Motivation is a crucial part of success in anything. Just like a car that needs fuel to keep running, you need this source of motivation in order to keep doing whatever you’re trying to do. It’s a constant reminder of why you’re doing something and gives you a big boost when you need it during challenging moments. Whether you’re trying to run one more kilometre on the treadmill, study for one more hour, play one more practice song on the piano, or get up at 6:00am to work on your own business, you won’t be able to do it without motivation. And this is exactly the same for language learning.
Motivation works 24/7; however, I believe it’s most important when you really don’t feel like doing
whatever you need to be doing. You may be exhausted from running on the treadmill.
You may not have the energy to study. You may be hungry and want to eat instead
of playing one more song on the piano. You may wake up early and want to go
back to sleep for another couple of hours. If you don't have a strong source
of motivation in these situations, you’ll stop.
However, if you’ve set yourself a goal to lose weight by Christmas,
you’ve got to pass this exam to get into university, your dream is to be a
professional piano player, or you’re determined to become a millionaire from
your business, then you have this source of motivation that pushes you to do these things.
Why is motivation crucial in
language learning?
Language learning does not happen
overnight, and it requires a lot of patience and dedication. Unfortunately, there are lots of potential
problems in language learning: you can’t get
your head around the alphabet; a certain grammatical
structure is confusing you; you can understand but you can’t speak; you can’t
find the time to practice and many more. I believe people tend to try to
avoid these problems, which is why they may stay well within their comfort
zone. However, it’s wiser to accept the fact that they may happen and find
ways to overcome them. This is
where you’re very dependent on your motivation to learn this language. During
these moments, your motivation will force you to find a way to overcome these
problems. On the other hand, a lack of motivation means that you’ll decide to
have a couple of days off from the language. After this little break, you may
find that you still have a problem, so you have another couple of days off. This
can become a dangerous habit, which may result in you giving up the language
altogether.
There can be various reasons for
learning a language, and these can be grouped into a want or a need. A need is generally
stronger (“I NEED to learn English to pass my
IELTS exam because my dream job requires it”). However, a want can
be strong as well (“I WANT to learn Spanish
because I want to improve myself and be able to communicate with a lot of
people”). When you start to learn a language, you need to reflect
and ask yourself if you have either a need or a want for it. Don’t
try to force yourself into an answer. This must be a process where you’re
honest with yourself about why you’re learning this language. If you can’t find
this need or want, you’re still free to try to learn the language; nobody will
stop you. However, I’m just warning you that you’ll not get very far with it unless
you can find this source of motivation. I hate sounding this negative, but I think
it’s better in the long run to be aware that you’re going to have
a lot of difficulty along the way if you’re not motivated for the language.
Short-term vs long-term
motivation:
A mistake that I’ve made is
thinking that being motivated to learn a language means that I have to lose
sleep because I’m so excited about waking up the next day to practice my
languages, or that every time I practice, I have to be the happiest person ever.
This is absolutely not the case, and please don’t feel that you are not
motivated if you don’t do those things.
I have days where I really don’t
feel like practicing much. I may’ve had a long day at work and I’m tired and
hungry, or I’ve got plans to see friends, or I feel ill and just need an
evening to watch Netflix. If this happens to you every
now and then, this doesn’t mean you’re not motivated. We’re all human and there are other things in life to focus on as
well. And you always have to be aware of your physical and mental health. I would
classify this as a lack of short-term motivation, i.e. “This evening I really don’t feel like practicing anything”.
Even with strong long-term motivation (“I want to be able to master
German in order to move to Germany one day”), sometimes you lack this
short-term motivation. What is most important is that you have long-term
motivation, which means that this lack of short-term motivation will not happen
very often. Like I said, there are days when I really don’t feel like
practicing my languages, and I’ve accepted that this will happen. However, I know
that the next day I’ll get up and be ready to go again. It’s important to be
consistent and try to practice every day, but if you skip one day per week,
this won’t make a significant impact on your learning, in my opinion.
Switching Italian for German:
I always like to use examples
relating to my own language learning because I only feel like I can write about
something with meaning if I have experience with it myself. The first language I
started learning was Spanish, and my motivation for this has always been high.
I’d always wanted to be able to speak another language, so ever since the
start, my motivation has been high. Considering Spanish is such a widely spoken
language and my main reason for learning one would be to open myself up to
other people in the world, this has never been an issue. It’s been the same
story for French. It’s another widely spoken language; I always enjoyed it
during school, and this allows me to communicate with even more people.
After this, I wanted to keep
going with my language learning, and was trying to think about the next one. My
immediate thought was German, because for me, this is another widely spoken
language, and even though I heard it was difficult, there are some aspects that
are similar to English. I thought this would be a good next step. I started and
quickly realised the difficulty was significantly higher. I had become so used
to learning Spanish and French (both romance languages with similar grammatical
structures and vocabulary) that trying to learn German was very challenging.
My biggest issue was the order of the words in sentences, which was something
completely new to me, whereas in Spanish and French they are very similar to
English. I was starting to doubt myself, and I discovered Italian, a language
considered to be very easy to learn if you already have a working knowledge of
Spanish and French. Upon reading texts, I could already understand a few bits
without ever studying the language. At this moment, I decided to switch from German
to Italian.
This felt great because I had to
do very little work. I could still focus on Spanish and French and do a bit of
Italian every now and then, and I would see very quick progress. However, it
soon became a chore rather than something I felt motivated to do. With
Spanish and French, I generally felt excited and motivated to practice. This is
because my motivation was clear and consistent from the very start. However, I
never really felt this with Italian. As a result, my progress suffered. When I’d
practice Spanish and French, my focus would always be good (not 100% of the
time – I’m still only human!). On the other hand, whenever I tried to do any
Italian, all the distractions (phone, television, unrelated YouTube videos)
looked even more tempting.
I tried to fight through it for a
while, but a few days ago I officially decided that enough was enough. I’ve
made the switch from Italian to German, so I’ve now restarted German and stopped
Italian. I was wondering if I was going to feel disappointed because I’ve
technically ‘given up’ with Italian, but I see it as the opposite. I’ve seen it
as a smart move in order to use my time more efficiently. In my opinion, German
is a considerably more difficult language to learn, so I haven’t given up a
language because it’s too hard. It was simply because I didn’t have anything
pushing me to learn, and I believe this is something that a lot of people
should do when they’re about to learn a language. They need to self-reflect and
try to find that motivation for learning a language, and if they can’t find it,
it’s wise to consider finding another language that they're genuinely motivated
to learn.
Photo by Cristofer Maximilian on Unsplash
Summary:
I don’t want people to be put off learning a language just because they don’t have an absolutely essential
reason to do so. I just want people to be aware of how important motivation
is. Always try to ask yourself “Why?” and be honest with yourself. It will help
you whenever you come across any difficulties.
Key vocabulary:
Crucial – incredibly important
24/7 – a way to express that something is done all the
time
Pushes – something that makes you do something
Can’t get your head around – something that you can’t understand
Long run – long-term or over a longer period of time
Every now and then - occasionally
We’re all human – none of us are perfect and we can’t do things to a
very good standard all the time
Chore – something that
you don’t feel motivated or inspired to do
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