¶ Guest Introduction and Language Background
All right Joe, welcome to the Actual Fluency Podcast.
Thanks for having me.
It's a great pleasure for me to welcome you here. And I just want to get the ball rolling with introducing the listeners to who you are, where you're from, and how you got into language learning.
Sure. Okay. So well I'm I'm English. Um but I speak Turkish at quite a high level. I have a couple of other languages as well, but um I suppose the main thing that Um is interesting is that I'm also into a tiny constructed language called Tokipona and I'm looking to use that as a springboard to introducing uh language learners to comprehensible input.
¶ Defining Comprehensible Input
Fantastic.
Yeah, that's and this little language is something that I've featured on the podcast before. I've also been fortunate to have the creator of Tokyo on the podcast as well. And so I have a personal connection with that and I'm looking forward to hear how you got into it and and and what you think of it. But um comprehensible input is also something that I don't know if I want to call it
fashionable or kind of timely, but I d I do seem to hear that term more these days. I don't know if you've had the same experience. Um so it's a of course a natural inclination for people to how do you find improve that process and how do you get more of it? Because at the end of the day
That's the way we learn a language better, even for understanding and speaking. So Um, how do you define comprehensible input first of all and and and what led you to kind of that as a as a challenge to solve for your for your own language learning?
Yeah, so um My introduction to comprehensible input was during the pandemic, really. And I think that might be true of many and it might be why we're hearing about it so much, is because during the pandemic A lot l a lot of language learners or people interested in language found they suddenly had a lot of time on their hands to jump down rabbit holes.
Um,
¶ Crashin's Theory: Meaning and Forms
So I I read uh Stephen Crashin's book that is freely available on his website, uh Principles and Practice of Second Language Acquisition, I think. And I came to see comprehensible input as almost like uh two sides of a coin. So On the one hand, if you can understand the meaning or the intent of of of what's being in said, or, you know, the thought that the other person is trying to get into your head if you like.
uh then the flip side of the coin is the the linguistic forms that are being used. So comprehensible input means that you've got the meaning side. And when you've got the meaning side, your brain is paying attention to the forms side. And with time, it starts to piece everything together.
Right. So it's not quite the sort of s unconscious competence level yet, but you understand enough of it to infer the kind of structure or
Well meaning. Strictly speaking, you can start from zero with comprehensible input. So the thing about comprehensible input, comprehensible means you've got the meaning side of it. So how you get the meaning side of it is an open question. So it could be that you understand some of the forms up front. and they help you along with getting the meaning. But strictly speaking, if I can help you to get all of the meaning with my gestures and and my uh and let's say I draw pictures or something.
Oh and and you can get the full meaning, you might understand none of the forms yet, uh but it's comprehensible input. Your brain uses that as input data to get the ball rolling.
¶ Active Listening Versus Passive Immersion
Yeah, that's the key of course. There's always the challenge between how hard the content is you're trying to learn from, uh not just for a sort of educational point of view, but also I in terms of fun, right? Because If you don't understand anything, you know, trying to watch a TV show, you what and you understand literally nothing. Right. For me it gets very boring very quickly. So so so that's also the challenge.
Well yeah, so i uh you have to be clear about what you mean by understanding. So if by understand you mean um I know what each of the words are doing in this sentence, that that's not how I uh interpret uh the understanding part of comprehensible input. So, you know, if if I can understand what your gist is, where you're going with it, and and what the what the point of the communication is, then I've understood it.
Um yeah how how that relates to the forms and the connection between what you're saying and how you say it. Well that's something that can be pieced together with time. And I think it's it's important to contrast that with just immersion. So just hearing the language by itself, as you said, isn't going to get you very far. You need the meaning component.
And how you get the meaning component, it doesn't really matter, but y you need to have the meaning somehow for your brain to have something to work with, something to pair the forms with, if you see what I mean.
Yeah, would that mean that i you would do it would be an active learning to do uh in a comprehensible input? versus passively just watching something or listening to something, or can there be overlap between those two as well?
Well I don't know. I I guess it I guess there can be an overlap. In if you're not paying attention It's not gonna do much.
