Failure Can Mean Success in Language Learning Scheitern kann Erfolg beim Sprachenlernen bedeuten El fracaso puede significar el éxito en el aprendizaje de idiomas L'échec peut être synonyme de réussite dans l'apprentissage des langues 失敗は語学学習の成功を意味する 실패는 언어 학습의 성공을 의미할 수 있습니다 Porażka może oznaczać sukces w nauce języka O fracasso pode significar sucesso na aprendizagem de línguas Неудача может означать успех в изучении языка Dil Öğreniminde Başarısızlık Başarı Anlamına Gelebilir 语言学习中的失败也可能意味着成功

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here again. Hallo zusammen, Steve Kaufmann hier nochmal. 안녕하세요, 스티브 카우프만입니다. 你好，史蒂夫考夫曼在这里。

I haven’t done a video in quite a while. Ich habe schon lange kein Video mehr gemacht. 꽤 오랫동안 영상을 안 찍었어요. Я давно не снимал видео. I thought I would report back on my trip to Europe. Ich dachte, ich berichte mal von meiner Reise nach Europa. 나는 유럽 여행을 다시 보고할 거라고 생각했다. Я думал, что отчитаюсь о своей поездке в Европу. You may remember that one of the main goals was to spend some time in Prague and I had announced my strategy of five days to fluency, the idea being that I would set myself this goal of going to where the language is spoken. Sie erinnern sich vielleicht, dass eines der Hauptziele darin bestand, einige Zeit in Prag zu verbringen, und ich hatte meine Strategie angekündigt, fünf Tage lang fließend zu sprechen, mit der Idee, dass ich mir dieses Ziel setzen würde, dorthin zu gehen, wo die Sprache gesprochen wird. 주요 목표 중 하나는 프라하에서 시간을 보내는 것이며 유창하게 5일 동안의 전략을 발표했는데, 이 목표는 언어가 사용되는 곳으로 가는 것입니다. Возможно, вы помните, что одной из главных целей было провести некоторое время в Праге, и я объявил о своей стратегии пяти дней до беглости, идея заключалась в том, что я поставлю перед собой эту цель — побывать там, где говорят на этом языке. I was studying Czech, I would prepare for it, I would build up to it and that I would have this tremendous passive knowledge of the language when I got there within five days. 나는 체코어를 공부하고 있었고, 준비하고, 쌓고 5일 이내에 체코에 도착했을 때 언어에 대한 엄청난 수동적 지식을 갖게 될 것이라고 생각했습니다. Я изучал чешский, я готовился к этому, я готовился к этому, и что у меня будет это потрясающее пассивное знание языка, когда я доберусь туда в течение пяти дней. Following on the advice of Dr. Huliganov, within three days my passive knowledge would become active. Huliganov 박사의 조언에 따라 3일 이내에 수동 지식이 활성화되었습니다. По совету доктора Хулиганова в течение трех дней мои пассивные знания стали активными. So, what was the result? 결과는 어떻게 되었습니까? Итак, каков был результат? Well, I would say that after five days in Prague I did not become fluent in Czech. 글쎄, 나는 프라하에서 5일 후에 체코어를 유창하게 하지 못했다고 말하고 싶다.

