Bias Toward Multilinguals?

Well, well, for the point about traveling, I'd also say.... there shouldn't be problems as long as you are rich enough. If you aren't, then you can have the same worries just mine.

>>I guess we have to ask more about Xie's techniques for learning without theories.>>

Forgot the write about this point. First, for linguistics, I didn't analyze German in the ways you would do with linguistic samples you see in any linguistics books. Just learn new words from time to time. For one thing, if it's too difficult, consult a dictionary. Many Chinese words were also so freaking difficult for me when I was a kid. And still, today, even as a supposedly highly educated person, my passive Chinese vocab (and English) is also crappy. I can't read poetry very well. I don't understand novels very well. I also suck in many daily life situations like calling a plumber. For another, if you're still in a bad mood after learning somehow, just remember that.... if you want to master it, you have to do it until you are as competent as the native speakers. But as long as you don't make it... it's not that bad after all. I'm satisfied with my present, limited German, and I'm willing to learn more in the future, and I have no worries. I don't force myself to read anything. Just do it at my own will. But unlike inconsistent learners, I keep enough learning materials in my hand. I don't do it like just keeping a phrasebook. I have COMPLETE courses. And with reference books (dictionaries, etc), they make up for the absence of a native speaker, at least partially.

And now, without theories: in Germany, I was so much tempted to hang out with people all the time that... I no longer learned German by reading books after I started to socialize. Instead, I relied on daily passive exposure and on talking to Germans at any time. But in my case, the German I used to ask for more German was based on what I learned (rather than acquired, at least partially) back home. So, for example, I used the German from Assimil to try on the Germans. Any words that I lack, I ask the Germans for them, or rephrase, or replace, whatever.

I've been glad to have tried so much German in Germany. I did it in practice, not at all in theories. The fact is that, as an adult (exchange student, male, Chinese), it happened that the Germans I met weren't quite passionate about teaching me German. First, I already speak a lot of Assimil German (it was confirmed correct at large). Second, I was asking for words/repetitions/requests/etc in German, not English. (the same even with train office officers, all the people on the street...) Third, the young Germans have in general the cultural trait of planning everything 1 or 2 weeks ahead, and at large they always say they are busy on some days or some other, and they never had the patience to teach me German, unless (seldom) in a relaxing environment, such as a bar. But we seldom went to a bar. That was different from most Chinese I know/witnessed who tried to introduce countless words and phrases of Chinese to everybody.

Now, back to "in theory". In theory, it does make more sense to acquire a language through oral input (or even completely through oral input, not written input) with a native speaker. I couldn't possibly learn any Pfälzisch or any other German dialect in Hong Kong. Nothing except Hochdeutsch. But do I need dialects anyway? Sometimes this isn't even the right question to ask. Like Pfälzisch, apparently there's practically no Germans that speak it in Hong Kong. At least, there's a slim chance of asking (somewhat impertinently) for someone who can. In short, given no reliable learning "materials", I can safely focus on Hochdeutsch all the time, even if I were staying in Germany. In Germany, I never learned any Pfälzisch or any dialects. But this is case-specific. In my country, quite on the contrary, it's better to learn a "dialect" - but no, Cantonese is a language in Hong Kong that you must learn to function well in the Chinese part of it. In Germany, I shouldn't try dialects anyway, given my level. My suspicion is that the discourses would be too difficult to understand, even if you translate them into Hochdeutsch mentally, to actually acquire the dialect/accent/whatever it is.

So, yes, I think trying to acquire German in Hong Kong, for example, is a limited situation (which most people can understand by common sense), where a dialect wouldn't be usually possible. But how do you deal with the silly reality of "so I can learn a lot of German in Germany, I improved a lot, but after getting back home, I lose German again gradually"? My idea is... if you have enough German in mind, you shouldn't be losing German that quickly, as somebody claimed, after his own stay for a year before my own stay. What is it built on? Again, in my case, during my learning (not acquisition; see the distinction made by Krashen) of German at home.

