ZPoIr_LFCsw.srt

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Uh,
no.

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Say,
uh,

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Paul,
uh,

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[inaudible] Burke,
Cornell,

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uh,
man,

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I've been studying Indonesian for six 
months and 17 days and I still can't 

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introduce myself.
What's going

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and Andrea.

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Hi Guys.
This is Paul.

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Today I want to talk to you about one of
the most important elements of learning 

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a language of studying a language.
And that is consistency.

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This is one of my mottos is consistency 
is king.

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If you read my blog or something you've 
ever talked to me about languages,

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you probably heard me say that slogan,
that model,

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the consistency is king.
Uh,

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the people who really get good at 
languages are the people who study 

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consistently.
They study every day come hell or high 

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water.
They don't find excuses to skip the 

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studying.
The people who don't really learn as 

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much,
the people who,

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Ooh,
don't get that good that people would 

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learn just a bit.
Um,

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those are the people who just study 
whenever,

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right?
I feel like it,

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the people who don't study consistently,
they just study based on a whim.

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So I like to think about consistency in 
a couple of ways.

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The first way is like this,
um,

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your language ability is like a bucket 
with a small hole in the bottom,

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right?
Uh,

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so the water,
the liquid inside is your language 

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ability and if you stopped studying,
then there's a slow leak and your 

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ability will slowly diminish if you 
don't talk about the bucket.

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But if you top up the bucket every day 
by studying,

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then you can maintain the level,
uh,

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consistently.
You can maintain a certain level or even

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raise the level of the liquid inside the
bucket.

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But it's when you stop studying,
when you're not consistent,

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then gradually day by day,
each day a little bit of the liquid 

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leaks out the bottom and the level 
diminishes.

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So that's like your language ability 
going down.

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So if you've ever studied a language for
a couple months and then you took a few 

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weeks off,
like maybe you just lost motivation or 

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whatever,
then you came back to it.

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You probably noticed if you probably 
felt that you had lost the majority of 

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what you had learned.
Right?

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Uh,
so that's because you had that little 

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bit of liquid in the bucket.
And then it gradually mostly leaked out.

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There was probably some residue in 
there,

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a few drops,
but you probably lost a lot of the meat 

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of what you had learned.
So,

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um,
it's one,

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uh,
one example.

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Uh,
you,

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if you've ever been a couple of years 
into studying a language like a year or 

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two,
and then you took a few weeks off,

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you probably noticed that your level had
diminished a bit.

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Probably it had gone down,
but you probably didn't feel like you 

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lost most of what you've learned because
it's that gradual diminishment is that 

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gradual lowering of the level.
It's a slow leak.

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So the more of a beginner you are,
uh,

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the more of your ability you will lose 
if you're not consistent.

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Uh,
but the way to always maintain your 

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level and to keep increasing it is to be
consistent and top up the bucket every 

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day.
So that's one way I like to think about 

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your consistency of and studying.
The other way I like to think about it 

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is,
uh,

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in terms of investing,
when you invest money over time,

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uh,
when you do it consistently,

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you can gain compound interest,
right?

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Uh,
that means that you make interest on the

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money that you invest,
but then you make interest on the 

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interest as well.
Uh,

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this is similar to a phenomenon that 
I've noticed when studying consistently.

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When you study every day consistently 
and you don't take days off,

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you're learning kind of takes on a life 
of its own and you end up learning more 

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than you would expect from the amount 
you're studying.

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Right?
Um,

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that's partly because just your brain is
learning,

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uh,
in the off time when you're not 

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studying,
it's kind of processing things in the 

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background all day.

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Uh,
but basically if you are consistent,

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then you can get your,
your learning to sort of critical mass 

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where it starts to take on a life of its
own and you learn more than you would 

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have if you had studied that same number
of days.

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But with breaks in between.
So it's really important to,

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um,
to always keep investing on a daily 

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basis,
investing regularly so they could,

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you can get that compounding effect in 
your learning.

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Okay.
So that's another way I like to think 

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about it.
So there's the,

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the bucket with a hole in the bottom,
but then there's compounding interest.

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There's those two ways.
So the most important point is study 

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every day.
Be Consistent.

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Also put in a certain amount of time 
everyday.

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Try to commit as much time to it as you 
can.

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But more important than that is to do it
consistently every day.

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How do you be consistent?
That's the question that remains.

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A lot of people intend to be consistent,
but they end up taking a lot of time,

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often being inconsistent.
So those people usually are taking 

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action based on how they feel at the 
moment.

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They wake up in the morning and they 
think,

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oh,
I'm tired today.

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A screw it.
I just want to study today.

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Uh,
they're basing their actions on the 

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feeling of that moment,
which is something you can't really 

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control.
I mean,

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the way you feel depends on all sorts of
different factors out of your control.

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It depends on maybe what you ate 
yesterday.

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It depends on the weather.
It depends on how well you slept,

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depends on stress at work,
all these things.

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Uh,
so you can't really control it that 

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easily unless you're always monitoring 
all those things really closely.

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So the way to,
the way to take action should be based 

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on your vision for your outcome,
what you want to get out of learning 

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that language.

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And also based on just the commitment,
a commitment to achieving that outcome,

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achieving that vision.
So let's say you want to be a French 

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English translator.
That's your dream.

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So you have to have that vision in mind 
for the future,

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that goal,
what will that look like?

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And then a commitment to work hard every
day to achieve then,

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right?
So then in that case,

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if you have that vision and commitment 
when you up in the morning and you're 

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tired or you're hung over or whatever,
then you will just tell yourself,

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okay,
I don't feel like it today,

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but I have that vision.
And the commitment.

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So I'm going to do it anyway because 
it's not based on the feeling.

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So that's how you,
that's how you can be consistent is by 

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doing that.
All right.

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Don't let it be based on a feeling.
A feeling is changing by the moment.

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It's out of your control.
A base it on your vision and commitment.

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All right.
Hope that's helpful.

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Thank you very much for listening and 
talk to you,

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right?

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Yeah.