Kyrgyzstan through my eyes 4. Learning a new language

Previous Episodes on "Kyrgyzstan through my eyes"

1. Before it all started

2. On board

3. Arriving

★Back in school

Do you like learning languages?

I love learning languages. It was back in junior high that I first started to learn English. It was a very late start compared to other OECD countries or even non-OECD countries. I was 12 years old and didn’t know what language or English was. The image of English to me was the language of American people because America was probably the only country in which I confirmed it exists as a foreign country back then. When I was asked if I wanted to go abroad, it meant America and till the time when I got into college, I didn’t know there was an option for me to go to any other country. I think the way media or history class told us had shaped how I looked at the world at that time. If I ever have a child, I will educate her/him how big the world is and there are so many countries attractive other than countries in Europe or North America (I know they are already fascinating enough).

In my first year of learning English, I would say, I studied the hardest in my entire life. I can’t remember how much time I spent on English but that was surely the time I developed the foundation of my English. When I couldn’t learn the spelling of a word by heart, I wrote the word repeatedly in my notebook until I was able to write it right. One time I remember I wrote the same word “usually” straight to 7 pages. It’s funny to see the same word crammed throughout the pages. It’s unbelievable I’ve done that but it worked. I will never forget the spelling of “usually”.

I also put a lot of effort into pronouncing words and reading dialogues on the textbooks. I asked my parents to buy me the CDs which contain the original dialogues of the textbooks. I repeated after the CD without ever getting bored and tried to copy every single word of whoever a man or a woman is saying. I didn’t learn how to pronounce words directly from native speakers. I imitated them in the CDs and acted as if I were a native speaker of English.

This is the grassroots of me loving to learn new languages.

★Acquiring a new language

To acquire a language, it takes a lot of time and effort. We won’t discuss the definition of acquisition deeply but let’s say here acquisition of a language means you can understand 80% of the daily conversation with native speakers and speak the language fluently enough to make them understood. It’s still abstract but defying what means to acquire a language is still being discussed even today and it varies depending on circumstances of your learning environment and your goal: whether you want to be successful in terms of academics and business or you are perfectly fine with talking with neighbors.

Imagine you live in a foreign country. Generally speaking, it is said that you are likely to start to hear the language and understand what people are saying 3 months after being surrounded by the language and constantly exposed to language showers. Speaking follows slowly after listening and takes about 6 months to express yourself just right. Again, it is up to the learning environment and motivation of learning. In my case, it was about right when I gradually felt that I understood what people talk about in 3 months and speak adequately without struggling it in 6 months, but it was limited only in daily conversation. I had no idea what was going on in English class or U.S. history class in high school in America.

After learning several new languages afterward, I conclude that there is no loyal road to acquiring them. You’ve got to commit yourself to the learning process and work on your language daily. Whoever panders to you with their sweet talk, saying “you can learn the language in 3 months” or “all you have to do is THIS AND THAT for JUST 30 MUNITES a day”, note that they made enormous time and effort to speak the way they want. No loyal road. Period.

★Language learning in Japan

Having said that there’s no loyal road, learning a language merely on your own is torture and most of you will soon hit the wall of difficulties. Therefore, I recommend you attend some language courses and learn on your own. This hybrid learning style prevents you from giving up on learning, and after you feel confident enough to learn on your own, you can just keep going on your own pace without a language teacher.

I found it effective to attend an intensive course to gain the knowledge enough for you to learn the language by yourself later on. I attended an intensive course for 2 months for learning the Kyrgyz language in Japan as a part of the training required before going to Kyrgyzstan. We had 4 to 5 hours of lessons almost every day except for Sundays, learning basic grammar and expressions of our target languages. Counting briefly how much time we spent on the lessons, it’s approximately 200 hours. Of course, it’s added up to more than 300 hours including our self-study time. I, myself spent 400 to 500 hours overall if counting from 70 hours of learning before the training to 3-4 hours of self-learning during 2 months of the training.

It was a pleasure to learn the new language and I enjoyed every moment of the lessons and learning even though I have to admit that I struggled with understanding the language at some extend as everyone else did. I was so into learning the new language that some of my colleagues sometimes called me “Hentai” jokingly which means pervert but also implies nerd or weirdo. It can’t be helped if you saw me murmuring while walking through the corridor. I was practicing the language.

The Kyrgyz language is such an interesting one that has its roots in the Turkic family. This means Kyrgyz language and Japanese are similar in a way that language is structured. We have the same word order and most words in the Kyrgyz language contain vowels after consonants, which makes it easier for us Japanese to understand it and pronounce words correctly.

I never learned a language so similar to Japanese and this put me in wonder if Japanese are bad language learners. We spend so much time learning English and most of us fail to acquire the language and feel defeated, not wanting to learn the language ever after getting out of school. So many people feel ashamed of their language ability, but what if we learn Korean instead? What if Korean or a language with the same language family is lingua franca?

The world would have gone up-side-down.

I know this would not eradicate the pain and the struggle of learning English or comfort the shame of not speaking English so well. But EXCUSE US? Can you at least have mercy on us and stop complaining about how bad our English is? We have already blamed ourselves enough to make children in our country allergic to English. Thanks.

Anyways let’s be friends and cheer up each other even if he/she is not so good. They are on their process and we all used to be one of them.

★Language learning in Bishkek

We also took a language course in Kyrgyzstan, another about 80 hours added. There was nothing new but we focused more on producing the language through speaking and writing. One of my favorite times was the opportunity to visit a Kyrgyz family and cook Kyrgyz dishes together. In the Kyrgyz language, there is a common phrase “Конокко барам”, which translated this way “I am going to a guest”. It means you are invited to a party as a guest and you go to the party. It can be a party for friends, relatives, and families, or colleagues. At the banquet, all kinds of a large portion of food are served and there is usually a lot of talking, singing, and dancing.

It was meant for us to use the Kyrgyz language outside the classroom. It was more than just talking and practicing and I enjoyed experiencing a facet of Kyrgyz culture. We had some other lessons outside the classroom such as going to a cafe to learn how to order food or going to a market to learn how to ask the prices and buy food.

I don’t know how well my Kyrgyz was improved (sometimes I didn’t learn much at home), but I knew, after the course, that I would have to learn the Kyrgyz language on my own by working and spending time together with Kyrgyz people.

I struggled with it with a very slow improvement, but there was always a hope like the sunshine guiding me and telling me to stay positive.

Three months of staying in Kyrgyzstan didn’t get me close to the fluency of the language. I take the current situation as a challenge to myself to keep learning and show how far I can go living far away from there. I am still learning on and off, preparing for my second visit to Kyrgyzstan.