My Journey to a Better Language Learning System

A good example would be when I'm out and about and see a deaf person trying to converse with others. I'll indicate that I learned a little sign language and translate for them.

Another would be when I am out and about and I notice someone who is deaf. I'm not the least bit bashful, so I'll wave and get their attention to let them know that I can sign. This leads to a conversation, pretty much every time.

It's not like they have a wide variety of people to converse with. So, they are usually quite happy to do so.

I also used to work with municipalities and there were a number of occasions where a contact person would actually be deaf. Municipalities are generally more open to hiring people who have hearing issues. So, it has actually sped things up as opposed to their usually method of writing down what they want to say and then reading your lips.

I am pretty outgoing, so it comes in handy. I haven't actually had anybody show outright displeasure, they always seem happy to find someone that signs. The closest would be a grumpy old man who was curt. He lived in the same neighborhood but would continue and we finally became friends and drinking buddies.

I'm glad that you're integrating grammar into Chatterbug, even if it's implicit. I do believe that learning a foreign language's grammar implicitly (via immersion) is an inefficient way to pick up grammar. I tutored languages for 5 years in university and grad school, and I always saw the light bulb go off when I explained the rules why some word behaved in a certain way in a sentence. For most people, it's very enlightening and makes language learning easier and more enjoyable.

> I would caution against recommending that people pick up a grammar book unless it's an incredibly good one. Most are dry and difficult and assume you know the vocabulary of linguistics, which most people don't.

I strongly disagree. First, grammar books very rarely use any linguistics vocabulary. And learners can find totally adequate basic grammars in the back of introductory language learning books and textbooks. They do assume you know a little grammar vocab, but not linguistics (which is, of course, a field of study completely separate from language learning). For Indo-European languages, that includes things like "indirect object", "relative pronouns", "demonstrative pronouns", etc. And for declined languages like Russian and Greek, they may use terms like "nominative" and "accusative". But they often explain these terms first, and if not, that's why I recommend people first pick up a basic book on English grammar.

And yes, if your goal is simply to get by in a language, like to the level of a serious tourist, making frequent grammar mistakes is not a big deal.

But if your goal is to learn a language fluently, and particularly if your goal is to learn more than one language fluently, you should ask yourself if it's worth the initial investment of learning the basics of grammar, to the level that you're able to follow a basic introductory grammar. For most people reading HN, I'd think this is something they could pick up in several weeks part-time, or maybe a month or two if they have absolutely no background (like, you have no idea what the subject of a sentence is, or what verb tenses refer to). And then, based on my past multi-decade experience learning, teaching, and speaking multiple languages, I'd be willing to bet that things will "click" much more than if they had no idea what these things refer to.

Finally, I do agree that grammar should not be a major focus of foreign language learning -- maybe 10-20% of the time. But that 10-20% has the potential to make the other components of your language learning voyage much, much easier.

I learned French, (some) Arabic, and (some) Chinese with TPR and TPRS. It was a lot of fun, actually, and I had previously found language learning hard. I also took French in college, with the Rassias Method, so it was a second go round for me.

I learned from a French professor friend who trains all her second language acquisition grad students in TPR and TPRS. One of her students has had great success teaching elementary, middle, and high school students French using these methods.

I've seen a few non-teachers who have learned TPR/TPRS to teach their languages in the US; languages like Tamil.

It's going to be tough, but I suffered quite a bit.

How'd I move past it? I started small (I was still rather young) and performed in a band. Eventually, I'd even sing. I am a classical guitarist but played rock, mostly.

Anyhow, I used to vomit and shake. I used to be truly afraid. I used to be scared of failure and of making errors.

So, I first started playing for people. It'd be a while before I was in a band and on stage. The first stage was small and had maybe 50 people in the audience. I threw up and made it onto the stage.

Over time, I realized that most audience members aren't accomplished musicians and won't actually notice a small error. Learning to play through the errors helped.

Eventually, I could walk out on stage, sing, talk to the audience, and actually put on a show instead of standing off to the side and concentrating on my playing.

What I'd suggest, and they are just suggestions, is hitting up something like an open mic night, a comedy club that has such, an open mic poetry reading, etc...

It will not be easy, but these days I'm outgoing and will talk to most anyone. I don't have any social anxiety and, if I do, I now have the confidence to just bluff it.

That same confidence has helped in many areas. It certainly helped with dating and in business. I've played in front of some large crowds and have spoken in front of some pretty large groups of people.

What it took was starting small and building up the confidence. What it meant was being able to interact with people at a much greater level.

I've since learned to be an active listener, which really helps. Open-ended questions about things they kno about is a great way to interact with people. It does require that one listens and give the others a chance to speak.

But, yeah... It made me toss my cookies, sweat a bunch, and I even fainted once. However, confidence grew quickly. It is absolutely not easy.

I don't know if that will work for everyone, and I assume it won't, but it worked for me. You have to make yourself do it the first times.

The impact it had elsewherein my life is amazing. I'm now very able to just converse with strangers. I now initiate conversations with people. In fact, I'm pretty much the polar opposite of how I used to be. I was a shy introvert who was unable to make many friends and didn't like to be social. These days, I'm a freakin' social butterfly!

So, maybe they can take something from that and try it?

That kind of makes sense, thanks! It has puzzled me for years. It was very convincing dream Spanish, like fluency in technical verbiage and speaking about higher order mathematics - all in Spanish when I still had a hard time asking for a room for the night.