So, to sum it up basically:

1. Trying to learn an instrument using books is as trying to learn a language using books. Boring and ineffective. Instead, go look up the tabs to your favorite songs, find that part that you really want to play, and get to work. If at the point you've got that one part down, you want to learn another from the same song, do it. But if it's boring, throw it the heck out and find a new part of a song to learn. Go on growing and building a repertoire of these parts, making connections as you go along (“hey, this song uses the same notes/hand positions, etc.”), and then maybe later you go back and learn some technical stuff to help make other connections, or not. It's up to you to study the “grammar” of music. Likewise, in language, I think it's important to find the fun parts, learn them, and then go find more fun parts to learn. Never concerning yourself with “study” and grammar rules, and vocabulary lists, etc. Instead, go and find stuff to gain “localized fluency” in. (Credit to http://ajatt.com for that term). Just like learning your favorite riff from your favorite song at the time, go learn your favorite parts of that TV show, song, book, etc. and then find the next one. Understanding this better now than ever, I may go back and pick up the guitar later on.

2. Just like it takes time to build up your chops for playing an instrument, it'll take a similar amount of time to gain good sounding pronunciation. That time you spend slowly working through a piece of music to build up that muscle memory to play it at normal speed is absolutely no different than listening closely to something in your target language over and over until you can produce it the way it sounds, tone, rhythm, pitch, pauses, etc. After you get good at it the way it is, as mentioned above, is the time to put your personality into it (i.e. throw in those pinch harmonics, bends, etc.) And, while you may not get the sound of your favorite artists down, you'll most definitely find a sound that is both “native-like”, but that is also uniquely yours.

3. Learning to read music is not learning to play music. What that means in terms of language is that, learning to read isn't going to help you speak; they're two different skills. You have to learn to listen and understand before you can hope to speak the language. So, what I guess I'm really getting at is that you'll need to give focus to all areas of a language before you can expect to produce it in a similar manner. Want to learn to write? Then read. Learn to speak? Listen, a lot. A. LOT. The nice thing though, is that reading in language learning and in music, can help you learn to understand what you hear. For example, have you ever heard band kids singing their parts, tapping their foot or clicking their finger for rhythm, and just trying to get an idea of what it's supposed to sound like? Well, that's what reading aloud can do for your language. You get an idea of what it might sound like, and then in your listening you are corrected. (In the case of band, you have the instructor to direct how it should sound, but if you're learning an instrument on your own, then you'll want to actually listen to that part many many times to refine your “understanding” of that part. Get that feel for the rhythm and sound.

So, I guess the reason that I like something like http://ajatt.com 's method for learning languages so much is because it emulates the idea of learning individual parts (sentences), listening a lot, and advocates having a ton of fun and banishing boredom. Just like in learning a piece of music, if it starts to bore you, don't play it anymore (delete that sentence). There's plenty of music (sentences) to choose from to make up for any benefit that it might have provided and to do it in a fun way.

Excellent, excellent, post. This really made me realize a lot about what I'm doing. I guess I should also mention two other things. One is that you really do have to put in the hours. That 2,400-3,840 hours I mentioned before brought me to a point where I could play circles around my friend who had “been playing his whole life.” This is a good metaphor for the two types of language learners: the one that binges and then has “no-language-days” and the other who devotes every free moment to their language (be it passive listening, reading, etc.) The other thing is that you need patience. Making a language yours truly will come. It's totally possible to pull of your own “solos”. But you need to practice other people's first. Which, to conclude, also means that imitation is really really important for success in either playing instruments, or in language.

I guess the reason that they are so similar is because our voice is actually considered an instrument, be it for singing a tune or communicating an idea. And a musical instrument can do the same thing: sing a tune and communicate ideas.

Thanks for this post. Sorry to clutter it up with my late night babble.

