It has certainly been worth the effort, and oh! what an effort it has been to be able to construct even the most basic, error-riddled, short phrases. It has been variously: hilarious, frustrating, informative, and even – on a couple of glorious occasions, if I may permit myself a gentle brag – quite satisfying.
The funniest moment was probably when I was so proud to be able to ask the question: “I already have a ticket, but how much is a seat reservation please?”
Even before I had finished asking the question, I realised I had no chance of understanding whatever came back at me, because I hadn’t got round to learning numbers yet. And Polish numbers sound nothing like their French, German, or English counterparts!
It’s frustrating because, despite the dozens of hours I’ve spent on the Michael Thomas method (highly recommended) and also on Duolingo (meh) there have been conversations where I have to strain every sinew just to make sure I am even witnessing the speaking of the right language, never mind understanding what on earth is being said. I cling on to tiny scraps of understanding – a single word here or there – and tell myself that if I had more time, much more time, I might gradually be able to piece slightly longer phrases together, and even start understanding the basic gist. But I am a long way off that.
I’m back at that level of non-understanding that is coming back to me so clearly, of being in the beginning stages of language acquisition. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses in the various different skills required to progress. Grammatical accuracy was never my strongest suit, but I’ve always been quite a good mimic. This is both a plus and a minus.
When I say my phrases, people assume I’m much better than I really am, because I get the pronunciation quite good, but then they fire off a full-bodied response, with no real clues to what they’ve said.
And so I’ve developed a couple of techniques to avoid appearing like a total cretin. You can have these for free:
1. Only ask questions where the response will most likely be Yes or No.
2. Learn what the words for Yes and No sound like
3. Practise picking up on clues of non-verbal communication (NVC): facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures… Most of us do this unconsciously all the time, but the would-be language-learner hones this skill to the next level!
4. Try to prevent yourself from responding too vigorously to whatever has been said, i.e. don’t rely too heavily on your newly-acquired mastery of NVC! There’s nothing worse, conversationally, than laughing heartily, mimicking the other person’s jollity, when it turns out he was laughing ironically at his car catching fire and losing his entire portfolio of artwork. True story.
So, this has been a highly informative experience for me, and has even made me reconsider my teaching methodology. If you are reading this as one of my students, you can expect a humbler, more sympathetic approach from me when we next have a lesson…
Hang in there – those moments of real-life foreign-language communication are like little sparks of joy, which can hopefully be coaxed into a raging inferno of chatter. Sorry Jakub, if you’re reading this; that was an insensitive analogy.
Andrew Wenger: founder and director of SameSky, a Language School that offers French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Italian. We are taking a break for the summer holiday, which I am spending interrailing around Europe, and we start back in the first week of September. We offer online and in-person classes in the Reading/West Berkshire area.
Please contact me if you would like to find out about joining a class
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