hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2620.txt

Episode: 2620
Title: HPR2620: Thoughts on language learning part 1
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2620/hpr2620.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 06:40:04

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This is HPR Episode 2620 entitled Thoughts on Language Learning Part 1.
It is hosted by the ODDW and is about 25 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is, my thoughts on an approach to language learning, which makes sense to me.
Today's show is licensed under a CC hero license.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
Hello, this is Diodidi Dummy with today's edition of Hacker Public Radio.
This will be the first part of a three-part series.
Well, I think it'll be at least three-part.
The first one, well, the series will cover some of my thoughts on language learning, language instruction.
I think I like language learning better.
In this first one, it will cover my thoughts on kind of a normal lesson or how I think a normal lesson might work better for them.
So maybe I'll start off with describing the kind of person or the learner that I'm thinking about here.
Think about the person who wants to learn the language and maybe learn it pretty well, but doesn't really have anybody that they'll talk to.
Or they might not have anybody that they'll talk to, and definitely don't have anybody to talk to them while they're learning, not a spouse or something along those lines.
And if they do have someone who knows the language that they're trying to learn, it's one of those situations where they, for basically maybe practicality, it's just easier to speak in English.
And there's no real benefit to, well, it doesn't be English, but the language the person knows, people just find it, well, I'll talk about English because that's my language is English.
But so those cases where the people, I can go almost everywhere in the world and they're going to know English better than I'm going to know their language.
You know, the old joke where someone who knows three languages called a trilingualist, someone who knows two languages called a bilingualist, and someone who knows one language is called an American, that's me.
But so that kind of person who doesn't really have, like, there's no motivation for work, it's not like there's going to increase the salary or even the enabled them to get a job.
And it's not like they're thrown into an environment. And heck, maybe they're not even going to visit a place.
So it's not for the, I want to immediately learn how to go to the store and order a Pepsi or ask for directions.
And I'm not talking about that case where, hey, learn a language in a week and you can get by.
So I'm thinking more along the lines of someone who kind of wants to get in the language and get the culture and kind of think in the language, which is kind of me.
And that's, while I don't usually spend a lot of time in languages, I've always been interested in languages.
And there's, I know several languages relatively, you know, a little bit, but I learned German enough to where when I went to college, I skipped the first German class and went straight into German too.
And in high school, I had four years of Latin and I did pretty well with Latin and then some other languages I just, you know, kind of picked up a little bit here.
But I have thought about the reasons that I didn't really learn a language well and I never stuck with it and I never really got into it, even though I was interested.
So for example, for the past several years, 10 years maybe Korean TV is my favorite TV to watch mostly because it's a different culture and they don't.
They usually have only one season. There's a couple that have two seasons so I can kind of get a story and and in new culture and I don't have to be invested for multiple years.
And my favorite movies now are India and so mostly the Hindi, Hindi language.
And so both of those, Hindi I learned somewhat the songs that like mostly I like in Bollywood songs too.
But I didn't really learn much of those. Probably the first half a semester maybe or two weeks of a class is probably my level there.
But I really have an interest in learning Esperanto and my mind probably should be Esperanto as the lingua franca.
Is that how you say that? I don't like the fact that it's English. I don't think it should be Chinese or Hindi or Spanish.
I think it really should be for all the reasons a guy who made Esperanto thinks it is a good choice for the global second language.
I agree with. I had German, Latin, even did a little bit of Russian, Chinese and never thought that much about.
My first wife, not my first wife, my first wife was German. My second wife was Ty from Ty.
And my current wife is Filipino so she speaks Tagalog. She also speaks Taosug.
So those I had German and Ty actually in my house. So various languages always been an interest to me but it just never seemed that I should learn it enough that I took the time to kind of get serious and try to get into it.
She was like my first wife. She knew English pretty darn good. I think she didn't speak in it for maybe all the way in school since she started school.
So she was pretty good in German and my second wife, I mean she was pretty good in English.
My second wife, she was not quite as good in English but enough. I mean she works and when she came here learning English was more important than me trying to get Ty.
So we spoke in English and so yeah. So that's the kind of person that I think is interested but doesn't really have someone to talk to.
And I guess yeah so I know now you can get like the Duolingo and you can get people on the internet to talk to but even then what I found was those people almost always had a real reason to learn English right and they were almost always better than I was and it was it didn't work very well either.
And probably mostly because that's I didn't have the same kind of motivation right some of these people I mean they were learning English kind of let's kind of like the old story the lion is just trying to is trying to get a meal where has to wrap it's trying to save his life that kind of thing.
