Brandon writes:
I have been reading about 40 pages a day and watching TV for about 2 hours a day. I have been coming across the new words and the new idioms that I learn over and over again, just like you said in one of your articles. It feels really good to know that I am making progress and to be able to use those new words and idioms in my conversations with native French speakers.
I have one more quick question, if you don’t mind. I know Polish is your dominant language, but it appears your English is as good (or nearly as good) as your native language. Do you think your German will ever be as good as your English?
It seems like there are so many people in this world who have mastered English. I have met Germans that could speak English as well as they could speak their native language, but all of the Germans learning French that I have met so far could not speak French very well (even though they learned it for many years). I know people from Japan that have learned English very well, but those learning French or German could not speak those languages very well.
Why do so many people master English, but not their 2nd or 3rd foreign language? Even those who can speak multiple languages, such as the polyglots on YouTube, tend to speak only their native language and English "fluently" and they are only at the advanced or intermediate level in the other languages they claim they speak.
That’s a very interesting question. I don’t have any scientific data on this, but I think my personal experience may be part of the answer.
I have always found it hard to learn languages other than English. I have tried learning German and flirted with Spanish and Italian. I got the farthest with German – at one point, I was able to write a two-page e-mail message with few mistakes using careful writing techniques. This went on for a few months, after which I slipped back to my usual “lower intermediate” level.
The fundamental reason why this happened was the simple fact that English is a far more influential language than German, Spanish or Italian. It is the lingua franca of today’s world. Virtually all books and articles published in the world are either written in English or translated into English soon afterwards. English-language discussion groups lead the way in the amount of available information. Of all languages, English offers the highest number of high-quality books, films, TV shows and websites.
(Even if you think the average quality of an English-language movie is worse than, for example, a French-language movie, it is not the average quality that matters – it’s the raw number of high-quality movies. America makes so many movies that even if only 5% are good, there are still far more good English-language movies than good French-language movies.)
The overwhelming importance of English means that it’s not only the most useful language to learn – it’s also the easiest. Other languages lack two crucial things: the availability of content and motivation.
Let’s talk about the availability of content first. You need a lot of input to learn a language, but my experience is that there’s very little quality content in other languages. Let me take a look at The Pirate Bay’s list of top 100 most pirated content: True Blood, Breaking Bad, TED talks, Max Payne 3, Futurama, Game of Thrones… See any German or French content in there? The people want English content. This is why, when I was learning German, I had enormous difficulty finding German content that I might actually want to watch. Where’s the German equivalent of Curb Your Enthusiasm? Where are the French TED talks? The Spanish Guns, Germs and Steel?
Yes, you can get German or French subtitles, translations, etc. That’s what I did for a while. But watching shows translated from English gives rise to the question: what for? Why am I watching this in German if I could watch the original English version? You can do it for the sake of learning German, but then you need some separate reason to learn German in the first place.
Which brings me to the second problem: motivation. If there is little good content in languages other than English, why learn those languages? Unless you have a Spanish spouse, plan to live in Spain, are fascinated by Spanish culture, or have another personal or professional reason, why would you embark on a Spanish-learning project? I have never been able to come up with a good enough reason to justify the time expense.
I think it’s likely that learners of languages other than English run into the same problem: after an initial period of enthusiasm, they find themselves unable to sustain their level of motivation because they eventually realize they’re not getting that much mileage from their study.
Very interesting and valuable post, Tom!
Though I’m still brushing up on my English using natural ways to learn it (you call it ’more input, less output’), many times I thought about learning German or even Russian.
Sometimes I wonder if I will be able to learn them. What for? One reason to learn German might be to speak to my family who emigrated to Germany. Although they are Polish, it could for example sustain my interest and motivation. I would have the opportunity to speak to real people, or even visit them more often.
As for Russian, I don’t know. Time will tell. :)
English is the lingua franca of today’s world as you have put it above. However, English might not come handy in every instance. For example, when I was in bangkok during my holiday, virtually, everyone spoke Thai because they did not speak and understand English. I had a stressful experience. I thought that I could have learned Thai so that I could relate with the locals. But my experience is that of a minority, though.
you are no a minority, the world is monolingual, if you live inside the “english bubble” you may go to a touristic place, meet up with some people who are used to interact with foreigners and can handle a conversation but not beyond that. Here’s a little lifestory, one day I was with a guy from France and he was kind upset from nothing being able to communicate even using simple expressions:
“I try to buy something and ask “how much?” and the seller just stare me without understanding what I just said, why they doesn’t know any english?”
“why you didn’t learn any portuguese before coming?”
“because I don’t need it”
“so, I guess you answered you own question”
yes, my experience in China was the same. very few people know English there but at least it was the only foreign language they had any idea of.
