From "learning" languages to "being" multilingual!

Pentalingual ramblings 1 - Introduction

2010-11-06T21:48:00.002+09:00

Hi everybody, I'm getting quite a lot of requests by emails and on my YouTube site regarding more videos. Uh... I have no idea what to do or what to make... but... I figured why not just ramble.

I'm gonna start something today. It's Saturday November 6th, 1:45PM in Japan. I am in Tokyo.

I'm gonna start this thing called "Pentalingual Ramblings". Yeah, random thoughts, it's gonna be ramblings.

Creo que voy a empezar algo asi, hablando de todo y de nada...y de todo lo que pasa en mi cabeza.
(I think that I’ll start something, talking about anything and about nothing…well, anything that comes to mind.)

えぇ、こうやって、もう、適当におはなししながら、、、で、それにテロップかなんか付けて、皆さんにお見せしようかなと。
(Well…just talking randomly…and adding subtitles to show you.)

もう全てアドリブなんだけど、どうなるんでしょう？まあ、分かりませんが、どこまで行けるか！
(Everything is ad lib…I wonder where it’s gonna take me?)

Vraiment, j'ai aucune idee comment ca va se passer, mais j'imagine que je vais tout simplement improviser, faire des petits clips comme ca, a gauche et a droite... de quelques minutes.
(I really have no idea how things are gonna turn out, but I guess I’m just going to improvise away, making short videos like this, left and right… a few minutes each.)

J'ai aucun.. eh...j'ai aucun "script"...et puis eh.. he he... c'est pas facile ca hein..
(I don’t have any…eh… I don’t have any scripts…and eh… wow, this is not easy huh…)

Peut-etre que vous pouvez ecrire des commentaires, eh.. des requests… sur ma page YouTube…
(Maybe you can write in some comments, um…requests…on my YouTube page…)

我會把這個放在我的blog上，公開給大家，看看有沒有（可以）幫我寫comments。
或者是幫我寫。。。說不定有你們的requests。。。有甚麼話題啊。看看我們可以談甚麼。。。哇。。。我已經不知道該講甚麼東西。。。chintsai-la (Taiwanese)。。。隨便啦。
(I will put this onto my blog for everyone to see, and see if you can give some comments… or if you have any requests…any topics. Let’s see what we can talk about… wow…I’m already running out of things to say… oh well, I say anything!)

There will be a lot of silences like this I think… but… we can talk about…my book! I’m writing a book.

今の本は、英語で書いて、その本は基本的には子供が。。。まあ、自分がどうやって育ったかって言う本を今書いているのですが。どういう風にマルチリンガルになれる。
(This book is written in English. It’s about how kids… well, actually, my book is actually about how I was raised. How one can be raised to become multilingual.)

そして、その中に７つのアイデアを含めて。。。まあ、僕自身が考えているのは、CLAPという哲学というか、philosophyというか、があってですね。クラップとはC-L-A-Pで、Contextual Language Acquisition Philosophyというのがあります。それは、自分のブログにも書いてありますが。
(And in the book, I include 7 ideas… well, what I’m saying is that I have this philosophy called CLAP, which stands for Contextual Language Acquisition Philosophy. I talk about this on my blog also.)

…este…he terminado mi primer libro…bueno, un primer draft…y lo estoy revisando. Tengo un amigo que ha hecho unas ilustraciones, y… creo que lo voy a publicar como un iBook o para Kindle…
(…well… I finished my first book…actually, the first draft…and I’m doing revisions right now. I have a friend who is making the illustrations for me, and…I think I will publish it as an iBook or for Kindle…)

真的是希望，年底或者是年初可以把這個開始。。。開始在iBookstore上面賣看看。來看看能不能做一個副業。
(I really hope I can start selling the book on the iBookstore by the end of the year or early next year… and see if I could start a side-revenue stream.)

En francais…j’ai un copain au Canada qui est entrain de le lire et puis il va me donner des commentaires j’imagine. Lui aussi il a vecu une vie assez multiculturelle, donc…
(In French…I have a friend in Canada who is reading it right now and he will give me comments I guess. He has also lived a very multicultural life so…)

Anyway, this first video will… ha ha…it’s really awkward, but this first video will end somewhere here. It’s really a video to introduce this new series… I hope it will be a new series…

J’espere que ca va continuer longtemps. J’imagine que je vais essayer de faire des series assez frequemment, j’espere… En tout cas, c’est un debut. Ca fait trois minutes que je parle dans le vide. Si la reponse est bonne… de vous, mes auditeurs, ecouteurs, lecteurs… si la reponse est bonne, je continuerais…
(I hope that this will continue for a long time. I guess that I will try to contribute to this series frequently enough, I hope… Anyway, it’s a start. It’s been three minutes that I’ve been talking into the abyss. If the response is good…if you, my listeners, viewers, readers… if the response is good, I’ll continue…)

有很多人根我講用YouTube，用viral distribution非常好，非常的有效率，有效果。看看這幾天，有甚麼樣的response.然後在說把。OK, bye-bye.
(Many people tell me to use YouTube, with distribution becoming viral, it’s very efficient, effective. Let’s see how the response will be in a few days. OK, bye-bye.)

Life-changing trip to Ecuador

2010-09-19T20:54:00.000+09:00

I believe that many of my readers want to learn languages for travel. I think it is definitely a great reason. And I'm sure that we all agree that before you go, if you can learn just enough to communicate at least on a superficial level with the local people, you will likely come home with much more than just photos of monuments and museums.

In my case, I tried to cram in as much Spanish as I could for about one month before going to Ecuado, where my best buddy Greg was doing a 1-year exchange program with AFS. I learned just enough using methods described previously, and was able to have, as mentioned above, a superficial conversation with the locals. And what did I come home with after a 2-week vacation visiting Greg, staying with his host family? A life-changing experience.

So how did this trip change my life? (Other than picking up the wonderful Spanish language, of course.)

1) I gained a loving and caring family in Ecuador.

In this picture taken in Banos is Pilar, the beautiful mother of 4, two of which are in the photo, Andrea (the cute little 8 year-old in front of me), and Valeria (the preciosa in the arms of Pilar). The dude in the middle is Greg. Not in the photo are many many more who have touched my life in significant ways: Vicente (the father), Pancho (the son), Silvia "la Gorda" (the aunt), Monica (the beautiful cousin), and many other extended family and all of Greg's Ecuadorian and international friends. They have all welcomed me with wide open arms and made absolutely sure that I enjoyed every minute of my stay. Mission well accomplished! I will also forever be in debt to the Granja family for that time I got serious food poisoning (serves me right to eat oyster ceviche in Quito!) and Vicente and Pilar went out to get medicine for me... in the middle of the night! Thank you again from the bottom of my heart.

2) I saw beautiful places in Ecuador accompanied by wonderful people.

Here I am with Andrea at "La Mitad Del Mundo", literally at "The Half Point of the World". Running right under us is supposedly the equator (which by the way is what "Ecuador" means in Spanish), so we had our left foot in the northern hemisphere and our right foot in the the southern hemisphere. How cool is that!

Other places we visited were various places in Quito (including the famous Virgen de Quito (or El Panecillo)), Riobamba, Banos (previous photo), and a beautiful costal village called Muisne in the province of Esmeraldas. The photo below is where we stayed.

