How to Effortlessly Learn a Language the Natural Way

As you might know, I’m fluently bilingual. English or German, I can make my desires know: “Excuse me, where do you keep curtain hardware?” or “Wo ist die Zahnpasta, bitte?” It’s not a problem—I jump from one track to the other, and operate in either system without having to think about it.

And then I went to France. For the first time in my life, I was confronted with being struck deaf and mute. The extent of my French is, pretty much, Bonjour, Au revoir, and merci beaucoup*. In Paris, I understand nothing, and can communicate nothing. And let me tell you, it is astonishingly disconcerting. You don’t realize how much you rely on your verbal prowess until it’s taken away from you. So, I decided it was time I did something about it, and I set out to learn at least a little bit of French. You’ll be glad to know that as of this morning, I have learned to say “Un café au lait avec du sucre, s’il vous plaît, et deux croissants.” You know, the necessities of life. I do not yet know how to ask where the bathroom is, but as I most likely wouldn’t understand the answer, that’s just as well.

But this whole process got me thinking about how to learn languages. It’s really not that hard, we’ve all done it! Yes, you have too—you’re reading this, aren’t you? You learned at least one language completely fluently, effortlessly, grammatically correct, with flawless pronunciation. So, all it should take is to repeat that process with another language, and you’re golden. I’m by no means the first person to come up with that idea; I don’t know how many times I’ve seen language learning programs advertised as being “completely natural” and “just like learning your first language.” It should work, shouldn’t it? No problem.

Now, as luck would have it, a couple of weeks ago I had a front seat to watching the process in action, courtesy of a visit of a young relative. This young gentleman, who recently obtained his first birthday, is a remarkably intelligent individual (of course he is, he’s related to me), who is very interested in language and in the world around him, particularly the four-footed variety. I observed him closely, and I’m now in a position to tell you exactly how this language learning thing is done. Here you are:

LEARNING A LANGUAGE THE NATURAL WAY, IN EASY-TO-FOLLOW STEPS

Step 1.) (Optional, but helpful) Be as cute as you can possibly be.
Step 2.) Surround yourself with as many individuals as you can who adore you and are willing to repeat words to you on a continuous feedback loop.
Step 3.) Point to an object of your interest and make gurgling noises (example: the cat).
Step 4.) Wait for your adoring audience to supply the word in the language of their choice (“Die Katze!”).
Step 5.) Copy the word to the best of your ability (“Tz-tz!”).
Step 6.) Let your audience correct your pronunciation and try again. (“T-tz!”)
Step 7.) Repeat steps 3.-6. approximately twenty times per hour during all your waking hours, every day, for the next two to three years. Vary the objects labelled as required and improve your pronunciation as needed.

By the end of four or five years, you should be completely fluent in your new language and will be able to move on to instructing others.

There you have it: the one, the only, the infallible completely natural method to learning languages. It really works.

Now if I could only find someone to repeat le chat to me, over and over and over and…

Life, the Universe, and Natural Language Acquisition. It’s the only proven method.

*being Canadian, I can also read some French food labels: I know that fraise is strawberry, framboise is raspberry, and bleuet is blueberry. I know my yogurt flavours. But they’re of limited usefulness in navigating the Paris metro system or buying museum tickets.