

Personal Renewal - queensnake
http://www.pbs.org/johngardner/sections/writings_speech_1.html

======
wallflower
"But I did say tough-minded optimism. High hopes that are dashed by the first
failure are precisely what we don't need."

As an extremely analytical person who wants to work on many hobbies (learning
Spanish, salsa dancing, conversational dynamics, singing, etc. - pretty much
everything that I'd like to be above average at and struggle at and
continually shuffle among hobbies like the famous Chinese acrobat with
spinning plates), this really touched me.

If I want to become better at something, I must accept poor results,
especially in the beginning. I've managed to go from the awkward running out
of moves/stepping on feet to actually enjoying dancing but that took a couple
of years.

With Spanish, right now, I'm definitely handicapping myself as I simply am
terrified to practice it outside of my understanding tutor who speaks slow-ly.
I know that is holding me back (not attempting to make conversation) but I
admit to myself that the now once-weekly tutoring session is an attempt to
keep the 'learn Spanish' hobby on life support.

Ok I'm rambling but I had one of those maybe-a-deep personal insight this
morning - I go to certain places/do certain things and more importantly avoid
certain things - to preserve a day by day individual stat us quo. I'll
probably consider deleting this comment once I read this again in a few hours.

~~~
pasbesoin
For the Spanish, specifically: When (years ago) learning German and French, I
found some popular music that I rather liked and listened to it a lot. This
gave me a better feel for listening to the language. Since I enjoyed the music
(and what I could understand of the lyrics, with added bursts of excitement
when I figured out something new about them), this practice was itself a
pleasure and it was not difficult to engage in. (It helped that I had friends
who could provide a bit of context regarding the music as well as some
recommendations.)

More recently, studies have elucidated that a lot of language acquisition
occurs before/below the level of words and semantics. Infants first acquire
language sound recognition and reproduction, for example. Also, different
languages use/emphasis somewhat different frequencies in their speech.
Extended listening to the language helps train the brain to focus on / stop
filtering out those frequencies.

More generally, I find that you have to enjoy the process of learning. If you
are simply aiming for some eventual goal, and view the process of getting
there as a necessary misery, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Perhaps this is a bit sideways, but in some ways the Japanese film "Shall We
Dance" may illustrate this. It's a wonderful film about a salaryman who falls
sideways into ballroom dancing. A semi-fantasy about meeting an enigmatic
woman in the window of a dance studio leads to an unexpected but personally
enriching and empowering love of dance and the community it fosters.

(Be sure to watch the original Japanese version. The U.S. remake is a
commercial gimmick that does disservice to the original film.)

I think we can (better) learn new things when we can enjoy them. If we think
we have to learn them (completely) before we can enjoy them, that is sort of
putting the cart before the horse. Of course, this is a generalization, and
some things are difficult particularly at the start. But often there is still
pleasure in there somewhere, long before one achieves mastery.

P.S. I know my more general "insight" here is hardly revelatory. But I find it
a trap I have a tendency to keep repeating, myself, looking at the goal while
neglecting making sure I'm enjoying the process. And if I'm enjoying the
process, I tend to be more open to unexpected opportunities, e.g. the person
who is happy to let me exercise my fledgling French even though they are
fluent in English.

~~~
wallflower
Thank you for your well-thought out response. All of what you've said jives
with the advice I've been given. To immerse yourself is to learn.

> If you are simply aiming for some eventual goal, and view the process of
> getting there as a necessary misery, you are setting yourself up for
> failure.

I don't think I'm enjoying the process. I think the solution is to start going
to Spanish Language meetups (break out of my one-on-one private tutoring) and
maybe just walk around the Hispanic areas in my city and make smalltalk). Or
maybe the solution is there is no solution - take advantage of serendipity, go
with the 'unexpected opportunities' as you say..

> studies have elucidated that a lot of language acquisition occurs
> before/below the level of words and semantics

"Impossible, because if you move somewhere foreign, you're going to learn the
language unconsciously within 6 months. People who have only lived in the US
don't know this. It almost takes no effort. The human brain is good at this
sort of thing." from <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=500969>

One of my tutors recommended I buy the Spanish language audiobook and _the
book_ and follow-along - much like I see my friend's kids do (and as I did
when I was younger - 'when Tinker Bell rings the bell, turn the page'). I
could probably even listen to it while sleeping. What's stopping me?
Motivation. Why do I want to learn? Do I really want to go through the pain
curve of becoming competent?

I'm also tempted to buy the Spanish language voice from [http://www.acapela-
group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo...](http://www.acapela-
group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html) and put in in the background
and have it read Spanish newspaper articles to me. What's stopping me?
Probably the fact that listening to Spanish news now is very draining energy
wise - trying too hard perhaps?

Total immersion is the best way to learn. In fact, I now think that toddlers
learning language is the _best_ possible total immersion program (e.g. their
parents are 1) emotionally invested - encourage anything that represents
progress with genuine admiration and smiles - e.g. 'Sigh' for 'Sky' is _close_
enough, to begin - and 2) have the requisite patience and 3) the toddler wants
to control/understand his environment [e.g. terrible twos] - so it is his/her
incentive to improve quickly - as a side note, maybe that is why 'No' becomes
a very common word for parents to utter..).

> the Japanese film "Shall We Dance" may illustrate this

Years ago, I saw the original. Loved it. A favorite, even though I've never
watched it again. So much better than the remake (even though I've never seen
the remake - I know it can't be as good). In retrospect, I think it may have
inspired me.

