I tried answering the questionnaire replacing "Japanese" with "Italian" (where applicable), and now I'm doubting my fluency in my native language

Some of the answers:
1. Quite often when I read stuff that I don't usually read, or authors that like to use some variation in their choice of adjectives. I'm quite used to this and tend to ignore them if not central to the meaning.
2. Happens daily (that I ask or search for myself), maybe I'm just a curious person.
3. Quite a bit if it's something out of my interests. Several words per page for the first 20-30 pages or until I get some basic terminology down is not unusual. Then again, I might use something like wiki or a google search instead of a dictionary, but I tend to do the same in the languages I'm learning.
4. The stuff used by the younger generations on chat/fb/forums? Almost unintelligible to me, but they do get pretty extreme in Italian. Uncommon notations in formal writing, acronyms etc also have me visit google more often that I'd like to.
5. Never comes out as smooth as I can think it.
9. Happens when I go visit my relatives (and I noticed on occasion that I was doing the same), but regional differences get quite in the way here.
11. I'm often asked to repeat myself on the phone . Not that they have any doubt regarding my nationality.
12. I can't speak the local dialect fully, nor the one of my parents/relatives, not sure why... I can't use it in conversation and have quite an hard time understanding it, but I have absorbed some of the most common aspects and my accent is quite typical of this zone.
14. Well, lack of info usually means I lack the necessary vocabulary too, so...
15&16. Lately I've been thinking about going back to learning, there's so much stuff that I notice and I'd like to fix, but I always end up putting it off. Maybe this questionnaire will help me getting started after all. This includes getting some material (18).
20. I thought I was

P.s. I'm not claiming myself fluent or even "advanced" (whatever that means, it's not me) in any language (I still like to think that I'm fluent by definition in Italian though...), I just started answering the questions to see what it was about and happened to wonder "but can I do that in my native language at least?". Turns out stuff is harder than I thought.

Anyway I think these are good questions to ask yourself, they can highlight some unexpected weaknesses which can then receive some focused attention (if one is interested, different people have different goals). They sure did it for me, well, as for Japanese it was stuff I was mostly aware of, but it's still good to get a reminder.
I don't really see a reason to get discouraged though. I don't know if it's possible or impossible to reach that certain level whose definition still eludes us to this day, but I'm damn sure that it's possible to get to a level of ability that gives us some satisfaction, that makes it worth it.
Which is not to say that one should be satisfied with it and stop learning, although that is a possible choice too. But it is important to give yourself some acknowledgement, recognize your progress, and be proud of it.
Nothing wrong with aiming to 'perfection', but at least give yourself a cookie when you get past 'good'.
So, umm, what I wanted to say was that I like to think of people talking about their success as people that have had a lot delicious of cookies, and can't help but wanting to share the recipe which us
At least that's what I think when I'm in a good mood

@Zorlee
I'm looking forward to it too!
I still remember your post in "I just finished RTK1, please congratulate me", reading about your caffeine-sustained determination to get those last 200 kanji done gave me a much needed motivation boost to finish the book! I'm still thankful for that

@Seizar Admit it. You're never going to be fluent in Italian, no matter how hard you try.

I feel stupid still only being a 1.75-lingual when it seems like every educated non-British European is completely competent in English as well as their mother language.

I feel I'm reaching a plateau which I can only break through by moving to Japan for a long period or by finding fobby Japanese friends here. |: Can't really improve speaking/production much more over IM...

Zorlee Wrote:I usually don't post anymore, mostly because this forum is turning into an AJATT flamewar, instead of a constructive study forum,

The "flamewar" is the problem, not the "ajatt". I'd love to see those 2 things separated. Pls stick around, Zorlee. :-)

zigmonty Wrote:Perhaps there should be a new forum rule. The words "fluency", "AJATT", "Silverlight", etc should be cause to have your post deleted. No thread that has any of those words in it ever turns into anything useful. They're all almost pure flamebait/trolls at this point.

Even though Goats has been discussed at length "at this point", the reality is that so long as there are new forum members, topics will be repeated. There will be more "What do I do after RTK?" and "How do I do sentences?" threads too. :-)

I see good and bad advice at Goats.com. If the site stays popular, we ought to be highlighting both to help beginners make more informed choices. As it stands, the number of mini Goat blogs out there skews the landscape.

