Is your vocabulary not growing at the rate it used to? Does your grammar feel stunted? Tired of having conversations about the weather but feel you can’t make the leap to talking about complex feelings? All of these are instantiations of the Intermediate Plateau. But they don’t all have the same underlying causes.
In order to figure out how to overcome your particular case of the Intermediate Plateau Effect, your guide Emily will walk you through 6 of the most common reasons that language learners experience an Intermediate Plateau – followed by helpful tips for how to address each one!
Sign up here for more FREE language learning content (like the awesome goal-setting worksheet we mentioned): https://info.mangolanguages.com/glc-signup
If you found this episode helpful, check out our “Fluency Illusion” video, which is chock-full of active learning tips to help you reach your fluency goals! https://youtu.be/9jpuqv_B3pE
Or, watch our video on Learner Feedback, available here: https://youtu.be/U_xkXA0daOg
If you’d like the blog article that accompanies this episode, click here: https://blog.mangolanguages.com/tired-of-being-stuck-at-just-conversational-in-your-target-language
We also invite you to check out our website at: https://mangolanguages.com/ and follow us on social media @MangoLanguages. And remember – language is an adventure. Enjoy the ride!
Wondering what languages were used in today’s episode?
Buenos días and nos vemos are expressions for ‘hello/good day’ and ‘goodbye/we’ll see each other’ in Spanish.
In Chaldean Aramaic, ܫܠܵܡܵܐ ܥܸܠܘܼܟܼ (shlama ilookh) and ܦܘܿܫ ܒܸܫܠܵܡܵܐ (posh bishlama) are ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye/stay in peace.’
废话不多说 (fèihuà bù duō shuō) means ‘without further ado’ (literally translates as ‘don’t talk nonsense’) in Mandarin Chinese.
Interested in learning English, Spanish, Chaldean Aramic, Mandarin Chinese, or one of the other 70+ languages that the Mango app offers? Click here to learn more! https://mangolanguages.com/app
Want to know more about the scientific research underlying this episode? Check out this great read → Richards, J. C. (2008). Moving beyond the plateau. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Emily Sabo (PhD, University of Michigan) is a linguist at Mango Languages. A Pittsburgh native, her areas of specialization are the social and cognitive factors that impact bilingual language processing. Having studied 7 languages and lived in various countries abroad, she sees multilingualism -- and the cultural diversity that accompanies it -- as the coolest of superpowers. Complementary to her work at Mango, Emily is a Lecturer of Spanish at the University of Tennessee, a Producer of the “We Are What We Speak’ docuseries, and get this...a storytelling standup comedian!
#languagelearning #languagestruggles #intermediateplateau