Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

“Immersion-Style” Foreign Language Learning?

In our Gamesforlanguage blog posts, as well as on our social media pages, we sometimes mention "immersion-style" language learning. What do we mean with "immersion-style" language learning? To answer this question, let's first back up a little.

FULL IMMERSION - For and Against

Whether you can learn a language through "full immersion" is a much-debated topic.

On the one hand, many agree that full immersion - living in the country or in a community where the language is spoken - is the best way to become fluent in a foreign language.

On the other hand, much has been written about the numerous immigrant children who have difficulty keeping up in their new school and about adults who've lived for years in a foreign country but haven't really mastered its language.

As a Child

I experienced full immersion in a foreign language twice as a child, once at age 9 (Dutch) and once more at age 11 (English), neither language I had learned during my early school years in Austria.

In both the Netherlands and Canada, I attended school and got special help from teachers to learn how to spell, read, write short compositions, and give brief oral reports. It was all pretty intense because I learned all other subjects (mathematics, geography, history, social studies, etc.) through a language that I was also just learning. And, of course, I continuously improved my language skills by being with friends.

As an Adult

My husband experienced full immersion in a foreign language twice as an adult, once at age 23 (French) and once again at age 28 (English). In both French Switzerland and the U.S., he literally acquired language fluency "on the job."

In both cases, his learning was based on language skills (reading, writing, speaking) that he had learned in school in Germany. Discussions with friends and the tasks of daily life provided him with ample opportunities for further practice.

It seems clear that you need more than just living in the foreign country to become fluent in the language that's spoken there. You need the kind of learning environment that's right for you and often extra, personalized instruction.

Above all, while you are "immersed" in a foreign language, you need to understand what is being said and what's going on around you, otherwise it all goes over your head. Especially for an adult, it's useful to be able to relate a foreign language to one's native language: understand what's similar, what's different - until your new language becomes a natural and intuitive tool for communication.

Under the right circumstances, full immersion will work. But not everyone has the time nor the opportunity to go live in another country just to learn a language. We therefore have to employ other strategies and methods, and create, as Brian Powers calls them Simulated Language Immersion Environments

SHORT-TIME IMMERSION

You can set up your own simulated language immersion by setting aside times during the day when you hear or use only the language you're learning. Among our favorites are these five examples:
1. Watching a foreign movie with (or even without) subtitles in that language.
2, Reading a book in the foreign language without looking up words.
3. Conversing with someone only in the foreign language.
4. Listening to an audio that's completely in the foreign language.
5. Talking to yourself only in the foreign language.

Such bouts of short-time immersion, if done frequently, can yield good results. In my experience, you can get the most out of them if you already have a good basic knowledge of the language.

Still, even if you are a real beginner, there are skills to be gained during these short-term language immersions.
• You'll become familiar with sounds and rhythm of the language just by listening attentively.
• You'll learn about non-verbal communication by looking for visual context clues in a film or video.
• You'll you'll start internalizing the look and spelling patterns of a language by reading simple texts.
• You'll practice basic sentence structure and the mechanics of sounding out words, by memorizing basic conversational phrases and repeating them to yourself.

7 “IMMERSION-STYLE” FEATURES

Aside from full immersion and short-term immersion, there are, of course, other ways to learn a language. Rather than limiting yourself to one only, it's often best to use several different methods and resources. In the long run, these have a way of complementing and boosting each other.

GamesforLanguage's (G4L's) “immersion-style” learning is simply one such approach. I'll outline what we consider immersion-style features of our courses by contrasting them to a couple of other popular programs and approaches.

1. G4L puts you right into the middle of spoken language. For example, you could be using an expression with a subjunctive or conditional in one of the first course lessons. This is different from textbook learning, or Duolingo, where you start with simplified language.

2. With G4L you hear only the language you're learning, and no English (except for a brief introduction giving the context). This is different from Pimsleur (an audio program) where around 50% of what you hear are cues in English to prompt the learner's translation.

3. G4L strengthens listening and speaking with various games and exercises: With “Say It” you repeat what you hear and then only see the written foreign word or phrase for a brief moment; in other games, you have to identify the foreign word after only hearing it. Finally, by recording and playing back the story dialog, learners can improve their pronunciation and also begin to memorize expressions and sentences.

4. G4L's short written exercises have you writing only in the foreign language. This is again different from Duolingo, where between 10-20% of what you write is in English.

