How do you make time to learn a language?
We know what it’s like – you really want to learn a language, but things just keep getting in the way: work, school, commuting, exercise… There are so many things to fit into the average day, that it’s not always easy to make time for studying. But don’t despair – it can be done. Following up from last week’s tips on how to learn a language on a tight budget, this week we’re giving you some ideas about how to keep learning even when you’re short of time.
Please share your own suggestions in the comments, and let us know which of these ideas works best for you.
1. Learn on your commute
This is my favourite strategy, as it uses time that I would otherwise spend staring out of a train window, or (now that I take the tube) at someone else’s armpit. Half an hour or so on a train or bus is the perfect time to read a book in another language, pull out your iPhone for a couple of uTalk games or listen to a podcast (there are loads designed specifically for learners). If you’re one of those healthy types who walks to work, try listening to the radio or a podcast on your phone.
2. Combine learning with socialising
Try to find a language partner who speaks the language you’re learning and chat to them over tea/beer/dinner. There are plenty of websites like totalingua.com and mylanguageexchange.com where you can find a partner to exchange languages with, either in person or over Skype/email. Or make some friends who speak that language and resolve to spend at least 15 minutes chatting to them in their language before you switch back to English.
3. Break it up into small chunks
There’s no reason why you have to spend hours at a time for it to be effective. In fact, 10 minutes a day of flicking through some vocab flash cards, playing a couple of revision games or doing a couple of units in a language app is probably more effective than one long session each week.
4. Fit the language into everyday life
Try switching your phone or Facebook into another language so you see it every day without changing your routine. (Disclaimer: Do not do this if the language is Arabic or Mandarin and you can’t read the script yet! You might have trouble switching it back… I speak from experience here.) Make post-its of everyday vocab and stick them around your house/office to learn the names of household items.
5. Use ‘dead time’ to practise a bit
If you added together all the time you spent each month just waiting around for things (waiting at the doctor/dentist, waiting for a bus, sitting on a delayed train…), you’d probably realise you were wasting hours of your time just getting bored. Keep a language book or app with you and you can always do a bit of reading or revision while you wait. You’ll be surprised how quickly it adds up!
6. Do things you were going to do anyway… in another language!
Surfing Facebook in your lunch break? Switch it into your language. Reading the news online? Find a foreign newspaper to read instead of your usual one. Watching your favourite TV show in the evening? Find it online dubbed or with subtitles. Found a new book to read? Get the translation (or, even better, the original foreign language book!). Ok you get the idea! Try thelanguagedojo.com for links to loads of cultural sites (TV/comics etc) in several different languages.
7. Learn while you’re doing other stuff
Put the radio on in another language or some language tapes or an audio-based lesson like EuroTalk Rhythms while you’re washing up/cleaning/getting dressed in the morning. You’ll pick something up without even realising you’re ‘studying’.
8. Set yourself a goal for the day
For example, say to yourself in the morning, ‘I want to spend x amount of time on vocab or grammar,’ or ‘I want to complete this many exercises/games,’ or ‘I want to have at least one conversation in the language today’. It’ll help focus your mind on what you need to get done, rather than just saying ‘I want to learn some French today’, which is a huge, daunting and extremely vague challenge, and one which you’ll probably go out of your way to avoid.
9. Chat online
If you don’t have time to go to the country, you don’t know anyone who’s from there and you can’t make time for lessons or meet-ups, you can probably still manage to spend a bit of time Skyping, chatting on a site like busuu.com or using another instant messenger. I’m also reliably informed that playing videogames is a good way to learn, as you can chat with other players from across the world while you play!
Good luck – and let us know how you get on…
Alex
How to learn a language on a budget
Why do people give up on learning a language?
There are many answers to this question, of course. Recently, we’ve been running a survey (which you can still complete, if you have two minutes), about language learning, reasons for learning and things that might get in the way. According to the results so far, two of the top answers given to the above question are: lack of time, and lack of money.
As I know only too well, language classes, private tutors and language CDs or books can quickly become very expensive. Having recently decided to try and upgrade my schoolgirl French, I had a look round at languge tuition and was pretty depressed to see that I would struggle to afford even a few weeks of classes. But never fear, there are plenty of ways to learn even if you can’t afford to go back to school or buy expensive subscriptions.
So here’s my short guide to how you can learn a language on a budget. Happy learning!
1. Online
There are a tonne of great resources to be found online without even paying a penny. Depending on your language, there are loads of websites for learning grammar, vocab and more. And you can often find really good sites for more advanced learners – I really love RFI for practising French (they have news reports in ‘easy’ French, with text transcriptions). For beginner to intermediate learners, busuu.com has a great programme for 12 languages, including grammar, reading, writing and vocab, and even allows you to chat with native speakers.
