You Don't Have to Be Perfect to Become Fluent

What is the role of perfectionism in language learning?

That's my subject today, and I want to look at it from

four different points of view.

Why would we want to pursue perfection?

Where is it more important to pursue perfection?

When, at what stage in our language learning should we try to

pursue improvement or perfection?

And fourth, how do we go about improving or pursuing that

elusive goal of perfection?

Upfront, we are unlikely to achieve perfection.

So pure perfectionism is

out of place and counterproductive in language learning.

However, the desire to constantly improve is an important part of

motivation in language learning.

And I think that's a major reason why the pursuit of perfection,

even if we don't achieve it, has its place in language learning.

It's a natural thing to want to get better.

So you're working for a company in English or German or Japanese, and

you're sending out correspondence.

You can't make too many mistakes.

It reflects badly on you and on the company you're working for.

Certainly preparing for tests is an area where we try to be better because language

instruction teaches us to be afraid of mistakes, even though in reality.

People who are more adventurous in their use of the language

may make more mistakes, but they're going to achieve more.

They're going to communicate better.

So it's a bit of a double-edged sword.

If we're too hung up about making mistakes, we won't progress in

the language, but obviously tests, professional situations, and a natural

desire to want to improve are all reasons.

To pursue perfection.

So then the question is, where do we want to work towards perfection?

The most, the area that most people seem to be concerned about when it

comes to being overly self critical or wanting to be better or wanting

to be perfect is pronunciation.

And to me, that is the least important, as long as you're able to be understood.

Then that's good enough.

There is a very low likelihood that language learners will

end up sounding like a native.

You can maybe try to improve, but you're going to be less than perfect.

You should accept it.

So perfectionism in pronunciation to me is the least important.

At the other end of the spectrum, things like spelling are very

important because if you're writing.

And particularly if you're working for a company or you're writing

in university, spelling mistakes reflect very badly on the writer.

Now, fortunately today, much of our writing is on a computer, so

we are able to check the spelling.

However, a lot of mistakes slip through.

And so I think it's important to focus on spelling as an area where we, if not

perfect, we need to be very, very good.

Now, in between those two extremes, pronunciation and spelling, we

have things like grammar and the related idea of word usage.

To me, word usage, natural word usage is more important than details of grammar.

But both of those, I think we can be a little more permissive.

Even in business communication, as long as the meaning is clear, I think there

is less of a demand for perfection than say, in the case of spelling,

the same holds for punctuation.

So at what stage in our language learning should we be more concerned

about our accuracy or our perfectionism?

Very definitely, I think we should be more focused on being perfect or

less inaccurate at a later stage.

Upfront, any pressure on the learner to produce correctly is counterproductive.

Most people give up because they're frustrated, because they feel they're

not doing well or they're not learning.

And so any additional pressure at the early stage is counterproductive.

I do not believe that fossilized.

The brain is naturally developing this model of the language, anticipating the

language, helping us create utterances in the language, drawing on things that

it has stored in its long term memory.

All of this takes time to accumulate.

So at a later stage in the language, when we want to really improve certain

aspects where we know we're, we're not doing as well as we would like.

It's never too late.

I don't believe that if a person is motivated to improve.

That the mistakes they make at the early stage are going to be with them and that

they'll never be able to improve them.

I simply don't believe that.

So less emphasis on getting things right, mastering the basics, all

of these things up front, more latitude for mistakes early on.

Encourage the learner, encourage yourself, and then later on, when

you're a little more comfortable in the language, you can go back in and

sort of clean up the, uh, rough edges.

So then if we say that it's legitimate to want to constantly

improve, but it's highly unlikely that we're ever going to be perfect.

So perfectionism per se is out.

How do we continue improving?

And here, I think it's obvious that it takes time to learn a language.

So therefore the way to work towards perfection is simply to

keep going, to enjoy the language.

To not worry about how we're doing, not worry about mistakes.

In fact, we learn from our mistakes to forget and relearn and forget and relearn.

That's how things are then anchored in our long term memory.

And that's how we end up with.

Words and phrases that we can comfortably use.

My advice is don't worry about being perfect.

Try to get in the flow of the experience of discovering a new language.

And I think you'll be surprised at how you continue to progress towards, if not

perfection, at least constant improvement.

And I will leave you with two videos on related subjects.

One that talks about perfectionism.

And another one that talks about the importance of making

mistakes in language learning.

Thank you for listening.

Bye for now.