BE 633: The Secret to Language Learning

This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 633, The Secret to Language Learning. Welcome to the Business English Podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.

Sometimes English learners think their problem is vocabulary, but often the issue is something deeper. It's hesitation. You pause to translate. You pause to check grammar.

You pause to search for the perfect word. Those small pauses add up and interrupt the natural flow of conversation. You can respond with ease without constantly analyzing every sentence. Our free two-minute fluency quiz will show you your current level and what skills you need to improve.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hey, Lindsay, how's it going? It's going pretty well, Aubrey.

How are you? How's everything? I'm great. I'm curious, would you consider yourself naturally gifted when it comes to learning languages? Well, recently I've had a bit of an earthquake here because I'm going to France with my family, Aubrey, in November.

And so apparently I'm going to be the French speaker, which is terrifying because, yes, I have historically considered myself good because I feel pretty strong in Spanish, quite strong, quite conversational.

But I'm trying to pick up French again and it's bad. It's really bad. That's funny. It's really embarrassing. I had an italki lesson last week and I got on there and all I did was throw out words in Spanish with a lot of, oh man, just a lot of, oh, this is bad.

Just a lot of... I totally know what you mean because I learned Spanish after French and I would constantly throw in French words or I would use French pronunciation instead of Spanish. They're related enough that they can really mix you up. Oh, it's terrible.

So yeah, these days I'm really down on my skills. So I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I'll learn something from today's episode. I would say no. It's funny.

I used to spend some time on Duolingo with my Spanish and French, but then I discovered chess on there. And now all I do is whenever I have time for Duolingo, I play chess. I'm like learning strategies. My son loves chess.

Oh, on Duolingo, you could play chess? Yes. Duolingo has chess and music. And so now it's like distracting me from my language learning because I just want to improve my chess skills.

Oh, Okay. Very cool. I like that. So we're getting into the concept of being good at languages or not being good at languages today. Aubrey, tell us more.

Yeah. If you've ever thought, I'm just not good at learning languages, this episode is for you. This was inspired by an article that I found called Learning a New Language, Your Mindset Matters More Than Having a Knack, which this was really fascinating to me because I do think there's this common

understanding or, you know, misconception maybe that having a knack for learning languages is, you know, so vital that some people be like, I'm just not good at learning languages. It just doesn't come easily to me. And maybe that doesn't matter as much as we thought. Yeah.

Once we make a decision that we're not good at something, I feel like we probably lose a lot of brain power or ability. We actually lose the ability in a way, I think. It really closes our mind. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. So this was interesting. The authors were Zizhe Zhang and Kimberly Knowles. It was published February of 2025. So we're going to share some of the...

Interesting details from this article share also some of our own thoughts. But maybe you do have more of an affinity for learning English, for learning languages, or maybe not. Maybe you're kind of stuck on this plateau and you're like, maybe I'm just not good at this. I'm excited for you to have these details so that you can maybe adjust your mindset if you realize how much your mindset matters.

I mean, a lot of that is why we focus on connection here on this show. This is really central to what All Airs English is because I've experienced... I mean, French was the first language I learned and I did a lot of freezing up. It was very academic.

I think pretty similar to what a lot of our listeners have experienced with English. So French has always been this language that I feel like I can't do. But Spanish was a different journey. I learned it traveling.

And I realized that connection matters more than anything. The point of... learning Spanish was connecting with other people in South America for me. It wasn't the language, right?

Absolutely. You had such a different mindset about it, right? You were connecting, you were learning to have conversations instead of from a book for a class. And so your mindset would have been totally different.

Yeah. So this is where our whole philosophy for this entire show comes from, is finding something that matters more than just the language itself. What do you get through the language? So I'm excited to get into this.

Yeah. Yeah. So be sure guys to hit follow wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're not following the Business English Podcast, open your search bar and search and hit follow so you never miss any of our episodes.

Love it. So what did the authors talk about around language mindset? Yeah. So they were suggesting that mindset is more important than natural talent when learning languages.

And wherever you work, I'm sure that you have found this as well, right? Your mindset is often more important than any kind of natural affinity for whatever someone does as a profession. We've all seen this. So it makes sense that that translates to language learning as well.

