Assimil, Ling-Q and "natural" language learning

The other day, Steve provided a short summary of the Natural Approach by way of explaining why he set up LingQ the way he did. The most important point, I think, is that language acquisition and language learning are not always the same thing. Often, in fact, there's a world of difference between them.

Learning a new language can be frustrating. The most discouraging experience is turning from one's textbook to an example of the actual language. At such times, we may try to retreat into familiar material and to the use of familiar constructions. This can feel reassuring, but it doesn't cause us to stretch and grow and become proficient in the language. This sort of "language learning" actually fits a rather sharp but apt phrase I once heard - "the perfect approach to pretending to learn a language."

When you start learning a language, a certain amount of your efforts will be with pretend language, almost inevitably. This was also the case with your own language - almost every culture has a form of baby-talk that downplays distinctions between problematic phonemes and simplifies tricky structures. However, if you want to be a grown-up sooner rather than later, you've got to deal with grown-up language fairly early on.

Assimil is probably the best program widely available once you're ready to leave behind pretend language. I don't recommend their beginner courses for absolute beginners in a language unrelated to any other they've studied. But they're great for starting to confront the language once you've got a little bit of background. The problem, of course, is that the 2nd or 3rd time you've read a lesson, you're no longer stretching.

I won't say that LingQ is the end-all, be-all solution, because nothing is. But with the variety of texts for study that it should ultimately admit, it looks like it will be a great place to cross the bridge from pretending to learn a language to actual language acquisition. That, at least, has been my experience with the Spanish texts available there now. If you're looking for a handy book to practice with, the overpriced Assimil is still often worth it. If you're looking for something to skim on your computer screen, meanwhile, have a look at LingQ.