So I basically think discussion of Goat related issues can be constructive. No, I think it's necessary.

Fluency? bah, I don't need this thread. I managed to realize on my own how not fluent I am ... many times. There's always another adventure around yet another corner. :-)

Thora Wrote:

Zorlee Wrote:I usually don't post anymore, mostly because this forum is turning into an AJATT flamewar, instead of a constructive study forum,

The "flamewar" is the problem, not the "ajatt". I'd love to see those 2 things separated. Pls stick around, Zorlee. :-)

Signed! You stay! *ties and binds Zorlee to this forum*

Thora Wrote:Even though Goats has been discussed at length "at this point", the reality is that so long as there are new forum members, topics will be repeated. There will be more "What do I do after RTK?" and "How do I do sentences?" threads too. :-)

I see good and bad advice at Goats.com. If the site stays popular, we ought to be highlighting both to help beginners make more informed choices. As it stands, the number of mini Goat blogs out there skews the landscape.

So I basically think discussion of Goat related issues can be constructive. No, I think it's necessary.

Fluency? bah, I don't need this thread. I managed to realize on my own how not fluent I am ... many times. There's always another adventure around yet another corner. :-)

.

Thora Wrote:

zigmonty Wrote:Perhaps there should be a new forum rule. The words "fluency", "AJATT", "Silverlight", etc should be cause to have your post deleted. No thread that has any of those words in it ever turns into anything useful. They're all almost pure flamebait/trolls at this point.

Even though Goats has been discussed at length "at this point", the reality is that so long as there are new forum members, topics will be repeated. There will be more "What do I do after RTK?" and "How do I do sentences?" threads too. :-)

True, i find it pretty frustrating when someone starts a thread, and someone who's been around since the origin of the site goes "this topic is old, we discussed it 5 years ago!". But, dammit, i didn't participate in that discussion and i have opinions on goats that have merit!

And then there's those people who start goat-ish threads despite having discussed goats 5 years ago. Goat fetish... clearly. ;p

(apologies OP)

Fabrice should just rename the forum to All AJATT All The Time (AAATT).
How meta can we make it?

All Reviewing of All the Japanese Kanji All the Time Always

Just playing Devil's Advocate here. I don't have a dog in this fight.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Fabrice should just rename the forum to All AJATT All The Time (AAATT).
How meta can we make it?

you forgot the autoreplace. That should be G goat's oats ... or something?

mmmm goats

We should start to advocate NJATT -- a radical new approach to Japanese learning that requires you to avoid Japanese as much as possible, all the time. Only by releasing your desires and obsessions with Japanese can you become one with Japanese. By pursuing it, you only drive it further away.

NJATT avoids common pitfalls and simplifies many things:
- No need to obsess over which language learning methods to use
- No danger of fossilization or harmful input or any of that
- Low cost
- No need to bother with evaluating your proficiency or deciding whether you are "fluent" or not

Something I had lying around on my computer.



(just replace freelance and time management things with japanese stuff)

merlin.codex Wrote:Ah, forgot to ask you, you did went to high school, right?

Must... correct.... word...

.

@merlin.codex
I'm sorry you took it that way, I was quite sincere in my reply; especially on the point that I did found the questionnaire to be useful in rethinking my perceived ability certainly in Japanese and English, but even in my native tongue. Of course it wasn't a sudden epiphany, I had been thinking along these lines for a while.

Yes I went to high school, but Italy is not exactly renowned for the quality of education it can offer (on average, I'm sure there are exceptions). I also was never really a bookworm, though I did read my fair share of novels back in the day, anyway I'm sure I am part of the problem. I also think that I'm quite average for my age group, but I'm aware that the standards are quite low here. For example, formal writing. It's a skill that many educated Italians still struggle with, it almost feels weird to me that it's taken for granted in many parts of the world.

It was only after starting studying Japanese that I started getting conscious about my inadequacies with my mother tongue.
I started asking myself the same things that I try to keep in mind when studying Japanese: "Did I REALLY understand what I just read?" "Could I give a definition of that word if asked?" "Could I use it freely in my speaking/writing? And in a different context?" "Does this sound OK?" etc.
Your questionnaire echoed quite well with my thoughts, so I tried answering with the only language I can claim myself fluent in. I wasn't trying to disprove your point or anything, in fact not all the answers were meant to be read in the negative, as you aptly pointed out.

