What do you do when you're feeling frustrated?

[Bex]

After spending at least two weeks wondering what on earth I am doing, I was inspired to open a thread about this topic.

I feel very emotional about my Spanish, maybe it's because I've invested so much time into it? Maybe because moving to a country where I don't speak the language (at all) is one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I don't really know why I am so emotional about it but I do know that the reason I haven't given up yet is because of this forum, the encouragement I have received has always kept me going.

Every time I have been lost or down someone on here has given me a few kind words of encouragement or a suggestion to get me back on track.

We all experience frustration every now and then, it happens within many areas of our lives, but for this thread I would like to focus on language learning. I am interested in how others get through their rough patch and don't just give up on their language learning.

Please add any thoughts, tips, stories and even encouragement you may have in respect to helping others to move past the feelings of hopelessness, frustration, etc..

Maybe, like myself, you are going through this right now?

Edited: typos

[Steve]

I think the two questions to keep in mind are these:
1. Do I actually enjoy what I am doing?
2. Is it effective?

If something is not enjoyable to us, few of us have the discipline to keep forcing ourselves to work daily at something that is drudgery or frustrating for us. If something is enjoyable, we are much more likely to turn it into a habit and look forward to doing it.

If something is not effective, we are not going to make much progress over time. What is effective for us will change over time. Many activities that are helpful as a beginner will likely be less and less helpful as we progress. An activity that is not helpful for us as a beginner may at some point be very helpful once we've made adequate progress.

There are many possible activities, methods, and strategies that allow us to use and practice a new language. For our language learning to be efficient and sustainable, we need to determine which of those things are both enjoyable and effective for us at our particular stage of progress. The approach I take to evaluating anything I'm doing is twofold. I first monitor my boredom and frustration levels. If I find something boring, there's a good chance it's losing effectiveness. If I find something frustrating, there's a good chance it's either beyond my current level of progress or it's just not suited for me. Second, I monitor if this activity is actually helping me improve or if I am just coasting along. This is something that to a large extent is going to be different for all of us both due to our individual differences and tastes as well as differences in our language learning progress.

Of course, some use of a language is just simply a regular activity that I've swapped out doing in English for the new language. I don't worry much about if it's helping my progress because it's just a fun way of using the language. However, I do keep track of my learning and growth activities as to being both enjoyable and effective.

[reineke]

If you're in the habit of getting seriously frustrated over things you can try tackling that holistically.

Are you getting frustrated over something that might be biological? Based on my review of your approach to language learning I think it's way too early to blame nature. What are your goals and what are you doing to reach them?

Maybe you feel you've earned the right to feel frustrated. You can read/reread Thornbury's defossilization blog.

On the first page of your log you wrote:

"I live in Spain and I would like to be able to talk with my neighbours, dentist, doctor supermarket attendant….etc, etc.

Year 1 (2015) Fiesta. Living in expat bubble. Learned how to order a beer.

Year 2 "Frustration.You enrolled in classes but you spoke very little.

Year 3 Year 3 2017: Finding your way.
"I went back to teaching myself and had an almighty struggle with myself to continue with my studies. But I did it, I finished Assimil, Glossika 1, Michel Thomas and Duolingo.thanks to much support on here along the way."

The unholy alliance. You didn't find your own way. You followed.

"Then I got lost again, I didn't know what to do after the courses and I still wasn't speaking."

Towards the end of the year you did some italki tutoring.

Year 4 The "input" challenge.

That's still not your own way.

Your recent "stats" look OK if you consider that for you guys a book is 50 pages. I saw some forum talk about how many pages one "needs". To do what?

In December you wrote something odd:

This week's stats....

Read 212 pages in total.
1 hour of listening.

My extensive reading is much faster than I was expecting. Lots read this week.

Audio is very good for forcing me along and not allowing me to look up words, although I have had to speed up the audio a lot in order to keep up with my reading speed. I have had the audio at double speed, otherwise I find myself drifting off.

I have only managed 3 Glossika GSR2 tracks this week..."

And then in February

"Listening: I am trying to improve my listening skills. I can listen and follow all of a NIS intermediate podcast and I know from reading the transcripts afterwards that I have understood correctly. When I read the transcript I understand 90-99% of it so there's hardly any unknown vocabulary.

However there are words/sounds that I just miss because I can’t process the speech fast enough, I know that this will come with practice and lots of listening but it is annoying me, and I know that slowing down the audio doesn’t help me with this...so I have decided to speed up the audio to double speed. I am going to listen to the same 30 minute double speed audio everyday during next week and see if I can speed up my listening skills at the same time.

My hope is that if I can follow the 30 minute audio completely after a week then it will seem slow when I listen at normal speed. Or I may just be mad?

Speaking: I appear to have given up on Glossika. It’s too difficult and I am never in the right frame of mind for it. I may just add one random extra iTalki chat once a month to keep on track with my speaking target.

Reading: I am finding the Harry Potter book difficult to read, .."

Speeding up the audio... I've seen that before. Yeesh. Glossika - hat's not speaking. Good riddance.

