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Challenging labels : exploiting globalism for language learning

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Enjoying a cold stout from an East London microbrewery for my birthday, I glanced down at the label and caught a real treat. There was the satisfyingly short list of ingredients, repeated in multiple languages on the label.

Hoxton Stout - complete with ingredients in multiple languages!

Hoxton Stout – complete with ingredients in multiple languages!

Geeking over a polyglot product label is an observation that gives away my generation. I belong to that not-so-distant cohort of kids who cross that divide where the Internet flickered to life, the world became smaller and the everyday became truly global.

As a language-obsessed kid, this kind of access to target language was something rare and special. Any snippet of foreign language was valuable. A bit of French, German, Spanish on the back of a packet was a little piece of magic.

In today’s world, languages are everywhere.

It gets harder by the year to remember that it wasn’t always like this. For one thing, legislation on food labelling is (thankfully) tighter today. There’s much more to read on your packets than ever before.

But that explosion in multiple languages is down to a world of increasingly interconnected flows across vast distances. Those flows continue to be a rich mine of source material for linguists, however much we now take them for granted.

At the mercy of markets

The specific languages that we read on the ephemera around us depend on some complex, fluctuating chains. The ebbs and flows of globalism change regularly, and what seems common  one year can disappear the next. Language learning label hunters are at the mercy of markets when it comes to scouring products for vocabulary.

As my Hoxton stout shows, you can strike it lucky. Your chosen tongues can turn up in the most unexpected of places. Norwegian in a Shoreditch pub – who’d have thought?

But sometimes, you have to just work with what the markets give you.

In the UK right now, it is wonderfully easy to find labelling in the languages of Eastern Europe. In the current setup, European supply chains see products manufactured at a more favourable cost in the East, then shipped across the whole continent. To cater for multiple local markets, labels now include the whole gamut of languages in lists of ingredients and instructions.

Incidentally, the Open University has an excellent (now archived) course on this very subject: DD205 Living in a globalised world. Well worth checking out if you are interested in learning more.

Keep an open mind

For a learner of Polish, these arrangements are very welcome. But even if those languages are unfamiliar, or not yet on your radar, perhaps the exotic ingredient words are enough to pique your interest in some of these lesser-studied gems.

After all, perhaps we can respond to languages, as learners, much as consumers to product markets. Our choices about what to learn are broadened, honed, funnelled – and of course, limited – by the materials that land in front of us thanks to these global flows.

Constantly surrounded by a certain language? Work with it!

So how can we bend this tide of globalism, with its flood of goods, to our own language learning?

Hunt them down

Discounters like Poundland are a perfect place to find polyglot goods with global spread, since they are mass-produced for economies of scale without the expensive localisation of premium products. Once you find a rich seam of them, the sheer volume of multilanguage packets will busy you on endless shopping trips.

Globalism takes it one step further, too. Increasingly, whole outlets, as well as individual products from overseas, can find their way to your local High Street. Danish learners are in luck in the UK, for instance: branches of Flying Tiger are popping up in all sorts of cities, chock full of dansk-branded goodies. That’s not to mention Muji for Japanese students. Likewise, lucky French learners can head to L’Occitane for a vocab hit.

Flying Tiger Danish pencils - a linguist's spoils of globalism!

Flying Tiger Danish blyanter –
a linguist’s spoils of globalism!

Seek them near – and far

You don’t have to wait for the products to come to you, either. Bringing things back from holiday is a great way to learn from packaging and feed your enthusiasm with the curiosity of others. You can, for example, turn overseas products into quirky talking points with friends. In my experience, few fail to be (at least briefly!) intrigued by Kvikklunsj, the Norwegian incarnation of the KitKat. 🇳🇴🍫😁

No wonder. It’s not only covered in Bokmål, but is a staple of Norwegian everyday life. Language, culture and chocolate – could linguaphiles really ask for more? 😋

Chocolate – and language – are meant for sharing. Delight in the opportunity to show friends and colleagues your world by bringing items like this back as post-trip gifts and explaining what they are. Explaining and teaching to others is a fantastic way to consolidate your own learning. You might even win a few curious converts to the polyglot cause!

Consume them actively

These products are manufactured to be enjoyed. So as well as consuming your chocolate or biscuits with gusto, devour that vocabulary actively too. Look up each item on those ingredients lists and turn them into concrete Anki notes. Make Quizlet or Educandy activities to test yourself on them. Look up sukker, miód and Hagebutte on Wiktionary for more detailed lexical info. Take your search further on the relevant language version of Wikipedia, too.

Always consider polyglot products a jumping point for vocabulary exploration.

To keep track of your finds, log them in an electronic scrapbook. Multimedia notebooks Evernote and OneNote are perfect for this: simply snap your wrappers into a note, and type relevant vocabulary explanations underneath for reference.

At this point, you may shudder: what have I become? Collecting electronic snippings of sweet wrappers and crisp packets? Don’t worry: Just pat yourself on the back and think of the language learning!

Globalism and the global village linguist

Even for those without grand travel plans, foreign language labels are a reminder that there is somebody else out there. Somebody, even, who might like to enjoy that Hoxton Stout in a market far, far away. And if language learners appreciate one thing, it is the nature of today’s global village.

When the tectonic plates of globalism shift – as may happen, for example, in the aftermath of current political changes in the UK – those flows can change drastically. The label languages of tomorrow may be quite different. We may feel helpless in the face of this. But perhaps a more proactive way to view it, as a linguist, is as opportunity: new languages, new cultures, new people.

Life, like language, is in constant flux: adapt, consume and enjoy it.

As contemporary linguists, we enjoy an unprecedented level of foreign language in everyday places. Seize the opportunities, and ride the flows of globalism. You too can get (linguistically) rich quick!

There's no better time to clean up your Anki! (Image from freeimages.com)

Anki Spring Cleaning : Brush up your decks!

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It’s almost Spring! So doesn’t it feel like time for a refresh? A change is as good as a rest, and if that doesn’t go for our Anki decks too, I don’t know what does.

The thing with well-used tools is that, over time, the lose their sheen. Imperfections creep in, annoying niggles that we ignore for the time being. A note type out of place. An image not showing now and again. It may not interrupt our learning terribly, but after a while they can start to grate.

That’s why it’s a great idea to lay aside some time every few months to clean up your Anki decks.  If you are also a stickler for order, you will understand this declutter itch!