As I wrote, I think that these questions are valid (ok maybe not all of them were to be taken seriously, and the validity of some can vary depending on personal goals), I just don't think that we should be discouraged from what comes out of the answers. Or that it should be a reason not to be proud of what we achieved. Or something that keeps us from sharing our experience, that would be a shame.

P.s.
I get that it was a provocation, but the thing about the intrinsic difficulty of a language was quite interesting. I'm not an expert, but going by common sense I'd be tempted to think that there is not such a thing as an "absolute difficulty" of a language, a measure of how difficult it is for a native speaker to learn it's native tongue. I'd actually be interested in reading more on the topic if anyone has anything to share.

Going by my view, I assume that every language out there has its tricky parts, gray areas, that can trip most natives up. I'm not talking about prescriptive grammar rules that no-one really follows.

Italian has of course those pesky subjunctives (though it's not just that, the consecutio temporum as a whole is a mess to get right), it's stuff we study at school (to a certain extent) and get a lot of correct examples from all kind of material in our life, but still can't really produce naturally without focusing our attention on that. On a daily basis I see newscasters, (academic) writers and professors producing these sentences that just feel weird, and it's quite apparent that everyone else can feel that uncomfortable feeling too, but to get something that actually sounds ok we often need to check on the rules.

It might be the low quality of education here, or maybe it's because the "Lingua Italiana" as we know it is relatively young, but I was curious if that happens in other languages too.

After I started noticing it, it got so aggravating that it has become one of the main reasons I decided to go back to study my native language.
It's not even uncommon to see foreigners that have studied Italian to an high level produce sentences that (at least in structure) feel more natural that what I could produce on the spot, probably because they hit the grammar harder and from a different point of view. Not to say that they were speaking 'more fluently' than an average Italian, weird accent/intonation or other quirks are usually still present.

Seizar Wrote:It might be the low quality of education here, or maybe it's because the "Lingua Italiana" as we know it is relatively young, but I was curious if that happens in other languages too.

In Brazil, things are perhaps even worse... Take a look at this:

Quote:Almost 10% of the Brazilian population is completely illiterate, which means that they are incapable of recognizing words or making meaning out of simple sentences and 68% of the population is functionally illiterate. If we add these percentages, we will get to stunning 78%, which corresponds to 150.053.666 Brazilians who are unable of reading a text like this one (in Portuguese, of course) and making any meaning out of it.
...
Every year, millions of students graduate from secondary school without being able of writing an essay, solving basic Math problems or understanding basic concepts of sciences.

→ The Brazilian Educational System: Background

Portuguese is kinda like Italian, so there must be something about these Italo-Western Romance languages... or not. People like to blame the public education system, but that's not the whole answer. In Brazil—unlike places like, say, Hong Kong and Singapore—there's not any "social pressure" for people to put any effort into it, something that can be related to the other post where I talked about motivation (as in, if there's no external pressure, only those who are really self-motivated do anything about it.)

claudia Wrote:Something I had lying around on my computer.

...

(just replace freelance and time management things with japanese stuff)

Thanks, Claudia, that's awesome, and very apropos.

Quote:[...]"absolute difficulty" of a language, a measure of how difficult it is for a native speaker to learn[...]

I agree on that. It also depends on the background. It is commonly said that people from Scandinavia have less difficulties learning English than, say, Japanese for example. (see also: Engrishu) I guess the same goes for Germans and people from the Netherlands. Coming back to the "background": with me it's like I had been learning the more or less systematically organised "Lingua latin", so to speak, Latin at school, translating works/excerpts written by well known authors like Caesar, Plinius, Seneca, Ovid and others. I'd like to know how much that would be of a benefit for me, when I started to learn Italian for example :) Unfortunately Latin is not spoken any loner, but though, I know the vocabulary I had to learn over 6 years and I wonder how fast I'd possibly learn Italian with that pre-knowledge..

Quote:Going by my view, I assume that every language out there has its tricky parts, gray areas, that can trip most natives up. I'm not talking about prescriptive grammar rules that no-one really follows.

