How to communicate and make yourself understood with a very limited vocabular:
1. Know negations.
Learn them early. Knowing how to negate a statement can virtually double your descriptive prowess. You don't know the word for solid, or hard? Call it "not squishy," or "unsoft." And why fret over discovering the correct word for freezing when you can refer to a snowman as "very, very, very not hot."
ex: He is not happy because a not-old person threw an unsquishy rock that failed to miss his head.
2. Be creative.
Don't confine yourself to a single habitual way of saying things. You don't know how to say "the meal was delicious"? So what. Say that "The food tasted great." Or say that "The eatables made my tongue very happy." Or maybe you know how to explain that "those things which are now in my stomach were pleasing to me, my mouth in particular."
3. Use body language.
Make use of what you have. Facial expressions. Hand signals. Foot signals. Sock puppets.
ex. Thought long and hard about how to complement food in your new language and are still at a loss for words? No matter. Take a big bite. Then smile and chew elaborately. Nod your head, even. Be natural, of course.
4. Noun <----> Verb
Find out early whether, in your new language, it is common to turn nouns into verbs and verbs into nouns. If this is commonplace, consider it a treasure trove of "words." Though many things you say using this technique may include things not in any dictionary, if your pronunciation is good you will almost always be understood. Always remember that your goal is not to sound intelligent. It is to be a communicator in another language.
5. Talk with people.
Studying is good, but speaking with people (talking as well as listening) is better for learning than, say, couching in the not-outside of your place of fooding and sleeping, thumbing through a read, like a never-goes-outsider.
p.s. What kind of outsider do you want to be?
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I'm currently reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. She has chapters on "non-contradiction," "the non-commercial," "anti-greed," and "anti-life." Oh, and there's an "anti-dog-eat-dog bill" going through the legislature. If negation is good enough for Ayn Rand, I guess it should work for a beginning language student.
ReplyDeleteI´m currently reading Breaking out of Beginners Spanish, an entertaining english descriptions of the subtleties often missed by gringos trying to learn spanish.
ReplyDeleteIn my attempts to map english to spanish, I was (and still am) frustrated by the utter lack of a bijection between the two: a single english word (like look, miss, sign), because of their many uses in english, may translate a number of spanish words, each with distinct uses. Plus, there are so many words/ideas that can only be expressed in one language or the other. This book thorougly addresses these differences, proving extremely useful to overall communication. But there is allot in it that I have already learned... the hard way. (Does anyone know if there exsists books like this for enlish people learning french?)
Being reminded of all my efforts and failures to communicate/express myself here, feeling (and being treated sometimes) like I´m allot younger and dumber than I know I am, I think of you in your work with french. Good luck.
Yay! Paul exists!
ReplyDeleteYour survival guide is brillant. Very nicely written and insightful.
ReplyDeleteAnd, for my 2 cents, you're doing quite well with your choices for topics to blog about. More, please!.
Be Well.
Hi Blake,
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a comment particular to this posting. I was behind on your blogging and just caught up. How am I to choose one for my comments? You are such an entertaining, descriptive writer. Thanks for continuing to share your experiences with us.
Jocelyn