Don't Speak in Your Target Language

Of course, we want to speak the language eventually and we want to speak well, however, there's no need to be anxious about how we're doing now. もちろん、最終的にはその言語を話したいし、上手に話したいのですが、今のやり方を心配する必要はありません。 Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. Today I want to talk about something that I've been thinking about recently, and that is the importance of not speaking the language we're learning. 今日は私が最近考えていることについて話したいと思います。それは私たちが学んでいる言語を話さないことの重要性です。

Don't speak the language we're, learning a little bit provocative and I'll explain what I mean. Meanwhile, if you enjoy these videos, please subscribe. Uh, I click on that bell for notifications. If you are listening to this on a podcast service, please leave a review. Um, I hope my sound is better. There have been some complaints now,.What do I mean by don't speak?

All right. I'll tell you my, my sort of reasoning on this. Um, recently I decided that in my Arabic, I was going to move over to Egyptian Arabic because I wanted to try to understand Egyptian movies better. Egypt is a country of 90 or more million people and they have a language with its own culture, humor, expressions, uh, which I can connect to in some way.

Uh, that's not true of standard Arabic. There is no country where the local language is standard Arabic. And so it's a little bit of an artificial language. It's like Latin or something. Not quite, it is spoken by many Arabs. It's spoken in official situations by politicians. Uh, the written material on the internet is mostly in standard Arabic, but in terms of getting that sort of resonance that you get from a real life country, it doesn't have that.

So I started doing, um, you know, Egyptian Arabic and I found that a couple of things that were very interesting. One, my Arabic is now ruined, my standard Arabic, my Egyptian Arabic. I have trouble saying anything. I struggle to say it. J'ai du mal à le dire. On the other hand, my spoken, uh, Persian, Farsi has improved without me putting anything into it.

All of a sudden I have my online discussions with Sahra and, and she agrees I'm doing better than ever. Tout d'un coup, j'ai mes discussions en ligne avec Sahra et, et elle convient que je vais mieux que jamais. So it's like I left my Persian alone. C'est comme si j'avais laissé mon persan tranquille. I still have, you know, twice a week sessions with Sahra, uh, but leaving Persian alone and even leaving Standard Arabic and stimulating my brain with this exposure to Egyptian Arabic, with all of its idiosyncrasies seems to have improved. 我仍然有，你知道，每周两次与 Sahra 的会议，呃，但是别管波斯语，甚至离开标准阿拉伯语，并通过接触埃及阿拉伯语来刺激我的大脑，它的所有特质似乎都得到了改善。

My Persian sounds a bit strange. I have experienced this before that if you work very hard at language A then leave language A and go to language B, come back to language A and you understand it better and you can speak better. Why that is? I don't know. I have called that sort of the period of benign neglect. Ik heb dat de periode van goedaardige verwaarlozing genoemd. It may be a function of leaving it.

It may be a function of trying very hard to learn something else which is stimulating for the brain. Then coming back to something familiar and all of a sudden you're better able to recall words in that language. I don't know why. However, I had a session this morning in Egyptian Arabic. I mean, I couldn't say anything, not in Egyptian Arabic not in Standard Arabic, but I enjoy it.

I enjoyed it. And I enjoy listening to the material that I have in Egyptian Arabic. I enjoy discovering Egyptian Arabic. I'm looking forward to being better at Egyptian Arabic, but I'm not concerned about my inability to speak right now. Um, I enjoy these sessions with Adel Samy my new tutor in Alexandria, because he's funny.

And he keeps me going and we have almost philosophical discussions where he has to give me the words and he writes the words out on the screen before I'm actually able to say them. But that's fine. I certainly couldn't carry on a conversation, but it's extremely enjoyable. And so the sort of passive, you know, discovering the language I find enjoyable. Et donc le genre de passif, vous savez, découvrir la langue que je trouve agréable.