In fact, in Germany, one of my biggest discoveries is that, in fact, German children have to learn their language consciously by learning rules at school. In my life, I didn't really learn Chinese grammar. I heard of grammar, formally, only at university, where the teacher talked about word order (very important in Chinese) and sentence elements (SVO, stuff like that). But when I read about Duden's Lernhilfe books for German children.... it seems that, for the German lesson they have at school, they do have to learn the noun cases of German, the word order, the clauses, the genders, and so on. My own German teacher confirmed that the German kids do learn the four noun cases and have difficulties with den and dem (which both sound similar), two of the combinations you find for the definite article. Anyway, for those who don't know any German, it's just that German kids have to learn GERMAN GRAMMAR. (which isn't the case for Chinese kids). What's more, they have to learn the orthography of German, which is like how Chinese kids are supposed to write Chinese correctly. And in Germany, as I can guess, Hochdeutsch is taught everywhere, the "right" German that everybody should know.

So, now, back to theory: I now think it isn't that bad after all to learn, rather than acquire, German. German kids also learn by rules anyway. At least for the language that is called German. You can learn German too like German kids by studying the four cases. Perhaps the difference is they can possibly think far less than you. You think of exceptions, but they accept exceptions after corrections naturally. I "learned" German at home by learning rules, but if you consider how I tried Assimil German in Germany, then actually I was using the German I had "acquired" at home. Here is where learned German and acquired German actually blend somehow. But if I use Krashen's notion of learning and acquiring again.... in fact learning couldn't have been the main basis of building up my German for my stay. In fact, the longer I stayed in Germany, the more of learned German that I forgot. What I remember now is acquired German.

Importance of oral input:

during my stay, since I found it far more important to socialize, I almost gave up written German in favor of spoken German. Well, I think the point of oral input (in Germany) is (just) that........... you get more input without spending any efforts. That is to say, you don't need to read through many books in order to find a specific expression you want to learn. The point of oral input is then about real people. Books can't talk. The Germans can talk about German. Instead of finally discovering "ne" (which means oder? or nicht? or nicht wahr? in German) multiple years after self-learning, I discovered it one month after I arrived in Germany. So, in general, the point of oral input is just that it makes it FAR FASTER for you to receive input for German.

If you rely on written input only, or with (passive) oral input, like what I'm going to do in Hong Kong with no Germans (except a few students and my own teacher) available, then of course it takes far more time.

But let me make another point. The reality is that, in the world, no matter just how poor people learn English, no matter how crappy their English is/apparently is to other non-native speakers and even natives alike, how do people at large learn English? They don't even DO it with the Anglophones! Why? First, it's always hard to stay with Anglophones indefinitely unless you're married to an Anglophone, unless you move to their countries, etc. I spent officially 18 years after I first learned ABC before I could actually meet an Anglophone acquaintance and start talking to him about my own culture. At that point, it was impossible for him to correct my English, when my English was already largely transparent, and without a heavy accent that could be hard to understand. In that sense, I had acquired English, at least somehow, even without ever being accompanied by any Anglophones until that point of my life. It doesn't make sense by common sense, but I think it has been true for most English learners in general.

So, another point of oral input is just that you can prove acquisition without native speakers/real people makes sense by actually trying it on people, instead of learning it passively forever, and you can enjoy somewhat from socializing. But apart from that, after I return home, learning English without native speakers makes sense again. I can now safely stay in my home and do an English accent indefinitely until I can try English on a real Anglophone again.

With all such ideas in mind, I wouldn't say I "prefer" acquisition without native speakers. It's necessary only when you want to prove your ability and to socialize. In fact, after 4 months in Germany, after it had become impossible to learn any more young Germans, although I had planned to travel, I knew that it'd be impossible to learn any more German. I had better do it again in Hong Kong. Even given my level, it's no longer necessary to receive any more oral input in a German environment. (In other words, it's safe even if there were no Germans at all in Hong Kong, in my case). Acquisition at home and abroad are both necessary, but the latter makes sense more often because of the cultural competency you need to acquire and you can only possibly acquire abroad. Now, back in Hong Kong, I can no longer find all the beers I enjoyed in Germany. No more cafes, no more bars, but just mundane markets and supermarkets where I couldn't find any decent bread to eat. The Chinese can't make good, German-style bread in terms of nutritional value, so that I have to spend more to buy something similar instead. (I've come to realize such bread is bad. I used to have a lot, but now I won't)

It doesn't freaking matter whether I can ever see all those German acquaintances again. I can't even know if I can get back to Germany again. This is a sad reality that, I think, almost all travellers and language learners might have to face in most instances. So, instead of whining about it, I brought back home some German books that I have to order with great difficulty in Hong Kong. Those are all language books, some about German.