5. G4L does not use pictures but works with text only. Yes, sometimes pictures do help one to remember a word. But once you get beyond objects and some simple actions, the technique of using pictures is limited.
That's what happens in Rosetta Stone's programs. Once you get beyond basic objects and actions, it's not always easy to figure out what a picture is supposed to mean.
Besides, as you learn learn new words and expressions, it makes a lot of sense to create your own mental image or scenario. And, there are various mnemonic techniques that provide powerful ways for improving vocabulary memorization.(Try The Universe of Memory for a free course and very helpful information on memory and learning!)

6. In each of the G4L lessons, the learner plays several games that break a segment of the travel story down into its component words and phrases. Then follow a couple of games that have the learner reassemble the story again, with a final exercise of listening to the full dialogue again, this time without translating it in your mind.

7. Finally, G4L uses games and a story as teaching tools. Games make learning more fun and help to put you into a state of flow as you memorize new words and figure out grammatical patterns. The story provides the kind of context that lets you imagine a scenario that you're involved in, and gives you the precise meaning of the words you're learning.
Just learning lists of individual words, as in Memrise, Mindsnacks, and others, is not sufficient for learning a new language, although vocabulary learning is important and clearly necessary for communicating. But vocabulary should best be learned in context.

Neither online or typical classroom courses can ever create complete immersion environments. For such an experience, you have to live in the country or be a full-time participant of immersion language courses that also use the target language for teaching.

However, we've made a step in that direction by adding immersion-style features with the goal to maximize the learner's exposure to and involvement in the target language.

Posted on by Peter Rettig

La Paloma - Carmen - Cuba: Spanish language connections

Dove The promising thaw, some time ago, in the relations between Cuba and the U.S. brought to mind that La Paloma, a song that over the years has been adapted and sung in so many languages, actually originated in Cuba.

In an earlier post, La Paloma Lyrics - Learning Spanish with a Song, we focused mainly on how you can learn some typical Spanish expressions by saying or singing the song's lyrics. In addition, we gave a brief summary of the song's history: Composed around 1860 by the Basque composer Sebastián Iradier after his visit to Havana.

La Paloma - A Song for the Ages

When you google "La Paloma song," you'll find a Wikipedia entry which tells you not only details about the song's motif (the dove), dating back to 492 BC;  some of its history (a favorite of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico); early translations into French and German in the 1860's, with new lyrics in different languages, interpretations by famous artists; as well as the many movies in which a version of the song occurs.

La Paloma is arguably the most frequently played song and melody in the world. I've read that in Zanzibar it's being played at the end of weddings, in Romania at the end of funerals. In Germany it's a sailor's song, made famous by Hans Albers in his movie "Grosse Freiheit #7" in 1944.

The La Paloma - Carmen Connection

Carmen Opera SingerWhen digging a little further, I discovered that there's a connection between Iradier's "La Paloma" and the "Habanera" aria in Bizet's Carmen: "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle," which is said to be very close, melodically, to "El Arreglito," another song composed by Sebastián Iradier. Both are "habaneras," the name used outside of Cuba for the Cuban "contradanza," a type of dance music that became popular in the 19th century.

Bizet originally thought El Arreglito was a folk song, only to discover that it had been written by Iradier who had died ten years earlier. Bizet then added a note to the vocal score of "Carmen" to acknowledge the source.

Cuban Music History and Future

Cuba Map Another Wiki entry further explains: "The Cuban 'contradanza' (also called contradanza criolla, danza, danza criolla, or habanera) was a popular dance music genre of the 19th century. ... Its origins dated back to the European 'contredanse,' which was an internationally popular form of music and dance of the late 18th century.

It was brought to Santiago de Cuba by French colonists fleeing the Haitian Revolution in the 1790's ... During the first half of the 19th century, the 'contradanza' dominated the Cuban musical scene to such an extent that nearly all Cuban composers of the time, whether composing for the concert hall or the dance hall, tried their hands at the contradanza."

It's interesting that the language circle was completed when Iradier brought back the "habaneras" from his visit to Cuba, and when Bizet used "El Arreglito" for his French opera "Carmen". Many of the well-known dance styles such as rumba Buena Vista Social Clubsalsa, mambo, chachacha, reportedly began in Cuba.

In the coming years the rediscovery of Cuban artists, which began in the 90s with the popular "Buena Vista Social Club" album and Wim Wender's 1999 movie about the band, will very likely continue.

