Member-only story
Shortcuts to learning a language
I spent a weekend finding out
Learning a language is one of those classic ginormous, elephant-like scary monsters. Most of us like the thought of being a polyglot, but not quite so many make it to that point of satisfaction, where we can casually mention our bi-vocal abilities.
It feels as overbearing as writing a book except worse. Books have an endpoint. A language, similar to playing a musical instrument well, continues forever.
Oh, why couldn’t one of my parents have been French, removing much of the painful learning when I was a young sponge? Or better still, discover that planet Earth does play host to Babel fish* which can be neatly inserted into ears, removing any need for thousands of hours of study accumulating lots of words, sentences, and grammar. All this construction is needed, which is why students if they’re anything like me, dive down rabbit holes looking for quick fixes, ways to learn fast but still having fun on the way.
I’m a Duolingoist** at the moment. On Sunday night, I was scrambling in vain to amass points on the app as fast as possible. The most effective method was in the revision section, saying French sentences for a measly 20-point reward. I did this repeatedly in a vain attempt to catch an annoying avatar one place above before the weekly league ended. I came second. Boo, hiss.
