Speech

This is a bit of a read, there isn't any personal stuff in here, it's just me nerding out about languages. You probably have something better to do with your time. If you still want to read, why not listen to some music with it? (click link)

Speech:
 the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one's thoughts and emotions by speech sounds and gesture

Think about this weird thing that we do everyday. Humans are the only species able to do this. Let Hank rant about this to you if you want. As with anything we do daily, we take this incredibly complicated ability for granted. But without it, it is doubtful that Human civilizations would have been able to develop. Indeed our speech, and more broadly our ability to LEARN from one another and convey learned knowledge, is one of the most fundamental privileges of being Human. 
If Men could only squeak they might as well be Mice.

Lets do a 180°
What if I said that Speech is actually holding you back?
In the fact that it is limited I mean.

How is it limited?

In how many people you can speak with. How many wonderful people you get to build relationships with.
You see, your speech lives inside of a "Discrete Combinatorial System", which is linguistics terminology for a Language. That means your speech is a system of blocks, words possessing a mutually understood "discrete" meaning. 
It is combinatorial in that different orders and combinations (aka Grammar) of these blocks gives a certain relative meaning to the words. Different systems are mutually unintelligible, so you can only really communicate with someone who has a common language with you.

So you go from being able to do a high speed verbal data transfer like a Na'vi ponytail thing, to trying to get an mp3 to play on a Victrola Phonograph. They both produce music, they just need different file types.

Say you're an English speaker, according to the SIL Ethnologue's counts there are 335m L1 (native) speakers and 505m L2 (second language) speakers. L2 speakers being people proficient in the language.
335 + 505 = 840 million English speakers   
840m / 7.167 billion (total people) = 11.72%

11.72% 

Yes 840 million is more people than you could ever hope to interact with. But doesn't it seem restricting? If you were at stuck on an island with 100 people selected at random from all walks of life all over the world, wouldn't you think that it's weird that you could only speak to 11 other people?

But it feels like more people speak English than that:
Yes it does, let's think about that.
Who do you see that speaks English as a second language? (using a US perspective)

People from other countries who moved to the US: If you're living in a country were your target language is the official language, of course you'll be able to pick it up. But most people don't have the means to travel and learn English through immersion experiences. 

Tourists from other countries: travel is expensive, thus most tourists will be somewhat well off, being well off is usually correlated with education, and with that foreign language education. 

Politicians: yeah we hear foreign leaders speaking in English on the news all the time, but that is most likely because foreign language skills are an unofficial requirement for being a high ranking politician.

Lingua franca: Yeah, English is the language of globalization. I loved seeing how at my Internship at Fraunhofer a scientist from Spain and one from Germany did almost all their work in simple English although it's a second language for both.The scientist's knowledge of English enabled him to work full time in a good, long term position in Germany. English as a Lingua franca is a beautiful thing, and there are indeed people all over the world who speak English, but it's really only people who work directly in this international system. 

So Politicians, international business people, tourism workers, pilots & captains, waiters at restaurants in touristy areas of cities. So if you travel somewhere as a really touristy tourist, or stay within internationally operating industries, you're fine with English most anywhere, everything outside of these circles is not assumed.

For example: My teachers in school, waiters at normal local restaurants, most adults that have been out of school for a while (use it or lose it), senior citizens (got their education before globalization really got going), policemen. The list goes on and on.

NOTE: There are other Lingua francas in specific geopolitical regions. My guest mom for example learned Russian in school in east Germany and not English. So English as a lingua franca is not as universal as it seems. Lingua francas also come and go.

This is a big availability heuristic that wrongly convinces many Americans never to commit to learning a foreign language. Yeah there's foreign language education, but as I was going through it in American high school I got the sense that very few people were learning with the goal being able to talk to people from other countries, they were learning to pass a test and then they'd forget everything. 

Isn't the goal of language learning to be able to communicate with more people?

 With my added knowledge in German I can now talk to 80 million more people than before. So 12.83% of the world population. And if I work hard at Mandarin I could get that up to 27.2% !

