#3 – Learn to Notice

Hi, there, it's Steve Kaufmann Founder of LingQ and I'm going to talk to you about the third of my Secrets to Successful Language Learning.

The first one was to spend the time every day and for as long as it takes. The second secret was to do things that you like to do in language learning. That will insure your success and insure that you stay with it. The third secret is to notice what is happening in the language. This is extremely important. Now, how do you develop the ability to notice? There are a number of things that you need to do. First of all, I would like to stress that the ability to notice is probably the largest difference, the most significant difference between people who are good at language learning and people who are not good at language learning, so it's very important to develop the ability to notice.

Now, the first thing you need to do is to make sure you get a lot of exposure to the language through listening, reading or, if you prefer, watching videos, but somehow you have to get a lot of the language into you because you can't notice things that you haven't already experienced. It's a bit like the saying you can only learn what you already know.

It sounds a bit contradictory, but you can't notice until you've actually consciously and subconsciously experienced something. So, hopefully, you are spending a lot of time gaining that exposure to the language. Now, how do you start noticing? There are a number of things that can help you notice. First of all, you have to want to notice.

So if I'm reading, I'll often underline certain expressions or words. If I'm reading at LingQ, I will save words and phrases to my personal database. Just the act of saving them helps me notice. Now, when I review these in flashcards that again helps me notice. It's not because I review them in flashcards that I'm going to remember them, I won't necessarily remember them. Some words I'll remember, some I won't, but it's all slowly building up this ability to notice. If I'm corrected it may help me notice.

It may not, but it certainly won't necessarily correct me. Maybe an explanation from a teacher or an explanation in a grammar book will help me notice. That's why I very often review grammar books very quickly, again, not with the intention or the hope that I'll remember a particular rule or a particular verb ending, but because it's just that process, that continuous cumulative process of getting me to notice certain things. Once I notice something, let's say it was a correction in my writing and then I look for it when I'm reading or when I hear the language, all of a sudden I start to notice these things everywhere.

As we notice things in the language they become a part of us and pretty soon because we've noticed it here and noticed it there, suddenly automatically we start using these words and phrases or patterns of the language more correctly. Now, the same is true with pronunciation.

You can't pronounce what you can't hear, so you have to pay attention to how the language is pronounced. It's not just the individual sounds you need to pay attention to, it's the intonation and sometimes it can be very useful to listen and imitate because that's helping you to notice. So whether it be pronunciation, correct usage or the accumulation of words and phrases, it's very important to hone that ability to notice and it starts with a desire to notice, the conscious determination, will, to say I'm going to try to notice the language and then you can train yourself through these various activities.

So that's the third hint, learn to notice the language and you'll become an efficient and successful language learner.

Thank you.