Learning languages requires travel.
To learn Mandarin, pack at least a year’s worth of clothing and get on a plane to China.
Classroom study lays groundwork, but there is no avoiding the need to move. Serious language learners need to live in the country where the target language is spoken. Snarky speakers of more than a few languages give another tip. If you really want to learn a language, once you get to that new country, start dating a local.
There’s a playful truth to bedroom language study, but finding a local boyfriend, girlfriend or any friend reinforces the same idea. Even if you’re happily tied to a partner, living abroad is still essential.
The more you immerse yourself in a language, the quicker you’ll learn.
Immersion works.
Why is learning Spanish so much less successful in class than learning Spanish in Mexico City?
Partly it’s the failure of classroom instruction. Professional educators admit this begrudgingly. Foreign language teachers defend their work but readily admit how much better it is to immerse oneself in the culture of a new language. Surrounding yourself by the voices, writings and signs of a foreign language all day every day is far superior to once-daily language classes.
In math or science, classroom teaching works just fine. Traditionalists and reformers debate whether classroom instruction works better in flipped, personalized, project-based, competency-based or traditional classrooms. But for math or science, all of them could work.
Foreign language learning is different. Moving to an immersive environment makes the whole world a classroom.
People agree nearly universally that immersion is the best way to learn. People also agree nearly universally that the world is shrinking. Travel today is cheaper, faster and easier. Jobs are more global. Cultures are more connected. Most people know these truths yet most people continue to find excuses not to make a priority of learning a new language.
The excuse triangle
Excuses abound for why everyone from the young to the elderly don’t learn new languages.
Technology utopians make the provocative claim that learning languages is becoming unnecessary. They dream of digital devices that create fluid, live, distinctive translations. Older students use the excuse that they are just too old. Some say certain languages are no longer relevant. Still others say they just can’t do it. The implication of this “I Just Can’t” crowd implies they lack some nebulous combination of will, ability and resources.
All the excuses are wrong. Everyone can learn languages.
Excuse one: Technology
Technology will never replace the value of knowing multiple languages. Technology will never come close to connecting people with the depth of connection that comes from people speaking the same language. Learning a language is learning a culture. Just translating words doesn't come close to understanding the subtle meaning and beauty behind different linguistic structures.
Digital translation loses the rhythm, pacing and flow of two people speaking. Translation machines destroy context. Digital translators see no facial expressions or hand gestures. They skip relevant histories and miss vocal musicalities.
But what about the future? The Great AI Awakening, an article by Gideon Lewis-Kraus in the New York Times told the story of Google Translate’s overnight transformation. The day before, Translate produced nearly meaningless translations. The next day Translate had grown instantly into an eloquent and literary-grade professional interpreter. It’s a fascinating story of the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. But it’s not a story of languages or language learning.
Despite Google’s impressive leap, Translate still misses far more than it catches. It can’t see and doesn't translate body movements. It misses social contexts. If you see a red octagonal sign on a post near an intersection, you can guess the word inside is “stop.” Seeing 停 by itself won’t do much if you don't know Mandarin.
Digital translation misses visual and audio context. If you hear creepy music in a movie, see a cape-clad man with fangs hide around a dark alley corner, notice that he gives a devious look around and see note his increasing excitement as a young woman approaches innocently to her doom, and if that vampire mutters words in a foreign language, you can guess at his words better than Google Translate.
Cues are context. Digital technologies are far from understanding subtle contextual differences like humans.
The real value of knowing languages is knowing context and culture. Any human living today who uses the excuse that learning a language is unnecessary because of tech misses the larger value of language learning. Language learning teaches cultures, connects people, builds inter-cultural trust and inspires those who want to live, work and play together. Digital translators miss all of life.
Excuse two: Relevance
If you speak English, Spanish and Mandarin, you can talk to two-thirds of the planet.
China’s students are studying English. Parents in China understand the value of preparing their kids for a global future.
Few American parents by comparison push their children to learn Mandarin. Even those American parents wanting to give their kids an early foundation in a language typically choose a more familiar European tongue over a more distant Asian one. This both an innocent and intentional mistake.
