227

The second thing to do, if you want to acquire Spanish, would be to look over a page of text. Doing so you would notice:

The phraseology seems similar to English, except that adjectives sometimes come after. There are a bunch of 1 and 2 letter words. Question marks come in pairs. There are accents over some vowels, a ~ above some ‘n’s, and ‘k’s and ‘w’s only appear in foreign words. Capital letters usage seems similar.

Overall, a good number of words are recognizable, and I’d say an English speaker could work out more than 10% of the meaning.

226

For an English speaker learning Spanish, I’d recommend that they begin with hearing, not listening. Notice as many things with your ears as possible. 

Spanish is faster and more expressive in tone. The words are run together and the r’s are rolled. There’s a lisping ‘th’ sound. There are fewer vowels and no diphthongs. Consonants may be doubled, and there are interesting ‘ny’ and ‘ng’ blends. I can make out a Germanic ‘g’. Finally, the words tend to be longer, with more syllables, and they often end with a vowel. 

So, there’s all that to get used to at first.

225

I don’t lack ideas. What I do lack is knowledge. I’d like to know just how long it takes, using my method, to get a language up to speed.

More specifically, how long does it take to get a language with a more-or-less English alphabet up to the point where it is ‘self-sustaining’ the way that Dutch and German are, and Japanese is on the point of being?

Let me get back to Spanish (I’ll ignore French for the moment). What if I concentrate on it for a month?—the original idea was to spend a month on each language.

224

Scanning Oma’s shelves for something in Dutch, I came across a set of diaries—Het dagboek van Betje Boerhave. They are a set of slim volumes, easier to read than the other books that were there.

Mum was amazed to see them again. She’d forgotten that she’d bought them, during a visit to Utrecht in 1981 to nurse her father and sister.

“This is a good omen,” she told me.

However, the first of the 7 volumes is missing. She’s loaned it to a friend who had never returned it.

I’ll get onto Facebook. Maybe someone can help us out.

223

I’ve spoken of spending small amounts of time on different languages one after another. That builds up momentum. But in which order ought I to do them—from least known to best known, or vice-versa?

Irrespective of whether I’m familiar with a language or not, what I actually do with it ought to feel enjoyable. If not, then I’m trying to do too much. I’m straining.

Another thing: I believe that I can apply this principle more generally in the rest of my life. That’s another reason why it is useful to master.

Acquiring languages can equip you for life!

222

How can you assess achievement when a language is acquired incrementally across a broad front—not as discrete vocabulary and grammatical structures within a situational context? What’s a SMART goal that you could set?

Well, you look at short sentences. You rate your understanding of a bunch of them according to a scale. Do you understand a half of the sentence, less, or more? Score 1, 0 or 2 respectively. Then you tally up the data and convert it into a percentage.

I did something along those lines earlier, but today’s idea involves sentences, so it gives a better indication.

221

After mulling it over for a few days, I’ve decided ‘No thanks’. 

I don’t believe that language acquisition fits within the educational industry the way that their institutions are currently run. Everything is simply too color-by-number. It’s all fill-in-the-boxes—this insistence on unyielding templates. The required outcomes require are both unrealistic and unnatural. I’m not prepared to pretzel my philosophy into those contortioned configurations. 

Instead, I’ll reassess how to present and promote my ideas. As long as I treat it as a hobby—have fun with it and not insist that it provides my living—I’ll encourage the best results.

220

It’s now my plan to charge all of my electronic devices every Friday. These include my cell phone, Kindle and mp3 player (and in the future there may be more). This habit, alongside that of storing my earphone wires and computer connections in one place, is necessary if I am to be prepared and unbothered. I may even extend this habit to include the weekly organization and backing up of files—electronic and paper. This may even turn into an enjoyable session!

Yes, being organized is the name of the game. I’m more productive with it, less productive without it.

219

On the days that nothing linguistic happens (because life gets in the way) one can either talk about the past, or about the future.

So I’ll choose the future.

Further to the previous post, I can see that there’s a need to dress up right-brain thinking with left-brain language if it is to gain traction in a conventional world. As an exercise, I’ll try to do just that—to see if it’s possible. 

It’ll require a large amount of creativity to make the peg fit the hole, but that’s what I’m good at. If I don’t do it, nobody will.

218

I’ve already located a good text to use for a prospective Spanish course—Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. The story is familiar to most people, and it has to do with travel, so that alone makes it suitable.

I feel that I should soon concentrate on acquiring one language—Spanish—to determine the shortest time that it’d take others to make significant progress. Maybe I’ll devote the month of May to that.

Then, once I’ve settled on a template, I should then be able to roll out courses for the other languages, from ‘easy’ to ‘difficult’.

217

I pretty well hashed up my meeting with Phil Ker, the boss of Otago Polytechnic. But no matter. He kindly set me straight as to what was required: more in the way of what specific outcomes my new language course might offer.

