Further Thoughts on Language Learning

Last semester, I acquired an old book from the free cart at school entitled Missionary Life and Work by Harold Cook of Moody Bible Institute. I haven't had the chance to read it until now, and oh, what a gem of a book I'm finding it to be! Even though parts of it are outdated (since it was written in the era when most missionaries sailed to their destination on a ship), there is still a great deal of wisdom to be found in its pages. I am underlining important things to remember all the time! You will probably see some of these portions of the book make their way onto the blog in the coming weeks as they are too good not to share.

But for today, I simply wanted to post a few quotes from Missionary Life and Work as pertains to language learning, for they have been an encouragement to me to keep persevering in this department.

"You must learn to speak to others in their language. Unless you do, you can never really communicate the Gospel to them. A message in an unknown tongue benefits nobody. Even a message in a language that is comprehended with difficulty is largely ineffective.

For example, you may have studied French in school. Then if you go and hear a message given in French, you may be able to grasp some of the facts that the speaker presents. You may gain a small amount of information, but the speaker will not move you to action. You spend all your effort in trying to understand what he says. There is no time to think of the implications of his statements. It is the message in our own familiar tongue that stirs us to action. What we hear then are not just words whose meaning we have to puzzle out. We are scarcely conscious of the words. We are hearing ideas, ideas with overtones of feeling that stir up a response within us.

Language is the missionary's major tool."

"Grammar alone is not enough. It will help you puzzle out the meaning of what is written. But until it becomes so much a part of you that you will apply it without conscious effort, you have not really learned the language. You haven't learned to talk until you cease to think of each separate word. What many people seem to fail to realize is that language is a matter of habits. You learn to express a though a certain way. You repeat it that way over and over until that form of words comes spontaneously to your lips whenever the thought calls for expression...Grammar is the skeleton, vocabulary provides the flesh to cover it, but only constant practice can make the language a living, working body."

"Practice what you have already learned on every possible occasion. This is one of the secrets of the rapid learning of little children. They don't hesitate to repeat what they hear in every conceivable situation. A new word is like a new toy. By practice they find out what they can do with it and what they can't. And they don't worry about their laughable mistakes. This is part of the learning process. If you wait until you can speak faultlessly, you will never speak. It is the one who isn't afraid to talk, in spite of mistakes, who makes the most rapid progress."