Why It's Hard To Learn Similar Things When Learning a New Language

Their similarity makes them more difficult to learn.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann, and today I have a slightly different subject.

Uh, I spoke in a previous video about how important it is to learn from things

that are familiar, but by the same token, and the emphasis today is how difficult

it is to learn things that are similar.

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I do appreciate it.

So what do I mean by that?

Well, I notice for example, that whenever I start a new language, there

are words that sound very similar.

Uh ... you know, one is change, the other is understand in Japanese.

It's very difficult to disentangle these words that sound similar.

Another example is uh, very often, um, well meaning people who write textbooks or

teachers will try to get you to learn, you know, in chapter three, the colors, uh,

I remember I had a teacher once telling me a tutor online, say, today we're

going to, we're gonna learn the colors.

It's very difficult because that, those are similar, those are colors, and if

you try to learn the colors as a batch, I personally find that very difficult to do.

The fact that they're all different colors, one beside the other,

doesn't help me learn them.

The same is true if we talk about, you know, the parts of the body

or numbers or the months of the year, or the names of relatives.

You know, the cousin, boy cousin, girl cousin, uh, in-law, mother's

side, father's side, you know, wife's side, husband's side, all

of these things that are kind of similar, their similarity makes them

more difficult to learn, thing...

to me.

And I'd be interested in fact in, in hearing from people, whether

they have the same experience.

If you learn things that are all different from each other, it's easier.

So, and if we can space the colors or connect the colors to something else

like a plant or a red shirt, and we come across them in different situations,

then eventually we assimilate those.

We start to learn them.

But if we try to learn them as a list, I find that very difficult to do.

So any situation where things are presented to us as a batch of things

to learn, it makes it more difficult.

Now, and the same goes with synonyms, for example.

Or, uh, you'll sometimes get a list of false friends, for example,

and supposed to, we're supposed to notice how these, uh, false friends

don't mean in the new language what they meant in the old language, but

going over them as a, as a list.

Here's a list of words that mean something in language A, here's

what they mean in language B, that connection from A to B doesn't help

me learn them has been my experience.

Uh, even things like, you know, phrasal verbs that have the same verb.

Get, uh, get out of, get into, get on, get up, get rid of the fact that they all have

the word get there may not be helpful.

Now I'm not, I haven't been in the position of having to learn phrasal

verbs, but whenever I see these lists of things that are similar, have the same

component in them, it, it's interesting.

It's interesting while I'm looking at that list, and, and it may, in fact,

reviewing them as a list may help me.

I do that.

It's an activity that I do, but I think it's a minor part of the learning process.

It's a review part of the learning process.

In order to learn those things, we actually have to find them, you know,

scattered, dispersed in content of interest and, you know, see it here,

forget it, see it there, forget it.

And if we have enough input and if we come across similar things, but we come

across them in isolated situations, in different contexts, we're more likely

to learn them, whereas any attempt to learn these similar things as a list is

probably not going to work that well.

At least that's been my experience, and I think it relates somewhat, somewhat to

this idea of interleaving versus block learning, that anytime you're trying to

master something by reading it over and over again, whether it be a history paper

or a list of words, that's less effective than finding it over here, finding it

over there, sort of grazing, interleaving.

So I leave that as a thought and I also will believe you with a video that I've

done on interleaving and also one on, you know, why we shouldn't, uh, engage

in sort of intensive, block learning.

So, uh, thank you for listening and I look forward to your comments.

Bye for now.