How do you learn to speak a language? 6 Minute English

Apr 03, 2024

Rob: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English, the program that offers you engaging subject matter, authentic listening practice and vocabulary to help you improve your

language

skills. I'm Rob... Neil: Watashi no namae wa Neil desu. And that means "my name is Neil." Rob: Neil, here's a question: can you

speak

any

language

s besides English, of course? I believe you can! Neil: Un poco de español, that means a little bit of Spanish. Some Japanese, which I tried at first, and also some Czech Dobrý den. Jak se more? Rob: Very impressive. So, what tips can you give to

learn

speak

another language?

Neil: Well, practice, practice, practice and don't be afraid to make mistakes as I certainly have. Rob: Of course. Well, my goal this year is to master the Spanish language. Master means to

learn

thoroughly. Neil: Very good! Well, you're not alone. A survey by the British Council found that learning a language is a New Year's resolution for around one in five Britons in 2018. So learning Spanish is a good start, Rob, but do you know roughly how many languages there are in the world in total? Are there... a) 70, b) 700 or c) 7000 Rob: Well, I know there are a lot, but probably not 7000, so I'm going to say b) 700, but don't expect me to learn them all. .

More Interesting Facts About,

how do you learn to speak a language 6 minute english...

Neil: I won't steal. But I'll give you the answer later. We all know that learning another language is a good thing and brings us many benefits. Rob: Yes, we can communicate with people in other countries and when we travel we can understand what the signs and warnings say. So that we don't get lost. Neil: That's right, but many scientists also believe that knowing another language can increase intellectual ability. A study of monolingual and bilingual speakers suggests that speaking two languages may help slow brain decline with age. Rob: All good reasons. But Neil, learning another language is difficult.

It would take me years and years to become fluent in, say, Mandarin; By fluency I mean speaking very well, without difficulty. Neil: Well, this depends on your native language. In general, the closer the second language is to the student's native language and culture in terms of vocabulary, sounds, or sentence structure, the easier it will be to learn. Rob: But whatever the language, there's a lot of vocabulary to learn, you know, thousands and thousands of words. Neil: Maybe not Rob. Professor Stuart Webb, a linguist at the University of Western Ontario, may be able to help you. He spoke to BBC Radio 4's More or Less program and explained that you don't need to do that...

Professor Stuart Webb: For language learners in a foreign language environment, for example if you were learning French in Britain or English in In Japan, students can often have difficulty learning more than 2,000 or 3,000 words after many years of study. So, for example, there was a recent study in Taiwan that showed that after nine years of study, about half of the students had still not managed to learn the 1,000 most frequent words. They now knew lower frequency words but did not master the more important words. Neil: Rob, don't waste your time trying to learn every word. Professor Webb spoke there about research showing that students knew lower frequency words but did not learn enough high frequency words.

Rob: Right, and frequency here means the number of times something happens, so the important words to learn are the high frequency ones, and how many are there exactly? Neil: Here's Professor Stuart Webb again... Professor Stuart Webb: For example, with English, I would suggest that you learn the 800 most frequent lemmas, which are a word and its inflections, which will account for about 75 percent of all . of the English language. So learning those 800 words first will give you the foundation for you to learn the lower frequency words. Rob: Fascinating stuff. And it's good to know that I only need to learn about 800 words, or what he calls mottos.

Neil: Yes, a motto is the simplest form or base of a word. And inflection here refers to how the base word is changed based on its use in a sentence. Knowing these things will give you a foundation: those are the basic concepts from which your language learning will develop. Simple! Rob: Thank goodness I'm just learning a new language! Neil: But how many languages could you learn, Rob? Before I asked you, approximately how many languages are there in the world in total? Is there... a) 70, b) 700, c) 7000 Rob: And I said 700. Was I right? Neil: No Rob, you were wrong.

There are around 7,000 recognized languages in the world, but UNESCO has identified 2,500 languages that it says are at risk of extinction. Rob: A sobering thought, Neil. Now let's remember some of the English vocabulary we heard today. Starting with the teacher. Neil: Mastering a new skill, in this context, means learning it thoroughly or learning it well. "Rob hopes to master Spanish before starting a new job in Madrid." Rob: Really? That's news to me, Neil! But it would be good to speak Spanish fluently - or any language - or speak it fluently - that is, speak it very well and without difficulty.

Neil: Now our next word was frequency. Here we are referring to high and low frequency words, by which it means how frequently they appear. Examples of high-frequency words are "that," "the," and "and." Rob: And our next word is inflections. These are the changes in the basic form of words based on their function in a sentence. Like adding an 's' to the end of a word to make it plural. Neil: And don't forget the motto, which is the simplest form or base of a word before an inflection is added. Rob: And finally the foundation, which means the basic concepts from which your learning grows.

Neil: That just lets me remind you that you can learn English with us at bbclearning