Learn Languages Fast By Learning Slow

Today I wanna talk about learning slowly.

You know, we read so much about learning the language in three months or in six

months, and books that promise you you'll be fluent when you finish the book.

And of course, we all know that that's not true.

And I think I suddenly realized, you know, as I was walking to a place

that we had been to before, first time we went there, we were in a hurry.

We didn't notice anything.

Uh, it was going to the old town, but the second time we were walking more slowly.

We didn't care when we got there, but we were enjoying the surroundings.

We noticed more things, and I think the same is true in language learning.

I showed LingQ to my cousin in Sweden and right away he was so impatient.

Uh, you know, he clicked on a word, saw the meaning, and he

said, well, how do I remember that?

How will I be able to use it when I need it?

And I said, don't worry about it.

Just take it easy.

Just relax.

Let the language come in.

Don't be in a hurry.

Don't be impatient.

If you're impatient.

If you try overly hard to learn something, chances are you won't learn.

We have to have an attitude...

the same attitude that I had when I was walking slowly of noticing

things because we're not in a hurry.

That really...

I apologize for the noise in the background, who we are in

the breakfast area of our hotel.

Very relaxing place.

Again, relaxing is good.

I think pressure in language learning is bad for us.

I think we have to learn to learn slowly.

Just as there was a very famous book written about, you know, eating slowly

and, and living slowly and encouraging people to step back from the rat race.

I think this has real application for language learning and um, of course there

are different ways that you can relax.

You can relax even doing the mini stories at LingQ, the sort of repetitive

listening is almost addictive.

It's a bit like Zhuangzi's parable of the butcher where he does the

same motion over and over again, and therefore he achieved perfection through

repetition, not because he read some rules, grammar rules or instructions,

but because he practiced it over and over again, and that slow repetition

is important, but by the same token, we can listen to interesting things, not

worried about what we understand, what we retain, and just enjoy the language.

I think there's a lot to be said for slow learning without pressure.

Now this is gonna upset some people in school where they feel if something

was taught, therefore the person, the student, should be able to repeat it.

Uh, parents and administrators want exams and tests and test

results and grading, but all of this is putting pressure on people.

Instead, what we want is a, an approach of slow enjoyment of the language.

The end result will be better learning, better learning, because the pressure

to achieve something in a hurry in fact prevents us from gradually assimilating

the language because after all, through our slow and gradual listening and

reading, we are depositing sort of thin layers of the language on our

brain slowly without realizing it.

And all of a sudden we're building up this familiarity in

this capability in the language.

All of that is achieved through slow learning.

So my message today, even though tomorrow we're taking a high speed train to

Krokow, but today I want to talk about slow, slow learning for more enjoyable

learning and more effective learning.

Thank you for listening.

Bye.

And we're gonna cross the waterway again.

And of course there's a separate crossing for the cyclists, which are many, and

we're gonna go on the pedestrian area.

One other impression here in Copenhagen is just the variety

of languages that you hear.

Mostly European, not many Americans, not many from Asia, some.

Lots of Brazilians and people from all over Europe and similarly, the

staff everywhere, you come across people whose native language is

Spanish, is French people from Switzerland, south America, Poland.

It's a real hodgepodge of languages.

Everybody gets along very well together and uh, yeah, interesting.

Here we have people on the water enjoying the day.

It's, it's extraordinary.

That was the, uh, theater again, those modern buildings.

You know, and everywhere people are sitting and enjoying the

sunshine, enjoying a beer, which is something we're gonna do.

So it's uh, our last day in Denmark.

And just to update you on my struggles with different languages,

so yesterday here in Copenhagen, we had a Farsi speaking taxi driver

and an Arabic speaking taxi driver.

Struggled to say anything in either language.

Better in Farsi.

I kept thinking Polish, even Korean.

The other day, we had, uh, we met a couple who were Swiss and

the wife was from Korea, and I actually did better in Korean.

I think the issue there is that you can work on languages, get them to

a certain level, but if they aren't good enough, you're not gonna be able

to hold onto them in every situation.

There are gonna be situations when you struggle.

You're confused.

It, it really doesn't matter.

Everything I put into those languages, I'll go back there and get them back.

But in the short run, it's a little frustrating that...

and I've had this happen to me before.

I remember eight years ago I was in, uh, Bratislava at a language conference,

and I had spent six months on Ukrainian.

And my Ukrainian wasn't bad.

But before the conference in Bratislava, I spent two weeks

trying to get some Slovak going.

Slovak, very similar to Czeck.

And I was able to speak Slovak in the shopping center and so forth

in Bratislava, but at the language conference, there was a Ukrainian

guy there and the well was dry.

There is no way I could get any Ukrainian to come out because everything

had been plugged up with Slovak.

And at times even, you know, Korean or something else would come in.

So the brain controls how quickly you learn.

The brain controls what you can remember at any given time.

But if you fill your brain with all these languages, with the right

opportunity, if you get lo a chance to speak, it'll start coming back.

So I never get frustrated.

I mean, I get frustrated, but I'm not upset that I can't remember 'cause I'm

always gonna struggle until I, I bring those languages to a sufficient level,

which is not the case for, you know, my Iranian or my Arabic or so forth.

Anyway, that's last day in Denmark.

We're going off to Sweden and then, uh, thereafter we go back to Poland

and I'm gonna really work on getting my Polish up, even though I may not

be able to hold onto it for that long.