Sunday, September 23, 2012

Language Immersion

My son has been talking a lot to me lately about language immersion since he is teaching himself Korean and Japanese. He has a very high IQ and he and I and his friend with a Bachelor's degree in Physics were talking about language today while on a hike. They were discussing Latin versus languages like Korean and Japanese to learn and my son was saying how learning words like "And, but, or, nor, of , the, a, etc. in other words joiner words were very helpful to learn first if you want to be a good conversationalist in a language. And that nouns and pronouns and verbs are actually less important to learn first than joiner words like I described above. He was also saying that because of the internet one can now watch movies in almost any language imaginable. And if you are learning one of the languages like French, German, Spanish or other European languages you should go into your DVD's and watch the movies in the language you want to learn without subtitles just so you can begin to absorb the language sort of like a toddler would. By doing it this way you can more easily absorb the language and eventually even think in the language without translating it through English again. So, the more immersed you can get into the culture of the language by listening to video blogs from that language and movies and youtubes the quicker you will understand that language. Also, if you meet online someone who wants to learn your home language, "English" and you want to learn their native language, you could both teach each other the other's language through "Skype" anywhere on earth if you wish.

One way to watch movies this way would be to either watch it in your native language "English" either the first time you watch it or the second time you watch it and then the other time "your choice" watch the movie in the language you want to learn.

Also, watching a movie without subtitles made in the culture of that language like a French movie made in France without subtitles first like a child would and then put an English subtitle the second time you watch the movie. The reason you don't want subtitles the first time is that you want to learn to think in that language especially if you are going to live where they only speak that language so you can speak fast enough and understand fast enough to be like you grew up there and to actually learn to eventually speak without an English Accent.

So, Toddler Language immersion might be time consuming but it is a way of programming your brain and sight and senses to actually think in the language and not have to translate it back through English with every word and sentence. It is very hard to translate back through English if you want to converse in another language effectively.

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