Something puzzling

In our own language, we don't process every word that we hear. Neither do we process every word that we hear. In fact, I have on good authority that we only actually process 1 in 6. So there's a lot of predicting and guessing going on. This approach must be more efficient overall.

And yet we are advised, when learning another language, to choose books that we almost completely understand. Paul Nation, is believe, is responsible for the advice that 95% of the words on the page ought to be comprehended. That's just one word out of 20 which is new.

Doesn't this strike you as somewhat anal? What are we so uptight when we look over a text in a foreign language? Where does that meme come from, the one that tells us that we need to be practically perfect and look up every word?

Redirect your perfectionism

So you’re a perfectionist. Are you aware that that will have ramifications when it comes to learning a language? That’s because you can’t learn a language tidily. Rather, it’s a messy business.

You’re going to make tones of mistakes. You’re going to forget stuff over and over. You’ll make a fool of yourself speaking. You’ll use the wring word, or you’ll use the right word but in the wrong place. You name it, you’ll do it.

Think of juggling, riding a unicycle, tightrope walking. With every one of them you’ll fall, only to get back up. That goes for any language too—your own also when you started out (and perhaps now too).

But there could still be a place for perfectionism. I believe that you can re-direct it towards your learning techniques and overall system. Search out the very best resources. Tweak endlessly with your routine. Just as long as you’re making gazillions of mistakes along the way.