The Language-Learning Mindset

In the last lesson, we talked about how long it takes to learn English. Those tables showing the durations required to learn English were assuming that you'll study for 5.7 hours per day on average.

That might seem like a huge amount of time! But let's talk about how that's possible and why you might actually be able to study for much longer than that each day. I was studying for around 10 hours per day!

On top of covering this topic, we're also going to be looking at other aspects of the mindset needed to succeed with The English Tea Break Method.

Fun is Required

Learning a language? Fun??

Unfortunately, things like school make learning a language seem really boring and tedious.

But language learning is awesome! It's so much fun and I want to continue doing it with new languages for the rest of my life.

There's something amazing about listening to something that sounds like complete gibberish (nonsense) and then weeks later, you can understand it! You can have a thought about something and then the English words spill out of your mouth without even translating those thoughts. You can dream in English! It's such a cool experience.

These milestones—the little achievements—are extremely fun, but it's also very important for you to have fun while studying. That just wouldn't be possible for most people if we needed 5.7 hours a day of textbook studying! Textbooks are too boring.

I remember hearing the world-famous cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, say that he practices cello for 1 hour a day, but he plays cello for 6 hours a day.

That's a really good way of managing your language learning as well. Study English for a little bit every day, but then also enjoy the language for several more hours each day.

When I said that I studied French for 10 hours a day, here's what I mean:

• I practiced vocabulary for 30 minutes.
• I studied my textbook for 30 minutes.
• I played video games in French for a couple of hours.
• I spoke and texted with my French friends for an hour.
• I watched YouTube videos in French for two hours.
• I played French music or other YouTube videos throughout the day while I was doing other things (sometimes I was focused on it, but not usually).
• I listened to French podcasts while lifting weights or walking around my neighborhood.

ALL of these things are considered "immersion" and ALL of them are considered "language study"!

So no, I was not studying a boring textbook for 10 hours a day or even 5.7 hours a day. That would have killed me! I did a little bit of intense studying every day, and then I played! I socialized and consumed French content (games, music, YouTube videos, podcasts) that I enjoyed.

To really learn a language, you need to have a lot of fun with it. It can't feel like studying. Otherwise, it will be too exhausting, too boring, and you'll give up. You need to find things that you enjoy in your own language, and then do those things in English instead.

It's easy to think that studying needs to be intense, hard, or tiring to be useful. That's very wrong when it comes to language learning. When we are engaged with the material, our brains learn much faster. Our brains make deep connections to form a strong map of how different parts of the language interact with each other.

If you enjoy history and you watch a history video in English, your brain will automatically start applying those English words in new ways. Brains love to play, they love to have fun. Experimenting with a language in this way doesn't require much effort but it's excellent for learning.

When we're interested in something, it's much easier to pay attention, which allows us to learn faster. In this way, learning is more efficient AND more fun! It's a win-win.

Effort is Required — Pain is Your Friend

"Fun" is great for learning, but "struggle" is equally important. Luckily, "fun" can help "struggle" to be more tolerable! If you're doing something fun, it can also be challenging without causing as much fatigue.

My dad was an ultramarathon runner and he often said, "pain is your friend", because when your muscles are burning, that's when you know they're growing. The pain helps you get stronger. Struggling is required for you to improve.

With language learning, effort is a requirement. You have to struggle sometimes, otherwise your brain won't recognize the need to adapt. You can't study the same vocabulary word 500 times and expect to make new improvements. You can't stay inside your comfort zone and expect growth.

Growth comes when you are challenging yourself. If you go back up to my list of French activities, the most beneficial activity was watching YouTube videos. That's because it was HARD! It's exhausting to do focused listening for long durations; trying to understand the meaning of each sentence. These YouTubers talk fast and have funny accents and there are other noises around them. It was the most beneficial use of my time, but it was the most exhausting too. By picking videos that were interesting to me, I was able to stay focused longer, but it was still hard.

We'll talk more about Comprehensible Input (content at just the right level for you) when we reach the Input chapter of the roadmap, but trying to understand content that is too far beyond your level is a waste of time. When you're learning English, you don't start with "Rap God" by Eminem.

Effort needs to be balanced. Too much easy content and you won't improve, but too much hard content and you won't understand anything and you'll exhaust yourself. So, do a little bit of hard studying every day, and a lot of easier studying every day. Practice cello for a bit, and then play cello for a long time.

Don't Seek Perfection

There are a few points that need to be explained here. School makes us feel like we have to be perfect. Anything less than perfection is a failure. But that's a very inefficient way to learn. Failure is excellent for accelerating our learning.

For many people who are learning a language, they get paralyzed by imperfection. They don't want to speak until their accent is perfect. They don't want to visit a country or apply for a job until they are certain that they'll sound like a native.

Not only does this thinking cause a waste of time, but it's actively harmful to your language learning journey.

You can't become a professional chef without burning some food, and you can't learn how to ride a bike by reading about it.

At some point, you have to make some mistakes. So make those mistakes and let other people laugh at you a little bit, it's okay. Languages are funny things. It's funny to hear little kids say things incorrectly. You can make English mistakes, be an accidental comedian, and also improve at the same time.

