Learning languages is complex and your one-track mind is hijacking your progress
A Language is not an equation to be solved, but a tool for communication and interaction with the world.
Learning a language is multifaceted.
It is intricate, but not difficult.
The problem is that an anachronistic education system has led students to develop tunnel vision and square eyes — looking at any goal as a linear problem on a flat plane.
This is known as convergent thinking and it can help us solve certain practical and mathematical problems but language acquisition is not a problem to be ‘solved’ in the traditional sense.
It is for this reason that I have always despised the way that languages are taught in schools.
Assessing the competencies of a students linguistic abilities with a checkbox is like judging a student on their ability to accurately describe the nail gun in front of them rather than be able to use it correctly.
I should add that for all the trauma inflicted upon me by my language teachers at school , there were rarely any nail guns involved…
Teaching languages pedagogically is like watching a 3-D film with one eye closed — it’s flattening your perspective devastating your chances of rapid progress.
The information action ratio states that the more knowledge you have the less likely you are to act on it and the biggest problem I have encountered as a language coach is that the perfectionists struggle the most to actually use the language.
Similarly, it is technically possible to solve a rubix cube by looking only at one face, but you will never be certain of your achievements unless you gain perspective through experience.
So, without further ado, let me share with you one idea I’ve borrowed from some the great polyglots of history and two more that I’ve played around with and incorporated into my own studies through trial and error.
- Triangulation (or leveraging)
Triangulation is a concept that benefits anyone trying to learn a third language from scratch with the all the cumulative experience of having learnt foreign language already.
Here, you need only to approach your target language through the lens of your second acquired language.
It sounds simple and it is (provided you have a good level of competency in you second language) but the benefits of doing this are exponential to the learner.
The main reason why this approach hits a home run mnemonically is because the time you have already invested forging new neural pathways between the physical representation of a thing and its name in your second language, compounds with a third language in the mix.
It strengthens your second language by anchoring it within yet another frame of reference and attaches a stronger emotion to the word in the new language, than if it were translated only into your native language.
If you’re learning languages from the same linguistic family (French and Portuguese, Russian and Ukrainian, or Turkish and Uzbek for example) the words may even resemble each other. Between the two languages, your brain will find similarities in tone and appearance and your divergent thinking will do the rest to cement them in your memory.
By leveraging a second language you triangulate the knowledge acquired, meaning that if you just can’t find that word you learnt last week, you can defer to an additional association to jog your memory and bring it to the surface.
Call it triangulation, leap-frogging or leverage — either way its tried and tested and bears powerful results.
2. Polyhedronization (or Associative Thinking)
Polyhedronization is about how we anchor new input (vocabulary, expressions, slang, e.t.c) in our memory. The more neural patterns we can form the stronger our association becomes.
This is where learning in situ. becomes critical.
If you’ve ever stopped a conversation mid-flow to write down a phrase before it goes into thin air then you will resonate with this idea.
Most people will let a word slide from their short-term memory because they find it rude to stop the conversation but its to their own detriment.
If we’re triggered in the moment by a novelty, mid-conversation it may tap into an emotional excitement (which is one way of getting those neurons firing) but if we can regurgitate ourselves immediately after, contextualise it, actively write it down, read it and repeat it back again then we’ve formed a polyhedron of associations around the word and will be unlikely to forget all of them!
In that moment, sound, mouthfeel, social context, the written word, alternate pronunciations and environment compound in a state of flow to commit that would to the medium and long-term consolidation of memory in the amygdala. This is where strong emotional memories lie and in a state of relaxation (rather than anxiety) it is where new memories can be formed and held without actively committing them to memory.
The powers of the amygdala and its untapped potential has in recent years been a hot topic for the exponential potential of humans to learn languages going forwards.
What is less commonly commented on though is the need to use your gutsy perseverance in combination with eclectic immersion — that is to say the full spectrum of random, spontaneous and serendipitous occasions where the language can be used.
Linear practice leaves this content hovering on the edge of our short term memory — uninspiring, untethered to the real world and easily un-learnt.
Repetition leads strain, strain to bored boredom and boredom to apathy.
Iteration, and variation however leads to flow, creativity and engagement.
Those small moments when we check in on ourselves, zoom out and refocus with measurable feedback, new neural associations and a strong emotional resonance are infinitely more productive than hammering out the same thing time and time again in a staid environment.
3. Spheroidization (or elastic immersion)
Knowing that eventually you will have to cut ties with conventional didactic language learning harnesses and jump into the abyss is a rite of passage that is necessary to gain agency in your target language.
I don’t use the word fluency, because fluency is highly subjective and, in many instances, meaningless.
It’s like when someone asks me if I learnt “X” language by myself? Nobody with a virtuoso speaking skills in a language has ever achieved this feat by themselves… Competently reading and translating a language, perhaps, but speaking is a process that requires an interlocutor.
Despite what stay-at-home advocates may suggest, for any level of spontaneous ease and linguistic dexterity to be achieved, deep immersion is key.
Reminding yourself that there will always be more also enables you to dive into the process and hit peaks of flow without worrying that you’re not “there” yet.
Elastic immersion means detaching yourself from results and engaging in the world of iterative feedback. Every interaction you have in your target language bears no reflection on who you are in your native language, in the “real world”. It is a simulation, a matrix in which you can not die an ego death because you are not really of this world.
When you realize that you are immersed within a harmless sphere of content, you stop worrying about poking your eye out on the sharp edges of perfectionism and begin to play with the language like a fearless child in a soft play area.
This requires a willingness to always be on the back foot and to absorb as you go without safety rails.
Many people claim they are driven and motivated to learn but few people will throw themselves to the wolves in this way because they are secretly protecting their ego.
At the end of the day, Language acquisition is about play, curiosity and lots and lots of input.
Make mistakes, have fun and keep both eyes wide open!
There, can you tell what it is yet?
Freddie Kift writes about languages, communication, flow, collaboration and technology
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