On Burning Out
I've noticed that I'm beginning to experience some burn-out with Swedish. One of the most frustrating things about learning a new language, if you're me at least, are these cycles of highs and lows. For a long time you feel like maybe TOMORROW you're going to speak fluently! I liken it to the state of mind of a donkey when he is following a carrot on a stick in front of his nose. Or the eager attitude of a dog who has recently heard the word "treat". You just get all excited, and bound around, or rush ahead at high speed with your head out the window of the car and your tongue out. And then after a while, presumably because you are human and not a donkey or a dog, you realize that it took them a thousand years to develop this language and you're not going to be able to speak it exquisitely tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, or EVER.
This is all very terrible. But the problem becomes even worse because actually the ability to speak a language well depends on self-assurance. The cruel irony is that the more optimistic you are, the better you speak, and the more downtrodden (realistic) you are, the worse the sound of the words when they come out of your mouth, and the more shattered your grammar becomes.
Oh cruel world!
The day I came home from Swedish class having been chosen to take the test early, mistaken for a Swede because of my accentlessness, and having just ruled the literature discussion, THS was astounded by my apparent progress in one day.
A few days later, I had ruminated a great deal after having written an essay riddled with obvious errors, and THS couldn't understand why even my accent was so much worse than just a few days before. I told him it was slump time.
Anyway, lucky for me, I've done this before, and I know how it goes. You get all excited and make rapid progress, then you get a taste of reality and stagnate for a while, plateauing out, and you think you aren't learning anything. Then you get your groove back and you're suddenly at a much higher level than you were at the beginning of the plateau, proving that you actually made subconscious progress.
When I was in highschool, I was generally a very good French student. I felt very confident in class, although I couldn't make head or tail of novels without a dictionary. Then my senior year I went on an exchange program to Ivory Coast, and upon arrival had a crisis of confidence that led me to be "the girl who can understand French but cannot speak it" for my ENTIRE stay in that country. I hardly said a word to anyone the entire time, following directions but never speaking unless spoken to. Finally the last night, as my host family was taking me to the airport, I started talking in the car. And talking, and talking, and talking, and talking. My host family was in shock. "Mais Ida, tu parles tres bien le francais! Pourquoi est-ce que tu n'as jamais rien dit!?" They assumed it was a case of treachery. But I really HADN'T been able to speak French until that moment. Lo and behold, when I got back to the US, I was quite fluent, and have been able to read novels without a dictionary ever since.
I really don't understand how these things work exactly. I surmise that there is a lot going on even when you think there's nothing going on, so long as you are immersed in the culture.
Now with Swedish there is a danger this subconscious work won't happen when I have my lows, because THS and I speak English here at home, and I am doing a great deal of writing in English. We'll see how I fare.
For now, however, let it be known that I'm in a language slump.
This is all very terrible. But the problem becomes even worse because actually the ability to speak a language well depends on self-assurance. The cruel irony is that the more optimistic you are, the better you speak, and the more downtrodden (realistic) you are, the worse the sound of the words when they come out of your mouth, and the more shattered your grammar becomes.
Oh cruel world!
The day I came home from Swedish class having been chosen to take the test early, mistaken for a Swede because of my accentlessness, and having just ruled the literature discussion, THS was astounded by my apparent progress in one day.
A few days later, I had ruminated a great deal after having written an essay riddled with obvious errors, and THS couldn't understand why even my accent was so much worse than just a few days before. I told him it was slump time.
Anyway, lucky for me, I've done this before, and I know how it goes. You get all excited and make rapid progress, then you get a taste of reality and stagnate for a while, plateauing out, and you think you aren't learning anything. Then you get your groove back and you're suddenly at a much higher level than you were at the beginning of the plateau, proving that you actually made subconscious progress.
When I was in highschool, I was generally a very good French student. I felt very confident in class, although I couldn't make head or tail of novels without a dictionary. Then my senior year I went on an exchange program to Ivory Coast, and upon arrival had a crisis of confidence that led me to be "the girl who can understand French but cannot speak it" for my ENTIRE stay in that country. I hardly said a word to anyone the entire time, following directions but never speaking unless spoken to. Finally the last night, as my host family was taking me to the airport, I started talking in the car. And talking, and talking, and talking, and talking. My host family was in shock. "Mais Ida, tu parles tres bien le francais! Pourquoi est-ce que tu n'as jamais rien dit!?" They assumed it was a case of treachery. But I really HADN'T been able to speak French until that moment. Lo and behold, when I got back to the US, I was quite fluent, and have been able to read novels without a dictionary ever since.
I really don't understand how these things work exactly. I surmise that there is a lot going on even when you think there's nothing going on, so long as you are immersed in the culture.
Now with Swedish there is a danger this subconscious work won't happen when I have my lows, because THS and I speak English here at home, and I am doing a great deal of writing in English. We'll see how I fare.
For now, however, let it be known that I'm in a language slump.
posted by Ida at 2:49 PM
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