I have
always believed that in order to learn more about how to do something,
it can be quite beneficial to study the methods of those who are
experts at it. While reading a book on ancient Greece recently, I
came across a description of how Heinrich Schliemann went about
learning a new language.
The famous 19th-century German archeologist Heinrich
Schliemann (1822-1890), who pursued a life-long dream of excavating the
remains of Homeric Troy, no doubt had a genius for language. Within the
space of two years, he taught himself fluent Dutch, English, French,
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, and later went on to learn seven more,
including both modern and ancient Greek.
How could we, who generally consider ourselves lucky if we
manage to learn only one or two foreign languages in the course of an
entire lifetime, not be curious about the method he used? Let's hear
what Schliemann himself had to say about how he approached the
challenge of mastering another tongue:
"In order to acquire quickly the Greek vocabulary,"
Schliemann wrote, "I procured a modern Greek translation of 'Paul et
Virginie' [a French novel; Schliemann already knew French], and read it
through, comparing every word with its equivalent in the French
original. When I had finished this task I knew at least one half the
Greek words the book contained; and after repeating the operation I
knew them all, or nearly so, without having lost a single minute by
being obliged to use a dictionary. Of the Greek grammar I learned only
the declensions and the verbs, and never lost my precious time in
studying its rules; for as I saw that boys, after being troubled and
tormented for eight years and more in school with the tedious rules of
grammar, can nevertheless none of them write a letter in ancient Greek
without making hundreds of atrocious blunders, I thought the method
pursued by the schoolmasters must be altogether wrong... I learned
ancient Greek as I would have learned a living language."
He doesn't say how he learned to pronounce ancient Greek,
but since nobody speaks it any more, this probably didn't really matter
to him too much. In any case, one must admire the man's ingenuity, and
above all, his freedom from conventional ideas about how languages
"should" be learned. Though we tend to put such people into a category
of their own, labeling it "genius", the truth is that one of the things
that separates a so-called genius from ordinary mortals is simply the
fact that they don't limit themselves by doing everything the
way most other folks do, or by the way that "authorities" say it must
be done: they find, or create, their own methods, and do
whatever works well for them.
When we begin to learn a foreign language, we usually use
a book whose first chapters are filled with "baby stuff": "Hello, how
are you? My name is David.", or "The cat is in the house. My brother
lives in Rome.", and such things. Of course, that would seem easier to
learn than picking up a regular book in your target language and, only
with the help of an English translation, working your way through it
sentence by sentence, the way Schliemann did. But then, he taught
himself to speak ancient Greek in such a way, so who is to say
that his method wouldn't work for us if we wanted to learn French,
Italian, or German? We could always take a few classes with a native
speaker for the pronunciation, and to take our first steps in
conversation.
And the grammar? Well, by comparing the foreign language
text to an English translation, we would get a good idea of grammatical
structures; the fact that such structures would repeat themselves quite
often during the course of an entire book would mean that we would have
ample opportunity to "absorb" them, and to learn to use them properly
on our own.
There are really only two reasons why this method might
not work for you. First of all, it would take a lot of thought, and a
lot of discipline, to work your way through a foreign language book
this way. You would have to basically construct your own grammar book
as you go along, taking notes comparing structures in both languages,
making your own lists of prepositions, pronouns, verb forms, etc., as
you encounter them, and so on. Of course, when you buy a standard
language-learning book, all the grammar has already been "spelled out"
for you, which makes it seem a lot easier. On the other hand, I can't
help but think that if you did do it Schliemann's way,
collecting and organizing such grammatical information on your own
might well help you to learn it considerably faster, and to understand
it a lot better.
The other reason why this method may appear to be beyond
our abilities is merely because it is so unusual: "Nobody does it that
way!" may be the way you respond when you read about Schliemann's
procedure. You may feel that if it is so uncommon, it can't be so
great, or maybe that it just couldn't work for a "normal person" like
yourself. This is more of a psychological block than anything else, and
overcoming it could be a rather mind-expanding experience. It is true
that especially at the beginning, when you don't have any vocabulary at
all, the idea of actually beginning to read a book (albeit with the aid
of a translation) in the other language would seem daunting, almost to
the point of appearing to be impossible. But I suspect that if you
actually tried it this way, after a week or so, it wouldn't seem so
hard at all, and you may well make rapid progress. And if the book you
use (or I should say, "books", since you would have one in your target
language, as well as a translation in your native tongue) is about
something which greatly interests you, by the time you finish it, you
will not only have learned a lot about the new language, but also a
good bit of fascinating information.
I myself have not tried this method yet, but at some time
in the future, I certainly will. I may not be so ambitious as to want
to follow in the archeologist Schliemann's footsteps, searching
out the ruins of ancient Troy, but trying out the linguist
Schliemann's method of language learning holds a definite attraction
for me, and could well be rewarding for anyone who tries it.
Next...
18)
The musician's language
learning advantage: More than just "good hearing"
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