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How to stay motivated when learning a foreign language

Language learning is hard. It takes hours and hours of work to start seeing results, and even then, they are minimal. It is a largely thankless, strenuous, but also rewarding process. It’s a long road, and it takes more than mere force of will to get through it: you have to love it. When you feel like you’ll scream if you have to review irregular verbs one more time, it’ll be that love that gets you through it. I’m going to provide some advice for motivating yourself to learn a language.

Take a break and relax! Sometimes, you are just done with your target language, and even the mere sight of your notebook makes you want to throw up. Perhaps this is a sign that it is time to take a break. Have a shower, go on Netflix and watch a show, read fluffy fanfiction! Just wind down, and spend a week or two away from your target language. Then, get back to it feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

Cultivate discipline, not just motivation. This is a bit of a dubious one, because it is important to maintain boundaries, and not push yourself to your limits. But sometimes, if you want to make progress in something, then you have to keep at it even when it is tough. Try setting goals for yourself, or giving yourself specific habits to do. You don’t have to do loads, maybe even just 5 minutes on Duolingo. But do something, at the very least. 

Clean up your study space and reorganise! Maybe it’s your environment that isn’t doing it for you, so it could be therapeutic to clean up. You could also organise your notes or online drives.

Reevaluate your methods! Maybe your current way of doing things isn’t particularly enjoyable and you need to revamp your study methods. Try and make it fun (though accept the fact that there are some boring parts that will always be necessary), and perhaps focus more on integrating your target language into your daily life.

Look for new music in your target language! This is fun, and it also teaches you some things about popular music artists in your target language. If you’re a fangirl/boy/person like me, then you might find a new artist to stan!

Watch a TV show or film in your target language! Netflix is good for this, along with Viki (for east asian languages) and LingoPie (for european languages). You can definitely use subtitles if you want to. 

Read a translation of your favourite childhood book in your target language! I read a translation of Harry Potter in French and it was sublime. You’ll already know the story, and it will also allow you to engage with your favourite childhood books from a new cultural and linguistic angle!

Write social media posts in your target language! Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook: wherever you want, just stay safe! Maybe you’ll even make some friends!

Make friends, and speak! HiLokal is great for this.

I hope you found this useful! Thanks for reading this post!

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My 20 Favorite Language Learning Tips

Use small phrases when talking to pets/inanimate objects/ yourself etc

Kid books!!! Especially ones you know like cat in the hat or something similar. These are amazing especially if you are a beginner. It helps build fluency, literacy, pattern (different languages have different speaking patterns and flow), etc. There's a reason they push the books on kids.

Do translations! Take those books and mark them up. Find news articles, research papers, etc and translate them.

Keep a diary in your target language

Find people who are native speakers and tell them to talk to you in that language more than your native language

WRITE. When I formally studied Spanish, one of my teachers made us write EVERY WORD 10 times with their meanings. If it was a phrase, we would still do it word by word. I HATED this so much but after 4 years of not speaking or hearing the language, those were the words I still knew.

Change your phone language or an app language to your target language

Watch shows in your language. Use subtitles. If you're trying to learn to read better, put subtitles in your target language. Trying to pick up words? Use your native language for subtitles and listen to the show in your target language.

Describe your actions, feelings, etc to yourself in your target language

Find signs in public that are multilingual and read them

Play your favorite songs in your target language and sing along

Play your favorite songs in your native language but sing along to them in your target language

Follow comic artists (or other people) on social media. Comic artists are great because they tend to use slang, colloquial language, jokes, etc that build a more fluent speech. Makeup artists and influencers are good for this too

Go to shops. Where I'm from we have mercados and taquieras everywhere so going to places like that can help a lot

Reach out to people and learn with them! Find someone that studies the same language or someone who's trying to learn your language but speaks your target language. Talking with non native speakers can help you learn study and language tricks that helped them

Flash cards!

Apps that help you learn a new language are great! But only if you practice outside the app

Find recipes written in your target language

Rewrite class notes in the language!

Say at least one word a day in your target language

[mellow-pluto]

{ mini mb for @chihxru 📒}

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not miss you like an idle thought; miss you like september. miss you like where am i going to get warm. like the slow turn of leaves. i miss you like cold rain and collecting old pennies. i miss you like there are no more sundays to curl up and read. i miss you like the night is empty. i miss you fully, without capacity, daunting.

