Language and I
Communicating with me
In general, if you reach out to me, I will respond in the language that your correspondence is written in, so if you have a preference from the languages other than English of which I have some knowledge of (listed below), please feel free to use it. In fact, it helps me learn if you do!
Be advised that I will attempt to respond even if I haven't used the language in a while or do not have a high level in it (but at least intermediate) - if my response is difficult to understand, just let me know and I'm happy to switch to English. I appreciate your help in the learning process!
How I learn languages
The process of language study and acquisition is a deeply personal one and everyone who wishes for linguistic success must find the unique methods effective to them. Here is what I have found works for me, in chronological order, after taking considerable time and effort to do some "metastudying."
- Study the most common words of the language and the essential grammatical building blocks of the language.
- If language learning is a mountain, then the most difficult goal for me is to get over the initial incline. Once I have enough words that I can understand basic sentences and writing, it becomes much easier.
- For more on why it becomes easier, check out the writing of Stephen Krashen.
- If the language uses a writing script that is new to me, I will learn the pronunciation of that script first, then learn to truly read the script simultaneously with the above.
- Achieve grammatical fluency.
- Once I can understand basic input, I devote myself to the grammar of the language until I understand it thoroughly. I'm not sure whether I do this due to my preference for rules-based areas of study like mathematics, or whether it is just an acquired habit, but it has always felt natural.
- I focus on grammar until I am confident that I can understand the inner workings of any sentence or structure in the language - all that should be left to guessing from context is vocabulary by the end of this process.
- There is much more to memorize in terms of vocabulary than grammar, so why not do the easier part first? Depending on the language it is most certainly a few orders of magnitude.
- My output at this time will be very strange and humorous, because I use complex grammatical structures with very basic and confined vocabulary.
- Read, read, read
- Reading is where I am strongest in learning languages; I typically can read a language at a higher level than I can speak or write it. (The exception is Mandarin)
- Wikipedia is not only how I learned to read English at a high level as an elementary schooler (yes, I vividly recall the blackout - I was in second grade), but also my source of choice for text in just about any language. It's not just articles - the internal editors' discussions are good too.
- Use Anki to sustain vocabulary gained from reading / other sources
- Catch up through immersion
- As I begin to develop my vocabulary, I'll augment the reading with other practices.
- I absolutely adore listening to music in languages other than English and pick up a lot this way.
- I'm not huge on television, movies, or podcasts, but occasionally something piques my interest and I'll check it out.
- Conversations with native speakers / folks online / perhaps AI systems in the future...
The last three points here are an iterative process which never really ends. With a period of particularly dedicated study, I can get from a basic understanding + grammatical fluency to an upper intermediate level in ~6 months of the language is similar enough to English.
Why I learn languages / how I choose which ones
- Great pieces of literature or poetry often inspire to learn a language, so I can experience the original and not a translation.
- General interest in the culture
- Desire to read scientific materials written in the language
Languages I have studied to a decent extent
- English
- My native language, a truth for which I am quite grateful.
- I didn't realize that I have an accent until I went to Denmark, and Danish folks told me that I had a distinctively Northeastern United States sounding accent.
- When I was a very young child, I somehow had a British accent. By first or second grade I lost this.
- Spanish
- I took five years of Spanish classes in high school. But those classes are most definitely not how I learned Spanish.
- In my senior year of high school I became very interested in really devoting myself to the language rather than just passing Spanish classes that were taught almost exclusively in English. So, when I had spare time throughout the day in school (which was often), I would do nothing but read Spanish Wikipedia.
- By the time I got to Brown, I was much improved; the first item I ever checked out from a Brown Library.
- I also discovered Anki during my freshman year at Brown, and it truly changed my life (not just for languages).
- Mandarin
- I took a year of Mandarin Chinese during my first year at Brown.
- I learned more Chinese in that year than I did Spanish during five years of Spanish in high school. Something needs to be done about foreign language study in U.S. public schools...
- I have studied sporadically since, but sadly didn't have time to continue taking Chinese due to wanting to study two concentrations (Mathematics and Computer Science) instead of one.
- The only language where I felt reading wasn't my strongest skill.
- Danish
- I started learning Danish when I decided to study abroad in Copenhagen.
- By the time I got to Copenhagen, I could read a good amount, but I was not good at speaking.
- I took a language course during my time there and gained a lot from it.
- I always appreciated when Danish folks who could speak English very well did not immediately switch to English, and instead put up with my poor Danish. While certainly slowing them down, it was immensely helpful for me.
- By the end of my time in Denmark, I could hold conversations without needing to switch to English, and I'm continuing to increase the depth of my vocabulary.
- Italian
- Italian and I have a complicated history.
- I had an impulsive urge to try to intensely learn Italian during my senior year of high school, perhaps a month after I saw that I was really able to learn Spanish effectively and quickly with some effort. We had to read L'Inferno, and I thought that I could try to learn Italian by reading the English and Italian side by side with a dictionary. My teacher strongly advised me against this, for obvious reasons. I gave up after about 3 days of attempting to do this.
- I had another impulsive urge to revisit it during my third semester at Brown, by which point I had formulated the methodology for learning languages presented above. I was making very good progress on the grammar for two or three weeks when my first semester of mathematics upper levels suddenly became far too busy to keep up the practice.
- I'm sure I'll learn the language fully one day, but that day is not today.
Here are the languages I'm currently studying:
- French
- German
- Inspired both by the time I spent in Germany, and also by great writings.
- Russian
- Inspired by the literature.
Levi's Linguistic Bucket List
These are the languages that I want to learn, but have no idea when I'll have the time to do so. I am extremely dedicated to seeing these through at some point in my life.
- Esperanto
- Hawaiian
- Pali
- Portuguese
- Ukrainian
- Sanskrit