of contact with the languae like listening to the radio or writing, reading, watching films. Any of those things contribute to the contact hours you need to have with the language. 

If you think about a typical class at a language school, you might meet once a week for two hours for the entire academic year, so maybe forty weeks. That seems like a lot, but  it will never get you to the next level in language. If you want to do that, you must give yourself a lot more than what you can get from the class alone. 

To do that, look for as many ways as you can to use the language in everyday life. This way you are not adding hours to the day, but you ARE adding contact with the language. Some easy examples are : putting your phone in the target language (every time you look at your phone you are getting contact with the language, yes 5 seconds at a time is still better than zero seconds!), and watching at least a movie a week in the target language. You can intensify the experience by putting the subtitles in the target language as well. Download an app to your phone like memrise or duolingo. That way you can practice when you have dead time, like on the bus or in line at the grocery store. 

In conclusion, if you took language in high school and then did nothing more with it but have the burning desire to get fluent some day, that time is not lost! You will see that once you put yourself back in contact with the language, a lot of things will come back to you, and quickly. 

Even if you are rusty at first, remember that the initial contact was made, so the the info is still there and waiting to wake up. Think muscle memory when you run long distance. Even if you take an extended amount of time off, you Never go back to zero. 

You Ask me, I answer You!

People ask me lots of questions about learning foreign language and helping their kids do it, too. I am going to answer them for you in a series of ten posts. Ready? Here we go.

What is an Expert?

What most people think experts are.

1. Chosen by a supreme authority.
2. Has read a secret catalogue that the rest of us have no access to.
3. Is more "authentic" than the rest of us.
4. Has a piece of paper stating that they are an expert.
5. Is generally and unquestionably considered one.
6. Is different than the rest of us.
7. Something we can never be because we are stupid, ignorant, not worthy, an impostor.

Here is my definition:

An Expert:
1. Thinks about something a lot more than than the rest of us do.
2.  Is confident about sharing her unique experience and perspective on a certain subject.
3.  Has made a conscious decision to be the best of the best at what she does.
4.  Is naturally curious and uses her resources to gather knowledge and share it.
5.  Is good at marketing.

There is no magic here. And it's not like we all have some kind of talent at something and we just need to find it.

No way. Haven't you noticed that SOME PEOPLE are just GOOD AT EVERYTHING?
It is a decision and a commitment. It is no accident. Those people have figured out how it works and apply it to everything.

We can too. Let's get off of our keisters, people, and get back to work.