Perhaps only tricky for the learner of the language, not for the native, of course. I can imagine that Hungarian with 35 (was that right?) cases would be pain in the ass for any learner of that - certainly - difficult language.
Perhaps it is a rule of thumb, but it seems to me like the less people speak a language actively, so, the less people actually know that language (= natives), the more difficult it is to learn. A good example is the Navajo language or Finish (?).

I think it's more connected to how many people are learning the language, rather than the number of native speakers. If what you say is true, then Latin would be one of the hardest languages to learn, having no native speakers, when in fact it's rather simple, thanks to the systematisation of its grammar by a committed body of learners.

Generally speaking (e.g. Hungarian vs English and Finnish vs Chinese) the less people speak a language actively, the less media you have to immerse yourself into. Therefore, the more difficult it is to learn (assuming that you're studying through immersion; otherwise, as you pointed out that statement isn't true).

@gdaxeman
Thanks for your input, that's a good point about social pressure, and I hadn't really considered anything like that.
I'm not sure which other post you are referring to though, would you mind linking to it? (even a pm would suffice, I'm feeling bad for going OT now)

@Tori-kun
You would surely benefit from that knowledge, I remember reading that almost 60% of Italian vocab currently in use has Latin roots. It would help a lot in inferring the meaning of unknown words from context, and in memorizing them. Reading about the etymology of a word could be enough for you to commit it to memory. I doubt you would ever feel as "lost" as I was when I (and probably many other j-learners) first started Japanese for example, nothing familiar to cling to, not knowing where to start...
Of course don't expect to get a good grasp of the language just from that, Latin and Italian aren't close as, say, Italian and French. For example, here in Italy many students take Latin classes (usually 3-5 years), and while it's common to try and play it by ear going with what is readily understandable because of language similarities, it rarely works out as one would hope. It's not a language that we Italians can understand without a good grasp of its grammar rules and structures, and I'd expect the opposite to be true too.
Anyway I think you would have a good time with Italian, the knowledge from Latin would help a lot and knowing other languages is always a plus too, makes you more flexible and ready to understand and accept things that differs from what you are used to, all in all I think you would see results quite fast

Sorry for derailing from the original topic... back to my lurk-bubble I go.

I get that it's some kind of provocation but I'll play with you just because I'm bored right now. I'll do the questionnaire for English, German and Japanese. German is my native language but my English is probably better than my German right now. I haven't used German for 5+ years except for occasional talks/emails with my family. My Japanese is somewhere between N2 and N1 and I've lived in Japan for a while.

Quote:1. Are there times when we don't understand certain vocabulary (both in written and spoken language) and how many?

German/English: Not really, except for scientific fields or youth slang. It happens from time to time though, but not more than once every few months or so.
Japanese: Lots

Quote:2. If we speak in Japanese for, let's say, 8 hours a day, how many days can we go without asking "what's that/what's the meaning of ~?".

German/English: Pretty long, probably weeks or months. Again, that doesn't include scientific fields or youth slang.
Japanese: 0 Days

Quote:3. How many times do we search our *whatever* dictionary when we read textbooks like "The Structure of the Brain" in Japanese?

German/English: Not a dictionary but I'll definitely have to Google lots of words. At least that's what I think, never tried to read "The Structure of the Brain"
Japanese: Again, Google + Dictionary this time. Probably have to look up lots. However, it actually may be easier to guess/understand unknown words because of their Kanji characters.

Quote:4. Do we encounter shortenings we're not aware of occasionally? If we do, how many times is it?

It took me forever to figure out what the questions is supposed to mean. Did you mean Shortcomings? Then I realized you probably mean abbreviations. German/English/Japanese: Yeah, I do encounter them. There are lots of abbr. I don't know and ppl. even tend to make them up ots. (on the spot). This has nothing to do with your language ability.

Quote:5. Can we write/say whatever we are thinking in our own language the same way?

Uah, you can't say things the same way in different languages, this again has nothing to do with your language ability. There are tons of things I can express well in English but not in German. Hell, there are even lots of things I can express in Japanese but not in German or English because the concept or underlying culture just doesn't exist in the western world.

Quote:6. Can we actually write kanji (since every native can do to some (high) degree, opposed to popular belief that Japanese are idiots)? (I realize this is a great topic here, as well)

Yes. I never realized this was a great topic in this forum, I don't think it is. Every Japanese can write Kanji they know. The problem is remembering the Kanji, which is even difficult for Japanese. Especially those who have been abroad. I just remember one time my Japanese friend couldn't remember how to write 様, despite it being such a common character. That person had been in the US for less than 3 years.