In my life, I've stayed in some pretty fancy and expensive hotels around the world, most of which I have no recollection now. But I vividly remember this place, which cost me half the price of Big Mac in the US. Clearly, there is no direct correlation between good times and the price of the hotel. I truly believe it is the people you're with. In this photo are: Greg, Annick, Hitomi, and the legs of... hmmm, Yannic? Jerome?

3) I gained a tremendous appreciation for my own life and learned about important values.

In the following photo that I took from the back seats of family's old Peugeot, you see children living in the streets.

Every time you stop at a red light in Quito, a few of them will come up to beg for money. It just broke my heart every time I saw children like that, and at the same time, they made me realize what a privileged life I was living.

But wait, there's more to be learned. These children, who had essentially nothing, no money, no education, were able to teach me other humbling lessons in life, including family values, empathy, sacrifice, sharing, etc.

One day we were in this fancy little ice cream parlor, nothing from out of this planet, but clearly out of reach for the average Ecuadorian. As it happens often, a little poor kid, must've been 4 or 5 years old, comes in to beg for food or money. Then the waitress, who herself was in her early teens and most likely also from a poor family, had to come out to shew the little boy away from us, the almighty customers. But she knew this boy had probably not eaten for the past 3 days, so while she was pushing the kid out the door, she discretely slipped an ice cream cone (just the cone) to the kid. I think she could have gotten into quite a lot of trouble if her boss found out about her actions. But what a kind and selfless act. And she didn't even know that I was watching. Or at least, she probably was hoping the customers weren't watching.

But wait, there's more to be learned. A lesson from the little boy. If you hadn't eaten for 3 days, what would you have done with the cone? Devour it, right? Not this little boy. He took the cone and just ran straight towards a big tree on the sidewalk. Under it was sitting mom and little sis, probably 2 years old. He hands mom the cone intact, and mom breaks it into pieces. A measly little ice cream cone divided into portions for a family to feed on. Talk about sacrifice, talk about sharing, talk about family love. That scene was to be forever carved into my memory.

So there you go. The trip to Ecuador, which not only served as the trigger and integral part in allowing me to learn Spanish, but also gave me treasures to keep for life, including great memories, life lessons, and of course, wonderful human connections. I feel extremely fortunate to still be in touch with many them (God bless Facebook) and greatly enjoy the occasional emails and chats. I love you all.

Invent a story

2010-08-14T03:33:00.001+09:00

During my MBA, there was a course that I took called "The Art of Leadership". I remember in one class, we had a special guest lecturer, who had a background in theater, and the topic of the day was "teamwork". In one exercise, the teacher lined up 6-7 students in front of the class and proceeded to explain how to play the game. Essentially, the teacher decides on a random title and points to one student, who would then have to start inventing a story based on the title. Once the story starts, any of the other students can jump in and take over the storytelling at any time.

Here, the lesson in teamwork is helping each other and self-sacrifice. It's hard enough to invent a story out of the blue, not to mention being in front of the whole class and all attention is on you. Not many students can start a story and make it past a few sentences. So when the narrating student starts to lose momentum with the story, other students need to step up and take over, putting themselves under the heat instead.

Now, I thought I could take this game and apply it to language learning. Think about it, a conversation with other people in a foreign language puts you in the same emotional state as the narrating student in the game. A given topic is at the center of the discussion, which of course can go in any direction at any time, and you are tense because you need all your attention to understand everything, but you must also find the right timing to jump in and take the discussion in the direction that you want.

So I tried it out on my English students, lining up a few of them in front of the class, giving them a scenario, and just letting them play. Seeing them play is pure entertainment. Sometimes they have a great scenario in their head, but they just don't know how to say it in English. But they would make the best out of their limited vocabulary, and add in a few gestures here and there and somehow move the story forward. And they would come up with the craziest stories, from Snow White fighting Godzilla to submarines going into the human bloodstream. Knee-slapping laughter guaranteed!

I think this is a game that is perfectly aligned with CLAP, in that it simultaneously allows you to improve your English and enriches your imagination.

Language teachers out there, try it out in the language that you teach!

Elderly ladies = best language practising partners

2010-07-14T01:12:00.000+09:00

Some students are very motivated to practise their newly acquired language and are able to overcome their fears to initiate discussions with complete strangers when they go to a foreign country. I admire this kind of courage and believe that it's a big step toward fluency. However, unfortunately it's not easy to meet people who have the patience it requires to talk to students who are not very fluent. For these people, what is important is to move the discussion forward, so they will quickly switch to English and completely disregard the efforts of the poor student. But students, don't be discouraged! I know people who will be very happy to talk to you and let you practise your new language!

Next time you go overseas and want try out your new linguistic assets on somebody, find old people, especially ladies. Yes that's right, old ladies. These beings have all the attributes of the perfect language practising partner:

1) The mere fact that they are women means that they will tend to like talking. That's a good start.
2) Most old people have time.
3) They are more patient and understanding.
4) They have so much life experience to share.
5) Your chances of meeting an old lady that speaks good English are much lower than if you met a young person.
6) If they have slight hearing problems, that's even better, because you then need to learn to articulate clearly and speak loudly. (How's this for out-of-the-box thinking?)

When I went to Ecuador, my Spanish was still in its infancy. But my buddy Greg's host family, including the grandpas and grandmas spent hours talking with me. When I visited Portugal some decades ago, I stayed in a B&B run by an old couple. I still remember one night, I was watching TV with the old lady, and there was a wedding scene. So she started talking to me about her daughter's wedding and enthusiastically took out photo albums to show me. I had so much fun and practised so much with the very limited Portugueuse vocabulary that I had.

Complete memorization of texts

2010-06-26T20:42:00.001+09:00

First of all, this is NOT my idea! I cannot take credit for it. But I believe it can be a very effective method. If you don't believe me, check out Uncle Polyglot, the super multilinguist who told me about this method. He is a Japanese living in Singapore, and is fluent in many languages, of which I am particularly impressed with are his English, Mandarin, and French. His blog is mighty informative so I urge you to go take a look, especially his videos are a great source of edutainment.

The reason why I think this method should be very effective is similar to why I think taking notes (during classes, seminars, meetings, etc.) in foreign languages (which I wrote about previously) is an effective language learning exercise. Just like you need to understand what you are hearing before you can translate it in your head when taking notes in foreign languages, you should understand a text fully in order to memorize it. Of course, one can argue that it is not a necessity, but understanding the text will make it much much much easier to memorize it. Also, going through the exercise of memorizing requires "repetition". There's no better way to make new words stick. Repeat profusely.

Thanks Uncle Polyglot for a great idea!

Sora-mimi

2010-06-15T22:36:00.002+09:00

"Sora-mimi" is a funny way of saying "mishearing" in Japanese. I came up with this little exercise for teaching English. Nothing fancy. I would find a short YouTube clip, usually a funny commercial like the one shown (the Budlight series are my favorite), and tell my students to transcribe what is being said word for word. Then on the day of the lesson, I'd get them to write what they heard on the board. Let me tell ya, some of the stuff they hear are h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s! It's always a blast.

Two things can be expected from this exercice. First, to transcribe, the students will have to listen to the clip over and over and over and over and over.... Of course, this gets their ears accustomed to English words in bite size portions, which is much more effective than listenting to English in long portions, such as in a TV series or movie. Second, often the funniness of the students' answers and the "aha moments" (a.k.a. "eureka effect") created by my corrections really make the answers stick.

But this exercice, as simple as it is, is tough. Just a few minutes of clip can take hours and hours to really transcribe correctly. Even the one shown above, which is the very first one that I used, took my students a long time to transcribe. The dialog consists of only 3-4 lines!