If that idea is too scary for you, you might want to start with some tutoring sessions. I can try to speak your language too and you can laugh at my pronunciation 😊

Seek to Understand and to be Understood

What is language? It's a tool for communication. Communication is the goal, language is just one tool for helping people achieve that goal.

You don't need to be perfect for someone to understand you.

Here's an example of someone trying to sound smart with really advanced English asking the question, "How much do the apples cost?":

I would like to inquire as to the pecuniary valuation currently ascribed to these particular specimens of Malus domestica.

And here's an example of someone using beginner English to ask the same question:

Apples...how much?

The first example is absolutely ridiculous and nobody would understand if you said that in a grocery store. It uses advanced English vocabulary, but it's a poor tool for communication! With the second example, even though the grammar isn't good, everyone in every English-speaking country would understand.

As you can see, your English level really doesn't matter that much. If you can deliver a message and understand other people's messages, you're succeeding! Seek to understand and be understood. Over time, you'll "course correct" and improve your grammar and vocabulary. But only if you get started and make mistakes!

Course Correction

There's an expression about the Apollo rockets only being "on course" (heading in the right direction) to reach the moon about 3% of the time. People say that NASA launched the rockets in the general direction of the moon, but most of the time, they weren't heading in the exact perfect direction; they were slightly off course. The idea is that astronauts need to adjust the direction of the rocket frequently to actually reach the moon.

This story isn't true, but it doesn't really matter because it illustrates a really good point.

With many things in life, including language learning, you just need to get started in roughly the correct direction, the direction doesn't need to be perfect. You'll make some progress and as you make progress, you'll find better ways of learning. That's when you can make those adjustments to your study plan and make even better progress.

So don't delay your English studies! Get started, and correct your course over time.

Speaking Like a Native

Many, many language learners have the goal of speaking like a native. This is a funny sort of goal. It's very vague. Which native? Barrack Obama? Donald Trump? Elvis? Mickey Mouse? Harry Potter?

There is no single person that represents perfection of the English language. Everyone in America, England, and every other English-speaking country sounds very different from everyone else. Even I sound different from my family members and closest friends.

So, instead of having the goal of speaking like a native, you have to determine WHO exactly you want to sound like.

But before that, determine if this is really what you want to do. I believe that anyone can sound like they were born in America if they really want to reach that level. However, it might require a large time investment to remove your native accent. And yes, accent will be the hardest part. Vocabulary, grammar, and even the tricky idioms are pretty easy compared to the task of eliminating a thick accent. If your native language is very different from English, you might need years of constant immersion to get rid of your accent.

It can be done though! I'll show you how to do it. We'll talk about outputting later in the roadmap. I just want you to understand two things:

1. It's not necessary. Every native speaker sounds different.
2. It's going to require a lot of work to remove a heavy accent.

Bad Habits in Language Learning

There's an unhealthy fear of creating bad habits in language-learning communities. Some people say you should avoid speaking until you've listened to 10,000 hours of input content. Some say you need to study grammar for months or even years before outputting.

This is as if someone said, "You'll build bad habits if you try to walk before you've learned how to run!".

Personally, I find this advice to be ridiculous for two reasons:

1. You'll never improve if you don't try. Mistakes are necessary.
2. Bad habits just aren't that bad! They can be fixed easily.

Let's start with the first one—learning something complicated is the result of many attempts, many failures, and then many adjustments. This is how basketball players perfect their free throw shots. This is how every musician perfected their craft. It comes from making a LOT of mistakes.

You only reach the "can't get it wrong" level, after getting it wrong many, many times. You need to make those mistakes in order to correct them.

Second, bad habits really are not horrible, scary things. When you were a baby, you had a bad habit of making random sounds. You fixed those bad habits when you learned your first language. You have corrected more bad habits during your lifetime than the number of GOOD habits that you currently have!

If you're smart enough to learn a language (and you are, because you've already done it), then you're smart enough to erase bad habits later.

Bad habits are nothing to fear. You should be much more fearful of the fear of making mistakes.

So please, don't seek perfection. It will come. Seek to improve; make a lot of mistakes and then fix them. After you have made all of the mistakes, you'll be perfect.

Conclusion

To summarize this article, try to keep these things in mind while you're learning English:

• "Fun" makes learning more efficient and more enjoyable. Practice English for a little every day, but play with English for several hours a day.
• Effort is a requirement—pain is your friend. Growth comes from the right amount of challenge; not too much, not too little.
• You don't need to be perfect! But you do need to be comfortable making mistakes.
• Course Correction is when you get started and adjust your direction over time.
• Seek to understand and to be understood. If you can do that, you can talk with natives!
• You can speak like whoever you want, but it might require a lot more effort than it's worth.
• Bad habits aren't that bad, and mistakes are necessary for improvement.

With those things in mind, you have the correct expectations for what is required to learn English as well as the mindset tricks that will help make the process easier and more enjoyable.

Now, what happens when learning stops being fun? What if you stop making progress or if you lose motivation? Those problems affect everyone eventually! We'll address those problems in the next lesson.