I have to say that one of the biggest things I came to realize after not a few years of studying other languages that I, like most people, was that when you're learning a new language you shouldn't consider it another language. That just makes it seem that much more daunting and terrifying. Instead, all you're really doing is adding words to your vocabulary. For instance, the world for father in German, Vater (pronounced fater). It's just a different way to say the same thing. We learn new words in our original language almost every day. (if you're a student you learn far more than one new word a day)
So why do people learn those words without skipping a beat while doing the same thing in "another language" is so difficult and terrifying? Well that's something that a lot of experts probably already know but few people think about when trying to learn something new. I personally think (after years of random contemplation) that it's because people trying to learn a new language try far harder to equate the word they are trying to learn to a word that they already know rather than to what the word physically is. My epiphany if you can call it that in regards to this came to me in the form of the word circle. Everyone who speaks English fluently can tell you that a circle is a shape that has no corners, is round... etc. It looks like an O for gods sake. So the word for circle in german, Kreis, means exactly the same thing right? If you answered right to this question then congrats. you understand what I'm trying to say. so now we have two words in our vocabulary for the same thing. Circle and Kreis and one should be able to interchange them in one's conversation because they understand what it means. Kreis does mean Circle yes, but that is only in the translation of words. If you want to use really technical English it would be much easier to call them Synonyms and not Translations. Makes it a lot less daunting doesn't it?
So, the first lesson basically boils down to: Stop learning another language, and start adding to your vocabulary.
Excellent message. This is something that took me years to realize, and it applies with alphabets as well as language itself. After four years of struggling with Kanji and a few Chinese classes, I finally realized that Kanji wasn't just another layer on top of the Kana. It was just another way to express an idea. And in the end, that's all a language is: How we, as humans, express our ideas. Translation really just muddles things.
ReplyDelete