The Polyglot Cafe

Let us find the secret land before Babel, before the gods divided us, when we were young and full of wonder.

I hope you succeed. The older one gets the harder it is to learn another language. The best time is when children are small.

I am reminded of seeing 2 small children in a little hotel in Quebec City. One little boy onl spoke French, and the othr little boy was American. However, they had no problem communicating whatsoever! Being little boys, they were playing soldiers, taking on all enemies from behind the sofa. I think they shot me, but I'm not sure (grin). I guess my point is that children are inclined to communicate through play, before they learn fear and suspicion from their elders, and I think that is a marvelous thing. I, too, wish there was a way for older people to learn languages more easily ...because there are several ...

This is a noble and worthy work.

Okay, here I go, climbing up on my soapbox again. We adults can have a bit more of a struggle with languages than very young children, but we have such enormous advantages over them that it is ridiculous to keep using their ability as our excuse to not learn. What we mostly have is the ability to decide that we are going to learn another language and that nothing is going to stop us. Kids just can't marshal will in that manner.

That said, the learning process you choose makes a lot of difference. Some of the computer learning programs are pretty good, but they make it a solitary process. Whatever you learn by, it needs to explicitly avoid memorization, which deadens the brain and only gets to short-term memory. The best system yet developed is TPRS, a method sweeping the language-teaching profession here and abroad, and it is a phenomenally-exciting experience. I'm not yet an expert, but I am using it in my classes and the results are more than I hoped for. Lacking that, hang out with speakers of your target language, and buy yourself a road map to use at the same time. That's what a grammar textbook is, but don't try to learn from it alone. I love your concept of the polyglot cafe and I wish you well on your quest!

Oh, I'm glad to see Gerry here! I was over at his site reading his article on TPRS, and it got me fired up to write about the Polyglot Cafe.

Libramoon, I agree - and perhaps that "Land before Babel" is the mind before adolescence [addle-essence...]...The mind of the young wonder-full child.

John - glad you stopped in. You know, I like what Gerry added. I'm thinking that, for me, the thought of memorization and grammar struggles has held me back from diving in to really learning more languages. I know bits and pieces.....phrases from having sung choral music in various languages.....But it's chatting and storytelling I'd love to be in on.

Shoshana, I think you're right on the money. Ease of communication-with-play. YES!

Karen - we USAns could really truly enjoy becoming more consciously multilingual, don't you agree?

Thanks for posting to Poetry,Prose,Short Stories

I think this is a fantastic idea!

Holly, nice to meet you. I'm glad you like this idea - I hope it spreads and spreads, like a wonderful patchwork quilt of connectedness.

Have you done anything to make The Polyglot Cafe a tangible reality? A website? A Gather group? Or is this a call to action? It sounds like a good idea to me, but one that would take some real heavy-duty commitment to keep up.

Good suggestions, Jim.
I'm the Adult Programs person at the library where I work, so I'm simply going to join forces with the Children's librarian to get the first program happening, if she's willing - and then see how many people attend and what the feedback is, and whether people start asking for more of same.

The other thing is, I'm part of a group that is starting a folkschool here in Yellow Springs, and eventually I'm thinking that some kind of language-learning play might be part of what we offer.

*thought i'd go thru all my new gather friend's posts!! thanks for being a gather friend!*