What is Automatic Language Growth (ALG)?

Well, the term is one I’ve only just come across. After watching this video and then checking out Beyond Language Learning, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve been far more ‘conscious’ in my input than I should be.

I’m sure either of the links above will explain ALG much better than I can. I must have come across them before—the site name certainly sounds familiar—but for whatever reason, didn’t stick in my memory.

I already knew the general principles of language acquisition—comprehensible input, no translation, no memorising, no grammar. However in practise, I haven’t stuck to that 100%. It’s easy to say, much less easy to do.

Am I Trying to Take Shortcuts?

One of BLL’s posts on shortcuts made me consider whether I’ve been looking for shortcuts, or not giving myself enough time to naturally progress, especially with the Ukrainian/Russian. The Russian was my solution to making Ukrainian more comprehensible to me; however, I’ve been hitting this point I’ve called the “desperation threshold”.

When I can’t follow/focus on the input I have available, can’t find enough of a variety at my level, or just grow tired of watching/listening to the same content over and over again, I start looking around for something new.

In some cases, this would definitely be a shortcut. I was guilty of doing this with the French several times, not because I didn’t have plenty of suitable input (a very enviable amount compared to Ukrainian!), but because I wasn’t able to focus on what I had for long periods of time, so wasn’t reaching my goal*, so essentially wanted a shortcut.

*When I first started acquiring French, I wanted to aim for 11 hours of input a week, based on a guide to how many hours of input required to become fluent in a year. That target proved much too high for my circumstances at the time and actually proved demotivating.

What About Russian Input?

Whether it counts as a shortcut when I just don’t seem to have enough suitable input, I don’t know. Something to ponder. I absolutely love In Russian From Afar’s A1-level stories told with a whiteboard—but there are only three of them. The A2 ones don’t have enough visual clues for me to follow the story without any translation; I get completely lost 30-50% of the way through. I find many of the other A1-level videos quite difficult to follow too.

Comprehensible Russian’s Zero Beginner playlist, which is where I started, is made up of some videos I now find too easy, a handful of ones right for my level now, and some (mostly geography-focused) which I’d find much more interesting if I could actually follow what she says, but I can’t, and it just becomes noise.

Taking Shortcuts in Russian

Over the last few weeks, after hitting that desperation point, I tried watching my way through an immersive Russian course on Youtube. I like the way the tutor started most lessons just speaking basic Russian with enough context clues to follow, and that there was no translation in any of it. When she started grammar explanations, I learned to tune out the details and just focus on listening for words I recognised in what she was saying.

I didn’t finish the course, after it got too grammar-intensive. At the time I wasn’t worried about accidentally learning grammar, because I’m rubbish at retaining that kind of information. (I still have to think hard to remember the differences between verbs and adjectives.)

However, now having watched the video on ALG, I regret watching the course. I probably did make some subconscious progress, but was my doing it in this way something that could be detrimental later? Perhaps that’s something to discuss with an expert. Along with a few other questions I have, that I think I’ll save for another post.

Conscious Learning

I did recently sign up for Lingopie, a streaming service for language learners. Like LingQ, FluentU, Netflix extensions and pretty much every language-learning resource along these lines, it has the feature of clicking on a word to see the translation. I did that once, because будет was a word I kept hearing but couldn’t understand, and it was frustrating me not being able to figure out what it meant.

Now I can see I’ve been approaching Russian far too consciously. It was easier with French, not just because Alice Ayel’s videos are engaging enough that it’s easy to forget they’re even in a foreign language—but because so many French words were already in my vocabulary when I began.

However, I know it’s possible to acquire a language from knowing 0 words, in the right way. And I’m in the process of learning that just because I can’t get the message of individual sentences, doesn’t mean that that input is worthless until I progress further. It might be slower than if I had a plentiful supply of ideal input, but enough repetition of words and phrases does go in.

Why Japanese Has Been Different

I knew a grand total of two Japanese words before I started trying to acquire Japanese. At this point I can say I now know four words, which doesn’t sound like much progress, but there are others which are now familiar.

I switched from Japanese Immersion with Asami to Comprehensible Japanese, as after the first few lessons I didn’t find the former particularly engaging. The repetition was good to start with—I can pick out certain individual sentences when I hear them now; before they would just have been noise—but I don’t get on with the format of watching someone else learn and the pace is too slow for me.

Comprehensible Japanese, while not storytelling (my favourite type of input), nonetheless is something I can focus on in small chunks. (Sometimes not-so-small chunks.) I don’t necessarily get every sentence, but I’m not getting frustrated over it like I have been with the Russian.

Where Mindset Comes In

I think my goal-setting has influenced my attitude to the languages. As my goal has been to use Russian as a stepping-stone for Ukrainian, the language that I felt called to start acquiring last spring, I’ve been approaching Russian with the attitude of needing to progress quickly so I could move onto Ukrainian. I actually called my blog post, and my goal in Pacemaker, “Russian Crash Course”. And so I’ve been impatient with it and approaching it far too consciously.

Japanese, however, while a language I’m very keen to become proficient in, is one I introduced with the attitude that the Russian/Ukrainian is my first priority. I’m approaching the input with a very different mindset. I’m also not stressing about not understanding what I don’t understand, because I know my vocabulary is almost non-existent, and I can progress at my own pace.

The process of writing this post has really helped me work out where I’ve been going wrong. How I will take those lessons on board going forward, I don’t know yet.