On Being A (Language?) Student.

After all those treacherous years of schooling, from Kindergarten where I cried because no one spoke my language, to university where I'd pulled my much-loved all-nighters to finish an assignment (those were the much better ones of studying experiences, actually), at the ripe old age of 26, I think I am only just learning how to study. 

You see, I realized that in order to get the best studying done, you really have to relax, so your brain can be an open portal, rather than tense and clenched. I'm no neurologist, but let me see if I can explain:

About over a month ago, I enrolled in French school. Everyone is a beginner like me, but somehow I'm "one of the better ones". Why is this? Why is it that I can respond in French fluently and easily, even though we all started out in the same place. Of course, it helps that I grew up with four languages, but I think there is more than that. 

One reason may be because I like to pretend I'm French. I didn't realize  until the guy and girl who sat behind me admitted they felt similarly. "I feel like I speak better French when I pretend I'm an old lady," she said. He said, "Yeah, I know. I feel my French is better when I'm being a douchebag of sorts. And also when I'm drunk" (which is not a new theory). It does help to get into character, but simply to believe that you already know the language, and you are relearning...It makes sense. 

I have a niece, who is very cute, and going to be very smart, because her father is Pakistani/Turkish and her mother is French and they live in Germany, and her parents speak in English to each other. Anyway, what I've noticed is that she will just say words that she thinks sound fun to say. Most adults are (reasonably) afraid to learn the way babies learn. Imagine if an anglophone and two francophones hanging out, and the anglophone randomly picked words out of sentences and repeat them for no reason! How ridiculous he would sound. They would even think he's a lunatic. So adults have a way of taking in information audibly and relying on their brain to store it and remember. So that's why, even in French class, where everyone is as clueless as you are, you are suddenly vulnerable, and you cannot even understand what the teacher is saying to you even though you are trying so hard!

I think the problem may lie with the word "hard". It ruins everything. All my life I was told that the pinnacle of moral good is to "work hard". So believe me, I tried and tried, but I just couldn't. I always left it for later, and all my "hard work" stayed in my daydreams, where I'd promise myself I'd be a good student and "hit the books" and "sit at my desk for many hours a day". Of course, it never happened. I'd want to save it for when I was truly in the mood, until it was exam time and I had no choice.

So when/if I have kids, I'm not going to tell them to "study hard" or "work hard".  I'm going to tell them to study often, but just take it all in. Repeat words that sound fun. Role-play, but not make an organized "activity" out of it. Concentration (supposedly the key to success), isn't tightened up, it's unbundling and allowing information inside you.