An important skill to cultivate when setting out to learn a language is something that has nothing to do with languages, and that is time management. Regardless of the learning method you pursue, whether that’s formal classes, tutoring, textbook learning, input-based learning, spaced-repetition flashcards, or anything else under the sun, you will fail if you … Continue reading Time Management and Language Learning
This is the second part following up on last week’s blog about the American school system failing to teach foreign languages in a way that results in fluent students. I ended the introduction with the statement that it isn’t the fault of the students, but rather with the method in which they’re taught, so first … Continue reading Why Foreign Language Classes Fail: Teaching Methods
While I don’t normally preface these blogs with the disclaimer I gave in the very first one, this blog feels like it’s especially important for me to open with the statement that I am not an expert on language learning. I am not a professional tutor, I have no formal education in teaching languages (or … Continue reading Why Foreign Language Classes Fail: Introduction
This week on Duolingo I ended up hitting level 25, which is the max level, in Inglés para Hablantes de Español, something colloquially called the “reverse tree” when using Duolingo to help with language learning. After completing the tree of courses in the language that one is interested in learning, so Spanish for English Speakers … Continue reading Learning Tool Deep Dive: Duolingo
I’ve discussed motivation for language learning in a roundabout way a couple of times before in this blog, because it’s such a key component to success. Without motivation in the big picture, it’s easy to get bogged down in the day to day, get discouraged or bored, and drop the endeavor like it was an … Continue reading Finding Motivation Day to Day
Very early on in my journey to learn Spanish, a common theme among the blogs and videos giving language learning advice was about having a clear goal in mind for what level you wanted to get your ability in the language up to. Overall I think that’s a really solid piece of advice when starting … Continue reading Understanding Language Levels
I’ve tried to be careful on this blog when referring to input to not be overly biased in favor of reading specifically. I won’t pretend that I don’t have any bias, because I do think that reading is superior to other forms of input based solely on the density of input. Even though I’m still … Continue reading Preferred Input Styles
With November finished up, we have another month’s worth of numbers, bringing us to a total of six months’ worth of data logged through this blog. Six months is a nice, round number, which sounds like a good time to reflect and analyze how things have gone and see if any more long-term patterns have … Continue reading A Look Back on Six Months of Progress
I think that so far in this blog, I’ve done a bad job of accurately describing my listening comprehension level in Spanish, and may have presented things in a misleading way. Not on purpose, mind you, describing these sorts of things is kinda hard. It’s difficult to be truly impartial, what with my perspective of … Continue reading Defining Listening Comprehension
If you were to jump down to the numbers section for this week’s blog, you would see that last Saturday was rather abnormal for me. I had the day that was unusually free and could spend it basically however I wanted to spend it, and it turns out that what I wanted to do was … Continue reading Language Learning: Work or Play?
