166

I’d like to help. But first, I’ll ask some questions.

1. Do you read?
2. Are you positive?
3. Do you want to learn a language?
4. Do you realize I won't teach the actual language?
5. Can you suspend judgment?
6. Are you self-directed?
7. Are you a social learner?
8. Can you tolerate uncertainty?
9. Are you satisfied with Input?
10. Can you commit to a year?
11. Are you big enough to choose 3?
12. Have you realistic expectations?
13. Are you open to new ideas?
14. From 0 to 10, how happy are you with your previous language-learning experience?
15. Depending on your score, are you prepared to make necessary changes?

165

Unfortunately I’ve misplaced my mp3 player. I left it at my mother’s—fingers crossed—so I won’t be able to get it back for another 4 days, when next I cycle over the hill to visit.

That means I’m dependent on a laptop. Or else I’d need to spend more time reading.

Perhaps it’s time to invest in an mp3 player of my own (because ‘my’ mp3 player is actually Mami’s). They are available in this city/country. Not in Japan. There, smart phones have taken over.

But there’s an idea! At work we were issued with i-Pads. I could experiment.

164

Visiting a recycling store that I haven’t yet been to, I walk away with 8 foreign-language books in Bulgarian, Hungarian, Thai, Norwegian, German, Japanese, and Czech. Some might say that this is overdoing it. 

No doubt I’d make faster progress if I concentrated on fewer. But is that so important?

I maintain my motivation by remaining interested. I love to dabble. To have dozens of books about keeps me keen. And besides, I’m more interested in developing my language-learning method than in learning languages as such.

It’s a question of balancing my drive to collect with my urge to invent.

163

I want notebooks, small enough to carry around and have lots of. I want to use them to get my middle-level languages—French, Spanish, Polish—anything with an alphabet system that I can recognize—into orbit.

I want to be able to do 3 things: listen, follow along and understand. This requires 3 streams, therefore. I need the audio, the script, plus the script in English.

In the notebook I see a pairing of lines—a sort of textual shuttle carrier affair. Above, in larger letters, the target language, and below, in smaller letters, maybe in pencil, the English equivalent.

162

There are 3 things that have been shown to delay senility—reading, bilingualism and coffee. The delay may be as much as 5 years.

I need to look into it further. Also, I’d like to explore setting up some sort of ‘club’ around the practice of all three, perhaps at, or through, Otago Polytechnic.

I could start doing a regular workshop. I’d show people how to acquire another language the Unlearning way. It involves plenty of reading. And we’d take a coffee break or two.

Other factors could have an effect too, in which case additional activities could be considered. 

161

In effect, what I need to do is load up my mp3 player with all sorts of Dutch, as well as Harry Potter in German and Japanese. Beyond that, I upload short stories in the other languages when, and only when, I complete copying them—in a large font—into a ‘traveling notebook’. Those stories can come from BookBox.

This way, I ensure that my listening input is comprehensible.

That solves the listening-on-the-move side of the equation. Next, I need to get into the habit of sitting down at the table with my laptop. I’ve got to allocate the time.

160

I’ve been thinking. And that has led to a change of mind.

I believe now that one’s first language interferes in a way I hadn’t formerly realized. When I learn another language, at some level I recall the discomfort of partial understanding. I experienced again the several-year frustration of only imperfectly being able to follow along the conversation.

So I need to immediately understand second language input through both familiarity with the text, and with having the English equivalent—spoken or written—alongside.

I’ll need to copy out chapters in the various target languages and brush up my reading-whilst-walking skills.

159

I have ten languages on the go, right? So what do I do the day after starting a new one—Polish? I immediately carry on where I left off, with Polish. 

Why is that?

Maybe I’m like a dog with a bone. I enjoy doing the same thing over and over. Or I like novelty. The new language is still new. 

Another reason could be that it’s the type of activity—copying i+1 sentences in a notebook—that attracts me. If so, then it behooves me to have different sorts of activities and/or resources on the go for each language.

158

For a while I couldn’t think what topic to write about for this day. Until I suddenly remembered—the 20^th of February is the day that my first book goes on sale in Japan! That’s something worth celebrating, surely.

In English, its title is Make more mistakes, not less, if you want to learn English. But of course, the whole book’s in Japanese. It’s been translated, revised, edited and rearranged. I’m not sure anymore how it reads.

