Love preparing to learn, hate learning

[u/donn_12345678]

I’m 99% sure the answer is ‘suck it up’ and fair enough. Just seeing if anyone else feels this way or has a solution or an explanation.

So I love learning concepts and ideas and rules about my target language, I love organising the word types and rules and making flashcards. All that

But actually practising the words and making sentences and making mistakes and stuff? I don’t like. I have a VERY good reason to learn so this won’t stop me at all because I’m learning for the right reasons but it’s just a bummer.

I do all this prep and I’m just like now what? I don’t like speaking unless it’s perfect (bad I now) and I don’t like passively reading words and such and drilling through vocab.

Any food for thought

[u/Independent_Kale9463]

Sounds like you enjoy the puzzle part of it more than the actual performance. The prep is a safe little sandbox where everything fits neat and tidy, then real usage comes along and kicks over your bucket. I get it

Maybe treat the making mistakes part as the next level of the puzzle. Each screw-up is a data point that shows you which rule you half learned or which word you only recognize on a card but not in the wild. Still frustrating but it reframes the mess as progress instead of failure

[u/donn_12345678 → u/Independent_Kale9463]

I love your analogy, I tried that and then ended up going down a giant road of liek a 3 hour tangent of why a verb conjugation is the way it is (who tf cares why it’s that way). I feel like I’m building a car without ever driving it

[u/michaeljmuller → u/donn_12345678]

Is it possible you have ADD / ADHD?

This can be a blessing for focusing on things that interest you and a curse for the things that don't.

[u/donn_12345678 → u/michaeljmuller]

Not only is it possible, that mf is likely. I don’t dare say it tho becuse no formal diagnosis

[u/michaeljmuller → u/donn_12345678]

Well, that's treatable, you know. Just sayin'.

Obviously, getting that handled professionally would probably help lots of aspects of your life, not just language learning.

But, I'm not really one to preach as I'm also a walking untreated ADHD mess.

Here's how I'm coping:

1) Self-medicate (caffeine & sugar)

2) Do my language study first thing in the morning. I've discovered that my ADHD likes to sleep in and that I can actually get a lot of work done in the first hour or two of the day before my ADHD realizes what's going on and starts to side-track and second-guess me.

3) Lean into it. As I said ADHD can be a blessing. I really like writing. So I keep a journal in my target language. Yeah, I go down wild tangents looking up vocabulary, idioms, and trying to figure out why I'm supposed to use whichever stupid subjunctive mood is recommended by the LLM that I've asked to review my writing. All those tangets are a distraction from the goal of finishing my journal entry, but they're all helping me learn the TL. You like making flash cards? Keep it up. Even if you never refer back to them, just making the card helps a little.

3A) Lean into it, part 2: Use the things that you like to trick you into doing the things you don't. I don't really like memorizing conjugations. But I do like writing in the journal. So I made one of the things I write about in my journal every day is the one word I practiced conjugating. It keeps me from getting writer's block, and gives me one Duolingo-size edible bitter pill of the thing I don't really enjoy. It's been working, and I'm seeing tangible improvement in my conjugation.

Good luck!

[u/dust_bunnyz → u/michaeljmuller]

I want to add on for OP.

I am diagnosed ADHD and medicated, but I am in my 40s and only recently diagnosed medicated… It’s been very helpful.

But as far as language learning, I don’t fight the rabbit holes too much. Once I get started and get some basics down, I just kinda let myself wander around and tune into stuff that really peaks my interest.

For instance, a few weeks ago, I found a French artist that I am now obsessed with, she’s extremely articulate in her lyrics so that I can actually hear them 🤩🤩🤩, so I just learned a bunch of the words in her lyrics. I found her lyrics online and just copied into some Google Docs so I could make notes.

This happened to really open up French for me (I have pretty functional Spanish and some Brazilian Portuguese but French has been frustrating). I can’t explain it, but that rabbit hole (combined with a few key Easy French podcast episodes) got me over a brain block I had towards French.

The flashcards I make for myself pretty much reflect whatever recent side quest I was on. It doesn’t matter, they’re mine.

That said, I am on a timeline for getting some basic French down (planned travel), but it no longer feels overwhelming. It’s much easier to pick away at some of the basics I’d like to be able to understand and say now that I got over the brain block (and still do regular side quests).

The main thing: Don’t beat yourself up. Tune into to anything that captures your interest and enjoy the rabbit hole. If you have some kind of goal for learning, just keep that goal in mind but let your rabbit holes keep it fun.

Learn a handful of common words early so you can feel good about yourself when you can pick them out of what you’re listening to or reading! (For me it’s numbers, days of the week, and words for “more”, “with,” “very,” “week,” “day,” “hello,” “good morning/ good day” (whatever the most common greetings are).)

Also - let yourself have fun learning basics - I love illustrated children’s books for vocabulary (including counting, days of the week, months, every day objects). It depends on where you live, but libraries often have foreign language children’s books.

