Job Discussion Forums

[Roger]

Well, electronic media can be great, but they are not always that great! I find it difficult to catch the proper pronunciation of what they are saying on TV or the lyrics of a song! YOu do understand things if you have a printed version.
YOu can teach some basics with videos, to be sure - a great way of teaching at kindergarten. But for adults???
I have had a relatively stable grasp of oral Chinese, and it helped me navigate even complex situations such as asking for help at a police station. However, Chinese is not a language you can just pick up from conversations. It has too many homophonous syllables with identical tones. So, when your interlocutor shifts the topic, you may not notice it at all as the words cropping up now are identical to your ear, yet they make absolutely no sense any more. If you see a transcript (as you do when they show a movie on TV), you realise they are using DIFFERENT words altogether. You need to at least comprehend a skeleton of your conversation to grasp any context and to acquire new vocabulary.
In other words: there is no short cut to the mastery of the language. You have to learn to write and read it.
I have just begun practising writing again - but it is so mind-boggling! Count the strokes (make no mistake!), then search in the dictionary. If you have no clue as to how to pronounce the word, it is going to be a most unproductive method as you have to learn how to pronounce it as well. SO technically speaking, you may be able to "read" (understand semantics without knowing phonics!) Chinese, but like Chinese people themselves, there never is an end to your learning as there always are new lexical items that you (and they) have not studied at school (or you at home).
This experience does exonerate, if only partially, expats of their guilt for not acquiring sufficient Mandarin even after many years in the country!

[Will.]

Here's my two bobs worth on a Saturday night on the computer.
The list is like many course books, except for the first one...

Sleeping dictionary, Preferably a teacher of languages or at least a student of them.
Shopping in the market.
Listening to conversation in transit.
Listening to local radio for the rhythm of the language as well as lexical input.
Listening to bilingual announcements at transit centres and checking the departure and arrival boards, good for times too.
Drinking... always a popular choice.
Going on weekend activities with local friends/colleagues even better if there is no one who speaks my languages.
Going to the pictures(UK) and reading the subtitles In VO or the other way round.
Best of all, going to the local library and reading the kid's books!!! remember they are written to be read by adults so don't be put off by the level of language. Just let the staff know, you don't want to be mistaken for "Uncle Pervy", they are often very impressed if not helpful.
Just a few ideas.

[Steiner]

Will. If you ever get banned and have to come back under another name, please be "Uncle Pervy."

[some waygug-in]

[dduck]

[yaramaz]

I understand that korean grammatical stucture is related to Turkish, which really messes with my head. For example, to say 'it's wonderful to see you again', you'd say 'seni (you) tekrar (again) gormek (to see) harika' (wonderful).

You again to see wonderful??? Whoa! It takes quite a while for me to casually throw sentences around here...

[some waygug-in]

Well, let's see. To say, " I really liked that movie."

Cho john hwa jong mal choa hett so yo

That movie really liked.

If you want to add a subject, (Koreans generally omit the subject, which greatly adds to the confusion of trying to understand to whom they are speaking, of whom and what they are refering to etc.)

Na nun, cho john hwa jong mal choa hett so yo

As for me, that movie really liked.


Then there are all the complications of whether or not to say it using the
formal forms, the polite formal, the informal, the self depricating or the informal form, the intimate form, the rude common form (which is what you hear mostly from your students)

Depending on who you are speaking to, you should chose an appropriate form to address that person. An older person or your boss should be addressed using the more formal forms, younger people and friends can be adressed using the informal forms.

Korean is supposed to be related to Turkish, consequently I've heard that Turks find Korean not too difficult to learn.

Koreans also seem to have a fascination for German, perhaps this has something to do with German sentence structure.

Cheers

PS: Feel free to critique my attempts at translation. I'm sure some will disagree with what I've written.

[Roger]

Some waiguk,
I think your Korean/English examples demonstrate one thing - studying a language involves getting to the bottom of its structures, and that is at the syntactic level rather than mere words. Words may be the smallest meaningful entities, but they only acquire meaning when inserted in a structure that we can study under the grammar label. Obviously, in Korean passive and active voices coincide a lot, and like in Chinese, people's laziness makes the subject seemingly redundant. Laziness is allowed in informal speech, but in formal occasions you use a more complex type of sentences, right?
I doubt that Koreans have a higher ability to become proficient at Turkish. Well, they should explain that to us rather than us conjecturing and guessing. I also know there are many Koreans living in Germany; this has historic rrather than psychological reasons. I do not know the exact reasons for this phenomenon, although I did meet Koreans living in Germany - both North Koreans (at that time, they were based in East Germany), and many university students in Western Germany. Most studied medicine or read law. If I am not mistaken, the South Korean constitution took its isnpiration from the German one. Many words, short meaning: it's not any linguistic similarity that brings them to study German, for which language they are no better gifted than they are for English. If anyrthing, their grasp of German is as shaky as their grasp of English. They may acquire a better German because they study German in Germany, and you can't study German without doing a lot of grammar exercises that the TEFL world is - stupidly, in my opinion! - frowning on!
I think for someone to become good at a second language means that person can relate to a second culture. They have learnt to identify with it and the language that goes with it.
Most East Asians cannot identify with English, nor can their Chinese teachers who introduce us to Mandarin or Cantonese.

[yaramaz]

I have a Mongolian friend here in Turkey. She came here for University about 7 years ago. After barely a year of study, she was pretty much fluent in Turkish. I couldnt figure out how, as I have been struggling with it (mind you, she was taking formal, structured language classes and I'm using a grammar book and lots of listening...). She explained to me that Mongolian and Turkish are very similar in structure so that learning Turkish for her was no more difficult than it would be for me to learn Spanish or Dutch (and yes, I found those relatively easy to pick up casually if not fluently). Turkish, Korean, Mongolian, and heaps of other languages spreading across Central Asia are apparently all linked by their Turkic nature.

[scot47]

The other factor is age. Now that I am in my dotage I find learning foreign languages much more difficult.

People are different though. I have a 70-year-old colleague who is a polyglot and is now learning Dutch. (in Saudi Arabia !)

But of course for those with English as mother tongue Dutch is a doddle compared to Finnish or Mongolian or Turkish.

I realised that I was going to acquire no more languages a couple of years back when I tried Turkish. I just could not get my head around all these new lexical units. Whereas if I had been trying a language from the Indo-European family it would have been MUCH easier !

[fat_chris]

I have trouble accepting the argument that the older one gets, the harder it becomes to learn a foreign language. I can see one reason being that hearing may worsen and particularly with a tonal language like Mandarin, it may become more difficult to distinguish the sounds. Otherwise...?

I wholeheartedly agree that the understanding of a culture and fluency of a language are strongly connected. The more one can speak the language, the more likely one will understand the culture and vice versa.

[dduck]

[some waygug-in]

I think the age of a student is a factor, to some extent, but that depends on the individual. If someone has studied a few languages in the past, chances are better for that person to learn a new one than someone who has never bothered to try.

I've met older students, who couldn't even get past the basics of Spanish and I've met older students who learned more Korean in 2 months than I have in 2 years. I think that someone who has learned 3 or 4 languages just seems to know how to learn a lot better than someone who has not.

It's like learning anything new, I suppose. If you are motivated and committed, you can learn.

[West Brom]

I have learned French, Russian and Japanese, and haven't found any of them particularly difficult. However, I consider myself able to speak only Japanese.

Each new language I learn seems to push previous ones out of my head. Whenever I try to speak French or Russian now, I always throw in Japanese words. Not forgetting previously learned foreign languages is much more difficult than learning new ones. I think so, anyway.