This can be done of course with your favorite videos and DVDs also. It's easier if you have someone to control the clip for you. Play-stop-rewind-play-stop-rewind...(ad infinitum)

Dictionary everywhere

2010-06-06T22:09:00.000+09:00

I was in Europe for 4 months backpacking and studying. This was a long time ago and electronic dictionaries didn't exist (or if it did, it probably costed an arm and a leg AND it probably sucked). But pocket dictionaries were around and were definitely affordable. So whenever I'd go to a new country, I'd go straight to the bookstore and buy myself a pocket dictionary. One that literally fit in my pocket. I would have it on me at all times, looking up things continuously. One place that I used it a lot was at the supermarket. I would look up all my favorite food, many of which are not found in textbooks or taught in class. Also, any idle time that I had, riding in or waiting for a bus, a train, or sitting in the lobby of the youth hostel, etc., I'd just take out the little dictionary and literally look up everything that was in sight.

You cannot get more contextual learning than this method. CLAP at its best. You are literally learning things in your living context continuously; things that you see, things that you eat, your environment, etc. All the words that you learn are relevant to YOUR life.

Who says effective exercises have to be complicated?

Foreign babysitters

2010-05-18T23:07:00.000+09:00

When I was about the age of the little girl in the drawing, my parents got me a babysitter who only spoke Taiwanese to me. I don't remember much of those days other than the fact that she had children about my age and we'd take baths together all the time.

Anyway, isn't this a great idea? I mean, think about it, if you're going to hire a babysitter anyway, why not make it a language learning experience for your child at the same time. What a great application of CLAP!

Of course, I plan to have children, and I also plan to do the same with them. I'm thinking about going with Spanish, because I think it will become a tremendously important business language by the time my children enter the workforce. I guess we'll see...

Note taking in foreign languages

2010-05-13T21:37:00.000+09:00

So today I begin to give you concrete examples of what I had done or what my parents had done for me to learn languages. This first one is a perfect example of applying CLAP, i.e., finding language learning opportunities in things that you do anyway in your daily living context.

We all take notes often, whether it's during class, a seminar, or a meeting. We continuously scribble things onto pads while someone else gives lectures or presentations, etc. Now how can you make that into a language learning opportunity? Well, take your notes in your target language!! I used to take notes during my chemistry classes or biology classes in Spanish. Well, Spanglish. Yes, chances are you don't have enough vocabulary to take your notes completely in your target language. And even if you did, you probably don't master your target language enough to translate in real-time. So of course, you can and will fill in the holes with your first language.

Now, other than great practise for your language learning, three other great things will happen with this method. First and foremost, you will grasp the presented contents very well. Think about it, by necessity you must first understand the material before you can translate it. So even if you were not interested in the materials presented, you will still make extreme efforts to clearly understand what is being presented. There's just no way around it. Second, because you're brain is running at 100 mph trying to translate in real-time, you won't fall asleep during your lectures or meetings! Third, people will not bother you for your notes anymore. It's was always funny to see the face on my classmates when they ask for my notes. They'd open the notebook, squint, and hand it right back to me with the expression of someone who had just heard the words "April Fool"... Grin.

Third CLAP requisite: Hard (but smart) work

2010-04-27T08:11:00.000+09:00

"The combination of hard work and smart work is efficient work."-Robert Half

In CLAP there are three requisites. And after PURPOSE and ATTITUDE, here's the third and last CLAP requisite: Hard (but smart) work.

Working hard is a prerequisite for success in anything. And I have no doubt that this is precisely what most passionate language learners do. They work their asses off. But although it is a prerequisite for success, hard work clearly does not guarantee success, as witnessed by the disgustingly low success rate of typical language learners. I believe this is because most people so firmly depend on traditional thinking and are not creative enough to come up with other ways to learn languages than following language teachers and going through grammar books and exercises. Again, I'm not saying that you should not do that. I'm just saying that there are more ways. Many many more! So the other part of the message, i.e., working smart, is that it will allow you to accomplish your goals set forth, when you clarified your PURPOSE, faster and with higher success rate than those who "only" work hard. So look at it this way. If you've worked extremely hard and yet achieved a miserable success rate, then why not let go of the traditional learning methods for now, and release your imaginative powers! Hey, you can't do much worst right?

And of course, my hope is that reading this blog can give you some inspirations. Beginning from the next posts, I will start describing many concrete examples of things that I did or my parents did that allowed me to achieve fluency in the various languages I speak today. And based on CLAP, given everyone's different language learning contexts, some exercises will suit you, whereas others will simply be hell-on-earth for you. Do pick the former.

Now although "like or dislike" is of course an important criteria for picking your language learning activities, in this post I want to also share with you two other important criteria. The first one comes from one of my all time favorite books "The 4-hour work week" by Tim Ferris (which I've recommended to many friends, all of whom loved it! (see Amazon link at the bottom)). This guy is absolutely amazing and is truly a living superman AND an amazing linguist as well. I'll talk about him and his book in the context of language learning in another post, but here I just want to mention one awesome insight regarding "stress" that I learned from his book.

"Distress" vs "Eustress"

Distress is easy. It is "stress" as we usually know it. The negative kind. That yucky feeling you get when you do something you don't like. But eustress on the other hand is positive stress. Positive stress?! Yes, the kind that is healthy and gives one a feeling of fulfillment or other positive feelings. One way to maximize eustress in language learning (or any learning actually) is to try to make your learning FUN. For example, you may hate reading a long text in a foreign language (or even in your own language!), say for a homework, but if you do the same long winded reading on a topic that interests you, a hobby perhaps, then the same stress is instantly changed into eustress. It is still stressful because you are reading a long text in a foreign language. But because you now really want to understand the contents, you can overcome the linguistic barrier. The "obstacle" is now turned into a "challenge". Very different psychology.

Another way to increase eustress is to set short-term goals, a near-term PURPOSE. I used to go to the gym six days a week when I was at the university, training like a maniac in hopes of making the university ice hockey team at the next training camp. Picturing myself playing for the Ottawa Gee-Gees drove me to lift weights like I had never done before (or after for that matter...). And after every session, I felt like I had accomplished great things. Now, to really make this an inspiring story, I would have made the team... but helas...that was not the case. But hey, I did end up getting myself a body that all the chicks drooled over...which of course I still keep today (ahem...).

In terms of learning languages, setting short-term goals could be for example to set a date for a language proficiency test in a few months. Set an achievable target score, and give yourself a little reward if you score higher. Have a little healthy competition with a friend who's also learning the same language and see who can score higher (maybe loser can buy winner a nice dinner). You get the idea right? During the time you give yourself, you should have tremendous motivation to learn your target language.

All this to say that the same stress can be "eustress" in one situation (when I was motivated to train), but "distress" any other day (because I'm just not naturally inclined to lift dumbells). This of course also holds true between individuals, i.e., any given activity can be "eustress" to one person, but "distress" to another. And the message here is to be creative in converting distress into eustress, for yourself or for your child, which will allow you to enjoy your learning process much more and to naturally exert your maximum efforts efficiently. Speaking of efficiency, here's the other criteria for picking your language learning activities.

