~ Thinking A Language ~

If your goal is fluency, you’ll have to get to the point of equilibrium and for that you’ll have to make all the elements of language work in sync. Nothing makes it all easier than to start thinking in a language. Whence learning a new language, the discrepancy in difficulty levels of various language acquisition parts does not matter. For challenge is an integral part of doing something new in general, and it’s absolutely irrelevant if you feel less or more challenged with grammar than with vocabulary.

In my practice of language consulting, research and instruction, I have experienced many “attitudes” towards the process of language acquisition. Often people “establish” the limits of their language learning, either consciously or sub-consciously, and pursue the whole process without ever challenging that default position. “Speaking is something I find hard”, “Learning new vocabulary is very hard for me”, “My brain is not good at learning languages”, etc. These statements in the era of omnipresent self-evaluation practices has virtually nothing to do with constructive appraisal of one’s own abilities and potential. On the contrary, they represent nothing but a ticket to self-approved and allowed stagnation. Let me explain.

Let’s imagine that every language is a different character in a play, and to become fluent, one has to adopt and act out particular features, manners, predispositions and self-expressions, etc. If an actor impersonates authentically, it’s because they’re living that character and that life on stage, and definitely not because they focus on what they find the most challenging or the most strange in it.

Try approaching language learning as an exercise in thinking auf Deutsch, en Español, en français, 日本語で, türkçe, etc. Each language represents a very specific way of thinking about things - its own unique worldview is reflected in the speech. Shopenhauer observed in his article “Über Sprache und Worte”(“On Language and Words”) that the difficulty in learning a foreign tongue is that not all words in one language have an exact equivalent in another. He develops this idea into making a case for inferiority of translation: “Eine Bibliothek von Übersetzungen gleicht einer Gemäldegallerie von Kopien” (A library of translations is the same as a painting gallery that comprises copies). It’s a very controversially beautiful observation. It’s not about degrading or belittling translation, but about understanding language. Imagine if you stopped wondering and complaining about why the table in French is feminine (la table) and in German masculine (der Tisch), and embraced this seemingly illogical linguistic situation, and started going along with it. The language will show the way. It’s a combination of passive and active learning, of developing your linguistic intuition, and magic…Und warum nich? (And why not?) ☺

You can analyze your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to language learning if you want to be more efficient in time management and/or planning. However, not more than that. Fluency can be achieved despite the challenges of the learning process, for the more you focus on them, the more you’ll stumble.

If fluency in a language is your goal, be curious and explore the logic of that language’s worldview. Read a lot, listen a lot and play with your intuition. Strive towards thinking a language and not just learning it… Bon courage!