Why you’re not consistent as a language learner (and how to fix it)

I know you were there at the beginning of the year, you were very excited to learn a new

language

, you downloaded dingo or whatever

language

app you use and you are very

consistent

for a couple of weeks, suddenly you don't. I don't feel the need to open the app to learn more, maybe work gets too busy, maybe you get sick and before you know it, you've abandoned the app for good and your dreams of learning a new language are piling up. dust. I'm here. To help you break that cycle, in this video I'll share four mistakes that are stopping you from being

consistent

in your language learning journey and how you can fix them by implementing the simple tricks I'm about to share.

I can guarantee that you will find it much easier to stay on track and surpass those language goals. Hello, if this is your first time here, my name is Yuki, I am a lawyer and YouTuber based in Hong Kong and I am also learning languages. addict, my latest obsession is learning Japanese. I've been in this language learning game for years and I have a lot to say about what works and what doesn't, and this is the video where I'll share it with you. The number one mistake that prevents you from being consistent in your language learning journey is also one of the most common first steps people take and that is signing up for language classes.

I'm not saying that language schools or language classes are bad or that they can't work for anyone. In fact, I have taken formal language classes in French and Spanish for extended periods of my life and have very fond memories of those classes, it's just that I have never achieved anywhere near fluency when attending formal classes. classes If, like me, your main goal in learning a language is to be able to use it as your own to express yourself and consume and enjoy content in that language rather than passing any formal language exam, then my recommendation to you would be to follow the path of self-learning .

Here's why I think self-study is better. Number one. When you learn for yourself, you have 100% control over what you learn. You can choose to approach it in the way that suits you and not you. Bound by a particular teacher or the particular curriculum that the school follows, you can follow your interests and your needs, for example, if your main goal for learning Japanese is to be able to travel to Japan and get by on the streets, then what are you doing learning to name all your relatives, from your great-grandmother to your distant cousin? It would be much better if you learned to order food and ask about sizes and prices.

When you teach yourself, you will be able to focus on the topics you are interested in and learn the grammatical structures and vocabulary that are really relevant to your needs and, because they are relevant and personally important, they are much more likely to stick with you second. When you learn on your own, you have 100% responsibility for how much and how well you learn in a formal language class, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the learning is done, that the work is done during class time. , it's easy to get lazy outside of those four or five hours of class a week that you don't have.

You don't really spend much time thinking about your target language; You are generally not very aware of the progress you have made, except when you complete one level and are promoted to the next, perhaps at the end of the term. exam but when you sell you learn you constantly evaluate how much time you like to spend learning this language every day and what areas you already master and what you need to work on to move towards your goal, you don't outsource that decision to your school or your teacher that really puts you in the driver's seat and forces you to take responsibility for your own learning and that sense of responsibility is what will really take you towards any goal, so if you are thinking about choosing learn a new language that you just started, maybe make a Pause and think if you want to enroll in that language class, what are you getting out of that class that you can't achieve through self-study or an online tutor?

The second mistake people make. What prevents them from being consistent is that they don't have an impossible goal. Most people who learn a new language don't really have any goals other than it would be great to be able to speak French one day, that would be me too. and that's why after 15 years I still don't speak French, someday will never come. You can tell from my other videos that I'm learning Japanese on my own right now and I feel like setting an impossible goal is what has really moved the needle for me. This time I set myself a frankly ridiculous goal, which is to learn Japanese in two months.

Is it possible to learn a new language in two months with my normal person brain and my normal adult work schedule? I really don't think it's possible, but that's the point, there is something very exciting about trying to do something that is almost impossible, it encourages you to try really hard and see how far you can go in that limited period of time, if you think about it, I will learn Japanese in three. months sounds different than saying I will learn Japanese in 3 years, we are not very good at imagining what it will be like in three years, but looking three months ahead is always doable if you need to speak Japanese in three months, I bet you will practice your hiragana and katakana in that first week as a person kill.

There's no room to forget your books or skip exercising on your app for weeks. Create a sense of urgency, need and excitement that is precisely what you need to get back to your books or apps or exercise day after day think about the time frame that is realistic for you drastically reduce it by 50% and you will have your impossible goal , better yet give yourself a concrete challenge in the At the end of that impossible period, for example, I told the YouTube world that I am going to learn Japanese in two months and at the end I will go to Japan for a short trip and I want to manage during the trip and come.

On the other hand, being conversational, that is my specific challenge. I would say that finding a challenge that resonates with you could be performing a song in the target language or giving a speech in the target language or maybe having a conversation with a friend whose first language is your mother tongue, whatever works. For you, the third mistake that prevents you from being consistent in your language learning journey is that you don't have a system to help you be consistent. James Clear said he doesn't measure up. level of your goals all of you at the level of your systems let's say you said you will speak Spanish fluently this year what systems do you have in place what type of learning resources are you going to use how many days per week are you going to work on it, on what days and at what? time, so here's how to set up a system, step by step.

