You Must Treat Language Learning Like a Physical Workout

So what do physical exercise and language learning have in common?

That question leaves most people I ask reluctantly smiling with contrived anticipation as they wait for the punch line. But although the question sounds like a run-up to a Dad joke, the truth is that it is an honest question that I ask people to think about. Especially those people who are interested in learning a foreign language.

In addition to the head scratching, someone will inevitably answer, “hard work.”  And that is an excellent response. Learning a language requires effort, dedication, and good old-fashioned sweat. No excuses and no shortcuts.

But despite the idea of hard work and effort being correct, it is not the answer I would like people to consider.

What we must truly take into account regarding language is that it actually acts in the same way as any type of physical activity. Yes, indeed. Just as our brains send signals to our muscles to perform so too do they send signals to our vocal organs to produce speech automatically.

Both physical activity and speech are reactions to a mental trigger. We must therefore train for language with that in mind.

When we use our muscles for any type of activity we have learned such as dancing, football, chopping onions, or walking, we do not have to think about how to actually move the muscle. We’ve trained for it enough so that the movement is automatic.

Likewise, when we speak our native language, the same thing happens. We’ve absorbed it so well that we do not have to stop and think about how to express ourselves. Imagine what real-world conversation would sound like if that were not the case: everyone having to pause to think about how to conjugate a verb, choose the correct preposition, or insert the correct endings to the adjectives in order to say what they want to say. That would be way too taxing on the brain, not to mention, leading to extremely ineffective communication. By the time our ancestors would have been able to scream, “Watch out! Lion behind you”, well, we would already have been served up for lunch.

Nature has therefore made speaking a language as seamless as muscle movement, allowing us to express ourselves quickly and automatically, and thereby get our message across instantaneously.

For that reason we must approach our language learning as we would our physical training with the ultimate goal being optimal performance. This means an automatic and natural ability to express our thoughts in our new language.

Unfortunately many still treat language as any other academic subject to be learned and approach it as an intellectual activity.  This is mistaken.

In order to learn a physical activity well, we must build our physical reflexes. When we set out to learn a foreign language, we must build our verbal reflexes.  We do this until speech production becomes automatic.

So when training for a sport, for example, how do we build reflexes? We do so through repetition and continual practice.  So let’s start with that:

Repetition

We learn physical activities by observing and then repeating optimal performance thereby training our own muscles to move in the same way as those of the experts. Repetition techniques in language are designed to train our minds and vocal organs to produce speech quickly and flawlessly, just as a native speaker would.

This may seem obvious, but many people do not use these techniques, choosing instead to focus on studying grammatical rules or memorizing vocabulary, or by trying to speak immediately. The thinking goes that you must speak the language in order to learn it. But unless you’ve first build up your ability to actually say something, speaking will not only be painful, but will also will not help you advance.

You should first focus on building reflexes in the language through repetition techniques. Treat these as strength training and do them until you can’t do them anymore. Just as your muscles grow in physical training, so too will your mind and vocal organs grow allowing you to use your new language automatically.

Practice

In any sport, we must practice and do a lot of it. This goes beyond repetition in which we are trying to build reflexes, and moves into actual performance in a game. But remember, in sports, there is much more practice that takes place before we actually confront another team. 

When it comes to language, we should take a similar approach. Often when we think of practicing we think immediately of going out and speaking with people on the street. That’s fine, but I want you to think of it in another way.  We should actually begin practicing alone before we put ourselves into real-world situations.

The reason is that we are building our ability to actually produce natural and correct language, meaning that when we do go out to speak, not only will we be able to express ourselves better, we will also learn much more from the experience. It will be easier for those who are listening to us to follow and therefore participate in the conversation, which thus gives us a much richer learning experience. 

A point often ignored in language education, is that by forcing students to speak immediately and when they are not ready, will result in very unnatural speech. Since they have little experience actually building sentences not to mention a lack of vocabulary, they will invent their own way to express an idea in the language. This is not ideal and should be avoided. We want to use the language as a native speaker would, not just spit out a few words to try and make a point.

So how do we practice on our own?  Simple, that one:

Create your own dialogs, role-plays, imaginary situations and act out all of the parts. Prepare for these by looking up vocabulary you want to use. Identify the grammar you would like to try and incorporate into your dialogs. Write down notes afterwards on points you would like to clarify, where you stumbled, or what you did correctly.

This type of practice is an excellent tool that can be done anywhere, anytime, and is a way of preparing yourself for real-life performance.

Speed

Doing speed reps is a well-known strategy in sports too. Why? Well going for speed isn’t just designed to get you to move faster, it is also designed to get you to move without thinking or worrying about the movement. When you go for speed, your mind has one task: to get something done and to get it done fast.

Similarly, if we use speed reps in language training, we are training our brains to send the necessary signals so that our vocal organs can spit out full sentences quickly and naturally.

This trains us, not only for verbal reflexes, but also for being able to associate meaning to those sentences instantaneously. By focusing on speed, while all the while keeping in mind what the sentence is about, your mind will not have time to think about grammar, vocabulary, or anything else. Overthinking will slow you down and we want to avoid the following, all-to-common tendency to begin questioning ourselves as in “Hmmm…I wonder why that sentence is constructed that way, are those adjective endings correct, etc.”

So as you repeat or perform practice sessions, focus on the meaning obviously, but rev it up and go for speed.

It’s Time to Get Moving

Stop looking at a foreign language as just another subject to be studied, memorized, analyzed or as something that you will eventually be tested upon.

Treat language for what it actually is: a verbal habit, an automatic reaction, and a spontaneous ability.

Get yourself out of the academic and intellectual mindset and instead step onto the playing field.

Ready, Set, Go!

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