If I were genuinely concerned about how weak I am in speaking the language, I would feel, you know, distraught. Si j'étais vraiment préoccupé par ma faiblesse à parler la langue, je me sentirais, vous savez, désemparé. And that's why I kind of reminded myself that, you know, very often people identify learning a language with being able to speak the language. Et c'est pourquoi je me suis en quelque sorte rappelé que, vous savez, très souvent, les gens identifient l'apprentissage d'une langue à la capacité de parler la langue. And what can I say now? And of course we want to speak the language eventually and we want to speak well, however, there's no need to be anxious about how we're doing now or at the beginning, or even a fair way along in the language, as long as we are enjoying the language. Et bien sûr, nous voulons parler la langue éventuellement et nous voulons bien parler, cependant, il n'y a pas besoin de s'inquiéter de la façon dont nous faisons maintenant ou au début, ou même un bon chemin dans la langue, tant que nous apprécions la langue.

And so, uh, I think very often in the sort of standard classroom, there's a tremendous emphasis placed on producing the language, speaking the language, which is fine because that's what people want to do. 所以，呃，我经常认为，在那种标准的课堂上，非常强调生产语言，说语言，这很好，因为那是人们想要做的。 But what I think is more important is what will I be able to do with them, the language in a year from now?

And from that perspective, I'm not tremendously motivated to speak. Now I have this a couple of sessions a week just to maintain that human contact with, with someone who speaks the language, but it doesn't bother me that I can't speak well. No, I fully appreciate that there are situations where we need to learn to speak the language because we have immigrated to our country.

And, and when you're in that situation, of course, you're getting a lot of input, a lot of input you're listening and reading all the time. And you're trying to speak wherever you can. And so you have this urgency to speak, which is fine, but even there, you shouldn't be concerned about short-term difficulties in using the language because it's been my experience. Et donc vous avez cette urgence de parler, ce qui est bien, mais même là, vous ne devriez pas vous soucier des difficultés à court terme à utiliser la langue parce que c'est mon expérience.

I mean, I can remember when I was learning Czech, for example, I was six months at, at listening to stuff on Czech history, fascinating stuff about the the Austro-Hungarian empire or Prague, and, uh, you know, under, um, Charles you know, king Charles back in the 14th century. And I, I went to this body shop where the person there spoke Czech. En ik, ik ging naar een carrosseriebedrijf waar de persoon daar Tsjechisch sprak. 而我，我去了这家车身修理厂，那里的人会说捷克语。

And I couldn't say a thing. I couldn't say a thing, but now, and when I went to, first of all, now I can understand so much Czech. I can understand, you know, what people say and little clips that I find on Twitter. 你知道，我可以理解人们所说的话以及我在 Twitter 上找到的小片段。 Uh, and when I was in the Czech Republic, I was communicating just fine. So the point is, again, I guess it's a common theme that I have is don't put too much pressure on yourself. Donc, le fait est, encore une fois, que c'est un thème commun que j'ai, c'est de ne pas se mettre trop de pression.

Uh, obviously, if you're in a situation where you, you need to speak better quickly, even there fastest path to that is lots of input activities. And speaking wherever you have the chance, but if you are on a, as I am in the case of Arabic, I have no immediate urgency to speak the language I achieve what I achieve. Twice a week.

I speak sometimes better, sometimes worse. I focus on input. I'm enjoying it. Good enough. And there could be some surprises. Maybe if I move on to Turkish and then I come back to Arabic, all of a sudden my Arabic speaking ability will improve as was the case with my Persian speaking ability after this period of benign neglect. 也许如果我转向土耳其语然后我回到阿拉伯语，突然间我的阿拉伯语口语能力会提高，就像我在这段良性忽视之后的波斯语口语能力一样。

So don't be too fast. I shouldn't say don't speak, but it needn't be, you know, the objective number one in the early stages of learning the language, it's more a matter of what you feel like doing and what your needs. So thank you for listening. Bye for now. Au revoir.