Have you seen the movie Interstellar?
This was one of those movies I couldn’t stop thinking about.
My favorite scene was when the astronauts landed on a planet that had super gravity. And the result of this super gravity was that every minute they stayed on the planet, seven years would pass on Earth.
Weird. Right?
1 minute = seven years.
It was a crazy planet. And, of course, they didn’t take too many coffee breaks during their visit.
But it also reminded me of a mistake I see a lot of students make.
I call it the 1=1 mistake.
In most of life, this is a correct equation.
You have one dollar. You put it in the bank. The next day you can take out your one dollar.
1=1
But English is a crazy planet.
You see a word you don’t know and you find it in the dictionary.
But do you have the word? Do you know it? Is it in your brain? In your long-term memory?
No.
The next time you see it you still won’t remember it.
You put it in your brain, but now it’s gone.
One equals zero.
But, if you read every day and listened to podcasts every day and watched TV every day and saw and heard that word again and again and again…maybe one hundred times?… then, finally you would have 1.
Athletes don’t believe in 1=1. They repeat the same motions every day.
Musicians don’t believe in 1=1. They repeat the same notes every day.
And fluent speakers also don’t believe in 1=1.
They do English every day.