You need to understand this point as soon as possible: you cannot become a competent Cherokee speaker if you study with an “English-first” approach. It just won’t work.  Let me explain what I mean by way of comparison to Spanish.

It’s possible to become a (more or less) competent Spanish speaker by learning to “translate” your English thoughts directly into Spanish—because the languages have a lot in common. That’s what I mean by an “English-first” approach—you start with the English in your head, then try and compute it into another language like translation software does. You can probably speak Spanish pretty well even at a high level with that method, without ever having to truly internalize it.  You can’t do that with Cherokee. You cannot become a Cherokee speaker by trying to “translate” your English thoughts into Cherokee speech.

Instead, your first step is learning how Cherokee thoughts are formed. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds—all it means is: 1) learning how morphemes are fused together to create words (especially verbs) and how those words carry meaning—this is a system of consistently applied rules and can be learned as naturally as anything else; then 2) learn how Cherokee words are used in Cherokee speech (i.e., learn speech patterns). That second half of it can be challenging, because sometimes even simple words get used very differently in Cherokee than English. But challenging or not, the Cherokee thought process has its own internal logic that can be learned and internalized. All of it is doable.

Once the morphology rules and speech patterns are understood, the second step is learning to think in Cherokee for yourself. That sounds scary, but really it’s as simple as learning to think about things from a different perspective—something I’m sure you’ve already done at least once before. The last step is to acquire a wide vocabulary—an inventory of words you know by heart, and know how to use. By then, speaking will come as easily to you as walking comes to a toddler. It’ll take time, and you'll be clumsy with it at first, but it’ll start coming to you “naturally"--from that point, you won’t have to claw and fight for every little piece you learn anymore.

I’ve heard some learners use a “filling glass” metaphor for learning to speak Cherokee. You learn, and learn, and learn. You learn morphemes, words, ideas, and so on. You learn until it feels like your brain could pop—but you still won’t be able to produce any speech for a long time. That glass fills, and fills, and fills, until one day, it just starts pouring over and spilling out. After all that learning and frustration and getting-nowhere-with-it, you’ll find suddenly—sometimes overnight, it seems like—you can just talk. Or say something you didn’t know how to say before. It’ll just pop into your head and you’ll think “huh, where’d that come from?”

That analogy perfectly describes my learning experience with Cherokee. Well, almost perfect. I’d say, for me, the glass didn’t just start spilling over one day and then keep spilling forever—I didn’t just wake up one day able to say everything I could think of. Instead, the glass spills over in waves. It has kind of a “leaps-and-bounds” way to it. I’ll work for months with no progress in my speech ability, and then suddenly one day something will click and I can express something in the language that I couldn't before. Then another dry spell, and another spilling-over. Again and again like that—no progress, filling up, then splash, I’ll say something or think something I didn’t even know I could say. Or I’ll see something and my first thought about it will be in Cherokee instead of English, and I’ll wonder how I even knew to think that.

What I was saying earlier, about needing to learn to “think” in the language and internalize the Cherokee-speaking perspective, and how the process has a “learn mechanics first, then internalize them” way of going—that’s why learners have this “glass filling and spilling” experience with learning in my opinion. When I studied Spanish, it didn’t work like that at all. The process was steady, not “leaps-and-bounds.” Once the teacher taught me something, I could use it right away. I felt like I could produce new speech as soon as a new principle was taught to me. Cherokee hasn’t worked like that. I’ll learn the same topic over and over, go through it inside and out a hundred times it seems, before I can use it in speech. And then I never know when the water will just splash out of that glass—but eventually, sure enough, it does.

So I’m saying all this to prepare you. If you’ve studied other languages before, even if you’re pretty good with language, you should brace yourself for how differently your progress will work with this one. Don’t get discouraged, and keep looking forward to that first day you have a little spill over. That should keep you motivated, because I’ll tell you—when it happens, it’s exhilarating. It feels like growing a whole other mind for yourself, a totally different brain—and as smart as you are with the one brain, think of how smart you’ll be with two.

I’m joking about that last part, but I really mean it when I say you get a whole new mind out of the process—a whole new way of thinking about yourself and the world you live in, a whole new paradigm of experiencing and understanding things. You’ll learn new angles and ways of looking at things that kind of make the whole world seem brand new. You’ll notice things you never did before, things will occur to you that you never would’ve thought about.

And this is the important part about language preservation and revitalization. That new way of looking at things you’ll acquire from learning the language? That’s the Cherokee way of looking at things. The Kituwah way. That’s what people mean when they say stuff like “language is culture,” or if you’ve ever heard an elder say something like “without our language we won’t be Cherokees anymore.” It’s not just words and grammar rules, it’s the whole way of thinking and seeing the world that is unique to Kituwah people and culture, a gift that was given specially by Creator, a perspective that can only be fully understood through the language itself. You just can’t think Kituwah thoughts in English, really. That’s why, over at the Cherokee Little Seeds program, Phyllis Sixkiller said “we are not creating speakers, we are creating Cherokees.”

And one other thing. I hear people say all the time that they just “can’t” learn another language, or that they’re “bad with languages.” You’ve gotta drop that kind of talk altogether. There’s no reason to focus on discouraging talk. Pretty much everyone can learn language, because pretty much everyone has already done it at least once—when they were babies. Granted, babies have a lot more free time on their hands to learn new things, and their brains are really primed for it, but that’s besides the point. Don’t be cutting yourself down with “I’m bad at this,” or “I can’t do this.” If a baby can do it, so can you.  And don't go thinking you're too old, either.  Age can't stop you.  Meli Raye started learning to speak when she was already in her fifties, and she's now a certified instructor. It's never too late.  

That also goes for talk about how Cherokee is a “Level 5 Super-Legendary Difficulty” language or whatever made-up scale they’ve got to talk about languages. There’s just no reason to dwell on how difficult it’s supposed to be. Learning a language is hard, and that’s particularly true if a language is really different from your own native language. It is what it is. It’s just a challenging thing to do, that’s all—we don’t need to go talking about how it’s the “hardest language in the world,” or some “Def Con Level 9,000 Language” kind of thing, as if any of that means anything to begin with. How can anybody really know what will or won’t be hard for anyone else? For all you know, this will be easy for you. And even if it is hard—that doesn’t mean you can’t. Difficult things get done all the time. Try to avoid talking (or thinking) about this process in a way that will tend to discourage you, is what I'm getting at here.

But there’s one last thing about that, too. Few people in the United States speak more than one language, so we go around thinking it’s a super special thing that only real geniuses can do—like rocket science. If you go convincing yourself that learning Cherokee is rocket science, or brain surgery, or something, you’ll be so discouraged you won’t even get started. You might think “well, I’m not a genius, so I probably can’t do that” and talk yourself out of trying, or discourage yourself so much you quit. The thing is, learning a language is hard, sure, but it’s not hard like rocket science—it’s hard like lifting weights. It’s not about how “smart” you think you are. It’s about committing to it and following through. You don’t have to be some kind of genius to get big muscles, or to learn a language. You just have to show up and put in the work, consistently. Just make the decision to do it, then follow through. Do it long enough, and you’ll speak—that’s all there is to it.  Just like making progress in the gym, consistency is king.  Anything that threatens your willpower or consistency is “enemy number one.” And the biggest threat there is discouragement. So don’t listen to discouraging talk—drown it out, ignore it, and focus on putting in the work.

By:  J.R. Lancaster.