There was one contestant who spoke on the nature of languages and the learning of them. He told us that "languages are open doors", and that one can gain a new perspective of the world when learning languages. Not only can one establish new friendships, but one can also exercise the mind in learning new vocabulary that might be specific to one culture. I agree with his reasoning, as it shows an understanding of the benefits of language learning and its potential applications.
This idea is very much true, but since it only discusses the reasons for learning languages, I would like to add on by sharing my views on how to learn languages.
The first thing one usually learns when beginning to learn a new language is pronunciation. Pronunciation is only the beginning of learning a language, but that does not imply that it is not important. Rather, you can think of it as a foundation on which everything else is built. You could still build a sturdy house on a not-so-great foundation, but the house may seem a bit slanted or askew. Similarly, on can perfect grammar and vocabulary, yet sound like a foreigner or beginner by simply having bad pronunciation. Therefore, it is almost essential to master pronunciation of letters, then words, and then sentences.
An important thing to note is that the basic unit of speech in many languages is, in fact, not the letter. Letters are the units of alphabet-based languages, such as English, in which vowels and consonants are equally important and are written one after the other in a straight line. There are, however, four other commonly-used systems of writing: abjads, abugidas, syllabaries, and semanto-phonetic scripts. Abjads are scripts that focus on consonants. Vowels are expressed using diacritical marks, but they are not usually written at all. Arabic is the most widely-used abjad. Hebrew also belongs to this category. Abugidas are also scripts that emphasize consonants. Vowels are required to be written, but they exist as large diacritical marks that are found around the main consonant but are pronounced after them. Many Indian scripts are abugidas. Syllabaries are scripts in which most symbols represent individual syllables, usually consisting of a consonant sound followed by a vowel. Consequently, there are many symbols to be memorized, but there is minimal confusion in reading. The Japanese Hiragana and Katakana scripts, as well as the Cherokee script, invented by Sequoyah, are syllabaries. Semanto-phonetic scripts are scripts in which each symbol represents a sound and meaning simultaneously. Chinese is a semanto-phonetic script, and Egyptian hieroglyphics were, too.
Whatever the script type is that you are learning, it is important to learn the pronunciations of a language's phonemes. Therefore, it is a great idea to learn IPA, or the International Phonetic Alphabet. The IPA is a collection of mostly all of the phonemes (i.e. sounds) used in every language. It is an essential reference to use while learning pronunciation. There are two types of phonemes: vowels and consonants. The categorization of vowels takes into consideration three factors: backness, closeness, and lip roundedness. Backness refers to the place of pronunciation. For instance, the backness of the vowel "u" is greater than that of the vowel "i". Closeness refers to how open the mouth is when pronouncing the vowel, and lip roundedness is a binary value, either rounded or unrounded, of the lip shape in pronunciation. The IPA vowel "i", for instance, is unrounded, and its rounded counterpart is the vowel denoted by the symbol "y". (It is like the German "ü" sound.)
Consonants are more difficult to pronounce. The factors of consonant pronunciation include place of articulation, manner of articulation, voicing, aspiration, and tongue shape. Since consonants are more complicated, I have included an IPA consonant chart.
Since I have included a consonant chart, I shall also show a picture of an IPA vowel chart.
It is important to note that each IPA symbol correlates to exactly one phoneme. It is, in a sense, a one-to-one function. This is not the case in English, though. There are only 26 letters in English, but about 44 phonemes. Therefore, letters or combinations of them may map to multiple phonemes. When some of the 44 phonemes are pronounced more often than the others, accents form. When learning languages with different sets of phonemes, though, it is never okay to use mother-tongue phonemes in replacement of that language's similar phonemes and call the incorrect pronunciation of the language an "accent". For example, the word for "woman" in the Eyak language of Alaska is "qe'ł", which is pronounced [qʰɛʔɬ]. However, if one pronounces it [kʰɛʔʃ], which uses English phonemes instead of the correct Eyak ones, and believes that it is merely an acceptable "accent", that person is, sadly, incorrect and must refer to the strict guidelines of IPA to correct the problem before it becomes a bad habit. Unfortunately, this is a problem I witness almost every day. The Spanish learners in my high school do not pay attention to pronunciation and sometimes mock others for "trying too hard to have a Spanish or Mexican accent" without recognizing that they are the ones who do not understand the basic principles of pronunciation. If you are such a person, I hope that this post has helped you realize this problem.
From what I have told you, it seems that pronunciation and scripts are super-complicated aspects of language. This is not true, though; pronunciation and scripts are the most fundamental aspects. The most complicated aspect of language is not the memorization of words or grammar rules, either. It is the expression of ideas in new methods and perspectives. For example, the idea expressed by the English words "there is" is, in German, "es gibt", which literally translates to "it gives". For Germans learning English, it is strange to talk about scissors and pants in the plural. In German, these ideas are expressed by words that can be translated to "scissor" and "pant". Similarly, the English use of the words "have to" instead of "must" is a completely absurd concept to nonnatives. Also, in Chinese, there are words called "measure words" that are used as "counters" or units for every object. For English speakers, this idea is almost inconceivable. For Germans, measure words may be perceived as grammatical genders, but they are, in fact, completely different things. It is almost like the practice of saying "a pair of pants" or "a length of yarn". Now imagine that you are required to use such words for every single noun in Chinese!
Anyway, this post has explored the aspects of language learning instead of its applications and benefits. You can think of the benefits of knowing a new language as a motivation. Without a method to acquire these benefits, though, it is harder to be constantly motivated. Therefore, I have given you some insight on the process of language learning by sharing with you the fundamental components of script and pronunciation, as well as the complicated idea-expression aspect. Overall, there are five parts of language learning that I believe to exist: script, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and idea-expression. These are listed in easiest-to-hardest order. If you found this clarification helpful, then I wish that your language-learning journey has already become easier. Have a nice day!
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