3 The Language Learning Process
3.1 What does it mean to be able to speak a language?
When we say somebody knows a language or can speak a language, we intuitively know what this means, but it’s worth considering in more detail.
Knowledge of a language includes a passive and an active component:
Passive knowledge means being able to listen to people speaking the language, or read text written in the language, and understand the meaning.
Active knowledge means being able to express thoughts in the language, either through writing or by speaking, and have speakers of the language understand the meaning you want to convey.
Usually when we say someone can speak a language, we are in fact referring to all four of these skills. We say speak because it’s the most obvious one (funny sounds come out of their mouth) but it’s not the most important.This is very important to remember!! Speaking is not the most important skill!! This will be a recurring theme throughout this guide.
The most important of the four skills is listening. This is the way language enters the brain, and how it entered the brain long before writing was invented. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. (Similarly we can read with both eyes but only write with one hand.)
Essentially, our language ability consists of:
- An intimate knowledge of the meaning of words and how they can combine together to create complex meanings (passive knowledge).
- The ability to access and apply these rules ourselves to assemble sentences from thoughts.
- The ability to transmit these sentences to others, either by pronouncing them or by writing them.
I will call these three components knowledge, access and transmission, and I will refer to them later on.
3.2 The input/output debate 7777
In the language learning community there is a big debate about whether it’s better to focus on input (listening and reading) or on output (speaking and writing). Each side is totally certain that their way is best and gets very angry at how stupid the other side are.
3.2.1 Input Fiends
The input fiends say you should focus on comprehensible input. This means reading and listening to things that you are able to understand. This could be materials just above your current level, or materials designed to aid comprehension by means of visual aids, subtitles and slow, clear speech. They also say you should avoid speaking for as long as possible, and that speaking too early can even damage your language ability. They think speech emerges naturally once your passive understanding of the language is good enough.
3.2.2 Output Fanatics
The output fanatics think the input fiends are insane. They say that if you want to speak a language, then it’s obvious that’s what you should do. They liken speaking to other skills like dancing, swimming and drawing. The output fanatics still think listening and reading are important of course, but they put a lot of emphasis on practising the material you learn and pushing yourself to express more and more complex ideas.
3.3 My thoughts on the input/output debate
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the two sides of the debate. My position is that both sides are right in some ways, and wrong in others, but that the input fiends are slightly less wrong than the output fanatics. Let me explain.
One thing which is key in unravelling this debate is the fact that all speakers of all languages, whether native speakers or not, can always understand more than they can output, that is to say, their passive knowledge is always better than their active knowledge. This is actually very obvious – you often understand things you can’t say yourself, even in your native language (think of hearing a word you haven’t thought about for years), but it’s absolutely impossible to be able to say things you don’t understand.
Since passive knowledge is always above active knowledge at all times and for all people, this would suggest that our passive knowledge needs to increase before our active knowledge can increase. This is also very obvious when you think about it – to learn a language, something has to enter your brain, and it can’t enter through your tongue or hands; it has to come through your eyes and ears.
But the input fiends are not entirely right. Their claim that passive ability automatically transfers into active ability is not correct. This can be demonstrated by a group of people called passive bilinguals.
3.3.1 Passive bilinguals (too much input, not enough practice)
A passive bilingual is a person who has learned a language from their parents, but who does not speak it. This is usually seen in children whose parents speak a different language to the local language. The children learn their parents’ language at home, but once they go to school, they start speaking the local language. Since they have more contact with the local language, they usually learn it better than their home language. Their parents understand the local language, and since the children are speaking the local language all day at school, they begin to speak it to their parents at home too, because it’s easier for them.
The parents might get annoyed at them, but children are lazy and are not yet aware of the benefits of speaking multiple languages. Eventually they stop speaking their parents’ language entirely and never fully learn to speak it, even though they understand it perfectly.
Lots of learners have also experienced something similar – they can understand a lot of the language, but can’t speak it. If this happens to you it indicates that your passive knowledge is above your active knowledge. This is just as it is supposed to be! But if your passive knowledge is too far ahead of your active knowledge (“I can understand everything but I can’t speak!”), then this usually indicates that you could benefit from some speaking practice.
3.3.2 Gunpoint speaker (too much practice, not enough input)
The opposite of a passive bilingual is what I call a gunpoint speaker. This is somebody who was forced to speak the language above their current level out of necessity. Think of somebody who just moved to an English-speaking country without knowing English. In English-speaking countries you are forced to speak English to deal with daily needs, because people rarely speak anything else.
Unlike a structured learner who increases their passive knowledge slowly, making sure they learn new grammar as they encounter it, or a child, whose comprehension massively exceeds their output, and who has time on their hands, the gunpoint speaker is forced to speak above their current level in order to navigate the adult world.
This results in utterances such as:
He go on bus to city centre.
Tomorrow I make big cake.
What you are doing?
Excuse me, where is train station? You can tell me way?All incorrect, but perfectly intelligible. If a native speaker heard these utterances, they would have no difficulty understanding them. They wouldn’t provide corrections though, because it impedes the flow of communication, and would be considered rude if it was somebody they didn’t know well.
