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Manipulating the moving parts

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Lucy Martin on her techniques for learning a new language and how more than simply memorising is what really works

My teenage daughter, on the brink of getting behind the wheel of a car for the first time, has started taking an interest in the technical side of driving: she’s watching my feet on the pedals and attempting to understand the technicalities of clutches and gearboxes. Having passed my test thirty years ago, I sometimes think I could drive in my sleep, as it really does feel like second nature, and yet as soon as I’m asked to explain why you need to depress the clutch when stopping to avoid stalling, I have absolutely no idea. I couldn’t tell you what I do: the knowledge has gone from the part of my brain that must painstakingly apply theory, practising it over and over again, to a wholly different part: one where it is so deeply ingrained that I don’t even need to think about how I do it: it just flows from my subconscious, bypassing conscious thought.

This of course is a great metaphor for second language learning, where the goal of fluency is really no different to the goal of driving. If you master a language, you no longer need to think about the technicalities: you can leave behind the anguish of trying to get the moving parts of a sentence to work together without stalling, and instead simply enjoy the pleasures that using it unlocks, much like a car.

The problem of course is that this doesn’t happen automatically or even quickly, whether learning to drive as my daugher is, or learning Chinese as I am. It will take her many grinding gear changes and excruciating bunny hops through amber lights before driving becomes second nature but I know she’ll get there, which is a thought that is currently inspiring me to keep on practising. Because the more I practise, the smoother I’m going to get.

By happy coincidence, my husband came back from Ikea with a pack of new forks on the day Duolingo made me memorise vocabulary related to tableware in Chinese. Staring into my cutlery draw, I forlornly tried to remember the words for fork, spoon and knife that I’d just learned. I felt like I couldn’t even pull away; it reminded me of utterly failing to execute a hill start on my second or third driving lesson and having to get out and letting the instructor take over.

It took me a few cups of tea but each time I opened that drawer I got better and quicker at the words, and then I thought I’d move on to sentences.

When functional fluency is your goal (and by that I mean that I know I will never have near-native Chinese, but I do want to be able to have a conversation without labouring over every sentence), you have to work on the gear changes: if I’m to stand any chance at all, I’m going to have to practise combining and integrating those little words over and over again in different ways until they slide smoothly and effortlessly and I don’t even have to think about it any more.

So I made a list of all the things that my level of grammar would allow me to say about a fork: “my husband bought lots of forks”, ” I have six new forks”, where is my fork? Can you wash the fork? Do you know how to use a fork? I like my new fork, do you need a fork? Etc etc…. And each time I open my cutlery drawer I have a go at talking about my forks. Ridiculous as I sound to my family, I can tell you this, three days in: I’m not stalling as much. I can pull away a little smoother each time and the technical stuff that I’m learning to control feels slightly less overwhelming with every attempt.

So my advice if you’re language learning like me: try this technique. Keep a log of all the grammar you know, pick a vocabulary set, and keep manipulating the moving parts until it’s not hard any more and you don’t have to think about it. Do it a thousand times until it’s second nature.

For me, subconscious mastery of Chinese is highly unlikely. There’s a long way to go and I will probably never be able to execute the linguistic equivalent of a flawless reverse park. But this week, thanks to a lot of practice, I’m accelerating smoother and stalling less than I was before – and that’s progress.