Guest Writing for Voices en Español

A couple of months ago I was approached by Eleena, from the blog Voices en Español, who asked me if I would be interested being a guest writer from time to time on her blog. I was flattered and intrigued. I try to keep the focus of this blog to language learning, languages and polyglots. Three topics that often converge. I also publish exclusively in English to reach a wider audience. Writing for Voices en Español would give me the opportunity to write in both English and Spanish and take a more sociopolitical approach to certain linguistic topics.

My first post as a guest writer for Voices en Español is in English here and in Spanish here. It deals with the immigration controversy in the USA and how monolingual America is misunderstanding the problem and misdirecting its anger. Even if you are not American, I think that you can appreciate the issue since there is a similar situation in France, all of Scandinavia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Italy, Germany, Kuwait, Tailand, Canada, Great Britain, South Africa, etc. I invite you to read the post and tell me what you think on Eleena’s blog.

How Many Languages Is It Possible to Learn?

After watching the Olympics and the amazing feats of people like Michael Phelps it makes me reconsider what is possible for people to achieve. How fast can human beings swim; how fast can we run; how much weight can we lift? Similarly, it wouldn’t be strange for any linguist to wonder how many languages a human being could learn in the course of a lifetime.

It’s a Bigger Number than You Think

John Bowring was a British literary translator, economist, politician and diplomat whose service included being the fourth governor of Hong Kong. He claimed that he knew 200 languages and that he could speak 100 of them. Cardinal Joseph Caspar Mezzofanti knew more than 70 languages and could speak 38 without ever having left his homeland: Italy. In our day, the Brazilian linguist Dr. Carlos do Amaral Freire claims to know over 100 languages and the Lebanese language instructor Ziad Fazah claims 59. This article has information regarding great hyperpolyglots of the past and this article has information about the great polyglots that are still with us. You may find these numbers hard to believe but each one of these hyperpolyglots has publications or video recordings that suggest that their claims are true.

What Is Speaking a Language?

I used to naively think that this meant being able to say anything in the foreign language and in your own native language. That would mean that if you couldn’t explain how to change a carburetor, the difference between socialism and communism or the steps to buying a house in your target language, without making any obvious grammatical or pronunciation mistakes, then you couldn’t really say that you spoke it. That seems to be a bit demanding since there are many monolinguals that have a hard time doing that well in their own native language.

Even so, I get very annoyed with people who learn a dozen phrases in five languages and try to pass themselves off as cultured polyglots. I don’t think that we should claim to speak a language unless we can at least deal with native speakers well enough to say: I’m sorry. What is a wiggetybunket? I’ve never heard that word before. and then be able to understand the native speaker’s simple explanation. We should also be able to pronounce words well enough for native speakers to be able to understand almost every word we say. Lastly, we should have a good enough understanding of the grammar/structure of the language to form original sentences that are at least mostly correct. If you have a higher level of proficiency then so much the better. Qualifying the number of languages you speak is always a good idea. Statements like, I speak two fluently and am conversational in four others or, I know four and have studied eight are good examples of how to honestly portray your language abilities.

Studying, Forgetting and Remembering

Bowring and Mezzofanti died over 200 years ago but I have had the opportunity to personally deal with Freire and Fazah, as well as with a few other truly great linguists, and I imagine that the former pair were something like the latter. First of all, both Freire and Fazah have studied many languages that they have had no occasion to use in decades. They both admit that speaking them with no prior notice would be very difficult. Freire describes these languages as being deactivated. The curious thing is that they both claim that they can reactivate these languages after a few days of study. This means that if you were to drop them in Istanbul tomorrow and ask them to give a speech to an audience of locals they would probably struggle greatly with the task. If you were to give them a week’s notice they would probably receive praise for how well they spoke Turkish.

How Many Languages Is It Possible to Have a High Level of Fluency In?

That is what many people would really like to know. How many languages can you speak with near native fluency in and have an enormous vocabulary in? To date my experience has taught me that this number has everything to do with your lifestyle. If you have a life that not only gives you the opportunity but also necessitates that or greatly benefits from knowing thirteen languages well then you will probably speak thirteen languages well. If you have a very monolingual lifestyle then even maintaining one other language will most likely be quite difficult.

