11 Short & Sweet Tips To Help You Learn a Language in 2016
Ahh, happy new year to all of you! Even though the last two weeks have been quite busy, I did take a few minutes to note down my resolutions for the next year.
One thing that struck me this year is something I had not realised before. There is this huge difference between goals and resolutions. A goal is something specific, concrete, something that you can achieve and then feel good about your success. A resolution is deeper and comes from your emotional centre. It's about what you really want to change in your life.
Language Learning Resolutions vs Goals
Resolutions are often ambitious and come out of the desire to improve something and feel better as a result. Here are some great language learning resolutions:
- To become fearless in the face of talking to strangers in a foreign language
- To feel comfortable watching foreign TV without subtitles
- To become less self-critical
- To build a habit of reviewing vocabulary every single week
Success comes from combining ambition and goal. So once your ambition is set, think about how to break it down into goals - how much can you do in 3 months, how much can you do in a week? Documenting all those goals will give you a clear roadmap, with the resolution as your fuel and the ambition as the destination.
How to Start Reaching That Language Learning Ambition
The following set of tips is a summary of the best advice that Lindsay and I discussed in Episode 30 of the Creative Language Learning Podcast. You can listen to the episode to find out how we go about learning our own target languages, Japanese and Welsh.
1. Work With a Diary or Calendar
Automating a new habit is such a fantastic way to stop negotiating with yourself. If your diary usually has things like doctor's appointments and meetings with your boss in it, how can you question its authority? So use that rock in your life and start adding little bits of language study time, for example coaching sessions or vocab reviews.
2. Don't Rely on Empty Time
Instead of hoping for that Duolingo-at-the-bus-stop moment, set some time aside as a regular appointment with yourself. Lindsay sets time aside from 7am to 8am so she can enjoy an hour of language learning where she can do what she wants to do. I'm less consistent but have a Sunday afternoon study hour where I work on learning my languages.
3. Don't Be Quiet About Your Resolution
It's too easy to commit to a big resolution without even telling people about it. But when it comes to actually doing stuff, it helps to look out for other people that want to do the same. As language learners, this is more true for us than any other people. You want to learn a language, so you want to talk to people. Get started with the "people" part of it now and find a language learning buddy or a tutor to support you.
4. Build on Existing Habits
If there is a slot in your day that you repeat regularly, you have found a great opportunity to learn your language. For example, I know that every morning I sit on the stairs in my house and drink a coffee. The coffee is already a fixed part of my day, so adding a daily Welsh practice or reviewing one page of my learning notebook won't take too much willpower. Instead of going on Facebook before you drop off to sleep, could you spend 10 minutes with the flashcards?
5. Make Your Chunks Big and Small Enough
When you are studying at beginner level, it's too difficult to aim for passing the big C2 immigration exam. When you are advanced but haven't got travel money for the next 6 months, it's too unrealistic to aim for that in-country conversation with a native speaker. These goals need to be broken down so that you can see the end in sight of your current project. What can you do today so that it's a bit easier for you to get to the vision tomorrow?
6. Be Super Precise
Precision is essential for setting a good language learning goal. You must define exactly what it is that you are aiming for. Fluency is a vague desire, but what you need is more than that. Your goals have to be measurable in precise terms, so try to zoom in on those step-by-step achievements. For example, I tend to avoid putting my goals in terms of "having a conversation". Instead, I may want to finish Lesson 8 in my textbook next week or say 15 new sentences based on what I already know. The key is to DO something that will make you feel good when you've done it. Imagining your success does not count.
7.Once the Course is Set, Do Not Question It
It can be so tempting to set a big ambitious goal and leave a little bit of wriggle-room open for yourself when things don't quite work out. When you are setting your New Year's Resolution, is it so ambitious that you already know you're going to fail? If yes, then revise it. Halve it. Make it achievable so that you know you'll be committed.