Right. There's a difference between y you know, just kind of watching a T V show or or maybe I'm watching a YouTube video but I have a pen and paper in front of me and I'm taking notes and and noting the words that I understand or or don't understand.
Yeah. Yeah. Well I mean it depends on what well, if if you if by active We just mean that you're paying attention to the content and you're trying to understand what's going on.
Right.
Yeah, that's enough.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean ha actively trying to consciously notice words and and note down words for later, that's that's a different thing, really. I think yeah.
No, that's that's cool. And for in terms of how to practically convert that, I uh you know I I guess that's also uh can be a challenge for people'cause you hear this like co comprehensible input and you read the theory, but how does that help me learn, I don't know, Swedish or something?
¶ Kids vs. Adults Language Learning
Sure. Well, um, as I just said, if if you have this idea of immersion in your head and you think, well, as you gave an example with Swedish, for instance, if I go to Sweden and I hear Swedish being spoken all the time, then I'll pick up Swedish. Not quite. Right. Um so a very good um exp explanation I I saw related to well, we can get into it later, related to A L G um was how you think of your classic, you know, expat family.
Or, you know, immigrant family if you like. Maybe Dad, Dad, Dad's at the office all day and he hears the language all the time. Um, meanwhile the kids go to school. Or maybe they're playing with their little friends in the street. Uh the dad is not getting comprehensible input because when he hears the language he's hearing it in an environment where he has no clues. as to what is being said and why because it's it's it's all very abstract. But y y your kid playing playing ball in the street.
So oh let's make teams, you know, you you you you've got the ball, pass me the ball, you know, you be the goalie, that kind of thing. The the context and and what what's being seen and heard, that gives the kids the meaning, right? So they can understand what's going on. So they've got the meaning components and so what they're getting is more comprehensible. And so this provides an explanation as to why the kids pick up the language faster than the adults.
Right, yeah, I never thought of it that that way actually. But yeah, kids are extremely uh good at it. Uh when they get thrown into an environment They will learn it so much faster than adults who have been in the country for decades even.
True. But I think it's also worth thinking about exactly how the kids are exposed to the language. It's not necessarily because they're kids. Maybe it's just because a kid's world is inherently much more comprehensible, right? Like with turn the sound off, can you tell what's going on? Think of a child's experience. Everything's very visual and hands on such that The their world is very simple and they can often follow along even when they don't understand the words yet.
¶ Adult Application: Bridging the Gap
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I never thought of it that way. But how can we as uh adults then take some of those principles? and apply them better to our own independent language learning, which may or may not include as some kind of immersion, you know, a lot of people are learning. far away from whether the language is spoken. Um and and of course some uh quite close to it, but but how can we what are some of the practical steps we can take from that?
Well, um th th there are two ways to answer that question. One is the method side of it. And for instance, I think um I'm I'm sure you've heard of refold. So the the essential idea of of Refold is that yeah, sure, okay, memorize some words, learn some grammar, but that's as a crutch.
as a as as as a way to make the input comprehensible. And then once you've made the input comprehensible, you're away. And that's one side of it. And the and the other side of it is just building confidence that this will work at all. Because Um, what we're saying is that when you could when you've got the meaning side of it, your brain is paying attention to the form.
But on day one you haven't got much to show for it. In fact, you haven't got anything to show for it. Because you need to encounter the same form in context several times before you start to notice.
So
uh having a way to just test it out and try it out just to s to feel how it works. I think can be important, especially if you're a native English speaker like me and and you you've been brought up on uh, you know, measurable methods, let's say, where on day one you can say, Well, I memorized this these these words or something.
Uh building how how about having a way to experience how it does work if you just let your brain do its thing. I I feel that can be important for some and that's partly what I've been doing with Tokupona.
¶ Toki Pona: A Minimalist Language
Yeah, fantastic. And and maybe uh we should jump to that example right away to kind of showcase what that might look like because I'd imagine that when you're learning a a new language, a brand new language part of the the challenge is that resources are mostly focused on on the memory side of things, like it's it's not very experimental, if you will. It's it's very math like.
Yes.
