Why Social Risk-Takers Are Better Language Learners

Or you can do something that forces risk...I got a hospital job in French (foolhardy) which forced me to speak (badly) to look after patients. I learnt really fast, improved it by studying too, and now I speak well.
Up to then I had not dared but if I got served a wrong cake in a patisserie it did not really matter...not getting my patient’s needs sorted out did.
It also made me realise that some of my reluctance to speak was “defensive” I was more stupid seeming in a new language and I did not like that. I remain marginally smarter in English than French, and much smarter than my Spanish self but that’s OK and I have learnt a lot by learning that. Not least compassion for people whose second language is English trying to function in UK.

This article is pretty rich! I will have to become a Risk-Taker! Don’t stop with the articles because they contain gold nuggets .

Hi Donovan,
I received an email from you entitled “There’s no such thing as being born good at languages.” I call such a statement “a sacred lie;” I use sacred lies too if I know that it will help a person to be uplifted and achieve his goal.

Of course, some people are born with the capacity to learn languages easily. A small proportion of adults (less than 5%) somehow preserve the ability to visualize both the written and the spoken word. These people preserve a child’s ability to learn a new language without reverting to translation to and from the native language. Most linguists come from this small category of people, and they are unaware of the cross-translation problem or of “the tyranny of the mother tongue” which most of their students endure.

You and I belong to the lucky 5% of the population and can easily learn any foreign language. This category of people can become successful even using the conventional methods which are obsolete. However, for 95% of adult people it would not work! They automatically comprehend the incoming information (in any form) only by cross-translating it into their mother tongue. For them to be successful in learning a foreign language they need a new technology of subconscious training English skills to become fluent in English as a foreign language in about a year.

I loved your perspective here. More often than not, I’ve found people warm up to me because of my self-deprecating humor/struggle in their native language (my target language). They know I’m at least trying.

Even though I’m aware of it in reflection and try to push myself to “add some flavor,” it’s still easy for me to fall into the trap of “let me impress you and pat myself on the back for getting an ‘A’ in ordering coffee,” etc. (Get over yourself, Chris!)

Likely influenced in some way by my introduction to the language in an academic/high anxiety language-learning context, and only recently discovered the wonders of real-world language acquisition.

Thanks again.

That is exactly how I learned the Thai I know. My wife, who is Thai, doesn’t want to teach me Thai. I learned by speaking with people, going on Visa runs to Vientiane, at the market, and in restaurants. being an American here in Northern thailand is a big bonus, because they want to talk to you, and social faux pas are overlooked in foreiigners

It’s been really nice stumbling on your blog for the very first time and it’s been an eye opener for a passionate polyglot like me though on a beginner level and all comments has been educating as well. I hope to join in on language blogging.
I totally agree to taking some “calculated” social risk you know why? It is riskier not to take a risk and you’d find out the outcome most times will be worth it.
Please keep up the super great work!

Thanks for this great post! I am NOT a social risk-taker, though I know it would benefit me to work on that in order to improve my language learning. What was most powerful for me in what you wrote was “People can see you’re a foreigner making an effort and even if they do get pissed off and dislike you (highly unlikely), you’ll learn an important lesson for next time.”

Even as a social NON-risk taker, I found that I made cultural mistakes that well, did teach me ‘important lessons for next time’. Even though I was trying to do everything perfectly, I messed up. If that’s going to happen, why worry so much about being perfect? If you’re going to mess up anyway, put yourself out there knowing that--and maybe that’ll help you have a sense of humor about it. That is a huge lesson I took from this today. Thank you!!

I appreciate this post Donovan. I’ve made a lot of cultural mistakes as I learn Russian but those mistakes are when I really learn something new. I always tell people that if you want to learn the language then you should be afraid to appear as a 3 year old.

I’ve just found your blog today and I love it. I wish I could dedicate myself to langauges as much as you do.

I am a British girl, Japanese speaker, living in Germany. I have recently decided to put myself into social situations like this, to push my German. I go to random German facebook events, and do exactly as you say - go beyond the expected dialogue every time I speak German. It’s scary. Really scary. But I know it’s going to be worth it when I have German to add to my list of languages.

