So you want to learn a language
consistently step by step,
especially if you have tried
to learn languages in the past
and it just has not worked
and you're really,
really sick of hitting that wall
and not be able to get past it
to learn a language
consistently long term.
You're in the right place.
My name is Jamie.
I'm a language coach
and this is my specialty actually,
because I spent like 16 years
in your exact position.
I tried everything under the sun,
and so now I'm going to teach you exactly
what you need to know
to be consistent step by step.
And I'm going to teach you
through the eyes
of my three part framework
because it summarizes and encompasses
every single thing that you need to know.
And I know this
because that worked for me
and it's worked for all my clients.
So without further ado,
let's get into it.
Now, the first step
to learning a language,
a lot of people will tell you vocabulary.
You need to start learning the words.
And while that's not incorrect,
it's also ignoring a big problem
that a lot of people have.
Which is why the first phase
of my framework of the method is mindset.
And I don't mean this in like, “woo
woo” Like,
you know,
just be grateful and put a smile on
or be confident or whatever.
That's not what I'm talking about.
So the thing that I found with myself
and with so many different
language learners
is that you can have all of the materials
and have all the time and all the money
and all the space in the world
to learn a language.
But if there is a doubt
or if there is an insecurity,
or there is a fear
that you are unable to learn a language
for whatever reason,
you will not be able to continue forward.
And these are fears
that you might consider just to be fact
and completely true.
But they're not.
And that's why
when I opened up this video,
I said this is especially for people
who have a really hard time
sticking to language learning
because it's
very, very easy to,
you know, go on Duolingo
or start researching
beginner vocabulary
or any number of things.
That is not difficult.
What is difficult
is sticking to it
long term, sticking to it enough
so that you're actually
making progress
in learning the language
instead of giving up
in like a week or so.
So that's why the first thing that
you really should tackle is your mindset,
not only whether or not
you believe
that you
are able to learn a language,
you're too old, you
don't have enough time,
you're afraid of making mistakes,
any number of things. Not only that.
So that is that is only the first part
of the first phase
I talk about in mindset.
The other part
is specifying
what exactly you want to learn.
So it's really easy to say,
I'm going to learn a language,
I want to learn a language.
And it's very easy for people to say,
I have learned a language.
But the thing is
that is such a vague statement
that it gets a lot of language
learners into trouble
because you have to realize
that learning the language
or getting fluent in a language,
it could vary all the way from memorizing
a few key phrases like,
you know, Hello,
my name is Jamie,
and I live in the United States
to having like a doctorate level degree
in the language about the language.
Those are
two sides of a very
big, confusing, complex
spectrum of having learned a language.
And I know this from personal experience
because, you know,
like I said, I'm a language coach.
I was not a language coach forever.
For example,
I spent a year living in Spain.
I was teaching English in Spain.
And part of the reason
why I did
that was because I wanted to
get better in Spanish,
because I had
learned a little bit
of Spanish in school, but not enough.
So you think,
you know,
you're going to immerse in Spain
and you're going to have
these conversations and be around
all these native speakers.
And so your Spanish
is just going to inevitably
get better, right?
Not right.
Not not, not for me.
Basically what ended up happening
was I spent my days alone in my bedroom
practicing verb conjugations
and memorizing vocabulary.
And then, surprise, surprise,
my Spanish didn't get better
because yes,
even though I was
theoretically practicing my practicing
my Spanish and I was getting better
and I was, you know,
really committing to,
you know, I would wake up at 6 a.m.
just to sit in my bed
and just like go over
present tense conjugations
until my eyes were going to bleed.
Yes.
Technically that is studying Spanish,
but it wasn't
what I actually wanted to get better at.
You know,
I wanted to have those conversations
and I wanted to practice speaking.
But not only was I really,
really afraid to do it, and I didn't even
realize I was afraid to do it.
Not only that,
but I wasn't really clear
about what I wanted to accomplish.
So I said, you know,
I want to improve my Spanish,
I want to get better at Spanish.
So I'll sit in my bed and I'll conjugate
and I will translate and all that stuff.
Technically, technically,
that works right
till it didn't until three months later.
