Now that our bellies have been filled over the Christmas break, it’s time to shift our focus to setting and achieving our New Year’s resolutions. If language learning is your goal, wouldn’t it be great to turn this into a long-term habit to enhance your journey towards becoming fluent? Here are some top tips for ensuring that you achieve your language learning New Year’s resolution.
Do a little language learning, but everyday
Not in the mood for a 1-hour French session? Pas de problème, reduce it to 15 minutes and pick up with the longer session another day. 15 minutes per day over the course of a year adds up to 91 hours – it may not seem like much of a commitment, but it all counts and will make a clear difference in improving your language skills. According to a source from the BBC, it takes around 480 hours of practice to reach basic fluency in all Group 1 languages.
Set realistic goals – and reward yourself for your language learning, too!
It’s very common for new year’s resolutions to be set without an achievable goal. They need to be realistic and measurable for you to be able to complete them. For example, aiming to be fluent within 28 days whilst starting as a beginner – a goal we would all love to achieve but it’s far from convincing…
Make sure that your goals are doable for you on a long-term basis. It’s better to schedule classes less often that you will 100% attend, than scheduling far too many and becoming overwhelmed and giving up completely. When you start, I would recommend starting slower and creating a plan that is feasible for you and then gradually progress to the next level if you’d like to learn faster.
Take one step at a time and each day as it comes… slow and steady wins the race!
Figure out what time of day you prefer to learn a language and add it to your routine
If you’re a morning person, you may want to schedule a language lesson as soon as you open your eyes and before heading off to school, work or to another room if you’re working from home. Or maybe you have a relaxed Sunday evening where you know you can dedicate a few more hours than you did on Tuesday. The idea is that the schedule shouldn’t detract from other aspects of your life, and you should feel comfortable with it and not completely snowed under.
Remember to take breaks when improving your language skills
When you are learning a new language, you are trying to pick up complex grammar, focus on the right pronunciation and so much more. Sometimes, it’s good to put down the textbook or close the app for a day or two and stop thinking about learning entirely. Then when you go back to the topic you will feel refreshed and ready to take on the world!
It’s very important to have a balanced, consistent strategy behind your long-term efforts. However, make sure that you don’t weigh yourself down too much trying to perfect your knowledge as this may lead you to become frustrated and ultimately lose interest in the language entirely, which is not a positive outcome for your New Year’s resolution.
Keen to take your language learning skills more seriously in 2022? Look at our foreign language courses today and we’ll be more than happy to help you with your New Year’s resolution progress.