Feeling stuck on that plateau of "invisible progress"? Here's how to keep going! Here's a snapshot of how I make progress in my target language step-by-step, even after 18 months of study. You’ll learn about my goals for April 2017, and how I fit in learning 2 languages at the same time.
I use the Language Habit Toolkit, a study system I created for learners like me who are self-guided and want to track flexibly.
Read morePeople often ask me how many languages I speak. But recently, I was asked one question that made me think more deeply about why and how learning more languages works for me:
Does it get easier when you are learning more languages?
The short answer is "yes". It definitely does.
Here are the things that are helpful, relevant, and different when you are learning your 7th language.
Read moreFor a long time, I had a difficult relationship with goal-setting. As a fully-fledged questioner, I find it hard to take anything at face value, let alone the idea that I must have a goal to achieve anything.
When I was learning languages in full-time education environments like school and university, the goals weren't on my mind. My school sorted that out for me: turn up to classes, write essays, take exams. But since I've started working with independent language learners (and since I became one), goals have taken an entirely different role.
As an independent language learner, you need to know what to do. It's easy to think that you're already doing the work by stating what you want to achieve. But let me have an honest moment with you here:
Those goals don't help you do things.
In this article, you'll learn about the two types of goals you need for language learning.
Let's have a look at those language learning goals I see online again and again.
I am sure you have often heard about SMART goals. In many areas of life, our goals will only serve us if we make them specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.
In my mind, these fail the SMART list on a bunch of counts:
None of this is a bad thing in itself. If you are motivated and driven by a vision of your future self speaking a foreign language without hesitating, then that is an amazing image to hold on to. It should be one of the many vague and inspiring concepts you hold dear, and in fact I would even advise you start visualizing your success.
But those visions aren't useful goals, because they just won't help you when it gets down to doing the language learning work. You need that vision.
And for times when you've carved out that half hour to get to business and really learn a language, you need goals.
In my Welsh studies, I've been completely independent from the start. I don't have that external structure of tutor, group class, exams, and it took a while before I found a way to use my time for language learning. At first, I tried ideas like "I want fluency" and even "I want to speak Welsh at the Eisteddfod in August". They worked as a motivator, but failed to give me a clear idea of the steps I wanted to take to learn a language.
My current path goals in Welsh
I needed something that would help me know what to do when my study time comes. These goals are what I call path goals. They guide you when you're in study mode and mark the milestones on your path.
Here's what you need for making good path goals:
Structure is the thing that stops you from starting every study session wondering what you'll work on today. It's absolute gold for independent language learners, because you simply don't have the time to faff every single time. Decision fatigue is real, and it's going to paralyze you if you allow it.
The four core skills are the essential set of everything that makes language learning a success for you. You will want to focus on some more than others, but ultimately you need to put work into all four for becoming that inspiring future self.
The four core skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Structure your goals around improving in each one, and you're guaranteed to succeed.
There might be other areas you want to focus on too, such as improving your pronunciation and vocabulary. But if you've got the four core skills covered in your goals, I would advise you not to worry too much about any others. They will come naturally as you improve and respond to your needs in every situation.
Variety is a key component of the path goals you set for yourself. It's realistic to acknowledge that moods, motivation and focus can vary from day to day. So on one day you might be excited to crack open the textbook and work your phrases, but on another day all you want is speaking practice with a tutor.
Having varied goals (I recommend at least 4 to cover each core skill) allows you to pick from a short, focused list of tasks and make progress in every single study session.
So there you have it. Goal setting isn't the holy grail of productivity. But when you do it right and know your goal types, each step can give you the right support you need to progress today.
1. Set Vision Goals
You can call this an intention, a vision, a goal. This is the imagined, vivid image of your future self that will keep you going.
2. Set Path Goals
Path goals are not big visions, they are the structured next steps that will help you when it's time to work on studying
Do you want to follow the system I explained in this article and start to discover your ideal language learning routine? Then I recommend you check out the Language Habit System, my hands-on course to help you learn any language with personalized milestones.
--> Click here to learn more about the Language Habit System <--
Episode 37 is brought to you by italki, where you can find a language partner for any language. We tested it with rare languages like Icelandic, and it totally delivered. Get an awesome free lesson deal at italki.
Britain is not monolingual at all, but in fact it is teeming with languages. In this episode, we present you the real landscape of languages spoken in the British Isles.
Can you guess how many languages are indigenous to this country?
We discovered some amazing things, not lastly you'll NEVER guess what Irish and Spanish bears have in common!
You'll be surprised to find that more than 2 million people in the UK speak British languages other than English. Here is a quick summary of the bigger groups of languages spoken in the UK - not just British languages, but also the immigrant languages most popular in the UK today, for example Polish, Gujarati and Urdu.
