A few words about me. I was trained as a linguist in Moscow, in the late 1980-s, in a wonderful program at Moscow State University called Theoretical and Applied Linguistics.

One huge and amazing part of the program was field linguistics, which means gathering information about a language from its native speakers, and then writing up whatever you gathered and publishing it, so everyone can learn about that language. I went on three linguistic expeditions to Dagestan, a Russian republic in the Caucasus. With a bunch of eager 20-year-olds and one wonderful professor (Aleksandr Kibrik), I traveled to three tiny villages high up in the mountains (called Itsari, Megeb, and Godoberi), camped on village school floors for weeks, and every day went to people’s houses with a notebook, trying to learn their language. Stunning nature views! Incredible brainy fun!

So, here is one great online resource for field language learning that I keep telling everyone about.

Greg Thompson’s Essays on Field Language Learning. If anyone can help you learn Spanish from your Latino neighbors, Greg Thompson can! He’ll tell you how to get a Language Resource Person (LRP), that is, any native speaker willing to spend time with you, and exactly how to ferret out every bit of language that you need. A few words from Greg:

Come back to all those people who say, “I want to learn language X; where can I find a textbook?” What would be a better first question for them to ask? Try “I want to learn language X; where can I find some speakers of language X?” How rarely people ask that. How odd…

…You need someone who will talk to you in such a way that you can understand her, and who will help you along as you struggle to put your own thoughts into words. That’s all you need. 

…Learning a language is exciting. When you are first exposed to the new language, it is like a movie that is so out of focus that it is a meaningless gray blur. As you keep learning, it is as though someone is turning the lens, and the pictures start to appear and be recognizable, until you are able to follow everything going on in the movie. It really is fun. You just can’t do it by yourself. You don’t just learn a language. You become part of a human social organism for which the language is the life blood, and then you live as part of that social organism by means of that language.

And then Greg gives you the actual ‘lesson plans’ (that is, plans for visits with your Spanish/French/Chinese/Russian etc. friends), with so many great ideas and activities, it’ll take you months to use them all. Two months for starters (here’s his two-month plan), and the rest of your life for advanced enjoyment.

Greg Thompson’s papers, and a bunch of other resources, are found on the Language Learning Bookshelf of the Summer Institute of Linguistics.