So so why don't we jump into kind of uh a practical example from from your inside uh in terms of the p Tokona comprehensible input. Um and maybe it's worth just uh quickly uh maybe we should just quickly tell everyone what Tokona, you know, is and where it came from.
Yeah, okay.
Um do you want to do that or should I?
Uh well, I mean you're you're pr you're much better positioned to it uh than I am, but I'd I'd be happy to add my uh experiences uh uh at the end.
Okay. So um Tokipana is It started um uh I s I s I don't know. I don't want to claim anything. But it's it's kind of the um when you talk about a minimalist constructed language, it's the first one that people tend to think of. So the minimalist side Um so of course it doesn't follow this slavishly, but it's uh the the question of how far can we get with as few words as possible in a language. So the the you could say the quote unquote original version of Tokipona.
Uh if you take that with a pinch of salt. So that there was a kind of th there was the book that came out in twenty fourteen by its creator Sonia Lang and that described a language of just a hundred and twenty words. With three extras, but they were called synonyms. So basically you've got a hundred and twenty word language, just a hundred and twenty words. And uh so that's Tokybona. It's cute, it's fun.
And I think most are there for for, you know, that side of it, the aesthetic side of it. There's also the the the m minimalism side of it, the philosophical side. Me, I see Toki Pona. as a really interesting sandbox to test out different ideas and and approaches. And so what I did with the Tokypana is I made a a comprehensible input series
¶ Toki Pona as a CI Experiment
So it's thirty videos, roughly twenty minutes each. So it's a total of ten hours. And the idea is when you have such a tiny language, uh you encounter all the words a lot, right? So if comprehensive input really does work, then you should be able to feel it working with Tokipona much faster than with a natural language, let's say.
Interesting, yeah. It's a good experiment.'Cause it's such a it's a closed
Well.
I I mean it's officially closed, right? But there's been sort of additions and and and kind of group I guess uh collaboration going on and then some additions have been accepted. Uh, so it's sort of close but not you know, it's i it's a living thing but not but not as living as let's say Esperanto where you there's no limit to the words you can have. You can have as many as you want. And they keep coming up with new ones as well.
They do, it's true, but it's interesting. Um Sonia Lang produced a kind of um descriptive dictionary of community usage in twenty twenty one and uh the the list own was only a hundred and thirty seven kind of main words, let's say. And the to to be able to deal with this language at all or deal in it at all, you have to build the skill of making do with the words you have very quickly.
When when you're in it, you find that you don't actually need to invent as many words as you might have thought. And it's actually quite fun to come up with ways of using this minimal vocabulary in a creative way. And I and I think that's partly why the lexicon hasn't ballooned at all. Uh because, you know, when you're in it, you're in it and the minimalism's part of the fun.
¶ Creative Communication and Understanding Challenges
Yeah, and I suppose it's i you know, for ever for anyone who's not uh uh looked into Tokipona at all, um, you know, you you have a f a fixed set of words, but you can string them together to create essentially new words You know, I know that's not the uh kind of linguistic uh correct linguistic uh way to look at it, but Yeah, like I think like, you know, uh could have black water could be oil or coffee, right? So
Right, exactly.
Y you haven't added a another word, but when you put those two in context
Right.
effectively you've got a new word. So so that's the people are probably thinking, you know, how could you even have a language with 120 words? But that's how you get around that little um limitation is as you create new you know the uh not for this entire episode to be uh about the philosophy uh about tocupona, but I had a one con one problem I had with that was that when I was talking to people in Tokupona It was very easy to produce
But it's very hard to understand because people had their own uh visual ideas of what things were. So yeah, when I say black water for instance, you might think coffee or something. Whereas other people might think oil. So I found that it was very easy to translate my own thoughts, but when I tried to listen to it
It I I didn't really it was very difficult for people to understand. It almost took like uh twice as long to uh to listen to the same sentence. What what do you think about that? Uh I know it's a little bit of a tangent, but I was just curious.
