In my language learning and teaching journey, I have become somewhat of an armchair linguist, not formally educated nor capable, but does that stop me? Of course not. With what I have experienced and looked into, jargon for aspects of language acquisition and linguistic typology often pop up and leave me at spots that don’t make much sense. A while ago I wrote about mora-timed language for this same reason, as it gave me purpose to get it figured out. Today, as I procrastinate on studying for my biochem exam and am no longer as despondent as earlier this semester, I bring you fusional language. 

Interaction with native speakers is a crucial part of developing skills in a language. For those of us who live far from where our target language is spoken, or for those of us lost and in need of personalized help, taking lessons, specifically online lessons, is one way to bridge those gaps. Yet, for those who are not used to doing so for whatever variety of reasons, maybe cost, time, fear, or inversely, confidence, there is a mental roadblock in seeking out this type of learning environment. I want to briefly discuss the pros and cons of taking language tutoring, how to choose a tutor, and what to look for in class styles.

So, about a month ago, I decided to alter my language learning schedule by giving myself one language per day to focus on, culminating to a total of 7 languages I would be studying at once. In theory, it was a great idea; I could keep up with languages I had a good base in and make progress in ones I didn’t. But as I mentioned in my last post, the idea, of course, felt like it had its limitations and simply might not work. I can confidently say that no, it did not go as planned, but it’s okay and that was the point of this little experiment.

Although I easily get bored while watching TV, I do really enjoy listening to videos or other audio (for some reason at 2x speed when in English, or else I also get bored) while working, whether that be putting together a PowerPoint for my students or painting my photo album cover. Lately my drug of choice has been linguistic videos again, and it is really inspiring me to put more effort towards my language learning journey. A few YouTubers, like Lindie Botes, for instance, often discuss how to balance multiple languages at once, and it makes me realize I need to better organize myself to actually make substantial progress. I keep jumping around languages too often, losing progress in one while I focus on another, then vice versa when my interests or needs shift again.

Timing, AKA isochrony, is a key part of producing (and perceiving) non-written language. In English, we time our speech by the stress on the words, usually smushing together the unstressed bits so that there is equal delay between each stress. English isn’t the only language to do this– German, European Portuguese, Arabic, and many more do, and for this reason are called “stress-timed” languages. Timing can also be divided by syllable, where each syllable gets an equal amount of time. These “syllable-timed” languages include Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, and more and are easily identified by their bouncy, consistent sound.

The Silent Period is a term used in linguistics/language learning that refers to when a student is taking in the language rather than outputting it in the form of talking. For some, this is a very brief time, while for others it lasts much longer. It depends on things like the speaker’s L1 (first language), how different it is from the L2, how confident the learner naturally is, how much exposure the learner has to the language, and honestly, a lot of small factors that vary from person to person. A certain amount of familiarity is needed in a language before speaking comes naturally, or at least with understanding and confidence. If you, assuming you are a native English speaker, tried to learn Spanish and Mandarin, Spanish would probably have a shorter Silent Period given that its sounds and words are closer to English. Again, if the person in question listens to C-Pop all day, then maybe Mandarin would be a lot easier due to the familiarity. As you can see, personal experience matters.

Labas, labas (hello, hello). I have an interesting life update today.
About two weeks ago (EDIT: repost, this took place in June) I started an intensive 4 week TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) class with the International TEFL Academy to get my certification and, well, just as it sounds, learn to teach English as a foreign language. I kinda expected that it wouldn’t be too difficult in terms of topic, given I have been tutoring for years and love to learn languages, but what I did not expect was that even only halfway in, I am walking away from it with a lot of really solid information. Sure, things like creating lesson plans and writing up skill assessments have been new for me, but the methods and guidelines to actually impart information to my students have been surprising and even pointed out a lot of flaws in my own practices.
I’ll explain why in a second, but first look below at a small list of the more popular language learning methods that have popped up over time, in no particular order:

My first post (about language learning) was a little bit too rant-y for my liking. Oops. Moving on.

“You can become fluent in two months with ____ program/book/method/etc.”

I kind of want to talk about what I have seen with “fluency,” and why using one *insert method here* to learn probably won’t deliver the results all us language learners crave.

I.M.O. fluency is very situational. You learn the language you use. I would obviously argue I am fluent in English, but I’m sure if you maxed the difficulty to some wild level or discussed topics with highly specific vocabulary without learning it first, it would start to become less intelligible. Enough of that, though, what about just a general fluency, that everyday language use, maybe take an exam to prove it type? With that, most agree that there are four aspects to it (the first two for input and the latter for output):
-Reading
-Listening/Understanding
-Speaking
-Writing
To be fluent like a native speaker, you’d theoretically need to master all four of those. What this means for you is you need to find ways to practice each of them.

Howdy,
Not sure how to start off a blog so I’m just going to jump into a light discussion of something on my mind. I should also disclose that I am running on about 2 hours of sleep right now, so this is not going to be a post of quality.

Well, I like to learn languages. I don’t think I am necessarily that great at it, and it doesn’t help that I don’t spend nearly enough time studying. It is more of the overall concept I enjoy– techniques to learn best, or how languages are related, or how the grammar works (but not actually the work of memorizing all those words*), etc. The patterns and connections in systems and the ways multiple systems fit together pleases me. I personally believe that is why a biology major is a very good fit for me; every piece connects with each other at some point. (I am definitely calling out physics here *cough cough* general relativity and quantum mechanics inconsistencies bother me. I need answers.) I’m sure there are points where topics of biology don’t fit together nicely either, but everything feels more definite? Maybe it’s all in my head haha.* I enjoy learning it and being able to use it, but in natural ways, such as through using the word/grammar in a real conversation, or learning the meaning because you heard it in a song. Memorization without application is rather humdrum in my opinion.