What’s your language learning personality?

Learning to taking advantage of your language learning strengths and weaknesses

Dec 28, 2023

Welcome, aspiring polyglot! As often as doing what works for you is mentioned around here, it would probably be helpful to have a few ideas from which to choose. When pondering this, the idea of potential language learning personalities came up. After thinking on it for some time, I think I fleshed it out enough to be helpful. If you do not see something that correlates with your language learning type, please leave a comment so I can revise these. They are currently a work in progress, but if you find the suggestions based on your purported language learning personality helpful, share that feedback in the comments as well so we can dive deeper into this theory.

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What are language learning personalities in second language acquisition?

When trying to narrow down characteristics, 5 overarching personality "types" revealed themselves. It is possible there are more, or even fewer, but these are the ones that seemed most apt. Each one has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Some things work better for kinetic learners than they do for auditory learners. The goal with these is to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. There is a high possibility that two or even three of these categories will have something that piques your interest, investigate that. The five categories as they stand are:

Brute

Assassin

Scientist

Monk

Artist

Each of these have their own unique strengths and weaknesses which may overlap with one another. Depending on your learning style, history, and experience with other languages, you will find that you connect with one or a few more than others. This is just the introduction of these ideas, they will be more and more fleshed out over the next few months. You may even find that different languages require different strategies. Again, if you have any input for how we can make these more precise, please leave a comment!

General Weaknesses

As far as weaknesses go, we will focus on for these personality types break down into two areas. The learning process or approach to language studies and the study materials or comprehensible input difficulties. For the first part, the language learning process, what do the weaknesses look like?

ADHD

Do you struggle to follow conventional language instruction? Have you had trouble trying to develop and effective strategy to retain what you are learning? Are you always thinking of additional engagements you can add?

Passive/Active Only

Do you find that you lack language output? Are you focusing so much on grammar structures and reading that you are neglecting your listening skills? Does your language acquisition involve writing? Is most of your exposure to the new language music or television? Are you facing a language barrier when it comes to written language?

No Time

Do you work somewhere that requires you to work exclusively in your first language? Do you already have too little breathing room in your daily routine as it is? Does family demand more of your time than you expected? Does it feel like second language instruction would take even more from you without giving a solid return on investment?

"Staying Busy"

Do you often feel like you spent the entire day working but you cannot precisely say what you accomplished? Are you always tired at the end of the day without being sure what you got done? Do you sit down with vocabulary words or grammar structures and stare at them, confused as to why they have not made their way into your long term memory?

Tomorrowers

Have you been putting off learning a new language? Do you feel comfortable sticking with your first language? Are you always waiting for the perfect day to start working to develop new skills? Is there always something seemingly more important to work on?

Perfectionism

Are you waiting to speak until you are certain you will not make any mistakes? Looking for the best second language strategies before spending too much time working on second language studies? Trying to learn everything you can about a new culture before speaking?

Fear of failure

Are you afraid of being laughed at for your language skills? Do you feel that your communication skills will fail you in real time when speaking other languages? Is it difficult for you to maintain more positive attitudes when trying to master something new? Are you unsatisfied with your current language level?

These are pretty self explanatory, but we will explore them further in a future post. For now, at least two or three of those should resonate with you. If they do not, perhaps the comprehensible input weaknesses will. Remember, try to be honest with yourself as you read through these. You do not hurt anyone but yourself when you try to go against what is natural for you. That said, it is possible that these will speak to you more than the above:

Lack of resources

Are you afraid you will spend more time finding things to study than actually studying? Do you try multiple ways to work through the same example? Have you tried and failed to find apt resources in world languages before? Do you find that the second language material you find often is below or above your current language level?

Reading issues

Would you rather do anything other than read? Do you find that reading is not an effective strategy or use of time? Would you rather cultivate relationships in real life than spend time reading about them? Are you a slow reader? Is it frustrating to read and not know every word that you come across? Is reading in your native language also painful for you?

Writing disdain

Has it been months or even years since you last sat down to write willingly? Would you rather do burpees than sit down and work on written language? Is making sense of grammar structures in written language torturous for you? Do you struggle to read your own handwriting? Would you rather listen to TV static at max volume for 72 hours without eating than fill an entire page with your own thoughts in written form?

