Today I wanna talk about the power of novelty, of new.
Last week I spoke about repetition and the importance of
repetition in language learning.
I made reference to Manfred Spitzer who talks about the
necessity or the requirement of the brain in order to learn.
We need repetition, but also he says we need novelty.
And I wanna talk a little bit about novelty and how you can embrace novelty to
basically empower your language learning.
I thought of this because I was listening to a podcast, Tarek
Osman, who talks about history.
He talks about the Arab world.
He talks about economics.
He speaks very clearly.
It's in Egyptian Arabic.
I haven't spent much time on Egyptian Arabic.
The last little while I may have explained here that I've been at Levantine Arabic,
Egyptian Arabic, standard Arabic for five, six years during that period.
I've also studied Farsi.
I've studied Turkish.
In fact, I used my Turkish, uh, when I was recently in Turkey.
However, I all of a sudden decided, you know, because I'm on some podcast
service, apple Podcast, roaming, and I come across this podcast by Tarek Osman.
So I started listening in the car and I was quite surprised that I
understood more than I have understood in Arabic in the past, even though
I have recently been devoting myself
to Persian.
And of course I prepared for six months in order to go to Turkey.
And I think to the extent that I've been listening to Arabic, I've been listening
to Beirut Al Yawm, which is from Lebanon.
And so I was very surprised that I'm listening to this, uh, Egyptian Arabic and
I understand more and I notice more, and I
notice more words than I have in the past, and it's because, I'm
quite convinced, because it is new.
Now, new or novelty to me just means a break from the routine.
It doesn't have to mean that it's absolutely new, but the language
is new, the podcaster is new.
There are a number of elements there that are a break from the routine,
and there's all kinds of evidence that when we take a break from our
routine, we actually focus better.
We remember better.
We learn better.
And a lot of this has to do with not only the fact that chemically there is a
stronger dopamine kick when we're dealing with something new, that novelty is good
for the brain, stimulates the brain, but even in terms of anticipation, when
we anticipate something pleasurable, there's an even bigger dopamine kick.
And I'm quite convinced that this predisposes me to maybe focus more,
try harder, and all of this means that I'm getting more benefit out
of listening to that something new.
Now there are many ways that we can introduce new.
There are many ways that I introduce new novelty in my language learning routine.
So in this case, I went to a new language, not totally new, but a departure
from my routine, a new podcaster.
But I can also by sometimes studying in page mode or sentence mode or choosing
to, you know, vary my activities.
So anything I do that disrupts my routine, helps me learn better,
remember better, focus better.
Uh, I have often experienced the fact that when I get on an airplane
prior to going on a trip, uh, I am reluctant to abandon my routine.
It's comfortable with my family, with my friends, with, uh, where we like
to eat or what we like to eat at home.
My exercise routine, everything is comfortable and so I'm reluctant
to leave, but once I'm on that airplane, it's stimulating.
It's that new.
There's a bit of a dopamine kick.
Uh, I have anticipated where I'm going to be flying to and I'm often better
able to focus and remember if I'm reading a, say a book in a foreign language or
studying on LingQ, it's more effective in that airplane environment, which is a
new environment, a different environment than it would be if I stayed at home.
I know some people like to go to a coffee shop to study or to do work because
it's a new and different environment.
So breaking the routine, getting something new in there, I have found
to be a very powerful way to increase our focus, increase our, uh, ability
to remember and to understand.
Curiosity is also connected with new because curiosity is the
desire to learn something new.
If you are learners of a foreign language, you are already curious, you
are curious about a new language, you're willing to embark on this adventure of.
Maybe being a little uncomfortable facing some uncertainty, but it's
an adventure that you willingly embark upon because you're curious.
And of course, when I'm listening to this podcast in Egyptian, Arabic,
it triggers a lot of curiosity.
There are words that I didn't understand, and yet intrinsically I sense that this
content, that what he's talking about in the Arab world is of interest to me.
So now I wanna get out my iPad and look up the words because I have already obtained
a transcript of this podcast and I wanna look up the words because this curiosity,
this desire to acquire something new, perhaps the anticipation that I will learn
something new, the anticipated reward.
All of this are part of the benefit of embarking on this
new podcast in a new language.
Last week you told us that a routine was necessary, repetition was necessary.
Didn't you say, you're telling me, Steve, that we need this
repetition in order for neurons to fire together and wire together?
Besides which the new is a bit of a disturbance.
It's the unknown.
There's definitely a feeling of comfort when we're dealing with.