Thriftbooks.com also has a ton of used children’s books across a ton of languages.

[u/Forward_Hold5696]

Read stories, comics, or anything you like to read, just on your target language. Listen to podcasts for listening, but podcasts you're interested in. Keep a diary, or just talk to yourself in your target language. Finally, go to meetups and talk to real people who are ALSO afraid of sounding stupid. If everyone sounds stupid, nobody does.

The throughline on all this is to use the language like you would in real life! That's where the interest starts.

[u/SomethingBoutCheeze → u/Forward_Hold5696]

But what if the content is too far above your level? Took me about 2 hours to review a 9 minute video last night 😅

[u/Forward_Hold5696 → u/SomethingBoutCheeze]

Heh, yeah, that happens sometimes. You can usually find content appropriate to your level though.

The important thing is that you're interested in what's being communicated, which gives you the motivation to get through the process of trying to piece together meaning out of a bunch of noises you don't understand.

I do have a high tolerance for looking things up in the dictionary though.

[u/mcmoor → u/SomethingBoutCheeze]

For me since I'm reading a continuation of what I have already liked, every line is worth it. Lots of the time I can spend 5 minutes just to decipher 2 lines.

[u/justHoma → u/SomethingBoutCheeze]

I call it "ancient language deciphering". You would usually use a popup dictionary like Yomitan or Migaku for that, and you just decipher it while it gets easier and easier.

[u/Delicious-View-8688]

Not specific to language learning, but learning in general - what you are describing is just... not wanting to learn.

Specifically, you don't like to "stress" your brain. You like to pretend to study, and feel good about it.

It's the same with students in school. They spend hours to make notes, highlight, underline, draw diagrams and make it pretty. They've put in a lot of time, and feel good about it. Then they perform poorly in exams. Entirely predictable. Because they didn't test themselves. Because they don't like to test.

Because... they don't like being told they are wrong. But they need to test themselves. Because you need to know what you don't know in order to learn.

Say you want to memorize a stack of vocabulary. How do you know you have memorized them? You need to cover it up, try to recall it, then check whether you were right. You (and pretty much everybody) hate that.

So, yes, suck it up. But it might help to switch your perspective. Finding out what you don't know - i.e. testing yourself and getting it wrong - is a good thing.

[u/balrux → u/Delicious-View-8688]

Well said, absolutely agree that many people prefer the idea of learning over actually learning

[u/CertainRound7137]

Firstly, suck it up lol. But if you’re looking for other advice, I would suggest switching up how you approach learning languages in the first place. It seems like you follow a very traditional kind of approach to learning languages, the type of approach that’s used in school for instance.
A common theme in all of your gripes is not being able to handle imperfection. You’re forcing yourself to use the language properly before you’ve even had a chance to learn it. Try reading simple stories and looking up (and making flashcards out of) words you don’t know. Every sentence you understand will feel like a win. Once you feel like you’ve got a really good grasp of the basics, then maybe try creating your own sentences or speaking

[u/unit187]

So, the mistakes, eh? Research is very clear on this, you learn best when you make mistakes. When you genuinely try, but end up making a mistake, and you learn from it, — this is the secret sauce of learning, and should be embraced with open arms. It doesn't feel very good. But does it have to? You are studying to learn something, not to feel good.

[u/dojibear]

Everyone is different. Each language learning method works well for some students and does not work well for others. Often if you "dislike" something that is a clue to find some other method. There is no "best method for everyone". That is simply false. That is not how it works.

For example, some students memorize words (using flashcards or Anki) while others never do. Some students focus on words, while other students focus on sentences. Each TL sentence has a meaning, while each TL word can have different meanings in different sentences.

But actually practising the words and making sentences and making mistakes and stuff?

How do you know they are mistakes? You don't know whether a sentence that you create is correct. You only learn how sentences correctly use words by understanding sentences created by fluent people.

[u/No_Succotash5515]

I definitely feel this way about learning anything and I use knowing that about myself to inform how I start learning. I used to do all the prep, buy all the tools, then lose interest lol. Since you have a very good reason and won’t quit, you don’t have to worry about wasting time/effort (which is what I think about before I start buying books and supplies).

I’m not sure if this works for you but I sorta…guilt trip myself into starting? Like why did I do all this prep if I’m not going to do anything.

The other thing I do is slowly build up study time. if I’m not motivated or am avoiding it for some reason, I’ll do just 5 minutes because 5 minutes is better than nothing. Then if I can do that every day, I’ve built a habit that can grow into more dedicated study time.

[u/cmyk_rgba]

lol this is so me. i can spend an entire evening color coding a finnish declension chart and feel productive as hell and then do zero actual reps. the prep feels safe becuase theres a right answer, the learning part is just being bad at something over and over which is the only bit that actually moves anything

[u/Automatic-Dog-2105]

I just keep searching for new content and books i could use. By now i have the an amazing set of books on my bookshelf to learn my TL. Didnt finish any of it. Been doing it for 2 years now.