Thanks very much. Glad you like it :)

It’s definitely worth it. How’s your Japanese now?

I needed this today; thanks. I’ve been working on Korean for a year, and I have lately been quite daunted by the fact that Korean culture does NOT encourage chit-chat. It is a serious barrier to language-learning to imagine that the very act of opening my mouth might be seen as unwelcome familiarity by the very people I’m trying to learn from. You’ve reminded me that, at least to first order, I need to ignore that and just soldier on. 고마워요!

This is the hardest part of learning a language for me. I needed to read this. :-) I always stick to the language I know and rarely take risks during conversations I’ve had over and over again. Thanks for the inspiration!

Well, I did that briefly. I noticed that someone behind was having trouble reading an English Bible last Sunday She said Necesito una Bibla en español. So I turned around and told her in Spanish that there were some Spanish Bibles over there(across from where we were both sitting) I also told her that the church has translations of the second service again in Spanish

Thanks, mate!

Very true. Language learning certainly does boost your risk-taking/confidence overall.

Donovan, great post as usual!
You are dead on about ‘social risk-taking’. As time has gone by, I’ve looked at these sort of conversations more like little experiments. You make a proposition and, then, gauge people’s reaction. While this is necessary in the language learning process, it is not very scientific because it is not very measurable. I’ve had many times in French where I’ve done a little experiment only to be left without a clear answer as to whether what I said was entirely correct.

In the end, I have concluded that the benefit of ‘social risk taking’ is not in being corrected by a native speaker, you can find far more efficient ways of doing that. In fact, the benefit is derived from simply making the mental effort to cross the chasm and force yourself to spit something out. I was born an introvert as well but after years of being in the military, where you sit around, wait and talk all day long, and living in a number of foreign countries, I have become so used to crossing the chasm and engaging in conversations that it is now natural.

The best tactic that I have learned in helping cross the chasm of ‘social risk tacking’ is to not take anything too seriously. If you say each ‘experimental’ phrase with a hint of humor as if you are telling a joke or being coy, with the beginnings of a smile on your face, people will invariably respond in a lighthearted manner. Playfulness is contagious.

What are your thoughts?

That’s a good point you make about the benefit not being correction but rather ‘crossing the chasm’.

Social risk-taking isn’t going to lead to you learn a lot of new language (you can do that at home by receiving input). The primary purpose of this is, as you say, to ‘force you to spit something out’ which a lot of people struggle to do.

What’s wrong with introducing yourself to people? I don’t understand why that’s rude. From my experience, Irish people are quite friendly.

I’m not sure why either.

Irish people are wonderful and apart from this experience I’ve never been criticized by anyone there for this kind of thing.

I agree with what you say, but I also think that this is fairly obvious stuff. I mean, we need to make mistakes to correct our models of the language or culture and without experiments and risks, there will be few or no mistakes.

I think it’s far more interesting to discuss how to achieve this. It’s very easy for people who do this naturally. I’m not among them. I need a fairly comfortable environment before I take risks. I’ve found this particularly true after I reached an advanced level. If I know I can comfortably express something in one way and get my meaning across, I seldom try other variants in a real-life situation.

Still, I always promote the importance of making mistakes and I do experiment a lot, but mostly when chatting, writing or with people I already know. This is not only because I’m shy, but also because I think it’s sometimes not a good idea to try new advanced stuff with strangers. There is no way whether my new language use was correct or not. That people understand is not enough in this case. Strangers often don’t correct statements, even if they’re blatantly wrong. Thus, I feel hesitant to try this with people I think are unlikely to correct me if wrong.

If I do the same thing in writing, when chatting or talking with friends who know I care about accuracy, though, it’s much more likely that they correct my output.

Okay, that was a very long detour. I don’t mean to say that I don’t agree with what you say. I agree to a very high extent, but I think it would be helpful to focus more on how to get around this problem for people who aren’t likely to take many risks on their own. I think this is one of the main tasks of language teachers (i.e. create an atmosphere where even shy people feel that they can take risks).

