Sports psychologists encourage competitive athletes to visualize their success.
For instance, Paul Kariya used to be one of the top ice hockey players in the world.
It’s known that Kariya sat for an hour before each game and visualized himself making plays against the players on the other team.
Paul Kariya is a player of relatively small physical stature who has reached the highest world level in a game of strength and speed. It’s obvious that the above technique helped him. Be like Paul Kariya: visualize your success!
Try to visualize yourself as a fluent native speaker.
Visualize yourself pronouncing like a native speaker and thinking in the language. The ability to reason in the logic of other languages exists within all of us. It is there for you to develop.
In that sense, language learning is a process of self-discovery.
You need to accept the spirit of the new language, even if it seems strange at first. Let it be a force for uncovering your latent language abilities.
There is no need to fear losing the logic or values of your native language. You will only be enriched by acquiring additional languages and new perspectives.
We have the potential to penetrate other cultures regardless of our background, as long as we are curious enough to do so.
There are many examples of people who were outstanding artists in a second culture through their efforts in learning a second language.
For example, Joseph Conrad, a Pole, is still a leading figure of modern English literature. Samuel Beckett, an Irishman, wrote one of the prominent plays of modern French literature, “Waiting for Godot”.
There are many outstanding non-European virtuosos performing European classical music. Many non-Asians dedicate themselves with success to Asian arts or traditional sports.
