to muddle through
– “to succeed in some undertaking in spite of lack of organization” [source]
– “to succeed in doing something despite having no clear plan, method, or suitable equipment” [source]
– “to cope more or less satisfactorily despite lack of expertise, planning, or equipment.”
synonyms: to cope, manage, get by/along, scrape by/along, make do, make the best of a bad job [source]
When learning a language, or other things, are you someone who can set goals, make plans and stick to them?
I do sometimes set myself language learning goals, and often make plans, and even manage to stick to them for a while. However my goals tend to be fuzzy, my plans half-baked, and my sticking-to-it abilities somewhat sporadic. Generally I tend to learn bits and pieces of languages as the fancy takes me, and try a variety of courses and methods, at least until I get bored or find alternatives, and just muddle through as best I can.
When people ask me for advice about learning languages, as they often do, I have plenty of suggestions, but the only one I stick to is to do a lot of listening. So I don’t really practise what I preach. Is my advice less valuable as a result? Perhaps it is.
Do you advise people to try learning techniques you don’t use or rarely use yourself?
Does the concept of muddling through exist in other languages?
I tell people to watch the telly a lot.
I am sure it works, but I cant bring myself to do it.
I’m sure you’re on the right track with the masses of listening practice. It’s essential but not sufficient though. I have very good passive knowledge/understanding of Catalan just from several years of exposure but never having studied it formally at all, I’m unable to converse in it other than at the level of common phrases and formats.
In French “se débrouiller” covers much the same ground as “muddle through” / “get by”:
Tu parles l’allemand ? – Je me débrouille
though “se débrouiller” often conveys, too, more of the idea of getting oneself out of a fix, as in the somewhat more vulgar alternative expression “se démerder”.
I tell people to find someone to speak with, preferably IRL, but if not, over the computer. But I wouldn’t do the computer thing unless I really have to. Which I might have to since I want to improve my Esperanto speaking/listening proficiency.
One thing I do stick to that I tell others: Instead of going crazy and doing 2-3 hours for a few days, then burning out, stick to short time frames, even 30 min or 15 min. Studying for 15 min 5x a week is better than studying 2.5 hours once a week.
The expression in German is “sich durchwursteln”.
I think muddling through is better than to think about the perfect way of doing something. Perfectionism is often linked to procrastination.
In Catalan, you can use espavilar-se.
ja t’espavilaras = you will work it out (do it by working it out).
I also speak Catalan MadFall 😉