As language learners, we
tend to make really inspiring,
motivating, exciting
goals, especially in the new year.
This year, my goal was to study
a different language every month.
It is now the end of March
and I can confidently say
that I have failed
my language goals miserably.
But that's OK
because in my opinion, language
learning isn't about passing or failing.
It's about learning things
and taking that data into your brain
and using it to make your language
learning better.
So in this video, I'm going to share
what I've learned in the past
three months of learning languages
and what I plan to do
for the next three months.
If you're new here. Hi, my name is Jamie.
I'm a language coach
and my job is helping online language
learners stick to the goals,
stay consistent and motivated long term.
So if that sounds good to you,
make sure to subscribe and hit the bell
to be notified when I post a new video
every Wednesday.
After three months of failing
my language goals, what have I learned?
I learned a lot of things
that I teach my clients every day.
I just kind of conveniently forgot
to apply them to my own life.
The first thing that I learned
this year was to not make
commitments based solely on
a language learning
resource that you have,
especially if you've never even looked
at that resource or app
or course or whatever before.
This should have been, like,
really painfully
obvious to me as somebody
who has researched
language apps for years
and know better than most people
that depending 100% on one resource
to get you to where you're going
is like the worst
possible thing you could do.
But I got excited.
I have a couple of new-to-me language
learning courses
that I was really excited to try out,
not only to learn the languages
that I want to learn,
but also to be able to review
these resources for you.
And, you know, don't get me wrong,
I still plan on adding reviews
of these resources to my language
app search on my website.
But instead of taking a look
at these resources
and thinking about whether or not
they can actually apply to me
and my language learning
in different languages,
I got really excited,
really overexcited
and said, "Yes,
I have this course for beginners
and I'm going to use this
for 30 days, 31 days
or whatever and study
the language." Instead,
what happened was I got really frustrated
and I ended up not doing much language
learning at all.
I jumped into this course that I had,
expecting it to be
a certain way and it wasn't.
So I was really disappointed
and I didn't get anywhere.
Don't make commitments based on language
learning resources that you have either
never seen before,
or you don't know for sure
if you actually enjoy
that kind of approach
and if that approach is going to get you
the results that you're looking for.
The second thing that I kind of relearned
for myself in the past
couple of months is to plan
for the inevitable.
Again, this is something
that I teach my clients.
I have an entire
like 30 days of my coaching program
where I teach my clients
how to do this very thing. And yet.
So come January,
when I jumped into a
Russian course that I had
and was instantly
disappointed, overwhelmed
because I had no idea what was going on.
I didn't have a backup plan.
I didn't have anything else
to use instead.
Besides what like Duolingo?
Nothing against Duolingo in this context,
but it just
I didn't have any other options ready.
In this specific example,
I was thrown into just kind of learning
a little bit of Cyrillic,
a little bit of the Russian alphabet.
But it wasn't really working for me,
and I needed a lot more practice
to feel a lot more
confident and comfortable
with using that alphabet.
And so when I realized
that I really wanted
to practice the alphabet more
and this course wasn't
going to help me with that,
I didn't know where to turn.
I didn't know what to do.
That's something
that I had to think about more.
And in that time period,
I was supposed to be
committing to this course.
So that didn't really work.
I was so excited about this course
that is advertised as for beginners,
and it definitely
isn't for total beginners. I know now.
But when I learned that,
I didn't have any other
options to go through,
I didn't have any, you know,
if this doesn't work, here
are a couple other beginner
resources for Russian.
I didn't have that,
so I was just kind of stuck and lost.
And the third thing
that I had to relearn for myself
was to not stick to a language goal
just because I made that
commitment even publicly.
I know that some people
like to advise to,
you know, tell people about your goal
so that you're more likely
to stick to them.
I mean, that particular strategy
never worked for me,
but apparently works for some people,
and that's great.
But when I tried to stick
to using this course
because I made this commitment
and I wasn't just
going to give up, you know,
I'm a language coach
and I know how to
kind of mold these resources
to my liking more than most people.
So I thought, "Oh,
I'll be fine, I'll be great.
I'll figure it out." Yes,
I can figure it out, but I don't want to.
I was bored and I was frustrated
and it wasn't an enjoyable thing.
So what happened was
I just stopped studying altogether.
I didn't actually
enjoy using that course, so I didn't.
It was just like
so overwhelming that my brain
just kind of like, actively avoided it.
