![]() Officially, the sanctuary - home to snow leopards and what may be the last couple of hundred hanguls (Kashmir stags) in the world - is closed when night falls. I had landed in Srinagar that afternoon and now stood in deep woods alongside the Kashmiri chef Prateek Sadhu, who had come to forage sorrel, collards and dandelion greens for his Mumbai restaurant, Masque. Want to see my favorite language resources and courses? I listed them here.THE BEARS WERE dark shapes among the furrowed oaks in Dachigam National Park, a maharajah’s private hunting preserve turned wilderness sanctuary more than 5,000 feet above sea level outside of Srinagar, Kashmir. And all of life's doors start to open up. And again! With barriers gone, with fear conquered, confidence builds. Once you extend the boundary of people you can talk to into a new language sphere, it becomes more and more enticing to extend it again. Without that limit holding you back, you find yourself wanting more. Why do you think that so many bilingual people become polyglots? It's because once you've pushed the boundary of the first language, it becomes addictive. You won't be afraid to talk to people anymore because you've already done it. And if you're still scared to talk to someone face-to-face, try Skype first.īut eventually, when you've pushed your boundaries enough, your fear will be gone. And when that's not scary any more, find someone to chat with. And when that's not scary to you anymore, write an email to someone in your new language. You can start by writing meaningless blogs on Lang-8 - even using a fake name if you need to. If you need to, do it gradually, just like you did with crossing the street. The only way to get over that fear is to talk to someone! You can study all you want, spend years in a classroom or with your nose buried in books, but none of it is going to make that nervousness disappear when you first talk to someone. Before long, those little pockets of turbulence aren't so scary, and the flight that used to be so exciting and scary is now boring and trivial.Īnd this is how it is when you're learning a language. Maybe the first 10 times! But you get on a plane and you ride for a while, and when you get off, you're still alive. Now you don't think anything of getting in the car and going where you need to go. But after doing it a few times, it became easy. ![]() And people everywhere, ready to beep the horn at you when you make a mistake. Your first time driving a car was probably scary. How could anyone be scared of that? It's hard to even imagine! Conquering fears And when you look back, you think of that old street as a silly boundary. The street was now a natural extension of your playing area.īut bigger than the street was the neighborhood, and eventually you had to push your boundary again, crossing out of the neighborhood.Īnd then out of your state, or province, or countryside.Įventually, you managed to travel somewhere you never imagined as a kid. Now depending on your nature, maybe that was all you needed, or maybe you had to do that several times, but eventually a day came when the street wasn't scary. It wasn't so bad, was it? You're back in the yard, and alive, and all is well. You look, and you don't see anyone coming, so you go out and get the ball. But one day, your ball bounces out into the street. And you, a little kid, were given your mother's healthy fear of that boundary. Maybe you had a mother who cared about you and didn't want you to get hurt, so she would tell you it's okay to play in the yard, but you're not allowed to go out into the street. Maybe you lived in a small house in a safe neighborhood. It's finding the line that you're afraid to cross, and pushing it out further. But that's not pushing a boundary, that's testing a boundary. As a photographer, for instance, when someone refers to me pushing boundaries, I often understand it to mean that I am making photos that risk offending people. Have you ever stopped to think about what that phrase really means? What does it mean to push a boundary? Many of us hear that phrase and we think of people doing things that border on what is acceptable. It is the thing that holds us all back from being who we really want to be. But I talk about it because I think fear is such an important thing to conquer. Perhaps more than one might expect on a blog about learning languages. ![]() "Do one thing every day that scares you." - Eleanor Roosevelt
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