What progress actually looks like in language learning

The element of surprise in language learning, when I have a session with

my tutor now in Turkish, I never quite know how I'm going to do.

Sometimes I surprise myself, with how well I do and yet at other

times I'm very disappointed and I'm surprised at how much I can't produce

or I've forgotten or that I get the structures of the language wrong.

So there's always that element of anticipation, but surprise is

a big part of language learning.

We know that from the MRI imaging of the brain.

the brain, based on the accumulated experience of reading and listening

to the language, the brain starts to predict both in terms of vocabulary and

in terms of structure, what's coming.

And it's an important part of our ability to understand the language, comprehend

the language that we are able to predict.

Language learning is coming.

It has been called a probabilistic error driven process, so that either

what happens as we predict what's going to happen, it confirms what

we think of the language, which is good, strengthens our hold on the

language, or it contradicts it.

And if we see that different response than we anticipated after a while,

we adjust our sense of the language to match what actually is happening.

So surprise is a big part of it.

Similarly, even when we go to speak, we have to reach into what

we have accumulated, our sense of the language, and we have to grab.

Some words and some phrases and try them out.

And depending on the response we get, again, that's going to confirm or not

confirm, encourage us to adjust our comprehension, our sense of the language.

So surprise is always there.

So it's a bit like this joke, and I can't remember if it

was a German officer or what.

Nationality of officer.

You can pick the nationality of your choice.

But the story went that this officer laughed three times

every time he was told a joke.

So he laughed when he was told the joke, he laughed later when

the joke was explained to him.

And then three weeks later, when he finally understood

the joke, he laughed again.

So it's a bit silly, but there's a lot to that because first of

all, jokes are about surprise.

So we find something funny because something happens that

is contrary to our expectation.

And this expectation or being contrary to the expectation is

very much culture dependent.

It's context dependent, so you have to have a familiarity with that culture or

that context in order for whatever happens in the joke to appear funny to you.

And until that happens, you can have it explained.

And this is true, I find, in language learning.

I notice, for example, with my Turkish tutor, I have read the

explanation of the Turkish verbs.

I have looked at the tables, and when I go to use it, I get it wrong.

Until it clicks, so we have to be patient.

We won't notice it, we won't be able to produce it.

Even though we've read the tables and we had it explained, and yet, somehow,

until that context is rich enough, that what we are predicting, in the

way of a structure or vocabulary item, It's either confirmed or, adjusted.

Until we have that, we won't find the joke funny.

We won't, be able to use the language correctly.

And so we need to be patient and we need to circle back.

I've looked at the tables over and over again.

That didn't do it.

I've read, I've listened to texts and finally it starts to come into focus

and we just have to wait for that.

Now, some people say, Oh, Steve, like for example, in Turkish,

now I'm at 20, 000 known words.

I say what does that really mean?

You don't really know those words.

You can't use those words.

However, those are words that in a given context, I understood and was

confident enough that I understood them, that I threw them into my

known words reserve in my brain.

And there's many more that are not yet known that also sit in my

reserve, but they're all part of my growing sense of the language.

So thank you.

To me, in order to build up my ability to predict, I need to accumulate words.

The fact that I encourage myself by claiming some of these words as known

in some sense that, okay, in a given context, I understood that sort of scope

of meaning, maybe in another context, I won't understand it, but I will.

It doesn't matter.

It's an ongoing process of getting used to the language.

So I don't worry about how well I know the word.

Some people say you have to be able to use it.

You have to invest time in studying the etymology and, or you should use

a, monolingual dictionary and all of this sort of focusing in on that

word, I think is the wrong approach.

You have to throw it in there, claim credit for some that you're, you think

you know, and you may be surprised to find out you don't know it, but you

just keep on filling your head with words and then seeing what you predict

when you hear the language, when you read the language, when you speak

the language, and you slowly adjust.

And eventually you get to the stage where you understand the

joke, or you understand the movie.

Because even there, when you are watching a movie, say I'll be watching

a movie in Turkish, I'll It's not just the words, it's my sense of that

cultural context, which gradually grows.

And in that sense, there are fewer and fewer surprises as we get

better and better at the language.

And therefore we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves.

If we continue to disappoint ourselves in conversation or continue

not to understand certain things, unpleasant surprises, that's normal.

But there also are lots of pleasant surprises when we do better.

Then we thought we were gonna do.

So just a little digression on this whole issue of, the importance of the known

words total, that I consider an important part of my language learning strategy and

my goal setting what that actually means.

And this reference to what we know from how the brain learns languages,

that the element of surprise is a big part of how the brain gradually

gets used to a new language.

Thank you for listening.

Bye.