Three Things Polyglots Do to Master a Language
“It’s too late for me to learn a language, it’s impossible when you’re an adult”. The only reason it is impossible is because you haven’t started. I was inspired to write this article by a recent interview I watched with the polyglot Steve Kaufmann, who knows twenty languages, ten of which he learnt after the age of 60 years old.
The fact that learning a language is easier for children is true to some extent. Babies under six months, for example, have the ability to distinguish phonemes (speech sounds) in any language, whereas adults can only differentiate sounds we hear in the environment around us. This certainly doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t learn a language after childhood. In fact, as adults we have the advantage of being able to deliberately study grammar rules or utilise similar words in our native language to help us learn a second language.
1) Motivation
One of the things Steve Kaufmann stresses in his video is that motivation is key. Success in learning a foreign language has way more to do with attitude towards learning and enjoyment than any particular special ability to learn. Learning a language is more than just grammar or vocabulary, it comes along with an entire culture, music, dance and more, so it’s important to feel passionate about the language. Often when we start learning a language in school we have no interest in it, so the process of learning becomes a chore.
2) Comprehensible Input
The second thing is learning through comprehensible input, which is listening to material above your current ability. Language learners frequently avoid listening to authentic material in their target language because they can’t understand it and native speakers speak super quickly, much faster than listening exercises in a language course. But this is exactly what you’ll hear if you visit the country, which is why comprehensible input is so important.
Polyglots, even when they’re just starting to learn a language, spend much of their time listening to podcasts or watching TV shows in their target language, even as a complete beginner, reading along with subtitles as they go. It may seem pointless to listen to something you can’t understand well, but your brain is slowly becoming accustomed to the phonemes in the language, even learning how to separate what at first seems like one long speech sound into separate words. As you reach an intermediate level, you’ll even be able to understand the meaning of words you’ve never heard before, just from their context in the sentence. The more you listen, the better you’ll be at understanding when it comes to having a conversation with a native speaker.
3) Speak As Much As Possible
Finally it’s super important to speak as much as possible. Having a good level of comprehension will help with this, as you’ll be familiar with word pronunciation and sentence structure, but practicing speaking aloud also helps to transform passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. Even if you don’t have a language partner to talk to on a regular basis, you can still talk to yourself and record it to see your progress. Sounds strange, but it’s really effective.
As you can see, becoming a polyglot isn’t as unattainable as we think, they don’t have a superpower, special innate ability or even a secret tactic, it’s all down to knowing how to learn. The first step is making a start, so when will you start?
