{"id":2849,"date":"2014-12-08T09:02:08","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T14:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/?p=2849"},"modified":"2020-10-02T13:04:53","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T17:04:53","slug":"learning-that-theres-always-more-to-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/2014\/12\/08\/learning-that-theres-always-more-to-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning That There’s Always More to Learn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Itchy<\/a><\/p>\n

Starting a new language is fun and easy. Early on, you feel like you\u2019re making so much progress, because from nothing, everything is 100% improvement. You\u2019re still awkward and trembling, like a kitten stumbling around, trying to keep its balance. But it\u2019s fun. Here you are, communicating with what to you are still essentially meaningless combinations of sounds. It\u2019s thrilling.<\/p>\n

Then you get out of the classroom and go on a trip to that country, and you try it out for the first time. You can say \u201cwhere are the toilets?\u201d and \u201ctwo beers, please\u201d and \u201cmy name is, I come from\u2026\u201d The locals get excited, even tickled, because you can say a few things (unless you\u2019re in France), and you feel good. You\u2019re encouraged to keep going. You think, this is easy! You just need to learn a bunch more words and phrases, and you\u2019re good to go. Sure, you can\u2019t understand what\u2019s being said most of the time, and you can\u2019t converse outside what you\u2019ve learned, but that\u2019ll come with time, right? Surely you just need to learn a little tiny bit more.<\/p>\n

So you learn a little bit more. Suddenly, there\u2019s the past tense, and the future tense. There are adjective endings and exceptions to rules and prepositions that don\u2019t translate directly to your native language. There\u2019s proper pronunciation, various formalities, maybe even a completely new alphabet that\u2019s more complex than you thought at first glance. Things are getting tough! You realize you aren\u2019t as good as you thought you were. Why, you\u2019re still a complete beginner! You can\u2019t even talk about your day without stuttering and stopping and starting over fifty times. How embarrassing!<\/p>\n

But fine, there can\u2019t be much left to go. You press forward, through the thickets of vocabulary and conjugation, determined to at least be conversational. That\u2019s when you\u2019ll be satisfied\u2014when you can talk about general topics and tell stories and so on, when you can read the newspaper and watch TV. Then you\u2019ll be pretty much fluent, right? Right?<\/p>\n

So you did it! You\u2019re conversational. You can talk on the phone as long as they don\u2019t speak too fast or about something weird. You can understand radio interviews and some song lyrics. You can read kid\u2019s books without a problem. It took you much longer than you\u2019d originally thought, but you\u2019re more or less there. So why are you still not satisfied?<\/p>\n

Because just look at that mountain. Just look at Mt. Fluency, its peak glimmering in the distance. It\u2019s massive, and beautiful. You had no idea it was this big until you climbed up this far. And now that you have, you still feel like you\u2019re at the bottom! You still can\u2019t express yourself as easily as you\u2019d like. You still get stuck on words, you\u2019re constantly checking your dictionary while reading the newspaper, and worst of all, you can hear all the terrible, embarrassing mistakes you\u2019re making as they come out of your mouth! Fluency is far, far away, and you know it.<\/p>\n

But you didn\u2019t used to know that. When you started, there were things you knew that you didn\u2019t know. The more you learned, however, the more you learned you needed to learn. There was so much out there that you didn\u2019t even know you didn\u2019t know! The rest of the iceberg, hidden beneath the waves, waiting to be discovered.<\/p>\n

But once you\u2019ve climbed your first mountain, the next peak isn\u2019t quite so difficult. In fact, you might find yourself trying to climb as many as you can\u2026<\/p>\n

How\u2019s your experience been? Have you crested Mt. Fluency? Is the peak in sight? Are you still staring up at the mountain from base camp?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Starting a new language is fun and easy. Early on, you feel like you\u2019re making so much progress, because from nothing, everything is 100% improvement. You\u2019re still awkward and trembling, like a kitten stumbling around, trying to keep its balance. But it\u2019s fun. Here you are, communicating with what to you are still essentially meaningless…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":4456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[542801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2849","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived-posts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2849"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2852,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2849\/revisions\/2852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}