The language zone #1

Here is the podcast

I believe I am a good language learner. I believe I can learn to be fluent in any language and enjoy the process. Right now I am working on Russian and thoroughly enjoying it. Mostly I listen while doing other things. I feel I am making much better progress in Russian today than I made in French as a teenager at school, despite a lot of more deliberate study of the structure of French at that time. I am a better language learner at 61 than I was at 16.

I am effective if I am "in the zone", feeling confident and enjoying myself. There are things that contribute to the feeling of being in the zone and things that destroy that feeling. I have learned over 3000 words of Russian over the last 8 months or so, according to the word count in The Linguist system. This has been achieved mostly through repetitive listening, reading and word and phrase review. I understand a lot of Russian. Yet I know that 3,000 words is nowhere near enough to enjoy a novel. Just as in English, there are a lot of words and phrases to learn. But I am going at it with enough intensity and confidence that I know I will succeed.

The other day I was chatting in English with a Russian speaker. Then I switched to Russian. She immediately corrected my Russian. That irritated me, made me lose interest in speaking Russian with her. It took me out my learning zone. My reaction was as follows.

"So what if I got the ending wrong on a word? I will eventually get more and more words right, and I will do it through a lot of exposure, listening and reading, and not because you take pleasure in correcting me.What is more I will not remember your correction the next time I have to use that word or case. I will get that word right when I am ready to, and not before."

Perhaps my reaction is unreasonable, but that is how I react. My zone was broken. It is one thing to ask for help, to ask for the meaning of a word, or how to use it, or what the right ending is, but it is quite another to be corrected while speaking. If I write and submit my text for correction, that is fine. But when I am just communicating, I do not want to be corrected. I wonder how others feel.

Comments

[Tony]

Steve,

Interestingly enough, it seems like that you dislike that people correct your speaking while you try your best to get your thoughts across. What if they just want to help you to speak better not just "take pleasure in correcting your mistakes"? In this kinf of case, are you still agray at them?

I remember that you usually correct some minor mistakes of my speaking when we have a 1 on 1 conversation. At first, I didn't like that you always interrupt my speaking just for remiding my pronounciation of "sometimes" without "s". However, I noticed that I have gradually improved this weakness of my speaking since you treat my speaking very seriously. Besides, I know that you just tries your best to help me, not "take pleasure in correcting my funny mistakes."

However, I agree with you that no one would like to be interrupted when they enjoyably share their thoughts with people in a new language.

[Tony]

Sorry Steve,

I found that I make a mistake in my previous post.

Not "it seems like that"
The correct expression is "it seems that"

I remember that you once corrected this mistake of mine in public. I should keep in mind how to use "seem" in different context.

[Bruno]

This reminds me of my first attempt at speaking Russian. I was on an exchange programme with St Petersburg university, and the dorm that was arranged for me turned out to be a horrible mess. So I set out to cleaning it, and I found I needed a carton box or something. So I looked up the word for 'box' (korobka) and 'empty' (pustoi) in my dictionary, practiced them for a while, and asked a girl in a shop for a 'pustoi korobka'. She rolled her eyes, and didn't seem to understand me for a while, when finally she sighhed: 'pustAYA korobka', and gave me the box. You see, korobka is female, so it takes a female ending on the adjective pustoi, but I find it hard to believe she really didn't understand (this was a university shop). That wasn't too helpful.
But generally, I don't mind people correcting me when we get along otherwise, and they don't do it too often, I know it helped me in some cases, but it still tends to be annoying when you really try to make a point (or when they, in correcting you, try to make one). Bruno

[Art]

Steve, it's a normal reaction to correct someone who speaks "broken" Russian. My reaction will be the same. I will correct. I think such reaction is deep inside of every Russian. :)

> So what if I got the ending wrong on a word?

In Russian that's not good. Every child is corrected for many years. I think that's how we know correct endings.

And believe me, if nobody correct your endings, you'll never get them right :)

[Josh]

I personally love getting corrections from native speakers, whether I ask for them or not. To assume that they "take pleasure in correcting your mistakes" seems a bit pessimistic to me.

[hiroshi]

I also get irritated if someone corrects my mistakes while communicating.

I remembered the times when I had lived with international students in a dormintory at my previous school, helping them learn Japanese. I then majored in teaching Japanese for foreigners, which is why I knew some teaching techniques in correcting mistakes. One of the best methods I found effective, after experimenting with various methods, was to rephrase what they said, mistakes into a correct, natural one without pointing their mistakes out directly as your friend did for you. Then, most of my friends, gaijin, seemed to have been more pleased and therefore our conversation went more smoothly. I believe that one gets input more easily when a person one communicates with corrects ones mistakes in a natural way. Perhaps, most people would not like to be interrupted while trying to get their thoughts across, I guess.

