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How To Become A Perfect Student In Any Language
Some students often tell me that some of their Greek friends and relatives tell them that, no matter how hard they try, they keep on having issues with their accent and mistakes in Grammar. They make mistakes and the way they speak doesn’t seem natural or correct. I have thought about it a lot. I am thinking about how we can improve that and what is going to be the solution to this problem.
In order to do this, I want you to go back in the moment when this person did this comment to you about your accent, mistake or told you you have been learning Greek for a long time but you haven’t improved.
Close your eyes and feel like you are there.
Where are you now? Are you in a room or outdoors? What are you wearing? Are you feeling hungry? Now let’s get to the other person. Focus on their voice when they talk to you.
Are they speaking in British English? Canadian? English from New Zealand or Australia? What about the grammar? Do they sound perfect or are they telling you that you are not speaking perfect Greek, while they are translating from Greek what they want to express in English?
In most cases, of course there are exceptions, people who criticize others’ language skills are those who speak basic English and they speak like this for so many years that they don’t think about it anymore.
No person who has ever deeply succeeded in something, built something from zero and put real struggle and effort to shape it like a sculpture, has ever discouraged anyone else’s effort to do the same.
Have you ever thought that our opinion about someone else’s potential is, in reality, a confession about ourselves?
I don’t believe these people have good intentions. And if they have, I don’t think these people are smart.
Sorry, not sorry.
We all love company where we are. Especially in misery. Misery loves company more than anyone else.
So, we don’t care about these people’s criticism, because in reality the criticism is not about your skills in Greek.
Now, we put these people aside and it is only you and me.
Because our goal has nothing to do with someone’s critisism, but the goal remains. The fact that we reply to the critism doesn’t mean we play small with our goal.
When we learn a language we expect ourselves to be perfect. We want to be perfect. And we want to be perfect today.
Read this paragraph twice. Can you see how not realistic this is? This has also nothing to do with language. And now this is not about the other person, now this is about you.
We will speak about this in another chapter. Now let’s talk about what working with the language really is about. This is a huge chapter in the learning process and honestly I don’t know where to start from.
Think about it like the sketch. See how those who draw with grey pencils do it.
Now let’s take a look at this circle again.
This video about drawing has helped me a lot in the procedure of learning new things and how I react in the procedure of learning.
- Perfection is in the simplicity
- Perfection takes a lot of time
- But basically it is a human made aspiration.
As I see it, the key to get into any language, is to focus on communication, not perfection.
Let’s start with a simple circle. It is round and beautiful. If you take a closer look though, you will notice that this circle literally is a combination of imperfect circles that all together form this nice, perfectly round circle.
If we try to draw a circle only with one line, our circle is going to be crooked and ugly, except if you are a professional. If we constantly try to make a circle only with one draw of the pencil the circle will always look ugly and in the end we are most likely to convince ourselves that we cannot draw, we will quit and in the future we will be saying that quitted drawing because we once had tried to make a line of a nice circle but we didn’t make it.
But in reality, drawing is not about perfect lines that come perfect naturally with only one attempt. It is about many, many imperfect lines that create a beautiful image and it comes after a lot of practice.
Practice that took place in a room, when no other person could see the artist.
Tiny, imperfect lines create a perfect circle.
Exactly the same applies to the language. When you see someone speaking, writing or listening to a foreign language and be able to communicate, you don’t see just a talented person. You see a serious person who has failed and forgotten things millions of times, some people maybe made fun of them at some point for making mistakes. You see a person who has given real time on practicing the language, listening to the music, reading about artists and doing Grammar exercises.
As I see it, the key to get into any language, is to focus on really practicing the craft and trying to communicate with others, but most importantly with ourselves.
Languages are made to serve the humans, not the opposite.
We are learning languages to communicate with our fellow humans.
Enjoy the time you spend with yourself but also respect the rules. Always keep in your mind those two things and you will always be in the right path.
The top priority of learning a language and learning anything new is to enjoy ourselves while we are getting smarter.
This article is imperfect itself. Its only purpose is to communicate with you. Since we are born until we die, we are trying to do one thing. To communicate with our fellow humans.
To encourage you. To show you the way as I see it through my mistakes, my failures and the ridiculous moments in my life that I cannot remember them all. But also I want to encourage you with the moments I succeeded, with the moments that made me proud and really happy that I could communicate in a foreign language.
Because I want to succeed.
And let me tell you something, seriously. No person who feels deeply successful, not necessarily successful in social terms and terms of the capitalistic system, succesful in life terms, being caring, helping and giving value to lives and communities, EVER puts anyone down.
Good people who have made it and really dreamt of making it, they never say: “You cannot do it”, “This is not for you”, “Why are you doing this?” “You don’t really need this”, “You are not talented”.
When someone tells you, you cannot do something, all they do is a confession about themselves and the fact that they love your company where they are.
When you can see the stars, don’t let the people who have a ceiling on the top of their heads convince you that “the stars don’t really exist” or “the stars are not for us”.
Realize that YOU actually can see the stars, and practice to learn more.
Have a great day.
Efi Asvesti
Teacher @ Copywriter @
MyGreekTeacher.com
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