Learning a New Language in 2 Months
In a few weeks time, the family and I are moving overseas to spend 6 months skiing in Austria. While it may seem a little odd (or even scary) to jet off to the other side of the world with a mortgage and 15 month old daughter, the wife and I thought why the hell not! One important aspect of living oversea is speaking the local language, in this case German. I've spent a bit of time in Germany before and know enough words to order a beer or bratwurst but I really struggle to say anything meaningful or hold a conversation that contains more than 2 sentences. So with this in mind, I've set myself the task of becoming conversationally fluent in German in 2 months. I have a theory on most things (often unjustified!) and linguistics is no exception. So here it goes....
- All languages are a collection of references (words) and syntax (grammar).
- Meaning is derived atomically (individual words), collectively (sentences) and contextually.
- 85-90% of all normal conversations consist of the most frequent 500 words.
- Therefore conversational fluency can be obtained by rote learning the 500 most frequent words, basic grammar structure and some common colloquialisms.
