At the age of 17, my parents had me participate in a Turkish band because they wanted to help me get to know my culture. But as a Turkish American who grew up very divorced from her culture overall, it was a weird experience. When we tried to sing a Turkish song by the name of Cambaz (which means acrobat in English), it became incredibly apparent that I was not raised speaking the language like my other Turkish peers. When I tried to sing the chorus of the song, I was mocked for mispronouncing a word by one of my band members, with the band director lightly joking that I should sing in English. It made me feel like there was no hope for me to ever learn my heritage language or connect with my culture simply because I grew up so divorced from it. My parents chose to not teach me Turkish because after I received my autism diagnosis, they wanted to make sure I assimilated into American culture as much as possible to make up for the differences that my autism would cause. However, having a name like Dilara would give my teachers and classmates a run for their money as they would try to pronounce or spell it and my physical appearance would pique questions from others about where I was from. It’s safe to say that despite my parent’s efforts to help me assimilate, I proceeded to grow up not knowing the culture of my heritage while also feeling like a stranger in the country I was born and raised in. After my failed attempt to learn Turkish with Rosetta Stone at the age of 7, I thought that acquiring the language as an adult would be impossible, but I decided to go for it anyway. And the results I achieved genuinely surprised me. In this article I’m going to go over methods I used to learn my parent’s language and what I would recommend to you if you are trying to learn a second language yourself.
I started with Duolingo last September because that seemed like the most common sense thing to do since it advertised everywhere. A couple of weeks of practice helped me review the occasional phrases I’ve picked up from the house along with teaching me some basic grammar points. I had heard phrases like “merhaba” (hello) and “iyi geceler” (good night) for a good majority of my life but this was the first time I was learning how to spell them. This seemed to suffice for the first couple of weeks to a month because I was getting a foundation in the language and reviewing what I had learned before. But it eventually showed to not be enough. This is when I started to consult my aunt over the phone to learn more basic phrases that Duolingo wouldn’t teach and even started doing a little reading practice with her. As I was, and am currently living with my parents who are native speakers of the language, I could ask them questions related to grammar or certain words. I would try speaking here and there, but it was clear that I didn’t have enough vocabulary to hold a decent conversation yet. But as I continued to learn the language, a strength of mine that came from having heard the language in bits and pieces started to emerge: pronunciation. Even if I didn’t get enough exposure to the language as a kid to understand it or speak it, I was very familiar with the sounds, and using what I committed to memory came with ease for the most part. This showed up especially when I would read with my aunt over the phone.
From this point on, I became very interested in second language acquisition. This was when I first heard about a theory called comprehensible input. This theory was founded by Steven Krashen in the 1980s and states that the main way people acquire language is by consuming input that they can comprehend. Any shows you watch and readings you do at your current level can help you grow your language skills. While it’s been a long time since this theory was published and a lot of misinformation about it on the internet, there was a certain part of it that rang true for me as I was going about studying Turkish. If you’re looking to self-study a language and don’t know where to start, I would strongly recommend that this is one of the first steps you take.
Starting off fresh in a language, you won’t be able to consume media for native speakers. Even children’s content can be a little bit hard at first because of the nonsensical plots the shows often contain. But if you go onto YouTube and search [target language] comprehensible input, you will be able to find a variety of videos targeted at beginners in the language of your choice. These videos will usually contain audio visual content where the speaker uses very simple language to explain what simple things are like holding up a toy car and saying “this is a car” in the target language. This is very helpful because it allows you to start making associations to things in the language rather than just translating words to their native language equivalent. It won’t get rid of the process you will undergo of translating things in your head fully, but it will be a very good start at fossilizing the language in your brain in the long run. Keep in mind that as you are working with immersion materials, you can use outside sources to make things more comprehensible if the language material is a little bit beyond your level such as using target language subtitles or an extension called Language Reactor that allows you to see Target Language subtitles and subtitles in your native language to make understanding easier. Along with that, the extension allows you to hover over words to learn their meanings. You can watch videos with native language subtitles as well but I don’t recommend that as much as I recommend the other two things I suggested because target language subtitles allow you to learn how words are spelled and look words up so you can write them down and make flashcards.
While immersion material in a target language is very important, some deliberate studying is necessary to get the finer points of grammar in the beginning. The more learning materials you go through, be it books or videos, you will start to learn the language more and more, but there are some things that will be a struggle. Such as memorizing vocabulary or grammar. This is where skill building comes in. When you watch a video with target language subtitles and there’s a word you want to remember, it is incredibly important to write it down and review it on a consistent basis to put it in your long term memory. This is the whole idea of a Spaced Repetition System and there are many ways to use one. You could use a notebook or any flashcard system, but one I personally recommend is Anki. It’s a little hard to use at first but it’s really good for reviewing words. The simplest way to make a flashcard is to write down the word on one side and the meaning using a picture or your native language on the other. Either way works. And it’s nice to be reviewing a couple words a day. Mainly adding 10 or less at a time to not overwhelm your brain. In regards to grammar, to learn the finer points of that, you can look up videos, internet articles, and purchase grammar books online to study from. I personally recommend a mix of all three depending on your learning style but buying a book at some point can be incredibly helpful since there are things you won’t learn from the internet alone. I also recommend talking to native speakers of the language to gain an understanding of the finer points of grammar if you have any questions. Living at home, I can easily ask my parents but if you don’t have access to native speakers in your vicinity, you can find them through apps such as HelloTalk and Italki in which you can contact teachers who speak the language or language exchange partners.
