Hello, my name is Abigail and welcome to or back to Polyglot Progress.
One of the biggest reasons I hear people say that they can't learn a language or they're just not
making the amount of progress they would like to in a language is that they don't have enough time.
But one thing I've noticed over the last several years of learning languages
and talking to people about learning languages is that, more often than not,
when we're not studying, it's not just because we're busy.
And I'm not saying that that's never part of the equation. I am not going to be the
language learning influencer that comes on here, and is like, "If you cared, you'd make time,"
but through seeing people who are really busy find time to work language learning into their
life and seeing other people-- and seeing myself-- not keeping up with our studies
when we do have a lot of time, I've found that even if you do have a really hectic schedule,
being busy is just one factor that pieces and to not actually get in contact with your
target language and identifying the things that really prevent me from keeping up with
my target languages and not just defaulting to feeling like I don't have enough time has been
so groundbreaking for both my consistency when it comes to my language studies, but also just
my overall outlook when it comes to language learning and so many other aspects of my life.
So today I'm going to go over five reasons that
you might not be studying that are not just having enough time,
so hopefully your studies can feel a little bit more consistent and a little bit more sustainable.
The first reason you might not be seeing the consistency you want is that,
regardless of how much free time you have or don't have in your schedule,
you're trying to take on too much and as a result you're overwhelming yourself, which is making it
harder for you to focus and make progress in your language and you're also just setting
yourself up for failure with unrealistic goals and expectations. A big thing to keep in mind,
especially when you're going through busy periods in life, is to remember that what is
too much is not going to be the same for you all the time. A routine that worked really,
really well for you six months ago might not fit with your current lifestyle and it might
be too much for you at this moment and that is okay. If it's an approach you really enjoyed
and something that worked really, really well for your language learning, you can always build back
up to that. But the key to combating overwhelm is definitely taking a step back if you are trying to
do a lot right now and starting with something small and manageable. This could mean cutting
back on the number of resources you're using or a number of languages you're actively studying,
or it could just be reassessing and resetting your goals so that they're more realistic based on your
current desires and lifestyle.Then, once your routine feels sustainable long term, feel free
to add on to it. Just keep an eye out for signs of overwhelm and be ready to adapt as you need.
The second reason is what I think most people actually mean when they say that they don't
have enough time, which is that you don't have enough energy or in some cases are burnt out.
Even if you have a super busy schedule, chances are you could find a few hours in your day where
language learning could technically go, but those aren't always hours where you feel like you have
a lot to give language learning. Maybe when you come home from work you have 30 free minutes,
but sitting down with the textbook feels like, honestly, the worst thing in the world because
you're so tired. Technically, the problem isn't that you don't have enough time. The problem is
instead that you don't have enough energy.Much like with the last one, the solution to this
problem is just to modify what you're doing or, perhaps, when you're doing. I am absolutely not
a morning person, but when I was working 9 to 5, the only time that I found that I could really
get language studying was before work. I was just too tired and didn't have the mental capacity to
do that after work, so in the morning before I did anything else was the perfect time. If
it's a more severe situation than that and you are feeling genuinely burnt out, I do recommend
taking it easy and sometimes that does mean taking a break. However, as someone who has been working
very actively on recovering from burnout over the last several months, I can also say that reducing
and recovering from burnout does not have to mean putting your goals and hobbies on hold.
In fact, in some situations, I think it can actually make it worse because
you're not giving yourself time to work on the things that you care about. So,
instead of taking a complete break, I think many times it can actually be helpful to instead just
change the kinds of things that you're doing in your target language and to focus your efforts on
things that maybe don't require a ton of energy when you don't have a lot of it to begin with.
One really great example of this is using something like Lingopie— the sponsor of today's
video– to learn languages while watching TV. If you're not already familiar with it,
Lingopie is a video streaming service that uses TV [shows], movies, and podcasts to teach you a
new language. In the height of my burnout, one of the easiest– and honestly kind of only ways–
that I was getting contact with my target languages was by watching TV and movies.