So what is the order of ceremonies for our Anki freshen-up blast? Our tidying spree here will focus on three areas:

  1. Bringing card images into the Anki file rather than external links
  2. Cleaning up unwanted media (without deleting your card images)
  3. Identifying and eliminating rogue note types

Before we start, remember to exercise caution when tinkering around in Anki’s underbelly. Preferably, make a full backup via the Export feature before you start. Better safe than sorry!

1. All-inclusive media

If you know a bit of HTML, it’s easy to spruce up your cards with colour and images. When I customise Anki cards, I often use flags, for instance. For the visual polyglot learner in you, flags can really help keep multiple languages separate in memory.

A customised Norwegian card in Anki

A Norwegian card in Anki

Now, for speed and ease, I often just search for a flag image online and use the URL directly in the card, like this:

<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/03/Flag_of_Italy.svg/1500px-Flag_of_Italy.svg.png" width="50" height="40" style="margin-bottom: 20px; border: 2px solid black" />

The problem here is not only that the code looks bloated and long-winded. More seriously, when using the decks without internet, the flags are simply absent, since they are downloaded every time.

Bring them home

The trick is to download and place your images inside Anki so they ‘live’ inside your data. Anki has a media folder just for this. Usually, the program places items there automatically when you add sound or images to a card, for example. But you can place them there yourself, too, and refer to them in your card code.

To open the media folder, open your Anki Preferences. Then, select the Backups tab. You should see a link titled Open backup folder – click it.

Anki Preferences

Anki Preferences

Now, the folder it opens isn’t the one we want. We need to go up one directory level, then into the folder called collection.media. This is where your Anki account keeps all of its MP3, PNG and similar files. With this folder open, it’s a good idea to close the Anki program in the background while we work.

Download and add the flag images and otherwise to this folder. You might want to resize them first. And, if you have lots of them, use a file naming system that keeps things tidy. For example, I prefix flag image files with fl_.

Close the folder once you are done, then reopen Anki. Head to the browser, select a card for customising, and you are set to use simply the file name on its own to link the image:

<img src="flag_it.png" width="50" height="40" style="margin-bottom: 20px; border: 2px solid black" />

Isn’t that so much better?

One note: you can nest files in subfolders and refer to them in your code, like flags/flag_it.png. However, while the desktop app recognises these paths, it seems that the iPhone app doesn’t. As with all these things, it’s worth playing around to see what you can and can’t do (while taking copious backups along the way, of course).

2. Media hangover

While we hang around in Anki’s media emporium, we may as well take the opportunity to keep on cleaning!

For a long time, I wondered why my Anki syncs were so large. It turned out that the media from old, since removed, shared decks were still hanging around. Inexplicably, deleting the deck hadn’t deleted the associated media. Carefully checking and deleting that wodge of unwanted files took multiple megabytes off my sync.

Of course, Anki has a tool for this already, in Tools > Check Media. In theory, it lists unused / unliked media for deletion. But sometimes a hands-on approach is just a bit more reliable. For one thing, your card images, like the flags above, will be listed as unused. They are not attached to cards, but rather your card templates, meaning they fall through Anki’s net. We don’t want the program to delete those!

A nice tidy Anki media folder

A nice and tidy Anki media folder

3. Rogue note types, begone!

Similarly, as with the media clutter, I’d accumulated some note types that meant nothing to me over prolonged use. Some of them seemed to be versions of standard cards but with odd suffixes, like Basic and Reversed Card-accfe. This seems to happen when cards are imported from shared decks, and there is some conflict with existing card types.

Fortunately, it is an easy problem to fix. Head to Tools > Manage Note Types on the home screen of the desktop app. Then, hit Add to create a new note type based on the same template as the strangely named notes.

Adding a new note type in Anki

Adding a new note type in Anki

After the new note type is ready, you can head to the Browse section of Anki. In the left-hand list, you should find an entry for the rogue note type. Click it to view cards assigned to that type, and highlight the notes you want to correct. Then go to Edit > Change Note Type, and change the selected cards to the new, corrected note type you set up above.

After you have done this to all the cards assigned to the strangely-named rogue types, you can go back to Tools > Manage Note Types on the main screen and delete them. Check that it reads 0 notes next to the type before you do – if not, you still need to change the type of some cards unless you no longer want to keep them.

Changing the note type in Anki

Changing the note type in Anki

As you get used to the internal machinery of the Anki app, you can do a regular sweep to keep on top of these foibles. It’s quite satisfying – a little akin to doing regular weeding to keep your garden in order – and will increase that sense of ownership you have over your vocabulary.

So roll up your sleeves, make plentiful backups, and get to Spring cleaning! Your Anki decks will positively shine for it.

Lots of books - nice reading material!

Foreign language reading: books that speak to your heart

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Building fluency beyond the basics requires regular, plentiful exposure to your foreign language. And there are few easier ways to get that exposure than through reading for pleasure.

As a lover of books, however, choice can pose a problem. Faced with a treasure of tomes in an overseas bookshop, the bibliophile language lover has a dilemma. Which book should be the one to focus all that effort on for the next few weeks?

It has to be a careful choice. After all, reading in a foreign language takes a degree of commitment and effort we never think twice about in our native tongue. Choose unwisely, and that book might simply end up gathering dust after just a few pages of hard slog and frustration.

Pick a winner, though, and you might end up learning much more than new words and structures: you might get a real glimpse into the heart and soul of your target language country.

It’s a serious business, this reading lark.

Reading expeditions

Serious, but also fun, of course. With the purpose of rooting out these special books, I like to make every trip abroad a reading expedition. And naturally, top of the list of places to visit on these holidays are bookshops. Bookshops fire me up more than all the monuments, museums and other must-sees in the world can. Most people bring back souvenirs: I bring back a book.

Through the book-hunting years, I have gradually learnt what to watch out for. The top danger is over-excitement: pop out for one book, and come back with five. It is too tempting.

But more is not always better. A surfeit of choice can overwhelm you, and through simply not knowing where to start when you get those books home, you might only read one or two of them while the others sit on a shelf. And clutter is the last thing we need for tidy minds.

That’s why I have a rule, now: only one book per trip!

Books that speak to the heart

Limiting your book-buying to one tightens the criteria for choice. The duty of that single book takes on great significance: it must speak to your heart. Soon after your purchase, you will be on the trip home, just you and your chosen book, all the others another holiday away (or, at least, requiring expensive overseas postage).

Put simply, choose what you want to read – not what you think you should read.

