Ep 50- The ONLY METHOD You Need to Learn Spanish- "The Slight Edge" - Learn Spanish a lo Boricua

Summary

Podcast Summary: Learn Spanish a lo Boricua
Episode: Ep 50 - The ONLY METHOD You Need to Learn Spanish: "The Slight Edge"
Host: Kerry Brennan
Release Date: September 1, 2024

Introduction to "The Slight Edge"

In Episode 50 of Learn Spanish a lo Boricua, host Kerry Brennan delves into the transformative method she advocates for mastering Spanish: the principles outlined in Jeff Olson's book, The Slight Edge. Brennan emphasizes that amidst the plethora of language learning apps and methods, this approach stands out as the singular strategy needed to achieve fluency.

Kerry Brennan [00:00]: "I can promise you the method that you are going to learn in this video is the only thing you need in order to successfully learn Spanish."

Understanding the Slight Edge Philosophy

Brennan introduces listeners to the core concept of The Slight Edge, which revolves around making simple, daily decisions that may seem trivial but, when compounded over time, lead to significant results. She refers to these as "simple daily disciplines" that form the backbone of sustained language acquisition.

Kerry Brennan [00:00]: "Little things that seem insignificant in the doing, yet when compounded over time, yield very big results. You could call these little virtues or success habits. I call them simple daily disciplines."

Key Principles:

Consistency Over Intensity: Engaging in small, manageable actions daily rather than overwhelming oneself with lengthy study sessions.
Ease of Action: The tasks are "easy to do and easy not to do," making the choice to engage or skip straightforward.

Application to Language Learning

Brennan relates the slight edge principles directly to learning Spanish, drawing from her 20 years of studying the language and her experience teaching students. She outlines practical actions that learners can incorporate into their daily routines to steadily progress.

Kerry Brennan [00:00]: "It takes all of two seconds for me to open up my flashcard app, pick on a deck, and then it may be another two to five minutes for me to review my words."

Practical Strategies:

Daily Vocabulary Review: Utilizing flashcards for a few minutes each day to reinforce new words.
Listening Practice: Incorporating Spanish podcasts or audio materials to train the ear.
Speaking Practice: Engaging in conversations or language exchange to build speaking confidence.
Reading Aloud: Spending five minutes each morning reading Spanish texts to improve pronunciation and comprehension.

The Flywheel Analogy

To illustrate the cumulative impact of consistent effort, Brennan shares an analogy from Jim Collins' Good to Great, describing the process of moving a massive flywheel. This metaphor underscores how persistent, seemingly minor efforts eventually build unstoppable momentum.

Kerry Brennan [00:00]: "Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort."

She parallels this with language learning, explaining that no single study session or practice moment is solely responsible for fluency. Instead, it's the aggregation of all these small actions that lead to significant proficiency over time.

Personal Journey and Insights

Brennan recounts her personal journey to bilingualism, highlighting the challenges and triumphs she experienced by adhering to the slight edge method. She candidly discusses the slower-than-expected progress and the importance of perseverance.

Kerry Brennan [00:00]: "What might seem insignificant in the day... compounded over time, what that equals is you can't express who you are."

She shares a pivotal moment when she achieved fluency, attributing it not to a single breakthrough but to the consistent application of daily disciplines.

Overcoming Common Obstacles

Addressing common frustrations among language learners, Brennan identifies three primary reasons why people struggle to maintain consistent study habits:

Ease of Inaction: The simplicity of skipping daily tasks.
Delayed Gratification: Not witnessing immediate results can be discouraging.
Perceived Insignificance: Small actions may seem trivial but are crucial for long-term success.

Kerry Brennan [00:00]: "The things that create success in the long run don't look like they're having any impact at all in the short run, and that's why it can be hard to keep doing them."

Encouragement and Final Thoughts

Brennan reinforces the message that the slight edge method is not just a learning strategy but a lifestyle choice that fosters discipline and gradual improvement. She encourages listeners to embrace patience and trust in the process, assuring them that their consistent efforts will culminate in fluency.

Kerry Brennan [00:00]: "This truly is the only philosophy you need to successfully learn Spanish."

Call to Action

For listeners seeking personalized guidance, Brennan offers consultations to help tailor daily disciplines to individual goals and circumstances, emphasizing the importance of bridging the gap between current abilities and desired proficiency.