I had spent all of these hours
doing that.
And for what?
My Spanish wasn't any better.
I still couldn’t understand
many things, still couldn’t communicate,
all these other things. And so
phase one
mindset would
have really
would have really helped me at that point
before I even talk about all the ways
you can learn a language
and all the strategies
and all the things.
Because unless you have those fears like
acknowledged and helped and supported
and you know exactly what you're
trying to accomplish,
unless you know those things,
you're going to be stuck every time.
And that's what a lot of language
learners are missing.
Learning a language is honestly really scary,
especially if you're brand new to it.
You're not really sure what you're doing.
So unless we can confront that fear and
fix our approach to it,
we're going to find ourselves
blocked off by obstacles
every single time, and you're
just not going to be able to stick to it
long term.
So that is why phase
one of the method is mindset.
Now, once we get past
these fears, and we really get a clear
understanding of what we want
to learn in the language.
Phase two is about methods.
This is like what everybody wants, right?
This is every single way
to learn a language
you could possibly think of.
These are your language apps.
These are your courses,
these are strategies.
These are anything
that you could think of.
It is all in phase two.
And if you're thinking, you know,
that sounds like a lot.
It is a lot. You're right. It is a lot.
But that is why with phase one,
we get really crystal clear
on what it is that we want to learn.
What is it that we want to be able to
do with the language
because once you really understand that,
it makes it much easier to look at
the methods
and strategies and resources
and be able to just
ignore the stuff
that isn’t going to be beneficial to you
and instead
focus on stuff
that can be beneficial to you
and in the phase we talk about,
you know, this is this kind of strategy,
this kind of app,
this kind of feature, whatever,
this will help you do this.
It's not so great for that.
All these different
things, because
after you finish with your mindset
and you finish understanding
what it is that you want to do,
it's a piece of cake.
And if you are thinking that
that sounds really overwhelming,
I get you.
I hear you.
Because this is, you know,
I have been exactly where
that is as well.
You know, I've been
I have been researching
language learning resources forever.
Like today,
there are a million and a half different
apps and resources and websites
and whatever it is.
Back when I started doing this,
that was not the case.
There were like three
or four big ones
and the rest was just kind of like
“I dunno, Google it
and you could learn a language.”
Technically, not necessarily true.
Today I've taken all that research
and I put it into my language app search
so that you can
basically use that research for yourself
to use it
to direct you to the language
learning resources that
can help you.
But before it was not always like that
because again, I didn't know what exactly
I wanted to accomplish.
And so I was just overwhelmed.
You know, back
then there was Duolingo, Babbel,
Busuu, Pimsleur.
That was really it.
Yeah, that
was pretty much it at that point.
And even that even just
those few options were really,
really overwhelming to me
because I didn't know
what I was looking for.
Like I said,
and with phase two, with methods,
it's not like
I just give you a list of language
learning resources and just be like,
figure it out, have fun and whatever.
No, it's organized and
it's put together into
like an organizational not list,
but like I pull out different features
that are commonalities between them.
And I say, okay,
if you want to use this feature
like chatbots, for example,
if you want a chat bot
because you want to work
on your conversational skills
in this particular situation
or with these kinds of like
with little pressure,
these have chat bots and these are better
and you know,
that's when you can go into my
language app
search and look at what I've said
about specifically those resources.
And you say,
Oh, well, you know,
I want it to be easier to use or I want,
you know, more subjects to talk about or
I want, you know, a specific language.
And only one of these apps
works in like Mandarin Chinese,
whatever it is.
So basically phase
two is like a monster of a phase
because that's what it does.
You know,
there's a reason
why some people get stuck.
There are so many different options,
more options than I guarantee
you you've ever heard of,
because there are options
that I've never heard of.
And I and I work really hard
to be educated
about all the different ways
to learn a language.
Now, once
we have a good mindset,
we know what we want
and we know how to achieve it.
How do we stick to it long term?
How do we take all this information
and actually use it
and not just use it at first
and then these kind of,
you know, hope for the best?
How do you make sure
that it can stick around in your life
for the long term, long enough
for you to actually learn a language?
