Language Learning - Gems from Quora Digest

Are you familiar with Quora Digest?

Quora is a free online question-answer service that includes one of my favorite hobbies - Language. The questions and answers come from people of varied backgrounds.  During this month alone (November 2015), I found no less than 23 entries on Quora concerning language topics. I was amazed by the number of people in the world who, like me, enjoy discussing issues related to linguistic interests such as language acquisition, fluency, and correctness,

As I read through the recent Quora entries, I realized that, like the Goldilocks and Three Bears phenomenon, my reactions fell into three categories:  totally agree, partially agree, and disagree.

For example, here is a Quora answer that I have doubts about:  "Languages take immense effort to learn, and people will only learn them if it's socially or economically inescapable."  I think the modifiers "immense" and "inescapable" are making too strong a case for the difficulty of learning languages. Granted, learning a new language does not fall into the category of easy activities, but the fact that over half of the world's population is bilingual indicates that many people do succeed in acquiring other languages.

And, granted that social and economic pressure are powerful carrots for language acquisition, as a lifelong learner and teacher of languages, I can vouch for factors such as interest in other cultures, fascination with linguistics, and need for intellectual stimulation as powerful motivators to learn languages as well.  

Another Quora question that was answered online was "Is it important to acquire the accent while learning a new language?"  A quick response would be, "Of course."  However, I only partially agree with the answer that was posted by a French teacher, "Please commit to learning the accent."

Unrealistic Expectation?

Speaking another language with a native accent would be a wonderful achievement, but the reality of the language learning task is that few people achieve a perfect accent after they reach the age of puberty.  So, where does that leave language learners age 13 and beyond (like me and probably you)? A more reasonable goal would be to achieve an accent in the new language that helps us communicate meaning and does not distract from communication.  Also, concentrating too heavily on achieving a perfect accent takes away from equally important tasks, like learning vocabulary and sentence structure.

Finally, a few words about a question-answer to which I felt like saying, "Here, here!"  The question was from a language learner who felt he was concentrating too much on grammar in class and, as a consequence,  not learning communication skills.

The advice given in the answer was to forget about grammar at present and make understanding the goal, with grammar coming later.  Learning grammar is a misunderstood and controversial topic in the language teaching world.  For some, grammar holds the sacred status that Mom and apple pie do in the U.S., because they equate grammar with concepts like upholding societal mores and preserving the integrity of language.   "There is no use having good grammar if you can't communicate,"  the responder advised.   I agree.    

If you have not investigated Quora Digest, I can recommend it as a source of new thoughts and ideas about a multitude of topics about the world we live in.  You may give a thumbs up to some posts, a thumbs down to others, and partially agree with still others.  Whatever the circumstances, I believe you will enjoy reading about your special interests as much as I do about language.

Language Learning Frustration

Language learning frustration!  The emotion was a new one for me.  I generally feel motivated, excited, proud of myself when I study languages, but a recent session of Irish Gaelic on Duolingo filled me negative emotions.  I just couldn't get things right to move that Duolingo progress bar forward and earn points.

I could feel myself becoming more and more confused and finally, yes!  I clicked the X and gave up. You may have experienced similar negative emotions while trying to acquire another language. Is there a way to avoid this unpleasantness in the future?

Many schools of thought exist about the optimum way of acquiring another language.  My early experience with Spanish and French study was definitely old school - based on a grammar translation approach.  As a consequence, I can probably still easily pass a grammar test in either language. However, since I would like to be able to use the languages I study for practical purposes,  I have long since moved on to the Communicative Approach to language acquisition.

The goal of the umbrella-like Communicative Approach is exactly what the title implies -learners use the language studied for communicative purposes - listening, speaking, reading and writing. The role of grammar study in the Communicative Approach is less well defined, but most proponents relegate explicit grammar study to a supportive role, in varying degrees.

When I discovered that Duolingo, my favorite online language learning program, offered Irish Gaelic,

I made the decision to try out the Communicative Approach in its perhaps most radical form - no grammar study.  Although Duolingo offers grammar explanations in the form of Tips and Notes as part of its program. I decided to forego them and jump right into the language exercises, figuring out structures from the raw language data.

That was about a year ago now, and I have done fairly well.  A list of the Irish grammar points  I have hypothesized and tested includes sentence word order, relative position of nouns and adjectives, definite and indefinite markers for nouns, plural forms, and verb endings, all without resorting to reading grammar explanations.  Exercises labeled as "eclipsis" and "lenition" are not as clear, but I can make my way through them.

And then one morning recently, I attempted to do an Irish exercise that appeared to be about what people have, want or prefer, but Irish was not using verbs to express those meanings, but prepositions!  And the subjects of the verbs were pronouns used as objects of those prepositions. Dear me!  I was really confused, an emotion that quickly escalated to anger and frustration.

I realize that in the giant scheme of things, not being able to quickly make sense of an Irish grammar point is of minimal importance, but I still consider it a personal defeat.  Recently I have found myself attempting only the easier review features of Irish so that I can zip right through and earn points for the day.

It is decision time.    Do I go back to the difficult grammar point on my own and slog my way through it, or do I give up and let Duolingo or some other source teach me the grammar point before I attempt the exercise again?

The bigger question is, can a communicative approach to language study ban explicit grammar study completely?

What do you think?