If I haven't already convinced you that foreign language learning is super duper important, let me try a bit more:

❝If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞
‒Nelson Mandela      (I really take this quote to "heart", I've made many close friends here thanks to my German. If I had only spoken English with them I'm doubtful if that would've happened)

❝One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.❞
‒Frank Smith

❝The limits of my language are the limits of my world.❞
‒Ludwig Wittgenstein

❝Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can; there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.❞
‒Sarah Caldwell

❝Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.❞
‒Chinese Proverb

❝You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.❞
‒Geoffrey Willans

❝To have another language is to possess a second soul.❞
‒Charlemagne

❝Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.❞
‒Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

❝Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.❞
‒Rita Mae Brown

❝Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.❞
‒Oliver Wendell Holmes

Language learning is also especially good at sharpening your brain: Let eHow tell you


Now let me tell you about the details of how I learned German, how I'm learning Mandarin. And how language learning can be fun, free, and easy. (resources/materials in the hyperlinks)

Recap of German learning: So I took German for 4 years in high school. We had a native speaker as a teacher, and he was a bit of a perfectionist, which can be good, but not if we're afraid of making mistakes. Because the real learning happens when you make mistakes. But on the upside we really learned the grammar structures inside and out. A lot of wrote memorization happened, which is not the most effective way to learn vocab, but it gave us a big base of words that we could recognize in conversation. Definite pluses were that the lessons were taught for the most part in German, and questions were mostly asked and answered in German. We got comfortable with the Grammar structures so that the only thing missing was a bit more vocabulary and confidence and practice. Watching kids TV in German once a week was fun, great listening practice, and we learned a lot about life in Germany.

All together it was effective while staying inside the structure of classroom learning (not the most effective style). And at that point I wouldn't have the base knowledge or motivation to learn on my own. Yes there are many varying learning styles, and you need to look around to find what works best for you, but learning in a classroom, with grades and tests, gives most people that initial jolt of motivation to build up their language framework.

45 minutes a day for 4 years of ~180 school days each = 540 hours

I'm counting hours to denounce Gladwell's intimidating 10,000 hour rule. TED talk about 20 hour rule

Then during the summer I watched German Children's TV and podcasts once a day. ~60 days x 1 hour. Cumulative Total 600 hours so far.

Here's the thing. I may not have been fluent from day one, but I was able to carry a completely normal conversation with the Germans who picked me up at the airport. My first week was full of other exchange students, so there was no need to be afraid of mistakes, and we talked and talked and talked the whole time about everything.

It was just a matter of putting myself in the situation and trusting myself. And NEVER reverting to English. If Germans tried to speak English with me (outside of English class) I'd just keep answering in German until they got the message. Yes of course I pronounced things weirdly and classmates giggled or didn't understand, if I didn't know vocabulary I'd ask, and I always encourage people to passively correct me (so just repeating what I say but correctly).

I'd say that after 4 weeks in Germany I was functionally fluent, speaking at a good clip, yes still plenty of mistakes and misunderstandings, but I could make friends and communicate my thoughts fairly sufficiently. 
28 x 12 (Subtracting sleep, alone time and internet [mostly english]) = 336

FLUENT IN 1000 HOURS

Plus 38 more weeks (wooow I've been here a while) = 3192 more hours. Grand total as of today is 4192
I would say that the last 3000 hours have really just been a solidifying and internalizing of the skills, little things that aren't really necessary to be understood, pronunciation, specialized vocab, and internalization of grammar. The really important (and most efficient) learning was really done in the first 600 hours, the rest was icing on the cake. And just to clarify, I haven't been directly studying the language here, I've just been having conversations and reading like I normally would.

Let me try to give a good description of the extend of my German skill (and not toot my own horn at the same time):
-I think and dream in German for the most part (only thinking in English when thinking about US specific stuff). Thinking about everyday tasks and during conversations is purely in German.
-I read books in German, albeit a bit slowly and not with 100% understanding, but I got through Faust!
-I did a freaking physics internship in German! Highly complex terminology, at the end I wrote a detailed 25 page report in very formal scientific language about what I did everyday.
-I got a 2+ (B+) on a test in German! Better than quite a few Germans. Yeah the teacher didn't take points off for Grammar, but it shows that I'm able to understand texts and express complex points.


To further reassure people who don't think they can do it, I'll add that I wasn't the best in German. I struggled to be a B student in German throughout high school.
I don't have some magic skill for language learning, I just worked at it.
Also, natural ability would most likely help speed up the language acquisition process by only 20% or so, something that can be met by a bit more hard/smart work.

For people who say that they're too old, I say bullshit, maybe with age you're just more cautious and afraid to talk. Anyways, older people are generally less worried about judgement and being embarrassed, boosting confidence to speak, make mistakes and learn.

For people who say they don't have the time. I say just start RIGHT NOW. 10 minutes everyday, practicing in the shower, and listening to music or watching movies (with subtitles) in the target language for fun will take you very far. Stop delaying, don't say that you'll do it someday, start now. All you need is the will and the internet.