Language is similar. To me the big muscles of language learning are the important words and phrases - the key words that describe people, things, and actions. The small muscles are the details of articles, prepositions, verb or noun endings etc. Unless you have the big pieces in place, the little pieces do not matter. You can communicate well with a big vocabulary of words and phrases without knowing much about the smaller details.
Many textbooks, however, focus on the small details. My Russian text starts right in with talking about the genitive and dative case and when they are used. The book introduces different tenses and other rules. I just ignore them. If I can learn the words for the key people, things, and actions, that is all I need for now. If I learn the nouns and verbs as parts of phrases that I start to recognize, the little pieces will slowly fall into place. If I read and listen a lot my language will become more and more natural.
But I need to continue listening, reading, observing the language and reviewing words and phrases. I must not just think I have reached my level of competence in the language and then stagnate in the language as so many people do. If I keep listening and reading and learning I can continue to ignore the rules, drill s and questions and still improve, all the while enjoying my studies, without any pressure to be perfect.
Correct usage does matter, but I doubt that a lot of explanations will help achieve correct usage. Alice Walker says in her email "who real y cared between the difference of 'du' and 'de'
and 'de la' ―Surely the question is not whether it matters whether you say "de," "du," or "de la" in French. It definitely matters.
The question is how to most easily learn to get it right. Explaining the principles wil not help a lot if it is not possible to remember the gender of nouns. It is only with massive input via listening and reading that the learner's natural accuracy in the use of gender improves. It also helps to have mistakes corrected as long as it is understood that mistakes are normal and the corrections are used to help the learner become more observant of the language in her listening and reading.
I once bought a book of Beijing slang when I was studying Chinese. I have occasional y bought books with slang expressions or even other specialized dictionaries. They al gather dust on my shelves until I throw them out.
Why am I not interested in these? If I think about it, there are several reasons.
1) I am not that interested in slang. I just instinctively know that it is not something that I am going to use very much. When I am confronted with unknown slang expressions in movies or in real life, I just let them go by me. They are just part of the many aspects of a new language that I do not understand for now. If certain slang expressions appear often enough, I will pick them up, at first, well enough to understand them, and with continued exposure, well enough to use them.
2) A dictionary of a specifically defined range of terms, whether slang, or technical terms, or political terms, or newspaper terms, or whatever, is not a learning tool for me. I have never been able to read these dictionaries and then go out and use these terms. I have no sense of the context if I just read something in a dictionary. Nor can I remember terms that I deliberately study in a dictionary.
3) A dictionary is, at best, a place to look up words that you encounter in other contexts.
The more complete the dictionary the better. It is unlikely that in reading a text on politics, it is just the political terms that wil give me trouble. So if I am going to use a dictionary it is better to use a general dictionary, a very complete one.
4) The time spent looking things up in a conventional dictionary is better spent reading and getting more exposure. If there are a lot of new words I prefer to read on the computer where other tools are available. If reading a book, I often make lists of the unknown words, and then never bother looking them up, as long as I am kind of getting about 80% of the meaning of what I am reading.
CHAPTER VI: OUTPUT - SPEAKING AND WRITING
I have emphasized focusing on listening and reading and vocabulary learning. But, how do we get to using the language to express ourselves? I wil tel you my experience, when I speak, what the obstacles and difficulties are, and how I overcome them.
Mostly I just listen and read when learning a language. This is largely because I am learning in a location where the language is not spoken. Even when I am in a place where the language is spoken I favour input activities, in order to develop my language potential. They are easier to organize and control. They are also cheaper.
When I do write or speak in the language that I am learning, it is usual y for one of the fol owing five reasons.
1. to maintain interest and motivation
2. to provide myself with feedback
3. to identify problems in my use of the language
4. to practice using the language
5. to communicate in real and meaningful situations
Language learning is not a matter of intel ect and it is not a competition. Do not worry about your performance. You are probably doing better than you think. There will always be words that you do not know, or times when you feel awkward expressing yourself. Just take credit for being able to communicate in another language.
If you put pressure on yourself to remember a person's name you are likely not to be able to remember it. In expressing yourself in a new language, the more relaxed you are, the more easily you wil be able to recal the words you need to convey your thoughts. So take it easy.
I received the fol owing comment recently related to the learning of Chinese. I think it raises a larger question about language learning or even learning.
Here is the quote:
"Steve, how would you then practice Chinese tones without the teacher standing by to tel you whether or not you actual y got it right?"
My answer:
1. If the teacher tel s you that you got it right, that does not mean that you wil get it right the next time. And if you start to get it right often, that does not mean that you wil not get it wrong again.
2. Trying to learn the tones of individual Chinese words is a bit like trying to learn the gender of nouns in French or the rules for cases in Russian or German, or articles or tenses in English ( for non-native speakers). You can look at them, study them, think you have learned them, but when it comes time to speak, you wil not remember them and not be able to get them right, consistently.
3. Your brain has to get used to these strange patterns. I learned 4,000 Chinese characters. I cannot tel you the individual tones of al of these words, yet I am quite accurate in my tones.
How did I do it? I listened often to high resonance content. My favorite was the XiangSheng comic dialogues, where the intonation of the language is exaggerated. I listened often, over and over. I picked up on the rhythm. My brain began to be able to imitate, and eventual y to anticipate the tones. Speaking without even worrying about tones also helped, if I was able to listen and pick up on the "frequency" of the resonance coming at me from native speakers.