Schliemann and Language Learning
Over at Language-Learning-Tips.com, one of the essays is on Heinrich Schliemann, archaeologist and linguistic genius. Schliemann taught himself a number of languages by reading books he knew in a language he knew alongside translations in the language he was learning. Among his languages - for archeological purposes - was Greek.
Right now, I have Agatha Christie's Poirot Investigates and the Spanish translation, Poirot investiga. Spanish is a language I'm already quite familiar with. I often joke that living in California I speak it so much I might as well give up and learn it. That said, my year of Spanish in college and my subsequent experience, plus my knowledge of French, Italian and Latin mainly enables me to trade bad Spanish for bad English. So I thought I'd give Schliemann a try.
What I'm finding so far - one week at this - is that my Spanish isn't improving in quality, but it is getting more fluid. Exposure always helps, of course, and I already thought in Spanish - muddled thoughts, but in Spanish. But I've started thinking in longer, more complex sentences, adjectives are popping up for nouns with a little less effort and, most importantly, I'm enjoying it.
Spanish is a nice enough language, of course, and highly useful. But perhaps too useful. It's not as exotic as it might be, and learning it has always seemed like one part adventure, one part chore. Reading in Spanish, while not too difficult, has not thrilled. But matching English and Spanish and reading for a sense of the variety of expression possible, rather than for simple comprehension, has been a help.
My Spanish Poirot is covered in written notes, but less for individual words I don't know than for long expressions that I wouldn't have known how to say. We'll see where this goes, and whether I can find some Uzbek texts suitable for trying this with, but at least I'm enjoying improving my Spanish, and that in itself is a good thing. In other words, unless you've got the time, focus and patience of Schliemann, I still don't think we've got the silver bullet. But it's one more fun thing to try to make the language you're learning come to life for you.
Right now, I have Agatha Christie's Poirot Investigates and the Spanish translation, Poirot investiga. Spanish is a language I'm already quite familiar with. I often joke that living in California I speak it so much I might as well give up and learn it. That said, my year of Spanish in college and my subsequent experience, plus my knowledge of French, Italian and Latin mainly enables me to trade bad Spanish for bad English. So I thought I'd give Schliemann a try.
What I'm finding so far - one week at this - is that my Spanish isn't improving in quality, but it is getting more fluid. Exposure always helps, of course, and I already thought in Spanish - muddled thoughts, but in Spanish. But I've started thinking in longer, more complex sentences, adjectives are popping up for nouns with a little less effort and, most importantly, I'm enjoying it.
Spanish is a nice enough language, of course, and highly useful. But perhaps too useful. It's not as exotic as it might be, and learning it has always seemed like one part adventure, one part chore. Reading in Spanish, while not too difficult, has not thrilled. But matching English and Spanish and reading for a sense of the variety of expression possible, rather than for simple comprehension, has been a help.
My Spanish Poirot is covered in written notes, but less for individual words I don't know than for long expressions that I wouldn't have known how to say. We'll see where this goes, and whether I can find some Uzbek texts suitable for trying this with, but at least I'm enjoying improving my Spanish, and that in itself is a good thing. In other words, unless you've got the time, focus and patience of Schliemann, I still don't think we've got the silver bullet. But it's one more fun thing to try to make the language you're learning come to life for you.
2 Comments:
I've often considered learning Spanish (I've got a book on it and some audio), because I know how useful it can be in America. But when I get down to it, I just don't really like the language much. I don't particularly like how it sounds. So, instead, I go back to my German (and recently, Russian), two languages that, considering where I live, are fairly useless to me, but which I thoroughly enjoy.
I understand your quandary. Living in San Jose, I'm learning Spanish less for the love of it than because I speak it all the time and might as well speak it correctly. I've found Schliemann's method to be helpful in this case because I can focus on what I'm reading and how Spanish expresses it, instead of having to study Spanish in its own right.
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