Face the reality. No matter it's English or German, second language learners often simply learn the language out of context, without the native speakers, not even in the country where it is spoken, and yet most of them make it to this country in order to study and work, with their mere linguistic competence. My relatives in Germany had to stay in Germany permanently, acquired German partially, have native-speaking offspring, and they are doing business perfectly fine in Germany while maintaining a thick accent. I did the same with English. I didn't really know how guys should socialize in the Anglophone context, especially in getting a date, even though I know a lot of English, until I met that acquaintance above.

And by common sense, I, too, don't think it's a good idea to separate the people from the language that far away, but...... really, Germany, in the past 4 months, was just a place for me to practice oral German and to get acquainted with real written German. Other than that, most of the German can be learned anyway in Hong Kong or in the room I lived during the four months, without consulting anybody except myself. WHY? I can tell you that, as a native speaker of at least one language, which is Chinese, I personally acquired Chinese, too, often completely alone. My parents gave me oral competency in Cantonese. Other than that, I learned most of written Chinese on my own without myself noticing it. As a kid, I learned that, in Chinese, people (used to) called dictionaries "mute teachers". In learning a language, especially one that is well structured and institutionalized, like all the major languages in the world, such as Chinese and German, dictionaries have been essential even for native speakers. And especially in reading, in Chinese or English or German, I can ONLY do it alone. No one can possibly help me read, do you understand? I asked the Germans to read letters in German for me just because I was functionally illiterate. But still, I wouldn't understand the letters until I learn all the written German within.

This is where my understanding diverges very far away from ordinary people who don't learn languages. The fact is...at least in my case... that while oral input is at times necessary abroad, and it's a good idea (and even essential) that you stay abroad to learn the culture there, which is so hard to learn at home, a lot of language can be and is better learned at home. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, the language programs I know of in Hong Kong, for example, all of them require students to have learned some of the local language, or even to have passed an official language exam, even before they can go to the target country. You should learn a lot of German, pass a certain level according to the European standards, and then you can go to Germany. I didn't do that.

An important difference about acquisition from decades before I write this post is that... now, with the internet, acquisition without native speakers is far easier. However, cultural competency still relies on whether you can stay at all abroad. The Internet, all that about it, all these just make it easier to learn alone. But apart from that...same with English and German, by common sense, it's far easier for me to stay abroad in order to acquire both the languages and a hot date.

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Trying to acquire a language as a kid/an adult, I know, the situation is a bit different. However, an adult just can't skip the same processes that kids go through for the linguistic competence. Of course, I know now almost everything I've seen in my life, until now, in Cantonese. But first, there must be something I haven't seen yet which is abroad. Second, I still don't know most of the names of these things in German and English. For this reason, it's better to learn them like a kid.

At large, (especially) for many (major) languages, reading almost always does you good. Again, I'm still with the notion that Lomb mentioned. But for the socializing aspect......... some people wrote about how language learning may affect their social life. I generally agree this IS an issue. However... at large I find it not that hard to maintain learning habits/routines, and in fact I've come to meet some German learners along the way. Spending my own time to learn German, which I can spend otherwise on other Chinese, also offers me more about German.

The rich reading cultures of all the foreign languages I am learning, and the cultural attractiveness, are perhaps what I'm learning languages for. In fact, I find it a better idea to learn languages, and above all, to get the most out of it by THINKING more about anything possible, anything that helps with your thinking ability, than to spend the time otherwise on other mundane matters. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot of things to master foreign languages, to think white, to speak white, to act white, and leave the kind of cultural desert I've always been trapped in. After my stay in Germany, I now hate it even more how freedom (in regard to things like socializing, sex education, and ... even thinking in general), space, and (job) opportunities are so terribly limited in my native city. Germany offered me all kinds of freedom except linguistic freedom (since I'm not a native), cultural (since I'm not a cultural native), nationality, race, etc. Germany, in a sense that most of you won't quite understand well, also offered the space I prefer. In fact, I find it more pleasant to be in Germany than in the Netherlands or Belgium. Germany is much bigger. I'm yet to see what kinds of opportunities it offers. But certainly, the more freedoms I acquire through my future efforts, the more possible it will be for me to, finally, enjoy freedom, space, and opportunities to the fullest extent in this country, which, I hope, wouldn't be totally absent by then in my native city.