Has Language Guilt ever Ruined your Day?

Us humans, we’re an unreliable lot. Making big promises, telling our lovers and our languages that we will be forever faithful to them. And then, we find an exciting new script and go skipping away, never reaching the blissful heights of B2 level! Have you ever abandoned a language? In today’s post, I want to give you a quick life and language update and share my abandonment of Russian along with some ideas of how we can deal with Language Guilt.

Quitting without guilt

I’m finding this one very difficult indeed. I started learning Russian over a year ago and have not made a lot of progress. I don’t really mind this all that much - obviously I’ve been a productive person in many other ways. But I genuinely feel quite guilty and embarrassed at the thought of “giving up on Russian”. I feel like I’m sharing this in a space where people are keen to acquire lots of languages. I’m a teacher of languages. My whole thing is designed to keep you going! What a poor showing when your own language coach announces that she’s going to stop learning Russian for a while.

I had the time and I used it

But there may be a different way of looking at this. First of all, let’s examine the classic excuse of “I’ve just got no time in my life for this.” I have thought this a few times, just like everyone has. But realistically, I know that I have spent time language learning. I spent a lot of time and brain energy on bringing my French back up to scratch since last year. Russian seemed like the one I was scared to go back to because it was a real challenge, and right now I just wasn’t ready. But really, I had time. I could have made time. I wasn’t idle, I was just not that into Russian.

Some other things I did?

So I think I can get away with considering myself a person who has not been lazy.

I needed to unblock my Productivity

Do you relate to the following situation? My own productivity is never higher than when I manage to let go of a “should-y” feeling. There is no need to be my own worst critic and spend all my days avoiding something I don’t like, and at the same time feeling guilty about it. So instead, I want to take this opportunity to openly declare that I feel embarrassed that I didn’t learn more Russian.

There. So what? So nothing! I have learnt a lot in the time I did spend with this wonderful language: new words, verb endings, Cyrillic script and what grechka is. Maybe if I feel like I "should be at level A2 by now", the guilt actually becomes a hindrance to learning more Russian?

If we lose our sense of fun and play in language learning, what is left but graft and guilt and bad feelings?

Now it is the time to follow my own enthusiasm and start discovering the basics of a few more languages with a clear and open mind. Isn’t that better? I am taking a moment to appreciate the things that I did learn and I am ready to move on and let the enthusiasm boost me along.

I am Declaring my Intentions

Here I am with my clear and open mind. I have learnt some basics of Russian. I will be back one day and LOVING IT. And in the meantime?

Here’s what’s on my plate for the coming few months:

As you are reading this at the beginning of June, I have just celebrated my wedding and hidden out in Wales for a few days. Now I hope to be able to carve out a little more time to delve into a language that has fascinated me forever: Welsh. I live near the Welsh border and a week in the country is one of the most affordable travel options I probably have. The Welsh language also attracts me because of its historic connections and the wonderful way that it evokes its landscape in its pronunciation. I have not yet got a plan of how I will go about learning this one, and am most likely to treat it as my “passion project”, dipping in and out of learning more.

The second language is one that I’m truly looking forward to, and again one I’m expecting to pursue at a beginner level. I’ll give you a few hints here to see if you can guess which one it is:

  • It’s related to English and German in a way that makes it easy to read
  • I’ve just started a new Pinterest board for it
  • This guy:
swedish chef

Any ideas?

Has Language Guilt ever ruined your day?

I would love to hear from you guys on this topic. Let's drag that language guilt out of the closet, kicking and screaming, and look at it in daylight. Is it okay to move on from a language when you feel ready to do so? Or should we all stop being so precious and commit to working harder?

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments - please let me know where you're at.

How to enjoy Language Learning more by being lousy at it

If you are a long-term follower of the Fluent blog, you might already be familiar with my love of Pinterest. I spend the odd free minute over on that website, admiring pictures, getting inspiration and using it to learn about education and teaching..

The Growth Mindset

Today I came across a really great graphic illustrating the growth mindset (previously discussed in episode 9 of the podcast), which is such a helpful way for language learners and strivers of any kind to treat perfectionism and become ongoing learners. Adopting a growth mindset has been proven to contribute to both learning success and happiness in scientific studies. In fact, it is absolutely invaluable for adult learners because it does away with this nonsensical myth of talent.

