#foreign language acquisition

[linguistika]

Language teachers who draw pictures to help explain............... they deserve the world

[chibimyumi]

Did you learn English as a second language, or alongside Japanese? If you learned it as a second language, can you give some tips for learning a foreign language? Specifically German, but I think most of this stuff can be universally applied.Have a nice day~😊

Dear Anon,

I think the best way to learn any language is through constant exposure.

Subtitles

Depending on whether you have strong auditory memory or visual memory, it is important adapt your language learning methods correspondingly.

I personally have a really strong visual memory but incredibly bad auditory memory, so whenever I watch movies (in any language, really), I like switching on subtitles in the corresponding language. Netflix I think is very good for that. By watching movies with subtitles, the audio and the visuals will work together to form a more memorable piece of information for my brain to hook onto. Plus, you can pause the screen and study the phrase at your own pace!

Subtitles are not just translation; they are a tool to transform auditory information into visual information. Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of parallel processing!

Exposure

It is also important to keep yourself constantly exposed at least passively. Follow German twitter for example if you are a frequent twitter user. When you scroll through your timeline your eyes will catch any grammatical pattern. Twitter has really short messages, making it a fun and bite-size learning material.

Yeeted Pride

‘Practice makes perfect’ may not really apply to languages, but it does at least make ‘much better’. ‘Practice’ being important is something everybody knows, but most people have too much pride/shame to actually do it. Yeet the pride, you don’t need it. Feel no shame and don’t hold back to use the language, even in face of native speakers! Part of the reason why children learn language so fast is because they are constantly just using the language, mistakes or not. You need to get your brain into automatising the language.

Priority

Make sure to always ask yourself what your goal is. If your goal is to be fluent in a certain target language, set the first priority realistically; namely the ability to get messages across. Only after you have achieved that ability should you worry about grammatical perfection. Don’t juggle too many balls at the same time.

Whether you say “Ich will Pfannkuchen mit dir backen” or “Pfannenkuchs backen mit du”, the message is clear and the pancakes shall be baked. (Yes, I did just google that phrase. No, German I do not speak.)

Song

If you have a strong auditory memory especially, listen to German language songs and pay extra attention to the lyrics. The reason is perfectly explained by Sebastian too ^^

I just listen to ‘die schatten werden länger‘ a lot, and even though I know next to no German, I know that the nominativ of schadows is “die schatten” and not “der/das/den/dem/whatever schatten”.

I hope this helps! I wish you a happy day too!

[undeadmoonrabbit]

Making a phone call in Japanese though is, I think, the most stressful of all language experiences. At least in an in person conversation you have some context clues and body language, and at least in writing you can take your time and read carefully. Phone conversation is like consigning yourself to the void and hoping you can understand at least half of its eldritch whispers.

[karilogue]

One of the reasons my husband and I accepted a relocation to Germany was so that our young daughter Sequoia would have the opportunity to acquire German as a second language. When we arrived, she was five. Immersing her in German and surrounding her with the culture was of utmost importance to us. Your children acquiring a foreign can be one of the most valuable byproducts of being an ex-pat, whether your move is temporary or permanent. You can help that process along without instructing them, and without yourself being fluent in the foreign language.

Here are some of the ways I fostered my child’s language acquisition when we arrived in Germany, and how you can do the same for your children.  Most of these tips can be applied to helping your child acquire any foreign language.

1. GET OUT ON THE PLAYGROUND!

Take your child to the playground. If you’re at a fast food restaurant or the mall, encourage him to play in the play area. Exposure is paramount. My daughter did not speak back to other children for a while, but she was observing and soaking in the German spoken around her as she played.  She was also observing how other children behave in this new-to-her culture.  This is one of the first things you can do to immerse your child when you arrive in German.

2. JUST SPEAK

We were always attempting to use what little German we picked up as we went along. If you do not know German, you will make mistakes. It’s natural. Germans will appreciate that you’re trying.

Make sure your child sees you trying, and also allowing yourself to make mistakes—then she’ll know it’s okay when she makes mistakes.

3. DON’T CORRECT YOUR CHILD!

This is so important. You don’t want your incessant corrections to make your child self-conscious and less comfortable with expressing himself naturally.

If you are a beginner yourself, even if you are taking lessons, you are learning one type of German while your child might be acquiring a local dialect. You will not innately know those dialect “rules”. If your child is truly making errors, he will self-correct naturally, through interaction with and feedback from native speakers.  As you and your child each make errors, just be patient, keep plugging away, and fight the urge to correct!

4. GET A GERMAN BABYSITTER

During the academic year, students of various ages from the local schools spend a few weeks at a time doing their practicum. Education students would come and go at Sequoia’s Kindergarten and she really took to one teenage girl in particular. I asked the girl to come to the house for two hours once every week, to “babysit” Sequoia, reading and playing exclusively in German. A few weeks later, Sequoia’s teacher mentioned that she suddenly opened up and began speaking. I highly recommend finding a German babysitter as soon as you are settled. Have them come over on a regular basis, to play with and read to your child.  Remember: You are not looking for a tutor; just provide your child with an environment that will foster natural acquisition.

5. VISIT LIBRARY READING HOUR

Find out when your local library has reading hours and take your child. Even if she does not understand at first, just hearing the sounds of German coming from a native speaker will be very beneficial to her own accent in the future.  There will be illustrations and the reader’s pitch and expressions to help her figure out what is going on.