Listen to our podcast episode to get a wonderful tour of the British languages, including:
Lindsay does some amazing demonstrations of the Scottish language and accent. And Kerstin says her first "goodbye" in Welsh!
You can get in touch with us and tell us what you thought by
1) leaving us an iTunes review by visiting our itunes page and clicking "Ratings and Reviews"
2) using hashtag #cllp on Twitter (I am @kerstinhammes and Lindsay is @ldlanguages.
And once again, thanks so much to our sponsors Italki - please support our show by visiting that link today.
Let's hear it for the structure, the building blocks and road maps of language in my blog's grammar ♥︎ season. Exploring language patterns gives you depth, context, and answers.
Today I'm sharing a handful of ways in which you can become a better language learner without ever memorizing a whole verb table.
Language learning follows the curve of excitement that you can find in many new projects. First there is a real burst of activity and motivation, bumping you up to emotional highs. This is where app streaks get completed, flashcards are interesting, and you're out there telling the world about your project. It is the perfect time to buy stationery.
After a little bit of time, your notebook is half full and your brain feels tired. Progress becomes invisible. The first burst of excitement gives way to a recognition of the gaps that you still have, and you find yourself having to memorize quite a lot in a short time. It gets frustrating, demotivating, it kinda sucks. This is where you go online and read my blog and I tell you that you're awesome and you must! not! stop!
The frustration point is where discipline and organization have to kick in.What you might not realize is that this very point of plateau is the perfect time to start speaking to people in your target language. You might not be entirely ready yet, but that's ok. Perfection isn't required anyway.
If you have only been studying stock phrases and vocabulary so far, you will reach that point of plateau with NOTHING.
But with just a small amount of key grammar structures like knowing how to say a sentence in the present tense, or how to ask a question, your range of expression will become immense. This is the magic of using grammar as your roadmap.
I know how bloody boring all grammar can be if you study it in the wrong way. In fact, I know that even the word "grammar" sounds like an instant yawn.
But maybe you can find a way of sneaking in a little bit of that goodness without losing all will to exist. Here are 5 steps that work for me every time, and I know that you'll feel so much better once you get going with them.
Observing natural inputs is one of your biggest allies for developing the right feel for a language. Learners from anywhere can use the internet to do this in millions of ways. My own students do it by listening to the news on their drive to work, tuning in to German podcasts, or watching cool German TV shows like Deutschland 83.
Negative self-talk in language learning is nobody's friend. So the more you dread the g-word and the more you resist, the harder it gets to make sense of even the most basic structures. Just like we're doing here in grammar ♥︎ season, it's helpful to create an atmosphere of positivity in your language learning.
For a few ideas about how exactly you might do this when faced with a conjugation rule, try Fluent's fabulous set of language affirmations.
It doesn't matter where you live, or if you can afford lessons, or if you are an eskimo living on the moon. As soon as you observe a new pattern, challenge yourself to use it quickly and make it your own. You should be writing or speaking at least 3 sentences in your target language every day. In a guided scenario, you have a tutor or a great course to prompt what you are working on. But it's just as good to take the notes you made in point 1 of this list and start building your own variations on set pieces.
Yep, even though you're now producing language you're not even done yet. Whatever you write, say or record has got to go out to another human. Find a person that you trust to make you feel positive and support you fully in the language learning journey. They should not be allowed to make you feel bad for making mistakes.
My advice is always to make that person someone who has studied your target language extensively, ideally a 1-to-1 tutor. The reason is that whenever you make a mistake, your curiosity perks up. You'll want to know more, and good teaching means explaining how something works, and prompting you gently so that you can do it correctly and adopt new patterns.
By now, you've probably learnt that the most important killer trick for learning grammar is to leave the hard study to your tutor. If they are good, and if they are as fanatic about language as possible, then they may already have read the book from cover to cover. The key here is that the tutor is a great resource for you, because it creates a trusted environment where someone can explain to you why the language behaves a certain way.
I haven't seen a lot of Star Wars. But as a pop culture aware person, I do know one thing: Star Wars films talk a lot about the Force. Wikipedia tells you:
The Force is a binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous power.
The story of the force contains a dark side, of course. You can't just go and start wielding it all willy-nilly or you'll end up like that guy Darth Vader.
Now, I admit that knowing how to name words and conjugate verbs isn't exactly going to power anyone's lightsabre. But just like the Force, the key to mastering grammar is in learning how to use it for your own purposes.
Some learners are curious and want to know the exact rules of language. Others just want to get a feeling for how to do things correctly.
Which one are you?