Mountain climbing and language learning

Quora, a question and answer website, recently featured a post that caught my eye - "What works the best when learning a new language?" by Gruff Davies.

I'm a real sucker for any information that has to do with learning a new language.  And the opening sentence promising a trick to learning languages made me immediately jump into the information.

In truth, the trick was not one trick but rather numerous tricks explained by the author.  That's okay, because otherwise I would probably write him off as a crank, I know there is no silver bullet for learning languages.    

Gruff Davies effectively uses the metaphor of climbing a mountain for the journey of acquiring a second language.  He reminds us how important it is to understand the task we are undertaking and especially the length of time it will require.  And there's the rub.  Technology has made our modern lives go by in a flash of instant messages, news updates, and life complexities that beg for quick solutions.  How can we squeeze one more activity into our lives?

I'm reminded of an ambitious young professional I met once who informed me with great confidence that he was going to learn Spanish next summer.  My first thought ( which I did not share with him) was that maybe he could begin learning Spanish in three months; however, he would need many more summers in order to learn Spanish to a useful level.  I wish I would have reminded him that, as Gruff Davies states, "Learning a language isn't hard.  It's just LONG."  Be realistic, he cautions.

I decided to apply that advice to my study of Irish Gaelic on Duolingo.  For English speakers, Irish Gaelic is at approximately the same difficulty level as Arabic or Russian.

So when Davies estimates that it takes 600 hours or more to reach fluency in French (an easier language for English speakers), I would have to revise that number upward for Gaelic.  Here's the math.  If I study Gaelic at my current rate  of about 20 minutes a day, 365 days a year, I will have racked up 122 hours in a year.  At that rate, even if it took me only 600 hours for fluency, my journey up the Gaelic mountain would be about five years.

So Davies' message for me is to be realistic about my Gaelic study and to be kind to myself if I don't see instant progress.  I feel better!   

I am never ceased to be amazed at the interest the public still demonstrates in acquiring other languages. Quora frequently has comments related to language acquisition, and Duolingo discussions on language reveal a world full of people desiring to conquer new languages. Google Translate, although often very useful, must not be fulfilling our human desires for communication and the cognitive satisfaction of learning and using a new language.