IF I WERE TO START LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE FROM SCRATCH
I am a professional translator, but then anyone who’s read my blogs will know that by now. I’ve said it enough times. But then so is Ioannis Ikonomou, a Greek translator who’s been working for the European Commission in Brussels since 2002, and from what I’ve read he speaks 32 languages fluently! Like, how!? And I thought Timothy Doner left me in the shade.
I can only imagine where he found the time to learn to speak so many – he couldn’t possibly have started learning all of them in his childhood. Indeed, it does beg the question of how many he started learning from scratch ever since he became a professional translator. …Yes, I envy him, and well done to him and blah blah blah, but this blog isn’t about him. For I decided to write a blog about what experiences I would expect were I to start learning a random new language today. It would certainly be different from when I started learning French and German as a boy at school, you know? And I’m not just saying that because I was expected to learn French and German when I was at school, whereas if I were to start learning a new language today it would be purely because I wanted to. I mean, with my experience, it would likely be so easy for me (if I do say so myself) – and I would get to enjoy greater autonomy doing it today, which is always cool – but at the end of the day… I really must elaborate on what is meant by that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YHrrEvPy2A I have never even watched this introduction to Polish video but I know it wouldn’t take me long to learn everything in it, along with short phrases in the category of basic communication, like saying please and thank you and all the rest of it. I would also consider it important to learn how to count to ten in Polish, and the Polish words for a proper range of colours, as soon as possible. After I’m comfortable with things like that, I imagine I would move onto learning basic conjugation for verbs and adjectives (present tense and commands), and adverbs, to start off with when I’m not seeking example phrases in other, broader subjects which matter to the masses, like how to ask for directions (maybe to sightseeing locations in Poland), or how to talk about the clothes I’m wearing, along with the words for different kinds of transportation vehicles and musical instruments, things like that… and maybe soon I could actually start to talk about my future plans in Polish! I would be proud of myself for reaching that stage – while knowing that I still have a long way to go before I can call myself “fluent” in the language.
Yes, fluency in a language requires a wide vocabulary and mastery of grammar which goes up to being able to enunciate more complex sentences with ease, such as ones with one or more pronouns in them, and competence in all the tenses, to name a few things. Once I started displaying an aptitude for subordinate clauses and adverbial clauses and things like that, then I would definitely know that I was on the right track. A good memory certainly helps in this sort of thing, but that shouldn’t be a problem for me. That said, I would like to end this blog with the following question:
Why should learning a new word in a foreign language be considered any more of a challenge than learning a new word in your mother tongue?