Yeah. Oh, completely. This makes total sense. I do think something happens with the brain when we say, this is something I can't do or that I'm not good at.

I think it just signals to the mind, right? The body follows the brain and it ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. Exactly. We believe it.

We put up these blockers and this wall and suddenly it's extremely difficult because we believe that we can't do it. Yeah. Okay. What else do we need to know here, Aubrey?

Yeah. So the authors of this article describe this language mindset as how someone views specific things, right? Their general language intelligence, which is sort of your current abilities where they are now. Like you are learning English, the vocabulary you have mastery of, your fluency, your abilities where they are, and then also your ability to pick up a new language and what you believe about that, how easily it has come to you in the past.

Yeah. And then also they talk about how age plays a role, right? So this is interesting as well, because there's a lot of study out there about do small children learn languages faster or is it adults that can learn more quickly? Oh, super interesting.

So when we talk about different mindsets, because mindset applies to language learning, we can have, there's a lot of terminology here that has come out recently, right? Growth mindset. What is that, Aubrey? Yeah.

Yeah, that growth mindset means to believe that abilities can be improved with effort, right? If you say I have a growth mindset, that means I know I can improve this. I know I can do better. And then a fixed mindset is just the opposite.

We believe that abilities or let's say language abilities in this case are just innate. Maybe we're kind of born with this talent and you can't get more of it. You can't get less of it. It's just, you've just got it.

Or you don't. No matter how much effort you put in, you don't feel like you could get better, right? And then we have a mixed mindset, which is sort of a combination of both. You feel like you might be naturally talented at something, but you could still work to improve at it.

Yes, exactly. And what else did the author say here about these mindsets? Yeah, this is an interesting quote from the article, which was, ultimately, learners with a growth mindset are likely to become more proficient in the language they are learning than a person with a fixed mindset. So someone who believes that they have certain innate abilities will not learn as much as someone with a growth mindset.

And that really makes sense. 100%. 100%. I love it. So important to know. You could A, B test certain languages too, right? What your mindset or conditions for learning are.

So where should we go from here, Aubrey? Yeah. So we're sharing this point of view for a few reasons. We know that a lot of listeners have expressed to us that they're sort of stuck.

they kind of plateau at a certain point. And this might have more to do with your mindset than with your innate abilities. So if you're sort of thinking that like, this has just gotten really difficult. Maybe I don't have time.

Maybe I'm just not as good at language learning. We're excited to share with you that having the right mindset might help you get past that plateau. Yes, exactly. I mean, yeah, like we said before, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?

Whatever kind of in a way, if you think you can do something and make progress, it will happen because we're approaching things in a very different way.

Exactly, right? And that negativity can slow you down or cause you to give up entirely, right? So believing that you can learn, that you can improve, that you can get past that plateau will help you stay motivated. I'll just say motivated.

And the other piece, something that I look at a lot in my Buddhist practice and meditation, thinking about neuroscience, when we're aware of something, we find it. So if I think to myself, I can learn a language, I will find evidence that I have learned that language. My brain will notice more when I said something correctly than maybe when I said something wrong. It'll just know, oh, I said it right there and there and there.

And then we string that together. And that creates more success. Absolutely. Our brains are looking for ways to reinforce positively what we're doing.

So we're pulling on this. Yeah, exactly. And the confidence that comes from learning, right? If with our mindset, we're ignoring that, we're ignoring the progress we are making.

then we're not going to continue to stay motivated and continue to learn. So don't get discouraged by any kind of learning curve or slow start or plateau. Allow yourself to gain confidence with every new word you learn, with every conversation you have where you're able to connect with someone. Let that be a confidence builder.

Exactly. I mean, so someone with a fixed mindset is going to focus on making mistakes versus someone with a more growth mindset is probably going to focus on, oh, what came from that mistake, right? What did they learn from that mistake? Or what connection moment came from that mistake is what we like to talk about here on All Airs English.

Yes. Have you ever listened to native speakers and thought, I understand the words, but I still feel slightly lost. That's because real English conversations include more than vocabulary. There's speed.

