How to Learn Any Language 26
The Plunge
Americans feel, with justification, that we’re handicapped when it come to learning other languages. Smaller countries with lots of borders and lots of strange languages on the other side offer more opportunities to absorb other languages than a gigantic United States bounded by the world’s two largest oceans and only two land neighbours, the larger one speaking, for the most part, the same language we do.
Admittedly, it’s hard to find a Dutchman who doesn’t speak four or five languages, a Swiss who doesn’t speak at least three, or a Finn, a Belgian, or a Hong Kong Chinese who doesn’t speak at least two. Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes subject us to the humiliation of speaking fluent English ot each other just to be polite when Americans are present.
Those peoples are not kissed by tongues of flame that render them more intelligent than Americans. They’re simply positioned better by geography and history when it comes to acquiring more than one language.
Americans, however, hold one high card that too frequently goes unplayed. We’re gregarious. We’re extroverts. Some say it contemptuously. Some say it admiringly. But those who know us best agree that we Americans are the only people in the world who enjoy speaking another language badly!
The typical European would sooner invite you to inspect his bedroom fifty seconds after waking up than speak a language he doesn’t speak well. Most people in the world are shy, embarrassed, even paralysed when it comes to letting themselves be heard in languages they speak less than fluently. An American may master a foreign language to the point where he considers himself fluent. A European, however, who speaks a language equally well and no better will often deny he speaks it at all!
Give an American a word in another language and he’s in action. Give him a phrase and he’s in deeper action. Give him five phrases and he’s dangerous. Take that American trait and exemplify it.
Talk. Go ahead and talk!
Head into your target language like a moth to the flame, like a politician to the vote. Is the gentleman you’ve just been introduced to from France? And is French the language you happen to be studying? Then attack.
Don’t you dare offer a lame chuckle as you explain in English that you’re trying to learn French but you’re sorry, you’re not very good at it yet. That’s like giggling and telling the mugger who ambushes you in an alley that you’re learning karate but sorry, you’re not very good at it yet.
It’s okay to tell him you’re just a beginner, but tell him in French. Learn enough utility phrases in whatever language you’re studying to profit from every encounter. Comb through your phrase book (the Berlitz For Travellers series is excellent) and make it your priority to learn phrases such as “I don’t speak your language well,” “Do you understand me?”, “Please speak more slowly,” “Please repeat,” “How do you say that in your language?”, “Sorry, I don’t understand,” and others that together can serve as your cornerstone and launching pad.
Most phrase books offer too few of these “crutch” phrases. When you meet your first encounter, pull out pen and pad and fatten your crutch collection. Learn how to say things such as, “I’m only a beginner in your language but I’m determined to become fluent,” “Do you have enough patience to talk with a foreigner who’s trying to learn your language?” “I wonder if I’ll ever be as fluent in your language as you are in English,” “I wish your language were as easy as your people are polite,” and “Where in your country do you think your language is spoken the best?” Roll your own alternatives. You’ll soon find yourself developing what comedians call a “routine,” a pattern of conversation that actually gives you a feeling of fluency along with the inspiration to nurture that feeling into fruition.
Hauling off and speaking the language you’re studying versus merely sitting there knowing it makes the difference between being a business administration professor and a multimillionaire entrepreneur.
It’s time to apply the parable of the Parrot.
A man looking for an anniversary present for his wife after fourteen years of marriage found himself in front of a pet shop. In the window was a parrot, not particularly distinguished in size or plumage, but the price tag on that parrot was a whopping seven thousand dollars because that parrot spoke, unbelieveably, fourteen different languages.
That was more than the man intended to spend but he figured, “Fourteen years, fourteen languages!” So he bought it.
He went home, mounted the parrot’s perch in the kitchen, and then realised he’d forgotten the birdseed. He ran back to the pet shop, bought the birdseed, and then ran back home, hoping to have everything in readiness before his wife got home.
Alas, she’d already returned, and when he appeared she flung herself upon him in sizzling affection, shouting, “Darling! What a marvellous anniversary present! You remembered how much I love pheasant. I’ve got him plucked. I’ve got him slit. I’ve got him stuffed. He’s in the oven and he’ll be ready in about fifty minutes.”
“You’ve got him what?” cried he. “You’ve got him where? That was no pheasant,” stormed the husband. “That was a parrot, and that parrot cost seven thousand dollars because that parrot spoke fourteen languages!”
“So,” replied his wife, “why didn’t he say something?”
And indeed, why don’t you?