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Numbers. You need to know them in a foreign language for things like addresses and phone numbers, money, or just getting to the right page in your language class. But numbers are tricky; you may be able to count to ten, but what about higher numbers? I notice this all the time in my classes, when I direct students to a particular page and notice a few fumbling around, uncertain as to exactly what I want them to look at. (I should clarify that I say the page number in Spanish. I know–a totally unreasonable thing to do in a Spanish class.)

Numbers are normally taught in first year language classes, but if you’re continuing with intermediate classes, speaking the language, or just listening to it, you will hear numbers frequently.

In order to remember numbers, you need to practice numbers. The mechanics of counting in another language can be explained in one or two lessons, but once you’ve memorized how to count to 100, you have to practice with all the individual numbers, and there are a lot of them.

The best way is to count: 1,2,3…; even numbers; odd numbers; multiples of 3, 5, 10, etc; count backwards…

Another way is to focus on all the numbers that have a particular number in them: 3, 13, 23, 30, 33, 43, etc. Then choose another number: 8, 18, 28, etc. When you are reading (newspaper, labels, price tags) and see a number, take a second and think about how to say it in the target language.

In other words, practice. Then you won’t be fumbling.

In “You’re Gonna Make Mistakes. Might as Well Learn From Them!”, I mentioned that the best way to learn something in a foreign language is to do it the wrong way, and then the humiliation will do the trick. Sometimes, though, someone else’s humiliation will do just fine.

My husband’s aunt was visiting relatives in Italy, and thought that she was doing a great job conversing in Italian. She grew up speaking English, but knew enough Italian to get by. Or so she thought.

The aunt–we’ll call her Zia–was speaking to one of her cousins and his friend, both avid skiers. She meant to ask them if they skied together often, but confused two similar words in a particular dialect of Italian. One means ‘to ski’ and the other refers to poultry excrement. You got it, chicken, um, poop. Basically, Zia was asking, “Do the two of you chicken **** together often?”. Neither one would answer her, so she asked again, several times, each time louder than the last. Finally, someone took her aside and told her to be quiet.

Poor Zia learned the hard way, but now I know that the word for ‘to ski’ is ’sciare’.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090911/pl_afp/useducationobama

Students buy term papers instead of–gasp–writing their papers themselves! And professors are on to them! This happens in foreign language classes as well as English lit or history, since even an elementary language class syllabus can include a writing assignment.

No, we foreign language teachers don’t enjoy torturing our students (usually)–we want to see if you can communicate in the target language. That means putting ideas together and expressing some original thoughts. I know that it’s frustrating because you can express yourself so much better in English. It becomes frustrating (ok, painful) for me when you try to write the essay first and then translate it into the second language.

Even worse is when you use a translation program or pay someone to do it for you. First of all, if you’ve only covered the present tense and your essay includes the past, future and some perfect tenses, it raises a red flag. Second, if you normally talk like “hey man, how’s it goin’?” in class and turn in an essay written in a very formal tone, I’m going to scrutinize it very carefully and compare it to your previous work. (Hey, I’m not trying to deny you your street cred, I just want make sure that you put your time, not your money, into your paper.)

If your issue is that you would rather be out partying than doing an assignment, you deserve to get an ‘F’. But if you want to show what you have learned, you need to do it yourself. I enjoy reading my students’ essays, even if the language is simple, as long as the content is genuine.

Tonight I think that I offended one of my second-level Spanish students. She asked me to repeat something in English, and I said ‘no’. Now, before you think that I am heartless, let me explain. I was reading from the textbook, word for word plus just a few words of explanation.

It’s not uncommon to have students who believe that it is crucial to understand every word spoken in class in the target language. Not only do I disagree, I also think that it would be a disservice to students to let them think that. Most people do not learn a foreign language just to sit around in a classroom with other non-native speakers, doing exercises from a textbook. (Quite a few people take language classes to fulfill a requirement and never speak it once the last exam is over, but that’s another story.)

Usually, the goal of learning another language is to speak it with native speakers, either abroad or in one’s own country. Can you imagine traveling abroad and expecting everyone to translate everything into English? Oh, wait, that’s how the “ugly American” stereotype got started. It’s part of my job to destroy that stereotype!

If you’ve taken the first semester of a language, you should be able to listen for key words (see the earlier “Airport Listening” post), and you need to learn to negotiate meaning. That means using what you know of the foreign language  to better understand what is being said. Even “can you repeat that?” is acceptable if it’s not in English.

So don’t take it personally. I don’t speak English.

I hope that everyone had a great Labor Day! How many of you labored today?

A small, private college where I taught a few classes is proud to say that they “labor on Labor Day”–meaning that they don’t take the holiday off. Classes, labs, and activities go on as usual.

Their philosophy of “learning doesn’t take a holiday” makes a lot of sense when it comes to studying a foreign language. If you’re serious about learning, you need to work at it every day. That doesn’t mean that you have to do grammar exercises and conjugate verbs and do vocabulary flashcards every day–ugh! That would be bor-ing! What it means is that you can really benefit from doing a little language work each day. This could mean reviewing your notes from the last class, doing a portion of the homework assignment, memorizing a few new words…just enough so that you don’t completely ignore the language you are trying to learn.

If you are using a textbook with a website, you can probably find lots of additional activities that are related to the chapter you are on, but that are more fun than exercises and drills. If there are links to real websites in the target language, excerpts from movies or tv, or music, you could find an enjoyable way to spend a few minutes of your free time. If you don’t have access to a textbook’s website, you can find the same type of material by doing a little exploring on your own.

Whether you have a lot of time to devote to learning the language of your choice, or just a few minutes here and there, the key is to work on it consistently, every day. The typical suggestion is that for every hour you spend in class, you should spend an additional hour outside of class reviewing, studying and practicing. Most introductory language classes are three or four hours a week–that means three or four extra hours of language work. (If you are learning on your own, you can tweak this suggestion to match your own pace). I tell my students that this recommendation is a good idea, but not practical for most people. I tell them that if they give me five minutes of review and practice a day (not including time to do assignments or study for exams), I’ll be happy.

Tonight a student asked me how to remember something that just won’t “stick”. I thought about it, and offered a piece of advice based on a personal experience: say the wrong thing in front of a native speaker, realize it (maybe let him/her correct you to such an extent that your face turns beet red), and then you will be certain to never repeat that mistake again.

I’m the first one to say that I’m not perfect, but it was certainly a shock to find out that I was wrong about something that I was pretty confident about. And in front of a native speaker? *Blushes* That’s worse than messing up in front of your classmates.

My example isn’t even that exciting. It has to do with not having sufficient listening skills to follow a conversation. But a friend of mine had a truly humiliating experience. She did not believe me when I told her that the verb ‘coger’ had a naughty meaning in Mexican Spanish (like, a variation of the ‘F’ word). She asked another student–who was from Mexico–what the word meant, and he blushed so much that even his ears turned red. She realized that I had been right, and she turned red. So I joined in and turned red, too. None of us will forget that one.