Language Learning Success Depends on Rewarding Yourself

Very likely you're gonna make quite a few mistakes.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here, and today I want to talk about something

a little different as it relates to language learning and that is reward

yourself in your language learning.

It's gonna help you remember.

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So the biggest problem that people have in language learning is that they

give up, they get frustrated, they don't feel that they're making any

progress, and they stop continuing to listen and read and study the language.

And I think there are a number of things that we can do to maintain our motivation,

but one of them is to reward yourself.

Like I decided to go back to Turkish.

So I was listening to Turkish while out for a walk.

And while I've now forgotten a lot of my Turkish I recognized that I

hear the words very, very clearly.

I don't know necessarily what the words mean, but I hear them.

So in any, whenever we're learning a language, when we're at a stage where

we hear the words clearly, where word ends and the next word begins, and,

and we kind of notice that word very clearly, we just have to look it up.

We don't know what it means, or we've forgotten what it means,

I give myself credit for that.

I say, yeah, wow.

You know, it's gonna be fun relearning Turkish because

I hear the words so clearly.

I have mentioned before that we shouldn't, you know, get upset when we forget things

or when we, um, are unable to say things or when we don't understand things.

It, it's far better to reward ourselves for the things that we are able to do.

And, and that's something that we are able to do, should be something that's a little

difficult to do 'casue it's a, if it's a little difficult to do and we can reward

ourselves, the brain actually likes that.

Apparently there's, you know, research that talks about this being, you

know, in the zone and attempting to do something that's a little difficult,

but actually being able to carry if off.

We have that sense of achievement, we are encouraged.

The brain is...

gets, I don't know, a shot of endorphins or whatever and wants to do more of that.

So it's important to reward yourself.

Unfortunately, traditional language instruction works more

on the principle of penalizing us.

So we have a test, we're gonna test what was just taught.

The teacher's gonna test you.

Very likely you're gonna make quite a few mistake.

As you're doing this test, you're almost reluctant to answer the

question because there's a high likelihood you're gonna get it wrong.

That's one thing, by the way that I like about the matching pairs that we have

now in the new version that I'm testing on iOS, and which will eventually be

available on all our platforms, that you can get it wrong and very quickly,

you know, okay oh, that one isn't right.

So, You know, maybe these are the pairs that match.

In other words, do things in a way that you're easily rewarded

and not so easily knocked down.

Because I think maintaining our motivation is so important, and we have to bear

in mind that the process of learning a language is one of, it's a slow process.

First of all, we shouldn't have expectations that we're gonna learn

anything very quickly, and it's sort of like peeling layers of an onion or

I've compared it to a jigsaw puzzle.

Slowly, slowly things become, you know, clearer to us.

So if at first, I, I hear the divisions, you know, where a word ends and where

the next word begins, but I don't know what the words mean but still, I can

accept that as a step in the right direction, wherever it's possible to

say, good, you know, you did that.

That's why we have our statistics, so that when we're in that long period

where we don't have the impression that we're improving, at least the statistics

tell me that I've been active and I've created LingQs and I've read so many

words, and I've listened to so many hours because I know personally that

if I am active, then I will learn.

That's the advantage of this idea of having a challenge where you're

trying to maintain your streak.

Because even though you may not feel you've improved that day, at least if you

maintained your streak, you did something.

You're rewarding yourself for your level of activity.

Because even though learning a language is a slow process, if

you stay with it, if you remain active, you are going to improve.

Even though very often you don't really feel that you're improving.

So my, the main message today is reward yourself for what you can do.

Don't criticize yourself for what you're not capable of doing.

There will be many moments when you perhaps disappoint yourself and you

shouldn't, you know, emphasize that sort of disappointment or frustration.

You should give your credit.

Give yourself credit for things that you are doing, whether it is hearing

something, whether it is, you know, if you're studying Russian and you

notice more and more, you're seeing the letter that we think is P acts as an

R, you know, in the Cyrillic alphabet.

All of these things that seem frustratingly difficult to do, not

because they're difficult, but because our brain isn't getting used to it.

And wherever we have an opportunity to recognize that we have stepped

forward, taken a step forward, or at least that our, uh, statistics at

LingQ show us that we have been active, we should say, we should accept the

credit for that you're doing well.

And this might sound sort of silly, you know, how very often

now in kids sporting events, they want to give everybody a prize.

It's not a matter of giving everybody a prize.

Obviously if you have a race, somebody came first, second, and third.

But language learning isn't a race.

Language learning is a long, uh, long distance run where

you have to develop stamina.

And one thing that's gonna feed that stamina is giving yourself credit

for what you're doing, what you're achieving, and how active you are.

Okay, so, so let's have a look at how these statistics might be motivating.

So I decided to put a little effort into Turkish.

So over the last three days I've been doing quite a bit of listening.

So I may not have the sense that I've necessarily improved a lot, but I see

that I've put a lot of effort into listening in the language and I reminding

myself of this level of activity.

It's rewarding if I check, uh, you know, words of reading, I'll also see

that I've read, you know, 1,800 words.

Um, this is, you know, you need to remind yourself that being

active is gonna get you there.

Obviously if I look at, you know, this month, I'll see that all this

activities in the last few days, but if I get back to the last seven days,

and if I look at um LingQs created.

I've also been active, so it is just a minor thing.

You know, my coins, I'm exceeding my daily, albeit a very modest daily target.

Uh, I have on occasion when I've been in a, a challenge, I've set

a much more demanding target.

I've set a target of, let's say, 400 coins.

A.

Uh, which is then tough.

You've gotta work to, to, to hit that.

The a hundred coins is very easy to hit.

You know, create a few links, a few LingQs, listen a

little bit, and you're there.

So, uh, just to show you that there are ways you can use, uh,

your statistics at LingQ to remind yourself that you are being active.

And if you believe, and you should believe that if you're

active, you're gonna improve, then that should be, uh, motivating.

And, uh, before I end the video, I thought I would direct you to

a couple of videos that I did on related subjects not so long ago.

Uh, one talks about motivation, uh, how to stay motivated, and the

other talks about frustrations.

And obviously if we can reward ourselves, we can stay motivated

and we can avoid frustration.

Thank you for listening.

Bye for now.