And, if you're interested in the island's music and are maybe even considering a visit, the MyCubavisit.com website will give you some worthwhile information and insights.

Postscript: 

(1) I recently came a across the post of a young Polyglot-in-the making. She suggests four simple steps for learning with songs to improve both your listening and speaking (maybe even singing!) skills.
1. Listen!  2. Sing!  3. Translate.  4. Retranslate
It's fun AND effective and it works for all languages!

(2) We recently discovered a Spanish language site, Language Zen, which uses Spanish songs a their lyrics as part of their program. You won't find "La Paloma", but many contemporary songs on Language Zen. Also read our "Language Zen" - Learning Spanish - A Review

Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

GamesforLanguage's Most-Read Posts in 2014

2014This is our 200th blog post. Every January, we'll publish our 10 most popular blogs of the previous year.

2014 has been a wonderful year at GamesForLanguage, not just because we've grown our number of followers on Facebook and Twitter, but - as of December 2014 - our blog has gotten over 36,000 views.

Thanks for your interest and support! That's what fuels us - as well as the thousands of monthly visitors that come to our free language learning site.

We started GamesForLanguage 4 years ago as an experiment combining (fun) games and (serious) language learning for adults - and enlisted native speakers of French, Italian, and Spanish to our team.

Yes, language games are very popular with kids, but we've been delighted by the positive and constructive feedback that teens and adults have given us about our approach. We always want to hear from you, and we'll get back to you quickly.

We look forward to another great year. It'll include creating new courses and lots of new Quick Games. 

Last but not least, we're both going for a spurt to fluency in Spanish and for a fresh start with a new language - Swedish for Ulrike and Dutch for Peter. It's a good way to stay sharp and humble, language learning wise.

Here are our 10 most popular blog posts of 2014:

  1. La Paloma Lyrics – Learning Spanish With a Song 
  2. 5 Key Steps for Re-Learning a Language 
  3. Fluency vs. Proficiency in Foreign Language Learning 
  4. Three (3) Ways to Better Engage in a German Conversation 
  5. 3 Steps for Training Your Ear When Learning a Language 
  6. Learning French - Cézanne and Banking 
  7. 12 Social Media Terms When Learning Spanish
  8. Si tu n'existais pas – Learning French with a song 
  9. The “Context Approach” for Language Learning 
  10. Not enough time? Really? Language Learning and Setting Priorities 

While several of the posts date back to previous years, it's surprising that #10 "Not enough time? Really? Language Learning and Setting Priorities" made it on the list, as it was only published on December 17, 2014. Apparently this post hit a nerve.

The La Paloma post has been a front runner since it was published in June 2013. Learning a language via well-known songs is clearly compelling. There are several other websites using this idea.

We recently published a post on French Social Media terms and are interested to see how it does this year. Social Media sites continue to be great places to practice and improve a language and being familiar with social media language is a good tool.

We welcome your comments and suggestions for new blog post topics! Wishing you an excellent and fun new language learning year!

Posted on by Peter Rettig

How P.M. Tools can Help Your Language Learning (and my Spanish & Dutch)

Time ManagementP.M. Tools for Language Learning? - updated 2-11-2017

Many language projects seem to fail because of Lack of motivation and Poor Time Management.

This is consistent with the unattributed survey graph we discussed in our previous post, Not enough time? Really? Language Learning and setting Priorities, although the graph had the order reversed: 24% of the respondents had voted for “Not enough time” and 16% for “Keeping up motivation” as their main difficulty when learning a new language.

(We had also speculated that the “not enough time” response may hide other reasons, so the discrepancy matters little.)

Lack of Motivation or Waning Motivation?

Maybe “lack” of motivation is not the right term. Most adult language learners are quite motivated when they start learning a new foreign language. 

The strongest reasons are typically related to immigration, a new lover or family member, travel to or work in a foreign country, job or study requirements, and similar clear needs to be able to communicate in the foreign language.

There are other reasons, such as getting in touch with your family/language roots, religious interests, challenging yourself, or even just a passion for language learning. There is, however, an obvious correlation: The stronger the NEED, the stronger the motivation.

Even if motivation was strong at the start, it can easily weaken as the magnitude of the language project becomes clear.

This is especially true for those learners that get caught by slick marketing slogans and ads. And, motivation may also wane for those who have not learned to manage the essentials of what is really a long-term project. They will discover that learning a foreign language as an adult is not difficult per se, but that they will have to commit time to learn and practice.