There's connected speech. There are cultural references and casual phrases. Your brain has to process all of this in real time. F-L-U-E-N-C-Y S-C-O-R-E

Okay, Aubrey, what else do we need to know about this concept of the fixed? There was a really interesting part of this article that was talking about how what we think of as talent when it comes to language learning is not actually talent, it's experience. So this I found really interesting, right? So if you have any previous exposure to a target language or to learning any kind of language... Contexts.

Yes, that is creating this feeling of being innately good at something, of having talent for something. It's really more about being exposed to it, having any kind of experience with it. Yeah. So we have that experience.

We have a structure, a little bit of structure, a little bit of context, which helps us grab on to new things within that same language and then feeds that confidence loop, right? Exactly, right? So if you're already learning a second language and then you're learning a third one, you should be feeling that confident, right? You have built the skills needed for language learning, not because you have this innate talent for it, but because you have been creating this experience.

You have been learning these skills. Wow. So interesting. So interesting. And yeah, I mean, it's interesting to think about the way that adults learn languages versus kids, which is a slightly different topic than today.

But you can see that an adult coming in that's learned multiple languages knows how to learn, knowing how to learn, right? Has the frameworks. Okay. Where did the verb go?

Whereas a kid is just literally just, it's Babel at first, right? We're starting to do this. Just producing what they've heard. Yeah, like my son now is four months old, and we're starting to do like a servant return, as they call it, right?

Like back together, like he'll say, and I'll say, right? It's just super interesting to see he wants to communicate. And I don't know, that's, that's a different episode for another day. Right.

That's really interesting because, yeah, there's so many things that as you're learning, you're putting in hours, right? You're investing all of this effort and it's not for nothing. Whether you've thought of yourself as a naturally talented language learner or not, you are gaining all of these advantages, these skills that aren't necessarily innate. They're learned.

So anyone can learn them. Mm-hmm. Yes. And again, keep in mind, guys, language learning isn't just one skill or talent. It's actually a combination of a lot of different things.

And I would even add to this list, right? So it's remembering vocab. It's understanding grammar. It's pronunciation, reading, listening. What else is it, Aubrey?

conversation, picking up context clues, understanding the cultural nuances of language. These are all individual skills that you're learning as you learn languages. So even if you think about the advantage you have over anyone who's never tried to learn a second language, it's amazing all of the different skills that you have built. Yeah.

And I would also add to that list, it's also picking up social cues. So it's social skills, it's empathy. It's sort of like understanding so much more than just the words that someone's saying. There's a lot involved there.

The implication of those words and phrases, you need to have all of those social cues in order to know how informal to be, how semi-formal or formal to be, right? The register of what you're saying. Yeah. So if you are saying I'm bad at languages, I mean, I just said I'm bad at French, which now I feel bad about saying that.

Have we talked you out of it, Lindsay? Look a little closer. I will need to look a little closer after we finish recording today and see where is that coming from. It's an oversimplification.

Yeah, it's normal to have strengths and weaknesses for something to be a little more difficult than something else. But I think the mistake is it depends on our mindset. Are we feeling like I'm just not good at this and closing ourselves off to all of the skills we've already learned that we can build on? Because you can continue to improve those specific skills with practice and time of any language.

Yes, this is so empowering to think about the fixed versus the growth mindset and how we can probably, we can choose to have a growth mindset, right? It's not like we're born with a fixed mindset or born with a growth mindset. I mean, maybe our parents taught us certain ways of being in the world, but we can override those once we know about these differences. Absolutely.

And if you out there, if you have kind of slid into that fixed mindset, and this maybe is a great reminder for you, like, maybe I just need to switch up my mindset and stop getting in my own way, as we say, right? This is the episode I needed, Aubrey. This is great. I love that.

All right. All right. Good stuff, guys. Go check out episode 631 of the Business English Podcast right here. How and when to discuss salary in English.

Another good topic. That's awesome, right? And you can always change your mindset. I think that's a great takeaway here, right? It's not set in stone.

You can decide what your mindset will be like. You know, even if you don't feel like you have a knack of language or if you've gotten frustrated feeling like your language has plateaued, you can still make serious progress. I'm excited for, yeah.

Good stuff. All right. Great, Aubrey. Thanks for being here today. We'll see you back here on the Business English Podcast very soon. All right. Awesome.

Thanks, Lindsay. See you next time. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.

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