The big problem with the gunpoint speaker is that these mistakes can “fossilise.” Once a mistake has fossilised, it is extremely difficult to dig it out again.
I know a lovely lady who has lived in the UK for decades, since before I was even born. After all this time, she still makes very simple mistakes. Even decades of hearing people say “he goes” is not enough to keep her from saying “he go.”
By practising speaking above your current level, you are pointing a gun at your own head.
3.4 Instrument analogy
The reason that focusing too much on speaking is bad can be demonstrated with what I call the instrument analogy.
Similar to language knowledge, playing an instrument can also be divided into passive and active components. Instead of reading and listening, we have theory, and instead of writing and speaking we have practice.
To learn an instrument, everyone knows you need to practise playing it. But not all practice is equally valuable. Just sitting down at the piano and playing with no external input will not improve your level – it can only make you better at playing what you already know.
You will be practising access (assembling sentences / melodies) and transmission (pronouncing words / pressing the right keys), but you are not improving your knowledge (grammar and meaning / music theory).
3.4.1 Language and music ability compared
| Language | Music | |
|---|---|---|
| ‘knowledge’ | word meaning / grammar | music theory |
| ‘access’ | assembling sentences | creating melodies |
| ‘transmission’ | pronouncing phrases | pressing the right keys |
3.4.2 The armchair pianist (too much theory, not enough practice)
Similar to the passive bilingual and the gunpoint speaker, I would like you to meet two of their musical counterparts. The first is the armchair pianist. The armchair pianist is someone who spends all day studying music theory. They know all about time signatures, octaves, scales and chords. They have a keen ear for music and can always hear when a note is out of tune, but sit them down at a piano and they cannot play – their mind can’t assemble melodies fast enough (access) and their fingers (tongue) have no muscle memory of which keys to press (transmission). The armchair pianist is just like a passive bilingual.
3.4.3 The senseless strummer (too much practice, not enough theory)
The opposite extreme of the armchair pianist is perfectly demonstrated by a guy I used to live who played the guitar. I knew him for many years and he used to play the guitar every single day. At the beginning he had guitar lessons, but then he stopped. He never learned new songs or chords (vocabulary). Instead he just played with no plan, “practising” every single day. Really he was just freestyling and saw it as a way to relax. He did not improve a single bit in many years. In fact, he even admitted that his ability had got worse. This is what happens if you practise speaking without getting enough input. The senseless strummer can be compared to the gunpoint speaker.
3.4.4 Which is easier to fix?
So to recap, we have, the senseless strummer, the gunpoint speaker, the passive bilingual, and the armchair pianist.
| lots of output | not enough output | |
|---|---|---|
| lots of input | the native speaker / the virtuoso | passive bilingual / armchair pianist |
| not enough input | the gunpoint speaker / the senseless strummer | a rock |
Now imagine we want to help these four sorry souls. Who do you think would be easiest to help? The people who have all the knowledge but haven’t practised expressing it, or the people who can express something sort of similar to the desired target, but have very little knowledge?
To me the answer is obvious!
If correct output is the target, I would even go so far as the claim that the gunpoint speaker and the senseless strummer are further away than somebody who knows nothing at all. Not only do they need to learn what’s correct and practise outputting it, they also need to unlearn what’s wrong.
By contrast, for the passive bilingual and the armchair pianist, it will be a lot easier. They already know what correct output sounds like, they just need to practise producing it. This won’t be very difficult. They can start practising slowly and increase their output until it reaches the desired target. Since there passive knowledge far exceeds their active ability, they will always be able to tell if what they are producing is correct. They will be able to avoid producing bad output and getting into bad habits.
3.5 Takeaway from this chapter
The takeaway from this chapter is that your passive knowledge must always exceed your active knowledge. You first increase your passive knowledge, and then practise using it.
I’ll give you an example of a situation where this would apply. Imagine you’re speaking to your tandem partner but can’t think of which verb to use with a certain noun. You don’t know whether it’s “take a photo” or “make a photo.”
Instead of “practising” your speaking by guessing (effectively inventing your own version of the language instead of aiming for the already established target), simply increase your passive knowledge and find out what is correct. It’s okay to guess, but you should ask your tandem partner if you’re correct – remember that native speakers don’t correct most mistakes, even if they say they will.
3.5.1 Tongue twister
I’ll close this long chapter with an anecdote. I studied linguistics with a guy from Poland. He was really into phonetics and he taught me how to pronounce a Polish tongue twister with perfect precision. It took over an hour and we practised it frequently from then on.
Wyindywidualizowaliśmy się z rozentuzjazmowanego tłumu.When I say this sentence to Polish people, they immediately start speaking Polish very excitedly and waving their hands around. They had no idea I could speak Polish, let alone pronounce tongue twisters with a perfect native accent!!
Unfortunately, I have no idea what they are saying back. My passive knowledge is a 1/10 but my spoken ability on this particular phrase is 11/10 – not even native speakers can say this tongue twister. This results in me having to expend significant effort convincing them that I don’t actually speak Polish.
A familiar equivalent of this is learning phrases from a guidebook and then not understanding the response. The listener overestimates your level and responds accordingly.