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

[ozisim.livejournal.com]

Depends on the setting for the conversation.
I learned enough German in 3 days that I could hold conversations in theAprès ski bars and clubs in Austria.
In that situation, there are only 4 topics of conversation:
What you are drinking?
Where are you from?
Where you have skied . (Since you've been here, and where else in the past)
How bad is this music? (What do you like to listen to when not being forced to dance to this crap?)

I also learned the word for Cigarette Lighter, because anyone coming up to you in the street and saying anything to you that included that word was asking to borrow your lighter.
Also: Mobile Phones are called Handies. Boys saying anything that included the word 'Handy' were asking for your Number. :D

I picked up enough Italian in a week to get any meal, coffee, transport/admittance tickets or directions I wanted.

None of these Conversations were particularly deep and meaningful, and I was by no means understanding every word, AND the native speakers in these convos were definitely doing all the heavy lifting, but I'm totally agreeing with you that it's possible.

[andrewducker]

I think two weeks would give you enough for halting conversations at a very basic level, if you were immersed in the language/culture.

(In a similar language. I can't speak for picking up Chinese from scratch.)

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I'd say it would take me more than 2 weeks to manage that, even with total immersion in a relatively similar language to one I can already speak. Also language similarities can cause confusion as you struggle to remember what word goes with which language.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I don't have O-levels, I have GCSEs, because I'm young!

[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]

I think that was the level of conversation I was envisaging: simple sentences about obvious topics. Personally I find it easier to understand people talking than to assemble vocabulary to actually say anything, but I've never really been in that situation of being completely immersed in a language that I've not previously studied at all.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yeah right, by one year!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm thinking of fairly closely related languages. (Well, OK, I'm wondering how long it would take someone who spoke Archaic Welsh and at least one dialect of Old English to learn modern English.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was thinking there was a lot of potential for confusion. Interesting that you feel it would take longer, any idea how long you'd feel was reasonable for basic simple communication?

[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.

[zhuhell.livejournal.com]

A++++

[ozisim.livejournal.com]

I found that I do best with total immersion and a little notebook to write in.
Wen I went to Poland last month we had a Polish speaker with us & he would take over when things got tricky, so I didn't get the usual regular reinforcement of phrases so wasn't as fluent as I would have liked after 4 days :(
Another factor is that I have a Parent who is Hard of Hearing and have studied AusLan a little. So gotten much practice at non- verbal communication to get my point across so I can extract the correct thing to say from the person I'm talking to. - Give them a reason to have gotten good at non-verbal comms.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. I've been the same in foreign places. If I'm actively surrounded by foreign people, then I pick up enough to order drinks, organise food, ask where the toilets are, etc. very quickly.

[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

[hhimring]

Mainly a question of attitude and expectations, perhaps? I've observed people successfully communicating basic things with far less vocabulary and grammar than others who had been actually taught the language, simply because they had the confidence to try.

[wosny.livejournal.com]

I agree that people vary in their ability to pick up languages...I don't think I could do much in two weeks. I spent two weeks in China in 2003...and all I can say is Ni how, for hello and a sound like tsay-tsay for thank you. They annoyingly don't have a word for no, which was awkward. I have struggled to speak German in Munich and Vienna, even though I did it with the OU...mostly confounded by people speaking English as soon as they realised I was struggling. I just about managed to order beer and do simple shopping in Benidorm, although they too default to English at the slightest hesitation. I really tried to talk in Czech and Slovakian when I was there for the car rally... dobry den for good day is all I can remember, and I have been struggling to improve my French for 25 years, and I am still not as fluent as I would like to be! One important factor...if there is no-one who speaks your language and you need to eat you pick it up far quicker than you might in a less urgent situation. :) (voice of experience)

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Assuming that (a) you don't have to learn a new alphabet at the same time, (b)any tones involved are at least vaguely similar to those in the language you're starting from, and (c) it is grammatically similar as well, a few weeks should be enough. It took me six weeks, starting with English and the basics of French, to learn Spanish to, officially, the intermediate standard. That was with four hours a day one-to-one tuition, five days a week, in Chile. I managed basic conversation-for-living after about a month (the terror of my first solo visit to the day-cleaners' is still with me).

