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I’ve hit a slump | ||
Tags: Loss of confidence | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Gunshy Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4118 days ago 28 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French | Message 1 of 6 30 April 2015 at 5:51am | IP Logged | ||
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"What do?", essentially... My language learning is on a drip feed at the moment, barely hanging in there. Where I used to absorb as much language study as I could before, I'm now avoiding it all (for example, reading novels in English, as opposed to German). Is this normal? Am I just going through a phase?
How important is goal setting? Because every time I get myself into that "study mode", with the idea of getting back into routine, I give up fairly quickly. Languages are my passion, the motivation is there. But the drive?... not quite. Well, some practical advice I suppose... If I "neglect" a language, say, for several months, how harmful do you think it'd be? I have little motivation with my German, and want to focus on my other languages (French and Italian). I actually study German at university, so I don't know how wise that move would be... (I'm currently on a gap year, and will study in Germany in October.) But I really just want to set my sights elsewhere, sparking my interest in languages anew. German kind of stresses me a little... and hope my time in Germany later would "fix" that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 6 30 April 2015 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's normal, you are tired, overfed with learning and so on.
From my experience, a few months long break is no tragedy, you will recover the losses and you might be surprised how much you'll have kept over the break. It's one of the ways to discern short-term knowledge from those well rooted parts in your long-term memory. Goals are great, especially if you keep both long term ones and short term smaller ones. However, the path needs to be rewarding as well. Look at your study habits, methods and material. Perhaps it's time for more input? Books or movies of your favourite genres instead of obligatory texts from your university? Blogs about your hobbies? Ditching a course for a different one? Switch from long study sessions to shorter ones that fit among other activities? The list of options is endless. Edited by Cavesa on 30 April 2015 at 2:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3543 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 3 of 6 30 April 2015 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
If I was going to Germany in a few months, I would study German. I actually speak it enough to list it in my profile, but I would still want to brush up before I went. But if you have no motivation for it, what to do? How about setting a goal that you can achieve that's reasonable. For example, listen to the news in German once per week (15 min). Read a 2-10 articles per week (30 min effort). Assign yourself something very manageable that will be a low cost activity. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 4 of 6 01 May 2015 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, that's quite normal. The higher your level, the less damaging time off is. Either way, learning after a break is
much easier than learning without having done the initial study at all. I don't see that much discussion of WHY you want to study a language. I suspect you think strong German would be useful, but you realize deep down that you don't actually NEED it to get by and you already have enough German for your purposes. If you believe that you NEED a language, you'll find the motivation. If not, you have to decide whether the time spent is worth it TO YOU. Do you enjoy learning German? Are there certain activities that are fun, but others less so? Focus on what your ACTUAL motivation is. I think a lot of us at times feel like we want to want to learn a language, but we don't truly want to learn it, and nothing is going to change that. You only get one life, so live it how YOU want to. Remember also that maintaining your current level (especially if that level is good) takes much less time and effort than improving--but it does still take some ongoing work. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 5 of 6 02 May 2015 at 12:42am | IP Logged | ||
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When you hit a slump,
Move Assimil into the bathroom, Listen and read, While you take a dump. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4445 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 6 of 6 02 May 2015 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Finding motivation to do something is important. At the same time you need to find interesting materials to
keep you going. Some people think reading a novel is necessary for learning proper grammar, words & phrases. Reading anything is passive and one can get bored easily. The only thing I'd read is online news. Even a language like Chinese or Japanese, you can easily look up characters and symbols with your computer Cut & Paste. At the same time, reading news articles from the other side of the world that you don't get from your country spark interest. For instance, the other day I was reading an article in Chinese about a 7 year old boy from a small village in Indonesia. Specifically his smoking habit which he picked up when he was 3 years old. He used to smoke 3 packs (60) but his parents got him down to 16 per day. The other way of picking up words & phrases is to find TV programs that is entertaining. You get hooked to certain programs such as 中国达人秀 (the Chinese version of "Britain's Got Talent" & "America's Got Talent"). Recently I started watching 2 TV programs online including 经典转奇 from China and 真相 Hold 得住. These are programs mostly about history on odd facts that you don't normally find in history textbooks including UFO aliens visiting the earth in the past and building the pyramids. I studied ancient history in school so watching these programs keep my interest up. At the same time I pick up as many new words & phrases in 1 episode as somebody reading 1 chapter of a book. Some people enjoy reading novels but some books may not be for everybody. Instead of a novel like the ones assigned by a teacher in an English class, you'd pick your subject of interest. When I go to a bookstore I don't just buy a book on a subject I have no interest for the sake of learning a language. I would look on the bestsellers section first to see the books that have a mass audience. I watch and listen to at least 1 hour in Chinese news online and on the radio per day. Chinese is a language where the characters bare no resemblance to their pronunciation. You have to read to maintain your characters. Instead of reading a book, I choose to keep up with the latest online articles. Some of the news articles in Chinese are so "off the wall" that it would be like reading articles out of the tabloids. There was an article about a lady in China who brought in a 110lb. box full of cash to a car dealership for downpayment for a new vehicle. The rest would be paid by credit card. Kept the staff at the car dealership busy counting money all afternoon. Whether you read the same article in German, French or Italian the bottomline is you have to find something interesting to read. The learning part (picking up words & phrases) is part of the process. A novel may not be the thing to keep your interest up. Edited by shk00design on 02 May 2015 at 4:57am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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