Limitless Possibilities

What if you studied a new language until you were proficient in it and then switched to another for ten years? Let’s say you’re not Mezzofanti and only became proficient in four languages during that time. Then life happens and you don’t touch the languages for another ten years. Your languages will have become quite deactivated but as soon as you choose to pick up an old book in one of them or spend more than a day or two in a country that speaks that language you will find that it all starts to come back to you. Will your time have been wasted all of those years ago? Only if being able to get around in a foreign country without the help of a third party is not enjoyable for you; only if reading good literature in its original form has no value; only if if learning foreign languages is not enjoyable for you.

How many languages can humans learn? They learn as many as they have time to study and practice. Scientists have yet to find any biological reason why everyone cannot learn twenty languages or even one hundred. Linguists like Bowring, Mezzofanti, Freire and Fazah suggest that our abilities are much greater than we think. As is it with so many things in life, we often become our greatest limitation or our greatest asset. Our attitudes, lifestyles, habits, practices, interests, hobbies, etc. are what usually what determine what we can achieve much more than our physical or mental capacity.

Self-Affirmations

My first contact with positive self-affirmations was with the fictional character Stuart Smalley, created by American comedian Al Franken. This fictional unlicensed therapist would look at himself in the mirror with a strangely gleeful smile and say, I’m good enough; I’m smart enough and, doggon’ it, PEOPLE LIKE ME! Needless to say, my perception of self affirmations was not very good. Later on I read Awaken the Giant Within, written by self-motivationalist Tony Robbins who taught that self-affirmations are good but only if you have a plan to achieve whatever it is you are affirming. You can tell yourself that you are handsome all you want but buying some new clothes, losing 10 pounds (or gaining 10 pounds as the case may be) and combing your hair every day isn’t such a bad idea either. That made sense and was more convincing. Lately I’ve had another contact with self-affirmations. Two very competent autodidactical linguists who I respect also use self-affirmations.

In this video you can see that Luca is trying very hard to explain his language learning methods in a way that will help others to be able to learn the languages that interest them. You’ll notice that one of the things he does is remind himself when he has to relearn a word or grammar principal multiple times over the course of several weeks that eventually these things will be very easy and that he will be surprised at how they ever seemed difficult. I think that this is very sound advice. I remember feeling like learning the Spanish language was like trying to drink a swimming pool full of apple juice with a spoon. I liked it and tried to get as much as I could but even after a month of drinking the pool still looked pretty full. Many foreign language students get stuck in between a basic knowledge of their target language and an intermediate knowledge. Instead of forging ahead they give up. It’s important to remember Luca’s advice: what is brutally difficult now will seem ridiculously easy in the future.

Steve the Linguist’s method includes a full blown self affirmation for learning foreign languages. Here it is:

Have you studied Language X for many years? Are you still afraid to speak Language X? Please study this and repeat it to yourself daily.

I can be FLUENT in Language X. My goal is to be FLUENT. My goal is not to be perfect. My goal is just to be FLUENT. I can be FLUENT and still make mistakes.

FIRST I must FORGET what I learned in school. I will make a FRESH start. I will FORGET the rules of grammar. I will FORGET the quizzes and tests. I will FORGET all the times I made mistakes. I will FORGET what my teachers taught me. I will FORGET my native language. I will FORGET who I am. I am a new person. I am a Language X speaker. I will make a FRESH start. I will have FUN! I will FOCUS on things that are FUN and interesting. I will learn.

I will LEARN how to LEARN. I will LISTEN a lot. I will LET myself go. I will LISTEN and LET Language X enter my mind. I will LISTEN often. I will LISTEN every day. I will LISTEN to the same content many times. I will LISTEN to the meaning. I will LISTEN to hear the words and phrases. I will LISTEN early in the morning. I will LISTEN late at night.

