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Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome
Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is …
But I Don’t Want To Right Now
Or
How to Motivate Yourself to Learn a Language
Learning a language takes a long time. How long will depend on many things, such as:
If you’ve learnt any languages before
Whether the language is close to your own in how it’s constructed
How much time you have to dedicate to learning
There is no possible answer to the question of how long it will take for any one person, but it will take a long time. So, if that’s the case, you’re going to need to be motivated to do it.
Reasons for learning a language are many and varied. For example:
- It might be that you need to learn a language for your work, or the job that you aspire to do.
- It could be that you’re in a relationship with someone from another country.
- It’s possible you want to learn because you’re interested in a particular culture.
- Or it could just be that you love learning languages.
Which of these is going to be more motivating? Honestly, I think it’s the last one. If you love learning languages you probably already have all the motivation you need, because you’ve already done it before and you’re still continuing to do it. The other three? Well, they will all depend on the particular person, but for all of them, the motivation might wane after a period of time, if you don’t feel like you’re getting very far.
My biggest tip would be routine. We humans like routine, so if you can get into a particular habit of always doing a certain thing at a specific time of day that will help. For example:
I listen to Italian radio at night.
I listen to Welsh radio over breakfast, Monday - Friday. Why not at the weekends? Well, because they start talking about topics I have no interest in at the weekend.
Those are quite easy things to do. It takes little effort and I’m getting input that’s not always comprehensible, especially in Welsh, but it is accustomising me to the language.
So, you could set a particular time of day to study. Let’s say you use an app to teach you the language. Perhaps, you can do that on your commute. Or you might prefer to read in the language at that time.
You can always listen to language content while you’re doing the washing up, or other mundane tasks.
You can say, for example, every Monday night I’ll watch a film in the language, without fail.
Habit-building works. But what are other methods you could use?
Well, some people say to give yourself rewards for completing certain tasks, like food treats. This isn’t something that works for me. I mean, I try not to eat chocolate bars, so having one as a reward is going to be a big no-no for me, but even so, it’s not something that motivates me. But maybe you could think of something specific that would work for you.
Another method is to break things down into smaller tasks, so they don’t feel like so much of a chore to do. Because, honestly, some language learning is a little like a chore, even if you really want to do it. Chopping it up into small chunks and, perhaps, lots of small chunks of different things, might be a way to make it more interesting and enjoyable, thus boosting your motivation. I do this a lot. I rarely spend more than half an hour on one task and, a lot of times, much less. Variety is the spice of life, as the saying goes.
Another thing would be not to set goals that are unattainable and unrealistic. One of the reasons for getting demotivated is that you’ve just set yourself goals that are too difficult to do in the time. Personally, I don’t set much in the way of goals with my language learning. I just let it happen. The only thing I can specifically remember doing, in that first year of learning Italian, was I wanted to have finished a book in Italian, which I was already reading, by the time I finished the Duolingo tree and an Italian trilogy I received for my birthday by the end of the calendar year. I achieved both of these and haven’t really set any other significant goals since.
Obviously, if you have time constraints, such as you’re learning to apply for a job, you have less flexibility on this, but in most situations, I’d say you don’t have to set goals, unless you do find them really motivating, but if you do set them, set smaller goals that are easier to reach and add to them incrementally. You’ll feel like you’ve achieved more.
And, finally, motivation can fall off if you feel like you’re not getting anywhere. You could feel like this because you’re looking at things in a negative fashion, as in mentally listing all the things you haven’t yet achieved. But, what if you were to think about all the things you already have achieved, instead? Perhaps, you could keep an actual list of these, so you could look back at them and give yourself a silent pat on the back. Try to be positive, not negative, when thinking about your language learning and you’ll feel better about your progress.
That’s all for today’s episode. Don’t forget to join me again next time, for more language learning tips, tricks and tales and in the meantime, check out the A Language Learning Tale YouTube channel for additional, non-podcast content.
Ciao, salut, hwyl and bye for now.