Quote:7. Do we get offended by phrases such as 「日本語お上手ですね～」 and all its forms + specific words like 外人 (instead of 外国人), etc...?

Why would anyone get offended by 外人 or 外国人? What's wrong with you? I don't believe in the whole theory behind the 上手 thing and how it's related to your ability.

Quote:8. Are we sometimes embarrassed to speak in Japanese because we might screw up?

Japanese: Yes, but not that often.
English: Not really
German: Yes, more so than Japanese. This has to do with expectations of other people. I look pretty European so people in German would certainly expect me to speak near-perfect German, which I currently don't. Germany is not a very international country so people there are less open and have less experience with non-native speakers. In California on the other hand it's pretty much normal if you have some kind of accent. In Japanese on the other hand people immediately see that I'm not a native speaker and they most likely expect me not being able to understand or speak Japanese at all. If I do, they are positively surprised.

Quote:9. Do our native friends speak to us slower/in 標準語/less (that is, they don't change their way of speaking when they're with other native friends)?

English/German/Japanese: No, they don't. In Japanese they do if I don't understand something and repeatedly ask what they said.

Quote:10. Can we count fast enough in Japanese (when someone says ２６万, we imagine 260000 instantly, without trying to remember that １万＝１００００), don't have any kind of problems with their numbers, days, etc?

Yes, no problems in either language. If you live in Japan you get used to counting pretty quickly. I occasionally still have problems with using the correct type quantifier (ko, hon, tsu, etc) though but I've recently realized that I rarely matters and heard different Japanese people using different quantifiers for the same thing.

Quote:11. Is our accent and way of speaking so good that we can actually fool someone on the phone?

Haha, that's funny.
German: They might actually think that my native language is not German, but I can probably convince most people.
English: Yes, but if it's a longer conversation they might realize that I wasn't born in the US.
Japanese: Not... yet..

Quote:12. Do we speak in dialect when we are with our friends?

English: No
German: No, I don't know any dialect even though some of my friends do
Japanese: No

Nothing to do with language ability.

Quote:13. Can we read/grasp whatever is written in Japanese the same we do in our own language?

Isn't this basically the same thing you asked many times already just phrased differently? What are you trying to get at? Can probably guess my answer.

Quote:14. Can we understand what they're speaking on the news 100% of the time (without counting those times when we don't have a clue because of lack of info)?

German/English, 99%
Japanese: Less than 80%

Quote:15. Do we continue to study words/phrases/structures?

No, no, yes.

Quote:16. Do we care what our ability is?

German: No, I definitely won't go back there. Wouldn't even mind losing the language completely.
English: Not really, not trying to be a write or something like that. I'm fine as long as I can express what I wanna say.
Japanese: Yeah, just wanna be able to have native-like life in Japan.

Quote:17. Do we have dreams in Japanese only, 90%+ of the time (a Japanese learning English would probably (dunno) have dreams in English from time to time)?

German: No, I almost never have dreams in German. Maybe 1% of my dreams are. So, are you saying I'm not fluent because of that?
English: Yeah 98%
Japanese: Not really but it sometimes happens, like 1% of the time.

Again, this has nothing to do with fluency. It's just a matter of what you are using throughout your day and what you're exposed to. Even though I'm in Japan my work is completely in English so that I'm probably exposed to more English than Japanese. If it wasn't I'd probably dream in Japanese.

Quote:18. Do we have any textbooks concerning Japanese language, which we didn't buy out of curiosity (cause we actually don't give a damn for something we already know)?

German/English: No
Japanese: Yes

Quote:19. Are we using a forum dedicated to "learning Japanese" to actually learn?

Don't know what you mean.

Quote:20. And lastly, are we self-proclaimed "advanced" learners or someone who has reached "fluency"? (it's amusing enough to be in #20, in my opinion)

Yeah, I think I am advanced but I'm far away from fluency. It's not self-proclaimed but it's simply the terminology used by most textbooks and university courses. Past N2 = Advanced. Btw, I see lots of people here (or in other forums) claiming they are fluent in English but then have tons of mistakes or weird sentences in their posts. This is not unique to Japanese.

Damn I just wasted 30min of my life.

