AES106 Language Acquisition

Learning a new language is tricky, sometimes it’s hard to determine how much you’re progressing, or whether the methods you use to learn are actually effective or not. The point of learning a language is to understand what’s being said, and how to properly express yourself in return. Our brains are capable of recognizing incredibly complex patterns, it can even figure out the rules and grammars of a language, we just need to provide them with the correct information to process so we can learn quicker.

A very important thing to do is to maximise input of the new language, even if you don’t understand all of it in the beginning, the words and sentences have already begun to be subconsciously implanted in your mind. And while you slowly but steadily learn more about the grammar and vocabulary, the treasure trove of language input you’ve accumulated will start to click and make sense. You’ll pick up on context clues on how the language actually works.

There was a study conducted in Barcelona where Spanish speakers were trying to learn English, the goal was to determine whether watching English shows with subtitles help with language acquisition, and the results are pretty interesting! So when these Spanish speakers watched English shows with Spanish subtitles, there was a 0% improvement on their English. It’s probably because showing subtitles in the language they already know means they don’t have to try as hard to understand what’s being conveyed. Further testing reveals that watching English shows without subtitles shows a 7% improvement, and furthermore watching them with English subtitles shows a remarkable 17% improvement for the Spanish speakers. The difference between acquisition and learning is like naturally getting a joke by yourself instead of it being explained to you in detail why the joke is funny. 

“Acquisition of a language is a natural, intuitive, and subconscious process of which individuals need not be aware.” - Stephen Krashen

Like everything you want to be good at, learning a new language is a very long process that requires a lot of patience and effort, even after many years there will still always be new things to learn. It’s important to keep your spirits up and always push yourself to improve everyday. Who knows where it might take you!