6. GET SOME BOOKS!

Start simple: There’s nothing wrong with a children’s board book when all of you are just learning. We happened to be just a few months into our time here when Advent calendars came out, so finding a giant Advent calendar filled with tiny German board books behind each door was very exciting. Because the books were for little ones, the vocabulary and syntax were simple.

Then challenge yourself: Walk into a bookstore and look around the children’s books for something interesting—something that you wish you could read. Buy it. Make it your goal to be able to read this book on your own. Don’t go home and look up the words, though. Just put it on a shelf and come back every now and then to see how much of it you can get on your own. We came across “Geschichten vom Klöchen” one day during our first few weeks in Germany. On the cover, a little boy is carrying a giant book to the toilet. Inside, various things are occurring with different animals in the toilet. This presented the perfect goal: Acquire enough German to figure out what the heck was going on in that kid’s bathroom!

7. USE MAGAZINES AND OTHER PRINTED MATERIALS

  In an upcoming article, I will explain in depth how I used the magazines with freebies attached in a way that was fun, comfortable, familiar, and beneficial—for both of us.

Menus and restaurant activities, Happy Meal books, pamphlets, and signs are also helpful. Even playing the alphabet game as you’re driving or walking around reminds a child that German isn’t so different. This could be effective for children who are old enough to be intimidated by the language: show them that, aside from the β, which is nothing more than two S’s (Straβe = Strasse), and some dots on top of vowels, German and English look very alike—there’s nothing to be afraid of!

Books and other printed material can help with vocabulary acquisition and familiarizing your child with the language, but they will not help your child make much headway with actually pronouncing German. So even if you’re a stickler for books, you might have to supplement them with other media if your child is not yet immersed in a natural German-speaking environment.

8. PLAY WITH TIPTOI ELECTRONIC BOOKS AND GAMES

There are quite a few of these books, games, and puzzles for a wide age range of both boys and girls. We started out with a book about farm animals. Depending upon which setting you select, the pen reads the story to you or names objects in the page illustration, as well as performing other activities.

9. WATCH YOUTUBE

Search for German videos. It’s as easy as typing “German” or “Deutsch” in front of your search—perhaps for cartoons. My daughter watched mostly Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (“Micky Maus Wunderhaus”), Tom and Jerry, and Pink Panther. In the German versions, there is more talking in the latter two cartoons than in English versions. Sequoia was familiar with the characters, enjoyed watching them, and soon was watching without realizing the cartoons were in German.

10. WATCH MOVIES

If you are in a position to do so, buy a European DVD player and start watching German movies that your child recognizes. If there’s a movie she’s seen 750 times in English, that’s a good place to start.

It’s also a great experience to see a movie in German. If you’re not quite sure you’re ready to handle it, see it in English first and then go see it German once the family knows what to expect.

11.WATCH GERMAN TV

If you’re in a hotel, turn on German cartoons. If you have German TV access at home, turn it on. There are plenty of German cable channels with children’s programming.

12. LISTEN TO CD’s

CD’s are pretty cheap at the supermarket. You can buy children’s stories and songs, as well as CD’s with full narration of movies with which you and your child might already be familiar.

13. PLAY WITH PHONE/TABLET APPS AND GAMES

Just as in English, there are German game apps for young children, including learning games. (You might have to set up an additional itunes account on your German phone—this will allow you to purchase apps not available in the US.)

Here are a few iPhone apps that Sequoia used when she was five into the beginning of turning six years old:

Lesen Lernen fur Kinder – A dog took her through word games such as matching words, word scrambles, memory, and word searches.

Lernen Lesen 2 – a boy character took her through learning games of increasing difficulty, from matching to spelling.

Das Welt – She clicked on animals which then made animal sounds and spoke the name of the animal in German.  There were also puzzles and games to complete.

Prinzessin Lillifee games, including Vorschule. – Vorschule offered preschool games with instructions in German (including a game that taught English words).  Games included drawing, matching, and math skills. Instructions were in German, but things were intuitive, so she was completing the tasks set forth in the German instructions without realizing that these German instructions were soaking in.

14. SEND THEM TO GERMAN KINDERGARTEN/SCHOOL

An obvious way to fully immerse your child in German is to send him to school with speakers of German. Play and interaction with children his own age is a natural and very effective way for a child to acquire a second language. Have no fear: your child will pick up German even if he doesn’t speak a word of it on day one.

If some of the teachers know English, it can be easy to let your child fall into a pattern of speaking English with a teacher instead of German. Discourage the teacher from using English with your child.

15. MAKE SURE THEY’RE HAVING FUN!

The key to all of the above is that your child must be having fun. They will not become fluent, accentless speakers of German by sitting in the kitchen with you and some flashcards. They need to get out, be around native speakers, and be immersed in the language—playing, interacting, and losing themselves in the moment. Don’t force it; instead, provide opportunities for a new language to sneak up on them!

To read more about our experiences with the German schools, check out the articles I wrote for Germany, Ja!:


Is German Kindergarten Right For My Child? Part One


Is German Kindergarten Right For My Child? Part Two

  15 Ways you can help foster your child's foreign language acquisition One of the reasons my husband and I accepted a relocation to Germany was so that our young daughter Sequoia would have the opportunity to acquire German as a second language.

[pocketsoul1127]

The Way We (Should) Learn Language

The Way We (Should) Learn Language

I recently read a book called The Scientist in the Crib by Alison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff and Patricia K. Kuhl. One of the subjects they focused on is how we learn language as children.

Here are some interesting excerpts from that book:

“Babies master the sounds of their language first and that makes the words easier to learn” (p. 109).

That we learn the soundsof language before we even begin…

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