In my first years of studying German, for instance, I had an idea that I should read great, classic novels. I plumped for a couple of Thomas Mann editions, imagining how enriched I would be after devouring these acclaimed works.

You probably see where this is going. Predictably, they were extremely tough work. Instead of feeling clever, the whole process was incredibly frustrating. I even wondered whether I was actually just no good at this languages game after all.

The problem? That kind of material would never be my usual choice when reading for pleasure in my own language, let alone German. It just didn’t speak to my heart.

Letting go of cultural baggage

It can be hard to admit that perceived ‘intellectual’ material isn’t our cup of tea. We are bombarded with all sorts of cultural expectations about what is of worth in learning. If you value education, you can fall into these prestige traps, as I did. I thought that as a ‘serious’ learner, I was supposed to be tackling this kind of stuff.

But then, one day, I discovered Harry Potter – through the medium of German!

I bought the third book of the series, Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban, as a teacher on a trip to Germany with a group of GCSE kids. They had read the books in English, of course. This was 2003 – what teenager hadn’t at that point?

One of the lads spotted the cover of the German edition in a shop, and started raving about it. To see what all the fuss was about, I took a chance on a copy.

A few pages in, and I was hooked.

Now if only I had skipped the Thomas Mann novels and hopped straight to J.K.Rowling. Nothing against Thomas Mann, of course – his novels are rightfully German classics. But the fantastical thrills of the Potter world just spoke to me and my interests more. I love a good fantasy tale – no shame in that at all. Suddenly, reading was a joy again.

Ploughing through all seven volumes really put the stamp on my German fluency. By the end, I was thinking – and dreaming – in German. To this day, I thank J.K.Rowling (and her translators) for that.

Translation versus authenticity?

Now, the purists might grumble. Harry Potter isn’t exactly authentic target language material. Though translators are skilled native speakers, Hogwarts is not the path to cultural familiarity with the German-speaking world.

But what Harry Potter did give me was a springboard. I clearly loved reading that genre in German – so why not seek out the same kind of material from bona fide native German writers? Writers like Wolfgang Hohlbein, Cornelia Funke and Bernhard Hennen, whose books sit comfortably next  to Rowling’s as works of great imagination.

Familiar works in translation, especially children’s books, may be a great way in to reading for pleasure in the target language. But they can also be jump points for exploration of home-grown examples of your favourite genre, too.

Diversifying

Of course, sometimes you just want to take a chance on a book, to stray from the beaten path. One of my stand-out reads of recent months was Firas Alshater’s Versteh einer die Deutschen, a quirky look at Germany through Syrian eyes. It is told with such good humour and warmth that I couldn’t put it down.

This was the one, single book purchase I allowed myself on a trip to Hamburg in November. Not quite Harry Potter, you could say. But I picked it out on a whim, just because the character on the cover intrigued me and I liked the sound of the blurb. It paid off – I can now add autobiography, humour and society to the list of German book sections to browse on my next trip.

Read whatever you fancy, and not what you think you should. Let a book speak to your heart before you commit to it. And never question your honest, heartfelt book choices. Believe me, you will fly through your foreign language books if you follow these principles. Happy reading!

Modal verbs can lend colour to your speech (image from freeimages.com)

À la modal : how these little nuancing verbs can fix your fluency

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I have a nerdish love of verbs. For me, it’s where it all comes together in language. They are sentence glue. Conjugate them, and you can hang the rest of the sentence from them like on the branches of a tree. But there is a small group of verbs that always make me feel more expressive and fluent in a foreign language. They are the modal verbs.

You have likely already come across them in your studies. In English, they are words like can, must, should and so on. They are often irregular, and very high-frequency in the languages they belong to.

So why are they such a boost to fluency?

À la modal verbs

The magic of modals is that they nuance what you say. They decorate your sentence tree with colourful subtexts. Technically speaking, they layer your speech with modality – the ability to express situations which may not be real.

Concretely, modals are verbs that imply intention, possibility, obligation and probability. These are all complex nuances, but very quick and easy to apply succinctly with modals. And they fix a common frustration of beginners: boring conversation syndrome.

It is a common beginner language learner experience to feel limited by straightforward, indicative tenses. You quickly frustrate yourself in speaking if all you can do is make statements of fact. I am a student, I went to a concert, we have a dog, we travelled to Spain. Hmm – boring!

Modal verbs change that up. They colour the story. Suddenly, I could be a student, I wanted to go to a concert, we should have a dog, we might go to Spain. Beyond bare statements of fact, you are now expressing hopes, wishes, dreams, judgements, assessments and more. From dull zero to language learning hero through the addition of just a few words.

Letting you off lightly

Modal verbs can actually make your language easier to speak, as well. Since they usually connect to the bare infinitive – or most basic form – of another verb, they give you a wee respite from conjugating it.

For example, let’s take the Spanish verb phrase:

ir al colegio (to go to school)

Ir is a notoriously irregular verb. If you are fumbling for its past form when trying to say I went to school, then there is a simpler way: modal verbs and constructions. If you have memorised the simple past of ‘had to’ in Spanish, it becomes easy:

tuve que ir al colegio (I had to go to school)

That tuve que construction just saved you if you had forgotten the form fui (I went). Fair enough, the meaning is subtly different – you are expressing obligation here instead. But it is close enough to express the original indicative sense that you went to school too. A neat trick.

The great thing with this tactic is that just learning a couple of conjugated forms of modal verbs can go a long way. You need only learn a few key forms at first. Perhaps the first person present and past forms (I must, I had to, I can, I could and so on) are the most immediately useful for conversation. Then, simply clip on whole verb phrases to the end – no conjugation required. An instance fluency boost!

To continue the metaphor of the verb as the trunk of a tree, modal verbs are big, sturdy branches that can comfortably take the weight of even more verbs.

More bang for your buck

Let’s face it – some words are more useful than others.

For a start, modal verbs are common, high-frequency words that you will regularly come across. A good benchmark is where a word appears on a frequency list of words in the target language. Anything in the top hundred suggests that you will be exposed to the word all the time. Spanish puede (can) features in its top sixty, as does its French counterpart peut and German kann.

But something makes them even more useful that just being frequent. They are often semantically overloaded, too, meaning that they have multiple meanings depending on context.

Just take must in English. It can be a bare indicator of obligation, as in we must go. But it can also express the speaker’s assessment of high probability, as in they must be the new students. Many languages mirror this usage, such as the Spanish debe de estar cansado (he must be tired).

