Posts Tagged ‘motivation’
May
May
Overcoming fear of the unknown – knowledge is power!
Human nature is to fear the things we don’t know or don’t understand. When people act in a strange way, or talk in a strange language, it is easy to become fearful or distrustful of them. But once you start to learn, the fear is erased, and often replaced with curiosity and even a thirst for more.
May
May
Nobody’s judging you
I often see people who are studying a language pass up opportunities to practice. Maybe they’re trying to learn Spanish, but they never say anything in Spanish to their friends from Argentina. Maybe they’re learning Polish, but they never use any Polish words with their coworker from Warsaw. Or maybe they’re in the same German…
May
May
Frequency lists help you learn what’s important
In general, I hate the idea of lists or any form of measure or statistic when it comes to fluency. I believe that being fluent means being able to communicate on common subjects without a translator or dictionary, not some numerical measure of how many words you know or how many lessons you’ve completed. Remember,…
Jun
Jun
The secret to overcoming shyness, conquering your fears, and building confidence in a second language
Have you ever found yourself in a perfect situation but afraid to take advantage of it? Have you ever passed an opportunity to talk to someone in a foreign language, out of fear that you would make a mistake? Do you ever downplay your studies or your skills out of fear that your reputation is…
Jun
Jun
I wish I had a gift for languages
A common excuse I hear from people is “I’m just not good at languages like you”, or “sure, it’s easy for you, you have a gift for languages”…. But the truth is, I don’t. I’m not even sure such a thing exists… but if it does, I certainly don’t have it.
That’s not
Jun
Jun
Always pushing boundaries
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” — Eleanor Roosevelt…
I talk about fear a lot. Perhaps more than one might expect on a blog about learning languages. But I talk about it because I think fear is such an important thing to conquer. It is the thing that holds us all back from
Jun
Jun
A language is like a city
Learning a new language is like moving to a new city. This analogy isn’t originally mine — I got it from the Word Collector blog — but I really love the idea, and I want to expand on it.
Learning a city
The average person grows up living in one city. You start out learning…
Jun
Jun
Inspiration and motivation from an actor
This post isn’t directly about language learning, but it’s about motivation and inspiration, which is applicable to all of us.
Will Smith is an incredibly inspirational man. The way he came up from nothing in Philadelphia, to become a world-famous rap star before he was out of high school is itself amazing. But everything he’s…
Jul
Jul
Where do you find the time?
Not long after I started this blog, I stumbled into a Facebook conversation about me. Someone shared a link to this site, telling his friends that I learn a new language fluently every year, and that I write about it on a blog. One of the first responses was, “Yeah? He must be unemployed.”
Some…
Aug
Aug
Learning a new language is like learning to walk again
When you’re learning a new language, it can be very frustrating. In the beginning, the first thing you become aware of isn’t how fun it is, or how much potential there is… The first thing you become aware of when learning a new language is exactly how much you can not do.…
Sure, you know