Revisited: Me as a Language Learner

Dear Fiona, 

Compared to what I wrote about being a language learner last year, there aren’t that many differences in comparison to the learner I am today. Obviously, strengths and weaknesses don’t change overnight, but I had hoped that there would be a bigger difference compared to my thoughts from last year. 

I’m still mighty proud about my passive language skills such as listening comprehension, and I would still consider them as my strength, whereas I’m still stuck with my low self-esteem when it comes to talking. I just can’t get out of my comfort zone and, for example, do pronunciation exercises on my own. Especially in Russian, my second foreign language, talking out loud is something I’m afraid of, while writing a text spontaneously is not difficult for me, even if it might be full of mistakes. Sadly, I feel that the fear of embarrassing myself has become even worse since last year. However, generally, my strengths and weaknesses are still the same. 

When it comes to studying, I luckily have found a good way that works for me: writing texts in which new structures and vocabulary are used. This way I get a context in my head, which helps me memorize these better. Unfortunately, I still tend to procrastinate so much that I’m usually left with great amounts of new information that is nearly impossible to get into my head in a short time.  

Therefore, the real threat to studying efficiently is my laziness. This is actually the most crucial thing that I need to change to become a successful language learner: get off my lazy bottom and reach my full potential! 

- Alexandra

The Lernen To Talk Show!

This is what it looks like to learn a language in one year. from Mickey Mangan on Vimeo.

A few weeks ago, we were talking about language learning in class and came up with several approaches and qualities that are more or less required to learn a language successfully. One of the more useful qualities we mentioned was the joy to talk and to be sociable in the desired language.

An ideal example for becoming successful by being talk-active is Mickey Mangan: he moved from the U.S. to Germany for a year in order to learn German by simply talking to native speakers. He documented his process on camera week by week on his blog. By that, he created an interesting series of episodes which show how a person with hardly any German skills becomes quite fluent within a year. I think he also proves that talking is helpful to attain a language.From a language learner's perspective, it is really motivating to see how much progress can be made in a relatively short time.

For comparison, here is the first and the last episode of his series:

On his blog, he also listed his personal favorite episodes (you need to scroll down a bit further). When you click on the blog entries, you can also read his commentary and thoughts about particular videos, in which he also corrects himself or explains what he was trying to say.

One episode I liked is one in which he talked to the the German voice actor William Cohn. It is not only my favorite episode because I like William Cohn, but also because he says such nice and motivating things.

Inspired by this series, I have realized that talking in the language you are trying to learn is so much more important than I thought. Talking cannot be compared to simply reading or writing a text. When you talk, you have to be quick in your thinking to make correct connections. I feel that I sometimes memorize things better when I say them out loud than when I just write them down.

In my second foreign language, Russian, speaking is still something I am scared of. So talking out loud is definitely something I should do more in Russian.