Consulting any good reference on your target language should throw up scores of examples. This Wiktionary page on the Spanish deber (must) gives a good overview of that word, for instance. After checking out constructions there, you can then hunt down sample sentences containing them on a service like Tatoeba.

Overloaded words are excellent news for squeezing lots of language out of a little learning. You get even greater mileage than normal out of each modal verb mastered.

Modal Verbs : fast-tracking fluency

Convinced by these little nuancing fluency helpers? The facts speak for themselves. Modal verbs are high frequency words. There are just a few to learn. They have dense, multiple meanings. And they make speaking easier when you are still grappling with general verb conjugation. They are the perfect fodder for a bit of language hacking towards fast fluency.

Could it be magic? It just might. Say yes we can and enjoy pumping up your fluency with modal verbs!

A short study break may do your brain the world of good between the book marathons. (Image from freeimages.com)

The returner learner effect : how a study break can be a language learning boost

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Brains are mysterious things. Sometimes, they seem to display most counter-intuitive behaviour. Just take the study break, for example. Give yourself a few months off a language, and you might expect to be a bit rusty as a returner learner. But sometimes, on your return, you get that joyful feeling that it never went away. And somehow, could it feel even more solid than before?

It’s more common than you think.

Budding polyglots, by their nature, experience the returner learner effect a lot. Since it is rarely a good idea to study more that one or two languages at once, there can be stretches where any language aficionado is not actively working on several of them. Often, there may not even be opportunities to speak them regularly.

Some maintenance is essential, of course. And we can keep things ticking over with a weekly tactical schedule that at least gives a nod to all of our projects. But it is almost inevitable that some languages will be put into a deeper sleep than others.

Software-Switching

Never fear. I actually like to think that we are made to use our brains like this. Short-term, or working memory, for example, can only hold around seven items for processing at any one time. On a longer-term scale, learnt skills, like languages, are also processing-hungry programs that cannot all be run altogether at full capacity at the same time.

Computer analogies, although not always perfect, can be neatly apt ways to think about the brain. Just today, this nostalgic thread about early 1980’s, disk-based computing bubbled up into my Twitter timeline. What better metaphor for the nature of our active and passive languages? There is certainly an element of software-switching going on when I prepare to ‘load up’ a language I haven’t used in a while. Although it’s not quite “Insert Russian: Disk 4”, it can feel like some gear-shifting is required to switch a language back on.

Let sleeping languages lie…

For various reasons, I had parked my Norwegian in the cerebral software archive a few months ago. For one thing, I had enjoyed a couple of trips to Oslo already by last Summer. Now it was time for other plans, other countries, and other languages – at least for a while.

Not only that, but the perennial polyglot itch was making itself felt. I wanted to try new things, and reach new levels with my other projects. My Norwegian was at a decent level; it could withstand a little rest.

Of course, rest should never mean oblivion. Language skills are precious, and it is essential to have a maintenance plan for all of them. Optioned Anki decks is a favoured way to finely control the maintenance all of those you care about keeping, for example. In this way, maintenance can chug along in a fairly low-key fashion.

As long as you do something, those disks should only require occasional dusting to stay serviceable.

And so it was in my case. Along with occasionally reading the news at nrk.no, I kept my Norwegian on a low boil since the end of last Summer.

…until their day comes again

Ultimately, the time comes when sleeping languages grow impatient for the limelight again. My own travel plans had finally come full circle again, settling on Norway (a more irresistible return destination after each trip, believe me – it’s never too long before that scenery exerts its pull!). The time seemed right to dust off the Bokmål.

When bringing your languages out of storage, you need a strategy – something to help load those programs back into memory.

My own, personal favourite is to kickstart passive use via a podcast blitz.

I chose my old favourite Norwegian podcast to stage a return: the fantastic Språkteigen by NRK. It is a real gem for language lovers with a bit of norsk.

In fact, I had been putting off listening to the show for a while. There was a fear that I might have slipped back further than I thought. Would I understand a single word? Should I have been spending more time on Norwegian maintenance? To ease myself back in gently, I selected a low-pressure time – listening on the treadmill at the gym – and clicked play on the programme.

I had nothing to worry about. I was hooked by the subject matter from the first few lines, and zoned right back into it as I listened and ran. By the end, I’d jogged for thirty minutes without realising it, and felt boosted by how much I understood.

It almost seemed like I could understand more than back when I was actively studying.

The choice of material is crucial, of course. I chose something I’d missed listening to.  I wanted to understand.

The returner learner effect

That feeling of being better after a break is down to a number of elements:

Their effects are felt most keenly just in those days when we return to the language. If you select your return material wisely, you can maximise the motivation that provides. Feed on the renewed confidence. In a subject area that demands so much self-confidence compared to others, it is a rare chance to say: yes, I am not bad at this at all!

Building back active production

Of course, a dose of realism is also required. In my case, I had spent six months not speaking Norwegian at all. The extent of my Bokmål use had been completely passive. While the ‘background task’ effect of the brain may well benefit my active production of Norwegian in the long run, I must still acknowledge that work needs to be done to build back my speaking confidence.

But the lesson here is that all those hours of hard work were not in vain. The brain has the learner’s back. In those quiet months, it works on, patiently distilling that mass of material into a solid skill – one that was ready to load back into memory when needed.

Like all effects, the post-study-break boost wanes as the reality of the study regime kicks in again. You will feel challenged once more. That said, it would be worrying not to feel that way. To make a comparison to working out at the gym, it is often when the muscles feel most taxed that the builder makes the greatest gains.

However transitory the returner learner effect, seize upon it to ride a fresh wave of confidence after a study break. Maximise it by choosing media that you know you will respond positively to. Let it reassure you that your brain is on your side, whatever tricky conundrums language learning throws your way!

Meta-learning - know your brain (Image from freeimages.com)

Meta-learning: relearn how to learn with a new language mini-project

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Dia duit! That’s Irish for hello – which, despite a million other things, I chose to start dabbling in this week. Unlike other come-and-go language projects of mine, it’s not a former language I’m returning to. In fact, I knew zero Irish before this week (save the welcoming céad míle fáilte of numerous 1990s Eurovision Song Contests!).

It’s not for want of something to do. I already have plenty of core language learning goals for 2019 to keep me occupied. Improving my Icelandic, Norwegian and Polish are already taking a chunk of my time.

So why the extra load?

Well, apart from the kid-in-a-candy-store nature of being a linguaphile, taking a language detour in totally unknown pastures now and again has great utility. Namely, it is a brilliant way to audit and augment your meta-learning skills: learning how you learn.

