- Part of an essay in progress
Why can’t I learn Japanese?
Posted August 17, 2011 12:53 pm
This was not my first attempt to learn Japanese; I briefly took it up in my 30’s and gave up, then, for lack of time. This time around, I gave myself one year in which to accomplish my goal, one year that became two, when my husband broke his hip and our trip was postponed. In the end, two years of hard work—and all for naught: my success with Rossetta Stone, Pimsleur, and formal classes at The Japan Society did not lead to my being able to understand or speak in the real world at all. Did you or anyone you know have a similar experience?
I am working on a story about my foray into foreign language training—and the aging brain—and would love to know about other people’s experiences in this area.
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Elizabeth Jeffer June 10, 2012 at 7:53 am
I can completely connect with your experience. I have always loved languages and studied many of them (Spanish, French in highschool) and German in college..Greek when I married Gree. I find that Spanish stuck with me the best and so quite often when I try to pick up the other languages and try my hand Spanish words come to mind more readily. It happened in high school but more frequently now in my 40’s…its frustrating to be sure and I have always found languages to be somewhat easy to learn..but if you are not immersed and constantly practicing your brain struggles to find “that place” and gets confused as to where to grab from ? LOL
Guest June 7, 2012 at 9:00 pm
I have to say that for the past couple of hours i have been hooked by the amazing posts on this website. Keep up the wonderful work.
Elizabeth Marcus June 4, 2012 at 8:25 am
“storage glitch” I like that a lot. My experience was a variation on yours. Spanish wasn’t my first foreign language, just the previous one I’d studied. My first was French, then Italian, Spanish, finally Japanese. I studied French when I was young and learned quite well through more of an immersion experience. The others I studied much less seriously, except for Japanese, which I devoted quite a lot of time to. When I started the site, my premise was that Spanish was the default setting for a language I speak poorly. Now, after hearing others’ experiences, I’m more inclined to think it’s the default for language I studied with less difficulty, since Japanese, despite all my effort, still sounds like gibberish to me. Essentially, though, I think you are right — all these experiences break down to a storage glitch in one form or another. Thanks so much for the clarification!
Guest June 4, 2012 at 7:51 am
Was Spanish the first foreign language you learned? French was mine. After having learned a reasonable amount of traveler’s Spanish, Chinese, and Italian, I discovered, when trying to carry on a conversation in those countries, French words often jumped into my speech. i think it represents a storage glitch in the brain’s hard drive.
eliz April 16, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Europeans have such an advantage with so many languages spoken all around them. I am convinced that the early acquisition of several languages preps the brain to acquire more — and also gives the learner a sense that language acquisition is possible, that there is nothing to fear. I think it is a combination of brain development overlaid with the right attitude. I’m participating in a LinkedIn discussion of language learners some of whom believe that the key is attitude or the right method or a certain flexibility of self-image, whereas I think the brain comes first and the other elements make it easier or harder. What is your take on the subject?
Patrick April 12, 2012 at 8:47 am
I am from the Netherlands and my first language is Dutch, a small language (about 22 million native speakers). Germany is next door, Great Britain is across the Channel and also France is quite nearby, so it makes sense to learn them, even if they weren’t important languages.
eliz April 12, 2012 at 5:25 am
Three foreign languages in secondary school is amazing; Americans are lucky to get one, and then they rarely have to take it all the way through. What was your first language?
Patrick April 12, 2012 at 4:56 am
Hi Eliz, a default setting for ‘Language I barely know’ sounds spot on.
When I went to secondary school (age 12) I got both English and French as foreign language starting in the first year and German in the second year. But as I already knew German this cannot be considered as my last language.
So English and French both were the last languages I learned, but I dropped French after 3 years and had English until the end.
So I think weakest is more likely to be the reason than last.
But I have to add that some students who studied both Chinese and French had problems switching to French in French class, while students with the combination Chinese/English or Chinese/German didn’t seem to have that problem in English/German class. And you had to be fluent in French, because otherwise you couldn’t choose French.
eliz April 11, 2012 at 9:32 pm
That is fascinating, Patrick — and really quite like my experience, since Spanish was my weakest language. I had assumed, somewhat like you, that I had a default setting in my brain for “language I barely know,” so that when I tried to speak Japanese, which I didn’t know at all, I reverted to Spanish as another language I also did not know but could speak a bit better. I wonder if there is any reality to the images we have of what is going on in our brains!
Spanish was also the last language I’d studied, so I now wonder if that may have influenced the confusion. Was French the previous one you had studied?
Patrick April 11, 2012 at 5:27 pm
When I studied Chinese I would use French words in my Chinese. And French was my weakest foreign language at that time. I was not alone, my fellow students had the same problem. My friend told me that she heard herself saying ‘oui’ a couple of times during an oral exam because the Chinese doesn’t have a word for yes.
Chinese and French are not very similar. The word order of Chinese is quite similar to English word order (in simple sentences) and the grammar is not very complex, so this cannot be the reason.