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If I don’t have time to be by myself I will die

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4.2.20

The science lab at my school and some doodles made with chlorophyll from spinach.

Creds to @homo-cide for the wonderfully crushed up spinach leaves.

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me trying to write a conclusion to my paper

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23.05.20 / i mentioned i was working on a “complete character profile” spreadsheet not too long ago and i promise i’d share it so it’s here if you’re interested! also, the revision continues! i compulsively decided to migrate all my notes to a loose leaf notebook so my hands will have to suffer for a while lol. but seriously, i personally retain information through revision best so my brain is thriving and absorbing lots. what about you? what are you up to? hope you have a lovely weekend ♡

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16.07.2020 // working through my uni enrolment with the help of my kittens!! these two have been adopted out now unfortunately 😔

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I have drawn the layers of mitochondria too much today and to say that it is the powerhouse of the cell is an understatement of the century. 😅

studygram

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a few people have asked for a post on how i use onenote, so here’s a quick guide! also obviously not sponsored lol

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every minute spent on planning saves you ten minutes spent on execution. short essays probably don't require that much preparation beforehand, but if you're writing something longer you should probably spend some time planning first. this is the process i go through when planning my essays, and i find it works really well!

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27th of April || 11.40 am

Trying to study as hard and as efficient as I can! Not failing completely, but currently not feeling satisfied! Next Wednesday 4h maths Abitur. Help! My teachers told us to eat lots of chocolate if we feel like failing, in order to not put our mental health at risk! Currently sticking to healthy berries as study snack!

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4 monocrome notebook icons

My first icon pack! I made these pretty monocrome, so I’ll do small customizations to them if requested (remove shadow, change color scheme, different background, etc). 

Don’t claim as your own, and a credit somewhere would be appreciated (seriously I didn’t watermark these but please please don’t steal any of these)

EDIT: because these are 400x400 you’ll probably get better quality if you save them onto a laptop/computer or just take a screenshot

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クッキー- biscuit, cookie ブリオッシュ - brioche バター - butter コーヒ- coffee ノンカフェイン - decaffeinated coffee カフェラテ - coffee latte セリアル- cereals 朝ご飯 - breakfast コンチネンタルブレックファースト- continental breakfast 英国式朝食- english breakfast クロワッサン - croissant ラスク - rusk 果物 - fruit ドライフルーツ- dried fruit 新聞- newspaper ミルク - milk チョコレートミルク - chocolate milk ホットミルク - hot milk 豆乳 - soy milk 脱脂乳 - skimmed milk ジャム - jam のジャム - … jam 蜂蜜 - honey ミューズリー- müsli/muesli 角食 - sandwiches bread ベーコン - bacon ベーコンエッグ- bacon and eggs       ハム - ham ソーセージ - sausage ジュース - juice フルーツジュース - fruit juice マグカップ- mug コーヒーカップ - coffee cup お茶 - tea 急須 - teapot トースト- toast トースター- toaster 卵 - egg, eggs ヨーグルト - yogurt 糖 - sugar

朝ご飯を食べる - to have breakfast

MISC

味噌汁 - miso soup 卵焼き-rolled omelette 漬���-pickled vegetable 海苔 - natto お粥 - congee 納豆 - natto

Translated from; langs & lit @langsandlit

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Reminder

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work you still have got to do:

take a deep breath

drink a glass of water

think of how much you’ve accomplished

think of how much you still can accomplish

feel proud of yourself

smile

JUST REMEMBER - everything that happens, happens for a reason. have faith

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self care n productivity =

- make your bed.

- find motivational quotes, studyspo, scenes from films, whatever you want, print them out and stick them near your desk.

- have a journal for positive affirmations that you can scribble in or doodle in or flip through when you’re feeling down.

- put almond oil or rose hip oil on your skin and flip through your flashcards or make your notes while it’s getting absorbed.

- if you’re into Harry Potter, turn your desk or bedroom into your house dorm or common room. I’m in ravenclaw so my desk chair is blue, same with my pen case and my folder of papers and I have the ravenclaw emblem stuck in front of me on the wall.

- watch productivity videos on youtube or vlogtobers/vlogmases of youtubers who are also students.

- cut your nails.

- wash your hair.

- put a few rings on (trust me, it works, especially when you go back a cup of tea and you look down at your hands and you feel a bit brighter because of how pretty they look (super weird but truuuust me).

- make a mug of tea and watch a tv show related to what you want to study in uni or have as a career.