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"Attitude and mentality"
Can you (or Benny Lewis) become fluent in Chinese in three months? I think the answer is no, but instead of just being negative, I’ve tried to describe some problems and offer some help on how to solve them.
Everybody has different reasons for studying Chinese, but whatever the final goal is, it is important to make the journey interesting as well. Enjoying studying isn’t simply a cliche, it’s quite necessary if you want to invest the time needed to master a language. This article discusses the journey, the destination and the relationship between them. To but it briefly: don’t forget to look at the view.
The kamikaze approach is a method for advancing faster than you are supposed to do in your language learning. It means that you jump into an environment you cannot handle, but that you will learn to handle if you have time and determination. It is like swimming by diving into the deep end of the pool. Still, it’s not stupid as long as you know what you’re doing, and I provide many useful tips on how to survive.
Teaching and inspiring are two closely related things. If you can see all superiors as sources of inspiration and knowledge, you will advance faster than if you view them as rivals or opponents. Similarly, realise that you have your own strong sides that inspire other people. Don’t hesitate to teach others if they want to be taught. Inspiration is cyclic in its nature and should flow freely in all directions.
So, you’ve made a mistake, but do you know what kind of mistake it was? Perhaps it was the kind that you can safely ignore and just keep going, but it might also have been a very serious mistake you should spend time correcting. This article is about identifying and dealing with different kinds of mistakes.
We like to spend time doing what we’re already good at, which might be a good thing if we’re aiming for excellence in a very narrow field. However, learning a language is not so narrow and requires us ta learn a variety of skills. In this article, I explore the tendency to focus on what we’re already good at and some of it’s negative consequences. I also propose some hands-on tips to escape the convenience trap.
Some people seem to believe that living in a country is enough to learn the language spoken there. This is wrong, and it’s especially wrong if the language is Chinese. Becoming fluent in Chinese is the result of blood, sweat and tears, nothing less. Living abroad certainly helps, but it’s an opportunity most often wasted by students.
I’ve come a cross enough examples of people overstating the importance of being a native speaker to lead me to think that it’s a general trend and not an isolated phenomenon. This attitude is so bizarre it left me baffled the first few times, but I’ve come across this so often that it can no longer be dismissed as coincidence: people really seem to think that native speakers know everything, although it’s obvious that they don’t. This also means that most native speakers over-estimate their own language ability.
You are the only one responsible for your own learning and if you let other people take responsibility for you, the results might be disastrous. This might sound obvious, but I think the problem is widely overlooked, especially by people who take language courses.
Very few people can receive criticism for something they do with a perfectly open mind and a positive attitude. In fact, I would go as far as saying that being able to do that is an art. Being corrected is a natural process when learning a language and something you should welcome with open arms, even if it takes courage and practice to do so.