Content that we're used to where a lot of the words are known, there's no anxiety.
Furthermore, in my routine, there are lots of elements of my activity, which
are based on things being familiar.
I learn better from the mini stories because the stories themselves
in whatever language I'm starting to learn, are familiar to me.
Even this, uh, Egyptian Arabic podcast that I was listening to talked about
subjects that were familiar to me of interest to me, but also familiar to me.
So it's important to have a range of familiar content, and if we
are familiar with the content or interested in the content, which
is usually based on some degree of familiarity, then we're better able to
concentrate on some of the new things.
And all of that, of course, is quite true.
Familiarity is, in a sense, the goal of language learning.
We wanna make the language familiar.
So yes, familiarity is.
An advantage in language learning.
It's interesting that advertising has long recognized, that their
messaging needs to be a combination of the familiar and the new.
So the advertising message tries to make you feel comfortable, but at the same
time says this is new and different.
And of course, the new is the promise of something better, something attractive.
And so that has to be in there together with the things that
we are already comfortable with.
And I think the key in being willing
to take up the new, a new activity, a new narrator.
Anything that's new is that we do this without fear.
We have to accept that language.
Learning is a process of expecting something.
Expecting to be able to remember, expecting to be able to understand,
anticipating what the structure or the vocabulary, the syntax item in that
sentence is going to be, and either our anticipation is proved correct or
it's proved incorrect, and language learning has often been described as
a probabilistic error driven process.
That's how the brain anticipates the language and then adjusts.
It's understanding of the patterns of the language accordingly so it's
important to have a positive attitude.
I think one of the problems with traditional language learning is that we
are taught that it's bad to make mistakes.
And so if we stay with comfortable material, familiar material where
we will make fewer mistakes, we feel happier, we should in fact be
pushing ourselves into material new material where we will make mistakes
'cause it's only by making mistakes.
Sake that we can be, you know, going forward.
But that assumes that we're willing to deal with this uncertainty.
We're willing to deal with disappointment, and it turns out that even disappointment
does have a dopamine effect, which can be beneficial to remembering and learning.
Even an unpleasant experience can help us remember.
So new, the unexpected.
Curiosity.
All of these things have very beneficial impact when it comes to language
learning, even though it is true that repetition and a sense of comfort and
an absence of anxiety are also, uh, important to success in language learning.
And, and finally, I wanna leave you with some examples of how I
combine the familiar with the new
in my language learning something I've been doing for well over 50 years.
So I think I mentioned before that when I am starting a new language, uh,
using my mini stories, our mini stories at LingQ, uh, even though I don't
understand the first mini story in a new language, I'll move on to the second and
then to the third and the fourth, and eventually I come back to the first again.
So there's a lot of repetition, but I'm always pushing myself to
do the next, the new story because I find I'm better able to focus.
I find that more interesting.
I think I progress more quickly by not.
Trying to master the familiar but rather pushing myself to the new,
uh, even with the podcast in Persian.
When I listen to Parseh podcast, which is interesting material
often about history, but new subjects, things of interest to me.
And, uh, I'll leave an episode that I haven't fully understood or I
haven't looked up all the words there.
If he comes out with a new episode.
'cause I'm attracted to the new and I think that
elevates, you know, my ability to remember it.
So I do that.
But I did that back when I was in Hong Kong in 1968, learning Mandarin Chinese.
More than any other student, I think, I was always at the bookstores, scouring
the bookstores to find new Chinese language, Mandarin language readers.
With glossaries, we didn't have the internet in those days.
And always looking for new material, even though I had books
at home that I hadn't finished.
So I guess the conclusion is we need a balance.
If you only ever stay within your comfort zone, you'll not progress.
If you are forever dealing with difficult material, but you don't
understand what's going on and you're totally unfamiliar, it's uh, you know,
nuclear science in a strange language
obviously we can't deal with that.
So it's important as we devise our study program, as we choose
the content we're going to listen to as we choose the activities we
wanna engage in, that we strike a balance and we should be in charge.
We've, we went a little too far, it's a little uncomfortable.
We move back to the more comfortable, or we feel, you know,
we're not challenging ourselves.
Go and do something new wherever you can, in whatever form, a different location,
a different language, whatever it might be, and you'll be surprised at how much
better you're able to focus and learn.
So I hope that's, uh, useful as a counterbalance to the video
that I did last week on the subject of repetition, and today
I focused on the power of novelty.
Thank you for listening.
Bye.
