How to Develop Self Discipline to Study Languages
Vložit
- čas přidán 9. 02. 2024
- How can you carry through with your plans and develop daily habits that leads to self-transformation? Listen to this conversation for ideas that can lead you to success.
Join my academy: www.alexanderarguelles.com/ac...
Subscribe to my monthly newsletter: www.alexanderarguelles.com/ne...
Join my virtual academy and meet with me every week to get a systematic theoretical framework for long-term language learning in the Path of the Polyglot: www.alexanderarguelles.com/ac... Join also to read and discuss French, German, Italian, and/or Spanish literature, to learn sacred languages such as Arabic, Sanskrit, Greek, or Old Norse, to develop conversational abilities in Latin, and/or to read and discuss Great Books of Western Civilization or the Comparative History of Religions in English. And subscribe to my monthly newsletter at: www.alexanderarguelles.com/ne...
If you are in a position to support my educational efforts, please consider making a contribution at: ko-fi.com/alexanderarguelles
Join my virtual academy and meet with me every week to get a systematic theoretical framework for long-term language learning in the Path of the Polyglot: www.alexanderarguelles.com/academy/ Join also to read and discuss French, German, Italian, and/or Spanish literature, to learn sacred languages such as Arabic, Sanskrit, Greek, or Old Norse, to develop conversational abilities in Latin, and/or to read and discuss Great Books of Western Civilization or the Comparative History of Religions in English. And subscribe to my monthly newsletter at: www.alexanderarguelles.com/newsletter/
This channel is so underrated 🥰
Thank you kindly.
Dear Prof, about a year ago I asked you to talk about the languages you had the most difficulties with, and why. You said it was a good idea. I've been waiting ever since!
That would indeed be an interesting topic!
Thank you for the reminder. We will try to include that topic in the next discussion.
Lo que más me gustó de la conversación fue que los dos se veían muy cómodos y que fueron muy honestos y abiertos.Gracias a los dos.
Muchísimas gracias.
Indeed, I managed to attain that state of doing 5 hours minimum, but sadly at a certain point my discipline fell apart due to stress and burnout, I did not realise where my limits lied when it comes to various obligations I have to do. I really hope to recover my bare minimum training regimen someday.
Quick note though: at 13:22 you say that Russian is a liturgical language for the Russian Orthodox Church, which is not quite accurate. Theological and philosophical texts and textbooks are indeed written in the modern literary Russian language, but all the prayers, all of Scripture and catechisms are written in Church Slavonic (of the Russian recension), which as you may recall from our discussion circle back in '21, is vastly different from modern Russian.
That said, reading the Bible in its original languages has been really rewarding so far, I literally only started Biblical Hebrew to read the Tanakh, and I am three quarters of the way done with Exodus!
Hello Yan, good to hear from you, as always, and thanks for the correction on Orthodox liturgy.
Love this series! Looking forward to seeing your channel hit 100k. Glad you are able to keep in touch with people via the internet and spread your wisdom and knowledge. Thanks and best of health to you and your family!
Thank you so much for your kind words of appreciation. Yes, our ability to connect and share via the internet is remarkable, but I not only could use some more real human contact myself, I have come realize that there things that can truly only be taught in person.
I just noticed the David Goggins imagery at the start. He may be crazy (not sure) but inspirational, he's taken his demons/trials/negatives and uses them to push himself to excel to his own standards. He's having a positive effect on me re: exercise and goals so it's so great to see him here as he's even influencing my language focus too, so it's interesting to see others making the same association of discipline esp when we don't feel motivated.
He is inspiring indeed.
This is a great series of videos. I've been passing some of these links on to various acquaintances, friends, and online groups. Two thoughts came to mind while watching this one. The first is work done by researchers on motivation. Off the top of my head, I forget the technical names used, but some researchers put motivation into three general classes:
1. Someone forces you to do something. E.g. study these 10 words for a quiz on Friday or you will fail this class.
2. You do something as an ends to a mean. E.g. I need to memorize these 10 words if I ever want to read Plato's Republic in Greek.
3. You do something because you love it for itself. E.g. Foreign words are so fascinating. I read dictionaries and lexicons as well as study etymology for the fun of it.
The more of each of these three you have for a particular activity, the more likely you will stick with something and put time into it. In the long run, #2 and #3 are what will keep you going. Speaking for myself, combinations of listening, chorusing, and reading in audio, parallel text, and interlinear forms is mainly for the sheer love and joy of it. For me, this is usually a combination of Assimil (when available) and books, songs, or articles of interest. Other activities such as grammar studies and exercises tend to be a lesser mixture of a means to an end and enjoyment for itself. The relative mixture of these 3 motivations will probably vary quite a bit for each of us from activity to activity and will probably also vary with our progress. Whenever I adopt a new activity, I monitor my motivation to make sure I have a good attitude toward it and take action to address it if I don't. Otherwise, there's a good chance I'll burn out on it.
