Learning a language

[bunn]

How long do you reckon it takes to learn a new language to the point where you can have simple conversations with native speakers of that language?

Specifically, how long do you think it would take for someone who can already speak at least two languages to learn an unfamiliar language, when they are in an environment where the unfamiliar language is spoken by everyone and they are working on picking up the language as the main thing they are doing?   Assume that the person has the assistance of someone who can speak both languages, and that the structure of the language is similar to those already known.

I reckon two weeks would be more than enough, but then my attitude to languages is a bit Top Gear.  Pp, who has A's at O Level in several languages he can't speak at all, feels that two weeks is a ludicrous underestimate. 

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I'm with Pp on this one. I, too, have As at O-level in languages I can't speak at all - and could never speak, even then (although, to be fair, one was Latin, which nobody expects you to speak.) I know intellectually that other people are a lot better at picking up spoken languages than I am. I also accept that in fiction, a language barrier is a real nuisance, so it's useful to get rid of it as soon as possible by having characters quickly learn how to communicate. But, still, when I encounter this in a novel, my instinctive, emotional reaction is, "No! There's no way they can be having that fluent discussion about philosophy when just days ago, they couldn't even say 'hello.'"

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Well, I was thinking more sentences like 'I don't understand' or 'who is Harry Potter?' and answers to questions like 'what's your name' and 'are you joking?' than complex debates about philosophy or anything complex or technical...

Maybe two weeks is still too short.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

It sounds from other people's experiences that 2 weeks is fine (for People Who Are Not Me) for learning basic conversations. I'm just particularly bad at it. I'm "deaf to accents" (as my French teacher put it), and the fear of getting it wrong leaves me too embarrassed to even try.

It occurs to me that I've read loads of novels in which the hero manages to become fluent in a new language within weeks - or even days. I can't think of any in which the hero is as rubbish as I am at accents, and fails to master even rudimentary conversation after months. It would be challenging to write a novel in which the main characters can only ever communicate in charades and badly pronounced nouns, but I'd quite like to see one, even so.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I feel, sadly, that it is intrinsically unheroic to do what I do, and find myself paralyzed and struck dumb by an inability to remember what case I am trying to talk in, and therefore spending 30 seconds wibbling over parts of speech, by which time the conversation has moved on and left me flailing in its wake :-/

But probably I would be useless at swordplay, and I know I am a disaster on horseback, so it's all of a piece really :-D