¶ Feynman Method and Toki Pona
Fine. No, it's fine. Well, um it depends on what you're trying to do. I mean if if you if you're if you want to write poetry and and you it's it's more of an art medium for your own benefit, then it doesn't matter so much. Like translating songs, for instance. You know, coffee translating coffee as black water in a song. I mean, you know, it's it's it's art, you know. But if you are trying to communicate something
Um something that I've uh argued for is that actually Tokypona is capable of uh communicating anything, but you have to approach it right. So those 120 words are essentially 120 concepts. So if you can take those concepts and you can bolt them together to arrive at the concept that you that you're trying to to to express.
And you do that in a way that you make sure the other side understands you. I mean, it is an art. Um, but it's it's a little bit like the Feynman, what was it called? The Feynman method. Do you know about the Feynman method?
It rings a bell but I can't remember what the context was.
So so the the idea is that um i if you can't explain something simply, you don't really understand it. that kind of thing. So it it's kind of breaking it down such that uh well it's like the explain like I'm five thing. It's a little bit like that, but in overdrive. So to demonstrate that, I made a video in which I gave a um Uh it's like a primer on non ecli non Euclidean geometry and it takes half an hour but I d there there's visuals as well, but I do lead you to
uh the the essence of what it what what non Euclideanism means in geometry, if that's a word. And it's funny, I found along the way that I realized the holes in my understanding. of non Euclidean geometry because what exactly does it mean for two lines to be parallel? It's like when you try to break that down and explain it in Tokipona, you very quickly realize How much you do or don't understand about that concept. Right. Yeah.
¶ Kris's Toki Pona Experience
No, that's great. I have a I have a personal uh example as well. Uh some as some listeners will know I did a a full weekend of Tokypona uh back in twenty might have been twenty fourteen actually, or or one of those years. Uh I was invited to uh memorize one of the flashcard apps. And they want to do this whole weekend of okay, how fast can we learn it and how fast can we start speaking with each other? So it's like a a a marathon. We were doing it for like
eight hours a day is really intense. Um and and and you know, it because it's only a hundred and twenty words, uh or you know, the funny thing is it it it takes almost no time to learn the words for the first time. But then of course you spend a lot of time uh you know, linking together and again understanding each other when we're speaking. But what really helped me and the reason that I I like
uh bringing back Tokipona it on the podcast and and on the blog sometimes. And I also tell people about is that it really helps you to distill language in your head. One of the big problems we have when we learn a foreign language is that we try to be way too clever and we try to translate from our very strong languages. Yeah. So you go into a room and you're like, Oh, I am the greatest and you have these really long sentences.
But really what Tokypona forces you to do is to say, okay, in this really long sentence, what are you actually trying to relay in terms of meaning? Like what is your brain trying to say? And this helped me personally a lot with Russian because it's such a different language to the languages that I knew. But I was trying to kind of
you know, put English uh kind of sentence structure and and and complex uh complexity on top of that language and it just doesn't work. So I was freezing, I was not really getting the words out. And then in Tokypona, the big example that always sticks with me and and the one I I I refer back to is like we were discussing the way to say goodbye.
Mm.
Mm. And I think it's just such a beautiful idea where you're like When you really think about it, you you you're standing let's say next to a friend, you just had coffee, whatever, you're about to say goodbye. Yeah. What are you actually saying? Right. And in in Tokipono, when I was learning it, we we we had it as Mitawa. Yeah. I'm going or I'm leaving. Um which is
When you think of it, it sounds kinda dumb. It's like you know, you make it all about you. But really, what that's what you when you're saying goodbye, you you're essentially just saying I'm leaving. I'm going out of the door.
Right, exactly.
So that was my uh my my l my little uh example for for Tokyo and and because it's such a small commitment to just at least learn the the the words and the how it works, I d I do really recommend it to people.
Yeah.
¶ CI vs. Memorization: Real Acquisition
Yes. Um although I would say that if you haven't done Tokypana already, then uh maybe try my little comprehensible input series. Right. Um
You could get a leg up for like we had to brute force it on memorise back in twenty fourteen, just hard memorizing the words and we got like a guy with like a PhD in memory techniques or some something to teach us how to. You know, he had a whole he had a f whole A4 sheet ways we can remember better after the day had finished. And he called it like the nighttime routine or something.
I'll say that.
And it worked great, you know. Yeah, we did we did memorize it really quickly.
