What It Takes to Learn a Language: Maintaining Your Motivation

To learn a foreign language is to embark on a grand adventure of personal growth in which you evolve as a person. Your world view will change and expand. And when you speak in your target language, there will be a new you that was not there before, able to express yourself through a different conduit made up of the culture and societal norms of the native speakers.

It’s an immense task that demands a significant investment of your time and attention over an extended period. Motivation is what you need to keep going and ultimately make it to fluency. Interestingly, what motivates you is not static from start to finish, rather it will change over time as your competence increases.

Fortunately, maintaining your motivation becomes easier as your competence increases, but there are plenty of things that can affect and discourage you along the way. Below we will discuss the dangers that await you, how to combat them, then we will conclude by looking closely at the most likely path to success and what it really means to learn a language. Here’s to your fluency!

Factors That Negatively Affect Language Learning Motivation

Unfortunately, when it comes to language learning a large number of learners never make it to fluency. Sadly, it seems most do not make it very far and choose to discontinue their studies in the early stages. Even people who are highly motivated at the outset can end up discontinuing because the reality is that there are many factors which can negatively affect a learner’s motivation to continue.

Factors that negatively affect your motivation to learn a language:

Negative experience with the teacher or classroom environment
Expectations not matching reality
Degree of difference between the target language and your native language
Amount of previous exposure to the target language
Whether you learn in the environment of the target language or in your home environment
Concern over your level of academic achievement
Personality and degree of self-belief
Doubts about your aptitude

Let’s start with one thing that is not on the list. It’s okay to discontinue. Learning a language demands a huge investment of time from you that must be sustained over a long period of your life. If learning another language does not really interest you to begin with and is just not a priority for you, then it would indeed be better to spend your time and effort elsewhere.

But now on to those who feel drawn to a particular language and want to make learning it a priority. As alluded to, the highest risk period is right at the outset. In particular, research indicates that your experience with your teacher and or your classroom can have a big impact on whether you choose to continue or not [1], [2], [3].

If you find that your teacher is too strict or overbearing, and if you find the classroom environment unpleasant, this can be enough to cause you to quit. At the beginning stage, you do not know enough of the language to be an autonomous learner, so you need to depend on the learning environment itself to sustain your motivation to continue. If it’s enjoyable, you’ll more likely continue [2].

Another danger in the early phase is expectations not matching reality. If the target language is significantly different from your native language and any other languages you have learned, it will take significantly longer to learn. A 1993 study found that it takes three or four times longer for American students to reach the same level of oral skills in Japanese as it does in French or Spanish [2].

In the case of learning Japanese, you need to spend quite a bit of time at the outset painstakingly learning the basic writing systems (hiragana and katakana), greetings and simple phrases. Particularly if you are a native of English or another European language, neither the writing systems nor the words you learn have any resemblance to what you are used to. For all the effort, you don’t learn that much [2].

Other big differentiators with Japanese are whether you have any previous exposure to the language and whether you know kanji. Students with no previous kanji background have more difficulty in learning kanji from scratch and memorizing associated vocabulary [2]. By the way, if you are interested in learning kanji, I have written about it here.

Returning to environmental factors, whether you are learning the language in your home country vs. in a region where the target language is spoken can have an effect. In the latter case, opportunities for learners to practice what they learned, and its social utility is more direct than the former [2]. In other words, if you have no opportunity to practice what you learned your motivation can be stymied.

If you are learning a language in school and are concerned about getting a good grade, it means that you are more focused on a benefit other than acquiring the language. Perhaps you need a good grade or perhaps you just expect more from yourself. Either way, just the pressure of it, particularly if you are not doing well, can lead you to discontinue [2].

Other factors that can hamper your motivation relate to you, for example, whether you are extroverted or introverted [1]. If you are an extrovert, you may feel like you can’t study and focus as well as the introverts. Conversely if you are introverted, you might feel that you will never be able to keep up with the confident speaking abilities of the extroverts.

Indeed, your personality has an impact on what you will be willing to do to make progress. Particularly as an introvert, you may shy away from certain classroom activities or real-world interactions [1]. By the way, if you are an introvert and you are concerned that it will affect your ability to learn Japanese, I have written why that is not the case here.

Your personality traits can also affect you. A 1987 survey of language teachers highlighted the following as the traits of a good language learner: meticulous, persevering, sociable, independent, inquisitive, involved, organized, active, flexible, assertive, and imaginative [1]. Perhaps you feel that you don’t possess the right traits.

