Khatzumoto’s impromptu video on language learning over at AllJapaneseAllTheTime is a fun one. I recommend checking out the whole thing.
I’d also like to reiterate my point in the last post on reading levels. Khatzumoto described his progress for listening to a language as moving from hearing gibberish, to hearing the occasional word, to hearing phrases, to not understanding the occasional word, to full understanding. A process that takes place over time and consumes a tremendous amount of material.
He describes this in terms of “sucking less every day” or “making progress everyday” depending on your preference. I look at it as a continuous scale, one where you can’t definitively say where you are at any given time. To munge this scale into beginner, intermediate and advanced levels is to hijack the learning process.
Difficulty is irrelevant. Any new language sufficiently different from your native one will sound like gibberish at first. We label it difficult and run to easier things because we think we have to understand everything.
And when we don’t, we run for what we do understand and actually run away from the language in the process.
I think the biggest challenge for any language learner is not learning the language. It’s learning to enjoy the process of learning. Learning is not a regimented process where you carefully stack each brick of knowledge upon the brick below. You can’t measure how much better you are on a daily basis. You can only look back over the weeks and months and look at the differences in yourself.
And to enjoy the process of learning, you have to understand that the mind is driven by interest. There is no difficulty. There are no levels. There is only what interests you and pulls you in further.
It means just as you watch TV in Japanese, understand nothing and enjoy it, you can take on any book, blog or newspaper if it interests you. Don’t put a book down because it’s too hard. Put it down because what you did understand wasn’t interesting.
The more enjoyment you can pull from what you understand, the more you will look to understand. The more you look to understand, the more time you’ll spend with the language.
And every so often you’ll look back over the weeks and months, notice how far you’ve come, smile, and look for more.