Comprehensible Input
I frequently see comments on my YouTube videos asking for more “comprehensible input” in languages like Chinese.
It’s honestly taken me a little while to really understand what many of you are asking for. I have to honestly admit that I’m not fully versed on the modern trends in the language learning world.
In fact, I was so befuddled by these requests and the things I had read about “comprehensible input” that I went ahead and made a video on the subject:
I do need to clarify something here, of course. I’m not saying that the Comprehensible Input method is one of the “worst” ways to learn a language.
I’m pretty sure you know I’m going to have to stick in a qualifier after that last sentence - a “but” or a “and yet” or something similar. And, yeah, it’s true. It depends on precisely what we mean by “Comprehensible Input.”
Based on my experience learning languages and making mistakes, I can assure you that the best thing to immerse yourself in your target language is to simply immerse yourself in it.
That actually means you should be watching television and movies at a level far more advanced than your current spoken level. And, yeah, I know a lot of people will tell you that you should take a more gradual approach, that you need to find TV shows that are at the A2 level or B1 level or whatever level it is that the European system uses. But I’m going to tell you right now that you’re more likely to give up on the language if you severely limit what you can watch and read.
My teenage daughter always teases me about my stories of the past. Back when I was in college, back when I was first learning Chinese and when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I spent quite a bit of time watching classic Chinese cinema. I think I watched every movie I could get my hands on, from well known classics like Farewell My Concubine and To Live to extremely obscure classics like the 1948 version of Springtime In A Small Town.
I’ll be blunt. I didn’t understand everything. I didn’t even understand half of what was going on.
But, you know what? It didn’t matter. You see, part of learning a language means exposing yourself to the natural rhythms and sounds of the language. And you’re not going to get that if you listen to a bunch of audio that is deliberately slowed down for foreign consumption.
Is that slowed down audio actually “Comprehensible Input?” Honestly, it seems that there is a group of language teachers out there that has claimed the term for their own, a group that sells access to specially produced videos that are slowed down and designed to appeal to a certain level of language learner.
The truth, though, is that you’ll never find a text or show or podcast episode or anything that is designed for your particular level. This is because you need to take ownership of your own language learning plan.
You don’t need to learn something in a certain way just because a certain guide told you to do so. In fact, if you’re following a certain procedure to learn whatever language it is that you’re learning, you’re more likely to give up out of frustration or exhaustion. You need to find something that you’re actually interested in, and you should never take some random person’s plan as the gospel truth.
The Latin subreddit offers this guide to Lingua Latina for new learners. I actually started following this method several years ago, back when I restarted my Latin learning. However, the proscriptions against memorization, translation, and all the rest are honestly a bunch of nonsense.
I know you guys want to activate some sort of magical language learning power in your brain, as if you could go back to how things were when you were 3 or 4 years old. But the truth is that you don’t actually need to do that.
It’s great to have a study method that teaches you things one step at a time. Lingua Latina is very well done and is fascinating. But, seriously, if you’re going to restrict yourself to only learning through a single textbook (or, in this case, a series of textbooks) for a year or more, you’re going to lose steam and lose interest.
Take a break now and then. Go find something really hard. Find one of those strange people that gives news reports entirely in Latin. Go read a psalm from the Vulgate, or go find a naughty ancient poem and try to figure it out, or read some Julius Caesar, or whatever.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my long language learning journey (and you should watch that video if you don’t believe me). However, I also occasionally did the right thing. One of the best things I did was reading James Legge’s translations of the Confucian classics at the very beginning of my Chinese study. I didn’t understand a word of the Chinese and, honestly, struggled with Legge’s archaic English. But the most important part is that it made the language feel alive and fascinating to me.
That’s the feeling you want. So get rid of the rules and restrictions and just have fun with the language, no matter which language it is.