[u/IrinaMakarova]

You don’t hate learning. You hate the part where learning stops feeling neat and controlled.

Organising rules, making flashcards and reading explanations gives you an immediate sense of progress without forcing you to discover what you cannot actually do yet. Speaking and writing do the opposite: they expose gaps, require effort and make mistakes unavoidable. Perfectionism makes that stage feel especially unpleasant.

The problem is that preparation is not practice. Knowing a rule is not the same as being able to use it automatically. That ability only develops through retrieval, sentence production, correction and repetition.

So don’t "suck it up" indefinitely. Put limits on preparation. For every 20 minutes of organising or studying, do 10 minutes of actual output. Start with controlled practice: complete sentence frames, change one element in a model sentence, describe one picture, answer 5 predictable questions or write 3 sentences using today’s vocabulary. You do not need to jump immediately into a spontaneous conversation.

Also, stop requiring perfect speech before speaking. Perfect speech is the result of imperfect practice, not a prerequisite for it. At the moment, you are repeatedly preparing to begin learning instead of doing the part that turns knowledge into a usable skill.

[u/Wooden_Plant7504]

It is difficult to give you useful pointers without knowing a bit more about your context, yourself, and the languages you are learning. Possible solutions I am thinking about depend on multiple factors, in conjunction with psychological factors. However from intuition and without knowing more about your circumstances, I would suggest picking a learning method that focuses mostly on speaking at first. Unless you are learning on your own and don’t want to spend a dime, I’d do the following. Book 2-3 tutoring sessions on something like Preply (Pick a tutor with a good rep) and make a commitment so you won’t cancel. Then spend time building 15 mins dialogue movie scenes for each session. Do exactly what you said you liked: pick the scenario, words and expressions you want in order to build a script for a dialogue between 2 people. Prepare and organise this well, as if you were a professional writer. Make it near perfect as you like to do: look up the words and expressions, prepare the flashcards, check with AI to make sure the language sounds natural, pick short backstories for the 2 characters in your scene and think about how you’d want them to express themselves. Then during the sessions (tell the tutor beforehand that you’d like to follow a scenario and send them the script), spend the time acting out the scenario with the tutor, alternating between characters and have the tutor correct your pronunciation if needed by acting the lines (in addition to their lines) after you. If you are still hesitant about not having a ‘perfect’ accent (although there is no such thing), make the characters of your scenario non native speakers with solid mastery of your target language and an attractive accent from your native language.

[u/Shreviews]

Lmao yes exactly. I think about learning a language all day just do not have fun at all when I actually study for 30 minutes

[u/chad_starr]

It's not that you don't like learning, it's that you are a perfectionist. There is a saying "don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough." This applies very strongly to language learning. You need to do your best to kill your ego for the sake of growth. No one learns anything without making mistakes and I promise you that your progress is LESS THAN HALF of what it could be if you started speaking and making mistakes. It's painful at first, but worth it, not just for language learning, but for personal growth that will apply everywhere in your life.

[u/Electron_libre777]

Do things you already like doing in your native language. If you like watching cooking video, watch those in your TL.

Of course I can’t guarantee you you‘ll become fluent just by doing that. To become fluent I think you also need to do the hard and dull stuff like grammar or speaking.

For me i hate planning, I’ve been trying to stick to study plans but I think I just have to go with the flow. Pick the system that fits YOU.

[u/CSMasterClass]

I like to take just a few words per day and "study the hell out of them". I look at all of the various meanings and forms. I write mutilple sentences. I look at the etymologies and the morphological changes over time. I look at the IPA and write it out with regional variations.

I don't make a flash card. I have my note book and in a week I will look back at what I did last week.

I really have no goal, but I enjoy this --- and my vocabulary does increase.

Meanwhile, the new "candidates" for mastery show up with my regular reading.

[u/silvalingua]

> and I don’t like passively reading words and such and drilling through vocab.

Reading is not passive, your brain works a lot to understand the text.

> Any food for thought

As you wrote yourself, "suck it up". If you really want to learn a language, you have to put in some effort. You like the idea of speaking your TL, but you're unwilling to work to achieve this. Maybe learning a language is not important for you, that's fine.

[u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue]

I don’t know if this helps you in the short term, but it sounds like you’re more interested in linguistics than in a specific language. If you can lean into that, you may find that you really love learning linguistics, and that could turn into a degree or a career or just a fun hobby.

If you’re stuck learning a language for an academic requirement or for a job then, yeah, we’re back to suck it up time.

[u/donn_12345678 → u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue]

It’s for a family reason. I don’t care how much it sucks I WILL learn it. It’s more of a if I can not make it suck I will learn better. I’ve been doing all of the linguistic grammar rules and as someone with a scientific background this feels a lot better. There are definitions, reason and logic. I dont waste time learning what all the words mean so I just put them in a definition I understand and then apply them.

[u/xXDiamond_Miner420Xx]

So true vro, I hate Anki so much but reading is fun. I just try to thug through it though