This is where writing a goal down and sharing it come in handy. Write it in the comments of this blog article as a first step! Set yourself a reminder to come back to it. Whatever you do, don't just go away and forget what excited you enough to get started.
8. Repeat Your Successes
Meeting a goal doesn't mean that you'll never have to do it again. It is the first step to building an awesome new habit. So once you've had your first Skype lesson, you're one step further along the way. But you're not there. You may never be there.
Last year, my New Year's Resolution was to become a more punctual person. But that is an ambition and not a goal. A goal would have been to say "I will turn up 10 minutes early for every appointment I have tomorrow". And for the first day, I did just that. I was super proud! Now imagine what would have happened if I'd just stopped caring after that goal. I'd be just as late as I always was. But if I met the goal every single day, I'd start building new pathways and habits and become a more punctual person.
9. Identify What's Driving You
Behind all our ambitions for becoming a polyglot, more fluent, a better student, a more productive person, there is an assumption that you have a problem right now. It's extremely important to work out what drives your ambition and to identify this personal issue, so that you can start observing the progress you are making. Even if you don't meet every single goal or milestone along the way, are you learning more about yourself? Are you making progress? Are you trying out a new way of thinking?
10. Observe the Progress
It's very common to feel like you are falling behind within the first few weeks of the new year energy. But could you critique yourself in a positive way instead of being self-critical? Don't forget that failing to meet a hard goal doesn't signal a major failure. I'm reminded of Ron Gullekson's recent blog post where he spoke about failing the German exam he had spent months preparing for. Does that mean Ron is a complete German failure? No! He went through intense preparation, so even he still benefited from a tight learning schedule and improved his written German.
Finally, here is a great tip if you feel like this time is not right for resolutions, but you still want to welcome 2016 in the right way:
11. Set a Theme, Not a Resolution
If you didn't have the energy or courage to set yourself a specific goal, the theme for your year, month, or week can act as a wonderful guide to take its place. It also helps you focus on appreciating what you have got right now without becoming too self-critical. As I am entering a new year in my language studies and my teaching business, my theme will be "Figure it out!", a message to myself that giving up isn't what I'm here for.
What Are Your New Year's Resolutions?
So now it's over to you:
What are your plans?
How are you going to make sure you stay committed?
Have you found a buddy yet?
No matter if you have a language learning resolution or something else, I'm looking forward to reading about what you're planning in the comments below.
For more tips about how to learn a language the right way, check out Lindsay's new course Successful Self Study or my popular books Fluency Made Achievable and The Vocab Cookbook.
Podcast Episode 30: How to Achieve a New Year's Resolution of Learning a New Language
Welcome to episode 30 of the Creative Language Learning Podcast, and as always I can't tell you how excited I am that this show is happening. 30 episodes marks a significant point - the show has been running for two years and brings you regular language love on your commute, in the gym and everywhere else.
How long have you been listening?
Here's what's in the big episode 30:
- How to find the time for language even when you're megabusy
- Community Classes and Polyglot Clubs have lots in common
NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS!
- What we think about the resolution that is "I will become fluent in..." or "I will learn the language..."
- Why "fluency" is an ambition and not a goal
- The unfailing SMART goalsetting technique
- Working out what is driving your resolution and "what your problem is" can help you get more motivation to change
- How can your resolution serve you even if you don't achieve it?
- Why is excitement essential when fear is destructive?
- And what are our themes and resolutions for 2016?
THE EPISODE TAKEAWAY
Set yourself a theme for the new year!
WEBINAR ON SATURDAY!
Join Lindsay and Kerstin - that's us! We'll be discussing how to set successful goals in 2016.
LINKS AND TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE OF THE CREATIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING PODCAST
Three Little-Known Facts about Speaking German
One of the most common ambitions that language learners share at all stages is that of speaking the language fluently. Fluency means a lot to you, and it pulls together aspects of confidence, expertise, speed and pronunciation.