And keep in mind,
be aware that I wasn't like,
consciously overwhelmed or frustrated.
It wasn't something
that I realized for myself
consciously, actively.
It was more along the lines of
I wasn't excited to learn.
So when it came down to me
having free time,
I didn't actually want to study Russian.
So that meant that I didn't study at all.
I couldn't maintain that motivation
because I didn't actually want to do
the things that I had set out to do.
So instead of focusing
on enjoying the process
and actually learning things,
I focused on being consistent
with that specific goal
that I had to work
through this course for 30 days.
And when I, my brain didn't
want to work through
that course for 30 days,
it didn't do anything at all.
So for most of January,
I didn't do much of anything at all.
Have you made any of these mistakes
in your language learning?
Let me know in the comments
section below.
After spending three months
throwing myself into this new challenge,
I have learned a lot
and these are lessons
I'm going to take with me
through the rest of the year.
What are these lessons?
What am I doing now?
How am I going to change my approach?
The first thing that I'm going to do,
and the most important thing
that I'm going to do,
is I'm going to allow myself
creative freedom.
I'm going to allow myself to be motivated
and excited by different things,
even if they don't
pertain to any actual goal.
That's not why I'm doing this.
I'm not doing it to get a grade.
I'm not doing it to accomplish
any sort of conversation.
If you saw my video from three months ago
explaining these goals,
I specifically said that
I didn't want to set a specific goal.
I didn't want to set a specific intention
because I didn't want to box myself into,
you know, achieving a certain thing.
I wanted to be able to enjoy myself
and instead of listening
to myself in that way, I mean, I did.
I still didn't have any specific goals
when it comes to what
I wanted to accomplish,
but I did hold myself back
with specific goals as to
I am going to use this
resource for 30 days.
So now that I've done that
and I see that,
I am going to remove those goals
even more.
My brain
really wants to just, like, chomp
on to a goal apparently.
And instead, I'm
going to focus purely on enjoyment.
If I try out a certain app
and I don't like it,
it's not working for me,
it's really not engaging for me,
I'm just not going to use it.
If that particular course
or program has me dive
into a certain part of the language,
expecting me to already know
some stuff beforehand,
like the Cyrillic alphabet.
I'll put that to the side
and I'll find something
that will help me learn
the Cyrillic alphabet
or whatever prerequisite,
you know, information.
And I'll focus on learning that first
I'll pay more attention to my needs.
I will focus specifically on enjoyment,
and I will focus specifically
on learning things that make me happy
in a way that makes me happy.
And the second thing that I'm going to do
differently is make sure
that I'm not trying to prove my language
learning to anybody else.
I mean, from time to time,
I do get asked, "Oh,
how many languages do you speak?"
And to be a language coach and say, "Oh,
I only speak two languages."
And then even the second language
I'm kind of meh at
is it's kind of defeating.
And I have to remember that
the people who are asking me
that are doing that
to try to prove me wrong
and are doing that
because they see fluency in
another language as like,
I don't know, some sort of award.
And I don't like to look at language
learning in that way,
especially when me saying that I speak
English and Spanish is is not,
I mean, it would not be special
if I had a Hispanic name
or I had a different skin
color or different, you know,
ethnic background.
On top of that,
you know, my job as a language
coach who comes onto the internet
and tells people
like how to solve their language
learning problems,
I tend to put my language
learning up for show, which is fine.
But that also means
that if I don't do it right,
it can add a lot of stress
to my language learning.
And I have to think about, Oh,
what am I doing that
I can show people on the internet?
What can I do that
is interesting to other people?
How can I show, you know, solidarity
and the struggles of learning a language
and things like that?
So basically, instead of learning
a language to enjoy it,
I can easily fall into the trap
of learning a language to prove
that I'm learning a language
and that that kills the enjoyment
that kills the fun
because it turns into work
and not into something
that I enjoy frivolously.
So I need to make sure that I am
following my own advice
to my language clients and prioritize
being happy and enjoying language
learning and doing stuff
that makes me happy
for no other reason
other than it makes me happy.
If you want to learn more
about how I teach my clients
how to enjoy their language
learning long term,
and I take these lessons
that I have learned over like ten years
of making these mistakes
and teach my clients
to not make those mistakes,
click the link below in the description
to learn more about my 90 day
coaching program, The Method.
And if you like this video,
make sure you check out
these videos next.
Otherwise, have a wonderful day, and I
will see you next time.