A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... In the distant year of 2013, I moved to the Netherlands as a freshman in university. I took it upon myself to start learning Dutch. This is a pretty unique statement considering Dutchies are just shy of 20 million and pretty much all of them speak adequate English. That being said, my language learning experience began before I had landed on flat soil. I had known I had been accepted to Utrecht University. I was ecstatic. I loved everything about the city despite never having been there. I remember looking up and stumbling upon countless youtube videos about Utrecht. My favorite was one in which reporters asked Utrecht’s inhabitants what music they were listening to in that very moment. This is embarrassing because, as stupid as it may sound, this video contributed to my infatuation with Utrecht and by consequence, was part of my decision in my university application!
“Calypso, why did you decide to study in Utrecht?”
“I liked their music taste”
“….”
Simpler times, what can I say. Before embarking on my journey, I asked a Dutch exchange student, Rennik, to teach me some basic Dutch. Back then I was reading a lot of Tim Ferris (I’m largely thankful to him for inspiring me to learn other languages and continuously work on myself) and he’d show off how he would deconstruct Russian, or any language, with only 8 sentences. Check out my blogpost on that. I had asked Rennik to help me deconstruct Dutch, as well as to provide me with some survival Dutch. It was an incredible experience, sitting down with Rennik, at the LUISS university campus in Rome, drinking espresso under the sun and talking about language learning. He was one of my first language helden (Dutch for heroes). Where I’m getting to is that language learning is a shared social process far more than it is a personal one. Language, as learned by babies, and those who succeed in learning, is learned through a combination of understanding context and brute force-like trial and error. This is something I also want to talk about in future blog posts. The abridged version is that, you need to get much immersion into your target language as possible. This is key to language learning.
It makes sense. We are human, we are social animals. We acquire language through interpreting sound, consciously and subconsciously, all the while juggling a mishmash of social and contextual cues (e.g. body language). Babies don’t struggle to learn, they just, learn. And I am absolutely convinced the same can happen to adults; if I had a cent for every time I heard that bullshit about not being able to learn past a certain age… Get some language helden. Find people that need a language held (singular i.e. hero), that is, offer yourself with your mother tongue in exchange for the language you are learning. And while this is most effective in person, there’s multiple avenues, nowadays, to find a language held. If you haven’t already, check out my blog posts on conversation exchange (a website that helps you find native speakers), and language cafés and couch surfing.
This is a call to action. While we are all looking for ways to outsource our lives to our telephones and computers, I think that for language learning, analogue and old skool works best. We’ve become obsessed with learning with technology. Talk to people. It’s been a proven system for a roughly fifty thousand years, if my general conception of human history is correct. Needless to say, the time we’ve effectively learned using applications and computers, has been less than 20 years. I’m not saying there are no benefits to using these tools, there are huge benefits (how to learn 1000 words using flashcards)! Do not, however, think for a moment that technology is the only way you can learn. Find a language held, read, write, listen, watch, purchase bread in French. Immerse yourself and force yourself to be surrounded by the language. You have to adapt so that you train your brain subconsciously. This applies to so many things. A personal idol of mine, Bruce Lee, would say in a very famous interview: “be water my friend.”
Welcome back and happy new year’s! Fluent is back as a regular Wednesday blog and I’ve a lot of exciting new content that I’m looking forward to share with you all. Just to give you all an abridged update, I will be starting an internship in the international humanitarian sector here in Rome. As of February, I will also be moving to Pigneto, a new neighborhood for me, that’s full of life and fun bars… I’ve already spotted a couple language cafés to add to the list.
Ciao belli.
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