Muted

Do you often say, "I can understand and read it, but I can't speak very well."? Is speaking your target language something you would love to do but struggle to actually start? Does it feel like you are taking too much time to translate sentences in your head before you speak? Are group conversations terrifying to you?

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Lost in translation

Does the thought of stepping away from direct translation terrify you? Do you struggle to find the right word for the right situation even when you know how to say something in a broken way? Do the things people say confuse you because of how they word it? Do homophones and homonyms make reading and writing difficult?

Ask yourself these questions in earnest and do your best to ensure you can get the most out of this exercise. Keep in mind, unless you are used to putting yourself into student mode, your answers to these questions may change. As you begin to develop a solid second language acquisition routine you may find the things you enjoy are surprising to you. Mastering your target language will be easier if you have a solid understanding of your native language, do not just mitigate your weaknesses studying your target language. Mitigate them when you are working on advancing your language skills in your in every language that you know.

These weaknesses overlap, but depending on the combination they also compound. The goal, as stated above, is to give you the tools necessary to minimize these weaknesses. Language learners face enough of an uphill battle without adding to it their own deficiencies. When you focus on and develop productive skills to mitigate your weaknesses you can spend more time enjoying the time you are working with your target language.

Hand in hand with mitigating weaknesses is maximizing strengths. Of course, the end goal will be to ensure you have no more weaknesses, at least not within the realm of second language acquisition. Mainstream classrooms ignore how closely related successful second language acquisition and doing the things that work for each individual are. Taking on foreign languages is no easy endeavor. Fortunately, if you are no longer in the public education system, and tests are a weakness of yours, you no longer need to worry about them. But what about the strengths?

We will break down the strength categories in much the same way we broke down the weaknesses. What are your strengths when it comes to the language acquisition process itself and what are your strengths when it comes to comprehensible input. The more you are able to work the things in that work for you and avoid the things that do not, the more you will enjoy your time with your new language. That said, just because you are a strong reader does not mean you can get out of writing. Just because you are a strong writer does not absolve you of your duty to speak. This is what the strengths look like when it comes to the learning process:

Contemporaneous practice

Group learner

Solo learner

Grammatical structures

Vocabulary charts

Ample time

Local native speakers

Shameless

Obsessive

Again, some of these will crossover with the comprehensible input strengths, but more importantly many of them will compound. Pairing your innate learning abilities with stimulus that is conducive to your success will enhance and accelerate your second language acquisition. The most productive language learners are always finding ways to maximize their time. As you age, efficiency becomes more and more important in all facets of life. Second language acquisition is no exception to this rule. With that, here are the stimulus/input strengths:

Translator

Resourceful

Bookworm

Loud mouth

Dynamic input

Full focus

Exposure

As stated above, this introduction is designed to be just that, an introduction. These concepts will continue to be fleshed out over time. In order to facilitate that, the more feedback you are able to provide the more accurate these will become. As it stands I can only work with what I know and, while 100 people is a good starting point, the more input the better. Eventually you will be able to take a test to see if your language acquisition personality is what you think it is. Until then, you should be leveraging everything you can to propel yourself forward.

In next week's post we will go over the strengths and how you can maximize yours. For now, take the time to do this exercise and try to pinpoint your weaknesses. Unlike most language teachers, I have absolutely no interest in telling you to avoid the areas you are weak. The best way to mitigate a weakness in writing is by writing. It is the same for every component of language acquisition and avoiding difficult things will never be rewarding. However, if you hate writing, then try texting or tweeting or commenting on a video. There are ways to make the things you dislike more enjoyable, that is how you mitigate the weakness.

Conclusion

This idea may or may not be interesting to you, but understanding how you learn best is a big part of the battle. When there are no grades or teachers it can be difficult to stay motivated and self evaluate, that is what we are trying to solve. In order to develop language acquisition strategies that will be conducive to your success, you need to be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. You cannot solve a problem you refuse to acknowledge. At the end of the day, the only person who will judge you is you. Do not let your self criticism stop you from expanding your competencies, however long it takes.

It is not impossible to learn a language fast, but if that is the goal it is imperative to understand that it will be difficult. Picking up a foreign language at any speed is going to be challenging. Leveraging your strengths and minimizing your weaknesses will play a large roll in facilitating this challenge. It will still be difficult, but you can do difficult things and be great. So go do difficult things and become great. I will be here by your side endeavoring to do the same. I'll be here rooting for you and watching out for your successes in the meantime.

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