Learning Languages

I just want to talk briefly about learning other languages. I tried to learn French when I was in Junior High. That was an unmitigated disaster. Our teacher had studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and was a very able instructor, but I had a lot of trouble wrapping my voice around the language, and never got very far. I managed to transfer out to Spanish, and I did better then.

Later I took some German in college, and it was pretty good for me. Bill and I tried to join the Peace Corps right after I graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit. We went to Hemet, California for training in an agricultural project bound for India. I learned some Hindi at that time. Very interesting.

Language learning for me really started though when I went to live in Germany. That was the way to really learn a language, to be totally immersed in it. Next I moved to Sweden and began Swedish lessons. I actually got pretty good in Swedish, and could carry on a conversation after studying it for a year. I also took lessons in Dutch while we lived in The Netherlands.

I studied Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) for a month in London, England, and got a certificate. I later taught English to a darling Greek woman in Australia.

I am living in Arizona now, only 2 hours from Mexico, so I want to learn to speak Spanish. I have heard great things about the Rosetta Stone Method of learning, so that is what I intend to use.

I would like to offer some advice to anyone trying to learn to speak a language. Have you ever seen those posters that were all the rage for a while that were actually a picture, but all scrambled up, and you had to stare slightly past them and relax your eyes, and suddenly the image would materialize? Well, for me speaking another language is just like that. When another person is speaking to you, you need to relax and let the whole sentence roll past you. Don’t hang on each word for meaning, because it is possible to get the idea of what someone is saying without actually knowing every word they are saying in their language. Their body language is also very helpful. Speaking on the phone in another language is really difficult, because you don't get the benefits of body language from the person you are speaking with.

You just need to mix it up, make some errors, butcher the other language, make
a fool of yourself for a little while in order to get to fluency. It’s alright. Most people are totally thrilled that you are taking the trouble to learn their language. The only way you will get fluent is to speak, speak, speak and listen, listen, listen. I find that laughing at myself as I speak the language eases the situation - people often want to help you to correct you grammar and pronunciation, so if you are laughing and enjoying the experience, they are more likely to help out.

Speaking another language is a window into that culture. I wish I had the time to learn a lot of languages. I work for a German company, M&W Group, and I am surrounded by Germans at my job in Phoenix.I revel in it!

I encourage you to get out there and try!!!