7 Things That STOP Your Language Learning Progress

hello everyone and welcome back to my Channel  today I want to talk about seven things that  

stop your language learning progress things  that make you feel like you're stuck like  

you're not improving at all that might cause  your intermediate Plateau for example so the  

first thing I would like to begin with is the lack  of consistency we all want to become fluent we all  

want to improve our language skills however a  lot of us are just not consistent the truth is  

if you don't practice your languages often enough  you're not going to improve and here I also want  

to highlight constantly chasing this magic method  instead of actually practicing the language you  

know watching a lot of videos on YouTube on  Tik Tok and Instagram about how to learn the  

language learning a lot of different approaches  and methods don't actually applying them when  

it comes to your language learning Journey don't  get me wrong educating yourself is amazing that's  

why I have this YouTube channel because here I'm  teaching you a lot of different methods scientific  

approaches to language learning and you have to  try bu those methods and see which ones work for  

you because just understanding them in theory and  then theorizing about them and thinking that okay  

this method sounds good this method sounds better  let me try this one but then never actually trying  

it is exactly something that is stopping your  language learning progress guys the reality is  

that there is no one magic method you have to try  a bunch of different approaches and then see which  

one works for you and if you want to call it a  magic method the one that is going to be working  

great for you then okay let's call it this one  magic approach to language learning as long as  

it helps you stay consistent okay the second thing  that is stopping your language learning progress  

is unrealistic output you don't use the language  you're learning in real life situations you don't  

speak about your everyday experiences and you  don't Journal about them and obviously this  

everyday natural fluency happens when you use  a language in the situations that are the most  

normal to you the most natural to you when you  talk about your job yourself what you did on the  

weekend and then obviously depending on your level  you can use Advanced phrases or phrasal verbs or  

idioms while talking about something as basic as  your workout routine honestly this is something  

that I experienced firsthand when I was learning  Chinese in college because in college my Chinese  

experience was all about train translating very  complicated texts about politics about economics  

because I wanted to become a Chinese interpreter  or translator and so what I experienced was that  

I could talk about complicated business import  export texts but I couldn't really talk about  

my everyday routines like I brush my teeth I  have breakfast and then I go to the gym that  

was freaking impossible for me and also that  was very scary because I never practiced it  

and so I literally had zero experience talking  about my actual life in Chinese and maybe some  

of you are going to think that Veronica you  were learning Chinese to work in Chinese so  

why you're complaining that you couldn't talk  about your everyday situations that your output  

was not really realistic the problem is to be  able to enjoy your work you really need to like  

every aspect of it or at least most aspect about  your job right and obviously communicating with  

people yes I would be communicating in about all  of those business related topics but I would also  

be talking about myself where I was from what I  liked because I didn't get all this practice I  

felt so shy even working in Chinese because I knew  that the moment we started talking about myself my  

Chinese would just like crumble disappear I would  not know what to say what I highly recommend here  

is journaling in your foreign language I know  it's timec consuming but you can do it on your  

phone or your computer you don't necessarily  have to use a pen and paper if you prefer this  

traditional approach as do I but the reason  why I like journaling so much is because it  

really helps you reflect on what you did today  you're going to write everything on paper on your  

computer and you're going to think how to phrase  those sentences in a better way you have time to  

look up some of the words in the dictionary it's  not like actually speaking to a real person and  

you can really explore all of the different  phrases and idioms and better more advanced  

ways in which you can create a specific sentence  the next thing that stops your language learning  

progress is trying to be perfect comparing  yourself to this perfect version of yourself  

speaking English Chinese Spanish or also comparing  yourself to native speakers and yes I speak from  

my personal experience here because I used to be  overly focused on getting everything right when I  

spoke English when I spoke Spanish Chinese doesn't  really matter all I was focusing on instead of  

enjoying the time you know when I was speaking  English was making sure that my pronunciation was  

perfect my grammar was perfect all of the words  I was using were perfect and the thing is it can  

really paralyze our progress instead of wanting to  speak wanting to put yourself in those situations  

where you're going to be speaking the language you  freeze because you understand that the moment you  

make a mistake you start criticizing yourself  because you want to be perfect and so it's just  

this vicious circle of wanting to be perfect  and then you make a mistake and then you beat  

yourself up for it and then you want to be perfect  again and it's a very stressful situation I'm not  

going to say that I stopped being a perfectionist  over time I think for most people it's just not  

realistic what I did though is slowly but surely  I started becoming more of an observer I would  

speak English or Spanish and then it would make  a mistake and then I would be like interesting  

I made a mistake let me analyze it instead of  immediately criticizing myself instead of feeling  

shy instead of shutting down I continued talking  to people I continued putting myself in those  

situations where I would speak to people where  I would write in foreign languages and then I  

would see what happened without any criticism just  observation now if you guys actually want to make  

