It was a perfect day, I really felt like practicing Spanish but I decided to stop because I knew it would be the best way to learn Spanish faster.
Sometimes learning Spanish quickly isn’t about going flat out all of the time. Sometimes it’s about leaving reserves in the tank knowing that those reserves may come in handy later.
In today’s episode of the Real Fast Spanish Tips Podcast we will be looking at the concept of the 20-mile march and how it can help you learn Spanish faster.
The story and origin the 20-mile march concept dates by to one of the greatest stories of ultimate success and ultimate failure that I know.
The story is about the race to the South Pole. A race between a team led by Roald Amundsen (a Norwegian explorer) and the other by Robert Falcon Scott who led the British team.
In the end, Amundsen’s team experienced ultimate success reaching the South Pole first and returning safely without any loss of life. Scott’s team, on the other hand, ended in ultimate tragedy. Scott’s team did make it to the South Pole but all perished on the return journey.
I have previously talked about this concept in an article in the archives. I wanted to bring it back now because I’m always looking to find things that will answer the question “how can I get to a conversational level of Spanish as fast as possible?” This idea of the 20-mile march is definitely a concept that goes a long way towards answering the question. It’s also why I wanted to record a podcast about it talking about the concept and highlighting it to you in a different way.
In today’s podcast episode I discuss some of the reasons for the success and failure. You can see details in the Wikipedia article here.
But one of the key ideas and one that I want to focus on is that of the 20-mile march.
The journey to the South Pole was approximately 1400 miles and Amundsen set about covering that journey with a relentlessly consistent pace of between 15 to 20 miles per day in good or bad weather.
This may seem counter intuitive at first because it required two types of discipline. The first type of discipline was to not push forward when conditions were favorable but to instead rest for the days to come. And the second was to push forward when whether conditions were poor.
What does this have to do with learning Spanish?
Well in both instances, your circumstance of wanting to reach a conversational level of Spanish and Amundsen’s, you are trying to focus on a long term goal that requires extended focus and effort to reach the goal in quick time.
If you want to get there faster you should consider taking a similar approach to that of Amundsen.
Applying a relentless 15 – 20 mile march he was able to cover the 1400-mile journey to the South Pole and back again over a period of 99 days.
If you had to learn Spanish and it was going to take you 1400 minutes could you do 15-20 minutes a day for 99 days?
Learning Spanish probably takes a lot longer than 1400 minutes but the idea is clear.
If you want to successfully apply a 20 mile march in your routine you need to consider setting an upper bound and a lower bound for your daily routine.
The question is can you set a lower limit that you always hit regardless of weather conditions and can you stop if you hit un upper limit when weather conditions are favorable.
Have a listen today’s podcast episode and let me know what you think?
Does this principle of the 20 mile march make sense? Could you apply the idea to help you learn Spanish faster?
Quote form the episode:
“Adventure is just bad planning” – Roald Amundsen.
How can you apply the 20-mile march concept to your Spanish journey?
Podcast: Play in new window
As I’ve been learning more and more spanish this makes sense. I have my routine that do. LIke with what you said it’s good to stay calm and digest what you’ve learned
Thanks Kai, pacing is really important and reviewing what you have already learned regularly can really help your skills!