Action potential, attenuation, and language learning

You are not a machine, you probably don't talk to any machines, and if you do maybe they are in disguise in preparation for the upcoming take over so I, for one, welcome our new machine overlords...

Okay seriously, I wanted to talk a bit about language learning because this is a language blog and now I get to mix that with a bit of biology.  I couldn't be happier if I was in a hot tub full of Chihuahuas or as I like to thinks of it, vicious, wet, bitey, bitty things....of death.

In action potential is the rapid change that happens as a result of stimuli, but it cannot be just any old stimuli. The stimuli have to surpass a threshold, i.e. be big enough.  So I want to point out that mistakes are the stimuli of language learning and not acing a French II vocabulary quiz, or when I tried to be suave and deboner and impress the French girl beside me by saying "Je ne parle pas français" and she was like, "What did you just say?" So I proved my point but not the point I wanted to make. Now if I had followed that comment up with asking for her help it could have been repeating my mistakes and coming up with new ones before sunrise but with better facial hair. Or not as the case may be. 

So mistakes are necessary but they also have to be made a certain number of times. Borrowing from the word of martial arts, we could sit down and I could show you how to perform an Ippon Seoinage throw in 5 minutes. You could practice a few times and if you felt confident in doing it then you are wrong. If you went on the mat to practice you would quickly find out that it is really hard to move your body, move your opponent and time the whole thing correctly. If you are thinking about how to do the throw you aren't going to be able to do it. 

Likewise, if I showed you the conjugation chart for vir in Portuguese there is no way you would be fluent. You have to understand how the word is used, all the chart says is the subject, verb, and time sense should match and any computer can do that. What the computer cannot due yet is understand the meaning once the rules have been broken. For example if I said, "I are going to the store, you too having wanted to come" it is obvious that I have broken all sorts of English grammar rules, but the meaning is not obscured completely. So the question is does the above sentence represent fluency in English?

Grammar and stuff or why the Cloze test is not fun

The cloze test is my bane.  It is a grammatical test where you fill in the missing words in a text based on context.  In English competency tests (TOEFL or IELTS) each blank is multiple choice, in the European Portuguese exam there are no clues outside the text. Yes this makes it rather hard and in my opinion harder than it needs to be, but you pay your money and you take your chances.

There is a second part to the grammar structure which is rephrasing a sentence.  They give the first few words and then you write down the same information, kind of like changing a sentence from passive to active voice, but a broader understanding of structure, come to think of it none of the examples where a shift of this voice.

Overall on the last time I took the practice test I got a 40%.  That is not a passing score, but with 40 questions I only need to get 5 more right to be passing on this section and on the other two sections my score is well above passing so while this part pulled the average down it did not do so enough that I would fail the test.  Or in the glass half full part, I did well enough with a month left to pass the test. I don't want to just pass the test but getting a 55% or an 85% is a win.

My strategy for the test is to go over the problems I had which are in four categories:
1) Preposition use
2) Use of the personal infinitive verb tense
3) Use of the subjunctive (conjuntivo) verb tense.
4)  Idiom use

My tool for studying these items is to write example sentences out and then put the cards into anki, a spaced repetition system.  There is a ton written about it and I am not promoting them because I have an affiliate link but because I use this service.  I am also studying with a tutor and I will have her review the sentences to make sure that they are in the formal European dialect rather than something informal or Brazilian.

Also I am not a fan of mindless, wrote memorization, but there is a certain amount of basics that one needs in any skill, whether it is guitar, yoga, or Portuguese. You have to acquire the basics fast enough to feel like you are making progress and for me sitting down with my phone for 20 minutes to review cards is time well spent. Also while this is a habit it not a regular habit. I wish I could be a machine, working religiously every day going through every new and late card but that is not me, I have kids, marriage, friends, in short a life outside of my phone which is important to me.  I mean paradoxically the reason I am learning Portuguese is to talk to people....putting my phone in front of my face all the time is a bad habit but....a necessary one.

até próxima,

Motivation and accent

Why do you want to learn a language?

I think this both a great and horrible question. It is a great one because in answering the why of language study it can reveal motivations and can provide an ultimately intrinsic motivation.  However the reality is that motivation is not a binary or absolute thing.  Motivation waxes and wanes and so does your relationship with a language.

Also I think that while intrinsic motivation is good (I want to learn the language because I want to learn it), but speaking a language is about connecting with people and so I believe it is necessary to have this balance. It is like one can get better at basketball by playing pickup games but at a certain level it is necessary to practice, to run drills, to shoot free throws in the off season, that sort of active solitary skill building.  

So language, as one of the fundamental, quintessential social activities of humans cannot be mastered alone, but on the other hand communicating in a language does not require perfect grammar, does not require flawless pronunciation.