But there’s one thing I’m sure of. It’s going to be a very useful tool for me to use to improve my Japanese!

157

I spoke in Dutch on a video call for almost an hour. That’s about the limit for me, I think. By the time that the call ended I was starting to stumble. It’s taxing to remain immersed in another language (even in English, I find) overlong.

But there’s something else that I need to look into.

It seems that gluten intolerance can affect the brain. It’s possible that the wrong diet can lead to brain fog, anxiety and depression.

So I’ll stay away from wheat and see what happens. I must read the books Wheat Belly and Grain Brain again.

156

My 88-year-old mother still reads in 3 languages. Her mind is clear, apart from some short-term memory loss due, possibly, to a fall a few months ago. I spoke with her Dutch at her home yesterday.

Actually, it was deeper than just a talk. It was more of an interview, since I had a set of questions on paper to refer to. They were about World War 2—the war in which, over 75 years ago, she lost her mother, a sister and 2 brothers.

It was a hell of an experience. I now know Mum—Oma—better than ever.

155

Two books have returned to me.

The first is a Sue Barton book in German. I thought I had lost it, but it had only been misplaced (in a handbag). I was going to loan it to my mother. So I’ll continue reading it after her.

The second is a book that I wrote. It’s been a long time in the making—concept, proposal, outline, drafts, translating, editing and whatnot. But it’s due to go on sale in 2 days’ time. Yesterday I received advance 10 copies by mail.

Make more mistakes, not less, if you want to learn English. 

154

Further to my initial steps with Polish that I began making about a week ago—I decided to do some simple-sentence work. No, not work—play, rather.

My idea was to highlight the simplest Polish sentences gradually becoming familiar with the letters, words, word order and meaning. But strangely, my PDF version doesn’t allow me to do that, or even to copy across text.

And so what I’ll do is to carry out that plan manually. I’ll write them across into a notebook, leaving space to insert the rest of the sentences as and when.

It's bound to be fun.

153

Do I engage in some sort of research project to gather evidence for the effectiveness of my ideas? Or do I simply outline what I do to ‘learn 10 languages at once’. Just present it as something that I’m happy to share. Then people may decide to what degree they’d like to try it out? No proof required.

Also, do I set out on my own, or do I collaborate with, for example, Otago Polytechnic? I’m undecided.

In the meantime, I’ll push on and prepare a set of 100 or so suggested steps for people to ascend as and when.

152

Where I work is important. I need a good space, minimal distraction, quiet, privacy and so on. In Japan, I made use of the local Macdonald’s. It wasn’t totally ideal, but I did manage to get a book—several books, actually—written there.

The Macdonald’s in NZ don’t have the same atmosphere, however. For various reasons they are not very suitable for me. And so I was happy to discover a nearby student study facility—Marsh House—that provides the best possible environment that a person could imagine.

I spent a few hours there yesterday and will do so regularly

151

English is a language too, and I was using it a lot yesterday.

At Otago Polytechnic’s English School I used it to help welcome in a large group of students from 10 to 15 different countries. As a teacher I tried to use common words, simple grammar and short sentences.

At home, online, I continued in that vein, expressing myself as clearly as possible in understandable English (and Dutch) to family members in both New Zealand and Holland.

Being able to use Globish is a skill and a necessity too. It takes effort and practice to use any language effectively.

150

I’ve done a lot of Dutch these days—reading, speaking, listening and a little writing.

That’s what happens when you agree to pass letters to on to other people—to my mother, in this case, from Holland. That required me to read aloud and record an interview about ancient family matters—real language work, in other words, the genuine stuff, authentic communication that requires you to switch from one language to another without thinking about it.

It keeps you busy. But it tires you out too. Sometimes I’d rather just sit down with a book—one in Dutch or German?

149

I’ll concentrate on parallel texts for a while. I’m pulled to return to the basic method used by Heinrich Schliemann. And so I fooled around a little with Polish.

I chose to start small. In English, ‘I’ and ‘a’ are the only one-letter words. In Polish there are at least 6: w, i, z, a, o and u. Cute. And from the first page or two of the 7^th chapter of HP1, I find a total of 22 two-letter words. (If I listed them I’d go over my 100-word limit.)