Stuck in our ways

Human beings like treading comfortable tracks. Because of that, it is all too easy to get stuck in our ways.

Of course, the familiar often works very well for us. Our regular approaches, methods and routine usually serve us grandly in our language learning goals. But knowing how to learn is a skill, just like any other. We can improve it, or we can neglect it and let it get rusty. And getting into that autopilot groove might actually prevent us from ever getting better at how we learn.

Taking a learning diversion can be a fun way to get unstuck and freshen up your daily language grind. The golden rule here is the more unfamiliar, the better. The idea is to audit how you learn; material unrelated to anything you already know will isolate the learning process from background knowledge that may act as a crutch and mask poor learning habits.

In my case, Irish is a real departure from the norm. My background is coloured by Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages, and so a Celtic language is something I can approach with completely fresh eyes, and few chances to rely too comfortably on pre-knowledge.

Unfamiliar material activates your aptitude for exploring your meta-learning skills.

Now, unfamiliar need not mean outside your own sphere of interest. Learning something you have no interest in is never a good idea. Why did I pick Irish? Simple: it’s a beautiful country next to my own, inexpensive to travel to, and I wanted to get to know it a lot better. In the words of Rita Mae Brown:

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.

Meta-learning lessons

One thing you find when you start on these kinds of language mini-project, is just how far your meta-learning skills have come. Regarding my own experience, you could say that I learnt my first foreign languages ‘the hard way’. That meant hours of book-based grammar study and reading in German and Spanish during the 1990s. That clearly worked well enough, as I did well in the subjects at school, and went on to get a degree and forge a career in languages.

That said, I had no access to wonderful tools like Anki, Duolingo, Learning With Texts and Wiktionary back then, or even on-demand access to foreign language media. Some of these things have become language learning staples to me, in many cases only very recently. I have gradually built them into my study routines for maintaining my main languages.

But how would they perform unleashed onto completely new territory?

The great news is that foreign language mini-projects are an excellent way to test the efficiency of all of your favourite methods.

Blended approach

A key discovery for me is the realisation that no single method works efficiently in isolation. A blended approach, using multiple formats, platforms and schedules maximises how well I learn. What’s more, joining up your learning resources manually is a good way to make learning more active, rather than simple passive reception.

You can turn a more passive resource into an active learning process by reworking its material into another format. For example, with Irish, I chose to use Duolingo as my primary lesson source. After each section, I look up new terms on Wiktionary, then add them to a deck of flashcards in Anki. I get more from this learning by doing than I would from using purely premade material.

Beyond that, there are so many things you can do to make lesson material your own. Look up sentences that contain the new words on Tatoeba, for example. Or listen to native speakers pronounce the words or phrases in different way on Forvo. As you experiment, explore and supplement, you expand your expertise in finding and adapting learning resources to get the most out of them. Meta-learning is understanding how to make new knowledge your own.

A dose of realism

Here’s the rub: chances are, that if you have a rose-tinted view of a particular platform, you might end up with a more realistic evaluation of it.

So it is for me with Duolingo. A fantastic free resource, without a doubt, and I was hugely excited to use it to learn a brand new language, rather than support one I was already learning. But how useful is it as your only resource?

I quickly discovered that without pre-knowledge, some Duolingo courses may need a little supplementing. Duolingo Irish, though a great introduction, is not quite enough as a standalone option for me. A particular issue is a lack of native speaker support for all phrases. In Irish, this is crucial given the very particular spelling system that needs to be learnt.

Also, I found myself craving more information about each word: the gender, the plural form and so on. I realised that my learning style requires more interrogation of new terms than the Duolingo course is happy to provide at first. No black-box thinking for me – I have to take those words apart and see every nut and bolt with my own eyes!

Plugging the gaps

Still, add a bit of support with Wiktionary and Forvo, and the creases are ironed out. I’m benefitting from the superb lesson structure and progression in Duolingo, and filling in the gaps my brain needs filled as I need to.

Without this insight, I’d be going around thinking of a single platform as a one-stop shop. Now that I can spot and patch the elements that need fleshing out, I’m both a better learner, and a better source of advice for friends and family who want to learn languages without the same frustrations.

And Duolingo is even more effective now I know how I work best with it.

Language learning report card

My mini-adventures in Irish have shown me where I am as a language learner. They also confirm that I already have a healthy understanding of how I learn effectively: I instinctively bend materials into a shape that fits my learning process best. That’s a decent report card and a confidence-building boost for any linguist (and we are all prone to occasional self-questioning!).

More than that, though: Irish has given me a chance to assess and experiment with those techniques in a way that does not interfere directly with my core language learning routine. Casual study of something completely different is ideal no-risk ground to do a skills audit without fear of knocking regular study off balance. It’s not that the new language doesn’t matter – it’s just that we are not invested in it enough (yet) to worry about making mistakes in our first steps.

Weird and wonderful world

Beyond that, using a brand new language as a meta-learning exercise can open your eyes to diversity. We so easily come to think of certain patterns or forms in language as normal or given if we never push our limits beyond the known. Exposing yourself to what, at first, seems weird and wonderful, can only promote flexible thinking.

So it is with Irish, a verb-subject-object language, so unlike many other Indo-European subject-verb-object languages commonly studied. I now know that this is far from unusual, sharing the trait with almost a tenth of world languages.

With wonderful projects like #LangJam promoting micro-study of languages, there is no better time to relearn how you learn. So much self-knowledge can come from those few extra minutes in your day. Give something new a try. It’s worth it for the better meta!

 

Few things give more motivation than the prospect of having an audience for your efforts. (Image from freeimages.com)

Motivation lacking? Do it for an audience!

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Motivation can sometimes seem like a scarce resource. Simply wanting to achieve, for achievement’s sake, might not suffice to push you over the finish line. You need a bit extra.

I found myself in this situation recently, working on a goal that straddled both language learning and software development. For some time, I’d wanted to create something completely different from my usual fare and out of my comfort zone: an app for learning and practising verb meanings in Mandarin Chinese. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to go for it.

Learning through making

Now for me, Mandarin Chinese is a totally new and exciting departure. I haven’t studied many non-Indo-European languages (some Modern Hebrew and a tiny bit of Japanese barely count). Putting together apps in new languages is one route I use as an introduction to them for my own learning. Therefore, the idea of working on a brand new one filled me with positive anticipation!

That was, at first. Getting started was easy. With reliable sources for the learning content, and a solid framework app to build it into, I got off to a good start.