My father often quoted a (German) saying: “Vor den Erfolg haben die Götter den Schweiß gesetzt” which translates as “The gods have set  sweat (hard work) as a condition for success.”

Well, learning a foreign language does not involve sweat, but it does require sustained effort. And those who indeed approach language learning as a long-term project could benefit from applying some of the Project Management tools they may already be using in their professional life.

What is a Language Learning “Project”?

While not all elements typically found in Project Management handbooks are present in a foreign language learning project, important ones are: Projects follow a plan and organized approach; they have a beginning and an end and thus need a time schedule; they need resources; they have an end result or achieve a goal.

What is, however, quite different from the typical “project,” which often involves many people, is that YOU alone are all of these in one: the Project itself, its main participant, the Project Manager, both a resource and a resource consumer, the judge of success, etc.

Which P.M. Tools should you then apply?

Schedule – There are really two parts to this: (1) How long you have, and  (2) How much time you can commit. Both are obviously closely related.

If you have only, say, three months to become proficient, you'll have to commit lots of time, take an immersion course, or find a tutor, etc.

(See also our post: 10,000 Hours for Foreign Language Mastery? We state there, for example, that for languages in Group I, Language Testing International (LTI) estimates that it takes a person with “Average Aptitude” 240 hours of training “under the supervision of an instructor and with 1-4 students per class” to reach “Intermediate Mid” proficiency.)

On the other hand, if you have much more than three months, you have many more choices and decisions to make. Such a schedule or timeline does not have to be complicated and is not difficult to create. For my timeline, I use an Excel-type spreadsheet; below, I show my current plan for improving my Spanish and learning Dutch. (More about my reasons for learning Dutch below.)

Resources – Here, money, teaching materials, and human resources come into play. Again, how long you have and available resources are important.

From free to pricey online courses, library materials, books, CDs, audios and DVDs, adult education/community college/university courses, to immersion courses in your country or abroad – the choices and decisions are yours.

The question of “What is best for me?” or “What is the best value for me?” is difficult to answer in general, but, if you google such questions, you can find many blog posts and reviews (including ours) for opinions and recommendations. One note of caution: There is no single “best” program or approach. Money alone does not buy you proficiency in a foreign language.

Nobody can do it FOR you. You have to do the learning YOURSELF! There may be approaches and methods that fit the way you learn better than others. Do some research and try out some approaches.

Most importantly, find the course(s) – in whatever medium – YOU ARE MOST LIKELY TO STICK WITH. But once you have decided on one or, even better, several teaching resources, you should show these and your practice/attendance on a simple timeline. (see below)

A schedule then serves several purposes: It documents your plan visually, you can add, modify or delete activities, it shows key milestones: reading an article; understanding a conversation, an audio, a video; participating in a conversation; writing emails, texts, a journal; proficiency tests, etc.

Accomplishment/Goal – Here, language learning deviates from the typical “project completion” celebration as learning a foreign language as an adult is often a life-long project.

Take my case: I've been in the the U.S. for many years, but have never been able to completely eliminate my German accent – it's not as noticeable as Henry Kissinger's, but it's still there. I took “accent reduction” classes and have to be conscious of how to pronounce “Ws” and “Vs.” I also occasionally find words that I have not heard before.

On the other hand, I read German newspapers to keep up with German as well. As with all languages, German is constantly evolving alongside new social developments. However, by setting certain milestones and targeting your learning to achieve these milestones, you can celebrate your accomplishments and then set yourself the next one.

If your goal is acing a proficiency test you need to take for college or work, it's an obvious one. But as you can see from my schedule example below, I also have a very specific goal for learning Dutch.

Why Learn Dutch?

Dutch is not a language one would learn without a very good reason. (A Google search surprised me, though: There are over 23 million people speaking Dutch, the majority living in The Netherlands (16 million) and the Flemish part of Belgium (6 million).

Islands in the Caribbean (Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, St. Maarten), Suriname (South America), and elderly Dutch speakers in Canada and Indonesia make up the balance.

In addition, Afrikaans, one of 11 official languages used in South Africa, is based on Dutch, and Afrikaans and Dutch speakers mutually understand each other. (This adds another 7 million.)

Now the reason I want to learn to UNDERSTAND Dutch is this: Every couple of years, my wife and I attend a family reunion in The Netherlands. My wife understands and speaks Dutch fluently and with my German background, I sometimes can make out a little.

