But Ill make mistakes! The “hard” aspects of a language certainly cannot be ignored. This is why I suggest looking at them differently and appreciating them. However, no matter how you look at languages, it takes time to get used to aspects that are different from your mother tongue. This means that making mistakes is inevitable. If you accept this, then in the early stages you dont even have to worry so much about knowing the hardest part of a language. Its much better to get a feel for it, as it is used, rather than a feel for its grammar. For example, if an English learner ignored subject/object differences and said, That phone call is for I (rather than me), I could definitely forgive him if he had only been learning English for a few weeks. In fact, Id be impressed that he was saying anything considering the little time investment. Your focus should be on getting your point across and understanding most of what is said back to you. If the above learner spent months learning grammar first and after six months knew to say “me” rather than “I”, he would not have achieved anything greater in terms of communication. He may be speaking better, but saying an incorrect sentence after one week of studying at least means that he is communicating despite the little time investment. Communication is what a language is for after all! Even if you are ultimately studying for an examination, if you dont appreciate this point, then its only a list of grammar rules and vocabulary tables. Thats not a language; language is a means of communicating with people, and even if you dont do it 100 percent perfectly at first, you can certainly still communicate. So, make mistakes and dont worry about it! You cant learn to walk confidently if you dont stumble a little first. 19 Language Hacking Its also essential to use mistakes as an opportunity to learn, and not as an obstacle. I like to simply edit out the mistakes from my memory if I have indeed learned from them – this way I see the path behind me as nothing more than progress. SUMMARY: Mistakes are a natural part of the learning process, accept that they will happen and know that this will not prevent you from communicating The right attitude In years of learning languages, I have come across a lot of other learners and seen some of them learn much quicker than I had. I have, of course, learned huge amounts from them. Unfortunately, quite a lot of people I have come across dont seem to be succeeding in learning languages at all (or a guide like this wouldnt need to be written). And you know what? Ive learned a lot from them too. Ive learned precisely how you should not learn a language. You know what nearly all of them have in common? They focus on the negative aspects of the language they are learning. Their glass (or more appropriately, their language) is half empty instead of being half full. Sorry if that sounds like Im simplifying things too much, but I honestly believe this is one of the biggest differences between successful and unsuccessful language learners. Being realistic is important, but language slackers (the opposite of language hackers) focus on these details almost to the level of an obsession. Language slackers will find very imaginative ways of justifying why the language learning challenge is not possible for them. They will give you a list of reasons that hold them back (or you back if they are “generous” enough to share this negativity when they hear of your project), and when they see someone achieve what they claim is impossible, then they will dismiss that person as an exception or as a genius. This is nothing short of laziness. When they list different parts of a language (the many cases of Slavic languages, gender in Latin languages, tones in Asian languages, etc.) they will remind you how hard these are. And you know what? Technically they are right – work is indeed involved in learning these aspects that you are not familiar with and the glass is indeed half empty. That is not a falsehood. They can even go further and provide evidence to back up their proof of how hard it is. For example, they personally tried to study a language in school for over a decade and dont speak it, so learning a language quickly is not possible. Technically they arent “wrong”.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 06:08:36 +0000
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