And it worked out pretty well, honestly. I maintained my target languages, I learned
new things by writing down new vocabulary and phrases and grammar concepts as they came up,
and I was able to keep up with language learning– something I really love and care about– in a way
that didn't add a lot to my plate while I was working on resting and recovering.
The really great thing about Lingopie specifically is it has built in tools to make that approach
of watching things and learning new phrases and vocabulary really, really easy. It has so much,
it has built in audio playback speed tools, dual subtitles, transcriptions, the ability to look up
words while you watch, even built in flashcards and vocabulary learning games which take away the
need for you to pause the video, look up words, write them down, make your own flashcards. It
just saves a lot of time and effort which can really make the world of difference. When you are
struggling to keep up with your target language. When I was an English teacher, I had so many
students tell me that the main way that they learned the language was just by watching TV
shows because they didn't really have enough time to sit with a textbook or take a lot of
classes. And seeing these students who were really, really busy be really successful with
their English studies because of TV and movies, really ended up shaping a lot of how I look at my
own language studies and how I use my time. Life gets really busy and a really easy way
to stay consistent with language learning throughout that is just to incorporate it
in ways that you're already relaxing, like watching movies or TV or videos.
I'm not going to tell you to turn off this video right now, I've got three more points
to talk about, but maybe consider watching something in your target language afterwards.
If you're interested in trying out Lingopie for yourself,
there is a seven day free trial. I'll have a link down in the description.
If you do end up trying it and liking it, I would love to know what you're watching,
both because I'm curious and also because I might want to go watch it myself.
Another reason that you might not be studying is that you just don't want to.
And maybe you do want to on a bigger level, maybe you love the language, maybe you have really big
goals you want to achieve in the language, maybe you're sitting there right now going,
“Abigail, that's just not true. I do want to learn this language,” but despite all that,
any time you do have time to sit down and work on your target language,
you don't end up studying because in those moments where it really matters,
you don't feel like doing it. So the key here is to make
learning or maintaining your target language something that you want to do.
If you are having trouble with the bigger picture, things like ‘why am I learning this language? Is
it even worth it?’, then this might be a time to work on finding things that do motivate you
to learn the language or simply reassessing your goals and creating new ones that are
actually aligned with what you currently want, not whatever you wanted when you first started out.
And if you're not having trouble with the overall picture and you are having trouble
more with those little moments and with the act of actually using your target language,
this is really the time to reassess the methods and the resources that you're using.
While language learning doesn't always have to be extremely fun and I do think that there is
a benefit to sometimes sitting down and doing activities that aren't necessarily
the most enjoyable, but that you know will help you improve and to reach your goals,
it is also important to include things in your routine that make you excited to continue
with the language and to, in general, not weigh yourself down with things that make you actively
dread learning and using your target language. I think it's especially important to keep that
in mind when you are crunched for time, because if you fill your language learning approach with
activities that make you excited to learn the language and that you do genuinely enjoy doing,
you're far more likely to gravitate to that when you do actually have some spare time.
The fourth reason you might not be studying is that you're focused on other things and
just simply forgetting to make time for your target language. This is another one that
definitely can stem from being really busy and is impacted by busier periods in your life, but when
it's addressed, it can lead to you being really consistent with your language studies, even when
you do have a limited time.And the key here is to make it so that keeping up with your language
studies isn't something you really have to think about and it makes it so that you can be really
consistent while also focusing on other things. This could mean scheduling a lot of calls with a
tutor in advance, so you know every Wednesday you've got a Spanish lesson. It could mean
creating routine or set times in your day that you know that you study during.Maybe
you make reading in your target language part of your morning routine, so every single day you
wake up and you do a little bit of your target language without actually thinking about it. Or
it could mean using time management tools like a planner or a calendar or reminders on your phone,
just to remind you to dedicate a little bit of time to your target language. It's so easy to
get caught up in other things, especially when you have a lot going on, so implementing systems that
will keep you on top of your language learning goes a long way when it comes to consistency.
Lastly, the one that I think I need to be called out on the most, you're procrastinating and not
using the time that you do have because you're avoiding failure or looking bad or making a
mistake, or any of the other discomfort that comes with learning the language.
