Finishing Initiation au breton sans peine...
As of this morning, I have finished Assimil's Initiation au breton. It's a wonderful book, and I wish they made more like it. The typical "sans peine" series is conversational, and over the course of it, you can pick up a lot. That's the case with the actual Breton sans peine program in two volumes. The problem is that while you assimilate a lot of language, it's trickier picking up structures. I've found that Assimil works best for me for languages where I already know some vocabulary and structure but just can't make the transition from conscious knowledge about a language to unconscious use of the language. Yes, there are manuals in the grammar-translation style, or the quasi-communicative, quasi-grammar translation variety found in Teach Yourself and Routledge's Colloquial texts. But the Initiation has been fantastic because in lieu of drilling and explication, it deliberately guides you to pick up the basic structures of Breton as a matter of habit.
The only languages I truly speak unconsciously are English and French. English, of course, is my native tongue, so that's easy. French is a slightly different matter: I speak imperfectly, but naturally and fluidly. For example, when I use the subjunctive in a subordinate clause or the imperfect in describing a situation in the past, it's not because I've remembered the rule that requires it and selected the appropriate form; it just comes out of my mouth according to my internalization of the grammar rules and of what I've heard. It may be right (most of the time), it may be wrong (occasionally), but in either case, I'm on autopilot.
When I'm speaking Spanish and Italian, things shift. In Spanish, for the present tense and everyday things, at least, I just talk. But when I use the future or the preterit, for example, there's a lag and I have a sense that my brain is processing, looking up what form is called for and consulting the table to find it. In ways, I know more Spanish than many of my Spanish-speaking clients know English, but they speak English more effectively because even if their habits are bad - only speaking in the present tense, messing up articles, etc, - at least they've formed those habits so they can focus on what they're communicating instead of how. My Italian exists even more as knowledge - I'd be much more comfortable translating Dante than explaining to a barista that I'd gotten the wrong change. It's not to say that I can't use Spanish or Italian. I use Spanish all the time, and Italian occasionally. But I am often quite conscious of the fact that I'm speaking a foreign language.
My Breton, of course, is far from perfect. Or even adequate. But that said, the Initiation has laid down some grooves in my brain. Structures that utterly baffled me when I started I can skim through with ease. "Ema ar glaw oc'h ober" - Is the rain at doing - reads as "It's raining now," as does the more emphatic "Glaw a ran" - Rain does. A sentence like "Ema ar mestr-skol e-kichen an ti-krampouezh" - Is the master (of) school be-side the house-crêpes (The teacher is next to/near the crêperie) doesn't bother me in the least. This was not the case when I started with Le Breton sans peine, and certainly not the case when I tried at the exercises in Colloquial Breton.
The question is, what does one do since Assimil doesn't make these wonderful Initiation courses for most languages? I've written in the past about self-talk (ad nauseam), about the language walk, about making language a part of your life, and more. But there's something I've been missing. Some months ago, I wrote about the transition from "unconscious incompetence" to "unconscious competence" in any learning process. I think it's fair to say that the typical textbook takes you from "unconscious incompetence" - knowing nothing - to the edge of "conscious competence" - you have the tools to do it right if you follow the steps and think things through. But I've always assumed - and it's something I've oft heard expressed - that the transition from "conscious competence" - knowing how to say something - to "unconscious competence" - just saying it - was something you had to wait for. If you really want to speak a language, you're supposed to learn enough to use it, then go to the country and after a while you'll discover that "Hey, I'm talking and I wasn't even thinking about it!" But is there a way to do this deliberately?
The Initiation course hasn't made me competent in Breton, not by a long-shot. But it has made me competent for certain tasks, tasks that were proving utterly maddening with other materials. This leads me to think, first of all, that the best thing to do with those grammar drills in the old style books is to do the exercises once - or look up the answers in the back - but read the answers aloud several times. And it makes me wonder if the real value in putting full sentences in a program like Anki isn't to learn vocabulary in context, but to see the same sentence structures time and again.
