Hacking Language Learning: Dr. Conor Quinn at TEDxDirigo

Do you have some apprehension to start learning a new language? In this talk, Dr. Conor Quinn will attempt to ease your concerns, offering you an out of the box approach to learn a new language.

A big part of why I work
with endangered languages,

is because I am myself
a descendant of a speech community

that even today
is struggling to survive.

Look at the name over there,

you can probably guess
which one it is.

But, for many of my friends,

language loss
is much more immediate,

much more intense.

For them, it's loss of a chunk
of their sovereignty.

A connection to their past.

A connection to their cultural wealth.

A grounding in their history.

In my work, I've seen
time and time again,

just how wrenching it can be

for parent and child,

a grandparent and a grandchild,

to become disconnected
in a way that goes

far beyond any kind
of natural generation gap.

But even if you care,

even if you sympathize,
you may think,

"Well, endangered languages
just aren't worth saving."

Because you probably think
they'll cost a fair bit to save.

Not just money,
but also time, energy and attention.

And these are things
that're all in short supply these days.

Especially so for a lot
of these communities,

which are often faced with
even more immediate,

even more material challenges.
But what if it cost next to nothing?

Next to nothing
to learn a new language?

What if we could radically reduce

linguistic entry costs?

Well then the arguments
against sustaining linguistic diversity,

would not sound so reasonable.

Because all of us

could easily jump
from language to language,

just to show respect
to our host or our guest.

Or to enjoy the expressive capacities

that this particular language allows us.

Or simply because between you and me,

this language is the one
I feel the most like home.

So the obvious question is,

how long does it take
to learn a new language?

Not perfectly,

not you know, without a single error,

not even fluently, but just enough
to get your foot in the door.

Enough to get started,

to get going, enough to join
that speech community and be part of it.

Well, in my experience,

it's about a week or so.

And you know,

I was just as shocked
as you to discover this.

In the summer of 2003,
after just 10 days in Bulgaria

with my new in-laws,

I was able to talk well enough

to translate for my sister when she came.

And then the same thing happened
again the next summer.

I went to the Czech Republic
for my cousin's wedding,

showed up about a week early,
and by the time the wedding rolled around,

I was just chatting away
with all my new Czech relatives.

I wasn't fluent and I wasn't flawless
but I was effective.

Now real fluency, in my experience,

does take a long time,

does take hanging out
with the speech community.

But still, just one week and change

to get a foot in the door.

To be able to party with the chicks.

To be able to hang on Bulgarian cafes

and order French fries with aplomb.

That seemed like an idea worth sharing.

Now of course,
I'm a trained field linguist,

so you probably think,
"You're self selected.

You've got experience.
You've got talent." Right?

But when I do it,

it doesn't feel at all like talent,

and not much like experience either.

All it feels like is a really clear
sense of what to do.

How to handle vocabulary,
pronunciation, grammar,

and more than anything else,

how to make it through any conversation.

And this is what I think we're missing

when we struggle with languages.

When we fall to learn languages.

We all get taught languages,

but we don't get taught
how to learn languages.

I've been working on that
for quite some time.

On how to translate the experience,

the skill set of a trained field linguist
into a form that anybody,

any of you can pick up quickly

and use to become active learners,
confident learners,

who can step right out into the street,
the scary street of real-life language use

with very little fear.

And if we can do this,

then it doesn't just change

how you and me learn languages,

but it also has the potential
to radically reshape

how linguistic majorities
and linguistic minorities

can live and work together
in the same world.

Because now,
separate linguistic traditions

are no longer communicative obstacles,

but actually resources.

Social, cultural, intellectual,

even emotional resources
that we can all share and enjoy together.

So, how do we do it?
How do we get that foot in the door?

At least that foot in the door.

First and foremost,

what we need to understand
is our own psychology.

We need to understand that it's the social
and the emotional aspects

of language learning
that decide everything.

Because when we first start
to learn a language,

it's humiliating.
Embarrassing. It's frustrating.

So this gets you guys all rushing
at the door to go learn a language.

But this is because as adults,
as teenagers,

we measure ourselves on how well
we can present ourselves with our words.

And in a new language
we lose that control,

and we run screaming away from that.

We dodge conversations.

We hide on a linguistic sideline.

We do anything to avoid
a simple face-to-face conversation,

which is the one thing, the only thing
that's going to make us better.

And as English speakers in today's world,
the world is very accommodating of that.

It makes it very easy for us

to indulge in our instinct to just bailout

when we get linguistic stage fright.

So what do we do?

Well, the short answer is,

we learn to check our shame at the door.

We learn to embrace this loss of control,

enjoy the fact that we've been

--more or less involuntarily--

given a second childhood
in a new language.

Right?

So, if we can do this,

then we have learned to shift our job,

reframe our job.

To not from trying to seek out perfection,

not making any mistakes,

but instead, just learning to cope well.

And the best place to learn
linguistic coping skills

is through simply learning
how to improvise.

Learning how to use description,
metaphor, analogy.

To work around the words
that we don't know.

So for example, if I don't know
how to say tiger in your language,

I will say, "It's a thing,
it's like a cat but big and orange,

and the one behind you
looks a little bit hungry."

(Laughter)

It's these clunky
but effective descriptions

that actually get us through
any conversation.

And when we learn
to congratulate ourselves on them,

when we realize that,

"Wow, this person actually
understood what I said,"

then we feel good about ourselves.

We find they understood what I said

and now, even better,

they're telling me how to say it right.

That's a language lesson
that we will never ever forget.

Never.

So, there's actually
a second lesson inside this,

which is that, language
is not all on you.

When you and I speak together,
we make meaning together.

So learning to cope well

in an another language,
is as much, if not more,

about learning to lean
on the other person's

full and complete knowledge
of the language

and even more
on their willingness to help you

make this conversation happen.