Economists agree that the future of work is international. Tom Friedman famously admonished American children to learn Mandarin. Without it, he warned, tomorrow’s workers won’t understand what their bosses are telling them. When American parents hear Friedman’s warning, it stings. They feel fear, anger and denial. Muc of those feelings are rooted in judgements about Asian values, governments or politics that are rarely considered when pushing their child toward Spanish or Italian studies.
The reasons for a fearful and angry reaction aren’t rational, but the causes are easy to find. Fear of the unknown is part of it, and China’s government is its own worst enemy in this arena. But fear of the unknown is not the whole story. Arguing a child shouldn’t learn a language when you know it will benefit the child is a good reason to slow down and do some reflection.
Explicit and implicit biases peek out from behind the thin veil. Keeping children close and pushing them toward only the languages of familiar places and cultures prioritizes nostalgia over practicality. Defending liberal democracy and human rights is important, but parents don’t prohibit their children from studying business because Amazon messed up last week’s delivery.
The American Dream is alive and well. It’s just in China, certainly in terms of optimism. Sure, China’s economy will slow down, but the long game favors its growth. Already today, plenty of twentysomethings are buying one-way tickets to Shanghai and getting good growth potential jobs where they live for a few fun years, earn more than they could imagine in the US and save half their incomes. They have to hold their nose at the stigmatizing authoritarian government, but for enterprising spirits, China is the wild west of possibility.
On top of that, Francis Fukayama may be right. Greater freedom, human rights and liberal democracy may be in China’s future once it grows confident in its own ability to thrive in the global order.
Regardless its government, China’s parents are betting on the value of intense English immersion. American parents would do well equally betting on the value of their kids learning Mandarin. Knowing Mandarin is a key to future opportunities.
Excuse three: “I’m too old” and “I just can’t”
You are never too old to learn. The mind is designed to learn, and you learn those things with which you fill your days. Spend all day reading, and you learn reading. Spend all day complaining, and you learn complaining. Spend all day studying Mandarin, and you learn Mandarin. Spend your days making excuses, and you learn excuse-making.
The social language
The social language of a school matters. Students can learn a language in school, if the social language is the target language.
Most of us forget or ignore the importance of the social language of a school. Most of us mistakenly overemphasize what happens in class and underemphasize what happens in the hallways, between classes, at lunch, at basketball games, during theatrical performances and during school dances. If you want to ensure your child learns a new language, make sure the social language of the school is the target language.
If you thought about it, you already knew the language used for socializing matters. But even if you already send your child to schools that claims to immerse children in Spanish, French, Mandarin or Italian, you probably see the social language slip back to English.
Creating nudges encouraging socializing in the target language works because immersion is linear. The more students immerse, the more they learn. This is just a school organizational numbers game. Many students will seek refuge with peers speaking their mother tongue. But when the critical mass of students in a school socialize in the target language, most of them will learn the target language.
When the social language of a school isn’t the target language, parents are naïve thinking the school will do much to help children learn that new language.
A second priority for parents should be getting to kids into language study early. When you are young, it’s not even language study. It’s just living in a time of pre-myelination brain development. Sure, it would be most valuable to send your child to China when they are barely out of diapers, but most parents aren’t comfortable with sending their children away that early. The earlier, the better is still a good rule of thumb. Parents who see the value in their children learning Mandarin and willing to let go for a couple months will discover their 4th and 5th graders are rather well prepared to learn Mandarin.
Traveling to a host family and a host school in China for just a couple months will have a greater impact upon a learner than years of classroom study. Repeat this process often, and the benefit is lifelong fluency.
Linguists know this. Teachers know this. Parents know this.
Why schools don’t build large-scale international exchange systems into their programs is the question.
A large-scale, annual multi-month program of international study is not that hard to arrange. Plenty of excellent schools in China would take cohorts of kids for 8-week stints in exchange for the US school taking cohorts of Chinese kids. Travel abroad, learn and socialize, and then repeat.
If you’re interested in hearing more, reach out to me. I’m producing a pathway to Mandarin-English bilingualism for schools tied to exchanges, partnerships and projects. Sign up here to get the pathway when it’s ready.
Based in Shanghai, John Heintz is a consultant, writer, teacher and attorney working on cross-sector issues facing the global community. John Heintz’s experience as an education sector legal advisor and management consultant contributed to the range of issues presented in his most recent writing at Second Rail Education, his resource for school leaders. Follow John here.