Here's the amazing core message:

Learn to enjoy being lousy.

That is all. Mind blown? Let's move on to this graphic showing how you can do it.

Thank you, Ryan Thomas

Thank you, Ryan Thomas

Online Perfection

When you admire people's well-prepared Youtube videos and considered posts that outline their study routines, it is all too easy to feel inferior. A fixed mindset keeps you trapped in those situations, it forces you to feel that the situation is unfair and you are lagging way behind. But the growth mindset would look at another person's success, then look at what you are accomplishing and say "I don't need approval, I want to gain more knowledge!". In fact, I cannot say this any better than Edudemic already has, so please head over and read the following article on the Growth Mindset. Inspiring, fantastic stuff.

Use Growth for Everything

If you are struggling with adopting this mindset for your language learning, think of other learning situations you have been in during your life. Driving, cooking, sewing, musical instruments. We all started out pretty terrible at those, and the more you do it, the better you get. Yes, that's all of us. German and Arabic and Tagalog are no different.

If you want to read more about using Pinterest in your language learning routine, you can read my step-by-step guide on this blog.

It's a free app loved by millions. Is Duolingo wasting your time?

If you enjoy this article and topic, check out my 2017 update 3 Tutor-Approved Ideas for Improving Your Duolingo Experience, which discusses where language learning is at right now.

Whenever I hear that someone new is starting language learning, I get excited. They’re about to enter into this world of verbs and nouns, expressions and exclamations, new culture and new countries. When I hear you say “I’ve started learning a new language”, I want to give you a big ol’ high five.

duolingo review

That is, until you mention Duolingo. The little app with the friendly owl has become the absolute go-to resource for newbies trying to acquire any language. It’s free, it’s accessible and it is based on solid research. What’s not to love, right?

Here is the thing: I don’t love Duolingo. In fact, I don’t get it. I want to enjoy using this little app. I want to be part of the club of people who sit in a doctor’s waiting room levelling up their vocab, but somehow I just don’t get it. In today’s post, I’m going to try and give you some insight into what it is that is making Duolingo so unattractive to me. And by unattractive, I don’t just mean that I personally don’t want to use it. It’s that I actively stay away from recommending it to people as their first language learning contact. When someone asks me how they can get started learning a new language, I don’t want them to start with the Duolingo app. Why?

1. It’s not the Interface

Duolingo is well-designed, pretty, engaging and takes away a lot of the “dusty books” image from learning. It’s an app designed for modern consumers. The mascot is very cute too, so there is very little to dislike about how Duolingo is designed.

2. It’s not the Gamification

Personally, I don’t feel that giving a language learner three lives to pass a lesson is an idea that you’d ever get away with in real life. Imagine if I carried that message into my lessons? Three errors and you’re out? Same error three times, let me start you again? If any IRL teacher did this to a student, they’d be asked to come in for a review with the pedagogy council. If nothing else, the “three lives” concept can actually deter a student from really learning something by understanding it. It prompts learners to guess their way through lessons by remembering what isn’t correct. The addictive nature of game playing makes it tempting to try again, but it doesn’t help with linguistic understanding.

Now why is this not a huge problem with the app? The thing is it seems to be what millions of people want. People enjoy the gameplay aspect of Duolingo so much that its user base grows every single day. And there’s no arguing with the masses. Maybe the gamification aspect is an ineffective gimmick, but it does make language learning accessible. I would argue that it doesn’t make it more fun, but if a label says “game” on it, you’re just more likely to try.

In other words: I don’t think you need a language learning game in your life, but I like that it makes you want to play.

3. It’s not the Business Model

In Episode 12 of the podcast, Chris Broholm and I touched on Duolingo’s business model, which includes selling user generated translations in exchange for providing free language training. I’m not 100% comfortable with this, partly because we would all be up in arms if Flickr or Facebook did it. Paying with your information is an accepted economic fact on the 21st century internet. In effect, Duolingo is not free. It just doesn’t take your money. As long as you're aware of it as a user, then go for it.

