if you are like me, then the idea of learning another language is great, but you lack
the determination to learn it.  where does this difficiency lie?  why is sit so hard to
just sit down and learn a few words a day and pick up another language?  if you think
about it, we can learn thousands of new things over just a few years, but people have
such a hard time learning a new language.  its only when necessity forces them that they
usually actually learn.  well, its not impossible.  in fact, its not even all that hard.



ok, now that i have turned the majority of you against me by saying it isnt hard, let me
explain that.  with the right techniques, it isnt hard.  without knowing how the human
mind works, however, its a real pain.  without knowing how your mind will latch onto new
information in a way that you can recall at will, you will have a hard time learning
another language.  and thats the problem.  when it feels like work, you WONT do it for
very long.  why?  its obvious.  the reason is, its frustrating.  incredibly so.
i cant tell you how incredibly defeated i felt after spent four hours one night trying
to memorize ten new words in arabic and then found out the next day that i couldnt
remember a single one.  that sucked.  i felt like a complete idiot.  the absolute last
thing i wanted to do after that was try to learn any more; i didnt want to feel like an
idiot again.

i had to learn though, so i ended up embarking on a journy that i am still on today.  i
started learning what works for ME.  first, i went to people who were supposed to know
how to help.  unfortunately, they didnt know how to help me.  they knew plenty of ways
to help me learn, things that others had done to help them along, but they couldnt help
me get to the point where a new word actually stayed in my memory in a way i could use
it. 

it was a constant battle between my self-confidence and my ambitions.  the first thing i
want to tell you is that you will need to find a way to keep yourself happy.  for me,
smiling helped.  actually, smiling was everything.  when i felt like i simply couldnt
figure it out, i would just smile and try anyway.  it made me feel silly, like it makes
no sense that i could be smiling when i feel absolutely horrible and dejected.  but,
that feeling was much better than feeling like im a total moron, so i kept at it.  it
usually led to fits of hysterical laughter, which always made me feel much better. 
its this feeling that allowed me to continue.  i was no longer focusing on how horrible
i felt, so i could sit down and study arabic without it tearing at my soul.
first, i tried to find out why it was so hard for me to learn new words.  i would be
able to understand them when i heard them or read them, but remembering them when asked
what the arabic word was for any given english word simply would happen.  i realised the
word.  thats when i decided to start memorizing the physical form of the word. since i
can sound the word out when i see it, maybe i could sound it out from a picture of it in
my head. maybe i could learn the way to write it and would be able to memorize the words
based on the physical form of the written word.  that would give me a picture in my head
that i can use, something in my mind that i can read when i start drawing blanks.


  it worked.  this is what i did:  i would spend time learning a new word and picture in
my head the way to write the word, starting with the first letter and continuing the
process until the last letter in the word.  i tested myself with each word, visualizing
each letter and refusing to move onto another word until i could correctly write and
pronounce each new word.  this was the revolution that got me on my way.  i had finally
figured out how to memorize these new words in a way that was actually going to help me.

if i was speaking arabic, i could just picture the word in my head and the process of
writing it, and i would be able to remember it.
this led me to another problem:  fluency.  i sucked at it. after applying this
technique, i was able to say anything i wanted, but i often had to stop and picture
every word in my head.  the result was me sounding like a two year old every time i
tried to speak.  actually, it was worse than a two year old.  at least a two year old
can speak a sentence without spending several second between each word trying to
remember how to say it.  i needed a better system, some way to be able to say the words
in my head without having to spend time thinking about them.

now, in class, my professors did have something that was intended to help with fluency. 
they would tell us to create x number of sentences in arabic including the new words
that we wanted to learn, and this was to help us to be able to speak them later.  well,
i sucked at it.  i was HORRIBLE!!  i would spend half an hour trying to recite each word
in a sentence so that i could use the one word that i wanted to learn in a sentence.  it
didnt work.  i could make a sentence, but i wouldnt remember how to say the word later
on.  after realizing this, i decided i needed a way to learn each word so that i could
say it the instant i wanted to say it.  after a while of playing around with words, i
found something that worked, and it was so simple that i kicked myself for no figuring
it out earlier.  i just replaced the english word with the arabic one, and would speak
sentences in english while using the one word that i wanted to learn in arabic.
my sentences would go something like this:  my wife crashed her seara(pronounced SAY-
ARE-UH) yesterday, she was driving home from work and wasnt paying attention and rear-
ended another seara.  i hope the damages arent too great, i really cant affored to buy a
new seara.


