Language learning methods that actually work #2: You show me yours and I’ll show you mine

Continuing from the topic of “if not Duolingo then what”, we have discussed comprehensive voluntary reading. The Reader may well be thinking, “but I don’t know a single word in Arabic; surely you can’t expect me to pick up lesbian smut in Arabic and learn the language from scratch? No matter how much I’m addicted to lesbian smut, I wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of it”. Yes, dear Reader, I feel you; who among us hasn't lamented our inability to enjoy Lebanese yuri fanfics in the original Levantine vernacular?

Acquiring a language from comprehensive input is a highly effective approach, but it assumes you’re already done with a “bootstrap” period, where you've gathered enough basic vocabulary and grammar to be able to understand the gist of the input. But if you're starting from zero, how are you are supposed to complete the “bootstrapping”, then? There are many methods, but I want to talk about one of my favourites: tandem learning.

Ways to start from zero

Since bootstrapping is just a preparation for the longer task of large-scale acquisition, it is less sensitive to the specific method. Almost anything will work; old-fashioned grammar drills from paper textbooks are suboptimal, but if there's nothing else available, they'll bring you there eventually (took me some 2–3 years in the case of Japanese; a better method would've been faster). Duolingo and similar gamification clones fare even worse than textbooks, and these apps generally aren't worth your time. Always try to chase intrinsic motivation rather than the extrinsic rewards of achievements, running streaks, titles, grades, certificates; these are psychologically mutually exclusive, if you get the one type of motivation you lose the other.

Some examples of bootstrapping methods that I can confirm have worked for various people, even when starting from zero, in rough order of effectiveness (subjective opinion):

Beware of getting sidetracked by the artificial feeling of achievement given by exercises and drills and exams. Don't lose sight of your immediate goal: learning just barely enough that you can engage with compelling material directly, and/or interact with people, however imperfectly. As soon as you can understand enough of a comic book to enjoy the experience of it, go read comic books instead. (Or do whatever it is that you want to use the language for).

When talking to people to practice a language, it is always more effective to do it in person; but online video works fine enough. Individual language coaching works very well, and is more affordable than most people think; coaches may be found locally in your area if you live in urban centres, or with specialised websites/apps like iTalki.

For courses and textbooks, you want to focus on spoken language and conversation first, and only later on writing. The less time spent on abstract grammar, linguistic terminology and translation exercises, the better. Look for courses that are marketed as “conversation”, “colloquial” or “spoken”. Courses described as “direct method”, “natural learning”, “storytelling”, “exposure”, “immersion”, “total physical response” or similar words are all good.

If you can afford the time and money, it's preferable to do “intensive” courses, meaning the course hours are all close together. If you're paying for 20 hours you'll generally learn more if that comes in 4 hours per day × 5 days in a row, than the exact same content spread over 10 classes, twice a week for over a month.

But many people reach for Duolingo because they cannot afford classes or coaches, and feel like they'd have no discipline to learn with anything not presented as a cellphone app. These barriers are well addressed by tandem.

Learning is teaching is learning

So Tandem Language Learning is basically mutual aid language learning? Fuck yeah, that's awesome! (Alathea)

In the context of the discussion above, someone asked me how they could best teach their friend some English, when the friend doesn't have the time or opportunity to be immersed in it all the time. The beautiful thing about tandem is that it works both ways; the same answer I gave them also works for the question, “how do I bootstrap myself in a language I know nothing about”?

Tandem learning is when you sit with someone to chat in each other's languages for a set period—say 25 minutes English, 25 minutes Spanish. Here’s a couple quick links to learn more about how to conduct a session:

Many cities will have groups or events where you can find tandem partners, often in universities and cultural centres. But you can also just ask people you know, or find people online. You don't need any sort of qualification to be a tandem partner, other than knowing a language and being interested in exchanging it.

If you're starting from zero, you should rely heavily on body language, context, mimicry, pointing, facial expressions, intonation, props like drawings and physical objects etc. With these non-linguistic means, is quite doable to communicate with someone even if you don't have a single word in common, and from there build up linguistic knowledge starting from pointing at things and asking how they're called (linguistic anthropologists do this all the time in fieldwork).

Never correct your language partner directly, unless they ask for feedback explicitly. You want to keep sessions fluid and enjoyable like friendly conversations; you don't want the heavy feel of a “language lesson”. You can try to echo what they said and work the correct form into the conversation, fluidly (they: “The my mother is María”, You: “Oh, your mother’s name is María? [smiling with a thumbs up:] That’s a pretty name! My mother’s name is Elizabeth…”) But you can also just gloss over it and keep talking; errors will iron out naturally over time. Both of you should be focused on understanding and being understood, not on surface details of the language. Take a guess at what they're probably trying to say, run with it, repeat.

Tandem methods have many good features that aren't immediately obvious, based on building rapport with one another, on increasingly sophisticated expectations of what the other person will say, as you improve your mental model of your partner and of the contexts you share together. One of the many hidden advantages of the method is confidence: The other person gets to be the instructor, the expert, for half of every session. They’re not just “studying”, they’re offering you a precious treasure that you desire (=their own native-level fluency, something exceptionally hard for you to do). This helps them feel like they’re contributing something; they’re not just reliving school trauma and trying to pass a test before an authority, they’re wanted in the sessions. This not only puts both of you in the relaxed state of mind where language acquisition can happen, but also doubles as motivation to show up to sessions.

I have had good experiences with iTalki coaches, who are like, actual human beings you can interact with on live video, and whose hourly rates for trial periods can be very affordable. If you don't feel confident about teaching a friend how to do tandem, you might want to try a couple sessions with experienced language coaches first, to get a feel for how the pros do it.

There's always considerations specific to the languages you're exchanging. When teaching English, we're offering a language with relatively simple grammar, but which has tricky phonetics for us non-natives (the convoluted orthography doesn’t help). While normally I advocate acquiring language intuitively through use, phonetics is one of those exceptions where I think it pays off to study the details explicitly, for a little while at least. Geoff Lindsey on Youtube has some excellent videos about this, which will help you become aware of the parts of English phonetics that are fully unconscious and imperceptible for natives, while simultaneously quite tricky for foreigners to reproduce: https://www.youtube.com/@DrGeoffLindsey/playlists

Check out specifically the videos on vowels; schwa; weak forms; contractions; aspiration; deaccenting. Once your language partner has at least a little bit of English comprehension—as soon as you think they can more or less make sense of videos like these—you can recommend them to check out the channel by themselves, too. Or watch a video together and use it as a tandem topic (^ ~ )-☆