Kerry Brennan [00:00]: "Consider booking a consultation with me. That's what I do. In these sessions, I help you bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be."

Conclusion

Episode 50 of Learn Spanish a lo Boricua serves as a compelling testament to the power of consistent, incremental effort in language learning. By adopting the slight edge philosophy, learners can navigate the complexities of Spanish with a structured, sustainable approach that prioritizes daily progress over sporadic, intense study sessions. Brennan's blend of personal experience and actionable advice provides a clear roadmap for achieving bilingualism, making this episode an invaluable resource for anyone committed to mastering Spanish a lo Boricua.

Transcript

A (0:00)

If you feel overwhelmed by all of the methods, all of the apps that exist for language learning, let me tell you as somebody who has done what it is you are trying to achieve. I can promise you the method that you are going to learn in this video is the only thing you need in order to successfully learn Spanish. Just last week I finished reading the book the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, and while this book is incredibly inspiring and can truly help you create success in so many areas of your life, I couldn't help but notice all the parallels to language learning and the lessons that I constantly harp on with my students. And today I want to share a little mix of the principles that are covered in the Slight Edge as well as the things that I myself can tell you from experience, from 20 years of studying Spanish, from having become bilingual, and from four years of leading other students through that process. Here are your most important takeaways in order to create success in learning Spanish. What is the Slight Edge? Let's look at this section of the book together. Little things that seem insignificant in the doing, yet when compounded over time, yield very big results. You could call these little virtues or success habits. I call them simple daily disciplines. Simple, productive actions repeated consistently over time. That, in a nutshell, is the Slight edge. I want to share one more quote that I think does a really good job of summing up this whole concept. It's about patience and the understanding that little steps compounded do make a difference. That the things you do every single day, the things that don't look dramatic, that don't even look like they matter, do matter. That they not only make a difference, they make all the difference. A central idea in the book, the Slight Edge, is that these simple daily disciplines are things that are easy to do and easy not to do. It takes all of two seconds for me to open up my flashcard app, pick on a deck, and then it may be another two to five minutes for me to review my words. Easy to Do, Easy not to Do Another key idea that Jeff Olson introduces in the book is that the Slight Edge is always working. It's either working for you or it's working against you. So if we go back to this idea of decisions that are easy to do and easy not to do, the decisions that you make not doing, of not picking up your cards, of not doing your listening practice, of not taking five minutes in the morning to practice reading out loud. Those decisions are working against you in Spanish in the same way that those easy to do decisions like picking up your flashcards and taking two minutes to review your vocabulary, like putting on a podcast so that you're working on training your ear and working on your processing speed, the choice to do your speaking practice, those things are creating the slight edge towards success. What you decide not to do daily is dragging you down on the slight edge towards failure. All of my students are adults, most of whom have full time jobs and many of whom have children. I'm not asking anybody to spend three hours a day on Spanish. I didn't spend three hours a day on Spanish. When I picked it up again, what I did was create those slight edge habits, the things that were easy to do day in and day out, reviewed my vocab, reviewed and rewrote my corrections, got on a language learning website or language exchange website to try to find language partners and consistently doing those things. I was able to reach my goal of becoming bilingual, which to me meant being able to be who I am in Spanish. It did not happen overnight. It didn't even happen in the time that I had wanted it to happen, that I had stipulated for myself to reach bilingual level. I wanted to be bilingual by the time I was 30. I wasn't even living in Puerto Rico when I turned 30 and once I got here, people said, carrie, despuesd unano tu espanol baser excelente. Your Spanish is going to be great after a year. I said, a year? No, six months. I understand my students deeply because I also did not want it to take the time that it took. My students often come to me and wonder if they should be doing something differently. Why? Because the progress is so slow that they feel like they're doing something wrong. But it's not that the actions are wrong, it's that people don't keep doing them. And why don't people continue to do these actions that would lead them to success? And as Jeff Olson defines it, it's for three reasons. Number one, while these actions are easy to do, they're also easy not to do. Number two, you don't see results at first. And number three, they seem insignificant, like they don't matter, but they do. You might not realize how significant it is for you to pick up and review your flashcards often, but I speak this language every day and let me tell you how significant it is. There are things that you use daily that you will no longer have trouble recalling that just become part of your everyday speech. But there are also plenty of things as a non native speaker that you have learned and would like to use in a moment, but you don't use