Yeah.
I think it's only hat.
Yeah,'cause well, the I'm I'm sure you've heard or many of your listeners will will certainly have heard of uh Bill Van Patten and uh he likes to talk about language like behaviour. So, you know, you memorize a bunch of words like that and then you remember them in the moment that you need them using whatever technique it is. It's language like behavior. It's not acquired language.
Yeah. And it doesn't help you really to to convert into practical language, which uh what I was talking about before, that it took us a couple of hours to learn everything, but then we spent the rest of a whole weekend being able to say simple sentences back and forth, you know.
Yeah. So it's really
Not a good use of time, I think. Well, no.
It's all good as an experiment. And and you know, um what I said a moment ago, I do want to defend it as something more than a shameless plug. In the sense that um if if you've if you've I mean I I think about myself twenty years ago. And I think about how I was on the hunt for uh uh the the perfect memorization method, let's say. And I think of what I would like to do for that past version of myself. And it's like, well, the the the series I've made.
is a unique opportunity to just try it. It's like, what have you got to lose? It's twenty minutes a day for a month if that. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's an experiment. if it does work, then at the end of it you'll have experienced how your brain has got this actually.
if you expose your brain to language in the right way, your brain knows what it's doing and it will pick up pick it up for you and and put the pieces together for you. And I think it can be it can it can really turn a corner for some. uh who who have been, you know, bashing their head against a brick wall, trying memorisation method after memorizi memorisation method.
and and they still can't understand native speakers and the rest of it. Um I I I I just hope that it can maybe give some the inspiration or the confidence they need to just sit back and and allow the process to work. Instead of feeling like they need to control it, if you see what I mean.
¶ Michelle Thomas Method Discussion
What do you think of uh someone like Michelle Thomas and his method? If you've uh seen it.
Um I I I only have some vague knowledge of that. Could you just summarize it for me so I don't get it wrong? Yeah, thank
so michelle thomas was very much like this way you're you're just mentioning, which is why I I I was curious. He would have in in the traditional recordings he would have a himself and then a native speaker.
And then a student. Or he would have two students actually for um Yeah, it's two students. But I think typically one of the students is better than the other. I don't know if that's intentional. But um and so what he would do is he would Just teach you this kind of like from sentence by sentence kind of, but you're sitting in a comfortable chair, uh you're relaxed.
And participants really are blown away because it a already on I think it's like this first lesson, yeah, they say they come up with a sentence like Do you have a table for three o'clock on Monday? Yeah. Uh I would like to book, you know. Uh so I was wondering if that was kind of a similar uh a similar w place you started this this whole uh method or or or strategy.
Um well it was it wasn't really that per se. I mean I would I I remember being You know, eleven or something. I'm trying to memorize a bilingual dictionary starting from A. I mean, I'm... But you know it's a little bit more than a little bit. It's one of those things. Um
I I don't want to say anything negative about Michelle Thomas or indeed any of any of the others because um I'm I'm sure that they work on some level for many. Um the thing that I would just say is that Yeah, maybe it is possible to um take language like behaviour, right? Maybe it's possible to teach language like behaviour in a more or less effective way. Maybe there are ways to um get the most out of that particular approach.
Um, when we talk about um implicit knowledge, you know, um Quote unquote picking up the language. You pick up the language from repeated experiences of real world usage. Right. And ultimately there's no way to replace that at its core. What you you can take a very effective method of of uh teaching sentences and and and structures
uh in in a way that it's easy for you to recall uh with a certain technique. Um that as they find in second language acquisition a lot of the time, these kind of classroom methods They can look really good in the beginning, but you come back in six months and a lot of the gains have have evaporated. But when it's a more let's let's say a more natural approach.
uh whereby it's it is through meaningful exposure, you know, actual comprehensible but input, you know, of of real world language usage, then those gains tend to last much longer. And I think that's partly what shows that that there is a there is a that there are two things going on here. One is language acquisition and the other is more or less language like behaviour, if you see what I mean.