However, I consider the whole experiment to be tremendously successful. Ich halte das gesamte Experiment jedoch für äußerst erfolgreich. 그러나 나는 전체 실험이 엄청나게 성공적이었다고 생각합니다. Тем не менее, я считаю весь эксперимент чрезвычайно успешным. It’s successful because of the way it’s structured. Es ist erfolgreich, weil es so strukturiert ist. 구조화되어 있기 때문에 성공한 것입니다. I set myself a goal. 나는 스스로 목표를 세웠다. I’m going to go somewhere in a year. 나는 1년에 어딘가에 갈 것이다. Я собираюсь поехать куда-нибудь через год. I studied towards that goal. Ich habe auf dieses Ziel hin studiert. 그 목표를 위해 공부했습니다. As I come closer to the date, I study even harder and when I go there, and this was my experience in Prague, I was able to understand everything. 날짜가 다가올수록 공부도 더 열심히 하고 거기에 가면 프라하에서의 경험이 있어서 다 이해할 수 있었어요. По мере приближения даты я учусь еще усерднее, и когда я поеду туда, а это был мой опыт в Праге, я смог все понять. I felt comfortable. Ich fühlte mich wohl. 나는 편안함을 느꼈다. Я чувствовал себя комфортно. I was able to talk to people. 사람들과 이야기할 수 있었습니다. I had it set up so that I was speaking six-seven, eight hours a day of Czech and, certainly, my Czech improved tremendously. Ich hatte es so eingerichtet, dass ich sechs bis sieben acht Stunden am Tag Tschechisch spreche, und mein Tschechisch hat sich sicherlich enorm verbessert. 나는 하루에 6-7,8시간의 체코어를 말할 수 있도록 설정했고 확실히 내 체코어가 엄청나게 향상되었습니다. My comprehension improved and my ability to read. 이해력이 향상되었고 읽기 능력이 향상되었습니다. I’m reading novels now with more comfort than I had before. Ich lese Romane jetzt mit mehr Komfort als vorher. 지금은 예전보다 더 편안하게 소설을 읽고 있습니다. The whole Czech language thing has become more real to me. Die ganze Sache mit der tschechischen Sprache ist für mich realer geworden. 체코어 전체가 나에게 더 현실적이 되었습니다. The final evening in Prague, I had an evening with a couple that invited me to dinner. Am letzten Abend in Prag hatte ich einen Abend mit einem Paar, das mich zum Abendessen einlud. 프라하에서의 마지막 저녁, 나는 저녁 식사에 나를 초대한 부부와 함께 저녁을 보냈습니다.

We spoke entirely in Czech and I was quite comfortable. Wir sprachen komplett auf Tschechisch und ich fühlte mich recht wohl. 우리는 완전히 체코어로 이야기했고 나는 꽤 편안했습니다. I could understand everything they were saying, I was able to get my meaning across, so all of that was good. Ich konnte alles verstehen, was sie sagten, ich konnte meine Bedeutung rüberbringen, also war das alles gut. However, I don’t think I achieved fluency. Ich glaube jedoch nicht, dass ich es geschafft habe, fließend zu sprechen. I still stumble. Ich stolpere immer noch. I did a video with Yarda, but unfortunately the sound is so low that I can’t use it. Ich habe ein Video mit Yarda gemacht, aber leider ist der Ton so leise, dass ich es nicht verwenden kann. So what I’m going to do is, perhaps next week, I’m going to have a discussion with a tutor, maybe Yarda, maybe someone else, and try to record it so you can see just exactly what the state of my Czech is. Was ich also tun werde, ist, vielleicht nächste Woche, ich werde eine Diskussion mit einem Tutor haben, vielleicht Yarda, vielleicht jemand anderem, und versuchen, es aufzuzeichnen, damit Sie genau sehen können, wie es um mein Tschechisch steht ist. Unfortunately, it was actually four days in Prague. Leider waren es eigentlich vier Tage in Prag.

Not unfortunately, but unfortunately for my Czech, I had three weeks in Portugal, Spain and then three days in Berlin. So, essentially, for almost a month now I have not been using my Czech. On top of that, I’ve decided that I should really do something about my Korean, so I have now this week started up studying Korean again. Außerdem habe ich beschlossen, dass ich wirklich etwas für mein Koreanisch tun sollte, also habe ich jetzt diese Woche wieder angefangen, Koreanisch zu lernen. I’m trying to maintain my Czech. Ich versuche, mein Tschechisch beizubehalten. I try to read something or listen to something every day in Czech. Ich versuche, jeden Tag etwas auf Tschechisch zu lesen oder zu hören. I’m still trying to maintain my Russian because the influence of Czech on my Russian was to kind of cause me to stumble a lot more when speaking Russian and, of course, when I was in Germany I was so motivated to improve my German that I figured I should do more with German. Ich versuche immer noch, mein Russisch zu halten, weil der Einfluss des Tschechischen auf mein Russisch dazu führte, dass ich viel mehr stolperte, wenn ich Russisch sprach, und als ich in Deutschland war, war ich natürlich so motiviert, mein Deutsch zu verbessern, dass Ich dachte, ich sollte mehr mit Deutsch machen. We had a meetup with our members in Berlin and I guess I really had trouble expressing myself as well as I would like to express myself in German, so I think my German has fallen quite a bit. Wir hatten ein Treffen mit unseren Mitgliedern in Berlin und ich denke, ich hatte wirklich Probleme, mich so gut auszudrücken, wie ich mich auf Deutsch ausdrücken möchte, also denke ich, dass mein Deutsch ziemlich gesunken ist. So going forward here, I’m going to be trying to really focus on Korean with the idea of going to Korea and doing another five days to fluency test, just to see how far I can push myself with this objective of going there. In Zukunft werde ich also versuchen, mich wirklich auf Koreanisch zu konzentrieren, mit der Idee, nach Korea zu gehen und weitere fünf Tage für einen Sprachtest zu absolvieren, nur um zu sehen, wie weit ich mich mit diesem Ziel, dorthin zu gehen, pushen kann.

