African Languages

[english grammar man]

Africans learning with ease!

Perhaps there is no place in the world where so many people speak more than one language than in Africa.

Tens of thousands of Africans speak a trade language or a colonial language as well as their own tribal tongue. Thousands more speak two or more tribal languages.

In learning various African languages, these people have never enjoyed the benefits of printed grammars, a study of phonetics, or instruction in how to learn other languages, but they master diverse tongues with apparent ease.

Africans, instead of trying hard to learn the language, they seem to take it for granted that after listening to a language long enough, they would find that they could "hear" it.

"We just live there and listen, and before we know it, we can hear what they say. Then we can talk," one African explained.

Here we are seeing passive absorption at it's best. Passive absorption is where a learner does not expect to understand everything before anything is said. The learner takes in a language by listening to it everyday, and can then soon speak in that language.