How To Correct Mistakes In Language Learning?

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Transcript: Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. I’m in the homestretch now, two weeks to go in my 90-Day Polish Challenge. I’m going to deal with two issues today, one is the issue of correcting mistakes and the other issue is why do I do it.

All right, correcting mistakes. I put up a video of me speaking to one of my Polish tutors, Katarina. Again, to put this is context, for the first two months I just listened and read very easy content to start with, slowly mixing in more difficult content and for the last month, essentially, just authentic content. Then, after two months, I started speaking. So I have now spoken once a day for about eight or nine days. I put up one of my discussions and someone commented that the tutor wasn’t correcting me and that this was no good, so forth and so on, so let me address this issue of correcting.

When I speak with a tutor I don’t want to be corrected while I’m speaking. I make so many mistakes in my Polish that we couldn’t have a conversation if I were corrected every five words or every three words. What the tutor does, and this is the policy we have at LingQ, is send me a list of the words and phrases that I didn’t use correctly or, at least, some of them, then I read this, I import it into LingQ, I save words and phrases.

It helps a bit, but the biggest advantage of the conversation is that I’m forced to use the language and to search for words. I become aware of where some of my gaps are, my problems, and then I become that much more attentive when I’m listening and reading. It’s all part of that gradual process of getting used to the language. I don’t think a correction corrects you. I think a correction, if there are not too many corrections is good. Particularly, there are some things we just never notice if it’s not pointed out to us, so to that extent the occasional correction is good.

Most mistakes that we commit we’re going to correct ourselves or we’ll make that error one time and we won’t make it the next time, until we get better and better at using the language. It’s a gradual process. It’s so important to speak and eventually to write, if you have the patience to do so. It’s the exercise of speaking and participating in the conversation that’s most important. The correction is probably not that very important, especially if it interrupts the flow of the discussion.

As to why I do these things, I’m having a blast with my Polish. I had a discussion this morning, we talked about politics. I understand podcast now like [Insert Polish], which I didn’t understand six weeks ago. I’ve discovered a country and I can’t wait to move on to the next one. I don’t take my language to some level of perfection. That’s fine for those people who want to do it. I’m not going to write a test to see if I’m B2, B1, C1, that’s not my motivation. My motivation is to discover new countries, new cultures, new languages and I enjoy doing it, so that’s my motivation.

Thank you and we continue with the Polish Challenge. I’ll do one more video of a discussion with a Polish tutor at the end of my 90-Day Challenge. Bye for now.