I don’t consider myself to be particularly different than other serious language learners, so I assume that the rest of you out there experience the same problem that I do: Falling into language habits.
I think it’s natural for us to find ourselves trapped in the familiar and reluctant to explore. Some people may consider it a trait of “laziness”; I like to think of it as “fall-back productivity” – We “fall back” into things we know we can easily complete. It becomes a routine. No – More than that. It’s a rut. A rut-tine.
In language, though, we’ve got to work to get out of that rut-tine. We’ve got to bust the rut. The easiest way to bust the rut-tine is to become your own “master of flexibility”. It takes conscious effort at first. As usual, let me toss out an example.
I found myself in the 急に (きゅうに） rut when expressing an idea of “suddenly”.
「その運転手が急に右に曲がった」
["The driver suddenly turned right."]
But if you always rely on the same terms, your skills don’t expand. So what I suggest is that you pick a handful of alternative words and consciously sprinkle them into your conversations and writings for at least a week. Let them marinate in your language stew until you can fully grasp their unique flavor. Mmmm, language stew.
Anyways, replacing 急に in the above example, we could instead use,
「その運転手がいきなり右に曲がった」
Whenever you come across a term that you don’t always use yourself, take note of it and add it to your “handful of weekly language stew ingredients”. In the middle of your conversations, if you must, backtrack a little bit to make sure you are pounding it in to your language skill set.
「ものすごく静かなカフェでゆっくりしていた私は、後ろから急に……じゃなくて、いきなり肩をたたかれた」
["I was sitting in an incredibly quiet cafe, casually passing the time, when someone suddenly......no, abruptly tapped me on the shoulder."]
(Oh, and there’s another example – Instead of the very comfortable, textbook-fundamental 「とても」: ものすごく.)
So, all of you language learners, go out there and make a habit to break your language rut-tine!
Related posts:
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Good idea, in fact, it may be one of the best ways to develop. At lower levels, such as myself, I try and force new grammar functions as well as words into my conversation. Without doing so, there is no way I could continue. It’s good to know that the same process’ll work further up the ladder.
I agree totally but would add the caveat that you should venture with new stuff when you have a safety net. During conversation, this means friends I know are comfortable with correcting me and lang-8 is great for writing stuff you’re not sure is correct.
My point is, exploring is good as long as you’re reinforcing the good stuff and correcting the bad stuff.
You’re right, there’s no way to start using new words other than give them a shot. Like Tae said, it’s best to do this in conversations with friends/family who could correct you if you use it the wrong way (getting the right context is sometimes subtle). Luckily I don’t think Japanese has quite the number of synonyms that English does!