Practice patience

Be patient with yourself.

Why?

Because language absorption takes a fair amount of time. There's no getting around that fact.

If you try to rush it, or force it, then you'll put yourself under pressure. That works to your disadvantage, because stress slows down the learning process.

Be in the mindset of enjoying the journey. Savor it. What's the hurry?

Dice (or die) and kitchen timer

So as to keep this project a game instead of an obsession I bring in the die (dice) and kitchen timer.

The timer is for measuring off intervals, naturally. For everyone there must be an optimum amount of time to engage on an activity. It may be as little as 10 minutes. Or it may be as much as 90 minutes.

Bringing in a dice introduces a random factor.

Let's say I roll it twice. Then there are 36 possible permutations. I can divide these up between my languages: 15 for Japanese, 10 for Dutch, 5 for German, and 6 'free' rolls that allow me to do what I want, or to start another language.

Furthermore, I can divvy up the 15 Japanese throws to the different  activities I've chosen to do: say 5 for kanji, 3 for sentences, 2 each for lJrE, lErJ, and lJrJ etc.

 

A daunting prospect

Most people can’t contemplate learning a new language simply because the prospect of doing so is too daunting. And of those who try, only 1 in 20 succeed. Why should that be?

Is it the time that’s required?

Is it embarrassment at the thought of making mistakes?

A little, perhaps. But I feel that the biggest impediment is the tedium, frustration and hard work that they imagine such a project would involve.

And that’s fair enough. Who would willingly endure such stress? Who’d try, unless they had a damn good reason? And no means of escape?

But if there was a way to eliminate, or to bypass, all of that hardship, what then?

Why then, the sky would be the limit!

Institute a routine

If it takes, say, a thousand hours to learn your target language, then that’s at least a thousand times that you’ll need to decide to sit down and ‘do’ an hour. That’s a thousand times that you need to remember, and a thousand times that you’ll need to exert your will power.

Of which everyone has a limited daily ration.

Unless, of course, you get a habit going—a habit that goes under the name of a routine.

Now personally I have problems with routines. I’m good a designing them. I enjoy that part of the process. But I’m no good at following them. I resist them. I resent them.

The trick is to get it slowly into place piecemeal. You can’t afford to have it feel like am imposition or compulsion. You need to retain space to manoeuvre. It needs to be loose. It ought to leave room for doing things on impulse.

A routine that is integral to what you’d do anyway must work best. It needs to fit in with what you’d be likely to do anyway. So it ought to help you, not force you. It should remind you, not order you about. 

You don’t need another parental figure.

Get used to the basics

Get used to the basics, I say.

Don’t be in such a rush. Don’t overdo it. Language takes time. You eat an elephant one bite at a time.

It’s important for your confidence and motivation not to do too much. Language is all about exposure. You get used to it by exposing yourself to mild doses. Certain words and word patterns come first. You need to get comfortable with them first, and get them right. You need to be able to perform them well, by which I mean automatically.

That’s what is meant by getting used to the basics, in my opinion. Exposure is the key. Not practice, not dills, not exercises, not tests, not lists, not memorization. Exposure to real and authentic language meant for native users of your target language.

So that’s a bit tricky at beginner levels, because not much is written in really basic language that is directed at adults. There’s stuff for children, sure. But it isn’t usually of interest to adults.

Probably, to gain exposure to a lot of basic language, one needs to develop the ability to ignore language at a level that is still too difficult to comprehend or absorb. That’s counter-intuitive.

Optimum exposure

What is exposure? What do we expose ourselves to? Why is exposure important to learning a language?

Those are useful questions to ask, but I’ll start with another: How does anyone learn a language? The answer is that you get used to it. Simply that. You don’t need a degree. You don’t need any form of education. You don’t need to be an adult, or even a child!

You get used to it, because it is all around you. You are exposed to it. Gradually you pick out more and more meaning. 

Language appears to be a meaningful thing, so that is why you pay attention to it. It gets you what you want: company, milk, a toy, your wet clothes changed, and if you are lucky a ride on someone’s shoulders.

It’s a long-term this, getting used to it through exposure. It makes no sense to rush it, because you can’t. That doesn’t work. So you don’t over expose yourself. You take naps. You switch off when you need to.

So, just as a little UV is good, you don’t overdo it with vitamin D. You go for a walk in the mountains, but you wear your woolens. You protect your ears when you mow the lawn. You put on safety glasses in the lab. You don’t sleep in the room where you broke the thermometer. You slap on sunscreen.

To learn a language you expose yourself by listening and reading to material that you enjoy and that is not too difficult. Go for low intensity  and a maximum of hours.

Remember the comics you were into? Do you recall those first few episodes of Sesame Street? Tunes and rhymes and ditties and puns. Jokes that you copied down to retell. Picture books that you valued and treasured and kept. Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson. Early Disney cartoons.

All of it magic!

Dig and delve

Learning a language takes time, no question about it. And so it is going to take time to notice much improvement, unless . . .

 

Unless you cheat a little. Unless you help yourself out. 

So lend yourself a helping sleight-of-hand. Turn yourself into an instant expert. (Well, not ‘instant’ exactly. But certainly short-order.)

Here’s how to do it:

Reduce your target. Focus in on a subset of the whole, but not by dealing with limited vocabulary to do with ‘shopping’, or ‘visiting the doctor’. And not by focusing on a single grammar point (as in “today we’ll do the present perfect”).

What I mean is this: take one subject area, or biography (for nonfiction) or a well-known story (fiction) and get to know it inside-out.

Pick some famous story of which there are various versions for adults and children, and for which cartoons, movies and musicals have been produced. The more, the merrier. Collect ‘em.

Begin by getting to know it in your own language first. Then go over the easiest 2^nd language version. Then read, listen, watch, sing and dance along to each version. The content will remain familiar, but the grammar that is used in each case will vary subtly.

Try Heidi, Cinderella, Pinocchio, Dracula, Little House on the Prairie or whatever your fancy.