Why I Say "Don't Aspire to Fluency in the Language You Are Learning".

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here today, and I'm gonna tell you don't aspire

to fluency in the language you're learning, and I'm gonna tell you why.

You'll notice by the way that I removed my, uh, backdrop with a fake bookshelf.

Uh, people were complaining, uh, that, uh, I never seen to take any of

those books down from the bookshelf, and it was creased and whatnot.

So I decided to try a different look.

Tell me what you think.

Anyway, why do I say don't aspire to fluency?

This kinda came to me after reading Atomic Habits, and I have in the

past said, you know, we should try to become fluent if, uh, we're climbing

a mountain, if our goal isn't to reach to the peak of the mountain, that we're

certainly never gonna get there, that you should have these lofty goals.

However, reading Atomic Habits made me realize the important thing is

not to have some lofty goal but rather, how are we gonna get there?

So the focus should not be on imagining yourself speaking fluently, although

that's, it's not a bad thing to do, but it's not gonna help you.

The, the main focus has to be on what am I going to do

every day to improve every day?

Because in fact, working on a language, as I've talked about in a variety of my

videos, can be a bit of a lonely journey.

We can have the impression that we're putting a lot of effort

in and not getting anywhere.

And yeah, maybe the sense that one day I will be fluent is, um, helpful to us.

But what is more helpful is to have that sense that every day that I'm doing

something, I am improving and even to have activities that give you small victories.

So I have enjoyed, for example, doing these matching pairs and

assembling sentences on LingQ.

Uh, you know, it slows me down in terms of acquiring more vocabulary is time

that is not spent on massively, you know, ingesting the language, listening and

reading, getting my brain used to it.

But it is diving into the nuts and bolts of the language.

It's giving me a small sense of achievement because those are

essentially easy tasks to do.

So we get an easy sense of achievement.

It keeps me going.

I'm focused on the now, what I'm doing now to improve in the

language, what I'm doing now to get a sense of success in the language.

Uh, another thing could be seeking out an opportunity to use the

language with a native speaker, maybe who lives in your community.

uh, maybe getting on a online lesson with a tutor.

All those little things that keep you moving along, uh, it's

fine to have that lofty goal.

Uh, a number of the languages that I say that I speak, in

fact, I don't speak fluently.

Uh, I can maybe get them up to fluent at some point, but that doesn't mean I

haven't enjoyed trying to learn them.

I haven't enjoyed every step along the way, and I will enjoy going back to them.

And so the fact that I didn't achieve fluency, In Greek or

Romanian or Czech or Korean even.

Although I'm fairly well along, I have a lot of vocabulary, a

high degree of comprehension, but I can't claim to be fluent.

Fluent to me is B2.

The vast majority of language learners never reach B2.

Okay?

So therefore, all those people haven't been wasting their time.

All those people, myself included, for the bulk of my languages, we've

been doing something very rewarding uh, enabling us to discover another

language, to get interested in the people, in the culture behind the

language, to have small victories when we're able to use the language.

All of those things are tremendously positive.

So if the only criterion of success in language learning is to become fluent,

most language learners are failures, and I don't believe they are failiures.

I don't consider myself a failure in those languages that

I don't speak fluency fluently.

It's been tremendously award rewarding, discovering those languages and

learning about those countries.

And I do things every day that give me satisfaction in the language.

Even though I am a long way from fluency, I may never achieve fluency in

Persian or Arabic or Turkish or Greek.

However, whatever I have learned in those languages is something that I

have and no one can take away from me.

As Lomb Kato, the famous Hungarian polyglot once said, A language

is one of those things that is worth learning, even imperfectly.

And I think that's a very important context to have as we study.

Think of it as something very valuable, worthwhile doing.

You can continue to improve.

You will get as far as you can in the language.

The longer you stay with it, the better you will get, the

closer you'll get to fluency, but you may never achieve fluency.

And still it will have been a worthwhile journey.

And that's why I say, you know, in learning languages, I shouldn't

say don't aspire to fluency, but don't be fixated with fluency.

There you have it.

Thank you for listening.

Bye.