"Efficiency" vs "Effectiveness"

I hesitated before putting up the Robert Half quote at the top, because "efficiency", which although is usually good in and of itself, is not the only thing we should thrive for. Most of us, myself included, have been conditioned by society to focus on "efficiency", which is defined as "doing things in the most economical way (good input to output ratio)". For example, a worker who can produce more units of a given product in a given unit of time is considered to be more efficient and more valuable to the company. And in terms of learning languages, you might say that an efficient student will aim to go through as many grammar books and exercises in the shortest time as it is humanly possible. But the question is what if you don't need to know that much grammar to begin with? In other words, if your PURPOSE is to be able to speak fluently and make foreign friends, then spending all that energy in learning grammar to high levels is pointless. You may have been efficient in learning grammar, but you were not effective in accomplishing your purpose. So, to be effective, you need to do the "right" things, i.e., set the right targets according to your purpose, which here could be a mid-level understanding of grammar, but a high level of spoken fluency. In this case, the same energy and time that you spend on learning grammar should be spent on exercises that enable more speaking.

Now, a final message is that when one method doesn’t work, don’t continue banging your head against the wall… Not being overly persistent can sometimes mean being smart. There are many different methods to choose and mix to suit your context.

Remember, increase eustress, think effectiveness, and have FUN!

So there you go, enough with the theory. Now for concrete examples from Tetsu's life-long language learning experience!

Second CLAP requisite: Attitude

2010-04-04T21:41:00.000+09:00

“Yes we can.”–Barrack Obama

“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!”
–Henry Ford

“Capacity is a state of mind.”
–David Schwartz

CLAP is about knowing yourself, what you like to do or achieve, and what resources are available to you. And then, once you put your mind to it, know that you can do it.

If you think of something that you like, then don't hold back in fear of striking out. People will always try to tell you that a certain idea is good or bad, but that doesn't matter, because the opinions will always be based on other people's Contexts. So what is important is that you think (or actually, feel) it is a good idea. And if so, you should have all the confidence in the world to just do it. Give it your best swing and you'll be pleasantly surprised. The same applies for parents wanting to raise multilingual kids. In particular, parents should be careful not to automatically apply your own limitations and fears to your children. They can do more than you can imagine if you provide the right support. This message goes specifically to those parents who underestimate their children and think that they should first learn one language perfectly before going on to the second one. Don't wait! I was accustomed to using 5 languages (Mandarin, English, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Haka) on a daily basis by the time I was 6 years-old.

Several things can affect one's confidence level though. I just told you to not lower the bar for your children to your own limits and fears, but at the same time of course, be realistic. Unrealistic expectations can have negative impacts on confidence. For example "perfection" is NOT realistic and is unattainable. You should accept imperfection in your or your children's linguistic capabilities and simply enjoy the process of improvement as you go along. Remember what your PURPOSE for language acquisition is and support and encourage yourself or your kids for every step taken to get closer to destination.

Remember, you need to take control and create your own language learning context or that of your child, and knowing the purpose and having the right attitude will help you define it clearer. After that you just need to work hard, which ironically is the easy part, but also smart, which is slightly more challenging but nonetheless achievable. Let me show you what I mean in the next post.

First CLAP requisite: Purpose

2010-04-01T23:25:00.000+09:00

"Great minds have purposes; others have wishes."-Washington Irving

So again, why are you trying to learn a new language?

Is it to become a language professional (interpreter, tranlator, teacher, etc.)? Do you want to go abroad for work or study? Is it for traveling or making foreign friends? Do you want high scores for certain qualifications (TOEIC/TOEFL, DELE, etc.) in order to get into a good company or school? Is your motive summed up in "I just feel like it"? Or maybe you are a parent and you want a bright future for your child as a global citizen?

Aside from predicting that "I just feel like it" probably won't last very long, I have no judgment on the reasons why you are learning the languages you want to learn. I simply want to highlight the fact that depending on your purpose, the "scope" of activities that you should take up will differ, i.e., the definition of your language learning context will be different based on your purpose. I don't think it is difficult to appreciate that the process of learning languages should be drastically different for people who want to become a language professional and for those wanting to make foreign friends, or for adults and children. But still, for most people language learning boils down to going to school or learning from books. In my opinion, only those who want to become language professionals need to stick to the classes and books for extended periods of time. For all others, get the minimum required exposure to know basic syntax, some grammar rules, a small bank of vocabulary, and let's go! You can start doing other exercises by applying CLAP!

Of course, later I will show you various exercises based on CLAP. However, depending on your purpose, you will pick those that fit your purpose for learning languages. Some methods are good for reading/writing, which could be more useful for those wanting to become translators, while other methods will enhance listening/speaking, which will be useful for making friends for example.

So again, why are you trying to learn a new language?

Contextual Language Acquisition Philosophy

2010-03-20T20:26:00.000+09:00

Let me start this post with a request to my readers. Please don't expect a one-size-fits-all language-learning "method" here. I don't believe that exists. What I am presenting is a one-size-fits-all "philosophy", i.e., a way of thinking. I call this CLAP, for Contextual Language Acquisition Philosophy. All methods and tricks that have been applied by myself or by my parents in raising me (which I will present in later posts) are all based on CLAP.

According to CLAP, language learning is most time-efficient, money-efficient, and effort-efficient, and, as a result, motivating and effective when you let CONTEXT drive your learning.

So there.

Simple, right? Too-good-to-be-true kind'a simple? Deceived? Well, people often have the illusion that complicated things, expensive things, difficult things, etc. are better. But CLAP is a simple philosophy. Just like "buy low, sell high". However, successfully applying "buy low, sell high" requires deep knowledge and training in finance before being able to seek out good investment opportunities, whereas applying CLAP only requires you to become conscious of your inside and of the world outside, i.e., your context. So what is important here is not about developing a difficult and complex skill or knowledge set, but rather, a simple habit, a way of thinking about what you want or like to do and what is the environment or situation you live in. And once you can master CLAP, you will see the countless language learning opportunities that surround you.

So what I'm saying is do this. Try to find opportunities to align what you do on a daily basis with language learning. Everyday, you go to school, you go to work, you interact with family, friends, colleagues, you eat, drink, you drive a car, take the train or bus, you have hobbies, watch movies, TV, surf the net, etc. etc. etc. Essentially, for all things that you either "have to do" or "like to do", see if you can add an element of language learning in there. For example, if you like to surf the web, you can browse sites that are in the language you are learning (and if you're learning Japanese, then you could push yourself to first read the Japanese part of each post, and then read the English part to see if you understood well). Perhap you like to listen to podcasts for news. Why not listen to it in your target language? Make friends in your target language. Reread your favorite book in your target language. Even when you have nothing, you can think of something. Your mind is the limit. Speaking of mind, while learning Spanish, anytime I was alone or in the shower or toilet, I would talk to myself in my head in Spanish! Wacky conversations indeed.

So as you can see, the list can go on and on and on and on. But of course, the specific activity has to be tailored to your level, your interest, your resources, etc. But the basic idea is still to do something that you're going to do anyway, but using your target language. And most likely, not one method alone will make you fluent, but the best combination of many of them will. Much of the remainder of this blog will be filled with examples of how this was actively applied in my own life.

But before that, in the next few posts, I will tell you about 3 CLAP requisites:
1) Purpose
2) Attitude
3) Hard (but smart) work

Until then!

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part VI: 29-present)

2010-03-14T01:01:00.000+09:00

Why Japan?