Five days is not enough, so hopefully I’ll give myself a little longer. In the meantime, I also want to maintain my Czech, Russian and German, so we’ll see how it goes. One other thing I should report back on was this conference at Berlin called _________.

They translated that as language and business. I went there in the hope that I could interest someone there in LingQ. You know, corporate language training people. Sie wissen schon, Sprachtrainingsfirmen. Unfortunately, the conference was well attended by teachers, coaches, trainers and academics, but there were hardly any representatives there from corporations. Leider war die Konferenz von Lehrern, Coaches, Trainern und Akademikern gut besucht, aber es waren kaum Vertreter von Unternehmen da. In other words, the potential clients for these people offering these language training services. Mit anderen Worten, die potenziellen Kunden dieser Personen, die diese Sprachtrainingsdienste anbieten. So that was a bit of a disappointment. Das war also eine kleine Enttäuschung. There were a number of presentations, some were better than others.

There were a number of themes that would come up quite often; one was this concern about intercultural communication because more and more companies are hiring people of different language backgrounds. Within Europe, you have different working groups within multinational corporations where people have to work across language and cultural barriers and so there’s a concern that people need to be trained in how to deal with people of different language and cultural backgrounds, even though everyone is speaking English typically. I am a little bit skeptical about how much you can teach these cultural skills.

In my experience in Japan, I have found that people who are sincere, respected other people and performed, in terms of their business deals, they managed to do well and that these sort of pre-packaged stereotypes about different cultures were of limited use. In meiner Erfahrung in Japan habe ich festgestellt, dass Menschen, die aufrichtig sind, andere Menschen respektieren und in Bezug auf ihre Geschäftsabschlüsse gute Leistungen erbringen, gute Ergebnisse erzielen und dass diese Art von vorgefertigten Stereotypen über verschiedene Kulturen nur begrenzt von Nutzen sind. The number of useful bits of advice is quite limited and there is a danger that you treat people as sort of simply tokens of some culture and, therefore, people must conform to a certain stereotype rather than dealing with them as individuals. Die Anzahl nützlicher Ratschläge ist sehr begrenzt, und es besteht die Gefahr, dass Sie Menschen als einfache Zeichen einer bestimmten Kultur behandeln. Daher müssen sich die Menschen einem bestimmten Stereotyp anpassen, anstatt sie als Individuen zu behandeln. Personally, I think a better way to understand people of different cultures is to try to learn their language and learn about their history and stuff and these are things we have to do on our own. I’m not quite sure how effective these cultural trainers are. Another thing that came up at the conference was this idea of English as a Lingua Franca. Eine andere Sache, die auf der Konferenz auftauchte, war die Idee von Englisch als Lingua Franca.

