Russel Beattie is another American Java geek living abroad, he's in Madrid. I'm enjoying reading about his experiences and viewpoints, he's a guy I can relate to. A few days back he has a post about learning foreign languages.
how many ridiculous things do you always hear about learning another language? How there's going to be a magical point where you just suddenly understand! How you'll one day cross this line and suddenly, you're dreaming in the other language! How great! All you have to do is spend an hour a day, five days a week for 9 months listening to a droning teacher babble on in the other language, a few vocabulary drills and some grammer homework and POOF! You're chattin' like a native! Or, I love this one, the only REAL way to learn another language is to live in another country so you're surrounded by it. Then you'll just "pick it up" quickly because it's everywhere. You'll be "immersed" in the language, it'll be so easy!
Take it from a once-monoglot who just spent the last two years learning Spanish that all these things you hear about learning other languages are all just complete lies. There's nothing magical about learning another language, believe me. It's hard-ass work.
True words, learning a language can't be done by osmosis. A friend of mine who has lived in China for many years advised me that ignoring the language is the worst thing you can do - it only develops a habit of regarding the language as meaningless background noise.
I'm a lazy, lazy man, I haven't worked nearly as hard as Russell at learning Turkish, and certainly not as hard as my mother-in-law would like ("Evet, cok tembelim, Anne"). I bought Teach Yourself Turkish, and took a course during my first three months here. Self study books aren't very useful for lazy people, but the course was crucial. I didn't come out of it speaking all that much, but I got the fundamental grammar. Since the course I've been learning very incrementally from the environment around me.
Although learning by osmosis is bullshit, being in a country where they speak the language is invaluable for the lazy student. The more contact you have with people who can't speak your own language, the better, it forces you to work. I'm sure very few people who live on military bases or work or study almost exclusively with English speakers learn to speak the local language worth a damn. I learn the most when I'm with my in-laws, who don't speak a word of English. With my wife I speak almost only English (very, very bad!)
But it still takes work to progress. You have to actively listen and ask questions to keep moving. I tend to notice certain words cropping up a lot, and realize they're something I really ought to know - those are the words that stick, whereas drilling on vocabulary tends to yield only a few words that I'll actually retain. But it's all necessary.
I've been here almost a year and a half now, and my Turkish is pretty meager. I usually can't follow conversations between Turks, although sometimes a topic comes up and I know, I understand, whoohoo! I can communicate though, which feels good. I have friends who have studied English, but with whom Turkish is easier, so that's got to be some kind of milestone.
If I could do anything differently, I would have gotten a tutor a long time ago. The classes got to be too much for me - the second course was packed into a month, and included students who were more advanced than me, so I couldn't follow most of the discussion and I ended up studying, testing, and forgetting most of the material. Bleh. A tutor would have helped a lot at that point.
Another bit of advice, this one also from my China-dwelling friend, is to shack up with someone with whom the only language you share is the one you're learning. This isn't an option my wife would let me try, but if it suits you, give it a try.