Do you worry about having the right accent?

Let's be clear everyone speaks with an accent. English does not have clear rules about how to pronounce a word or which syllable to emphasize. We learn to talk in English by listening to those around us and then we go to school to learn what symbols correspond to which sounds.  In essence an accent is a part of one's history, sometimes big and sometimes small.  I say that because time and time again the way we perceive people is so contextual. For example, I look "European", what ever that means. So many times I have given lost Americans directions in English and then been thanked and complimented for my excellent English skills. This also cuts the other way, often time Portuguese and other Europeans that I run into on my travels think I am European, maybe not from their town but from the continent. So I am happy to let people know that I am new to their language and talking too fast will only lead to confusion.  Of course if I was on the receiving end of bigotry, large or small, I would likely take more effort to mimic a middle class Lisbon accent.

Furthermore let’s keep in mind that while my fellow Americans may fret at not having the right accent (notice I didn’t say perfect) in a foreign language but think nothing of not adopting a local accent when traveling to an English speaking country.

So if your accent is good enough, it is good enough.

Living abroad

There is a common belief that living abroad is romantic, and well it has its charms but I think it is like dating. A good match comes down to three things: some of it is when you are in your life, some of it is where you are in your life and the rest is complimentary dysfunction.  That is to say when you visit a city as a tourist this is the first date. Hopefully they gussied up a bit, you get to see the swankiest places but for the most part when you are a tourist you are either living a bit above your socio-economic rung (do you really pay someone to come to your house and clean it every day or other people to cook for you? If so are you looking to adopt?) or it is cool and exotic. I mean we all have expectations for how a hotel should run and whoa to them who violate it (if you are feeling too good about humanity go and read negative reviews on tripadvisor).

What does this have to do with language and language learning? Well experiencing the language was integral to the place. I say was because with the invention of the internet (show age by inserting tech stock bubble joke here) culture is now a Boolean operator away. Don't believe me? Use your internet search provider of choice and look for "movie completo dublado". You will now find movies dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese, sometimes they cost, sometimes not. This also works the other way.  Where it was hideously expensive to call the US or find books in English now it is a click away. So I can live in Portugal but conduct my life in English pretty darn easily.  

Which is the long way of saying that travelling abroad is no longer a given way to expose oneself to a language, even living abroad I have created a bit of unreality here. But before you can say "privileged, culturally imperialistic white guy" lets be clear, this is a human thing. Have you ever gone over to your friend's house with the strange cooking (you mean your are not have fish sticks or frozen ravioli tonight?) and heard him get bawled out by his mom in something not Englishy or gone to a restaurant where they serve neither fish sticks nor frozen ravioli and thought "must be good, the people here are not speaking English".  I consider this human because I think that this is best captured by the after dinner comment my friend Paulo made, "I can talk in four languages but I can only express myself in one".  We all have a need to express ourselves, but sometimes I need to talk in another. So I am working to create those times where I need to talk in another. This opportunity is available to everyone now.

Back on track

So careful readers will notice that I missed last week in my posting schedule. Apologies, I was gone and without a careful understanding of the mechanics of delaying a post I made a mistake.

So let's start over.

What is new in current events is that I have signed up for the B2 exam at the end of May this year, or eight weeks from yesterday. There are 5 sections: reading, writing, speaking, listening and grammar. I already passed the reading last time, but it was not enough to make up for the problems I had with the other sections. Also as a recap, in the practice exam I have passed the listening portion consistently, not perfect but good enough. So two down, three to go.

The last section which is the interview. This is impossible for me to replicate by myself but I am working with a tutor to help prepare. However, I will have to leave it to their hands on how to prepare for this aspect. Also I have gotten So that leaves us with categories left, writing and grammar.

True some preparation can be done by writing a general purpose essay and then work on ways to adapt it to the given topics.  However with only 160-180 words this is a neat trick to get so specific that I am trying to memorize sentences and then trying to adapt. Essentially this is 10-12 sentences. To make the text flow I do not see it as worth the time to go down that path.

However I can look at some of the ways to improve my writing quickly. I have a book of  practice exams, which has three previous exams or a total of 12 different topics. I think I can write in 30 minutes enough to hit 180 words, then post online on a language checking forum. I will then post the link to my tutor and together we can curate the corrections to make sure I understand what is helpful and what is not.  Then I will take the corrections and work them into my flashcard pack.

So 30 minutes to write, plus 5 minutes to post, plus 15 minutes to do a correction of my own in English (that is how these sorts of things work) plus 30 minutes to review plus another 20 to make flashcards, or a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes per text. This is not going to be all done in the same day, but likely broken up over a few days.

So for tomorrow I will write a text, post it and correct. Then we will see if the first part of the estimate is correct.