The idea being there that since a majority of English speakers are not native speakers, we should be teaching English differently than we teach other languages, that the native speaker is not necessarily the model and also that in a group people speak English at different levels of competence. First of all, the native speaker has a big advantage in these multinational corporations, but also people who speak English well have an advantage over people who don’t speak well and so we should learn how to communicate in a way that makes everybody happy and comfortable. Again, maybe it’s a nice idea, but I don’t know how practical that is. Obviously, the better we speak the language, the greater advantage we’re going to have. I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea to talk down to people. Ich glaube nicht, dass es unbedingt eine gute Idee ist, mit Leuten von unten zu reden. So, yeah, English as a Lingua Franca is kind of a new way of teaching English. They gave some examples that in Britain they say ‘we’re on a sticky wicket' and people don’t know what that means, but those things are not that common. Sie nannten einige Beispiele dafür, dass in Großbritannien gesagt wird: „Wir sind auf einem klebrigen Wicket“, und die Leute wissen nicht, was das bedeutet, aber diese Dinge sind nicht so üblich.

I think most people learning a language, even though the teacher may not be a native speaker and needn’t be a native speaker, the model of the language is, typically, the language as spoken by a native speaker. We can decide whether we prefer to learn the French that’s spoken in Quebec or in Southern France or in North Africa or Paris or the English that’s spoken in Australia or spoken in South Africa or India, whichever we find the most useful, but we’re still going to imitate native speakers, basically. So I think the model is still a native speaker and I’m not sure that teaching people to talk down to other people is all that useful. Ich denke also, dass das Model immer noch ein Muttersprachler ist, und ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob es allzu nützlich ist, Menschen beizubringen, mit anderen Menschen herablassend zu sprechen. Maybe I’m a bit cynical here, but I didn’t see that as all that useful. Vielleicht bin ich hier etwas zynisch, aber ich fand das nicht so sinnvoll. Someone suggested that really the skills that are required now are either very low skills for the hospitality industry, A-1, A-2 on the European scale, or very advanced language skills for professionals.

My feeling there, again, was that I wouldn’t want to deal with a hotel clerk who only had A-1 or A-2 in English. As we learn we just continue to improve and I think most people are going to end up in the B, the sort of intermediate category. I’m also of the mind that training people for specific jobs and the specific job vocabulary is not always the best policy. I think it’s better to give people an overall grounding in the language and then let them focus on things that are of interest to them where the vocabulary is relevant, but you still need a pretty sound basis in the language. One other thing that came up, too, was this idea that it’s not what you know, but it’s what you can do in the language that matters.

So, again, there were many examples of teachers explaining what they did to get people to use the language, the idea that you have to use it or you don’t have it. As some of you may know, I really think there’s tremendous value in acquiring a passive capability in the language, the ability to understand vocabulary that builds up your potential, that gives you a strong base, rather than trying at an early stage to say a few things, which may only trigger a fluent response from someone else and then you’re hopelessly lost. I came away from the conference thinking that it’s understandable if you’re running a classroom that you need to have certain activities and the goal is going to be trying to get people to say things and do things and you’re going to try to target specific job-related subject matter and have role playing and stuff like that.

For me as an independent learner, someone who learns for fun, I’ll stick with the way I like to learn, but nothing wrong with the way other people like to learn. Für mich als unabhängigen Lerner, jemand, der aus Spaß lernt, bleibe ich bei der Art und Weise, wie ich gerne lerne, aber nichts gegen die Art und Weise, wie andere Leute gerne lernen. That’s why, getting back to my Prague experience, I didn’t become fluent, but I consider the whole thing a success because I feel tremendously satisfied at what I am able to do in Czech or in the other languages and I think that’s the important thing. Deshalb, um auf meine Prager Erfahrung zurückzukommen, bin ich nicht fließend geworden, aber ich betrachte das Ganze als Erfolg, weil ich sehr zufrieden mit dem bin, was ich auf Tschechisch oder in den anderen Sprachen tun kann, und ich denke, das ist das Wichtigste Sache. However we choose to learn, whatever we like to do, we should regularly give ourselves credit for what we have achieved and we should do the things that we like to do because that insures that we stay with it.

If we stay with it, if we have a good attitude and if we learn to notice the language (those are the big three keys from that lady at San Diego State University) we are going to do well. We’re going to do well not only by our own standards, but by the standards of other people. So there you have it, just a brief summary of my trip to Europe and I hope to start getting back to doing these videos more regularly.

Thanks for listening, bye for now.