Hi there! This is Steve Kaufmann.
Today I want to talk about something that I often think about, when it comes to language learning.
And that is the relationship between language learning and the jigsaw puzzle.
And I think of it all the time as I'm learning Russian and, all of a sudden,
a new piece of the puzzle, basically, clicks for me.
And the relationship is this: that with a jigsaw puzzle you begin with a lot of little pieces
that don't look like anything; there's no image, you have no idea
how you can possibly get from that to the completed picture.
But as you proceed to put the little pieces together, guessing;
you find two that kind of look like each other,
that they belong together, you put them together.
And often by chance you find one that fits in, and of course,
the biggest thing about a jigsaw puzzle is: the more of the picture that you start to see,
the easier it is then to find the pieces that fit in.
You start to sense what you're looking for.
And in language learning I've always felt that
there are certain things that I won't be able to make sense so,
until I have a lot of the other pieces of the puzzle in there.
So, in the case of Russian, some of the cases will...
I will start to notice them. And as they become obvious
and I start to take them for granted, then I focus on some other pieces of the puzzle.
The same is true with, you know, verbs in French or Spanish.
If you're given a whole bunch of verbs or a whole bunch of,
in the case again, German or Russian, noun endings,
you can't possibly absorb them.
But as you put some of the pieces together, then the other pieces start to fit in.
And, in the case of verb endings, always some tenses or some endings will remain more
difficult than others, you may always have trouble with them.
But it's a lot easier to cope with that when the other pieces are already in place.
I mean the same is true with colors, if you're presented with a whole list of colors
you can't possibly absorb all those names of colors.
But as some of the colors start to slot in, it then becomes easier to learn the other colors.
The same with days of the week, the same with months of the year,
the same with any aspect of the language if it comes at you as one great whole set
that you have to try to understand, to learn as a set,
the parts of the body or whatever. It's very difficult to absorb it.
Just like the loose pieces of the jigsaw puzzle,
but as some of the shape forms, and the image start to take shape,
then it becomes easier to learn the other pieces.
And I think it's important to remember that
to particularly when you think you're making very little progress,
slowly different things start to slot into place.
But in order for them to slot into place you have to try to notice,
you have to be consciously aware of those pieces that you have
and those pieces that you don't yet have.
So, just a short comment there on the importance of
being aware that learning a language is picking up a lot of bits and pieces
very often incidentally and that the more you have the more you can learn.
And that's again another reason why you need to keep at it, constantly,
and focus largely on things that you like doing and,
in particular, on consuming a lot of content - listening and reading -
or putting yourself in situations where you,
interacting with people and you're struggling to find
those missing pieces and by struggling a few times,
eventually, you'll start to notice them somewhere
and then they become part of the language for you.
I hope that's helpful to some people.