But that's not enough to really be part of a conversation – even if I were to answer in English or German.

You may know that the Dutch probably speak better English than most of their European neighbors and our relatives are no exception. But when joining a table where everybody speaks Dutch, I often found that making all switch to English seemed like an imposition.

My goal therefore is quite simple: I just want to UNDERSTAND the conversations of our Dutch relatives. This way, when I am sitting at a table where Dutch is spoken, I can participate in the conversation and not force the whole table to switch to German or English. My longer-term goal is obviously to also speak Dutch, but I'll be happy with an interim step by September.

My Plan for Spanish and Dutch

The timeline below shows my current plan.

Gamesforlanguage learning scheduleMy focus is on completing the Spanish Duolingo course, as well as our GamesforLanguageSpanish 1 course (for the second time), before we head to Sevilla in the spring.

During our stay in Seville, we plan to hire a tutor for regular daily practice. My wife and I will make every effort to converse in Spanish and obviously take every opportunity to practice our Spanish while shopping, sightseeing, etc. We'll evaluate ourselves on our Spanish fluency at the end of our stay.

After our return in the spring, I'll increase my Dutch learning efforts, complete the Dutch Duolingo course, and subscribe to one or more online courses, most likely, Babbel and LingQ. My goal is to understand Dutch conversations during our stay in the Netherlands.

I do not know yet what I will do after getting back home. I'll probably start reading some Dutch books, maybe watch some Dutch YouTube clips, and, yes, start talking more in Dutch with my wife. 
 
As for Spanish, assuming our fluency has further improved, we'll look for conversation partners among our friends and on online language exchanges, continue reading Spanish books and newspapers online, and watch Spanish movies and videos - because we know: "If you don't use it, you'll lose it!"

Postscript: At the time of the family reunion I had achieved my goal of being able to follow conversations. I am continuing my Dutch practice using both LearnwithOliver's and Lingohut's free Dutch lessons.

Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

How to Speed up Your French Learning With Social Media

Social Media Just starting to learn French? So, how soon could you begin reading real French texts online? You easily can speed up your French learning with social media.

The question of how soon one can master the basics of a language gets hotly debated in many of the polyglot forums and language learning sites.

Duolingo gives a pretty precise answer. When you reach around the middle of its French course, you'll get a message saying something like this: "You are now able to read and translate 53% of French articles on the Internet." That means with around 800 French words, which can be learned in 4 months or so, you can start reading, understanding, and even translating online articles.

(I noticed that for me with GamesforLanguage Spanish, it was 750 words and also took me 4 months.)

I hasten to add that it is crucial to learn a language in context. Learning lists of individual words does not prepare you to communicate beyond one-word or two-word sentences, or with English sentences that are clothed in French words.

To truly communicate in French, you have to get an intuitive feel of how the language works, understand when to use formal or informal expressions, and be aware that the meaning of words can change in various contexts.

The early milestones of mastery are important but they are just a beginning. Once you've gotten the basics in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, you then own the tools to build your skills.

If you regularly read online articles in French and participate in French online conversations, your level of mastery will increase dramatically. Here are some terms to get you started:

15 Basic Social Media Terms

• partager - to share
• suivre - to follow; suivez-nous - follow us
• j'aime - I like (Facebook)
• commenter - to comment
• continuer la lecture - continue reading
• envoyer - to send
• rechercher sur - search on
• fermer - to close
• s'inscrire - to register, subscribe; vous désinscrire - to unsubscribe
• mis à jour - updated, disclosed (on)
• poster quelque chose - to post something
• répondre - to reply
• se connecter - to connect (oneself)
• créer un nouveau compte - to create a new account
• réseau social - social network; réseautage social - social networking

Learning a language has never been easier than now. The internet provides a wealth of resources and information for anyone with a little time and dedication.

But it's more than information to be consumed. On the internet, you can participate, write comments, exchange information with those who have similar interests, you can learn and help others to learn.

If you want to get started with news or some fun, colorful articles in their Lifestyle sections, here is a link to The Huffington Post France

Go to Facebook and find pages in French. You can look for pages around interests that you have, follow trends, learn new words and phrases, and discuss language issues.

We're always happy to see you on our GamesforLanguage Facebook page. We follow some of the polyglot personalities on their language adventures, post blogs and articles on language learning in general, and tricks and hacks on learning the four languages that we teach: French, Spanish, Italian, and German. And, we always welcome comments in French. Bonne année et j'espère à bientôt!