An interesting comic about "Learning" vs "Knowing" (via another HN comment)
<http://jackiesfridge.comicgenesis.com/d/20001227.html> I love listening to
Salsa music, even before I could pick up the beat and the words - which I'm
still struggling to decipher.

Beloit College's Summer Intensive Language School ( _not for beginners?_ )

<http://www.summerlanguages.com/index.php>

~~~
pasbesoin
I went to Middlebury College's Summer Language Program for French. In seven
weeks, I skipped past 2 years of college level French classes. I was well
beyond the norm for that class, but it was not an exceptional amount of work.

The instructors there were a real credit. And it was a kick to sit down at
dinner with people from the more advanced classes (including graduate level
learners) and have them respond somewhat incredulously, "You're in BEGINNING
French?"

It was fun -- a lot of fun, and mentally challenging in a good way. That made
it easy to do.

The Middlebury French program was just beginning to use a new video based
course course instruction / materials. This didn't reduce the contribution of
their instructors, but it enhanced the experience significantly. It really
helped in presenting French as actually spoken (well, relatively so; it's
still relatively free of the everyday slang and contractions). It also
presented language use _in context_. You saw the setting in which things were
being discussed and used. There was a lot of supplementary information
regarding (Parisian) French culture and behavior, that you picked up not
deliberately but as much by osmosis while watching the story within the
lessons. And there was just that, a running storyline that helped you to stay
engaged and curious as to how it would unfold. It was somewhat campy,
deliberately so and with an open wink, but nonetheless enjoyable. Finally, you
could watch the videos as often as you liked. Something I found possible with
the videos, while language audio tapes almost immediately put me to sleep.

(Actually, the Middlebury instructor was godmother to the video course
developer/instructor's daughter. She had a very good handle on the material
and an excellent pedagogical pedigree. Her assistant was equally excellent.)

For Spanish, there is at least one instructional course I am aware of that
uses videos. It is fairly contemporary with the French video material I've
been describing.

Destiños

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destinos>

The videos are available on line, albeit in DRM'ed WMF/WMV format with a quite
small framesize. A legitimate route to a better format may be through your
library (tapes/DVDs: unfortunately very expensive for individual purchase), or
per chance a local PBS station if you are in the U.S. There is also at least
one torrent floating around, although I've never downloaded it.

Again, the show has a running story to help keep you engaged.

By the way, at the bottom of that Wikipedia page is a link to a page on the
French video course that I was describing: French in Action.

HTH

~~~
pasbesoin
P.S. I didn't look at your links, yet, Wallflower (my apology, but I wanted to
respond before I got sidetracked).

Your text did mention Beloit and "not for beginners". This suddenly made me
think further of my own experiences. Middlebury's program was billed as
"immersion", and you actually signed a "contract" of sorts stating that you
would use the language you were learning exclusively at all times to the best
extent possible.

Sounds really impressive, up front. In practice, many of the beginning class
members were not that motivated and they mostly spoke English outside of
class. The amount of effort and success varied, and plenty of people showed
some good will effort. But the "immersion" experience did not match the
marketing.

I was more than a little frustrated by this. But in terms of a lesson to pass
on, I would say not to allow yourself to be intimidated by such marketing
language. If you have an honest intent to learn and practice, that's probably
going to quickly place in you the top 25% of performers, regardless of your
starting ability.

I also spent some time during college in Munich, Germany, as part of an
exchange program. Again, the program billed itself as "advanced" and requiring
fluency and daily use of German. In practice, a lot of those kids could barely
string a sentence together. (And you haven't lived until you've heard German
spoken with a full on Dallas drawl. ;-) It seems that one kind of marketing
for these language courses focuses on projecting the image of "advanced
learners". My personal, anecdotal experience is that, for the U.S. audience,
at least, and a couple of decades ago, this was consistently, dramatically
exaggerated.

Don't let a bunch of attitude put you off. If you really want to learn, you're
already ahead of 4/5 of the pack.

Cheers!

------
jyothi
One of the best reads. So well written and so many good anecdotes. Few good
ones:

One must be compassionate in assessing the reasons. Perhaps life just
presented them with tougher problems than they could solve. It happens.

Or maybe they just ran so hard for so long that somewhere along the line they
forgot what it was they were running for.

Life is hard. Just to keep on keeping on is sometimes an act of courage.

A famous French writer said "There are people whose clocks stop at a certain
point in their lives."

Don't be too hard on yourself. Look ahead. Someone said that "Life is the art
of drawing without an eraser." And above all don't imagine that the story is
over. Life has a lot of chapters.

You don't need to run down like an unwound clock. And if your clock is
unwound, you can wind it up again. You can stay alive in every sense of the
word until you fail physically.

The more I see of human lives, the more I believe the business of growing up
is much longer drawn out than we pretend.

You find that the world loves talent, but pays off on character.

You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you,
they are thinking about themselves.

You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world
are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really
quite relaxing.

You finally grasp what S. N. Behrman meant when he said "At the end of every
road you meet yourself."

'Did you collaborate in your own de feat?" A lot of people do. Learn not to.

You never get the impression that a cow is about to have a nervous breakdown.
Or is puzzling about the meaning of life.

There are men and women who make the world better just by being the kind of
people they are.

Life is tumultuous -- an endless losing and regaining of balance, a continuous
struggle, never an assured victory.

Someone said "It's all right to be a late bloomer if you don't miss the flower
show."

------
bitwize
On the flipside, if you want to be great at physics or math, and you are older
than 30, you probably missed your chance. Better luck next life.

~~~
Radix
Maybe you can't create new physics and math, but is it also true that you
can't learn to do many useful things with them? I'm not sure. I'd like to
think it isn't.