¶ Challenges of Scaling CI to Languages
Yeah, totally. So basically... You know we'd we'd preferably need to get more uh of of the good stuff and and less of the maybe not so good stuff, you know, not to put it as purely right or wrong, of course, it's uh degrees of everything but So thinking along those lines, how do we take that philosophy
uh from uh or I should ask maybe I should ask it this way. What kind of challenges do you see uh for let's say the average learner learning a language taking those principles and and scaling it up to a quote unquote real language compared to the version you've built for Tokiopona.
Sure. Well, um I think one is practical. Um because I d uh maybe you know about things like um A L G and Dreaming Spanish and you know, comprehensible input channels and such. Um usually Unless it's a hobby, when you're learning a language, you need to be able to use it right now. So wouldn't it be nice if you could allow yourself a silent period?
of of several months or whatever, where you're just getting this exposure and your brain is piecing it together and you only start speaking when you're ready. Some people just can't do that. You know, they need to speak the language now.
Right.
So I you know, uh there there's you know, I'm not against anything, you know, um whatever whatever works in in the situation that you're in. And I think the other is just a little bit more.
Yeah.
uh trusting the process. So it's like well Did you comprehend, right? Did did you understand what just happened in whatever it is that you want?
Yeah.
Okay. Don't worry that you haven't got anything to show for it. Don't worry that you can't tell me what word you learnt today. Don't worry, it's gone in. it has made an impact and just keep getting that and it will work with time. Just believing that, I I feel is um can be difficult if you've never experienced that for yourself.
Right.
¶ The Brain's Natural Language Acquisition
Uh yeah, that's a that's I think that's definitely a hurdle'cause you have to be you have to totally trust the process. Right. But that's a Michelle Thomas thing as well, actually, funny enough. Um but he ha he clearly has some overlap there where he he will say to people because what they try what the typical participant will try to do when he asks them to say something, yeah, is they will try to remember.
Yes. But he always says like don't try to remember. Yeah. If you don't know, I'll tell you again and we'll get back to it. He doesn't he do like you you're not supposed to recall in language because I I'm I'm sure you've you know if y you can recall in front of a stranger. You're talking the language, you can't just spend like twenty seconds on each sentence trying to recall the sentence or the or the word. It's either there or it's not.
Exactly. Yeah, it's true. Um, as I say, I I shouldn't say anything um about against Michelle Thomas because uh that part of it does sound very uh uh very very apt. And I found also whenever uh like in the past before smartphones, you know, I'd have a bilingual dictionary, English, Turkish. And I very regularly have the experience of needing to look up the same word several times or needing a word several times and needing to look it up several times.
Um and saying n a and as much as I might try to sweat it and say, come on, remember it this time. Um, that wouldn't make a difference. But lo and behold, after let's say, you know, five, six, seven times of either using the word myself or encountering it and understand uh it encountering it, um, it would stick. Yeah.
That's why the brain is such a miracle. I I I don't obviously we d we have no clue how it works in in to any degree, but I'm just amazed how you know Yeah, I would from my you know, I was doing some memorizer some
kind of memory work, let's say, and I would I would see one really long Russian word like one time. Yeah. And then two months later it would say, How do you say this? And it was just straight, it was right there. Right. But Other words that are probably more common and more useful, like you, you you need to look them up flippin' ten times before they stick, you know.
Yeah.
So it's kind of amazing and and kind of uh exasperating at the same time.
It it's kind of similar with grammar as well, I've experienced that because I remember uh when I first started doing Turkish, we started doing Turkish as a family uh back in London because we were living in an area where a lot of Turkish speakers live.
And um
In the beginning, actually analysing Turkish grammar was quite the mindbender because when you decon when when you take a Turkish sentence apart and you translate each piece and then you read it off, it's like it's like it's like it's backwards. It feels like trying to learn to think backwards. But I find that okay, after having acquired Turkish, I don't feel like I'm thinking backwards. Um, if you asked me to take any given sentence that I just said.
and think about how it works would would be in English if I were to say everything in that order. Then my brain starts to hurt again. Right.
Right.
Yes. Um so it it's it's funny. I I I suppose also grappling with a language that structure is so very different from English. Right. Has also helped me to really experience that for myself. How you know, there's a part of the brain that acquires the language and knows what to do with it and once it's got it, it's got it. And then there's our conscious, mathematical, explicit uh faculties that aren't really built for language. And when we try to lean on them, our brains hurt, you know.
