Yesterday we discussed choosing a language to learn and why. From this basic start you can create some goals to help your language learning along.
I want to be able to move on from basic greetings, get more confident with numbers, and work on my listening skills.
How much time can you spend on language learning and when? Think about how it will fit in with your day and when you feel best learning.
I aim to spend one hour a week in a class (Wednesdays) and one hour a week studying on my own (split into 3 x 20 minutes during my lunch hour).
Give yourself a concrete goal(s), as vague or specific as you like to help your language learning. It depends what will motivate you the best. Be wary of specific goals and not meeting them and feeling dejected. There is nothing wrong at all with missing your classes/study time for a while. The trick is to get started again and not to feel angry with yourself. You are amazing for giving yourself this challenge!
In one year, I want to make progress in these goals
We have goals and a plan to learn the language
Ta da! So to recap. What we have now is:
Learn to speak French because I like going on holiday to France, eating French food, visiting museums and not speaking English.
I can only do very basic greetings and struggle with basic numbers. I can’t understand very much from what people say.
I want to be able to move on from basic greetings, get more confident with numbers, and work on my listening skills.
I aim to spend one hour a week in a class (Wednesdays) and one hour a week studying on my own (split into 3 x 20 minutes during my lunch hour).
In one year, I want to make progress in these goals.
So great, you have a basic plan for how to learn a language. I have kept the concrete goal vague here, which does allow for you to look back at your notes in say April. And then see if you how you are doing against this concrete goal. If you’ve not met it yet, fine, keep going. If you have met it, I am going to quote Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled for the answer to that one.
Rapunzel: I’ve been looking out of a window for eighteen years, dreaming about what I might feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it’s not everything I dreamed it would be?
Flynn Rider: It will be.
Rapunzel: And what if it is? What do I do then?
Flynn Rider: Well, that’s the good part. You get to go find a new dream(goal).
What next?
Now is the time to work towards the goal. It may be that at the end of four months of study you have new interest areas.
By the summer, I want to have practiced basic tourist roleplays.
In the summer, you would then go back and refine that goal. Let me know in the comments how you start to learn a language.