To be fair to myself, I hadn’t know exactly what to expect from our 30-min appointment that stretched to an hour, but I’m better informed now.

So next I’ll put together a course in Spanish suitable for a group of staff that will Argentina in October. (Maeve Binchey’s Evening Class comes to mind.)

We’ll take it from there.

216

I have some small-big news. I succeeded on TradeMe. For the first time in years, I made a bid. I bid $1. And with that one dollar I won.

A book, of course. Well, books to be precise. Three of them. They are—or were—the first 3 (I think) of the Harry Potter set. All in Vietnamese.

So that increases my collection of physical HP books in various languages. I have them also in Japanese, Spanish, and Norwegian. It’s fun to keep a lookout.

Of course, there’s the postage too. But at $3 I don’t think it’s too expensive.

215

I discover I’ve a problem. It is this: I’m suspicious of enjoyment. I retain some sort of an idea that learning ought to consist, principally, of ‘hard yards’.

And so, as I’m getting to the point of actively enjoying books in Dutch, German, Japanese, and soon French and Spanish, I begin to suspect, deep down, that I’m skiving off. I feel that I’m wasting time that I ought to be using for getting another language up to speed.

That’s nonsense, however. Instead, that’s the stage at which accelerated learning begins to take off. There’s tons of stuff I’m still absorbing.  

214

It’s handy being able to access my place of work during the holidays. And that’s what I did yesterday. At the flick of an electronic key I enjoyed a quiet environment, comfy furniture, wireless, and a coffee machine too. (I even put my bicycle inside for safety.)

When my work was done, I played listening books in Dutch (De duivel draagt het licht), German (Vermiss mein nicht) and French (Le petit prince). It’s easy to create libraries of them on YouTube. I use Google translate to search for the equivalent of ‘Listening book’ in the languages that I’m interested in.

213

In a free few minutes, I read out the start of a story to Sachi—the first of The Baby Sitters Club series by Ann M. Martin. (I’d seen them around and had wondered how they started. And then I happened to pick up a brand new copy somewhere.)

Anyway, on page 3 a passage reminded of my keystone habit. In the classroom Mr. Redmond tells Kristy Thomas:

“The best way for us to remember things is to write things down. So tonight, I would like you to write a one-hundred-word essay on the importance of decorum in the classroom.”

212

The mind is a strange thing, and not only with regard to learning a language. Close to home my aged mother has short-term memory loss and struggles to orient herself when she awakens. She’s not the only one.

Recently, I’ve pulled back a curtain too. For weeks I’ve felt there was something familiar about someone—the shape of his head, the set of his eyes. The process of remembering took days.

I met P.H. about 15 years ago, through his partner, L.A. She was a friend my sister, Kristina. Peter even bought me coffee once, sounding me out about Japan.

211

Just when I thought that I wouldn’t get in any language time, I got a bit of Dutch and French exposure by being a couch potato. At the end of the day after Mami, Sachi and the chickens had retired, I sat with Mum and watched channel 13, the Dutch TV station.

It always gives you Dutch. Whenever there is another language spoken e.g. English, French, German or even Russian, Dutch subtitles are used.

So you get the same benefits as for the audiobook method: speed, parallel grammar and authentic content.

Mum always comments on the Dutch speakers’ perfect intonation.

210

Today I braved the rain while listening to Polish. Again, I walked down to the Polytechnic early to and shed my wet things inside Hotere House. I’m the first to stake any sort of claim.

Now it’s Easter, so I’ve a couple of wets to get my life organized. We’ve switched bedrooms around at home. Lugging books, I realize just how many of them I’ve already collected since returning to New Zealand. 

There’re lots of empty bookcases at Hotere House, so I’ll fill a shelf or two with my language-book surplus. A home away from home right next to work!

209

In the heavy rain, I was not about to listen to my earphones. Neither did I carry anything to read. And with a class to teach, and errands to run at the bank and elsewhere, there was no chance to practice with languages.

Except that I did get to listen to a few minutes’ worth of Dutch. My cousin had interviewed an uncle a few years ago before he passed away. I can only remember having met the man once. And so it was a rare experience and a privilege to listen—and understand—to an old man’s life story.

208

‘Touching base’ is my latest and greatest scheme. ‘What is it?’ you ask. I’ll tell you.

Say I have half an hour to spend on languages. Instead of having to decide how to spend it, and on which language, I avoid that potential scenario of hyper-choice and simply spent 5 minutes at a time on German, Dutch, Spanish, French, etc. 

That’s what I did yesterday, and it worked like a dream.

Of course, it depends on knowing exactly what you are doing in each language, bookmarking, being organized and having everything at hand. But that’s OK—that’s my new motto.

207

Speaking of World War Two, just before its start E. Saxelby completed a set of 4 textbooks. They’re for learning French. And 80 years after, I discovered the first, En Route, and fourth, Enfants de France in an op shop a couple of days ago.

