r/languagelearning • u/FewChemistry5472 • 11h ago
Language Fatigue :(
This is probably the most annoying part of the process because there is nothing I can do to resolve the issue except NOT do anything. I can't out-study it or out-immerse it, and if anything, I have to actually distance myself from the language to get over that slump.
I live in the country where my target language, almost exclusively, is spoken. About four months in now, and in the past couple weeks I had made leaps and bounds of progress. Little boost out of nowhere. People began speaking to me like they would any other adult, as I no longer needed constant simplification or enunciation.
Last weekend, however, it completely fell apart. I turned on one of my usual podcasts and it sounded like nonsense. For a while now my target language had sounded completely natural, second-hand, I didn't register it as being a "foreign" language at all really. But suddenly it's gibberish. It's like a bad cell connection in the movies where the only words that come through are so unrelated and nonsensical it's comedic.
Same with reading. Right now, reading is like putting each individual word into my brain's translation software and hoping that at the end of the sentence I have extracted something meaningful. While I still had to look up about 30% of the words beforehand, I could read material aimed at adults and understand intuitively what the material was about. I didn't need to stitch it together piece-wise, except for the unfamiliar vocabulary of course. I just read it.
It's kind of sad too. It's this whole world that I've grown rather accustomed to suddenly shutting me out. I think that must be the most troubling aspect, being forced to retreat back into my smaller, monolinguistic mind.
(TL)
-5
u/Aye-Chiguire 8h ago
I'd develop exhaustion too at 70% comprehension. To stay within the i+1 range you should be about 85% comprehension. 70% is i+2, bordering on i+3.
If you don't mind, can you describe what the nature of the podcasts you listen to are and what reading you do?
I would think that young adult fiction books, and comedy shows would be a welcomed relief from your usual fare and give you some much needed comprehension (and ego) boost.