The real secret to language learning success - intensity.
These days I am a dilettante language learner. I have been learning Russian on my own for a few years. These past 2 weeks I have been listening to Portuguese and LingQing Portuguese, while reading, in Italian, a book on Italy's first 20 years in the 20th century. ( L'Italia di Giolitti by Montanelli). I fit my language activities in around my work, my sports and my social commitments and other things. I do it for enjoyment. In fact, these days I stress enjoyment as the key to ongoing language success for most people.
There was a time when things were different. There was a time when I had to learn a language for a living and had a different attitude. I was assigned to Hong Kong in 1967 by the Canadian Trade Department, and my job was to learn Mandarin. I was getting paid for studying. It was my job.
I learned enough to pass my Exam in Mandarin, to be able to translate newspaper editorials, in writing and orally, in both directions, and to carry on conversations,all in about 8 or 9 months. I remember what I considered the most important element of language learning success in those days. The key to me then was intensity. I still think it is, for the really serious learner.
I was sure that learning Chinese in 8 or 9 months, working 6-10 hours a day, enabled me to learn better than if I had taken 2 years to learn it, at a more leisurely pace. I think there is a white heat of activity which causes networks to form in the brain, and the hotter the temperature, the more intense the learning.
Many years later, in 2005,I remember attending a conference on corporate language learning in Dusseldorf, Germany. The conference was called Sprachen und Beruf and is held every year. I remember listening to a seminar describing the activities of corporate language learners in Germany. Apparently the average corporate language learner has one hour a week of class with a teacher, and then spends one and a half hours a week studying the language on his/her own. Apparently they do not improve very much. I am not surprised.
I have been listening to Portuguese every day here in Palm Springs, while doing dishes, while exercising, while driving to golf, even on the golf driving range, and even while golfing, (which makes my wife furious!). An every two days I put in 30-60 minutes at the computer with LingQ. If I were to listen to Portuguese once or twice a week, I do not think that I would learn anything.
But come to think of it, maybe it is pointless to promote intensity as the key to language learning. Maybe that will just scare people. Maybe the key is to find ways to make it enjoyable. Only if the activities are enjoyable will the learner put in the effort, or even come close to achieving the intensity required to make a breakthrough.




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