After about two months of using Duolingo, I decided to quit because I found the repetitive exercises weren’t really adding to my Turkish and I found it to be a bit of an annoyance. From here, I spent my time engaging with immersion materials and skill building. Along with watching videos of comprehensible input, I dove into learning songs as well. This worked for me because I’m a musician and I find songs work incredibly well for me to learn anything, and I found myself acquiring a lot of new vocabulary this way. The only thing that I would caution to anyone trying to learn using this method is that the language used in songs doesn’t always grammatically resemble how the language is spoken as song lyrics use plays on words, sentence structure, and dramatic imagery. But reading and taking apart song lyrics is incredibly useful otherwise. In tandem with this, I would try to contact my aunt to read almost anything I could. We worked with online materials and graded readers in the beginning. I think reading is very important in second language acquisition because when we read, we have to use our imagination to think up the situation that is being described in the text. This can help create associations with new vocabulary words and grammar. All of this will make it easier for you to not translate in your head as much.
After about three or four months, I was able to start having simple conversations with my parents around the house. It was incredibly hard at first because while I had learned a lot of vocabulary, I hadn’t grasped how to think in the language on the fly yet. But trying to converse in tandem with immersion materials and skill building made it easier for me to think in the language on the fly. I still have to translate in my head sometimes when thinking up longer sentences but when it comes to thinking simple sentences or thoughts, it’s mostly second nature to me. When you start conversing, translating in your head will be an inevitable part of the process, but the more you engage with immersion materials (especially reading), it will become easier. At least, that’s how it’s been for me so far. You want to get the language in your brain as much as possible to the point where you can start thinking in that language. One way of doing that is to watch the same video, episode of a show, or movie, or read a certain text a ton of times. This way, the language presented to you naturally sinks in your brain and you can use it as a spaced repetition system in a way, looking up vocabulary words and grammar structures you hadn’t noticed before on each viewing or reading.
I wanted to touch on one more point specifically for heritage speakers looking to learn their parent’s language. It is very normal in the beginning to feel a sense of shame related to your abilities in the language. You might be able to understand it but not be able to speak it very well or you might know a couple throwaway phrases like I did. It’s going to hurt in the beginning because connecting to your cultural background is an incredibly difficult process but it can also be very healing. You might feel a sense of guilt for not taking the leap of connecting with your parents culture and choosing to assimilate instead. But it’s never too late to start. And learning your parents language is an important part of that because language is so intertwined with culture. It’s going to feel difficult at first, but it gets better. In the end, you’re not just your parents’ culture or where you grew up, you are you. And you have your own unique experiences and perspective to offer in this world so you shouldn’t feel any pressure to fit into a box. I struggle with not feeling Turkish enough or not feeling American enough, but the best thing I’ve done is to keep going regardless of my insecurities.
My journey with learning my parents language has been an incredibly complicated one and I’m constantly learning new things day by day. My experiences have taught me not just how to learn a language but how to learn in general. Things like spaced repetition systems and persistence are things that can be applied to learning any topic. The best thing you can do to learn a language is to soak up as much information regarding the language as possible. A mix of immersion and skill building through vocabulary and grammar drills will both take you a very long way. But the most important lesson of all is to never give up. Even when you still find yourself having to translate in your head. Or even when you feel like you just won’t be able to use a certain grammatical structure, it will all pay off in the end. I’m very new to the field of second language acquisition and language learning but it fascinates me as a whole. Once my Turkish gets better, I’m open to learning another language. Potentially Japanese? I do watch a lot of anime. And going to Japan is definitely on my bucket list.
If you are interested in linguistics or language learning yourself and want to go down the massive rabbit hole I went down, here are some resources about second language acquisition and discovering other cultures.
Some interesting tidbits:
NPR Life Kit, How To Learn A Heritage Language
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101187823/how-to-learn-a-heritage-language
What I’ve Learned, How To Learn A Language: Input (Why most methods don’t work)
Duration (minutes): 13:57
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_EQDtpYSNM
Days And Words, Why Language Learners Hate Anki
Duration (minutes): 9:59
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzNizwynP3o
Norwegian With Ilys, How I Learnt Norwegian On My Own
Duration (minutes): 23:04