The engineering triangle of language learning: good, fast, easy—pick two
The engineering triangle is a constraint model that describes the relationship between Quality, Speed and Cost of completing a project. So, for any project that you wish to design (or any problem that you wish to solve), your solution will have any two of the following qualities: good, quick, easy. But just two.
It means that if you want to get something done well and quickly, it will cost you (either literally or as in “it won’t be easy”). If you want to accomplish the same thing well but with minimum effort required, it will take you a lot of time. And if you want to get over it quickly and with minimum effort required, the end result won’t be any good.
This model offers an interesting perspective on language learning solutions on the market.
The Quality component translates into the proficiency level that you can achieve with a given language learning solution. Speed translates into the time it will take you to achieve the desired proficiency level. Cost—into the effort and degree of engagement required to get there following the choosen strategy.
Good solutions will deliver. You’ll be able to confidently speak and understand your target language—sooner or later. Those that will take you there sooner (i.e., good and quick solutions) will require some serious commitment (*). If you want to achieve foreign language proficiency quickly, you’ll have to prioritize language learning over your other projects, which means investing a lot of time, effort and/or money. The weakness of these solutions is that they are, well, either hard (so you must be extremely motivated and conscientious to follow through) or expensive (in which case you hire someone who will both teach you the language and keep you accountable).
(*) As a side note, people frequently underestimate the amount of effort required to accomplish something difficult, like learning a language, in a short timeframe (a few months).
Not quite ready? Not a problem. There are good and easy solutions that don’t require any serious sacrifices or drastic changes to your daily routine. If you go to French classes once or twice a week—as all normal people do—you will ultimately become “good enough”. …In a few years. …If you stick with it for long enough. The obvious weakness of good and easy solutions is that it will take you, well, forever to achieve any meaningful gains. Not seeing meaningful gains despite investing resources into the project tends to discourage people from proceeding with the current strategy. Because people tend to (correctly) conclude that the strategy is rather inefficient.
What’s left? The 80% of the language learning market: quick and easy solutions! These are abundant and, predictably, aren’t any good—in a sense that they won’t make you proficient in language X, should that be your ultimate goal. They cannot take you there because they are not designed for this purpose. To compensate for this inability to deliver any real results, such solutions might offer vague outcomes—as in “Get fluent much faster”—without, of course, defining fluency or setting any point of comparison for “faster”. Or they might overpromise and underdeliver—as in “Master a language in 15 minutes per day” or “Achieve fluency fast”. More often than not though, they will simply make no statements about any outcomes whatsoever and just sell you the process—as in “Quick, fun bite-sized lessons that work” (Sure, but what are we trying to achieve here?). And, as you blissfully swipe through German flashcards inside yet another language learning app, your learning “progress” suddenly becomes all about keeping that streak of learning 5 words/day and competing with your friends (Who’s got more points on the scoreboard?). Because you’re too distracted to consider whether you can actually do anything useful with all this vocabulary that you supposedly mastered.
So, at the end of the day, it all comes down to one question: what are you ready to sacrifice?
Here’s your options.
Quality/Outcome: Do you really wanna be any good?
Serious learners want to be able to ultimately understand and speak their target language confidently. Therefore, serious learners cannot compromise this component. But—if all you want is to learn a few Spanish phrases so that you can order tacos during your next trip to Mexico, then quick and easy solutions are the way to go. Get yourself Duolingo (or any other language learning app), spend 15 minutes a day playing with Spanish flashcards, learn 5-10 new phrases a day—problem solved. Anything else would be an overkill.Time/Speed: Are you in any rush?
Generally, if you have a deadline by which you need to “know” a given language (whatever “knowing” it means to you—see above), you don’t want to sacrifice this component. If you want to achieve a rudimentary level of Spanish for your trip to Mexico three weeks down the road—yes, you’ll need to get there quickly but it won’t be all that difficult given that you aren’t aiming all that high. If you need to prove a B2 level of proficiency in French so that they accept you to the École Normale Supérieure in six months (and you’re nowhere near)—then you cannot take 3 years of French as a Second Language to level up. Getting that done will require effort and a lot of work. Alternatively, if like me, you just cannot stand inefficiency in any shape or form (If it can be done in 3 months why take 12?)—then Speed is just one sacrifice you don’t wanna make.Cost/Effort: How much are you ready to invest to get yourself to the desired proficiency level?
If you refuse to sacrifice both Quality and Speed, you’ll have to accept the costs. Getting “fluent fast” will cost you. It will cost you time—not 15 minutes here and there but hours of study a day, every day (and it’s a lot of time that you could spend doing something else). It might cost you money—some serious money too, depending on the language learning product you choose. It will call for some serious effort and discipline. It will require willingness to push yourself beyond your comfort zone on a daily basis. Different “good & fast” language learning solutions will offer different ways to go about it, but it will never be easy.
TLF is good and fast. It will take you to working proficiency in 3-4 months. But this result won’t come easy. If you want to get really good really fast it will cost you, and you must accept it. If you want it to be easy, it won’t be fast or it won’t be good.
Pick your poison.
Written by Alina Kuimova | 26/08/2024