2017 update: Duolingo's business model is always evolving, and I feel confident that this is bringing lots of improvements and more transparency than ever. Thank you, Duolingo.

4. It’s not the Results

Hey, if there have been studies saying that this works then I am not qualified to argue. Duolingo officially works for getting people to do well on tests. In fact, I think as a pronunciation trainer it is doing a pretty good job. Will the system make you love your new language? Will it make you excited to go out and speak, or to read road signs from abroad? Those are the results I care about when a language learning app comes out, but they’re a lot tougher to measure.

So what is my problem?

Here we get to the nitty-gritty of what drives me crazy about Duolingo. Not the general issues or concepts, but the real reasons that I close down the app within minutes of opening it.

2017 Update: If you would like to learn more about how to overcome the problems below, check out the updated Tips for Improving Your Duolingo Experience.

1. It’s the Vocab

Duolingo telling me what my problem is.

Duolingo telling me what my problem is.

When I first started with Duolingo, I tested right into lesson 52 of French. This got me to a vocab level where the app thinks I should handle the following sentences:

“We needed fire.”, “You have to be big.”, “You must eat more.”

I’m not sure that I could come up with many sentences that I am even less likely to use in my life, or to enjoy translating. Because the app generates its sentences automatically, you don’t really get anything that’s very in-depth. In fact, this sentence from a critical review over at Hacking Portuguese sums it up perfectly for me:

The sentences are so far removed from anything that you might actually want to use in conversation that I doubt how much value there is in rote translation.

2. It’s the Translation Pre-Sets

Now, again this is the complaint of an accomplished language learner and not a beginner. I understand that Duolingo isn’t really built with me in mind. For the sake of this post, I tried out both a language I’m proficient at (French) and one that I didn’t know well at all (Danish). Yet I feel it’s justified to complain if they’re going to offer high-level grammatical structures that no one encounters before year 3 or 4 of French, then the computer just needs to become better at knowing that there is way more than one possible translation for most sentences. For a system that builds user habit and loyalty based on little hearts, I lose way too many hearts because I phrase my answers slightly differently than the computer wants me to do this. This is so incredibly frustrating, and so far removed from a joyful and challenging approach to language acquisition that it makes me want to shut down the app straight away.

3. It’s the Machine

I cannot tell you how much I dislike the computer voice. It doesn’t intone, it doesn’t emote, it’s just blank. A blank canvas of words coming at me. Who learns a language for that? Languages are about people. I wish they’d play and work with snippets from media shows or real people’s recordings. Just think of the big efforts Audio Lingua and Rhinospike are making in this area, and you can see that automated heartless computer voices really don’t need to be used in automated language instruction.

Whenever I switch on Duolingo, I get to a place that sits between boredom and outright irritation. Its mechanical, box-ticking structure reminds me of the worst in education, when learners are simply put in front of a multiple choice test and made to regurgitate whatever they had crammed into their minds before. This is not what language learning is about, and this is not how to become good at it. I just straight out refuse to believe that Duolingo can incite the same excitement that a book, a conversation or a foreign tv show could. It doesn’t do it for me.

4. It’s the Lack of Explanations

So here is the thing: Immersion is fine, but I don’t think it’s the answer to all of an adult learner’s language issues. Starting with this app means making up your own explanations for why things are right, it means trial and error. I get the sense that here is where “immersion” becomes completely pointless. In this app, you learn by parroting phrases without even beginning to cover the background stories that grammar and pragmatics tell. I have seen so many forum posts and emails from language learners who felt like they were completely losing the plot and ever wondering “Why am I getting this bit wrong?”. Duolingo would make me so much happier if it provided grammar references, even the most basic ones, and a perspective telling the user “Here’s why people say things this way”. I just cannot fathom how any self-respecting adult learner would put themselves in this babylike position where they simply take the word of a robot as the law. Language learning should make you curious, while this feels to me like it wants to create robots.

Perhaps surprisingly, the aspect of explanation is another thing that the Tell Me More version of Rosetta Stone has been doing rather well. Rosetta certainly isn’t free, but I think it is not comparable.