Two reasons. First, being half Taiwanese and half Japanese, I wanted to revisit my roots. But really, that’s not half as important as the second reason. I’ve always felt a disconnect between what I learned at university, i.e., biology, and my strongest assets, i.e., languages. The language of science is English and it was not about to change anytime soon. So I figured I could probably find some clues as to how to use my languages, well, at least Japanese, if I came to Japan, the scientific hub of Asia, and started my career here. The plan was to do a post-doc for about 2-3 years in Japan, and then do another one for 2-3 years in California, where a lot of biotechs are found, before going back to Canada to open my own lab. As usual, things don’t go quite as planned.

I’ve been in Japan for almost 7 years now.

Working in Japan was a linguistic challenge, even for someone like me. In a working environment, I had to deal with aspects of Japanese that I never before had to deal with just talking to people on a casual level. Now I needed to use it on a professional level, i.e., I had to get familiar with various levels of formality in the spoken language, I had to write it (I mean type it), and I had to quickly improve my scientific vocabulary in Japanese, with all the fancy abbreviations that the Japanese are so fond of. And have you ever heard people giving scientific talks in Japanese?! That’s right, it sounded like gibberish. Again.

And putting things down in writing was an obstacle that you just have to experience. I came to Japan on a scholarship from the Japanese government, so I had to write all sorts of reports in Japanese all the time. This was a major pain in the $&%”! Things that took three minutes to write for my colleagues took me an hour. But I learned so much. Learning all the intricacies of the language not only allowed me to write better, but it allowed me to speak and read better, too! It is thanks to the efforts in those days that today I am 100% functional in Japanese at the professional level.

I lucked out on another linguistic dimension in Japan. At our laboratory, there were two Chinese students with whom I spoke Mandarin everyday. Having left Taiwan more than 16 years earlier, I was very happy to have the opportunity to my polish my Mandarin.

Outside the lab, I also signed up to a few of the Meetup groups in Tokyo (which I will discuss in future posts), especially the Spanish Meetup (organized by Yuko-san, who of course speaks Spanish perfectly). My first one though was the French Meetup organized by Kazu-san, who is also a phenomenal linguist. He’s actually the organizer for the French, Italian, Portuguese, German, ESL, and I don’t know which other Meetup! I salute you Kazu-san and Yuko-san! Please keep it up!

So I used Japanese, Mandarin, and English at the lab, and kept up with my other languages outside the lab, but I still felt I wasn’t really making the perfect link between my work and languages. I knew that if I wanted to continue with bench science, then English will pretty much be the only language that I'll really need to use. That’s when I thought I should go into business. But to go to “the other side”, I believed that I needed some business know-how.

How about an MBA?

Oh great, another brilliant idea to turn me into a poor student again. At age 32. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea... Moreover, many people that I talked to and all the websites about MBA programs strongly suggested that one should first have business exposure before doing an MBA. Logical and convincing.

But my mind was already set. I thanked the world for wonderful advice, but carried right on ahead with complete disregard and started to shop around for MBA programs. Fortunately my parents and my post-doc supervisor were supportive.

At first, I was expecting to have to pursue an online MBA program, because I didn’t want to quit my post-doc for a full-time weekday program, and, being in Japan, I thought I had a much better chance of finding a reputable English program online. But the trade-off is that I would have to give up the real human interactions that come with classroom learning, which forms a huge part of the value of the MBA experience.

But combine will with good luck, and you have my life story. Persistent Googling landed me on a McGill University website. Sounds familiar? Yes, that’s where I did my Biology undergrad in Montreal. But this time, it was the website of McGill MBA Japan program! In total, I found two fully English MBA programs in Japan: McGill and Temple University. Temple is American, and, of the close to 100 universities in Canada, McGill had the other MBA program in Japan. What are the odds!? Now if only it could be an evening program, then I could completely satisfy the stringent criteria I set forth, i.e., a highly reputable full-time English program that I could pursue in a real classroom setting, with real classmates, without quitting my post-doc. It was a weekend program. Even better. Hey, I don’t write the scripts…

So I applied and got accepted, and the rest is history. (…er actually, maybe I shouldn’t say it as if it were a breeze, ‘cuz for the next two years, I would go through pure hell doing a post-doc and an MBA at the same time. Oh, and did I mention the $50,000 tuition? La cerise sur le Sundae…)

From bench science to global pharmaceutical R&D management

During my second year of MBA, I began thinking about leaving the lab and started looking for a job in the “real” world. Four industries interested me. 1) Investment banking, 2) Consulting, 3) Venture capital, and 4) Pharma. IB would make good use of my MBA (finance concentration) but my Bio PhD would go to waste. Given that this was late 2007, at the height of the bubble, I’m really glad I resisted the temptation to go into IB. Consulting on the other hand may use a little bit more of my scientific mind, but again my MBA would probably come in more handy. Either way, both IB and consulting would likely have meant huge pay in return for no life. VC was an attractive option, because I could make good use of both my PhD and MBA in the valuation of start-up biotech firms and in persuading investors to fork over millions of dollars for me to invest in these companies. But the VC industry was and still is very weak in Japan. So the only logical remaining choice was pharma, which obviously requires a scientific mind for research and development and business know-how for many other functions, such as licensing/partnering/mergers, etc. It was indeed the best choice that promised to let me use my assets in a balanced way.

Now, do I join a foreign company or a Japanese company? Any Japanese person who speaks good English will say go to a foreign company. But my rationale says that I should go to a Japanese company, because I figured the need for global minded people was higher in Japanese companies, most of which are actively expanding into foreign markets. And since few Japanese are fluent in English, my competition was likely to be low. And this is without even considering how my Mandarin could contribute to expansion into the colossal market right next door called China. On the other hand, in a Japanese branch of a foreign company, I would probably be competing with native Japanese speakers in dealing with the Japanese market. So again, why would I wanna to do that?

So I narrowed down the choices to one single Japanese pharmaceutical company, and knocked, I mean, pounded, on its door until they finally gave me an interview. Well, 3 interviews really, including scientific presentations and extensive Q&A's. And I made it a point to do all my interviews in Japanese, despite offers to carry out various parts in English. I wanted to show them that my Japanese, which they knew from the beginning was my third language, is fully functional under all circumstances. And I got the gig.

Pretty much overnight, I switched from doing frontline bench science in an academic lab to working in R&D management for the entire global R&D department of a big pharma company. Of course, the transition was anything but smooth, but again, I was blessed by great people, from admirable superiors to wonderful peers to help with my integration.

By the way, do you wanna hear another creepy story? The first day I walked into the office, a foreigner sitting at the desk in front of mine greeted me enthusiastically. But instead of saying “hi”, he said “bonjour” with the thickest Quebecer accent. Isn't it a big coincidence to meet a Quebecer in a Japanese pharmaceutical company of all things on the first day of work? But wait, there's more! Meet Frank, who’s also from Quebec City and did a PhD at Laval University, and who, about 4 years before me, was working in the same laboratory as me!! We know all the same people, and his great friend Jean-Yves was a reviewer for my thesis! I’m telling ya, I don’t write the scripts!

Here I am today, still in Japan, working in a great job that allows me to simultaneously use both my PhD (as I take care of pharmaceutical research and development) and my MBA (as I think strategically about our pipeline and do valuations of licensing/partnering/acquisition deals). Our company is a global company and is already well established in the US and EU, and is increasing our foothold in various other countries, including China (in fact I just came back from a business trip from Beijing last week). So on the language front, I would talk to my Japanese colleagues in Japanese, my American and UK colleagues in English, my Chinese colleagues in Mandarin, and Frank in French. I look forward to using my Spanish and possibly Portuguese in South America.

