Heritage learners

[RedInkstone]

Hi everybody! Are there any heritage learners in this forum?

We heritage learners face very unique problems when it comes to language learning, be it that we cannot write in our HL or understand everything but cannot speak and many more scenarios. I was wondering if there are and other heritage learners and if so what your strengths and weaknesses are and how you pursue your HL studies.

I personally am a heriatage lerner if Serbo-Croatian and really struggle to find an effective routine. When I was little we never spoke BCS at home, only when we went to Ex-Yu on holiday so my language skills never really developed past “No I’m not hungry grandma!”. Then I started more to actively listen to the language, dabbled a bit in Glossika, looked at translated song lyrics and tried to study a bit. Now I’m in this wierd place where I can talk to my family about simple topics but at the same time also understand the news or read some Wikipedia articles (thanks to international and loan words) but I’m totally lost when talking to a stranger or reading a novel or history school books (my aunt is a teacher).

Does anyone with a similar heritage learners background have any valuable advise on how to break this weak A2 barrier? Unfortunately my university programme is very time consuming so I cannot immerse in the Balkans, I could only do part time immersion at home.

[Speakeasy]

Being an incorrigible pack-rat, I bookmarked the discussion threads below:

A weird sensation as a heritage learner – LLORG – May, 2018
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8132

Learning a heritage language – LLORG – February, 2018
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7664

Heritage learning as an adult – LLORG – October, 2016
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4822

EDITED:
Tinkering

[NoManches]

In college I ran out of Spanish classes that I could take and that worked with my schedule. I had an interview (in Spanish) with the director of the foreign language department and they allowed me to take a Spanish class that was designed for heritage speakers.

A few things that I noticed:

-There are a lot of common spelling/ grammar mistakes that a heritage speaker would make but a learner of that language would almost never make . The same goes for mistakes made by the learner of the L2, which a heritage speaker would never make. The way this was solved in class was lots of grammar exercises after lessons specifically geared towards these types of mistakes. I see that you are very advanced in Spanish so I will use some examples in Spanish: a heritage speaker night mix up the "b" and "v" since they sound so similar, where a L2 learner will usually spell the word correctly (but not always). I think the key for this might be lots of reading AND paying attention to grammar and the way words are spelled. Another example is a false ending for tú in the preterite, such as "oistes". I've never heard an L2 learner say this but here it all the time in everyday language. I'm sure it's possible for an L2 learner to develop these mistakes if they are focusing heavily on conversation with natives and neglecting reading, corrected writing exercises, and grammar study.

-In the class I noticed a huge tendency to substitute English words for unknown Spanish words... and a tendency to use the wrong Spanish word (such as "suporte" instead of "apoyo". Usually the professor pointing out this mistakes and mentioning that it was a common mistake made by heritage speakers was enough for the student to be conscious of it in the future and to make the right selection of words the next time around. I think a good solution is to get into the habit of using only one language at a time, although I know this is very hard especially when the other person goes back a forth a lot. At least when working on these mistakes use your Serbo-Croatian to describe Serbo-Croatian words that you are not sure of, instead of using a word in English.

I think you are in an excellent position to bring your heritage language up to a very advanced level. I was always jealous of my friends who were heritage Spanish speakers: they usually had a great accent in both languages, excellent listening comprehension, and overall fluency in the language. The only time I ever felt "superior" in my skills is when we would talk about an advanced topic. Many times I found myself using academic and technical words that I picked up from reading, Anki use, and a tutor who forced me to learn those kind of words even when I didn't want to (which I am so grateful for). They were usually forced to use the language at a basic level although they never really had problems with communication (although a lot of English words would be used in place of unknown Spanish words).


So I think doing a lot of reading would help you but I think the easiest way would be to listen A LOT to a wide variety of topics (not sure if there are many podcasts or shows available in your heritage language). Another idea would be to hire a tutor on iTalki or a similar site to make corrections for you whenever you said something that didn't sound "native like".

[snowflake]

Is it ok to refer to another forum, not HTLAL? I don't consider myself a heritage learner, though due to my circumstances sort of approach learning Mandarin that way. I came across an answer to a related question...the answer was given by a Chinese heritage speaker who became a MATI (think that's Midwest Association of Translators and Interpreters in the US) and has been in mainland China for a number of years.

[rdearman]

Is it ok to refer to another forum, not HTLAL? I don't consider myself a heritage learner, though due to my circumstances sort of approach learning Mandarin that way. I came across an answer to a related question...the answer was given by a Chinese heritage speaker who became a MATI (think that's Midwest Association of Translators and Interpreters in the US) and has been in mainland China for a number of years.

We always welcome links from members to legitimate sites. The only real restriction is that we don't allow links from new users (to prevent spam) and for self-promotion (without permission).

[Daniel N.]

I personally am a heriatage lerner if Serbo-Croatian and really struggle to find an effective routine. When I was little we never spoke BCS at home, only when we went to Ex-Yu on holiday so my language skills never really developed past “No I’m not hungry grandma!”.

What region are your (grand)parents from? The actual speech varies a lot, they might be speaking something far from any standard...

[snowflake]

As mentioned, I don't consider myself to be a heritage learner of Mandarin but sort of approach studying it that way due to my circumstances (am ethnic Chinese, peripheral member of local Mandarin speaking community, etc). There's a topic called "Resources for advanced heritage learners?" in the General Study Advice and Discussion of a different forum. On the 2nd page of the topic there's a post by yueni from May 12, 2017 (http://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/to ... rs/?page=2) which talks to an approach that might have some helpful ideas.