How do you learn to speak a language? 6 Minute English

Rob: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English -

the show that brings you an interesting

topic, authentic listening practice

and vocabulary to help you improve your

language skills. I'm Rob...

Neil: Watashi no namae wa Neil desu.

And that means 'my name's Neil'.

Rob: So Neil, here's a question for you -

can you speak any languages

other than English of course? I think you can!

Neil: Un poco de español

that means a little bit of Spanish.

Some Japanese, which I tried at the beginning

and also a bit of Czech language

Dobrý den. Jak se máš?

Rob: Very impressive. So what tips can you give

for learning to speak another language?

Neil: Well, practise, practise, practise -

and don't be afraid of making mistakes

as I no doubt have.

Rob: Of course. Well my aim this year is to master

the Spanish language.

Master means to learn thoroughly.

Neil: Muy bien! Well you're not alone.

A survey by the British Council found

learning a language is a new year's resolution

for about one in five Britons in 2018.

So learning Spanish is a good start Rob

but do you know approximately

how many languages there are in the world altogether?

Are there... a) 70, b) 700 or c) 7,000

Rob: Well I know there are many but surely not 7,000

so I'm going to say b) 700 -

but don't expect me to learn all of them.

Neil: I won't Rob. But I will give you the answer later.

So, we all know learning another

language is a good thing -

it brings us many benefits.

Rob: Yes, we can communicate with people

from other countries and when we're travelling

we can understand what signs and notices say.

So we don't get lost.

Neil: That's right - but many scientists also

believe that knowledge of another language

can boost your brainpower. A study of monolingual

and bilingual speakers suggests speaking

two languages can help slow down

the brain's decline with age.

Rob: All good reasons. But Neil,

learning another language is hard.

It would take me years and years to become

fluent in say, Mandarin - by fluent I mean

speak very well, without difficulty.

Neil: Well this depends on your mother tongue.

In general, the closer the second language

is to the learner's native tongue and culture

in terms of vocabulary, sounds or sentence structure -

the easier it will be to learn.

Rob: But whatever the language, there is so much

vocabulary to learn - you know, thousands

and thousands of words.

Neil: Maybe not Rob. Professor Stuart Webb,

a linguist from the University of Western Ontario,

may be able to help you. He spoke to

BBC Radio 4's More or Less programme

and explained that you don't need to do that...

Professor Stuart Webb: For language learners

in a foreign language setting - so for example

if you were learning French in Britain

or English in Japan,

students may often really struggle to learn more than

2,000, 3,000 words after many years of study.

So for example, there was study in Taiwan recently

that showed that after nine years of study

about half of the students had still failed to learn

the most frequent 1,000 words.

Now they knew lower frequency words

but they hadn't mastered those most important words.

Neil: So Rob, don't waste your time trying to learn

every single word. Professor Webb spoke there

about research that showed students

knew lower frequency words

but weren't learning enough high frequency words.

Rob: Right, and frequency here means the number

of times something happens - so the important

words to learn are the high frequency ones -

and how many are there exactly?

Neil: Here's Professor Stuart Webb again...

Professor Stuart Webb: For example, with English,

I would suggest if you learn the 800 most frequent

lemmas - which is a word and its inflections -

that will account for about 75 per cent of all of the

English language. So that learning those 800 words

first will provide the foundation for which you may be

able to learn the lower frequency words.

Rob: Fascinating stuff. And good to know

I just need to learn about 800 words -

or what he calls lemmas.

Neil: Yes a lemma is the simplest form

or base form of a word. And the inflection here

refers to how the base word is changed

according to its use in a sentence.

Knowing these things give you a foundation -

that's the basics from which you language learning

will develop. Simple!

Rob: Thank goodness I am learning just one

new language!

Neil: But how many languages could you potentially

be learning Rob? Earlier I asked you, approximately

how many languages there are in the world altogether?

Are there... a) 70, b) 700, c) 7,000

Rob: And I said 700. Was I right?

Neil: No Rob, you were wrong. There are around

7,000 recognised languages in the world

but UNESCO has identified 2,500 languages

which it claims are at risk of extinction.

Rob: A sobering thought Neil.

Now shall we remind ourselves of some of the English

vocabulary we've heard today. Starting with master.

Neil: To master a new skill, in this context,

means to learn thoroughly or learn well.

"Rob hopes to master Spanish

before he starts a new job in Madrid."

Rob: Really? That's news to me Neil!

But it would be good to be fluent in Spanish -

or any language

- or to speak it fluently - that's speaking it

very well and without difficulty.

Neil: Now our next word was frequency.

Here we are referring to high and low frequency words -

so it means how often they occur.

Examples of a high frequency word are

''it', 'the' and 'and'.

Rob: And our next word is inflections.

These are the changes to the basic form of words

according to their function in a sentence.

Such as adding an 's' to the end of a word

to make it plural.

Neil: And don't forget lemma which is

the simplest form or base form of a word before

an inflection is added.

Rob: And finally foundation which means the

basics your learning grows from.

Neil: That just leaves me to remind you

that you can learn English with us

at bbclearningenglish.com.

That's it for today's 6 Minute English.

We hope you enjoyed it. Bye for now.

Na shledanou! Hasta luego! Ja-ne!

Rob: And in English, goodbye.

Neil: Goodbye.