How to learn a language

লিখেছেন লিখেছেন আশরাফ ইমাম ০২ জুলাই, ২০১৫, ০৪:১৪:২৮ বিকাল

There are approximately 3000–6000 languages that are spoken by human today. When used as a general concept, "language" refers to the cognitive faculty that enables humans to learn and use systems of complex communication compared to other animal. Language is thought to have originated when early hominids first started cooperating and sharing intentionality.

Allah says in the Holy Quran-

“He created man. He taught him eloquent speech.” (Sura-ar-Rahman, 3-4)

The Arabic word ‘Bayan’ indicates organized sentences, it includes-

1. Completeness of sense;

2. Correct order;

3. Combination of words.

The ability of a language lies on meaningful expressions and understanding. When someone want to express his speech it must be meaningful and he must have the ability to understand others expressions.

Language acquisition:

All healthy, normally-developing human beings learn to use language. When Allah created first human being in this universe he teaches them how to speak, in order to teach them language he firstly teaches them noun; as we find this idea in the holy Quran-

And (remember) when your Lord said to the angels: "Verily, I am going to place (mankind) generations after generations on earth." They said: "Will You place therein those who will make mischief therein and shed blood, - while we glorify You with praises and thanks (Exalted be You above all that they associate with You as partners) and sanctify You." He (Allâh) said: "I know that which you do not know."

And He taught Adam all the names (of everything) [], then He showed them to the angels and said, "Tell Me the names of these if you are truthful." (Sura-Baqar:30-31).

Children acquire the language or languages used around them – whichever languages they receive sufficient exposure to during childhood. First language acquisition proceeds in a fairly regular sequence, though there is a wide degree of variation in the timing of particular stages among normally-developing infants. From birth, newborns respond more readily to human speech than to other sounds. Around one month of age, babies appear to be able to distinguish between different speech sounds. Around six months of age, a child will begin babbling, producing the speech sounds or handshapes of the languages used around them. Words appear around the age of 12 to 18 months; the average vocabulary of an eighteen-month old child is around 50 words. A child's first utterances are holophrases (literally "whole-sentences"), utterances that use just one word to communicate some idea. Several months after a child begins producing words, she or he will produce two-word utterances, and within a few more months begin to produce telegraphic speech, short sentences that are less grammatically complex than adult speech, but that do show regular syntactic structure. From roughly the age of three to five years, a child's ability to speak or sign is refined to the point that it resembles adult language.

We can observe that, when began to speak he firstly began express noun, for example around the age of 12 to 18 months he pronounce the mum, dad, water etc. when he feel thirsty he normally try to realize his guardian by only pronouncing “mum, water”, if he sees any animal he just pronounce the name indicating that animal such as cat, bird, cow etc. after a few months later, he can develop his speeches. He can use all other parts of speech to make his sentences more meaningful and understandable. For example,

“A beautiful bird was flying slowly above the sky, while we were playing; mum haven’t you seen it? “

The use of language has become deeply entrenched in human culture and, apart from being used to communicate and share information, it also has social and cultural uses, such as signifying group identity, social stratification and for social grooming and entertainment.

A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor is known as a language family. The languages that are most spoken in the world today belong to the Indo-European family, which includes languages such as English, Spanish, Russian and Hindi; the Sino-Tibetan languages, which include Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese and many others; Semitic languages, which include Arabic, Amharic and Hebrew; and the Bantu languages, which include Swahili, Zulu, Shona and hundreds of other languages spoken throughout Africa.

The formal study of language began in India with Pāṇini, the 5th century BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology. Pāṇini’s systematic classification of the sounds of Sanskrit into consonants and vowels, and word classes, such as nouns and verbs, was the first known instance of its kind. In the Middle East Sibawayh (سیبویه) made a detailed description of Arabic in 760 AD in his monumental work, Al-kitab fi al-nahw (الكتاب في النحو, The Book on Grammar), the first known author to distinguish between sounds and phonemes (sounds as units of a linguistic system).

Western interest in the study of languages began as early as in the East,[9] but the grammarians of the classical languages did not use the same methods or reach the same conclusions as their contemporaries in the Indic world. Early interest in language in the West was a part of philosophy, not of grammatical description

Need for language education:

Increasing globalization has created a large need for people in the workforce who can communicate in multiple languages. The uses of common languages are in areas such as trade, tourism, international relations, technology, media, and science. Many countries such as Japan (Kubota, 1998) and China (Kirkpatrick & Zhichang, 2002) frame education policies to teach at least one foreign language at the primary and secondary school levels. However, some countries such as India, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, and the Philippines use a second official language in their governments. According to GAO (2010), China has recently been putting enormous importance on foreign language learning, especially the English Language.

Language education may take place as a general school subject or in a specialized language school.

With the increasing prevalence of international business transactions, it is now important to have multiple languages at one's disposal. This is also evident in businesses outsourcing their departments to Eastern Europe.

Teaching language Skills:

When talking about language skills, the four basic ones are: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, other, more socially-based skills have been identified more recently such as summarizing, describing, narrating etc.

In acquiring these skills we have some physical organs -

It is He, Who has created for you (the sense of) hearing (ears), sight (eyes), and hearts (understanding). Little thanks you give. (Al-Muminun: 78).

Have We not made for him a pair of eyes? And a tongue and a pair of lips? (Al-Balad 8-9)

In listening concentration of your mind is more important. And for the purpose of reading effectively you have to read as if you are listening. While reading you may imagine a character in your mind that he is narrating and you are listening. In that way someone may make his reading more effective.

And for speaking you should speak such a way that people can realize your speech. If we look at incidents of Musa and Fir'aun, Allah orders him-

"Go to Fir'aun (Pharaoh)! Verily, he has transgressed (all bounds in disbelief and disobedience, and has behaved as an arrogant, and as a tyrant)." (Sura Tuha:24)

Then he prayed-

[Mûsa (Moses)] said: "O my Lord! Open for me my chest (grant me self-confidence, contentment, and boldness). And ease my task for me; And make loose the knot (the defect) from my tongue, (i.e. remove the incorrectness from my speech. That they understand my speech.” (Sura Tuha:25-28)

So in speaking your speech must be understandable by others.

And writing solely depends in your knowledge; it also requires understandability. Your writing should be clear to understand. Allah narrates in the Holy Quran-

Nûn. [These letters (Nûn, etc.) are one of the miracles of the Qur'ân, and none but Allâh (Alone) knows their meanings]. By the pen and what the (angels) write (in the Records of men). You (O Muhammad SAW) are not, by the Grace of your Lord, a madman. (Al-Qalam:1&2)

It may be understood by these verses that there has a strong link between writing by pen and thinking by mind.

Conclusion:

The process of language acquisition is visible when we observe how infants internalize their first language. It looks to the way that children learn their native language. Communication between parents and their children combines both verbal and physical aspects. The child responds physically to the speech of their parent. The responses of the child are in turn positively reinforced by the speech of the parent. For many months the child absorbs the language without being able to speak.

Learning a second or third language not only helps an individual's personal mental skills, but also aids their future job skills.



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