I will be the first to admit that I am a bit of a perfectionist and I can be very,
very hard on myself, so this is one that I definitely have a lot of experience with.
In fact, I think this is one of the reasons that it sometimes feels easier for me to keep up with
making videos and learning languages and doing many other things in my life when I am busy,
because I don't have as much time to think about it and to second guess myself.
And realizing this has just…it has completely changed the way that I look at language learning
and look at so many other aspects of my life and has done so, so much for my consistency.
And it makes sense why this happens. Language learning is a process full of discomfort and
getting out of your comfort zone. It is a process full of making mistakes and of looking a little
silly sometimes. And it's completely natural, then, especially if you're someone who struggles
with perfectionism and anxiety and self-doubt, to put off doing things in your target language
because it feels scary and uncomfortable. But when you procrastinate due to fear, you
will never have time to learn a language because it'll keep getting put off until you do have other
things going on and you don't have those hours for you anymore or until the day is ending and
you realize you never studied like you wanted to. And it also just continues to make itself worse,
because the longer you go without making mistakes and without being bad at your target language,
the more you hold yourself back and the longer it's going to take for you to make any progress.
Overcoming procrastination due to perfectionism or anxiety really just starts with acknowledging
that it's happening because once you recognize that this is a problem, you can start to catch
yourself putting things off and you can start to recognize that the problem isn't that you don't
have enough time or energy, it's that you're avoiding doing something that feels a little
bit uncomfortable and a little bit scary. I know ever since I realized that this is
a problem for me, I have started paying a lot of attention to it and now when I catch
myself feeling like I don't have enough time for language learning, but realize that it's actually
that I've been putting language learning off, I'm able to both think about why I'm
feeling those things and talk myself through it and, honestly, also just to get myself to
confront those things and to see that they're not as bad as I've been making them out to be.
Whether that's booking a language lesson or sitting down and studying for 15 minutes,
I've always found that going and making myself do the thing reminds me that making mistakes and
being at a low level in a language is not the end of the world and is the only way that I'm
ever going to reach my goals and reach high levels in the languages that I want to know.
Even though it really feels like the opposite of what you want to do in the moment, I’ve found that
it is a really great way to beat that cycle of procrastination. However, I do recognize
that that is just kind of a Band-Aid for the overall issue. Just forcing myself to do the
things that I'm trying to procrastinate doesn't actually fix the issue. It just limits the amount
of procrastination that actually gets done. Which is helpful, sure. But the only real way to combat
this issue is to confront your actual issues when it comes to confidence and self-esteem and anxiety
and perfectionism. It's a long process and not an easy one and a journey I think I'll be on for a
long time, but I can already say that the better your self-esteem and your confidence become,
the less and less of an issue that procrastination due to perfectionism and anxiety really becomes.
And that brings me to the end of calling you out for saying that
you don't have time to learn a language. But actually, I hope it's less of a call
out and more so something that makes you optimistic about your ability to learn your
target language or target languages. I know for me, once I realized why I
wasn't studying wasn't just limited to the number of hours in my day,
I felt a lot more hopeful and felt like I had a lot more control over the situation and now
I'm able to be a lot more consistent with my language studies and a lot more sustainable
because there's so many less periods of doing nothing and then doing a ton and doing nothing.
And so I hope that this video helps you to reach that place as well.
If there's anything else that you've noticed does hold you back from learning language or
you have any more tips on how to overcome some of the issues that I talked about in this video,
I would love to hear them down in the comments. And again, if you want to try out Lingopie,
there will be a link in the description for your first week free.
I've been genuinely very busy and also very, very burnt out,
hence the lack of uploads this year. But my life has changed a lot over the
past few months and I think it's pretty safe to say that you'll be seeing the
uploading on here pretty consistently again soon. I have quite a few videos I'm editing right now,
several more that I want to film and overall I'm really excited to be coming back.
I hope you enjoyed this video and that it helped you with your language
learning. I will see in the next one and remember, practice makes progress.