The Handbook of Informal Language Learning

Introduction

MARK DRESSMAN

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 1

Imagine this: It is 1980 (or 1890, or 1090, or 980, or 109 CE), and you live anywhere on Earth. You've decided that your fortune lies in leaving your homeland to live in another country or empire, working as an immigrant, or a trader, or perhaps as an envoy from your own country, and you see that your success in this endeavor will depend largely on your ability to function well in the language(s) of the country you are moving to. What are your options for learning that new language, in your time? Perhaps you can find some books, or perhaps there are classes you can take, or if you have the means, you'll hire a tutor or find someone who speaks the new language and befriend them. Maybe, if it's 1980, you can find some audiotapes or phonograph records to listen to and imitate. It will be hard, hard work; but you can do it, if you persist: You can learn a foreign language on your own, if there are resources, and if you have the means to obtain them.

But now, it's 1995, and you live in a country with access to a new form of communication, satellite television, which can send you programming 24 hours a day in the language you want to learn – with subtitles (or if you're lucky, captions in the target language). Then, it's 2005, and there are new technologies, personal computers and mobile devices and the internet, and you now have ...