Get Unstuck in Language Learning With This Zoom-in-Zoom-out-System

Summary: Being stuck in language learning might be a sign that you’ve been focusing on the same thing for too long. In this article, you will learn tools that help you shift your perspective to unlock new energy. We will talk about explicit and implicit learning and how switching back and forth between different tasks can be the key to get you flowing.

This is me at an art class some weeks ago.

The background I was painting turned out nothing like I had imagined. Instead of a bright, nostalgic blue sky, it looked like a spilled beverage. The more I tried to fix it, the worse it got.

When I asked the teacher for advise, I expected her to tell me to try harder, add some color or do some blending. But instead, she told me this:

Just leave it. Shift your focus to the mountains and come back to the sky later.

So, I proceeded to paint some mountains, and while I was doing that, I completely forgot about the sky next to them. And only when I felt like that my mountains weren’t getting better anymore, I eventually revisited the sky. By then, its color had dried – and not only that: I felt that something in my mind had also changed. Shifting my focus for a while allowed me to suddenly see the sky from a new perspective, and that gave me a completely new sense of what I had to do next. 

In the end, this was the process I repeated along the whole experience: Paint something until it’s not getting better, switch to another part. Paint some more details, switch. Paint, switch, paint, switch, paint, switch.

And you know what? After three hours, the picture really turned out to be fairly okay!

I was fascinated by how something as simple as shifting perspective can really lead to a decent  overall result. And then I realized: Wow, this is actually also what’s been helping me when I’m stuck in language learning.

Let me tell you how.

Shifting Focus in Language Learning

Before talking about shifting focus, let’s first clarify 2 different kinds of learning: Explicit and implicit learning.

Explicit Learning

Explicit learning is what we do in school. It’s a conscious, attentive type of learning: It’s carefully reading texts, memorizing vocabulary, studying grammar and learning that subjuntivo imperfecto is built with 3rd person plural indefinido plus its corresponding endings.

Explicit learning is important, because it helps you understand how a language functions.

However, if you only learn explicitly, you will hit a wall at a point. You will notice that you might express yourself grammatically correct or have a great specialized vocabulary, but struggle to:

  • follow a real-life conversation
  • express yourself naturally
  • react spontaneously.

Because understanding a language is not only about knowing words and rules. It means getting used to the sound, the melody, anticipating words you don’t know. It’s having that feel that everyone talks about.

And this is where implicit learning comes in.

Implicit Learning

Implicit learning is subconscious learning. It’s learning without wanting to learn.

It’s reading a book for the sake of reading good story. Not with the goal of learning new words. It’s watching a series without wondering what the subtitles mean. It’s listening to a podcast while you’re cooking, not trying to pay attention to every single word, but rather to get the overall message. It’s travelling to Bolivia, warming yourself up with a cup of tea and just perceiving the soft melody of Andean Spanish.

It’s exposing yourself to input you enjoy without deciphering it. It’s absorbing, it’s about letting go, it’s about enjoying.

But if you only learn implicitly, you will struggle to understand WHY a language works the way it works, which can mean that you understand more than you can produce.

Thus, we need both explicit and implicit learning to speak a language.

Let's Take How I Learned Turkish As An Example.

Turkish isn’t an Indo-European language, and so it doesn’t have any connection to anything I’ve ever learned. That’s why, at the beginning, it took me some intense explicit learning to

  • build some basic vocab core: Turkish words have nothing to do with other languages I know, so it would have made little sense to just guess their meaning.
  • figure out how sentences work: If I hadn’t done some explicit learning, I would have never figured out which word has which function in a Turkish sentence.
  • understand how the system works: Turkish is an agglutinative language, meaning that meaning is created by suffixes, not by words. For example: There’s no word for “no”. Instead, a negation is created by adding “-m” to a certain part of the word. 

I intensively studied Turkish for some months, but after a while, I felt like I’m not advancing anymore. 

So I switched to implicit learning:

I bought Short Stories by Olly Richard, and just began reading extensively – not translating word by word, but rather focusing on the gist of the story.

And this really boosted my fluency. I could suddenly have 45-minute conversations with my teacher in Turkish and express myself more fluidly.

Because what you absorb subconsciously is what you produce. It’s like, if you want to write good stuff, you have to read good stuff. Beautiful words in, beautiful words out. If you want to learn Turkish, you have to absorb Turkish to produce Turkish.

How To Create A Zoomable System

Let’s say that explicit means zooming in while implicit learning means zooming out.

To learn a language, we need to do both over a long period of time, switching between them every now and then. 

Here’s how to create a zoomable system:

Step 1: Take Stock.

1. Step 1: Take stock: On a scale from 1-10, how implicitly and how explicitly are you learning? 

I recently read a brilliant article of Rachel Paling on LinkedIn in which she speaks about how implicitly and explicitly she learned each of her languages, rating each language from 1-10.

So, for my Turkish, this is how it would look as follows:

Explicitly: 7.
I studied a lot of grammar at the beginning, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
Implicitly: 4 
I don’t live in Turkey, so I consciously have to look for opportunities to incorporate the language into my routine. Reading Short Stories or watching Atiye helped a lot, but I could definitely consume more input.

Step 2: Create Blocks.

Create a list of 3 implicit activities and 5 explicit activities.

In this step, we’re chunking down implicit and explicit learning into specific, actionable activities. For Spanish, this could look as follows:

Implicit:

  • Read various articles or a book about something your interested in: Do this without over-analyzing and just focus on flowing through
  • Watch an episode of a Spanish series, a travel documentary or learn about something through Youtube tutorials
  • Listen to Spanish music while you’re cooking

Explicit:

  • Conjugate the most important verbs in subjuntivo
  • Read an article in a special field of interest and look out for new vocabulary
  • Write a text  about the topic you’re currently reading, using the vocabulary it contains and the verb tense you’re studying

Step 3: Mix and Match

Now that you’ve created a set of different activities, it’s time to mix and match them. You can create either blocks in your calendar for some intensive reading, or even combine different activities in your learning session.

Sounds like a lot?

I get it. Finding the right input for your level and interest, figuring out what exactly you have to work on at a given moment is quite time and energy-consuming.

And that’s the catch: Time and energy are your biggest asset in language learning – especially if you have a full-time job.

So, why not delegate some tasks and focus on what’s really important?

I have something for you if you're learning Spanish:

I’m currently building my online Spanish community Story and Language Lab, where you’re going to get:

A Language Profile

A plan to define your goals and needs and a roadmap with the steps that will take you there

Learning Material and Smart Tasks

  • Weekly learning material based on the group’s interests and adapted to different levels. Designed for an immersive learning experience using the power of stories.
  • Writing and speaking challenges matching the weekly texts and designed to address your vocabulary, grammar and conversation needs

Bonus Material

  • Bonus: Access to a 200-page grammar hub
  • A chat function to practice your everyday Spanish

Curios?

Visit Story and Language Lab for more information or sign up here to be the first the be notified once the community launches!