2. Media
This probably only applies to intermediate to advanced learners, but it’s my favourite way to practise the languages I already speak. Try watching movies in your language, with English subtitles, or subtitles in the language. Or Google the online version of a newspaper in that language (if I’m feeling very motivated, I read lemonde.fr, spiegel.de or elmundo.es). The radio is also a great tool for language absorption. You can listen to radio in almost any language at tunein.com (and they have a great app for on-the-go listening). Even just listening to some music in another language gets you used to the sound.
3. Flashcards
I used to be obsessed with these when I was at school and uni. In my opinion, this is a great way to cram vocabulary. Either make your own with paper (write the foreign word on one side and the English word or a picture on the other) and test yourself or get a friend to test you. Or, even better, there are some free programs to do just that, which even remember which words you’re weaker on and bring them up more often until you get them right. I used to use this on the computer, but you can get flashcards in app form now too.
4. Find other people to speak to
Ok, I’ve got it easy here because we have a very international office and I’m never short of someone to annoy with my dodgy Spanish… But even if you’re not surrounded by native speakers, you might be able to track down a language partner using a website like totalingua.com that matches you up with an exchange partner. If no one lives in your area, you can always arrange a Skype chat instead of meeting face to face.
5. Apps
There are some amazing free or cheap apps to download on iPhone or Android. I’m using a combination of DuoLingo and uTalk to learn basic Italian. DuoLingo is free and gives you a good grounding in grammar and basic vocab, whilst uTalk features native speakers for all (70 and counting) languages, and has real audio for all the phrases and vocabulary, so I can pick up on the accent and pronounciation as well. I normally play a couple of the games on the bus to work, although I save the recording quizzes for the privacy of my room!
6. Books
If you’re more of a paper and pencil type, then there are plenty of language-learning books on the market, and they’re mostly cheap to buy, or you can track some down second hand. I think there’s something to be said for having a paper dictionary if you’re a serious language learner (what if leo.de is down!?) – even if you just decorate your shelves with them to look intellectual (or is that just me?).
Have you got any more tips for people learning a language on a budget?
Alex
Next week: our guide to learning a language when you’re short of time. If you’ve got any particularly useful tips you’d like to see included, please let us know below!
How much money are you wasting on language software?
So, you’ve decided to learn a language. Great! Now what?
If you’re anything like me, you’ll have gone straight to the Internet in a fit of great enthusiasm, and bought yourself a language course – whether that’s in an app, on a CD or online. You might even have gone a step further and enrolled in a class.
But then the sun comes out, or the World Cup kicks off, or you decide to start reading the Game of Thrones books (only recommended if you have nothing else to do with your time for at least six months), and that passion for your new language starts to fade a little bit. Suddenly there are other things to do with your time, and although you definitely still want to be able to speak the language, you just don’t seem to have the time or enthusiasm to actually learn it.
And so that language course you bought, which promised so much, is forgotten and unused, and your dream of going travelling and fitting in like a local remains just that – a dream.
Can anyone else hear violins…?
It might sound obvious, but the thing about language courses, whether it’s EuroTalk, Rosetta Stone, Duolingo or any of the other multitude of programs out there, is that they’re only as useful as you allow them to be. I wish I could tell you that simply by downloading uTalk to your iPhone, the vocabulary will magically find its way into your brain while you’re sleeping, but it’s just not true (although if you want to try it, it’s available from the App Store).
Let’s look at this another way. You want to lose weight, so you join a gym. Logical. Maybe you even go along a few times after work. But then six months later you’re still not skinny, and on top of that you’re out of money and you probably feel pretty bad about yourself too. According to research by online accountants Crunch.co.uk, here in Britain we were wasting £37m a year on unused gym memberships in 2011. Just think what we could have been doing with that money. Or how fit we could all have got if we’d kept going to the gym.
The fact is, gyms don’t magically make you fit, or thin. (If it were as easy as that, I’d have joined one a long time ago.) They just provide the conditions you need to get yourself there. Even a personal trainer, whose job it is to help you, will only get so far if you’re not willing to meet them in the middle. And it’s the same with language software – if you don’t use it, it can’t help you. We’d all love a big red button that will get us instantly to where we want to be, but life isn’t like that.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Learning a language isn’t just about being able to speak that language. It’s also about the things you’ll discover along the way. You’ll learn to appreciate your own native tongue, understand the culture of the language you’re learning; you might even make a whole new group of friends. And personally, I think the satisfaction you feel the very first time you manage to speak to someone in another language, even if it’s just to say hello or thank you, is much greater than the pleasure you gain from becoming fluent. In the same way, reaching your target weight will feel amazing – but nothing will beat that first pound you lose.
So my advice is this – don’t buy language software, unless you’re going to use it. Because as the late Maya Angelou once said, ‘Nothing will work unless you do.’ And we don’t want your language app gathering virtual dust on your iPhone, until one day you realise you don’t need it any more and quietly delete it.
But if you do decide to invest in a course (hopefully EuroTalk!), and you follow through on that crazy plan you had one day to learn Russian, or Korean, or even Klingon, that’s great. I guarantee you won’t regret it – and it’ll definitely be less painful than going to the gym.
Liz