Maybe you're dreaming of speaking German with ease and a perfect accent. No one will recognise you as Jonny Foreigner as you flirt your way through the trendy bars of Berlin.
If you're a German learner, I'll soon be ready to help you out with one of the five: sounding more like a native speaker. Behind the scenes of Fluent, I'm currently building my first German course, and this one will focus on making you sound very good indeed.
Curious about how I'll do it? Let's start with a few home truths:
1) The e is never silent in German
Even at the end of a word, you have to sound this out. Confusingly that sound is called a 'schwa', but don't worry, you don't have to 'schwa'-y as you produce the sound. In my course, I'll show you how to do it.
2) V and f and w are all fricatives
What the heck is a fricative?
The Fricative Mouth Shape: Teeth touching lip slightly, air pushed through the space produces the sound.
Well, it looks a bit like this:
Fricatives are all the sound that you make when pushing air through a constricted space. I know that sounds kinky, but it's more or less an "f" sound - sometimes they're harder and sometimes softer. In German, the most unusual fricative fact is the fact that we pronounce our w as one of these little things. Ever heard a German speak English in a heavy accent? You might notice them saying "ve are valking to the vall". This is what you want to reverse-engineer when you learn German. Crazy, right? I'll be teaching you more about it in my videos - good job you'll get to hear my demo along with the explanations!
3) Germans don't all roll the r
Some of us can't even do it at all. We make a sound that's much closer to the French r...it's called an uvular fricative but you don't have to learn the whole phonetic language too. Just listen, try out how you can produce the sound and see if you can hear the difference in the practice words. Here's a video explaining how to do this in detail:
Of course Southern German dialects such as Franconian and Bavarian are known for their beautifully rolled r, so it isn't true to say that rolled r doesn't appear in German. But it helps to know that this is proof of our very strong regional dialects (you have to read about the Mosel one).
What do you struggle with in German?
Now you know that you're not alone if you find it difficult to say some German words, I would love to hear which ones cause you the biggest problems.
Leave me a comment here and tell me all about the trickiest German words!
I'm very excited about bringing you the course by the end of next month, and would love to keep you up to date. If you want to learn more about speaking German with confidence, check out the German Pronunciation Masterclass. It's a video course focused on one thing: helping you sound AWESOME in German.
The course includes
- close-up photos and videos of every letter in the German alphabet to help you practice saying them at home
- easy explanations that don't confuse you with a lot of phonetic words or complex diagrams
- interesting examples and a special lecture on dialects to help you understand German speakers from anywhere
Has Language Guilt ever Ruined your Day?
Us humans, we’re an unreliable lot. Making big promises, telling our lovers and our languages that we will be forever faithful to them. And then, we find an exciting new script and go skipping away, never reaching the blissful heights of B2 level! Have you ever abandoned a language? In today’s post, I want to give you a quick life and language update and share my abandonment of Russian along with some ideas of how we can deal with Language Guilt.
Quitting without guilt
I’m finding this one very difficult indeed. I started learning Russian over a year ago and have not made a lot of progress. I don’t really mind this all that much - obviously I’ve been a productive person in many other ways. But I genuinely feel quite guilty and embarrassed at the thought of “giving up on Russian”. I feel like I’m sharing this in a space where people are keen to acquire lots of languages. I’m a teacher of languages. My whole thing is designed to keep you going! What a poor showing when your own language coach announces that she’s going to stop learning Russian for a while.
I had the time and I used it
But there may be a different way of looking at this. First of all, let’s examine the classic excuse of “I’ve just got no time in my life for this.” I have thought this a few times, just like everyone has. But realistically, I know that I have spent time language learning. I spent a lot of time and brain energy on bringing my French back up to scratch since last year. Russian seemed like the one I was scared to go back to because it was a real challenge, and right now I just wasn’t ready. But really, I had time. I could have made time. I wasn’t idle, I was just not that into Russian.
Some other things I did?