So there you go, you are up to date on my background. Now are we ready to talk about some of my thoughts and theories on language acquisition!! …eh Matt, ready for CLAP?

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part V: 23-29 years-old)

2010-03-09T00:30:00.000+09:00

As I mentioned in the previous post, after doing a few university courses in German and Italian, I decided that I should stop increasing the number of languages in my repertoire, but rather improve the level of the 5 that I already knew much better (English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish).

After graduating from McGill University, I went to Laval University in Quebec City at the age of 23 to do my graduate studies in cellular and molecular biology. It is a French university, but it just so happened that I found a Japanese professor to supervise my work. Pure coincidence. But this turned out to benefit my training immensely. First of all, I think my supervisor was happy to have someone to talk to in Japanese, and so a strong trusting relationship was quickly built. Second, despite the fact that I was very inexperienced, he would let me proofread all sorts of privileged material, from scientific articles in preparation to all sorts of research grant applications. This allowed me to rapidly learn critical complementary knowledge to just front-line science. Also, significantly, I was able to greatly improve my writing skills, which was absolutely horrible before starting science (...and I thought I could be spared all the soft skills, such as writing, by going into science!). Third, this professor's human network would open the doors to my career in Japan, which I will talk about in the next post.

Now, we all know that being a graduate student meant that I would continue to be poor for years to come. So I earned some side revenue using my language skills. One thing that I did for a while was teaching English (remember, this was in Quebec City) at a small language school. Actually I would pick up the material at the school but drive to the clients’ offices, one of which I remember was a big pet food manufacturer. The wages weren’t great, but enough to help pay the bills. And I enjoyed it and had a lot of fun because the teaching methods of this language school were based on participation in activities and games. There was a large collection of games and the school gave teachers tremendous flexibility on which ones to use and how. This experience allowed me to learn about teaching languages without going through textbooks.

Another, much more lucrative job on a per hour basis, were the few but sporadic contracts as an interpreter using the various languages in my head. This usually involved corporate folks receiving guests from other countries, such as Japan. One contract even brought me down from Quebec to the Dominican Republic for one whole week! That contract involved a French chocolate company, a giant Japanese candy maker (Morinaga), and a local Dominican cocoa plantation, and I used Japanese, Spanish, French, and English. That was a fun gig. I got to do all the touristy things with the group, eat great food, AND earn money while doing it! But of course, money isn't everything. I’ve also done numerous volunteering gigs as interpreter at large gatherings, such as business conferences, sporting events, etc.

The best part about my student life at Laval University was living in the student residence. The room itself cost around $200CDN a month at that time and was essentially the size of a phone booth. But in it, I had a little fridge, a microwave oven, a TV, a bed, a chair, a desk, a sink, a closet, drawers, shelves, some books, and, get this, a keyboard, a guitar, AND my Roland TD-5 electronic drums. Furthermore, the residence building was right next to Le Pub de l'Université Laval, which essentially served as my living room, especially given that there was an underground tunnel so I could go there in T-shirts even when it was -30ºC outside! And of course I would never drink and drive. Just all drink.

And of the residence life, the best part is of course the people. There were people from all over the world. For me, the huge presence of latinos really helped me improve my Spanish. Not because these friends sat down and taught me stiff Spanish grammar, but rather because they partied hard with me and helped me advance my spoken Spanish. The useful kind. Once again, alcohol may have help somewhat. Ahhhh, what great memories… Paloma! Nico! Como andan!?!?

Speaking of Nico. He's a Peruvian friend who invited me to visit his home in Lima. I brought down two other friends from the lab and had a blast during our stay! We visited Machu Picchu and swam with piranhas in the Peruvian Amazon!

Finally, I'll mention another trip here in which I went to Brazil with my best buddy Greg. Great friend, beautiful Brazilian women, carnaval, my birthday... perfection. Greg and I both studied Portuguese a bit on our own before the trip using easily accessible material, and immediately upon arrival, we simply went into full practise mode, speaking with as many people as possible. Hotel clerks, waiters, taxi drivers, you name it. We even talked our way into student residences during the carnaval! Best party on earth.

Although written Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, spoken Portuguese is quite different. But once you learn the patterns of where Portuguese and Spanish differ, then things become much easier. And in those 2 weeks in Brazil, we were able to pick up quite a bit of Portuguese...(language or women?) Yes, Portuguese would be the last language that I would learned with which I could carry out something of a conversation.

And in an Augenblick, 5 years in Quebec City flashed by, and just 3 days before my 29th birthday, I would defend my thesis entitled “The Role of Poly(ADP-Ribose) Polymerase (PARP) in DNA Repair and Transcription”. I gave my speech in French, using a Powerpoint presentation prepared in English, and earn my Ph.D. under my Japanese supervisor.

A few months later, I would go to the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan to take up post-doctoral training.

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part IV: 18-23 years-old)

2010-03-02T01:36:00.000+09:00

I added three languages, Spanish, German, and Italian, to my list during this 5-year period, so the text is a little long. Please bear with me.

After high school, I went to Ottawa University for 1 year to do a what was called a Pre-science program in those days. My best friend Greg chose instead to go to Ecuador for an exchange program. A few months into my first session, I thought to myself, I wanna go visit Greg over Christmas! And while I’m there, I might as well learn Spanish!

Why not.

Learning Spanish Tetsu's way

This was about a month or so before departure. I decided I wanted to acquire at least a minimal set of vocabulary before going, so I bought myself a cheap language learning kit, which in those days contained a little booklet with some grammar and some phrases and sentences, and the audio part was provided, not in mp3s, not DVDs, not CDs, but in CASSETTES! Remember those? So for a few weeks, before going to sleep, I would read that little booklet, and then just before turning off the lights, I would put on one of the four cassettes and keep it playing all night. As if that’s not enough, I would put another cassette in my car and drive every passenger nuts (pun intended!). That’s right, when a bunch of us would go out to party, from other friends’ cars you would hear cool dance music coming through the sub-woofers, but from Tetsu’s car you would hear a nice nerdy voice “Me gusta comer manzanas…(Please repeat)…”. Yeah, chicks dig that.

That was it for the preparation phase, and I went to Ecuador, my first of numerous subsequent trips to Latin America. But I couldn’t converse. I avoid the word “speak” here, as I was in fact able to say enough words to impress people and to understand them to a certain level if they spoke really slowly and picked their vocabulary carefully. But that was not what I had in mind. After a whole month of “Me gusta comer manzanas…”, I thought I would be discussing world economy with the locals! Not even close.

I really thought I could do more, as I understood everything on those cassettes and thought I could respond perfectly to people. All they had to do was ask me if I liked apples! I guess I found out that textbooks or language learning kits are very good tools for the early phases of your learning in getting you accustomed to the language, but have very limited use for real conversation.

Despite my poor Spanish, Greg’s host family (familia Granja) and all their friends and extended family were extremely patient with me. They talked with me all the time and took me to so many fun places! I was literally able to feel my Spanish get better by the day! ...unless it was the alcohol. But I even had dreams in which I was conversing in Spanish completely fluently! And this feeling led to tremendous motivation, which can drive you to overcome any obstacle. Muchisimas gracias a mi familia Ecuatoriana!

