Currently My Favorite Hobby is Language Learning

Daily writing promptWhat is your favorite hobby or pastime?View all responses

My favorite hobby is language acquisition without memorization. I have discovered that languages are most effectively acquired not by lecture style lessons or by memorizing vocabulary, verb conjugations, and grammar rules. They are acquired by great persistence and tremendous exposure. That’s how you and almost everyone else in the world learned a first language. That’s how you can become conversational in a second or third or whatever language.

For two years I memorized a lot of French in high school. I passed both courses but promptly forgot almost everything I had “learned.” Later I decided I wanted to learn Spanish. I tried to learn it three different times in my life. Once I focused on a college course. Another time I concentrated on an audio course that I purchased from the US State Department. The third time I focused on studying grammar books. In all three cases I eventually gave up on Spanish.

Three years ago, I felt prompted to try to learn Spanish once again. I didn’t want to repeat what hadn’t worked for me, so I started thinking about how I Iearned English. I realized that I never even tried to learn my native language. I simply absorbed it by tremendous and continuous exposure over a few years. That’s all — no courses, no grammar lessons, no memorization, no study, no lectures — “nada” — only constant exposure.

I decided to try the same strategy with Spanish. I began to watch Spanish language videos on You Tube every day for one or more hours. I also started reading the New Testament in Spanish. At first, I understood almost nothing, but I stayed with it. It felt good to hear and to read Spanish without making any effort to learn anything. Free from feeling pressure to memorize, the words and sounds of Spanish became fun for me.

After nine months I went for two weeks to a Spanish immersion school in Costa Rica and stayed in the home of a local family that didn’t speak English. That almost got me off track. Although the teaching was done in Spanish there was more emphasis on learning grammar than on enjoying conversation. I began to feel pressure not to make mistakes so a couple of nights I laid in bed trying to force grammar and vocabulary to stay in my head. However, all that did was make me afraid to speak. Fortunately, I quickly got back on track.

About that time two Spanish speaking families moved in next door to me. They didn’t speak English, and they were very patient with my broken Spanish, so I’ve been able to practice with them a lot. I also started using Duolingo, but only for exposure to Spanish, not for language memorization. Later I began attending a Spanish conversation group once a week.

I now watch Spanish videos made for Spanish speakers about subjects such as history, travel, cultures, religion, geography, and even science. When I use Spanish subtitles, I understand almost everything — without them, maybe 50%. Yet I’m being patient and enjoying the journey. I am now conversational (yet with plenty of errors). When I come across a Spanish speaker I try to start a conversation. I’ve met many delightful people that way.

Along the way, I’ve had to resist and reject discouragement. My progress has been slow. In Spanish they say, “poco a poco,” (little by little). I’ve had to overcome letting the fear of making mistakes and of looking foolish stop me from speaking to people.

I just recently tried to ask someone to pass the napkins, but I used the wrong Spanish word. The word napkins is “servilletas” but instead I said “cervesas.” In Spanish I said: “Please pass the beers.” The people around the table laughed. Instead of feeling bad about my mistake, I laughed with them, and I kept speaking in Spanish with all my mistakes.

That’s how I learned my first language. I absorbed it by continuous exposure, and I began to speak it with multitudes of mistakes. That strategy also worked for you as a tiny child. It will work for you now if you will courageously and consistently do it.

If you’ve ever been around traditional church, you’ve probably noticed that they use a similarly ineffective strategy to traditional language learning. Week after week churches line people up and lecture them in religion for part of an hour.

People who want more than a mere lecture are put into Sunday school classes or small groups and given a less formal lecture there. Sometimes they are handed handouts to study and even asked to memorize a Bible verse.

Therefore, many people simply sit through church meetings in a daze (or even fall asleep). They don’t learn much at all. The people who do learn some Bible knowledge rarely enthusiastically and consistently apply it in their daily life. Their Bible knowledge is simply unused information.

Perhaps churches could learn something from the more effective language acquisition strategy. Maybe instead of presenting routine lectures churches could open the Sunday morning mic and allow the people present to actively strengthen and practice what they are learning by publicly sharing it and using it to encourage one another.

I have discovered that we humans learn so much more effectively when we speak and use what we are learning than when we just passively hear a lecture about it. If churches would engage people during Sunday services and free them up to give direct input, Christians would begin to come alive!

I’ve seen that happen many times. Person to person, in churches, and in my blog posts I’ve been advocating interactive church for more than 5 decades. Yet I’ve influenced very few people to embrace it as an ongoing part of their life. Still, I’m not discouraged. I’ll keep writing and speaking out “poco a poco” because I believe that the seeds I feel prompted to sow will bear their God-designed fruit.

If you would like to acquire a more powerful and intimate relationship with the risen Jesus Christ, google my book: Beyond Church: An Invitation to Experience the Lost Word of the Bible–Ekklesia.

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