How Common Is Language Learning Burnout?

You may have heard about language learning burn out and wondered how common it might be. The reality is that it can be quite common; we can all suffer from it and since the cause is “studying” we are all at risk.

However, just because it is common does not mean it will happen to you. If you are careful you can easily avoid it. You can also easily overcome it if you do happen to suffer from burn out.  

Language Burn Out Is Very Common

Language learning burn out is mentioned a lot, but I don’t think we quite appreciate how common it is.

I would be confident to say that pretty much everyone who has learned a language has suffered from some level of burn out during their studies at some point.

They may not have realised it, or they may have assumed it was something else, but I think nearly everyone will have suffered from it.

If we look at the level of attrition, we can see that most people who start a language, never actually get the results they want. This can be for all sorts of reasons, but a lot of the time they try and push for success and end up grinding themselves down to the point of burn out. This causes them to quit and they walk away from their studies not realising that they were suffering from burn out.    

If you then look at those who do see success, they will have been studying a long time and will have experienced all sorts of ups and downs, and often many start and stops along the way. Quite often these people will have pushed themselves beyond what they are capable of handling and they will have burned out. The only difference in their success is that they allowed themselves to recover before carrying on again. 

Language Learning Burn Out Can Happen To Anyone

I think it is important to remember that this can happen to anyone, at any stage of their language learning.

I don’t mean that to sound like something you should be worried about, its more about the fact that it doesn’t matter who we are or what we have done already, we can all end up working ourselves to hard and grinding ourselves down into a state of burn out.

We will all have our own goals and stressors in life and we are all capable of letting the stressors get the better of us.

You will find that the more inexperienced learners are more likely to suffer burn out, but that is simply because they lack the self awareness and they might not know their limits as well. Once you have been studying for a while you will start to get a feel for things. You will learn to understand what fatigue actually is and you will notice what causes it and what leads you there.

Having this experience can help a lot, it should mean you are more likely to avoid getting burnt out, but things can happen and you can still fall into the trap.   

Language Burn Out Can Happen Very Easily

Language burn out can happen very easily, which is what makes it so common.

To get burn out, you just have to study …which we are all going to be doing. The problem is when we end up going too fast, or doing too much. This can all add up to make us feel fatigued, and then if we constantly get into this state every day, it will wear us down to the point that we become fatigued.    

We all want to see results so it is very easy to push a little too hard and drain ourselves, so you can see how it can easily happen.

We also all have busy lives full of different stressors that strain our energy levels, when you add this onto studying it can be very easy to burn out. You might think you are doing a reasonable amount, but when you consider the stress from work it may actually be too much and it may be grinding you down and before you know it you are totally drained.  

(You can read more about – Signs That You Are Suffering From Language Burn Out)

We All Think We Can Avoid It

I also think burn out is more common than we think, as we think we can avoid it. It’s easy to think you are going at a respectable pace, or that you can handle what you are doing.

The fact that we often study alone makes it difficult to know if we are actually working too hard or not, then the few people who do show their progress on youtube or wherever, end up being our only measuring sticks as such.

We may see someone online studying 8 hours a day and as we are doing nowhere near that, we think we will be fine and nowhere near burn out. We believe they are the ones who are going to burn out, not us …however, it doesn’t matter, we can still fall victim if we are not careful.     

We need to actually listen to our bodies and actually get a feel for what level of studying we can handle and more importantly realise when we should step back and slow down so that we do not drain ourselves and end up burnt out.

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can see that language learning burn out is actually pretty common. It is something that can easily happen to any of us, so just watch out for it, and if you think it is happening then try and rest and recover before carrying on.

Don’t make the mistake of allowing burn out to totally derail your studies. 

(You can read more about – Frequently Asked Questions About – Language Learning Burn Out)