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In many action or adventure movies, there is at least one scene where one character or the other unloads on his enemies – wide stance, shooting from the hip, bullets spraying in every direction, totally destroying anything that’s in his way. Then, just as he turns around and starts to walk away, he get taken down by the kid that was taking cover behind the car in the parking lot or some other obstacle.
Now, let’s apply this to language learning – bullets (of learning, of course) still fly every which way, but what about the guy in the corner that you completely missed? Or the gentleman who still has enough power to shoot back and stop you right in your tracks?
Do you want these barriers in your language learning?
Do you want to totally miss learning a grammar rule, or think you mastered your pronunciation only to find that you can’t be understood?
That’s exactly what will happen when you shoot from the hip in language learning. You’ll hit a little of everything, but not enough to truly make a difference. You’ll hit around your target, rather than aiming dead center and showing your target language who’s boss.
And you may just be stopped dead in your tracks by the one thing that you neglected to study.
Ready, Aim, and Fire!
To truly succeed in learning your target language, you need to have your goal in your sights and slowly, and methodically, press the trigger.
Having your goal in mind at all times, and working towards achieving that goal – preferably with the end in mind – is really the key to learning a language. If you work with the end in mind, chose tasks and mini-goals based off of that, and continue working towards your goal and completing the tasks you set for yourself, you will succeed.
So, what are you going to do?
Are you going to learn by shooting from the hip, or are you going to take the time to aim before firing?
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