In Conclusion

This review of Duolingo might fly in the face of what many language beginners experience when they first start interacting with the app. In fact, our regular writer Angel has recently shared her own experiences and lauded Duolingo for a lot of the good stuff it does. The “learning game for adults” aspect of the app is brilliant, and I commend Duolingo for giving millions of people something to do when they feel a little bored online.

I've recently examined Duolingo's advantages in this article, which is exactly how to use this app to really learn a language.

My thoughts come from the point of view of a language teacher, someone who wants people to get into feeling the language instead of simply mastering its technical aspects. Just like the promise of fluency that many tools throw at you, I want you to feel that you have a right to make up your own mind about the Duolingo system. You can use this once a week, you can use it intensively for a few days and run out of steam, or you can just never try at all. Whatever you do, it won’t make you a better or worse language learner.

You’re not going about this the wrong way - in fact, if you are just getting started with a new language, here’s my advice: don't make Duolingo your first stop because it's too likely to be your last. There are lots of cheap ways to start learning a language, so make sure that you put something into place that really is productive and doesn’t just feel that way because you earn 200 meaningless points on an app every day.

Have you had good experiences using Duolingo? Have you stuck with it for more than two weeks? I'm sure there are many ways in which you could argue I'm wrong, and I'd love to hear a few in the comments.

If you Enjoyed This Article..

And finally, I also recorded a podcast episode full of ideas about what you can do when/if you start to get bored by Duolingo.

If you enjoyed this article, HIGH FIVE! Why not sign up to my newsletter and read more news from my world? I look forward to seeing you on the road to fluency.

New Podcast: Putting the World to Rights with Olly Richards

“I never woke up and decided that I want to be a polyglot.”

You wanna learn a language? Then I've got the guy for you! In today's podcast episode, I'm speaking with Olly Richards, the man behind I Will Teach You a Language. Olly is an expat Brit with a lot of travel experience under his belt, and his considered and smart answers really put me to shame.

You Will Learn More About:

  • Our Dreams of how Education can Make the Language Learning World so much Better
  • Why "Speaking" Can Become a Huge Obsession and Actually Damage your Motivation
  • What to Look Out for When Taking a Teaching Qualification
  • The Problem with the WHOLE Education System
  • How to Make Motivation Work
  • What Beginners should Read - and why reading Children's Books is not a good idea
  • Why Olly Advises that you DON'T Track Your Progress

Articles of the Week

Most Language Students unable to do more than understand Basic Phrases on the UK Guardian

The Best Way to Learn a Language is the Opposite of the Usual Way on Forbes

Tips of the Week

Out of the following fabulous three tips, Olly chose number 2 as his favourite tip - not without a lot of careful consideration though!

1) Use online self-tests as check-ins, not tutorials

2) "Makers Classroom", like at Raw Learning - follow foreign recipes, sewing patterns, directions?

3) Join Parleremo, a virtual town that teaches languages

Tips and Links from this Podcast

What is Content and Language Integrated Learning? (CLIL)

The 60 Second Fluency Test by Olly Richards

My Article that Sparked some Polyglot Debate

Der Weg zum Lesen, simple German short stories

Le Petit Nicolas et Les Copains, fun story in simple French

French Comic Books for Language Learners

Thanks for reading this article on Fluent, the Language Learning Blog. Please head over to Patreon and become a supporter!

Do your Mistakes Matter in Language Learning? A "Written Homework" Perspective

You know, language learners, how we bloggers always bang on about “things don’t have to be perfect” and “start speaking even if you will make mistakes”? You’ve heard all this, right? You’ve heard it and nodded and seen how it makes sense. You believe that you will be able to get over yourself.

But here’s the thing:

When it comes to really putting your skills on the line and “showing your workings” to another person, are you still holding back?

mistakes

Take this example from one of my German students. We had spent a little time reading a news article and discussing the themes in it. In terms of core skills, this guy is a red hot reader! He is not only happy and confident about picking up any book from Harry Potter to Dune in German, but will also approach it with the positive mindset of someone who enjoys understanding every single word. We’ve also worked so much on speaking skills over the year and made excellent progress. But there’s one thing on my list, one left to cover: The Writing skill needs a push.

Why Do I Prompt My Students to Write?