However, I soon slowed down to a halt.

What was wrong? Was the language content no longer captivating me? No, not that – I still revelled in the new words and concepts I was learning along the way. Was the technical side losing its fascination? Not at all, as I was still spending quality time on similar technical projects without any signs of boredom. So what had happened to my motivation?

The problem, I realised, was this: it is hard to work in a bubble.

Lone ranger

Humans are social creatures. We are built to be involved with other people in all of our exploits. Working with others, either through study buddying or teaching, can be a real shot in the arm for language learning, for example. We simply work better when we are not isolated.

The truth is, my Chinese app endeavours had become divorced from this fact. I was a lone ranger, operating in a bubble. The issue was not simply that I was developing alone. There are plenty of very successful, lone app developers! Rather, I was creating it with nobody in mind (beyond myself).

This resulted in fuzzy goal definition. No deadlines, no direction, no sense of wider purpose. Instead, just a vague ambling towards an ill-defined end point, where I would have eventually created something I deemed useful and learnt a bit along the road.

So what to do?

The obvious answer was actually right under my nose the whole time. A good friend of mine is currently learning Chinese at level A1-2 and is an iPhone user. Via Apple’s TestFlight platform, I could easily roll out test versions of the app online for my fellow linguist buddy to test out. What better audience could I wish for?

Performance anxiety

At this point, you might wonder how on Earth it took so look for that solution to occur to me. Moving in language learning circles, I have countless friends studying any number of languages at a given point. You’d think I would be badgering them constantly with new app ideas.

The issue is that sometimes, the idea of an audience for your work / efforts / brainchild / ambitions is downright scary. We all crave approval from our peers. Self-doubt gets in the way. It requires no small degree of bravery to put yourself out there, open to criticism (constructive or otherwise) from people you think a lot of.

Will they like what I produce? Can they be honest with me about it if they don’t? Would they think less of me if my initial attempts miss the mark?

It is utterly normal and completely human to be put off by this kind of performance anxiety.

Perhaps the best advice I’ve come across is simple optimism: think the best of your audience. If you enlist the help of friends, then already, the most supportive people have your back. Most people, in my experience, truly do want to help, rather than knock you down.

Needless to say, initial reports from my tester friend are warm, well-meaning and positive: new words learnt, fun had learning them, and genuinely useful feedback given.

And that feeling of being helpful provides a ton of motivation.

Language learning for an audience

The example I’ve given might seem like a very specific case of language learning tech. But you can apply the same principle to language learning, pure and simple.

First, ask: who could my audience be? As a linguist, there are myriad scenarios you can imagine as end goals for the task of communicating.

Do you have workplace colleagues you can make smile with a few words in their native language? Are you planning a trip to the target language country and want to attend an event where you have to speak that language exclusively?

It needn’t even be a speaking task. Perhaps there is a social media group you’d like to join in with. I recently joined a Norwegian music discussion forum on Facebook, for example. The desire to chat with fellow fans is a great audience-based motivation to brush up my norsk.

Once your audience is defined, let go of your performance anxiety. Have faith in the kindness of others to help you reach your goals. Use humour, as it can really break down barriers. And above all, enjoy the interaction!

Whatever your chosen audience, incorporate it into your goal planning and let it become your motivation. That single social aspect will so much more sharply define your language learning objectives!

Incidentally, if any iOS users are interested in being a tester for my nascent app, please let me know!

Going for gold - the goal of self-improvement. And language learning should be a big part of that. (Image from freeimages.com)

Language Superhero: Why languages belong in every self-improvement regime

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Self-improvement. Doesn’t the mere sound of that phrase get you motivated?

As a kid, I was obsessed with it, this magical idea that you could train yourself to be better and better, turn yourself into something special – something more than human.

Consequently, the kinds of TV shows and films I loved centred on superhuman abilities – especially heightened mental faculties. Superman, Short Circuit, D.A.R.Y.L., Quantum Leap, Inspector Gadget (for Penny, not Gadget!) and other shows centered on genius protagonists (natural or created) were par for the course in the life of a kid who dreamt of building up his own special powers.

Reading an entire book in under a minute, performing complex programming feats with the swift tap of a few keys, solving impossible mathematical equations in mere seconds. Humans – or at least humanoids – but more than that. What a goal!

Only human

Now, you might worry that these kinds of unreachable ideals might set up a kid for a real inferiority complex. The antidote to that is to admit that there is no shame in being human. We do have our natural limitations; bionic brains haven’t been invented (yet).

But, taken with a pinch of salt, these superhuman ideals were a great motivator to a young Rich. They still keep me going today. And not just me, given the colossal wealth of self-improvement titles on sale for decades and decades.

Becoming a better version of yourself doesn’t happen overnight, though (barring radioactive spider bites and cosmic gamma rays). Self-improvement takes planning.

And so, on the back of all my grand superhero designs, was born a love and respect for the regime. Organising yourself is a prerequisite of treading the path to a better you. Discovering new tools to help build those regimes is a favourite pastime of mine. But what do you include in the regime? Physical fitness, mental agility, musical ability, social skills…

What about languages?

Superlinguist

Languages are an excellent candidate for a key pillar in any self-improvement plan. Becoming a superlinguist comes with many very desirable qualities, some of which you might already recognise from your own learning path.

So what kind of better you do languages create?

A cleverer you

The question of how language learning positively affects the brain is important enough to attract a lot of research. The phenomenon of brain plasticity, for example, is particularly evident in neuroscientific studies into language learning. If you need evidence that minds are not fixed, but malleable and flexible, look no further than second language acquisition.

The positive changes we can make to our brains through language learning are many. Certain physical changes effected on the hippocampus by language acquisition may result in better memory overall, for example. There is even some evidence that language learning can slow brain ageing, even offsetting the effects of degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s. That is a superpower that could change a lot of lives for the better.

The superpowers that multilingual mastery bestows on the user is a regular staple of TED talks:

As a side note, many of the mental benefits of language learning are shared by music, too – so perhaps languages and music could also make perfect travelling partners on your own self-improvement route.

A more sociable you

I must admit, I was always impressed at how suave language skills seemed in popular depictions in TV and film. Who wouldn’t be impressed at the ease with which James Bond slips into a handy foreign language at the drop of a hat?

The key here is fitting in, passing – being able to slot smoothly into any social situation, regardless of language. For a naturally cautious, reserved youngster, that aspect of languages was more than enough to recommend it for my superskills list.

