Why do children learn foreign languages with such ease, while many adults have great difficulty doing so? The answer may surprise you as much as it surprised me. It’s no secret that children and adults learn language very differently. The thing is, adults usually… do it wrong. After all, the key is not to learn grammatical rules and mix them with vocabulary you’ve learned, but to learn formulaic sequences. You may wonder what they are? Instead of wasting time on boring grammar exercises, read the article and learn the secret to effective communication in a foreign language – that is, using formulaic sequences.
Why do children learn foreign languages with such ease, while many adults have great difficulty doing so? The answer may surprise you as much as it surprised me. It’s no secret that children and adults learn language very differently. The thing is, adults usually… do it wrong. After all, the key is not to learn grammatical rules and mix them with vocabulary you’ve learned, but to learn formulaic sequences. You may wonder what they are? Instead of wasting time on boring grammar exercises, read the article and learn the secret to effective communication in a foreign language – that is, using formulaic sequences.
Why children don’t need to learn grammar
It is fascinating how easily children assimilate not only single words, but also whole sentences, even without yet understanding their meaning. Even toddlers somehow grasp the logic of constructing utterances, even though they do not yet understand much of the world around them. What’s more, they are able to convey a message in such a way that the other person is able to decipher it, even if it is not correctly constructed. Where does this ability come from? Is it magic that is no longer available to adults?
Intuitive language learning
This does seem to be the case. The activation of our conscious memory, which develops with age, can suppress the operation of unconscious memory. This means that deliberate attempts to learn specific grammatical information can interfere with the subconscious learning of language patterns and intuitions. This is similar to trying to learn the rules for tying shoelaces, instead of simply learning how to tie them!
Conscious thinking is not well developed in children, so their language skills immediately go to the unconscious part. This explains why learning happens so easily with them.
Perfect pronunciation without practice
In addition, it is important to develop the organs of speech, that is:
- tongue
- lips
- vocal cords.
Childrens’ muscles responsible for these very precise movements develop along with the learning of the native language, and thus become attuned to its structure and sounds. That’s why it’s extremely difficult to get rid of a foreign accent – the muscle movements must be perfectly in tune to sound natural, and it’s difficult for adults to get such training.
Source: DALL·E 3, prompt: Marta M. Kania
Does grammar help adults to learn a language?
Does this mean that we don’t have a chance to learn English, German, or Dutch as adults? Of course we do! Not only can adults learn to become fluent in a foreign language, but they have several key advantages over children, for example:
- ability to plan your learning process
- good short-term memory
- logical thinking, or so-called conscious memory.
It might seem best to memorize the logical rules and start applying them in practice. Is that what learning grammar is? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Let’s look a little closer at two types of memory: short-term and long-term.
Short-term memory – effective, but fleeting
Short-term memory is very fast – fast enough to be able to manage the grammatical issues learned. Unfortunately, it also has several disadvantages:
- It can only hold 5–10 items. It is therefore too small to accommodate the number of rules with which grammar is described.
- During a dynamic conversation, there is no time to fish out the grammar rules of the language from long-term memory to apply them.
- It is short, which means that even if we manage to accommodate a limited number of rules, we will not be able to apply them.
Long-term memory – how to find grammatical rules
Fortunately, we still have long-term memory. It can hold a great deal of information. But there is a problem: it is too slow to process and manage it. Actually, it can’t even do it. And learning, after all, is not about knowing the rules of present simple, present continuous, or present perfect, it’s about practicing how to talk fluently. So you have to come up with a way to get around this limitation. A way to find well-remembered, ready-made phrases from which we can create a sentence that corresponds to what we want to say.
Unfortunately, if we rely on memorized grammatical rules, using language is akin to solving logic puzzles – that is, matching the right patterns to life’s spontaneous situations. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work. So how do we start speaking fluently?
What if you added formulaic sequences?
Noam Chomsky, the famous philosopher of language, pointed out the possibility of creating an infinite number of grammatically correct sentences with a limited number of words and rules. However, when we look at authentic speech, we find that people make surprisingly little use of this potential. Why is this the case?