With Polish, small words are a fun place to start.

148

I firmly believe that you can’t teach anyone a language. And a language can’t be learned—not well, anyway. So move along, folks—no pedagogy to see here.

Still, we must do something!

What I did was to develop a means of language acquisition that’s based on solid research. Its principles are sound. Surely that makes it worth sharing. 

I’ll present it for others to consider, try out, evaluate, and modify to suit. 

Why not hear me out, entertain my ideas, experiment, and, after a fair trial, retain, tweak, replace and reject whatever you like?  

Can’t say fairer than that.  

147

I’m currently involved with a group from China. They have come to New Zealand for 4 weeks, for the experience, and for English. They are students from Nanjing in their 2nd year of a 4-year engineering degree.

For me, it’s an interesting experience too, and a chance to pass on some of my ideas about language acquisition. 

They are quiet and respectful, yet they are alert and have a sense of humor. They are not as shy as I remember Japanese students. They appear more confident and socially balanced.

What a pity that I only have them for 3 days.

146

As usual, I did some listening during my hour’s walk into work. Later in the day, I’d complete reading a short story in Dutch. So far so good.

Best of all, I was pleasantly surprised when I fast-forwarded 35 minutes to chapter 2 when I came to listen to HP1. I skipped so that I could listen to something new for a change. 

I discovered that I had improved. I had improved a great deal. I’m familiar with the text, and I’ve worked on it before—but still! I felt that I was able to understand Japanese at first listen!

145

I spent the day working on a brief presentation. However, it’s not brief enough to fit here. It ended up at around 400 words long, so I’ve posted it on my other blog: A Language, a Life.

As I note there, I was inspired to create it in response to several Simon Sinek videos that I viewed the day before. He makes good sense. He reminds me of another Simon whom I worked with in India many years ago.

Basically, Simon reckons that you need to convey WHY you do what you do so that others take your message seriously.

144

I did some French with Japanese the other day. Some Polish too. That was definitely a first. And it reminded me of a link I had scribbled down earlier in order to remember.

The French Experiment looks like a useful site to start out with, and probably to continue with. I could introduce Sachi to French as well (after which she can boast of knowing 5 languages!). 

It may be a good thing to individualize each language so as to differentiate them. That could be necessary so as to compartmentalize them. 

French I’ll associate with Barbara Dineen. Polish with Hubert!

143

In the tradition of JK Rowling, I sat in a café working on a book—hers as a matter of fact. At our local Macdonald’s I went over the sentences of the first chapter of her first book. Translated into Japanese there are roughly 437. ‘Roughly’ I say, because in Japanese some of them exist as sentence fragments.

I’ll highlight the sentences—or else phrases—that I can handle. Some good statistics ought to come out of the exercise.

The Internet was accessible at Mac, and I learned that it takes 66 days to establish a new habit, not 21.

142

I missed an opportunity yesterday. I could’ve had an interesting language session together with my daughter. It just goes to show that you must always be prepared.

What it was—we had arranged to meet up at a friend’s house. Mami had some shopping to do, so she’d go by car. Sachi and I would walk. I had the brilliant idea of listening to HP1 in Japanese together as we went. I have the Y-shaped connection. We have two sets of headphones. It would have been fun.

Except that the mp3 player was not charged.

But there’s always next time!

141

Along the lines of redressing the reading-listening imbalance, I’m doing the following. I took the Japanese text with which I’m most familiar—the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone—and turned it into a word document. Then, I put each sentence on a new line. And finally I started highlighting.

So as to focus on structure, I read and decide whether each sentence’s meaning lies within my grasp. I guess I’m searching for i+1 sentences (see Krashen).

I have no ultimate aim, but it’s fun to highlight such sentences, or the longest phrases of more challenging sentences.

140

Currently, my situation vis-à-vis language activity is an interesting one. I do a lot of listening, but much less reading. Yesterday, so instance, I listened to 6 languages an average of 10 minutes each while walking to the Otago Polytechnic staff breakfast. Then, later in the morning, I read only about 5 minutes worth of Japanese.

That’s the reverse of when I started out on this project. Since then, the pendulum has swung over to the other side. That’s fascinating, because I had always been a reluctant listener.

My short-term goal is clear: to implement the brain-shift balance through reading.