The Pareto Principle is based on the theory that 80% of consequences are derived from the vital 20%, in other words, it often pays to focus on the essential 20% to get the desired outcome.
That 80-20 rule can be applied to learning a foreign language, and it means that when you focus on the most relevant 20% of your learning it will help you to achieve about 80% of your total improvement.
Searching sites like inspire4travel will give you plenty of inspiration and ideas as to where in the world you would like to visit and the next challenge after that would be to apply the 80-20 rule so that you can fast-track your language learning to enable you to get the most out of your adventure.
An efficient way to learn a language
Trying to learn a new language can be very daunting and it is all too easy to fall into the trap of trying to cover all bases and wade through reams of vocabulary in the hope that some of what you cover stays in your memory.
The harsh reality of how our brains tend to work is that a lot of that hard work will go to waste if you don’t find an efficient way of retaining the most relevant information. In other words, if you don’t find a way to focus on the most relevant 20%, 80% of your efforts will go to waste.
An example of this would be to immerse yourself entirely in a foreign language dictionary and try to remember as many of the words and phrases as possible. If you don’t put that knowledge into practice by writing and speaking it, a lot of your efforts will probably go to waste.
If you attempt to learn too much before actually using the information you will most likely be wasting a lot of your time.
Improve your learning efficiency
We all learn in slightly different ways and you need to establish what your best learning style is so that you can apply the Pareto Principle to language learning and get the best results in the quickest time.
This often involves finding what your best 20% is and focusing on that aspect of your learning development to see the best results in the shortest amount of time.
Finding the most efficient way of learning for your style will drive your learning curve upward at a faster rate and concentrating on the basics, the most frequently used words and phrases will ensure that you don’t waste time trying to learn things that are not that important.
One thing that tends to hold many of us back when it comes to learning a new language is a lack of confidence and nervousness that your pronunciation and vocab use is not that good.
Try to see past that and don’t worry about any perceived limitations. If you can embrace that philosophy and use the 80-20 rule to improve your language learning efficiency it will open a whole new world of possibilities.