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number four why you might be feeling like you're  not making any progress in your language learning  

and that is relying on passive learning so what  is passive learning is basically when you are  

listening to something or watching a show in your  foreign language and you're not actually actively  

engaged maybe you're commuting to work or from  work or maybe you're cooking something so you're  

not really paying a lot of attention to the show  because you can be watching a show in an active  

way pausing if there are any words you don't know  saving them to Ay like really actively engaging  

with a material with a show or you can be watching  a show in a passive way where you actually don't  

really remember much of what happened like you  just watched the first episode and if somebody  

were to ask you what happened in the first episode  episode of the show you would be like I think this  

is what happened I'm not sure because I was also  on Tik Tok for responding to my mom's messages  

cooking doing something else I was not actually  actively watching the show and here I'm not saying  

that you should never ever use passive learning  sometimes when you're tired and all you want to  

do is just spend time on your couch be on Tik Tok  watch a show it's totally fine but please don't  

rely on this type of learning to actually improve  your language skills and become more and more  

advanced because if you're not paying attention  you're probably not learning and yes I know  

that Active Learning is a lot more difficult you  actually have to sit down be present be actively  

engaged understand what you're doing and not be  just like oh you know it's okay it will happen  

naturally unfortunately if you're not paying  attention it won't happen naturally I've noticed  

that usually people rely on passive learning a lot  when they don't have a lot of free time and so if  

if you are one of those people if you work a lot  if you have kids family responsibilities and you  

realize that you just don't have a lot of free  time to D get to language learning and you tend  

to gravitate towards passive learning maybe the  first thing to do for you would be to actually  

sit down and look at your schedule and be very  honest with yourself and realize that passive  

learning can only take you so far okay the next  reason that is stopping your language progress  

is not understanding how language transfer  works and and not even knowing about it that  

this thing a language transfer exists and that is  happening to you right now when you're learning a  

new language your native language or all the other  languages that you can already speak really well  

will influence the new language you're learning  and the thing that happens to most students is we  

really get demotivated and sad when this happens  but it's inevitable guys just accept it observe  

it accept it understand that it happens to every  single one of us the languages you can already  

speak will always influence your new language  and all you have to do is recognize it maybe  

spend a few more hours learning specific words  that are very similar to your native language  

but have a completely different meaning in the  foreign language you're learning for example in  

English there's this word library and in Spanish  a lot of people think that this word is translated  

to Liberia which is understandable because if  your native language is Spanish libraria Library  

these words just sound very similar obviously  it's a mistake but I understand why I'm making  

this mistake so I'm not going to beat myself  up for it I'm not going to feel bad I'm just  

going to spend a few more hours understanding the  difference and really memorizing that libraria is  

not Library it's a bookstore reason number six why  your language skills are not improving is because  

you're relying too heavily on translation that is  something that I see a lot of language Learners do  

every single time one of you guys are learning  a new word immediately what you have to do is  

look up the translation memorize the translation  translate every single sentence every single word  

because without translation you can't memorize  anything and yes maybe in certain situations it's  

totally okay to translate a word or two but when  you're trying to memorize a word what you're doing  

is you're trying to internalize a new language and  the process of internalizing in a new language is  

not about translating everything you're not Google  translate you're not walking around and be like  

apple Manana Apple yabla that's not what you're  doing the process of internalizing a language is  

when you see the object that looks like an apple  and depending on what language you're speaking you  

can immediately communicate it to the other person  that look this is a yabla or Manana you don't need  

to translate constantly in your head what happens  when you're constantly translating back and forth  

between your native language and your target  language is that the cognitive processing becomes  

very slow even though you might think that it's  easier for you in reality it becomes way harder  

for you to remember certain words it prevents you  from internalizing the syntax the vocabulary the  

grammar everything it makes your progress super  slow and the goal when you're trying to memorize  

new words is always to to make them your second  nature like it's your second nature to use these  

words and so what is going to help you here is  not translating but actually using images or maybe  

creating example sentences that are connected to  your life and obviously seeing this word more and  

more often and how are you going to see this word  more and more often if you actually practice the  

language often enough but if you are a little  bit like me and sometimes I don't practice the  

language every single day for for example right  now with Spanish I may be busy with work or with  

doing something else so I don't really practice  Spanish every single day so what I do instead  

is I use Ani or the space repetition technology  method to help me review all of the words that I  

have recently learned if you like this approach  use it if you don't like this approach don't use  

it just make sure that you acquire the language  naturally through your everyday practice so guys  

I think it's going to be it for this video If  you liked it please don't forget to give it  

a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel  if you want to improve your language skills with  

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a lot of you guys might be thinking that language  learning is extremely hard if you want to see all  

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