Language-learning, like all other arts as contrasted with sciences, is a habit-forming process. Proficiency in the understanding of the structure of a language is attained by treating the subject as a science, by studying the theory; but proficiency in the use of a language can only come as a result of perfectly formed habits. No foreign word, form, or combination of these is ‘known’ or ‘mastered’ until we can use it automatically, until we can attach it to its meaning without conscious analysis, until we can produce it without hesitation and conscious synthesis. We hear a foreign sentence as pronounced at a normal speed by a native speaker. If we understand this sentence as soon as it falls from his lips, if we understand it without being conscious of its form or without even realizing that we are listening to a foreign language, we ‘possess’ that sentence, it forms part of the material which we have gained as the result of a habit; our understanding of it is ‘automatic.’ If, on the other hand, we ask the speaker to repeat it or to say it more slowly, if we claim a moment of reflection in order to realize the parts of which it is composed, if we subject it to a rapid analysis or to a rapid translation, we do not possess the sentence; it has not become automatic.

We wish to speak; if the foreign sentence springs to our lips as soon as we have formulated the thought, if we are unconscious of the words or the form of the words contained in it, if we are unaware of the manner in which we have pieced it together, it is certain that we have produced it automatically, we have produced it as the result of a perfectly formed habit. If, on the other hand, we prepare the sentence in advance; if, as we utter it, we consciously choose the words or the form of the words contained in it; if we build it up by conscious synthesis or by a rapid translation from an equivalent sentence of our native tongue, we do not produce it automatically; we have not formed the habit of using the sentence or the type of sentence to which it belongs; we are producing it by means of conscious calculation.

Adult students in general dislike forming new habits and avoid such work as far as possible; they seek to replace it by forms of study requiring discrimination and other processes of the intellect. One reason for this is that habit-forming often entails monotonous work, whereas the other types of work are more or less interesting; another reason is that the forming of a habit seems a slow process; so many repetitions are required and progress is not at once apparent, whereas the other form of work has all the appearance of rapidity. We know, however, that in reality what we have learnt as the result of a habit is not only immediately available at all times, but is also a permanent acquisition, and that what we have learnt by the aid of theory alone is neither immediately available nor permanent. Let us take an example to illustrate our point.

We wish to learn when and how to use each of the German cases. The theory of the declension provides us with all the necessary rules and exceptions. One set of prepositions requires the accusative, another the dative, another the genitive, another accusative or dative according to certain semantic considerations. This rule can be mastered without any great difficulty; within the space of a few hours the necessary formulÆ may be committed to memory, and the student imagines that the problem is solved for all time. “Whenever I want to know what case to use,” he thinks, “I shall only have to remember to which category the preposition belongs and I shall know what case is required.” In reality his knowledge of the theory, i.e. his memory of the categories, will soon become blurred and will tend to fade away; and even if he does succeed in retaining this fresh in his memory, he will always require a second or two of conscious reflection before he is able to hit on the right case. He will be using consciousness where unconsciousness would serve him better; if (as is probable) he has learnt to determine gender by a similar process, his conscious attention will have to be devoted to this as well, he will be focusing his attention on the language-material, which will prevent him from focusing it on the things he wishes to say. Deciding to use these ‘short cuts’ he will therefore assume for his whole lifetime the burden of continual conscious effort.

Now, instead of learning and applying theory he might memorize a hundred or so real living sentences, each exemplifying one of the results of the theory. By doing so he would acquire a hundred or so new habits or automatic actions. He recoils before the task; the perfect memorizing of a simple sentence is so distasteful to him; it seems to take so long; he fails to realize the permanent advantages which he might obtain by doing it; he chooses what seems the easier path, the short cut.

It is here that we see the value of spontaneous assimilation. If the student has trained his capacities of retaining unconsciously what he may happen to hear (or read), he will memorize without effort, and without the expenditure of any appreciable amount of nervous energy.

The same considerations apply to the learning of the French conjugation, English pronunciation, Hungarian vocalic harmony, Welsh mutation, or to the overcoming of the other obstacles in the path of progress towards perfect attainment.

The fear of monotonous and tedious memorizing work, and the realization of the length of time necessary for each act of memorizing, induce the student to invent pretexts for avoiding such work. He declares that ‘parrot-work’ is not education, that modern educationalists condemn ‘learning by rote,’ that the age of blind repetition is over and that the age of intelligent understanding has taken its place. He will talk of the method of discovery, the factor of interest, and will even quote to us ‘the laws of nature’ in defence of his thesis. But we know that in reality these are but so many excuses for his disinclination to form those habits which can secure him the automatism which alone will result in sound and permanent progress.

