The Zen of Language Learning

Now, I am going to propose a quite radical notion and that is that YOU don't learn a language, the language learns itself!

What am I talking about?

You may be sitting at home and think that the time you spend learning a language is you learning, is you absorbing new information, but that's not quite right. The learning process happens by itself, the only thing that you decide is whether to do it or not. The actual learning is independent from your choice.

A language siphons itself into your brain bit by bit, via memory, but can you control memory? No, you can't, what you remember and what you forget is not up to you to decide, it's a process which happens over and over.

For proof of that, open the Anki app with top 100 words in a language. Once you go over the first review, did you remember everything the first time? Of course not! It's an iterative process which you cannot control!

When you remember something, when you manage to finally absorb it, is unknown to you, so let go of this idea that you're in control.

You may wake up, after hours of absorbing the language the day before and suddenly realise that you 'get it'. Some word or some grammatical structure is now making sense and you're able to use it! Well, did you consciously decide to understand it, or did you just somehow gained this ability as your brain was better rested? The truth is that it just came to you, by processes unknown, it suddenly became clear.

Think about it this way, what do babies do when they learn their first language, do they consciously decide that on this day they are going to learn the words for animals and the next day they will move onto flowers etc. etc.? No, they don't, they are in the moment, the learning happens by itself, they are just there to listen and let the process go on.

If you were truly in control then you would choose to just remember every single word on first hearing. On first reading you would instantly commit it to memory perfectly but that's not what happens; you spend hours doing something, letting your brain sink it in.

Thinking that you control your own language learning is like thinking that you control the water because you turned on the tap, you don't. The water flows as it always did, you just let it flow freely, your mind is also flowing freely without you controlling what it does. 

For the best language learning, the point is to let go and let your brain learn the language, you have no choice over it, the only choice that you have is what sort of an environment you're putting yourself in.

The Zen of language learning therefore, is to reach realisation and let go. It is to let go of the idea that you control what you learn and what you don't. You never had this choice to begin with, you don't know what you'll learn or what you won't learn, it happens by itself. You cannot blame yourself therefore for not remembering anything because that is a process independent from you wholly.

Embrace the Zen, let go of expectations, let the words come to you unobstructed and you'll master the language by itself, without pushing for it. Learning a language is like watching a river flow, let it happen without obstruction.

Don't feel bad or guilty because you cannot understand something, it is not something you can control. Just let it be, let it go, learn without trying, learn without the ego, and it'll come to you or not, you've got no control and since you have no control, why feel guilty?

It's utterly illogical to feel guilty over things you couldn't have chosen to do, do you feel guilty over Kennedy's assassination? Why not? Because you had nothing to do with it, so why feel guilty over language learning?

This is not to say that you should forego looking for better techniques, after all, water flows better in some environments over others, but this is precisely the issue, you can only choose the environment, you can't control the flow. So choose an environment in which you learn the best.