Sit down with your digital or physical planner. Find out how much time per week you can realistically dedicate to learning this language. For example, I work full time from Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. On average I sleep from 12 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. I also need to work out at night and work on this YouTube channel, so realistically I have an hour in the morning before I go to work and maybe an hour or two at night. After I get home from work or my climbing gym session, the second step combines your learning resources with the blocks of time that you have identified again by looking at my schedule I have half an hour in the morning before I go to work and the course Pinsler daily is about 30 minutes a day, which is perfect for that time, so every morning when my alarm goes off, I pick up my phone, open the Pinsler app, and start playing the day's audio lesson.

I stay in bed listening to the first 15 minutes or so. of that session and then I get out of bed and start getting ready while I have the audio cable still in my ear at night when I get home from work or after my climbing session I have a block of time that I can I can dedicate myself to learning Japanese depending on how much time I have that day. I can complete a full session of Ino sensei's grammar book, which lasts about 30 minutes, or learn a few vocabulary items using the Mesh app or, for my part, you know, a second book with meaning.

I can't really predict precisely how much time I'm going to have on a given day, but I do what I can that day if, for example, on a particular day I don't have any more Jews or I don't have any more time left, it's no big deal. just come back tomorrow, step three, find a way to track and visualize your progress. You are your own boss in your language learning, so you want to find a way to track and visualize your progress, as if you were the boss of a company. this analogically, but you can also do it digitally.

This is my analog time tracker. I'm going to put a foreground here, so at the top I have from left to right from morning to night and at the bottom left I have days of the month, so each row is a single day, the bits in blue are my Japanese learning time, as you can see, is mainly in the morning and afternoon, as you can see, most days I actually only get in half an hour in the morning. and maybe between half an hour and 1 hour in the afternoon. I also have this column on the right where I write the topics I went through that day in the textbook.

It really gives me a sense of progress when I see the blue blocks piling up. time, there are many ways to do it, you can do it analog or digital with a tracker in Notion or something like that. You can use a time tracker like I did or you can also make a chapter tracker of your book and delete them as you go. Having a dedicated place to track your progress and come back to at the end of each day to debrief really keeps you accountable and sends you this signal that yes, I take this very seriously.

I'm working on it each. day and I'm making progress the fourth mistake you're making that's making you lose steam is that you forgot to have fun Ali abdal said in a recent video about YouTubers leaving the platform that the biggest risk to a YouTub business is the YouTubers themselves They burn out and drop out. The same applies to language learning, even if you have the best resources and the best systems in place, if you're not enjoying it, you'll eventually get tired and give up, so probably the most important trick is to keep learning fun. if you are watching this video.

I'm assuming you're like me, you find intrinsic joy in learning new languages, making new sounds, seeing the world through a new lens and it's so important not to let the Daily Grind of grammar books and flashcards kill that joy, so Here are a couple of tips that I have personally found useful and that I hope will help you too. The number one tip is to stop when you feel yourself getting tired. Sometimes I find myself already feeling fatigued. before I've used up the time I have for the day, maybe it's a particularly hard day at work or maybe I didn't sleep well the day before when I feel like I just stop and do something else or take an early night and the La The reason is that I don't want to program myself to associate language learning with fatigue.

I leave the book open with the confidence that I will still want to come back tomorrow and do it again. Tip number two, which ties into the last tip, is to have a couple different resources that you can turn to depending on the energy you have that day, on days when I don't feel like I have the capacity to work on structures. grammar, maybe watch a YouTube video in Japanese, maybe um. In Japanese, I really like that channel or reviewing some new vocabulary items. Tip number three is to track your progress, so this ties into what I just mentioned about my journal.

The most fun thing about any Endeavor is seeing you gradually level up and get to do things you couldn't before, the same goes for exercise and the same goes for language learning, it may sound quite childish but every time I add a blue block in my journal I feel this sense of pride and I see all the blue blocks I have accumulated in the past. I can really feel a sense of progress. You know, you know. I've been working on it every day. I'm doing well and I want to continue. Tip number four is to find. people to share this joy with, for example, I will use Japanese words and phrases that I just learned in conversations with my boyfriend and I will explain to him what they mean and he will do the same to me in French in our conversations.

They're in Cantonese, English, Mandarin, and broken French and Japanese, which is absolutely hilarious, people who understand it makes it a thousand times more fun, so find your tribe of language enthusiasts to recap my top four tricks to help you Stay consistent and exceed your language learning goals. Number one, ditch the formal language classes and take control and responsibility for your own learning package. Number two, set impossible goals to create a sense of urgency and excitement. Trick number three, create a system that combines language resources over time. Block you have identified and find a place to track your progress trick number fourkeep it fun work on your energy level on a given day watch yourself level up by tracking your progress and find people to share this joy with if you found this video helpful you might want to watch the video where i share my crazy journey trying to learn japanese in two months see you in the next video bye