Yeah. So really it's all about leaning on the the natural getting kind of a lot of input. It's so hard to find the input for for some of the smaller languages though. Like it's easy enough for Spanish and German maybe and French. But as soon as you get down into the let's say top twenty languages I mean i it's very limited because it's Yeah.
You know, you're right. You're absolutely right. And I do think that you know, like we said before, uh, about you know, the kid. having a very uh an an inherently comprehensible environment, but an adult's world starts at B1, basically.
Yeah.
Right. If you think about it. So so basic the so so the A one, A two, there's this massive gap. For many languages. And I have a lot of respect for um not just refold, but you know, any other method that helps you to bridge that gap where there is no input available.
Yeah. Is that why you think that a lot of people and a lot of companies too are kind of working in a in a less ideal way, let's say treating it a little bit like uh a science subject and and kind of a measurable subject as we mentioned before. Just to get above that get uh get over that hill and then the kind of comprehens comprehension opens up. Well is that a a theory, maybe.
Yeah, I mean, I The my my concern really is that people understand what exactly they're doing. It's not that 'Cause'cause there's the old skill building way of approaching it. It's like, well, memorize the word and and practice using the word until it becomes automatic. So if you think that that's what's going on, then you're it's it's it's gonna take you down a blind alley.
Because you're going to struggle with it, it's never going to really completely work. And when you feel that it's not completely working, you could lose hope very easily. But if you recognize that there are two processes working in parallel here, There's what you're doing artificially to survive today, which is whatever memorization method you've got, or or whatever grammar analysis you've got that helps you to survive today. And then meanwhile, in the background,
Your brain is piecing the language together quietly. Yeah. And the more that it's effortless for you, well that's that's what your, you know, implicit uh a capability has be has put together for you. Um, I I think if you understand that these two things run in parallel and and one is just a crutch to get you over the hump until the natural thing kicks in, I I I think it can just take some of the stress out of it.
Mm, yeah. So it's not a forever thing when you're deep in the uh in the vocabulary app, so
No. Yeah, and and beyond a certain point, um, grammar isn't worth it.
But well same with vocabulary, right? Because once you reach a certain number you you're using it so little that it it's practically useless.
Yeah. And and like this y you you you're always gonna have these weird words in in that language that you just can't really seem to get your head around. and you you can't really dis nobody can describe it to you exactly what it's doing and why it's like that. If when you encounter ones like that you think, oh well, that's just something that I will pick up with time then.
And you can just relax and leave it alone. Instead of feeling like, oh no, I've got to master this, I've got to understand this, I've got to find the perfect description of whatever it is. Don't worry about it, don't worry about it. It's just, you know, the the model fails or breaks down at this point. Don't worry, just you know, you'll be fine.
Well, native speakers forget things all the time and you know, that's f perfectly acceptable, so Yeah, why should why should the letter be perfect with every word, every grammar rule and
Yeah. But I mean I I mean also that if as a learner there's whatever element it is, whether it's grammatical or vocabulary, and you're using it wrong, they tell you you're using it wrong, and you just can't see it.
Yeah, you don't understand why.
Right. Don't worry. Don't worry. Just just St take a step back. Okay, keep an ear out for it. You know, notice it. Try to notice it uh when you encounter it. And but just you know keep keep an open mind. Uh and and just Continue to experience the language, and it will come so long as you don't stress it and so long as you stay curious.
¶ Language Teaching, Education, and Outlook
Yeah. Well that's that's that's fantastic. And I can see we're just about uh finished uh for today, but I there's one more thing I wanted to just briefly touch on if you're okay with continuing for a few more minutes.
Oh no worry.
Um because we've talked a lot about uh at least in my interpretation, kind of an independent, let's say, uh mostly uh self organized uh learning style or or some kind of aspiration.
Um how do you see that kind of relating to uh either uh tutoring or classes or any kind of like uh let's say spoken or or in tandem production of the language, whether it's with a private tutor or a formal class or maybe even some kind of language exchange, like is is that Does that add to it or the uh do you see any kind of additional challenges there with with doing that in in in tandem with the what we've talked about so far?