Or perhaps you feel that you are not a good learner in general. Indeed, one indicator of whether a learner will be successful is past academic achievement [1]. How you feel about yourself, past failures, and abilities to achieve goals has a big impact on your motivation [1]. All that to say, you doubt your aptitude as a language learner. But note the following:

…high motivation can make up for considerable deficiencies both in one’s language aptitude and learning conditions…
Zoltán Dörnyei [1]

Combating Negative Factors and Maintaining Language Learning Motivation

Rest assured that there are ways to combat the factors that affect your motivation. I can’t say things will ever be easy and progress will be slow no matter what you do. But with the right approach, you can carry on and realize your dream of learning a language.

How to persist and maintain your motivation to learn a language:

Remove yourself from an unpleasant learning environment
Get into a learning environment where you can win
Don’t worry about your aptitude
Remove any time limits you set
Make learning part of your routine
Get perspective on feelings of perceived shortcomings
Realize it’s too soon to quit
Work towards short-term goals

If you are here because you are still a beginner and already feel like quitting, it’s okay. As we discussed above, it might not be you. Regarding a bad initial teacher and/or classroom experience you have a few options. If you’re still in the situation, you can choose to get to the end of it as best you can or you can withdraw immediately if it’s just not working.

Whatever you do, realize that it was the situation that was negatively affecting you and not your lack of ability. What you need to do now is seek out a different learning environment. The best advice that I can offer is to switch to private tutoring. If you are looking for a suggestion for where to go for tutors, I have written about working with online tutors via Italki here.

Get free from the pressures of grades and performance. Get in an environment where you can win. This is one of the great things about working with a private tutor. Another is the one-on-one attention in a safe space. Particularly with online platforms like Italki, you can try out various tutors. A good tutor will be invested in your success. Find one that works for you and set the pace for your learning.

Don’t worry about your aptitude. I think the only thing that aptitude predicts is how fast you will learn a language. With high aptitude, you’ll learn faster, with low aptitude, you’ll learn slower. Either way, you’ll still learn with time. In my opinion, sustaining motivation and commitment to keep going is the more crucial factor.

Unburden yourself of any time limits you have set for learning your target language. Accept that it will take a long time. If you’re looking for practical advice on how many hours you should study per day (assuming the target language is Japanese), I have written about it here. Given hours of study per day you can see the number of years it will take to reach working proficiency.

Routine is key! Your learning should be scheduled as part of your daily or weekly routine. It cannot be haphazard. Have some core activities that you do like reviewing flashcards, reading articles, meeting with your tutor… But also remember that having positive learning experiences is important. Be honest about what study activities you enjoy and which ones you don’t. Favor the ones you enjoy.

Be cognizant of burnout and boreout. Don’t do more than you can handle all at once. If you are feeling overwhelmed, dial back your hours, but don’t stop altogether. The best advice that I can offer is to at least maintain a meeting schedule with your tutor, even if it’s only once per week. It’s okay to slow down. It’s not a race.

Manage your emotions. It’s easy to get down on yourself, especially if you feel that you are not making progress, or you have failed. How do you attribute your failures? Was it really your inability, or was it the environment and the fact that you couldn’t dedicate sufficient time to the task? A beneficial attitude is “if I keep trying and put in an honest effort for long enough, I will eventually make it.”

Don’t quit too soon. Let me tell you a story. I worked with one of my tutors for two years before he finally said that he noticed some improvement. I guess this says a few things. One: I am not that talented. Two: it takes time (a lot of time in my case) to improve. Three: it’s hard to notice your own improvement. It might only be a third party that can do that for you.

Have goals. If you are early on in your studies and your goal is “fluency”, this is a good start, but it will help to break it down into some shorter-term goals. A big thing that has helped me in learning Japanese was studying for various levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). This gave me a clear target to aim at and structured my study.

Now I want to address a common answer to the question “how to maintain your motivation?” which is “try to remember why you started in the first place”. This might be part of the answer. But the reality is, your motives for learning your target language may or may not change during your study [2]. If you are to carry on, it’s likely your motives will evolve, and not just your motives, you will also evolve.

Your Evolution as a Learner and What It Really Means to Learn a Language

As a summary, it turns out there is a likely path to language learning success. It starts with a positive initial experience with teachers and the learning environment. Then an intrinsic interest in the language itself develops. Interest continues to expand, and as learners become able to use the language, they can finally envisage themselves as users of the language and press forward to greater levels of competence.

