[2024-08-16] Two years of learning
Yesterday, I reached two years on Duolingo—learning Brazilian Portuguese, refining my French and, more recently, picking up Italian.
For each milestone I reach in Duolingo, I try to share a few ideas on language learning. On this occasion, I take inspiration from an article in the Duolingo blog called Dear Duolingo: Is it easier to learn your family's language?
The short answer—by senior learning scientist Cindy Blanco—is that the language a baby acquires is much more dependent on the language its family members use than the language its family members know. So, for example, if my mom knows French but speaks to me mainly in English, I'm not going to learn French simply through my DNA.
However, that's not to say that our family's language has no impact on our ability to learn it later in life, writes Blanco. She identifies three reasons why it might be easier to pick up a language that a family member knows:
- Motivation. "Learning a language to a high level of proficiency takes a long time—no matter the person and no matter the language," writes Blanco. "Since you'll need to stick with it, motivation is super important, and studying a language you're personally invested in can really help you stay motivated. If you're learning a language to communicate with relatives or because it connects you to your family history, your sense of purpose can help you power through the (inevitable) challenges."
- Implicit or accidental learning. "If you're learning a family language that's used by your relatives or in your community, you might know more of the language than you realize," Blanco suggests. "We do a lot of language learning implicitly, without even trying or studying it deliberately, so if the family language you want to learn is one you've been around, you might already know some vocabulary and phrases (like greetings or common sayings). Your brain might have also learned a lot about the sounds of the language, even if you don't consciously remember the language itself!"
- Opportunities to practise. "Another possible advantage to studying your family language is more opportunities to practice it," states Blanco. "Depending on the language and your community, it can be difficult to find conversation partners. If you have family members who speak the language you're learning, they might be really excited to help you practice! Understanding natural, conversational language can be really challenging, so be patient with yourself (and your unwitting cousin/aunt/grandparent)."
For my part, though I grew up in a largely English home and went to English schools, I heard French fairly regularly as a child—especially whenever my French aunts and uncles and their children came to visit. That motivated me to want to learn the language. Studying French as a minor in university, marrying a French-speaking man and working in the Canadian public service further drove me to improve my French.
I was inspired to learn Brazilian Portuguese to be able to communicate with my Brazilian-Canadian neighbours, who have become like family. Interacting with them provides opportunities to practise my Portuguese.
And I've enjoyed implicit learning in relation to Italian. For example, when I learned that "cibo" means food, I thought of the "Via Cibo" restaurant in Kanata. Similarly, when I learned that "negozio" means store, I thought of the Italian grocery store "Il Negozio Nicastro" in Hintonburg. I've also benefited from the fact that quite a few Italian words are the same as their Portuguese counterparts (such as "fantasma" for ghost).
Blanco concludes her article by noting that family and culture are popular reasons for learning a language. Having a personal reason to learn a language—such as to converse with family members and friends or to immerse oneself in a new culture—is helpful during the challenging moments of acquiring and perfecting a language.
