How To Actually Avoid Making Silly Mistakes When Learning Languages (Part 1)
Feeling overwhelmed by all of the language learning advice out there? You’re definitely not alone.
It can be a challenge to sift through the tons of opinions in the language learning community. There are so many things people suggest you ‘should’ and ‘should not’ do. And because of this, it can be a struggle to form your own opinions about what works best for YOU.
I’m not here to add to the discussion of what you have to do to learn languages. Instead, I want to walk you through some of the things I did that were mistakes for me.
I won’t be able to share them all in one post, so keep an eye out for the next installments of what has become a 5-part series!
In this post, I want to share:
- 3 different mistakes that language learners make (and ones I’ve personally made myself)
- Why I consider these to be mistakes
- What you can do to avoid these mistakes in your own language learning journey.
1. Trying to learning the “wrong” vocabulary
When I first started learning languages, I remember that most sources often said to find a vocabulary list for the top 300 or 1000 common words, and learn all of those.
This strategy on its own isn’t ‘incorrect’ or ‘bad’ in any way. There’s nothing inherently wrong with learning words from a list if that works for you.
It can be helpful to just have words given to you in that format because it gives you an idea of the vocabulary words you’ll hear quite often in your target language. And to be honest, I still have a few books of vocabulary lists that I look through every so often for words I don’t know.
Why is this a mistake?
The reason why this was a mistake in my language learning was because I struggled to actually remember the words.
Which kind of defeated the whole purpose of learning vocabulary from word lists, you know?
For me, I liked the challenge of learning words from a list in the short term, and for the beginner stage of some of my target languages. But for the long-term? It didn’t work for me, because I started to find several words that I didn’t think I’d ever use in conversation, but felt obligated to learn.
It became a chore to study those words, and so I began using that boredom, that lack of motivation as an excuse to not study at all.
Don’t make this same mistake!
What can you do instead?
If you are someone who enjoys learning words from lists, but find yourself similarly unmotivated to continue, try this:
Spend some time highlighting, circling, or underlining the words from the list you’re most excited to learn to use. These can be words that you know you’ll use, for example. Or ones that you’ve seen often in texts, or that you’ve heard used in conversation.
This way, you can still use those lists, but take the pressure off of yourself to learn all of the words presented there.
2. Feeling like I had to live abroad to learn
There was a time when nearly everyone on the internet swore that the only way to learn a language was to move to the country and learn it there.
At this point, there are so many examples of language learners who have never set foot in the country where their target language is spoken. And yet, they are still able to reach their own definition of fluency and achieve their language learning goals.
And this was why it was a mistake for me.
For a while, I felt like I would never be able to reach any of my goals in any of the languages I wanted to learn because I could never get to Japan or Korea, for example.
I was maybe 15 or 16 when I decided (based on these opinions) that since I couldn’t move to the countries, I couldn’t learn languages well. And so I stopped taking language learning seriously at all.
Why is this a mistake?
Because living in the country where your target language is spoken doesn’t mean that you are going to take the time to learn the language. Or that you will, somehow, magically learn the language.
The only thing that moving to another country or area guarantees is immersion. You will get immersion in your target language.
However, it takes much more than immersion to actually learn languages. That’s only one piece of the puzzle.
What can you do instead?
Completely ignore this advice.
If you are someone who wants to move to the place where your target language is used, don’t do it to learn a language.
Do it to immerse yourself in the language and the culture.
Or to have fun and explore and learn more about the people who live there.
Do it to visit a friend or to work in the country.
Here’s the truth: there are thousands of people who live in countries and do not speak the language of that country.
It’s not a guarantee.
It takes time, effort, and intention to do learn a language.
It doesn’t happen by accident.
3. Studying too much
Another mistake I found myself making in my language studies was trying to study for hours every single day.
And I say ‘trying’ because I at this time, I also struggled with consistency.
Once or twice a week, I would feel extremely motivated to sit down and write down new grammar points I wanted to practice. My strongest learning style is read/write (which I talk about here) and so the act of writing down everything helped me to retain the information.
However, after that intense study session, I would get completely burned out. This meant that that once or twice a week was the only time I studied.
And so when I finally returned to my studies, I forgot a lot of what I’d practiced and had to re-learn it again.
Or it felt like I was relearning it again.
Why is this a mistake?
For me, it wasn’t simply the act of studying long hours that was a mistake. It was feeling like the ONLY way to learn was to study for several hours.
Or that, if I didn’t study like this, I wouldn’t ever be able to learn my target languages.
And so what happened was, I started to judge myself by the amount of time I studied. I felt like I had to count the hours, and measure up to other language learners who DID study for long hours regularly.
Here’s my advice: Do what works for you.
If the idea of studying for several hours makes you cringe? Don’t do it.
Or if you don’t actually have the time to dedicate toward a many-hour long study session? Don’t do it.
But if you love the idea of studying for long periods of time, and you have the time to do it? Go for it!
Again, do what works for you. Not someone else.
What are some mistakes you’ve made in your own language studies?
I have plenty more to share with you, so again, check back in for the next part where I’ll share even more mistakes I’ve made in my own language studies.
For now, if you found this post helpful, let me know! You can find me on Instagram at @thepolyglotfox.
PS. Did you know I just launched a new mini-course on how to create a personalized study schedule? If you’re someone who struggles with creating a study schedule that works for YOU, click the link here to learn more!
— The Polyglot Fox