I can’t agree no more.
Portuguese is first language. I’m extremely excited about improving my english so that I can understand movies without subtitles and write things that will become available for the whole world. Or being understood at any part of the world.
I thought about learning spanish… Then this come to me: what for? For what purpose? I was using a site to talk to strangers these days and I made friends with a girl from Austria. She speaks german and english.
I lost the track of how many times I was able to communicate because I knew some English and not the first language of the person.
So, I think, even though portuguese and spanish are closely related to each other, if I want to talk to spanish people, English can be the way.
I may give it a shot in the future just because spanish and portuguese are very similar languages. And only to see if I can do it. I may feel like “I want a challenge” in the future, but I’ll try something that I can really accomplish, not chinese or japanese lol.
And finally, there is a plethora of tools to learn proper English. For instance, I set my mind to learn english pronunciation and I found a ready-made deck for Anki (SRS program) called “IPA for English” for free.
If my intention were to learn german or spanish pronunciation, I’m sure I would face a much harder problem to solve or, at least, it would be much much much more time-consuming.
So I settled down to learn proper English.
(anybody who feels like correcting me, I’ll be very thankful hehe)
Anibal,
as no-one seems to have responded to your invitation I thought I’d have a ‘shot’.
Your English is extremely good. Just a few things mark you as non native English-speaking, or are actual errors.
Please accept my thoughts below. Sadly this word processor doesn’t appear to accept ‘B, U or I’ or superscripts so my corrections are less easy to pick out.
I have used the arrow keys to highlight them and square brackets for corrections
C
I >can’tnoenglishwillbeingatspanishAnd-6were< [was-7] to learn german or spanish pronunciation, I’m sure I would face a much harder problem to solve or, at least, it would be much,-7 much, much. more time-consuming.
So I settled down to learn proper English.
(anybody who feels like correcting me, I’ll be very thankful hehe)
1. The word ‘no’ negates the ‘can’t and makes the sentence positive … a double negative. This is a colloquialism in which couldn’t (past conditional of can’t?) is used. Check this detail out … I don’t claim to be a super expert in grammar!
2. You have made this common error may times. Use capital initial letter for country names.
3. Can become available is better I think because you are talking about a possibility rather than a certainty.
4. This is a continuation of the previous issue. If you use will in the first instance you need to use will be in this one. Of course … I use can be. Note that being is the present participle.
5. I am not sure that at any part of the world is strictly incorrect but it sounds wrong to my English ear! At any place in the world would get by though!
6. Just an old fashioned rule I prefer to adhere to! Don’t start a sentence with and.
7. If my intention was or if my intentions were.
Blessings
C
Gosh Anibal,
The word processor has completely garbled my corrections … maybe it doesn’t like the arrows either.
Let’s try again …using a simple text editor.
I can’t agree no more. ( I couldn’t agree more-1 )
Portuguese is my first language. I’m extremely excited about improving my english (English- 2) so that I can understand movies without subtitles and write things that will (can-3) become available for the whole world. Or being (can be-4) understood at (in) any part of the world.
I thought about learning spanish (Spanish -4) Then this come to me: what for? For what purpose? I was using a site to talk to strangers these days and I made friends with a girl from Austria. She speaks german and English.
I lost the track of how many times I was able to communicate because I knew some English and not the first language of the person.
So, I think, even though portuguese and spanish are closely related to each other, if I want to talk to spanish people, English can be the way.
I may give it a shot in the future just because spanish and portuguese are very similar languages. (And-7) only to see if I can do it. I may feel like I want a challenge in the future, but I’ll try something that I can really accomplish, not chinese or japanese lol.
And finally, there is a plethora of tools to learn proper English. For instance, I set my mind to learn english pronunciation and I found a ready-made deck for Anki (SRS program) called IPA for English for free.
If my intention were (was-7) to learn german or spanish pronunciation, I’m sure I would face a much harder problem to solve or, at least, it would be much (, )much(,)much. more time-consuming.
So I settled down to learn proper English.
(anybody who feels like correcting me, I’ll be very thankful hehe)
1.The word ‘no’ negates the ‘can’t and makes the sentence positive a double negative. This is a colloquialism in which couldn’t (past conditional of can’t?) is used. Check this detail out I don’t claim to be a super expert in grammar!
2.You have made this common error may times. Use capital initial letter for country names.
3.Can become available is better I think because you are talking about a possibility rather than a certainty.
4.This is a continuation of the previous issue. If you use will in the first instance you need to use will be in this one. Of course I use can be. Note that being is the present participle.
5.I am not sure that at any part of the world is strictly incorrect but it sounds wrong to my English ear! At any place in the world would get by though!