Hm. I should probably write something more comprehensive about this. :)

Maybe you should write about this in relation to Chinese culture. I’d be interested to hear from your experience there and how different they are from Koreans :)

I agree that it’s obvious but it’s something that a lot of people don’t put into practice. I’ve tried to make the point that this is something people can do as beginners - not just at higher levels.

The few very simple examples at the end there are my how-to. There are no complicated exercises that are going to help anyone improve other than making a simple effort to go that extra mile and it starts by confronting fears.

I am actually an introvert myself. People who read this blog and see my videos might think that I’m really out-going and extraverted but it’s not true. You just have to not let that sort of thing hold you back.

I appreciate Olle’s take on this, because I’m another introverted language learner (Korean) and although I realize being more outgoing would help me in some ways, it’s not in my nature and it’s not something I’m going to do (walking up to strangers and asking them their name). Doing things I consider socially inappropriate is torture for me and would make me quit, just like forcing himself to study grammar might make Donovan quit. Learning has to be fun and has to make us feel successful, not discouraged. So I appreciate Olle’s comment that some of us need to do our experimenting with people we’re comfortable with.

Also as a resident of Seoul, I’ve been on the receiving end of socially inappropriate approaches from people trying out their shaky English and sometimes I just don’t appreciate it and am not helpful to them. You can’t really count on strangers to help you.

Well, even with all that said, I admire what Donovan is doing and I think it’s fine that he’s using methods that work for him, but I don’t agree that I’m not trying hard enough just because I don’t use the same methods he does. I use some methods that work very well with my personality, methods that I doubt Donovan is interested in, even though they’ve helped my Korean a lot.

Good luck, I’ll keep reading about your progress and I think you’ve learned a lot of Korean in a short time and you’re doing great.

Thanks, Donovan. This is why I enjoy reading your blog: simple, practical tips that I can put into practice right away. Keep up the good work with your Korean!!

Thanks very much, Elizabeth :)

Donovan, keep it up!! I’m a social risktaker myself and I was angry at the guy critisizing you. IMHO that is a hidden form of envy, probably the dude just doesn’t have the balls to do it himself. From my own experience it really is funny how many people will try to put you down when you are a social risktaker with comments like “This isn’t appropriate”, “This is weird”, “That’s not the correct way of doing things.” My advice is to just ignore them and understand as you wrote that the way to progress is by putting yourself out there and experiencing new things.

Thanks very much John!

I think you may be right :) I’ll just keep putting myself out there and ignore that kind of criticism in future.

Completely agreed. This is also the key to picking up girls, but you likely know that.

Also, don’t forget that you being a foreigner buys you a lot more leeway to commit such social faux pas than the natives have: take advantage of it. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I don’t mean take advantage of people, I mean use it to meet people and get conversations going in situations where a native wouldn’t be able to because it would be considered rude (e.g. the situation you outlined above in Ireland) and they wouldn’t be able to get away with it.

Cheers,
Andrew

Yeah that’s a good point.

Being an outsider does have major advantages in the regard.

I like your “takeaway” example. It’s pretty unlikely that most of us know that word in our target language, but, depending on our individual thought process, we can express it easily enough (to drink at home, not for here, etc.), which will elicit the right word. That in and of itself will usually be enough for the native speaker to start more small talk with us, at least that’s been my case (Are you visiting for long?, How do you like it here so far?, Do you work around here?, etc.)

I should have included this in my original comment, but I think attitude goes a LONG way to helping us in these situations.

People are much more likely to want to talk to you if you show you’re not only interested, but that it’s also edifying/helping you in some way. I think most people perk right up when you follow that newly learned word or phrase with “Great! I just learned something new! Thanks!” (I recommend learning this phrase or something similar really early on.) That’s an instant opening to further conversation that the native speaker will take the lead (usually) in following up.

That’s actually how I was saying takeaway at first - “Not here” “I go”. That is until I learned how to say it properly.

Koreans are lot more private and reserved to what I’m used to. It takes a few meetings before they start asking questions but when I was in the Middle East I’d get asked a dozen questions straight up every time I spoke to someone.