Why context is essential to life and language learning

Last week, I was out on an evening walk with my husband, and I was frustrated.

I ranted and raved as we went around the park, so much so that, when we completed our normal lap, I insisted we do another so that the walk could accomplish its purpose: to allow me to quiet my mind before going back home.

I run an online business, which means I’m often, well, online.

If left to my own devices, I’m sure I’d still be utilizing social media and google in my personal life, but as it’s part of my overall marketing presence and where I hope to connect with potential language learners looking for a breakthrough in their journey to fluency, I purposefully spend a healthy portion of my day engaged with various social media and online outlets.

Like most things, it’s a blessing and a curse.

As we are all reacting to new realizations and opinions about systemic racism and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd (I thought about typing him out as a hashtag and decided, let’s let him be a full name, not a hashtag for once), people are sharing their thoughts all over the internet.

As they should. As they can. As they have the freedom to do so.

However, what I was specifically ranting and raving about on this twilight stroll was the tendency to see reactions to current events that haven’t considered the full story: people promoting one idea, solution, or opinion (I’m talking on BOTH sides of the spectrum here) without taking into account everything that came before the event they’re reacting to, and everything that may follow their opinion or proposed solution.

When events are taken out of context like this, any reaction of any kind is ignorant. Yeah, I went there.

I’m not saying any reaction is wrong. I’m saying it’s ignoring all the information.

We have gut-level reactions to everything. That’s normal. But taking our reactions from that place of ignorance is akin to how the Star and the Enquirer operate: we cause a scandal by spreading misinformation, and real people end up getting hurt.

But if we want to make a positive difference, we need to get informed.

Knowledge is power.

I think it’s especially important that we seek to understand the opposing side, those we don’t agree with, the people we think are just plain wrong. All too often, we decide somebody is wrong and that’s exactly the moment we stop listening. We don’t take a compassionate view of why they’ve formed the opinion that they have. And we are totally unable to communicate and convince when we can’t show compassion. Who knows? Perhaps it’s us that will be convinced to change our mind when we truly seek to understand another point of view.

Other people won’t listen to us if we can’t show that we understand them: if we can’t show compassion.

This line of thinking led me back to my professionally area of expertise: language learning and mindset.

Just like how we get the meaning twisted when we take words out of context, we twist a situation when we don’t understand all that led up to it, and what may follow as a consequence of it.

Whether in life or in language learning, our brains are wired to understand and ascribe meaning based on context.

Have you ever entered a phrase into Google translate, only to discover that it gave you something totally different in return? (If you haven’t yet, try entering a sentence into Google translate, then keep translating it back and forth between two languages by hitting the “switch” button and watch how much it changes each time!)

This happens because Google doesn’t have context for what we’re trying to say. It gets especially bad when we try to use it for one word at a time!

I highly encourage language learners to ditch the flashcards. There’s no forced memorization needed in language learning; just comprehension in context.

Don't get it twisted. Remember to keep it in context.

Join me for a bilingual conversation about keeping life and language learning in context in Episode 63 of #SpanishSaturday and practice your second language skills at the same time!

What happens when we take language out of context? What happens when we take events out of context?