So again,
if we learn to reframe our task,

reframe our job,

as being effective, not perfect,

then every conversation stops being
this potential minefield

of embarrassing mistakes and errors.

Instead, it's an exciting place
for us to come back to every time.

Because you get to be your own MacGyver.

You get to rummage around
in your linguistic pockets

and pull out a toothbrush,
a button and a paperclip,

and couple that all together

and somehow pull off
the communicative job.

Right?

When you feel that thrill
of being a linguistic hero

time and time again,

you come back to conversations,
you seek them out, you want to be there.

And when you approach
the task like that, well pretty soon,

you find yourself fairly close to fluent.

So that's how we cope
with linguistic stage fright.

With linguistic performance anxiety.

Which is 90% of what holds us back.

The only thing left
is of course the language.

All the pronunciation.
All the grammar.

All the vocabulary.

It's really intimidating,
but mostly because

we're all trying to juggle it all at once.

We've got no way to organize it.
No way to prioritize it.

There is a way.

What we need is a simple,
practical understanding

of the design features of language.

So let me give you
just a brief taste of that.

Take pronunciation.

Anybody can learn to pronounce
any sound in any language of the world.

Anyone of you. All of you.

If you don't believe me,
it's probably because

you've heard the following phrase,
"Listen and repeat after me."

That doesn't work. It doesn't work.

What does work, is learning
the clear and simple set of instructions

for how to move your mouth
to make that weird sound.

After that, all you need
is a little bit of exercise

to work your mouth
for that oral choreography.

And very soon you find
that your muscles limber up.

And what have seemed unfamiliar,

unpronounceable, unreachable even,

becomes almost as familiar
as every other sound

you have been saying your whole life.

So you don't need any special talent.

You don't need
any special ear for language.

You just don't.

But even more importantly,

is rhythm and melody.

When you go after
the distinct cadence of language.

When you try to internalize that,

that particular languages uses,

and use that as the foundation
of your own pronunciation,

well then, it turns out that
your own words come out fluently.

They flow in that cadence.

The cadence is the current
that carries all your words.

Even better, when you've internalized it

and you're waiting for it, expecting it,

then suddenly, something almost
miraculous happens.

Which is that, native speaker speech

suddenly doesn’t seem so fast.

Because it's that rhythm and that melody
that actually tells you

where the words begin and end.

So that's pronunciation,
but what about grammar?

Grammar is terrifying. Right?

It's only because we teach grammar

as a million little disconnected
arbitrary single rules,

when in fact grammars
are tiny little ecosystems.

Every little part
fits into every little part.

And if we look at those
ecosystems from the top,

we can see a very helpful simplicity,

which is that, all of those rules

fall down on one side or the other
of what we do when we talk.

Which is, we mention general concepts.

Things like cat and dog.

Events like bite and chase. Right?

And then we tie them into

the specifics of this conversation.

My cat, your dog,

that bit me, in yesterday's past tense.

It turns out all grammatical rules
actually fall somewhere along the line

between the general conceptual
and the conversation specific.

And once you play round
with this idea for a while,

grammatical rules become
extremely easy to remember.

Because now you know
where they live in the neighborhood

and what their relationships
are to their neighbors.

After that, the only thing
that's left is vocabulary.

Dictionaries full of all the words
you don't know yet.

But it turns out, we don't actually need
to know that much vocabulary.

Because we have our coping skills.

We can talk around the words
that we don't know.

We can listen, from context work out
a lot of the new words we're hearing.

And when all else fails,

now we know we have license
to simply ask for help.

So what words do we actually
need to learn first?

The short words.
The small words.

The little linking words.
"Thing" is one of them.

The words like: and, or, but, of, the,
who, what, when, where and why.

Because these'll get you
the most expressive bang for your buck.

These're the words that'll save you
when you need to deep in the conversation.

You know exactly what you want to say,

then you hit this wall

because you realize you've not learned
the word "almost".

(Laughter)

When you focus on those words
from the get-go,

you find you've the frame,
the outlines of language up and running,

and then there's only one thing left:
the rest of the language.

And there's a trick for this.

To prioritize the rest of vocabulary,

get what you need first,

you can start with
the egocentric experience of the body.

You say okay, my eyes, they see.

They see and they look.
My ears, they listen and they hear.

My hands, they pick up and put down.

My mind, it knows, it feels,
it loves, it understands,

and when it tries to learn a language,

sometimes it remembers
and sometimes it forgets.

When you get these words, these core
verbs of interaction and experience,

and tie them together
with all those little linking words,

it's a very small set of vocabulary
that you actually know,

but it happens to be precisely

the set of expressive tools that you need
to make your way through any conversation.

So, I hope that I have convinced you

that this is not just for linguists.

Anybody can learn a language.
Anybody can get that foot in the door,

which is the part that really matters.

You can do it. Right here. Right now.

All it really takes,

is a somewhat better sense
of where our emotions are at.

Where our heart is at
when we go to learn a language.

And also a better sense,

of how language actually
does fit into our minds.

And if this is possible

it means that joining
a new speech community

is much easier than you think.

That can take a lot of the pressure off
of the people who've been told,

"You need to abandon your small language
in favor of this big large language."

But there's more.

Every language that I have ever learned,

every language
that I even started to learn,

has radically reshaped
how I look at the world.

How I deal with people.

How I think. And that's lovely.

But even more important than that,
are the people that I've met,

and the ways I've been able to meet them

because of learning their language.

They have changed my life

in more ways that I can even
begin to describe here.

Up till now, that kind of opportunities

only have been available
to trained linguists

and the occasional genius savant polyglot.

But now, we all have the meat.

And so there's nothing more
I can say, except, go for it.

Good luck.

(Applause)