The second thought is that stress should be avoided. This is different from an energizing challenge such as finishing my two mile run for a personal best today. I refer to more toxic stress. It changes body chemistry and reduces the ability to concentrate and learn and creates negative associations in our brain with an activity. Most of us have experienced panic in front of a crowd or similar things where our brain freezes, we feel clumsy, we feel nauseous, and we stop functioning as normal. If we consistently do activities that are frustrating to us, our brain will inevitably start to associate those negative feelings with those activities and trigger changes in body chemistry before we start. In other words, we become Pavlov's dog. Walking into a dentist's or doctor's office, a math test, a public speaking class, or other situations our brain has associated with bad things with will trigger an uncontrollable negative reaction. I wonder how many language students have this type of reaction for various activities. Forcing ourselves to do frustrating things over and over without changing our attitude toward them is more likely to reinforce the problem than fix it. I learned that I can trigger a frustration reaction in my wife by merely saying "f of x" (from math class decades ago). Her triggered response is "That is SOOOO stupid!!! If it's y, just call it y."
I've learned that I have to actively monitor my stress levels and attitude when I'm doing things like language learning, musical practice, or practicing skills such as artwork. I first noticed this when chorusing audio to improve my pronunciation. During faster audio, I'd get frustrated when I couldn't keep up. The harder I tried, the worse it got. I could feel my jaw starting to clench. I found that taking a few deep breaths, literally relaxing and flopping my arms and shoulders and head, mouth, tongue, and jaw side to side distracted me away from the frustration. My next attempt to follow along was immediately more coordinated and fluid. It now usually only takes a couple deep breaths to relax, but years of forcing myself to keep going in many frustrating activities (no pain; no gain) had ingrained feeling toxic stress as a normal thing instead an unhealthy thing. Instead of doing a quick reset to get back to a relaxed state, I used to keep pushing harder and harder into a death spiral of increasing stress and decreasing ability without realizing it.
I've gotten into the habit of regularly asking myself things like : Do I really want to do this? Or, am I forcing myself? I am enjoying this? Why? If I'm frustrated, what is making it stressful and what can I do about it? Maybe I'm doing it wrong, or it doesn't work at my level of progress, or it's a poor activity for what I want to accomplish. I used to just assume the onus was on me to work harder until I enjoyed it, but the idea of working smarter rather than harder is a wise approach to any activity. Sometimes one hour a day of working smarter can accomplish much more than just forcing yourself to work harder for five hours. Though of course working smarter for five hours per day accomplishes much more.
Thank you, Gandalf, as always, for making the comment sections of my videos worthy of careful perusing for those who are interested in the video's topic.
ขอบคุณมากครับ 🙏
ด้วยความยินดีอย่างยิ่ง.
Commentārius deīs algorythmī.
Gratias tibi ago.
My fascination over Switzerland camed back, I hope youre ideas and methods will help
Not sure I understand the Switzerland comment...
Great video guys! 😊👍
I would much prefer spending 5hrs a day learning languages than being with family and friends. 🤫😉
It really is a question of disposition. I was a nerdy bookworm as a kid, so reading for a handful of hours each day is something I have always done.
Great video. Do you think rising early can be a useful aid towards developing the discipline to study languages for 5/6 hours a day, as opposed to getting up at normal times or staying up later?
Yes that is certainly a good habit to cultivate for most people, though there probably are some who function on different circadian rhythms.
wow this is amazing how do i watch the whole podcast ?
Watch the preceding two videos. I suppose I should work on my playlists, thanks for the reminder.
@@ProfASAr A whole 2 hour vid or so would be nice
Hi Professor, can you talk about the Irish language, I’m learning Irish but need some motivation, I’m a slob…
Idea added to list.
The magic trick would be to not to need discipline !!! or less.
(of course some times some find "discipline" motivational)
Also, is there not a likely maximum 'brain plasticity' per time unit ?
l always suspect DLI programs etc are marginally inefficient, though of course maybe DLI needn't worry about margins.
If only there were magic tricks...
The intro feels dystopian
Thanks for the vid
Thank you for appreciating the video, but I don't understand the dystopian part of your comment.
@@ProfASAr I don’t know but the intro feels very sad. Resigned. Accepting of hellish times. It reminds me of the “Everything at the end of time” album. Very sad.
The intro feels retro to me (born in the early 60s) going back to a 30's or 40's feel of the beginning of a news or educational short film. Though in reading your comment, I realize the last few times I've seen this style is in alternative history fiction with a darker outlook on events.
@@crix_h3eadshotgg992 I find this old timey radio aesthetic very comfy.
@@GandalfTheWise0002 yeah, I wasn't alive back then so those alternative history fictions were my main association.
that explains things.
My keyboard is breaking.
Mr. Arguelles :
Can you name all the books you know that study 4 languages ( and above ) in terms of comparative grammar , that are studied simueltaneously page by page , like Mikhail Peteunin’s book for instance , why don’t you author a comparative grammar book for ( Arabic , English , French , Italian , German , Spanish and Portugese ) , or even more than these , since you reportedly speak and know about 35 languages , we need such comparative grammar books !!!
Thank you for the vote of confidence, but honestly I have been demotivated to do this kind of thing. I did compile an extensive multi-lingual dictionary, and get it nicely published, but it was not distributed, so no one can get a copy of it.
@@ProfASAr
You should never lose your motivation
I have gotten a copy of your dictionary
I always wondered why the the entries are in French rather than English
But I guess the Lebanese publisher requested that
Please DO not be demotivated
Only multi-language speakers and writers like yourself can truly compile such master-pieces
Which are desperately needed