My Language Journey: Formal Studies

Mar 6 OS / 19 NS, 2019

While a few people grow up without any formal language instruction, many of us have had the joy (or the pain) of attending language classes. For me, I started my formal studies in junior high and continued on through university.

As mentioned in my previous article, I have been exposed to language pretty much since birth, whether through my family, interesting books, or other outlets. My first, informal, lessons were in Spanish. One of my elementary school teachers loved Spain, and she often rewarded our class by showing slideshows of the country or teaching us a word here or there.

Yet, my formal studies officially started in junior high. I must have been about 11 years old at the time, and I tested into my school’s Spanish program. How does one test into an introductory Spanish course, you might ask? Well, my entire class had to sit for a listening examination, in which we had to listen to the same, fictitious word being repeated over and over again. The speaker, whose voice we heard on a rather dated record or 8-track as I recall, repeated something like ‘a-ho’ (along with other words) with different intonations and emphases on varying syllables.

The majority of us passed, even if we spent the entire time laughing through the session. Surely, one can imagine what a bunch of 11-year old kids were thinking when they heard “a-ho” a couple dozen times. It was probably the highlight of the semester for many of us.

In any case, the first few years of Spanish were a great joy to me. Our instructor provided us with textbooks, workbooks, and worksheets. I can still remember the first few lessons, which were all about greetings, sharing our names, etc. At the end of the first week, we had to practice a dialogue with a partner, and I recall hearing a classmate, T., presenting his dialogue. Instead of using the Spanish pronunciation of ‘¿Cómo te llamas?’ when asking another classmate’s name, T. made sure to speak about the animal instead. Yet another amusing moment for all involved.

Over time, we progressed through other vocabulary, grammar points, and cultural notes. I was seemingly adept at memorizing all of these points and enjoyed trying to come up with unique combinations thereof. The homework was always a breeze, and it was fun to delve into the cultural notes and other extra information that we may or may not have had time to review in class.

As I progressed into high school, my Spanish lessons continued in much the same way, and I also decided to add German to my repertoire. Other classmates tried French and Latin, and I often snuck peaks of their textbooks and homework. The approach to all of these languages was largely the same: study the vocabulary, memorize the grammar, and drill them separately and together through homework, dialogues, in-class activities, and examinations.

Much like in my former years, I loved the thrill of dissecting the code, bit-by-bit, and learning how others expressed themselves in other languages, countries, and cultures. Of course, very early on, I quickly discovered that both Spanish and German did not allow for literal, word-for-word translations. Such as in my ‘llamas’ remark above, it was made clear very early on that I couldn’t simply say, “What is your name?” but rather had to rely on the Spanish or German equivalents thereof (‘¿Cómo te llamas?’ and ‘Wie heißt du?’, for those curious souls).

Throughout these years, I also had the habit of going to Borders Books (when it was still in business) and spending hours upon hours delving through all of their language learning books. Whether it was Dutch, Japanese, or some other tongue, I was intrigued. I even bought a few of the books and worked through them from time-to-time at home.

Whether at school, at Borders, or at home, my approach had always been the same: memorize the vocabulary, memorize the grammar tables, and then put everything together. It seemed like the simplest formula in the world. Yet, I was still missing something.

While I won’t name names, a family member often told me that it ‘hurt his ears’ whenever I would speak Spanish. (And he probably wasn’t the only person to think so!) As far as I could tell though, my pronunciation was always clear (if not necessarily native-like), and my grammar and vocabulary were usually spot on. It would take some years to figure it out, but one of the key things I had been missing at the time was to use my languages, not like English but rather like the languages themselves as they were spoken by the natives in their respective countries.

While I may have gleaned how to express certain concepts (such as asking someone’s name) with the correct grammar or in a typical native fashion, my overall expression was still American, still Anglo-centric. I spoke and used both Spanish and German (along with smatterings of Japanese and other languages) as presented in a textbook (for English speakers, no less).

It wouldn’t be until university and beyond that I learned the value of reading, listening to, and consuming mass amounts of materials from native speakers. It was only then that I would move beyond encoding my English with Spanish or German words or phrases and finally learn to understand and speak more and more like a native.

That’s the end of our second installment. In the third, we will look at my university years and beyond.