Let’s start by asking why you want to learn a language in the first place. Is it for work or future job opportunities? Because your university requires it for you to graduate? Because you really want to have the skill? Because you are interested in the culture that speaks it? These questions suggest that different types of motivation exist. And they do.

Types of motivation as they relate to language learning:

Intrinsic motivation – interest in the language itself, e.g., grammar, vocabulary, how to express ideas…
Extrinsic motivation – interest in achieving a grade, fulfilling a requirement, avoiding a punishment.
Instrumental motivation – interest in being able to use the language for work, understanding native media…
Integrative motivation – interest in interacting with native speakers, identifying with them and immersing in their culture.

Most likely, your initial motivation is instrumental. If you are learning Japanese, perhaps you want to work in Japan one day, or be able to watch anime or play video games in Japanese. Your motivation could also be extrinsic, for example to fulfill a university degree requirement. In this case, unless something changes, you are likely to discontinue at some point.

In any case, to build the momentum you need to continue, your early experience with your teacher and classroom can either give you a big push forward or stop you dead in your tracks. As mentioned, the reason this period is so important is because you can’t do anything with the language yet. You can’t connect with it. You can only connect with your immediate experience.

I think what started me on my journey of learning Japanese was a specific moment. I was 13 years old, and I watched the anime Inuyasha for the first time. At the start of the show the opening credits roll and a theme song plays. It was the first time I heard a Japanese pop song and recognized that the language I was hearing was Japanese. I also really liked the scenes and style of animation that I was seeing on screen. I think at that moment, I knew I had to learn the language. I was just so enthralled.

When I got to university, I used a summer term to take intensive Japanese classes. I was lucky with my classroom experience. I met friends in my class that I spent the whole summer with. We would hang out together on breaks and we would go out for lunch. I liked my teachers too. But it was my new friends that I really looked forward to spending time with. It was such a great experience.

Assuming you are enjoying your learning, as you learn more and become an intermediate learner, what likely happens is that your motivation will shift towards intrinsic motivation, that is, interest in the language itself. This is an important shift because although you may still have extrinsic motivation, research says that intrinsic motivation contributes more strongly to the desire to continue learning [2].

This was the case for me. After my classroom study I switched to mainly self-study using the JLPT levels as my study guides and milestones. It’s true that I had extrinsic motivation, I wanted to pass the tests to gain the credentials, but I also just wanted to know how things worked in the Japanese language. I loved learning new grammar and vocabulary; it was as though I was collecting them like treasures.

Also in the intermediate stage, you start to be able to communicate with native speakers. Once this starts happening, you really start to evolve, you become motivated by interaction and begin to experience the creation of another social self [2]. This is a profound concept (at least to me). It’s further explained by the following quote:

Language, after all, belongs to a person’s whole social being: it is part of one’s identity, and is used to convey this identity to other people. The learning of a foreign language involves far more than simply learning skills, or a system of rules, or a grammar; it involves an alteration in self-image, the adoption of new social and cultural behaviors and ways of being…
Marion Williams [1]

In sum, what motivates you will be different at different levels. Instrumental motivation will likely be your impetus to start learning but developing intrinsic and instrumental motivation are what will keep you going day to day. Your instrumental motivation can stay with you along the way and serve as a dream for what you’ll one day be able to do [2].

I think I am somewhat of a textbook case of the likely path in language learning. But as I reflect on my experience, one thing that also really helped me was that Japanese has always been a social activity for me. In the early stages, it was socializing with my classmates in English. And when I started being able to use it, I would do language exchange with Japanese exchange students and socialize with them.

If I am being honest, having a significant other, my girlfriend and now wife, who is Japanese, was also a big motivating factor. And once I started working in Japan, another factor was to be able to perform well at trade shows. I want to be able to represent the company I work for as well as one of my Japanese colleagues and I want people who interact with me to have a good experience.

I am still not at the level that I want to be. To get there, I am currently working with three tutors. I talk to each one for an hour every week. Although I am paying for the sessions and the goal is for me to learn new things and improve, it’s still a social activity where I get to use Japanese and have nice conversations with people I like. All this to say, a big part of your motivation is simply enjoying the process.

References

[1] Dornyei, Zoltan. (2005). The Psychology of the Language Learner Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition. Routledge.

[2] Matsumoto, M., & Obana, Y. (2001). Motivational Factors and Persistence in Learning Japanese as a Foreign Language. New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 3(1), 59-86.

[3] Gass, Susan M., Selinker, Larry. (2008). Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course, Third Edition. Routledge.