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Perfectionism | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Ester Groupie Joined 5477 days ago 64 posts - 114 votes  Speaks: Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 19 11 February 2011 at 5:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Some will say that a dose of perfectionism is a good problem to have (unlike hardcore perfectionism which ultimately "blocks" the person from doing anything!), because it makes you focus on one thing and attempt to do it properly rather than disperse your energy on several things without attaining nearly as good results in those things. Moderate perfectionists are less likely to be prone to wanderlust, dabbling into "everything" to later find themselves having excelled at "nothing", they're more likely to be determined and loyal to what they do and even more systematic in their efforts.
On the other hand, perfectionism and the desire to stick to one thing until you have "mastered" it can have quite an adverse effect on people who wish to become polyglots: the more you learn, the more you see how much more there is yet to learn, so you learn more and more, you raise the bar for yourself higher and higher, and even once you have "learned" a language by all normal standards and can use it comfortably in pretty much any situation, it doesn't satisfy you, so you continue to deal with the subtleties of syntax, medieval literature of that language or specialized jargon of your field - and at the same time you're delaying starting a new language, or you're even afraid to do so, as you feel your first/previous language is not "completed". In reality, it will never be "completed" and you know it, no language is ever fully exhausted. At some point you have to draw the line, but the problem seems to be in your recognition that, wherever placed, the line will always be arbitrary. So when is it that you decide it's "good enough" and you can steal some time from Italian to start German, which you have been planning to do for years, but it got neglected because meanwhile you were busy getting yourself to a state in which you can sight-read, understand and paraphrase Dante, watch movies without subtitles in a dialect or some other "extra" thing which, in your perfectionist eyes, has meanwhile become a "basic" skill to consider yourself even remotely proficient? This forum seems to attract very diverse personality profiles, so I cannot possibly be the only person who fights this blessing/curse, which maybe results in a greater command of the languages in question, but can surely be as deadly an obstacle to becoming a polyglot as is extreme wanderlust. How do you deal with it? How do you pursue your goal of knowing many languages while being tempted to continue exhausting that one or two languages that you already know enough to put in a simpler maintenance mode with significantly less time spent on them, but you just can't bring yourself to do that? When do you decide that it's good enough and that they don't need so much polishing and attention? At the end of the day, there are only 24 hours in a day and you can't possibly do ALL you'd like. Somewhere you'll have to draw the line. So, where DO you draw it, if you're prone to this type of perfectionism, yet wish to be fluent in several languages or more? Edited by Ester on 11 February 2011 at 5:53am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5145 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 2 of 19 11 February 2011 at 9:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a love-hate relationship with my perfectionism. Like you described, it helps me to stay focused because I hate not finishing something but it also tends to run away with me. I still wonder "why am I learning French when my English still sucks!" and I find it very hard to focus on more than one target language at the same time. I envy people who seem to be able to hop from one language to another and just have fun with all of them without worrying about their progress. As soon as I spend more than a couple of minutes on another language I feel guilty because I'm supposed to be studying French.
My perfectionism also blocks me in a lot of ways because I've always had an annoying habit of wanting to be the best without having to work hard for it. This is obviously an impossible goal but throughout my life I've given up on things or decided not to even try something simply because I could not stomach the sense of failure I got from it. Those who don't try never look foolish. That's actually what I like best about language learning; nobody does it perfectly on the first try. Even the most accomplished polyglot is going to make mistakes in any new language he undertakes. It's a process of learning from your mistakes and if you're not willing to get in there and allow yourself to be fallible, than you're just not going to get there. Now as for your question. What keeps me from spending the rest of my life perfecting my English is that as much as I like the outcome of that, I'm pretty sure I would hate the process and since the goal is unattainable anyway, I might as well force myself to give it up already and start on something else. It still bothers me when I think about leaving my English "unfinished" but by now I've shifted a considerable amount of my perfectionism onto French so the thought of giving it up is completely unacceptable. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6513 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 19 11 February 2011 at 11:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I have the kind of perfectionism you can switch on or off. If I have decided to read an article in Greek extensively I know that there will be words and expressions which I don't understand or maybe even misunderstand - in the worst case without even noticing that there is a problem. But who cares? The purpose of this exercise is not to learn specific details, but to train my ability to bulldoze through the landscape and get the meaning.
Likewise, if you have decided that I study the intonation and only that, then I don't really care about the meaning of technical terms, but focus on elements that indicate interaction between speakers (like questions/answers, but also more subtle things like irony or irritation). If I select a short passage for intensive study then I want in principle to understand EVERYTHING. But even then there may be expressions which don't become clear even after I have consulted all my dictionaries. OK, then leave them aside and spend the time on something that is more malleable - this will give a higher bonus in the long run than fighting with insufficient means to understand some petty detail which could even be an error from the part of the speaker or writer. Edited by Iversen on 11 February 2011 at 11:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5576 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 19 11 February 2011 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perfectionism doesn't necessarily make the its bearer become more focused on a single topic. What can be called adaptive perfecionism does, but mal-adaptive perfectionism is very likely to increase procrastination - and wanderlust is all about procrastination. I'm a mal-adaptive perfectionist ...
So I actually do it the other way around: One of the side effects I get from studying languages is the constant reminder that it's impossible to know them perfectly, and that I have to change my mindset to keep on making progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6167 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 5 of 19 11 February 2011 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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As the old banjoist said:
I don't strive for perfection anymore. I strive for excellence. There is always more to do. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ester Groupie Joined 5477 days ago 64 posts - 114 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 19 11 February 2011 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with this, but the problem of drawing the line - and defining which amount of excellence is "enough" - still remains. At which point do you decide you can move on? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6593 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 19 11 February 2011 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is probably not the answer you want, but what if being a polyglot is not that
important? What if learning a language in depth is equally satisfying and has just as much going for it? It would be nice to have it all, but if you start on German right now it's going to be a long time before you can understand the Dante equivalents. And yet you already read Dante as it is, isn't that pretty cool? I'm not so sure that you should try to convince yourself that you've made the wrong choice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5191 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 19 11 February 2011 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm quite the perfectionist, but I also hate to waste time. Consequently, I've become quite adept at identifying what's not worth my time and skipping to the most important parts of the language. For instance, I'll learn new grammatical forms before I "waste" time on learning the vocabulary related to department stores or transportation, for instance.
I also find that my perfectionism is an ally when it allows me to make precise predictions about things I don't know. If I didn't care, I'd let it go, but I do care about it being right, so I want to confirm whether I'm right or wrong. The confirmation is therefore easier to remember. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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