New scripts take much longer.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That's my feeling too! I think there are many areas where having the confidence to give it a go is a huge advantage.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... but in the context of writing fiction, I suppose the key thing is less the 'how long would it take a confident person prepared to give it a go' so much as 'how to convince the reader that the character is such a confident person'. :-/.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think I'd expect Chinese to take much longer for a European language speaker than a closely related language. I've had that experience with German too! One reason I am so much worse at speaking than understanding...

On the other hand, I remember finding that I could puzzle my way through quite a lot of written Dutch just by extrapolating from English and German (and my German has never been good).

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's really helpful! I think French and Spanish are a little further apart than I was envisaging...

I'm now watching Welsh TV to try to see how much I can figure out based on a knowledge of Welsh unused since I was 12 (and never to conversational level :-D)

[gufido.livejournal.com]

Leo Tolstoy spent about 2 hours learning Esperanto and could understand easy sentences in Esperanto.

[hhimring]

If your fictional speaker learnt Old English or Ancient Welsh in pretty much the same way--neither of these were formally taught in schools when they were current, after all--he may have previous experience to build on.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Good point!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh, did he? I believe Esperanto is specifically designed to be easy to learn, but even so that does suggest fast progress!

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Having already learned about the concept of conjugation for French, Spanish was relatively straightforward, and the pronunciation was much, much easier, since Spanish is mostly spelt as it is pronounced.

And I spent hours watching children's cartoons, telenovelas (for simple, contemporary vocabulary) and the news (for clear pronunciation), which was both fun and helpful. My accent in Spanish is considered a neutral, educated-Latin American one.

[hhimring]

If your fictional speaker had happened to pick up a bit of Latin vocabulary as well, it might help him with the French/Latin component of modern English. Although there are quite a number of early Latin loans in Welsh as well, I believe.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm probably exaggerating the difficulty of Spanish, because the one time I was in Spain, I was only there for a week, and I can still remember the enormous relief of getting back to France where I could understand and be understood!

But I'm pretty sure that would have been much easier if I'd actually tried to learn something about Spanish before I went. Even a few hours preparation makes such a difference!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

He's King Arthur (he has, of course, returned because the Hour of Greatest Need is coming up) so I'm pretty sure he would have Latin. I'm thinking he probably grew up bilingual in Old Welsh and Latin, and then picked up Old English later, which should, I think give him all possible speed advantages.

I don't really want to defer the hour of greatest need for six months while he puzzles over textbooks :-D

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on what you mean by "conversation," but I could have very, very limited conversations in German after two weeks sans immersion. Those conversations had better be about how I like my coffee (I don't, but still had to learn to say it) and where I come from/where I live.

Getting to the point of having what I would call more freeform/less utilitarian conversations in Hungarian, which is not at all like English - hmm, a few weeks of intensive study/immersion on top of several months of non-intensive study. Without that prep, I'd say two weeks of intensive study - BUT intensive study is very different from immersion with help, and again it depends on what you mean by "conversation." Ordering food in a restaurant/asking where the toilet is comes a lot faster. And getting to the point of almost comfortable conversation took a lot longer, although it wasn't my top priority.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Most people found listening and/or reading comprehension comes faster than speaking!

There are a lot of variables depending on your personal frame of reference, though. I picked up almost no Greek in several weeks, but with Slavic languages since I've previously studied Russian I start at least visually recognizing words in a few days even with new languages.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd agree. I have gotten further with "harder" languages because I got over my earlier paralysis about trying and just went for it. I'm sure my grammar is terrible, but I was able to communicate. Some people are REALLY good at this - there's a community of hyper-polyglots who just fling themselves at new languages.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I'd disagree about new scripts - if they're alphabets, they're pretty trivial. My intensive Russian class in uni did print one day, cursive the next, because being able to read Cyrillic was a necessary foundation for reading the textbook. I still read Cyrillic very slowly, but I can read it (and write fluent cursive that...I can't read very well, heh) despite forgetting most of the grammar and vocab.

Learning Arabic script is a bit more time-consuming, but it's still an alphabet, just one where letterforms change. Learning to write in Japanese or Chinese is where it becomes non-trivial.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

...does this involve Cthulhu eating Parliament? :D

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It's absurd, really, to be embarrassed about communicating badly in another language. AND YET.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think I've decided that Jormungandr would provide more comprehensive Parliament-eating services than Cthulu, and he's arguably more geographically / thematically appropriate.

But in general, yes. :-D

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, that sounds excellent!