Advice for beginners

When I started this blog, I had this idea that writing down my thoughts about research on how people learn languages would help clarify my thinking on the subject, as well as give me an opportunity to reach out, discover and exchange ideas with a larger community of language learners and researchers out there in the world thanks to the modern marvel that is “the net.”  I’ve been plugging away at if for a while now, starting off as a beginner and slowly figuring out what I’m trying to do with this blog, what I actually want to be writing about, and what drives my curiosity about language and language learning in the first place.

But I made a beginner’s mistake.  I’ve become intimidated by my own blog posts. I’ve been thinking too much about the end product, like I’ve got to write something mind-blowing every single time or else it’s not worth the effort.  And lately, I’ve just felt like doing other stuff.

So I was thinking about giving it up for a while…or maybe forever.

And around the same time, I came across another blogger/creative artist doing some really cool work, and read his comic book version of Ira Glass’ quote on “advice for beginners.”  Here’s a neat ‘kinetic typography’ version of the same quote:

I realized that this was some sound advice, not just for resisting the urge to flake on my blog, but for persisting in the language learning process as well (and really for any creative pursuit I might choose to take up).

I have to say I feel lucky I’ve somehow stumbled into an area of “interesting, and creative work,” as Ira Glass puts it: work that provides me with such an amazing perspective on being human on this little planet of ours.  But I also feel that learning another language itself counts as “interesting, creative work” too. At least thinking about it in that way has helped me to continue to match my ambitions with my daily habits in learning new languages in my struggle to “close the gap” between where I am now, and where I want to be.

So here’s to another year of blogging, language learning and engaging in whatever other creative pursuits you might have in life!

Aloha!

Gavin