That's phase three,
that is metrics
where we talk about routines,
schedules, mindsets,
tracking your language learning,
you know,
any emotions that will come up
and like what to expect to happen,
you know,
when you might change your strategy,
when you shouldn't change your strategy.
So many different things.
And again, in in this particular phase,
there is also something
that not
a lot of people are talking about,
which is tracking
and why tracking is important.
It's not just important
just to like feel good
and to be proud of like, you know,
you studied for the day
and so you get to tick a box
that is helpful
and there's nothing wrong with that.
But there's so much more to tracking like
being able to track the data,
the information that is important to you
when you are learning a language
and using that information.
So, you know, for example,
you have been studying,
you've been using Pimsleur
for a month, whatever,
and at the end of the month you're like,
okay, well,
I don't feel like I'm doing very well.
Let me go into my tracking.
You look at your tracking
and let's say, for example,
that you had been tracking,
you know, the vocabulary that you knew
or how confident
you were in your speaking.
For example,
you can look at how that confidence
has grown over time.
The vocabulary words
you've learned over time.
If you are intentional about that,
and if you can think about that before
you start, and think about like,
okay, so these are the goals that I have
from phase one, then being able to track
and make sure that you're
actually accomplishing those things.
And if you are not,
then you will also be able to see that
you'll be able to like, okay,
so I use this resource
in order to do this,
but it didn't really work for me
or it was really boring for me.
So I didn't do it
or it was too overwhelming
or any number of things.
This is really,
really important information
that people do not talk about
and I have definitely
it has definitely hurt me.
Absolutely.
For years
when I set myself
to an expectation
or a routine or a habit,
and then I did not fulfill it
for whatever reason,
I thought it was a personal thing.
I thought it was a personal failing.
I thought there was
something wrong with me.
Now I know that that's not true.
It is not a personal failing.
There's nothing wrong with you.
I realize now that it's just information.
It is data.
And if you take that information,
say, okay, well,
I didn't do it because it's boring.
Okay?
That doesn't mean
you force yourself to like,
try and force yourself to keep going
because that just feels terrible.
What you do is you okay,
so why is that boring?
What do I need
to make it more interesting?
And you go from there and simplifying it
so that it's not, you know,
all or nothing perfection.
It's okay,
I tried this, this worked,
but this didn't work.
And I can replace it with this.
That is metrics.
Now I recognize that that is a lot.
I just summarized a three month program
into one video,
which is a lot of information,
and I was trying to like summarize it
pretty at a pretty surface level point
so that it wasn't
too much and too overwhelming.
But there's a lot of information.
So if that sounds good, like
if that's the kind of approach
that really sounds good
to you and feels like it's
more of the approach
that you're looking for,
then the first step that I would
recommend is taking the free quiz.
So if you go on my website
and I'll leave a link below,
there is a free quiz where you'll answer
a few simple questions
and then I will give you
specific recommendations
as to what I would recommend
based on your answers to those questions.
Because one of the things that I find
with other people talking about language
learning online is they take a one size
fits all approach.
And that is definitely not my approach.
I find that
language learning is a very personal,
very unique experience.
The way that I like to learn
languages is not going to be the way
that you like to learn languages.
So I'm not going to say, oh,
just, you know, take this,
take these flashcards that I love to use
and just learn them.
And you know, if it doesn't work for you,
then what's wrong with you?
I'm not going to do that.
You know, language
learning is a personal journey,
and it depends on so many factors
that you and only you experience.
So I want to make sure
that when I give you support
and give you advice
and help in your language learning,
it is
personalized
and it's actually helpful to you
in a way
that makes you feel,
like I said, supported and not guilty
because I have spent myself a long time
feeling guilty
and anxious
and overwhelmed by the language learning.
And I want to put an end to that.
If that all sounds like,
you know,
if you're nodding your head
take the free quiz link below
and it'll get you started
with some really good
helpful tips
that you should definitely
look at going forward.
That is it for this video.
So if you like what I had to say,
then make sure that you subscribe
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when I post my next video
all about learning a language
consistently, step by step. Bye.