This fear of tediousness is not really justified at all, for mechanical work is not necessarily monotonous. Automatism, it is true, is acquired by repetition, but this repetition need not be of the parrot-like type. Repetition, in the sense ascribed to it by the psychologist, simply means having many separate occasions to hear, to see, to utter, or to write a given word or sentence. The object of most of the language-teaching exercises, drills, and devices invented or developed in recent years is precisely to ensure proper repetition in attractive and interesting ways.

Nearly all the time spent by the teacher in explaining why such and such a form is used and why a certain sentence is constructed in a certain way is time lost, for such explanations merely appease curiosity; they do not help us to form new habits, they do not develop automatism. Those who have learnt to use the foreign language and who do use it successfully have long since forgotten the why and the wherefore; they can no longer quote to you the theory which was supposed to have procured them their command of the language.

When teaching the French word chauve-souris it is not necessary to point out that this is literally equivalent to ‘bald-mouse’; and if we tell our student that Ça se comprend really means ‘that understands itself,’ we are telling him something which is not true, and something that will cause him needless perplexity. Hauptstadt is the German equivalent of ‘capital’ (in the geographical sense), and we need not pander to morbid etymological habits by making an allusion to ‘head-town.’ Nothing is gained, but much is lost, if we tell the student that the French say ‘I am become’ instead of ‘I have become.’

It may be objected that habit-forming is aided by these explanations, that the knowledge of the why and the wherefore is a useful aid to the process of memorizing. There is something to be said for this statement; we are ready to admit that in some instances it is good to point out the nature of the laws that stand behind the sentences which exemplify them; we shall even show later in what cases and for what reasons we counsel the giving of explanations. But we are entirely at issue with those who maintain that explanations are an indispensable concomitant of memorizing, and we give a flat contradiction to those who maintain that “they cannot memorize what they don’t understand.” The most successful linguists have attained their proficiency by memorizing sentences they could not analyse. The temptation to replace habit-forming by analysis and synthesis is so strong that the teacher must continually react against it.

As we have already seen, instead of acquiring the habit of using the French sound É the English student persists in replacing it by some form of the English ay; conversely, the French student of English tends to replace the English ay by the French É. Most of these acts of substitution are illegitimate; French eu is a very poor substitute for English u in but, the English word air is a mere caricature of the French word air; of the six sounds contained in the word thoroughly [??r?li], only two, [?] and [l], are in any way equivalent to French sounds. About half of the forty-six sounds (or rather ‘phones’) contained in the English phonetic system have no equivalent in French, and about the same proportion of the thirty-seven French sounds are absent from English. Yet most French users of English and most English users of French endeavour respectively to speak the foreign language with no other sounds than their native sounds. The French system of stress and intonation is entirely different from the English system, but most English students will use their native system when speaking French. The average English student replaces French habits of sentence-building by his previously acquired English habits, and also attributes to French words or word-compounds the meanings (or connotations) possessed by what he imagines to be their English equivalents.

In many cases he is undoubtedly justified; his efforts are not all misplaced; some foreign sounds are actually identical with some native sounds, some foreign constructions are actually parallel with some native constructions, and some foreign words and expressions do possess an exact counterpart in the native language. But the trouble is that the student fails to realize in what cases these identities exist; untrained in observation and discrimination, he considers as equivalents things which are not, and fails to identify as equivalents things which are. French a in patte is frequently not far removed from a perfectly English variety of u in cut, but the average Frenchman pronounces cut with the French vowel eu in veuve, and the average Englishman pronounces patte either with the vowel of pat or of part. The last syllable of pleasure is practically identical with the French word je, but the average Frenchman does not know this, and substitutes some sort of French ure or eure. The French words souhaite, semelle, laine, dialecte are very similar to the (real or imaginary) English words sweat, smell, len, d’yullect, but the average English student does not know this, and uses pronunciations such as soohate, semell, lane, dee-ah-lect instead.

In these and all parallel cases the student is utilizing certain of his previously acquired habits, but unfortunately he has selected the wrong ones instead of the right ones; it is for the skilful language-teacher to ascertain which of the student’s known habits can be most nearly adapted to what is required.

The same thing holds good in the case of construction, choice of words, etc. The English student constructs the sentence Je marcherai À la gare on the wrong model; if he must use an English habit at all, he should in this case proceed from I shall go on foot to the station and not from I shall walk to the station. Some may inquire at this point, “Why drag in English at all? Why not think in the foreign language without reference to the mother-tongue?” We would reply that this is hardly relevant to the matter under immediate consideration; we are simply showing that the average student, if left to himself, will tend not only to utilize his native linguistic habits, but to select very unsuitable ones. We would, however, add that cases do undoubtedly exist in which the student would be well advised to enlist some of his previously acquired habits; a judiciously selected native form will produce better results than a badly constructed foreign form.[3]