You can tell me that pushing ahead on writing skill is just not what an adult learner needs in 2014, but I’d just direct you to what I wrote in Fluency Made Achievable: There are four key components to building up expertise and confidence in the language you’re trying to acquire: listening, reading, speaking and writing. You can't skip out on one of those four without feeling the consequences at some point. Even if you are not planning to enter into a German story competition any time soon, pushing your writing skill has a million advantages for your language learning journey. For example, your composition and structuring skills transfer straight to the spoken word. An experienced writer doesn’t need language exchanges, their confidence will come naturally when they open their mouth. For introverted learners, getting into writing also has huge advantages since you’ll become comfortable AND GOOD at using your target language correctly, before ever entering that “risk period” where someone else sees you. And believe it or not, being a great speller means being a great reader and speaker of your target language.

To speak a language well, it helps to understand how spelling and pronunciation work together. (Tweet this here)

If a tree falls in the forest…

Writing can be very introverted, it’s an exercise you do at home, typing away on your computer or scribbling into a notebook. No one else needs to see what you write. And there's why this is so difficult: Because your writing isn't for others to see, it becomes pretty easy to just not do it. What you need is accountability.

You know what it’s like with New Year’s resolutions: No one will ever know you’re doing it unless you actually tell them. Your foreign language writing is the same thing. If you don’t find someone that actually expects you to write, it becomes too easy to avoid doing this work altogether. You start realizing that mistakes are really, really visible when you write. On the one hand, language learners subscribe to the philosophy that making mistakes is part of learning. But on the other hand, showing those mistakes to people as a “written fact” is the hardest thing in the world.

Which leads me back to my wonderful student. I set him an exercise two weeks ago: Summarize each paragraph of our text in simple words, just one sentence picking up the key points. Yesterday I got an email saying:

I must admit that I am just not getting it done right now. I have tried to work on it a couple of times this week, but have only a few sentences to show for it. I feel like I’m still learning, but just not making progress on this part.

Those are the words of somebody who’s judging himself pretty harshly. My reaction? “A few sentences? That’s AWESOME!! All credit to you for trying, and we totally have something to work with now for the lesson.” Do I care if he’s sending me a perfect summary of the text? No! Do I treat this like a school exam, grading him on a scale of A to F for “failure”? No! From the point of view of your language tutor, let me tell you that all I want you to do is try your best. Or even your semi-best. Just sit down and do the thing, open up, be vulnerable and let’s work on this together.

No matter if you do work with a tutor or not, here are a few tips on embracing mistakes in your writing:

  • Stop apologising to anyone about how “little” work you do, and start embracing that any exercise done means you become vulnerable. Most likely you're not perfect. You will spell things wrong and (if I'm your teacher) I will still LOVE it, because that's how I can know which bits you spell wrong. We tutors are largely a kind bunch. We appreciate the fact that you have made a commitment to study a foreign language.
  • Converseley, if you ever hear a person in a "teaching position" tell you that you're never going to get it, consider FIRING THEM.
  • Go somewhere specific to do your writing: not in the office, not at the computer, not where you usually type all your Facebook posts. Here are a few more tips on why that is going to help.
  • Work with word order formulas. Here are a few German ones you can use, but if you are studying other languages please ensure that the word order you’re working with is actually correct:

1) Subject + verb + object

2) time + verb + subject + object

3) Subject + verb to say "says" or "expresses", subject + verb (indirect speech) + object

  • Use a little bit of lesson time or email time to type in your foreign language. This can be done right from day 1, and it's one of the easiest way to bridge the gap when you don't have a native speaker to practice with.

The Language Writing Challenge

In conclusion, writing is difficult. It may well be the core skill that takes the most time, makes your mistakes super visible and has the most potential to embarrass you. And now we've put that out into the open, it's time to get over it! Try one of the steps above, or even start by copying textbook language into your notebook, but it's a fact of language learning that writing will always be there. It's part of a healthy language habit!

I've tried my best to address all of the reasons why you would avoid writing in your language practice above. Got any others? Write me a comment and see if you can change my mind!

Thanks for reading this article on Fluent, the Language Learning Blog. If you are feeling stuck right now, why not subscribe to Fluent and check out our language book shop.