Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here.
Today I want to talk about how to build a step-by-step study
plan for learning languages.
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So, a study plan.
I think for many of the things that are important to us, where we want to
achieve success, it's often considered useful to have a, a routine, a study
plan, some kind of a, of a set of activities that we feel compelled to do.
So, um, and I'm going to talk about how that applies to languages.
I think the biggest thing in a study plan is that you want to develop new habits.
All right, now, I've said many times that language learning is a matter of attitude
and spending the time with the language.
So we want to have habits that reinforce a positive attitude
that give us a sense of success.
And we want to have habits that keep us with the language, at the task.
That's the kind of study plan that you need to have and the kinds of things
you need to do for a successful study plan for languages, is very similar
to other activities that we would like to do, like getting in shape.
All right.
So little things, for example, just on the subject of, of, of people
sometimes say to me, Steve, you seem to be quite fit, uh, for your age.
What do you eat?
How do you exercise?
What's your routine?
So, you know, throughout my life I have done, I've always
been jogging, exercising, playing hockey, playing tennis.
Keeping active.
I try to eat healthy food.
I don't overdo greasy, heavy.
You know, I always eat healthy bread, this kind of thing.
Well, the same with languages.
I wanted to add too,
I recently, uh, got an app it's called something about, I can't remember
what it is, but it's, it's an HIIT high intensity interval training
app and every morning, seven minutes.
I do whatever they push at me in the way of an activity.
So I'm prompted to do this, and I've now got that as a habit.
And I feel better because every morning for seven minutes I
do this series of exercises.
So anything like that can be very beneficial.
Uh, I am in the habit of going to LingQ for my language learning.
Some People are going to complain.
I always promote LingQ, but I do because that's what I do.
I get up in the morning.
I go to whatever course I'm on.
Uh, I go play the course audio, and while preparing breakfast, I
will be listening to that course.
This is then gonna push me to read because there inevitably are portions
of that lesson or several lessons that I listen to that I did not understand.
And of course I can either shuffle, uh, the lessons or
simply go through them in order.
Typically, if I'm well along in that, uh, course I'll shuffle
them, but if I'm still trying to learn new words, I'll go in order.
So that's a habit that I have.
So I think that the study plan in, in language learning is more about
your mindset, the habits you create rather than spend a half hour here,
a half hour there, because so much of language learning is subjective.
It's emotional.
I think it's important to engage in the activities that we enjoy
doing that we feel we want to do at this particular moment.
So I have found that listening tends to trigger a lot of other activities for me.
So it's very simple for me.
I just turn on the listing, but now I want to look up, you know, read
what I listened to, uh, look up words
and that kind of thing, but another thing that's important in terms of a
study plan is to make sure you surround yourself with the resources that you need.
So obviously content.
And I have mentioned many times that in an initial period that is going to
be sort of repetitious listening to relatively simple content, with a lot
of repeated, you know, vocabulary, especially high frequency verbs.
At a later stage, you're listing more
out of interest, but you have to find this content of interest.
You have to find the content, this repetitive content.
So there is some work to be done there.
Uh, I find it useful to buy one or several starter books because it's
nice to hold a book in your hand.
Uh, you have to find some grammar resources that you can
refer to, whether it be online
or in a book.
So part of a study plan is to make sure you surround yourself
with the resources you need.
You're going to need an MP3 player.
You're going to need, um, obviously, uh, internet access
to go and find these resources.
Um, that's gotta be part of your study plan.
In fact, I end up spending a fair amount of my, sort of, time that I
devote to language journey looking for
content.
For Persian and Arabic.
It's difficult to find interesting content at my level, much easier
to do say in English or probably in Spanish, but part of your study plan
has got to be to prepare yourself.
I will often go and get content and make sure I've got it imported into
LingQ so that I have it ready so that when I want to go and listen, I've
got enough content in front of me.
So part of your study plan has to be devoting enough time to preparing
the content you're going to use...
uh, Grammar resources I mentioned.
Also at a certain stage in your language learning, you're
going to want to speak more.
And if you're not, if you don't live where the language is spoken, you're going to
have to find some online people to either exchange the language with or tutors.
And I've mentioned, i-talki, which I have used, we have tutors at LingQ, but
you've got to find someone to speak to.
And eventually again, to my mind, in any sort of plan of, of language learning
activity, the amount of speaking you do is going to increase over time,
because in the first period you have to kind of break the code of the language.
You have to get some familiarity with the language.
People often say, well, if you don't know anything, how can you get started?
Well, that's why you deal with very short bits of content, where you
have access to an online dictionary.
I wouldn't want to be looking up every word in a dictionary.
Uh, I find LingQ very convenient in that regard with our mini
stories, lots of repetition.
Slowly, you get a foothold in the language.
That's the first stage, but at a later stage, you're listening to
things that are more interesting.
And at that point, you want to start speaking.
You want to start speaking, uh, because you want to try out what
you've learned, you'll find out that you aren't able to recall a lot of the
words that, that you know, passively.
So you have to get in there and start speaking, uh, speaking without
worrying about the mistakes you make.
And so that speaking is gotta be part of that study plan.
And what I find particularly useful when I have my sessions with my
tutors at LingQ is that I get a report from them of 10 or 15 words
and phrases that I had trouble with.
And I have this as a record going back a year or two years, I can always
go back to, um, a lesson that we had and things that I struggled with.
And of course my tutors record this for me.
So that's also very, you know, that, that sort of, that way of using your online,
uh, uh, you know, discussions or sessions with your tutor is also very useful.
So I guess my approach to this idea of a, of a study plan is that it's, it's not
so much sort of very specific, you know, 20 minutes there, half an hour there.
Because that's going to vary depending on your interests, what you like to do.
Some people maybe like to go through Anki.
I think you want to be guided by, by what you enjoy doing and because that's
going to keep your attitude positive, it's going to keep you liking it.
It's going to keep you spending enough time with it.
So it's more a matter of preparing yourself, uh, trying to develop good
habits, trying to develop habits that push you into the language,
push you along until you find enough compelling content that that's
now starting to pull you along.
And then at some point, when you start speaking, be prepared to make
mistakes, recognize that that it's only in making mistakes, that you're
going to get better, that you're eventually going to make fewer mistakes.
So, you know, people have asked me for this, what's a step-by-step
sort of plan for language learning.
I I'm not sure, I think that I've often said that language
learning is more of a fuzzy logic thing than a step-by-step thing.
Uh, you might want to go to one of my videos where I say that language
learning is a subjective process.
I've also done a video on the stages, you know, the different stages we
pass through in our language learning.
I think both of these videos might be worthwhile to go and have a look
at, so thank you for listening.
And good luck with your language learning.
Bye for now.