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Changing Your Aspect Ratio In Language Learning
Last night I finally got around to watching District 9 on DVD. Before we start every DVD in our household, we change the aspect ratio on our television to get the maximum visual out of the picture. This usually works, especially if there's a letterbox on the DVD. Last night, we did the same, and settled into the couch for the movie. "Uh oh," I said, ten minutes in. "There are subtitles." Subtitles, as useful as they are, usually fall below the letterbox, and drop off our screen if we have the aspect ratio set the way we like it. "But they're for people speaking English with a South African accent. We can understand that." So we gave it a few more minutes, and were fine. Until the aliens started speaking. Neither of us speaks alien. We've written before here about alien languages, from Klingon to Na'vi, but apart from how fascinating it is for these languages to be created for a fictional race of creatures, it's also interesting to ponder the fact that these fictional languages, once they're subtitled, might as well be Chinese, or German, or Tagalog. In fact, it works the other way around: any language you don't understand feels like it might as well be alien. It's possibly why so many people fear even dipping their toes into the world of a foreign languages. It's just so, well... foreign. There's another parallel in this fable: in order to prepare our minds for starting to learn another language, we need to change the aspect ratio of our ears. Once you mess with your settings and start to listen differently — in a very general way: being receptive to new sounds, new word order, new inflection, all the differences from your own language — you'll be better equipped to receive the signals of a foreign language loud and clear. It's about being receptive and flexible before you even get settled into the act of learning a language. Just a thought. (SUZANNE)
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