How a polyglot overcomes the language learning plateau

Hi there Steve Kaufmann here today I want

to talk about the plateau the doldrums

when we feel we're not making progress

in a language and you know I am

I guess considered a polyglot because I

speak a number of languages I have

preferred the term linguist but polyglot

seems increasingly accepted although

many English speakers don't know the

term but the idea some people may have

the idea that polyglots just kind of

breeze through learning new languages

that is not the case

I think our path through acquiring

languages is not unlike that of other

people we have that initial period you

know I've spoken about this upside-down

hockey-stick that initial period the

blade of the hockey stick where we make

rapid progress we acquire new words we

got a sense you know what was tough

total noise all of a sudden becomes

comprehensible to some degree and then

we hit this stage where we've gone

through like in my case would be the

many stories on link I've gone through

this basic material I've acquired some

words I can say a few things but now I

have to acquire so many words in order

to reach genuine fluency or at least to

be able to understand movies and be able

to have you know random conversations on

many subjects and that actually is a

long long road and so once we hit that

and we you know we some people simply

stay in the learner material and never

progress beyond that but other people

want to push themselves into this more

difficult material and as they do so

they start to realize that whereas in

the initial period you know high

frequency high frequency words are high

frequency so they appear more often but

then because frequency the frequency

with which verbs are worse verbs words

appear in any text drops off very very

quickly so pretty soon we have to

acquire lots of relatively low frequency

words and therefore it takes a long long

time to move from it might be like a to

to be to that's a long long road and

very often we have the feeling that

we're not getting anywhere

and some people refer to this as the

plateau I would also call it the

doldrums I remember from elementary

school we were taught about the trade

winds east west west east trade winds

and in between along the equator was an

area where often there would be no winds

and so in days of sailing ships of

course that means that without wind the

ships aren't moving and so you get into

this stage and language learning where

you feel you're not moving and I'm kind

of in that stage right now with my

Arabic Persian and Turkish I've done the

many stories in the three languages I

have a sense now of how those languages

work I have some vocabulary forget and

relearn it forget it relearn it but I

have a bit of a sense of the language

I'm pushing myself now to more difficult

content in the case of Arabic I go to

France mint cap and al-jazeera - their

podcast which I then have automatically

transcribed

similarly with Farsi I go to far door

and I do the same Turkish we seem to

have a lot of good content in our

library at links so I I simply look to

see what's there and study what's there

but it's difficult it is difficult

especially in Arabic it's the most

difficult because it's a totally

different language system and it's a

different writing system person is

indo-european language Turkish is at

least written in the Latin alphabet so

those two are easier than Arabic so you

know what do I do times I get

discouraged I'm not getting anywhere it

seems almost as difficult now as it was

before even though on my lesson page it

I can see that you know there are fewer

blue words there are more yellow words

more white words so I think the first

thing that I have to do as I'm in the

plateau is I just have to stay the

course I have to remember that when I

was learning Czech or Russian for

example or Greek there was a long period

when I was listening to you know podcast

I didn't really understand and I kept

listening to them and it seemed like I

would never get to where I could just

enjoyably listen to a podcast and

understand it and yet in the end I got

there so the first thing is that and I

as someone who has learned quite a

few languages to varying levels I'm

confident that I will eventually get to

a stage where I can understand movies I

can listen to podcast I can read

newspapers and I can speak with mistakes

so the first thing is to stay the course

the second thing is to you know have

certain sort of habits that you

automatically do that you have to do so

that's why I force myself I'm not always

able to do it but I've tried to force

myself to create a hundred links a day

in each language it's just a mechanical

thing I have to do it even if sometimes

I cheat and I just go from blue word to

blue words blue word without reading the

whole text planning to go back and read

it later on just so that I maintain that

habit similarly I have a habit of

looking to see what's new in the Turkish

library you know I go to our lesson feed

and Turkish see what's there

pick something new and go through it

similarly I like to grab a podcast from

al-jazeera or fons bad cat and listen to

it don't understand that very well but

