I've been learning a new language recently, and my reaction to my mistakes has lead me to the question in the OP.

I notice that I get very down on myself if I make a mistake or if I'm having difficulty learning something, and the failure really smarts. I've enlisted the help of friends- they check my writing samples, have conversations with me- and I get almost every single sentence that isn't simple (John kicks the ball. Sally eats pasta.) wrong, so I feel really badly for wasting their time and asking them to help me study. I'm almost at the point where I feel I shouldn't ask them for help anymore because it literally involves them fixing the entire attempt.

It's incredibly frustrating. I've never had this much trouble learning anything before! (Besides programming and CSS, but that's an entirely other problem; I'm more a practical and less a conceptual person.)

Anyway, yeah: how do you deal with failure and difficulty?

I let the brain slugs eat away at the dead parts of my brain and memory.

The correct answer would of course be to learn from your mistakes and try again until you succeed.

My answer however is that I get really mad and then try again using the exactly the same methods and get even angrier when it doesn't work. It usually ends in me yelling at inanimate objects

Does this mean "give up"?


Yeah, I'm using a website (something like Anki, but online) to expand my vocabulary and I've been hurling some abuse at my screen. Vocabulary's fairly easy to learn, though. It's the grammar that's tripping me up. It's not even that I don't understand it, but when I'm actually practicing the language everything just gets muddled. And then my friends look at me like this should be the simplest thing in the world- after all, they understand my first language perfectly ... (never mind that they study it from age 8 onwards ... )

Booze.

Learning a language takes years. Patience is the key.

That's why I didn't choose extra languages.


As for dealing with failure, I retry until I succeed or give up. I usually only become more determined to succeed the more I try, so if I give up it's usually very early on.

I retry until I succeed.

Nah more like the dead inside but smiling at the same time.

I blame the people that inhabit these forums for my mistakes, recently, I failed to learn how to speak French properly, or as fast as I would like; and it is my personal belief that I have the following people to thank for it.

Terash Cas

Erginho

GorbadPS3

Slimgrin

Oof

Exorince

I'm tired of you worthless ingrates holding me back from my success.

I regret nothing

That only works if you asked for advice or input
Best just to keep a mummified cat around for protection

Learning a language is completely humiliating, there are no two ways about it. You sound like Manuel from Fawlty Towers but not in English. You have to get used to talking with a burning red face while sweating profusely. On the telephone it is even worse. But once you finally get there it is a great feeling.

I try to spend some time doing something I'm good at. Then I go back to the difficult activity I was struggling with, knowing that even though I svck at this, I have other talents, gives me more confidence.

Hope that makes sense What language are you trying to learn?

I remember intro to japanese had expected us writing sentences in 2 weeks... Should've been a slacker and stay with spanish and other easy classes.

aw Japanese isn't that hard, hiragana is relatively simple and it's perfectly reasonable if you ask me to expect Jap 101 students to write sentences in hiragana after a couple of weeks.

If you never try you never fail

i get angry, yell and swear. especially at those who cause the difficulties and frustration. just ask my lawyer.

Maybe it was just the Texas education in me working
Writing sentences/paragraphs in 4 classes.

Try again one more time, if I fail again i'll use a different method
For emotional failures I usually get angry and sad.... Wonder if the first method can be applied to social failures

No successful person ever had it easy.

With any large project, it is made up of small steps/sub projects. Just tackle those parts one at a time and only worry about the next part when you have finished the previous one.

As for failure, you are learning something, right? Embrace the successes you have and accept that not everything you try is going to work the first time. But, what you learn from the earlier attempts makes the subsequent attempts that much easier. Edison did not figure out the light bulb until he made thousands of them and Michael Jordon probably flubbed his first few dunks.

Try to not get mad over it

I get http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hammered... After a couple of drinks I just don't care about failure any more

I doubt there are many people that have felt the sting of failure more often than I have.

When it comes down to math and science, I was an idiot in high school. Failed nearly every test there was. I've been disappointed in myself, have had others disappointed in me, the works... You just gotta persevere through it, else you'll never reach your goal.

"Inside a ring or out, ain't nothing wrong with going down, it's staying down that's wrong." - Muhammad Ali

"I failed my way to success." - Thomas Edison

thank you for providing the link

"Wow Matt your really hammer!"
"Snow Hime snot...zzzzzz"

It wasn't supposed to be amusing, but whatever makes you happy...