often enough to be able to recall like this and you've not had long enough exposure, consistent exposure for those things to be filed into your long term memory like they are in our native language. What you realize when you live in your second language is that your vocab and the phrases that you have taken two minutes a day to review are your freedom of expressing yourself. I go back to the idea of me being bilingual meant that I could feel like myself in Spanish and without the amount of words to express the huge variety of things that I feel or the ways that I want to express who I am, then I can't possibly feel like myself. Your vocab is freedom. The phrases you learn are freedom. Freedom to create the person that you are in this language. I know it doesn't seem that significant in the day when you decide to review or not to review your vocabulary, but compounded over time, what that equals is you can't express who you are. I made the easy decision thousands of times to pick up my damn vocab and review it. And because of it I now feel like I can say I've reached my goal of becoming bilingual, of being able to be Carrie in Spanish. I want to give another example of how the simple disciplines you decide to do or decide not to do have a huge impact in your overall process of learning Spanish. I am posting this episode to our Learn Spanish Aloboricua podcast. Most people who come into learning Puerto Rican Spanish comment right away. They speak really fast. When I first came to Puerto Rico in 2016, I had to listen with all of my attention to sort of follow what was going on. Now, eight years later, it's the best Spanish I understand. I had a student asked me once in the open Q and A sessions that I host on my Spanish with Kerry platform, what was the one thing I did to improve my listening comprehension of Puerto Rican Spanish. And to answer that question, I want to share another section from the Slight Edge. This is actually John Olson, the author of the Slight Edge, quoting Jim Collins from the book Good to Great Picture. A huge heavy flywheel, a massive metal disc mounted horizontally on an axle about 30ft in diameter, 2ft thick, weighing about 5,000 pounds. And now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on its axle as fast and for as long as possible. Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward. Moving almost imperceptibly at first, you keep pushing, and after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire Turn. You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster. And with continued great effort, you move it through a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction. 3 turns. 4, 5, 6. The flywheel builds up speed. 7, 8. You keep pushing. 9, 10. It builds momentum. 11, 12. Moving faster with each turn. 20, 30, 50, 100. Then, at some point, breakthrough. The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward. Turn after turn. Whoosh. Its own heavy weight working for you. You're pushing no harder than the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort. A thousand times faster. Then 10,000, then 100,000. The huge heavy disk flies forward with almost unstoppable momentum. Now, suppose someone came along and asked, what was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast? You wouldn't be able to answer. I cannot answer this question. What is the one single thing I did to improve my comprehension of Puerto Rican Spanish? What I told him was time. I hadn't yet read the slight edge, but me and Jeff Olsen were on the same page. And Jim Collins, apparently, as well. You wouldn't be able to answer. It's a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No. It was all of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave, no matter how large, reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel. I didn't do one specific thing to learn Spanish. I just consistently did the things that needed to be done in order for me to achieve the level that I wanted. For years, I listened, I practiced speaking. I reviewed my vocab. I reviewed and rewrote my corrections over and over and over again. And it was not just one of these actions, and it was not the particular way that I did any one of these actions. It's that I kept showing up. It's that I kept doing them. It's that I made the slight edge decision to say yes, easy to do over and over and over again. And I stuck with it for the time it took for me to reach the level I was dying to be at. The things that create success in the long run don't look like they're having any impact at all in the short run, and that's why it can be hard to keep doing them. But I am here telling you again, as somebody who has achieved what it is you are trying to do, keep doing them. This truly is the only philosophy you need to successfully learn Spanish. Simple actions that are easy to do, easy not to do. But every time you decide not to do them, the slight edge is working against you and it's pulling you down the failure curve. Easy to do, easy not to do. Every time you decide to do those simple disciplines, the slight edge is pulling you along the success curve. The only correct method, the only correct approach for language learning is to consistently do the work over time. If you want some advice about what kind of simple daily disciplines you should be doing to lead you to your unique goal for Spanish, consider booking a consultation with me. That's what I do. In these sessions, I help you bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be by, first of all, helping measure your expectations by reminding you, as somebody who has gone through it themselves, that these things take longer than we'd like them to. And then helping you find the right kind of actions, the right kind of disciplines that are easy to do and that compounded over time, will lead you to success in learning Spanish. Thanks for watching and I hope this helps.