I studied Hebrew from kindergarten through high school, and for a semester in college. These days, on a daily basis I don’t speak much Hebrew. If I tried to start a conversation in Hebrew, my sentences would be halting. I’d fumble for my words.
When I’ve traveled to Israel, it comes back quickly. Within a few days of immersing among people who are speaking the language, I regain fluency. I can articulate my ideas, I can read a menu and order a meal, I can navigate around a city.
Learning a language starts with studying vocabulary and grammar, but you don’t study a language to study a language. You learn a language to have conversations with people, to participate in life.
When you take the language you learned into the real world, you learn that certain phrases don’t quite have the literal translated meaning. The same word can have different meanings depending on context.
It’s only by actively participating and using what you learned in the real world that you’ll gain fluency.
The same is true across any area of life.
Fitness. Yoga. Astrology. Productivity. Football. Finance. Sales. Real Estate. Anatomy. Biomechanics. Movement. Cooking. Technology. Music.
Name your thing. Whatever you’re learning, it’s a language.
And the way you become more fluent in it is to use it more. To practice with people, in real life settings.
You become fluent in biomechanics by testing what you learn in the textbook to your own body, and seeing how the words on the page match your lived experience.
Fluency doesn’t come from studying. It comes from using the language in the world.
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