So, to sum it up basically:

1. Trying to learn an instrument using books is as trying to learn a language using books. Boring and ineffective. Instead, go look up the tabs to your favorite songs, find that part that you really want to play, and get to work. If at the point you've got that one part down, you want to learn another from the same song, do it. But if it's boring, throw it the heck out and find a new part of a song to learn. Go on growing and building a repertoire of these parts, making connections as you go along (“hey, this song uses the same notes/hand positions, etc.”), and then maybe later you go back and learn some technical stuff to help make other connections, or not. It's up to you to study the “grammar” of music. Likewise, in language, I think it's important to find the fun parts, learn them, and then go find more fun parts to learn. Never concerning yourself with “study” and grammar rules, and vocabulary lists, etc. Instead, go and find stuff to gain “localized fluency” in. (Credit to http://ajatt.com for that term). Just like learning your favorite riff from your favorite song at the time, go learn your favorite parts of that TV show, song, book, etc. and then find the next one. Understanding this better now than ever, I may go back and pick up the guitar later on.

2. Just like it takes time to build up your chops for playing an instrument, it'll take a similar amount of time to gain good sounding pronunciation. That time you spend slowly working through a piece of music to build up that muscle memory to play it at normal speed is absolutely no different than listening closely to something in your target language over and over until you can produce it the way it sounds, tone, rhythm, pitch, pauses, etc. After you get good at it the way it is, as mentioned above, is the time to put your personality into it (i.e. throw in those pinch harmonics, bends, etc.) And, while you may not get the sound of your favorite artists down, you'll most definitely find a sound that is both “native-like”, but that is also uniquely yours.

3. Learning to read music is not learning to play music. What that means in terms of language is that, learning to read isn't going to help you speak; they're two different skills. You have to learn to listen and understand before you can hope to speak the language. So, what I guess I'm really getting at is that you'll need to give focus to all areas of a language before you can expect to produce it in a similar manner. Want to learn to write? Then read. Learn to speak? Listen, a lot. A. LOT. The nice thing though, is that reading in language learning and in music, can help you learn to understand what you hear. For example, have you ever heard band kids singing their parts, tapping their foot or clicking their finger for rhythm, and just trying to get an idea of what it's supposed to sound like? Well, that's what reading aloud can do for your language. You get an idea of what it might sound like, and then in your listening you are corrected. (In the case of band, you have the instructor to direct how it should sound, but if you're learning an instrument on your own, then you'll want to actually listen to that part many many times to refine your “understanding” of that part. Get that feel for the rhythm and sound.

So, I guess the reason that I like something like http://ajatt.com 's method for learning languages so much is because it emulates the idea of learning individual parts (sentences), listening a lot, and advocates having a ton of fun and banishing boredom. Just like in learning a piece of music, if it starts to bore you, don't play it anymore (delete that sentence). There's plenty of music (sentences) to choose from to make up for any benefit that it might have provided and to do it in a fun way.

Excellent, excellent, post. This really made me realize a lot about what I'm doing. I guess I should also mention two other things. One is that you really do have to put in the hours. That 2,400-3,840 hours I mentioned before brought me to a point where I could play circles around my friend who had “been playing his whole life.” This is a good metaphor for the two types of language learners: the one that binges and then has “no-language-days” and the other who devotes every free moment to their language (be it passive listening, reading, etc.) The other thing is that you need patience. Making a language yours truly will come. It's totally possible to pull of your own “solos”. But you need to practice other people's first. Which, to conclude, also means that imitation is really really important for success in either playing instruments, or in language.

I guess the reason that they are so similar is because our voice is actually considered an instrument, be it for singing a tune or communicating an idea. And a musical instrument can do the same thing: sing a tune and communicate ideas.

Thanks for this post. Sorry to clutter it up with my late night babble.

Although Esperanto is a living language, it helps language learning as well

Please have a look at http://eurotalk.com/en/store/learn/esperanto or http://lernu.net

“Those who truly want something look for opportunities, and those who don't truly want it look for excuses.”