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The Motivational Plateau | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Legend Newbie Australia Joined 5314 days ago 38 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 11 11 December 2010 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There are threads on the maintenance of perpetuity in motivation, and I've read them.
There are two big walls that feed into each other, but I like to distinguish:
I feel I am never going to get there. I feel like unless I go over to Italy, unless I am immersed and taught professionally, for months and months, I am never going to make it. I will never understand the figures of speech or the syntax without devoting all of my day to the language, and subsequently losing interest (faster). The other thing is that I just don't know what to do. I know I need to mix grammar, vocab, and conversational Italian. But what's the point of studying the construction of a tense if every second verb I come across is irregular? Why should I learn vocabulary if I can't understand the meaning of three words in an order? I'm stuck in a loop without a direction, and I can't get out of it. Frustration plus. Edited by Legend on 11 December 2010 at 2:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5454 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 11 December 2010 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There is no such thing as speaking a language fluently. If you see it as some fixed end
point, you will always be disappointed, since the more you learn the more you find there is still to learn. The best you can do is either decide you are "good enough" for your own purposes and switch to "maintenance mode", or keep working away at it, with small (almost unnoticeable) improvements from day to day. The second point, about not knowing what to do. Well, if you hate something, or you see it as not helping, then stop doing it. The best method is the one you are willing to stick with, no matter what that may be. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5394 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 11 11 December 2010 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Ok maybe you are beating yourself over the head too much. Just try to have fun with it. Yes, structure to your learning is good and grammar is necessary, but if you're not having fun, is it really worth it? So my advice is to find something you really love and which gives you pleasure, and do that. Watch a movie (with subtitles if you need them to enjoy), listen to music, find a podcast or a book on your absolute favourite subject, find a friend who is a native or is studying the language. And enjoy! You may not feel like you are making progress when you are doing something like that, but it is the part of the language that will keep you going when you just want to make a pile with your grammar books and burn them all :) Good luck!
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| Legend Newbie Australia Joined 5314 days ago 38 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 4 of 11 11 December 2010 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@Splog - right, let me rephrase. Reaching a level of conversational Italian that I could hold with a native speaker with ease. Holding it without help, being understood and understanding with a level of clarity where I'm responding to the words he's saying, not doing (much of) that thing where I break down the meaning into English, then convert my thoughts from English into Italian. The point where it sounds like a language to me. Thanks for your response, much appreciated.
@Quabazaa - thank you very much. I love movies and have tried with this method. I listen to the Italian radio station in Australia, I listen to Italian music (I basically have to know them and their lyrics because my family is Italian :D ), and I talk with Nonna and ask her to speak Italian with me as much as possible. Definitely, this is more encouraging, fun and motivating than reading about the Subjunctive Mood, however I can't help but think that this won't be enough. And not if I want to be holding conversations within 8 months time (I've studied for it longer). I know I'm getting all downer here, but I've got to wonder if I'm just wasting my time and effort. Edited by Legend on 11 December 2010 at 3:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| B-Tina Tetraglot Senior Member Germany dragonsallaroun Joined 5312 days ago 123 posts - 218 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish | Message 5 of 11 11 December 2010 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Splog: I rather understand the second point rather as an expression of helplessness, in the sense of not knowing what to do next.
To me both points seem well to be different, but yet closely connected as the second one influences the first one. If you feel like you're getting nowhere, maybe it helps you quantify your study time (that helped for me). Just try and spend, say, 200 hours of study/exposure on your L2 and see if you improve (and I bet you will!). However, in order to do this you'll need to figure out 1. what you love doing (watching films, reading, listening to the radio/music...) and 2. in what areas you want to improve. The more specific your goals are, the more likely is it you'll actually reach them. Fill the time with activities of your target language that you enjoy and/or give you a feeling that you're improving and - most importantly - don't worry too much about not being perfectly fluent. (Sorry for that rather unstructured posting, I'll already go and rebalance my coffein level...) Edited by B-Tina on 11 December 2010 at 3:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5394 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 11 11 December 2010 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well of course *just* watching movies or whatever will not be enough, but you're asking how to get motivation :) It sounds to me like you are doing everything right, and you should just keep going! You have probably hit a language plateau as well as a motivational one, and all you need to do is keep going until you reach the next breakthrough. Keep reading about subjunctive mood, and keep watching movies. Try to find out the best personal methods for yourself.. and then give it time. 8 months is hardly any time at all for mastery! In a year or two I'm sure you'll look back and be astounded at how far you've come. Contrary to the advertising, there is no ultimate quick fix way to learn. You sure don't sound like you are wasting your time! The more you talk to your Nonna the more you will learn! Have you tried doing things like cooking with her? I found it very helpful when I began, when I cooked with my friends and they explained every action they were doing like "now we are opening the can with the can opener! What fun!" and it was hilarious :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Legend Newbie Australia Joined 5314 days ago 38 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 7 of 11 11 December 2010 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
There is no need for apologies from you! Thanks for your response. You're actually very right on that point, I think I need to write my goals in big block letters somewhere and be succinct and specific about it. If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean when you say not to worry about not being perfectly fluent? Sorry for the double negative.
Thanks again. On the issue of the 8 months. With the amount that I know now, I think I can make it so long as I'm diligent. The problem is actually being diligent about it, of course. I mean, you know you're stuck when you have all the time in the world and you just cannot be bothered to sit down and learn the language that you want to speak so much. I'm aiming for an hour a day, and could fit in much more than that, but just never seem to reach it. So it sounds like it's time to find me some more Italian movies! (Or just watch movies with Italian over-dubs...) Edited by Legend on 11 December 2010 at 4:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| B-Tina Tetraglot Senior Member Germany dragonsallaroun Joined 5312 days ago 123 posts - 218 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Polish | Message 8 of 11 11 December 2010 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well you know, since about two years I'm on my track learning Polish quite intensely, so now I'm about to hit the B2-level. However, even though I already put that much work in it, I know there is still so much left to learn and consolidate. This especially occurs to me on one of those days when even the easiest constructions all go wrong, when I just can't recall the most common words (just a few days ago I had serious trouble remembering the word for "fruit") and my "R"s just won't roll. In those cases it is really essential for me to remember that 1. this does not represent my actual command of the language, but is just a natural down which will go away even faster if I don't enforce anything but instead just accept that I'm still not perfectly fluent and 2. someday, no matter how, I will be fluent (kind of blind faith ;-) Edited by B-Tina on 11 December 2010 at 10:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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