I hope that the tutors of the linguist will do the same.

hiroshi

[Geoff]

Even when I'm talking to people who have asked me to correct them, I avoid doing so if they are expressing themselves in an understandable manner. As for unsolicited corrections, if I wanted a language lesson, I would hire a tutor. If a person finds language errors that don't impede communication to be more interesting than what I have to say, either I'm wasting his time, he's wasting mine or both.

If there is a question as to what is actually being said, I like Hiroshi's approach: Affirming/confirming what the other person said with a grammatically correct rephrasing shows that you are listening to understand and are genuinely interested in what he has to say. And it shows him a better way to express the idea while affirming that he could in fact communicate it, instead of sending the message that he lacked the skill to do so.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Geoff,

I went to your blog but was unable to comment there for some reason. You should look to www.ilnarratore.com for excellent Italian content, audio books and ebooks.

[Geoff]

Steve,
A blogger outage took out the comments section for a few hours today; everything is functioning again.

Thanks for the tip about ilnarratore.com. I've acquired a few Calvino stories to work on. Nice recordings at that.

[Keith D.]

Steve,

I'm sure everybody has their own preferences. And I'm sure you will pay enough attention to get the words right eventually.

But what do you think about those people who have immigrated to North America, live and work there using only English like everybody else, they have been there for 10 or 20 years, are able to express their ideas, and don't have any communication problems but they always make the same errors? Why is that? Why doesn't everybody pay attention and improve their own English or whatever language the case might be? Isn't it because nobody ever corrects them?

You say that you will not remember the correction the next time you have to use that word or case. That seems to be true for people who just gloss over there corrections. Especially people who think, "I know I got it wrong. I always make that mistake. I'm not learning anything new." It's like they say, "yeah, yeah, whatever." You know the attitude. Those people are especially beyond help.

I'm not sure what your feelings are about when it is OK to be corrected. It sounds like you were corrected the first time you made a certain mistake and you knew you could have corrected yourself but you didn't get a chance and that is why it bothered you. I agree it is best to correct yourself. However, when someone is repeating the same mistake over and over in the same conversation, would you say that that is a good time to be corrected? I think so. It is really bad to practice mistakes. It is not bad to make mistakes, but it is bad to practice mistakes. If someone says the same incorrect sentence again and again, it will start sounding fine to that person. They will have lost the ability to ever know that that sentence just doesn't sound right.

ある外国人の同僚はいつも、何回もこのエラーをしています。「古いのファイル」い形容詞+の+名詞というエラーです。百回もそのエラーをしまったら、自分に自然な話しになってしまいます。駄目だから、ネーティブスペーカーから助けてもらったら、よかった。

It's funny that you mention speaking to someone in Russian. I just read a recent post of yours where you stated that you did not yet want to talk to anyone in Russian.

[chris(mandarin_student)]

Agreed very heartily. I don't get angry at the people that instantly correct but it does take the wind out of my sails.

As I have found myself and also seen you explain, I am not going to spontaneously correct the problem (it will take time and exposure). Not only that because the other person has corrected the pronunciation I am terrified of using that word in the remainder of the conversation. I have few enough Chinese words as it is without having them snatched away from me (I have been reduced to speechlessness by the almost instant eradication of my available vocabulary).

The real upset though is people that finish a sentence for you if you are speaking too slowly or searching for a word. I even learn t to say nei ge, nei ge ... while searching for a noun that was on the tip of my tongue, yet there are still people who would jump in.

When attempting to help someone with English I try to just make a mental note of anything that is wrong. Then if an opportunity arises I will point out perhaps the most urgent one or two things that I have noticed over the preceding time and would make an improvement (after complimenting them on the rest). Also I try to use the most positive language a I can, rather "this is wrong" use "this is how we usually say it".

Actually if talking over Skype with someone you have a good relationship with it can be nice to just discuss and suggestions by email afterwards.

[chris(mandarin_student)]

I forgot to mention I really don't believe that you will not get stuck with mistakes if you don't correct them instantly. Also just to re-iterate if someone tells me that I have pronounced a tone wrong, I will not get it right in the rest of that conversation (because I probably knew the correct tone it is just that some sounds I can only make under laboratory conditions). What is does mean is that the next time I attempt to use the word that day it will be a like a big stressful roadblock in the middle of the sentance.