There's certainly a lot of challenges. Look, I'm a translator. That that's my profession. That's my background. I'm not a language teacher. I've I've done a little bit of language teaching, enough to realise that I still have a lot to learn about language teaching. And all I ha all I can say is really that you you've just gotta play it by ear. Um, I think you've got to lay a good foundation. You've got to understand what it is that we're doing here.
Uh, everything that we've talked about so far, you know, uh what when when you when you understand that the brain is wired for language, it will pick it up over time when it gets the comprehensible input it needs. Meanwhile, everything else you do consciously and explicitly is a crutch at best. If you have that clearly in mind, then you can navigate whatever scenario it is. Sometimes As a teacher, you've just got to give the customer what they want, what they feel they need. Um so I mean
There's possibly an ethical debate to be had here. You know, it's like for me, I would just love to do crosstalk as a language teacher, you know, cross talk and this lag would have done with uh the the the Toki Ponna thing. You know, I would just like to tell stories all day and draw pictures and and just let your brain pick it up as we go. But like but a lot of people aren't going to be happy or satisfied with that.
Plus you've got the school system that is still built around the idea of language as a subject. So I think personally, based on what I've seen so far, if I was going to go into language teaching, I would probably be probably do do something like T PRS. Right. And I think T PRS is a very pragmatic compromise. From what I've seen so far. You know, it's perhaps not ideal, but I think it can work on both sides in a lot of situations.
Yeah, and I suppose the big challenge of languages in school is fundamentally you need to get the kids interested in it to begin with because they come into it thinking, what am I ever going to use French or Spanish or whatever for? So you're kind of starting at less than zero You know, whereas if you're an independent learner who's an adult and you're like, okay, I want to learn this language for this reason, you're kind of starting at zero, right? So
Right.
Got a l a little benefit there. Um but yeah, the school system. I mean we've talked about that on the podcast kind of uh uh a few times over the years and it it to me is kinda sad that it's still so bad and there doesn't seem to be much movement. Uh, considering we've done this podcast for ten years and I have not heard from any country
that they're radically improving the the lessons or or the cur curriculum. Um I've heard of individual teachers being great and and and offering a much better experience than the system allows. But I have not heard from any uh certainly not any Western country or but actually no country. uh that uh oh yeah we've uh tried these new ways to get kids into languages and we've doing this instead of that and it's more intract no, I haven't heard any of that.
Um that would be on a very low like one school maybe you know.
Yeah. Well language, as as we both said, you know, language is an amazing and mysterious thing. a biological function as much as it is something that you can analyze mathematically. You know. And People use it but mostly they don't think about it very much. And when you have a legacy system that treats language as a subject to be studied. that can be learnt in a classroom outside of real life environments, you know, it that's the paradigm.
So I don't know. I don't I I'm not very hopeful about changing the world, but at the very least I hope that, you know, my small efforts might help some individuals to to not get so frustrated with themselves because of misunderstanding what this is all about. You know. If if you can just raise awareness of what language is and how it's really acquired. then at least individuals will hopefully be able to find their path with less frustration than the ones who came before.
Wonderful. Well that what a great way to end. Thank you so much, uh, Joel. And I would just like to add that's also the actual fluency philosophy and you know, that's what we do with this podcast is if we can just help a few people be less frustrated, be more successful, sticking with it. Obviously that's one of the big challenges, you know, once you've done languages for a while, how do you keep going?
Um, so I'm with you on that. And where can people find of course this uh series you talked about, but also if you have any social media uh places you'd like to share, just you can go ahead and do that now.
Okay, I think the best thing I could do is just say uh go on to YouTube. and search for uh OPETP. So O-P-E-T-P is the abbreviation of uh this comprehensible input series in Tokipana that I made, uh Opiline Tokipana. Um yeah, check it out.
Fantastic. Yeah. And uh people we would love to hear your thoughts on Tokyo as well if you've never tried it before because uh it is a lot of fun to learn. So uh definitely uh go check it out. And uh yeah, Joel, thank you so much.
Thank you very much.