6.Just an old fashioned rule I prefer to adhere to! Don’t start a sentence with and.
7.Tricky one probably not important or even allowable!
Looks like it worked this time!
By the way … use Microsoft Word (with the grammar and speller on) and try Google’s Translator when stuck. You probably already do I guess!
C
Actually, number 7 is fine as is. You’re supposed to use the subjunctive (“were” instead of “was”) when talking about conditional statements (it was preceded by “if”).
I’d like to ask you guys how you revive your writing skills after not using them for few years. Do you have any technique? What would be the most important things to review first?
I’m very pleased to write to you. I’m an English Egyptian teacher. However, I could get some motivation from the article above. I’ve never read about English language in this way. I was used to memorize some grammar rules and new vocabulary just to teach them to the pupils and not because I’m so interested in learning English. But I can say now that I’ve begun to have some aims to achieve at learning English myself.
I ask you if you can suggest more useful websites for this purpose and I’ll be so grateful.
Thanks for reading.
“(Even if you think the average quality of an English-language movie is worse than, for example, a French-language movie, it is not the average quality that matters – it’s the raw number of high-quality movies. America makes so many movies that even if only 5% are good, there are still far more good English-language movies than good French-language movies.)”
From your post, I wonder that if US government (or American in general) decided to choose French/German as their dominant language, what would happen to English nowadays :D ?
First of all, there are good foreign language movies – french, German etc out there. If there is enough enough motivation, then you will come across them. Just look at a review magazine in that language on movies, and you should find some. New ones are being made as well; it’s not just old ones you are stuck with. Secondl, to be honest, movies aren’t everything. Think how many books there are. I don’t mean you have to read Schiller or Goethe or anything. Just ordinary modern fiction, plenty of thrillers and waht-have-you if action is whst you want. Plenty of other material!
Is this thread for making people hating America a little more ?.
Tom
You should try to learn Mandarin Chinese. there is really a lot of learner-attractive contect out there – hundreds of movies and TV series may it be historical, action, comedies, sitcoms etc, thousands of books and almost infinite number of webpages. The characters are difficult but the grammar itself is not so hard cuz it’s almost entirely analytic, more than in English (no verb conjugation at all, no gender agreement, not plural noun endings).
BTW I’m from Poland as well, greatings.
Just wanted to chime in with some anecdotal evidence. When I travel in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, it strikes me every time how many of the older generation speak German and Russian quite well, but struggle with English. We can see the importance of these languages back when they were young; for the younger generation it’s all about English. I’m convinced it all boils down to motivation.
for the same reasons that drives native english people to learn other languages of course, while studying japanese I realize that the great majority of the other learners seems to be from US.
That argument about media is irrelevant, in all the word’s majority languages there’re enough native and dubbed\translated content to fill a life, if that’s was the problem no one would be learning english, and that’s why in this age when english is “essential” most of the people in most of the countries aren’t able to understand even the most simple phrases. Who cares if english has millions of movies and series? I won’t live enough to see all of them and and would not even like most of them in the first place.
Practically all the media that I care about is here, in front of me, conveniently translated into portuguese, so why to learn another language? Because we want it, it’s part of our mindset, our habits, it’s what we are, regardless if it comes from a job carer, a passion that comes since the childhood, or mere curiosity (my case!) the fact is that we can’t live without it.
If I want I could simply go to the next anime subbed in english, but instead, I raise my hand and say “no, I want it in japanese, please”.
You said that there’s no reason regarding media to learn other languages, but this also apply to english, there’s NO reason to learn english, that’s why all the people you see on the streets in your daily life, the taxy driver, shop clerks, your friends, practically no of them know any significant amount of english.
The “why to watch it if there’s a english version” question also is a double edged sword, using the japanese as a example again, there’re literally billions of mangas, animes, soap operas, magazines, blogs, books, novels, tv programs… and most of them easily surpass their english equivalents in amount and quality, just a small fraction of this content was and will be translated. But you don’t see english speakers complaining about it, cause they already have enough english stuff to fill their free time.
And if the language doesn’t have a massive native media, there’s no problem, one thing I learn from foreigners who are learning portuguese is that the media itself doesn’t matter if it’s not in the language you want, you can have some fun but you always feel that something is lacking. They could be learning the so “incredible useful and fantastic” english instead, but english gives to them that indescribable, warm and pleasure feeling?
There’s no reason to do anything. All you really need is food, water, and oxygen, everything else you simply want. Humans aren’t counting machines who will say “spanish has 1235242 media, french has 1087 835, gotta learn spanish” things doesn’t work that way.
Let me paraphrase your argument for you:
“Why get wine from the supermarket — your tap has more water than you can drink.”
Do you know the answer or should I spell it out?