Make as Many Mistakes as You Can
In the previous article, we established a couple points that help one stick with the formidable project of learning to speak a second language namely, Spanish.
To re-cap:
- It is a huge project that will take longer than you think.
- It is hard for everybody (except for the extremely rare progeny).
If we can clean these 2 points out of our heads and press on, we’ll be more likely to learn Spanish. However, there is another point that needs to be mentioned. And it’s a problem that likely plagues other areas of our life from time to time: pride.
To learn to speak a language, we have to pass through the goo-goo gah-gah phase of our toddler days yet again, but this time as an adult. It was much easier when we were 16 months old, everybody expected our incompetence. But now we are mature, intelligent, have a respected career, and are really quite intellectually advanced.
Pride kills a lot of efforts to learn a second language. Funny thing, it isn’t just the big, wealthy, fit, smart, beautiful ones that fall to this. Over the years of living here in Costa Rica and being asked on innumerable occasions to help Tico friends with their English, I have seen on a regular and consistent basis these lovely, humble Ticas (female Costa Ricans) unable to overcome their embarrassment (they need to speak perfectly before they’ll let anyone hear their limited level of English). This effectively hamstrings any possibility that they will learn the language.
Ya’ Gotta’ Make Mistakes:
It’s the only way. You try this, and it doesn’t work, so you try that. If you’re wrong, you find out by doing. It’s the Thomas Edison rule of achievement. “I didn’t fail 10,000 times while inventing the light bulb. I uncovered 10,000 ways that a light bulb won’t work.
This point has actually been established by researchers. The process of learning a language involves making many mistakes. If we aren’t sticking our necks out
