Guidelines for learning-without-studying approach to language acquisition
Overview
- Focus on quantity, not quality
- DON'T be a perfectionist!
- DON'T judge yourself!
- Allow your subconscious mind to work for you
- Give up the idea of control
- Abandon the idea of importance
- Focus on the incoming flow
- Always learn words in context
- Don't rush to speak
- Avoid complicated words
- Use a monolingual dictionary
- Focus on quantity, not quality, i.e. don't try to get into every possible detail when you run into something new. Especially when at the beginner level, allow yourself to lower your standard and settle with the mediocre goal of simple getting the general idea of a piece of text, speech, or video you encounter. Don't spend too much time on clarifying every possible detail, but instead try to get through as much 'language traffic' as possible.
- DON'T be a perfectionist! - there is no need to understand everything in great detail; if you get the rough idea - that's very well. Don't stop for too long, and move along. More fine-grained understanding will come gradually with time without you having to make a conscious effort, or take additional actions. Just continue what you are already doing. They key at the initial stage is not to demonstrate spectacular results but to be able to continue your journey without getting stuck. The only thing that matters - is to keep going, and to make it comfortable for you to do so.
- DON'T judge yourself! — unlike children we, as adults, tend to self-invalidate ourselves, and decide that we are stupid/not-good-with-languages/etc whenever we do not see immediate results of our efforts. Lack of visible results is a frequent reason why we give up on our study. Sadly, this is a side-effect of our champion-centric education systems which are primarily results-oriented and make us addicted to praise, good marks and positive feedback, i.e. "I must succeed or otherwise I'm a failure...", "I must win and be a champion or otherwise I'm a loser.... This mental setup can be stressful, can cause constant tension, and can ruin the learning process leading you to quit. DO NOT expect immediate results — once you realize that compulsive expectations of positive reinforcement is part of our social programming, and that it is nothing else than arrogance, then your language quest will be a lot more comfortable and enjoyable. Allow yourself the luxury of not needing a reason or a motivation. Recommended reading: Why You Won’t Learn Like a Child
- Allow your subconscious mind to work for you even if you don't fully understand how exactly it is happening; all you need to do at the conscious level is to:
- Give up the idea of control over the learning process and adopt instead a playful attitude towards the game of learning - you don't need to be in control, and you don't need to be serious. All you need is to enjoy the process and allow yourself to keep going so that you spend at least half an hour every day, but don't torture yourself if you skip your 'language hour' for a day or two.
- Abandon the idea of importance - no matter how critical it is for you to acquire the language, remove any idea of importance. Attaching importance to anything kills the fun and excitement that you could have had otherwise. By attaching importance to a process you make the area heavier, less approachable, less spontaneous, less inventive, less playful and, most importantly, you rob yourself of the excitement of discovery.
- Focus on the incoming flow and develop your capacity to capture ideas, meanings, and specific needs. Don't expect to be able to use the words and expressions immediately. All the linguistic input you receive is stored as passive vocabulary. When you will build sufficient passive vocabulary the transfer to active vocabulary will happen automatically, and you will not even notice how you will start using the language yourself.
- Always learn words in context, and avoid focusing on single isolated words except when you are dealing with 'super-words' which require special attention. Focus instead on concrete ideas, needs, situations, phrases, contexts. The words are the last in terms of priority and importance. Verbs and all verb forms are useless on their own. If they are not attached to specific ideas, emotions, contexts, situations, usage patterns or needs, then don't spend time trying to remember them. If you still decide you need to focus on single words or verb forms, then put them into real life context first and find or invent usage scenarios.
- Speaking should start a lot later than it is usually expected on language courses. As a child you did a lot of listening for at least a year before you started speaking. Allow yourself the luxury of not speaking until you feel comfortable doing so. Focus instead on the incoming flow and passive accumulation. When you will accumulate enough, speaking will come out naturally and without effort. It will burst out under the pressure of the incoming flow.
- Avoid words whose meaning you don't fully understand. Replace complex words with the simplest possible words or use descriptive words if you are dealing with a complex idea. If you cannot find a simple word or give a descriptive definition, then make it obvious to the person you are speaking to that you are not sure of the exact meaning of the word you are using, and ask them to confirm or correct your usage.
- Use a monolingual dictionary as opposed to a bilingual one. Prefer dictionaries that are targeted to language learners and not to native speakers. Google Translate can be useful, but keep in mind that it is not a replacement for a good dictionary. For most languages the requirement to be able use a learner's monolingual dictionary is around 1500-3000 most common words, so as soon as you achieve this target, switch from a bilingual to a monolingual dictionary. Try switching as soon as possible. If you find a specific monolingual dictionary too difficult, find another one which is easier. Otherwise, fallback temporarily to a bilingual dictionary.
- Make sure your dictionaries are easily available and have a search function. It's best to have them on your smartphone, tablet, or something that you always carry with you.
- Since this is very important, it needs to be said once again: AVOID USING BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES if you possibly can. Using bilingual dictionaries after you already know the most common 1500-2000 words has severe damaging effects to the way semantic spaces are arranged and interconnected in your brain, and the only way to prevent this from happening is by switching to a good monolingual dictionary as early as possible. If you already have the minimum vocabulary base, then the only case when it is appropriate to use a bilingual dictionary is for words that have a fixed one-to-one translation, i.e. names of plants, animals, foods, utensils, etc, but even with these words you will find exceptions. Most other words occupy different semantic spaces and DON'T HAVE A ONE-TO-ONE SEMANTIC MAPPING. You have been warned!
