EA - Effective language-learning for effective altruists by taoburga

The Nonlinear Library: EA Forum

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Effective language-learning for effective altruists, published by taoburga on March 20, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.This is a (late!) Draft Amnesty Week draft. It may not be polished, up to my usual standards, fully thought through, or fully fact-checked.Commenting and feedback guidelines:This draft lacks the polish of a full post, but the content is almost there. The kind of constructive feedback you would normally put on a Forum post is very welcome.Epistemic status: Tentative - I have thought about this for some time (~2 years) and have firsthand experience, but have done minimal research into the literature.TL;DR: Language learning is probably not the best use of your time. Some exceptions might be (1) learning English as a non-native speaker, (2) if you are particularly apt at learning languages, (3) if you see it as leisure and so minimize opportunity costs, (4) if you are aiming at regional specialist roles (e.g., China specialist) and are playing the long game, and more.If you still want to do it, I propose some ways of greatly speeding up the process: practicing artificial immersion by maximizing exposure and language input, learning a few principles of linguistics (e.g., IPA, arbitrariness), learning vocabulary through spaced repetition and active recall (e.g., with Anki), and more.Motivation: I'd bet that EAs are unusually interested in learning languages (definitely compared to the general population, probably compared to demographically similar populations). This raises two big questions: (1) Does learning a foreign language make sense, from an impact perspective? (2) If it does, how does one do it most effectively?My goals are:To dissuade most EAs from learning a random language without a clear understanding of the (opportunity) costs.To encourage the comparatively few for which language-learning makes sense, and to give them some tips to do so faster and better.Is this a draft? The reason I am publishing this (late!) on Draft Amnesty Week is that I believe a quality post on effective language learning should draw from the second language acquisition (SLA) literature and make evidence-based claims. I don't have time to do this, so this post is based almost entirely on my own experience and learning from successful polyglots (see "learn from others" below).Still, I think most people approach language learning in such an inefficient way that this post will be valuable to many.Who am I to say? Spanish is my native language. I have learned two foreign languages: English to level C2 and German to level B2.[1] I learned both of these faster than my peers,[2] which I mostly attribute to using the principles detailed below. Many readers will have much more experience learning languages, so I encourage you to add useful tips or challenge mine in the comments!What are the costs and benefits?Benefits:Access to new jobs, jobs in new regions, or higher likelihood of being hired for certain jobs. This is only the case if you reach an advanced level (probably C1 or C2, at least B2), and is most relevant if you are learning English.Access to more resources and news. If you plan to be, say, a regional foreign policy expert, learning the region's language(s) can be necessary.Good signaling of conscientiousness and intelligence.Cognitive benefits? Language learning purportedly benefits memory, IQ, creativity, and slows down cognitive aging - but I have not gone into this literature and so am not confident either way.Greater ability to form social connections. Speaking someone's language and knowing about their culture is a great introduction.Costs:A LOT of time (depends on the language, the learner, and the method), attention and effort; large opportunity costs. There are ways of speeding up the process, but it is still a particularly costly...