Language learning as a competitive sport

There is no language that I speak that I have not enjoyed learning. There is no language that I have learned that I do not want to spend more time with. As long as we are enjoying the language, we are learning and improving. We would we want to compete with other learners in terms of how fast we have learned, or how well we speak, the languages that we have learned.

Posted via email from Lingosteve's place

Comments

[Friedemann]

I guess it is our human nature to be competitive. We set goals for ourselves and compare ourselves to others. I'd argue that if we didn't have this quality at all, we would probably progress at a slower rate in whatever it is we are doing.

[Dominick]

In pretty much every "skill" that people train in, I have seen people progress quickest in the weeks immediately preceding a competition: powerlifting, sports, chess, poker, math... I see no reason why language learning would be different.

[Bortrun]

I'm not motivated much by competition in language learning, but I can see how people would be motivated by it. I think it's just not that relevant for language learning aside from language tests as it is difficult to measure progress in language learning.

However, I moved to japan at the same time as another guy, and I felt that he was learning more quickly than me. I didn't like this, but I don't know if it really motivated me or not.

There does seem to be a bit of one-upsmanship at play amongst some language learners with respect to how many languages they speak or how well they speak. I'm not sure what's up with that. It's obviously refreshing that you don't engage in any of that despite your considerable achievements.

[Blindside70]

I agree with the post 100 percent, but some of us are just competitive people. Even though I may not win, I know that I would come farther in a language if there was some healthy competition than if I just did it like I'm doing now...

[LearningFrenchNow]

Steve, I think that social comparison is part of human nature. The merit of all human achievements is weighed only a relative basis. Fluency in twelve languages is impressive due to the very low percentage of the world population who have accomplished that. On the other end of the spectrum, for an adult to be fluent in one language is not considered impressive due to the nearly 100% rate of adults who have already accomplished that.
In the case of competition and social comparison, another driving factor is that adult learners who have achieved success in other areas (business, engineering, medicine, etc), may sometimes be frustrated by slower progress in foreign language learning compared with other areas where they have achieved greater success. This leads to questions along the lines of how the speed of one's progress compares with the norm. Even accomplished hyperpolyglots sometimes add disclaimers for fear of being judged for their mistakes.

Some healthy competition is generally good for bringing out the best in people. For example competition between two companies to produce the best product. Or on LingQ, a competition to see who can create the most LingQs in the month of September.

When competition is used for the purposes of putting other people down, then it is destructive.

[Steve Kaufmann]

I largely agree LFN.

[Delaf]

Steve, you know what the success of the game on Facebook? In the competition! But competitiveness is not global, and among friends. These are not my words, it is words of a man who made the games more than 20 million USD last year.

My opinion, the linqg is missing is the spirit of competition! I wrote to you about it. I'd like to see functionality to the competition. Graphics, a competition between friends, a summary page with the results of growth of groups.
I very much hope that this will be the lingq
Now I do it with his hands.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Delaf, we have something along these lines planned. Just wait a little bit and you will be surprised!