So for whatever reason none of those ever really stuck with me and so anyways so here's how I think the language maybe would would work for me and maybe I'll give this a try now.
I said I really put these thoughts together oh probably six or seven years ago now maybe maybe only five but I didn't really I just I did create one or two lessons like this but I didn't really didn't really try and get it to take off but but so here we go.
So in a nutshell what I what occurred to me that it would be the best the guiding principle here would would be two guiding principles.
The first one is to is to try to get the person into the other language as soon as possible so that when they're thinking about the new language it's in the new language right most of the instruction that I've seen and even still I did go back and do to I don't know maybe 30 minutes of looking online
for what the current and you know I heard there's Babel now and I forgot some of the other ones but there's a couple different apps and courses and and so I did take a look at that and see and it still seems like most of the language is still being taught kind of in two language like kind of being taught in the source language more than I would like.
And so let's think about this I got to the I mean the natural if you take that to the natural conclusion then you could say well you should just start with baby books that's from the very beginning you're in the you're in the new language and while I think that's true and these days you could probably get the baby books pretty easily and you could go through them at their own pace
but and so I don't even think that's a bad strategy I didn't try it but I don't think that's a bad strategy but like what you would want to do is compress it right you know when it's been five years learning what a baby learns before he gets to the first school but you could probably you really probably could accelerate that a ton so I don't think that's a bad idea.
But what I was thinking was that you know people are already adults most of these people are at least there are already no another language and so we can make some assumptions and one is that some of the some of the reason the baby we'll call baby up to Sesame Street kind of age so some of that is they don't they assume you don't know much right so so I would think to combine it with what we're doing.
What you might get at the baby level toddler level but combine that and assume that the person knows you know has some intelligence but still kind of follow along that same kind of concept so that the person understands what county is and and understands like days of the weeks and months and just and you know knows already knows what vehicles are and that kind of thing.
And then the other one is to focus more on vocabulary instead of grammar and sentence structure that kind of thing maybe to the point of saying things that are grammatically incurring and really leave the language leave the grammar side for a while until the person has a pretty decent vocabulary.
And then the grammar and stuff can still be on a scope and the reason for that is if you get the decent vocabulary then then the person could just learn the grammar and from books that already exist in the other language so you can stop treating it as you're teaching someone the new language.
And you know my thinking is in like I said already it could be you just start off with baby books maybe that maybe that will even work better I don't know but but my thinking is have a you know have the lesson plan and instruction is designed to get them to first grade first grade level or if not at the first grade level exactly because probably by the time you're in kindergarten the first grade.
You probably already know the language pretty well right you've heard it for five years and you've been talking it for a couple so if not that good but close enough that you could you know use your life knowledge you know that you came through normal life and that you could kind of supplement that and still follow along at the kindergarten level in the new language.
And then so because from there that's when they really kind of start you know get some a little bit formal instruction and language so that's my kind of thinking and then you could just pick up with that stuff and then go through you know at your own pace and probably that's pretty fast right I don't think it's going to take you as someone who especially if you're an adult and probably if you're not an adult if you're I mean a younger kid maybe this wouldn't be the right thing for you.
You know how to approach new language so I'm going to assume that this person whoever would try this or would find it useful is probably at least high school age.
So that's really let's see is that kind that's kind of it so grammar wouldn't need to be in scope and the idea would be to build a vocabulary and mostly in the new language very little in the old language.
And so here's how I think it could work and no I'm not I'm just going this from memory and this is just things I thought about I don't have notes or anything like that so this is maybe I'm figuring this out by now it's in my normal rambling style.
Okay so just taking an example of what the kind of thing I mean is so let's say I think you could decide how you want to do this in a couple of different ways.
Like for example you might do one of those things where you know they have a list of these two thousand words is what they hits the kind of minimum fluency of a language well whatever that is you could take that list
of word and say okay here's what I was going to be our target we want to try to get this vocabulary and then you could you could break it into lessons based on based on that.
Or another one is you could just do categories of words and then build the lessons like that but for whatever that's all would be to come to to be decided upon if I really you know decided to take this and see if it could actually work.
I'm going to have to figure out what that would be like but let's say that's happened and the first lesson is going to be counting.
So we can assume that the person already knows what counting is so there's not a lot to say there.
And so in my mind I wouldn't do any like here's like say in the new language or even in the old language are the current let's go source and target.
Here's lesson one you know the whole introductory thing I would just say the the idea here is the each lesson is a minimum set of words in the source language.
