13th March 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
While at school, I was a relatively linguistically able student. I studied Latin and French at A-level and went on to continue studying Latin while beginning ancient Greek ab initio at university. I know that there are several pitfalls that come with learning languages – especially the difficulty with irregularities in the grammar of all languages.
However, ancient languages are learnt and taught in a very different way to modern languages and there are a number of things which one must conquer in order to converse in a language. In Latin and Greek, there was never need for us to do learn oral or aural skills but the focus lay with translation, grammar and vocabulary. The disciplined way in which we were taught the Classical languages does help for my understanding of the grammar of modern languages, and even of English itself. As my mother tongue, I will not have learnt the grammar in such a disciplined way as with other languages but can comprehend it from my acquired linguistic knowledge.
It would seem however that most language learning skills could be formed through disciplined self-awareness. These include listening, being curious about your language and not rigid in your thinking about it, not learning through a single method and speaking the language without fear. Most of these seem to be to do with the attitude of a student when learning their new language.
With languages there always comes much uncertainty as well as different approaches to learning. If a student is incapable of coping with the ambiguous nature of another language that is not their mother tongue as well as different skills to learn it, they will find the experience frustrating. However, those learners who immerse themselves in the language, are not afraid of making mistakes and are culturally curious, these are the ones who will excel and improve quicker.