It’s hard to study — we know this from the school bench. But with foreign languages it can also be unpleasant: you will forget that word that you think you have already learned, but there is not enough vocabulary to express yourself … What do you need to know so that learning brings both benefit and pleasure?
My adult students get terribly upset if they forget a recently learned word. Moreover, it has been learned for a long time. And then I propose to remember one more, very important thing. Depending on what language they are learning, sentier in French, sentiero in Italian, sendero in Spanish. You guessed it right, the word is «path». And why is it important? I’ll explain now.
If you walk through tall grass through an unmowed field (say, to a shed where the necessary words are stored), then when you get there and look back, the grass will already straighten, and it will not be visible where you went. If you pass two or three times, the grass will only be crushed. A trodden, clearly visible path will appear if you walk along it constantly. And then, even if it overgrows, you can feel it with your feet and quickly lay it again.
Our memory behaves in the same way. Saying or seeing a word once is like walking through tall, thick grass once.
We do not notice how voluminous our perception and our skills are.
Yes, there are geniuses with phenomenal memory, but most have to work hard. A word or expression becomes completely ours after we have seen it in different situations, in different contexts.
It’s one thing when “I have a chair in the kitchen”, another thing “There are a lot of chairs in a cafe”, and quite a third thing “Chairs on Mars are made of super-titanium” — the whole picture changes, and this is confusing. And at first it is difficult to combine all these different chairs into one concept.
There is another secret. Memory is of different types. There is a word that we see with our eyes, there is one that we hear from others, and there is one that we pronounce ourselves. In the latter case, sensations from the movement of the tongue and lips, from how the vocal cords work, are added to hearing.
Speaking in our native language, we do not think about it, we do not notice how voluminous our perception and our skills are.
Mistake is one way of knowing. Having stumbled, we learn that there is a hole in this place
It is especially difficult for those who believe that everything should be perfect: both himself and his memory. «Did you write a story about yourself?» — «Wrote.» “Then read it.” “I can’t, I’m afraid!” — «What?» “What if I’m wrong!” Surprisingly, even people with higher education, that is, with extensive training experience, are afraid of mistakes.
Mistake is one way of knowing. Having stumbled, we learn that there is a hole in this place. «I forgot the rule.» But we were all children, and children begin to speak not at all according to the rules, and nothing, they learn! Repeated repetition helps, a habit — then the right words themselves come to the language.
We all talk without thinking about the rules — they are needed when we want to test ourselves. I also sometimes check where to emphasize, and sometimes instead of an Italian word I remember a French one. And my students see this and see that it is not scary, but for some reason they think to themselves that they have no right to make a mistake.
No matter how many times you turn sideways off the path, just come back: nothing bad will happen, the grass will straighten. Do not be afraid of mistakes — the path will still turn out right.