- Created the Savvy Brand Toolkit, the Language Book Club, and the Live Lesson Strategies Course
- Took two online courses at FutureLearn: “Understanding Language Learning and Teaching” and “Inequalities in Personal Finance”.
- Taught a lot of German to a lot of you lovely people - in fact, I'm building a special online course for you which should be ready next month (sign up to the newsletter for updates)
So I think I can get away with considering myself a person who has not been lazy.
I needed to unblock my Productivity
Do you relate to the following situation? My own productivity is never higher than when I manage to let go of a “should-y” feeling. There is no need to be my own worst critic and spend all my days avoiding something I don’t like, and at the same time feeling guilty about it. So instead, I want to take this opportunity to openly declare that I feel embarrassed that I didn’t learn more Russian.
There. So what? So nothing! I have learnt a lot in the time I did spend with this wonderful language: new words, verb endings, Cyrillic script and what grechka is. Maybe if I feel like I "should be at level A2 by now", the guilt actually becomes a hindrance to learning more Russian?
If we lose our sense of fun and play in language learning, what is left but graft and guilt and bad feelings?
Now it is the time to follow my own enthusiasm and start discovering the basics of a few more languages with a clear and open mind. Isn’t that better? I am taking a moment to appreciate the things that I did learn and I am ready to move on and let the enthusiasm boost me along.
I am Declaring my Intentions
Here I am with my clear and open mind. I have learnt some basics of Russian. I will be back one day and LOVING IT. And in the meantime?
Here’s what’s on my plate for the coming few months:
As you are reading this at the beginning of June, I have just celebrated my wedding and hidden out in Wales for a few days. Now I hope to be able to carve out a little more time to delve into a language that has fascinated me forever: Welsh. I live near the Welsh border and a week in the country is one of the most affordable travel options I probably have. The Welsh language also attracts me because of its historic connections and the wonderful way that it evokes its landscape in its pronunciation. I have not yet got a plan of how I will go about learning this one, and am most likely to treat it as my “passion project”, dipping in and out of learning more.
The second language is one that I’m truly looking forward to, and again one I’m expecting to pursue at a beginner level. I’ll give you a few hints here to see if you can guess which one it is:
- It’s related to English and German in a way that makes it easy to read
- I’ve just started a new Pinterest board for it
- This guy:
Any ideas?
Has Language Guilt ever ruined your day?
I would love to hear from you guys on this topic. Let's drag that language guilt out of the closet, kicking and screaming, and look at it in daylight. Is it okay to move on from a language when you feel ready to do so? Or should we all stop being so precious and commit to working harder?
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments - please let me know where you're at.
Three Quick Techniques for Speaking and Writing More in a Foreign Language
If you are the self-directed type of language learner, I bet you’ve got yourself a little routine set up and have a large amount of input coming in. Online courses, flashcard decks, podcasts. And instructions and TV shows. And Harry Potter in whatever language you are learning. It’s all about how much you can put into your head in the shortest possible period of time.
And then an article comes along and tells you to “speak more”, so you pack your motivation and get yourself that language exchange partner, you open your mouth and …. nothing. Where the HECK are all those new words, please?
Like you, I totally know the feeling of wanting to just open your mouth and speak. I see it in my students on a regular basis. I can feel it when I try to have a French conversation. Why is it so frustrating?
For me, the heart of the problem lies in the nature of the skills you have been training. There are output and input activities. And within those, thee four core language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. All languages are systems of communication, so they require you to be able to both understand and produce comprehensible things. Balance really matters, and if you are on chapter 15 of your Assimil, but you can’t talk at chapter 3 level, you need to go back to the core language skills and start pushing yourself to go from input to output.
Core Language Skills to the Rescue
Luckily, this isn’t quite as tough as it seems. In my book Fluency Made Achievable, you can find lots of easy exercises for training the specific skills of writing and speaking. And here are three ideas you can use in your language learning routine to focus on boosting your output. If you have to cut some of your study time away from the input-focused tasks through this, don’t hesitate to do so. The aim of incorporating output into your language learning is not to make you better at producing language right away, but instead to give you that core skills balance. You will find that you become a better and more confident speaker through this, and that you’ll start approaching that desirable feeling of fluency and confidence.
