can your language skills temporarily deteriorate?

[Ruben von Zwack]

Hello all,

I have just had this weird experience that after about 3 weeks in China, and using exclusively Chinese most of the time, it seemed my language skills were suddenly deteriorating. I messed up word order, felt like I couldn't even come up with a simple sentence anymore, confused shàng ge and xià ge, left and right, etc. Speaking was a pain really.

This lasted for a few days, and then as sudden as it came, went back to normal again.

Have any of you had this odd problem, or shall I say symptom, too? I was expecting I would feel some, no matter how minute, progress every day, but in fact the experience has been more roller coaster like.

[Guest realmayo]

Yes. I mentioned in another thread, my experience has always been that progress comes in bursts, and that means there are times that you're just on a plateau with no obvious improvement.

You say your skills got worse. I know what you mean, but I reckon it's just that your standards have gone up one step, your expectations of where you should be and what you should be capable of, have run on ahead of you, so you're harsher on yourself and think you've got worse. But that's just because you're aiming for more difficult sentences than you used to. Or you're in between either being able to say certain sentences on autopilot, or having to think about them carefully.

Plus, listening ability is usually much better and progresses faster than speaking, but being unable to speak to the same level of the sentences you're suddenly able to understand can be very frustrating.

I reckon actual ability and perceived ability are always in flux and usually out of synch with one another.

Okay, it could be that you've had a brain overload or something and did actually get worse while your brain was sorting it all out! But I prefer my explanation

[Ruben von Zwack]

Thanks for making my evening! I'm afraid it was brain overload. But your explanation is so much nicer

being unable to speak to the same level of the sentences you're suddenly able to understand can be very frustrating.

I hadn't seen it from that perspective, but yeah, it's like one of those dreams where you want to say something but can't produce a sound. Maybe that and too high expectations + some actual overload all together.

Reading your reply I just realised I shouldn't be moaning, but celebrating that I suddenly understand funny and complex sentences native speakers throw at me

[Lu]

I usually don't have it happen for days on end, but temporarily, yes. The most obvious explanation would be that you're tired and that your brain is busy dealing with too many impressions at once, not just the language but also the new things around you (since this is your first time in China, right?), leaving not much energy & brainpower for using the things you've learned. But Realmayo's explanation sounds nice too :-)

[muyongshi]

Totally agree with all the above. The brain is a muscle and over use of a new area can cause fatigue. At least that's what it feels like to me!

It never goes away in my experience (meaning after 7 years it still occasionally occurs). Stress, tiredness, and probably 100 ore factors can all contribute. Even lots of new input over a short time can cause "blockage" while your brain sorts through everything.

[renzhe]

Thanks for making my evening! I'm afraid it was brain overload.

It was, but brain overload is the most natural thing when you're learning something so intensively.

Usually these troughs come before big breakthroughs, in my experience. It's your brain getting out of relaxed mode and getting critical, and this often means that there is some serious learning going on

Best advice is probably to measure your progress every few months instead of daily and hourly. Just relax and keep up your routine, and you'll be surprised.

[陳德聰]

Totally speculation, but it's possible that you just improved to a point where you were more capable of noticing your own errors, and then after noticing them more readily, you were able to correct them and move on.

Some manner of Dunning-Kruger.

[agustinahs]

I ever experienced this too sometimes (or I thought maybe I have).

 

I thought it happened because I was thinking in more than one language so much instead of my mother language. Therefore, the words I'm gonna used messed up and I'm not using the appropriate one even though I meant another. eq, This happened when I really want to speak Chinese so much so I messed up the construction and no one understand what I mean, because my willingness to deliver the meaning is not compatible with my current vocabulary. But after take a temporary break and continue to learn Chinese again, this kinda problem dissolve

 

But don't worry, I think it will be another milestone in your improvement. Gradually you will find it easier to speak or write the language you were learning now and find it placed in more suitable space in your head  

[Touchstone57]

I’ve had this experience also. From my experience one bad conversation or mispronounced sentence can negatively impact your impression of your own ability; likewise a smooth conversation or good day of studying can positively impact your impression of yourself (or worse, inflate your ego). But that is, after all, just our perception, it doesn’t necessarily reflect our ability!  

 

I don’t like disruptions to routine, and can sometimes feel even after a few days without studying that my Chinese is decaying (whilst living in China). But how much can you really forget in 3 days

[anonymoose]

I find that my speaking ability can vary from day to day. Not so much any more (although it still happens to an extent), but whilst I was at an intermediate stage, on some days I just found that everything came out smoothly, and on others, even stringing a simple sentence together was a challenge.

 

Still, don't be too obsessed with quantifying your progress. If you continue to consciously and consistently work at your chinese, you will improve quickly.

[Demonic_Duck]

I'll second what anonymoose says, although I'm most definitely still at that intermediate stage. Some days I feel like I can understand virtually everything thrown at me and spit out a perfectly decent answer to deceive people into thinking I'm fluent in the language. Other days, I think people just assume I'm an idiot, or worse, a foreigner who rarely leaves Sanlitun.

 

Anyway, I think there are a number of reasons. The most obvious is level of tiredness. There's also general physical and mental health, which I suspect have a rather big impact. Also, if you have other things on your mind and distracting you, that's bound to mean a bit of a drop. Then there are the external factors, too. Things like noise level of your environment, how standard or nonstandard the dialect of your interlocutor, to what extent you're used to hearing that dialect, the level of technicality of the topics being discussed, the level of unpredictability in the things they say, their talking speed, their willingness and ability to grade their language, the amount of patience they have, how interesting or boring they are, the fact that you're distracted by checking out the girl in the short skirt over there in the corner...

[Ruben von Zwack]

Thanks everyone. Good to know you can relate.

Actually I've just returned home :'( yes it was my first time in China.

Now I'm motivated like crazy to keep up!

Sadly i work full time so just can't spend indefinite time on lessons based on mutual help (i do it but helping people with their german is so time consuming!). Wondering if i should give skype lessons a try.

[Ruben von Zwack]

Haha demonic duck im a straight girl ^^ but yeah i too found talking to a cute guy influences my speech level greatly. Both directions :-[