The importance of enjoying what you do.

  I am sitting on my bed in a the Sand Castle Motel in Parksville BC, on Vancouver Island. I am once again participating in the Old Timers Hockey Tournament here with my 60 and over team. We lost this afternoon. My little Motel room is full of smelly hockey equipment. But we had a nice dinner at a restaurant run by a person from Britanny in France. The restaurant is called Triksell, which is some kind of Celtic symbol representing three millenia or something.

The owner of the restaurant enjoys what he does, and his food was good. We were 7 team members and we shared hors d'oeuvres. Then I had a Gazpacho and then a New Zealand orange roughy (fish) done very nicely. And we had some great BC wine from the Okanagan, Jackson-Triggs  Cabernet Sauvignon. I am sure the people who make the wine enjoy what they do. I enjoy eating and I enjoy talking with my friends and I enjoy playing hockey.

Now getting back to language learning. Hiroshi mentioned laddered books, or graded readers. I enjoy listening to and reading authentic content. I want to get to the real language as soon as I can. I have never been that interested in graded readers, or simplified language for the learner. It is a necessary evil for the first 3-5 months but then no more, not for me. I do not find them interesting or enjoyable. But it is up to the individual.

I also feel that we should put the emphasis on enjoyment and not on achievement. I like playing hockey, even though sometimes we lose. I enjoy listening to and reading Anna Karenina in Russian, even though there is lots I do not understand. I know that if I were to try to talk to a Russian, I would have my troubles. But I read Tolstoy, after 15 months or so of intermittent study. At the local university after 3 years they read Tolstoy in translation. I am happy. I enjoy it. I do not get frustrated.

So ,Hiroshi, I am directing this at you. Your written English is great, mostly native speaker level.Enjoy what you are able to do in another language. Give yourself credit. I doubt if I could do as well in Japanese, and that does not even bother me, since I enjoy Japanese in so many ways.

And tomorrow we play at 8.00 am, so I will get up at 6.00 and try to get some breakfast before our game. Then we are playing golf at 12.00. I hope the weather holds for us.

Comments

[naturegirl]

Good point. That's why I enjoy reading a book in a foreign language and acquiring new vocabulary this way much more than trying to memorize a word list for the next vocab quiz in school.
It's sad that many students who are actually interested in a foreign language at first get annoyed and dislike it since they learn it in school.

[Edwin]

Steve,
I notice that you have mentioned 'authentic contents' several times recently.

By 'authentic contents', do you mean real-life scenarios recorded either in text or in audio, like the English/Russian group conversation you have posted a while ago?

If this is so, I think I have difficulty finding real 'authentic contents'. For example, all French contents in LingQ are somehow 'staged'. (I have not had a chance to check out all the English contents yet). For sure, I would love to see more 'authentic contents' in LingQ in the future.

Having said that, I still enjoy listening and reading 'staged' materials as long as they are not too 'artificial'.

[Steve]

Edwin,

We have limited content in languages other than English but we have plans to expand that quickly once we get up properly, hopefully next week. We will have audio books, podcasts, as well as spontaneously created material, conversations etc, from our learners. Give us time.

Even now,in principle, every thing that is not in For Beginners, or Easy Learning is "authentic" in the sense that the language is not simplified for learners. I think that most learners should be able to attack this content, on subjects of interest, after their vocabulary exceeds the most common 2-3000 words in the language, and even before once we speed up the function of our LingQ widget.

[GeoffB]

I think the graded readers can be nice if they give you a sense of accomplishment as you progress. Years ago, I came across a German reader with "The House that Jack Built" that I adored. But... too often, the readers are so dry, introducing information for the sake of vocabulary, not storyline. I don't last long with most readers.

In several places, I've seen the suggestion of tackling favorite books in the language you're learning. To that end, I located The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Spanish and Italian. The Spanish is tricky, but doable. My Italian, though, is weak, and my understanding would be very low if my familiarity with the book didn't allow me to fill in many blanks. Yet I'm enjoying both thoroughly, and enjoying the feel of reading a story I love, even though the puns and odd plot-twists make full comprehension at my level unthinkable.

In a way, the challenge has been liberating. While I've enjoyed reading The Little Prince in Spanish and Italian, I'm forever trying to understand for certain or remember how to say things. But skimming the Hitchhiker books, I'm so far out of my depth that I can just go along for the ride without worries.

I think that part of what makes graded readers so joyless is that not only do they not offer the finest writing or most compelling plot lines. On top of that, they're expressly educational. It's like going on an all-bran diet when you've got a sweet tooth for languages.

The most important part of any foreign language content for a program is that it keeps you coming back, excited, not finding excuses to avoid it. If you enjoy, eventually you'll achieve.

[hiroshi]

Steve san,

Thank you very much for reminding me of the importance of enjoying what I do.
As you can see in my writing, all too often I still fall back into my old bad habits that I place too much pressures on myself, read something I dont understand well and then self hatred.
After all, I am just a product of the formal education in which none of my teachers have taught me to enjoy learning.
Just like a lot of other people, I still seem to be obsessed with achievement rather than just enjoy what I do.
That is a rather unhealthy way to learn,,,,
To get rid of my bad conditionings (such as obsession with achievement, comparison etc)I need to imagine myself as a successful language leaner, as you said in the podcasts stored in the linguist library.

Reading your blog does help me remind myself of this importance point, thanks:)

By the way, when walking down the street in Santiago, Chile, I grabbed time magazine in which I found an interesting article on a IQ test.
After reading it, I just thought " is IQ related to the ability to learn languages?"
By IQ I mean is to be able to listen,read, understand materials, get into a good school,etc.
Although I believe that passion or motivation for languages is far more important than IQ, many linguists I know are in fact the ones from good schools.
I dont know much about your academic career, but I suppose that you are also from a good school.

So, my answer to this question is: " yes, that is true to SOME extent"
it seems to me that People with higher IQ are more likely to become a successful language learner if they put a mind to learning.
Of course, it is not necessarily the case though,,,
(That said, I still want to believe that those with the average IQ like me can be a linguist some day.)

What do you think? Would you think that IQ plays important roles in learning languages?

[Steve Kaufmann]

Hiroshi,

I do not think that language learning success relates to IQ or any measurable intelligence issue. It may in some cases, but then why are some national groups, like Swedes so generally better at languages than Americans or Japanese for example. Americans and Japanese have outstanding people in many fields and I doubt that their IQ is lower than that of the Swedes. Motivation, commitment, that ability to see oneself as part of another culture, a lack of self-consciousness, these are all more important than "intelligence," however measured.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Geoff,

The main thing is that we find ways to enjoy the language and that keeps us coming back and keeps us connected with the language. Your web site does that, although I must admit I am a little confused now with several sites there. I would welcome you to post on my blog to explain your blogs. Just send me an article by email to steve at thelinguist.com, with your links embedded and I will put it up.

Steve