S5E47: Not all good ideas will work for you (and that’s okay)

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Tuesday and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway. And today I just wanted to drop in with a quick reminder that not all good ideas will work for you, and that’s okay.

Whenever we go into something new, especially now in the age of social media, it feels like everyone has found their way. The internet is teeming with good ideas, hacks, things you would never have thought to try and it’s amazing to have so many things to try…but then if something doesn’t work, we can sometimes lose that inspiration to keep trying things, and instead go back to the things we know or question what’s wrong with us. 

I remember with Korean, when I was 14, I had heard someone say that they put sticky labels all around their house with vocabulary, they stuck vocabulary that they always forgot on their bathroom mirror so they could see it when they were brushing their teeth and during that sort of captured time, they’d focus on those words. And so, obviously I didn’t have the whole house to play with, but I dutifully labelled items and furniture around my bedroom, and waited for the words to osmose into my brain now that I’d be seeing them every day.

Except, here’s what 14-year-old me learned. The act of making the labels and looking up the words was a really valuable exercise for me. But once they were up, I stopped seeing them. It was just like they weren’t there. I didn’t read them, it was like they just stopped existing, sitting there, invisible, right in front of me.  

Sticky labels didn’t really work for me. But you know what does? Taking my online language exchange partners on room tours. The process of preparing is the same, looking around your room, identifying and then looking up the words you don’t know, but with language exchange partners, you then have to use those words. And the more language exchange partners you have, and the more room tours you do, the more you’re reinforcing that vocabulary in an active way.

In our language learning journeys, we’re going to come across so many ideas that work for other people, but not for us. Maybe they don’t fit with our brains, maybe our personalities, maybe our schedules, or maybe our goals. Maybe we just find them really dull.

And that’s okay. When the things don’t work, it’s providing you with really valuable data about what your body and mind respond well to in your learning.

Keep collecting the good ideas, keep trying things out, and remember that if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. You will find things that stick.

Have a wonderful day, and I will see you tomorrow.