Learning a language is one of those classic ginormous, elephant-like scary monsters. Most of us like the thought of being a polyglot, but not quite so many make it to that point of satisfaction, where we can casually mention our bi-vocal abilities.
It feels as overbearing as writing a book except worse. Books have an endpoint. A language, similar to playing a musical instrument well, continues forever.
Oh, why couldn’t one of my parents have been French, removing much of the painful learning when I was a young sponge? Or better still, discover that planet Earth does play host to Babel fish* which can be neatly inserted into ears, removing any need for thousands of hours of study accumulating lots of words, sentences, and grammar. All this construction is needed, which is why students if they’re anything like me, dive down rabbit holes looking for quick fixes, ways to learn fast but still having fun on the way.
I’m a Duolingoist** at the moment. On Sunday night, I was scrambling in vain to amass points on the app as fast as possible. The most effective method was in the revision section, saying French sentences for a measly 20-point reward. I did this repeatedly in a vain attempt to catch an annoying avatar one place above before the weekly league ended. I came second. Boo, hiss.
Whatever floats your boat, I hear you say. In the calm of Monday afternoon writing this, it seems quite ridiculous. Appealing to those with competitive streaks though seems like a good learning strategy because it encourages obsessive behaviour. And all efforts should be welcome when considering the size of that iceberg.
For would be winners, it’s the price we’re prepared to pay. The real fool behind that avatar had no choice but to keep learning if they wanted to retain their top spot. As a result, we’re both stuck studying at 9:30 pm on a Sunday (least I was) when neither of us wants to be there. I certainly didn’t.
Who's the real winner? We both are. The gamification of the app has driven us to perform like drumming bunnies. Bravo. I certainly learnt more because of the forced revision.
I’ve mentioned the healthy competition in our household before as I try and hang on to Mrs H’s coattails. She’s signed up for weekly lessons at the Institut Francais. Been there, done that many years ago. It remains reassuringly unchanged which is excellent news in our battle, let’s be honest, my imaginary battle, for top dog status.
The Institut is the stodgy, out-moded way to learn. Returning home with overbearing amounts of homework which include gargantuan grimaces of grammar that take all week to digest. Where’s the fun in that and how do you put all that homework to good use with your conversational French?
I might have a point. A recent addition to Mrs H’s arsenal is Lingopie. The subscription promise is to learn French by watching great TV. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Oops, where did that come from?
My voyage of discovery last weekend started with my Zettelkasten. It’s a method of organising our ideas into small, easily manageable notes (or cards originally). The trick is each note contains a single idea sometimes called an atomic note. I suddenly wondered whether my answer was as simple as using what I’d already got. Instead of storing atomic notes, not that I’m habitual yet, in pursuit of a personal knowledge system, why not use it to learn a language?
It didn’t take long to discover that Zettelkastens are better for digesting books, linking themes and ideas read. One idea muted was to use it for children’s French books, which could work but by then I’d found other systems specifically for language learning.
Anki is a Japanese word which means memorisation. It’s also free, open-source software which uses flashcards to benefit anyone who needs to remember stuff in their daily lives. Two of its biggest proponents are those studying for medical or law exams and those learning a language.
But why make your cards when someone has gone to the trouble for you? Language Atlas contains over 10,000 Flashcards divided into the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) from A0, A1, A2, B1, B2, and C1.
A2 would be GCSE standard and B2 an A-level if you’d like to know the dizzy heights you might have attained at school.
Language Atlas is run by Sam Denishin who answered my questions promptly. He even offered me a traditional Dutch recipe called Hutspot to overcome my aversion to mashed potatoes, last week’s newsletter which he must have spotted from my signature link.
He advocates a 3-step method.
do a 30-minute lesson every day
practice with his flashcards using Anki - the programme adapts to your answers
speak with a native speaker for an hour every week and create flashcards after the conversation
One language tutoring site recommendation was italki. There are plenty of teachers at different price points in many languages.
Another smart idea was Tandem, a language exchange app. To take part I would need to find a native French speaker who wants to learn English. We then take turns helping each other splitting our time evenly. The only cost is our time. A professionally trained tutor should be better, but find the right person on your tandem and I imagine the outcome could be really powerful because you share a common goal.
For completeness, there is also another app called Fluent Forever. It uses a flash card system and provides the language teacher with one inclusive package. I was put off by the pricing on their website being in US dollars, but the app seems okay. It’s a bit like Duolingo except the visual direction is not as helpful.
When looking at this whole sentence, how are words like sans - without and viande - meat being visualised?
I don’t want to appear picky about Fluent Forever here. When trying to learn sentences rather than words, a flashcard might struggle. I don’t think adding more images is going to help much either. One way would be to break the sentence down further and represent meat-free dishes as a cow with a red X perhaps?
There is something to be said for creating your own cards, building upon what is already there. The act of creation is a powerful revision in itself as some of us might remember from our exam days.
The oddest and most intriguing I discovered through recommendation was learning French from a deceased non-native French speaker.
Michael Thomas was a famous tutor who used to teach languages to the stars. His methods were a closely guarded secret at one time. Judging by the numerous testimonies including Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson of British fame they certainly worked. In later years, he decided to share his magic with a much wider audience and his courses are available to everyone now.
His key tenets are not to write anything down, just listen and repeat in a relaxed environment. If you’re not learning, it’s not your fault it’s his. The free French sample I listened to has him building up sentences from simple beginnings, I would like - I would like that - I would like this. There were no visual cues which I found a bit off-putting.
It wasn’t long ago that I invested in Duolingo Max. I graded up from free a while ago to remove ads, but the max version goes even further with better explanations of my answers. I’m on a 318-day streak and I’m back in the Diamond League where I belong.
I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere soon but I’m thinking of finding a French partner to ride Tandem.
* Babel fish - In Douglas Adams' classic novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he presents a magical creature called the Babel fish. This is a small fish that, when placed inside someone's ear, will provide them with instant translations of any dialect across the galaxy.
**Duolingoist - someone using Duolingo, a popular language-learning platform.