Language Learning and Leaning into your Nerdiness
I’m a nerd. No doubt about it. Anyone who wants to understand my nerdiness only has to bring up topics such as history or politics or simply ask me what kinds of non-fiction books I’ve been reading lately, but of course be aware… I may not stop talking once I’ve started.
It took me a long time to quit trying to be the person I thought people would like and instead simply embrace who I am and what I like. Eventually I started breaking through my self consciousness when I realized everyone is a nerd. Everybody gets nerdy about something. Whether its video games, obscure history, movies, tractors, stamps, or whatever secret passion people hide because they’ll get made fun of for it. So, when I recognized we’re all nerds for something, I accepted that I will always be learning about some obscure history or political situation that no one else is interested in learning about and probably not even hearing about.
So what does this have to do with language learning? Everything, I think. The challenge of acquiring a language is that it takes time. No matter what approach you choose it will take lots and lots of time. And it’s difficult to stick with that, especially if the approach you’re using isn’t all that enjoyable. Are you using flash cards because you’re supposed to, even though you think they are tedious and soul sucking? Are you studying grammar even though it scrambles your brain and makes you hate language?
How about a different approach to language acquisition, one where we find a topic we love and let ourselves get sucked in. In fact we actively lean into. Do you like video games? Calligraphy? Comic books? Anime? Astrology? Soap operas? Science fiction? Or do you have a more “normal” nerdy interest like watching movies, sports, cooking, or playing an instrument (don’t worry, you’re still a nerd). Combine the language you want to acquire with your nerdy interest and lean into it. You may even want to choose a language based on your hobby. Do you love astrology? What if you learned Chinese astrology and Mandarin? Do you love anime? Why not Japanese? Soap operas? How about Spanish-language telenovelas? Regardless, there are endless opportunities to explore a language through a passion, from cooking the cuisine from another country to learning songs with lyrics in a different language.
To give you a sense of the potential, I leaned into my history nerdiness to help with Russian. So, I started searching for YouTube videos made by Russian language teachers about Russian history. Because I’m a nerd, I wanted to organize all this, and since I’m a history nerd I organized it chronologically. As my list grew and I added in links to the videos, my nerdy little heart couldn’t have been happier. I searched streaming services for movies and shows with Russian history themes and found lots of stuff on less well known streaming services like Kanopy and Tubi. I explored English language resources about Russian and Ukrainian history, which gave me indispensable background knowledge for making sense of the more challenging Russian language content. I searched the library and found a graded reader about Russian history written in the 1960’s. I found a collection of soviet children’s books online…
…Sorry, let me calm down for a second.
Okay, so my story of things I did may sound excruciatingly boring. Which is fine, because that was me leaning into my own nerdiness. I love this shit, so I became happier as my chronological list of Russian language history resources grew and I explored it more. I could spend long periods of time working though it, watching videos, etc. And voila! I was motivated to work on Russian language, not because I love flash cards (I don’t and therefore I don’t use them), but because I was doing what I love and acquiring Russian along the way.
So, find your nerdiness. And lean into it. Language can be as fun as your favorite hobby.