I will UNDERSTAND the language. I will UNDERSTAND what I hear and read. If I UNDERSTAND what I hear and read I will be able to speak and write. UNTIL I can UNDERSTAND what I hear and read, I will not be able to speak and write well. But there is no hurry. I will work on UNDERSTANDING. I will read a lot and especially, listen a lot. I want to UNDERSTAND the meaning of Language X. I do not want to UNDERSTAND the rules of grammar.

EVERY day is a learning day. EVERY day the language is ENTERING my brain. I ENJOY reading and listening EVERY day. I study with ENERGY and ENTHUSIASM. I study interesting things and ENJOY the language. If I ENJOY the language I will improve. Let the language ENTER my mind. There is no need to push myself. I am getting better EVERY day.

I will NEVER say that I am NO GOOD. When I read and listen I will tell myself “NICE GOING”! I will learn NATURALLY and easily. I will be NICE to myself. I will NOT BE NERVOUS. If I make a mistake I will say “NEVER MIND”. If I cannot understand something I will say “NEVER MIND.” If I forget a word I will say “NEVER MIND.” If I have trouble saying what I want to say, “NO PROBLEM”. I will continue.

I will TRUST myself. I will be confident. Confident learners improve quickly. I will TREAT myself with respect. I will TELL myself that I am doing well. I just need to keep going, no matter what. The more I listen and read using THE LINGUIST, the more I will understand. The more words and phrases I save the more I will know. Soon I will be ready to speak and write well. I will take it easy. I know I will succeed. I will TRUST myself and TRUST THE LINGUIST.

The fact that two people taught themselves over seven languages using self-affirmations, among other things, seems like more than just a simple coincidence. Do you think that these attitudes or affirmations would help you to learn a language? Have any of you tried self-affirmations before? Would you consider sharing your experiences with the rest of us?

Tips for Raising Bilingual Children

Although I didn’t grow up bilingually I had friends who did. I always felt a twinge of jealousy when I heard them speak Spanish, Laotian or Tagalog so I decided that if I learned to speak another language I would raise my children to be bilingual. After getting married I devoured about four books on the subject, the best one being Australian linguist George Saunders’ book Bilingual Children: Guidance for the Family.

Teaching Your Children Your Second Language

Dr. Saunders did not grow up speaking German but decided that he wanted his children to. This was partly to see if a non-native speaker could teach his children to speak the second language in a society where that language was not common at all. Dr. Saunders was successful. He even taught in Hamburg for a semester, took his family with him and enrolled his two boys in regular German schools. Their grades dropped a little bit but that also could have been due to the move and living in a very different environment. They made friends with their classmates, wrote essays, learned new math concepts and even gave class presentations about Australia, all in German. The documentation of his children growing up speaking German, as well as his many references to other case studies, has given me lots of food for thought for when I have my own children.

Don’t Embarrass Them

One of the first mistakes parents make when they raise their children to be bilingual is that they show them off to their friends. Occasionally you come across an outgoing kid who likes the attention but most kids hate it. I once read a case about a British/French family showing off their bilingual kid to some British neighbors. When they asked to child to say something in French he responded, Non. The way the child perceives the language is very important so don’t make it seem like something embarrassing or uncommon. The children should be shocked when they find out that everyone isn’t raised with both languages just like they might be shocked that not all children are tucked into bed in the same way that their mothers tuck them into bed.

Strike a Balance

I read about two minority groups in Australia that were unsuccessful at passing their language onto their children. One was an aboriginal group that was overbearing. They corrected their children’s and grandchildren’s native language so much that the kids ended up not wanting to speak the native language at all.

The next group consisted of Japanese immigrants. Many of the kids in the study said that they would have liked to have learned better Japanese but their parents didn’t really do anything other than speak to them in the language. Since the kids had no instruction and were not encouraged much to respond in Japanese they were embarrassed to use the little they knew with new immigrants or other Japanese speakers.