I'm going to have to give some more thought, myself, to what to take from all this, and to see whether it gives me the motivation to put together some new study materials for myself. But in the mean time, based on the positive sense I got about the Initiation text, I wanted to put the idea out there that if you're having a hard time moving from understanding your textbook exercises to speaking your language comfortably, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to go live in the country for six months or forget about it. If you've got the time and money, and circumstances permit it, I'd go for it in a heartbeat. But too often, the autodidact doesn't. Which means you should keep your eye out not just for interesting materials that keep you engaged, but maybe also for materials that help you pick up grammar the same way we so often look for materials that help us pick up vocabulary.
The only languages I truly speak unconsciously are English and French. English, of course, is my native tongue, so that's easy. French is a slightly different matter: I speak imperfectly, but naturally and fluidly. For example, when I use the subjunctive in a subordinate clause or the imperfect in describing a situation in the past, it's not because I've remembered the rule that requires it and selected the appropriate form; it just comes out of my mouth according to my internalization of the grammar rules and of what I've heard. It may be right (most of the time), it may be wrong (occasionally), but in either case, I'm on autopilot.
When I'm speaking Spanish and Italian, things shift. In Spanish, for the present tense and everyday things, at least, I just talk. But when I use the future or the preterit, for example, there's a lag and I have a sense that my brain is processing, looking up what form is called for and consulting the table to find it. In ways, I know more Spanish than many of my Spanish-speaking clients know English, but they speak English more effectively because even if their habits are bad - only speaking in the present tense, messing up articles, etc, - at least they've formed those habits so they can focus on what they're communicating instead of how. My Italian exists even more as knowledge - I'd be much more comfortable translating Dante than explaining to a barista that I'd gotten the wrong change. It's not to say that I can't use Spanish or Italian. I use Spanish all the time, and Italian occasionally. But I am often quite conscious of the fact that I'm speaking a foreign language.
My Breton, of course, is far from perfect. Or even adequate. But that said, the Initiation has laid down some grooves in my brain. Structures that utterly baffled me when I started I can skim through with ease. "Ema ar glaw oc'h ober" - Is the rain at doing - reads as "It's raining now," as does the more emphatic "Glaw a ran" - Rain does. A sentence like "Ema ar mestr-skol e-kichen an ti-krampouezh" - Is the master (of) school be-side the house-crêpes (The teacher is next to/near the crêperie) doesn't bother me in the least. This was not the case when I started with Le Breton sans peine, and certainly not the case when I tried at the exercises in Colloquial Breton.
The question is, what does one do since Assimil doesn't make these wonderful Initiation courses for most languages? I've written in the past about self-talk (ad nauseam), about the language walk, about making language a part of your life, and more. But there's something I've been missing. Some months ago, I wrote about the transition from "unconscious incompetence" to "unconscious competence" in any learning process. I think it's fair to say that the typical textbook takes you from "unconscious incompetence" - knowing nothing - to the edge of "conscious competence" - you have the tools to do it right if you follow the steps and think things through. But I've always assumed - and it's something I've oft heard expressed - that the transition from "conscious competence" - knowing how to say something - to "unconscious competence" - just saying it - was something you had to wait for. If you really want to speak a language, you're supposed to learn enough to use it, then go to the country and after a while you'll discover that "Hey, I'm talking and I wasn't even thinking about it!" But is there a way to do this deliberately?
The Initiation course hasn't made me competent in Breton, not by a long-shot. But it has made me competent for certain tasks, tasks that were proving utterly maddening with other materials. This leads me to think, first of all, that the best thing to do with those grammar drills in the old style books is to do the exercises once - or look up the answers in the back - but read the answers aloud several times. And it makes me wonder if the real value in putting full sentences in a program like Anki isn't to learn vocabulary in context, but to see the same sentence structures time and again.
I'm going to have to give some more thought, myself, to what to take from all this, and to see whether it gives me the motivation to put together some new study materials for myself. But in the mean time, based on the positive sense I got about the Initiation text, I wanted to put the idea out there that if you're having a hard time moving from understanding your textbook exercises to speaking your language comfortably, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to go live in the country for six months or forget about it. If you've got the time and money, and circumstances permit it, I'd go for it in a heartbeat. But too often, the autodidact doesn't. Which means you should keep your eye out not just for interesting materials that keep you engaged, but maybe also for materials that help you pick up grammar the same way we so often look for materials that help us pick up vocabulary.
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