Seizar Wrote:I'm not sure which other post you are referring to though, would you mind linking to it?

It's just that one post in the previous page, nothing much. The relation is that people only put effort into doing most things if they're surrounded by a social environment that rewards those who do them and punishes those who don't; if there isn't a strong reward/punishment for doing something, even if it's something valuable, most won't do it. It's actually worse for things that are valuable and that require effort — worthless things, like addiction, are places where many people defy social norms, and they hardly do it outside of that. Also, people only encourage others to reach their level or below, so that's the most anyone will get if they depend on that; the only way to step out of mediocrity, of staying at the same level of "everyone else", is by being self-motivated and not depend on external validation.

Seizar Wrote:I'm feeling bad for going OT now

What we're talking about can be considered on-topic; the original poster gives the impression that, to be fluent, one needs to be really good at reading, writing and speaking (supposedly just like people are in their native languages), but it's not hard to show that fluent native speakers in other languages are hardly proficient at that — they only know enough to get by, and most can't write well, can't carry conversations about topics that are not chit-chat or gossiping (about the lives of people they know or fictional characters), can't follow complex instructions they hear, and can't understand what they read in books and articles, even easier ones. Let's say this is a deficiency in their education system (just an hypothesis), and that fluency is being able to do the same things a native is able to do; in that case, the better the education natives get, the harder would be to call yourself fluent in their language.

gdaxeman Wrote:

Seizar Wrote:I'm not sure which other post you are referring to though, would you mind linking to it?

It's just that one post in the previous page, nothing much. The relation is that people only put effort into doing most things if they're surrounded by a social environment that rewards those who do them and punishes those who don't; if there isn't a strong reward/punishment for doing something, even if it's something valuable, most won't do it. It's actually worse for things that are valuable and that require effort — worthless things, like addiction, are places where many people defy social norms, and they hardly do it outside of that. Also, people only encourage others to reach their level or below, so that's the most anyone will get if they depend on that; the only way to step out of mediocrity, of staying at the same level of "everyone else", is by being self-motivated and not depend on external validation.

Self-motivation sure is a big plus! I don't need anyone to motivate me, because I can find motivation even in little things, pictures for instance or reading older posts in this forum. When learning a language on our own, motivation from others is often necessary, too. If it helps the other person, in case they are hitting a wall, I see nothing wrong in it. Most times everyone is self-motivated enough to keep going on their own. I think Tori knows best what I am talking about here. Sorry for pointing you out as an example.

gdaxeman Wrote:

Seizar Wrote:I'm feeling bad for going OT now

What we're talking about can be considered on-topic; the original poster gives the impression that, to be fluent, one needs to be really good at reading, writing and speaking (supposedly just like people are in their native languages), but it's not hard to show that fluent native speakers in other languages are hardly proficient at that — they only know enough to get by, and most can't write well, can't carry conversations about topics that are not chit-chat or gossiping (about the lives of people they know or fictional characters), can't follow complex instructions they hear, and can't understand what they read in books and articles, even easier ones. Let's say this is a deficiency in their education system (just an hypothesis), and that fluency is being able to do the same things a native is able to do; in that case, the better the education natives get, the harder would be to call yourself fluent in their language.

You can blame the education system, because it depends on the teachers to encourage or discourage people to learn. But you can't blame them for lack of skill in a foreign language. (theoretically speaking) But it is also true that it depends on the individual to continue learning once he / she is out of school, college, university. A school can only do so much for them. And if they don't use it they loose it. Another factor that comes into play here is, that in most countries you don't even need to know any foreign languages, to live your life. It is considered as positive in your CV if you know French, Italian, German, Russian, Spanish, but mainly if one is seeking employment in the gastronomic or hotel sector. This is so in my country. Other than that there is no need to even know English. Though that has changed in the past 10 or 20 years, so that English is considered as must, and maybe even some eastern European languages. Not any more though, because the economic upswing didn't occur as was perceived by many industry leaders, managers, etc.

So if one learns a language, and doesn't reach the point he or she can read Descartes in French, Don Quixote in Spanish written by Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Lev Tolstoy books in Russian, or the 源氏物語 in Japanese at one point in time, the only person to blame is oneself. It does not end with reading, but also writing, and speaking. One can get very far, or be left behind and surpassed by others, because the individual didn't continue to learn.