Another way to learn grammar effectively
In most typical situations, we rely on linguistic readymades – prefabricated words or formulas. It turns out that the vocabulary at our disposal is not just a few or tens of thousands of words, but probably hundreds of thousands of stored multi-word expressions. These are ready-to-use sentences, e.g.:
- Multi-word phrases – such as “Actions speak louder than words” or “Better late than never”
- Idioms – such as “I’m all ears,” or “Fit as a fiddle”
- Collocations – “make a decision” or “navy blue”
- Parts of a sentence – such as “If I were you…” or “Even though I’ve tried…”
- Full sentences – “My name is Anna,” “Black coffee, please.”
Verb + adjective + noun
So there seems to be an alternative to learning a foreign language combining grammar and vocabulary rules! Formulaic sequences can be compared to Lego bricks or prefabricated building blocks. Just as prefabricated building blocks make up an entire house, formulaic sequences make up statements. “How much does it cost?”, “Hi, how are you?”, “Do you have time tomorrow?” – these are puzzles for putting together utterances.
According to research, formulaic sequences account for about 50–60% of our communication, both spoken and written. It is these, rather than individual words, that allow us to perform exercises that will enable us to fluently produce spontaneous statements.
Source: DALL·E 3, prompt: Marta M. Kania
How to learn formulaic sequences
Since formulaic sequences are so important, how do you master them effectively? The key is to repeat and memorize whole phrases rather than individual words. This allows us to speak much faster, gaining the time needed by the brain to construct speech. More about it in our article about learning languages with sentences.
A good example here is auctioneers, whose speech speed reaches 250 words per minute. To achieve it, they practice ready-made phrases of various lengths. It is estimated that as much as 80–90% of what they say consists of formulaic sequences.
Learn grammar effectively – by practicing it!
Why not use the same method to learn a foreign language? The key here becomes repetition and listening to the formulaic sequences. Simply put, the more often we hear or read them, the easier we remember them. In addition, short, two-word collocations, for example, “hard work,” “fast car” or “cheap wine,” are easier to remember because they are clearer and occur more often in the language. With repetition and practice, these ready-made word combinations become part of our long-term memory and we can use them in fluent communication.
At Taalhammer, we have conducted tests that show that 1000 words and about 5000 sentences make it possible to create training material containing 80% of the most commonly used words and combinations, such as:
- Phrases – “good morning,” “thanks a lot”
- Tenses – present tense “I write,” past tense “I wrote,” future tense “I will write”
- Questions – consisting of a noun and a verb, such as “How are you?” and “What’s up?”
- Negations – “I don’t know,” “I can’t,” “I shouldn’t.”
You’re probably wondering, how can you remember such a number of elements? Five thousand sentences is really a lot. I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that it will be difficult. The good news – there are techniques that practically guarantee success in long-term memorization.
Taalhammer teaches grammar effectively “by the way”
It seems that in the traditional approach to foreign languages we learn the wrong things in the wrong way. And so regardless of the method used to learn a language, sooner or later we fall into the trap of grammar. And we already know that it just doesn’t work. And it has no right to work.
People who have practiced a language long enough to speak it fluently forget most of the grammar rules they have studied so carefully. Even if they can recall them, they certainly don’t use them when speaking.
So why are we so passionate about trying to construct sentences using logic when we are just beginning to take our first steps in a new language, when even recalling words can be a challenge? Isn’t there a better way to do it?
Well, there is! If we want our brains to remember not only individual words, but also their combinations from the very beginning, we need to repeat and memorize these combinations. If we combine this way of learning with the right attitude and planning, we practically guarantee success in language learning.
In the Taalhammer app, we focus on learning the formulaic sequences, and grammar comes “by the way.” Instead of focusing on grammar rules, you can learn prefabricated combinations of words and sentences that you can easily adapt to life situations.
You need to know that learning formulaic sequences is probably one of the most effective and practical techniques for teaching comprehension and speech production in a foreign language. Simply put, it enables rapid development of speaking skills, while building a solid language foundation in a natural and intuitive way. Instead of wasting your time on buying into grammar rules, it’s better to learn the secret of effective language learning using ready-made elements. See for yourself and try out our app – you will approach the learning process in a completely different way and will soon start speaking fluently!