Do you have any Spanish friends? Can't you tutor someone in English in return for Spanish lessons? Can you volunteer somewhere or tutor the neighborhood kids in English? You know, "explain" stuff in Spanish. Do your own kids study Spanish? If those two sick kids were just visiting you can still spend some time watching easier programs. That could include some nonfiction. Do you listen to Spanish music?

[Bex]

Year 4 The "input" challenge.

That's still not your own way.

Because I have no idea what I'm doing

Your recent "stats" look OK if you consider that for you guys a book is 50 pages. I saw some forum talk about how many pages one "needs". To do what?

I have no idea! To learn Spanish or maybe to learn to read Spanish to an acceptable level..who knows?

In December you wrote something odd:

This week's stats....

Read 212 pages in total.
1 hour of listening.

My extensive reading is much faster than I was expecting. Lots read this week.

Audio is very good for forcing me along and not allowing me to look up words, although I have had to speed up the audio a lot in order to keep up with my reading speed. I have had the audio at double speed, otherwise I find myself drifting off.

I have only managed 3 Glossika GSR2 tracks this week..."

Yes I wrote all of this...why is it odd?

And then in February

"Listening: I am trying to improve my listening skills. I can listen and follow all of a NIS intermediate podcast and I know from reading the transcripts afterwards that I have understood correctly. When I read the transcript I understand 90-99% of it so there's hardly any unknown vocabulary.

However there are words/sounds that I just miss because I can’t process the speech fast enough, I know that this will come with practice and lots of listening but it is annoying me, and I know that slowing down the audio doesn’t help me with this...so I have decided to speed up the audio to double speed. I am going to listen to the same 30 minute double speed audio everyday during next week and see if I can speed up my listening skills at the same time.

My hope is that if I can follow the 30 minute audio completely after a week then it will seem slow when I listen at normal speed. Or I may just be mad?

Speaking: I appear to have given up on Glossika. It’s too difficult and I am never in the right frame of mind for it. I may just add one random extra iTalki chat once a month to keep on track with my speaking target.

Reading: I am finding the Harry Potter book difficult to read, .."

Hmm maybe I should look back through my log more often...this is all from Feb 2018 I think, please correct me if I'm wrong. It appears that now I can do all of the above. Glossika has been pretty straightforward so far, Harry Potter still has plenty of unknown vocabulary but I can now read it and my listening skills have definitely improved...

....maybe I should just shut up and stop whining.

Do you have any Spanish friends? Can't you tutor someone in English in return for Spanish lessons? Can you volunteer somewhere or tutor the neighborhood kids in English? You know, "explain" stuff in Spanish. Do your own kids study Spanish? If those two sick kids were just visiting you can still spend some time watching easier programs. That could include some nonfiction. Do you listen to Spanish music?

No Spanish friends only English ones that I met in the expat area when I first moved here
I have no "neighborhood" I live in the middle of nowhere and my kids bus to school, so I don't even have other parents to chat with. I think all this may be the real root of my problem... I'm feeling very removed from Spanish life and so learning it seems pretty pointless.

I do listen to Spanish music and I think maybe it's time I made some Spanish friends. There's an exchange every 2 weeks in a village not too far from me, maybe I can ignore my extremely unsociable nature and force myself to go. Trouble is I really struggle with all social situations, even with people I know.

[reineke]

Bex.jpg

go-get-em-tiger.jpg

[Flickserve]

.No Spanish friends only English ones that I met in the expat area when I first moved here

This, this and this. The environment.

You practice and learn but you don't use the language frequently enough in a daily context.

I am not the best language learner myself but you need to use the language frequently enough in practical situations, notice the words that come up and then for them together a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

Use the language means now spending the vast proportion of your time listening and a bit of speaking.

It's classic studying behaviour - you study and practice in the way that feels most comfortable and unconciously avoid the hard stuff (which is your listening comprehension and environmental use).

[Xmmm]

I got very frustrated with Russian. It was a combination of unrealistic expectations and too much studying.

My solution was to slack off and lower my expectations.

One huge advantage of my reineke-inspired "studying without studying" approach is it's really impossible to get frustrated. Like, it's Friday evening here and I have no plans. So, go home, eat dinner, watch Ezel (Turkish) and the new season of невский. What could be frustrating about that? I would bet money that since September 2015 I've watched less than 15 hours a year of TV in English.

Tomorrow I have an Italki session in Italian. That is probably going to be slightly frustrating. Okay, so I'm frustrated one hour a week still ...

If I were you, I'd hit all the little shops and annoy the clerks by using your Spanish on them. If they speak to you in English that's okay, speak right back in Spanish. Probably any new Spanish friends aren't going to be excited about speaking Spanish with you unless you're already pretty good, but the clerks don't have any choice -- they can't leave.

[tomgosse]

I usually eat a couple of chocolate chip cookies.

[reineke]

One huge advantage of my reineke-inspired "studying without studying" approach is it's really impossible to get frustrated.

... only about 9 more years to go...

[Bex]

I think the two questions to keep in mind are these:
1. Do I actually enjoy what I am doing?
2. Is it effective?

This seems a sensible suggestion once you're at a higher level but how would you get through that awful beginners material? I still can't watch TV and understand enough to make it enjoyable yet....any suggestions?