I asked minimum set of words that are taught in both languages for that lesson and then then it's assumed that you know the words of all the previous lessons is kind of the idea.
And so like for this counting lesson you could you could you could just say one word one less if it were in English one is equal to you know if we were in Spanish or if it was German so and then the lesson after that you say it in English one is
is I'm in German and then you then that's it and then you would go I'm so I drive fear from I forget the rest of the county so and then you would just count in the new language and then that's lesson one.
And then so my thinking is if you do that then the person learning the language isn't translating or isn't consciously translating so what I found was
kind of took my focus away in in the language learning I've done so far and it's always translating and I was like if I could just get thinking in the new language to begin with then I'm not translating that maybe would make it seem more fluid.
So that's what I think you know just count in the new language and then let's say we're going to I'll give an example what might happen in the subsequent lesson down the line.
So let's say in like said this is mostly concerned about vocabulary building and I would think of it as in kind of groups of similar kinds of words and and I realize that this doesn't help you get speaking the language like conversationally very quickly but that's really not the goal.
My goal is to get it where it's ingrained and it's kind of feels like it's like it's almost like it's becoming your native life too.
And so my thinking is if you're thinking in that language to learn the language maybe that helps that.
So let's say we're going to do a lesson I don't know sometime later and it's going to be on vehicles.
And let's say at this point you've had the little words like a and of course you already know how to count and so and let's say you know let's say in a previous lesson you learned well you know what a person is.
And so let's say so in this lesson so maybe the key word might be vehicle and so you would say in German a vehicle is I don't even know what the vehicle is I guess it's really not out all but yeah see my language learning has been crap or at least my memory or retention.
But so you would so so vehicle would be one word that you would teach in both languages or you would teach in the source language and then let's say maybe you want to do motor so say vehicles either have a motor or don't have a motor.
And so so that could be though it could be those two words would be taught in both languages in this lesson and so you say maybe you would and maybe you would do powered by in both languages so so you could say a vehicle with one wheel powered by foot is a unicycle and so.
That sentence of vehicle powered by foot is all in the new language because either you learn the words in previous lessons or they're the couple of seed words for this lesson that are taught new in both languages is and then so now the new and then you don't teach unicycle in both languages that's only taught in the new language right so you don't say a unicycle is in English you say it all in the new language.
And then so in their mind in the new language they're thinking they're thinking it and saying it with the new language and then you can continue from there a vehicle with two wheels powered by humans or like foot is a bicycle all of that's in the new language and so you build upon there and so my thinking is that they're thinking about the words they're less likely to think about the words
and of that definition in their source language and they're more likely to think about it in the new language and maybe relatively soon in this lesson plan even though starter words and probably could be this could be done you know maybe maybe how you design the lessons could make could enhance this but at some point you can probably start teaching the you don't need very many words.
Because you can tell you can kind of define the starter words and words you already know from the new language and that's really the at the core what how I think maybe lessons would be it would be done and of course back then I was really mostly thinking about books but books and audio and this could totally be a podcast in my mind this could be only audio and I don't know that I would
so much worry about the spelling of course if it's if it's in book and then you can get the spelling of the new language but if it's an audio then I think you could just concentrate on the pronunciation and like I said I don't really well that's it I don't want to keep rambling on I've already rambled on enough but if this idea seems interesting to you one of two things
or a couple things one let me know if this is an ideal you haven't heard of but sounds interesting and maybe you want to give it a try I wouldn't be against trying to develop some lesson plans I just didn't mind just didn't get around to that
this two is if for some reason that this is an old concept or an existing one and I just didn't see it let me know that too
and then you can have a good laugh at my expense because a lot of times I don't find my Google food doesn't find stuff to exist until I tell some try to tell people about it I'm like oh yeah you idiot this is this has been done over and over
and then I would like to maybe see some of those lessons because that would be interesting and also one other thing I think that this could be an inexpensive way
to create some kind of instruction for languages that don't often get you know that aren't the normal top 10 or 20 that most companies create lessons for
so this maybe if you have some you know some language that is interesting to you and there's normally companies don't make you know language instruction for the language or at least
then maybe it's maybe it would be interesting to give this a try okay that's enough for now and like I said I would be interested in feedback
and not on my podcast and quality I'm always going to ramble and if you don't like that then I'm probably not the right one for you to listen to
I might take some suggestions but don't expect me to try to get some kind of good great production production quality
really organized and laid out podcast because that's probably never going to be so yeah that's enough for now
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