All you need to do is take one look at many practitioners of personal development to know that people don’t always get what they want. For the most part, you’ll see these individuals spending a good portion of their lives attempting to achieve a goal, yet remaining unable to get it.
The same holds true for many of us, whether that faraway idea that persists in our minds are of being infinitely rich, ridiculously famous or immensely successful in some form. While we spend a lot of our time reading instruction books and teaching manuals about those goals, we remain largely unable to achieve them.
Language Learning Growth
In the area of language learning, we often see the same thing. Students will spend a good deal of their time poring over instruction books, language learning software and video tutorials of all sorts, yet fail to show much progress towards mastery and growth in the field.
Reading, studying and watching all sorts of informational materials isn’t bad. It’s just that too much can get in the way of actual learning. While part of progressing in any field involves such forms of study, most people tend to have a propensity for dwelling on it excessively, leading to plenty of time spent, with little results to show for it.
The reason is simple. Learning is largely a function of application. While theory and study does have its place, the field is the only real place to learn in. In fact, many students end up using studying as a substitute, to mask their fear of live, real-world interaction.
If you truly want to learn a language, you must apply yourself both in study and practice. The further along you go, the more time you should be spending on actual application, instead of theoretical learning. That’s simply the way it truly works.