The uTalk language challenge 2015

We’ve had a great response to the uTalk challenge, with people all over the world getting on board and committing to learning a new language for the new year. There’s still time to join in – we’ll be starting on January 1st, but even after that there’s no reason you can’t take part if you’d like to. It’s never a bad time to learn a language, so just drop us an email and let us know your name and chosen language (there are 100 to choose from) if you’d like to join in.

Here are a few more details on how it’s going to work:

1. First things first

The challenge is intended to be fun. As competitive as we may get between ourselves here in the office (and we will!), we don’t want to put any pressure on anyone. So if you do find the language is a bit more challenging than you expected, or you don’t have as much time as you thought you would, nothing bad will happen. We promise.

Secondly, more than anything this is a personal challenge. We do ask that everyone starts together on January 1st 2015, and we’ll be keeping you posted on how others are doing, but we’ll let you decide how you go about learning. You can tackle the topics and games in any order you like; there’s no set order. Maybe you could get some friends to join you and have your own private contest – or you may find that your main competition ends up being yourself!

A few people have asked why the challenge is only for iOS users. It’s nothing personal – it’s just because at the moment, the uTalk app is only available for iOS devices. We’re really sorry that we can’t offer this opportunity to everyone right now.

2. What you’ll learn

The code we’ve sent to participants unlocks the Essentials upgrade, which contains eleven categories to learn. (If you haven’t yet received your Essentials code, please email us and let us know which language you’re waiting for.) There is a further upgrade – the Premium upgrade – but this isn’t part of the challenge, so you’re under no obligation to purchase it. However, should you wish to learn more later, as uTalk challenge participants, this upgrade will only cost you £4.99 instead of the usual £12.99, which we hope you’ll agree is a bit of a bargain.

(On a side note, the EuroTalk team are taking on the full Premium app for our challenge, so don’t be alarmed if our scores look a bit higher than everyone else’s…)

3. Keeping in touch

We’ll be keeping in touch with everyone by email at regular intervals throughout the month to let you know how we’re doing and check on your progress. If at any point you don’t want us to do this, because you’ve had to put the challenge aside for the time being, or you’d just rather be left alone to get on with it by yourself, let us know and we’ll take you off the list.

When we contact you, we’ll ask you to email us a screenshot showing your current score (this will appear at the bottom of the topic menu once you start collecting points). This is so we can verify the scores, but also because it’s the quickest and easiest way for you to send them to us. If you’re not sure how to do this, we’ll be happy to explain! We’ll also be posting updates on our own social media on how you’re all doing in different languages, but we promise not to use anyone’s name without prior permission.

4. Sharing your progress

But don’t feel you can only share your progress with us when we email you. We’d love to hear from you at any time, so you’re always welcome to tweet us (@EuroTalk), email us or write on our Facebook page to let us know how you’re getting on. We’re also on Instagram so if you’re sharing any photos from the challenge, please tag us: @uTalk_learnalanguage

We’re not the only ones who’ll want to know how you’re doing. From personal experience, we know that sharing your goal with friends and family is a great way to keep your motivation up when it starts to flag (which it probably will at some point – you’re only human, after all). You may even inspire them to join in too.

If you are talking about the uTalk challenge on social media, please use hashtag #NewYearNewuTalk to join the conversation.

5. Finally…

This is the first time we’ve done the uTalk challenge, so please bear with us if it doesn’t always go entirely smoothly! If it goes well, we’d like to make it an annual event, so if you have any suggestions at any point on how we could make it better in the future, we’d love to hear them. (We have lots of ideas already…)

Good luck, and if you have any questions now or during January, we’ll be happy to answer them.

Happy New Year – and Happy Learning!