HOW NOT TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

 

There are many books, articles, websites, and advice from teachers and other pompous folk about how to learn a foreign language.  These all add to information overload and, frankly, if these tidbits are the way to guide some to learn a foreign language then everyone would be reading Don Quixote in the original while talking Cantonese and sending an email in the Bushpeople klick language. Except for maybe the odd David Lynch film, I do not see it happening.

 

This article is about how not to learn a foreign language.  These tricks on how to keep yourself fluent in only your mother tongue were gleaned from my direct experience and seeing many students work very hard at trying to make life more difficult for them.  I guarantee that if you follow the below simple steps, not only will you have problems asking “Where is the bathroom?” in a second language, but you may even forget how to say it in your first language.

 

STEP 1:  Pay the money for a foreign language class but do not participate

Your boss, your parents, or your guidance counselor has developed a mean streak in their souls and have signed you up for a class.  But you, after reading this, are smarter than them.  So you do the following:

 

Never pre-read the lesson.  Why pre-read if the teacher is going to go over it in class.  All that talk about having to experience something eight times before it goes into long-term memory is for the other people.

 

Don’t volunteer to speak in class.  Well, if you could speak the language, then you wouldn’t need the course, right?

 

Don’t take notes in class.  If the teacher is all that and a bag of chips, then the information should be uploaded to your brain as if you are being assimilated by the Borg.

 

If you take notes, then do not rewrite them.  Again, that eight times rule of thumb (see above) is for people who do not know better.

 

Don’t ask to tape the lecture and listen to it later.  Having to sit through a course once is do-able, but twice?  That Jerry Springer repeat is on the TV tonight, right?

 

Don’t do the homework.  But if you do, just copy it.  You want to walk the fine line between not being pseudo-fluent and failing.

 

Don’t buy a dictionary.  Okay, so this is a little overboard and the dictionary might be required for the course.  But never  look up a word in a dictionary. Ignorance is bliss and you want to be happy.  You can use it as a paperweight.

 

Don’t keep a separate notebook of things you have learned.  Your whole object is just to survive the course.  Having a five part notebook separated into, well, Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, and Phrases/Questions/Answers would be geekish.  And think of the trees!

 

Go to Part 2