They are not at all bad. In the introduction the author writes in the introduction that he believes more in experiencing the language than studying its grammar. And so, if you skim only lightly over the exercises, you can ‘self-discover’ French.

The illustrations are cute too—nice and retro in a somewhat Art Deco style.

206

It has become apparent to me that I have a legacy to leave—and my mother too.

Mum has diary in Dutch from the war. She wants to leave her story for the grandchildren. And so I shall go through it with her, turning the handwritten script into type, and then translating the Dutch into English. I’ll do the same for the book that Coen Cornelissen is writing about Mum’s father.

And then of course, there’s Uni-verse-all-language. I’ve got to get that off the ground!

All in all, then, a nice bit of work ahead for the two of us.

205

At high school, I was a great student. I could even have become dux, but French and Latin let me down. They ought not to have. I was very interested in the latter. I had Dutch under my belt, so French should have been a cinch too. I can only surmise that the approach was wrong.

With the right approach and the right mindset, I would have picked up any number of languages, effortlessly, by now. Still, it’s never too late for an old dog!

I have a pen. I have a apple. Uh! Apple-Pen! (Not to mention the pineapple.)

204

I added an audio-visual string to my bow. Less cryptically, I figured out how to access the Dutch channel that Mum has access to, but has never known how to use.

It’s a question of knowing how to operate 3 separate remote controls. There’s a button that returns you to ‘home’ if you do something to get lost. You need to have the cabinet doors open for the signal to get through. And I needed to replace a pair of batteries.

In return we got European news and programmes with Dutch subtitles for English and bits of French and German. 

203

Here’s my logo for Uni-verse-all-language. It’s an airfoil, or the cross section of an airplane’s wing. 

Yesterday, I realized that my acquisition system rested on a single principle in the manner that heavier-than-air flight rests on a single principle. And then I realized that the analogy could be taken further.

One achieves ‘lift’ when the target language streams past in the right conditions. Then you ‘pick up’ the target language. The wing consists of a means of instantly being able to understand the target language. And you avoid turbulence by taking care not to break up the language through over-analysis. 

202

On the day that my electric shaver gives up the ghost I give in to the urge to regrow my beard. The last time that I had one was in 2005, after a long trip in Jandals. So let’s see what color it is now.

Learning a new language properly is like growing a beard—a scraggly one. You don’t grow a beard in tufts, each bristle fully formed like Elton John’s scalp implants. Instead, everything that’s ready to grow grows incrementally and simultaneously. It seems very slow if you focus on one area. Overall, though, it’s the quickest way.

201

Another reference about languages from another book: The Collapse of Parenting by Leonard Sax.

He writes that childhood and adolescence are about enculturation. That’s when you “acquire” the skills and knowledge that you need to operate in the culture you’re in. That’s when you master its customs and behaviors. He says that it takes years to master a culture’s the details of any culture. Moving to Japan or Switzerland, one would most likely always feel like an outsider “even if we did manage to master at least the language after 20 years. The adult brain is much harder to alter.”

200

Two hundred days in the adventure continues!

On the 200^th day, I found myself sitting in a chair outside the principal’s office. I was a few minutes early to pick up Sachi, so I made myself comfortable and copied out Dr Suess’s Te Poti ro Potae (The Cat in the Hat).

It took quite a while since there are 40 pages of text. I was still at it after school as Sachi climbed the monkey bars. I chatted with J, a parent of Maori descent, who explained why he hadn’t completed his Maori language course.

“What you’re doing is cool!”

199

I caught Professor Alexander Arguelles on Youtube. He is a polyglot. His claim to fame is that he invented shadowing. He has a series of videos where he explains how to recognize various languages according to their features. 

Personally, I enjoy spending time not on learning languages but on how to learn them. I did not find much in that department from the good professor. In particular, when I listened to him interview language teachers from various countries I was struck by their inadequacy. Sorry, but I would not care to study under any of them. 

The world definitely needs my method!

198

You know you’re on track when you dream about your obsession. That’s how I woke up a few minutes ago: with a clear and concise description for my invention. I even dreamt up a new name for it: Universe All Language.  

My approach is significantly different. That’s important, because the unhappier you are with previous results, the greater the change that you’ll need to make. If you’re at all like me, then most likely Universe All Language will work for you. So let’s look for a fit. Then I’ll share what I’ve got. Finally, we’ll tailor the technique so that it suits you perfectly. 

197

This topic I’ve tackled before, or thought about it. Anyway, I’m going to return to it. I plan to do specific things and set individual assignments for each language.

Yes, it’s good to have Harry Potter as a common theme. However, I also want variety. In addition, I want to know what I’m doing in different languages without racking my brain.

For Maori, I’ll copy out The Cat in the Hat. For German, I’m reading the HP collection on my Kindle. Dutch is Heeft een Meisje Weggehaald. Japanese is Tara Road (a la Schliemann).

I want to know instantly.