How to Deal With the Language Learning Plateau

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here.

Today I would like to talk about the plateau.

Now, the plateau is a concept that comes up often in language learning.

It's something I think we're all familiar with.

Uh, you know, we had some initial success in acquiring new words and

being able to understand some things and gaining a sense of this new language.

uh, I've often called it the sort of steep, you know,

blade of the hockey stick.

And then we come to that period where there's so many sort of low frequency,

uh, words that we need to learn.

We need to learn them because even though they're low frequency, they come

up quite often and they prevent us from being able to understand conversations,

movies, books, and so forth.

And it just seems like this goes on forever.

So we're in the plateau.

How do we deal with the plateau?

Well, it's easy to say, you know, just keep going.

And I did do a video about Atomic Habits where I stressed the fact that

rather than worrying too much about, you know, reaching the final goal,

which might be fluency, uh, you're better off to develop good habits.

Good habits that you, you know, regularly, daily, listen, read,

speak, all these things that are gonna gradually improve your language.

Another habit to try to develop is that sense that whatever I'm doing,

even if I don't think I'm progressing, actually it is helping me improve.

The brain is being exposed to the language.

The brain is becoming familiar with the language, however

slowly, I am acquiring more words.

So I think the image of the plateau should be, you know, scrapped.

Because a plateau suggests that we're not going anywhere.

We're just flat.

Okay.

I like the image of treading water because treading water means you're standing,

you're sort of in the water, you're moving your feet, you're moving your hands.

You're basically staying still.

You're not swimming, you're not progressing, but you're in the water.

And so when we're treading water in language learning, we are

still immersed in the language.

We are still using our muscles.

We may even be in a lake or in the ocean, and we can look around

and we can enjoy the scenery.

So, and, and treading water can be, uh, uh, unless you're, you know, you've

fallen off a boat and you're trying to survive, but it, it can be, and I've,

in many situations, treaded water and enjoyed, you know, the, the coastline

on the Mediterranean or the coastline on this lake or the Pacific outside,

you know, west Vancouver where I live.

And so it can be pleasurable.

And so if we are treading water, we are exercising our brain, our muscles, our

brain, we are immersed in the language.

And we need to say to ourselves, this is where I want to be.

So when I'm treading water, I, I don't say to myself, I'd

rather be doing something else.

How come I'm not moving forward, you know, I can start to swim, which isn't

necessarily the case with languages.

We can't necessarily speed up our, our our, uh, you know, learning, uh, process.

But we can enjoy where we are.

We're immersed.

We're immersed in the language.

We are exercising our brain.

Uh, we're enjoying the scenery, we're enjoying what we're listening to.

And, and remember as again, in Atomic Habits, you know, we can be

doing a lot of these little things and incrementally one very small

step at a time, we are improving.

We don't notice it until suddenly we do notice it.

And one thing that we do notice when we're treading water is that we're not sinking.

And obviously we wanna be treading water somewhere where we couldn't be standing.

So it has to be deep.

It has to be deep enough so we're actually suspended in

the water through our actions.

There's something positive there that we're doing, and so if we

can take, you know, when we feel we're not progressing the language,

we are immersed in the language.

We are exercising our brains, we are acquiring the language.

We can enjoy it.

And so I, I, I think the gist of what I'm saying here is try to take a more

positive attitude towards that long period where you are immersed in the

language and you're listening to things, or you're watching things and you're not

understanding as much as you would like.

And you keep forgetting words and you'd like to be able to speak better, but

you're still immersed, you're still in the water, you're in the lake,

you're in the ocean, you are doing it.

And so try to be more positive.

I think a lot of people kind of feel frustrated at their lack of progress,

so I hope that's, I hope that's helpful.

I mean, obviously you can go and look up grammar rules when you feel like it.

You can find other things to do and vary your activities, but accept the fact that

when you are in that period where it seems you're not progressing, in fact you are.

So enjoy that sensation of treading water and I'll leave you with a couple

of videos that I've done on this whole issue of the plateau or that long period

where we think we're not moving forward.

Thank you for listening.

Bye for now.