1. Reply Back
This exercise is for all those learners who spend hours with foreign language podcasts and TV shows. It cuts right through all those excuses and attention drifts that are holding you back. Whenever you are listening to those recordings, get into a routine of stopping what you are listening to every five minutes. Think about whatever the actors were talking about and imagine you are being interviewed about the same topic. If you are watching a drama, imagine you are part of the action. What would you say? What do you think about these facts?
Don’t just imagine what you would say, but reply back to the video, talk to the actors or the imaginary interviewer in your head. Speak out loud, like no one is around you. This exercise is so perfect for being in the car or studying at home. Not only does it force you to say something, but it also prevents you from tuning out. If you force yourself to think about what was discussed and reply back, you are also forced to listen attentively and make sure you really understand. No more hiding.
If you’re interested in a great tool deeply understanding native language content, check out Yabla, a fabulous tool that goes so much further than your average YouTube channel.
2. Describe Your World
Here is a quote from Fluency Made Achievable, in which I interviewed language learner David Mansaray about his favourite practices in learning a foreign language:
I like to describe the world around me in a the foreign language. For example: ”The boy is wearing a hat”, or ”The woman is pushing a pram”, or ”The people around me are boring so I'd rather think in my head in a foreign language”. I can do this exercise anywhere at any time. It not only helps me practice, but it also helps me to discover vocabulary and grammatical structures I need to work on. I make a note of these in a small notebook I always carry with me and work on them later.
No matter if you are recording a voice memo on your phone or jotting sentences down in a notebook like David does, the key is that you are using your language in the context that works for you. You can go from foreign language shopping lists to describing an everyday scene in great detail. The key is that you maintain active use and produce something in a foreign language on a regular basis. This exercise is also particularly great because it builds habits very easily, which can make a huge difference when you start coming out of the first honeymoon phase.
3. Write Short Lines Every Day
There is a reason I keep making my students aware of the need to write as part of their language practice. Writing forces you into paying attention. When you try to write something on your phone, you miss what's on the TV. When you try to tweet while talking to someone, it comes out as nonsense. Writing has this way of being an activity that tells you "HEY! Look here! This is where you focus now". I often talk about how much I find that this practice is underrated, and it is the quietest core language skill. If speaking a foreign language appealed to you because you are an introvert, or dreaming of overcoming shyness, then you may not be willing to spend hours crafting short stories.
Nonetheless, you should put your mind to short and regular writing practice. A line a day is easily written, takes up five minutes of your time and STILL does more for you than half an hour of podcasts can. If you work with a tutor, why not email or text them in your target language from time to time?
Or alternatively, start out translating one line from your native language every single day. Over time, you will feel this huge sense of achievement as you realise you have written thousands of words in your foreign language. Behold the achievement when it happens, congratulate yourself on your progress and make sure you get this proofread.
Remember Balance
Nothing is as frustrating as feeling you are working hard and making no progress at all, and understanding the core language skills idea will help you propel forward your language learning progress. Getting stuck in a rut is not for you.
Here is the key: Maintain variety and keep doing the things you haven’t done.
It’s not about beating yourself up when you find that your writing skill doesn’t live up to your advanced reading routines. It’s about recognising that there’s a skill gap and getting to work. I promise you that you’ll find yourself getting better and boosting your confidence in a little matter of weeks. It’s incredible what a shake-up can do for language learners.
If you want to work through your own core language skills assessment, check out my book Fluency Made Achievable which is focused entirely on this system of four skills and contains a neat 3 week planner. It will help you build your proficiency and focus on strengthening the precise skills you need.
Struggling with listening? Discover realistic tips, challenge prompts, and the best tools for improving your listening skills as a self-guided language learner