Study Chinese Online From China

Did That “Click” For You?

October 25, 2006 on 3:01 am | In Misconceptions |

When native speakers of a language speak, hear or read a sentence that is not properly formed they will often say it “just didn’t sound right.” And if the sentence is then properly re-ordered or the proper word inserted, there’s a mental “click” that happens; almost a feeling of relief, “There, that’s right.” Do other’s know what I’m talking about? (that apostrophe in ‘other’ makes you quesy doesn’t it?) You know this feeling right?

In learning a second language (or third, forth..how many was that Ken, John..) there are several approaches to attaining a proficiancy level that allows one to speak or write well, but do those approaches give us “the click”?

Most of us can probably point to examples of long-time learners who still toss out the weird sentence every now and then, and we know of millions of Chinese who could out-grammar most of us native English speakers. Yet they speak and write rather poorly, why is this so? Why does so much effort in the grammar-translation approach lead to such poor speaking and writing results?

In Steven Pinker’s “The Language Instinct” (pp 200-210) he talks about the concept of a mental parser. An ability of humans to utilize this language parser to understand streaming audio (speech). He makes the distinction that “grammar is a code…specifying what kinds of sounds correspond to what kinds of meanings in a particular language”. In other words, ask most Chinese learners of English if a particular word is an adjective, noun, verb and they’re more likely to know before I do.

What does this mean for those of us trying to learn to speak a language, and hoping to attain ‘native-like’ proficiency? Or at least an ability to enjoy leisurely reading and chatting in the target language? This is where I think understanding ‘parsing’ can inform how we learn and teach language.

Parsing by the mind, and especially with Chinese, means going from the start to finish of a sentence and capturing each bit of meaning before moving on. In fact in Chinese it seems quite straighforward, there’s little conjugation to throw into the mix. In other words, we don’t first take in a whole sentence and then interpret what it means. It’s much simpler than that. Let’s say the sentence is,

The dog likes ice cream

The parser goes along and thinks of it like this:

• The
• The dog
• The dog - likes
• Likes (what?)
• Likes ice-cream

Notice that I don’t need to explicitly know any grammar here, that functions in the background. What I am doing is reading for bits/chunks of meaning. I believe this is the lexis that Ken and MikeInJimbei talk often about.

I’ve noticed that these days with myself (an intermediate level) I’m able to parse well with known vocabulary. It’s when I hit words that are unfamilar, and the context is complex enough that I cannot guess the general meaning of a chunk, that’s when everything quickly breaks down and I lose the whole sentence. Some call this the ‘intermediate plateau’.
For example,

• The wiggly likes ice-cream
• The “something”
• Likes
• Likes ice-cream.

I can guess at this sentence. But let’s say we add in more ambiguity.

• The wiggly likes mub.

And then when the core of the meaning revolves around a key word I don’t know, it all collapses.

• The wiggley plebada mub.

Even if I then re-build the ‘easier’ sentence

• The dog plebada ice-cream.

I have come to realize one of the main reasons why I dislike typical classroom language instructions and materials is that there is a huge focus on what words “mean” rather than exposure to what words should come up before or after a word. Think about how we learn words in our native languages, how we gain our intuitive grammar. Our minds are asked “Do you like the wiggley?” “That wiggley is not a cat.” “The dog wants to plebada the mub.” And so forth. It’s natural, it’s easy.

When we are given grammar and translations of words, we lose ‘the lexis’, we lose the exposure to what should come after or before. Words in any language come with a whole lot of expectations about the words that should come before or after it, how they should be used, and the underlying grammar. This is OFTEN different or completely disassociated from the same linkages in the word of the other language. Giving me the meaning of a Chinese word in English completely disassociates me from the lexis and appendages of the other Chinese words that inform that term.

So is a grammar-translation approach to be tossed aside? I doubt it. A ‘natural’ approach only really works for kids who have parents to talk to all day, can play, and have years to experiment. Adult-learners, we do need and like knowing right away what a word means. We have different goals, time and committments.

From what I can see, parsing and building up this skill occupies something like less than 2 percent of current methods. Why not build it up to 30% or so. A curriculum and method that gives us more opportunities to parse and to hear parsing. How would you do this? Build up ‘the click’?

ThisisauniqueAurbocodetotrackmyranking8898