Saying beautiful things
The power of pushing yourself
Welcome, aspiring polyglot! The degradation of language is something that precedes the downfall of nearly every empire. Unfortunately, without placing blame on anything or anyone in particular, linguistic abilities seem to continually diminishing. Ultimately, each person is responsible for their own education. Fortunately, a rising tide raises all ships. You might notice that as you improve the depth, accuracy, and precision of your speech that those around you will begin to do so as well.
Advanced grammar
In my own experience, grammar is something that can be pushed off as it will eventually become so integrated into speaking that your errors self correct over time. However, that does not happen without trying to use different grammatical structures and failing dozens if not hundreds of times. To this day I only ever use the French subjective correctly 80% of the time. Still, that is enough for me to get away with sounding like a native speaker.
English is no different from any other language in that there are many native speakers who make mistakes every single day without ever noticing. Your goal should be to get to that point in your target language as well. Of course, it is always best to work on the precision and accuracy of your speech in all of the languages you speak. But the amount of mistakes you make is going to be proportional to how well you know the rules of the given language.
The vast majority of native speakers do not understand the rules of their own native language. In fact, it is rather common for bilinguals and polyglots to understand the rules of their new languages far better than they understand the rules of their mother tongue. It is the main reason why most native speakers struggle to help learners understand the “why” behind many grammar rules and vocabulary nuances. Eventually all rules become “feelings” and that is when you know you have made it.
Depending on where you are at in your language learning journey, my recommendation would be to learn and begin using one new grammar concept or structure per week. As you get deeper into your new language you are going to find that many of the grammar will play off and change dependent upon other grammar rules. This is good and if you have been learning new concepts all along you should be able to make sense of why and how different things interact in the ways they do.
For example, if you know that the verb “haber” in Spanish is the same as the auxiliary verb “to have” in English, you can make sense of several tenses simultaneously. Since conjugating “haber” doesn’t change anything but the time and tense of the verb, you are now using something you learned to speak in the past tense “He terminado” = “I have finished” to begin speaking in the conditional, the future, and more, “Habría terminado” = “I would have finished”.
Learning how different portions of grammar interact with one another will ensure you are able to continuously and fluidly add new linguistic tools to your belt. In order to keep them easily available to you, though, you will have to use them. Writing sentences with the new concepts or words you learn is by far the easiest way to guarantee returns. Using them in speech is effective as well, but when you make mistakes it will be more difficult to fix them mid conversation.
Whatever you do, strive to say beautiful things. Communication is the goal, that is more than enough, but you will be shocked at the response you get when you strive to speak as eloquently as possible. In fact, you might find that you are shocking even native speakers with the depth and breadth of your lexicon. When that happens, it is easy for them to overlook minor grammar mistakes that were common amongst native speakers until high school.
High level vocabulary
Beyond learning the most difficult grammar, you should strive to consistently add vocabulary to your lexicon in every language you know. The reason for this is simple: you cannot understand a concept in a new language that you do not know exists in your native language. A deeper understanding of one’s mother tongue will directly affect one’s ability to acquire a new language. The magnitude of the effect will depend on other factors, but native language knowledge is huge.
Fortunately, when you speak a language natively growing your vocabulary is far easier than when it is a second or third or fourth language. Take this exercise to the next level by following through and learning the new words in both your native and target languages. Synonyms often have correlative translations and you will quickly learn just how many words English has borrowed from other languages when you do this exercise.
Using a thesaurus
As difficult as it is to decide which words are worth learning in your target language, figuring out where you can improve in your native language is easy. For those who haven’t cracked one open since high school, it’s time to dust off the thesaurus. Learning synonyms is the simplest way to add new vocabulary to your repertoire. Since you already have an approximation of what the new word means in practice, you can start using it immediately.
There is, of course, there is always the option of reading challenging literature and taking the time to write down the meanings of all the new words you come across. That is, however, more difficult. Personally, I find that a mixture of both is ideal, but using a thesaurus when you are writing anything will give you access to far more vocabulary than you might expect. Unlike my preference for physical dictionaries, using a digital thesaurus might be more effective for this simply because of the speed with which you will be able to move.
As you do this, pay special attention to the possible cognates and linguistic corollaries that can be found between your native language and your target language. Expanding your vocabulary within your native language can and will lead to sustained growth within your target language. This effect compounds as your lexicon grows across and within linguistic families. However, without sustained usage, the words will fade quickly from your memory.
Conclusion
Do not settle for imprecise and inaccurate speech. You are limited in your expression to the things you know. It is impossible to explain or express sentiments for which you lack the requisite language. This effect can be observed more widely, but in a microcosm you can think just of the ways in which our own internal dialogue affects self perception. Fighting to improve your abilities will serve you in more ways than just your language acquisition.
As always, the more ways that you can integrate these new terms into your life the easier it will be to keep them long term. That means reading them, writing them, speaking them, and translating them. At first you may feel weird using new words, but once you begin to feel the pay off within your language acquisition, you will never turn back. It will be difficult, but you can do difficult things and be great, so get out and do some difficult things and become great. I am rooting for you.
Requests
If you have anything you would like covered you can reach out to me on X, Instagram, or at odin@secondlanguagestrategies.com.
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