it's it's just one of these things it's

like something new I think we like

things that are new I find it more

enticing to listen to a new podcast that

I understand him perfectly rather than

to go I have all the Aussie mail that I

have transcribed but it's it's an

interesting it's stuff that was written

long ago it's not it's not interesting

so I have this habit I go to the podcast

but so then so stay the course create

some habits remind yourself while you're

learning so I was feeling a bit

discouraged should I give up give up on

Turkish and Persian and focus on Arabic

because Arabic is more difficult and

then I was in a pharmacy the other day

and there's this Iranian lady and so we

say a few things in Persian I realize

how much my Persian you know it's not as

good as it was so that gets me going

back to my Persian and then she said she

was interested in learning Turkish and

of course and then I'm reminded of the

the relationship between these languages

and and my wife is watching this Turkish

movie on Netflix about the Seljuk Turks

in Anatolia fighting the Crusaders and

and then I'm reminded that the the

Seljuk Empire included modern-day Iran

and

arab-speaking areas and Anatolia and so

there's this tremendous historical

connection and this lady was she's

Iranian she wants to learn Turkish and

so I'm reminded why I'm doing it I'm

doing it to discover something about

these languages so mastery of these is

very elusive far away but it is

interesting to me to be discovering

these so I'm interested in what I'm

trying to discover that's my goal

I know it's worthwhile I have certain

habits that I've created and I'm staying

the course so with that I have to plow

through I'm in the doldrums the wind

isn't blowing I don't feel I'm getting

anywhere but I have to stay with it I

can also do some things to make it

better so for example I had a podcast

that was out about politics but I'm

trying to figure out where the camera is

and make sure my eyes stays on the

camera rather than the center of my

iPhone a little difficult but so I

downloaded this podcast from a phosphite

cat there was a discussion about

politics in Lebanon with a Lebanese

politician and I got the automatic

transcript and it's very inaccurate so

it's difficult to make sense of it as I

tried to read through although I save

words it's why I said well you know what

I should get a newspaper article on this

so I google newspapers in Lebanon up comes

a Wikipedia page and it has a list

of newspapers in Lebanon in Arabic

French and Armenian so I choose the

Arabic list and there's a newspaper

called el shark the East and there's an

article about the political situation in

Lebanon

so I import that article into link so

now I'm going through some of the same

material but now it's written in a way

that makes sense because this is an act

an actual newspaper article now I feel I

have a better chance to make sense of

this automatically transcribed podcast

and to listen to the podcast so I think

these are the kinds of things that we

can do I think in the new year at link

we're gonna make the library much better

it's going to be easier to find stuff

hopefully we can get people who have

good content to sell it across link I

would happily pay I'm paying $10 an hour

to have this stuff automatically

transcribed I went to up work which is

an outsourcing website to see if I could

find someone who would transcribe

Persian in Arabic and I said I want your

cost or your price per audio hour and

they come back in this hour charge $10

an hour that doesn't tell me how much

they would charge to do a whole audio

hour of a podcast one person said it's

$100 US an hour I'm certainly not gonna

pay that so the other way is we have for

example lingual ism who's gonna

hopefully we can arrange with him and

others I spoke to someone who has

Turkish material as well where they can

sell their content across link I would

happily spend 10 20 dollars to get audio

and text access to good content for

learning these languages so these are

some of the things that we can do you

know to help us along at any rate when

we're in the doldrums when we're at that

plateau you have to convince yourself

that what you're doing is worth it you

got to be sure you know why you're doing

it you've got to have certain habits

that you essentially do every day

whether it be creating links are

listening to podcasts looking for what's

new in the library or the lesson fee

that link and and remember that it is

very worthwhile just the other day I was

looking at a picture from an old-timers

hockey tournament that I was at in 2006

and I saw all of our pictures there and

I said gee that's 13 years ago and I

think you know today I am more excited

about learning about new cultures new

languages it it gives me so much reward

which I didn't have back then when I

hadn't yet really started my you know

intense study of languages so it does

give you a lot and and your goal can be

mastery but you like doing might be you

might enjoy going to class you might

enjoy doing hanky decks you might enjoy

whatever but do things that you enjoy

doing stay the course and you will

eventually get through the Plateau

thank you for listening bye for now