Peg
LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE IS LIKE A MARATHON, NOT A SPRINT.

A sprint (or dash) is the act of running over a short distance at or near top speed. The human body cannot sprint for longer than 30-35 seconds because of build-up of acid and creatine (breakdown products) in the muscles.

A marathon is a slower, much longer race of 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers). The fastest running time is just over 2 hours.
Both races need to training. But to train for a marathon, you need to slowly build your mileage, running ‘long’ only once every 7-10 days. Every so often, you need to do ‘speed work’ to increase your speed, to train your heart and muscles to know what you want them to do.
The last important part of training is ‘rest and recovery’. Do nothing. Don’t even think about it.

Learning a new language means learning a new, large body of information, which is foreign and complex. You need to start at the beginning and not tire your mind. Slowly build your vocabulary, slowly build your grammar, from easiest to more difficult. Slowly put together your sentences. Do a ‘long one’ every 7-10 days, where you push yourself to write and read things you don’t know, or where you push yourself to speak and listen to the language beyond your capabilities. And don’t forget to ‘rest and recover’: Take a day off for every so often, of for every ‘long one’ that you do. Play. Exercise. Have fun. Don’t even think about it.

If you treat learning a language like a sprint, you will ‘burn out’ after just a short time, frustrated and dejected, feeling that you are worthless and a failure. Our brains just cannot absorb that much without a training process, or a rest. Yes, your brain needs to rest in order to absorb new information. It needs time to make new pathways in your brain, from words to meanings, to transfer new words from ‘short-term memory’ to ‘long-term memory’. It doesn’t just happen, it takes time. You are not in charge of this process. You have to learn to accept how your mind works, and work with it, nurture it.

Jul 5, 2015 12:28 PM
Comments · 2
1

Yes, you're surely right. But, sometime, deadlines don't allow you to take all the time you need.

Anyway I'm reading a book titled "A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)" by Barbara Oakley. I find it very interesting because it explains mind's mechanisms and teaches how to learn more deeply and easily; "it provides guidance is establishing study habits that take advantage  of how the brain works".

July 5, 2015

I'm totally agree with you. If we still will think this way, our brains will explode for sure. So, yeah, WE ALL GONNA DIE!

July 5, 2015