How many mistakes should one make?

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eido
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How many mistakes should one make?

Postby eido » Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:21 pm

How many mistakes should one allow themselves to make when learning a language if they want to speak it well?
Of course, “well” is relative. I mean comprehensibly, and not broken—to a high level. If you’ve learned a language by allowing yourself to make as many mistakes as possible, how did that go? Do you have many fossilized errors in your output? (Naturally, some languages have more resources than others, and I recognize that. But I also recognize humans are just as resourceful as their lack of resources.)

I’m learning a new language where finding the answer to why something is wrong is quite a bit more difficult than the first language I learned, so that’s why I ask. I like to research and correct myself before I let my work be seen, so this is quite a shock.

Thank you to all who respond. If you need me to clarify something, just let me know.
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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby iguanamon » Tue Aug 18, 2020 3:03 pm

Mistakes are just as much a part of the learning process as anything else. Mistakes are integral to self language-learning. We all make mistakes. I make them. I will continue to make mistakes. The thing is we must try to learn from our mistakes and try to make different mistakes in the future :lol:

I can't give you numbers. Over time, with more interaction with the language. The mistakes become fewer. It does take time and frustration. Self Language-learning is a humbling experience.
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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby Cavesa » Tue Aug 18, 2020 3:51 pm

Hmm, it has never occured to me you could choose :-D :-D :-D
I've probably overlooked that in my brain's basic settings.
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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby eido » Tue Aug 18, 2020 4:25 pm

iguanamon wrote:I can't give you numbers. Over time, with more interaction with the language. The mistakes become fewer. It does take time and frustration. Self Language-learning is a humbling experience.

Cavesa wrote:Hmm, it has never occured to me you could choose :-D :-D :-D
I've probably overlooked that in my brain's basic settings.

Maybe my question was too specific to me, though I tried to make it have wide appeal :roll:
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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue Aug 18, 2020 4:45 pm

Essentially, the more mistakes you make, the more you learn.

That’s why I try to make 200 mistakes a day on my language learning missions.


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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby SCMT » Tue Aug 18, 2020 5:01 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:
Essentially, the more mistakes you make, the more you learn.

That’s why I try to make 200 mistakes a day on my language learning missions.


https://www.fluentin3months.com/mistakes-matter/


Does it count if you make the same mistake 200 times in a row?
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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby tarvos » Tue Aug 18, 2020 5:37 pm

It doesn't matter how many you make as long as you learn from them :)
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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby SCMT » Tue Aug 18, 2020 6:00 pm

tarvos wrote:It doesn't matter how many you make as long as you learn from them :)


That's the part I forget sometimes ;)
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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby rdearman » Tue Aug 18, 2020 8:21 pm

I do a lot of management and one of my topics is continuous improvement. I often tell people; All business have problems, but only invest in companies who have different problems than last year.

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate. - Thomas J. Watson CEO of IBM

“Failure is a teacher; a harsh one, but the best.” Thomas J. Watson

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all, you can be discouraged by failure – or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you’ll find success. On the far side of failure.” Thomas J. Watson

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” ― Albert Einstein

“Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.” ― Salvador Dali

“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” ― George Bernard Shaw
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Re: How many mistakes should one make?

Postby Iversen » Fri Aug 21, 2020 7:18 pm

The first problem is to discover the errors (or have them pointed out to you). This will always cause some disturbance into your train of thought and/or working processes, and if you are overwhelmed by errors you can just as well give up and start studying things in a more systematic way where you make fewer errors - and make them in situations where you have a chance to correct them.

But the more controversial thing is what harmful effect the errors you DON'T discover may have in the long run. There is a theory that they get fossilized and will mar your production in the language until the end of your days. I'm not so sure: the best time to discover that you have been massacrating your target language for years on a certain point is when you are sufficiently on top of things to have the time and savvy to correct the problem - not when you are still struggling in the swamp. The only caveat is that you may have become too selfconfident at that point to do something about the problem.
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