French is quite alien to me, because my native language is a Germanic language. I always assumed that my brain had one compartment labeled ‘difficult language’ and both Chinese and French were thrown in there. Fortunately in two separate files, but not very neat files, so words would get mixed up.
Guest March 27, 2012 at 9:20 am
My pediatrician back in the 70’s had a great many Greek families as patients. At 50 he learned to speak Greek, and it was the consensus of the Greek community that everyone in Greece would think that Greek was his first language.
Emerald February 28, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Elizabeth,
to me the most important thing about language learning is confidence. If I am feeling calm and quite myself, I have an easier time ‘switching’ to languages I have been learning, regardless of which one it is, including Japanese.
It is easier to ‘absorb’ another language closely related to one I speak fluently, because there is less to figure out. But I do not find it hard to learn to speak another language, including those unrelated to others I know.
Although I believe pre-pubescent children learn languages in a different way, as they are not indoctrinated, and therefore easily absorb multiple languages at the same time, including learning correct pronunciations, as their ‘tongue is not set’, I do not believe that with age it becomes more difficult to learn.
Anxiety however will put everybody in a different sphere, and I can recount many experiences I have had myself with that.
Elizabeth Marcus January 7, 2012 at 12:05 pm
I am sure you are right about the anxiety issue. Thanks so much for bringing it up! How could I have omitted it? It is such a huge factor! And thanks so much for your absolutely perfect example: you could shop in Mandarin for small items but reverted to Spanish when your anxiety level went up!
I think now I understand that I reverted to Spanish as the last language I’d studied with some success (as opposed to the one I can speak: French), rather than what I’d originally thought, i.e., that I reverted to some preset of a language I don’t speak.
Did you read the page about Critical Period and the difference between young and old learning a new language?: http://archive.elizwrites.com/?page_id=2092 There is a link to a really interesting article about a family that moved to Russia for a few years and their children’s language experience that might interest you: http://nyti.ms/mTeGuy
Paige January 7, 2012 at 6:35 am
And by the way, please don’t think I’m psychoanalyzing you! It’s just that my 3rd language learning experience is so fresh in my mind–and I’ve watched language learning , day in and day out, for 21 years now.
Paige January 7, 2012 at 6:27 am
I don’t believe you’ve mentioned a feeling of anxiety, Elizabeth. Your brain knew you were supposed to speak a language that wasn’t your native one but when push came to shove, the 2nd lang. you were most sure of came out. –Same exact thing happened to me this past year in China. When shopping for small goods–food, trinkets, etc., I was fine in my simple Mandarin. But when I had to bargain for bigger items–chairs, a mattress, blankets, return train tickets–Spanish would come out of my mouth and it would honestly be a minute before I realized what was happening. I’d be nervous; people were pushing, my kids were tugging at my shirt and numbers were never my strong suit. Language learning and performance is definitely tied to our emotions. I have students in school who have been in this country for over a year now and have not progressed beyond greetings, goodbyes and simple conversations about weather and food. They are not happy about their move to the U.S.; they long for home and cannot find a group of friends to fall in with.
By the way, the earlier post that labeled your issue as “language interference” was not correct. Lang. Interference would be something like a native Spanish speaker saying to “take a decision” because in Spanish it’s “tomar una decision” and tomar when taken out of context is translated as “to take”.
Ferdinand December 22, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Your questions:
Yes, Italian was my weakest language. I studied it just for one year at University and for a month in Italy.
When I went to Japan I was much more fluent in English, since this the Lingua Franca in Europe.
In spring I started to learn Thai just for fun. But I had to stop since I was just to busy, but I plan to restart next spring. After learning hundreds of Japanese Kanji, to learn the Thai script is easy fun…
In regard to my language learning ability, actually I think I am not good at learning languages at all. It’s really hard work for me and self-learning doesn’t work for me. I tried Thai software but got frustrated after an hour. I need active interaction with a teacher.
Therefore like with Japanese I took a private teacher for Thai.
Anyway, I don’t think that it is harder for me today to learn a new language than it was during school/university. (Maybe because I am so bad at learning languages :-) )
Most important is I need a concrete aim for to stick to it – cramming Kanjis isn’t the most joyful way to spend an evening.
eliz December 22, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Ferdinand, Thanks you so much! Your explanation is the best one I’ve heard so far –including what I’ve read about second language acquisition. Was Italian your weakest language, as Spanish was mine?
Your story makes me wonder if I switched into Spanish (rather than French, which I speak) because I had most recently tried to learn it, whereas I’d studied French since childhood. Perhaps it wasn’t that I reverted to a language I didn’t know and simply that I reverted to a language I’d studied with less difficulty.
I have read that the brain learns to how to acquire new languages and that it gets easier. Which Asian language are you learning now? Did you learn English as a child? Are you a particularly gifted language student? Supposedly 5% of adults are able to master new languages languages later in life. Are you among them, or have you just taught yourself how to do it through diligent hard work? Sorry for all the questions!
Ferdinand December 22, 2011 at 11:01 am
I had the absolutely same experience during my first trips to Japan.
