Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "linguistics"
Murphy's Laws
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 6. Limit input
In addition to what you learned in Step 5, avoid radio and TV in the target language.
The Internet and cable or satellite TV can keep you informed and entertained in your own language.
If you make the mistake of watching your favourite programmes dubbed into the local language, your knowledge of programmme format will make situations easy to predict; this will help you to guess the meaning of the language, which, unfortunately, might cause you to learn some of it.
Be canny: for instance, English football fans in Thailand could watch live Premiership matches on Indonesian TV, so that the language and language awareness they pick up would not be Thai.
Read a good deal, but only in your own language. Bangkok, astonishingly, has three English-language daily newspapers, as well as English-language libraries and bookshops.
Talk shop while socialising. This will prevent the people you talk to from giving you information about the target language and culture.
If you must talk about such things, try and do it only with people whose language awareness is low.
Try to hang out with people who, if they are aware of the local culture, do not like it.
This will further help to keep your integrative motivation usefully low, always providing you can stand such people.
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 6. Limit input
In addition to what you learned in Step 5, avoid radio and TV in the target language.
The Internet and cable or satellite TV can keep you informed and entertained in your own language.
If you make the mistake of watching your favourite programmes dubbed into the local language, your knowledge of programmme format will make situations easy to predict; this will help you to guess the meaning of the language, which, unfortunately, might cause you to learn some of it.
Be canny: for instance, English football fans in Thailand could watch live Premiership matches on Indonesian TV, so that the language and language awareness they pick up would not be Thai.
Read a good deal, but only in your own language. Bangkok, astonishingly, has three English-language daily newspapers, as well as English-language libraries and bookshops.
Talk shop while socialising. This will prevent the people you talk to from giving you information about the target language and culture.
If you must talk about such things, try and do it only with people whose language awareness is low.
Try to hang out with people who, if they are aware of the local culture, do not like it.
This will further help to keep your integrative motivation usefully low, always providing you can stand such people.
Murphy's Laws
20 March 2013
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 8. Develop coping strategies
If, in spite of yourself, you start to take in something of the language you’re trying not to learn, make sure you speak a pidgin version of it rather than the real thing.
Try and get the people you talk with to use a pidginised version, too.
This insistence on "foreigner talk" will cut down on genuine target language input and will help set your errors in stone.
Feign understanding.
Many languages have stock expressions for indicating that you understand, empathise and wish the speaker to continue uninterrupted. Develop such stock responses in order to preclude real conversation.
Try, if you must, to understand the meaning of what you hear or read, but without paying attention to its form. Understanding does not mean you can use what you understand.
Learn basic paralinguistic features of the target language. Gestures have been claimed to incorporate a whole semiotic system. Learning foreign gestures need not involve foreign language input, and indeed can greatly help you to avoid it.
Finally, use every opportunity to switch to your own language.
HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In Ten Easy Steps
Step 8. Develop coping strategies
If, in spite of yourself, you start to take in something of the language you’re trying not to learn, make sure you speak a pidgin version of it rather than the real thing.
Try and get the people you talk with to use a pidginised version, too.
This insistence on "foreigner talk" will cut down on genuine target language input and will help set your errors in stone.
Feign understanding.
Many languages have stock expressions for indicating that you understand, empathise and wish the speaker to continue uninterrupted. Develop such stock responses in order to preclude real conversation.
Try, if you must, to understand the meaning of what you hear or read, but without paying attention to its form. Understanding does not mean you can use what you understand.
Learn basic paralinguistic features of the target language. Gestures have been claimed to incorporate a whole semiotic system. Learning foreign gestures need not involve foreign language input, and indeed can greatly help you to avoid it.
Finally, use every opportunity to switch to your own language.
