Sudden language amnesia, all multilinguals know it, right? While we can name all tools in a toolbox in French, although that is not even our native language, we cannot say “milk” in English when we have to switch quickly to this language. As we learnt in the first and second article of this series, whenever we temporarily stop using a language, it retires for a nap and sometimes we cannot wake it up as fast as we need it. However, there are some exercises we can do to keep these languages alive for a longer time and this article offers practical advice on how to “recycle” two methods we probably firstly encountered in school.
If you prefer to listen to this article instead of reading it, I recorded it for you at the end of this page.
So far we’ve got to know exercises that involved minimal or medium effort from our side. I suggest we take it one (and last) step further, by learning how to use two complex methods that are suitable both for beginners and for more advanced language speakers.
WRITE
There are many ways in which we can train our writing in a certain language. Some of us can probably still remember writing short stories and essays for our foreign language classes and this might not trigger the most pleasant feelings. This is one of the reasons why the approaches I am suggesting here strongly relate to our daily life, so that we can easily see the link between what we practice in writing and our day-to-day language usage.
As most of us interact with our friends also in writing, chatting in the language we would like to improve is a good idea. This medium offers us the flexibility to decide how formal or informal our written messages are and how much time we take to write them. Via chatting we can learn how to abbreviate some words or phrases (e.g. brb for be right back) and, given the closeness of the written chat to the spoken language, also how to use slang, e.g. the verb to troll instead of to annoy. Furthermore, we can chat about topics that are relevant to us and thus the focus shifts from consciously practicing the chosen language in writing to turning it in into a means of conveying our opinions. This way, the learning process becomes informal, even invisible and more appealing to those of us who didn’t particularly enjoy writing tasks for educational purposes.
Alternatively or complementarily, we may choose to write a diary in the target language. This doesn’t have to mean writing endless pages each evening; on the contrary, we may decide upon the length and the complexity of our written texts depending on our mood and on the available time. For example, we may opt one day for naming three things we like about the language we are training and on another day we may write a detailed narrative or analysis of our progress in this language. Similarly to the reading exercise presented in the first article of this series, quantity is not necessarily the aim here, but the frequent practice. So let’s try to fill in our diary as often as possible, even if only with a few words.
Writing e-mails is another way to train a language without focusing on it too much. If we are beginners in the language we want to improve, we can begin drafting an e-mail where we firstly summarise the ideas we plan to tackle in a language we are fluent in. This trick takes away the pressure of focusing both on not forgetting an important aspect and on correctly formulating our ideas in the target language while writing the e-mail. If we need to write one e-mail in a certain language and the next one in another language, our brain may get stuck on the first language while we have already moved on to the second e-mail that requires another language. In this case we can start by directing our efforts to writing just the subject of the e-mail or the salutation in the target language, so we can give our brain a hint on the language it needs to bring forward next. We should also expect that, while writing the body of the e-mail, we discover that we can express a certain idea only in another language. There is no need to panic or to get angry about it – we can first type our thoughts in the language that they are easily formulated in and come back to them at a later stage to find their equivalents in the language we need to write in.
Once we have more experience and patience with exercising our writing in the language we want to improve, let’s go one step further towards more complex writing. Remember what I mentioned in the beginning about the direct link between our written exercises and our daily life? It is an important element that brings a sense of purpose and gives a higher utility to our writing practices. Taking this practical aspect into consideration, my next suggestion is to try to write our CV and a motivation letter for a desired job in the language we want to brush up. This way we train not just related vocabulary, but also formulations and text structures specific to the language we are writing in. We should keep in mind that the rules for writing a CV and a motivation letter relate also to cultural expectations, not only to linguistic aspects, so this exercise draws the curtain on several relevant features for the job market where the chosen language is required.
Estimated related effort: high, especially for more complex texts. We may need to look up some words in the dictionary or find suitable synonyms for avoiding repetitions. When writing our CV and the motivation letter, we would need to firstly look at some examples. Some people might consider that writing is easy, as it eliminates the focus on pronunciation. This is partially true, as there are languages that require a different pronunciation than the spelling. In this case, we also need time to figure out how to correctly write certain words, if so far we have encountered them only in their spoken form. Last, but not least, the manner in which we should write a text (the genre) plays a significant role in distinguishing a letter from a short narrative.
TALK
This one sounds easy – so we just open our mouths and let words out, right? If it only were that simple… I’m sure that many of you nod or smile ironically right now. Multilinguals know how much effort talking requires – sometimes even in the languages we are most fluent in, our dominant languages. And frequently the highest obstacle is not our linguistic skills, but our confidence in using the target language in such a dynamic rhythm imposed by talking.
The main idea for this exercise is to use the language we want to train on every occasion, regardless of our level. Our conversational partner may be at least one language level higher than us, so that their discourse can challenge us a bit. But talking to someone with comparable language skills to ours will do just fine as well, as we will most probably run into a word or a grammatical structure that is new to us and that we can learn from.
Sometimes we need to create opportunities for practicing the desired language, if our environment doesn’t naturally give us the chance to use it. For example, we may join a group where conversational partners purposely use a language for improving their skills (this is called tandem language learning). Or we can choose a family member, a friend, a neighbour who speaks that language and we run certain conversations or fragments of conversations with this person using the target language only.
The bottom line here, regardless of the context in which we choose to practice our target language, is to focus on the conversational flow, to make ourselves understood; to allow ourselves to use more words and more time for expressing our ideas and to extend our vocabulary and grammar knowledge in a less scholarly way than checking them in a dictionary or a grammar book (ok, we can also do that once the conversation is over). Let’s try not to chop up the discussion by constantly going back and analysing or correcting what we have just said. We should also avoid paying too much attention to our pronunciation and constantly shaming ourselves that we do not sound native-like when we use that language. Instead we should aim at keeping the conversation alive by using synonyms to the words we cannot remember, by using our gestures to add meaning to our speech and by simply discovering the joy of talking in the language of our choice.
Estimated related effort: high, as talking is a dynamic activity that requires a fast choice of words, grammatical elements and syntactic structures. The pronunciation and intonation imply choosing the right combination of muscles and breath for producing specific sounds and raising or lowering our voice for highlighting certain segments of our sentences. The level of concentration required may also relate to our level in that language, so it might be a good idea to keep conversations shorter while we are in the beginners’ stage and gradually add length as we gain more skills and confidence.
Try out these methods for a week and share in the comments your experience with them. Which one did you find most useful? What method does not really suit you and why? Don’t forget, language learning is an individual process, therefore we need to see what fits us best via trial and error.
The methods presented in this series are meant both for language learners and for their educators. If you are teaching a language or in a language that your students need help with or you are casually supporting someone improve their language knowledge, pass these methods on to them and gather their feedback. I would surely be glad to hear about it.
Stay tuned for the next article of this series! I will share with you then personal experiences with language learning, so come back soon for practical insights!
Yours confidently,
Corina