I remember trying to tell my Russian teacher, “I’ll call you tomorrow.” What I actually said was, “I’ll kiss you tomorrow!” She corrected me, we laughed, and I learned from my mistake.
Of course, it’s easy to laugh things off in a fun situation like that. Keep that in mind next time you make an embarrassing mistake. Having a sense of humor and a positive attitude are the keys to fast, fun learning.
After all, laughing about your mistakes is much better than the alternative—sulking, clamming up, or beating yourself up about it.
Enjoy Your Mistakes: Learn Faster!
Let’s say you just made a mistake—again. I know it’s frustrating, but try this: this time, decide to act a bit differently. Tell yourself, “Let’s make this fun instead. Let’s see if I can get my tongue and mouth to make that sound.” Pucker up your lips, make gorilla noises, babble like a baby, or sing it if you have to!
Try anything you need to do to say that foreign word. Don’t take yourself too seriously; just play with it. If you can make it fun, even when you make a mistake, learning will be a lot easier.
You Can Learn How to Make Any Possible Human Sound
Imagine you’re visiting a strange land where they have a world-famous way of kissing. I mean, these people practically invented the kiss, right? You’ve signed up for a course in kissing, you’ve packed your bags, and you’re flying over there now.
OK, so your plane is landing, and you know you’ll be met by your chosen tutor. Should you be nervous? No way! In that country, people have lips and tongues and mouths just like the rest of us. What’s so special about “The Special Kiss” that you can’t learn? Now replace “The Special Kiss” with Spanish, French, Russian . . . see what I mean?
There is nothing a Spaniard or Russian can do with their mouths that you can’t learn to do with yours. Don’t be fooled into thinking you have to be a native in order to learn to talk like one.
If you have the right attitude—one where learning is a fun and exciting adventure—you can learn to do exactly what they do. This won’t come easily at first, but practice it. I guarantee that you will develop the perfect attitude for learning how to kiss—I mean speak a foreign language.
You bring up a good point–that every human is capable of imitating the sounds of any human language–but aren’t there limitations to how well people can make those sounds?
For instance, popular culture pokes fun at how native speakers of many Asian languages often mix up their “R”s and their “L”s when speaking English. This is not for lack of trying!
Fortunately there are NOT limitations on how well you can learn to speak and understand a new language.
However different languages use different sounds. These sounds are called phonemes. The phonemes that are in the languages that you already know will be easy for you. The new ones will take some work.
For example, Japanese people often have a hard time saying the word lollipop. It comes out sounding like “wowiepop.”
It easy to learn new phonemes if you slow them down a lot and listen carefully. Our software slows the words down for you, but you still have to listen very carefully, until you learn how to hear and say the new phonemes.
I’ve worked with foreigners trying to reduce their accents in English and I can always get them to sound like a native born American if they want to.
The right attitude, plus effective learning methods are the keys to success.
Using the right methods, without the right attitude, is just another path to failure.
I don’t feel totally agree with the above comments on making your second or third language sound like natives speaking. Sometimes it just won’t work, ever. Just because we’re adults,our vocal cords and brain structures are not as plastic as very young children’s.
For example, there are some glottal sounds so difficult that I just couldn’t make it right when I was learning Arabic. I know probably nobody could do as well unless he or she is a native speaker. I don’t think it’ll significantly impede general understanding in most situations though, even if your pronunciation isn’t perfect. You just won’t be recognized as a native speaker. That’s it!
In most cases it’s not worth trying to sound like a native. Accents are fine as long as you can be understood.
However the brains of adults can be very plastic if we do our study in the right way. Read “The Brain that Changes Itself” by Norman Diodge for details on how this works.
It is good to strike a balance between the fixed in stone by age 6 and the you can learn to bean acrobat at any age if you really want to. One should always be a little humble about generalizing, especially from one’s own experience, because human brains do not all have equal capacity in all fields. It is true that all can learn, but clearly individuals do differ in the time and effort it takes for particular things, and sometimes that difference is crucial in determining whether it is worth your while to undertake the challenge. It is my own experience, realizing others my be different, that it is harder to learn new languages as I get into late middle age. Or is it just not having the time?
Aww, but I really want to be an acrobat! (smile) Seriously thank you for your comments.
I don’t think you are doing this Ian, but a lot of people use their age as an excuse for not doing what they want to do.
What if you changed your mental description of your age from some number to the word “whatever”. Then you could say, “I’m whatever years old.” As a person who is now “whatever years old” you could then cheerfully ignore the fact that you are “whatever years old” and dive right into finding the method for learning French that will work the best for you today!
Bon Chance!