11 Unmistakable Characteristics Of A Damn Good Language Learner

I am late to the party here, but I totally agree and I loved your number 1 because I have always considered lack of fear in making a fool of myself my biggest strength when learning a new language. I have noticed that there are people who are very good at learning a new language, but who fear making a mistake so they have this wealth of knowledge that they are afraid to put to use!

Very good article! I agree with all you have written.

May I translate it into Esperanto, Spanish and/or Portuguese? Of course, free of charge, and you would retain all rights (if you prefer, you may publish it here and I would simply give the link to it).

Of course, if you decide to answer “no”, I will respect that. In that case you needn’t do anything. I will only proceed if I receive an explicit permission. (I hate when something is taken for granted unless you say “no”.)

Do you mind if I use your work to get my year 7 and 8’s students on the path to language success?
I have read a lot of research surrounding Qualities of an Excellent Language Learner, and your article supports this.

Not at all.
I hope it helps your students. :)

I suggest you refer readers to your article entitled “8 important things you should do on immersion trip abroad” https://www.mezzoguild.com/8-important-things-to-d...
I have personally lived what you advise in this article. I find it to be the best advice for learning a language. Of course the opportunity may not be available to everyone. It is the fastest and easiest way to learn a language in-depth.

Great post. I have the most trouble with #2 and #3. It’s difficult for me as I’m an Irish learner in an area without any others around except my wife. I have had to learn which materials work through trial and error. I’m a bit weird in that I actually like to use textbooks lol.

Another great post! I agree with each and every word you wrote (I mean the post and the comments too).

I speak several languages at C2 level and learn several others. I don’t want to depreciate other learners but I definitely agree with you that it’s impossible to learn a language in several weeks. Unless you boost that you speak a language when you can only maintain a basic conversation in it.

I’ll be the lone voice of dissent here, but I think that going into language acquisition with the mindset that it has to take a long time is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over and over again we’ve watched people like Benny Lewis achieve an enviable level of fluency in just 90 days. Scott Young and his friend Vat just spent “a year without English” and learned not one, not two, but FOUR languages in a year (Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Korean).

This isn’t magic. It takes work, yes, but it’s not like we don’t know at this point what the most frequently used words and phrases are in any language. Other people have done this work for you. Getting a basic proficiency of 300 words — about 65% of all the words you’ll use on a regular basis — can be done pretty quickly.

(Disclaimer — I am the founder of a language company whose next product is built on this very concept.)

Your company’s built on what concept?

That a language can be learned properly in a very short time? It’s not right to sell a product based on something that’s simply untrue.

I could and should respond to this comment with a long blog post (perhaps I will) but I’ll try to sum up my thoughts to what you’ve said here quickly:

You need to be very specific when you say they ‘learned’ languages to an enviable level in 3 months. They didn’t ‘learn them’ beyond the point of being able to talk about very familiar topics (usually talking about the topic of ‘language learning’ and very little else) that they’d practiced over and over, and even so, what you see on camera is only what they’ve allowed you to see. In any case, they applied themselves, worked hard with very determined goals and achieved a good but very predictable outcome (conversational ‘elementary-level/A-level’ skills).

Scott and Vat had prior knowledge of some of the languages before starting and of the languages they didn’t previously study, they achieved a completely predictable outcome. Benny even less so with most of the languages he’s learned (I had dinner with a teacher from italki the other day here in Egypt who helped him make his final Arabic video where he said he achieved a B2 equivalent level in Arabic and she said he’d barely pass elementary level - A1 or A2 equiv at tops). This is something I already knew by watching his videos anyway but just confirmed it again when she said it.

I’m not dissing these guys at all (I had a guest post from Scott a while back here). They work hard and apply themselves but in contrast to what you’re saying, they don’t learn long enough to be considered to be able to know the language ‘well’. It takes a long time to really know a language properly. I speak Russian, Korean and Irish at good levels considering the amount of time I spent on them (6-8 hours a day on average) but they’re no way near my Arabic level and if I wanted them to be I’d need to invest years into each of them.

It’s not just language skills either. There are social and cultural elements which also take a very long time to learn and adapt to (3 months is definitely not adequate).

Languages take TIME and if you’re selling something that says otherwise then that’s really disappointing (you can know all the common words there are but it doesn’t really mean anything at all).

people think they’re not making progress when they’re on a language learning “plateau” because they’re not feeling improvement. The thing is, when you’re on a plateau, you have to keep moving forward. Plateaus must be crossed. Anyway, who told them then hike was going to be an evenly steep grade? You can’t control the terrain.

加油 everybody. I wrote a post about plateaus at my own journal: http://jpv206.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/language-l...

This is one of the best posts EVER, Donovan! Not to brag, but I think I’ve pretty much done all of these things, which must be why I’m so awesome at Russian. ;) And many of my classmates who were less successful in learning ignored at least half of the points on your list. I know people who had trouble with listening--I did too at one point. Except I listened to hours of Russian radio each day for over a year, which made me become really, really good at listening comprehension. The only point on this list that doesn’t really apply is #2, specifically the part about old resources. Due to major reforms of the Russian language starting in 1917, books published prior to that period aren’t as helpful for learning (but can be fun to read once you’ve reached a certain level). I agree with you about the price thing, though: Rosetta Stone is super expensive, and it really sucks for Russian (and pretty much every language, I’ve heard). All of the resources I’ve used for Russian learning have been very reasonably priced.

Okay, that was a bit longer than I expected. I also just wanted to say that I signed up for the mailing list. I am so curious about the plans you have coming up. :)

Mistakes as ‘small victories, not big failures’ is a wonderful phrase. I will remember this. There is nothing like beginning a language to make you feel stupid. This can make it a challenge to maintain morale and commitment, and your bon mot is just the thing.

Yeah, you summed it up man. Anyone I know that sees constant progress does most of these things. It seems like someone that embodies most of these things is someone who is going to have a hard time quitting, just from sheer momentum and degree of involvement.

PS. Thank you for the all the work you put into your blog. You have had a major impact on my learning. I’ve been at Mandarin for 2.5 years and I use your blog pretty consistently for motivation, new perspective, and strategies. Although it seems like not that big of a deal, me having sources of motivation has been crucial to breathing new life into the language learning process and keeping my daily investment of time on the higher end of the scale.

Thanks a lot for the kind words, Bobby. I’m glad I’ve been able to help in some way.

All the best with your Mandarin.

Another great post!!

I completely agree with you. I think it’s always important to give something a try and when studying (even when at a relatively low level) a varied approach will always keep you 1) busy, 2) immersed and 3) interested in the language that you are studying.

Like you mentioned in a previous post, when I studied Japanese it took about 3 years for my ears to adjust to the sounds of the language to be able to understand it without thinking and I think it’s important for any/all language learners to ensure they give themselves ample exposure to their target language as early as possible.

I have just undertaken the task of learning (or brushing up, then significantly improving to be more accurate) Italian. I’m using a combination of books and courses, along with writing for my own purposes (e.g. a diary, a day plan, a shopping list) and listening to radio, tv etc.

Immersion doesn’t just have to be in the country itself (although that’s obviously ideal), you just have to be creative!