And, true enough, language learning can be an excellent training ground for improved social skills. Just the need to practise speaking in the wild is great motivation to be brave and put yourself out there. Combined with a healthy dose of not taking yourself too seriously, languages can make you a bolder, more daring human being.

A more articulate you

Spending a lot of time with words has another wonderful side-effect, too: your first language is all the better for it. Firstly, there’s a heightened appreciation for how your own language works – its constituent parts and how they interact. It took my first steps into foreign languages to spell out what nouns, verbs and their kin really were.

Secondly, spending time learning words and phrases increases your exposure to different modes of expression, varied turns of phrase and a much wider vocabulary. That results in a much more articulate you – in any language.

Add to that the layers of world knowledge you gain from diverse cultural exposure, and you will have a lot to talk about, whichever language you choose to do it in. Incidentally, there is evidence to suggest that this makes linguists much more tolerant people, too.

A more successful you

Learning a language can be a lucrative bolt-on for your best life. What superhero isn’t successful?

Money isn’t everything, of course, but the earnings differentials between monolinguals and multilinguals are striking. And what better to spend that extra money on that more self-improvement books and courses?

Seriously, though, an extra language could be the difference between candidates with otherwise identical skills. That is not only added value for a company, but can also indicate a level of commitment to self-improvement that is otherwise invisible on an applicant’s CV. Adding a language might be one of the wisest career choices you make.

Nitro for your self-improvement engine

Languages, then, are like nitro for the engine of any general self-improvement programme. Mental gym, social lubricant, the gift of the gab and career success – the list of power-ups for the budding superhero is long. And, to be clear, I have barely scratched the surface here.

Of course, life does get in the way of idealism now and then. We do have finite capacities. But second language learning may well be a great hack to unlocking an even better you all round.

I’ve been a self-improvement junkie since childhood. Did it work? Well, I’m still grafting. I’m only human, after all.

But trying is the whole point of it.

Following the path to a better you is as rewarding for the journey as it is for the destination (which, by its nature, will keep morphing).

Enjoy your trip to superhero status!

A place for everything! Decluttering into boxes. (Image from freeimages.com)

Digital Decluttering : the Delete an App a Day Challenge!

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A place for everything, and everything in its place: the mantra of decluttering.

There has never been a better time to tackle clutter, it seems. Japanese tidying whizz Marie Kondo is enjoying great success with her Netflix series Tidying Up, in which she helps us mere mortals order our chaotic lives. Friends and family are talking about it. She has inspired some of the messiest amongst us to clean up their act.

She has achieved the seemingly impossible: she has made tidying trendy!

Now, as someone constantly seeking a system – both in my learning and my wider life – it is an exciting thing to see neatness and order back in vogue via a little Marie Kondo magic. Creating order, and finding a more productive path through that order, has been a passion of mine as long as I can remember. I am forever playing with planning tools like Evernote and Wunderlist to fulfil my own version of everything in its place, and improving my learning goals in the process.

After all, tidy place – tidy mind, true? And that can only be a good thing for living your best language learning life.

Digital decluttering : the case

The thing with clutter is that it often gathers imperceptibly, cheekily, brazenly, under your nose. Junk piles up, dust gathers, and you didn’t even notice it! And nowhere is that more apparent today than with digital junk.

And the worst culprit? Unused mobile apps.

My phone was steadily getting clogged. It’s a slow but sure process, for sure. The ease of finding and installing apps these days means you, too, have probably ended up with pages of icons you barely click on. And ever-increasing phone storage mitigates the natural ‘memory warning’ limit that might have once alerted us to our app gluttony.

The glut encompasses seemingly harmless educational apps, too. There has been an explosion in language learning platforms over the past couple of years. And, excitable linguists that we are, it is hard to resist the instant tap-install impulsion when a new language app suggestion pops up.

But we have to ask the question: how many of those scores of language apps do we really use?

Certainly, some of them are my most used apps. On iOS, you can even check that with the new Screen Time feature. True enough, Anki and Duolingo are up there in my most frequented apps.

Others, though, I haven’t opened in months. Years, almost. They’re just sitting there, gathering electronic dust on my phone.

What’s the harm, you might ask? Well, a bloated phone can cloud clarity of purpose when it comes to using it. A mass of too many apps is amorphous, disorganised. We look at the phone and are lost in a chaos of possibilities. Too much choice can be paralysing, and even interfere with good habit-building.

We can’t see the wood for the trees.

So how to tackle it?

An app a day (keeps the clutter away)

You could spend a good chunk of time going through everything, bit by bit, getting rid of the clutter in one go. But there is a much gentler way – and one that gives you time to evaluate and reassess in your own time what you really use and value in your handheld learning space. This gentle antidote involves the gradual and regular application of a little Marie Kondo Zen.

Marie famously invites followers to interrogate the connection they have to their clutter. Touch it – and see if it sparks joy. Although you can’t touch an app like a piece of clothing, you can still probe your connection to it. Open it, play with it, see if you still feel its worth to your aims and objectives in life. Each of those myriad apps – what would your life be like without it? If there’s no joy, then there’s no need to hang on to it.

Since you probably have lots and lots of apps to interrogate in this way, this could be a big task. And it’s always best to approach a big task with a method.

To that end: say hello to the Delete-An-App-A-Day challenge!

Each day, for as long as it takes for you to feel on top of your phone again, commit to deleting one app. No more, no less. If you have a cluttered tablet, do the same on that. Keep going until you get to the gold – those apps that do spark joy.

Enlightenment through decluttering

The upshot of all this is that you don’t just end up with a lighter phone. You also learn a lot about yourself and your learning preferences.

I set myself this challenge a couple of weeks ago now. My phone screens are already less busy. But there are extra bonuses along the way: rediscovering apps I’d forgotten about, rearranging the apps I want to keep so that they are harder to overlook, realising how much I can recall from language app lessons I thought were difficult the first time round. By cutting out the dead wood, I can squeeze more out of the items I decide to keep.

So what have I uninstalled? Well, I won’t name and shame here. All apps have value to someone, after all. What we connect with is deeply personal, and the apps I shun will be another language learner’s indispensable go-to.

I will say, however, that I miss none of the apps I’ve deleted so far. A sure sign that digital decluttering is the way to go!

Be honest, be ruthless, dare to delete!

Going forward

Ultimately, you will come to a point where you are left with just those apps that really work for you. There is no need to keep going. But some general house rules will help avoid future clutter.