The trick is to encourage the kids to speak in the target language without being overbearing. Dr. Saunders did this by playing with his children in German and then, when they went to school, he gave them very short homework assignments in German that were appropriate for their age. He would also watch German movies with them. There were a couple of times that the kids got frustrated trying to express something that happened to them in school in German so he told them that it would be alright to tell him in English and then switch back into German. If this happens to your children a lot then don’t correct them on the spot. Wait a while and then think up a fun activity to do that will teach them the expressions that they are lacking in a natural and entertaining way.

Immersion

The case studies with the most success were those that included children who would regularly go places where the second language was the norm. This usually included vacations abroad. Especially as the kids get older, they are going to need to see a reason to use the language other than to talk to their family. If going abroad isn’t an option (at least not a regular one) what you need to do is take your kids to festivals, religious services, stores or neighborhoods where they only hear the target language. Do it as often as possible. If knowing the target language well means making friends, getting a girlfriend or boyfriend, being able to buy cool things, participating in a fun dance festival, etc. then the kids will make sure they can still speak the target language even into the preteen and teenage years.

One Parent, One Language

This seems to be the most effective way to do it. If you mix the languages when speaking to the child then the child will most likely lose the minority language on the first day of school. It is amazing how fast kids learn languages but what studies show is that they forget them just as quickly. In mixed families each parent should speak his or her native language. In families like Dr. Saunders’, one parent should speak the majority language and the other should speak the minority language. Period. If you are inconsistent the children will always revert to the majority language and at best become receptive bilinguals (understanding two languages but being able to speak only one).

Relax and Have Fun

I believe that the greatest key to Dr. Saunders’ success was that he made German a fun bond that the children had with their father. The movies, the bedtime stories and games were all enjoyable. Even Dr. Saunders admits that their English is much stronger than their German but his observation is that that was okay. If his kids ever wanted to live in Germany, get a job in Germany, do business with Germans, get married to a German or read a book in German then they could do so in spite of the fact that they grew up in an English speaking country and neither one of their parents was a native German speaker. The fact that their command of the language was about 75% as good as that of their peers in Germany was almost beside the point. The point was that being a competent bilingual, as opposed to a perfect bilingual, was much better than being a simple monolingual.

Do you and your spouse speak a foreign language? Are you starting a family? Give your children the gift of bilingualism! Even if the two of you aren’t fabulous at both languages, give it a try! As with most important family matters, your family will find it difficult to do and maintain but you will all be extremely glad that you did it when your children are adults.

Luca the Italian Polyglot

I think it is interesting how some of the best language learners I have come into contact with are mostly self taught. My friend Luca is no exception. Luca is causing waves on youtube right now because of a nearly six and a half minute video he made of himself speaking in eight languages. See the video below.

This video has been watched thousands of times by people from all over the world. A European who speaks eight languages is extraordinary but not really a phenomenon. What makes Luca truly stand out from the crowd, even among his fellow Europeans, is his ability to speak with such a native sounding accent in his seven foreign languages. Give his videos in French and German a listen.

Right after watching Luca’s octaglot video for the first time I logged onto the polyglot website’s chat room, excited to share the video with people there. In one of the most bizarre coincidences I found that Luca was already in the chat room. I introduced myself and since then we’ve had some very good chats about languages and language learning. See Luca’s videos in Italian and Swedish.

Luca’s abilities are a testament to some of the things that I truly want to communicate on this blog: that anyone can learn a language, that learning several languages is not an impossible task, that learning languages is a life enriching experience. With his permission, I recorded some of a telephone chat that he and I had today about language learning. Listen to it here.

After I stopped recording, he and I talked for a while longer about other polyglots that we’ve come into contact with, like Stuart Jay Raj, Steve Kaufmann, Dr. Alexander Arguelles, Ziad Fazah and Dr. Carlos do Amaral Freire, to name a few. He also confessed that his favorite language, at least right now, is Russian. See his videos in Dutch and Spanish.

Linguists like Luca are inspirational and I think that there are definitely things that we can learn from them. If you look for Luca on youtube during the next few days you will see his video, in English, that includes tips for learning languages. We wish Luca well on his language learning journey and thank him for the interview. To end this post, I’ve included his videos in Russian and in English.