Immediately upon my return to Ottawa, I joined the Ottawa-U Spanish club called S.A.L.S.A. (I forget what that stood for...) and partied in Spanish on a regular basis. Funny thing, the more I drank, the more I spoke Spanish (or Gibberish). (OK, so maybe it was the alcohol.) I made some very dear friends at S.A.L.S.A. with whom I still keep close contact. One of whom is Annie, who's been highly successful at raising a multilingual kid Diego! She contributes her great ideas here at my blog also (see comments in this post).

I have made many efforts throughout the subsequent years to maintain my Spanish, including university clubs or other public Spanish gatherings (e.g., currently I am part of the Spanish Meet-up in Tokyo), extensive traveling to Spanish-speaking countries (Spain, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Cuba, etc.), one advanced 3-week course (skipping beginners or intermediate courses), and even a few stints as Spanish interpreter.

Learning German and Italian

I cannot say that the same efforts were made for German and Italian, two other languages that I started learning during this period.

After my year at Ottawa-U, I transferred to McGill University in Montreal in the biology department. Yep, biology, nothing to do with languages. This was solely because I was aiming for med-school afterwards. However, once I fulfilled all the science course requirements, I used most of my elective credits on languages and on music courses. First year, first session (fall session), I took up German. Then the next summer, I took intermediate German in an exchange program organized by University of Victoria. The 6-week course itself took place in Kassel, Germany. But I must admit, I definitely don’t speak as much German as my A’s would suggest. The biggest reason? Most Germans spoke more English than I did German. I found it hard on my pride to start a conversation in German and they automatically switch over to English, and this would happen all the time. I know that they mean well, but it definitely didn’t help my German. With that experience, when people speak to me in a foreign language, I would always return the dialogue in the language spoken by the other person, even though it could take more time, or the contents of the discussion could suffer. If somewhere along the way, they give up and go into their native tongue, then I’ll adjust to them. But I will always honor their effort to speak by keeping the dialogue in their language of preference.

After the German course, I traveled around Europe for the rest of the summer. Among my stops was a few days in Italy. So why not learn some Italian? Again, why not. Upon entering Italy from Germany, I went straight to the bookstore and picked up a few pocket dictionaries. Immediately I talked to people on the streets. The best are the grandmas. They always had time and were eager to help a young lad. And the best part was that, unlike the Germans, Italians who spoke English were much harder to find. So I would ask where the station was, or where a certain park or other monuments were, etc. But of course, when people tried to explain the directions to me, it would often be too fast and too complicated and I would have to rely more on their body language than the spoken language. But if you ask again at the next street corner and repeat the exercise a few times, the same words come back, and expressions stick. And sometimes you even make friends. So the purpose of course is not really about finding out where the station is. I can read maps very well. It’s about communicating and maximizing use and expanding your vocabulary set.

Learning Italian was so much fun during my 10-day stay that I took up intermediate Italian (skipping beginners) at McGill upon my return to Montreal.

But after taking university courses in these two languages, I’ve confirmed one thing: I’m not very good at learning languages formally or academically. Don’t get me wrong, I got excellent grades for these courses. But I just didn’t like writing essays and going to the language labs to listen to those pointless tapes (I did enough of that for my Spanish). And as a result, I didn’t retain much.

Also, I found out something else. Originally, I thought one day I would also learn Russian and Arabic and God knows what else. But I started feeling that even with German and Italian, I was already spreading myself too thin. That’s when I decided that from that point on I would spend minimal energy on these and any additional languages and concentrate on truly mastering the 5 that I already knew much better, i.e., English, French, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish.

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part III: 13-18 years-old)

2010-02-21T20:54:00.000+09:00

I had a choice between Australia and Canada. Each had its pros and cons. In Australia, I would live with my father’s friend/business acquaintance, apparently a very rich man living on a ranch with his own helicopter. In Canada, I would live with my aunt (my father’s little sister). Oh, minor detail, I would have to learn French as this would be in Quebec.
I chose Quebec.

My aunt’s family consisted of her husband, a Quebecer whom she met in Taiwan when he was carrying out missionary work there, 3 children (two girls older than me and one boy younger than me), and a huge St-Bernard called Benji.

I arrived about 2 weeks before school started and my cousins helped me absorb as much French as possible before classes would begin. Despite their great efforts however, my first day at my new high school would still turn out to be an integral reenactment of the first day at my new American kindergarten described in the previous post. Everybody spoke gibberish.

In a round of self-introductions, I would get my own turn to speak gibberish. I challenge you to introduce yourself in front of the whole class with a set of vocabulary that consisted essentially of “oui”, “non”, “je m’appelle Tetsu”, and “j’aime la poutine”. Gotta be creative.

But doing that little speech in French was only the tip of the language iceberg in comparison to studying all the subjects (math, geography, social studies, religion, etc.) in French! Anyway, my best subjects were, not surprisingly, English and math. But I very clearly remember my first grade in French language: 70%. Definitely not my best, but not too shabby for 2 months of learning, eh? Soon Mme Vadnais, the French language teacher was telling students in other classes: “You should all be ashamed of yourself and learn from Tetsu in Class 1H!” And before you know it, I would have complete strangers come up to say hi to me, no thanks to my exotic charms, but actually to some nerdiness. In fact, yes, some people called me a “bollé”. But since I didn’t really know that they were calling me a nerd, I waved back with a smile.

At this school, thankfully again, there was another cute girl who played the same role as Rachel did for me (see previous post). Her name was Katia. One of those people whose name fits perfectly with the person. Sweet. Every time she sees me, she would say “Tetsu~!” with such a cute melody that the whole class picked up on it immediately. Katia says “Tetsu~!”. Class says “Tetsu~!”. Well, let’s just say I’m glad people learned my name rather quickly.

You know, coming out of this high school after 5 years (in Quebec, high school is 5 years, not 6), I really have minimal recollection of hardship, even in the first year. Of course, doing social studies is boring enough as it is without it having to be in French. But in reality I wasn’t doing that much studying anyway, as I was wayyy too busy enjoying all sorts of new experiences with my friends: hockey, skiing, snowboarding, soccer, trips, games, parties, etc.

In retrospect, carrying out these fun activities with my friends allowed me to improve my French more than any language course could possibly accomplish! Do you see where I’m going with this? I don’t first learn how to speak a new language perfectly, and then go out to make friends using that language. I do what I love to do and pick up the language, and friends, while I’m at it. Please remember this point, as it will be the foundation of my language theory: Contextual Language Acquisition Philosophy (CLAP), which I will cover in later posts.

Finally, high school is a fragile period in the time of adolescents. Given that I was thousands of miles away from my parents, I feel extremely fortunate to have been surrounded by great people in those days, including my best friend Greg, who is also an accomplished linguist in his own right. I am also glad to have reconnected with many other friends from those good ol’ days on Facebook.

Thanks to all these great people, I have turned out all right.

Haven’t I?

Tetsu’s Road to Multilingualism (Part II: 6-13 years-old)

2010-02-18T01:00:00.000+09:00

My parents planned out two grandiose language assimilation schemes for me in this second part of my linguistic history.

Natural Japanese learning in Japan

The first began around the age of 6, when they started sending me to grandma’s place in Japan to spend all my summer vacations there. I had been there a few times before, but this time would be the beginning of annual summer visits. In some years, I also had the privilege of going there for Christmas. Although these visits lasted from a few weeks to a few months, this full-time immersion allowed me to naturally “be” a typical Japanese kid.