One strategy I find helpful is a one-in-one-out code for app installations. Incidentally, this is great for applying to your clothes, too, if you want to avoid wardrobe sprawl. If you want something new, then it must take the place of something old that you want to get rid of. Of course, deleting an app needn’t be as permanent as donating clothes to a charity shop: you can always reinstall later if you made a terrible mistake.

Mobile device operating systems can lend a hand, if you are in two minds about a certain app. As mentioned above, Screen Time on iOS 12 will show you the apps you spend most time looking at. Google’s Digital Wellbeing offers similar functionality for Android. Ultimately, though, how you feel about an app should determine your final decision: chop or not?

You may also find further helpful features by digging in your phone settings, too. iOS, for example, can be set to automatically offload unused apps so that they no longer take up valuable space. The app icon remains, though, which you could argue is continued clutter. That said, offloaded apps do appear with a download arrow on your screen, so the feature is handy for flagging up apps to delete manually.

Once you have a handle on digital decluttering on your phone, you can apply it to other areas of your online world, too. Twitter is one platform that certainly benefits from a little pruning now and again. When you start, it can become a healthy addiction. After all, what area of life won’t benefit from a little Zen?

Streamline your digital life. Make your daily productivity path a little bit clearer. Take the Delete-An-App-A-Day challenge and spark your own joy!

A new calendar means new language learning resolutions. But how to stick to them? (Image from freeimages.com)

Five Ways to Stick to Language Learning Resolutions

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We are well into the New Year now, and – if you are like me – you probably have a list of language learning resolutions as long as your arm. But doesn’t cold, damp January feel like the longest and hardest month for keeping to them? It can seem far too easy to get discouraged.

Never fear: here are some sure-fire tips for staying on track (or getting back onto it). 2019, we are coming for you!

Set reminders

Set your watch for timely language learning

If it’s a case of simply not remembering to stick to your routines, you can employ a little digital help. Setting training reminders on your devices is one of the easiest ways to enforce a new routine and begin habit-building.

My to-do and reminder app of choice is Wunderlist, which is both free, and goes far beyond a simple reminders app. For instance, you can subdivide your lists of tasks into separate sections, like simply ‘Languages’, or even one for each of your languages. It also allows for repeated tasks, which are perfect for daily and weekly learning tactics. Ticking these off regularly creates a real sense of ongoing achievement.

If you are a fan of Evernote (a fantastic, yet unsung hero of language learning!), you can use its reminder feature to similar effect. I use Evernote for longer-term planning, and setting reminders for regular reviews of planning documents is a resolution-saver.

Also worth checking out are Coach.me, Streaks and, of course, your plain old smartphone to-do / calendar apps. Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best.

Tie your language learning to other habits

Our lives are already complex webs of routine and habit. Leverage that by linking your new, desired behaviours into what you already do.

Jogging is a routine you can easily tie new language learning habits to. (Image from freeimages.com)

Regular walk? Use that to listen to target language material like podcasts. Regular commute? Make sure you have plenty of foreign language Netflix downloaded for offline viewing. Spare minutes after getting ready for work? Do your 5-10 minutes of Anki or Duolingo.

You can find multiple points where your existing habits can anchor your new ones, too. With apps, taking advantage of a variety of platforms gives you multiple entry points in your daily routine. I use the Anki app on my bus and train journeys, but open up the desktop app for a quick revise before I start work at my desk.

If apps feature heavily in your language learning life, try chaining them. Piggy-back your new platforms on the back of an already well-established one. Already doing 5-10 minutes of Duolingo every day? Try coupling your Verb Blitz or Memrise right onto the tail end of that.

Enlist help

Strength in numbers - enlist the help of others in your language learning resolutions. (Image from freeimages.com)

Strength in numbers!

Personal goals shouldn’t be a lonely business. Do you have friends or relatives who can lend a hand? A supportive partner to remind you to do your daily Anki every day could work wonders! Tell them how much it means to you to succeed in your language learning goals. Getting them on board will be an invaluable source of encouragement.

A popular concept in peer coaching is the accountability partner. This is a friend or colleague you regularly meet up with to compare progress on goals. Each participant’s goals can be quite disparate, as the function of the accountability partner is to act as a sounding board and motivator. All you need is someone else who is also working on self-improvement goals for 2019.

You can also help others to learn while helping your own goals along, too. We learn, and consolidate previous learning, through teaching. Even sharing an overview of recent progress with others can help you to reflect critically on your own learning. With that in mind, why not commit to sharing progress in your resolutions with your nearest and dearest?

It’s also worth mentioning the immense value a professional coach can offer, if you really want to bring in the cavalry. I circumnavigated some sticky learning impasses in 2018 thanks to working on my goals with a coach.

Get right back on that horse!

Controversial fact: the “New Year” in “New Year’s Resolutions” is the least important part of all!

The truth is that New Year’s Resolutions are lent a bit of artificial magic by dint of that special date of 1st January.

If you have slipped up, there is no need to write off your goals until the next year. The best time to start again is always now. As with a diet, saying “I’ll be good from tomorrow” is a delay tactic that you should never fall for.

It might help to regauge how you divide up your blocks of time. Let’s face it: an entire year is a very long stretch for goal planning. Instead, productivity writer Brian Moran suggests a 12-week cycle, which has worked a treat for me.

Don’t burn out too soon

Finally, make sure to keep yourself mentally and physically in kilter. Pushing yourself too hard means burning out, or worse, coming to resent your own resolutions.

Learning to build pace and pause into your routine is as important a skill as fully-fledged language learning work. Too much rigidity can stifle the most enthusiastic learner – aim for self-kindness by allowing for fluidity in your plan.

Regular audits of your progress help, too. It may be that you set the bar too high for January 1st. Be honest with yourself. Can you scale back slightly before stepping up again later? Better to do that, than give up completely.

A recent example from my own 2019 challenges illustrates the need to be flexible, and revisit / reformulate resolutions on a regular basis. One ambitious target I set myself was to make at least one overseas trip a month to practise my languages. Now, that might sound difficult, but it is quite possible on a budget; there are a number of tools to source cheap flight and hotel dates. But, alas, at the mercy of dynamic travel pricing, it looked like I might miss that target in the very first month.

Not to worry: I’ve reformulated that goal as: make trips to at least 12 different overseas destinations in 2019. Resolution rescued!

Whatever your goals for 2019, let these guiding principles keep you on track for language learning success. Here’s to a fruitful twelve months… and beyond!