do you know what seara means?  if you think i was talking about a car, your absolutely
right.  i started using the arabic word in an english sentence, and just replaced the
english word with the arabic one.  this ingrained the meaning of the word in my head.  i
found that i if i tried this a few times with a word, it became incredibly easy to speak
an arabic word whenever i wanted too.  no longer did i have to think about the word. i
could just say it, since i was used to just saying it.  i found that if i could say an
arabic word spontaneously in an english sentence(which was easy to do) i could say it in
an arabic sentence just as easily. 


this opened the whole world up to me.  i now had a way to memorize a word so that i
could write it, and i had also found a way that would help me say the word whenever i
wanted.  all i needed to do now was work on my ability to hear the word and recognize it
for what it was without having to think about it.  that wasnt easy.  it took a lot of
work.


often, when i would listen to other people speak arabic, i would not be able to remember
what was said in the sentence because i spent time thinking about what a word meant.  i
could understand anything anyone said in arabic, but i could only interpret words at a
rate of one or maybe two per second.  people dont actually speak that slowly though. 
often, they dont even TYPE that slowly.  i could listen to a news cast, and i would know
several words they said, but that would only give me the topic they were talking about. 
again, i felt like an idiot, since i could listen to a whole string of words that i KNOW
i know, but i would still be left saying "i think they are talking about the economy and
investments".  i would have no idea what they actually said ABOUT the economy, or who
or what was investing. 

so, i started listening to arabic.  a LOT.  i would spend hours every day listening to
things that were above my level, constantly hearing a word that immediately brought up a
mental picture while also hearing others that i had to think about.  it was the words
that i had to think about that were the most troubling to me.  i found that i would
spend a second or two thinking about them, and i would miss the rest of what was said. 
i cant tell you how much i hate feeling like an idiot...

so, i had to come up with something that would help me track the conversation as i was
hearing it.  and i had to do it in a way that would not discourage me, since i know how
much the feeling that i am stupid effected me.  i needed to keep my spirits up while
getting better at listening to arabic.

this is where alchohol came into the mix.  i am a happy drunk.  i simply cant help but
smile and laugh when i have alchohol in me.  so, on the weekends, i would start drinking
at about 6pm and would progressively get more and more drunk throughout the night.  the
whole time, i would listen to arabic speakers on youtube.  i would practice visualizing
words in my head when i heard them, so that i could understand them when i heard them. 
when i heard the word for airplane, i would visualize a passenger jet, when i heard the
word for explosion, i would visualize an actual explosion.  after a while, these
visualizations came instantly, without me thinking about it.  it only took me a few
months to be able to follow conversations in arabic that were being presented to me in
the rapid fire style that is always present on the time restricted news channels.
that the last lesson i had to learn.  i had to keep practicing everything.  i had to
listen every day, read every day, speak every day.  i had to do everything as much as
possible.  at first, it was a real pain, since it was clumsy.  while i was driving my
seara home, i would ufikr about things in my head.  i would ufikr about sentences in
english that i would like to translate into arabic, and i would let it run through my
head.  after a while, i could not only ufikru about it, i could aqulu it out loud.  and
that made me smile.  it made me feel good. 

so, what is the point of saying all this?  simple.  if you think you are not smart
enough to learn another language, keep thinking about it.  i was absolutely horrible at
it when i started, and it wasnt because i am not smart enough.  it was simply because i
didnt know the right techniques.  my advice for any of you, try and learn another
language.  its worth it. 
besides, in a year, your going to be a year older anyway.  might as well have something
to show for it.

yeah, i know most of us cant drink.  if you can, great.  if not, coffee, music and smiles.  it works pretty well too.

Good post!  I've been wondering how you are doing.  Really glad to hear from you.  Hope the head is behaving.

Jerry

thanks!

my had has been behaving itself quite well lately.  then again, i have been cheating.  been hitting the beast with seeds and sunshine. 

ok, so the sunshine comes in a capsule.... whatever, it works.


i will say that i have been extremely busy lately.  i really couldnt have imagined how much of my time would be taken up by studying.