First, I loved watching cartoons and other programs on. And the obvious effect of watching Japanese TV is improvement in Japanese language. However, there were other advantages also. For example, I had to read the TV guides everyday in Japanese in order to know what programs were on, and plus I had common topics to talk about with my friends. Another thing I loved reading were comic books. Doraemon, Inachu, City Hunter, I read them all. Great ways to absorb language don’t you think?

Also, just like any Japanese kid in those days, I also loved playing Famicon (Nintendo). I didn’t have one myself, but I loved going to visit my friend Masato and we would play Takahashi Meijin’s Aventure Island all day. It goes without saying that Masato helped me improve my Japanese much much more than I helped his Mandarin or English.

I was also an absolute fanatic of remote controlled cars. My first one was the Tamiya Boomerang. I think it was about 400$ in those days. Pretty expensive toy for a kid my age. But that’s not how my parents’ logic work. Later I would build many more of these cars throughout my childhood and adolescence, some for myself, but more often for my friends. Also, I would modify my cars and equip them with the latest accessories. And whether it is to build a new car from scratch or add new parts to my cars, every time I had to read instruction manuals cover to cover in Japanese. But when one is motivated, it’s a pleasure! And the resulting impact this would have on my Japanese learning was immeasurable. Do you think you can achieve this kind of results with the few hours of language instruction that you buy with 400 bucks? Will you EVER be as interested in the teaching material as I was in what I was reading? Didn’t think so. Now, it doesn’t seem so expensive if you see it this way, huh? Plus, on a nice shelf at home back in Canada, I still have all the cars that I built, including of course, my wickedly upgraded Boomerang.

When I think back, the time spent in Tokyo in those years were crucial for my smooth integration into the Japanese society and workforce when I started my career in Tokyo a few years ago (more on that in later posts).

American elementary school in Taiwan

Now let’s switch gears to the second big scheme of this childhood period in my life, which was my transfer from a Chinese kindergarten to an American school. As I write this, I’m having flashbacks of my anxious self asking my parents countless questions before the big transfer. I of course had no idea what English was and I tried incessantly to convince them to tell me that everyone also spoke Mandarin.

Then came the dreaded first day at the new school. I vividly remember that day my father brought me to the new school. Late, of course, as my father always was in those days. We entered the room, interrupting a bunch of kids playing in the presence of the teacher. And my worst fears came true! Not only did they NOT speak Mandarin, they all looked like the strange people in foreign movies!! (…except their lips matched their speaking) Some white, some brown, all weird.

But, in a matter of minutes, I would forget about all that. A cute blond girl by the name of Rachel came to say something to me, and immediately all the fear was overtaken by curiosity (not sure if I’m using the word “curiosity” in the right way here, but oh well). And I had not the slightest clue what she was sayin’… but who cares! I’m now the new hotshot in class and all the babes wanted me! (Hmmm, now that I think about this, what did she say to me? Rachel, if you’re reading this, do you remember? What? You don’t remember this encounter?!)

I would spend 7 years of my childhood and graduate from 6th grade at this wonderful school, resulting in English becoming my first language. Of course, more than the language, the high caliber education I received and the amazing friends that I have made in those days have played an integral part in shaping and forming me into who I am today. And the most incredible thing is that I have found almost all of these friends and teachers on Facebook! Amazing. God bless Facebook.

I would celebrate my 13th and last birthday in Taiwan before my next big step: Moving to Quebec, Canada.

Tetsu’s Road to Multiligualism (Part I: 0-6 years-old)

2010-02-14T04:58:00.000+09:00

Early in this blog, I guess I should start by telling you about myself, and the easiest way is of course, in a chronological description, which I will divide into a six-part series. You can read those that correspond to your age and get ideas for yourself, or perhaps you can read the earlier ones for inspirations on how to raise your kids. Of course, these are overviews, but if you would like me to develop certain examples in more detail or have other requests, please let me know! So here goes.

My father is from Taiwan and my mother is from Japan. Question 1: How did they meet? Well, my father left Taiwan in his twenties to work in the Hong Kong movie industry, while mom was working for an airline at that time. See the connection? (pun intended…) Didn’t think so. Well, you see since my dad spoke Japanese, he was also doing some side work as a tour guide catering to Japanese tourists. And since mom was working in the airline business at the time, given the wonderful perks of flying anywhere you want practically for free, an innocent weekend shopping trip to Hong Kong would change her life forever. By a stuntman disguised as a tour guide (oh, I forgot to tell you he was a stuntman…, not front man).

So I was born.

Born to be multilingual

Well, right away you can see that I was immediately blessed with the possibility of learning 3 languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese. However, my family would move back to Taiwan when I was 8 months old, so I never really got around to speaking Cantonese. But I’m glad I got Mandarin, the official language of Taiwan and the most spoken Chinese. But as some of you may know, there are other important dialects in Taiwan, including Taiwanese and Haka. When I was a kid, all my friends, neighbors, and most significantly, my nanny, spoke Taiwanese so I had to use it all the time. Also, all my family on dad’s side spoke Haka, so growing up I had to use that also. Today, I cannot speak these two dialects fluently, but I can maintain a conversation with people speaking to me in Taiwanese or Haka and me responding in Mandarin.

Also, I should add that during this period, other than speaking with my extremely busy mother, a significant contributor to my strengthening of Japanese were Japanese videos that my mother would rent for me. So, growing up in Taiwan, I was watching all the cartoons that were popular in Japan at that time, including The Battle of the Planets (“Gacchaman”), Lupin III, Doraemon, Ultraman, etc. I will definitely discuss these in more detail in later posts.

So there you go, you now know about the origin of two of my fluent languages, Mandarin and Japanese, and two dialects to which I have had significant exposure to growing up, which today I can only understand but barely speak.

Alrighty, I’ll wrap up “Part I” here. Stay tuned for 6-13 years-old!

Introduction

2010-02-11T00:00:00.000+09:00

Hi everybody! Today is Feb. 11, 2010. My birthday in this new decade. Also the year of the tiger, my year in the Chinese horoscope. Something's in the air. I can feel it. This is my year.

When I started my first blog, back in 2006, I also felt something in the air. And in fact, many great things did happen to me that year.

So I start this new blog on "Languages" with tremendous enthusiasm, as languages have not only fascinated me my whole life, but have broadened my horizons in ways no other acquired skills could. Note however, that my purpose will not be to give you lessons on any specific language or to let you in on the latest secrets on how to learn a new language in 5 minutes flat. There are ample other blogs/websites for that. Here, I would like to share my language-related experiences, philosophies, and advice. Of course, I hope students can draw some benefits from my various language learning tips and methods, but it goes beyond that. This blog will be far from being restricted to "learning" languages, but will also be about how to "apply" languages in highly practical ways, from making amazing friends around the world to landing and succeeding in your dream job. Furthermore, I wish to accomplish one more important objective with this blog, and that is, by describing how my parents raised me to become a multilingual, I hope to provide precious hints to all the loving parents out there on how to raise their own children to become world citizens of the future.

Anytime you have any comments, questions, or requests, please do not hesitate to let me know. You can of course write comments in every post, but you can also find a gadget (Cbox) for general comments in the side bar, or you can simply email me (asktetsu@gmail.com). Also, to keep up with new posts on this blog in real-time, you can use the "Email alert" at the top, or use other popular tools, including RSS and Google Friend Connect.

And hopefully, in my last post of this year, I will be writing about the success of this blog as one of my highlights of 2010! Please enjoy the ride with me.