After learning Japanese for 1 1/2 years with a private teacher I arrived in Tokyo – and spoke Italian…
I had to forcefully remove Italian from my brain, with the result that when I go to Italy I a speak Japanese. :-(
But I have no problem at all to switch between Japanese, German and English during a conversation, since during my long time stay in Tokyo I used all three languages frequently (while I never needed Italian).
I guess the problem with Japanese is, that the concept and structure of the language is so different to Western languages, that the brain needs some time and a lot of active training for to adapt to it, and in the beginning the brain is just falling back to language which is closer to the native language.
And of course Japanese is really hard to learn. While staying in Japan kept on with private lessons two times a week.
By the way, it becomes much easier when you start to learn next Asian language. :-)
eliz December 2, 2011 at 3:17 pm
How long did it take you to complete the course? Voice recognition is really useful only for avoiding an accent, which you seem to have managed on your own. Do you think you have a special language ability? My experience was that the voice-recognition component of Rosetta Stone did not work, in any case. With this system, you speak into a microphone, and the program rates your pronunciation on a dial that goes from red into green as you get closer to a native sound. I was never able to get the dial out of the red, no matter what I tired, but then neither was my Japanese teacher at Berlitz, whom I asked to try it! Can you converse in French using words and phrases that did not appear in the CDs but which you picked up from conversation or French films? I’d LOVE to know!
Guest December 2, 2011 at 1:36 pm
When I was 17 years old I started learning French through an independent learning course composed of brochures and CDs. After completing the course I was able to interact with French people without any problems. I don’t think you need voice recognition software or complex learning systems to achieve fluency. If you just repeat what you hear, what might you be doing wrong?
Kiran @ KiranTarun.com October 27, 2011 at 12:41 pm
What a lovely blog.
I came from a country where the local language was thought in all subjects, with the exception of English language class. I still fumble for words in English (in my head, of course) and find conversing with the locals at times, get’s too difficult.
Kiran @ KiranTarun.com
Elizabeth Marcus October 26, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Fascinating about your experience coming home from Yemen. And reassures me that my substitution of Spanish for Japanese was the consequence of some not uncommon neurological phenomenon.
The account of your bilingual friends’ experience as they age is also fascinating. I’d never heard this described before. I’m going to ask other bilingual friends if they’ve noticed the same thing.
And you ask such interesting questions about your daughter and the future of her experience with multiple languages. I will have to look into this further as well. Thanks so much, Ginna!
Ginna October 24, 2011 at 4:27 pm
I studied French as a child up through my 2nd high school year. When I stopped in Paris on my way home from living in Yemen, I was amazed to find that every time I opened my mouth, Arabic came out, though I had hugely less proficiency in it than in French.
When I lived in Belgium I would at times catch myself actually thinking to myself in French. But I still have enormous trouble understanding people especially if the conversation is not one on one.
My American friends in Belgium who have been speaking French constantly all their adult lives including with their own children are finding that as they get older they feel more and more tired by their non-native tongue and rest up by watching DVDs or TV shows in English at night.
I wonder if the same will be true for my daughter who always has spoken French with her father but conducted most of her life in English. Will that infant hard-wiring save her from tiring in French when she is grey? Will that be less true of Spanish, a language in which she has become proficient since middle school? Supposedly bilingual children find it easier to learn new languages. Do they also circumvent the age roadblock to learning languages?
Guest October 5, 2011 at 1:14 pm
what do you think?
Robin October 4, 2011 at 8:18 pm
You are in good company, Elizabeth. If you haven’t seen it, check out the hilarious piece in the New Yorker from a few months ago. I think it was by David Sedaris and appeared in the “Shouts and Murmurs” sections….all about his frustrated attempts to learn a foreign language “by the books”…or tapes as the case may be.
eliz October 5, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Thank you so much, Robin! I missed the Sedaris piece and will definitely look for it. A great reference.
Guest October 4, 2011 at 2:14 pm
‘second language interference’ is what this problem is called.
eliz October 5, 2011 at 4:46 pm
I was excited to learn there is a term for my disordered performance, but when I looked it up it seems not to be quite the same thing. As I understand it, ‘second language interference’ is when the imbedded structure of a first language interferes in the acquisition of a second language with a different structure. Opening your mouth in Japan to answer a question with something as simple as, “Yes,” and coming out with “Si” seems like a different phenomenon. Feels more like some sort of default setting in the language part of the brain. Don’t you think?
Guest October 4, 2011 at 1:43 pm
I totally understand you speaking Spanish in Japan. I know a bunch of words in many languages, but Spanish is the only one I’ve ever studied. When I am in a non-English speaking country, I find myself speaking Spanish in my head (never out loud) and I think it is because I am not speaking Spanish, I am speaking “foreign language”. My brain says, if nobody here is speaking English, I need to switch too.
David F.
eliz October 5, 2011 at 4:39 pm
So glad to hear I am not alone! My experience was slightly different in that, while I do speak French, I have only a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish (though I do have it’s basic structure). For you, Spanish seems to be your default foreign language. For me, it’s the default language I don’t speak!